The trouble for me is projecting a screen across them, so ordinary folks won't get spooked and kill her. People round here have a bad habit of destroying what they don't understand. What isn't normal. In their minds, anyway.
Second problem is, Cat is completely normal -- for the thing she is -- so I am honor bound, from a moral standpoint, to protect her from the ignoramuses around us.
Not that I'm a moral person, mind you. If I was, I wouldn't have Cat in the first place.
It was just your ordinary poker game: me cheating and everyone else playing fair. Witches are moral beings. Their bad reputations are built on people like me. But I'd better back up a bit. Start at the beginning, my grannie once said, which was a strange statement coming from her dying lips, as it did. But then, we Ramsay women have always been a little odd. So . . .
Picture this: A little sneak thief (12, 4' 11") sticks a blade into the back (left side, slightly under the bottom ribs) of a tall three-piece as he passes a dark alley (dead-end, one rotting cat carcass, one sleeping drunk). Little sneak thief expects stranger to fall forward so it will be easier to steal his money and perhaps his shoes. Hers pinch. Unfortunately, said stranger is a visiting warlock who turns with a flash of angry magic toward the sneak thief, lighting up the fact that she has no place to run.
"You little witch," he screams, grabs his back and staggers off to heal himself.
The little sneak thief (me, if you didn't guess) turns and runs full tilt into her new persona. Damn it, but I sailed two feet into the air and crashed into the back wall at the almost speed of light. I lay unconscious for two days.
I woke as a witch: a witch with the morals of an alley cat. And so, on to Cat.
Fifteen years later, as I told you, I was sitting in on this four hand poker game and taking them for all they had. Cat was the familiar of a witch with too few brains and too much of an addiction to gambling. In a moment of obsessive stupidity her sleek black pet (now called Cat) was tossed into the pot -- and lost. The game ended right then and there, of course.
The other two players, witches of the most moral sort, in a split second of "aghast" double-whammied the witch who had bet her pet, and then, as awareness hit them aside the head, they disappeared in a molecular melt-down of shock at their own immoral actions.
This left no witnesses and me holding the pot. And Cat.
Now Cat, although a familiar, was not familiar with me, and being as I was a magicked witch I had no idea how these things are finagled. There was something to do with pentagrams, and incense, and runes. And blood, of course. They always get blood into it, somehow.
I wasn't wrong, for no sooner was I sure that I had won our staring contest when Cat leapt at me, sunk her tiny pointy teeth in my neck and started sucking away.
I screamed. Shouted something like, "You little bugger," and reached for the small kris I carry, prepared to cut my winnings in half. It was then that I discovered Cat's wings.
They were large and leathery and very strong. They wrapped around my body like a rolled carpet, holding my arms tight to my sides. I struggled, a stupid thing to do, as it only made me fall to the floor allowing Cat easier access to my life's blood.
"Hold still," a voice said just as I fainted.
I had a wonderful dream that the person who'd spoken had driven a stake into Cat's heart, lifted me in his arms, and carried me off to his rooms in the nearest hotel where he looked after my needs: bathed my wounds, fed me by his own hands, and made completely immoral love to me.
I woke writhing and groaning to find myself still on the floor and Cat sitting nearby cleaning herself.
"It's about time," the voice said.
I stared around me. "Who said that?"
"Oh human, you are a ninny."
I turned toward Cat. "You?"
"Who else? There is no one here but you and me, darling."
"I don't --"
"You do not understand. Of course you do not, you poor simpleton."
For something that small she had a dumperfull of I'm-best in her voice.
I said, "Then explain it, you mutant hairball."
Cat stared at me and I noticed a tiny flicker of respect touch her black pupils. Tiny, I said. Very.
She spoke. "Listen closely. I am not going to repeat myself. This will be our one and only Pet-Tells-All session. I will be your familiar, but we will not be familiar. Do you have that, darling?"
"Yes, darling," I mimicked, and again saw the tiny flicker.
"Though it pains me to say so, you and I are almost one now. I have partaken of your life. Part of you is now part of me. There is but one last thing to be done."
I jumped up, and then fell down again, my head spinning. "No way. No damn way." I lay my head on the floor and groaned. "If you think I'm going to suck your flea-ridden, mangy hide, you've --" I fainted again.
I awoke to a strange metallic taste in my mouth. I spat on the floor and my spittle was red. "What . . .?"
"Out of necessity, I fed you myself, darling."
"Will you stop calling me darling," I screamed. My head immediately regretted it. "Just how much blood did you take from me, anyway?"
"This is a puzzlement," Cat said. "You are not like other witches. I was forced to take a great deal to get the `feel' of your being." She licked her paw and a drop of blood welled up and fell slowly to the floor.
"What'd you do? You said you `fed' me."
"I bit my paw, darling, and placed it in your mouth. You swallowed a sufficient amount when you awoke."
She limped toward me and held out the wounded tootsie. "And I call you darling because I must . . . because I am yours and you are mine, and we are meant to be closer than any beast to man, and child to woman, and closer still than man to woman can ever be.
"We are water in water, the secret of the diamond hidden in the coal. We are wind and air together, closer than kin, closer than womb twins."
I felted strangely quieted, all my come-backs sleeping.
She placed her paw on my lips and stared into my eyes. I shivered as her nails touched me delicately, and the cold reached down and cradled its palm over my womanhood. And pressed hard.
I kissed Cat's paw as her wings wrapped protectively around me. I slept. I continued my dream. It was pleasant. It was very pleasant.
I woke with the strange feeling that Cat had somehow directed my dreaming, and the word "familiar" took on a new and unprepared-for meaning.
Witches were single. Witches rarely had children. I wondered.
By definition, as I knew it, familiars helped witches focus their magic; they were go-betweens of the netherworld and our own; they read minds and passed the words to the witch.
As a wise warlock once told me, and I hope I've got it right: Matter ranges and transforms itself from the lower and denser state of the mineral upward to the aerial, terminating in the "universal ether". The being in whose body the etheric matter separates from the denser matter can be utilized as a sort of message carrier between the visible and the invisible planes.
Ain't that a mouthful?
"Sweetie," he said, "familiars is just fancy telephones."
I tried to picture Cat as my own private answering service and it just didn't work. Something had passed between us before I slept that left me very uneasy. She was a "she" after all, and even with my morals I wasn't about to be swung in a new direction. The dreammate had, however, been male, so maybe . . .
Cat said, "Someone is coming this way."
It was a full two minutes before the door opened, and I immediately saw that Cat would be able to protect my back in some of my not-too-legal pursuits.
A young witch walked in -- I'd assumed she was a witch though there was no sure way of telling short of throwing her in the nearest lake -- and she stared round the room suspiciously.
"I'm looking for my sister." She glanced in Cat's direction. "Hey, that's --"
I ran over the words quickly in my head and Cat became a Garfield telephone. It was the only thing I could think of at the time. My best spells are pulling the wool over people's eyes. Matter of fact, I was pretty good at it before I became a witch.
The young woman blinked her eyes. "I could have sworn . . ."
"Yeah, me too," I said. I smiled at her charmingly. I'm good at that too. "Your sister and her two friends left. Real fast."
"Do you know where they went?"
"Heaven knows." And I figured maybe it did.
She thanked me and left. I waited a minute and let the spell die.
"You took an inconsiderate time, darling," Cat said.
"I had to make sure she wasn't coming back, mouse brain. If she'd have seen you she'd have taken you. And spelled me for a thief. I'm no match for real witches."
"You did admirably, darling." She eyed me carefully. "You would not have wanted her to take me?"
"Well, you might be handy," and I gingerly stroked her head.
It took me three tries before I found a hotel that would take both Cat and me. The money I had won wasn't riches, but it would see me through a few weeks of good living. I started to call room service and then hung up.
"Just what do you eat . . . Cat?" I eyed her little pointy teeth as she sat at the end of the bed.
"Is that to be your name for me? Cat? Not very imaginative, darling."
"Well, what is your damn name?"
She looked at me slyly and the gold flecks in her green eyes sparked. "Cat will be fine." She smiled.
"Well?"
"Well what, darling?"
"Do you want me to order up a plate of mice, or will a fresh pint of blood do?"
Cat's dark fur ruffled up and her tail swished rapidly and stopped. "I am a vegetarian." I noticed she didn't say, darling.
I laughed. "You're kidding. You seemed to relish my blood."
"I took for necessity. I took for the ritual." She padded across the bed to me and indicated my lap. "May I?"
"What? You want to sleep in my lap?"
"You have a problem with that, darling?"
"No, no. Help yourself." I leaned back as she kneaded herself comfortable. "You're damn heavy, even for a large cat."
She looked up from under her half closed lids. "It's the wings, darling. Order me a bowl of fruit and a salad, no dressing. I'll share your bread. Wake me when it comes."
"Who says I'm ordering bread?" but she was already asleep, the purrs rumbling deep in her throat. I stroked her head with less fear and the purrs settled to the vibrations of a bass drum.
Cat was cleaning her face and I was reclining, hands under my head, trying to decide my next move.
"What would you suggest, Cat? How did you and your former . . . what do you call it anyway? Master doesn't cut it."
Cat stopped cleaning and stared at the tufts on the chenille spread. "There is no true word, darling. I would have liked to call her friend, but she loved gambling above all else. It was a sickness that took her from me years before last night."
She raised her head and padded over, laying a paw on my arm. "Sister is close." She smiled. "Bosom pals is closer." Her laugh was like a purr with hiccups.
"Okay, bosom pal of mine, how do you suggest we make a living? I've a feeling boosting and sharking are beneath your so fine dignity."
"We need an occupation suitable to your talents, darling. All the political positions are taken and execution pays too little." She stroked my arm and looked down at the weapon I wore even in sleep. "You are strong. You have lived a good many years for a woman of your type, which attests to your reflexes. You are not too stupid. And I can help."
"Which means?"
"I suggest you become a bounty hunter, darling. It is steady if not clean work. It pays well. And you do not have the detriment of moral character that a real witch might have. You are well suited."
"Thanks."
"You are welcome, darling."
So Cat and I have traveled all over. My biggest problem has been slowing her down. She loves her wings; she loves the feel of the wind as it rushes through her hair. She has told me this. So I have spelled an illusion that suits us both.
Picture this: A tall, leather-clad woman (28, 6'1") rides a black and chrome motorcycle (BMW Mark II, customized, 1200 cc's) down a federal highway (six rusting car carcasses, one sleeping [?] drunk). A black cat (sleek, a look of ecstasy in its eyes) perches on her left shoulder. The wind caresses both beings like a close friend. It is, as my grannie once said, our beginning, and we have started on it.
I've come to love Cat, but I can never be sure of her feelings for me. She once said: I will be your familiar, but we will never be familiar.
The dreams she sends me are still heterosexual, and one male in particular is becoming my favorite. He and I talk for what seem days of life and our upbringings. I've given him all the sordid details, and the joyful days, though few there were. He tells me of times when fortune smiled on him, and I hold him tight when he whispers of times when fortune had sharp teeth and claws, and its smile was a quite unfriendly one.
We eat together. He is partial to peaches. And we make love.
As I look up at him his lustful green eyes are shot with gold and his dark hair is sleek and shiny as polished hematite.
His muscles are long and lean and he gives me pleasures beyond measuring.
And I give him pleasure also, for he groans in ecstasy as we join. His love sounds rumble in the back of his throat like a large cat's purr.
Publishing in print for several years in such magazines as Bloodreams, Cosmic Unicorn, On Spec, Winedark Sea, and The Roswell Review, Joy Hewitt Mann has been appearing in e-magazines -- Quantum Muse, Demensions, Nuketown, Jackhammer, Ascent, Fantasy Today, Dark Moon Rising -- since January. Her first fiction collection "Clinging to Water" was published this summer by Boheme Press, Toronto. Joy lives in Spencerville, Ontario, Canada, where she runs a large junkstore.
E-mail: joyhm@ripnet.com