Coming Down [Penelope]

[Jake Harlow (DELETED 8162)]

As soon as Jake opened the door, the Fiend From Hell charged past him.

He reached down and grabbed for the cat. Just a few days ago, he wouldn't have managed it, but now, his fingers brushed against plush fur and closed around the cat's scruff - at least until it wrenched itself free of his hold with an offended yowl and sprang for freedom.

A blur of tortoiseshell fur, it raced into the bushes and vanishing out of sight.

He closed the door and ran after it, swearing. If he didn't get the cat back, Danny was going to kill him. If he let it be, it was probably going to be eaten by a dog or crushed by a car. This cat wasn't smart enough to find its food bowl half the time.

Twenty minutes later, he stared up at a tree on the edge of the apartment complex. The cat perched atop one of the branches. Judging from the way it pawed uncertainly at the trunk of the tree, it couldn't figure out how to get back down. Trapped.

The tree wasn't too high, with plenty of branches on the way up. He pressed against one of the lower ones speculatively. He could climb this. The only trick would be getting a hold of what would undoubtedly transform into a writhing mass of claws and rage.

Grabbing onto one of the branches, he began to climb. On the third branch up, he realized that he was smiling. Despite the fact that he'd fucked up in letting the part out, he couldn't help but exult in the climb. A tension he hadn't realized was there uncoiled within him. He felt intensely aware of the rough bark beneath his palm, the wind ruffling his hair, and one appropriately named cat hissing at him.

Even if the cat decided to leap, would that be so bad? Cats were supposed to land on their feet, weren't they? If it ran, those tats could earn their ******* keep. He couldn't help but laugh: that was him, magically tattooed cat rescuer.

The cat hissed at the sound of his voice. It occurred to him that he ought to do something comforting to set the cat at its ease. He'd heard somewhere that cats responded to the tone of voice and they could even recognize a few words.

He might as well give it a try, Jake decided, casting his mind about for something comforting to say.

"I'm going to make cat soup out of you, you little devil," he said.

"Then I'll make boots from what's left over." He hooked his leg onto a branch and clambered onto the next branch. Just a few feet more... "I've dealt with stuff way bigger and snarlier than you, you sorry excuse for a weasel. So stay put."

[Penelope (DELETED 7534)]

[Wearing]

Penelope lived a double life. By day, she was a regular mechanic; a grease monkey tinkering with her bikes, making them faster, making them better. She kicked around in boots and overalls, cutting a rather plain figure. She finished at a regular hour and went to the gym three days out of five. She trained at kick-boxing and swam laps in the pool. Afterwards, she’d come home and scrub herself clean, as clean as she could get. She dressed for a night out on the town.

Some nights were successful. Some nights she found vampires who were willing to sell their blood; some transactions were completely business-likes, which was kind of disappointing. Some were pleasurable, with a little more than blood play in the mix. Sometimes she got nothing; a few more bruises to add to the cuts, scrapes and burns she accumulated at work. And, if she was desperate, she could head down into the sewers. She’d followed one down there one night. The sewers, somehow, for some reason, were teeming with wild vampires, the lost and the purposeless. They could be a bit of fun, too. Ever tried taking blood from something that was trying to kill you? What a fuckin’ high.

One that Penelope had got only a night ago; the effects were still there. And whenever she was high on the blood of a vampire she liked to go out anyway. Not to prowl, but to just enjoy life and all the heightened senses.

She was on her way home, however, when she was attracted to a voice in a tree. It was a tree just outside her own apartment complex; a man’s voice, calling her names. Her? Bigger and snarlier? Weasel?

”Excuse me?!”

Probably not a great idea to call a blood thief a weasel, as lame an insult as that was, when she was high on the blood of a wild vampire. She didn’t need blood. She didn’t really want it. But she’d still very happily rip a neck to shreds.