by Loki Renard
I have a feeling I have been betrayed. You don’t deal nip in Scratch City without making enemies. I took my crime name from this city because it embodies everything I am. Dirty, dark, dangerous, all mixed up with the wrong kind of hope.
I've managed to drag myself back to the safe house where I operate from. We have a bunch of tech set up here to help us escape authorities, and to patch us up when we get hurt. Someone here can help me. Someone…
It’s empty.
The usual suspects aren’t here. I guess they’ve been spooked, tipped off by all the noise I made getting my ass kicked by the bounty hunter. That’s one good thing about our system. We know when the others in our network are under fire. We have a chance to escape. Or help the poor unfortunate bastard. Apparently, nobody has chosen that option. They reckon I can look after myself. Usually that would be true, but that bounty hunter all but eviscerated me.
Clutching my stomach, I drag myself further into the room to see if I can get to the medical supplies.
“You don’t look well.”
Garbage appears over me, his single eye gazing down at me impassively. I hate this one-eyed asshole. I think he might even have been the one who put the authorities onto me, but he’s also my only chance of escape, or maybe at this point, simple survival.
“That's because I’m dying, asshole.”
“That does appear to be the case. But it’s too soon.”
He walks over me and operates one of the walking walls. I half expect him to just walk through it and leave me here, but he doesn’t.
“The code I just used leads off-world,” he tells me. I’m still bleeding out, which prevents me from understanding what the hell his point is.
Before he can say anything, something comes through the portal, a small four-legged creature with features eerily similar to our own. It walks through, sits down, and starts licking at the pool of blood expanding slowly around me.
“That’s your ride,” Garbage says. “Good luck.”
“Er…”
That is my last word before he hits some technology and my consciousness is sucked out of my body with an audible POP.
“Hello, little guy! Where have you been?”
A sweet voice trills to me. It belongs to a fleshy looking alien creature. It is difficult for me to understand what is happening. My mind is cramped and small, and my body is no longer dying, but it is also not mine.
I open my mouth to try to express some of this…
“Maow!”
What comes out is an animal cry. It’s not real speech. I don’t think I’m capable of it anymore.
“Oh Mr Tiddles. You’ve missed your tea time.”
I don't understand a word she's saying, but I understand the tone, and I understand what happens next even better. She picks me up, takes me inside, and puts a plate of fishy milky stuff in front of me. Fucking delicious.
And we’re back…
I come back to the present moment with a human in my arms. A human I am at risk of falling in love with beyond the simple bond of mating and sex. I have been thinking that Pixie might be something more than any of that. She might be my soulmate from another star.
“So Kitty fed me and looked after me, until the city sent a bounty hunter. They must have found out that I wasn’t dead somehow. I need to talk to Garbage. He’d know what is happening.”
Pixie is looking at me with wide eyes. I stop talking and wait for her reaction. I don’t have to wait long.
“Bullshit,” she says succinctly, and devastatingly.
That was not what I expected. I’ve kept this part of me secret for so long, afraid that I’d be found out. It didn’t occur to me that I might not be believed at all.
“So you’re telling me that you're a drug dealer who died and ended up in a cat." She narrows her eyes. “I’d rather you just tell me you weren’t going to tell me, instead of making things up.”
“You got me, darling,” I say. “I’m lying.”
I’m not going to waste my time trying to convince her of the truth. If we do get out of here, there’s going to be plenty of time for her to work out that she’s been wrong this whole time. I don’t blame her for being skeptical. Pixie has lived in a world with a lot of dudes telling her a lot of lies. She’s primed not to believe anything she’s told. That’s why she doesn’t believe Shanti likes her, or has her best interests at heart. I am playing on her skepticism, so I’m not going to try to fix it.
I’m also trying not to show how much that single word hurt me. After all this time, I open myself up. I tell the truth, after years of lies. And what I get back is bullshit.
I let out a snort of laughter, which she obviously takes to be some kind of duper’s delight.
“You’re such an asshole,” she curses.
“Hey, takes one to know one.”
Her eyes narrow and flash with dark annoyance. Then a smirk flashes over her lips. “I can’t stay mad at you. You’re the only cat in this place who doesn't make me feel like I’m losing my fucking mind. I need to get out of here, Scratch. I don’t care where we’re going. I don’t care where we end up. I just need to be somewhere there's more people than there are trees.”
“There’s no people on this planet, princess. There’s nothing but grimalkin. Kitty is the only other human here.”
“You can get me back to Earth though, right?”
Once we escape to the city, our journey together is over. But maybe that’s how it has to be. She thinks I am a liar. No matter what I think of her, she doesn’t trust me, or probably even like me any more than she trusts and likes any of the grimalkin. I am alien to her, and she owes me nothing.
“I can get you back to Earth.”
“Okay. Good. As long as you aren’t lying to me about that, that’s all that matters.”
I haven’t lied to her about a damn thing. This human girl knows more about me than almost anyone on any planet, and she doesn’t believe a word of it.
I guess this is what humans call poetic justice.
Pixie
There’s been a weird energy since he told me that bullshit about being stuck in a cat. I don’t know why he’d say something like that. Does he really think I’m stupid enough to believe that?
“You should get back before they really miss you,” Scratch says. “Tell them you took a wrong turn. And come back here tomorrow at the same time. I’ll be waiting for you.”
He kisses me. One of those deep, meaningful, passionate, and powerful kisses which make my head spin. I’d agree to anything he suggested when he kisses me like that.
I barely feel my feet touch the ground as I skip down the trail toward the clearing where the women are hunting field mice together.
“Where have you been?” Sira asks me the question. She’s Shanti's oldest daughter, and she obviously thinks she has the same charisma and gravitas as her mother. She doesn’t. I’ve seen resentful looks toward her from the others when she tries to pull her pseudo-matriarch act on them.
“I don’t know. Just around. All these trees and shit look the same. I went to pee and then it took me a while to find my way back. I’m here now. What do you want?”
“If you can’t stay with us, you will have to stay back at the village. We’re not allowed to lose you.”
“Bitch, you already lost me,” I murmur under my breath.
“Excuse me?”
“Hm?” I smile.
“You’re rude and disrespectful. I am going to tell Shanti that you got lost. She can make the decision as to what is to be done with you.”
“You’re going to tell Shanti? Oh no!” I use my most mocking tone.
They give me annoyed looks. I know I’m pissing them off. But they don’t dare touch me. Shanti won’t allow it. They answer to her, the same way all the villagers do.
I can’t imagine what it’s like to have everybody you know do what you tell them. It must be quite a power trip. I’m kind of jealous. Nobody has ever done what I wanted. It’s always been th
e way it is right now. I’m the rebel, the outcast, the one without authority.
“I’m telling Shanti when we get back.”
“Good. Tell her. What do I fucking care?”
I don’t fucking care at all, a fact I prove in abundance. Scratch told me to be obnoxious. This is the job I was born to do. I feel like in some ways, all the events of my life have led me to this point. The time I was thrown out of a bank. The time I was thrown out of a post office. The time a post box was thrown at me. They were all learning experiences for the display of pure dickheadery I enter into on my return.
All the meals are taken communally, and cooked together too. Sort of like a perpetual church picnic potluck, but with no sugar cookies. There’s an order to eating too. First Shanti eats, then her daughters eat, then their daughters, then the females of other bloodlines, then me. At least, that’s how it usually goes.
“Mine!” I reach over Sira’s shoulder and grab the cut of meat she was going to take, shoving it into my mouth before anybody can do anything about it.
“Pixie, go and sit down,” Shanti says.
“Nah. I feel like standing.”
The females all look around at another. They do not disobey Shanti. It is practically unheard of. Even these little rebellions are making them uncomfortable. There is an order to things in the wild, and I am fucking with it.
“Pixie, do you need a thrashing?” Shanti asks me the question pleasantly.
“No…”
“Then sit down,” she says, steel in her voice.
I really don’t want another beating, so I do as I’m told. I sit down, and I start singing under my breath.
“I like big butts and I cannot lie… you other sisters can’t deny, when a dude walks in with an itty bitty waist and a round thing in your face you get….”
“Pixie,” Shanti sighs. “Enough.”
“What? I’m singing the song of my people.”
"Whatever you are doing, it is not singing.”
“Rude,” I comment.
She gives me one of those stern matriarch looks, and I settle down to eat the scraps which are left over from the others. Surprisingly, there aren’t as many tonight. It’s almost as if the tribe doesn’t want me to eat.
“I’d like to speak with you.” Shanti approaches me after dinner. All the females are sitting around her hearth, preparing for sleep. I’m wishing I was with Scratch, or at home, or anywhere besides this furry sorority.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” I reply.
She grabs me by the back of the neck and drags me up from the floor in a rough, powerful grasp. I let out a yelp of surprise, and yes, fear. I have been pushing the boundaries all night long, just like Scratch told me to do, but I still didn’t want to find myself in this position. It’s easy enough for him to say I should take a few beatings. He’s not the one taking them.
“That’s enough out of you,” she hisses. “You have been shown nothing but kindness and hospitality, and in return you are petulant and rebellious. Do you not know what could have happened to you?”
“Yeah. This is real kind. Real hospitable,” I hiss back.
“This is because you can’t behave properly.”
“Let me go then. Send me home.”
She lets me go.
“That’s what this is about?” She asks the question as I try to straighten my clothes and look like I’m not scared of her.
“Of course it is. It’s what it has always been about.”
“You are not going anywhere. You are a spoiled little cub with no idea what lies outside these fields and walls, trees and valleys. The city will not be kind to you. Did you know that the human who came with the last city cat still wears his chain? She is his captive. He owns her.”
“So? Maybe she likes it.”
“She never had a choice. I am holding you separate long enough for you to make one. But I see you have gone to the one who declared himself your mate. You are drenched in his sweat. You smell like his seed. Is that what happened? You sneaked into the bushes and mated with the city traitor?”
“Shanti, it’s not your business what I do, or what I don’t do.”
“If you don't like being told what to do, you do not want to become a grimalkin’s mate.”
“Just because I don’t want to do what you tell me to do, doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with him.”
“You crave authority,” Shanti says. “You draw it to you and then you test it. Kitty does the same, to a lesser degree. You are far more wounded than she is.”
I’m supposed to be pissing her off, but she’s the one pissing me off.
“Fuck you. Don’t tell me what I crave like I don’t know what I want. I want to go home.”
I expect her to beat me, I really do.
Instead, she turns and leaves.
8 Past is Present
Scratch
“I need to speak with you.”
A female voice interrupts my poor attempt at sleep. When I look up from my furs, I see that Shanti is standing in the doorway, her arms folded over her chest. Suddenly, Fenrir’s absence makes sense. He knew she was coming and didn’t want to be caught in the middle, I’ll bet.
“Whatever game you are playing, you can stop playing it with Pixie.”
The matriarch is proving to be more of an obstacle than I care for, but there is no escaping her, nor is there any destroying her. I just have to deal with her.
I smile in a broad and friendly manner. I know she’s not buying it, but on some level she can’t help but be charmed. This new body I inhabit is attractive in many ways, and she is a woman with no mate.
“I am not playing any games, Matriarch. I am a prisoner of your people, attempting to find some comfort with another stranger to your world.”
“I do not believe a word which comes out of your mouth,” Shanti tells me. “Your secrets and lies are written all over your face, and spoken on the whispers of your breath.”
“Then why are you bothering to talk to me?”
The matriarch’s stern expression cracks for a moment as she is forced to confront the futility of her attempt at control.
“Because as you know, our tribe is small and short on warriors. Skoll integrated into our little family. You could too. You could take the human as your mate and live here peacefully.”
“Could I? I heard that if she was with me, I would take her on a chain like Skoll has, and she would be a prisoner evermore.”
Was I listening outside the roundhouse just in case Pixie needed me? Yes. Did I have to run back here as fast as my legs would take me and pretend to sleep? Yes. These are not dignified truths, but they are the truth.
“I said that when I believed there was some chance she might find a mate among my sons.”
“You said that ten minutes ago.”
“My mind changes quickly,” she smiles. For a second, I catch a glimpse of a younger, more reckless female, one more wild than any other here. Then it is gone, back behind the veil of the matriarch.
“You like that human too much, Shanti. She does not suit this world, this place, or your tribe. She comes from chaos and confusion, and she wants to return to it. Peace is poison to someone made the way she is.”
“Is it poison to her, or to you? She is confused, but you are restless.”
“Shanti…” I sigh her name. “If not for you, we would both return to the city and we would leave you to your peace. Why do you insist on interfering?”
“Because that is not a positive fate for either of you. I believe that those who are brought into my sphere of influence are brought there for a reason. I cannot change the city. I cannot help the souls who languish there with their cut tails.” Hers swishes as she says the words. “City cats must speak with their mouths because half their body’s means of communication are removed.”
She wants me to stay and defend her village. I suppose that might sound like a good deal for a broken soldier who just met a human and fell in… I don’t want to
think the word love. That’s too intense. Too dangerous. But I have more going on.
“There is a possible life here for you,” she says. “Speak with Skoll. Listen to him.”
I have managed to avoid meeting Skoll since I got here. His newborn son has thoroughly distracted him.
“No, thank you…”
But it wasn’t a suggestion. It was a request. I didn’t beat her back to the hovel because I ran fast. I beat her back here because she stopped to get someone else along the way.
She steps aside, and he walks in. Skoll. The bounty hunter.
A thousand bloody memories flash before my eyes, the pain of death rising inside me. I don’t just mentally remember this male. Every cell of this new body somehow knows him. Hates him. Loathes him.
This is the grimalkin who hunted me across the planet, and then into another world. The one who hounded me from my home, destroyed my life, all but killed me. Skoll does not belong here either. These people think he is a city cat turned good with a mate and a baby. He is much more, and much worse than that.
“Hello,” he says. “I’m Skoll.” He extends a paw. I stare at it, frozen for what seems like an eternal moment.
A low growl is emanating from my throat, and the fur along my spine is erect and raised. I cannot help the visceral reaction of pure hatred and fear which overcomes me, no matter how much I try to get myself under control.
I want to contain myself and avoid his suspicion. He may not know me in the body of another. But he knew me when I was trapped inside the being they call Mr Tiddles, and I think the moment he sees me, he knows.
There is a glance of recognition, a dilation of his pupils into big, round, black saucers. He opens his mouth, his fangs extended. His hiss meets my growl, his fur stands erect like mine. We’ve scared the shit out of each other.
“Richard…”
I don’t wait to hear him say the rest of my criminal name. My biology presents me with two choices. Fight or flight. I’ve fought him before and lost. Badly. When I look at Skoll, I see my death playing out before my eyes again. I feel the heat of my blood and entrails spilling out over my belly wall. My breath comes tighter and shorter, as if my lungs were once more crushed and broken.
