The Familiar (16 page)

As I stalk along, distracted here and there by the scents and sounds of the night, I catch a whiff of a female in heat. Fortunately, Cat is too young to be drawn by her scent. For all I know, it's one of his children, grandchildren, or great grandchildren. There are an abundance of black cats in this town.

Being Cat and leading a cat's romantic life has taught me one very important lesson—there's nothing fun, romantic, or exciting about running after every female who's got the whiff of seduction on her. Nothing. When you've been forced by instinct to mount every female within sniffing distance, you get to the point pretty quick where you realize mating is just mating. Cats don't have a choice. It's built into them not to be able to resist the lure. It's not conquest or an ego-stroke. It's nature insisting on it.

Humans are wired the same, but we can also make choices. If I'd chosen better, I'd be snuggled up next to my loving sixty-something year old wife, enjoying our long history spent together. I lost so much when I strayed from the woman who loved me.

What a jerk I was: I thought I was a sex-god, the poor man's Jim Morrison. Now, my chance of waking up with my beautiful, kind, smart, funny wife is as dead as that long ago rock and roll icon. And there's no going back. I learned my lesson far too late. In the past few days, I've felt anger from her, not forgiveness. But why get angry with me if she doesn't still have feelings for me?

I slink around outside her darkened house, looking for a room with a light on. I find one and jump up to the sill, hoping not to attract her attention. Gilly is sitting on a woven mat, eyes closed, sitting still in a meditation pose. Her relaxed face looks happy.

I look around the room at the pictures and knick-knacks. In many of the photos, Gillian and her husband Martin smile for the camera in a variety of exotic locations. She always loved to travel. It looks like she got to do lots of it. She looks fulfilled.

Why didn't I ever visit Gillian through those years so that I understood she'd moved on? I visited the café to see my parents until my mother died and my father sold to Robert, then passed on himself shortly after. But Gillian—after she married, maybe I didn't want to know. Why did I allow myself to believe that I could somehow be central to her life just because she and Eunice sometimes brawled about me? I can't believe that I sat there on the counter next to the cash register for years, grooming and dozing, and had the audacity to believe that anyone's universe revolved around me.

Or maybe, just maybe, not knowing helped keep me alive. What will keep me going now?

In a vacant lot just past Gillian's, I slink forward on my stomach, eyes fixed on the young mouse who hasn't heard me nor seen me where I blend into the darkness. Its whiskers twitch once, then it turns to locate the source of my predator's smell and darts away, but it's too late. I've already sprung. I play with my prey until a final bat of my paw damages something inside it beyond repair, and it stops running, stops moving, stops being what makes a mouse a mouse.

When Cat felt moved to make his toy into a token of his esteem, I went with the urge and padded along with the dead mouse dangling from my jaw, dropping it squarely in the middle of Gillian's front stoop.

If I weren't a cat, I'd smirk as I trot off, thinking of my childhood when I might have rung the doorbell and run away after having dropped off something even less desirable—now there's an idea for the next time I visit Kevin—but I think Gilly will get it, the point of this gift. Cat is giving her his thanks in his own way. He's leaving her something precious—sustenance, even if it's had all the fun smacked out of it.

Only a little later, I slip into bed and snug up against Cassie's back. I wonder how much longer she'll let me sneak in next to her warmth. I don't know what I'll do without the simple pleasure of touch. Although every cat-lover in Giles has touched Cat, most of them many times, no one but Eunice has touched
me
for years and years. I'd shrink from her caress but crave it at the same time. I know I went wrong years ago, but no one should ever have to know this kind of loneliness.

Cassie shifts slightly, yawning, then reaches a hand back, surfacing briefly from sleep, to run it along my spine. "Oh, there you are. Good Tom."

She didn't mean to say what she said. But intention has never counted where my magic words are concerned. She doesn't stir again as I roll away from her and hold my breath during the change, not wanting to make a sound at the pain and startle her awake. I have little control over the movements of my limbs, but I hold them as immobile as I can. Then, my cat-to-human eyes see the unremarkable shape of my meal ticket's back become the curve of a delicate shoulder in a sweetly sexy cotton nightgown with a fall of silky hair cascading over it. The room and everything in it transforms as I transform, my human thoughts and feelings shoving to the surface as my limbs creak and strain and break their feline bonds.

When the change is done and my tortured body relaxes, I'm unwilling to leave her. I know I should go to my own room, but instead, I spoon against her gently, slipping my arm lightly across her waist. It feels good and right and human. Her warmth against my skin is arousing but also makes me protective and determined to guard her against the bad things that can happen in this town.

I'm fully awake after the shift, but I finally fall asleep by counting her precious breaths in and out, in and out, in and out instead of counting sheep.

As the sun slips through the window, Cassie turns slightly and rubs a hand along my arm where it encircles her waist, patting my hand affectionately. I hold her tighter in response. Cassie's body slips from the relaxation of sleep into stiff alertness. I'm stiffly alert myself, but for an entirely different reason.

"Tom, is that you back there?"

"Yes."

"Are you wearing clothes?"

"No."

"Yeah, didn't think so. Hang on, I'll just go get your robe and toss it over my shoulder to you."

Cassie's aim is even good as she flings me my robe. I have myself respectable quickly.

"Okay, so how did that happen?"

"Me not being Cat?"

"Yeah, that."

"I got into bed, you reached back and gave me a rub, and said, 'Good Tom'."

"Oh, that's too bad." She bites her lip gently. "I kind of hoped for your sake something had changed and you could shift yourself. But you coming to my bed would be…wait a minute! You stayed in my bed afterward because?"

I go for the truth and hope she understands. "Because I wanted to be near you."

Cassie's face remains expressionless. "Oh."

I wait.

"If that ever happens again, please go to your own bed."

"You let me stay when I'm Cat. I didn't think you minded. We're the same person."

"Oh yeah, because there's no difference between a cat and a hot young guy."

"Depends on the cat." I give her what I hope is my most charming smile. She doesn't look charmed.

After a long moment, Cassie replies, "I guess it does. So, in the future, you're going to need to sleep somewhere else. Because you're right, it doesn't matter if you're Cat or not."

I try to look like it doesn't bother me, but it bothers me. It hangs like a lodestone around my neck as I make my way to the door on my huge, clunky, human feet: in the past few weeks as Cassie and I have started to know each other, the feeling of being totally alone receded for the first time in years. But it's sliding back now with a vengeance.

At breakfast, I tell Cassie what I observed at Kevin's house the night before.

She actually looks happy about it for a moment. "Whew. So, I wasn't seeing things. He really can make himself invisible!" Her face changes rapidly as I tell her how he's using his super power.

Then, I tell her my newly devised rock-em sock-em plan for how to use the info about Kevin to get a birth certificate for good ol' Tom Sanders the Third. Maybe I didn't think it through well enough before opening my mouth. I don't know if she's grimacing about what Kevin's done or about what I want to do.

She says, "I can see how you need a birth certificate and a new name, but I'm not sure I want to get involved with the blackmail thing. We should just call the cops. What is it with you witchy people wanting to keep it all in the family?"

"Kevin owns the cops, Cass. They're his best buddies. And it wouldn't just get me a birth certificate. It would also keep the women of this town free from that predator. Who knows where else he's peeping or what worse things he's done?"

"Yeah, but, wow—doesn't your plan seem like something Eunice would have you do?" she says.

"It's exactly something Eunice would have me do. But when you're dealing with people like Kevin and Robert, Eunice tactics are probably the only ones that work. Do you think going to the police is going to work? Robert
hires
the police. And Kevin—I don't know what he does to them, but he can't even get a parking ticket in this town. Believe me, every single one of them is in his pocket."

Cassie stands her ground. "I'm sure you're right, but we need to try. It's the right thing to do. Then, if they don't take the complaint seriously, I'll do what it takes. The thought that he could be looking in at me without me knowing completely creeps me out. But it just feels dirty to leverage what's happening to his housekeeper so that you can get something you want."

How in the world did this girl come from Eunice's gene pool? Out loud, I try to justify myself, but it seems lame when I hear what I have to say. "The thing about cats is they don't feel guilt. They go for what they want because that's how they're made. I've been a cat a long time. After all that time and everything Eunice made me do, maybe I've forgotten what it feels like to be human." I hang my head. "Maybe I have."

Her voice softens. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel bad. Of course I'll do what I can to get you back into the world and help out Kevin's housekeeper. I just don't know if I'd be willing to go through with making it public if Robert refused to get involved. It would be such an invasion of her privacy. From what you've said, she doesn't even know what's been happening."

"We need to make it stop either way." I shrug. "And we could post just enough of the video so that people can figure out he's making the beast with one back while looking in someone's window but not be able to tell whose window it is."

"Yeah, maybe. Gimme some time. We should talk to Gillian. She always seems to have a handle on stuff. I know you're the same age, but, no offense, Gilly is like, way more mature."

I nod, and I know she's right. When did I ever have an opportunity to gain maturity? But I'm tired of bringing Gillian in on everything. Cassie can't manage to do anything without consulting her. Then again, Eunice made all the decisions for Cassie during her summers here. Maybe she doesn't have much experience making them on her own. Who knows what her fiancé was like. He might have been just as controlling.

Gillian takes a seat in the kitchenette and gives me a smile as I hand her a cup of tea the way she likes it—two sugars and a teaspoon of cream. Cassie sits opposite her in the only other chair, and I lean against the counter, waiting for the announcement Gilly said she had to make.

"I'm leaving for France tomorrow. I remembered something Eunice told me years ago about her coven there. Her high priestess was a woman named Madame Aurelle. Eunice said she was the most powerful witch she'd ever known. I was able to track down the coven through some of my sources who contacted their sources, and so on. My thought is that someone may know the secret of the magic that bound Tom as a cat. If they do, maybe they'll know how to undo it. But they're certainly not going to discuss that kind of magic with me through email."

"Gillian, that's fantastic!" Cassie says.

I walk Gillian to the door and give her a hug on her way out. "Thanks for everything you're doing. You're still the best, baby."

"Baby? Really?" She calls back to Cassie. "While I'm gone, please explain to Tom why calling a full-grown woman 'baby' makes him a caveman."

Then she's gone, and our trio is a duo.