Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (best color ebook reader .txt) 📗

him in the nose, cutting off his cry with a strangled “Urk!” The skinny thief dragged himself up onto the roof, looking around for his quarry. The other thief was two buildings over and fleeing, so Remarin yanked Trand free of the roof and gave chase.

He sprinted across the rooftops, gaining ground when he leapt from the thatched jeweler’s roof to the slate tiles of the next two buildings. His longer legs served him well, shrinking the distance between him and his quarry. Trand, I’m going to throw you. Don’t kill him, just hit him somewhere that’ll slow him down so I can grab the necklace.

That seems like a terrible idea, Remoron. What if he slips and falls? You don’t want to kill him. You just want the necklace.

Shit. I didn’t think of that, Remarin thought back, then dug down for another burst of speed.

Yet further evidence that I am the smart one. The smug superiority in Trand’s voice burned Remarin almost as much as the strain in his legs.

The thief turned a corner up ahead, sprinting along the roof beam of the building ahead of Remarin, his slender form outlined in the moonlight. Remarin had to admit to himself that the man’s grace was impressive. His feet never stepped wrong, he never slipped on a loose tile, and he never, ever slowed down. Remarin’s thighs could attest to that. But still he pressed on. That necklace would be his.

Well, not his, precisely, but it was the perfect gift, and perfect gifts were hard to find. No way was he letting this one slip from his grasp just because some other burglar set his eye on it. On they ran, Remarin growing closer and closer with every rooftop they sprinted across. For long minutes he kept up his pursuit, until finally, on a flat rooftop some half-dozen blocks from the jeweler’s shop, Remarin reached out and snagged the sash around the other man’s waist with his fingers. Some brief fumbling, and Remarin latched on tight with both hands.

“Got ya!” he said, hauling on the sash with all his weight and digging in his heels on the wood-and-tarpaper roof. He heard the sash begin to rip and adjusted his grip to pull the shorter man close.

The smaller man jerked back, lashing out with a sharp elbow to Remarin’s nose. He reared back, his eyes watering, and covered up his face to protect it from more blows as he cleared his vision. A kick to the side of his knee dropped Remarin to the roof, and the other thief let out a low chuckle.

“I told you this was my heist, old man. Next time, believe it.” That infuriating chuckle came again, and Remarin knelt on the roof, clutching his knee as the other thief sprinted away, footfalls nearly silent as the night.

Remarin rolled over on his back, rubbing his sore knee and nose, and smiled up at the stars. He held one hand up to the sky and let his fingers fall open. A golden cat with emerald eyes dropped from his palm to dangle in the moonlight over his grinning face. “Might be your heist, kid. But it’s my prize.”

It took him over an hour to find a safe place to climb down, thanks to that last kick to the knee. He limped back through the deserted streets, tired, nose aching, legs screaming, but with the little cat necklace tucked firmly into his belt pouch. He slipped into the tavern that he, Taryn, and Kit called home, nodding to the late-night bartender as he hobbled upstairs.

He lifted the latch into Kit’s room without a sound, holding up a finger to his lips as Taryn came to her feet. The assassin took her responsibilities as Kit’s bodyguard seriously to the point that Remarin was sure she barely slept at all, but he didn’t need her causing a ruckus, or stabbing him by mistake. Admittedly, given their relationship, it might not be a mistake.

Remarin slipped noiselessly over to the bed, where Kit slept curled up under a pile of blankets and pillows. He had no idea how the girl could stand to be so covered up in this heat, but he just shook his head and went on about his mission. He took the small pendant out of his pouch, stretched the chain out around the small oil lamp on Kit’s bedside table, and leaned the little gold cat against the lamp’s base where she would see it first thing upon waking.

Remarin leaned in, kissed the girl on the side of her head, and whispered, “Happy birthday, my Queen of Kats.” Then he nodded to Taryn and slipped back out as silent as he came. As he pulled the door closed behind him, he glanced around the room one last time, his eyes catching on a pair of soft black boots sitting by the bed, new scuffs and roof thatching marring their normally flawless surface. Remarin chuckled to himself as he took in the one spot near the toe, where something, quite possibly a drop of blood from a nose split open by a sharp elbow, stood out like a beacon in the dark room. He smiled in the night as he pulled the door closed on the way to his own rest.

In the room, Kit’s eyes opened, and she looked over at the bedside table. One lithe arm stretched out from under the covers, still clad in tight-fitting black thieves’ garb, to brush a finger across the face of the golden cat watching over her in the night.

10

Aftermath

The parlor sits full and empty,

the corner barren where the biggest spruce

in the forest always leaned wedged in

battling height against the ceiling,

star cocked at a jaunty angle.

We’re crowded and barren,

sitting numb on the antique velveteen sofas

looking around blindly at unfamiliar familial faces,

saying nothing while the same question dies on all our lips.

The silence leaves my eardrums bloody

and I flee out a door I’ve never knocked on,

down chipped concrete steps

that I used to