sample pages

NIGHT PROWL: TALES OF THE VAMPIRE CATS

CHAPTER 1.  AMBER

She discovered the body by accident.

Night Prowl was over, the dark just starting to leak out of the air, and Amber the Cat eyed the autumn moon dangling in the sky like a red ball she could swat with one paw. Blood Moon, her mother called it.

            The Prowl had been rich and full of adventure. Most cats roamed with one of the packs. Amber was different: she preferred to veer off alone, she covered more ground that way, and she liked her own company. Her solitariness caused her no end of problems. But not that night — with mild autumn breezes making the air smell just so, that night had been one long delicious rumpus.

The cats all lived for the night. It was then that they had free run of the streets and the foothills. Caught mice, sometimes a slow bird late to the nest. Bellied down under bushes to feel warm black earth. Rummaged in trashcans for tidbits. Chewed dreamily on tall grass. Sang to each other loud and strong. Streaked under parked cars. Dodged the few humans out so late. Fought. Preened. Rubbed noses.

And once in a great while, died.

            Amber was almost home when she spotted it. She was feeling replete and ready for sleep. But that scrap of fur she caught in the corner of her eye hadn’t moved, so she snuck in for a closer look.

            Amber had been named for her coloring: deep gold from coat to glowing eyes. She was a young cat who lived by her wits. Bold when the time was right, savvy when the moment called for caution. Now, uncertain, Amber dropped into a low swift slink as she approached the figure on the ground. Closer. Careful.

            Amber froze. What she smelled was the tang of death. In another day or so the death scent would call loudly to any passing creature, even humans, who as far as Amber could tell ignored their senses almost all the time. Now, death was nothing more than a whiff on the air. That meant the cat had died just that night, Amber thought, while she and her companions were out on their beautiful prowl.

            Amber crept closer. Thankfully it was no one she knew. A plump indoor tabby.  Young and pretty. Well groomed. Fancy collar. Name: Puddin. Amber sighed.

            Puddin lay sprawled in the grass. Amber saw no marks, so the cat couldn’t have been hit by a car. There were no signs of human violence. Being near a lifeless body did not frighten Amber, who had certainly seen death before. But looking closer, she found herself turning cold down to the tip of her tail. What she saw in the shadowy remnants of moonlight was that Puddin did not have a drop of blood left in her — the cat had been drained dry. 

Amber made herself examine the body, and on the neck, she spotted two deep red puncture wounds. Sharp teeth made those marks, Amber thought, and she shivered. Cat teeth. Amber wanted to dash out of there and head for home. But once she started something, she never stopped, not ever. She was that kind of cat.  So Amber stalked carefully around the body in wider and wider circles. She kept her nose to the ground and all senses on high alert.  What did Amber smell? 

Several hours before, humans had passed by this same spot. They would have noticed if the body had been there. Another clue that Puddin could not have been dead very long. Amber smelled squirrel. Bird feathers. Old dog pee. A whiff of bike tires. And there, just on the edge of the senses, something else. Not cat but somehow feline all the same, a scent Amber had never sniffed before. 

            Her ears pricked up. Footsteps. From down the block came the quick trudge of feet and a second later her other senses caught up: boysmell, boysound. Feet walking lightly on the pavement. Thwop. A paper hit the porch.

            Amber flattened herself in the shadows and waited until he passed. She heard him whistle as he pulled another paper from the pouch. She knew who it was. Tico. He belonged to a cat named Mr. Pibb, from the house on the corner two blocks away. The family also had a terrier, under the rule of Mr. Pibb. Amber could never seem to remember that dog’s name. Mr. Pibb just called him Dog.

            Amber was wary of humans, children especially, who might want to trap her and try to give her a home. But Tico seemed okay. He was always up before dawn, and she wondered if he might have seen anything useful in figuring out how Puddin had been killed. Because that’s what Amber was sure of now: there had been a slaying right here in her neighborhood. 

            The cat tribes were used to all sorts of things. Dog fights, dogs-chasing-cat fights, the occasional bird-attack fight, sometimes violent cat-to-cat fights, not to mention the occasional scuffles with well-meaning humans or with the scary Animal Patrol. But this was different. This looked like murder in cold blood. And who was to say it would be the last? Amber took one last glance around, ears up, and trotted away across the grass.           

She had work to do.

From high up in his tree, Crow watched her go. He saw much and kept it all to himself, as a rule, but there was something Crow would have liked to tell Amber about the dead creature lying there under the tree. None of the birds or animals who normally fed on carrion would go anywhere near it. He knew, he’d been watching.

The particular reek of death hanging like mist over the cat was a scent Crow had never experienced. It was outside crow ken — something out on the edge of their world, something wrong to the core. 

Dawn was not there quite yet. Crow huffed inside his feathers, thinking. 

Below, deep inside a dense bush, a pair of eyes flashed open. Cat eyes. 

They were gleaming green, set off by white fur with a lick of gold on top of the head and the back. Unseen by Crow, the cat-creature had stayed hidden while Amber discovered the body. Amber did not scent him because his spoor was mixed in with the death of Puddin. Crow did not see him because the creature had the power to will himself into an almost invisible stillness.

His name was Rae, of the tribe of the Singer Cats, and he had fallen behind after the kill. He had refused to take part— no matter how the others mocked, no matter how his brother had threatened. Rae felt torn between feeling that he never wanted to go back home, and fearing what would happen to him if he did. But that was for later.

Now, dawn was upon him, and he had to run or die.

CHAPTER 2: CURIOSITY

            If there was one expression that Amber hated, it was Curiosity Killed the Cat.  She’d heard it often enough from her mother. Amber started out in life as the runt of the litter, so maybe out of sheer self-preservation she should have been less fearless. But she couldn’t help herself.

Her mother called her Nosy. Her friends called her Trouble.

The world for Amber was one vast, delectable, odiferous place and she was determined to sniff out every corner. She could never stop being curious, even if it did mean a life full of close calls.

Amber was more than a little curious about the Death of Puddin. After leaving the body, she headed straight for her friend Andrew to talk things over. Things had been tense between them lately, what with all the pressure on Amber to join the pack, but Andrew was still the one she turned to first, especially when she ran into a mess.

            Andrew was a big cat, black all over, except for surprisingly delicate white mittens. He prowled through the world with a confidence that Amber admired in secret.  It would never do to compliment Andrew to his face. He was unapologetically vain.

            “Let them take care of their own kind,” yawned Andrew, ready for snooze.

            “Cats are our kind,” Amber retorted.

            “You know what I mean. We of the packs, we hunt, tend our litters, and die with our own. No humans spoil us or imprison us.”

            “We do our share of going cold and hungry too. They’re cats just like us, Andrew, even if they have been humanified.”

            They were moving quickly over frost-glazed lawns to the places they called home.

            “Fine,” purred Andrew, “we’re all one big furry feline family. Happy?”

            “No, I’m not happy. A cat is dead and I want to know why.”

            “Why is it your business?”

            “Why not?”

            Andrew heaved a sigh. “Bad timing, that’s why not. Your Communion isn’t far off, if you start stirring things up, it’ll look bad.”

            “About my Communion….”

            Andrew’s green eyes flashed at her. “Amber, you can’t back out now!”

            Amber shifted her gaze a little guiltily. “There’ll be another, at the Beaver Moon.  That’s not so far off, plenty of nights left to decide about joining the pack, in my own time. Right?”

            They had come to the corner of Andrew’s alley. He planted his feet and stared at Amber until she stopped talking.

            “I spoke for you,” he said with quiet anger.

            Amber bristled. “I know all about it.”

            Andrew’s voice was a growl. “You don’t know anything! And you have no idea what you’re doing, as usual.”

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            “Running around solo, no pack, no protection.”

            “I take care of myself!”

            “But you can’t — in the long run, none of us survives without a tribe.”

            “I’m fine on my own!” Amber said hotly. “Nobody can make me join if I don’t want to!”

            “They don’t have to make you.” 

            She looked at Andrew’s eyes in the early dawn. She saw his worry, his fear, and she fell silent.

            “They freeze you out until you beg them to for a second chance, but they won’t take you back. You’ll be an outcast.  Is that what you want? You want to end up like Skitch?”

            Amber flinched. Skitch lived somewhere out in the foothills around the town.  Scrawny, ill-tempered, alone. Nobody hunted with him, nobody shared food. Word was he had once been a power in the pack, but somehow it had all gone wrong.  Amber knew better than to ask Andrew about it, though. This was the first time in her hearing that he had ever said his father’s name.

            “Andrew, listen to me, please. I just don’t like the idea of the tribe telling me what to do.”

            “Well, join the club!”

            “That’s what I’m saying: don’t want to!” Amber said with a mischievous flick of her tail.

            “You’re impossible and I’m late for snooze,” Andrew grumbled.  “If you don’t show up for Communion that’s it. I wash my paws of you.”

            “You’re a friend, Andrew. I just need a little more time.”

            They touched noses.

            “Oh, one more thing,” she said as he turned to go.

            “What’s that?” Andrew asked testily.

Amber felt superstitious saying anything about how Puddin had died, but she needed advice. “Have you ever seen deep bite marks on another cat’s neck?”

            “I’ve seen bite marks all over after a fight,” he said with snort.  “So’ve you.”

            “This cat had bites only on the neck. And…” she shuddered as she said it, “the body was drained of blood.”

            “You’re sure it wasn’t your imagination running wild again?”

            Amber bristled. “I’ll take you back and show you the corpse so you can see for yourself.”

            “Thanks but no thanks, got to sleep.”

            He turned and trotted down the alley.

            “Sleep well, Andrew,” she said under her breath.

  Amber, however, was nowhere near ready to sleep. She stalked her way through the neighborhood all that long morning while the other pack cats napped. Puddin had looked well cared for, so Amber calculated it would just be a matter of time before she heard tell of a missing feline.

            It was a warm autumn morning, late in the year, and the last of the lawn sprinklers sounded to Amber like hissing cats. The air glistened. The far mountains with their snowcaps looked like floating clouds.    

In her travels, Amber avoided the noisy alpha canines chained in their backyards, and steered clear of humans who wanted to pet her and check to see if she wore a collar.  She asked around casually about any news of a missing pet, talking to fellow strays and a few non-snooty housecats. She even chatted with the occasional dog.

            “Whazzup Amber?” The words came out as a friendly growl.

            It was Riley, a three-legged collie, who had lost one leg in an exciting car chase he liked to reminisce about daily. Riley still tried to chase down cars. He was convinced that the more he chased, the better his odds. Amber thought Riley’s optimism was something wonderful.

            “Nothing much,” Amber purred, “just cruising.”

            “Me too,” said Riley, though at the time he was lying stretched out in his driveway.  “Hey, word on the street says you’re going to your Communion at the next pack meet-up. Congrats.”

            “You dogs are the biggest bunch of gossips.”

            “Cats should talk. Besides, it isn’t gossip, it’s called ‘intelligence.’ That means information. Important information. I’ve got my paw on the pulse of the whole town.”

            Amber was about to laugh when she realized that Riley was serious.

            “So do you have any information about a lost cat around here?”

            “Hrrowf.  Not exactly something I’d bother about,” said Riley, “not exactly what we call ‘actionable intelligence.’  But for you, I’ll keep my ear to the ground.”

            To demonstrate his good will, Riley put his snout down on the sunny asphalt and closed his eyes.

            Amber covered streets, parks, alleys, and by mid-morning she had given up and was heading back home for snooze.  That was when she got lucky.

            “It’s not like Puddin. Not at all!” A white-haired woman was talking to Rory the mailman.

            Amber darted nearer, hidden by bushes. She could see a dish of cat food on the front porch steps. She could smell the treats that Rory always kept in his pocket for the neighborhood dogs.

            “I’ll keep an eye out for her, promise,” Rory said.  “She won’t have gone far.”

            “She never leaves the yard!”

            The dead cat had been a real homebody, thought Amber. What could possibly have tempted her into a field half-way across town? She decided to investigate around Puddin’s house, see if she could find some clues. 

            Amber waited out of sight until the mailman had gone, and the woman was on her way down the block, clucking her tongue for Puddin. Amber trotted out of hiding and came face to face with one of the biggest, ugliest felines she had ever seen. A Persian.  Fat as an overstuffed cushion. Rheumy eyes. Mean smile.

            “You know something about Puddin,” wheezed the cat as he stalked towards her.  “You’re one of them.”

            He wasn’t asking questions.

CHAPTER 3: THE SINGERS

             Amber glared. She was not about to be faced down by some push-over pet, but she felt some respect for the cat’s age. And mostly, she felt curious.

            “What do you mean ‘one of them’?” she asked, standing her ground.

            “The Singers,” the cat growled. “You’re one of the Singers.”

            As he moved closer, Amber could see that the cat was older than she had thought, and almost blind. He stood blinking in the sunlight. 

            “You’re mistaken,” Amber said gently. 

            The cat paused for a moment to sniff the air. Amber could see he was trying to get a whiff so he could check her out. “Name?” His voice was gruff.

            “Amber. Yours?”

            “Fluffy. If you laugh, I’ll mark you,” he growled.

            “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Amber replied, keeping the smile out of her voice. 

            “Sorry, I can tell you’re not one of them now. But my smell-sense isn’t what it used to be.”

They touched noses in peace greeting. Amber sat down on the warm sidewalk.  “You call them the Singers?”

            Fluffy sat too, with a movement that showed Amber he had pain in his bones.

            “They came every night, singing to her. She’s a fickle thing. Makes friends easy, drops them even quicker. Doesn’t know her own mind half the time. But she has a sunny temper….” Fluffy stopped, realizing that he was showing his feelings.

            Amber did not want to be the one to tell this venerable cat about what had happened to his friend. Her heart went out to him. “What are they like, the Singers?” she asked.

            “I couldn’t see much,” Fluffy admitted, “just a streak now and then. Lean cats, wild. Fast as wind. But their voices, ah, even I almost followed them last night.”

            “So Puddin went off with them?”

            “She’d been trying for a while, but her lady always locks up good and proper.  Not like some. Last night, though, she forgot the front window. Puddin got out in a flash.  I was on the porch, called for her to come back, but she didn’t even stop to say goodbye.”

            Amber waited politely while Fluffy sniffled and pretended he had a nose-itch.

            “I’m surprised there haven’t been complaints.”

            “Well, they’re not on human wavelength, for one thing,” said the old cat. “And as for the tribes, they’re usually out gallivanting with a lot better things to do than listen to other cats and their serenades.”

            “Point taken,” said Amber, who had been gallivanting herself. “But do you think that’s what they were doing — serenading Puddin so she’d follow them?”

            “Under her window three nights in a row, the Singers were, with their music. The words all blurred inside my head. All I know is, it’s so beautiful it makes you forget everything else, and all you want to do is slip outside and go wherever they’re going.”

            Amber had the image of Puddin, thrilled to slip out a half-open window, bounding off with her newfound friends. How long did it take before she realized that she was going to her death? 

            “My plan is to stretch myself out here in the sun and wait for her to come back.  Maybe she’s gone as far as the mountains. Never been there myself. She’ll have some stories, I’ll be bound.”

            Amber said her goodbye to the loyal old cat and headed home. Her quest for Puddin’s killer would have to wait until she had some sleep. As she skimmed quick-footed down the streets, Amber argued with herself. She should have told Fluffy the truth, but she couldn’t find it in her heart to explain about the fate of the old cat’s friend.  Better that he thinks she is off with the Singers, happy and heartless. Better by far.

            The old cat lay dozing in the sunlight on Puddin’s front lawn. 

Behind him, back under the porch, Rae burrowed farther down into darkness, at the edge of sleep. It had been a near thing. He had made it just in time, before the first rays of sunlight torched his white-gold fur.

            That nosy cat, Rae thought as he drifted into sleep world, she must be watched with care before she causes trouble. He shivered as he thought what would happen if she came to the attention of the Singers. Or his brother Glin. It was pure bad luck that she happened on Puddin’s body before the sun did its work. Nothing left now, not even ash, not a clue. Come sundown he would go back and bury the collar.

            But Amber, that cat better have nine lives, he thought. She’s going to need them.