What God and Cats Know

by Sheryl Nantus

  I closed my eyes. “Can I get that soda, please?”

  His deep musk threatened to block anything other than the mental image of him, naked, back in that warm comfortable bed I had just left. Then he moved away and I regained a bit more control.

  “So, I guess these are your suspects?” The can of soda made an annoying hiss as he opened it, pouring the contents into a tall glass. Bran took up his position across from me again, placing the drink within easy reach.

  “In a way. None of these men could have been the one who attacked me last night.” My finger tapped the photographs, one by one. “Wrong areas. Unless they’ve managed to perfect a transportation ray it’s very unlikely that they were responsible for Janey Winters’s murder and last night’s events.”

  “What’s the link?” He stared at the three photographs, pulling them free of the paper clips then spreading them out side by side. “They don’t look alike. And none of them look anything like the freak that attacked you last night.”

  I bit down on my lower lip, hunting for a good lie. I couldn’t find one. The silence hung between us like the old Berlin Wall.

  Bran looked up at me. “Right. So when are you going to let me in on the big secret?”

  Reaching for the glass, I took a long, refreshing drink of the caffeine-laced soda. My eyes widened. “This is not diet.”

  “Nope.” He grinned unapologetically. “Figured you’d need the sugar rush.” Looking down at his watch Bran nodded. “Shouldn’t be too much longer for the food. I assume you know how to use chopsticks.” Leaving the photos alone, he opened one of the pristine cupboards, pulling down a pair of plates that looked and screamed good china. “Or should I get forks?”

  “I’ll use my hands if I have to.” Pulling the colour head-shots back over to my side of the island, I reattached them to the proper files. A double-check confirmed that none of these Felis had been my attacker.

  My eyes widened when I flipped the last page. At the bottom of the file, taped to the folder, was a small sample of fur securely sealed in a plastic see-through bag. Wow. The bastards did keep records, and obviously fine ones at that. Probably did have our DNA on file somewhere, in a deep dark bunker.

  Bran still faced the counter, placing a set of knives and forks on the plates. I closed the files quickly and shoved them into a stack. As if on cue, the phone rang, diverting his attention even further.

  “Right. Come on up.” He smiled at me as he hung up. “Chinese food has arrived!” His gaze moved toward the folders. “How about we call a truce until after we eat? Then we can get a-brawling on a full stomach?”

  I nodded. “Just don’t get in the way of my chicken. I’ll kill for that.”

  Hanover walked toward the front door, digging in his back pocket. “Okay, but don’t even think of looking at my curried shrimp.”

  We attacked the food as if we hadn’t eaten for days, scooping mouthfuls of hot soup down our throats at a speed that would have guaranteed indigestion in most mortals. Bran signalled his enjoyment of the meal with a huge burp between forkfuls of rice and shrimp. “Excuse me.” He patted his chest, sending a sine wave across the dark shirt. “It’s good food.”

  “That it is.” I mumbled with a mouthful of rice. “What were you telling them in Chinese?”

  “Extra special work on the dishes.” He pointed at the chicken with one fork, then to the shrimp and finally to a beef and broccoli dish. “They give me a bit better service and larger portions because I give good tips.”

  “On who’s going to be the target of your next exposé?”

  “No, usually ten to twenty bucks.” He rapped his fork on the edge of the plate. “I like to think of it as boosting the local economy.” Sitting back on the stool, the man patted his stomach, pushing it out to exaggerate the bloating. “Wow. Haven’t felt this good in a long time.”

  “It is good food.” I speared another piece of chicken. “I’m a bit tired of donut holes, to be honest. Good, but hardly nutritious.”

  “You think?” Bran laughed as he stood up, putting his own plate in the sink. “Coffee or another drink?”

  “Coffee, please.” I pushed the near-empty plate away from me, ignoring the last spoonful of white rice. “At least I can claim I left something behind. Makes me feel less of a pig.”

  “Bah.” He scraped the handful of grains into a trash bag under the sink. “I like my women with a bit of meat on their bones.”

  I didn’t react to the sly wink, choosing instead to rest my elbows on the table while stifling a yawn in my hands. My eyes went to the folders, discreetly tucked under a stack of napkins.

  “Just so you know—I don’t do dishes.” Bran reseated himself on the stool, facing me. “I toss them out and buy new ones.”

  “You do not.”

  “Maybe.” Leaning forward, he reached out and snagged the folders, pulling them back into plain sight. “So, are you going to tell me what’s going on here or do I have to keep playing the idiot?”

  My fingers returned to my temples, rubbing lightly while I closed my eyes. I wasn’t sure if the penalties would be as high for him as they would be for me, but with a killer out there it wasn’t like it was going to get any more dangerous. Still...

  “Do you still have that handful of fur from my house?” I asked.

  “Sure do.” Reaching into his pocket he pulled out the bagful of black and brown coloured fur, still neatly rolled into a ball. “What, you going to get DNA analysis done?”

  “Not enough time.” I took the bag from him and set it on the table. “Unlike those television shows, it takes weeks to get a test done. And we don’t have the luxury.” I took each folder, opened it to display the small tuft of hair neatly attached to the file. “What I can do is see if they match.”

  “How?” His eyes were focused on the three samples as I spread the folders out, ripping each small bag free. “I was kind of curious at to why you were getting hair extensions in those files...”

  I paused, considering my options. I had to find Janey’s killer and this would be the fastest method. It could have deadly consequences depending on how Bran handled the information.

  Janey Winters was dead but Brandon Hanover wasn’t and I could at least try to save Bran.

  Closing my eyes, I tried to put myself into a neutral state, allowing my natural abilities to come forward. It was one of the first tricks they had taught us as kits, essential to try maintain that inner control keeping us from Changing every time we got pissed off. Mike had called on it when he had started to Change involuntarily. Now I needed to go to that quiet place to bring up the skills, if not the physical characteristics.

  As Felis we learnt how to push out a lot of the smells and scents around us—it was a case of prioritising what you needed and what you didn’t. If you wouldn’t or couldn’t it was very easy to be overwhelmed by the hundreds of different scents rushing over you. Perfume, cigarette smoke, body sweat... it doesn’t take much to send a Felis into a major headache attack at the best and a wild berserker attacking everyone and anyone at the worst. Right now I had to close off everything and call up that individual scent from the alley and from the attacker then compare it to the samples. Granted, it wouldn’t stand up in court but I had no intention of letting this go that far.

  I could sense Bran’s confusion and fear, a heady mix calling to me. Pushing Bran’s scent to one side, I reached for the large bag, opening it and sticking my nose deep inside. A deep inhalation brought the rogue’s scent home, reminding me of the initial attack. My heartbeat jumped into the danger zone as I fought the urge to fight or flee.

  Placing it back down on the table, I said, “Okay, now I have a control to work with.” I exhaled the words in a whisper, more for my own direction than Bran’s.

  With my eyes still closed, I picked up the first small sample then the second and the third. There wasn’t as much inside as the original, but enough for me to discern the particular scent of each male. It was like a kaleidoscope of colours
rotating, all the same, but I knew which patterns belonged to whom. There was something wrong though, something missing...

  “None of them.” I frowned and shook my head, opening my eyes. “But there’s a sort of trace with this one.”

  The file belonged to the Felis from North Bay, Frank Langley. “But it’s not him, not directly.” Taking a series of deep breaths I cleared my mind and my lungs, replacing the spinning circles of colour with the comforting familiar scents of the present. “Maybe a relative, or a child. It’s something, at least.” I shook myself to rid the last from my mind. “I’ve got to call Jess and see what’s up. There’s more to this than what they have in the file.” I reached for my cellphone, sending a short text message to Jess. It was too much to hope to be able to get a direct connection at this time of the night and there was more of a chance she’d pick up a text. My eyes went wide when I realised I had totally forgotten Bran who had watched my rather interesting analysis.

  Bran stared at me, then at the hair samples, then back at me. “How did you... what did you do?” He hopped off the stool. “What did you do?”

  Advancing on the samples he picked up each small bag and stared at them, studying the coloured strands as intently as I had. “You just sniffed them. Just smelt them.” His voice was a low whisper as if he had to convince himself of what he had just seen.

  My heart began to race. There was no way I could drag him around and find the answer to Janey’s murder without telling him what she was and what I was. By doing so I made him a target. Talk about a no-win scenario.

  His eyes locked with mine. “What the hell is going on?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t tell you.”

  “You can’t ‘tell’ me?” He replied with a smile. “What, will you have to kill me then?”

  My face said it all. He moved closer, way into my personal space.

  “Seriously. Seriously?” Bran repeated, sliding so close I could swear we shared the same breath. “You’re going to have to kill me?”

  “Not me.” I whispered, closing my eyes.

  “Well, that’s good, ’cause I’d hate to have to get into a fight with you.” The whisper caressed my cheek. “Unless it’s in bed and then I don’t mind losing.”

  I opened my eyes to stare at him, feeling the blush on my skin. “You don’t get how serious this is, do you?”

  Bran nodded. “I get it. What you don’t get is that I think it’s important enough to risk it.” The left edge of his mouth twitched up. “It’s what I do for a living, Reb. So tell me what’s going on and let me in.”

  Taking a deep breath I plunged into unfamiliar territory. “I am a member of a family of people, different from what you’re used to. Homo sapiens, I mean. I guess it’d be sort of Felidae sapiens. I think.” I was rambling, the words spilling out like a dropped plate of fried rice. “We’re not that different. Well, I’m not, but I’m different from them. The Family, I mean. The Pride. The killer, the guy who attacked me, he’s one of us. Well, them technically.” I covered my face with my hands, afraid to breathe. “I’m shutting up now. I’m shutting up.” A ball of nausea started forming in my stomach, threatening to rid me of all that good food.

  Bran jumped up and down. “I was right! I was right, damn it! I was right!”

  Chapter 11

  I opened my eyes to see Bran leaping around the apartment like a kid on Christmas Day who just got the keys to the toy store. He beamed at me as he continued his frantic dancing. “I knew there was something strange about that place, about you. About Ruth...” He stopped, his hands in mid-wave. “The pie, that is apple, right? Not cat chow or something like that?” His fingers clutched his belly. “I’m not going to cough up a hairball, am I?”

  The laugh rolled up from my stomach, replacing the nausea. “Oh, it’s apple all right. And you should taste her pumpkin pie. Or her tourtiere.” I swallowed, pushing back the last of the panic. “What do you mean, you knew. About me?”

  He advanced on me, wagging his finger in the air. “You were too... “ He waved his hands in the air, making shapes. “You were too slick. Too smooth for a chick trying to make it in a hard job like this.”

  “A what?” My face went red as I slid off the stool, placing my hands on my hips. “Did you just call me a ‘chick’?”

  Bran stopped, a worried look on his face. “Well, I guess it’d be more of a ‘kitten’, then. Or ‘lion cub’. Or...” He frowned. “What do you call yourself, anyway?”

  “The proper name is Felis, for your information. And I haven’t been a ‘kit’ for a long, long time.” Walking over to the sitting area I plopped myself down on the leather sofa, stretching my legs out. “And if you want to talk more about this you had better start calming down. I didn’t expect this sort of reaction.”

  “What do you expect me to do?” Bran danced over to where I lay. “You’ve just revealed a whole new line of man! A whole new group of people living in society, but not really—with their own rules and regulations.” He paused, frowning. “You’re not married or something like that, right? It’s not some sort of harem thing where you and ten other women belong to some alpha male?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Please. As if.” The nervousness in my stomach was beginning to turn into a ball of annoyance.

  “Okay, wait.” He sat down opposite me, leaning forward with his hands outstretched. “Can you change? Can you go all furry?”

  “I cannot.” I felt a bit of uneasiness at the way the conversation was going. “The fellow who attacked me last night, for example, was fully Changed. That’s how he got up the side of the house and in the window.”

  “But you beat him down.” Bran’s forehead furrowed. “And you said you can’t change.”

  “I can’t.” Swinging my legs off the sofa I sat up. “Okay, this is how it works. We’re raised by a sort of commune agreement until we reach the age of maturity, usually at sixteen. Then we’re allowed to go out into society and get a job, fit in.”

  The pain began in my chest, threatening to cut off my words. “I... something went wrong with me. I stopped being able to Change when I was about twelve or so. The Board gave me a few more years to see what was wrong, whether it was just a case of hormones screwing things up or what. But it didn’t come back.” I flexed my fingers, feeling the phantom pain of the claws return. “So they had a meeting, a Gathering. It happens every year when the kits are declared full members of the Pride, nothing more than ceremony.”

  The memories returned in a rush, sending a stabbing pain behind my left eye. “It’s usually nothing more than a party. But for me, it was a test. If I couldn’t Change under stress, under attack by another member then I’d be Outcast.” I looked down at my fingers, flexing them. “I failed.”

  “The scars on your back.” Bran whispered. “But, your parents, they let this happen to you?”

  “They died in a car accident when I was six. They never knew of the shame I brought to the family line.” Tears began to well in my eyes, threatening to blind me. “So I left and got shunted into foster care and I went to college and then got my PI license later on.”

  He shook his head, his forehead furrowed. “That’s horrible.” His hands balled up into angry fists, the knuckles white. “That’s just...inhuman.”

  I laughed, choking back the tears. “We’re not human, silly.” Wiping my face with the back of my hands I continued. “It’s no big deal, I wasn’t going to fit in anyway. Better off out here, says I.”

  Still shaking his head, Bran pressed his lips together. “Don’t make it right.”

  “Well, I’m not going to disagree with you there.” I sniffled, taking deep breaths to force myself to calm down. Right now an emotional drive down memory lane wasn’t one I could afford.

  “And Janey Winters was one of the...Felis, you said?” Bran kicked over into reporter mode, his hands still tense. I could imagine him reaching for a pen and pencil in a minute.

  “Affirmative.” I smiled. “And who you gonna call when o
ne of your family has been killed?”

  “Another catwoman. One that’s not hooked into the cops and doesn’t have any moral problems about hunting down the killer outside of the law.” He slumped back in the chair, letting out a huff of air. “My head is spinning here.”

  “Glad I could help.” Giving a low laugh, I took a deep breath. “And now we’re tracking down a killer who seems to have targeted Janey for no other reason than the fact that she’s a member of the Pride.”

  “‘Family’. ‘Pride’. ‘Felis’.” Bran put the palm of his hand to his forehead. “I’m going to go nuts trying to remember all this.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t, to be honest.” I bit my bottom lip. “As you can guess it’s not usually permitted for us to tell humans about our existence.”

  “Well, you have to admit that it’s one hell of a story.” His eyes went bright as he spoke. “Story of the century, actually.”

  “If you could get anyone to believe you.” I interjected, seeing the brightness dim just a fraction.

  “Which is why you got involved.” He nodded, popping one finger in his mouth and chewing on the nail.

  I resisted the urge to slap his hand away.

  “Better to keep it in the family, so to speak.”

  “So to speak.”

  His eyebrows rose. “And I’m willing to bet that I’m not the first one to find this out, right?”

  “Ah...” I blinked wildly, trying to gather my thoughts and buy myself some time to phrase it properly.

  “Ah.” Bran pointed at his chest. “So I’m now about to get whacked by the head Lion or Cat or whatever?”

  “You were a target before I told you.” I felt my face grow redder. “Jess wanted to whack you today at the Farm.”

  “What?” Jumping to his feet he began to stride across the hardwood floor, stomping with each step. “Kill me? Does she know who I am? Who I know?” He stopped, glancing over at the sofa. “That’s why, isn’t it? Because I’m a reporter?”