Off Leash (Freelance Familiars Book 1) (3 page)

She glanced at the squirrel. "Rudy, dear, I will take it from here." The window rolled down about six inches.

"Oooh, no! I just found the biggest cat in Pennsylvania. I'm his TAU sponsor by rights! I'm sticking to him like bubble gum in curly locks." The squirrel's voice sounded like a young child's as his bushy tail thrashed.

So the squirrel had either doomed me or saved me, depending on what happened next. I made a mental note of that.

"That was not the agreement, dearie." A bit of that iron lady persona seeped into the grandmotherly tone.

"You never said he would be a big kitty. That's worth a lot more than a new iPhone." The squirrel seemed unfazed by Sabrina’s implied threat.

Sabrina's lips tightened in the rearview mirror as she slammed the car into gear and pulled away from the curb. She looked about to say something, but the squirrel, Rudy, piped up first. "You don't got nothing to worry about, big guy. First you're feline, which means you can see magic, so you don't even need much training to be a familiar. And on top of that you're
huge
!" He made a sweeping circle with his arms to illustrate. "But not so huge you can't fit in an airplane or a car. I know this one guy, he's an elephant, and his bond has had to bail him out of the zoo half a dozen times already. One of the major houses will take your bond and pamper you rotten." The squirrel folded his dexterous paws together and let out a wistful sigh.

As Rudy talked, Sabrina's path did not stray towards the interstate at all. My guts loosened a little bit at the prospect that she lived in town.

I chirped questioningly as the car swam through the suburban streets, hoping to keep the rodent talking.

He obliged. "Hell, I bet you could boss your bond around! Be all like, 'I'm tired of magic—get me some tuna-shrimp!' ‘Course if I were you I'd put tuna in my contract. Well, not tuna. Not for me! I'd want a can of cashews per day. And none of that cheap Planters crap either. Real premium roasted stuff from Cali." The squirrel sucked in his breath, eyes closed, seeming to savor the imagined scent. Sabrina tittered but made no effort to stop Rudy from spending the next few minutes explaining in excruciating detail why cashews were the best nuts that nature had ever seen fit to invent. A few polite chirps were interpreted as probing questions into the nature and flavor of cashews. I was considering a more forceful reply when the car pulled into a driveway and the sight of the house slapped all thought of nuts from by brain.

The
house that Sabrina lived in made perfect sense for someone who resided beyond the rational world. I had actually driven by it before and then circled around the block to confirm that my first glance had not been a hallucination. The house had once been a small one-bedroom bungalow until the occupant had decided to build another house on top of it without bothering to knock down the original. The second story was at least double the width of the original house, propped up on thick timbers on each corner. It seemed to be trying to convince the smaller house to scooch out of the way by threatening to sit on it. The wooden siding of the bottom level was painted a blue shade that had faded unevenly, texturing it like a bird's egg. The top story sported vinyl siding in pastel green so garish that it nearly distracted me from the glowing gold runes that decorated every opening that left purplish lines on my retinas.

The car's doors sprang open as soon as the engine died, and Sabrina swung herself out of the vehicle. I followed after, pausing to glance at the door on my way out, my rear legs still on the seat. The car's keyholes had been covered over by a flat metal disk with an Oriental-ish golden symbol that vaguely resembled a horse with its tongue hanging out. I wondered what the car ran on since I scented no exhaust.

Once all four of my paws touched pavement, Rudy shot from inside the car and bounded up the railing of the steps to the porch. The front door to the house opened on its own once Sabrina floated up the steps after the creature. She turned and grinned broadly once inside the door, gesturing for me to come inside. Resigned, I did so.

And found myself quite suddenly on my side, head ringing.

"Oh!" I heard Sabrina gasp as I raised my head from the floor and gave it a shake. She started to giggle and quickly suppressed it with a swallow. "Sorry about that. It appears Cornealius must have waxed the floor recently." Rudy's didn't bother to suppress his high-pitched laughter. Looking down, I could see my reflection in the shine of the wood floor.

"You did say you were bringing home company, Mistress." A new voice slipped into my ears, which swiveled towards the sound. My eyes followed to the upper corner of the room, where a very long animal watched me from a platform jutting out about a foot from the wall, like a shelf that that would be very difficult to reach. Angelica would have squee'd at the creature’s cuteness despite herself. With a little black nose and big ears, the animal looked like something out of a children's cartoon. The shelf he stood on stretched from the edge of the foyer and deeper into the house. A small stairway led down from it in the room beyond. I had seen something similar on a crazy pet TV show that I would never admit to actually watching: an elevated track in every room for house pets so that they never had to stray under their owner's feet.

As I carefully picked myself up off the slippery floor, the creature curled his long body to look down at me with a subtle smirk. "You always find the graceful ones, I see."

"Ain't he big, though?" Rudy piped up from a small table by the door.

"He is that." The animal cocked his head to the side as if to get a better look at me.

Being talked at and unable to respond had started to wear thin before I had left my house. I looked up at Sabrina and chirped loudly, hoping she'd get the idea.

"Oh, my, where are my manners! Thomas, this is my familiar, Cornealius. He is a sable, if you're trying to figure that out."

"
Martes zibellina
, to be precise." Cornealius' voice had a deeper quality to it than you would imagine coming out of something so small, with just a hint of a British accent. He yawned, showing me some impressively sharp teeth for an animal smaller than most house cats. Then he smiled warmly, his mouth moving in a way I had thought impossible for nonhuman lips. "Welcome to our not-so-humble abode. Please make sure to keep your claws in. Sabrina causes enough damage to the place and doesn't need help."

"Cornealius!" Sabrina and her familiar locked eyes for a moment, and then she broke contact with a subtle eye roll. She turned back to me. "Well, I do believe I promised you a voice. We will get that set up, and then Cornealius will answer all your questions.”

I followed Sabrina with eagerness at the prospect of talking (and complaining) again. The whole day deserved more than a few choice curses, and they were bubbling around my brain with nowhere to go. Nearly slipping on the overly waxed floor again, I settled on a hopeful chirp followed by a rasping rattle that everyone in the room gave me a weird look for after it wormed its way from my throat. I ducked my head in embarrassment.

Cornealius let out a throaty chuckle. "Let’s get you talking before you strangle your vocal cords attempting it." He walked haughtily down his elevated platform, deeper into the house, occasionally glancing back at Sabrina, who bade me to follow her.

Rudy bounced up beside me, the closest he'd approached me yet. "They're mind-talking," he whispered before springing up onto an ornate brass floor lamp. It wobbled as he used it to launch up to the pet-way.

Biting down on the obvious questions that would follow after such a statement, I decided that patience was the only avenue available to me. Everything within the house looked far older than I. It reminded me of a famous person's house that had been converted to a museum. The furniture gleamed with brass decorations with plush pillows piled on the high-backed chairs. Yet despite the hospital level of cleanliness, the air felt heavy with time. We passed first through a formal sitting room and into a similarly disused library in the back of the original house. I tried to make out the titles of some of the leather-bound books as I passed them, but the majority were in languages other than English. The one title that was in my native tongue might have well been Greek:
Upper- and Lower-Level Junctions in the Planar Space with or without Time.
Yeesh.

Sabrina had stayed silent during the short walk, occasionally giving a slight nod or shake of her head, perhaps in response to a silent comment from Cornealius. When we reached a stout door at the back of library, she turned and gave me another wide comforting grin that didn't quite reach her eyes. She flung open the door and a searing white light flooded out of the doorway. Sabrina instantly became a silhouette in a field of white so bright that the pain brought the third eyelid flicking across my eyes as I squinted to see. It didn't help. In fact, somehow closing my eyes to shield them from the brightness made it worse. The sheer power of whatever lay beyond the door seemed to bypass my eyeballs. My brain felt like it was about to sizzle.

Making a
mrowl
of discomfort, I retreated back down the hallway and put a wall between the light and me, reducing the intensity from agony to merely painful.

Sabrina chuckled. "Oh, come on, Thomas. It's not that bad. It's just a blinder against nosey felines. Can't have visitors inspecting the wards too closely, after all. Just close your eyes."

No way. I made a rowl of protest.

"What the heck did you do to him? It sounds like you've got a helicopter in there!" asked Rudy from somewhere above me, his high little voice quivering with concern.

Sabrina harrumphed. "Nothing to worry about. Thomas is being a bit dramatic. The arc is very strong. Dogs complain about the smell, but cats hate it more than a basket of citrus."

I let loose a sawing growl, which I hoped would translate into, "Because it
hurts
, you flipping idiot."

Sabrina poked her head around the corner. "Now, now. Let's not be testy. Come here and I'll guide you upstairs."

I shook my head in a clear no gesture.

"Just close your eyes."

I shook my head again, my tail beginning to lash in frustration. I looked around for something that might be useful. On the far wall of the sitting room was a brass-gilded fireplace. Hoping it wasn't quite as spotless as the rest of the place, I padded over to it. Sabrina followed me warily.

"What are you doing?"

Peering into the fireplace, it appeared to have been used within the last century at least. The space had been shoveled out but not cleaned; soot and ash clung to every surface. I pawed aside the chain link curtain and swiped my paw across the black floor of the fireplace.

Sabrina nearly screeched, "Stop that this instant!" I heard the crackle of electricity behind me. I glanced at her and wished I had not. She stood about five feet behind me, rage in her eyes and a fist of crackling energy. "You will not make a mess of my house!"

"Let him alone, Mistress," Cornealius said, his voice even. She shot him a glance and he met her gaze, their eyes locking for a moment.

With a huff, the threatening Sabrina relaxed back into her kind grandmother persona. "Oh, all right, dearie. I suppose that's fair."

Wearily, I wrote the word “hurt” on the floor in front of the fireplace.

"Like I told you before. Just shut your eyes," Sabrina replied, annoyed.

I shook my head.

As I turned to start writing again, Cornealius spoke. "Wait, do you mean shutting your eyes does not help?"

I nodded at him directly. He groaned and Sabrina sighed.

"What?" Rudy asked.

Cornealius explained, "It is simple. Thomas is untrained, and he doesn't know how to suppress the sight. We have what is called an Ebeneezer Arc on our wards. If a cat attempts to look at it . . . Well, think about what happens when a bottle rocket explodes in your face."

Sabrina went and closed the door, and I sagged with relief as the too-bright spotlight winked out. "Well," she said, as she returned, "can't have a guest in pain. Thomas, you'll just have to stay down here for now, I'm afraid. Upstairs is much more homey and comfortable, but if you're still with us in a few days, you can help Cornealius and me retune the arc. In the meantime . . ." She turned to Cornealius, who nodded and ran back into the library. I caught a small patch of blinding brightness open and close. "Let's get you talking so you don't feel compelled to write messages on my walls."

Cornealius returned a few minutes later and deposited something in Sabrina’s hand. She turned to me and smiled, her voice pitched as if offering a pet a treat. "You get to see a bit of real magic now." A yellow light flared from a ring around her middle finger and spread over her body. With a slow graceful motion she pressed the palms of her hands together and closed her eyes. A wave rippled through the yellow energy before it flowed and coalesced into her arms, so bright it nearly concealed her limbs from view.

With a great sweep of her arm, the energy lashed out beyond her hand, flowing out into a wavy extension like a droopy light saber. It pushed against a coffee table and gently shoved it back against the wall. In this manner Sabrina rearranged the furniture in graceful sweeping motions of her body, resembling those of Tai-chi practitioners. Unlike that martial art, every movement she made had a very clear purpose. The broad sweeps pushed back the lighter objects, while the sofa and love seat required more directed efforts.