"Stay there. I'll be right back." The front door had a handle. I leapt over the front gate and batted it open with a paw.
The front door opened into a living room scattered with more toys. The scent of drool, tears and youth smacked me in the face. My brain sorted through the scents: seven kids hung in the air along with three-ish adults.
None were in sight, although I heard muffled voices and the sound of…chewing?
I blew a breath out my nose to clear it and centered myself, willing my vision to find light that came from something other than photons. Tass was fairly dim, and it was hard to see the grayness of it against the purple suffusing every surface.
Yet I found a spot of it fairly quickly, if only because it was moving in my general direction, keeping to the sides of the walls. It crept closer, zipping between toy chests and bookcases. It paused for a moment beneath a small trashcan by the door.
Tiring of being stalked, I batted the can out of the way. There, crouched against the wall, was a fuzzy black and white lump of fur staring at me with beady black eyes: a guinea pig.
With a sudden squeal, the overgrown tribble leapt at me. It pounced on to my foreleg, and I recoiled before the sting of its tiny teeth registered. The guinea pig rocketed across the room, hitting the plush carpet, bouncing once and rolling to a stop. The bugger didn't pause for breath before beelining straight for me, screaming a war cry at the top of its tiny lungs.
I had no time for suicidal guinea pigs. I smashed it with slap of my paw and popped his little skull. I waited a few more seconds for him to stop twitching before picking up the body with my teeth and twisting around to slide him into one of the side pouches in my harness.
Something about that pig didn't taste right, and I chewed at my tongue to try to scrape off the wrongness.
A voice screamed from deeper in the house. "FOOOD! MORE FOOD!"
Then a chorus of higher pitched voices. "FOOOOOD!"
I got a prickling feeling from the top of my neck to the tip of my tail, which lashed with my agitation. I could see dim dots of tass moving beyond the far wall of the room. The doorway led into an expansion in the back. Tass usually didn't collect in people. Were there more pets affected? Maybe more rodents in the walls?
Several different parts of my brain had come up with compelling reasons to turn tail and run away. Yet, O'Meara needed tass, and therefore I needed tass. Then my life would probably get complicated again, but for now I focused on that simple need. I should at least take a peek. And I might have been a bit curious as to what was happening to these people. I crept through the doorway and down the hall. It had doors on either side before opening into a larger area. The commotion was coming from the right. The dots of tass were in there, some in motion, some stationary.
"FOOD! FOOD!" The cry was repeated constantly. I cautiously poked my head around the doorway. The room was straight out of a daycare worker's nightmare, with kids swarming all over the kitchen like oversized insects. The contents of a double door refrigerator lay scattered over the floor as children crammed the contents into their mouths without bothering to rip open the packaging. Other children had climbed to the cabinets. The air was filled with the sounds of crunching and smacking of lips. The sole adult stood in the corner; her arms filled with snack bags of Cheetos, which she was shoving into her mouth, swallowing, foil bag and all, her neck distending with each one.
The tass was in each person's stomach, centered on their rapidly distending bellies.
I didn't mean to stand there long. There was nothing I could do, and I wasn't about to harvest that tass at all. The scene, the bizarreness of it, emptied all thoughts out of my brain.
A kid finished her frozen pizza and its box, searched the room for her next target and found me. Her eyes widened with delight, black with no irises, bottomless pits. She grinned too wide, showing too many teeth crowded into her tiny mouth and all too jagged. "KITTY MEAT!" she squealed in sheer delight.
Then every eye in the room was on me. All black pits of hunger.
"FRESH MEAT!" they screamed, as if my body had been composed of ice cream.
Time to go. They charged. I ran.
Sprinting back down the hallway, I heard the beating of tiny hands and feet behind me. Four kids made it through the door, running after me on all fours, like demonic monkeys, faster than any tiny harbingers of death had any right to be. I mentally screamed out for O'Meara and slammed into the ironclad wall in my head as my body slammed into the door. The door didn't give because it opened inward! Of course it also had a smooth knob on this side! My teeth slipped off. Then the kids were on me and I had to dodge and weave around their gooey hands and tiny maws. Kicking one away, I fled along the side of the room. The purple tint to the world starting to fade, the transition ebbing away. I just had to keep them at bay for maybe a minute more without hurting them.
I followed the same route the guinea pig had followed in reverse, adjusting for being thirty times its size. The kids might be possessed, but they were still rather clumsy. Shoving toys and chests and boxes into their path confounded them briefly.
The adult had no such trouble. She burst from the hallway with a bellowing roar of "MEAT!" The cleaver in her hand looking as hungry for my flesh as her distended mouth.
I shot down the hallway and juked left, slamming my body against a closed door. The old latch burst, and the door spilled me into a bathroom. Skidding to a stop, I reversed and slammed my body back into the door. The door reverberated with the thunk of the clevear slamming into thin wood. I braced my legs on a cabinet below the sink and pressed all my weight against door. The cleaver’s impacts became hammer blows as the sitter attempted to chop down the door. Cries of "Kitty Meat!” became a chant.
Then the cry echoed from the direction of the tub. "Kitty Meat?"
Two black eyes popped over the rim of the tub followed by a body as a three-year-old stood up, her black hair matted and shiny. White foam ringed her mouth. She issued a belch and a swarm of bubbled floated out of her maw, a desperate bid for freedom.
"Nope," I told her. "Not meat. I'm made out of Brussels sprouts and lima beans. I taste awful." The wood above me splintered as the tip of the cleaver punctured the door.
"Hmmm vegetables." The kid tumbled out of the tub.
"Wouldn't you like some candy instead? I know where you can get some!" I lied.
There was no distracting her. She staggered toward me, arms out like a zombie with a grin of pure delight on her dimpled face. I extended a paw to her chest, trying to fend her off.
Her hands closed on my ankle like a steel trap, and her slimy mouth closed on my toes just as the last of the purple haze faded.
The kid froze and emitted a soft moan. "Ooooooooh oowwww."
Beyond the door I heard the sound of two adult knees hitting the floor and the moan of pain echoed by a dozen other voices.
Then the retching began.
I made my escape, weaving around nearly a dozen children vomiting in disturbing harmony. Outside, Rudy's grinning face waited for me.
"Oh good! You didn't get eaten!" he said as I shut the door behind myself.
"No thanks to you," I growled. "First carnivorous toddlers and then I'm dodging vomit. It’s straight out of Dirty Jobs in there. Mike Rowe would have a field day."
"There's a reason why gathering tass is usually left to the junior magi." Rudy jumped onto my back. "As I was saying, that's a hunger plane. You won't be getting much tass from those. Black planes, they call them."
“You can tell what type of plane it is by hearing it?" I asked, standing beside the road and not sure where to go. Unlike felines, rodents didn’t see magic. They heard it.
"You mean you can't tell by looking at it?" Rudy sniggered and then yawned. "Let’s weather the night at my place. Then you come with me to my job interview tomorrow."
I had wanted to go to Noise’s place but showing up stinking of vomit didn't seem like the greatest of ideas. With the adrenaline ebbing, I wanted another nap
, then a bit of grooming. As I pondered my Rudy’s words finally burrowed into my brain, causing me to look to the squirrel in surprise. “Wait. You have a job interview?”
Rudy chittered, running up and down my back before answering, "Yeah, it involves a robot!"
CHAPTER NINE
Rudy's tree doesn't sport many amenities, but there’s a pretty good sleeping tree nearby that was the right size for cougars. After a descent amount of shuteye we headed into the center of town in search of employment.
The neighborhood technomagus, Jules, and his familiar, Jowls, ran what appeared to be a cheap electronics store with windows crammed with ancient cell phones in yellowing packaging. Yet if a mundane actually walked in to buy a cellphone they eventually threw up their hands in frustration as Jules did everything possible to convince them they actually didn't want to buy anything from him.
Had any mundane ever paid attention, they'd realize the store was a front. However, thanks to the Veil mucking with their heads, they never put two and two together. It was indeed a business, although legit isn't a word O'Meara associated with it. Jules, as a technomagus, had no house and traded everything he could get his hands on. In order to fund his research into what he called the democratization of magic, aka magic without familiars, they sold tass, information, and foci, and were a clearinghouse for getting anything you needed but really didn't want to know where it came from.
So I was pretty surprised to find the garish signage that usually graced the place had been removed. The blinds were drawn. It appeared Jules and Jowls had packed up and left town. Or something. Since the shop supposedly existed in three places at once, changing its location wouldn't require much in the way of movement at all.
Had I been alone, I might have backed off and watched the building for a bit before approaching. Yet, the way Rudy chittered with mirth from my shoulder blades as I crept closer indicated all was not as it seemed.
I peered through the glass door to see that any resemblance to a shop had been swept away. Instead the interior had been converted into a workshop of sorts. Two people stood at one end of a table in the middle of the shop. I recognized the thin frame of Jules, but the woman with a welding mask on her head I didn't recognize. On the other end of the table crouched Jowls, who, judging by way every strand of fur stood on end so he more resembled a giant orange Koosh ball than a feline, was wee bit upset.
"Looks like ol' magnanimous magnitude is having a bad day," Rudy said with a chuckle.
Whatever could so disturb the jovial Jowls had my whiskers tingling with curiosity. I pushed my head against the door and stuck my nose into the shop. "Hey! I'm in the market for a cellphone! You wouldn't happen to know where I can find one?"
"Oh Thomas! My Savior!" Jowls leapt from the table and charged my legs. No sooner had my ass entered the building did I have Jowls cowering behind it.
"Uh, what's going on? What's with the remodeling?" I asked, scanning the workshop.
Jowls pawed at my side, and I caught both Jules and the woman rolling their eyes. "It's terrible! Absolutely unnatural! They want to make me fly! These foul technomagi must be stopped at all costs! Will you be my brave knight? Please?"
I could see now what sat on the table. To my eyes it didn't appeared to be anything magical at all. It looked like a cat-sized helicopter welded together from plumbing supplies. It featured a large blade and, instead of a single tail rotor, it had a quadcopter strapped to a three-foot pole extending out the back. While I didn't see any spells, it certainly looked like it needed a few. Jowls never approved of Jules’ technomagic, and I couldn't really blame him for not wanting to get involved with this contraption.
"I can't say that looks particularly safe," I ventured.
"So? It’s a freaking helicopter! It’s awesome by definition!" Rudy chimed in.
"Why don't you fly it then, tender morsel?" Jowls hissed, backing away from me as he noticed my gray passenger. Why hadn't I figured out the Rudy was a Jowls repellent earlier?
"Hey, I got a name, Tubbs. I even got a friends-not-food song! Wanna hear it?" Rudy cleared his throat.
"NO!" I shouted. I'd already heard it. Too many times.
"Cats," Rudy grumped. "You guys are never any fun unless your tail's on fire."
Judging from the deepening of Jowls glare, Rudy might have been referring to an actual incident. I hadn't seen Rudy's collection of vanquished cats, but apparently Jowls was a fellow member of that club.
"One day, my fluffy friend, you will know your proper place in the food chain. Mark my words. Just you wait." Jowls stuck his nose in the air and turned away.
Rudy leapt onto the windowsill and chittered, his hands grasping for an invisible acorn to throw. "Why you listen hear, you gluttonous fuzzbutt—"
"HEY! HEY!" I cut in with a bit more volume than required. Both cat and squirrel flinched. "That’s enough, both of you. We're not here for a fight. Now cut it out!"
They both gave me a sullen look but to my surprised they kept their mouths shut for the moment.
"So that leaves the question," Jules said, "why are you here? Acting as Ixey's errand dog today?"
I snorted. "Not today. And not for the foreseeable future."
A look of quasi-mock concern broke through his normally placid face. "Oh, what's happened? Did O'Meara kick her out for waving her sword around at everyone?"
I was fairly certain Jules would dislike anybody who happened to be the local Inquisitor on general principle. The man had warmed right up to me and O'Meara as soon as Ixey claimed the sword for her own. "No, nothing like that. I've parted ways with O'Meara. Judging from that contraption you are in the market for extra eyes."
Jules blinked and snapped back to his poker face. Jowls, who wouldn't know a poker face if you branded his backside with one, sighed heavily. "Oooh, that’s seven familiars. Poor dear. What'd she do to you, Thomas?"
I wasn't sure how much I could trust Jules and Jowls, and the woman hadn't said a word. "Nothing traumatic. Just time to move on. Fey chain, remember?" Mr. Bitey was no fey chain, which was an alternate way of creating a familiar bond that was far less permanent than the traditional link but also fragile. It was the only plausible cover story I had. I straightened. "Therefore I'm on the market." I looked at the woman, "Thomas Khatt, freelance familiar at your service."
The woman smiled with an amused twinkle in her brown eyes. Then she smirked as a familiar weight impacted the top of my head.
"Hey! No stepping on my tail, big guy! That's my client!" Rudy’s claws dug into my ears as I tried to shake him loose.
Jules gave the woman a dubious glance. "You’re hiring Rudy? For the golem?"
She nodded. "He's the perfect size and tells me he has experience driving things."
After herding Rudy back to his more usual perch in the small of my back with a paw, I approached her. "And you are?" I asked, looking into her round face set on her narrow, almost gangly frame. She appeared to be one of those people who forgot to eat with some regularity.
"Oh yes. Call me Sandra." She made no move to extend her gloved hand, but I didn't need her to be polite. I could smell her human funk layered with the tang of burning metal and motor oil from where I stood. Reminded me of an old car. Her eyes didn't quite meet mine.
"Sandra is a close friend and colleague, Thomas,” Jules said. "Were there a house of technomagi, we would be members of the same cabal. She's a shaman." That answered the question as to why she hadn't inquired about bonding me. She couldn't. Shamans were essentially the same polarity as most familiars, with our soul threads anchored in realities that are complete worlds of their own instead of a more uniform plane that embodied a concept or energy. Shamans like Ixey summoned spirits into our world from their home planes to help out. In order to be a magus, shamans had to capture an animal that was bonded to one of those energy planes (rare to begin with) and give it part of their own intelligence, a painful and dangerous procedure, fundamentally altering the personality of the magi. According to Ixey,
most shamans didn't go through with it.
"So are you saying you don't want my help to figure out where all these transitions are happening?" I asked.
Jules sucked in a breath. "I didn't say that. But then again, there are the issues with the TAU."
"Whom you notice haven't been around much." Oric and his cronies had been far too busy to pester me all that much lately since he thought I had been permanently bonded to O'Meara.
"Still, you're not formally trained."
"I can spot a transition from at least three miles away through trees and I've tracked a single magus who wasn't channeling through town. I think I have the training you need." I glanced at the helicopter. "And I'm not afraid of heights. 150 groat for a year of service."
The technomagus and Jowls were seized by a sudden hacking fit. "You think you're worth twelve Magi for a single year? Thomas, that’s ludicrous,” Jules replied when he had recovered.
My expression didn't waver. "I'd have fetched a lot more than that at an auction. But you guys are friends. I'd be happy to drop it to 120 groat as long as it’s upfront." That would more than fix O'Meara, and a year service would prevent me from bonding with her immediately. Large portions of me still wanted to run back and throw myself into her bed.
Shock blossomed on Jules' face as it dawned on him that I was serious.
"You fabulous bastard! You know something about these transitions?" Jowls exclaimed.
"Maybe," I conceded. I had a hunch.
"That’s too much, Thomas," Jules said. "We don't have that sort of tass."
I doubted that. Tass was his main currency, but I could imagine that was a dent in his reserves he didn't want to take. I could roll with it. "Then let’s talk percentages. Twenty-five percent of all tass you gather while I'm working with you."
"You can't even use tass. Five percent," Jules countered.
"Keep in mind I could take my act to Vegas if I need to."
Marking Territory (Freelance Familiars Book 2) Page 5