SkinThief
Page 19
Magnus wanted me to move in with him only so he could know what I was up to and so that I wouldn’t have to work—but then what would I do all day? I would get bored out of my mind is what I would do. I couldn’t cook, and if he expected me to do the housework for him, he was seriously mistaken.
I knew Magnus and I would sort things out eventually, as long as he didn’t do something else monumentally stupid. I pulled the band out of my hair and leaned against the sink as I washed my face and brushed my teeth. Slowly I began to feel less overwhelmingly tired and just normal tired, the right amount of exhausted to go to sleep. If you got to a point where you were too tired to sleep, then you were in trouble. I could still feel it, though, like little leaden weights on my eyelids, pulling them down and beckoning me to dream. I wanted to have a nice dream, about nothing in particular, and no one I knew should be in it.
I went back into the bedroom. Nancy wasn’t on the bed, and I hoped that meant she had given up on bugging me for the night. I picked up my bag and slung it; it went sliding across the floor, hitting the bedroom door. I threw a little power along with it so that the door swung shut with a loud thud.
I plonked my weary bones down on the stool in front of my dressing-table mirror and started to brush my hair. It felt very soothing after the long day I’d had. It fell over my sleep T-shirt, leaving little loose hairs all over for me to slowly pick off.
I felt something strange then, almost like the feeling of a sword of Damocles over my head, as if something was stalking me here in my room. I looked in the mirror and then I looked around me, but I couldn’t see anything. I put my brush down, got up and walked over to the patio doors, reaching through the curtains, I checked they were locked and peered out through the glass. It was snowing again. My balcony was covered by it; I would have to get a broom and brush it all out through the bars onto the street below. First thing in the morning, I told myself, and again in the evening, because no doubt it would reappear there as soon as the sun went down. I looked up at the sky through the window and pleaded with the heavens for it to stop snowing. It was damn well cold enough.
A skittering sound across the floor made me spin around. There was nothing there, but the feeling of being pursued—stalked—stayed with me. I concentrated; there was a low buzz in the back of my head, which either meant Nancy was still trying to talk to me from outside my room, or she was still in my room trying to mask her presence. What was that little deviant up to? I bet she planned to wait till I was dozing off, then jump on me, scaring the hell out of me in the process. This still couldn’t be about one stupid apology. There was something else, a thought at the back of my mind that was trying to come into being but just wouldn’t. I heard the noise again and turned, not able to find her there either. She was hiding, and she was fast—I would give her that. I was not in the mood for playing around.
“Nancy! You know I don’t like you in my room when I go to sleep. Come out!”
There was no reply, and she didn’t appear from wherever she was hiding. Normally if she knew I had caught her she would walk herself to the door, sit down and wait to be let out of the room with an indignant meow on her feline lips. I looked from side to side. She was most likely under the bed; it was the biggest cover in the room. But it was dark under there, and if I looked under it, she could easily claw me before I could get my hands on her.
“Nancy, I am going to count to five, open the door, and you can scurry out without any repercussion. I am really tired and not in the mood for this.”
The curtains rustled behind me. I grabbed them, lifting them to obliterate any cover and shook them as well, but still no sign of her mangy gray hide. I would get some sleep, and in the morning I was going to kill her, cat or no. Or maybe I would just force her into one of those carry boxes, take her to the pound and see how she coped then. I took really good care of her and never got any thanks for doing it, absolutely none at all. No “thank you Cassandra, for looking after me for the last two years, making sure I was fed, that I had somewhere warm to sleep.”
“One...”
Nothing moved, and I took a step toward the door.
“...two...”
I heard the skittering sound again, but there wasn’t even the flash of fur. I spun around, keeping my eyes on the room itself, and walked backwards towards the door, not trusting the room.
“...three...” I started to feel entirely too nervous. I spun, turning to rush for the door and yank it open so even if she didn’t want out of the bedroom, I could get out. “...four, five.” I grabbed the handle, and there was a huge screech; I flattened my back against the door, my eyes ready. Nancy appeared, jumping out from under the chaise lounge, pelting her large furry cat body at me and at the door. Her yellow eyes were fixed, and the closer she got the louder her thoughts became. The buzzing I had felt was in fact her chanting something to herself. I recognized the words immediately, looked to the bed, and the thought in my head popped. It was more a question than a thought, and it was this: where is the amulet? I had left it on the bed when I’d gone into the bathroom, hadn’t I? The answer came too quick, as the amulet was coiled around the neck of the cat that leapt straight at my exposed legs.
Chapter Twenty-Six
When I woke up, with my face lying against the cold floor, my first instinct was to go back to sleep. That instinct won out for about half an hour; I just lay there, swallowed by a void of deep gray confusion. The night before was blurry, and I could barely remember what had happened. Groggily I turned my head to look out the patio window and see that the sun was setting in the west. A shiver rolled down my spine, and the amulets in the corners of the room faded to dull glows. I had lost an entire day.
Slowly I got to my feet. The world was swimming in shades of blue and green. I felt the floor under my hands and my feet, and for a moment I thought I’d only made it to my hands and knees. My bed loomed large, much larger than I had imagined it to be; the covers looked like a running river of scarlet water flowing onto the floor. I tried to grip them, but my fingers would not work. It was like wearing mittens; the individual fingers did not exist. The world wasn’t right. It was the opposite of being a giant—everything else was huge, and I felt tiny. I swished my tail angrily, then thought, hang on a minute—I shouldn’t have a tail. I tried to look behind me but just ended up spinning in a circle. There had to be another way to see myself.
My full-length mirror stood just to the other side of my stereo and immediately became my best target. I walked directly toward it, through a debris field of discarded clothes, and stared in the mirror. My nose was a dark wet gray triangle in the middle of my face. From either side of it sprouted long white whiskers that gleamed in the light of a lamp that had been left on. My eyes were not the green I knew well and expected, but a burning yellow that was unnatural on the face of anything not feline. My face was covered in long gray hair, and I had the sour pout of a Persian. I was for all intents and purposes a cat. Not just any cat—my cat, or at least the cat that had been Nancy. I started to scream, but all the sound I made came out as catty whining. It took me a while to calm down. I walked toward the bed and sat—my tail curling naturally around my feet—staring up at it. How was I meant to get up there? I guessed I would have to jump, but I had no idea how to make such a leap.
I was furious with Nancy. She had charged at me last night intent, on using the magic of the amulet against me. It wasn’t fair, after all I had done for her. I had given her a place to stay, food to eat, cream to drink and kindness that I wasn’t sure she had ever deserved.
I put my weight on my back legs, angling for the middle of the bed, and made the leap. I skittered on the covers and landed on my side. I supposed it took a while for anyone to get used to a change in form. I found my feet and walked carefully around the bed. There on my nightstand was the amulet. Nancy hadn’t bothered to take it with her after the switch. That could be to my advantage.
Nancy intended to come back; or at least I thought she did. She would run out of money soon enough. There had been less than forty quid in my wallet, and she had no place else to stay but here. I could sit and wait, knowing she would have to face me eventually. It would have been a good plan if I didn’t know Nancy so well. Between the time it took her to run dry, feel guilt and come back to the apartment, she could have caused irrevocable damage. She was in my body, and therefore anything she did would come back on me. I had to think like her. If I, for the first time in over two years, had the freedom and movement of an adult body, what would I do? I would probably go out and do everything I had enjoyed up until I had been forced to stop. Some of the things that Nancy enjoyed were not to my taste, were not to the taste of anyone sane, and I did not want her to do them while wearing my skin. Nancy in the past had shown a fondness for tattoos, piercings, and sex with about anything male that could walk upright and buy her a drink.
I closed my eyes and settled down on the pillow for a minute to think. Nancy was more than likely to visit her favorite places first; and her favorite place happened to be Dante’s Inferno. The vampire-run club that she had been the first one to introduce me to. I could see her going in there, looking like me and doing things that would complicate my life to such a degree that it might be impossible to repair. I had to make a move, to stop her from doing something that I would regret come tomorrow evening. I crawled across the pillow on my belly to the nightstand and dragged the amulet to me by the chain with my teeth. I did my best to twist it so that it looped around my neck twice and hung nestled against the fur on my throat.
When I was sure it was in place and not going to fall off, I started working out how I was going to get out of the apartment. I couldn’t open the front door and just walk down the stairs or take the elevator like a normal person. I groaned at the prospect of having to shimmy drain pipes and leap gaps.
I jumped from the bed, landing on my feet, the pads of which cushioned all the impact, and headed for the bedroom door. I had to inhale deeply to slink through the gap, but I was now in the living room. Everything in there was the same as the bedroom—it all looked large and out of reach. Navigating through the furniture made me feel like I was caught in a labyrinth, I had to wind my way around the chair, under the coffee table, and circumvent the couch to find myself in the back part of my apartment.
The bathroom door was shut. The bathroom window was the only other way I knew in and out of this place that Nancy could manage without assistance. If she could do it, I didn’t see a reason why I couldn’t. I threw my weight against the bottom corner of the door and it clicked, swinging open. The catch had never settled properly into the frame, and I was glad I hadn’t gotten around to getting it fixed, although I had been meaning to ask one of the workmen who’d been doing my office over the last few weeks. I think I would be eternally thankful it had slipped my mind.
The bathroom was like an icebox, and when I stepped inside I was happier for the fur coat I now had than I should have been. Touching the tiles with my bare paws was like skating across a frozen lake. The window was at the back of the room above the sink; it opened outward on hinges that held the window up away from the frame so it would be far easier to get out then to get in. I wiggled my body at the far end of the bathtub and leapt for the wider corner where I liked to keep the soap when I was in the mood for a bubble bath. I promptly skidded on the slick surface and down into the tub. Nancy had had a bath. I didn’t like the feel of the water on my fur. I shook my head. I had to stop referring to it as my fur.
Cat or not, I was not going to be in this body for very long. I was going to find Nancy and switch us back, and then I was going to turf her out for at least a week, let her appreciate everything I did for her. It would serve her right. She wouldn’t last more than a week having to fend for herself as a cat; she would have nowhere to hide when big dogs chased her, no food to eat but that which she found in garbage cans, and nowhere warm to go when it was bitterly cold outside. Most of all—and in my opinion, this was a good thing—she couldn’t watch reality television anymore unless she sat outside an electronics store, and they all closed before anything good came on.
I bolted to the end of the bath, hitting my rear end on the tap as I jumped up, and jumped from there to the sink bowl. I peered up at the window; it was a fair way up, and although my jumping was improving, it was an intimidating leap. I analyzed it from all angles and threw it all out the window—no pun intended—just leaping at the gap. I hit the window and fell, landing on the roof outside with a little thump, and lay there for a moment. Ouch. I got back to my feet, and I heard the amulet jingle against my body like I was wearing a collar. Nancy had never let me put a collar on her—she’d said even if she got picked up, she was smarter than the average cat and could easily get herself out of trouble and home before tea. I didn’t believe her.
Steam rose from vents, veiling the whole roof in mist as the heat hit the cold January air. It was like some cryptic film noir, but instead of the dashing detective hero running through the mist, it was super cat. I rolled my eyes—or at least I hoped that’s what I’d done. I shambled around in the ever-growing darkness, scanning for the edge of the building. I was in luck, as I managed to find the side with the fire escape on it. I started taking the steps down, trying to not end up rolling face-first down each level. I was glad that my building wasn’t particularly tall, because my legs were much smaller now, and I was already getting tired. The club had to be at least a mile on foot, and I was judging that by human feet, not feline. It was going to be a long trek.
I hit the alley floor; people have no idea how grimy an alley floor really is until they touch it with their bare skin. It was wet from melting snow. The Dumpster by the side stank badly, and as I walked past it through a puddle, it didn’t feel like water I was walking through. Some people just couldn’t wait till they got home; disgusting. I peered around the corner, looking up and down the street. There were no people around, which was good. I scurried out of the alley, keeping close to the buildings. I didn’t want to run into any other cats either; I had no idea whether just thinking about your claws would make them come out or not. I didn’t need some fight with a tom twice my size.
The streets were quiet all the way till about a block from the club. I sat down in the shadows and stared across the street. The queue around Dante’s was the same as usual—large and wrapping around the corner. The bouncers were ever vigilant on the door. I flicked my eyes back and forth over the crowd, trying to find a way through them and into the club; I didn’t imagine I could just walk past the bouncers like I normally did. That was, if I hadn’t already. I shuddered to think what that girl was up to in my body. A car passed by in the road, and when it was clear, I scurried across to the other side, slipping covertly around a few ankles, heading for the door I’d used before security knew to let me through without hassle.
I couldn’t reach the buzzer; there was no way to get close enough to it, even if I were lucky enough to find Vincent down there having a smoke. I scratched at the wood in frustration. I felt a hand on my fur—soft, slim, gentle but cold fingers. They scratched at the back of my neck, which felt strangely pleasant, and I was lifted from the ground. I was turned around and found myself against the chest of the vampire Sienna; his face looked directly into mine. He looked at me curiously, and I tried to tell him everything, but all he could hear were the sounds of an animal. Some primal instinct inside of me told me that I did
not want to be close to him. He kept rubbing the scruff of my neck, and soon the feline body betrayed me. The purring started in the back of my throat and I couldn’t stop it.
Sienna was a four-hundred-something-year-old vampire I had met now and again. He had blood-red hair that fell over his shoulders, a red so deep you knew it had not seen the sunlight for centuries. He usually wore a white shirt to accentuate that color, and tonight was no exception—white shirt over really tight black slacks. One thing that confused me about Sienna was that I didn’t know which way he swung. He had two live-in meals, both men, twins, in fact: the brothers Tarquin—who was his lover—and Vincent, but he often flirted with women. He flirted with me on occasion, but behind his handsome features and dancer-like body was a very keen Machiavellian mind that made me wary of him. As Magnus had pointed out to me, Sienna had given me the way to save Aram, both binding me tighter to him and ingratiating himself into my good graces for pointing it out. I looked up at his face and he was flashing fang.
“Hello there, little kitty, aren’t you a beautiful cat?”
“Oh,” came a squeaky woman’s voice, “do you like cats, Mr. Sienna?”
Sienna turned with me in his arms, turning that breathtaking smile on the sweet little brunette who had spoken to him. She turned red, and it was the first time I had noticed any other color in my world.
“I like cats very much. In a pinch, they do for a snack.”
She giggled uneasily and joked that he wouldn’t really eat me. He damned well had better not. He had plenty of access to fresh young blood; I was sure the brunette in front of him would willingly open a vein.