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“She is remarkably friendly. You’ve done a wonderful job socializing her.” James turned his smile onto Noctus, who was staring at me.
“Yes,” Noctus said. “Some might say I did too good a job.”
If I had been anything less than serious—and I was always serious when pretending to be a housecat—I would have flattened my ears at him.What, did you want me to hiss and bat at him with my claws? He’d boot us out of here before we could ask anything!
I got my revenge—with Aristide’s help.
Aristide whacked Noctus in the back with his cane. “Oh, did I just hit you, old friend? So sorry!” he said, his voice syrupy with zero regrets.
Charon—reliable, wonderful Charon—turned on his heel to gaze at the front of the store. “I see you’re doing some remodeling.” Using his pen, he pointed to the picture window—the only one that still needed replacing. “Will that affect your grooming schedule, or are you open during the remodeling?”
James ignored the little drama playing out in front of him—he was focused on petting me—but Charon’s observations roused his professionalism. “Yes, we’re getting that and the door replaced—our contractor is just waiting for the last of the windows to come in. But they’ll be installed after grooming hours, so it won’t affect our clients or our store hours.”
Ker made a noise of sympathy. “Is this from that magic explosion that happened downtown recently?”
James still petted me, but it seemed to be more automatic than his actual focus.
Good. Keep on petting me, I’ll lower your blood pressureandmake you more relaxed and likely to answer!
“Yeah,” he said. “Since everyone needs new windows, it’s making a bit of a local shortage. Thank goodness the weather isn’t too cold yet!”
I thought I heard a meow, so I suspiciously peered over the partition, looking into the grooming area, but it was still just the two happy dogs.Hmm…
“It’s unfortunate that it so adversely affected so many small businesses,” Noctus said.
“At least no one died in the accident,” Ker said.
“Maybe,” Noctus said. “But they haven’t found the perpetrator.”
I heard the meow again, and this time, a round, plump face popped up over the edge of the desk pushed against the half wall, no doubt called out by my magic that attracted cats to me.
Oh, darn it. They have a shop cat. This could complicate things.
The cat—a dusty gray color—jumped onto the desk. His tail was missing, and his face had a distinct “mix” look to it, so I was betting he was a rescue.
“Perhaps the spell was set up by someone who owned a window business,” Aristide suggested.
James watched me as the store cat hopped on top of the wall, making its way toward me. “It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. As you said, I’m just glad no one was killed. Is Ama friendly with other cats?”
“She is,” Noctus confirmed.
“Great, then if you don’t mind I’ll let Wallace greet her. He’s harmless, he’s just very shy, and it’s unusual for him to greet our feline clients.”
Ahah you don’t know how unusual this is about to get, I thought as the store cat sat down, mirroring me, then kept scooting closer and closer.
He so deeply invaded my space I had to lean back so we weren’t knocking heads.Yes. Hello.
A hint of a smile hovered on Noctus’s lips, giving away his amusement at my predicament. “Yes, it’s good for Ama to greet other felines, too. Speaking of the attack, it seemed like an odd bit of magic to use—a loud noise to break glass? What is the point? It caused mayhem for the day, but after the injuries were seen to, the biggest problem is all the property damage.”
James thoughtfully petted Wallace as the cat mashed his head into my chest. “Yeah, I was working that day. It was odd—we didn’t actually hear much of the boom in here.”
Wait, what? How? Pat said the epicenter was just outside!I kept staring ahead and purring as Wallace started licking my ear.
“What do you mean?” Charon asked as he turned to a new page in his notebook.
“The noise started a few seconds before the glass broke,” James said. “And it made all the dogs we were grooming at the time absolutely lose it. They went crazy barking. We were afraid the noise might have damaged their ears, but every last one of them got checked by the vet two streets down, and he said their ears looked fine—well, except Holy Terrier. He had an ear infection, but his groomer noticed that when she bathed him and was already going to tell his owners.”
Ker shifted from foot to foot, her eyebrows furrowing. “When they barked, was it from fear, or something else?”
