Treasure of the Malkin, page 1
part #4 of War of the Malkin Series
Contents
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Title
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
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Copyright
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also Written By
The war has just begun…
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Treasure of the Malkin
Chapter 1
Sulfur and rotten food assaulted his nose. He shifted, a strange crinkle loud in his ears. When he opened his eyes, he thought he was blind until he reached out a paw and the slick black bubble shifted a paw width. The sunlight pierced his eyes like stiletto daggers, making his vision swim in tears. He lay there with his eyes closed to mere slits, listening to his rapid breathing. He had to get moving.
He took a deep breath, unsheathed his claws and ripped and pulled against the slick black bubble until he was free, tumbling down a pile of filth to land hard. He mewled as sharp pain sliced through his shoulder into his chest. Can’t stay.... Have to... get.... He pulled his front paws underneath himself and pushed against the dark gray stone.
Pain lanced through his right shoulder again, dropping him. He mewled again. Failed. I’ve failed. He curled into a ball, tucking his nose under his tail. Thoughts of his friends at the temple chased him through the dark corridors of his mind. What was happening to them now? Had they uncovered the Horde by some other means or were they all dead because the demon leader had surprised him?
The Huntress’s image swam into view, her blue eyes calm and forgiving in her black and white face, as if she didn’t blame him for letting her die at the claws of demons. No. It can’t end like this. He raised his head and pushed himself into a three-legged sitting position. The world wobbled for several moments, making him want to retch.
The stonework on the buildings to either side were a strange reddish color, with pipes, ladders and odd looking black cords protruding from it. King’s City must be utilizing Master Sylvester’s gadgets. I wonder what they’re for. He started to shake his head, but reconsidered. Doesn’t matter now. Focus.
He lurched down the alley toward the road. If he were in King’s City, no matter what part he found himself in, he knew getting to the Office of Kingdom Guardianship would be a simple matter of making a mirror call. They’d send a carriage for him as soon as they learned who he was and who he’d been working for. The idea stabilized his limbs and gave them strength as he hobbled farther along.
Across the street, he saw a large window with strange writing scrawled across it in garish white and gold paint, a picture of a hand with an eye in the center of the palm on either side. Rusted bars partially concealed the chipping letters though they did nothing to hide the gaudy pink chair or brass table setting in front of a shimmering red backdrop. On top the table sat what he thought might have been a magetized storage crystal, though he’d never seen one so round or clear.
He snorted, regretting it as his shoulder protested. It never ceased to amaze him what Lower District apothecaries would do to attract customers. At least an apothecary would have a mirror already set up to call the OKG. One rule handed down by the High Council after they discovered the plague was created from a common herb the healers kept on hand.
He hobbled closer to the street, peering down at the strange black surface. The acrid stench made him wrinkle his nose. He’d reasoned nothing could smell worse than the filth he’d woken up in, but this was working hard to manage it. With a sigh, he stepped onto the foul road and hobbled toward the apothecary shop.
An unearthly scream assaulted his ears, making his gaze dart to his left as he hunkered down. A gleaming silver and green demon as big as a carriage was bearing down on him. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for its tail-length fangs to rip through his body. There was a pop and saw stars as pain blossomed in his forehead. Soothing blackness floated him away.
***
Soft rhythmic caresses along his back roused him from the blackness, eliciting a rumbling purr. He’d forgotten the last time human hands had stroked his fur. Occupational hazard of working alone, I suppose. He stretched his chin upward, allowing the probing fingers access to the itchy spot inside his jawbone. The human chuckled.
“I’ve never known a cat yet who could resist the chin scratch,” said a female voice.
“I’ve never known a human who could scratch without bruising,” he said.
The woman screamed. The surface he was laying on jumped, jarring his shoulder and making him hiss in pain. He opened his eyes wide to survey the situation and readied a spell, expecting to see a demon hovering nearby. Although the room had some curious furnishings and a few gadgets he could only guess at, everything appeared safe. He turned to stare at the woman peering at him over what he assumed was a couch.
“What, by all that’s holy, was that about?” he asked. “I thought we were under attack.”
“You talk.”
“Of course I do. I’m a full Malkin,” he said, frowning.
“I don’t know what that is, but I know cats don’t talk.”
He cocked his head to the side. Was it possible that this woman, despite her nicely appointed living quarters, lived in one of the furthest of the Outer Reaches and had never encountered one of his kind? Yet, if that were true, how had he come to be there? Had she captured him and magically transported them to this place? He shook his head at the absurdity. She wouldn’t have been stroking his fur if she’d catnapped him. He glanced down at his right leg, starting at the swath of white bandage wrapped around it from shoulder to mid-leg.
“What is this?” he asked turning narrowed eyes on the woman.
“The vet said you had a dislocated shoulder. She said we needed to keep your leg immobilized until it healed.”
“A vet? Is that your term for an apothecary?”
“Apothecary?” She raised her head farther above the back of the couch until he saw her entire face, confusion written in her pinched brows and frown.
“Wait. Are you part of some magic act from a Renaissance Faire?” She looked around the room as if she expected someone to step out from behind a door or curtain. “I’m being messed with, aren’t I?” she said, smiling and coming out from her hiding place.
“Marty,” she called to the empty air, “I know you’re here. Ha ha. Hilarious. You got me.”
He watched her search the room, jumping behind doors as she yanked them open and peering into nooks too small for a human to hide. As she ducked under the table he was sitting on, his gaze landed on a large sheet of folded parchment with odd printing. He stretched to decipher the lettering. It might have been a child’s first attempt at writing for all he could understand.
Reaching out a tendril of will, he pulled the first scrawl into the air above the paper, then drew the others one by one alongside it until every word was floating inches above where they had been. With a thought, he sent the letters spinning until they were a myriad of tiny balls of ink and waited until he felt the familiar snap that meant they were ready to pull into another form. He halted the spinning letters. They spread into long loops and flattened into minuscule blobs as they coalesced, becoming words he understood. His eyes widened. This couldn’t be right.
“What year is it?” he asked, turning to stare at the woman standing in the middle of the room.
She cocked her head at him, her long dark ponytail bouncing to the side. “Oh come on. Drop the act. I know it’s you, Marty, so you may as well come on out.”
“I assure you, madam, I am in no joking mood,” he said, caging a growl in his throat. “Tell me what year it is.”
The woman threw her hands in the air and flopped into a chair beside him. “All right, fine. We’ll play this your way.” Straightening her back and tilting her head upward so she was looking down her nose at him, she said in an affected voice, “Why, sir, doth thou not know it is the Year of Our Lord 2016?”
“By the One, that’s impossible,” he said. He pulled himself toward the window over the table.
“Hey,” the woman said, plucking him upward. “You’re supposed to stay still, remember? Wait. Why am I telling you that?”
“Unhand me.” Her gripped tightened as he struggled to free himself. He slashed at her arm, instantly regretting it as he landed back on the table.
“You little ingrate.”
She stomped away into another room. He listened to the sounds of water running as he prayed the room would stop spinning. As the pain subsided he detected something astringent coming from the other room. He tensed, wondering what torture device she was bringing back with her. The woman hissed, as if in pain. A moment later she returned, a bandage on the scratches.
“So much for rescuing the poor hurt kitty.”
“You... rescued me? From the demon?”
“What demon?”
“The one that attacked me as I was on my way to the apothecary across the street.”
“That was my car and I didn’t attack you with it.”
“Car?”
“You know. Those things people ride around in. Vroom vroom.” She made another turn, staring into the corners. She turned and squinted at him. “Are you sure I’m not being punked?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t a clue what that means, but if you’re telling me the truth, then I’m in a bigger mess than I imagined.”
“I have vital information for the Huntress, but it seems I’m several hundred years too late.”
“Okay. Back up. Who’s this Huntress and what do you mean several hundred years too late? Are you telling me you’re a time traveling talking cat?”
“It’s not my gift, but I suppose so. It seems the demon I encountered transported me into this time period, presumably to get me out of the way.”
“So now there’s time traveling demons?”
“No.” He cocked his head. “Well, perhaps.”
“Which is it? Yes or no?”
“As far as I know demons don’t travel through time by any means other than those used by the rest of us, which is to say, living it day by day. However, it seems the demon I faced knows a spell or some other way to transport beings into other times.”
The woman closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is giving me a headache.”
He lifted his paw toward her, frowning at the bandage restricting his movement.
“I’m afraid I don’t know how to make it any simpler to understand.”
She looked up at him, her lips quirked in a lopsided smile. “My Mom always said, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.””
“Why would one choose to eat an elephant?”
“It’s just an expression,” she said and chuckled. “It means that if you have a really big problem you need to tackle, split it up into little parts and it’s easier to deal with. You can apply it here, too.”
“How?”
“Let’s start at the easiest thing first.” She reached out a hand and took his lifted paw, shaking it gently. “Hi. My name is Liz Manning, and you are?”
“Henry.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Henry. Now, you said you were on a mission to give information to someone. Can you tell me who it was or what information you had?”
“If you were working for the demon you’d have killed me long before now, so I suppose there’s no harm in telling you the entire story.”
“Ya think?” she asked with a grin. It made Henry’s whiskers widen in a cat smile.
“To begin with, I’m not a trained spy. I’m actually the Librarian.”
“No kidding. I’m a librarian, too.”
“No no no,” Henry said, shaking his head. “Not a librarian, though I spend a lot of time in various libraries around the kingdom researching. No, I’m the Librarian. I’m the collector of knowledge of all things ancient and magical both divine and evil. It is my duty to protect it and pass it along to others in the war against the Demon King.”
“Well that makes things about as clear as mud.”
Henry looked toward the ceiling and swiveled his ears back. After a moment he dropped his gaze back to Liz.
“You said you’re a librarian also. Do they organize books and scrolls into various categories here?”
“Well, we don’t have scrolls, but, yeah, we arrange the books by Dewey decimal.”
“Okay, I don’t know what Dewey decimal is, but let’s say you have several books on demons and several more on Winged Ones.”
“I’m guessing Winged Ones are angels, right?”
“They are the opposite of the demons, so, yes, if that’s what an angel is.”
“All right. Go on.”
“You would separate the books into two piles, correct?”
“Sure,” Liz said with a shrug.
“After that, you would separate each of those piles into narrower categories, am I right?”
“Okay, but what does that have to do with being the Librarian versus a librarian?”
“If you leave your library, can anyone come in and find what they were looking for without your help?”
“Of course. That’s what the card catalog is for.”
“And could that person come look for their information anytime, day or night?”
“Not unless they have a key card and a security password for the alarm.”
Henry nodded. “I am, essentially, your card catalog, key card and security password for all the information collected on the spiritual and magical world.”
“Seriously? There’s no one else?”
He shook his head. Liz snorted.
“That seems kinda stupid. What if you died or—”
“Were transported to a different time?” Henry asked, his whiskers widening. “I have no idea. I always assumed life as we knew it would cease to exist, but...” He turned toward the window. “It seems to have continued without me.”
“Not as important as you thought you were, huh, big guy?”
“Apparently.” He turned back to Liz. “You’re certain there are no demons? No battle for creation? No...” He leaned toward her, a faint hope pricking his chest. “Talking cats?”
Liz shook her head. “There’s some folks who believe all that “good versus evil” stuff. There are always telling people we’re all doomed if we don’t follow their way and accept whatever they tell us. I’ve never seen evidence to prove there are demons lurking in the shadows making people do bad stuff, so...” She shrugged her shoulders. “As for talking cats, you’re the first.”
Henry sighed and turned to stare out at the alien world he’d been deposited into. He wished he had the Huntress’s gift of seeing the spiritual world, then he’d know if what Liz said was accurate, but he didn’t. All he had was his mind and an insatiable curiosity.
“Hey, so long as you’re stuck here, you can stay with me.”
“That’s kind of you, but I need to find my way back home.”
The word sent a ping of longing through him. If there’s a home to go back to.
***
Henry sat on Liz’s nightstand, waiting for her to wake up. He’d spent an enlightening night watching the story box and browsing through papers Liz had left lying around. It was a strange and frightening experience when he’d discovered the little black box on the couch magically made humans and other odd creatures appear on the bigger box hanging from Liz’s wall. He’d made a mental note to always check first before sitting after that.
The papers were more informational. Not only did Liz work at a local library, she was involved in getting a large exhibit of ancient books and artifacts, several of which he was intimately familiar with, displayed in a new wing. The grand opening would be later that night. One way or another, Henry planned to be there.
Of course, plan A would work better if his would-be partner would wake up. He cleared his throat and gave her his best cat smile as she opened her eyes.
“Good morning,” he said.
Liz jumped to a sitting position, grabbing the sheet to her chest, her eyes reminding him of a cornered rabbit. With a hesitant finger, she reached out and poked his good shoulder. She sat back.
“Holy Hannah!” she said. “I thought you were some weird dream I had last night.”
“Can I assume you’re satisfied now that I’m not?” Liz nodded. “Good, because I have a last request.”
“Last request? You planning on dying soon?”
Henry frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“You said you had a “last request.” That usually means the person asking is terminally ill or facing a firing squad or something.”
“Unless the Horde sends one of its minions after me, I trust I won’t die anytime soon.”
“So this is just a favor?”
“Yes. One last favor before I take my leave of you.”
Liz squinted at him. “You talk funny, anyone ever tell you that?”
“I suppose, being from another time, would make that happen. Now, about that favor.”
“A favor for a talking cat,” Liz said and shook her head, then scooted out of bed. “Not until I’ve had a cup of coffee.”
“But—”
“Huh uh. You ambushed me before I was awake. I need some caffeine to fortify my sense of reality before I start doing something that’s likely more than my little human brain can accept as real.”
Henry sighed and dropped to the floor on three legs. He followed the woman into her kitchen and watched as she drew a tiny white cup from a black drawer under an oddly shaped gadget on the counter. When she stepped in front of it, he craned his neck trying to see what she was doing.
