The spell enveloped Phoenix, covering him in a pulsing ultraviolet web that smelled of ancient magic torn from deep within the earth. The magic folded him like an ethereal piece of origami paper. His vision blurred and the ground rushed up at him.
As his sight cleared, he looked up. Why was Nathan so tall? He spat a few more curse words for good measure, but heard only hisses and yowls.
Nathan knelt and hooked a finger into something around Phoenix’s neck. He tugged it once, making sure it was secure, then stood up. “Au revoir.” Nathan walked into the forest and disappeared.
The forest collapsed into darkness. Phoenix’s consciousness shot out of the dream, back to the rooftop and the real world. He balanced himself on four paws to keep from falling off the smooth metal roof.
Paws?
Damn it all.
The witch had turned him into a cat.
16
Phoenix shuddered in an attempt to spread his wings. Nothing happened. He clumsily pawed at the collar around his neck, to no avail. He called for help, but what came out sounded like a yowl and earned only an answering meow from a nearby alley.
He padded on quiet paws to the darkened window of the garret. The moonlit reflection showed his appearance: a diminutive black cat with a snug collar.
Phoenix sat on his haunches on the windowsill.
This was bad.
This was very, very bad.
Also, there was no way he was going to sit around and wait for Nathan to decide he was ready to capture his own pet demon.
Phoenix picked his way across the rooftop and found a rickety fire escape. A series of careful steps and jumps brought him back to the ground. He didn’t know if he could be seriously harmed in this form, but he didn’t want to find out the hard way.
Despite being unable to feel tired in a physical sense, Phoenix felt overwhelmed by spiritual exhaustion.
If demon cats could sleep, he would have curled up for a catnap right then and there.
But there was no time for that.
Could witches still sense him? Would other demons still recognize him? He paused as he considered his options. Without the ability to fly, navigating Paris would take a lot longer than usual.
He was closer to Cosmo’s bar than Raya’s hotel.
Decision made, he padded out of the dark alley onto the relatively well-lit sidewalk.
Thanks to the late hour—or early hour, depending on how you looked at it—pedestrians were scarce. No one noticed a small black cat who crept from shadow to shadow.
The street led to a great roundabout where swerving cars dodged each other in a hellish dance around the Arc de Triomphe.
Phoenix retreated from the traffic and darted down a nearby sidestreet. What had been an easy jaunt through the air, just hours before, had turned into miles of slogging on little cat legs.
By the time he got halfway to the bar, there were noticeably more people on the street. He had to be careful to avoid being scooped up by one of the well-meaning early risers.
Now was not the time to get adopted by a sweet little oldgrand-mère.
Trucks rumbled to life in the backstreets as dawn approached. He dodged the deliveries, slipping under parked vehicles and around trundling carts of goods.
In the neighborhood of Cosmo’s bar, he had more to worry about from street toughs thangrand-mères. In normal circumstances, he would have been more than a match for any ten thugs, but without the ability to fly, he didn’t want to take any chances.
He found the street-level door. He pressed against it with all of his feline strength but couldn’t budge it. He scratched at it with his paws, which did nothing but carve tiny grooves into the wood.
He dashed around the corner to the alley under the bar window just in time to see the first rays of the sun burst across the sky. He watched helplessly as the demons in the bar took to the sky from the window, returning to their own personal haunts and leaving the bar empty until the next night.
