The Hunt for Red Fluffy

  The Hunt for Red Fluffy

  Brimstone 6

  Angel Martinez

  Edited by

  Jude Dunn

  Copyright

  This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the authors. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  * * *

  Cover Artist: Freddy MacKay

  Editor: Jude Dunn

  * * *

  First Edition

  THE HUNT FOR RED FLUFFY: BRIMSTONE 6 © 2019 Angel Martinez

  All Rights Reserved.

  Published in the United States of America.

  * * *

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: The Hunt for Red Fluffy is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are fictionalized. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The story contains explicit sexual content and is intended for adult readers.

  Any person depicted in the Licensed Art Material is a model and is being used solely for illustrative purposes.

  PUBLISHER

  Mischief Corner Books, LLC

  Dedication

  To all the cats who have supervised my writing over the years - walking on my keyboards, demanding laps, telling me when I've been sitting too long - this one is unequivocally for you.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Dear Reader

  You May Also Enjoy…

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  About Angel Martinez

  Also by Angel Martinez

  About Mischief Corner Books

  Chapter One

  "Don't overtighten that bolt, Cap." Mac waved a huge hand at Shax's enthusiastic wrench turning. "These new auto-wrenches pack a—"

  The cursed thing stopped short, sprang from Shax's grip, laid open his knuckles, and smacked him in the forehead. "Blast!"

  "Punch." Mac sighed and retrieved the wrench. "One of these days you'll jump feet first into something and end up grated and flayed."

  "Who said he hasn't been?" Verin grumbled from the other side of the disassembled front loader.

  "Hey, now. It was a partial flaying."

  Gently, Mac moved Shax to one side and took over reattaching the loader arm. "I'm not going to ask, and don't tell me."

  Irritated that Verin had gotten the hang of things so quickly, Shax left off sucking on his bleeding knuckles to grumble, "Goodness, no. Wouldn't want to overset your delicate sensibilities."

  "Oh, Cappy-poo!" Ivana sang out. "Are you too injured for receiving guests?"

  "That depends on the guest, my dear." Shax quirked an eyebrow at the nearest speaker, knowing the ship's AI would see. "If it's station security, I'm at death's door."

  "You better get to sickbay then, sweet buns. It's the station security chief."

  Shax heaved a put-upon sigh. "Did he mention why he needs to see me?"

  "Well, that's the thing." Ivana sounded puzzled. "The poor thing's vitals are doing a tippy-tap dance, and he says he needs your help."

  "Does he, now?" Shax's figurative ears perked up. "How interesting. I suppose I should see the old dear, then."

  "Should I let him in?"

  "No, no, I'm going out to him. Thank you, Ms. Ivana."

  Orion Station wasn't his favorite rest stop. Perfectly good place for a restock and refuel, but he couldn't shake the memories of the Birthday Cake Fungus incident early in his space pirate career. He and Verin had been covered in itching, rainbow-colored lesions for days, and his reporting the restaurant to the station's health and safety office hadn't made him any friends among the merchants. It followed that the security chief had regarded the Brimstone as a potential catalyst for trouble, which had made him also not terribly friendly in the past.

  If Chief Carlisle had been in the habit of wearing hats, Shax imagined he would've come cap in hand, his expression was that flummoxed and anxious. His normally crisp black uniform gave off a definite impression of rumpledness, and all hell's gates forbid, there was dust on both knees.

  Shax pulled out a serious and professional expression, barely pummeling the urge to laugh into submission. "Good morning, Chief. Something I can do for you?"

  "Captain Goldner. Morning." An anxious, wide-eyed nod replaced the normal squinty frown the chief would've reserved for Shax. "We have an…issue. An animal control issue down near the shuttle bays."

  "I see? No, I don't see, to be honest. What does this have to do with me?" Shax ran through his crew complement frantically, but Rosa had been in her stall, happy as a clam with her breakfast, and Nic and Max had been with Leopold in the galley. Nope, none of his.

  "Someone suggested it might be a creature of hellish origin and that a high-echelon demon might be able to… to…"

  "Sweet talk it? Be eaten by it?"

  "Control it?"

  Shax drummed his fingers on his trouser seam, considering. Security was generally a pain in his gorgeous ass at any station, but if this was something with which he could assist, it wouldn't be a bad thing to have a security chief owe him a favor. Decision reached, he tapped at his wrist comm. "Mr. Angelus, if you could meet me stationside, please?"

  For his part, Ness understood the nuances of communication perfectly well and responded with nothing besides, "On my way, Captain."

  In the way of good security chiefs everywhere, Ness obviously knew about the meeting outside the Brimstone's docking port, since he appeared a scant thirty seconds later in professional, if rather ominous, black leather and wing-tailored shirt. Shax found he approved heartily. If Ness had come to understand the effect of showing his fallen status proudly, it could only add to his mystique when among humans.

  A look passed between them, amused heat and promise. "Captain?"

  "Ah, Mr. Angelus. Thank you for joining us. Chief Carlisle has a little problem he'd like us to look into." Shax waved a hand toward the interior corridor. "Lead on, Chief. Let's see your monster. Er, animal control issue."

  The chief turned and hurried off, looking back over his shoulder from time to time to add bits of information such as, "We've done a search of manifests" and "No one's reported one missing."

  Though one what he still wouldn't say. He was either so rattled that he'd forgotten that he hadn't mentioned it, or he was afraid Shax would change his mind if he knew.

  At some point during their walk to the other side of the station, Julian fell into step beside Shax, slipping from the shadows far too quietly for Shax to notice until he spoke. "It's a hellcat, oh lovely demon. Been awfully amusing watching the station boys trying to catch it."

  "Is it? How odd." Shax ran through various scenarios while a thrill of excitement ran up his spine. "There's no one from the family here that I know of."

  Ness leaned closer, shooting a quelling look at Julian. "What does that mean, love? Would it matter where the cat came from?"

  "It would." Shax reached over to give his angel's hand a quick squeeze. "It's illegal according to several treaties to take an unregistered hellcat from Earth, and no one can register ownership other than a demon of the blood."

  "I'd wondered," Julian murmured. "Curiouser and curiouser, as our Captain Shax would say."

  "You do
know I stole that from an Earth writer?"

  "Did you? Never had much time for Old Earth literature. Though I do like Poe."

  Ness's wings rustled with a visible shudder. "Really? Still?"

  "He's having you on." Shax found himself torn between smacking Julian and patting Ness, settling for neither. "Julian has an odd sense of humor sometimes."

  "Twisted, you mean," Ness muttered under his breath.

  Shax pretended he hadn't heard. He needed to do something about the strange hostility that still lingered between his beloved and one of his dearest friends, but he hadn't the foggiest notion what. Not now, though. Now he wrenched his attention back to the harried things Chief Carlisle tossed back at them as they neared the arm of the station reserved for shuttle bays. The cat had been in a maintenance hallway. How long, no one knew. No vid footage picked up where it came from. Attempts to stun it had failed—it shook the effects off and got right back up. Attempts to trap it resulted in shredded nets and smashed traps.

  "If you can't do something, Captain, we'll have to shoot it," Chief Carlisle said as he slowed his steps near the first shuttle bay. "And if the monster belongs to someone, it might cause an incident."

  The last was said with such a hiss of dismay that Shax wrestled with another ill-timed laugh and barely won. "Well, we can't have that now." Despite his amusement, he did mean it—human/demon diplomacy being rather shaky at the best of times.

  Questions ran around his brain like nervous mice before an earthquake, but he couldn't answer any of them without more information. Concentrating on the immediate task would be more productive. If the cat was half-crazed by illness or injury, which was possible, since it had gone to ground, the day might end rather unpleasantly for demons trying to intervene on its behalf.

  As they rounded the last bend to reach the bay in question, an unmistakable snarling howl rolled over them, loud enough to vibrate the deck plates.

  "That's a hellcat?" Ness's eyebrows appeared to be plotting an escape as they climbed his forehead.

  Shax smiled, fond memories splashing about in his mental pond. "It most certainly is."

  "I see." Ness turned to him, obviously still perplexed. "From your stories, I'd imagined them as small and fierce. Like housecats. That sounds somewhat, ah, larger."

  "Some are larger than others." Shax rocked on his heels as he listened to the cat's snarls and rumbles, trying to gauge size and temperament by sound alone. "But none of them are small, precisely. I do apologize if I ever gave that impression, cupcake."

  Ness leaned across to pin Julian with a sharp look, though his words were mild. "I suppose you knew?"

  "My first hellcat encounter," Julian mimicked Ness's careful tone. "And I'll confess that I still haven't caught sight of the beast." The hellcat let loose a savage roar that sent several security men staggering back. "I'm not entirely sure I want to at this point."

  Head cocked, Shax analyzed the timbre of that roar, trying his best to anticipate what breed she was. She, he had no doubt of, and he couldn't even say why. He called for meat, pleased that one of the security boys had shown enough sense to bring some, then turned to his shipmates. "Wait for me here. I'll call if I need you."

  He left it to Ness and Julian to decide whether the comment had been meant for one or both of them and eased the door to the access corridor open with his shoulder. Auto lighting kicked on when he stepped inside, which told him the cat was farther in and hadn't moved toward the door for some minutes. One step at a time, Shax moved into her territory, alternating between a low clicking of his tongue against his front teeth and the universal rhythmic hissing used to call cats everywhere.

  "Tk, tk, tk, tk, psss, psss, psss. It's all right, sweetie. I know the bad men scared you."

  He knew nothing of the sort, of course. She might just as easily have been enormously pissed off rather than scared. A flick of motion drew his attention to the shadows under an air duct. Ah, there you are. From the length of her shadow and the size of the one visible paw, Shax determined she was one of the hunter breeds that demon nobility kept to run alongside nightmares—guardians and trackers better than any human-bred hound. In one smooth motion, Shax sat cross-legged on the floor where she could see him clearly.

  "Hello, pretty. That doesn't look like a comfy spot for such a big kitty. Why don't you come out here where there's more room?"

  A black-tipped tail twitched out of the shadows and back in. Out and back, out and back, while the cat considered him. The one visible paw became two. Two paws patted forward along the deck plates until head and shoulders slid out from the space under the duct. The beast emerged, stretched and shook herself, all the while sniffing in Shax's direction.

  Here it was, then. He would either be acceptable, or he would be dinner because, oh yes, she was one of the larger breeds. She sat and lifted a paw to wash, eyeing him with a wariness that fell between hope and hostility. Shax dared not breathe or maybe the sheer beauty of her took his breath away. Dark red, the red of blood not yet dry, her tufted ears had black tips, and black tipped her paws and tail. Black even outlined her eyes as if she had raided someone's makeup drawer for eye pencil.

  "Are you hungry, pretty?" He held out a piece of meat to her. Poor, freeze-dried offering that it was, it was all he had.

  At first she pretended to ignore him, turning to wash a spot on her side. Shax held steady, keeping the offer open, and finally she deigned to lean forward, stretching her neck to sniff at what he held. She rose and approached a step, then another, always with one paw held off the floor.

  "That's it. You know what I am. I smell of home, of companionship, of food…"

  He realized his mistake in wording a hair too late as she pounced.

  The quiet was unnerving. While the sounds of bones crunching and flesh rending would have been more so, Julian hated a lack of clear information.

  "I don't like this." Ness straightened from where he'd leaned against a corridor wall. "I should go after him."

  Julian barely suppressed the urge to grab Ness's arm. With Shax, he would've offered both restraint and comfort without hesitation—or he would if they'd been alone. Ness still flinched if Julian touched him, though, and while the flavor of the flinches might have changed since they'd danced together at Shax's Yule party? A flinch was still a flinch, whether it was angry, irritated, or guilty. "Give him a moment. We may be more of a danger and distraction right now than a help."

  "But it's taking so long." The words sounded as if they strangled Ness, his wings snapping out behind him in his agitation.

  "Steady on. He said he'd call for us. Give him—"

  The access door opened, and it was Ness who grabbed Julian. His anxious grip was painful, his angelic honey-and-almond scent exquisitely distracting, but Julian forced himself to focus on that dimly lit portal. Shax stumbled through and Julian's breath caught, restarting when he didn't find any blood in evidence. His shirt was half-untucked, one pant leg had escaped from its boot top, and Shax's carefully brushed hair was mussed, but he didn't appear harmed. Even better, Shax flung them the I've-eaten-every-canary-I-could-find grin that made Julian's insides an adolescent mess, and Julian had to lock his knees or risk stumbling in relief.

  "Oh my," Ness breathed out as Shax stepped out far enough to reveal what walked beside him.

  A cat. Yes, it was that, but even with Shax's earlier warning, Julian hadn't imagined it would be quite so enormous. The hellcat's shoulder was nearly at Shax's waist, and the demon walked quite comfortably with his hand on its back. Lion came to mind as a size comparison, though Julian had never seen one in person. The cat didn't look anything like the vids he'd seen of lions, though. It was rangier, all sharp angles, with legs hinting at speed. Its ears were tall—slender and tufted in black—while its tail ended in a black fork that appeared more like a bladed weapon than a proper tail tip.

  And it's red. So red. Almost as if it were smoldering. Possible. It was a hellcat.

  Ness took a few hesitant steps fo
rward as the station's security officers scrambled back. "Captain, are you…unharmed?"

  "Quite well, Mr. Angelus, never fear." Shax offered a careless wave before he turned to Chief Carlisle. "I'm claiming her, Chief. As my bloodline allows by law, I claim her."

  Hellcats, hellcats… Shax had always kept a pride back home in Hell. Julian ran his tongue over his teeth, turning over facts, since he wasn't a fan of coincidence. When Shax had fled Earth, he'd had to leave his beloved cats behind, and some of them he'd had since childhood. Some of the heartbreak had been relieved when he later found out his mother had rescued them before they could be destroyed. And now someone had left a beautiful cat, just perfect for a demon prince to claim. Not that Julian begrudged his dear Shax anything he loved, but there were too many whys and not enough answers for comfort.

  The chief kept his distance, his expression a fascinating mix of alarm and relief. "I…suppose that's within regulations." He consulted his wrist comm briefly. "Ah. Here. Yes. I will need to register breed and the animal's name."

  "She's a garnet courser, one of the finest of the breed I've ever seen. And her name is…" Shax hesitated, scratching behind her ear as she head-butted him and nearly knocked him over. "Fluffy."

  Ness dropped his head into his hands. "For the love of—"

  "Er, sorry?" Chief Carlisle paused in his typing. "I'm sorry, Captain. Did you say Fluffy?"

  "Yes." Shax gave a firm nod, obviously digging his heels in when his decision produced doubt and confusion. "Fluffy. There you are, Chief. All sorted."