The Familiar (2 page)

"Phhht!" Gillian sounds like a leaky basketball. "Fat old witch? As if that's an insult in a town full of aging practitioners. You've always had to have your own way. You've never once considered the feelings or needs of anybody else."

"I considered Tom's feelings, didn't I? I considered them on the sofa, on the chaise, on the floor, and, obviously, on the bed." Eunice turns away from Gillian then, enjoying her own cleverness, a sly smile stretching the skin on her lips to near-transparency as she scratches seductively behind my left ear. She continues, "Sometimes I considered Tom's feelings two or three times in the same night." I push Cat to resist her, show Gillian a little silent support, but you can't imagine how satisfying a good ear-scratching is: it's sex and rum wrapped up together with a side order of pecan pie. Cat leans our head in to her hand and rubs our cheek hard against it before she turns away to face her opponent.

It's off to the races then: in their younger days, it might have ended in hair-pulling or face-slapping, although it never turned into a legendary knock-down, drag-out, winner-take-all event. Gilly always backs off after she spits out the real reason for the argument, which has nothing to do with vervain or bat.

"You drove him away, Eunice. You drove my Tom away. I'll never forgive you for that!" Then she storms out of the shop without another word, the shop bell ringing harshly as she exits. From behind a steadily grooming paw, I can see she's slowing down. Her storm is now more of a light drizzle.

Poor Gilly. But Eunice didn't drive me away. I'm still right here, hoping you don't someday push her too far and bang! Pudgy Gilly shrinks to pudgy toady, hopping away from Eunice at the end of a broom as she shoos you into the street.

I'd always hoped Gillian would recognize me somehow, but no one has ever put together my disappearance with the arrival of Cat in Eunice's shop. Not Gillian, not even that bastard Robert, the other warlock Eunice was keeping time with back in my day. She lost interest in him quick enough once she had me to herself. But why would anyone put it together? Who could believe it was possible for Eunice to have so much power?

Eunice says they've long suspected it, even hinted at it, but Gillian and the other coven members have never been able to prove she's dipping deeply into the black arts pool. Pushing the boundaries of white magic, maybe. Stocking questionable items in the store, definitely. Nevertheless, the summer tourists passing through Giles on their way to Salem expect to see "black magic" items in Cat's Magical Shoppe. It doesn't mean they're in use. It will never prove she's lying down with demons.

"Tom, come to bed," Eunice calls from upstairs now that the shop is closed. I'm still downstairs with the shadows, pouncing away at the ones that take my fancy, but I always know what's coming after a day like today. There are few surprises between us after over forty years of our arrangement. Tonight's the night. I can feel it. A run-in with Gillian always revs her up.

"Now, Tom!"

There's nothing else I can do. I climb the stairs one slow step at a time, but I only delay the inevitable. I pad into the bedroom and jump lightly to the bed. Cat's body ignores my heavy human heart. She reaches out a hand to stroke my back, and Cat arches in response, purring softly despite my reluctance.

"Good Tom," she says. The magic words.

I'm used to the change they precipitate now—the pain, the near loss of consciousness, being suddenly disoriented in a world full of the reds a cat's eye can't see.

Here I am, Tom Sanders. Naked, chilled without my fur, and resigned to what comes next.

Understand that she never forced me. I've always yielded. And it wasn't so bad forty-five years ago. It's in both my and Cat's nature to yield to a woman without too much fuss, and Eunice was a breath-taking woman in her day. But Cat and I only age in proportion to the time we spend in our own forms, and I've been mostly Cat for years. My body is 24 or 25. My soul, if I still have one after doing Eunice's dirty work for so long, is much, much older. By the time I finally realized satisfying every woman who asks isn't what makes a man a man, I found myself no longer man enough to care.

Eunice turns where she sits on the edge of the red satin bedspread and extends a fairy-pink shot glass toward me. "Catnip, Tom." It's an order.

I could refuse her. I want to refuse her. There's nothing erotic left for me now that she's over seventy. She'd be angry and punish me in other subtle ways, but she wouldn't force me. And she doesn't approach me often now. There are times, when she's in a rare mellow mood, I even feel sorry for her. She's as lonely as I am. No one but Cassie loves Eunice.

I knock the potion back. It tastes sweet as it goes down, but the aftertaste is bitter. Things blur. Under the influence of the aphrodisiac, I move to her, seeing her as she looked forty years ago. My hands drop to her waist, and I pull her toward me. In my bewitched state, her body yields with a flexibility she lost long ago. I let my lips trail downward from her earlobe to her collarbone, and now it's Eunice who purrs.

As the potion wears off, it leaves my mouth dry and my left eye tingling. The sensation of Eunice's slack skin beneath the cradling arm where I'd felt the firm flesh of youth only seconds before gives me a jolt. And there's that subtle odor she's developed over the past few weeks: a whiff of bowel overlaid by a definite top note of decay. With my head unmuddled, I regret I didn't stand up to her. I can't linger tonight in some vile imitation of affection.

She turns and reaches for me. I shrug away. "I don't want to snuggle. Turn me back into Cat. I'll sleep in my basket." I roll across the bed and put my feet on the ground, preparing to walk away. It feels good to talk back to her.

"I'd think twice, Tom. You've managed to keep Cat intact in this lifetime. That doesn't mean a visit to the vet is out of the question."

Oh, there it is—the big threat—neutering. It affects Cat but not my human body: that wouldn't suit her at all. But it makes Cat docile and loving. It makes him lose interest in the hunt. It makes him rub up against her legs whenever she's near like she isn't hellspawn. And me? It makes me want to run him in front of a swiftly moving train.

I think about the snip, and I flash to the memory of her ancient body pressed to mine insistently only moments before. I can't care about the threats any more. I'm done. In this moment, I'm done hoping. I can't care about anything.

I'm up and running away toward the window when the silver sparks twine around me, entangling me in a net built with strands of her magic.

She gets out of bed. Her robe rustles as she walks toward me. She moves in front of me where I can see her and says, her voice low, "Four more lives, Tom. That's all."

When she's calm like this, it scares me more than the rages.

"Do you want to go out, Tom?"

I can't move, so I don't respond.

"I know you do. But you want to be wearing this fine, manly body of yours when you leave, don't you? You could walk over to Gillian's and tell her how sorry you are you cheated on her. Or take flowers to your mother's grave, perhaps?" She leans in to my ear, solicitous. "It was sad you missed your parent's funerals. Or no—you could escape Giles altogether and go back to your tomcatting ways in the big city. I think that's more likely, don't you?"

She turns and walks into the hall, and I'm pulled along behind by her magical, silver tractor beam. I struggle not to lose my footing on the stairs as it tugs me downward.

When we're finally standing at the shop door, looking out on the deserted nighttime street, she frees my head and neck, then places a hand on my jaw to turn my face to hers. She gives me an unpleasant smile. "Go on, Tom. I give you your freedom." Her voice drops to a whisper. "Walk out like a man."

The magical net lets loose. I face forward, close my eyes, and take a deep breath. I know I can't leave as a man. I know it's a trick. I know she's taunting me: this hope welling up inside is just another load of splat. Every door, every window, every point of exit from this house precipitates the shift.

But I can't help it. The same as my mistress, I can't bear to let go of the hope that one day I'll wake up and the rules of my universe will have changed. I'm not thinking of the transformation any more than Eunice thinks of the spell-shattering bolt of brightness under the Black Moon. I'm thinking only about how the wind would feel blowing through my hair.

I open my eyes and step through the doorway. I'm outside, and I'm Tom. And the breeze, oh the breeze…

Then the pain comes.

My body pulls in on itself, folding up like intricate origami, my smooth skin darkening and sprouting fur, until Cat stands where the man was.

I hate myself for believing, even a little.

Eunice's laughter follows me all the way down the street.

Cat doesn't like fog. You'd think he would with both he and the fog ghosting around on their little cat feet, but despite the potential for stealth, it hides the small movements of nearby prey. Hunting is poor. I hear the night creatures scatter as they smell me moving toward them, but I can't find them. They're lost in the mist.

I prowl the backyards of the row of well-maintained Victorian-era buildings where the shop is located, searching for a creature skittering there that I can stalk and control and kill. But there's just the rustle of small feet hurrying out of my way. It'll be off to the woods, then. I can sniff something out farther from home. Maybe a squirrel, something that isn't afraid of a fight.

I dart across the street, distracted by my urges. Tires squeal ten feet from me. I look up at the driver and see good ol' Kevie-baby's ugly mug in the windshield just before Cat is knocked over and goes down screaming to be crushed by a rear wheel and pop out behind it in a world of pain.

I'm too hurt now to even scream as the car pulls to the side of the road. I hear doors slam and raised voices.

"I don't know why you always have to make a big deal out of everything, Dad. Leave it for the road crews."

"We're not leaving some kid's dead pet on the street where he can find it. Toss me your keys. Do you still have those burlap bags in the back?"

Great. Robert's here, too. If I wasn't already dying, Eunice would kill me.

There's a jangling thud as the keys hit the road, and a little later, the sound of the trunk popping open as footsteps move toward me.

 Then the pain stops, and the breath stops, and the sound stops, and the dark starts, and I'm in that nothing space where I know I'm dead. I wonder idly if it's final this time. But no, it's only Cat's sixth life done: the transformation begins.

It happens fast. Claws retract as fingers grow, fur becomes hair, the bones in my legs crack as they stretch and straighten and push their way out.

For a brief moment, I'm a buck naked man in the middle of the street, blinking at the brightness of the streetlight after the darkness of death. Brief, yes, but it's long enough for Kevin to spot me as he walks back to what he thinks will be a cat's carcass he's supposed to bag and take to the dump. When he sees me, his eyes go round, and the curse he utters isn't a magical one. Then the cat comes back as my body folds into itself.

Yes, Cat's back as a sweet young kitten.

I can't resist a quick kitty-wink at Kevin before I run into the woods.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, just like that poet wrote it. But I'm no longer a bad-ass tomcat with years of muscle memory for hunting and killing. I'm a mewling kitten that could barely take down a mouse, much less a gigantic squirrel. The woods, which should beckon freedom, shout out danger now. I crawl into a hollow at the base of a rotten tree to sleep there, dozing then waking, wary of the night noises. An owl hoots in the distance. I cower in my hole.

In the morning, I run home, tripping once or twice on my tiny, newly unfamiliar feet, and glance both ways before I cross each street. I bet it looks cute as hell. I hate it when Cat loses a life.

When I arrive back at the shop, I shimmy up the tree in the back, move along a branch that leads to the open window, and launch myself at the sill. I snag it with my front paws, but as I dig in for firmer purchase, I feel like I'm posing for that poster from the seventies—the one with the cat and the branch and the "Hang In There, Baby." I slide down the sill fast, losing my grip and hoping my young bones bend instead of break when I hit the ground two stories below.

Then, I'm traveling up and in by the scruff of the neck. As Eunice saves me, she starts in. "Stupid, stupid Tom. Another life gone? That only leaves seven, eight and nine, and you could have just lost number seven." She drops me on the floor, not gently, and I skulk away under the bed to spend the morning in hiding.

I wish I didn't have to return, but where else would I go? I don't want to live the rest of my lives trying to make my way as a mangy alley cat. Maybe it's time to accept I'll never be a man again. In fact, with this latest setback, I'm not even a decent cat.

I wake to the sound of a ringing phone, which Eunice answers promptly.