by Eric Vall
“Adgar!” Fredrick grunted, fumbled with his belt, and finally raised a black pistol. “You’ve killed one of the Duchess’ men, that’s a crime punishable by death. Too bad Edony and the entire town won’t be there to see it, Alchemist.”
I stared down the barrel of the flintlock gun for a moment, and my entire life flashed behind my eyes. I’d grown up an outcast merely because of my gender, trained hard to become a doctor and scientist despite the bias and treatment from my superiors, struggled to earn my place in the world, and finally, being paid by the Duchess to build my machine and… Valerie’s ‘birth.’ Most of my memories weren’t happy, in fact, all of them were miserable, but the ones at the end were the best I’d ever had.
Could I just let all of that go?
All this time, I’d had threats thrown at me from aristocrats, Delphine, and the Duchess, but no one had ever acted upon it with a genuine weapon. Sure, Edony had brought me to my knees with her cane a few times, but she’d never physically hurt me unless I disobeyed her orders… I was actually going to die, this man I’d never met before would snatch away my life right before it started.
“Don’t touch Charles!” Valerie’s voice rang out, and the cat-woman was a blur through the air as she threw herself forward.
The cat-girl slammed into Fredrick, and the gun toppled from his fingers, skittered across the forest floor, and finally came to rest a few feet away.
“Get off me, you woman!” the blond shouted, swung his arms and struck out.
Valerie dodged the punch, dropped low to the ground, and then ripped her closed fist back. The cat-girl slammed her hand forward, punched the back of Fredrick’s knee, and forced him onto the ground. The blond cried out in pain, scrambled to get his feet under him, and shifted into a sitting position.
“If you want to hurt Charles,” Valerie spat, dropped to all fours, and prepared to pounce. “You have to get through me first.”
Valerie’s cloaked shifted, and the hood fell back onto her shoulders to reveal her silky, chocolate brown ears. The cat-girl’s tail whipped out violently behind her, her ears laid flat against her silky hair, and she bared her teeth. The feline-woman resembled a runner preparing to take off as she balanced on the pads of her feet with her tensed fingers dug into the dirt.
“What are you?” Fredrick shrieked, scrambled backward with the palms of his hands, and kicked out with terror. “What the hell are you, beast-woman?”
“I’m Charles’ woman!” Valerie screamed, tightened her lean leg muscles, and then launched forward.
This was a side of Valerie I didn’t know and wasn’t sure if I wanted to meet. When we were together, the feline-woman was sweet, gentle, playful, and pretty sneaky, but this version of herself looked absolutely feral. She wasn’t the curious kitten anymore. Out here in the forest, Valerie was a blood-thirsty panther.
The cat-girl’s body moved so fast that it was nothing more than a streak of color against the dark background. She slammed into the fallen man with her knees, raised both hands over her hair, formed her tensed fingers into claws, and ripped at his chest. The muscles of her back tensed as she tore through his flesh with each swing, and blood began to spray into the air surrounding her.
Valerie’s back faced me, and I couldn’t see what she was doing to him, but from his pained screams, it must’ve been utter hell. Her hands and forearms were coated with his scarlet blood, and finally, the cat-girl dove forward with her mouth open wide. I didn’t have to guess what she was doing, and I instinctively closed my eyes as her pointed teeth closed around his windpipe.
The moist crunch and chewing noises that came after echoed around the tree-line, so I kept my eyes facing straightforward and cleared out all of my thoughts.
“Valerie, that’s enough,” I grunted. “He’s dead.”
“I did it, Charles!” the cat-girl sang.
Dead leaves rustled under the cat-girl’s feet as she skipped over, tapped me on the shoulder, and grinned down at me. Her face, arms, chest, and clothes were smeared with wet blood, and a piece of torn flesh hung out of the corner of her mouth. The cat-girl plucked it out, gazed at it, shrugged, and then dropped it into her open mouth with a smack.
I had to admit, even after what she’d done, she still looked gorgeous like a warrior woman returning from a long, brutal battle. Her dilated eyes sparkled in the darkness and reflected the surface of the moon above our heads. Valerie offered me a hand, I glanced down at its blood smeared surface, sighed, and then took it. The feline-woman helped me to my feet, and we stood together as we moved our eyes over the lifeless bodies.
“I could’ve taken care of it myself,” I sighed as I reached up to wipe some of the blood from her face.
“Charles, that man had a weapon,” the cat-girl stated, wrapped her arms around mine and snuggled close. “I don’t know what type of weapon because I’ve never seen it before, but he was going to hurt you. I couldn’t stand by and let the love of my life get hurt, or even worse, die.”
“It’s… it’s okay, Val,” I exhaled. “I understand why you did it, I don’t blame you. I just didn’t expect you to do any of that, maybe knock away the pistol, sure, but killing a man for me?”
“I love you, Charles,” the cat-girl reiterated. “I’d do anything for you, even if it means I have to kill your enemies. I’ll do it for you willingly.”
“I-I would do the same, Valerie,” I nodded, smiled, and stroked her cheek. “You’re the most important person in my life.”
“You’re the most important person in my life, Charles!” the feline-woman sang. “I love you so, so, so much! More than anything! Even tasty birds, naps in the sun, oh, and that one really comfortable nook on top of the cabinets!”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I snickered, breathed a heavy sigh, and then turned back toward the wagon. “We should probably leave, who knows when the warden will come back looking for his lackeys.”
“What should we do with the bodies?” the feline-woman tilted her head. “Can we just leave them here?”
I swiveled my head, gazed over Adgar’s perfectly intact body, and then looked at Fredrick’s utterly destroyed one.
“We can’t leave them like this,” I sighed.
“Okay!” Valerie tittered. “Should we put them in the back with the bear?”
“No… we can’t take them with us, but we can’t leave them like this,” I uttered. “Wait! The bear! We could make it look like they were attacked by a wild animal, Fredrick’s body is already ripped to pieces. Val… do you think you could do the same to Adgar?”
“Sure, I’m going to get pretty messy, though.” The feline-woman glanced down at her baggy disguise. “But I could take a bath. Oooooh, Charles, give me a bath when we get home! Please, please, please! I’ll do it as long as you bathe me later!”
“S-Sure,” I cleared my throat. “Y-Yeah, as long as you tear up Adgar as much as you did Fredrick, it has to look believable.”
“I’m on it!” the blonde smirked, skipped forward, and then leaped onto the motionless corpse.
Her arms weren’t a flurry through the air this time, they were calculated and determined each time she swept a clawed hand down. The feline-woman moved almost like a dancer, her muscles bunching and tensing with each fluid movement. Blood flew through the air in arcs of scarlet like tiny waves in the ocean, and soon, it covered the ground around Adgar’s carcass.
Finally, Valerie sat back with a small, satisfied smile, wiped off her hands on her cloak, and rose to her feet. The cat-girl hurried back to me, grabbed the edge of the wagon, flipped over twice, and landed squarely in the driver’s seat.
“Ta-da!” the blonde laughed. “Ready to go?”
“Yes.” I nodded, glanced back over the two fallen men, scrambled up into the driver’s seat, and took the reins. “Let’s get out of here before anyone comes back.”
“Aw, look, Charles,” Valerie giggled, turned and waggled her fingers through the bars of the cage. “She’s still sleeeeeping, aw, my b
aby sister is so tired.”
“She might not still be out by the time we get back to the manor.” I cracked the reins, and the horses took off. “I may have to give her another dose of the tranquilizer.”
“Aw, no, don’t do that,” Valerie whined. “She’ll be a good girl, won’t you? I bet you could even open up the cage, and she’d come down into the laboratory with us!”
“We’ve been over this,” I chuckled. “She may be docile now, but she’s still a wild animal.”
“Oh, phooey,” The cat-girl grumbled.
“Don’t worry,” I sighed. “We’ll figure out how to get her inside once we get there. I have a few ideas we could try.”
Just as I planned, the streets were dead on our way back through the city, and no aristocrats wandered drunkenly around. All the houses were silent, no candles lit the windows, and I breathed evenly for the first time that night. The trek back to the manor would take longer with the added weight to our cart, but I didn’t mind, it gave me time to relax after what’d happened.
I breathed in the warm, summer air, leaned back in the seat, and rested my arms over my head. The cold metal of the cage pressed into my shoulders, and I glanced back at the bear, but she still slept soundly in a curled ball.
“I wonder what she’ll look like,” Valerie purred as she glanced over her shoulder, too. “I hope she has pretty brown hair, the same color as her fur.”
“More than likely,” I nodded. “You have the same coloration as you did before you went into the machine.”
“I do?” the cat-girl squealed, held her hands tightly to her chest, and wriggled.
“Yeah,” I snickered. “A.B. may have named you Clementine, but you were Siamese, your fur was an ashy crème color like your hair, and your ears and tail were the same chocolatey brown that they are now.”
“Really?” the feline-woman simpered, stretched out over the seat and laid her head in my lap.
“Yup,” I said. “You were a beautiful cat, and I bet your sister is going to be just as pretty as you are.”
“Oh, I’m so excited!” Valerie wriggled in deeper. “I can’t wait to get home!”
The manor was completely dark except for a few stray lamps I’d lit along the outside of the carriage house. The gravel crunched under the horses’ hooves, and I jerked on the reins as we pulled alongside the stairs leading into my laboratory. We slowed to a complete stop, I glanced back at the sleeping bear, and then turned toward Valerie.
“Wait here,” I instructed. “I’ll be right back, I have a plan to get the bear inside one of the cells.”
“Okay, Charles,” Valerie nodded. “I’ll just be here, talking to my sweet little sister. Don’t forget, you promised to give me a bath later. Then… other things.”
“I-I haven’t forgotten.” I scratched at my cheek and felt the heat of embarrassment flood across my face.
I leaped from the driver’s seat, landed with my knees bent, and then tore off down the stairs. I ripped the laboratory’s door open and listened to the distant metallic clicks of my machine.
“Whoa, you look like a mess,” A.B. tittered, turned in his lazy stream of bubbles and wrinkled. “Everything go alright out there?”
“Uhhhhm, as best as it could’ve gone,” I muttered, crossed the room in quick strides, and then rummaged through a pile of random supplies.
“Sooo, did you catch anything?” the brain asked. “Or are you just going to leave me hangin’? Ohhhh, did you catch a dragon? I’d love to see a dragon-girl.”
“No.” I shook my head. “We brought home something more normal.”
“Yeah, I guess the cage was too small to hold a dragon,” A.B. spoke. “Unless it was a baby dragon?”
“It’s not a dragon,” I snorted. “It’s small compared to one, though.”
“Oh, okay,” A.B. muttered. “What did you get that was so ‘normal?’”
“A bear,” I stated.
“A what?” the brain shrieked. “A bear? Charles!”
“Can’t talk right now, A.B,” I said over my shoulder. “I have to figure out how to get the damn thing inside and in one of the cells. Here it is, thank the gods.”
I grabbed the thick, tightly woven fabric from the floor, yanked it up, and threw it over my shoulder as I turned. I raced toward the stairs, climbed up three, raised my head, and then froze.
“What are you doing?” My raised voice echoed. “W-Why did you take it out of the cage?”
Valerie grinned down at me as she perched on the drowsy bear’s shoulders at the top of the stairs. The massive animal blinked tiredly, took a lethargic step down onto the first stair, wobbled for a second as if it were about to fall, and then took another.
“I told you I could get her down there by myself,” Valerie sang. “She won’t hurt you, Charles, I promise! We had a talk, and she told me that she wouldn’t hurt you or destroy anything in the lab. Isn’t that right, girl?”
The bear didn’t make a sound, simply lifted its head in the direction of Valerie’s voice, and then took another shaky step down the stairs.
“All the gods in the heavens,” I exclaimed, pressed myself against the rock wall of the stairwell, glanced to the left of me and hightailed it out of the bear’s path. “We’re dead, we’re all fucking dead. You let a wild animal loose in my laboratory even after I told you no!”
“It’s fine!” Valerie waved as the massive brown beast finally made it down and stood in the doorway.
“Get that thing out of here!” A.B. shouted. “Get it out! We’re all gonna be dinner in a few seconds if you don’t do something, Charles!”
“What can I do?” I shouted back.
“Shhh, guys,” Valerie chided. “She’s still really tired. Charles, go open the cell door, and I’ll guide her in! See? This is fine, no one’s getting hurt!”
“Oh, sweet heavenly deity, whichever one is up there and watching over the reanimated brains of the world,” A.B. muttered. “Please don’t let me be bear-food, I swear I won’t do anything bad from now on, I’ll be a good brain, I promise. I won’t have naughty thoughts or tell dirty jokes, please just spare my precious life.”
I pressed myself against the cold, stone wall and crept toward the cells at the other side of the room. I kept my eyes locked on the bear, skittered sideways, gripped onto the door of the cell, and swung it open.
Valerie guided the bear with her knees and turned it toward the cell, all the while her smile never left her lips. The brown beast grunted softly, gazed into the sizable cell, glanced out around the room, huffed even louder, and stepped inside.
Valerie placed her hands on the bear’s shoulder blades, lifted herself into the air with all of her toes pointed at the ceiling, and then jumped off. The cat-girl landed directly beside me, placed her hands on her hips, closed the cell door with a clatter, and nodded.
“See, Charles?” Valerie asked. “We didn’t have to do anything fancy, just coax it in there on its own! Look at her, all snuggled up in the hay!”
I slumped sideways against the cell, glanced inside, and shrugged as I took a deep inhale. I was overwhelmed on all sides, the Duchess, Delphine, the bear, my machine, and the experiments. Could I never have a moment of rest? Was my life always going to be this relentless?
“Chaaaarles,” Valerie purred. “You promised to give me a baaaath, why don’t we go do that now?”
Well… maybe my life wasn’t as bad as it seemed.
Chapter Eleven
Valerie strutted up the stairs, her hips rolling with each step, and then she glanced at me over her shoulder. Her oceanic eyes were wide, and they sparkled in the overhead lights as her plump lips curled up into a sly smile. The cat-girl’s tail swished out behind her, curled around the banister, slid up a few feet, and then dropped back again. The feline-woman hummed softly to herself as she reached back, pulled her hair over her shoulder, and then let out a long sigh.
Val knew the layout of my manor well because she’d explored it many times, and her bedroo
m was on the same floor as mine. I’d given it to her the same day she was created, though, she never slept in her bed, I would always find her curled up sleeping in the strangest places.
It seemed as if that were about to change.
“Chaaaarles,” Valerie purred, turned a corner, and waited in the doorway. “Will you scrub my back for me? And my ears? I’d like that very much. I want to feel your hands all over me, aaaall over meeee.”
Her large, luminous eyes stayed on my face for a long time, and her implication was clear as day. I knew what she wanted, and of course I wanted it, too.
“Y-Yes,” I stammered, ran a hand through my messy black hair, and kept my gaze glued to the floor. “I promised I’d do this for you, and I won’t break it.”
Valerie leaned against the doorframe, nuzzled against the wood, but kept her oceanic blue eyes hard on mine. I gulped loudly and felt my member harden in my trousers just from looking at her. I didn’t want to know how hard I would be by the time she was naked.
“Come on,” the cat-girl purred, flipped her hair over her shoulder, and then disappeared into the master bathroom. “I’m waiting, Charles.”
I hurried after her, hooked the door with the toe of my shoe, and swung it closed with a soft click. Valerie leaned over the porcelain, claw-foot tub, and turned on the hot water. The clear liquid splashed into the basin with a soft gurgle, and a cloud of steam slowly lifted into the air.
“A-Aren’t cats supposed to hate water?” I tittered. “Or so I’ve heard or something…”
“Hm, I’m sure that full-blooded cats do,” Valerie tilted her head, knelt beside the tub and dipped a delicate hand into the hot water. “Nope, don’t hate it. Feels very nice, so why don’t you come over here and feel it, Charles?”
“Sure.” I smiled, crossed the room, knelt beside, and dipped a hand in beside hers. “Yeah, that feels great. I usually just take showers, baths seem a little too…”
“Feminine?” the cat-girl giggled.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I breathed. “I once read in one of those trashy magazines they sell at the stores that the richest of ladies take baths every single night.”
