Chapter 14: The Kitten

The kitten skidded to a halt in front of us in that sideways, skipping way that kittens have. It peered down at us with eyes like glowing red coals. It was at least as big as an elephant.

Yvette screeched and broke our shocked silence. The noise startled the kitten, who fluffed up its black-as-pitch fur and hissed. A jet of blue flame roared out of its mouth as it did so.

Quick as a whip, Rufus yelled something I couldn’t understand and pointed at the kitten. A sphere of crimson light surrounded the feline. It looked like a red-tinted soap bubble.

The kitten clawed and pounced around inside the bubble but could not escape its magical confinement.

“Is this another one of your mascots?” asked Roanna, her voice full of scorn.

“Your comments are not helpful, as usual,” Rufus said. “You can make yourself useful by casting a banishing spell with me.”

A sly smile creased her face. “Looks like you need me, after all.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said. “It’s only because the other peons can’t help.” He turned to me and Yvette with menace. “The both of you, stand back. If you are stupid enough to get in our way, that’s on you. Understand?”

We both agreed to stay on the other side of the boiler and Ruddy’s trap door.

The kitten kept bouncing around inside the weird red bubble.

“What are we going to do with it?” Roanna asked. “It can’t stay in there forever.”

“No kidding,” Rufus said. “I don’t want it in my laboratory any longer than necessary, either. Let’s just boot it back to wherever it came from.”

“Do you even know which netherworld dimension that demon kitten did come from?” she asked.

Rufus grimaced. “No, but...”

She tsk-tsked and said, “That’s just like you.”

“What is?”

“You know, opening random portals and not knowing how to close them,” she said, waving her hand.

“What are you talking about? I’ve successfully banished anything and everything I have ever conjured.”

“Except for those times at the mage school,” she said. “You’re slipping.”

“I was still learning,” he said. “Give me a break. I am not slipping.”

Roanna shrugged. “Magic users can mysteriously lose their powers. It happens to the best of us sometimes.”

“I am not losing my powers!” he exploded.

She grinned evilly. I bet she had that look on her face a lot when she was married to him.

“Are you two going to actually get rid of that freak or are you going to bicker all night?” Yvette said. “Regular sized cats are bad enough. Forget about giant demonic ones.”

“Shut up, rodent,” they said in unison.

“I should have expected that,” Yvette said.

“What you need to do is get some catnip and throw it into the hole that monster crawled out of,” said Ruddy. “Demonic catnip for a demonic cat.”

Rufus glared at him. “I don’t need any comments from you.”

“He’s got a point,” Yvette said. “Who would know how to banish a demon better than a half-demon?”

“It’s about time you recognized my brilliance,” Ruddy said.

“Let’s just finish this,” Roanna said with an annoyed sigh. “Why don’t you lead, darling.”

“You know that old teleportation spell, the Banesiir Kaesutt? We’ll try that first,” Rufus said.

She nodded. “I’m sure it will be no big deal if you happen to forget the words. I’ll keep speaking it for the both of us.”

Rufus’s mouth twisted. “What makes you think I’ll be the one forgetting the words?”

“Relax, darling,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I’m sure you won’t bungle it as long as I’m assisting.”

Rufus opened his mouth to say something, then snapped his mouth shut. After a moment he said, “I won’t take that bait. Be ready when I say.” He turned to me and Yvette. “Remember what I said to you little jerks about shutting up and staying put.”

They faced the demonic kitten. At some unspoken signal, they began speaking the magical language in a strange, lilting manner. Slowly, the bubble rose into the air. The kitten lost its balance and toppled over, sliding noiselessly down the bubble’s smooth wall.

Rufus and Roanna chanted louder. Their spell was rhythmic and musical and threatening all at the same time. It reminded me of a thunderstorm that’s still far away but getting closer and soon will be right over your house.

The bubble floated toward the furthest corner where I had seen the thread coming out of the wall. It was now glowing. The kitten hissed and swatted but still couldn’t escape.

Suddenly, a dark, shimmering shape loomed behind it. A second demon kitten leaped from the corner and landed on top of the bubble. Yvette and I screamed.

The second kitten’s paws scrabbled for a foothold on the bubble but started to slide off. The kitten trapped inside mewed ferociously and bounced around.

Rufus, barely missing a beat, cast another red-tinted bubble around the new intruder. They clung together. Roanna suddenly rounded on Rufus like an angry panther. Rufus’s voice sounded hollow for a moment before he stopped chanting.

“We can’t do this without the pendant, you fool!” she shouted. “I don’t know why I allowed you to start the magic.”

“Who is the fool then?” he said. “I knew you just wanted the pendant back. You can’t use it anymore anyways.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I had the ownership transferred to me,” he said with a malevolent grin. “By Addison.”

Not bad for an over educated nerd, I thought.

Her eyes widened, then narrowed. “Impossible. I created it. There’s no way it would go willingly to you.”

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“Maybe that’s why it’s been zapping Rufus,” Yvette said.

“Oh, I thought it was because Rufus wasn’t as great at magic as he thinks he is,” Ruddy cackled.

“Yeah, but he created you. So, what does that say?” Yvette said.

Ruddy mumbled something under his breath about magic users who couldn’t control their jewelry maybe didn’t deserve their powers, especially when they couldn’t keep any decent liquor around.

Roanna ignored them. “There is simply no way my pendant would allow itself to have its ownership challenged. It would never acknowledge you.”

Rufus smiled triumphantly. “And yet it did. Didn’t you sense something different about it when you found it had been with Addison?”

I smirked, a bit proud of him for having the upper hand over her for once.

“No, but—”

“Because it was ignoring you,” he said. “It won’t obey anyone who isn’t its owner, with certain exceptions. Like Addison.”

The demon kittens floated serenely like around the basement laboratory like twin soap suds the entire time they were talking. Yvette and I kept close watch with severe mistrust.

What if the bubbles popped? Why wasn’t anybody doing anything?

Behind Rufus and Roanna, I caught the movement of another dark shape. My stomach lurched. A third demon kitten materialized and leaped upon the twin bubbles.

“Look out!” shrieked Yvette.

Rufus trapped it inside another bubble, which conjoined the others.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Roanna said. “We need to do something, quickly! Have you got any other tricks besides your bubbles? Where is the pendant?”

“I’m trying,” growled Rufus.

But the kittens were already doing something.

They had all positioned themselves so that they faced each other, their noses almost touching. It was hard to tell at first whether they were having a standoff or had ended up that way by accident. Kittens never stop moving for long, even demonic ones. But they were just standing there, staring.

One of them stretched its mouth open, as if it was yawning. I saw its glittering, sharp teeth in there, though one was missing. Then that awful mouth kept stretching, until I thought it would rip the kitten’s face in half.

Before I could scream, the other two kittens leaped inside the yawning one’s mouth and disappeared, swallowed whole. As horrifying as that was, more horror piled up on top of that.

The kitten crouched down and began hurking, like it was puking up a hairball. Its body began to swell until it was at least three times large as it had been. On either side of its head, the shoulders began to bulge, balloon-like. Two more kitten heads burst from the bulging shoulders. Now it had three.

The three-headed kitten reared up. The air seemed to ripple around it. Their mouths opened in unison. There was a dreadful silence for a moment where it was like everything slowed down. Each head breathed out a glaring jet of blue flame that made the air shimmer.

The red-tinted bubble cracked and shattered like an antique Yuletide ornament. The broken pieces cascaded onto the floor in a fine red dust. Yvette and I screamed again.

The kitten leaped on top of the stone table, whipping its fluffed-out tail. It mewed and sounded like an old out-of-tune violin, high pitched and wobbly.

Roanna smacked Rufus’s arm. “We need that pendant right now!”

He yanked his arm away as if touching something poisonous. “You want me to leave in the middle of everything while that thing is loose?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” she said. “Take some responsibility, for once.”

“She’s right, you know,” Ruddy said. “Why don’t you try my demon catnip idea?”

Rufus looked as if he might explode. “How dare you both tell me how to run things in my own laboratory.” He pointed at the kitten and yelled the word that he used to create the other bubbles.

A bubble started to form around the kitten but suddenly melted away as its paw swatted it. Rufus tried twice more but the same thing happened.

What is he doing? I thought with exasperation. That can’t be the only trick he knows.

I glanced at Yvette; except she was no longer beside me. My stomach sank. Then I saw her rush across the basement. Nobody else noticed.

Where on Ransara was she going? I couldn’t believe she left me there. For a second, I thought about following her but was scared of going past the demon kitten.

“Fantastic job you’re doing over there,” Roanna said. I silently agreed.

“You do something then,” Rufus said. “Go ahead, let’s see what you can do on your own.”

The basement echoed with the demon kitten’s demented meows. Its flaming hisses lit up the dimness like weird blue torches, making Rufus’s and Roanna’s shadows stand out against the brightness like black paper cutouts.

“Yes, you do something,” said Ruddy. “I can’t miss this.”

He was right. Maybe she could fix this mess if Rufus couldn’t. He would probably be extremely pissed if that happened. In that case, it was better if Yvette missed that because she’d never let Rufus live it down.

Roanna stared daggers at each of them. She turned to the demon kitten and raised her hands over her head.

Just as she was about to speak, the kitten launched itself towards her. It pounced on Roanna and devoured her whole. The middle head, to be specific.

I don’t know how Roanna fit in there, but she did. Maybe she shrank, or it was bigger inside the kitten’s stomach or because it was demonic in nature.

Before I could wonder any more, Rufus screamed.

It was the same sound my mother made when we found my father dead in the rooming house laundry we’d been squatting in. The same nausea I felt then washed over me.

The kitten spat blue flames that blazed right over Rufus’s head, yet somehow his hair did not catch fire. It stared him down, its tail sweeping up sparks as swished back and forth.

In an instant, it seemed as though Rufus had shrunk to half his size. I glanced between him and the stairs. Where was Yvette?

“Looks like you are in quite a predicament, necromancer,” said a voice that gave me the creeping willies all over again.

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