Dean put the lid back on his cardboard cup, forcing himself to swallow.
His grandfather had been a very wise man.
The egg roll probably would have tasted better if his sense of smell hadn’t gone numb. On the other hand, had his sense of smell still been functioning, he wouldn’t have been able to eat the egg roll, so he supposed it evened out.
How long was he supposed to be waiting, then?
“Dean McIssac? Christ on crutches, it is you!”
The young woman who dropped into the other seat had a blaze of red hair over startlingly black eyebrows and breasts that threatened to spill out over the top of her…Actually, Dean had no idea of what she was wearing. He remembered the breasts. When he wasn’t playing hockey, dreams of those breasts had pretty much got him through his last year of high school. And occasionally when hewas playing hockey, which was how he’d dislocated his shoulder. Unfortunately, she’d been dating the same guy since grade nine and no one else stood a chance. She’d been the perfect, safe, unattainable fantasy. “Sherri Murphy. What’re you doing so far from home?”
“Working. Same as. Got a job out at the nylon plant.” Sherri grinned across the table at him. “Damn, it’s some good to see a familiar face. You here alone?”
“Yeah…”
Her grin sharpened.
Dean wondered why he’d never noticed the predatory curve to it before. No wait; he knew why. “Uh, Jeff…”
She shrugged, and he missed the first few words.“…boat with his dad. Like you can support a family fishing these days.” Her gaze turned frankly speculative. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“You got a girl?”
“A girl…yes.” Floundering without knowing how he’d gotten caught up by the surf, he clung to the thought of Claire. “She’s around here somewhere.” Which, ifsomewhere was stretched about as far as it could go, was the absolute truth.
Head cocked to one side, Sherri studied his face.“You know, word was, Dean McIssac couldn’t lie to save his life.” The tip of her tongue traced a moist line over her lower lip.
Something warm and soft brushed up against Dean’s ankle, and he felt his cheeks begin to burn. “Listen, there’s a, uh, bar down in Portsmouth Village, the, uh…” The pressure against his leg increased, moving softly up and down his calf. “…Ship to Shore. Bunch of us from home are there most Saturdays.”
“Talking about when you’re going back east?” Her voice had picked up a wistful tone.
“Yeah. That, too. The owner has a load of Black ‘Arse trucked up from home about once a month.”
“Beer and nostalgia, hard to resist.”
The lightest touch against the inside of his knee. Dean’s whole body twitched although, crammed into the seat as he was, he couldn’t jump back. He was amazed she’d found enough room to maneuver under these tiny tables.
“I’m not remembering you as being this jumpy.” Smiling like she knew a secret, she stood. “Saturdays, eh? Maybe I’ll be stopping by, then. I’d like to meet the girl who finally got you.”
More than a little confused, he watched her walk away.
Got me wha…
A gentle caress against his other leg.
Sherri had disappeared into the drugstore.
How did she…?
Oh.
Ears on fire, he glanced down at the mirror in his lap. The chicken half of the basilisk was in his hockey bag eating Red River cereal. The lizard part, a long, prehensile, bright green scaly tail, was rubbing up and down his leg.
She must think I’m a total idiot.
Leaning forward, both hands under the table, he gently shoved the tail into the bag.
Claire could never find out about this.
A warm beak investigated his fingers. He pushed it back down toward the cereal.
Austin could never find out about this.
Holding the zipper clear of stray feathers, he quickly closed it.
The squawk was remarkably loud. Half a dozen heads turned toward him.
“Just caught my basilisk in the zipper,” he explained, threw the bag over his shoulder and hurried for the door, his ears so hot he was sure they were leaving a thermal trail behind them.
*
Dean listened to the flat, definitive click in disbelief and then turned the key again, just in case. Another click followed by a silence so complete he could hear feathers being rearranged in the hockey bag now tucked behind the seats.“I don’t believe this. The battery’s dead.”
“You were gone for a long time; I got bored.” Austin licked his shoulder. “I was listening to the radio.”
“But I have the keys, and you couldn’t use a key if you had one.” Click. Nothing. “How did you even turn the electrical system on?”
“It’s a cat thing.”
He laid his head against the steering wheel and jerked it back almost immediately as the black plastic branded the arc of its upper curve into his skin.“You’re telling me cats can hot wire cars, then?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Austin snapped. “This is a truck.”
“Right.” Because that was all the explanation he was ever going to get.Okay. He got out of the truck and stared across the parking lot, watching the heated air rise up off the asphalt and shimmer like a curtain between worlds. If only it was that easy. Kevin had borrowed his jumper cables back in March and never returned them. He’d be smacking the buddy upside the head for that come Saturday, but it wasn’t going to do him any good now.A basilisk,a talking cat, and a dead battery walk into a bar…Turning his back on the minivans, he banged his head against the hood of truck.
“You look like you’re having a bad day. Is there something I can do to help?”
She was about his age, her name was Mary, she was up from the States for a music festival, and she had, not only a set of jumper cables, but a set long enough to reach from her battery to his.“My brother bought them for me,” she told him tossing a waist-length braid back over her shoulder as she efficiently hooked the two vehicles together. “There, try it now.”
The truck turned over on the first attempt. Dean hit the parking brake, put it in neutral, and got out to help Mary coil her cables.
“Is that your cat?” she asked as Austin put his paws up on the dashboard and peered out at them.
“Not exactly.”
“Ah.” She nodded wisely. “Your girlfriend’s cat. You have the look of a man in over his head.”
As she bent to put the cables in the trunk, Dean was horrified to see the hockey bag rise up from behind the seats and attempt to take flight. He gestured wildly at Austin, who made a rude gesture in return just as the bag slid forward, hit the seat, and knocked Austin’s feet out from under him. On the bright side, bag and cat were out of sight by the time Mary turned. Dean thanked her in a hurry, shook her hand, yanked his feet out of the tar, and dove back into the truck.
The bag was on the floor on the passenger side. Austin was on the bag, smacking random bits of covered basilisk.“I’m getting too old for this kind of…” A fast right, quickly followed by a left hook, quelled an incipient uprising. “…shit.”
“If you hadn’t run down my battery, we’d be home by now!”
“Oh, so it’smy fault you had to be rescued by a girl?”
“Yeah. It is. Your fault.” He glanced up, noticed Mary frowning at him, waved, put the truck in gear, and started for home. In over his head. That pretty much summed up his life of late.
He needed Claire back in the worst way.
*
Sam knew he was supposed to be calm, cool, and collected—although he had no idea of just what he was supposed to collect. He knew that he, as a cat, should be an example of self-confident serenity to the horde of mall elves, armed and armored from sporting goods, who were about to go into battle against the forces of evil.
Sporting goods aside, this wasn’t going to be battle by Disney.
He had a feeling that even as an angel, he’d sucked at serenity. Unfortunately, since that whole Soldier of the Lord thing would come in handy right about now, the more time he spent in fur, the less he remembered about his life BC. Before cat.