Black Wings, Gray Skies (Black Hat Bureau 4)

“It kitty.” The daemon spoke to me as if I were a child. “It not talk to Rue.”

In my experience, it was better if you treated any unidentifiable creatures as an equal in intelligence until they proved otherwise.

“Rue?” A sugary feminine drawl filled the air. “That your name, darlin’?”

“Yes?”

“You don’t sound sure.” Husky laughter swirled around me. “Are you, or aren’t you?”

Briefly, I wondered if this was how Alice felt when dealing with the Cheshire cat.

“I’m Rue.” I dredged up a polite smile to cover how creepy I found its form. “And you are?”

“Jilo.” The cat twitched a whisker. “You can call me Jilo.”

“Pretty name.” I rubbed my index finger over my thumbnail. “So, you’re a cat.”

As far as interrogation methods go, it was a weak lead-in, but she had thrown me off my game.

“Good Lord, no.” She laughed, louder this time. “This is how I’ve chosen to appear to you.”

“Don’t trust bad kitty.” The daemon sniffed the air. “Stink like death.”

This wrapper wasn’t supple leather like the teacher but a fresh kill, and it reeked of the dark arts.

No wonder we hadn’t encountered any freshies. They would have been simple to pick out by their smell.

“Yes, well, that is how avatars are made.” The cat rolled its eyes. “Would it make you feel better if I told you the cat was a stray with cancer, that it would have died anyway? Probably in agony? That I spared it that terrible fate?”

The daemon stared at the cat with less ire. “Poor kitty.”

“I’m not saying that’s true,” she teased, “but I did wonder.”

“You lie about kitty?” The daemon’s head snapped back like she had slapped him. “Why?”

“He’s not bright, is he?” The cat flicked her tail. “Tell me the pretty side of the coin is intelligent.”

“Kitty.” I blocked the static tickling the back of my mind. “You might want to watch your step.”

The cat lifted its dainty nose, inhaled like it had lungs to fill, then sneezed.

“You’re in fascination.” She unsheathed her claws. “No wonder you’re so overprotective.”

People heard the daemon and assumed he was simple, but his mental capacity wasn’t diminished, it was immature. Asa fought that side of himself for so long, the daemon hadn’t developed alongside him. The daemon was a big kid. A big, violent kid who would do anything to protect those he loved from harm.

Ignoring her prying statement, I willed her to get to the point. “You murdered a cat for a reason.”

“Other than I was hungry?” She bared her fangs. “You seem more competent than your counterparts, so I’ve decided to help you.”

The word counterparts had me picturing Marty and the other Black Hat agents, whether she meant them or the Officers Vandenburgh.

Either way, Jilo had been stalking us. The three of us. Determining by our actions whether we merited her assistance.

Guess this meant we really were being watched earlier.

This, if we could trust her, might be the breakthrough we had been waiting for. “Oh?”

“One of our own has gone rogue.” She licked her paw, sort of. Her tongue was more of a twisty ribbon. “Her actions have attracted too much attention to our way of life.”