Familiar!

Instead of dust motes, this time the air sparkled like diamonds and the morning sunlight through the window shifted into silver-edged rainbows. The golden image in front of my eyes vanished. With a hiss Kathleen launched herself at me, hands spread and murder in her eyes.

"What did you do? WHAT DID YOU JUST DO TO ME?" She screamed as her hands closed on my throat, choking and cutting off my breath.

I didn't resist. Nor did I care if she killed me. It would probably feel better if she did, the ripping pain in my head was agonizing and all I wanted was for it to stop.

"You are free. Forever." I managed to whisper the words before the blackness took me. There were no golden eyes to watch over me and keep me company this time.

Chapter 5

Waking up this time was even more painful. And I was getting tired of it. By all the gods in the universe, what had I ever done to deserve this? Please, just leave me in peace. Give me my old life back and leave me alone.

"Sit up." Kathleen's words were soft.

"Didn't we do this once already?" I whined at her. "Kill me and get it over with."

"I'm not going to kill you, not today anyway. I've got an opening tomorrow at ten if that works for you."

I tried to look at her, to see if she was serious or not, but something was gluing my eyelids shut.

"I can't open my eyes."

I could hear her moving as she scrambled to her feet. A moment later water ran from the kitchen faucet and then she returned.

"Don't move."

A cold something touched my face. Involuntarily I flinched.

"It's just a wet towel," Kathleen chided me as she touched it to my left eye and held it there gently. "You have dried blood in your eyelashes."

"Why is there blood in my eyelashes?"

Silence for a moment before she transferred the towel to my right eye.

"Kathleen?"

"I kind of lost my temper." She dabbed my eye gently with the towel.

"And?" I hoped I wasn't blind.

"I gave you another black eye. The blood is from a cut in your eyebrow." She dabbed at my face some more. "See if you can open your eyes now."

I pried my eyes open, losing only a couple of eyelashes in the process. I was lying on the floor looking up at the ceiling. A ceiling with a hole in it big enough I could see the underside of my roof. As I watched, a stream of plaster dust sifted down from the edge of the hole.

"What happened?"

"I told you. I lost my temper. I, maybe, threw some of your stuff around and I might have accidentally broken a few things."

I rolled my eyes assessing the damage. Besides the hole in the ceiling, there were holes in the walls, one of which had the handle from my vacuum cleaner sticking out of it. My furniture was upended and the upholstery was shredded. My mother's antique hutch was leaning drunkenly against the table, shards of china strewn everywhere on the dining room floor. One of the dining chairs was hanging halfway through the broken glass of the back door.

The stare she gave me when my eyes met hers, was bland.

"Kitty . . ." I began then quit when she flashed an angry look at me and stabbed in my direction with a stiff finger.

"Don't call me that!"

Despite the rigid finger pointing in my direction, and the destruction of my house more than likely caused by the owner of said finger, I levered up onto my elbows. Taking stock of myself, it didn't appear to be too bad. Other than the new cuts and scratches down my body, my shredded clothes, the dried blood everywhere, the two black eyes she said I had, and a finger which I hoped wasn't broken, though the sharp ache when I tried to move it telling me maybe it was, I actually thought I'd come through it in decent shape. At least I wasn't dead. Not for a lack of trying on her part, but I'd survived so far.

"Why? Is it some kind of slang for a cheap girlfriend where you come from? Like me saying you're a phone-up?" I carefully flexed the aching finger to see how bad it was.

"Phone-up?"

"It's kind of like a mistress only with none of the costs or upkeep. You know, for a booty call."

"Oh."

I waited for her to continue.

"I'm not a phone-up. Or a mistress." She helped me into a sitting position as my head hammered at me from the abuse it'd been getting. "I don't get booty calls either."

"So, what's wrong with calling you Kitty?"

"It's something some ignorant people call Familiars. It's very insulting and not very nice to just say about someone like me."

"Like you?"

"I may be a Familiar, but I'm not a Kitty."

"You do realize Kitty is a nickname for Kathleen don't you?"

"I'm not a Kitty. I'm a Familiar." She said both the denial and the factual statement again. "I can touch power so I'm worth more than just being someone's bed slave."

Touch power? Familiar?

"What's a Familiar?"

"I am. It means I'm magic."

"Yeah, Kathleen the master magician. Abra Cadabra, right?"

"I'm not the Mage, you are. I'm a Familiar. You are the Mage. My Master."

Wincing, I lifted my head to look her in the eye. Something she said was wrong. Not the crazy 'You're the Mage, I'm a Familiar' thing, something else.

"Wait, say that again. The master part."

"You bound me to you. You are my Master."

"Huh?" That didn't sound right. Bound to me?

"I am your servant." Her tone of voice went stiff. "From now until the day I die, or you release me, anything you want I have to do. I have no choice."

Despite the tone of her voice, she glared at me as if the rampage wasn't over and she was thinking about resuming her one-girl efforts at demolishing my house.

"You made me a slave. My mother was right. You and your kind are nothing but thieves. I thought you were different, but you aren't. You bound me. You took my soul, and my free will, away from me."

I considered what she said and what I thought I remembered happening. Something about secrets and no one knowing about them. I was sure I hadn't taken anything from her. In fact, I distinctly remembered I'd given her something. What I'd done I wasn't exactly positive about, but I remembered giving her a gift of some sort. Or I'd tried to.

"I didn't. At least I don't think I did."

"You did. I can feel you in my magic, binding me to you."

I closed my eyes looking for the golden eyes of my dreams. Straining I tried to see them, nothing appeared.

"Nope. All gone."

"Liar!" She slapped me, knocking me flat on my back again. Owwow . . .

"Can we please not do that anymore? I get it that you think I'm a horrible person, but enough with the hitting already."

Kathleen bent over me, her eyes inches from mine, angry flames dancing in the depths.

"Do not toy with me."

"Fine, I'll prove it. You say you have to do what I tell you, right?"

I took her growl as an answer to my question, watching as the flames in her eyes grew larger.

"Kiss me. Right here, right now, kiss me. Kitty." It was simple, if she was right, she had to kiss me. If I was right, she didn't.

Kathleen jerked backward to sit upright, the flames roaring up in her eyes turning them fully gold while she clenched her fist. "I am not your Kitty!"

I waited. I didn't even flinch from the threat of being hit again. Kathleen paused and looked at her raised fist, then back at me. Her eyes narrowed slightly as her body position stiffened in what looked like surprise. Before I could blink, she was suddenly inches away from my face, the growl back in her voice.

"What did you do?"

"I don't know."

"What did you do? Tell me."

"I don't know."

"Tell me!" Her hands flew to my throat as if she was going to strangle the answer out of me.

I pushed at her arms, trying to breathe enough to talk. "I don't know what I did. What I was trying to do was hide your secret identity."

"What?" She raised herself back up to her knees again.

"You know, the Golden Kitty secret identity." I shook my head and immediately regretted it. "That doesn't make any sense."

At her silence I looked up at her. There was a moment when a look of concentration flashed across her face, then she was gone. In her place was a sleek black cat. It looked just like one of the cats which had begun to roam the neighborhood after they'd moved in next door. It blinked its yellow eyes at me then Kathleen was back.

"What did you see?"

"You."

"What else?"

"Just you. Sort of."

She waited. I sighed and pointed at her first, the floor at her knees second, then back to her again.

"Okay, you, you as a cat, then you again. Congratulations, you've succeeded in driving me crazy because now I'm hallucinating. It's probably the result of all the times you've beaten my brain into mush."

Kathleen jumped to her feet and disappeared into my wrecked kitchen only to reappear seconds later, my biggest kitchen knife in one hand. She held it as if she knew which end was the pointy one and what it was for

"What do you see?"

"You." I closed my eyes.

A warm pulse made me open them again. Kathleen was glittering with her gold nugget shine again.

"Golden Kitty," I told her before I was asked. I closed my eyes again. I was tired of this game.

A sharp prick right over my heart made me open my eyes once more. She had the tip of the knife centered on my chest. Her hand on the grip was steady as a droplet of blood welled up from where she was slicing into me. I was so numb from all the drugs and pain endorphins I didn't even feel it. Or care.

"What do you want from me?"

Her tone was a low growl again. She still glowed and glittered, her hair flying around her face like it was full of static. Her eyes were molten gold with just narrow vertical slits for pupils. Freckles appeared from nowhere to sprinkle themselves lightly across her cheekbones.

I looked into her eyes then let my aching head fall back to rest on the carpeting again. "Less noise, more sleep. Maybe an aspirin if you've got one. Or two. Everything else can wait."

"Everything else?" The growl remained in her voice.

"Well, somebody has to pick up the mess you made. I don't trust you enough to know you won't break more of my stuff unless I'm keeping an eye on you, so all of that has to wait."

"Me?" She yowled as she pulled the knife away from my chest, the golden sparkles disappearing.

"Yes, you. Remind me to teach you the basics about cleaning and how not to wreck my house after I get some sleep."

I closed my eyes and tried to relax enough to go back to sleep. No such luck.

"Sit up."

"Didn't we just talk about this? I thought my appointment was tomorrow."

"It was, but something came up and your appointment's been cancelled. So sorry."

"Bummer. Now let me sleep."

"No. Sit up. You need to move before the ceiling falls on you."

I grumbled about people who never did what you told them to do, but sat up again. With her help I got to my feet, leaning on her as she tucked her shoulder under my arm while we shuffled to my bedroom. She kicked a few of the larger broken things out of my way as we wobbled together down the hallway to stop at my bedroom door.

Everything else in the house was destroyed but, even knowing how the rest of the house looked, I'd sort of hoped my bedroom had avoided being in the path of hurricane Kathleen. From the mess, it was obvious it'd taken a direct hit. My mattress was shredded, the two pillows I'd had on it were nothing but foam bits. My clothes were flung everywhere and weren't always in one piece, or two pieces. Or even, I counted the parts of my favorite pants, five pieces. The white gauze curtains, which had hung in front of the window over my bed, were ragged wisps of cloth. The curtain rod dangled precariously from the only remaining wall bracket.

She left me leaning against the wall just inside the doorway and assessed the state of the room. Flipping the mattress over so the not-as-shredded side was up, she kicked a pile of my torn clothes out of the way and gently helped me into bed. I groaned as I stretched out. Which was apparently enough to cause the curtain rod bracket to let go and come crashing down on my head. Ow! Again!

Kathleen quickly yanked the curtain rod away.

"Did you have to shred my curtains?" I glared at her for a change.

She squirmed slightly and hid the evidence behind her back.

"Well?"

"The curtains started it."

"They did? How?"

"They were . . . white."

I mulled that over. It made sense in a weird kind of way. Because of the tantrum she'd been throwing, anything which stood out would have caught her eye immediately. My white curtains would have blazed like a beacon, practically goading her to vent her anger on them. So she had.

"I see. Nasty of them to do that to you when you weren't expecting it."

She gave me a sudden grin as she realized I wasn't mad at her. I had no idea why I wasn't; she'd nearly destroyed my house, beat me unconscious, stabbed and threatened me while also trying to kill me several times, cost me my job, and there were probably a few more things she'd done which I didn't know about yet, but I wasn't mad at her.

"Go away and let me sleep." I closed my eyes for a moment then opened them again. "On second thought, just let me sleep."

Chapter 6

"Sit up."

Kathleen was perched on the edge of the mattress, one leg folded under the other as she tried to wake me.

"Didn't we do this already? Twice?"

I rolled away from her. It didn't work, she kept at me until I gave in and did what she wanted.

"Stop being so grumpy." She chided me as she checked both of my black eyes, probing with gentle fingertips.

She looked different this morning, other than the fact that she'd taken a shower and changed clothes I mean. Her hair was its usual straight, glossy black waterfall, her skin clear and pale, her eyes still dark and intense, but she looked different. I studied her as she examined the cut in my eyebrow, her face inches from mine.

"Don't you dare." The admonition came for no reason I could think of.

"Don't I dare, what?"

"Try to kiss me again. Not going to happen, so just stop thinking about it." She ran slow gentle fingers through my hair, pressing down in spots. I winced as she hit a couple of tender places.

"Wasn't."

Kathleen paused for a fraction of a second, then resumed running her fingers around my skull and down my neck while leaving behind a cool astringent sensation everywhere her fingers caressed.

"Liar." She hitched closer and lifted her chin as she kept running her fingers through my hair.

"Wasn't." I repeated my denial. The cleft in her collarbones at the base of her throat was right in front of my nose. She was so close I could smell the body lotion she'd used, jasmine. She raised her arms higher and arched her back slightly.

"Tease."

"Be quiet. I'm trying to concentrate."

The tingling sensation following her fingers increased until it was a low level buzz like the buzz of an electrical transformer. I'd felt that sensation before. Recently. But when?

"You don't have to help me. I can do this on my own." Her tone was absent sounding.

"Not doing anything."

"Daniel, stop. I don't need your help."

Reaching around I put my hands on her arms and pulled her down gently until we were face to face again.

"I'm not doing anything. You're the one who's teasing me."

She looked at me, switching her gaze back and forth between my eyes as if she was trying to read the thoughts in my head, before returning to running her fingers through my hair once more. The cool tingling which had been following her fingers started up seconds later.

"I keep forgetting you don't know anything. Try to relax and let me do it. You don't need to help me."

"What are you doing? Besides trying to get me to kiss you?"

"Don't you dare. Unless you want me to hit you again." She leaned close, golden flames starting to flicker deep in her eyes. "I will."

I just looked at her until she sat up again and answered my question.

"I'm helping you to get better."

"How? Some kind of new age mystic mumbo jumbo?"

She shook her head no. "What I'm doing is encouraging your body to heal itself."

"By fondling my hair?"

"With magic. A full Witch or true Mage could do it faster, but I'm only one-quarter Witch so I'm not very powerful. Even so, I can do this. It's pretty basic because your body wants to heal and all I'm doing is helping it do what it's going to do anyway."

One-quarter Witch? Helping my body heal? She sounded serious. I'd thought she'd been joking, but she sounded serious. She really did. As if she believed it.

"My mom's half Witch, half Familiar. I'm only one-quarter. She's a lot stronger than I am but I can still do some things with power. Like help you to get better."

"You know you sound crazy, right?"

"Shh, I'm busy."

Though she'd told me to be quiet so she could concentrate, Kathleen started talking a few moments later.

"I told you. I'm a Familiar. That means I can touch power, what you probably think of as magic."

I scoffed openly at the thought of magic actually existing.

"It does." Kathleen responded to my derision. "What Familiars do, what I can do, is channel power to a Mage, or Witch, so they can shape it and use it. Witches and Mages can touch and use their internal personal energy, but they can't tap as deep or as strong into actual magic like a Familiar can, or hold it as long. Mostly they can just do little things no one would notice otherwise.

"With a Familiar to channel power to them, they can do more than they could without one. A lot more. So much more that Mages keep Familiars so they can get unlimited access to the power they want. To prevent their Familiars from leaving them, Mages bind them magically and force them into what is essentially slavery."

She stopped what she was doing to stare directly at me, angry flames flickering deep in her eyes.

"Don't try it on me again."

I didn't say anything, I had no idea what she was talking about. At my look Kathleen resumed her scalp massage, taking up her story once more.

"Because we're designed to channel power, Familiars can't use it. But, because I'm part Witch, I can also do some things. Not much, and I'm not nearly as strong as my mom. She's nowhere near as powerful as a true Mage but she can shield herself, and me, and my sisters."

Her tone changed. Becoming quieter though she didn't stop caressing my hair.

"Without the shields we'd be caught and sold to the highest bidder faster than you can blink. My sisters would eventually become Kitties, bed slaves, because they don't have the ability to touch power. All they have is the potential to have Kits which could become Familiars. That's enough to interest a Mage or Witch who would use my sisters as breeding stock to produce more Familiars.

"My mom taught me how to shield myself. I've practiced with power enough so I know my limits, but like I said, I'm not very strong. If a true Mage caught me, I'd probably be able to resist him for a short time, but eventually he'd break my shields and bind me as his slave. We move whenever my mom thinks a Mage has found us to keep that from happening."

"Not anymore. No one can break them." The words just slipped out. I didn't even really know what they meant.

She paused in running her fingers through my hair.

"No one can. Not even me."

"You're sure?"

"No. But I think that's what I did. Or what I tried to do." I thought about what I'd just said. "You do realize I have a concussion and I have no idea what I'm talking about, don't you? I don't even really remember the last few days. A lot of it is really hazy and, when I try to remember what happened, it's not very believable. Not even to me."

She started moving her fingers again. "You are a true Mage. Untaught and just coming into your powers, but you are a true Mage. What my mom calls a Veneficus, a Sorcerer."