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The glow of Dancer’s stereo cast enough light so I could see Shazam had either doubled in width or there was something next to him on my fluffy, freshly laundered cloud of a white comforter. Coupled with the strong animal odor, it could only mean one thing. “You know the rules, no eating in bed,” I rebuked. No blood, no guts, no gristle in my sheets. I didn’t think that was too much to ask.
“I’m not eating. That’s all you think I do. I do other things, too,” came the derisive sniff from the darkness.
My eyes fully adjusted now, I could clearly see the outline of a carcass lying next to him, furred and lifeless. “Like what, saving leftovers for later?” I slid my sword off over my shoulder, propped it against the wall, and unzipped my jacket.
He said smugly, “I have a mate.”
Holy hell. I froze, half out of my jacket. Thoughts collided in my brain too fast to process, leaving a single horrid image: sharing a bed with a mating Hel-Cat.
I’d take blood, guts, and gristle any day.
I flipped on the light and nearly burst out laughing, but I’m not foolish enough to laugh at a Hel-Cat who might be mating.
Shazam was sprawled on the comforter, one massive, tufted paw clamped tightly around the neck of an utterly terrified, exhausted creature, keeping it pinned to the bed.
It was no wonder I’d thought it was dead. Stretched on its side, it was barely breathing, round golden eyes wide and fixed on nothing. There was froth on its muzzle and whiskers.
Good grief, Shazam had brought home a Pallas cat.
“This is Onimae,” he informed me proudly.
I shook my head, not certain where to begin with this latest escapade of his. He certainly kept things interesting. “Shazam, you’re a sentient, talking, highly evolved being. That,” I stabbed my finger at it, “is a cat, and barely a quarter your size. Let the poor baby go.” She looked traumatized. Deeply.
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“Am, too,” I reminded. “You agreed to that. Where did you find her? Have you considered that she may already ha
ve a mate, a family of her own?”
He smirked. “Brought them, too, tiny red.”
I dropped my jacket to the floor, guns and knives forgotten, and glanced hastily around, realizing I should have seen this coming. Shazam had been obsessing over wildlife DVDs for the past few months; looking for new game to spice up his nightly hunt, I’d thought. But he’d been searching for a girlfriend. Solitary creatures that lived in grasslands and steppes, Pallas cats were the size of a domestic cat, with stocky bodies, shaggy, dense fur, stripes and ringed tails. I wrinkled my nose again. They were also known for scent-marking their territory, which explained the foul odor in my bedroom. “How many and where?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “Don’t know, don’t care. They aren’t Onimae.”
I dropped to the floor and peered beneath my bed.
A dozen yellow eyes glared out at me from fluffy faces, regarding me with identical expressions of hostility: low-set ears flattened to their heads, a single side of their mouth drawn up in an Elvis-like sneer.
Sometimes I feel like I live in a cartoon. There were six Pallas cats from the far reaches of Asia sneering at me from beneath my bed. As they began to growl, I bit back another laugh—once I began laughing I would either hurt Shazam’s feelings or lose what little respect I managed to command with him at times like these—and said firmly, “Shazam, you will return all of them to wherever you found them.”
“Will not.”
I poked my head up and glared at him. “Will, too.”
“Can’t make me,” he said airily.
Technically that was true. Handling Shazam took patience and tact. I pushed myself up from the floor. “When did it, er—Onimae eat last?”
“She will eat after we mate,” he said grandly.
“Does it really look like she’s about to jump up and mate with you anytime soon?”
“She’s gathering her strength.”
“She’s scared out of her wits.” My first goal was to get the small, terrified cat away from him. “She needs food and water. Earth animals can’t go as long as you without eating. Let her go and I’ll get some food for, er—” I glanced under the bed at my sneering, growling companions and sighed. “—our guests.”
Shazam had been in Dublin with me for over two years and I knew it had been a big adjustment for him. I’d found him on a planet in the Silvers, living in another dimension, half mad from long solitude. He was the only one of his species left, and I could only imagine how lonely that must be. Perhaps he should have a mate. Perhaps the Pallas cat might grow to like him. Who was I to say he shouldn’t have a family of his own? Could he have a family of his own with an Earth animal? Did Pallas cats have large litters? What the bloody hell would I do with half a dozen Pallas/Hel-Cats? My brain thinks in Batman quips under pressure, a defense mechanism that keeps my chin up while the world goes to hell around me. This time it married an old Star Trek episode to my favorite comic book hero and pronounced: Holy tribbles, Batman, we’ve got trouble! Swallowing my mirth, I demanded, “Can you have babies?”
