Page 6 of Whiskers on Kittens

To give him a better idea of the differences, I pointed up at the third story, which had the main Baroque features, including a statuette of a French chariot of horses with bronze, gold, and copper accenting. “The original owner was an architect who came over from France at the start of the Baroque Revival period. That damned chariot cost me a fortune to get brought down safely and reinstalled during the renovations, and don’t ask me about the other decorative pieces. I wiped my main account clean and had to beat up a greedy corporation to stay out of the poor house.”

“You have vampires living down the street?”

“It’s a very safe neighborhood. He’s a member of the Saven brood. He’s the one I call about house sitting, as they always have vampires who need a good job. When you pay them to take care of your place, they take that seriously. That vampire is pretty shy. I don’t even know his name. I just knocked on his door one night, asked him if he knew of a good house sitter, and he hooked me up. His incubus partner is pretty nice, too. He helps make sure no trouble comes calling because idiot males smell a single female lycanthrope in the area.”

“Dare I ask who else lives on this street?”

I laughed and pointed across the street, where the greystones were all on the smaller side. “Those were owned by immigrants, mostly European. I think my place was the attempt to start gentrification before its time. It is definitely the best built on the street, although I do restoration work to make sure everything stays in good shape.”

With the basic tour over, I guided him to my house, made use of the alarm system fob on my keys, and showed him inside. While the outside screamed antiquity, I’d gone for a mix of comfortable rustic and sleek modern depending on the room. For the entry I’d gone with farm rustic, as I enjoyed the country life and found the simplicity of it to my liking. “I got the inspiration for this from a plantation manor, although I made some changes to get more of the farmhouse country vibe. I also don’t feel bad tracking mud into here since the floors can handle it.”

I did have a mat to stomp off the dirt from the streets along with a shoe rack and a slipper rack. I eyed his feet, picked a set of slippers in his size, and handed them over. “Yes, I’m one of those people who has house slippers. I actually have house shoes that never go outside when I don’t want to pitter patter in bare feet. You’re good with bare feet if you prefer.”

“Slippers work.” Easton followed my lead, stomped his shoes somewhat clean, took them off, and placed them on the rack before stepping towards the hallway and sliding his feet into the slippers.

I put on my pair of purple kitty slippers and guided him down the hallway to the sitting room, which also contained a small portion of my library. I’d gone with chaos as my general style for the room, only buying antiques from flea markets and hole in the wall stores to give the place an ancient atmosphere. For the most part, I’d ended up with a great deal of frou-frou British Victorian with a smattering of Japanese imported in the aftermath of World War II. “If you don’t want to prowl around the place to explore, feel free to take a load off and browse through the books. It won’t take me long to get the stuff I need.”

He took me up on the offer to take a load off, although he detoured to the nearest bookshelf to check out the offerings. I left him to it and headed off, determined to keep my word I wouldn’t take too long to get ready.

The first step in teaching the cop I could be reliable was to be reliable—and once I had him nice and comfortable, I’d introduce him personally to my troublesome side.

One of us would have a great time, and I was determined to mix pleasure with the serious business of rescuing a litter of kittens.

THREE

“Business, pleasure, or a bit of both?”

While I took pride in the work done to make my antique chairs comfortable, what was I supposed to do with a sleeping cop? Under normal circumstances, I would have taken delight in startling him awake, but he defined peaceful, and I couldn’t bring myself to bother him.

As such, I got out my cell, took over the other chair, and thumbed through my contacts until I hit the plethora of Saven brood vampires dominating the S section. Which vampire would I call? Mystery Man down the street would be my best bet, as I needed to talk to him about house sitting, but I could go right to the top and see if the leader of the pack was willing to give me the time of day.

As go big or go home applied, I tapped Ernesto’s name, held the phone to my ear, and waited to see if the vampire would indulge me.

“Business, pleasure, or a bit of both?” the ancient vampire answered.

I laughed, as the last time I’d called him, I’d been tipping him off on a corporation’s move because they hadn’t required me to sign an NDA, thus making him owe me a favor. In the world of vampires, favors made the world go round, and I had one in my pocket ready to be cashed out. “A bit of both. The pleasure for you is to get that favor off your shoulders, and the business is why I’m calling.”

“Wrong type of pleasure,” Ernesto complained. “Corporate or something else?”

“Something else. I’ve been slapped with community service again, and they are punishing a cop for some reason through saddling him with me. I’m not sure what the cop did, but he’s clearly been over worked, underfed, and possibly not watered recently. I brought him home and my armchair ate him.”

“You asked a practitioner to enchant them to be particularly comfortable, my dear. You can tame even a bloodthirsty vampire with them, and you do sometimes. I’ve learned to be on guard—and to not accept invitations to sit down unless I’m ready for trickery.”

Giggling, I shrugged, aware he couldn’t see me doing it. “It doesn’t bother me in the slightest.”

Well, it did work; within twenty minutes of sitting down, my virus rested, which allowed me to relax without worrying. I spent the time reading without my virus becoming rowdy over fact or fiction.

“You enjoy the peace without your virus being so active.”

Tricky vampire. “Guilty as charged. Here’s the deal. My community service is to recover a litter of cougar lycanthrope kittens. One’s a girl. The cop’s supposed to be smoothing the way for me. I’m going to be taking the Lexus, and I could use some vampires helping me sniff out the location of these kittens. They will be returned home, safe and sound, for Christmas. We clear?” As the cop wasn’t capable of protesting, I added, “My cop is a goody-goody, and he’s a lycanthrope. Hybrid. He was brought in after the mess with the CPD, probably to help shake things up and keep them on the straight and narrow. My job is to get him a little closer to the line and adapt him to said approaches to the line. He may be a bit too goody-goody to be effective.”

“Traffickers?”

“That’s the suspicion. I have the basic information on the kittens, but I haven’t had a chance to go through everything yet. I need to submit a prison evaluation to the judge by tomorrow morning, and I’ve the word of an angel we’re the best bet for this succeeding, and she approved the work beginning tomorrow morning.”

“Thus you are confident the delay won’t be an issue.”

“Right. Since the one baby is a girl, the underground should have whispers of it, which means your vampires might be able to get me a lead. I’m going to need to do this more on the up-and-up, as the cop is hot and I don’t want to damage his sensibilities too much. I’m going to cause some trouble because I will do anything necessary to get those kittens home for Christmas, but I’m going to moderate it a little.”