Boots Read online

  "Um... I guess I'll cook it for us?"

  "You do whatever you like with your portion." Kasha turned half away to clean his front paws. "Just give me the head and I'll be happy."

  Did I offend him? Do cats get offended? "Thank you. For the fish. I'm not awake yet. Had the strangest dream."

  "Oh, yes?"

  "There was this boy. Really hot. He was... " Heat climbed Willem's face. "Never mind."

  "No need to be embarrassed. You obviously haven't had a good fuck in some time."

  Somehow hearing the word out of a cat's mouth embarrassed him more than discussing a naked-hot-boy dream.

  He shoved all the strangeness of the past day into the back of his mind to concentrate on the practical concerns of preparing fish. The cabin had a good set of knives, from which he selected a scaler and a heavy chef's knife. Once he'd hacked off the head and handed it to Kasha as promised, he fell easily into the task made familiar by so many summers spent fishing with his brothers. Off with fins, tail, and scales, hook in near the tail, slice it open, and clean out the guts. While he had never been good at catching fish, the cleaning had a meditative rhythm to it, good for getting lost in his thoughts.

  Kasha didn't speak again until he had a fire going, the fish cooking on an improvised spit. "I have some things to see to today. While I'm gone, I have a task for you."

  "A... what?"

  "Task, Willem. Something I require you to do," Kasha went on, apparently unperturbed by his confusion. "I need a good pair of boots. Perhaps a nice, wide-brimmed hat as well. A well-tailored jacket would be asking too much, I suppose. But most important are the boots. I need you to purchase a pair for me."

  "Boots."

  "Yes, as in were made for walking. A pair of Luccheses would be ideal, but I'll settle for Ariats, or anything well made. I suppose--"

  "Why would a cat need boots?" Willem blurted out.

  Kasha sighed in a most un-feline way and then did something else unexpected. He stood. This wasn't in the way a cat will get up on its hind legs for a moment to take a look at what's on the table or to gauge a leap. No, this was standing as if he were normally bipedal and walking on two feet was the most natural thing for him.

  Willem felt as if a giant vacuum had sucked all the air from the room. He stared, fighting his frozen lungs for a breath, and finally forced out, "You're not a cat, are you?"

  "Of course I'm a cat, you twit," Kasha snapped. "What do I look like, a turnip?"

  "You're... " Willem gulped a breath as he tried to calm his slamming heart. Really, what did one more thing matter? He'd already conceded the loss of his sanity when the cat started talking. Nothing should surprise him, then. Fairy dust, winged horses, magic beanstalks, he should expect to see just about anything now. "You're not just a cat."

  Kasha gave him a slow, unreadable blink. "Correct. Not just." He dropped back down to all fours. "I am your friend, though, Willem. I want to help you. Do you understand that?"

  "Yes." He found he meant it. If Kasha was a hallucination, he was a beneficial one. If he truly was some sort of... something, otherworldly being, magical creature, he had always been Willem's friend.

  "Good. Then finish your breakfast and go down into town to get me some boots."

  "What, um, size?"

  "The smallest you can find, dear boy. I don't have very large feet."

  No, and they're not the right shape for human boots. "Okay. But you still didn't answer my first question."

  Fish head held between his front paws, Kasha ignored him and attacked his breakfast. Finally, after picking the skull clean, he tipped his head to one side and asked, "What is it you want most? If you had no need to worry about money or what others thought, what would you do?"

  Willem shrugged. "Don't know. Go to college, maybe."

  "And what attraction does higher learning hold?"

  "See, I--" He broke off, shaking his head. "It's stupid. And just not practical."

  "That's your father talking." Kasha rolled onto his back, thick tail thumping the hearthstones. "Never mind practical. Tell me your most outlandish, outrageous dreams."

  Willem cracked a little smile. His most outrageous dreams, the ones with gorgeous male bodies and various edible items such as garden tubs full of whipped cream, weren't ones he would share with a cat, even one who wasn't just a cat. He peeled off a bit of fish to test if it was done, forcing his brain back to the question. "I wanted to go to art school, maybe in Philly or Pittsburgh or Carlisle. But it would have been a waste of money. I mean, you pony up all that cash, and then you're left without a steady income when you graduate, probably strapped with loan payments, too."

  Kasha batted at his shoelace, then captured it to chew on the end. "So the purpose of this outpouring of funds would have been to create, to become an artist."

  "Yeah. Stupid, huh?"

  "Terribly," Kasha said in a dry tone. "Are you so beaten down, Willem, that you no longer see the sky?"

  "What's that supposed to mean?" He pulled the shoelace away gently. "Stop that. I don't have a spare."

  "Do the few things I ask of you. Trust me for but a short while. I am, after all, a magic cat. I'm going to change your life, my boy."

  "With a pair of boots."

  "Yes."

  Well, what the hell? Not as if three hundred bucks would last me all that long, anyway. And if I've lost my mind, might as well go the whole way to Crazytown. "I'll see what I can find."

  "Good boy. Now, I must be off. I'll meet you back here this afternoon." Kasha padded to the door, stood on his hind legs, and turned the knob to open it as a person would.

  A shiver climbed Willem's spine on spider feet. Magic. Did that mean magic in the benign, stories-for-kids sense? Or was Kasha something far more sinister? The word "demon" came to mind. Shouldn't he feel some sense of menace, then?

  He sifted back through memories of Kasha to see if there were any frightening ones. A scary hiss once or twice, but that was just him being a cat. No, most of the time he had just been Puss, comfortable, affectionate, and tending toward lazy. He had slept on his cushion at the brewery, prowled among the sacks of barley, and sprawled on Willem's lap in a purring, contented heap.

  Any lingering anxious shadows cleared as he stepped from the cabin into the sunlight. The autumn rain had left half-frozen jewels on every twig and fire-hued leaf in sight, the woods decked out in society party splendor. Things had gone wrong, sure, but the world was still beautiful and evil supernatural things only existed in frightened human minds. He squared his shoulders and strode down the hill toward town.

  * * * *

  Kasha sat on the bureau by the window in Willem's old apartment, watching the entwined figures on the bed. Lazy slugs. Willem would never sleep this late.

  The smaller boy, Joey, slept on his back, mouth open, hand cupping his balls. It wasn't a good look for him. Kasha had seen him with Willem before, though, and had never been impressed. Something in his restless, shifting eyes kept him from being a handsome young man. If once, just once, he had gazed at Willem with adoration rather than calculation, Kasha might have reconsidered what he was about to do.

  The taller boy, the one he didn't know, stirred first. He had no quarrel with that one, except that he had been instrumental in causing Willem's pain. Any collateral damage would be little cause for regret.

  The tall boy yawned and rolled over to slide a hand across Joey's bare stomach. He startled when he spotted Kasha.

  "Fuck. That's one big-ass cat." He nudged Joey's side. "You didn't tell me you had a cat, babe."

  "Cat? Wha--" Joey rubbed a palm over his face, one eye opening far enough to show the bloodshot evidence of heavy excess. "Don't have a fucking cat."

  Prim and proper with his tail curled around his feet, Kasha did his best to give off a non-threatening air. While the slugs untangled from sheets and each other, though, he began to weave. Some spellcrafters saw magic as flowing streams to direct; for others it came in flecks and motes to puzzle togethe
r. For Kasha, magic was the complex pattern of threads that ran through all things, the very fabric of reality.

  He pulled threads to him from Willem's ex-lover, from the street outside, from the woods outside of town. A bright green thread of poison ivy, a dark skein of spite, a brown, chitinous thread of bedbug, a vibrant thread of scarlet from Willem himself, and Kasha's own rainbow hues wove over and under into the pattern he desired. It was an inelegant thing with the feel of a rag rug, unsecured ends and all, but the spell wasn't meant to endure or accomplish anything elaborate. He sent it into Joey's underwear drawer.

  "How'd the damn cat get in here?" Joey muttered as he opened the drawer and pulled out a pair of powder blue bikini briefs.

  Kasha wrinkled his nose in disgust. The room stank of stale sweat and sex, and the boy wasn't even going to clean himself before he dressed? He truly deserved what he was about to receive. The new lover at least staggered to the shower first.

  During his search over the floor for clothes, Joey began to scratch absently at his balls and his stomach. By the time his lover emerged from the shower, smelling a good deal better, Joey's scratching had become persistent.

  "What's the matter, babe? Got crabs?"

  "Shut up, Leo." Joey's scratching became frantic.

  "Those new briefs? Did you wash them first?"

  "No, dammit, I didn't. They came packaged. Why would I wash them?"

  Leo stopped toweling himself dry, watching Joey with a wary expression. "'Cause they use like, bug spray on imported stuff. Can play hell with your skin sometimes. Take 'em off, babe. You're making me itch."

  "You just want me naked."

  "Yeah, well--holy fuck!"

  Leo's eloquent expression of disbelief leapt out when Joey pulled the briefs down to expose sunburn-red skin covered in angry, swelling blisters. Some of those had begun to ooze from Joey's scratching. The sight of those blisters on his genitals made even Kasha wince in sympathy.

  "Shit, shit, shit!" Joey reached out, but his lover backed away in alarm. "Get the car, Leo! You have to get me to the doctor's. Leo?"

  "I don't think so, babe." Face drained of color, Leo's voice came out thin and shaking. "Who the hell have you been whoring with?" He began throwing clothes into a bag, pulling on a pair of jeans and a sweater as he rushed around the room. "Fuck! And I've been screwing you, you little slut. If you've given me some nasty new kind of VD, I'll--"

  "You'll what, Leo? Dammit, help me! I haven't touched another man! For all I know, you gave me this!"

  Kasha waited until Leo had stormed out of the apartment and Joey had flung himself onto the bed, swearing and whimpering. It was all he needed to see. The boy would have to figure out for himself where relief lay. A kasha could only interfere so much. He slipped out the same way he had come in, by the cracked kitchen window, and hurried down the street. Willem would not have approved, which was why he would not be telling him.

  * * * *

  The dry goods store stocked just about everything, even kid-sized boots. Willem scanned the assortment with amused confusion. How do you pick out boots for a cat?

  He had no idea what Kasha would like. A work boot? A pair of shitkickers? Dress boots? It hadn't occurred to him to ask and now, faced with too many choices, he wished he had brought the cat along. He shook his head on a chuckle, imagining how the store employees would react to the large, crazy man in the footwear section asking his cat which boots he liked best.

  He rejected the ones that looked like water might ruin them right off, and then became stuck between flashy and practical. For some reason, he felt Kasha would prefer flashy, but given their current housing situation, practical made more sense. He finally compromised halfway on a pair of Ariat cowboy boots in black, tooled leather. The price was a little steep for such small boots, but he had made a promise.

  "For your little boy?" A middle-aged woman in a maroon dry goods employee smock gave him an encouraging smile.

  "No, ma'am. I don't have any kids." When she looked at him oddly, he added, "For my nephew." There, that sounded a lot less cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs than "for my cat."

  "You must be the favorite uncle, then," she said with a laugh.

  "Yes, ma'am, I guess so." Willem felt his face heat. God, he hated lying about anything. It tied his insides into painful knots. He bought a little black cowboy hat to go with the boots and a few food staples to last a couple of days. Lying made him cringe, but having anyone, especially a cat he should be caring for, believe they had to provide for him made him feel about a quarter inch tall.

  Back out on the sidewalk, he hitched a ride out to the self-storage facility. His unit was paid for six months out, so no need to rush finding a new place. He'd heard of desperate people living in their storage units, and if his hadn't been so pitifully small, he might have considered it. Hell, it was cheaper than apartment rent. All his furniture and household belongings stayed with Joey. He hadn't had the energy to fight him over who actually owned what, and the remainder of his worldly possessions boiled down to his clothes (not many), a few framed pictures (likewise), and his tools.

  Sad, really. If he died under mysterious circumstances and a forensics team searched through what he had left behind for some clue, they'd leave after five frustrated minutes. Nothing. He would leave behind nothing.

  He switched out dirty clothes for clean, stuffing the dirty socks and underwear in the laundry bag he kept in the unit. Probably should get to the Laundromat soon. Then in a quixotic moment driven by his conversation with Kasha that morning, he retrieved his gas-powered soldering iron, his tin snips, and the spools of solder wire.

  The urge to create surged up in him, as it hadn't in months. Strange how those months coincided with his relationship with Joey. He hadn't realized it before.

  * * * *

  The cabin's front stoop was perfect for viewing the lines of magical confluence that veined the nearby mountains. Most mountains served as points of convergence for lines of magic force. Some, like Fuji or Mauna Kea, gathered magic to them like greedy collectors. Others, like these modest mountains surrounding the town of Honeybole, were simply natural meeting points, intersections of magical roads.

  While the magic had always existed here, the noise and filth of the strip mining machines had masked the lines for many years. Now, in the newfound silence, it became possible to find the paths again. Kasha knew if he could see them, so could others. Beings of power, lesser ones but still enough to be dangerous, were drawn to such places.

  He shivered as a cloud ran ragged fingers over the sun. Other spellcasters were here. They made no effort to hide their power, not like the old days when magical beings were modest and cautious, when humans were more aware and knew them on sight. Now, dear gods, a kasha could live without shielding for over twenty years as a brewer's cat with no one the wiser. He shuddered at what else might be out there.

  The sun broke through the clouds and Kasha straightened, his heart leaping. Willem rounded a bend in the path, striding up the mountain like a young Beowulf, the light sparking in his red-gold hair. Gods, but he is beautiful.

  If Willem had honored his request, tonight he would be able to give himself to his new heki-sama. He had wondered sometimes if his long exile might have negated the strict forms, the rules of his existence. In some ways, yes, but in Willem's arms the night before, the crushing aversion thrust through his head like a lightning spear. He needed to be Willem's, by ritual consent, before he could offer himself.

  "Hi, honey, I'm home," Willem said with a hint of a smile as he approached the door. He did seem more himself today, still so sad, but steadier, perhaps.

  "It's about time. I've been waiting hours for you." Kasha padded in behind him when he unlocked the door.

  "I only have two legs, and I had some orders to fill, didn't I?"

  Kasha stared at the pack, tail twitching in anticipation. "And did you?"

  The little smile returned. "You want dinner or you want what I bought you first?"

 
; Incredible. The boy is teasing. "Curiosity may have killed the cat, but enforced patience will surely give him a stroke."

  Willem plunked down on the floor with his pack. Altogether too slowly and carefully, he began to pull things out. Tins of tuna, a can of beans, another of peas, a box of oatmeal all emerged one by one.

  "Do I have to climb in the pack myself?" Kasha snapped.

  "You're as bad as a kid at Christmas." Willem chuckled, but he relented and pulled a shoebox from the depths of his pack. "I hope these are okay."

  His large, callused hands lifted the lid to reveal a lovely pair of black boots. They had to be boots, of course, since shoes would be too difficult to keep on his feet in any convincing way, even with magical intervention, but these were perfect. The rich scent of new leather filled his head as his eyes wandered over the patterns embossed on the surface. Just elegant enough to suit his tastes, but tough enough to escape being effeminate.

  "They'll do."

  Willem laughed. "So glad you approve. But I'm not done yet."

  The second box contained a black hat that Willem plopped on Kasha's head. With a bit of magic resizing, the miniature Stetson fit perfectly. "Thank you, truly. Would you put the boots on as well?"

  "You can't do it?" Willem's forehead creased in a puzzled frown.

  "I could, but it's just not done. These boots are a gift from you?"

  "Yes." The puzzled creases deepened.

  "Forgive me, Willem. Where I come from, this is the custom. It symbolizes several things, not the least of which is that you give them of your own volition." And binds me to you so long as you do not demand them back. But to tell Willem that would require more explanation than he was willing to provide at the moment.

  He leapt up onto the nearest chair and sat human-wise with his back legs dangling over the edge. A shaft of sunlight surrounded Willem, giving his skin a luminous quality and Kasha spotted the instant his sea-gray eyes softened in acceptance.

  Despite his efforts to remain aloof and calm, anxiety and anticipation overcame him, and he began to purr. Luckily, Willem seemed to mistake the nervous reaction as encouragement and gently slid the right boot over his paw. The adjustments he made this time were to his foot and not the boot, but, oh, it felt right. It had been so long.