by Jaime Munn
The homunculus licked its lips with a long, sharp-pointed tongue and tensed. It was play time for the creature. I was its brand new toy. I had no more time to consider Grace’s creation. It was about to try and eat me.
The homunculus leapt at me with a spring in its movement that took me by surprise. It was supernatural in its speed, defying the laws of nature. The slash of clawed hands through the air managed to come so close to my face that I felt the cold brush of it in the sweeping flow of air that curved round the aerodynamic contour of its glossy nails. The claws were like red jewels as they flashed before my eyes. I staggered back, thrusting up a hand to cast a percussive spell that made a soft womp as magical energy turned to kinetic force. The creature flew back, but like a cat, it twisted in the air and landed comfortably on its feet.
It flashed its ruby claws at me. I had a feeling that they were lethal. Venom, I thought, shuddering. I filled the air with unreleased percussion spells while my heart beat violently in my chest. I didn’t want to kill even this creature, but sunlight would not save me this time. I sat behind my percussive shield and contemplated my next move. As much as those kickass women in movies and books appealed to me, I had no kung-fu to get on and the closest I’d come to throwing a punch was hitting a pillow in frustration. Would they have gone toe to toe with a venom-clawed homunculus? Somehow I doubted it. Those that were handy with a gun or a sword would have dispatched it already, leaving a dark sludge of blood stain on the linoleum and a small corpse to secretly bury.
The roiling power of my defence spell was inert against the unwittingly welcomed intruder, and I silently cursed it. The homunculus smiled a crocodile smile, lips stretching open sickeningly wide like it would swallow me whole without too much trouble. It licked its lips in what I thought might be a telltale sign that it was about to make another attack. I tensed, and it leapt at me.
The percussive magic thrust it back once, twice, and a third time before it took a moment to consider me. I wondered how much intelligence it had. It had almost released all the spells I had woven in the air. I nervously bit my lip, contemplating renewing them or saving my energy for something more decisive, whatever it might be. Shit. I hated fighting. There hadn’t been any physical blows yet, but I was panting, and so was my assailant. It might have looked like shadow boxing, but this shadow was very, very lethal.
Grace St John was one damn persistent wicked witch. It sucked going up against a workaholic. Uttering silent and empty curses at her was starting to feel like a hobby. I didn’t have time for any new hobbies. The homunculus opened its mouth. I got an inkling it was about to lick its chops again. It was almost game over, one way or the other, and I still didn’t have a clue how to tackle Grace’s creature. It struck me how not badass I was, worrying more about the spawn of pure evil’s skin than my own. Fuck it, I thought. There were just some lines I wouldn’t cross.
I turned my thoughts to how to stop the homunculus from trying to kill me. It made me think about a story a witch had once told me of how she got her cat to stop trying to kill her in that much too frequent to be innocent kind of way they have about them. Perhaps it’s all to keep us on our toes for the day a real assassin comes our way, or maybe it’s more personal than that. The witch had resolved the situation by turning her cat into a familiar.
Given the stories about witches and those who followed the imaginary magic crowd, you’d think that familiars were the quintessential requirement for a witch. You’d be totally wrong. Familiars were a lot of work like a heiress on a first date without daddy’s wallet. Familiars, in fact, are rather rare among witches. The witch who’d told me the story of her would be murderer, Velcro, was the only one I knew with one.
The homunculus licked its lips and leapt at me. A womp sounded, and the creature got flung back. This time, it didn’t try again instantly but crouched on the countertop where it had landed and studied me with its dark, ink-black eyes.
The idea of binding it to me was revolting. My first thought was to recoil from the idea, but instinct pressed me to reconsider. It would nullify the threat, and it would be a coup both for my no kill principles and for one upping Grace St Bitch yet again. Sometimes even the most unappealing situations have more upside than down and you end up making questionable choices. I counted this as one of those realising that I’d made my choice. Damned if I wasn’t going to go against tradition and pick a wholly inappropriate subject for a familiar.
“I guess you’re gonna need a name,” I told the creature. It turned its head to one side, listening to my voice. I wondered what it was thinking. Then it licked its lips and I knew. Another percussion spell womped. It was going to need a new form too, I thought. Livia would never be seen in public with me if I had a naked little man following me around. Not even if I fitted him out with a diamond studded collar and leather leash. Probably especially not then.
I needed more power for the spell than I had contemplated using all at one time before. It was frightening and exhilarating all at once. The homunculus hissed at me like it knew something different was up. I began gathering energy.
Witches have supernatural energies within them that form their natural store of power. It’s limited, and it’s very personal energy. Putting it out there is like swapping saliva in a passionate kiss, so using it in a spell is not something you do willy nilly. Sugar is a great energy source. The body absorbs it quickly. It has a potent kick to it that a witch finds very easy to use. It doesn’t hurt that it goes down real easy on the palate either. Then there’s a big wide world of energy that’s harder to harvest and rougher on the body to use. It comes with a huge penalty attached that makes most witches think twice about taking their energy on credit, but I didn’t have much choice in the matter.
It felt like sticking pins into my body and not in the acupuncture kind of way either. It was more like I was taking on the role of the Voodoo doll. At that point where any thought of a potential spell had gone out the window as it had become clear just how satisfying sticking pins into the doll was. It hurt, and I was a banshee when it came to pain. To prove this, I let out a little shriek. The homunculus looked at me wide eyed and made a guttural response that maybe was its idea of a roar.
It made another leap for me. I was dimly aware of the fact that I only had two remaining percussion spells before the creature found its path to me suddenly wide open. I pulled in more power, gritting my teeth against the pain and swearing to myself that I’d never touch the raw power of the world again. Give me heavily processed sugars any day of the week over electrons in heat, charging forward to interact, react and bond. It all reminded me how much I hated getting touchy feely with the world at large. The world at large wasn’t consensual. It was hardcore rough stuff.
When I couldn’t bear it anymore, I turned my attention to shaping the energy into the spell. It was a mutant breed of two spells, and it was ugly. It felt almost dirty inside me as I spun energy into it, but I wasn’t Erica or Livia. I wasn’t ashamed of not having neatened the edges. It was a spell borne in the heat of battle, and it would get the job done. At least that was the theory.
The homunculus flung itself at me and then again, and I was as naked as it was. It came tearing through the air at me a third time, scarlet claws flashing. I released the spell hoping that the blow it was aiming at me would never come. It didn’t.
The homunculus dropped from the air like it was suddenly a compass and my floor its magnetic North. The spell enfolded it and warped through its mottled skin like an invasive virus. It lay inert, breathing hard and gurgling at me. It had to hurt and I felt sick at the thought of it. It wasn’t the familiar spell that was causing the pain though; it was the transformation spell twisting the body into a new shape. It cast away bits that weren’t needed because I hadn’t had time to adjust the spell to suit the mass of the homunculus. Parts of the creature crumbled to dust motes and drifted away. I forced myself to watch the entire transformation. To hear every plaintive cry of the creature until the little man ha
d become a sleek calico cat with disturbing coal-black eyes. Then the second aspect of the spell burned through the homunculus cat. Its eyes shimmered like an oil-slick rainbow, and like a wild fire the magic burned rapidly through the transformed creature. It was over in seconds.
No more kill Nilla signals flashing through its brain. It sat there learning how to purr and tentatively licking at significantly reduced sexual organs.
“You’re going to be one seriously messed up cat,” I told it tiredly, and that decided me on a name for my familiar. “Frankenstein’s Cat.”
I wondered if Grace had really used a sewer rat to spark her homunuculus to life and what else had gone into the making. I should probably have sussed that out before making the creature my familiar.
I stretched, feeling the tension still tight in my muscles. F.C. finally got his purr right. It was distinctive but had all the right feel-good rumble to it. I was only slightly nervous about going to sleep with him lying on the bed next to me.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The morning automatically started with brownie points when I woke up in one piece. F.C. was there on his own pillow like he’d always owned it. Had in fact been there in spirit when I’d picked it out in foreknowledge of this new arrangement. He was grooming himself like he was all cat already. The transformation spell had plainly done its job right. Surprisingly, I had slept through the night like there wasn’t a wicked witch out to get me, or that I had a stranger in my bed. F.C. felt familiar. It wasn’t just because that was the pun-y thing to say. Ha. Ha.
There was a bond between us that I was dimly aware of, but didn’t especially want to focus on. I was avoiding the whole getting to know your familiar connection and what it means to you discovery period. There wasn’t, as far as I knew, a return policy on the spell. It was a case of caveat emptor, or in my case, caveat sagae, let the witch beware. It was an uncomfortable thought.
While F.C. disdained getting out of bed quite so early, I didn’t have the same luxury. I had a store to run. I took a long shower. My skin itched. I hoped it was a result of the electric tingle in the air from the defensive magic. Not because I was allergic to homunculus cat hairs. When I got out, F.C. was demanding a bathroom break of his own, and breakfast.
Although I sensed that it wasn’t quite so clearly in that order as far as he was concerned. It was weird sensing his needs, but it was a bonus. I wouldn’t need a pet whisperer. That was one worry off my overflowing plate.
There was a large rectangular pot I’d been prepping for seeds on the balcony. I quickly reclassified its use as I opened the balcony door and let F.C. tend to his ablutions. While he got on with that, I went through my grocery cupboard looking for a tin of tuna. I hoped he wasn’t going to be a fussy eater.
While I ate my usual sugary Froot Loops, which today did nothing to boost my witchy reserves post witch wars part two, F.C. wolfed down his tuna. For a minute I worried about the porcelain plate, but by some miracle, he avoided swallowing that down whole too. He finished first and sat there studying me with his coal black eyes. I didn’t know why they hadn’t changed to something more feline. The transformation spell had changed the nature of the creature, but I doubted it had completely rewritten the DNA. Or whatever passed for DNA in a homunculus. At heart, F.C. was all bits and pieces, but I already thought of him as all my bits and pieces. The way he sat looking at me he totally felt the same in a non axe-murdering kind of way.
I couldn’t leave him alone in the apartment was the way I reasoned taking F.C. to work with me, but it was more than that. It was the familiar spell.
Outside Which Light we both peered into the store to see if anything untoward had snuck into the place. My senses were dulled from drawing energy from the world at large. Like they’d taken a beating and needed a recovery period. The description kind of fit. Luckily F.C. still had in spades what I would would lack for the next few days. I could sense his satisfaction with the condition of the store. It made me confident enough to unlock the door.
F.C. promptly displaced the little brass plaque that had my name embossed on it in ebony black enamel. He settled himself in the spot normally reserved for it after batting it playfully aside. Unusual for the little brass sign, it didn’t fall to the floor. I booted up the PC to see if Google had anything interesting to say about black eyed cats. It didn’t disappoint, but I didn’t feel particularly more knowledgeable as I sat reading through page after page of amateur supposition and bald faced lies.
I was pulled out of a perverse enjoyment of a particularly darkly humorous paragraph on feline demonology by the jangle of the door bell. It wasn’t somebody I expected to see in my store. It was Erica Hanley. She didn’t look anything like herself.
I didn’t need any further confirmation than her bloodshot eyes, greasy pale skin, and lifeless looking hair that Grace St John had been rooting around inside her head. I took small comfort in knowing that Grace wouldn’t be looking much better after a gruelling day of sifting through Erica’s memories. I could only guess at the depth of trauma the victim was suffering. To riffle through a locked box without the key, you had to jimmy your way in. There was no way one would crack open a mind without leaving more than a little psychic blunt force damage in the process. Erica had never looked less perfect in her life, although that was based purely on the notion that she’d come out of the womb primped and ready for her first photo op.
“Shit,” I said before I could edit my language, “you look like you should be in bed fighting off a fever.” I quickly rounded the counter and hurried to Erica’s side expecting her to collapse at any minute.
Erica offered me a weak smile. “I feel a little like death warmed over. I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror anymore than you do.”
I wondered if that was a more telling comment than she had intended as I helped her to the seat behind the counter. Her body didn’t feel hot; it felt ice cold. As she sank into the chair, I checked the water level in the little stowaway kettle and set it on its merry way towards boiling. I put a little instant coffee in a cup and several spoons of sugar ignoring Erica’s protests. I hesitated at the thought of opening up my chocolate stash in front of her, but it was an emergency in my non-clinical opinion, so I swallowed my pride and pulled the drawer open.
“Good god, do you eat all of those?”
I picked a whole lot of sugar disguised as a chocolate bar and forced it into Erica’s hands. “Just eat it, or I’ll have to feed it to you bite by bite.”
“I haven’t witnessed a horrific accident or had someone try to chop my head off, Nilla,” she protested. “It’s not shock it’s just some nasty bug I must have picked up recently.”
I couldn’t tell her that it was technically shock and psychic trauma ala Grace St John, so I just silently gestured to the chocolate bar, imitating raising an invisible candy to my mouth and taking a bite out of it. I couldn’t summon even the small bit of energy to nudge her into obedience magically, but that was far too close to what Grace had done to her for me to contemplate anyway. Though it was just sending out a message that in essence was similar to many of the cues people unconsciously or consciously picked up it still felt very wrong after Erica’s ordeal.
When she finally gave in and took a grudging bite, I busied myself with making her the sweetest coffee I imagined would ever pass her lips. I could almost hear her complaining about the calories before I put in the powdered creamer and set the mug in front of her.
“Just trust me and drink it,” I told her and was surprised when she meekly nodded, taking a sip for emphasis. Despite her initial reluctance, she was making good progress on the chocolate bar already. I thought that her cheeks had a little more colour.
“Whatever possessed you to leave your bed this morning?” I asked after she’d taken a few more sips. “You should have called in sick.”
“I did call in,” she said. “Livia is grudgingly taking charge of Tangles solo again today. Not that she didn’t have some choice words about it. Doubtless yo
u’ll be hearing all about it soon enough.” She paused, looking a little tired out by the words. She took another sip of her coffee. “You truly drink this much sugar? No, don’t deny it, I’ve seen you work the sugar cubes with your after dinner coffee.”
It had been one of Livia’s first let’s get Erica and Nilla together experiments under cover of a girl’s night in. It had gone over better than the night out chaperoning Livia at Dusk.
I waited for her to gather her strength, biting my lower lip and feeling guilty like I’d sicced the wicked witch on her.
“I needed to talk to you, Nilla.” She looked up at me. Her feverish eyes were intense. “I had a visitor yesterday. You remember Grace St John, Emma’s aunt?”
I nodded, hoping that my facial expression hadn’t turned murderous. Although it was pure bravado, I swore to myself that if Grace walked into Which Light right then, I would smite her like some wrathful god with sugar-spun heckfire. It was an empty threat anyway. I wasn’t going to be pulling any magic for the rest of the day after borrowing from the world. I’d be lucky if I was up to summoning a sugar-spun puff of air tomorrow.
“Well, she came by yesterday, which was why I pulled a duvet day on Livia. I don’t honestly remember the conversation clearly, perhaps this damn bug was already hitting my system, but I know she asked a lot of questions about you. I felt uncomfortable about them. I just thought that you should know. I think I misread her. There’s something not quite right about her. I thought maybe I should tell you that you might have a stalker on your hands.”