Off Leash (Freelance Familiars Book 1) (33 page)

“Argh! Will you be serious for once!” She swung at me halfheartedly with her crutch, but I dodged and circled around to nip at her stubby tail.

The werewolf gave a yip of surprise, her arms splaying out, grasping at the air as she toppled backwards. I tried to catch her, interposing myself between her and ground. She fell on top of me. One of her crutches clonked me on the head as her body bowled me over.

She snarled and rolled before I could react, and sharp teeth clamped down on the back of my neck. I froze as panic spiked through me, and her arms grabbed me into a steely embrace. Growling, she savaged my scruff hard, shaking it from side to side with enough force that the world went blurry as my third eyelids flicked up.

The attack stopped, and something warm lapped at my ears before Noise buried her face into my neck, the steel around me becoming a warm embrace.

“You’re such an ass, Thomas,” she muttered into my neck. “It will never work.”

A purr rolled up my throat as I pushed myself into her. “I’m getting really good at breaking rules.”

THE END

Thank you for reading. Off Leash is my first published novel and I’m planning many more adventures. If you enjoyed Thomas’ first romp through the magical world please leave us a
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Nothing's better than a payday! Particularly when that payday's long overdue and involves finally getting in on those sweet, sweet LTE speeds with a 20 GB data limit. I pressed my face up against the driver-side window of the van and peered into the crowded Apple store across the street. Ixey had been swallowed up by the throng of people and I could see neither hide nor hair of the short magus. Swearing lightly, I ran up onto the dashboard and then back to the window, trying to catch a flash of Ixey's multicolored suit.

A deep chuckle rolled out of the back of the van. The amber eyes glittered with amusement in the feline face. “Lost track of the brightest-dressed magus in the land, Rudy?”

“Clothes don't mean much when you're that short!”

The cougar unspooled himself from a roughly circular blob and stretched. My heart immediately went into panic mode, thundering down into my tail and ears, the meat brain screaming, Cat! Big cat! Stupid instincts. I caught a flash of gold and silver back in the store, the crowd parting for long enough to see the gold and silver-clad Ixey receive a white box from the sales clerk. My phone! My phone! Panic turned to joy. “She's got it!” I shouted and bounced back and forth from the seat to the window a few times.

A flash of the cougar's pink tongue stopped me. The eyes had gone from intelligent to hungry. I pointed a claw at him and chittered. “Hey! I see that thought on your face! Stop it!”

Thomas suddenly found the door handle fascinating in that way that cats do if you call them on something. Had I not seen it with my own eyes I'd find it pretty difficult to believe the cougar had been human a few weeks ago. “Well, stop jumping around like an appetizer! I haven't eaten in a day,” he scolded me. As if that were my fault!

Except that, Thomas generally admitted things that no natural cat would, combined with a rather overly sensitive moral compass. Despite all that and perhaps because of it I really liked the cougar, but I kept my distance when he was hungry. He had only attempted to eat me once, which as cats go isn't too bad. I pointed at the fifty-pound bag of kitty kibble in the back of the van. “If you're hungry, then eat!”

The cougar's nose lifted into the air. “That's not food!”

“Neither are talking squirrels!” I grinned. “Let me sing you the song again!” I cleared my throat and tested my voice. “Mi-Mi-Mi!”

The cougar let out a growl. “Sing that song again and I will slurp you up like a ramen noodle!” The sight of fangs as long as my forelegs slammed my heart back into my ears and reminded me that the cat outweighed me by about two hundred pounds. Still, he was kidding, so I let my tail thrash as I drew in breath for the first verse, “SSQQQUIRRRREELLS ARE-”

The metallic thunk of the van door cut me off.

“Oh, thank the gods.” The cougar slumped in relief as the van door rolled open, revealing Ixey, standing in her multicolored glory with her familiar, Garn, a gecko composed of precious stones, perched on her shoulder. In her hand she clutched a white plastic bag with a very prominent black logo. The bag had two distinct rectangular shapes within it, one large, one smaller.

New phone!! The thought obliterated any sense of caution on my part, and I leapt down with far too much momentum, so I ran around in a circle to burn it off. I might have barked a little.

Clearly enjoying her moment as the world's shortest Santa Claus, Ixey took her time drawing out the smaller white box from the bag and waving it far over my head. I stopped my dance and demanded the box. “Gimme! Gimmegimme!”

“Do I get a thank you?” That high tilted voice suggested she was speaking to a child.

I gave her my best death stare and crossed my arms. “That's my paycheck! It's long overdue! I don't gotta thank you for my payment! Now give it here!”

She rolled her eyes but lowered the box to where I could grab it without launching myself in the air. I pulled the box out of her hand and let it fall onto the carpeting. Sticking my nose to the box I inhaled deeply-the scent of joy and plastic. I paced around it, feeling the box's perfect smoothness on my paws-beyond the phone inside, the box itself would make a superb bed. In my head I was already lounging in the box while watching movies on the phone's super hi-res display. If the phone played well with the Bluetooth speaker I had hauled up to the nest the week before, then my tree would become a little slice of heaven.

Thomas's voice cut through my daydream. “You going to open that? Or did your tiny brain explode on contact?”

I clutched at my heard at such a vulgar suggestion. “I can't open it here! I have to make an unboxing video for this baby and do it right!”

The cougar looked dubious. “You're going to drag that thing up your tree? The box is bigger than you are. What if you drop it?”

The poor cat just did not understand. “Look, Thomas, it will be great. Just imagine me and”-I looked at the phone a bit, thinking over it-“And Melissa here, a pack of real premium honey roasted cashews and a wonderful evening.”

The cat winced. “I'd rather not. I'd really rather not.”

#

A half hour later Melissa and I were deposited in front of a burned-out husk of a house. I had secured Melissa to my back with twine and a few slipknots. Thomas made a crack about carrying my coffin on my back as the van's door closed behind me and retorts nibbled at my brain like a host of angry fleas. As the van's engine faded into the distance, I double-checked the knots before tipping myself onto all four, Melissa and her box looming out in front of me, blocking the sky. Did they really need to make them bigger every year? I sighed and started the long march to the backyard.

At my height, the grass had grown so tall and thick it resembled jungle, and I had to use the box like a bulldozer, forcing me to navigate by memory. I regretted not asking Thomas or Ixey for help. My new bed would be green by the time I got to the tree.

An unfamiliar chitter froze me. My ears scanned for the source of the sound, to the left. I pushed up to my hind legs and peeked through the grass. A chipmunk stared back at me from the base of a blackened shrub, beady eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Oh, burning chestnuts,” I grumbled to myself as I lowered myself back to marching position. Chipmunks. I would rather share a yard with a nest of rats than a single feral chipmunk. At least rats kept their word-chipmunks were too stupid to remember the deal in the first place. Well, a string of firecrackers shoved down their burrow and they'd get the hint to move on. With a thought of creating some real explosions, I doubled my speed. Once I got to the side of the house, travel became easier, where the shade of it and the Archmagus's wall kept grass growth lower. I followed the side of the house and had gotten about halfway to the backyard when I heard the chirp-chirp of chipmunk alarm calls behind me. When they began to be echoed in front of me, my tail went puffy. I separated out the individual voices, four ahead and eight behind: twelve in all.

Not great odds for a feral squirrel certainly, but it would take a lot more than a mob of mice with bad paint jobs to get me worried. Pretending I hadn't noticed them, I forged ahead until something stopped me dead. Something shiny glinted beyond Melissa's box. A hissing sound wound around my ears, and ice shot down my spine. That particular note meant one thing and one thing only. Magic.

Shifting my weight back onto my haunches, I lifted the box out of view. Beyond the now grass-stained corner of the box a stretched-out version of my own face leered back at me in a silver haze. Nutcrackers and cherry bombs! A doppelganger! I scuttled backwards with a bark. Instantly the face blurred to indistinction. Needle-like laughter attacked me from every angle. Heat rose into my ears as I realized I'd just been spooked by a mirror.

A deeper voice cut through the sharp sounds. “Now, now, friends, let us be understanding. After all, I believe all of us would take a step back if we found ourselves with a visage like Old Man Rudy's.”

I ground the sides of my incisors together as the laughter redoubled. I saw what blocked me now-a shiny new garden spade, its steel surface so pristine that it acted like a fun house mirror. Beyond it, a good four feet, stood not five chipmunks but chipmonks. Now chipmunks are bad enough, but when they start wearing robes and carrying needles tempered with the goo of human eyeballs, the surrounding neighborhood tends to go down quickly. The largest of them by a half inch sported a milky eye. He stood on his skinny hind legs, baring his four yellow incisors in my general direction. Around his waist sat a heavy-looking ring with a large amber stone set into it. The source of the eerie tone, no doubt. I could have confirmed it with a bit of focusing, but my ears were a bit full, tracking the soft rustling of the grass behind me.

I sneered, “True, Simon. Could be worse, though. If I had your face, my heart would've popped like a firecracker.”

The chipmunk's face went stony as a few of his minions tittered before being silenced with a glare. Bastard could never take his own medicine. His eye returned to me.

“Pity it didn't, Rudy. Would have saved us much trouble. Now why don't you hand over that lovely device on your back, and I promise your death will be quick and stabby.”

I hunkered down and growled, “I'm not terribly large, but I'm still five times the size of a chipmunk.” The chipmunks stilled.

Except for Simon. With his upwards gesture, the garden spade jerked into the air, the magic note of force buzzing in my ears as a chorus of “GET HIM!” erupted around me.

“Crushed candied walnuts! I'm so sorry, Melissa!” I swore as I threw myself backwards, my paws jerking on the slipknots tied around my waist and chest. The shiny shovel glinted against the blue sky before plunging downward. I waited until I heard the blade's whistle before rolling off to the side. The spade hit the box with a crunch but thankfully no crack of glass. Two blurs dashed towards me, long needles flashing as they leapt.

I continued my roll and lashed out with my hind legs, hitting the first one square in the chest and clipping the other on the shoulder. Now, I can jump nine feet up on a good day. Fighting chipmunks is almost rocket science-my first customer might have entered orbit if he hadn't smacked into the stone wall with a wet squeak, and the second somersaulted into the house. One had left a present, however-a long needle protruded from my inner thigh. With a hiss, I jerked it out and rolled to my feet.

“Getting slow, old boy!” Simon called out.