PREVIOUSLY
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“You and the ever so clever Joyce Summers never figured out who X was, did you?” Warren gloats.
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I’ve been in steam and now I’m outside on the coldest night of the year with a wet fur coat.
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After about a million miles or a hundred yards, its the same to me right now, I’m down to just concentrating on getting one paw in front of the other.
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“I guess you’re the one she’s looking for,” he says.
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Chapter 7
The Obligatory Drawing Room Scene
Whoever my ride is he’s a right guy. I know because he tucks a half-frozen cat inside his coat. By the time we get to the ride I warm up enough to recognize him as one of Joyce’s undercovers. We end up at a spiff boiler parked on the road in the woods. He hands me inside to the lady herself. Joyce takes me in a dry towel and then gives the cat carrier a look.
“Forrest,” she says. “I don’t care how you think you look. Pull down your ear flaps. You’ll catch cold.”
He doesn’t even bother to argue. He just rolls his eyes and pulls down the flaps. He climbs into the driver’s cab and looks at the other youngster wearing his tied down flaps. They both begin to laugh as the car sighs forward.
“M-M-My cat?” Willow asks as she shivers in her own blanket. “W-We were waiting for my cat? How did y-y-y-y-”
“I’ll explain later,” Joyce says coolly. “Now drink your coffee.”
Then Joyce proves she’s a great hostess. She pours warm chicken soup into a steep sided bowl and puts it in front of me. In a few licks my schnoz begins to thaw and I can tell she’s used real chicken broth. She leans back and picks up something off the seat beside her. Its Red’s trucker disguise hat. Joyce looks at Tara. The blue eyed witch looks almost pleased with herself and meets Joyce’s eyes over a steaming cup of joe. The older lady gives her a wintery look. Joyce looks at Red.
“You were wearing this, Willow?” Joyce asks firmly.
“Um, yes,” Red replies. “Why?”
In answer Joyce sticks her finger through a small round hole. Then she leans forward and puts it on Willow’s head. The shamus puts her finger to the hole.
“Forehead,” she muses aloud. Tara doesn’t look so confident now, what with the gray pallor and swallowing. Joyce looks at Giles. “What happened to La Chatte?”
“Ah,” Giles ponders. “She helped me to the roof, made sure I reached safety but didn’t make it off the roof before the explosion. I’m afraid she’s lost in the rubble and the fire.”
“Can anyone confirm that?” Joyce asks looking at Tara. This time the witch looks down. Then Tara looks at Willow. The ginger is putting her finger through the cap and starting to look pale herself. Tara looks at Joyce, but its not a cat like look.
“N-N-No one’s ever going to s-see her again,” Tara gets out softly.
“Its for the best,” Joyce says gently. From my angle I see the lady palm a pen knife, just about the size of the new hole in Red’s hat. I don’t say anything. Then Joyce looks at Jonathan. “Any evidence about Meers, X, and The Network?”
“He all but admitted he was X,” Giles interjects. “Boasted about it really. Unfortunately I’m afraid the fire’s going to be rather destructive.”
“We need that evidence,” Joyce says and I know I don’t want to be on the wrong side of this frail. Jonathan gives a polite cough.
“I’ve got these,” he says pulling out a sheaf of very thin slips.
“Floppies?” Willow asks perking up at the sight of data.
“I told Meers the punch tests were trash,” Jonathan says proudly. “He never asked about them.”
“We can reproduce the cards from these?” Joyce asks hopefully.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jonathan replies. “I don’t have the originals but we have copies of the X files.”
“In this case the copy will be as good as the original,” Willow grins.
“He had a thirty two place dual cranker,” Jonathan says uneasily.
“With an inverse floating point?” Willow preens.
“Yeah!” the guy replies like a Rottweiller near a steak. “You’ve got one?”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Willow says smugly.
“No,” Joyce says dryly. Then she smiles like the Mona Lisa. “I prefer curling up with a good book.”
Giles for some reason isn’t saying anything.
I’m getting most of the feeling back in the more distant parts of my anatomy when we pull into the heated garage of a nice pile of granite. I assume the girls have been here before because they pick me up and head inside without a murmur. We end up in room that was just made for napping. I get my own overstuffed chair and just relax. Sloppy of me because without warning Joyce reaches into her desk and pulls out what looks like a magnifying lens made by Geiger. She gives me the once over.
“What’s wrong with our cat?” Tara asks worriedly.
“Nothing,” Joyce says after my heart beats out a couple of jitterbug tunes. “Just a cosseted house cat. I wonder how she got out there.”
Sure you do, Joyce. I’m kicking the noggin into overdrive. At least she didn’t blow my cover.
“She must have gotten back in our-ah-the truck that person must have had for a nap.” Willow rationalizes. “Then she followed, um, the person who didn’t make it out of the fire and the blowing up.”
“Yes,” Tara agrees quickly.
Right then Jonathan sneezes. Joyce leans forward and rings a bell. The taller of her guys comes in wearing a three piece suit that’s made of wool so soft it just cries out for a cat to sleep on it.
“They’re here, Mrs. Summers,” he says.
“Please bring them in, Charles,” Joyce replies.
“Them?” Tara asks.
“I took the liberty of retaining Healers this evening,” Joyce says innocently. “I believe you usually see Mary Standing Bear?”
The shamus leads in the shamans. Actually only one gets close to fitting the moniker. The way Tara and Willow flinch at the dark haired woman’s glare I’m guessing this isn’t one of those soulful, gentle medicos.
“What was it this time?” the doc asks with a frown. “Spelunking? Airship racing? Basilisk taunting?”
“Uh, no,” Tara answers with an attempt at an innocent smile that fails so badly it could get her life for jaywalking.
“We’ve just given up thrill sports,” Willow adds with her own blown attempt at ‘not guilty’.
“Glory be!” the doc says with a sigh. “Follow me so I can see the damage from your goodbye to idiot danger party.”
“Where’s my patient?” a big guy asks as the girls follow meek as lambs. “Why, it’s Miss Kitty.”
“She got out,” Willow pipes up from the door. “Sorry, Larry.”
“I’ll need a quiet room,” the vet says. Right now I’m so tired being held by a needle specialist isn’t worth clawing about. Joyce leads us herself to a small anteroom. The big guy smells of everything from mice and gerbils to a horse with a touch of flu. He knows his stuff and with a few passes of his hands I can feel the residual pain take a powder. He sighs.
“Somebody’s been into the catnip,” he mutters.
“I’ll take her back,” Joyce says. The sawbones takes the hint. She sits me down in a chair and just looks at me for a handful of seconds. “Where is Willow and Tara’s Miss Kitty?”
I take the fifth.
“I should have known only a real cat could get into this much trouble,” she says after a moment. “Even such a skinny one.”
“Skinny?” I meow. She just smiles. Damn.
“Where is Miss Kitty?” Joyce asks politely.
I shrug. Then the room gets light and the winged wonder that got me into this caper is there with my echo on his heels. She looks positively perky and I catch the scent of Tara’s pancakes on her breath. Bitch.
“You came through, babe,” he says.
“Like there was any doubt,” I reply.
“How are my witches?” the other me asks.
“Fine as May wine, toots,” I tell her. “They’re going straight.”
“What?!?”
“As far as a life of crime is concerned,” I add with a flip of my tail.
“Oh!” she says trying to look cool. “Thank you. What about the child witch?”
“Safe,” the angel replies. “And Faith is going to be remanded to Joyce’s custody.”
“Will we get the child?” my echo asks like she wouldn’t mind at all having a kid around.
“I have to get Miss Kitty home now,” wing boy says quickly.
I look back as the angel and I step out. Joyce is looking at her dimension’s own Miss Kitty with a frown. Home is showing up in front of us when I sit down.
“What?” he asks.
“Are we square?” I ask him point blank.
“Yeah,” he sighs. “You know, you do good work.”
“Yeah, I know,” I admit.
“We could use an op like you.” he says hopefully.
“What do I look like?” I sputter. “Lassie?”
“Hey, at least sleep on it, okay?” he asks.
“Fine,” I say. “Don’t get your feathers ruffled.”
Then I’m alone in the kitchen and its dark, the scent of pancakes hanging in the air. I find a bit of one in my bowl and polish it off in a couple of bites. Then I wash and stretch. Being back in my body feels good. I slip upstairs and bounce into bed with my girls. Then I follow up on my promise.
At least the sleeping part.
The End
The X Files! Is that an intentional joke, or just one of those fortuitous strokes of fortune? Either way, I cracked up.
Thanks for sharing
