Chapter 1: The Long, Hot, Dreadful Summer of the Missing Cats

  There are many stories in the world, but all of them start the same way: one desires, one is desired, and the two cannot meet. In this case, we begin with a Cat and a Mouse.

  The Cat stalked the Mouse using the magic of Walk This Way, which is known to everything that hunts on four legs and the forgetting of it is why Man does not know how to walk like the animals. But the Mouse had magic of its own: Move Quiet-quiet, See With Your Nose, and the strongest magic of all, Fear. The Mouse wasn’t sure it was being stalked, but fear worked its spell and so the Mouse always thought it was being followed. Even safe in their nests, his kind would look over their shoulders, smelling with noses that heard to the air and listening with ears that tasted for the sound of danger.

  This time, though, the Mouse thought there was nothing behind it. There is everything there, Fear whispered to the Mouse, urging him to hide, but the Mouse worked the magic of Want which drove away Fear. The Mouse did not think it was safe, it never did, but it did not think it was in danger. Instead, it found joy, when, at the ass-end of a dingy alleyway behind a burger joint, it found a dumpster filled with garbage.

  The Mouse buried itself in treasures of garbage and filth, finding sweet meats and nectar in what humans had discarded, for one man’s empty cup is a mouse’s treasure. It feasted on sponge cake and spoiled fruit, using the spell of Make-Bad-Things-Good, the magic mice share with mushrooms and flies and other things that turn violence and garbage and old death into squalling babies and fat bellies.

  Yet the Cat followed with silent steps. One, two, three, a pause when the Mouse raised its nose, then four, then pause again. She stopped, she waited, she watched. Cats have many powerful magics. They do not have Fear, they have Patience instead, which is another magic most of Mankind does not have. But just as cat-magic is foreign to man, they disdain our skills, like Talking Without Listening, Putting Thoughts On Paper, and most of all, Touching Without Violence.

  So the Cat watched the Mouse with steady eyes and, when ready, took another step. A tail whisked back and forth and whiskers stirred the air.

  It was four steps away.

  Fear whispered to the Mouse but it did not listen. Its full belly sang sweet songs of warmth and good sleep and thick fur. It is a good song, and one that the living cannot long go without, at least, not if they want to stay living.

  Three steps.

  The Mouse buried its head deeper, seeking with the magic of Want which makes you find even though you were not looking. Want has always been more powerful than Fear, and so Fear lost its power for the sake of a fat belly, and not for the first time.

  Two steps.

  The Mouse could not hear, could not see, could not speak. It could not, and so it did not. Pity that which cannot, hate that which will not. Remember: magic demands cost, and cats have learned how to make others pay for it. And remember further: there is nothing that lives without death.

  One step.

  The magic of Walking This Way turned to claws and teeth, but just as the Cat made to strike, of all the gods-damned things to appear, a Dog came trundling through the alley. Spotting the Cat, it Barked a happy call, the Dog’s spell of Friend? Friend!, which the Cat hated, as all Cats hate friends. It hissed and spat and clambered atop the dumpster, its hunt ruined while the Dog watched it in confusion, asked again Friend?, to which the Cat replied rather rudely. The Mouse disappeared into the dark with a heart filled with Fear, but a full belly so it would live to hunt again. The Dog then used the most powerful magic it had, that of Try Again, that of Hope, and it trotted off, seeking a friend or something else in this city.

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  Fear and Want and Death and Hope. Such is life.

  Now let me tell you the story of the Dog, the Dream Walker, and the Queen of All Cats.

  & & &

  The call went out straight from the Court of Many-Paws: the Queen of all Cat’s Daughter was missing, and her royal self was pissed.

  It was taken up and repeated by every cat in the City, hissed by every feral tom and purred by every pampered Siamese. Class and station meant nothing in the gravity of the disaster. The royal Daughter was gone.

  “Missing, fled, or stolen?” purred some as they met in dark alleys and in conferences convened under streetlights, but those who did whispered that question very quietly and that question oft went unanswered. It was neither wise nor safe to suggest the Queen was less than omnipotent, or that her sacred person was violable.

  For a week the City’s cats went wild. They howled and yelled night and day, crying for the daughter to come home. Even the lazy and the pampered joined in: indoor cats who did not concern themselves with the outside world threw themselves at windows and doors, demanding to be let out to help. Search parties of fat calicoes and slim servals prowled the alleys and dark corners of the City, searching for any hint of the Daughter. Some citizens let their cats free, bewildered by the sudden change in their felines. Even kittens mewled their intent, unsure of what was happening but certain they needed to do something about it. Concerned mollies watched their brood with one eye and the City with another, cursing that their kits were born in this troubled time.

  The mice, forgotten in all this, whispered amongst themselves. While the search went on they were left to their own devices, which made them uncomfortable. They preferred the reassuringly fatal cycle of hunter and hunted, for at least it could be relied upon, but as the hours of freedom stretched on, they eventually reveled in their temporary release. A bounty of offerings was laid at tiny altars to the Lucky God of Mice, and they roamed free in a city that had never been truly theirs.

  The birds didn’t even notice but that’s hardly surprising. Most of them are idiots.

  But oh boy, did the People of the City notice it. It made the news, because no-one had any idea what caused it. It was a cripplingly hot summer so most blamed the heat, while others assumed it was some sort of fever that, for whatever reason, wasn’t detectable yet by veterinary science. For a while, it was even a joke, and videos of hordes of cats meowing their way down Spadina made a few people’s feeds briefly popular. But make no mistake, this was deadly serious business. Cats and People have a long-established relationship, until you remember that there’s a cat in every second house, that tens of thousands of them roam the streets at will, and they know more about patience than you ever will. A small-time vivimancer called Harold Tokakis made the unwise decision to practice haruspicy on a cat, to read its entrails and ask the spirits of the Dead to find the Daughter. His body was found floating in the Don, his eyes gone and his own entrails missing. He may have learned something useful but we’ll never know. Actually, his divination did teach us something important: don’t mess with cats.

  But those in the Business saw it for what it was right away. A couple of us tried speaking to the cats, but they learned little other than the Daughter was missing. That the Queen had a Daughter was big news in itself. In the Business, information matters almost as much as power, so the debates over the Queen’s status and that of the other Small Gods of the City was as big news as the fact that someone kidnapped the Queen’s Daughter.

  It didn’t take that long for them to contact us. Who are we? We’re The Open Eyes, and in a City filled to the brim with two-bit tarot readers and slimy soothsayers, we’re the real deal: magic for hire, when and as needed, few questions asked, and reasonable rates. And it was good that they did: the Queen’s lineage is too important to leave to the nobly unguided efforts of half-wild shorthairs. There’s nothing worse than a well-intentioned amateur who'll cock the whole thing up without even realizing it. Give me a bad-intentioned expert every time. They might screw you over, but at least they’ll get the job done. Find the right one, and the job is already half done (unless you’re Harold, who technically got the job done, it’s just that I don’t know what professional pride counts for when you’ve been disemboweled).

  I know what you're thinking, so let me be straight with you here, and only here because I don’t think I can help lying my way through this. Am I an expert? It’s not really for me to say but I'll do it anyways, for myself and my partner: Connor the Dream-Walker and Lorence the Hungry are the best in the goddamn Business.