Familiar!

"It's a sign of respect given to a Mage or Witch more powerful than you are." Nazaa's voice came from behind us. "All magic users are more powerful than Kitties, Master."

Kathleen spun and hissed at her.

"I'm sorry Mistress." Nazaa's face also paled and she did the curtsey thing as she apologized.

"Okay, that's enough." I wiggled a finger to bring Nazaa around in front with Lia. "I don't want either of you doing that again. Understand? No more. If anyone does it again, I'll get mad at them. Got it?"

"Yes Master." They both chorused together. Kathleen hissed at them.

"Stop it," I told her. "I'm getting tired of that too. They have their house, you have yours and this one is mine. My house, my rules. Got that?"

She hissed at me this time.

"If you don't like it," I pointed. "There's the door."

Instead of hissing again, she yowled at me. I had no idea what she said but I didn't care.

"I don't care." I told her. "I'm tired of being kept in the dark because you won't tell me what I need to know. Then you blame me for doing things, as if I was somehow supposed to know not to do them, even though you didn't tell me anything. I can't read your mind you know."

Kathleen just squinted her eyes at me.

"Okay, I can. But I don't. It's not polite." I finished lamely.

All three of them just looked at me like I'd gone crazy. Maybe I had. After all, I was sitting at my table talking to a cat like it was human about things that weren't humanly possible.

"All I wanted before any of this started was to be left alone. But I can't be because I'm a Mage, supposedly. Except I'm not really a Mage because I don't know anything. I wasn't raised as a Mage and I didn't even know anything about this stuff until a few weeks ago. And now you all expect me to be perfect when I'm stumbling in the dark because you won't help me by turning on the lights."

I pointed at Lia. "I'm just a guy who happened to be in the right place at the right time to help you. You don't owe me anything for that. You certainly don't have to clean up after me or cook for me. And you absolutely aren't going to sleep with me. I'm thinking on how to modify your binding so that you'll be able to go to work if you want to, but you'll still have to live here because I won't break your binding. I think it's possible to do that, despite everyone saying it can't be done, but it could be dangerous and would definitely put you at risk again. I'm not going to do that to you unless you ask me to."

Next I pointed at Nazaa.

"Same deal. You came to me for help and I gave it to you. I didn't expect anything in return and I sure as hell didn't expect to be treated like I'm being treated. I'm not a super hero or whatever it is that you think I am. I'm just a guy. That's it. You and Esmie are safe here. If you want to run your magical underground railroad station here, that's fine. If you need my help, I'll do what I can, but that's as far as it goes."

"And you," I pointed at Kathleen this time. "You'd better start telling me the things I need to know before I make more stupid mistakes. Because if you don't, then I'm going to keep making those mistakes and it won't be my fault, it'll be yours."

I sat back and crossed my arms as they each looked at one another. A few more minutes and the silence stretched until all three of them looked at each other again.

"Got it?" I let them off the hook.

Two nods and a tail thrash were the only response. Well, as long as I ignored Kathleen's glare that is.

"Good." I pointed at Lia once more, making her cringe for a moment. "I need a tutor. Someone with experience who can teach me everything I need to know about Mages, Kitties and Familiars. You interested?"

"Yes Master!" It took a minute for it to sink in, but once it did she nearly sang the two words to me. "Now?"

"No, not now. I want you to go home and create a curriculum from the beginning on everything you've been taught." I shifted my eyes slightly. "Nazaa can give you a different viewpoint for context and depth. You can start teaching me once you have the curriculum done but there's no rush. Okay?"

Her eyes shining, Lia could only nod back to me.

"Like I said," I held up a finger. "There's no rush. I'd rather it be correct and thorough than fast. If this works, maybe we could also set you up to be a private tutor for Kitties. Would that be good for you?

I got another nod for that. Plus a happy smile, complete with teeth.

"Good. Let's see where that goes. If necessary I could maybe do an addition to Nazaa's house for a small classroom. I don't want to promise anything, so let's all sleep on it and discuss it later. Okay?"

"Yes Master!"

I turned to Kathleen. "I need your help."

Chapter 21

Kathleen wouldn't teach me about magic. She just flat out wouldn't do it no matter how I asked. So, her mother became the fallback plan to show me how to use the magic I could command through the orb.

Not that I was learning much. Her mom at first had refused to teach me anything. Kathleen kept after her about it, offering different arguments on why her mother was the best choice until she relented.

"Very well." Mrs. Black eventually told Kathleen and then held up a single finger in warning. "But, I will only teach the basics for control, no more."

"Mom!" Kathleen tried for more of a concession.

"He is a Mage and should not have been allowed to live once he discovered us. He is dangerous and leaving him alive risks all of us. You, me, your sisters. All of us. You know this to be true."

Kathleen's quickly erected shields glittered as dangerously as her eyes. Her mother glanced from the shield to me and then back to her daughter before drawing the line on what she would do.

"I will teach him how to control himself and his magic. But only to that level of self control and no more because he is a greater risk to all of us while he is untaught. He is easy prey and draws evil to him. But, I will not teach him higher skills or concepts. Accept that limitation or your Mage will die. Either by my hand or the hand of another Mage when they decide to take what magic he has. If that happens, we all suffer for it. So I will teach him how to control himself so he no longer appears to be easy prey. And no more."

There wasn't much Kathleen could do at that point. She had to agree because I was dangerous in my ignorance. I was also a potential challenger to other Mages, such as the Mage who'd attacked me, and they'd eventually come looking for me anyway. The fact that people kept driving into my little cul-de-sac street to gawk at my house, as well as anyone else who happened to be outside at the time, told me the magical community was still interested in me and knew where I lived.

Then there was the stream of people who started going into and out of Nazaa's house on the corner. Kitties for the most part, though once in a while I could feel an attraction to one of her visitors even if I didn't see anyone.

Those times it was probably because Nazaa's visitor was a Familiar seeking help from the underground railroad. I ignored it as best I could, though it was an uncomfortable feeling while it lasted. Itchy was the best word I had to describe how it felt. Definitely itchy. I wouldn't let myself scratch it either, no matter how much I wanted to.

Kathleen, after getting her mom to mentor me, absented herself from the practice sessions. When I asked her why, she tartly told me she didn't need to watch the magical equivalent of remedial kindergarten for dummies. Which I guess is better than being an idiot, if not by much.

It was her mother who told me it was because I should only have one teacher and Kathleen's binding of me would interfere if we were too close. Kathleen would control me, instead of letting me learn my own potentials and powers. Her mom also flat out refused to link with me so I could draw power from her during my lessons.

Which meant it was either no lessons, or Kathleen had to be nearby so I could draw magic from her. Yet not close enough she would be the one directing and controlling my use of magic.

The result was that I learned about magic without Kathleen being right there in the room with us. Usually she was sunning herself in the yard. Or sleeping on my bed cuddling the stuffed mouse I'd made for her.

Normally Kathleen disappeared around sunset and snuck back in sometime in the middle of the night. A few nights ago, however, she'd strolled in just before I turned off the lamp, tail waving leisurely like she hadn't a care in the world. While she settled at my hip where she usually slept I'd conjured the stuffed toy mouse for her, just because I wanted to see what would happen.

Faster than I could follow, she'd swiped the mouse as soon as it appeared, hooking it with her claws and bringing it back between her forelegs to rub her face with it. It didn't take long before she was emitting little chirps as she sprawled, kicked, and squirmed her way around the bed, rubbing and chewing on the mouse the whole time. Eventually she wound up upside down, all four paws pointing in different directions with a drunken look on her face. She drooled and snored all night long too, not even moving or waking when I reduced the concentration of the catnip inside the toy mouse to not much more than bare smell.

I'd expected an objection over doing it, but Kathleen just gave me a head-bump and begged me to scratch under her chin when she woke up late the next morning. At least now I didn't have to sleep with a cat who got completely wasted on catnip and then snored all night long. Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzz. It was as bad as an alarm clock.

Not that I'd tell her so, I'm not stupid, but the return to nighttime quiet was definitely a relief. It also made my mornings slightly less stressful if I had a good night's sleep to bolster my lessons in magic.

"Is it always Kat-something like Kathleen or Katrina? Or something-Kat, like Nazaa and Esmie?"

I asked the question while simultaneously changing a twig my neighbor had put on my table into tiny white matchsticks. It sounded casual, though it wasn't really. Kathleen's mother was not a forgiving tutor and she didn't like it when I didn't follow her instructions exactly. And when I say exactly, I mean exactly. Or else.

At first Kathleen had stayed nearby, despite her saying she didn't want to watch my lessons, ready to shield me from her mother just in case she decided to use teaching me as a cover to try to kill me. Eventually we all backed away from the edge of that potential catastrophe. Kathleen's mother still didn't trust me, but she knew that as long as Kathleen was right there and watching she couldn't go through with her threat to eliminate what she saw as a danger to her family. Kathleen, for her part, made sure her mother never forgot whose shields were stronger. Or on whose side The Mage was on.

"Pay attention to what you're doing. Change the matchsticks into boxes. Turn each matchstick into one box of equal material. Not cubes, boxes." Instead of responding to my question, or acknowledging my success, my teacher told me to focus on the exercise.

Using the orb was different than using the golden power Kathleen gave to me. That was almost tame in comparison to the power in the orb. The magic inside the orb was crude and raw. Definitely wild. It was like using a sledgehammer to sort papers with; it could be done but everything took a beating. A sledge is not a tool designed for finesse in the hands of the unskilled. Neither was the magic inside the orb. My neighbor's task was to teach me how to learn the control I needed to develop the necessary delicate touch.

To help with that, Kathleen's mom demanded that I use only a portion of the orb's power to do as much, or more, than I could by just using all of the energy at once. Subtle alchemy instead of brute force creationism, which apparently sent tsunami sized shockwaves through the magic stream. The task was to use only enough magic, and no more than exactly that much.

Following directions, I made the wooden matches into tiny boxes, complete with matching lids. Or, at least I tried to. Before I could stop myself, all of the matches rose into the air and changed from little wood slivers to miniature boxes before falling back to the table top to land on a pile of black sand as the orb vanished.

"You still refuse to concentrate." Her admonition was scathing.

"I'm trying to."

I used my hand to indicate the boxes as I tried to tell her what had just happened. Mrs. Black didn't even bother to give me more time to explain.

"You do not. You take the easy path. You, like all Veneficaii, abuse the gifts you were given. It is your nature. Thus, you choose to not concentrate and learn a better way." She scolded me while thrusting her chin at the table.

"That is what you should be trying to learn. Instead you distract your mind with trivialities when you should be concentrating on your control."

"I'm paying attention."

"Do you actually believe your questions about Nazaa's name and heritage mean you are paying attention?"

I didn't know what to say. Kathleen's mother gestured once more to the sand on my table.

"The sand is from your excessive use of more power than required. It is waste energy transformed into sand. The lesson you should be paying attention to is supposed to teach you to use only the amount of magic you need and no more. The proof of your inattention is right before your eyes."

I looked at the mess on the table and sighed. From out of nowhere Kathleen leapt up onto my lap to bump and slide her head and shoulder against my chest then jumped down again. She walked away a few steps before sitting with her back toward us. Her mother pointed a finger at her back.

"Be gone. He already has enough distractions and doesn't need his Kitty making more for him."

Kathleen spun and yowled at her mother in a series of undulating vocals.

"Prove it." Her mom sounded like she understood Kathleen's yodeling. Which, given her own cat nature, she probably did. "If you are not his Kitty, you do not need to be here."

Kathleen gave her mother a sinister look and stalked haughtily toward the door. Before I could get up to open it for her, she oozed through the lower panel using her space-warp magic. Let me tell you, seeing just the back half of a cat protruding out of the lower part of a door is disturbing. It's worse when the half-a-cat lifts it leg and draws it through the solid material, the leg disappearing as if the wooden door panel was the surface of a pool, except there weren't any ripples. The last thing I saw was Kathleen lift her final foot and shake it in her mother's direction, as if she was ridding herself of something nasty clinging to it, before pulling it through the door and vanishing completely. Her mother sniffed disdainfully once she was gone.

"Can I ask what that was about?"

Kathleen's mother transferred her attention back to me rather than continue to stare at the door. I waited calmly. With a small exhale, almost a sigh but not quite, she answered my question.

"She is conflicted in what she wants. She desires you to become a stronger and more powerful Mage. Yet she comforts you when you fail because if you are weaker than she, she need not fear you."

"Why should she want me to become a stronger magic user than she is? Didn't she try to prevent it in the beginning?"

Mrs. Black looked at the door her daughter had just passed through for a long moment before answering.

"As you say. She should not want you to become stronger because it endangers her as well as myself and her sister Kits. That she does is what creates the conflict in her mind and desires. She wants and needs you to protect her from those who would harm or use her because she failed to do what she should have done long ago. She is drawn to you by your abilities and her own nature and this clouds her reasoning."

"Are you saying she likes me?" I asked the question carefully. I didn't need her to go ballistic like Kathleen usually did when I asked that type of question.

"You dream an impossible fantasy, Mage. My Kit is not human as you are. She does not think of you that way."

"But what about what you just said? Doesn't that mean she likes me? Otherwise, why would she care if I was becoming a stronger Mage or not?"

"As I said, she should not care about your success. My Kit could kill you with a single thought and care no more than if she were exterminating vermin. As she should, for her own protection as well as her sisters."

"But her bond with me won't let her. Isn't that what you said?" I ignored the threat as the golden eyes in my mind opened and stared without blinking. Kathleen was watching, though at this point I didn't think her mother would do anything despite her repeatedly saying she didn't trust me. She'd been alone and unshielded enough timea while I was freely using magic that the potential threat was almost not worth worrying about. Not that I would let myself forget, because cats were very good at waiting for just the right opportunity to pounce on their victims.

My mentor gave me a very long look after I asked my question.

"Perhaps your failure to learn is that you do not hear what is spoken. Or you choose to hear what is not."

"I don't understand." She had said it, I was almost positive.

Another long look before she pointed at the table. It was obvious she'd decided the present conversation was another of the distractions she didn't want me having.

"Pay attention. Remove the sand without disturbing the position of the boxes."

"But . . ."

"I grow weary of your refusals to do what you are told. Either pay attention and complete the task or I will punish you."

Before I could do anything a loud screech came from the backyard and the eyes in my mind growled.

"If he does not pay attention I will punish him. He is my apprentice, not yours. It is my right and duty to correct his disobedience. You know this." Her mom shouted back at Kathleen. "Now stop interfering or I will also punish you."

The light in the room flickered silver but Kathleen's shields did not fully materialize. It was a warning. And the growl was audible this time. Kathleen's mother ignored both as she looked at me and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Begin."

"Do you want the boxes to remain in their exact positions after the sand is removed? Some of them are on top of the sand." I had to ask to be sure I understood what she wanted.

Kathleen's mother threw up her hands. "Is that not what I told you? Pay attention Mage!"

Angrily I called another orb, a bigger one this time. As it appeared I snapped my fingers in the direction of the table. The sand shimmered and vanished. Some of the miniature boxes hung in mid-air while others rested in their former positions on the table after it was gone.

"Good. Too much power, but very good." She praised my efforts and criticized me at the same time. As usual. "Where is the sand?"

Without answering I released my hold over the sand and let it rain down onto the top of her head in a long trickle. As it continued to fall, she leaned on her elbows on the table, the stream following her movement to remain directly over her head and kept on pouring. Muttering and giving a tiny defeated head-shake, she put her face into her palms.

"Sehkmet help me."

"So, is it always Kat-something or something-Kat?" I repeated my earlier question as if nothing else was happening.

With another sigh she nodded, cupping her hands around her eyes to keep the still dribbling sand away from her face.

"It is tradition. Nazaa is descended from Ailuros, the Greek lion Goddess. That line remembers her through the honorific on the end of their given name. They are often Kitties rather than Familiars because Ailuros is not as strong as Sehkmet. My line is direct from Sehkmet herself. Thus, we use the more prominent honorific."