Dog-Eared Delinquent

Chapter Thirteen

“They’re headed downtown!” I shouted, recognizing the path after the dot took a few sharp turns and swung back onto Main Street. I grabbed my phone and rushed toward the door, not even taking the time to slip my feet into my tennis shoes properly.

“I’m coming, too, dear,” Nan insisted in that sugar-sweet way of hers as she floated over.

“No way,” I insisted right back, albeit with far more hostility. “We need you at home base in case there’s any trouble. Keep watching that dot!” I called over my shoulder as I slammed the door shut behind me and made a beeline straight to my car.

If Peter and Octo-Cat were headed toward the lair, then I wanted to be there, too. I kept my phone hooked in its holster and watched the GPS app the entire time I drove. Luckily, Peter made a pit stop, which meant I miraculously managed to beat him downtown. I parked around the corner and then hid myself beside the dumpster in that same alley I now knew led to the magical lair.

I watched breathlessly as the blinking dot approached my location.

Closer, closer…

They should have been right upon me now, but I could see neither Peter nor Octo-Cat. Instead, a humongous pit bull burst into the alley and charged straight toward me. I was so shocked by his sudden arrival that it took me a second to realize his sharp and shiny teeth held something clenched between them.

My cat!

Oh my gosh, this abnormally large dog was carrying Octo-Cat by the scruff of his neck, and he looked mad. Tough, too.

“Please, Mr. Dog,” I said, my voice squeaking even though I wanted to appear as strong as possible in that moment. “Please don’t hurt us.”

The dog locked eyes with me and growled a warning.

I froze in place the way the Girl Scouts had trained me to do in case of a wild animal attack. Would this dog bite me? Kill me? And why was he still clinging so tight to my cat?

The door to the lair opened and the menacing dog hurled Octo-Cat down the stairway. A sickening crack followed as Octo-Cat hit the ground below. No!

“Get in there. Now!” someone growled at me. The voice sounded like Peter’s, but it had to belong to someone else, right? Maybe Moss stood nearby just out of sight.

I still couldn’t move, although now I was more afraid for Octo-Cat than for myself. Was he okay after that savage fall? What did the dog want with him? And how did it know about the lair?

“Angela!” Octo-Cat cried from the distance. “Angela, don’t! It’s a trap!”

Oh, Octo-Cat! He was okay. I wanted to cry for joy, but I still couldn’t move.

“I said get in there!” the voice came again, and then the pit bull head-butted me down the staircase. The door slammed shut and disappeared. Even if I finally got my wits about me, I couldn’t have escaped if I wanted to.

The pit bull stood seething with rage at the top of the stairs. “I knew you would be trouble,” he said. This time I knew for sure the voice had come from the dog. It was speaking to me, much in the same way Octo-Cat did. But how? How was I understanding him? And why did he sound so much like Peter?

Octo-Cat lay across the room just a few feet from the far wall. He struggled to stand but fell back on his side with a gasp of pain.

“Thought cats were always supposed to land on their feet?” the dog taunted us in Peter’s voice once again.

“That’s a low blow and you know it,” Moss said, appearing suddenly from the shadows. “What’s got your fur in a twist?”

“Caught one of yours creeping about my territory,” the pit bull answered with a nod toward Octo-Cat. “Figured I’d bring him here and let you deal with him, seeing as he’s one of your kind.”

Moss tensed, then narrowed his eyes and stared the dog down. “I’m not doing it this way. Show yourself.”

I whipped my face back toward the dog, but not fast enough to see whatever transformation had occurred. Now it was Peter who stood crouched on all fours exactly where the dog had been. My eyes bulged and strained, trying desperately to find a way to explain what they’d just seen.

“Take a picture,” Peter said with a wry smile. “It will last longer.”

A picture? That wasn’t actually a bad idea. I still had my phone clenched in my hand from tracking the GPS app, so I raised it toward Peter and—

He slapped it right out of my hand. “Seriously? Ever hear of sarcasm?” he demanded, curling his lip in disgust.

“Okay, enough!” Moss cried, yanking me away from Peter with surprising strength and lifting me up high so I dangled right in front of his face. “You. I’ve met you before. Didn’t you say Peter was the one who invited you here in the first place?”

I nodded slowly, not breaking eye contact. Although I was still terrified, I knew I stood a better chance of eliciting sympathy from Moss than from Peter. Could I somehow convince him to let us go without further harm? I had to try.

“Yes, yes!” I shouted. “He told me to come here last weekend, but then he didn’t show up!”

Moss sucked air in through his teeth. “That’s bad form, dog. Really bad form.” Turning back to me, he said, “I thought you were one of us. Why are you hanging out with him?”

“One of…”

“He’s a cat,” Octo-Cat informed me with a wheeze. “I thought I smelled it on him the first time we met, but I didn’t know that people could, could…”

“Become animals?” Peter asked, changing into a dog again so quick I still couldn’t tell how it was done. He rounded on Octo-Cat and raised his hackles. “Not so tough now are you, big shot?”

“Hey!” I cried, straining to break free so I could defend my poor, injured kitty. “Leave him alone!”

Moss groaned and set me back on my feet. “You know the lair is neutral territory,” he said to Peter. “So knock it off already.”

When I glanced back toward Moss, he’d transformed into a stunning long-haired cat with those same ethereal green eyes.

“Can you two please stop doing that?” Octo-Cat whimpered from his place on the floor. “It’s making me dizzy.”

“Are you okay?” I hurried over to him, then knelt down to lift him into my arms.

Octo-Cat allowed me to cradle him to my chest, which he’d never done before.

“I’m fine,” he croaked. “Just down a life is all.”

Seeing the intense worry that, no doubt, filled my expression, he let out a dry chuckle. “Hey, don’t look so worried. I still have almost half of them left. Just give me another few seconds here and I’ll be back to fighting form.”

“No,” I whispered, pressing my forehead to his and fighting against the hot tears that threatened to spill. “No more fights. This stops now.”

“Or what?” Peter asked with a sneer as he observed Octo-Cat’s and my tender moment with thinly veiled hatred.

“I said knock it off already!” When Moss hissed, it sounded like air being let out of old tires. “We agreed to work together when it came to Glendale.”

“Then she’s a threat to us both,” Peter spat, human again and with his arms crossed tightly against his chest.

Moss studied me with a frown. “Well, what do you want me to do about it? Lock her up and let the council decide?”

Peter gave one emphatic nod. “Yes, that’s exactly what I want you to do.”

“Fine,” Moss said, returning to his human form faster than a snap. He picked me up and pushed me into the corner of the room. I tried to charge after him but was stuck behind some kind of invisible barrier.

“How do you like the fishbowl?” Peter asked with an evil smile I wanted to slap right off his cruel face. If I hadn’t liked him before, now I outright hated him. I would never be able to forgive him for hurting my best fur friend.

“We still don’t know who sent her or why, so maybe we should stop antagonizing her until we get some answers,” Moss pointed out, though he sounded unsure of the words even as he spoke them.

“What’s going on?” I cried, still clutching Octo-Cat tightly to my chest. My tears had broken free now and drove down my cheeks in hot trails.

Moss bit his lip, then turned to Peter. “We at least need to remove the glamor if we’re going to hold her here. Too long without it and she’ll go crazy. You know that, Peter.”

“Fine.” Peter snapped his fingers and that old, dank basement suddenly transformed into a posh underground club. Finally, I could see why they called it the lair. Cherry wood paneling lined the walls and the floor had been laid with marble. Sure enough, Octo-Cat and I were in a fishbowl just as Peter had described. The tiny room that imprisoned us was made of glass on two sides and hard wall on the others.

I jumped back to my feet and pounded on the thick glass. “Let us out!” I screamed.

“Not a chance,” Peter said with a sinister laugh. He was definitely enjoying this way too much. Had this been his plan all along? But why go to such lengths to steal my crummy paralegal job?

“We can’t let you go just yet. Not until the council decides,” Moss said with an apologetic shrug.

Again with the council? Who were they? And what would they decide?

I looked past Moss in a frantic search for some kind of escape route. That was when I realized we had an audience.