Fire and Brimstone and Cookies [The Misadventures of Theodosius - Book II]

Chapter XVI

THEO WAS PRETTY SURE NECROMANCY WAS A HIGHER OFFENSE THAN GNOME LARCENY, but the relative pettiness of the crime he was about to be threatened into committing did not reassure him.

"Please, Bihatra. Can't you just—can't you just do a sort of vampire-type thing and mist your way under the door?" he whispered.

Bihatra, still in the guise of Sweetbriar, was lounging in a chair on Patricia's back deck. She looked over the side of the deck at Theo, who was hiding in an ornamental hedgerow. "This is your assignment from the Prince of Hell and I'll be blessed if I'm going to do more than my fair share. Stan wanted me to A, make sure no old ladies kill you with a feather duster and B, help you track down Paula's corpse. Well, you have it. What's left of it is in the lawn gnome on Patricia Wolfe's kitchen counter. Have at it, Theo." She was talking at a normal volume.

"Shhh!" Theo, cringing, withdrew further into the bush.

He could feel spiders scoping out the real estate in his clothes, but he did not have the mental capacity to be terrified by two things at one time. There was no one around, but when one is about to do something one is very much not supposed to do, one feels as if the entire world is staring—and after his unpleasant experience with the Emergency Room, Theo was not keen on experiencing what Earth's punitive system was like.

"I can't steal this lawn gnome, Bihatra. It's her sister."

"You seriously considered slaughtering a small child to selfishly resurrect your dead wife," Bihatra said. She had produced a nail file from somewhere and was now lounging on the lawn chair, her languid pose and unaffected expression completely at odds with her cherubic face and the merit badges strewn across her sash. "I don't think you have the moral high ground here. So: how you gonna do it? Break a window? Pick the lock?"

Theo crept up onto the back deck. A wide glass door offered an easy view into Patricia Wolfe's kitchen, veiled only in part by a spotted curtain. It was dark, but the curtain was undoubtedly the same eye-piercing shade of yellow as the walls, and upon closer inspection, the spots revealed themselves to be tiny sea turtles.

As he stared at the door handle, wondering how he could make it inside the place without waking Patricia and her fearsome (and merited) vengeance, Theo sighed. "I wish Elliott were here," he said. "He'd know what to do."

Theo's cat had been a near-constant source of silent judgment during his life and very useful advice during his death. But after Bihatra had come to collect on Theo's arrangement with her, Elliott had never been seen again.

Accompanied by dramatic music, a dry, long-suffering voice came from the darkness. "You rang?"

Theo spun around. On the railing of the porch was the skeletal figure of a cat, sitting primly with the spindly vertebrae of his tail curled around him. "Elliott?"

"I'm glad to know you haven't forgotten my name, since you were content to leave me in Familiar Limbo for sixteen years."

"What?!"

"Sixteen years, you miserable, pasty, scraggle-haired, empty-headed biped!" Elliott stood. He raised himself up to his full height, which was quite frankly not very much, but since he was standing on the railing and had his tail perked up, he was just about as tall as Theo.

Theo narrowed his eyes. He directed his attention to the sky and glowered at it for about thirty seconds, under the mistaken impression that this might somehow intimidate the author of his misadventures. Returning his attention to his cat, Theo said, "I swear, Elliott, if I had any idea where you were..."

Don't pin this on me, Theo. Sixteen years is a very long time. You should be ashamed of yourself.

"All you had to do was call for me," Elliott muttered. "Just a few simple words. 'Wish you were here, Elliott. I miss you, Elliott. You were the handsomest creature I ever knew, Elliott. You were always right, Elliott.' But no! I floated around through Purgatory for an age with all sorts of other cats!"

This was not good. Elliott had always despised other cats. Theo shook his head. "If only I had known."

If it's any consolation, Elliott, he did have rather a wait himself.

"Don't defend him." Elliott leapt down from the railing of the deck and moved on delicate feet toward Theo. "I'll get him back, but for the moment I'm simply pleased to be free of that place. Get down on your knees, Theodosius."

Theo had always known the true order of things. He had lived with a cat for many years, and he had suspected that it was only a matter of time before his feline companion demanded the obeisance that was his due as the superior species.

He just hadn't expected to be commanded to bend the knee in front of an audience and everything. Look away, Dear Reader! Look away, for his dignity!

Elliott sighed. "Get down on your knees so I can climb onto your back." Had he eyes, he would have rolled them, but he contented himself with a rather persnickety swick! of his tail.

"Oh." Theo got down onto his hands and knees on the deck, and Elliott leapt nimbly up to stand on his shoulders. He raised himself up onto his hind legs and reached out with a delicate paw, inserting one claw into the lock of Patricia Wolfe's back door. With a few dainty wiggles of his claw and a pretty significant suspension of disbelief on behalf of all readers (that means you), Elliott the Talking Skeleton Cat successfully picked the lock.

"I don't like this," Theo sighed, getting to his feet.

"Well, I don't like you," Elliott sniffed. "And I'm stuck with you, so tough cookies."

Bihatra, who had been watching this entire exchange with a sort of smug gleefulness, said, "This. Is going. To be awesome."