The Cat of Amontillado: A Cozy Mystery (The Psychic Cat Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  The Cat of Amontillado

  The Psychic Cat Mysteries

  S M Reine

  About The Cat of Amontillado

  It takes a special kind of man to survive in a world torn apart by vampires, zombies, sidhe, and gods.

  A man like Mr. Poe.

  Brilliant. Handsome. Fluffy. A psychic cat who can shapeshift into a human.

  A vampire’s shriveled husk is found long-dead in a wine cellar underneath Haven, a retirement resort where immortals pass infinite time. The only rule in Haven is zero violence, and there’s zero tolerance.

  Mr. Poe must team up with the local sheriff, Gwyneth Gresham, in order to solve the murder, bring justice to the deader-than-usual victim, and survive Miss Draconia’s Knitting Circle. For a budding detective like Mr. Poe, one little murder mystery won't even give him paws.

  Copyright © 2019 by S M Reine

  PCM1-v1.1

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Just kidding, I don’t really care. Give this book to all your friends. But leave me a nice review if you do - it really helps. Does anyone read this stuff?

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  Dear Reader…

  1. Mr. Poe and His Mummies

  2. A Happening of Ill-Fortune

  3. Kittensitting

  4. Yarn and Hexes

  5. Miss Draconia’s Knitting Circle

  6. Sheriff Gwyn

  7. Town Hall

  8. Azoic

  9. Purl Two, Stab One

  10. Aunt Gwyneth

  Afterword

  The love of books is among the choicest gifts of the gods.

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  Dear Reader…

  I’ve written over fifty urban fantasy novels as of the moment I type this letter to you. A reader recently told me she had fifty-seven of my books on her Kindle, and that sounds about right. I’ve long since stopped trying to track it.

  All of my urban fantasy books take place in the same world, which I call The Descentverse, named after the first series that “took off” and began attracting readers. With those characters, we journeyed from apocalypse on Earth to Hell below and Heaven even further below, and we watched the Godslayer kill God.

  I’ve had the pleasure of writing far into the future in this world. I’ve written the death of everyone and everything. I’ve written babies born, happy marriages, families found, and bodies buried.

  But I’ve never written a character like Mr. Poe.

  Believe me when I say he is going to utterly transform your life. He’s a modern Sherlock Holmes. He’s brilliant. The best detective in The Descentverse. A man willing to make the tough choices. A man who sometimes weigh no more than six pounds.

  Paired up with Gwyneth Gresham—a tough former rancher who was resurrected as a zombie—there’s no mystery the two of them can’t solve.

  If this is your first dip into my universe, welcome! Mr. Poe is a brand new character and I hope you’ll love him as I do. If this peek into The Descentverse is interesting and not too frustratingly confusing, you may be interested in trying one of my many free books.

  If you’re a Descentverse regular, welcome back! I hope you brought your yarn bowl.

  Happy reading.

  ~ Sara, April 2019

  http://smreine.com/

  For Poe

  The Cat of Amontillado

  1

  Mr. Poe and His Mummies

  I’m not too proud to admit I was born underneath a patio. There’s a certain poetic elegance to it, if you think about it: A feline as noble as me, with such lovely sleek lines, rising from the earth like gold nuggets within a pan of soggy mud. I am a handsome boy, to be sure, so the contrast is the stuff of legends.

  It’s fortuitous that I was born underneath that particular patio. That was where my biological mother birthed a largely unremarkable litter of kittens, and it’s also where I was found by my real mummies.

  The creature I was born to was an ordinary stray cat. She had nothing to offer but life.

  My real mummies were the ones who heard my urgent mewls and thought to look underneath the patio to find the lot of us.

  “I see them,” said Suzy. I didn’t know my first mummy’s name at the time. I also didn’t know English at the time, nor could I shapeshift into a human. That came later. “They’re all the way in the back. It’s so dirty.”

  “Climb in and get them,” said Izzy, my other mummy.

  “Why don’t you climb in and get them?” Suzy asked.

  “You’re smaller than me.” Izzy clutched her breasts (humans only have two) and shook them to indicate girth was an issue. (Humans are not nearly as compressible as cats.)

  Suzy hissed and spat but eventually clawed her way to us. I was taken in gentle long-fingered hands, passed to another pair of gentler hands, and experienced sunlight for the first time.

  “Why hello,” said Izzy. I could see her face clearly in that moment, and what a face it was! Eyes large enough for a cat despite the round pupils. She had eyelashes. Her nose stuck out above her lips. She had no fangs, and I was immediately determined I’d bite anyone who needed to be bitten for my fangless beauty.

  I attempted to reply, but cat mouths aren’t good for words.

  My response came out as a squeak.

  Izzy’s lovely face melted into joy. “Oh, you perfect thing,” she cooed, rubbing the tip of her nose against mine.

  I licked her skin and she tasted like mummy.

  It was love, instantaneous and overwhelming. I just knew it.

  “That is a very big purr for a very little kitten,” she said, briefly allowing me to rest against her heart.

  “Got two more,” Suzy said.

  Izzy’s hand lowered me into a cardboard box. (I would later find it in myself to forgive her for the indignity.) Shortly thereafter, my siblings joined me, and my mother also came after a certain amount of scuffing, swearing, and shouting from Suzy.

  It wasn’t long before we were inside somewhere new—a structure I’d quickly come to recognize as my territory. It’s the house that my mummies live in.

  “They are so cute,” Suzy said, leaning close to the box so that I could see her. She also had very appealing features. Her eyes are darker than those of my feline family members, but there was kittenish mischief in the twist of lips. I know someone with the wit of a feline when I see one. Suzy would have been well-off as a cat.

  That said, my mummies are the two most beautiful noncats in the world, and believe me when I tell you I’m an expert in these things.

  Evidently the feeling was mutual. They were kind to all of us while we lived in that cardboard box, but they wasted no opportunity to inform me that I was the most handsome. They petted me and played with me and snuggled me the most. They even let me sleep between them in bed.

  “I love his little toes,” Izzy would say while tickling my paws. I stretched out my claws and swatted at her. I was very careful. Noncat skin was delicate and I didn’t want to hurt my mummies.

  “You’re so sappy,” Suzy hissed back, as if she hated me. She stuffed me down her shirt and carried me everywhere right next to her heart. When nobody was looking, she often kissed me right on the face.

  My territory expanded rapidly. The box was in a closet filled with shoes, but once we could jump out of the box, we were given free roam of the den’s sun-drench
ed warmth. When the sun beams disappeared, my mummies would turn on a fireplace and we would bask on the heated tiles all night.

  So many things to do in that den! So many plants to chew, so many textures to sharpen my claws upon, so many tables to leap atop.

  “You’re such a pain in the butt,” Izzy would say when she caught me up to such mischief. I liked when she caught me. It meant she would nestle me against her breast again. I clambered onto her shoulder to groom her hair and she couldn’t stay cross. “Well, menace or not, you are so handsome and so sweet.”

  It was not difficult to get my mummies wrapped around my handsome little paw.

  Eventually, my siblings left, and so did my birth mother. I no longer required the benefit of her teat. She was given to someone else who lived on the street, and I’m glad I was rid of her, to be truthful. Her kits looked to be the result of trysts with three different fathers—none of whom were ever around, I might add—and I’ve never needed that kind of negative influence in my life.

  My mummies never gave me away.

  “We can keep one,” Izzy wheedled. “He’s the littlest of them. He takes up no room at all. And he’s been doing so nice sleeping under the covers with us, so...”

  “I don’t know why you’re trying to convince me,” Suzy said. “You know I’ve been wanting another cat since Cat died. It’ll be nice to have Cat Junior around.”

  I yowled my dissent. I still did not understand English, but I understood tones, and Cat Junior was not my name.

  My blessed Izzy agreed. “You don’t get to name this one. You’re terrible at naming.” She nestled me in the crook of her arm and tickled my belly the way she tickled my toes. I barely clawed her at all. “He’s Poe. Like the writer. Mr. Poe.”

  And so I am.

  2

  A Happening of Ill-Fortune

  I became capable of shapeshifting quite by accident.

  You see, in addition to being very beautiful, my mummies were very important.

  Suzy was an angel, which I say without metaphor. She worked at the Ethereal Levant, where she was trying to organize the other angels into “being slightly less like giant flying weasels,” she once told Izzy.

  Izzy, meanwhile, was truly a mummy—which is to say, not one of the living. She was an extraordinarily well-maintained zombie. She died quite a while ago, sold her soul to a demon, and through various adventures ended up an eternal corpse. She’s also a talented necrocognitive—capable of speaking to the dead-dead, meaning those who have died and are no longer walking around and adopting kittens. Necrocognition was a skill in high demand. She often left the Haven to help save the world.

  When one is as important as my mummies, one’s home collects artifacts and treasures. As such, there was always one room I was forbidden to enter. A place where they kept their deadliest secrets. Their most important treasures. The most appealing smells.

  I thought of it as the Special Room.

  “Oh no, Mr. Poe, that’s much too dangerous for you.” Izzy scooped me away from the door for the umpteenth time, depositing me onto her shoulder where I belonged.

  I burrowed under her hair and chewed on her necklace. She giggled.

  “I thought I was the only kitty who gets to chew on your neck,” said her male companion, Cèsar. I’m afraid to say that Cèsar was one show of terrible taste on behalf of my mummies. Whenever he spent the night at our house, in my territory, I got kicked out of bed. And he left rival tomcat smells all over everything.

  “I’m sorry, Cèsar,” Izzy said. “You came first, but Mr. Poe is my true love.”

  Again, I will reiterate that I only understood tone, not language. (My memory became impeccable so I translated their conversations later.) I knew the meaning of Izzy’s words and washed her ear with vigorous approval.

  I understood her words to be truth rather than indulgence. My mummies would never toy with me like that. Further, Cèsar was a cait sidhe, immortal but alive. A faerie of the Winter Court. He could transform into a very large cat. This put us into direct conflict.

  Izzy said she loved me more. He didn’t seem to take her warning seriously.

  Cèsar tried to kiss her and I clawed his face.

  “Hey!” He reared back with a laugh, which was surely a way for him to conceal his abject terror. My mummies’ house was my territory, thank you very much, and I ruled it with iron claws.

  With one minor exception.

  Cèsar was allowed into the Special Room, where I was not.

  It was very frustrating. When anyone entered that Special Room, I could smell interesting things and glimpse delicate glass baubles that looked fun to swat.

  “Be careful with this new artifact,” Cèsar warned Izzy that day, handing her a box. (Suzy was at the Ethereal Levant and not in attendance for this exchange.) “We don’t really know how the Ring of Bau works. You don’t want to end up a cat too.”

  “At least I’d be in good company.” Izzy transferred me to the floor before kissing Cèsar again. I wrapped myself around his ankle and kicked his shoe with my rear claws.

  “All right, that’s enough, buddy.” Cèsar petted me down my spine before stepping away—the insult of it! He was so fast that I could not flip over to rip his skin off in time.

  I would not think more of the Ring of Bau until later, when Izzy was preparing to leave the house for a lengthy trip. Lying atop my mummy’s suitcase didn’t seem to prevent her from putting more of her belongings inside

  “I wish I could pack you,” she crooned to me, holding me just the way I liked it—like her baby, cushioned against her two perfectly adequate human breasts. “You wouldn’t like our travels, though. The Nether Worlds aren’t kitty-friendly. But don’t worry, Mr. Poe. Our neighbor Gwyn is going to visit you every day to make sure your litter is clean and your food is full.”

  This was fortuitous, as it would turn out. Not just because I would have yowled bloody murder if faced with the bare bottom of my food bowl, but because before Izzy left, I managed to slip inside of the Special Room.

  She didn’t notice I darted between her feet as she exited. The door clicked shut behind me. I was locked inside.

  Had I been more cognizant at the time, it would have occurred to me that being locked in a room where I was forbidden was not a good idea. I still had the intelligence of a kitten, though.

  Oh, how delighted I was by the baubles in that Special Room! They glimmered at me from every shelf. Glass balls and brass mechanical devices shimmered in light from a window overlooking the garden. The play of sunlight through the trees, reflected off of the artifacts, looked like something fun to chase. Perhaps something fun to eat!

  I leaped nimbly atop one chair after another, scaled the drapes, and reached the highest shelves. I wound between the artifacts and rubbed my flank along the phials to replace Cèsar’s tomcat stink.

  For minutes on end, I played and leaped and pawed, nudging things off the edge of the shelf. It was a delight to see how they moved.

  Then I saw it.

  The most delightful thing.

  Later, I would realize that it was the Ring of Bau: this copper twist with tiny filaments jutting in every which direction, like the feathers on a bird or the fur on a mouse. I found that the Ring of Bau was pleasant to chew upon, and I lay beside it, gnawing.

  I didn’t intend to swallow the Ring of Bau. Just chew it until my gums felt better. (I had been losing baby teeth at the time, and chewing was one of my favorite pastimes.) Unfortunately, the Ring of Bau seemed to shrink after some time, or perhaps it twisted in on itself, and I tried to nibble on it with my back teeth, and...

  Well, I swallowed.

  You wouldn’t think some little prickly piece of metal would go down so smoothly.

  It felt strange in my belly. Heat zinged from the tips of my ears to the tips of my tail. I pawed at my tail, thinking wrongly that I’d been bitten, only to find that there was nothing.

  I immediately realized that the Ring of Bau was transforming my
body in some way. And then realized that I was thinking clearly, analyzing my behaviors, and seeing things from a somewhat more human perspective. That would have been strange enough on its own, but my cognition was not the only change.

  I thrashed myself straight off of the shelf, gagging terribly, and landed on a desk with a Ouija board at its center.

  It was there that I changed for the first time.

  My body grew big. My fur fell away. My face gained strange geometry.

  I stood up and said, “Oh my!”

  Surprised by the sound, my paws clapped over my mouth—but they were not paws. They were hands, with fingers, just like the ones that my mummies used to tickle me. My bare skin was as black as my fur and the only hair I could find was on my head, where it grew thick and straight.

  I had lost my gorgeous, handsome black coat.

  I was a human.

  “Well, look at this,” I said clumsily. The Special Room was much smaller than I remembered. Perhaps thirty square meters. The desk by the window was not a leap—I could see over its top.

  Naturally, being a brilliant feline, I was also a brilliant human. It immediately struck me that I could open the door to let myself out of the Special Room so that I would not get caught having been where I was not allowed. (Also, I was missing my food bowl.)

  I lost a portion of my grace in the transition from four to two legs, so I stumbled frequently on my way to the door.

  My fingers, likewise, were initially clumsy. I batted at the door and it did nothing. Recalling the way I had seen Izzy wrapping her fingers around the knob, I mimicked the memory and twisted.