Chapter 35
thirty-five
Oscar the Magical Boy
“And he just”—Renee twists her wrist dramatically—“ pop?”
I bob my head. “Yep.”
“I don’t really know how to feel about that,” she says as she scrubs the other side of the scorch mark with a soapy brush.
I scrub my side and hold my tongue because I know how I feel about it, and it’s insane. He killed someone and I should be horrified. I should feel anything else than what I’m feeling.
Protected.
Cherished.
It was kill or be killed, and Bastian chose their blood on his hands rather than mine on the floor.
Except for the one who escaped.
Did he survive? Will more be coming?
“Hellooo.” Renee waves her blackened bristle-brush at me.
“Sorry,” I say, clearing my throat. “What did you say?”
“I was saying it’s not that I disagree with his decision. If someone is in my place about to toss it and end me, I’ve got shotty shells behind the bar addressed to them. It’s just how he did it, I guess. It’s…scary.”
“It is?”
“Yeah, that he snapped his neck with one hand?” she says. “Girl, what if he accidentally did that to your cootch?”
I choke on my spit and cough into my sleeve for a bit while Renee laughs.
“I’m glad he was here to protect you,” she says when I finally have my breathing under control.
“Yeah, me too. And Oscar.”
“Do you just attract magical creatures?”
“I have no idea,” I say with a chuckle.
“Holy shit, am I magical?” she asks, looking at her hands.
I shrug. “I don’t know how this witch stuff works, but Bastian sniffed me out easily.”
“You may have some latent powers within you,” Bastian says as he and Drew bring in buckets of lacquer.
They had the fun job of cleaning up Oscar’s bloody mess since Bastian is still too weak to manifest fresh boards. Fortunately, Renee and Drew were available to help before opening so I didn’t have to deal with any blood or flesh.
I shiver at the last thought.
“I might be a witch?” Renee squeals.
“Sure sound like one,” Drew says with a snarky smile.
I can see she’s considering throwing her brush at him, but holds back. “You don’t like witches? Fine. No more witchcraft, a.k.a. protein cookies.”
“Baby, no! Please, you sound like a super hot witch, like the one from that show,” he says.
“Which one?”
“Yeah, the witch one,” he says.
Her black-painted eyes narrow on him.
“I have to paint now,” Drew says, turning for the doorway.
The protection spell burned across the frame and some of the wall, crisping the protective seal right off. It was a good thing Drew had just done a floor remodel for someone in town and had plenty of the sealant left.
When there’s only a shadow of the vaporized man on the floor left, we decide that’s as good as it’ll get and seal it up.
It’ll add some character to the place, and I can tell tall tales of how a dragon slayed a monster to save my life.
Technically I slayed the monster—the front door lightning was all my magic this time around—but it sounds more romantic, and less plausible, the other way.
I make four cups of English Breakfast before we open, and Renee hangs out for most of the morning.
It’s not like she could help against magical beings, but I feel safer with her here.
Maybe it’s selfish. If they came back with more people, she could be in real danger.
Still, her presence helps keep me calm as I move decorations around to match the flow.
With all the cleaning and the body to dispose of, there wasn’t time to switch back the shelves. It just is how it is for now, and I’ll collect sales data on this new configuration first, I guess.
A few people wander in, saying that they’d try to come by yesterday. I explain that we had a small fire—pointing to the somewhat man-shaped scorch on the floor—and they all nod, their eyes a little buggy.
In all, the first real day of sales is great.
We’re operating in the black, barely, as long as I don’t give myself or Bastian a large wage.
I have yet to figure out what to pay myself, or him.
He’s been putting in a lot of work to refurbish the books and I feel like he needs more than just… more books.
Renee takes off at closing with a tight hug and whispered prayers. I give her the same, drawing the symbol of protection on her back in little twitches of my finger. Hopefully she doesn’t need it.
Bastian is mending another shipment of damaged goods when I get up to the apartment. We work quietly, him binding and me cooking. Oscar winds around my feet as I mull over everything that’s happened.
“Do you think that first warlock tipped off the others?” I ask.
Bastian glances up at me and cocks his head. “Who?”
“The guy who just walked into the lake and set off the front door defense months ago?”
“Ah.” He grimaces.
“Bastian,” I say his name in warning. “What are you hiding?”
He sighs. “With your gentle heart toward living beings, I thought it best not to tell you he was dead.”
“He’s been dead this whole time?” I ask.
He nods. “Now that I know you’re not opposed to me killing things—”
“When absolutely necessary,” I interject.
“Yes, only absolutely necessary…” He looks down at his book in progress, a guilty yet amused expression pulling his lips into a smile.
“You killed those dust mites too, didn’t you.”
“I most certainly did.”
“Bastian!”
“How could I not?”
“You said you were sending them to their home dimension,” I say, my brow furrowed sternly.
“I said what was best for your gentle heart!”
“The truth is what’s best,” I say as I set the bowls of curry at the table.
“They would’ve eaten your books,” he says.
My eyes narrow on him. “You’re just saying that.”
“It’s true. Anything dusty is their food, and the mites are far less intelligent than things like…bunnies.”
“Dust bunnies?” I say, stomping my foot.
As if I could be so stupid.
He shrugs. “They’re real! It’s a dimension made of various kinds of dust, and the creatures eat dust!”
I grumble as I jam a spoon in each serving. “Be honest with me from now on, please.”
“I will,” he says as he sets the book aside.
“So, it’s just the one hunter left, then?” I ask.
He sighs as he pulls his bowl close to him. “I’m not certain. He could’ve survived Oscar’s assault and told others. He could’ve died wherever he landed. Hmm…”
He looks at Oscar. “Did you get his soul?”
Oscar looks up from his bowl, crunching on a pebble. “Mah ah.”
“Fiddlesticks,” Bastian murmurs.
I snicker. “Really? Fiddlesticks?”
“Has the curse fallen out of favor?”
“A while ago,” I say, then blow on my chickpea curry.
He blows on his, too. “It’s safe to assume he has told someone about us. If he had died soon after teleporting away, Oscar would’ve claimed his soul.”
“That is so weird,” I whisper as I glance at my orange tabby.
The unassuming little kitten turned out to be a legend of old.
I’d looked up Cluasan Mora and cat-sith first thing in the morning when Oscar’s yellow eyes were still closed.
Scottish folk creatures, black cats with white spots on their chest that would steal the souls of the recently dead.
It was also believed that they themselves were witches, and that a witch could transform into the cat form nine times before being stuck as a cat.
There was a lot of bad rap for them, overall. It was determined much later that they were probably just Scottish Highland cats, or Kellas cats. But now that I’ve seen little orange Oscar turn into a black cat the size of a freakin’ Irish Wolf Hound, I’m not so sure.
“What’s the deal with cat-sith,” I ask.
Bastian hums as he savors his first bite. “I’m developing a great appreciation for your pink, fleshy sustenance.”
“Are you deflecting?” I ask.
“Mhmm,” he hums.
I tsk and eat my food.
I can’t possibly believe that Oscar is a witch that transformed into a cat too many times. Plus, why would he be an orange tabby, or a he for that matter? The witches in the folktales were all female, and in league with the devil.
When our bowls are empty, Oscar jumps on the table. He looks Bastian dead in the face and meows a few times, none of which I understand like I think maybe I had last night.
“He says I can discuss his origins with you,” Bastian reports.
I offer my hand to Oscar, and he pushes his head into it. I’m trying not to fear him, but I find myself asking permission to touch him a lot more…
“It was a long tale he shared last night while you slept. An interesting story that fed my magic enough to handle the body of the remaining hunter.”
I’d wondered where that had gone. I didn’t want to assume, but there were lots of horrible things that came to mind when I considered where that body could’ve gone.
“He and his kind settled in the Scottish Highlands many centuries ago, finding themselves most at home in the rolling green hills. They had been displaced from their realm, but he was too young to know why or how.”
“Wait, he’s…how old?” I ask, scritching his chin.
Oscar chitters.
“Approximately seven-hundred and forty.”
“Oh…kay.” I sigh.
I thought the big bombs were over. Apparently not.
“His people are shape shifters, but something about this realm dampened their magic. It was strongest in the Highlands, so that was where they settled.”
“Sorry, interrupting again. He has a person form?” I ask, suddenly aghast that I’d been naked in front of him many times.
Oscar makes a few meows and Bastian nods.
“He doesn’t know. His forms have always been limited to a few, and mainly feline.”
Well, scratch that then. Or should I not? Is it still weird if he understands what nudity is? Oscar looks at me with his big, round eyes, then lifts his leg and licks his butt.
“Ew, not on the table!” I tell him.
He stops mid-lick and meows.
Bastian laughs. “He was trying to make you feel more comfortable.”
I groan. “Are you both like feeling detectors or something?”
Oscar mews and Bastian seesaws his head.
Great.
“May I continue?”
I blow out a huge breath and sit back in my chair. “Go for it.”
“His people were hunted by the native men, hounds, and wolves, depleting their numbers over the years. Finally, his leader decided it was too dangerous for them to stay together. To survive, they would have to take on more acceptable forms and live among humans.
“Oscar lived in London for a while as a plague-rat hunter and discovered that being orange made him much more lovable. He was well cared for, and very capable. When ships started sailing for the Americas, he decided to take work aboard one as a ratter and make a new life here.
“He spent years in many different homes but lived too long at a few homes that he loved quite dearly and was determined to be some kind of devil spawn. He learned to ‘die’ around sixteen years after that, sooner if he wasn’t enjoying his host family.”
Bastian finishes and I find myself petting Oscar idly.
“Is this okay?” I ask.
“Merer mmmgg.”
“He says to please not treat him any differently than you used to.”
“Okay but what about this soul collection?” I ask.
“It’s how his kind advance. They are long-lived and the more magical essence of others they collect, the stronger they can become,” he says. “Consider it a form of cultivation.”
“I see…but you don’t take still living people’s souls, do you?” I ask Oscar.
He blinks slowly and murfs.
“He can’t—not yet, at least. He’s not powerful enough,” Bastian says.
Well, since Oscar is a lot more aware than the average cat, and I have a means to communicate with him, I need to be more considerate of his needs.
“Do you like your kibble?” I ask with a wince. “Because, I mean, I thought you were a cat…”
“Meh merrgg mah.”
“He says it’s fine but would like some fish every so often.”
“Renee and Drew fish!” I say, remembering her talking about summer activities. “Maybe they can teach me, and I can bring you some fresh food.”
Oscar purrs loudly.
I smile. “Settled then. I’ll try to get you some fresh fish every week.”
He bumps my chin and rubs hard, scent marking me.
“So weird,” I murmur. “You had to learn all these ‘normal cat’ behaviors, huh?”
He makes some low, mumbled noises.
“He says he trained cats how to become domesticated,” Bastian remarks. “How to ‘act lovable, be useful,’ and such.”
I chuckle. “You created a whole generation of people who call their cats their furbabies, you know that, right?”
“Brrrdd mah,” he replies pridefully.
“Oh, Oscar,” I say, pulling him into my arms. “My magical boy.”