Bad Luck, Baby

3 - Bad Kitty

Waking up with a cat on top of you sounds cuter than it really is. Especially when you don't own a cat.

The sensation of a weight and of someone poking me with little needles welcomed me back to consciousness, and I opened my eyes to see a black cat staring down at me, purring loudly as it kneaded my chest with its claws.

For a good ten seconds, we stared at each other while my brain rebooted and began searching for explanation and memory. I recalled getting up that morning, and then going to work in the afternoon, and then...

As the rest of my traumatic day came flooding back, right up to the part where I'd met my very first daemon face to face, the cat transformed.

The daemon stared down at me, long black hair spilling over his shoulders in a silky cascade and his yellow eyes gleaming in his shadowed face.

I shouted in alarm and began to thrash and struggle, but he weighed a lot more in human form than he did as a cat, and kept me pinned to the floor quite easily.

"You can stop that now," he said with a lazy grin. "Unless you want to pass out again. I'm not going to hurt you, obviously."

I stopped. I was getting tired, anyway.

"What the hell do you want?" I rasped. My mouth was dry, and I felt a bit cold and sick.

"An interesting question," he said. His hands rested on my shoulders, and from the way they dug into my skin, I guessed he still had claws. "I want quite a few things, actually. Foremost, to return to my native realm, and never to serve another damned witch again. First, though, there are several things I do not want at all, but that I need in order to eventually get what I want. You, for example. I need you to help me solve your father's murder; and, of course, I need to keep you alive in the meantime, as per your father's final command."

The last part sounded like a bit of an afterthought, and I frowned. "Good to know where we stand."

"We all have our priorities," he said, his eyes narrowing as his grin widened.

"Are you going to let me up?" I asked, beginning to feel a little awkward on top of everything else.

"Are you going to scream and faint again?"

"Depends. Got any more shocking revelations to deliver?"

He laughed—a low, musical sound—and shifted off me to help me up.

"No wonder it took me so long to find you; you're not like your father at all."

"Good," I said, and then sneezed. Lying on a dusty floor wasn't good for my allergies, and I was probably allergic to cats, too.

Scrubbing my itchy nose with my sleeve, I pulled the cloth cover off a reading chair and collapsed into it, resting my head against the back and shutting my eyes.

"Okay, so for the sake of argument, let's say this isn't a hallucination, and I'm not insane, and you're a daemon. What did you say your name was, again?"

I peeked at him through one eye, mostly to check if he was still there, and found his expression had turned guarded.

"I didn't. I said that you could call me 'Ro.'"

"Oh, right. Ro, then." I shrugged. Daemon got trust issues. Cool. "So, why don't I remember you? I mean, why didn't I remember you until you did that thing, before?"

'Ro' paced the room, taking it in with a critical eye. "Because Oscar didn't want you to. He made me seal the memory deep in your mind, along with any other memories that might trigger it—namely, any memory of my other form."