Homunculus and The Cat

This story begins with the death of the cat. This particular feline perished, not peculiarly, by way of curiosity. It was a young cat, barely a year old, by any scale, with an above average intelligence. Specifically one that afforded a heightened awareness of danger as it knowingly pounced Japanese death right in her putrid, sinewy face.

Alexandria. Egypt. A block or so away from the, Great Bibliothek, the cat basked in the nighttime heat. Sulking lazily on a shelf of some brand new apartment building like an aristocratic stray, the cat licked her paws. She disposed of the hairball in the usual way. Fairy was only her second favorite food; the wings always tickled on the way back up. But she had eaten sushi for a week straight and needed a change.

The cat yawned and squinted patronizingly at the human couple inside the apartment arguing over something neither of them could remember. Her coat was solid steel grey and its shine, graphite. A door slammed inside the flat and then another. There was nothing left to see, no dinner and a show combo for her tonight.

She stretched a pair of slightly lighter grey wings and closed her green eyes. The cat yawned again. She didn’t particularly feel like flying. This building was pretty posh and besides, there was always a chance the couple would get over themselves and each come crashing back into the room for some make-up sex.

“They’re probably not the type,” the cat with wings judged. “Neither of them looked very kinky anyway.”

She scanned the sandstone skyline for something else to do. It was a half-hearted and vain attempt. Maybe she’d just have another bloody nap. All the tourists were in bed for the night or else at some nightclub where she couldn’t harass them.

The cat was in the middle of a curse directed at the jackal-bouncers of the Lighthouse, one of Alexandria’s top establishments, if you don’t like dancing with locals, when a shadow seemed to move beneath her.

She loved new things and the smell that drifted from the flat below was a new thing. However unpleasant it was poignant to know about it. Also new was the way her hairs began to stand on end.

“I must investigate,” she whispered spiritedly.

The apartment below had all of its lights put out but something inside was moving. The cat located an open window and watched. It was hard to see in the dark even for her, but there was suspicion growing that had not trouble with it at all. In fact, the more she thought about it the more the darkness seemed somehow artificial, or at least false in some way. It was made or forced upon the room, light and shadows in all, covered with an added layer of tangibility. She’d better make a move or the stagnation of the cloud, as she thought it must be, would get the better of her.

Crouching and calculating she found the opportunity she was looking for. She pounced. All at once her victim screamed, over a dozen glass lamps burst from their repression, and she caught sight of what she had ambushed.

Presently she was ripped from its face of polluted flesh that rotted away and exposed bone and loosened several maggots. She landed on the floor and though made of hardwood it felt soft as a cloud. She retched. Not another hairball this time. Uncontrollable disgust seethed out from her bowels as the last of the wet-mummy’s shadow struggled to cling to her. But an unknown light was prevailing, vanquishing the stench of the unknown. The zombic fiend recoiled from some newly lit lamp and leapt out of the window. A second one followed.

Under an eerie purple haze that grew from the lamp, the cat’s vision blurred and she lost her footing.

“You saved my life!”

The cat could barely see, but whatever was speaking to her didn’t sound right. It sounded distant and as if it was missing something. It was short, humanoid and wheezed a bit like a summoning gone wrong.

The cat couldn’t help close her eyes.

When she opened them again dawn had struck like a hammer on the anvil of the night. The small man was sitting beside her stroking her soft fur and scratching under her wings.

“That was your first life wasn’t it?”

The cat blinked her green eyes.

“eight left.”

‘Great,’ she thought, ‘now I’ve got a pet human.’

“I want you to know I’m forever in your debt,” the midget said to the cats disgust.

“Look,” she started to say, “I didn’t mean-”

“If you ever need anything,” He cut her off. And he wasn’t a midget, or even a man for that matter. She realized now what he was. He was artificial. Manmade. False-human. An alchemist’s atrophy.  He was a homunculus. “look me up, I’ll be in Atlantis, at the homunculus sanctuary.”

The cat just stared at him, like she were an oracle gazing into his soul, except he didn’t have one, he was a homunculus.

“Also in case you are unaware,” would he not shut up? “those things that attacked me were shikome, minions of Japanese afterlife. And they’ll be back. Stick around here and they will find you.”

As the homunculus stood up he handed her the purple lamp that had warded off the Shinto demons.

“Ask for Gregor.”

The cat blinked in acknowledgement.

The door closed on its own behind Gregor, one of the many small luxurious features of the posh apartments the cat had just invaded.

After a moment of silence and pondering the cat decided to find some more sushi.

“Shikome,” she said aloud, “eight lives left, what are the odds?”