Excerpt: Bertrand the Hunter

  Claire sat in front of her vanity mirror and assessed herself. Two blue eyes, a little too far apart, perhaps a little too slitty looking, but clear and intelligent. One nose, average size. Mouth wide and plump, the stunning piece in her face. Long black hair with slight tints of red that were thanks to her mother’s Irish heritage, currently waving around her face in a jet frame, a striking contrast to her peaches-in-cream complexion. In the sitting position, it was a little hard to see her body, but she knew that it wasn’t special, but it wasn’t bad, either. She had an average build, perhaps a little on the slim side, with breast a bit larger than you’d expect for her frame. They weren’t huge, though, like her friend Maria, and she was thankful for that. She had enough back problems from falling out of trees as a kid, she didn’t need the added weight in front to over balance her.

  All in all, she was a fit, attractive twenty-nine year old woman. She started to braid her long hair and debated whether it was the faults in her figure or in her mind that made her unattached at nearly thirty. She was strong willed, that was for sure, and most guys seemed fine as friends but perhaps thought her a little too argumentative to date. It wasn’t like she could keep an opinion to herself if there was a debate going on, or if someone expressed an opinion that she disagreed with, or even if something just occurred to her to say. She probably talked too much, too. It wasn’t like people liked to listen to someone who blathered on, mostly about themselves, for hours on end. ‘Course, no one seemed to mind or try to stop her, but she was always afraid that they were just being kind.

  Really, as long as what people told her to her face was true, she was actually quite a catch, and it was a mystery why some nice young man hadn’t snatched her up a long time ago and was taking care of her. There was only so much taking care of that Claire would stand for, of course, but she liked the idea of someone attempting it, anyway.

  She was knocked out of her depressing revere by the appearance in her lap of Bertrand, her long, sleek black cat. He was already purring and butted his head against her arm in an attempt to get her attention on the important things, namely petting him. He wasn’t a demanding cat, but she’d had him since she was young, and if you spend that much time with a person, you learn to read their signals, especially a purring cat. She obliged him and added a little bit of a massage in with the stroking of his back and tail. He moved his purr up a notch and added a little chirrup on the intake of breath that always made her feel like the only person in his world.

  She laughed and said, “Oh, I see how you are. You’re just trying to make me feel better, using all your feline whiles on me to keep me from moping in front of the mirror.”

  He looked up at her with utter innocence in his eyes and she laughed again. “Alright, alright, it’s working. At least I know that there one man in the world that things I’m the bees knees, even if he’s not human.”

  She looked back at the mirror and spotted the large grin and sparkling eyes and nodded. She absent-mindedly scratched Bertrand’s head and shoulders while she contemplated this different face in the mirror. It was a definite improvement. She needed to remember to laugh more often. Or at least smile. Of course, a single girl, working to keep her loft apartment in this day and age doesn’t have a whole lot to laugh about, and has too many worries. She just needed to be more conscious of her frown lines and she’d be doing well.

  She picked Bertrand up and brought him to her bed with her, shifting him in her arms so that he didn’t take claw to her filmy nightgown and robe that she spent way too much money on for her last birthday. She hadn’t had anyone to wear it for other than herself so far, but at least she had it for that certain someone who would likely come along any minute and she’d surprise him with her sensuality in this nightgown.

  She sighed. She was basically and optimist, but sometimes it was easier than others. She set Bertrand down on the bed and removed the robe, then climbed in next to him amid the ton of pillows she had arranged in a semi-circle around the one pillow she used. She didn’t need more pillows to sleep, but it was nice to have the forms around her in the night. She felt less alone.

  Bertrand climbed up on her lap as soon as she’d settled into her bed and butted his head against her chin. She laughed again and put her hand over his head so that she was pushing his eyes closed with the heel of her palm.

  “I never feel alone when you’re near me, Berty. Thank you for being my kitten. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  He nodded his head under her hand as if to say, “You couldn’t live without me, chika” and made her laugh again. It was something he was good at, no matter how bad she was feeling.

  Her head started nodding on the pillows before she realized that she’d left the light on in the kitchen downstairs of her loft. She debated about actually getting out of bed to turn it off for a mere moment before she closed her eyes again, channeled a little bit of her energy that she had left of the day and moved it toward the switch that she visualized downstairs. She heard the satisfying click that meant that her magic had done what she’d intended it to do and nodded once, satisfied when she opened her eyes. Then she settled down with Bertrand again and eventually fell asleep mid-pet, her hand on the middle of his back.

  As soon as he was sure she was asleep, Bertrand pulled the purr down a notch and stopped his chirruping. She was right, he only did that when she was feeling particularly down and he felt she needed cheering up. He could tell when she was sitting at her vanity with that look on her face that she was feeling lonely again and needed a friend. He couldn’t be the man she wanted, but he could be a companion for a while longer. What would happen when the elders called him back, he didn’t know, but he was pretty sure they wouldn’t do that until she was in a better headspace.

  Bertrand put his head on his paws and ceased purring after a while. He wasn’t quite asleep because what cat sleeps through the night, but he was enjoying the warmth of the bed and the weight of her hand on his back. He was happy being a teddy-cat for the poor girl, and he was used to it after so many years with her.

  Then, without warning, he jerked his head up and started out her third-story window. All sound of his breathing disappeared as he cocked his head as if he’d heard a mouse in the baseboards. Soon, a figure appeared outside her bedroom window, heading strait forward as if to crash into the outside wall of her building, gliding smoothly through the air without wings or any fanfaire. The figure didn’t crash into the building, though. As it approached the wall and window, the solid surfaces seemed to shimmer slightly and the figure pulled them to the side like a curtain and landed on her bedroom floor as if he’d just stepped off of an escalator.

  The dark figure approached the bed and stood there to stare down at the sleeping girl for a moment. The cat had disappeared, moving to the floor to slink under the bed and behind the figure. The Darkness of the figure was darker than the night around it, like a black hole in a vaguely human form standing in a patch of moonlight that did not quite reach him.

  As the dark figure raised a claw and started a quiet hissing breath, another figure appeared in the room, directly behind the darkness and exactly where the form of Bertrand the cat had been. Before the Darkness could attack the sleeping Claire, the second figure flicked a wrist and a silver dagger buried itself into the lower back of the Darkness.

  The dagger elicited a louder hiss from the Darkness as the figure whirled around to meet the new shape in the moonlit room. The two figures, the Darkness and the lesser darkness, grappled in the middle of the bedroom, both of them attempting the attack in silence so as to not disturb the sleeping Claire. The force that the Darkness renewed and attack nearly put the other figure on the floor, but just as his knee was about to hit Claire’s carpeting, he thrust upward with the dagger once more, this time in the lower belly of the Darkness, and he hit home, the Dark figure dissolving in the lesser darkness around it on a low hiss, leaving no sign of struggle and no blood on the silver dagger.

  Bertrand stood once more and sheathed his magic dagger, forcibly slowing his breath before approaching the bed. As he crossed the stream of moonlight through the window, the light reflected off of eyes not quite round enough, showing ears far to long and pointed, and a form lithe and slender, far too long and thin to be human. He moved out of the light to stand over Claire as she slept. He marveled at her serenity, the simple beauty of a human asleep. He reached a hand out to barely brush her cheek, only retracting it when she began to shift in her sleep. Before she had turned, the tall figure was gone, replaced by the dark feline shape of the Cat Bertrand, Claire’s companion for far too many years for him to be a true feline.

  He berated himself a fool and began to clean the paw that had been a reaching hand. What would his grandmother say if she found out that he had the same weaknesses as his father? What would his aunts and uncles say if they found out that he harbored feelings for a lesser being? They’d say that it was that dirty blood from his mother, showing itself again. That he was already flawed, so why is anyone surprised? Well, no one was surprised, really.

  He finished punishing his paw and rememberd that he was there for duty only, and that his affection for Claire was simply because he’d watched her grow up. She was an attractive enough child, after all. He simply felt protective feelings for her, since that was what he was here for, anyway. Keep her safe, Bertrand, for her life shall decide the fate of the good of this world.