Chapter 8 #2
“I would love to. Give me one second,” I say, since I can’t currently see the computer and all I can see is about seven inches off the ground from the point of view of a menace who is stalking after the god and succubus. “Kit! Kit, get back here. Ha, sorry, my familiar is being… troublesome.”
“Oh! Is that the cute little catlike thing I see here sometimes?” she asks.
“That would be her.”
“She stole my cookie once, but I couldn’t be mad because she was so cute.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, now horrified that my familiar is off being a thief on top of being stubborn. I know that she has a knack for knowing what I want to look at. But I really feel like she’s wrong thinking that I want to look at the god’s dick. Surely my thoughts are more dignified than that.
And now I’m stuck sitting at a computer, supposedly helping a woman who I cannot see, while knowing absolutely nothing about what I should do.
The silence between us is now reaching awkward levels. If I clack around on the keyboard and just toss her off to a random location, will she notice? Will I have time to hide before she returns with a “You’re very much wrong, it’s not there”?
“Do… do you need me to come back?” she asks, probably feeling like the awkwardness is unbearable at this point.
“Sorry, my computer isn’t working; I was hoping Ms. Percy would be back shortly. She gets feisty when I borrow her computer.”
“Oh! Of course, I’ll come back when I see her.”
“Thank you,” I say, breathing a sigh of relief as I decide that I need to get away from the computer before someone else stops me. I make it as far as standing up before I hear someone getting near me.
“Riley!” the old man shouts, and I realize that I’ve just run into the absolute worst type of person I could ever run into: a retired older man with absolutely nothing but time on his hands.
“Hey, George.”
“Did I ever tell you about the time I once stayed in a library overnight?”
“You sure did.” About seventy-two times.
“So there I was with my girlfriend, we were, oh… eighteen and both still living at home with the most—”
“I just love this story, but I need to find Ms. Percy,” I interrupt as Kit is giving me a very good view of Ms. Percy running her hand down Torin’s muscular arm. I really feel like it’s the last thing I need to see when I could be seeing my computer.
“We thought we were so cool. We snuck into that closet right there and waited until the place closed for the night! That closet! Right there!”
“Yep, and then you guys supposedly just ‘read books’ all night,” I say, hoping to end this story before it even begins because it sure doesn’t end here. This is just like an appetizer for what’s to come. “I like to ‘read books’ in closets with handsome men.”
George laughs heartily and claps me on the back hard enough he sends me staggering. I think he forgets that he’s a werewolf and I’m a measly human who is blindly trying to find my familiar.
“Whoops. Sorry, kiddo. Always forget how fragile you are.”
“Nope, just regular human sturdiness.”
“Ha!”
I stop what I’m doing to glare in his general direction. “George, can you find my familiar and bring her back to me? Use your doggy senses or something?”
“I could… but it smells like she went downstairs.”
“So you can smack me into oblivion, call me weak, and then tell me you can’t do stairs?”
“Yes. Did I tell you about the time my wife and I read books on the stairs?”
“Yes, yes you did. I’ve also ‘read books’ on the stairs. Not the best place to do it. I’d really recommend somewhere with fewer chances to fall.”
“You’re hilarious. So much funnier than that other librarian. She doesn’t like married men because she can’t read books with them… if you get what I mean.”
“Oh… she’s read a lot of books with a lot of married people.”
I’m now awkwardly standing here, since I don’t know where exactly to go forward and should just retreat to my desk, but George is fixated on me and there’s nowhere I’m going anytime soon that doesn’t involve him.
I hear the clicking of heels, indicating that Ms. Percy is heading back this way. Is she already done? Did the god of love “read” to her that quickly? For all his talk, I assumed it’d be like an epic… not a novella. But if Ms. Percy is back, then where is Kit?
I focus on what Kit is seeing and realize that what I’m seeing now is a very determined genet trying to cram herself into a vending machine.
She’s got her upper body under the flap where one would reach in to retrieve their candy bar or chips, but the rest is struggling… oh nope… there she goes, fully inside.
She grabs a bag of chips and then discovers that the flap pushes in but it sure doesn’t push out.
I stand here in disbelief that I have now become absolutely stranded because my familiar is stuck in a vending machine. And I don’t even know which vending machine! The last place I saw her go was downstairs, so I feel like it’s my best bet in finding her.
“Walk me to the stairs, George. Pretend like you’re taking me off to read books with me,” I say, holding out my hand. “I want to know what it feels like to be wanted.”
He laughs and takes my hand as I realize that I’ve just invited him to tell me another story about his wife, but I know the last place my precious and “very concerned about me” familiar went was down the stairs.
With the power to turn into a werewolf—if I so choose—rushing through my body, I reach the stairs.
The thing about werewolves is that they’re very good at using their nose and other senses.
So when he lets go of me near the stairs, I can kind of sense where they are.
I can tell the scent trails start to dip down, so when I inch my way over to the steps, surely looking like a person preparing to dive off a cliff, I don’t feel as close to falling down the stairs as I probably am.
“I need to go down the stairs and since you can’t do stairs, I feel like here is where I’ll leave you, George.”
“I’ll just take the elevator.”
And then he lets me go and heads off while I question why I didn’t just take the elevator. Or better yet, why he couldn’t have taken the elevator and retrieved my familiar when I asked earlier.
Grumbling, I feel my way to the handrail and carefully travel down the steps as I reach the lower level and use my newfound werewolf senses to follow Kit’s trail.
Whenever I check in on what she’s seeing, I just get a front-row view of all the snacks she’s decided to eat while stuck in the vending machine.
While she’s not technically a normal animal since she’s a familiar, eating an entire vending machine of snacks really can’t be the best thing for her, but she’s evidently quite determined at this point.
I awkwardly make my way down the hallway feeling rather unsteady and uncertain, but until I get Kit back from the claws of the machine, there’s little I can do.
When I reach the vending machine, it occurs to me that just because I’ve now made it to her doesn’t mean I have any damn idea how to get her out.
“What the hell, Kit?” I chide.
She makes her “happy to see me” noise, which is heightened by my newly borrowed werewolf hearing.
“You are a menace! Why’d you run off? Why’d you climb into the vending machine? Why?”
Kit has no answers for me as I hear her tear into another candy bar, and I am given a view of myself looking rather exasperated on the other side of the glass while she eats her weight in chocolate. She’s clearly quite remorseful.
I pat my way down the vending machine to the flap at the bottom and push it up. “If you got your ass in there, you can get it out,” I snap.
I can feel her paw waving about when she tries to squeeze through, but no matter what she does, she can’t seem to get free.
“Dammit, Kit,” I say, using her eyes to see if there really is a better way to get her out.
“Looks like you’re in a bit of a pickle there,” Ms. Percy observes as she puts in two bills, types her code, and watches a candy bar hit Kit on the head on the way down. She picks up the candy bar and turns to head on her way without a single care in the world.
“Can you help?”
“Nope. Your friend left me unsatisfied, and I’m on the prowl… unless you’re offering.”
“Still not into women,” I say.
She tsks and walks away, leaving me in peril with no shits given.
“Can’t you call whoever owns these things?” I beg.
“Wish I could, but she won’t answer my calls after I gave her the best night of her life,” Ms. Percy replies as she wanders off.
“Must not have been the best if she refuses to answer your calls,” I grumble, but she’s long gone and doesn’t get to hear my comeback.
Suddenly the ground rumbles, making me freeze.
It feels like what I have to assume an earthquake would feel like, but we definitely don’t get earthquakes in these parts.
Kit stops her struggle to eat all the candy in the machine and looks around anxiously as I realize she needs out of this damn vending machine now.
“Dammit, Kit, why?” I growl while I try shoving the vending machine flap up as hard as I can a second before Torin slides onto the scene.
“I think a Door is opening up here,” he announces, which might be the last thing I ever want to hear.