Metal clinked. A black creature came walking down the bottom loop. As big as a horse, its fur long and black, it walked softly, gripping the links with razor-sharp claws. Its head was that of a lynx. Tall tufts of black fur decorated its ears, and a long black beard stretched from its chin. Its eyes glowed, lit from within.
The cat paused and looked at me. The big maw opened, showing me a forest of white teeth, long and sharp like knives.
“Ask.”
I blinked.
“You were the last to hold the acorn,” Saiman whispered. “You must ask the question or it will kill all of us.”
The cat showed me its teeth again.
For anything I asked, there would be a price.
“Ask,” the cat said, its voice laced with an unearthly snarl.
“Ask, Kate,” Saiman prompted.
“Ask!” one of the volkhvi called out.
I took a deep breath.
The cat leaned forward in anticipation.
“Would you like some milk?”
The cat smiled wider. “Yes.”
Saiman groaned.
“I’ll be right back.”
I dashed down the stairs. Three minutes later, the cat lapped milk from Saiman’s crystal punch bowl.
“You could’ve asked anything,” the creature said between laps.
“But you would’ve taken everything,” I told it. “This way all it cost me is a little bit of milk.”
In the morning Peters came to relieve me. Not that he had a particularly difficult job. After the oak disappeared, the volkhvi decided that since both Pavel and Grigorii were dead, all accounts were settled and it was time to call it quits. As soon as we returned to the apartment, Saiman locked himself in the bedroom and refused to come out. The loss of the acorn hit him pretty hard. Just as well. I handed my fussy client off to Peters, retrieved Peggy, and headed back to the Guild.
All in all I’d done spectacularly well, I decided. I lost the client for at least two minutes, let him get his stomach ripped open, watched him stab his attacker in the eye, which was definitely something he shouldn’t have had to do, and cost him his special acorn and roughly five months of work. The fact that my client turned out to be a scumbag and a sexual deviant really had no bearing on the matter.
Some bodyguard I made. Yay. Whoopee. I got to the Guild, surrendered Peggy, and filled out my paperwork. You win some, you lose some. At least Saiman survived. I wouldn’t get paid, but I didn’t end the job with a dead client on my hands.
I grabbed my crap and headed for the doors.
“Kate,” the clerk called from the counter.
I turned. Nobody remembered the clerk’s name. He was just “the clerk.”
He waved an envelope at me. “Money.”
I turned on my foot. “Money?”
“For the job. Client called. He says he’d like to work exclusively with you from now on. What did the two of you do all night?”
“We argued philosophy.” I swiped the envelope and counted the bills. Three grand. What do you know?
I stepped out the doors into an overcast morning. I had been awake for over thirty-six hours. I just wanted to find a quiet spot, curl up, and shut out the world.