Hellcats: Anthology

by Kate Pickford

  Sam wasn’t wrong, though. We did have it pretty good. I was finding it harder and harder to come up with temptation ideas. Playing with the toilet paper rolls and clogging up the toilets was fun, even for Sam. It annoyed the lady, but she just put the paper out of reach. The dogs were no help either, though I knew they wouldn’t be. They were too loyal. Nothing I did was tempting her to ruin.

  If I’m being honest, I wasn’t trying very hard either. For the first time in my long demon life, I was happy. Not just happy to have caused havoc, but actually relaxed and content. Sam was pretty sure that life couldn’t get any better. It was time for me to admit defeat. Nahiel was just going to have to understand that his idea wasn’t as brilliant as he thought. I was years behind in my quota, but maybe if I worked day and night, and got a pass for being Nahiel’s guinea pig, I wouldn’t be in too much trouble.

  “I’ve got to go back,” I told Sam one afternoon as we sunned ourselves on the window shelf.

  “Why?” he asked, stretching and twisting to get the warmth on a new spot.

  “I’m a demon, Sam. You know this. I was created to tempt people and make them sin. You know as well as I do that isn’t happening here.” Even as I said it, the words sounded hollow.

  Sam was quiet for a minute. “I don’t know. I think you make a pretty good cat, personally, when you aren’t doing stupid things that get our balls cut off.” Yeah, I didn’t think he’d forgive me for that one. “I’ll miss you.”

  I missed him as soon as I made the decision to go, and I regretted it instantly. Hell was hot and dark. There was a lot of groaning and screaming. I’d never realized how loud it was. Or how badly it smelled. Before I could barrel into Nahiel’s office, I heard his name coming from the breakroom and stopped to eavesdrop.

  “ . . . made an example of Nahiel.”

  “What did he do?”

  A clink of glasses and several groans echoed from the room. “You know, possessions are supposed to be cleared by management, right? There are rules. Apparently, he came up with this plan to tempt people and destroy humanity using cats.”

  “You mean like lions and tigers?”

  The voice scoffed. “No, house cats. You know, the ones that live with people.”

  “They’re tiny. How would that even work?”

  “No idea. He sent some demon to possess a cat and they never came back.”

  “Maybe he’s too busy tempting people,” the other voice reasoned.

  “No. That’s the thing. Nahiel wasn’t the first one to try it. That’s why it's banned. Completely, totally banned. Dogs and cats are completely off-limits. What I heard is that their souls are so pure that they end up corrupting the demon and making it . . . good.” He said the last word like it tasted nasty in his mouth.

  Good? Sam was making me good? I thought back over the last two years, and considered the possibility. Surely not. It was just the comfort that made me lazy and content and . . . happy. I almost missed what came next.

  “. . . happened to the guy he sent to possess the cat?”

  “They don’t know. He wouldn’t tell them. No one knows who it was or where he went. They finally gave up and destroyed Nahiel without knowing.”

  I flattened myself against the wall and considered my options. No one knew where I was. My boss no longer existed. Clearly, no one here missed me, and let’s be real, this was Hell. It wasn’t some five-star vacation resort. Dear God, that smell. How had I never noticed it before?

  “I guess they figure either he’s lost or he’ll come back eventually. Maybe he’ll make it in time for Operation Winged Invasion.”

  I stood a little straighter and leaned closer to the door.

  “Operation Winged Invasion? What in the name of the devil is that? Has Furkas been put in charge again? He always comes up with stupid names.”

  The one with all the gossip snorted. “Who knows. What I heard is that they are going to unleash a plague of winged insects again, like the locusts in Egypt. They’ll carry some disease this time, though. It worked well with fleas on rats that one time. Got rid of at least a third of the people on two continents.”

  Winged insects carrying disease? Killing a third of all people? There were three people in my house. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to do something to save them.

  That last thought brought me up short. I had started moving without even realizing it. Maybe I was changed. Maybe those demons were right and being crowded in that eight-pound body with Sam for the last two years had changed me. Did I stay here in Hell and try to recover who I was?

  I actually scoffed out loud and kept moving toward the exit. Not a chance. I had to warn Sam. I might not be able to save all of humanity, but I could save at least my three people. And maybe the really good lady and her son. They were nice, too.

  “Scoot over, I’m coming back in,” I said to Sam just before I snapped my fingers. I hoped that would still work.

  “Missed me, did you?” he said lazily.

  “Yeah, yeah, yuck it up. We’ve got a problem. The demons are going to use winged insects to spread disease and kill people,” I reported. “We’ve got to protect them.”

  Sam stopped mid-stretch. “That’s diabolical. We’ve got to spread the word. Maybe when they open the door, we can get out and go spread the word with the other cats.”

  I nodded and then looked at the floor. “I have a better idea, a louder one. Hey, dog! Wake up! Intruder alert!”

  The dog, Buster, instantly sprang up and barked. “Where? Where? I’ll get ‘em.”

  I pulled us up and jumped lithely to the floor and told the dog what I’d heard in Hell. “We need you to tell the other animals. You’re louder than we are and you go outside.”

  “That’ll be easy,” Buster said, stretching like he was preparing to run a marathon. “I’ll spread the word to the neighbors and tell every dog that walks past. That should be enough to activate the network. You’re on inside detail, then.”

  “Inside detail?” I asked, hesitantly.

  “Yeah, inside detail,” he retorted. “When the bugs fly inside, your job is to kill them before they get to the people.”

  I nodded. “Makes sense. We jump better than you.”

  Buster shook his head. “Duh. I outweigh you by about forty pounds. All right. Let’s get this show on the road.” He walked over to the back door and barked, repeatedly. Our lady came downstairs and let him out with a sigh when he ran straight for the fence and started barking. He did this all day, sometimes more often than he really needed to, so it wasn’t unusual. She’d never suspect a thing and we’d work together to keep her and the kids safe.

  Neither Sam nor I really like eating bugs. Mostly we just kill them and leave them. Sometimes we let the harmless ones fly around for a bit to give us something to play with later, but only if we are sure they aren’t part of Operation Winged Invasion. That, and sometimes the pillowy bed the lady bought us is just too comfortable to get out of.

  Have I turned. . . good? I guess it depends on who you ask. I still knock stuff off the table. Sue me, I like watching it fall. And spinning the toilet paper roll is fun! Even Sam thinks so, and he’s apparently pure. I’d rather be here, protecting my people and chasing that awful red dot, than anywhere else and I definitely don’t want to go back to Hell again.

  “It was truly a good plan,” I mused. I should be upset that it failed, but, lying here, stretched out on this soft, pillowy bed, I really can’t manage to muster the regret. And now that Nahiel has been destroyed, the chances that anyone will find me, or even come looking, are slim to none. That suits me just fine.

  Shanda Forish is just starting on her journey into authordom and is very excited to take part in this anthology.

  46

  Chapalu

  by Erika Domeika

  Faerie felines, magic, and well, murder: A cheeky story inspired by the Arthurian legend of Chapalu (Cath Palug), full of easter eggs to lore in a contemporary format.

  They found the hand
on the shore the morning after the waxing claw moon.

  The three of them stood silently encircling the orphaned limb, uncertain of whose it was but resigned to what it meant.

  Father Galeran cleared his throat, eyes still on the hand, but it was Artus who spoke first.

  “It’s time to call someone in,” he said, looking at his colleagues. “This is the third person in as many weeks. We have a monster on our hands.”

  “Poor choice of words,” replied the wise woman, Lauseanna.

  Artus’s mouth pressed into a thin line and Lauseanna sighed. The village headsman was always sensitive to criticism. She put her hands on her hips, the stance she took when stress or long hours toiling over the grimoires wore her back down, and she had not been reading much lately.

  “Whom do you presume we call? We are a small island village of farmers and fishermen. We have no money to offer some renowned huntsman to kill this creature.”

  Galeran finally tore his eyes from the hand. His visage was almost as pale as the bloodless appendage sprawled on the sand. Perhaps they would come for a charitable plight?”

  It was Lauseanna’s turn to frown. The father blushed, a pale hue blooming across his cheeks.

  “We’ll have to offer some sort of reward,” said Artus. “Perhaps it can be negotiated.” The headsman eyed the winding dirt road behind Lauseanna. Down it was his home and in his home was his wife, cooking breakfast; cod porridge, his favorite.

  “Wouldn’t it be wiser to convince people to simply not go into the northern shore caves?” asked Lauseanna. The wife of the first man who went missing had said he had gone to the caves at night, but for what, she didn’t know. The other missing man’s boyfriend said that he’d done the same, a week later. The owner of the hand on the ground was undoubtedly the most recent adventurer of the caves. A remote location with more water than ground, the northern shore caves were not a place villagers tended to visit. Only recently was it a spot of interest. “Seems like whatever lives there doesn’t want anyone visiting.”

  Artus grunted, his large gut bouncing like a ball over the belt of his trousers. “Anglesey is our village, not some monster’s playground. We should be able to go anywhere we please. We put out a call for a huntsman.”

  Lauseanna eyed the priest for support and was left wanting. She sighed again, freed the shawl from her shoulders, and bent to pick up the limb. She tried to wrap it without paying too much attention to how the fingers were either lacerated or missing, and how the skin stretched perilously thin over the bloat of decay.

  “Oh, God,” said the father, managing three steps before retching into the water. The waves gently pushed the contents of his stomach against his shins and he retched again.

  “What are you doing with that?” asked Artus as Lauseanna secured a knot.

  “Undoubtedly, someone will know who this belongs to. It will be helpful for identification but also helpful for closure. Something to bury or burn is better than nothing. And sorry to say, if a man is missing, the loved ones come to me first for fortune telling. You’re the second stop. So, I will be seeing the spouse or lover before you.” Lauseanna raised a black eyebrow. “Unless you would prefer to be in charge of the hand?” She held the now wrapped appendage toward the headsman, inviting him to take it.

  Artus grunted again. “I’m going home to my wife and breakfast.” The chief of the village looked over his shoulder at the priest exiting the water, who was now as white as the caps of the breaking waves. “For God’s sake man, pull yourself together,” he said and started his journey home.

  The hand belonged to a Mr. Lancel. His wife had bansheed a cry of despair upon seeing the appendage, instantly recognizing it as her husband’s by the scar which ran along its thumb, one of two fingers still attached.

  Lauseanna warmly grasped the widow’s shoulder as she exited, the hand now in a wooden box to keep the rank at bay. Pity pressed upon her chest: pity for the fool who had knowingly gone to the caves where two men had recently perished, and pity for the wife who had married and then lost the fool. Like whispers on the wind, word would spread through the village that three people were now dead and all three were known to have gone to the northern shore caves. People would talk about how Lancel’s marled hand was discovered on the beach, torn into as if claws had ploughed it like a field.

  Lauseanna hoped that the threat of death would ward off anyone thinking of going to the caves but as she passed the center of town, a small crowd surrounding the town’s announcement board made her pause. She waded through bodies until she saw what had everyone so engrossed.

  The poster was simple: a regular piece of parchment with the blocky scroll of the headsmen encouraging villagers tonight to hunt the monster inhabiting the northern shore caves for a reward that was small but appealing to villagers of humble means. The message was signed with Artus’s signature and punctuated with his seal.

  Lauseanna swiftly grabbed the paper and crumpled it in her fist.

  “How long has this been up?” she yelled at the handful of people around her.

  “Not long, mistress,” said a skinny old man, back arched and crooked. “Maybe twenty minutes or so.”

  “And who has shown interest in pursuing the beast and death?”

  A woman near her spoke. Lauseanna recognized her from the group divination readings she gave every once in a while.

  “A few of the young men in town, mistress,” said the woman. “They seemed keen on trying their luck tonight.”

  Lauseanna sighed, a deep exhale that flared her nostrils. She looked at each of the townspeople around her in the face and said, “If anyone tries to go after this creature, I will not only curse you, but your children and your children’s children.” She didn’t have much hope that young men would be concerned with any hypothetical progeny, but other people might. Several of the villagers stepped back while others gave her the evil eye, hissed through their teeth, and crossed themselves.

  “Just stay out of the caves,” she said, walking away from the group before they annoyed her further. The people parted like a curtain to let her pass, still crossing themselves and holding their children tightly.

  The wise woman marched her way to the headsman’s house and banged on the door with a fist like a hammer.

  The wooden door creaked open, revealing at first a large pregnant belly and then the rest of the headsman’s wife.

  “Hello, Lauseanna,” she said with a smile.

  “Hello, Henwen. Is your husband in?” Lauseanna replied, returning the smile. She liked Henwen despite her affiliation with foolish men.

  “He is not, I am afraid, but perhaps I can help you?” Henwen opened the door and stepped aside as much as she was able.

  Henwen led Lauseanna into the kitchen where stood a large table. The wise woman noticed the silence about the place, marking the absence of Henwen’s many children.

  “The children have gone with my parents to the mainland,” Henwen said, noticing the wise women’s intake of the place.

  “That is quite a long trip,” Lauseanna replied as she sat at the table, taking the cup of tea Henwen offered before the very pregnant woman settled herself into a chair. “Your family won’t be back until tomorrow evening at the earliest.”

  “Indeed. And a last-minute journey. My husband was keen that we all went, but in my condition, I cannot travel.” Henwen placed her cup on her belly and patted her stomach. She was obviously used to being pregnant and found pragmatic ways to cope with it. “It seems that my husband is very motivated to have the beastie in the caves caught and is hopeful that tonight will be the night.”

  Henwen was perceptive. She was not saying so outright, but the headsman’s wife knew exactly why the wise woman had come and was willing to tell her what she knew, and she knew something.

  Lauseanna nodded, taking a sip of tea. It tasted of lavender and mint. “Leaving the caves alone would solve the problem. One might think he has a particular motive to rid the caves of whatever dwells there,
beyond simply looking out for his fellow villagers.”

  “One may be right in thinking so,” replied Henwen, taking another sip of her tea. “My husband does love to capitalize on opportunities and raise his station. It is one thing I love about him, but sometimes he does not think his plans all the way through.”

  Lauseanna eyed Henwen over the rim of the teacup, inhaling deeply the scents of herbs, and letting them settle in her lungs. The headsman’s wife was telling her all she wanted to know without outright telling her. She was feigning naivete but why? The wise woman eyed the room again, noting the window near them and she understood. Passers-by could easily overhear the conversation should they want. Henwen knew her husband’s dealings and did not want to appear to be tattling them.

  There was something in the caves that Artus wanted to capitalize on and which must have been worth a lot to sacrifice people to potentially get it. He had obviously somehow known of something valuable in there and sent the three now-dead men to get it. Did he know of the beast before sending them?

  “I am sure he is just looking out for everyone, though,” Lauseanna lied. “And I am sure some people do go near those caves occasionally and so this creature may pose a danger to them.”