Catnip (12 page)

“I could eat a person.” Anastasia grinned and
added, “Just kidding.”

Harry cracked a smile. She had a sense of
humor after all. When they got downstairs, Jason had already
cleared the computer away from the dining room table and laid out
three large pepperoni pizzas. Harry’s stomach growled, and he heard
a quiet squeak come from his female companion’s tummy as well. She
giggled and he felt pleased. It was the first time he’d ever heard
her laugh since their ordeal started—and hers had been the harsher
one by far.

They sat down and feasted on the pizza with
very little conversation between them. Anastasia ate her pizza in a
regal manner, carefully picking up the thin slices of pepperoni
between her teeth and daintily eating them. She ate the crust and
cheese in the same queenly way and dabbed at her mouth with a
napkin after finishing off her meal.

Dinner over, Jason cleared away the plates,
still awed by the sight of a cat-girl in his presence. For a moment
it appeared as if he was going to say he was freaked out by the
sight of her, but then discretion on his part took hold and Harry
didn’t feel like volunteering any more information than he’d
already done.

“Who’s in for some television?” Jason wanted
to know after he came back from the kitchen. “It’s still
early.”

“As long as it isn’t an animal documentary,
I’m fine,” Anastasia announced as she settled down on the sofa. “I
could watch a movie.”

Harry sat beside her, aware of the faint,
musky smell of her fur, a smell which he actually found rather
exotic and exciting and disconcerting, all at the same time. “Yeah,
a movie sounds good.”

Jason flicked on the set and some blow-‘em-up
action flick started. Not much in the way of small talk went on
over the next two hours, but Harry noticed Anastasia’s tail
occasionally twitched when the action got particularly heavy and as
the movie went on, she leaned over more and more until she was
lying on the floor, stretched out on her stomach. It freaked him
out to see her tail lash the air in excitement and she actually
growled—seemingly with satisfaction—as the bad guy met a very
explosive end.

Movie over, Anastasia jumped to her feet.
“I’m going to bed,” she stated, and mounted the stairs. “See you
guys in the morning.”

The clock read almost nine-thirty. Even
though it was still fairly early in the evening, Harry didn’t feel
much like working on his theories. He helped his friend clean up in
the kitchen, and soon after, he felt tired, gave his friend a wave,
and went upstairs as well.

In the guest room, he stripped down to his
shorts and got in under the covers. His eyes were about to close
when he heard the sound of padding feet and turned over. Anastasia
was on all fours and her face came up to meet his. “You’re not
sleepy yet, are you?” she asked.

“Uh, no, I’m good,” he answered, sort of
confused by her sudden appearance. “Um…”

His voice trailed off when she put her hand
on his shoulder. He felt the power in her fingers and also
experienced that certain thrill again, the thrill that said
she
likes me.
“I just wanted to say thanks again,” she began, and
her voice trembled slightly. “Your friend is okay,” she added. “I
didn’t trust him before, but I do now.”

“You’re welcome.” It had to be the lamest
thing he could say, but there it was, right in the open, and he
felt like a total dork for uttering it.

Anastasia suddenly smiled and her voice
became surer. “Good night, Harry. And I trust you, too.”

She leaned up to plant a small kiss on his
cheek and quickly padded out of the room. The kiss tickled his
cheek, and the soft brush of fur sent a sensation through him,
something he’d never experienced before.

Was it just
like
or something beyond
being friendly? He didn’t know for sure, but as he looked at her
retreating form, he thought maybe she did feel something for him
after all. It was all so new. The other kids at school had all the
cool moves, the cool lines, and they knew just what to say and how
to say it.

Still…this situation had arisen and
he
was on the verge of experiencing something new and fresh. Like a
wave breaking on a shore, to him it signaled a new beginning.
“Pretty good,” he muttered. He settled back, hands clasped behind
his head, and thought about her kiss once more. There was a first
time for everything. He stared at the ceiling for the longest time
until sleep came up to catch him.

Harry woke up early the next morning, yawned
and then as the events of the last thirty-six hours came back to
him in living color, his heart began to race and he sat bolt
upright. The sounds of the bear creature bellowing with rage, the
snap of the Taser and the roar of the pistols, the screams of the
frightened guests at the convention—the memories made him shake,
and for a second he wondered if he was suffering from some kind of
PTSD—then he decided no, he’d deal with it.

A hot shower helped, and after toweling off
he looked at his eye once more in the mirror. The swelling had gone
down, but the colors—a combination of yellow and blue and
black—stood out clearly from his pasty skin. His body still ached
from the impact of the monster’s slap. A series of deep breaths
helped him to calm down and he decided to see how his fellow
escapee was doing.

Jason had thoughtfully deposited some clothes
in the bathroom during his time in the shower. After he got dressed
Harry, crept quietly down the hallway. Anastasia had left her door
slightly ajar, and as he peeked inside a pair of yellow eyes met
his. “Don’t try to sneak up on me,” she told him. “I heard your
footsteps.”

Cat’s eyes and cat’s ears…he bobbed his head
apologetically and mumbled, “I, uh, just wanted to know if…”

“Save it,” she said and her voice got a
knife-sharp edge to it. A soft grunt followed, perhaps her way of
understanding the situation, and the edginess in her voice
disappeared. “Look, I
do
trust you, okay? It’s just that I
still get a little jumpy around people. Come in.”

He entered and found her bed already neatly
made. Jason’s sister had obviously been into the makeup thing—a
waist-high dresser stood in one corner of the room with a ton of
brushes, combs, jars and tubes and lipstick holders covering its
surface—and a full-length mirror stood next to it. Anastasia
grabbed a brush, and studiously avoiding her reflection, she combed
her hair and groomed herself all over, and then put the brush down.
“Do I look okay?”

Flustered, Harry nodded quickly. “Yeah, you
look great.”

The words just tumbled out of his mouth, but
damn, she
did
look good. Her long gray hair, high cheekbones
and yellow eyes stood out, and fur or no fur she had a hot body. In
fact, she was just plain hot. She had on the same clothes as the
previous day, and smiled briefly at his compliment. Then she
sniffed the air. “What’s wrong?” he asked, worried that their foe
had tracked them down.

“Nothing,” she answered. “I smell eggs
cooking. Let’s eat!”

She brushed some stray fur off her skirt,
fluffed her hair, and they went downstairs. Sure enough, Jason was
in the kitchen cooking up a mess of fried eggs. He would never win
the title of neatest chef in the world. Traces of spattered egg
yolks, eggshells and toast crumbs littered the counter and the
floor.

“Hi,” he said brightly. “Eggs are almost
ready. Have a seat.”

At the table, Jason quickly served everything
up. It didn’t look very appetizing, but Harry would have eaten the
tablecloth if food hadn’t been served, and Anastasia seemed just as
hungry. “It doesn’t look like much,” their host apologized, “but
it’s the only thing I can make without blowing up the kitchen.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Harry told him, his
mouth full of food. His female companion nodded her head in
agreement.

Both guys devoured their meals while
Anastasia ate as daintily as a taster sampling food would. She
nibbled on each morsel of egg and toast and wiped her whiskers with
her claws. Breakfast over, Jason flicked on the television. The
news report said the FBI was still searching for the perpetrators
and believed them to still be in the New York City area.

Anyone remotely fitting Harry’s description
had to expect to be stopped and searched by the police, and the
downtown footage of Manhattan showed numerous young teens being
frisked by New York’s finest. Security had been beefed up at all
the major train, airport, and bus terminals. Jason shut off the
sound. “So what do we do now?” Harry asked.

His friend shrugged. “Hey, like I said,
you’re both guests, so you can stay as long as you like, at least
until my folks come back.”

“Thanks,” Anastasia said, and gave him a
gentle pat on his shoulder.

She disappeared up the stairs, after saying
she wanted to take a nap. Jason stared at her retreating form. “She
isn’t what I expected,” he remarked.

Harry had to agree. “No, she isn’t.”

It was time he got to work on his hypothesis.
The scenario he’d dreamed up looked perfect, but at the same time
he thought something was missing, and after running a few scenarios
he found that the matrix he’d configured just wouldn’t play out,
which pissed him off no end. What was wrong with this scene? He’d
always gotten the answers before, so he continued to hack away at
the possible cure.

Jason busied himself at his own computer,
searching various anime websites, writing letters to his
e-friends—he said that he belonged to over twenty fan clubs and had
to keep up to date on all the happenings—and tapped the keys with
practiced fingers. “One day off the Internet and I miss things, you
know?”

“You interact with all those people?” Harry
asked incredulously. “Have you ever met them?”

“Yeah, a few times,” he answered, and his
voice got a bit defensive. “It’s not like I stay in all the time.
About twenty-five of us hooked up at the recent Comic
Symposium.”

With a rapt expression, he ticked off the
places he’d been to on his fingers. “Then there was a cosplay show
a couple of months back, and before that, some gamer exhibitions.
Man, it was wall-to-wall game software heaven! Those were good
times.”

The look on his face seemed to say he saw
himself as the ultimate warrior in every fighting game, the hero in
every catch-the-bad-guy scenario, and the penultimate champion in
the universe of the make-believe.

“What are cosplay events like?” Harry wanted
to know. He knew the term meant—dressing up as your favorite anime
character—but he’d never been to an exhibition in his life.
That’s what you get for living your life in a lab.

Jason favored him with the grin of someone
who’d seen it all and done it all. “It is the
ultimate
in
cool! You got the comic book universes out there, the anime
universes in your face, and it’s like a dream come true, you know
what I’m saying? I always go as Tengoyama. He is
the
finest
anime hero around. You know who he is, right?”

“No.”

Jason’s grin broadened as he explained in
loving detail the various animated shows, their scenarios, and
their characters. Harry listened patiently, but he really couldn’t
get the idea through his head of someone dressing up like a costume
character. Call it missing out on his childhood or call it having
greater maturity, it didn’t make much sense to him.

“Anyway, I can sort of rule out going out
right now,” Jason said sadly. “Cops are gonna be checking
everyone.
”

His last statement made Harry think. The cops
were
going to check everyone. He wondered if he called in,
told the FBI he was innocent, maybe they’d call off the search.
Yes, there was a chance someone would trace the call, but he
couldn’t just let the public think he was some kind of killer. The
real killer was out there and Harry wanted no part of him, now or
ever. “Where’s the phone?”

Jason pointed to the rear of the dining room.
Harry quickly placed the call to FBI headquarters. After giving his
name, he waited and ten seconds later Farrell came on the line. His
voice sounded raw, angry, and in a lot of pain. “Thanks for running
out on me, kid.”

Oh, what is your problem, Harry thought. This
situation called for all the sarcasm he could dig up. “Hey, taking
on a bear wasn’t part of my job description. You ordered us to
leave, so we left.” Then he cut the act. “Did you get hurt?”

Farrell grunted. “My arm’s broken and I got
slashed up. I’ve had worse.” His voice got darker. “We lost a lot
of good people. I emptied an entire magazine into that thing and it
kept coming. When you and Miss Kitty ran out, it chased after you.
We’ve got a city-wide APB on it. Where are you now?”

Harry covered his mouth with his free hand.
“I can’t tell you. Just don’t call her
Miss Kitty,
okay? And
don’t
mention my father’s name,” he warned, pretty sure the
agent didn’t care. “He had nothing to do with it.”

“We know,” Farrell responded. “It was just a
way to—”

“To get me to come in,” Harry finished.
“Yeah, I got it.” Aware the call
was
probably being traced
he decided to cut things short and glanced around, more than a
little paranoid that the agent could somehow actually
see
him through the telephone lines. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Harry, you’ve got to give yourself up,”
Farrell urged. “It’s for your own protection…”

“Seems like you fell a bit short there,” he
answered, and the sarcasm kept on coming. “Anastasia and I are
gonna take our chances. I’ll call you again if I learn
anything.”

The agent started to protest and Harry hung
up. He turned around and found his friend staring at him with a
what-the-hell-did-you-just-do look on his face. “You called the
FBI—from
here
?”