Unfamiliar Territory, page 4
My belly made a squelching sound of hunger, intruding on my Zen moment. Humbert swung his massive head in my direction, his jaw working on an apple or carrot. I breathed in deeply to sniff his horsey breath. Based on the sweet smell wafting my way I could discern with accuracy that it was an apple being crunched between his massive teeth. I closed my eyes for a brief second, affirming my trust in my equine employee.
I opened them again. Humbert tossed his head at me, still chewing with pleasure. “Thank you, Mistress,” he said to me. Despite our differences in size and species, I thankfully had no problem understanding him when I was a cat. This wasn’t true of all species. For instance, I had a very hard time understanding prey animals such as rodents. I assumed it was a built-in mechanism to make cats not feel guilty about killing sentient beings for sustenance.
“Thank you, Humbert,” I replied. “And sorry for the late night. Good work out there. Get some sleep. There’s a stream nearby, and I trust you’ll feel comfortable to forage on your own?”
“Delighted, Mistress,” he returned. “Goodnight.”
Humbert was a simple soul, and a devoted employee. From the start he refused to call me anything but “Mistress,” an obvious indication of his devout loyalty to me. His speech and mannerisms were slow and deliberate, and he was never quick to anger, even when I pushed him hard, which I tried to avoid. Despite his advanced age, he still enjoyed being useful, and I was glad of the fact that I had saved him from a certain "retirement" involving dog food and glue.
Wishing him a pleasant rest, I jumped through the opened wagon hatch into the cozy interior. The wagon, our home away from home, was small, just big enough for a tall man to lie down comfortably. We kept the wagon sparse: just a couple of thin mattresses on the floor for the comfort of ourselves and for the hapless humans we occasionally transported. On the side wall I had hung various tools of the trade, such as the silver shackles. A shallow cupboard held food and toiletries at the front of the wagon, below the window hatch.
I surveyed the contents of the cavelike interior from my cupboard perch. Grimm was already in there, taking up much of the space, and the lamp was still on, buzzing softly with the free energy. Jumping down onto the mattress, I transformed back into a human to tend to a few chores.
First thing, I bolted the inner lock on the doors with my key, and then safely tucked the key into my vest pocket. This was a safety precaution that I performed every time we slept within the confines of the wagon. I figured it was foolproof for one reason: I did not need to strip my clothes off before becoming a cat. This was yet another unique trait of my heritage; whenever I shifted back into my cat form whatever I happened to be wearing disappeared, but when I became a human again it automatically reappeared. I didn’t fully understand how it worked but I imagined that the shimmery bit of my transformation acted as an interdimensional pocket that stored whatever I happened to be clothed in while I was my true self. Whatever the machination was, it was awesome. I saved a fortune on clothing because I didn’t change daily. The best part was that as long as I groomed myself thoroughly as a cat, my human body and my clothes stayed sparkly clean, so I never had to do laundry.
And this bit of magic applied to anything that happened to be in my pockets at the time of transformation too. In other words, the key that locked us in would stay in my interdimensional pocket until I chose to shift back to human. There wasn’t a being I knew of who could thieve from that.
Having deposited the key in my pocket, I opened the cupboard and took out a good supply of jerky and a jug of water for both Grimm and me. Two bowls were next to be taken out of the cupboard; a dainty porcelain one that I had procured at a flea market, and a deep mixing bowl for the large canine. These I filled with water, and then set everything on the bare floor of the wagon, slightly away from our sleeping area in case one of us got a little sloppy with our drinking habits. (Hint: I wasn’t talking about myself. Cats never slosh water out of their mouths, unlike messy canines.)
I reverted to cat form to eat and drink. Naturally, I ate less as a cat than I would as a human, so our food supply lasted us longer on the road. I had also found that my taste buds vastly differed between my human body and my true form. While I always packed backup food for our work excursions, there were times that we ran out before our job was finished. It had become habit to rely on my hunting skills and live off rodents, birds, or even reptiles in a pinch, while we traveled. As a true cat, these small animal bodies tasted just fine to me, minus certain organs. As a human, however, the thought of consuming a raw mouse absolutely repulsed me.
Luckily, jerky tasted delicious in either of my forms. It wasn’t the most amazing breakfast, perhaps, but the dried meat soothed our bellies after the physical activity of the night. It would do until we made it back to home base, our ultimate destination after we got some sleep.
Once our meal was finished, I shimmered up again in order to return the water bowls to the cupboard. I also extracted the earnings from this venture from my vest pocket and made a mental note to divvy it up accordingly: forty percent for me, forty percent for Grimm, five percent for Humbert’s wages (with which I paid for his food and care), and the last fifteen percent for our manager, Fleurette. For now, though, I was too exhausted to calculate any sums, and I was content to simply stash the money in the small lockbox in a hidden spot within the cupboard.
Lastly, I turned off the lamp, plunging the two of us into complete darkness and eliminating the faint yet annoying buzzing sound. Then I shed my humanity for the final time before sleep.
Grimm was sprawled on his side, a large furry mound of warm dog flesh for me to cuddle into. I stretched luxuriously and nestled into his belly, giving myself a hasty grooming. I was too tired to tend to my whole body, so I settled for a quick face wash, mentally noting to do a more thorough job once I was more rested. I tucked myself deeper into Grimm’s side, letting out a subtle purr.
“Good job out there,” I mentioned with a yawn.
He grunted softly. “Same to you. That werewolf was softer than most. It was easy. He didn’t get a single bite in. How about you? Did the man try to bilk you?” He was referring to Deputy Jones.
Good old Grimm. He always had my back. I stretched out a front leg, claws extended for maximum reach.
“Always. He lowballed me by four hundred, the fleaball. They have to try, don’t they?” I laid the arm over Grimm’s elbow, keeping my claws politely tucked.
Grimm’s side rumbled with a very low growl. He repositioned himself, sitting his body more upright and curling around me, lowering his head to be closer to my body with his chin touching the mattress. He jostled me with his movement, which was rather irritating, but I quickly found my groove in his side and resettled myself. In the near darkness of the wagon, I caught a twinkle of light as his left eye moved over me.
“Just say the word and I’ll bite the next one that tries to stiff you,” he gravely informed me.
“Aww.” I licked his ear that was closest to my face. “I appreciate it, but sometimes I need to fight my own battles. How else are they going to learn that I’m not just a dumb and pathetic female?”
Grimm snorted. “Smartest cat I know. Human too, for that matter.”
I purred lazily, pleased by his comment.
“’Night, partner,” I murmured as my purrs dwindled.
“’Night, Cress,” he sleepily replied.
I realize that Grimm and I made an unusual pair. We were a study of opposites; I was small, a mere eight pounds, and Grimm was huge. I was white, he was black. Female versus male. Cat versus dog. Cheerfully sarcastic versus grumpy and brooding.
But we made it work. We were a dream team together, and most importantly, we enjoyed our partnership.
Even for those who only knew me as a human, our differences seemed very jarring to people. When I was occasionally asked how I found myself partnering up with a Lycanhund, one of the rarest and most magical breeds of dog, I usually gave the questioner a quick and vague answer of, “I saved his life and he saved mine.” It’s the truth, but the whole story is more complicated than that simple explanation. Allow me a walk down memory lane.
It was just over a year ago. I had left my mom, with her reluctant blessing, at the abandoned barn because I was restless. Even knowing that my life had a grand (although abstract) purpose, I wanted to do something more, something tangible, with myself and my magical gift. And so, I had recently decided to be a bounty hunter, as I figured it would allow me an adventurous life while simultaneously doing some good in the world by capturing wanted criminals.
I had been warned by Fleurette, my new manager, to start out small, but I didn’t want to listen to reason. After all, secretly being able to morph from cat to human and vice versa gave me a huge advantage over my competition, in my mind. I was still very young and very inexperienced with life in general. And a tad impetuous, perhaps, looking back.
So, I ignored the advice and chose for my very first hunt not a thief or a domestic abuser, but a man wanted for murder.
His name was Amos Frost. He was wanted, dead or alive, for the grand total of three thousand dollars for the killings of five different individuals spanning four different small towns in the Sunrise Mountain region of Vinland. His last known whereabouts had been outside a town called Jet. The artwork on his wanted poster showed a gaunt man with a large pockmark on his right cheek and horsey, crooked teeth. The artist had done his best to make Frost appear angry and scary, as if to frighten people away from the thought of apprehending him. But I wasn’t scared; I was captivated.
I didn’t have my wagon yet, nor Humbert. The easiest way to travel was to hitch a ride on an unsuspecting wagon in my true form. It took two days of this hitchhiking to reach Jet, where I resumed my human form to ask for news.
Declaring myself a bounty hunter, I went about seeking answers. But I was only met with derision. Nobody took me seriously. The sheriff of Jet threatened to send for my parents if I didn’t stop sticking my nose in serious men’s business. His words, not mine. Frustrated by the misogyny being thrown my way, I transformed back into a cat to try a different approach. Nobody took any notice of a new stray in town, although I did attract the attention of some of the local cats. One of them told me she had smelled “the bad man” in town not long ago, although the scent had dissipated quickly. She said the scent had been found at the back of the town, where a path led into the surrounding forest. I was worried about how long ago the cat had actually discovered the scent. Time is a hard thing for many mundane animals to grasp. I assumed she meant days ago, but it could have been mere hours or as long as a month when she had first noticed the scent. However, a lead was a lead, so I thanked her and went to look for this path.
It was easy to find as it had a sign marked, “Jet Valley Nature Trail, Sunrise River two miles.” It was obvious that the residents of Jet had no desire to do any nature walking, as they had barricaded the start of the trail off. I paid no attention to the barricade but slipped past it with ease.
It was late afternoon by the time I reached the trail’s end by the river. There were no signs anybody had been there for some time. I almost gave this lead up as a dead end when my cat ears picked up a very faint sound coming from upriver to the left. It sounded to me like a pained whine.
I picked my way through the brush near the river, thinking it safer to keep hidden. I slinked along in this fashion for fifteen minutes before the brush thinned to a clearing, where a shack sat hidden from the river’s view. A rusty fence with cruel barbs lined the perimeter. A disturbing scent of decay and filth permeated the property and I wondered if this was the smell of the ‘bad man’ the cat had told me about. If so, it was very fresh. I sat and observed, a statue of catliness, for many minutes before hearing once again the sound that originally drew me to this place.
It came from within the shack. It was an animal in pain—that much I could surmise. My senses picked up no other signs of activity. Steeling myself, I crept under the wire and sneaked over to the shack.
I didn’t want to risk transforming here in the open, and I assumed the door was locked anyway, so I scouted around for an alternative way into the interior. There was a broken window on the left-hand side, hidden from my previous vantage point. The jump was doable, even if the window ledge was narrow. I crouched and sprang. I grabbed the ledge with my front claws, using my back claws to hoist myself up the rest of the way. Once I was properly stationed, I looked through the broken pane.
It was my first glimpse of Grimm. He was crammed into a steel kennel that was almost too small for him, with a muzzle on his snout that was definitely too small for him. The muzzle was so tight that he could only open his mouth enough to stick his tongue out and lick frantically at his nose. I imagined the insides of his lips were painfully abraded from digging up against his pointed canines. A bowl of water was placed in front of him, but he could barely wet his tongue, snout-bound as he was. From the window I could see his coat was matted, soiled, and he was malnourished and dehydrated.
I did some fast thinking. It angered me to no end to see a beast imprisoned like this. Clearly, he was dying. But, given his grand size, was he trustworthy? After all, he could easily kill me in my natural state, and even in my human form if he was so inclined. I weighed the pros and cons for about a minute before deciding what to do.
As sick as he was, he hadn’t heard me at the window despite my noisy jump. I leapt down into the shack, which caused him to startle. He tried to sit up in the crate. A lackluster growl came from his throat.
“Hush!” I reprimanded. “Do you want my help or not?”
His eyes became huge. “You aren’t ordinary, are you?” he asked, staring at me and twitching his nose.
No, I was not, and neither was he, that much I could tell the moment he spoke to me. Despite his disheveled appearance, he had a way about him, like he was a prince among dogs. I shook my head in answer, a very un-cat-like gesture, and he understood me in a very un-mundane doglike way.
“Yes, please help me,” he responded after a moment’s hesitation.
I took a breath. “Okay, stay calm,” I replied. Closing my eyes, I shimmered into a human before him. I opened my eyes to see his yellow ones boring into me, slightly fearful but resolute and hopeful. He gave a curt head nod. I returned it and unlatched the crate. He painfully extracted himself from it and then sat on his haunches before me, waiting.
I looked him directly in the eye. “I trust you,” I said, although my heart fluttered, and my hands shook. He stood stock still as I fumbled with the clasps of the muzzle. At last, the straps came free, and I slowly moved it off his face. He stayed still even then, keeping our eyes locked. I dropped the muzzle on the floor of the shack. Then I transformed.
“I am in your debt,” he said immediately. “I have been locked up for nearly two weeks, and the muzzle hasn’t come off once. I’ve barely been able to drink with it on and I haven’t eaten anything but the thinnest gruel. The evil man had wanted to take the muzzle off, but every time he tried, I attempted to kill him. I don’t think I would have lasted much longer had you not come along.”
“We aren’t out yet,” I responded quietly. With a large dog in tow, I didn’t think the broken window was an option for escape. I glanced at the door. A deadbolt caught my eye. I turned back to him. “I’ll get you out of here and find your owner.”
He started to say something, but I was already turning into my human counterpart, and I could no longer understand his canine language. Once I had hands, I undid the dead bolt and cautiously placed my hand on the knob to open the door.
The door, seemingly under its own volition, flew wide away from me. Taken by surprise, my hand never left the knob and I was yanked forward out of the shack. I lost my grip and fell to my knees. I heard the door latch shut behind me as a boot on my back pushed me to the ground. From inside the shack, I could hear furious barking, muffled by the closed door.
“So, I’ve caught a little fly,” a voice sneered over me. Rough hands grasped my shoulders and flipped me to my back. Standing over me was a very dirty man with a puckered pockmark marring his face. Amos Frost. His wanted poster hadn’t done him justice. He was much scarier in real life.
Upon seeing my face, Frost smiled and licked his lips. “Such a pretty fly, too,” he added lecherously. “It’s almost a shame to have to add you to my list. Oh well.”
The barking within continued, taking on a frantic note. Frost ignored it and took a step toward me, the ugly smile never leaving his face. Gathering what wits I still had, I raised my knee back and kicked out with all my might, connecting my foot with his shin. Frost bellowed with pain and rage, the creepy smile finally dissipating. I tried to get up, but he fell on top of me as soon as I had rolled back to my hands and knees, making me fall back to my stomach as he trapped my body between his legs. Frost grabbed a massive fistful of my blonde hair, tugging my head back at a painful angle.
“You’re going to regret that,” he threatened into my ear, his breath contaminating the air with such putrescence that I gagged a little. From the corner of my eye, I witnessed him reaching behind himself with his free hand and removing a long, curved knife from his belt. I admit I whimpered at this point, too petrified to act rationally. He tilted my head back even more with a vicious yank on my hair.
I screamed, a high hoarse sound with no power behind it, given the angle of my throat. As the scream left my mouth, the unmistakable sound of glass breaking erupted behind us. I closed my eyes, expecting to feel the sharp kiss of the blade on my throat, but instead the weight of Frost’s body was abruptly gone. The hand holding my hair yanked one more time, taking a few strands with it. I opened my eyes at the sound of another scream. Frost’s. The dog stood over him, growling and holding the man’s neck in his teeth. In one swift movement, the black beast ripped out Frost’s throat. The scream turned to gurgles as blood spurted haphazardly out of the gaping wound. Death was quick if not quite clean.
