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  "Yes, master. It sounds like it." Another shiver ran through her.

  "And, not that we'll need to worry about this soon with any luck, that's also what happens if a catgirl's master dies. I think." His eyes clouded as they always did when he recalled his nameless friend. "He wasn't sure. But as best he could follow there's enough magic in the bond that if the master dies, the catgirl seeks out a new one. All of the bonded girls of the Breeders seemed to go with the mercenaries readily enough."

  Angeline considered this and a horrible thought occurred to her. "What if nobody wanted her? What if she was old or sick or just lost somewhere?"

  He looked at her with a sad, "What are you going to do?" expression. "Remember, Angeline, catgirls were bred to be slaves. Livestock. And in ancient times slaves and livestock lived or died at the whim of the free. I don't think they really cared much what happened in that case."

  Before she could say anything he put his arms around her and hugged her tight. The warmth of his body started to melt the sick feeling out of her even before he spoke. "That was then and this is now. I won't let that happen to you. Never fear."

  She pressed against him, graceful even in the seat belt, and took a deep breath, filling her mind with his scent. "I know, master. I know."

  He laughed once more and the feeling of it bubbled up and down her. "The bottle has a note claiming it's a special alchemical liqueur mixture that will help her open up to him. Which is very true, if misleading. It says she has to drink it all, she has instructions to drink it all, and even if he tried to have it analyzed, it would be useless, because it only works on an already-bonded catgirl. So there's no chance anybody will ever figure out what happened." He gave her a pleased squeeze before continuing.

  "And mind you, I looked into Kent quite closely online. Never you mind how we encountered each other..." He chuckled. "Well, that sounds pretty ominous. Truth is I searched some upscale dating websites for men looking for catgirls and sent him an email offering matchmaking services. I don't really need the money, but it made sure he was serious. And it gave me an excuse to run a background check on him. He really, really likes catgirls and he's a nice man who makes a lot of money. Gail will have a very good life."

  He released her and turned to start the car. "Not as good as yours, mind you. But good."

  Greatly reassured, Angeline smiled at him and gave him a peck on the cheek before sitting up straight and quiet for the ride home.

  ###

  Months passed. Angeline and Martin hunted, made their captures, passed along their catch. She thought that he had probably made arrangements in advance for some of them, although she never knew if it was the buyer or the catgirl or both which were more than random opportunities. He continued to be kind to her, to praise her for her clever stalking and irresistible strikes. She saw every single catgirl go through the fear and confusion and then into love and desire and happiness. Once or twice a man who'd already had an "introduction" acted as a reference and she saw them with their catgirls again. They never spoke, or at least not much, but she could feel the contentment rolling off of them. Somewhere down inside she still wondered if what she did was wrong but with every happy exchange she accepted more deeply that this was how things were always meant to be.

  When they weren't hunting - which they took care to spread out, even traveling from city to city - he worked and thought and planned. She always had the need in the corner of her mind. But when he spoke kindly to her and bade her give him peace while he searched on the Internet or did experiments, she found it was simple enough to obey and her mind was eased. He encouraged her to go back to school and she did. She also found that though her baser urges were more powerful than she ever imagined they could be, when he told her to go to class, and to study, it was easier than it had ever been because it was for him. Her former freedom eventually began to seem a distant memory, no more real than an especially enigmatic dream.

  Then one night, she felt him stir as they lay naked, sleeping off a particularly energetic evening.

  Martin sat up in bed. "Do you smell something, Angeline?"

  She muzzily sat up as well. "No, master. Just you."

  He nodded. "I smell limes and bitter anise. So sharp it woke me up. That can only mean one thing." He stood slowly and carefully, put on his robe and walked to the bedroom door. He shouted into the hall as Angeline looked on, mystified.

  "I KNOW YOU'RE HERE. WE ARE COMING OUT. WE ARE NOT ARMED. WE WANT TO TALK. WE WILL MEET YOU IN THE LIVING ROOM."

  He looked at her with an unreadable expression. "Come with me, Angeline. Move slowly and carefully. We have company."

  Angeline was stunned. "Who is it, master?"

  "Come along and see." He turned and walked steadily out of the room, heading for the stairs. He kept his hands slightly raised. She followed, light-footed and silent but not trying to sneak. Her tail was swishing erratically and her ears twitched, straining at the quiet. She heard nothing. She smelled nothing.

  They went down the stairs and into the living room, where a tall, hard-looking man and a slender knife-sharp woman stood. Both were dressed in clothes so black even Angeline found it hard to see them in the dim light coming from the stairwell. The catgirl's jaw dropped: they had no scent she could detect. Martin merely smiled and nodded. "Good evening. Glad to see you finally made it."

  The alchemist walked slowly across the room, not getting close to them, and sat in a chair. "I know your attack dog there won't sit, but will you please do me the honor, ma'am? We might as well be comfortable."

  For a moment she just glared, but then she sat lightly on a chair facing him, its back to a wall. The man, who was carrying a small but vicious-looking gun of some kind as well as knives in several places, watched him carefully, eyes flickering to Angeline until she sat at his feet.

  "May I have the privilege of knowing who my visitors are?" He was being casual and friendly but Angeline could hear the stress in the familiar voice.

  "You know who we are," said the woman in a whisper that barely carried across the room.

  "Yes, but I was trying to be polite. You're obviously a Sisterhood assassin and he's your bonded boytoy."

  The woman's face tightened but she did not rise to the bait. The man grunted.

  "You're also obviously here to kill me and keep the secret of the catgirls safe. I'm guessing you have some sort of monitoring system that watches for bonded catgirls somehow. I assumed that you did. Or maybe you just got wind of my little matchmaking service. Anyway, you know the truth. You would have been watching one way or another. You traced the bonded girls back to me, and now you're here to wipe me out. Just like you did the Breeders."

  "And is there a reason we should not?"

  "Well, I'd quite like to live, but I suspect that's not what you mean. There is one thing, though. Actually two things. Let me see... you're a witch, and an assassin to boot. I'm just an alchemist. This close you could reach out and stop my heart with the right combination of words. Not to mention what your bully-boy there could do to me if I could magically counter you." He smiled another one of those unnerving smiles. It was wide and sharp but did not reach his eyes. His tone was suddenly as contemptuous as any man not already condemned had ever dared use to her.

  "But did you really think I didn't expect this visit? Have you not at least figured out by now that I did? Do you really not have any idea how long I've been waiting for this day?" He paused, but she did not respond. "How dumb do you think I am? You killed my friend for learning something you didn't care for the world to know. What would you do to keep this secret safe? What wouldn't you do?"

  She just stared at him, leaving a silence she knew from experience people would try to fill. If for no other reason than if they were talking, they weren't yet dead.

  "So. The two things. The first thing is... there's a little bit of alchemy in magic and a little bit of magic in alchemy. The magic part in this alchemy is that when you entered my home uninvited, you activated a very comple
x alchemical reaction which I assure you is as beyond your ability to counteract as your magic is beyond mine. Part of it generated the scent that told me I had unexpected company. Care to guess what else it does?"

  Still there was no response.

  "Right. Another thing it does is make high-speed combustion impossible anywhere nearby. That extremely intimidating firearm he's waving around as well as the others I assume you both have are now nothing more than inefficient clubs." He noted with pride that the other man's hands had tightened slightly on the gun, as if to deny its loss of potence. He took a breath and his demeanor became much harsher.

  "But what it mainly does is blow right the fuck up if you try to leave this building without my permission! Or if I die or become unconscious once it's been activated. Or if I make a particular alchemical symbol with my hands. It's not a complicated symbol." His sudden fierceness didn't phase the witch, at least obviously. But he was pleased to see the myrmidon blanch. Backup for an attack on easy meat was one thing. Fiery death in an alchemical explosion was quite another. Angeline gasped, but otherwise kept silent at his feet.

  "It'll kill anything short of a demigod caught in the blast radius. You look like bad juju, lady, but I doubt you're that mean."

  Her eyes narrowed, and he counted that as a point. But still she was silent.

  "'Aha,' I hear you think, clear over here. 'He'll die too, so even if he kills me, my mission will be a success.'" Now he was openly smirking. "Maybe it'll get me and maybe it won't. Amazing things you can do with sympathetic alchemies if you know what reaction is going to take place. If it doesn't, your Sisterhood will think I'm ashes and I can get up to all sorts of mischief before they find out different. But even if it does, your mission still won't be a success. Because of the second thing." Now it was his turn to just sit and stare.

  Eventually she lost patience with his charade. No one could stand before the will of the Sisterhood. If she got blown up, so be it.

  "What is the second thing? Speak quickly."

  The smirk turned into what almost might be considered a sympathetic smile. "I know you Puritan types don't like the Internet, but I'm sure you're vaguely aware of how it functions. Decentralized. Multiple paths to route messages, distributed locations for information storage." She nodded sharply. "Oh, good. See, here's the thing. There are an undetermined - at least by anybody but me - number of deadman messages located on an undetermined number of servers which have to be constantly told not to post themselves in an undetermined but I assure you very large number of public places. Those messages contain the true origin and history of catgirls - including everything you murderous bitches have done regarding them - and the instructions for preparing the bonding and releasing agents. If I don't reset their countdowns on a regular basis, they will automatically be published."

  He felt extremely gratified by the fact that she took in a short sharp breath as she got the point of his little speech. They had assumed, he was sure, that either he would die to protect the secret or he would try to sell it. Not that he would risk its being generally known. "So, kill me if you want. Or try, anyway. But to tell you the truth, I kind of like being the only person who knows how this works. It gives me an unbeatable advantage in the hunt, so to speak. I don't see any reason to make it public." He gave her a meaningful look.

  "But if something happens to me every man in the world will know how to bind a catgirl into the perfect love slave... and how to breed as many more as might be desired. At that point human women had better either get a lot more accommodating or get used to being nothing but broodmares."

  "Blasphemous wretch!" she hissed. "Women are superior beings!"

  He shrugged. "Could be. If that's the case then I don't see why you care about what men get up to in the first place."

  Her face was showing more emotion now, none of it good. "You can't stay in here forever. We will take you and we will force you to tell us how to remove those messages. Why not tell us now and save yourself pain? We can be very persuasive."

  Another shrug. "I'm sure you can. But make two mistakes in a row on the cancellation command, and they go out automatically. How sure are you I can't tell you two lies in a row? How sure are you torture won't activate another of my clever little alchemies?"

  "Your death would be whispered about for a thousand years."

  He actually chuckled. "All you people know how to do is threaten and bully and murder. If you're going to kill me, you're going to kill me. The only way I can prevent you is making it better for you for me to be alive and free than imprisoned or dead." He looked down at Angeline. She rubbed her face on his leg and purred. "It was worth it. And it'll be even more worth it to watch what happens when those messages spread, even if I have to do it from Hell."

  A choking sound was vaguely audible from the witch's direction. When it subsided she hissed, "You haven't heard the last of this."

  "I know. You'll probably get me anyway. But in the meantime, if I were you, I'd assign me some discreet bodyguards."

  "What?"

  The nasty smile was back. "If I get mugged and killed or run over by a bus or anything else happens to me, poof goes the world as you know it. You should probably ask You-Know-Who to look after me. Otherwise Her followers are in for a really bad rest of forever."

  As this hit home the witch had to clamp her lips shut to stop herself speaking the words that would make his brains boil out of his head. When she had her temper reined in again, she spoke.

  "You won't live forever. What happens when you die?"

  Yet another shrug. "The messages go out. But maybe by then all the servers will have gone offline and I won't have bothered to set up new messages. Or maybe you'll figure out a way around me by then. I should have quite a few years left. Especially if you work hard to keep me safe." The mockery in his tone made it necessary for her to clamp her mouth shut again.

  When she could open it, she said, "We will leave you alone. You will stop this indecent traffic in catgirls."

  "Don't think so." She took another sharp breath but he interrupted her. "You touch one of my customers, or one of their catgirls, and out go the messages. I'll keep it quiet, I'll keep it very, very quiet. And I will not convert large numbers of them. But this is for my friend. For the Breeders. For everyone you've killed to keep your damn secrets." His eyes were almost as vicious as her own. "Every time I put a catgirl where she belongs, it will be a little spit right in your faces. And it's been far too long since anybody dared. You need to get used to it."

  Her mouth opened to speak the words that would send him to Perdition... and then a lifetime of training forced it closed again. As she fought to maintain control he went on.

  "So. That's that, then. You leave me alone. I keep the secret. Indefinite stalemate. Probably not what you were expecting but you can't win them all. Now unless I can interest you in some coffee, you should probably get going."

  The woman rose from her chair so gracefully that she almost seemed to float. She nodded to the man behind her and he preceded her out of the room. As she reached the hallway that led to the front door, she turned back to the alchemist.

  "We'll be back." Her voice was a poison needle, quiet and deadly.

  "I'll be waiting." His voice was a laughing silver blade. Angeline thrilled to hear the power and defiance in it.

  Then they were gone.

  ###

  Angeline and her master sat quietly in the dim room for several minutes. She pressed her body against his leg and tried to calm herself. The day they'd met, he'd told her that the Sisters of Temperance had killed his friend, that they were a murderous conspiracy of shadows, but she'd never entirely believed it. Until now. She was shaking, but his body was solid as a rock.

  Finally he spoke. "Well, that went better than I expected." He sounded amused, but her sharp ears could hear the tiniest quaking relief in his voice.

  She looked up at him in astonishment. "But you planned it all so well. What did you think would happen?"
/>   "That they wouldn't stop to talk, they'd just act. Or that she'd lose control and kill me. They aren't subtle."

  Her jaw fell open. "You thought they'd just kill us? And you didn't do anything to stop them?"

  He smiled down at her fondly. "I thought they'd probably let you live, knowing you'd waste away without me or go crazy looking for a new master. You might know the truth, but you don't know the formulas, and who would listen to a deranged catgirl? Technically you are female, and that way they wouldn't have your blood on their hands. Never mind that killing you would be a kindness. They aren't called the Sisters of Mercy, you know."

  An odd look crossed his face. "That'd be a good name for a band, wouldn't it?" Then he shook his head. "Never mind. And I did do something to stop them. Everything I said to her was the absolute truth. If they'd tried to kill me, or tried to take you, they'd have been incinerated and the secret would have been out."

  "You would have killed them and blown yourself up if they tried to take me?" Her astonishment kept growing. "What if you'd been killed in the explosion?" She couldn't even imagine him dying. Her mind simply wouldn't allow the image to form.

  "Oh, I don't know about that." Now he looked smug. "Like I told her, amazing things you can do if you know what to expect. And I suspect you would have been fine as well. Might have singed that pretty hair of yours, which is reason enough to kill them." He ruffled her wavy blonde curls, then his face grew serious.

  "Besides, you're mine." The rough catch in his voice went straight to her heart. And lower as well. "I'm sure you've heard the expression, 'Over my dead body.' They've taken enough from me. From everyone. No more. And not you. Not ever."

  She squeezed his leg so hard he grunted. "Oh, master. Thank you."

  "Thank me for what?"

  Her eyes were locked adoringly on his face. "For making me yours. For fighting for me. For being you."