I cracked a smile and attempted a joke.“Is it a paranormal thing, or do we all wear black to honor our black cat overlord?”
Connie snorted.“I wear what I want. You’ll wear this.” She pushed the clothes at me, then stepped out of the closet and slid the panel closed to give me a bit of privacy.
At first I thought the outfit she picked was far too large for my frame, but then I realized that the shirt, skirt, and cardigan were all big and billowy by design. I looked like the grandmother of the bride at a goth wedding.Fabulous.
Not seeing how to open the panel wall, I knocked, and Connie slid it open for me.
She pursed her lips and nodded slightly, then motioned toward a side table.“There are your accessories,” she said of the giant mound of necklaces, bangles, and jewelry that appeared to be made of coins.
I gulped.“All of it?”
“Yes, hopefully it will be enough.” She said this with a straight face.
“I thought the whole purpose was for me to be, you know, incognito,” I argued as I picked up an oversized ring and slid it onto one of my fingers.
“And to do that you’re going undercover.” She lowered herself into the nearest chair. Neither her steps nor her seating herself made even the slightest sound. Even if she didn’t want my blood, Connie Commerce was still very clearly an apex predator.
Suddenly, it became very important to me to keep her talking. That way at least I would know where she was at all times.“What am I going undercover as? Shahrazad?”
“A street psychic, actually.”
My ears perked up.“What?”
“You’ll set up a table downtown with your crystal ball and other props, and you’ll watch. Or rather, Fluffikins will watch through you.”
“You realize this is going to be incredibly embarrassing for me, right?”
“Aw, you still have dignity.Cute.” Something told me she didn’t actually find it that cute, but whatever.
I pushed a metallic headband over my forehead and layered several necklaces together. After adding bracelets that ran halfway to my elbows on each side, I spun in a little circle to show off my new look.“Ta da!”
Connie grimaced.“What’s that? Don’t do that.”
And I sighed.“Can I go back to the boss cat now?” I couldn’t believe I was actually excited to be back in his presence.
“One last thing,” Connie said, then snapped her fingers.
“Do I want to know what you just did?” I asked hesitantly.
“Nope. Now off you go!”
Before I could say anything more, she pushed me out the door and slammed it behind me. It seemed I’d be returning to Fluffikins on my own.
8
“Took you long enough,” Fluffikins complained the second I appeared in my glorious new garb. “Let’s go.”
I expected him to fly us to our next destination, but instead the lanky black cat led me outside to the parking lot where a beat-up old truck idled in the closest available space.
Parker waved from the driver’s seat. His salt-and-pepper hair had recently been trimmed, showing off his gorgeous gray eyes better than ever. I couldn’t help but smile.
“You humans are so obvious,” Fluffikins moaned just before I opened the passenger side door. “Your mating pheromones smell worse than my litter box.”
Parker, who’d apparently heard every word, laughed into the back of his hand.
Meanwhile I stood there rooted in place and absolutely mortified. I asked myself for the hundredth time that day why I’d submitted myself to such embarrassment. It wasn’t on Parker’s behalf. I could see him any day now that we were neighbors. So why did I let this little cat order me around?
Unbothered by my change in mood, Fluffikins jumped into the truck and took a seat at Parker’s side, flicking his tail impatiently the way a human might tap her foot.
“Come on in,” Parker coaxed. “I won’t bite,” he added, then chomped his teeth together flirtatiously. Okay, so now they were working together to make me miserable.Wonderful.
I let out a deep breath and then slid in, taking care not to make eye contact with either of my companions.“Why aren’t we flying?” I asked as Parker backed out of the parking space.
“We can’t exactly land in the middle of downtown without drawing some unwanted normie attention,” Parker explained, pulling out of the complex now.
“Okay. That makes sense,” I agreed.
Fluffikins placed a paw on my leg and waited for me to make eye contact.“Since you know so much about vampires from your books, do you know something of psychics as well?”
I couldn’t tell if he meant to be sarcastic or not. I also had no idea how to answer that question. It’s not like I’d be channeling people’s dead loved ones or anything. As far as I knew, the plan called for me to fake my way through to a breakthrough in the case. Mostly I was a pawn—a strangely dressed pawn with an overblown backstory—but a pawn, nonetheless.
“Vampires, huh? I guess that means Connie helped with this little makeover. You look nice by the way, Tawny.”
My heart fluttered in my chest. I loved the positive attention from Parker, but at the same time I wished I’d never met him. If we hadn’t met, then he’d have let my memory stay wiped so I could move past all this magic stuff. Or perhaps I never would have gotten involved with the PTA at all. After all, he was the one who’d dragged me in against my will.
Fluffikins started to cough and hack.“Gag me on a hairball. There are those pheromones again.”
Parker was quick to come to my defense.“Go easy on her. This is all very new to her.”
“The PTA could have been done with her altogether, if not for your interference,” the cat snapped back. “Since when do you care about our temp’s feelings? Going soft in your middle age?”
Parker shook his head, drawing my attention away from the road. When he caught my gaze, he offered a reassuring smile.“Don’t worry about him. This should be a much easier assignment than last time. You just have to hang out, tell a few fortunes, and keep an eye out for any trouble.”
I twisted my hands in my lap.“Two out of three are easy. The one problem being that I don’t know how to tell the future.”
“That makes you no different than 99.9% of working psychics out there, then. You think actual magicks waste their time on norms?”
“Oh, wow. Thanks for that,” I mumbled, shifting my gaze toward the side window.
“I didn’t mean you. You’re different.”
“Pheromones,” the cat mewled in agitation.
“Oh, c’mon, Mr. Fluffikins,” Parker ground out. “Do you expect us not to talk to each other at all?”
“In my presence, no.” I glanced over at the little cat and saw him sitting with his head held high and his expression unflinching.
“Then next time call someone else to drive the truck,” Parker shot back.
“You know I would do it myself if I could.”
“Yeah, but you can’t, thanks to those clumsy paws of yours.”
There was a story here, and any other time I would have pursued it until the bitter end. Today I just wanted to learn how to do my assignment so I could finish it to the demanding cat’s satisfaction and go back home to my boring, predictable normie life. Who cares if the PTA looked down on me and my mostly simple life? I loved it exactly as it was… before they’d decided to mess that all up.
“Tawny,” Parker said gently. “You’ll be fine. Just say general things and watch how the customer responds. Pick up clues from their dress, talk, what have you. Believe me, it’ll be enough.”
“Sounds like you’ve done this before,” I pointed out, unable to stop the smile that bloomed on my face. I really needed to stop crushing on him—for my own sanity and future safety.
He laughed and shrugged his shoulders.“Maybe once or twice as a party trick.”
“You normies are so easy to impress,” the cat added with a note of derision.
“And you magicks make everything needlessly difficult,” I spat. “There’s no reason that I needed to dress up like this in order to run some simple surveillance.”