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He gave me a strange look. “Children? Of course.”
“Is that what this is about? Do you want to make them with her?”
Violet eyes gleaming, he chuffed with amusement. “That is not how children are made. One day you will know how children are made.”
I raised my brows. I’d figured out how children were made when I was five years old, sitting unsupervised in front of a TV all day with the remote control. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear how he thought children were made. “If she doesn’t eat, she may die.” Assuming she didn’t expire from shock first. “I’ll be back with food and water.” As I turned toward the door, I shot a withering look over my shoulder. “I mean it. Let her go. She’s terrified of you.”
He sniffed. “Riveted by my prowess.”
“Catatonic with shock.”
“Overcome by my magnificence.”
This could go on all night. “Pinned by your paw,” I said dryly. “If you’re so certain of yourself, try removing it and see what happens.”
“She will remain in my thrall,” he said confidently.
I shut the bedroom door as I left. The last thing I needed was a horde of hostile Pallas cats coming after me, attacking my ankles. I could imagine too many ways things could get even weirder than they already were.
I had seven Pallas cats in my bedroom.
It wasn’t the first time Shazam had brought something unusual home with him, but none of those things had ever been alive and required sustenance. Although I stock fresh meat and blood for Shazam, there was no way I was taking bowls of it into my clean, cream-carpeted bedroom, which already sported an odor challenging enough to eradicate. No doubt I’d be tearing the damn carpet out. Or moving again.
My eating habits have changed over the years. Unlike most people, I have little to no emotional attachment to food. I see it as necessary energy and prioritize it in that order: fat first, protein next, carbs last. I need it fast and efficient so I stock my various residences with canned tuna, canned coconut milk, chocolate bars, and high carb snacks.
I glanced at the closed door of my bedroom, down the hallway, and finally let my laughter bubble free as I grabbed bowls and began opening cans of tuna.
* * *
p
Twenty-five minutes later the Pallas cats had devoured nineteen cans of tuna and nearly a gallon of water.
They were going to need to pee. And do other bad-smelling things. Not that I believed the odor in my bedroom could get much worse. I spend my nights in the dirtiest parts of the city. I like to spend my days in tidy surroundings.
I was stretched back against the tufted velvet headboard of my bed, legs crossed. Shazam was sitting on the dresser, alternating between peering beneath the bed at his “mate” and her family and giving me the evil eye.
I waited in silence. He tended to come around to my viewpoint more quickly if I gave him time to work things through himself, offering the occasional gentle nudge.
“I did nothing wrong,” he said finally, sourly. “I get bored when you’re gone.”
“So, come with me. You used to all the time.”
“I miss something, Yi-yi,” he said plaintively.
Oh, my friend, so do I. Many things. I said softly, “What?”
“Something,” he said, his eyes filling with tears. “I don’t know.”
Beneath the bed I heard claws scratching the carpet as it was prepared for use as a litter box.
“If you return them, Shazam, we’ll figure this out. I don’t want you to be lonely. If it’s a mate you want, we’ll find one. But you can’t abduct a wild animal and her family and decide she’s going to be yours. You have to move slowly, give her time to get to know you. And it has to go both ways or it’s ownership. Living things aren’t property. You can’t take them simply because you want them.” It was my job to teach my bombastic, powerful friend how to live among us and I took it seriously. I didn’t cite the rules and expect him to obey; I tried to help him understand why the rules mattered.
He slumped in a puddle of depression. “She can’t talk and she hardly even thinks. She doesn’t know the world is bigger than her cage, or this room. She’s never seen the stars and hunted on wild planets. I’m not what terrifies her. Everything terrifies her.” His head drooped to the top of the dresser and he put his paws over his eyes.
“She’s not your equal and never can be,” I said, vocalizing what was bothering him.
He said wearily, “She is not.”
