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Chapter 33 - Shadows

-W-

It was strange, having him gone. This was a step beyond breaking our link. He was out of my reach, out of my sight and far away from me. I had no way of knowing how far. He could have been a brief run from here. He could have been a lifetime's run away. My heart felt heavy, more than just the pain that radiates into it from my shoulder.

At first I found myself pacing his home, a restlessness had fallen over me in a wave the moment he had closed the door. Anything could happen while he was out there, that demoncat could be stalking him, hunting him down. The thought alone had my throat rumbling out an angry snarl at nothing. Back and forth I trudged through his home, our home, from his bedroom to the door that had taken him away.

The window by the door let me see into his world, but he had told me to stay away in fear of someone seeing me. This did not worry me.. I would see them before they saw me. As intensely focused and alert as I was, I heard every small sound, saw every flitting movement. Large beings moved in single file down empty black stretches, shooting past our home in a hurry. Connor had left in one of his own, and each one that passed by sparked hope that it was returning him to me.

Each time also brought a wash of disappointment as they continued on without pause. Time was a vague concept to me, I had been aware of it in idea alone but it waxed and waned so easily in my void. It mattered little to me except for in relation to how long it would be before he would wake, or later on when I could come out and see him. Now it felt like the most overwhelming concept. Time stretched on and played with my thoughts. It made me agitated. It had me looking to the sky and watching as the light shifted and passed overhead.

That helped me get a better sense of it all. Of time itself. To wrap my thoughts around how long he had been gone and try to work out how long before he'd come home. Numerous times I let out an exhale, only to find myself sounding like a whining pup.

My chest ached still.

The only thing I could do was wait and prepare, so I took myself from the window and returned to his room. That cat beast's scent lingered there. I sat with it, where it was strongest. Closing my eyes I breathed it in, let it saturate my senses and blanket out through the inside of my nose. Every small and seemingly insignificant quality laying itself out neatly for me to focus on. To study. Every little detail I needed to memorize for the upcoming hunt.

That alone helped pass the time. Light angled through the window and warmed my dark fur, it felt pleasant and if my blood had not already been boiling I may have taken to relaxing in it. There was nothing more I could learn from his scent. I knew it inside and out. He had left my human's home during the night to hunt, caught some small mammals and spilled their blood. Canines, similar to my own scent but smaller and far weaker. The demoncat had stalked around most of the night and traveled a good distance.. but obviously not strayed too far as he'd made it back here come morning. He would be tired.. he'd likely spend the daylight resting and hunt again come nightfall. Just as I should do.

I couldn't bring my eyes to close for any length of time. It was too much to ask of them when every shift in the light, every sound, every smell had my fur rising and muscles tensing. The wrap that Connor had put on my shoulder was beginning to annoy me, so I removed it with my claws and discarded it on the floor, inspecting my wound. It had healed. Good. Not perfect.. but I did not have to worry about it bleeding again. It had skinned over. The pains inside were duller aches now, they too would fade. Hopefully by nightfall I would hardly feel them.

Eventually I stood and moved to the window, looking out at the short drop down into the grass between homes. Where the fiend had escaped. It wasn't him I looked for however, not my human. I searched the window across from ours for the small human. The room there was dark and empty, they were not there. Or not awake. It saddened me a little.. their smile I had hoped would help bring on one of my own again. Maybe pass some more time. I debated heading to the door again to wait impatiently for my human.. but I found I didn't need to.

My ears twitched as the door to the world made a few metallic noises, then creaked open. A slightly exasperated Connor stepped through as I stepped out into the hall to see him. There was a heavy thudding noise behind me that put me briefly on the defensive.. until I looked back to see that it was only my tail hitting the wall rapidly. The smile that I had hoped for came. Naturally even.. I did not have to force it. The human expression was rubbing off on me.

"Hey bud.. didn't shred the place I see. Good, with all the blood and claw marks already I know I'm not getting my deposit back but I don't want to have to start replacing everything I own on top of that. That fucking cat got you going, got me going too.. You know he showed up at the store? That son-of-a-bitch followed me or stowed away in my car or pulled some freaky voodoo cat magic and poofed himself over to my car like some sort of hairy godmother. No wait he's hairless.. Whatever, he stole a bunch of our meat!.. That raw chicken breast with legs stole our.. well he stole the bag of chicken breasts actually.."

I stepped up to meet him while he spoke endlessly, silencing him as I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed. He grunted out and laughed a bit, pushing at me with the crinkly bags.

"Aghh.. Okay, okay. You're squishing your meat against my leg..."

For some reason that made him start laughing more, I did not understand why. I did let him go reluctantly so he could bring the bags to the table and set them down. I expected anger to hit me when he said the cat had followed him and taken our food but.. my tail just wouldn't stop flicking about behind me. He was home and he was safe. The entire mornings worth of worrying and pacing ended the moment the door opened and he came in safe.

"You need to eat, just tear into whatever bags you want. Got steaks. Got pork.. Had chicken, but that wrinklebitch took it. Uh.. got duct tape, not for eating. I grabbed a sandwich, you can have one bite. Just one, as a treat."

Once I pulled open the casings the meat inside smelled delicious. I wasted little time before digging in, my stomach ached for more. The world and Connor's words dulled around me as I pulled chunks of flesh away and slipped them past my teeth to tear and swallow. To taste the minor hunts of blood left. It was not a fresh kill but at this point I did not care, I needed to feed.

I only caught small parts of my human's words as he chattered away beside me, only quieting to take a bite of his own meal. The things he said we're unimportant, but I was happy to hear his voice, to have him close. His familiar presence and tones calmed me through my feeding frenzy. The only words that jumped out at me were when the demoncat was mentioned again.

"...ran right off with the chicken and through the bushes. I don't know if he knew I was getting food or what, but it was a snatch and grab. Fuckin cat burglar. Problem is he.. uh.. well he ran into the city."

My head cocked to the side some, I did not know this word. Many words he used were unfamiliar to me but I managed to understand well enough what he was referring to and found myself learning quickly. Grasping at little things he taught me intentionally or otherwise.

"City.. you know like buildings and lots of traffic. Ugh.. buildings. Like we are in my apartment, it's a small building. These are big buildings, really, really tall, lots of apartments and stores inside. You'll see I guess.. Not looking forward to this."

Neither was I. The thrill of the hunt was mitigated by the anxious feeling of potential failure. I was getting my strength back, but the demoncat had been fast. Very fast. It would be hard to catch the creature, harder yet to figure out how to put him back where he belonged. Where I belonged.

We finished eating in relative silence, though the only reason Connor wasn't talking was because a full mouth made it difficult. I devoured every bit of meat that he had brought home and already I could feel my strength return. Having something in my belly seemed to fill a missing piece of me. It was strange to eat before a hunt, but now I could focus even more clearly on my prey.

When night fell the two of us were primed and ready, after a day's worth of relaxing and waiting it was time. The sun was nearly set. Connor waited until it was dark out and pulled a large cloth from his bedding over me. Oh, it smelled like the demoncat.. My human can be smart, sometimes. Giving me something to keep that scent fresh in my mind.

"Try to keep your tail in and cover your whole body, we don't want anyone to see you getting into my car. When we get there you can pull it down some so long as you are in the shadows, but you have to be ready to hide yourself if anyone is around. Got it?"

That was also a valid reason for the smelly cat cloth. I gave him a short nod and shifted the cloth around on my shoulders, wincing a bit, but it settled better and covered my tail with a longer corner, the opposite corner draped over my head and muzzle. Peeking out from under it, I followed him to the door and stepped out into his world.

The air was cold and crisp, it smelled so much more alive than the still air inside his home did. I enjoyed the familiar scent of our home but the world out here was full of new things. My senses were alight, I needed to focus. We had to hunt.

He shuffled me along to the large metal machine he'd been taken away in. A car, as he called it. I did not fit well inside of it, but it was much softer and cosier inside. He had me lay down scrunched up under the blanket in the back section as he hopped in the front. The car growled out suddenly and I growled right back on instinct, though Connor's hand quickly reached back to touch and calm me. This thing wasn't alive, but it moved and sounded like it was.

It rumbled and vibrated around me, and then the entire mass moved around us. Carrying us with ease. I couldn't help but raise my head to peer out the window, even though my human told me not to. It was like the windows in our home, only the world moved past us, so many lights, so many things I didn't understand yet. I trusted my human to guide me out in his world, as he trusted me to protect him from what came from mine.

"Hey bud, we're just about there.. we're gonna stop at the parking lot where I last saw him and see if you can track him okay?"

He patted my side through the blanket a few times and slowed the car down, pulling into some graveyard of other cars. He was nervous, I could smell it the whole way here. So was I, but I did not show it to him. He needed to have confidence in me. I needed to believe it as much as he did. My human opened the door and ushered me out, looking around frantically and keeping watch. I huddled under the cloth as my paws touched the cold, rough and hard ground.. it was black stone for as far as I could see all around, still and silent cars settled and scattered across a black field. Small lights on tall poles were scattered to shine on some of them, little beacons.

"Keep out of the light.. stick to the shadows and keep yourself along the bushes if you can. He went through there"

Connor pointed but I was already moving, I could smell the demoncat clear as day, his trail was a bright stain left in his wake. It fell across every surface his paws touched, every leaf his hairless form brushed against. He was more slender than I was, I had to break branches to follow his path, but they snapped with ease. Once more I was feeling powerful, the feelings coursing through me dulled the pain in my shoulder. They lit up my senses and left my muscles coiled and ready.

I lead my human around the back of the building, seeing the path our prey took and following it to some metal grid like wall. His paws had been all over the metal, he'd climbed right over it and broken some twigs as he stopped on the other side. There was a small scrap of the crinkly bags that the meat had come in stuck to the top of the metal.

I took hold of the thin metal wire that made up the wall, bending and tearing it with ease. My arms tensed and pulled away from each other, rending a nice tear in the middle of the wall and pulling it open with the soft sound of screeching and rattling.. and my human yelling at me.

"Woah woah woah, hey! What are you doing? You can't just go tearing down fences.. you're gonna get us caught"

Somehow he whispered and shouted at the same time. There was already a good sized hole in the fence.. I gestured to it and hoped he would give me permission to finish what I had started as I gave him the eyes again. They had worked very well when I had used them in the past.

"Goddamnit, fine.. just.. next time we go around alright? Least it's dark back here.. keep it quiet and let's slip through real quick."

I was much larger than he was, but I fit through the gap. Connor had more trouble, his clothes and the pack he wore on his back kept getting snagged on the jagged wire. He insisted on keeping it to carry his rope and 'duck' tapes. Whatever those might be.

There was a long stretch of ragged grass and bushes, a scattering of some small trees and what looked to be a small stream passing out of some metal bars. The creature had run off through all of it. Looking up ahead I could see the buildings he had told me about. I stood a little in awe. They were simply massive.. larger than any creation I had seen. Even in the dark they stood out against the night sky, giant pillars in the dark. Many, many windows, some lit, others not.

Connor patted at my arm to pull my attention back, looking around as he tried to figure out what path the cat had taken. I gestured along between bushes and traced our sightline ahead towards the city.

"I can't see a thing back here..I'm blind as a bat. It's too dark.. If you can see where he went, lead the way."

I did just that. Trudging through the dense bushes and overgrowth I made a path for my human to follow.. though even with my obstacles he was still finding it difficult to keep up in the dark. Finally he called out to me. I turned to see him standing there a little sheepishly.

"Backpack?"

He gestured to my back and I flashed him a grin.