Shifting Stars by Gary Stringer (best fiction books of all time txt) 📗

white from her tight-fitting top and short woollen skirt over white leggings that were just visible before disappearing inside long white boots that finished over the knee. The only splashes of colour were a silver-embroidered, purple leather mask that covered the upper half of her face, just leaving her mouth free, and a matching bandana tied around her neck. By her side was a large, ferocious-looking leopard.

The demon hunter looked Catriona up and down, then finally spoke not to her, but to her leopard.

“Well, Shyleen,” she sighed, taking a beer bottle out of a pocket, popping the cap and taking a good, long swig, “looks like we’ve got ourselves another one.”

“Hi, any chance of getting me out of here?” Cat asked with a sheepish grin, feeling incredibly embarrassed at having been so careless.

The demon hunter scowled and took another drink.

“I suppose you’re going to blame the Trickster like the last one?”

“The Trickster?” Cat wondered, then quickly seized the excuse she’d been offered. “Oh yes, that’s right,” she giggled, “the Trickster, erm, pushed me in here.”

The demon hunter drank some more. She seemed unconvinced.

“Twice in half a day, that’s already wearing thin. Personally, I think you people just need to watch where you’re going!”

Cat decided honesty was probably the best policy if she was going to get out of this before it was too late, so she confessed that she had, indeed, just stepped into the trap by mistake.

“I knew it!” cried the demon hunter. “The gods only know how you people manage it! The last one, at least he had an excuse, carrying all that stuff. What were you doing, daydreaming?”

Catriona spread her hands, helplessly. “Pretty much, yeah. Sorry. So, any chance of getting me out of here? I don’t mean to be rude, but there’s, erm, somewhere I need to be, really quite urgently.”

“Oh yeah?” The demon hunter shot back, taking one more swig from her bottle. “Well I have a Trickster to catch really quite urgently, but instead I end up wasting half my time chasing rumours and the other half rescuing townsfolk from my demon traps!”

Cat was getting really desperate and frustrated. Yes, she’d blundered into one of her traps. Yes, it was stupid and careless. Yes, she had definitely wasted this young woman’s time, but she needed to get out, and she needed to get out now.

The demon hunter’s eyes narrowed, shrewdly. “How do I know you’re not really a demon yourself?”

“What?” Cat forced a laugh. “What do you mean?”

“Well, there’s a Trickster demon running around here, somewhere,” said the demon hunter, intending to take another drink, but discovered her bottle was empty. She held it up to the light and peered inside as if to check if she’d missed any and got a drop in her eye for her trouble. She swore and turned away for a moment, lifted up her mask and used the corner of her bandana to wipe her eye. When she turned back, her mask was back in place.

“I was chasing it, earlier,” she continued. “Thought I had it cornered. Next thing I know there’s a bird with weird markings on its leg, and the Trickster’s vanished somewhere.”

Cat tried to suppress a panicked look. “What, erm, what’s that got to do with me?”

“Well, I don’t know. All I know is there’s a girl stuck inside a trap that’s supposed to catch a Trickster. So that gets me wondering: Maybe you’re not really a girl at all. If a Trickster demon can turn into a bird, what else can he turn into? Things aren’t always what they seem, believe me, I know! So, as I say, maybe you really are a girl, or maybe you’re really a Trickster demon that’s just pretending to be a girl. How am I to know, eh?”

Catriona’s pulse was beating rapidly. This demon hunter was so, so close to the truth. Too close. She didn’t know what to say, what to do. Fortunately, she was saved from having to think of anything.

With a flourish, the demon hunter pocketed her empty beer bottle, and disarmed the trap, allowing Catriona to step free, although she was so nervous by now, she could barely stand up.

“Nah!” the demon hunter said, dismissively. “Only messing with ya! Of course you’re not a demon! I mean, come on: shapeshifting magic? Pfft! As if!”

“Yeah,” Catriona laughed, allowing her nervous tension to flow out of her body. “As if!”

“I should know better, really. The rumours in this place are out of hand already, without me giving you lot any more ideas! Honestly, if I were to believe all the stories, the Trickster would have to be in two places at once. Fortunately, thanks to my link with Shyleen here,” she indicated her leopard companion, “I can be, too.”

“Well, if it helps, I’m not really from Compton,” Cat assured her, secretly delighted that her ruse had worked so well and sparked so many false rumours. “Just passing through, so they’re not actually ‘my lot,’ and I definitely won’t be spreading any daft rumours about shapeshifting Tricksters.”

“Thanks for that, at least,” said the demon hunter, “and sorry about the wind-up job. You must have thought I was totally mad and drunk to believe such a thing.”

“To be fair,” Cat smiled, “you are drunk.”

“Well, of course I’m drunk! You’d have to be mad to do this job sober!” the demon hunter quipped. “Anyway, didn’t you say you have to be somewhere?”

“Yes, I do,” Cat agreed. “Shame. It was actually kind of fun meeting you.”

“You have a strange idea of fun.”

“Oh, you have no idea how I get my kicks around here…er…I’m sorry, I got your leopard’s name, but not yours.”

“Mandalee,” she replied.

“I’m Catriona. Cat to my friends.”

“Ah, now that explains it,” Mandalee said.

“Explains what?” asked Cat.

Mandalee stroked Shyleen’s head and replied, “I’ve always got along really well with cats!”

Cat grinned and hurried away, this time making absolutely sure she was out of sight before shapeshifting to her falcon form and taking to the sky. She knew Renjaf