Sweep in Peace (Innkeeper Chronicles 2)

“Looking for a cat?”

I almost jumped.

A middle-aged balding man in the PetSmart uniform khaki pants and blue polo shirt stopped by me.

The grey cat watched me. I almost asked for him. No, too old. “Can I see the kitten?” I asked.

“Sure.” He unlocked the glass door, letting me into a private area that permitted access to the back of the cages.

Feistykins proved to be everything a kitten could be. She pounced on the feather toy, she pounced on the little kitten ball, she pounced on my leg, and when I put her on my lap, she purred and preened. Two minutes into petting, she decided she had enough and bit me. She didn’t draw blood, but I felt the teeth. Well, if Grandmother Nuan wanted a cute merciless hunter, this was probably the best we could do.

“I’ll take her.”

“Okay.” The man handed me some papers to fill out. Five minutes later Feistykins was safely contained in a small cardboard carrier.

“What about him?” I asked, pointing to the grey cat.

“Count? He’s been here awhile. He isn’t what you would call an affectionate cat. He doesn’t suck up.”

No, he didn’t look like he’d suck up.

“He’s got till tomorrow and then the shelter is taking him back. They’ve got to rotate the cats. If they replace him with someone less boring, that cat might get adopted.”

“Thank you.” I loaded Feistykins into the cart and moved on to the cat aisle. Cat litter, cat litter scoop, cat food, cat dish…

I never considered myself a cat person. I didn’t really care for them. My mother had one, a big black fluffy cat called Snuggles. When I left the room for five minutes and came back, our dogs acted as if I was gone for ages. Snuggles mostly ignored us, including my mom who took care of him. The only time he deemed it necessary to notice our existence was when he was hungry.

Let’s see, she would need a kitten collar too. And some toys. I plucked a long plastic stick with a feather on top. Before the summit pulled me out of my bored stupor, I’ve read an article – you can really find out a lot of weird stuff when you spend your day surfing Facebook – that claimed that cats didn’t really love their owners, only manipulated them. They recognized their owner’s voices and ignored them. They rubbed on their legs because they marked a new “object” in the room with their scent. And most of them didn’t actually like getting petted. Besides, Beast probably didn’t like cats.

Nobody would adopt him. He would just sit there in that cage with his starry sky eyes. And tomorrow someone would come and take him back to the shelter.

This was a stupid idea.

I turned the cart around. The man who had helped me was feeding the fish.

“I’ll take him.”

“Who?” he asked.

“The grey cat. I’m taking him home with me.”

I got home without further incident. I let the inn unpack the groceries from the car. I had errands to run. First I took the grey cat to my room and left him there in the carrier. He didn’t look too freaked out but I didn’t want to take chances. I would have to think of a name for him at some point, but right now I had nothing. Then I put on my robe, borrowed Arland’s engineers and set him to duplicating gaming consoles and controllers. Finally, I took Feistykins to the Nuan Clan.

I was greeted by Nuan Ara who ushered me into their quarters. The entire Nuan clan assembled in the room in a small semicircle with Grandmother resting on a luxurious divan.

“This is a kitten,” I explained. “A very young predator. She doesn’t look like Ennuis predator, but she has a playful spirit. Right now she might be frightened, so when I open this carrier, she might escape. Do not chase her. She will hide and come out when she is ready.”

I pried the carrier open, expecting Feistykins to take off like a bullet.

Seconds crawled by.

What if she died somehow in the carrier? Okay, where did that thought even come from?

The carrier shuddered. Feistykins stepped out and looked over the clan of bipedal foxes. The expression on her face said she was not impressed. She gave the gathering another derisive once over, let out an imperious meow, and headed straight for the divan.

The merchants formed a circle around the kitten, making cooing noises. I let out a breath, handed toys and the litter box to Nuan Ara with quick instructions and went to see the noble knights of Holy Anocracy.

By the time they assembled, the inn finished assimilating the new gaming consoles. I waved my hand and three huge flat screen opened in the stone walls of the vampire quarters. Wall spat out sets of controllers.

“Greetings,” I said. “House Krah, House Sabla and House Vorga, may I present Call of Duty.”

The three screens ignited simultaneously, playing the opening of the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Soldiers in high tech armor shot at target, flew across the screen from bomb impacts, and walked dramatically in slow motion. Vehicles roared, Marines roared louder, and Kevin Spacey informed us that politicians didn’t know how to solve problems but he did.

The vampires stared at the screens.

“This is a game of cooperative action,” I said, “Where a small elite force can triumph against overwhelming odds.”

At the word elite, they perked up like wild dogs who heard a rabbit cry.

“The game will teach you how to play it. May the best House triumph over their opponents.”

Arland reached for the first controller. I turned around and walked out, sealing the door behind me. Now their pride was involved. That should occupy them for a few days. Hopefully they wouldn’t kill each other over it.