Page 32 of Catnapped

I gulped a lungful of air.

“Try taking a few deep breaths without hyperventilating. I’m sure if your cat develops a severe case of humanity, you’re fully capable of handling him and the consequences. You’ve worked with plenty of lycanthropes before. For all we know, it could be something as simple as trying to make cats and dogs asymptomatic spreaders. If this Kingston fellow has been able to develop a vaccine or cure for lycanthropy, he’d become one of the richest men alive overnight. The CDC would pay high amounts to be able to treat those who do not want the virus.”

I considered the number of lycanthropes who didn’t want the infection versus those who had successfully adapted to the virus. It came out fairly close to equal, leaving a lot of people unhappy with their longevity and new circumstances and restrictions. Following his instructions, I drew in a deep breath. “I can respect those who don’t want the virus, but to experiment on innocent cats and dogs searching for a cure—and potentially infecting others—really trips my trigger.”

“It would also trip Lucifer’s trigger. Forcing the virus on somebody is no different to him than other forms of assault. It’s a major violation, and he enjoys punishing the sinners who are guilty of such crimes. And while Lucifer enjoys tricking people into bargaining away their souls, he almost never goes after those who have earned their way to whatever paradise their heaven is. A bargain simply secures the final placement of those with souls burdened with guilt.”

“It’s a test,” I guessed.

“It absolutely is.” Darian picked up one of the vials, lifted it up, and turned it every which way, testing the seal. I tensed, but none of the fluid escaped. “Whatever this is, it’s not blood.”

“The color tipped me off it’s probably not blood.”

“Some beings have odd colored blood, but this is way too thin of a liquid to be blood.”

“I’m going to take your word on that, as I try to avoid situations where I can watch other beings bleed.”

“That’s generally a wise course of action.”

I considered the metal box with a frown. “What should we do with this?”

“We’ll put it in the rental. I have a feeling nobody is going to be bothering us today.”

“Because your father left without bringing you some form of weapon?”

“He left, period. No matter what impression you got, he is definitely the doting father type, and he would not abandon ship if he thought I was at any actual risk. It’s one thing to let me go off and find trouble, but it’s another for him to leave me alone if he thinks trouble is about to happen. It should be safe enough.”

“So we don’t have to play secret agents in here?”

“Oh, we don’t have to, but I want to,” he replied with a boyish grin. “And being dour won’t rescue your cat any faster, so let’s try to keep stress down while we investigate. Your cat won’t get upset with you if you relax.”

“He’ll get upset with me because I’m not giving him his meals at the appropriate times.”

“I recommend bribes in copious quantities until forgiven in that case. It’ll be all right. Let’s finish documenting this and find out if there are any more of these boxes now that we know what we’re looking for. If one like this was missed, maybe we’ll find something else. We’ve played enough. It’s time to get to serious work.”

Nine

We didn’t live in a perfect world.

Darian underwent a transformation from laid back and casual to a dictator, possibly one of the Devil’s minions straight from hell, demanding perfection so the investigation would not be compromised. As the possibility existed we had missed other boxes thanks to the practitioner runes obscuring their presence, he demanded we go over every trailer again, but more thoroughly—and using my practitioner skills to flush out any secrets we may have missed on our first pass.

The effort, which involved drawing runes in the filth caked onto the trailer floors, sapped me of energy and dished out a serving of pain. The pain didn’t surprise me.

Magic had a way of amplifying things, and my entire chest offered it an easy outlet. Usually, it just charged in energy and general exhaustion.

I could tolerate some extra pain, especially if it meant we found more information on what had happened to Mr. Flooferson.

Of the trailers we had searched, two held secrets obscured with magic, and my magic tore through the protections with fire-red tendrils. Sparks of blue illuminated the interior before encasing the revealed boxes in a pulsating aura.

On the second box, Darian waited for the lights to fade before revealing the contents, which included more of the silvery cases filled with vials. Unlike the first we’d found, they lacked weapons or ammunitions.

The gun scared me a whole lot less than the vials and their contents.

“The blue is holy fire,” Darian announced. “That’s probably a consequence of the healing you underwent. Does your magic usually manifest as red?”

“No. It’s usually invisible, although there is often a flash of light when I disrupt some form of obscuring magic like this. It’s not usually red.”

“Likely hellfire, then. You’ve had a lot of exposure to Lucifer lately, and he has a vested interest in you. Did you know Lucifer still uses holy fire? More often than his hellfire, really. But he has access to both. Now I’m really curious what he’s up to; they’re not conflicting. They usually do. I’m really annoyed we’re not getting more of a paper trail, but these vials are going to be a goldmine of information for us. The first step is to get our hands on a scanner and get what information we can before we turn them over to the police. Think you can hook us up?”