The Blackie Care Feline Mysteries Omnibus by Clea Simon

Author:Clea Simon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-18T16:00:00+00:00

SIX

S ize does not equal lethality. I am not boastful, but I have no doubt that I am a better hunter and a neater killer than this girl who now sits beside me, her green eyes wide. Likewise, although I doubt that pale child we left at the abandoned building could have taken down the adult male we found at the pawn shop, I cannot completely discount the possibility. Not when I see how Care hefts the piece in her hand – how solid it is. How heavy and cold.

What I do know is that neither of us is thinking clearly right now, and that I have the means to remedy this.

I rise, stretching, and consider my options. Although I had previously noted the signs of prey in the vicinity, I also consider scavenging. This girl must eat as well, and I doubt she has taken anything since the scraps she shared with me. Unlike her, I have the freedom of moving relatively unseen. I could, for example, head back across the tracks. Human habitations offer the best chance of edible scraps, and I can move among them with barely a notice. The brute in the alley would be an exception. He is not someone I would choose to encounter, but he is not seeking me.

I picture Fat Peter’s shop, the jumble of objects that I had hoped to examine. Unless you consider the prematurely bloated corpse, I cannot picture anything edible there, nor do I remember any scents other than dust and sweat and a faint metallic tang. And yet, the memory intrigues me and I conjure it in my mind. There was the work surface – a table of some sort – that Care had bumped into. The walls had been lined with shelves. Even the display window had been obscured by shelves, and I had sensed no bolt holes in the old floorboards. Still, the man had clearly liked to eat. And why else would his workplace interest me?

‘What is it, Blackie?’

Care is looking at me, and I realize my ears have gone wide and flat, as they do when I am thinking. Perceptive girl; I can see why someone took her in.

‘Is it this?’ She holds out the weight, which I lean in to sniff. Nothing, not even the scent of death, has remained on its cold metal surface. She may as well have left it, or returned it to that ragged boy who worries her so. The boy who, most likely, nicked the heavy trinket on some earlier visit.

A boy who was either welcomed in by Fat Peter via that locked front door, or, more likely, had run the same gantlet we did. I look up at Care, wondering how much of this she has realized. We smaller beings do tend to be sharper than the brutes of the world. Still, it may not have occurred to her, as it has, belatedly, to me. The shop we had visited was locked and dark. The alley guard had let us in and nearly trapped us there.

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