I let out a big, stinky yawn, eliciting a groan from Amy. What? They were the ones who’d chosen to feed me eggs for breakfast. Not my fault.
It also wasn’t my fault that we’d hit seven estate sales so far that day and gotten zero hits.
Nope, not one single whiff of magic. Not even a false alarm. Just one-hundred percent pure and bona-fide nothingness.
It was like our con had moved on to the next city.
“Can you check in with Mason?” Amy asked Kaye over the car’s speaker system after she and I had climbed back inside.
“Yeah. Maybe our guy got bored and moved on. Can’t say I blame him,” I added with a shrug.
“I already checked in with HQ earlier this morning.” Kaye had hung back at the safehouse, working on the cursed objects, trying to get a scry to work. This meant Amy and I were on our own for the morning. Normally, I’d have been thrilled for the extra quality time with my favorite girl, but right now there was way too much work to think of anything else.
“Well, what did he say?” Amy prompted when Kaye didn’t provide anything more.
“Says he’s already got teams in the two major cities south of us. They’re ready and waiting. We’re to stay here, assume our exposer’s still in the area, and wait for his word to move south when we find a hit.”
Amy sighed. “Okay. We’ll swing by a few more, then come back your way for lunch.”
“Have you tried going back to some of the sales we visited yesterday?” Kaye asked. She sounded distracted. “We have no idea how our guy is choosing the order of his visits, but it’s probably not an exact match for how we’re doing it.”
“Sure, yeah.” Amy looked at me and shrugged. “Might as well. Frankly, this whole thing is like shooting an arrow into a pitch-black room and hoping we hit a target.”
Weird analogy, but accurate. Amy seemed to be having fun browsing the sales even though we weren’t buying anything, so at least her spirits were still high.
As for me, I was bored out of my skull. I yawned again and said, “I think I need a nap.”
Amy glanced over at me and frowned. “I can leave you at home after lunch. You don’t have to come back out.”
I scoffed and fixed her with my most offended kitty expression. “Excuse me, do you think you could’ve gotten that address for the clock yesterday so easily, were it not for my fast thinking and smooth antics?” I asked.
Amy kept her eyes on the road. She also smiled. “Okay, I’ll admit you’re right about that. But neither of us seem to be much help when it comes to retrieving the cursed objects. We don’t have the right kind of magic.”
“We have our uses,” I said with my nose held high in the air. “Otherwise, why would we be here?”
Yeah, I was totally faking it. Honestly, I felt about as useful as tits on a rooster.
We parked beneath the apartment safehouse and rode the elevator to our floor. “I wonder what Kaye made us for lunch,” I mused as my mouth began to water. This was the least bad part of being stuck in fur—or maybe it was the best part of having Kaye for a partner. The food was amazing, and I didn’t have to lift a paw to help prepare it.
As soon as the elevator doors opened, I bolted forward and waited for Amy to open the door and unite me with whatever delicious meal waited for me on the other side.
Amy twisted the knob and stopped short, tensing as she investigated the living room. Something shifted in her body chemistry, letting out a sticky sweet smell.
“Hang back, I’ve got this!” I declared, charging into the unknown to defend my girl from whatever dangers waited there.
Rather than finding any type of threat, however, I was met with the bored-looking faces of MCS agents Johnson and Brewer. They were two of the guys we’d rescued from the basement of that con artist’s place a few weeks ago—the one who’d blackmailed Amy into helping with his dirty work.
No wonder she was tense!
Johnson sat on the couch with his arm around Kaye’s shoulders as she giggled. Meanwhile, poor Brewer looked like he was just about ready to hang himself.
I skidded to a halt and stared them down. “What are you doing here?”
Neither man answered. Oh, yeah. They can’t understand me.
“He asked what you’re doing here,” Amy said in a much kinder tone of voice than I’d used. She sounded afraid, timid. Still didn’t blame her.
She was probably worried they hated her—and honestly, they probably did.
“Aw, don’t look so upset, sunshine” Brewer called out with a smile. “What’s past is past. We don’t hold it against you.”
“Yeah,” Johnson echoed. “We’ll especially forgive you if you make some of that chili you served us back in the day. That stuff was all right.”
Brewer nodded eagerly. “I’ll second that. So, tell us, how’ve you been?”
I didn’t like the casual air in which they spoke to her. And I especially didn’t like the way Johnson looked at her. Amy was my lady, and he needed to back off!
Amy drifted to the armchair near Brewer and crossed her legs at the ankles. “Good,” she said with a tight grin. “They let me off with probation and didn’t press charges for my part in the whole kidnapping and fraud scheme.”
“What’d they give you for probation?” Brewer asked, flashing a mouth at Amy that was way too full of teeth.
Oh, no.
I knew that face.
He thought she was pretty.
And he wasn’t a furball.
Feeling particularly grumpy, I made my way to the kitchen to see if Kaye had at least managed to put together something for lunch before dropping everything to cater to that pair of buffoons in the living room.
The kitchen lay clean, silent, and empty. Not even a can of tuna set out on the counter.
“You gotta be kidding me,” I muttered to myself, since no one else bothered to listen.
Turning back toward the living room, I tried to process their words as they spoke. In my cat form, if humans started speaking all at once and over top of one another, I had a hard time separating out the speakers—and that’s exactly what was happening right now.
“Anybody care to fill me in on why these two undesirables are gracing us with their presence?” I jumped on the coffee table in the middle of them and turned my butt toward the guys. Well, toward Brewer in particular. I made sure to lift my tail nice and high, giving him the best view of my nether regions. Yeah, this is what a real man looks like. Breathe it in, chump.
“Isn’t this cat a person?” Brewer asked with a chuckle.
I let out a growl and stretched on tiptoe so that my butt lifted even higher. Normal cats did this as a way of blessing their audience. I was presenting my hindquarters in order to be a jerk. If he wasn’t careful, I would pee him on him next.
Aw, don’t act so surprised. I never claimed to be a nice guy. I also refused to give up the love of my life without a fight.
One wrong move from Brewer, and I was more than ready to rumble.