Chapter 26: The Influence

Before having supper, Violet considered her remaining cans very carefully. There were seven left and she’d lined them up on the floor like a row of toy soldiers, each one stolid and blank.

She wished they had labels, or were at least made of glass so she might see what they contained. The cat watched this for a moment, then settled one front paw upon the can in the very center of the line.

“This one,” it decided. “Otherwise you’ll be staring all night.”

Violet sighed but picked up the can and fetched her tin-opener regardless. The cat was right, and besides, she was rather hungry. Come to think of it, she’d gone without lunch amidst the turmoil of the day.

The can felt heavy to her, but had just enough liquidy give as Violet turned it over in her hands that she wasn’t sure what it contained. She sank the blade of her tin-opener in with a little metallic crack and undid the top, revealing a multicolored swirl of corn kernels, blue and purple and gold.

Quietly, Violet breathed a sigh of relief and went looking for her spoon. The cat rolled its eyes.

“I swear, one of these days you’ll get it into your head that plants or oxygen molecules have souls…and that’ll be the end of you.”

“I thought you didn’t like people forcing viewpoints on others. Or is that only when the viewpoints aren’t yours?” The question came out more bitter than Violet had intended and for a moment she sat still, surprised at herself for even voicing it.

The cat blinked, equally caught off guard, then allowed a small, dainty shrug.

“That is…very fair,” her companion allowed, eyes skating elsewhere. “Though, I am going to request that you consider your teeth.”

“My teeth?” Violet asked cautiously, trying not to sound as confused as she felt.

“Run your tongue over them,” her companion instructed. “Feel the sharp points in the front of your mouth. They aren’t there by accident.”

Violet took a stubborn mouthful of corn, which the cat only smiled at.

“Granted, they are not as prominent as mine,” it flashed its own fangs for Violet’s perusal, white as porcelain and needle sharp. “…But that is only because you are not expected to be killing anything with them.”

Violet grumbled quietly to herself but knew the cat would be expecting an answer…or something.

“Then why do I have sharp teeth at all?” She asked.

“Do you know what an ape is?” The cat asked.

Violet could only shrug.

“No.” She mumbled.

“How about a monkey?”

“I’ve seen a picture.”

“Good,” the cat nodded encouragingly. “Monkeys have sharp teeth too, even though they largely subsist on plants and fruit. The point is, when a monkey comes across meat it doesn’t hesitate to take advantage, whether that meat is living or not. That’s what the teeth are for. That’s what your teeth are for. You have broad, almost limitless options for how to further your own survival. Narrowing them down for superfluous reasons is silly…which I realize now I’ve said before.”

Violet sighed.

“Why do you care?” She asked.

“I’m just asking that you consider how you’re built. It has more of an impact on how you comport yourself than you’d think. Just because a notion of yours insists that something is wrong does not mean that there isn’t a million years of instinct and specialized evolution roaring against that flimsy modern impulse.”

“I don’t want to kill anything, and that’s not just because….” Violet flapped one hand helplessly, not quite sure what to say next. Suddenly she wondered if the cat might have a point. Though, if the very notion that killing was bad could be stripped away as easily as some of the other beliefs she’d previously held…what would be left?

Suddenly she felt very fragile within herself, the world attaining an uncomfortable translucence in places previously solid and unassailable.

“Why not?” The cat asked, but there was a hint of reluctance in the question. It clearly recognized that it was winning the argument, but also had to see just how frightened she’d become.

Violet tried to order her thoughts. It was a bizarre thing to meditate upon how immaterial everything was. A part of her insisted that she should have known that by now, trapped as she was within a world of demons and cats and whatever lay beyond those…but it had taken her by surprise nonetheless.

“If I killed something,” even saying the words made her feel shivery and short of breath. “Even if it was to feed myself or just to survive, I think I’d be different afterwards. I’d have to be.”

The cat was silent for a time, contemplating.

“Perhaps you’re right. Of course, I cannot remember a time when I myself was not a mass murderer,” it flashed Violet a facetious smile. “So, whatever difference there must have been between me as an innocent, being cared for by others, and me as a hunter, caring for myself…I cannot recall it. Still, there is every possibility you are right. The question I want to pose, though: what are you afraid of? What do you fear becoming?”

Her companion’s tone was strangely conciliatory, it had lost the punchiness of earlier, when they’d been arguing. Now the whole conversation had drifted, inevitably perhaps, into a dialogue. The cat was clearly curious to see how she’d respond.

Violet drew her knees up to her chest, holding the can with both hands. Its steel felt faintly warm beneath her fingers, but though it was mostly full she’d completely lost her appetite.

“I don’t know.” She said at last.

“Maybe that’s the problem,” the cat said. “It’s like you with the dark, and you with the forest. You don’t know what’s out there and immediately assume the worst. Do you want to know what I experience when I hunt?”

Violet’s first instinct was to shake her head, and to do it immediately…but something arrested that impulse. Despite herself, she felt curious. The cat had spoken a lot about the technical act of hunting, how it zipped and crept and pounced, but she’d never heard anything deeper than that.

“Power,” said the cat. “And pride. And inevitability, perhaps. In the moment that my teeth sink in I know that I am very good at surviving and, if I have done my job correctly, then my prey will not have seen me coming…unless I wanted them to. I also know that, just as I hold dominion over my slice of the world and make food of whom I choose, there are dread beasts more terrible than even I, and perhaps eventually one of them may get me in its jaws. There’s a pureness to the competition that I especially like, and so far I have endured as reigning champion amongst my own leagues. I intend to keep the title for a while.”

Violet watched the cat’s eyes as it spoke and could see a familiar brightness within them, even as it spoke about death. There was familiarity, in that she could recognize the emotions, but none of them felt even remotely relatable. She could not imagine herself in such a position as the cat’s. If she herself were an animal with claws and fangs and a long, furry tail then all that would descend from the grand cloud of emotion the cat had just described would be dread.

“I think we are very different from each other.” Violet said at last.

“Of course we are,” her companion agreed, tone newly serene. “…But not so different as you’d think. I won’t bother you anymore about what you eat, but do remember what I’ve said.”

Violet nodded vaguely. The cat turned and settled behind her lantern, where it could be somewhat shielded from the light. There in the darkness it very meticulously groomed itself until every strand of fur was perfectly straight. Then it leapt up onto the control panel and examined the outside again. Violet could see threads of azure Glow coming in through the grimy glass, a weak nighttime illumination beginning to take form as darkness truly fell. The cat’s ears perked and, as Violet watched, its tail twitched and shivered.

“I hear something.” It said.

“What?” Violet asked.

Her companion was silent for a moment, ears swiveling busily back and forth.

“Something just came through the fence,” it noted with a hint of cautious interest. “Right about where we crossed.”

Violet straightened up, a cold pit of unease opening at the bottom of her stomach.

“What is it?”

“Crack the door, I want to go take a look.” The cat said in lieu of an answer, then trotted across the control panel and perched itself at the edge closest to the door, tail swaying almost eagerly behind it.

Violet wanted to repeat her question, but it was clear her companion’s attention was on other things now. Grumbling, she set her supper aside and opened the door perhaps an inch. Out of the corner of one eye she saw the cat evaporate from its original position, disappearing into the hard edged shadows cast by the dials on the control panel.

She thought about closing the door for a moment, then realized that doing so would leave the cat with no way back into the building. At the same time, it left her rather more vulnerable than she wanted to be. If there was anything creeping up on her from out of the half-light, then….

Violet opened the door a little further and peeked out, scanning the stretch of open gravel between her and the nearest metal boxes. It had all begun to melt into a dim, azure tinted haze, daylight gone but for a departing whisper at the far horizon. Above her, muted by the ascending Glow, she could see the pale twinkle of stars gaining force.

Fetching her stick of red chalk, Violet reached out with one arm, ever mindful to keep the rest of herself safely out of view, and quickly scrawled her sigil across the breadth of the door. It was crooked but still clearly recognizable, and with it in place Violet felt a little more secure.

Sitting back, she listened very carefully for any trace of what the cat had heard, but could not hear anything beyond a tiny chorus of crickets chirruping from amidst the boxes off to her right. Above them, a low moan of wind played through what wires and electrical cables still stood.

She lingered next to the half open door for what felt like a very long time, a small swirl of ash gray moths fluttering past her to investigate the alluring glow of her lantern. They danced, making ragged passes around the entire circumference of the device, as if gathering momentum to smash the glass and embrace the glowing filaments beyond.

Suddenly the cat was back, landing unevenly atop the control panel. Violet jumped, startled, then shut the door with a bang.

The cat stared down at her, eyes huge. There was something strange about her companion’s posture and she could see uneven patches of fur rising along its tail. A sour, sick feeling began to percolate in the bottom of Violet’s stomach.

“Turn off your lantern,” the cat said. “Right now.” The seriousness in its voice, devoid of all fun or even the most mean spirited humor, sent a chill through her.

“What did you see?” Violet asked.

The cat made a small, noncommittal noise that wasn’t quite a sigh, then jerked its tail sharply at the lantern. Violet rose and switched it off, scattering the small swirl of moths. One bumped against the tip of her nose, tiny legs fumbling gracelessly, then managed to flutter away and find refuge at the back of the room.

There was a certain tightlipped tenseness to her companion’s disposition that Violet did not like.

“What’s going on?” She pressed, and had begun to reach out in order to nudge an answer from the cat if necessary when she felt the barest edge of a chilly prickle caress the back of her mind, a superficial numbness creeping along uncountable synapses.

Immediately, Violet sank down, pressing herself against one side of the control panel, well out of sight of the window. The sensation, jittery and sharp and unmistakably demonic, played across the edges of her comprehension, then was gone. A few of the moths had gone to the window and circled upon the dusty glass, wings twitching restlessly. They seemed just as discomforted as her.

Violet looked to the cat but its gaze had gone elsewhere. More fur was up and she could see that her companion’s whiskers were crooked. And suddenly she felt quite confused. She’d seen the cat react to demons before, with calm and more than a little contempt.

Yet now it was spooked. In a quiet way, yes, but frightened all the same.

“What’s out there?” Violet asked, careful to keep her voice low and quiet. Come to think of it, she didn’t know if demons could actually hear anything in the traditional sense. So far as she could tell they didn’t have ears. All the same, demons could see, or at least perceive, and all of that without anything that even slightly resembled eyes.

“Stay still, keep your thoughts small, and don’t look out the window.” The cat ordered, and then was silent once more.

Violet squirmed. And then she felt it, something slow and bitter and all consuming. Something familiar.

She had felt it before at the signal-box, but that had been small and fleeting, a distracted glance from across a crowded room. This felt more involved, more purposeful, and growing stronger all the time. It was not directed at her in particular, Violet did not think, for she felt none of the dreadful penetration that had come when she’d first experienced it earlier in the day. But that hardly seemed to matter, for there was such power behind the influence that even being near to it was like being swallowed.

A sound, vowelless and nonsensical, tugged at the back of her throat and Violet realized that she was on the verge of keening, like a lost child. The cat jumped into her lap, gone from the control panel in an instant, and fetched her hand with both front paws.

“There’s nothing out there that can hurt you so long as you stay quiet and still,” her companion said, urgency staining its voice. “Can you do that?”

The cat’s words took a moment to register, but when they did Violet found herself able to tug her gaze down so she was looking into its eyes rather than anywhere else. They were alive with fear and she could feel her companion fighting not to tremble.

Demons swirled and writhed somewhere close, their noise like needles against the fog of the greater influence, entirely separate and…afraid.

There was yearning in their tones, Violet could sense that as clearly as anything, but crackling amongst it was a great and overwhelming fear, a horror even. They could not comprehend what was before them, no more than she could. And yet they were unable to leave.

As Violet fought to control her breathing she heard a sound from outside, a staggery set of steps through the gravel, uneven and unordered, as though the thing walking had forgotten how to use its legs.

She began to look up towards the window but the cat squeezed her hand and Violet realized that she could feel the prickle of its claws.

“Don’t.” Her companion breathed.

“What is that?” Violet asked, and even as the words came she could hear more sounds, more sets of steps crunching their way through the gravel. It sounded like a crowd. Robbed of sight, of any definite idea of what was happening beyond her building, Violet felt her mind begin to spin, conjuring concepts and ideas more terrible than anything.

“What’s out there?” She demanded again and tugged her hand away from the cat when it began to shake its head. It had to know. It had to know and yet it was refusing to share.

“Shut your eyes and think of something else. Don’t acknowledge any of this. Don’t—”

Violet jerked to her knees and spilled the cat from her lap. It twisted in midair and landed perfectly on its feet, a look of helpless horror bright in its eyes. Violet raised her head to peek over the top of the control panel and out into the night.

There was just enough light from the Glow to make shapes from what was happening, and though detail was robbed by both the cloudiness of the glass and the darkness of the evening, Violet could see enough.

A procession was winding its way amongst the boxes, a ragged column of animals walking shoulder to shoulder, the tread of their step through the gravel growing ever louder as they approached. They would pass close by the building, Violet realized, as though being paraded for her inspection. She could not see the definite shape of what she assumed was the back of the column, for it was lost amidst shadows, but the front, and it was shockingly near to her, she could see in its entirety.

There were deer and elk and the spindly, shambling forms of moose; dogs and foxes and lynx and wolves, squirrels and mice and raccoons all traipsing compelled in a specific direction, in a definite pattern.

And they were false, all of them. Even when the night made their eyes but pools of black lit only by the gathering light of the Glow, Violet could see nothing in their gait that suggested personality or animation beyond the bare electrical impulses that seemed to indicate life—or some parody of it.

She could hear their breath now and how some of them wheezed and kept their jaws open, for even if they could not feel their fatigue the animals were tired and some had walked for so long without rest that their legs ended in smears of clotted black blood. Nothing recognizable remained of paws and hooves.

Mouths hung open and breath rattled out dry and uneven. Along many sides Violet could see ribs jutting like barrel hoops, fur dry and lusterless, the predators in particularly bad shape, for they could not hunt when in such a condition.

A wolf near to the front went down onto its front and wheezed a lacework of blood onto the gravel that looked black as ink. There were tendrils all along the wolf’s skinny back, stiff and blotched red, and Violet could see that its tail was crooked to one side, kept there by a bloom of fungus that had crept along the backs of its legs. The wolf sagged in place, unable to move any further, and shivered until it died.

Along the length of the column, pulsing in and out of the darkness, avoiding those spots where the Glow gathered too brightly, a crowd of demons keened their aloneness into the night. Though they stood well within reach of a bounty of warmth, for the false animals still kept their souls, the demons fell back at the height of each sally, reluctant to touch what was before them. They could not commit to their predatory instincts, for the influence seeped from every animal like pus from an abscess, and as much as the demons hungered, they feared even more.

They drifted and lunged and skittered back, crying and pleading, attempting with their broken voices to lure the animals away, heedless of their prey’s falseness and incomprehension.

Even looking at the demons for an instant sent a webwork of numbness along the front of Violet’s mind, like spots from staring at the sun, and immediately she sank back down to where she’d been before, her heart in her throat. It felt as though her eyes had gone numb in the same way a body did in the moments after some great trauma, unable to process anything more.

Outside, the demon noise abruptly changed, and suddenly Violet could hear words and fractured phrases coming from near and far. They had felt her gaze and knew that she was there.

The cat stared at her, ears pinned back, and let out a small breath that sounded more like a hiss.

“You stupid girl,” it chastised, then seemed to realize what it had said and shook its head sharply. “…Why didn’t you listen to me?”

Violet thought about answering but already the end of her companion’s question had been clipped away, replaced by a swirl of noise that erased all else from the world. From far away, where it seeped and flowed like oil, the influence shivered and Violet heard the noise of hooves and paws on the gravel stop all at once.

So did the demons.

Violet did not look up but somehow knew what was happening, for a sense of icy fullness had pervaded her mind and she could again feel a shift somewhere in the space around her, great and unknowable decisions being made. She was caught in the unfeeling glare of something big, just as she had been before, but now she could not step away, for this was not a fixed presence but one that went wherever the animals did and saw through their eyes and reached out from beyond them.

The cat’s fur had gone straight up and it stared at her with bright eyes. Again the influence was ignoring it, for Violet could see no dawning horror beyond that which had already been present, but it knew in a way what was happening to her.

Violet put her hands to her ears, though she knew that would not help, and shut her eyes too. In the azure tinged darkness that came she could see something that was not entirely shapes and held a property that could not be described as depth, though it was not flat. It fell down and down and down through falls of lusterless light to someplace where the air was the color of blindness and the synapses and nerve endings sang. Violet knew where it was in some way that she could not describe and knew that her path would take her there no matter which way she went and that the influence was trying to make her walk alongside the animals but could not establish the right grip, for her mind was not properly attuned.

She could not feel fear at this for it was happening too quickly, and instead her body seemed to let go entirely and the world ceased logical function, as though she was been rendered a doll or some piece of driftwood tossed in the waters of a flood.

The influence could not have her and it did not understand, it could not, it it it it it it it it it it it it -º-

Then the tramp of the animals restarted and suddenly the world roared back to her all at once, the noise and color and sensation of it all like sandpaper upon a raw nerve. Violet thought about screaming but her lungs were empty and her mind felt raw and stretched, like any great sensation would take hours to be fully processed. A dull, wet warmth expanded between her legs and when she tried to move them her pants clung and she realized slowly that she had wet herself.

The cat was there, prancing anxiously in front of her, small, panicked noises leaking from its mouth. When it saw that her eyes were blinking and there were tears it leapt into her arms and pushed the side of its face against hers with an almost feral desperation.

Violet could not understand how to hold the cat, for she was trying to breathe and weep and attend to her clothes all at once and even that small succession of motions felt hopelessly complex. In the end she sagged into place as the demons began to howl anew, just as frightened and confused as before, caught between the building and the slowly departing procession of false animals.

“You’re alright, you’re alright.” The cat kept repeating, but the words didn’t seem to hold any meaning and Violet could only feel an expanding numbness in the center of her, a great ugly feeling that was almost shame but could not be terror, for how could what she was feeling already become any more intense?

“I’m sorry.” She said, and the words came in a burst, foggy with tears. Her vision had gone kaleidoscopic and the demons outside were beginning to take notice. Again she could hear words and threats and desperate pleas for her to let them in beginning to pierce her mind, befuddling her even further.

The cat grew stiff in her arms and looked to her.

“It’s leaving,” her companion said. “It couldn’t have you and it got scared and left. Everything is fine now.”

Violet knew this was a lie but could not find the words to dispute it and only hunched her shoulders, feeling acutely miserable. It had pushed into the very center of her, it had tried to break her mind in the same way it had done to the animals, and yet….

Her head hurt.

p l e a s e p l e a s e p l e a s e

Begged the demons outside, almost in a chorus, and Violet whimpered. The cat vanished over to the other side of the room and spilled her bag over, undoing the top with its teeth. From there it fetched her a fresh pair of pants and began to drag them over.

“Nothing can hurt you now.” It said, as seriously and solemnly as it was able, but Violet could still feel the fading pressure of the influence upon her mind and hear the ragged tramp of the false animals outside. A low presence still remained, like the last remnants of a very bad headache, but the influence itself was ignoring her now.

Not because it was scared, Violet knew, but because it knew it would have other chances later.

She stared down and felt for a moment like she was about to be sick. The urge receded only slowly. Outside, more demons had gathered and their words blurred together into a buzz that fogged the front of her mind. She could not order her thoughts or decide what to do, yet, strangely, this did not seem like an imminently pressing concern. Any other time she might have been terrified, but somehow the demons had been reduced to a mere nuisance now.

They could not get in, and that simple fact was all that mattered.

“I won’t look.” The cat promised, backing away, its voice brittle with false calm.

Violet looked down to the fresh pair of pants and made herself stand up. The fabric along the insides of her thighs was dark and clung unpleasantly. True to its word the cat found a spot on the other side of the room and turned its back, staring hard at the wall. Violet did not look out the window to where she knew the demons and the endless procession of false animals were.

They seemed to be heading west, she thought vaguely, but knew that didn’t mean anything. Directions could be altered.

She sniffled.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” the cat said quickly, from its place on the other side of the room. “…Though perhaps this is an argument against clothes as a human concept.” The levity was forced and it took Violet a moment to put the words together through the haze of demon noise. If she turned around and looked out the window she’d see a whole sea of them, frothing and seething in the darkness, itching to tear her apart.

The complete absence of fear she felt at the thought of such a prospect was still confusing. Violet supposed that a lot of things she’d once found immeasurably frightening would now be trivialities compared to what she’d just experienced.

Still, she had to shut her eyes and focus intensely before she could put together the motivation to actually change out of her soiled pants. There was a little sour smelling puddle where she’d been sitting, and Violet looked away from that, shivery with shame. Then she trudged over and picked up her lantern.

The cat offered no protest. It wasn’t like the lantern could possibly attract anything worse.

Closing her eyes, Violet turned to the window and wound her lantern up. The demons screamed and their noise disintegrated into babbles and curses and threats. But she had heard these before and settled back, opening her eyes to see pits of color and frothing nothingness skitter for cover, loathe to approach the window once more.

Of course, it didn’t take them long to settle atop the roof and soon their noise had begun to pick up volume. Violet sat crosslegged in the center of the floor and took a deep breath, staring into the shadows beneath the control panel. There were electrical sockets down there, and tiny black marks on the peeling linoleum where people had scuffed their shoes.

“Are you okay?” The cat asked after a moment. “Do you want me to go out there and scare the demons away?”

Violet could still hear the false animals passing by and so shook her head. The influence had never seemed very interested in her companion, but she didn’t want to take any chances. Though…it wasn’t like the cat was any safer inside of the building, considering what had happened to her.

“How come….” She had to squeeze her eyes shut for a moment before the rest of the words came. “How come it wants me?”

Her companion shuffled uncomfortably in place. It clearly didn’t want to be talking about this, but the look in Violet’s eyes strangled any objection it might have otherwise raised.

“Probably because you’re a human.” It said at last.

Violet said nothing. There were fresh questions that rose in response, but she felt too drained to air them effectively. Besides, it made sense…sort of. Humans were rare in the forest, she knew that already. Slowly, tears began to slide down her cheeks.

“There would be nothing wrong with turning back.” The cat said delicately.

Violet couldn’t even feel surprised.

“I can’t.” She mumbled hollowly.

Her companion said nothing more.

After a long while the last of the false animals passed by the building and the low, persistent threat of the influence drained slowly from comprehension. Most of the demons trailed after, but some remained on the roof and around the back of the building, their words reduced to froth in Violet’s mind.

“Okay,” the cat said suddenly, standing up. “I’m going out to scatter them. Crack the door.” It was clearly growing sick of the noise.

Violet did just that. Immediately the cat was gone, and a moment later Violet heard a fizz up on the roof, followed by a chorus of screams and then a crackling, hissing cacophony of threats and curses. The demons retreated just far enough away that Violet couldn’t make sense of their words anymore, and the cat became visible before the window, patrolling across the stretch of gravel where the false animals had passed. It looked to be inspecting the dead wolf with barely contained trepidation.

The demons seethed from amongst the boxes, where they had taken shelter, and the cat slowly trotted back, slipping in through the door with a little smile on its face.

“That’ll keep them away for a bit.” It said, quite satisfied with itself.

“How come you can look at them?” Violet asked.

“Hmm?”

“When I look directly at them it’s….” She swirled a hand distractedly, not willing to expend the energy necessary to conjure the right word. “It’s bad.”

“I don’t know.” The cat said, then settled atop one of the office chairs and stretched out onto its side.

Violet looked out into the night once more and saw that some of the demons had gone away. She could catch glimpses of a few remaining, slinking between the boxes, reluctant to expose themselves to the light of her lantern. Out on the gravel, the form of the dead wolf lay in a ragged heap.

It was strange to finally see a wolf in real life. Violet had expected such a beast to be bigger, but the creature before her was twisted up, made small by emaciation. Its jaws lay half open and she could see blood drying on its teeth, eyes half open and glossy with death.

“Is it because I’m afraid of them?” She asked, glancing away and over to the cat. “Maybe it’s like why the demons don’t like sigils. Could I learn not to be hurt by looking at a demon?”

The cat contemplated.

“Maybe. I don’t know.” It repeated, and then sighed. “If we ever see that thing again,” her companion said, and Violet knew it was talking about the influence. “I’ll do more. I’ll protect you.”

The first thought that came to Violet’s mind was that the cat probably couldn’t, no matter how hard it tried. The second was a fuzzy recollection of the image that had come into her mind as the influence had tried to take her over; the sensation of being led down and down and down….

“Thanks.” She murmured instead.

It took a while but the demons slowly crept closer and their noise began to return. The cat, which had gone to sleep atop one of the office chairs, sat upright and let out a low, annoyed sigh.

“They never learn.” It muttered sourly.

Violet rose to her knees and went to peek cautiously out the window, winding her lantern back up just in case it was about to die. The light that splashed out across the gravel shivered as she did so and in the darkness just beyond she caught a tiny glimpse of movement, a demon slinking past. It was probably making for the corner, Violet thought, and looked quickly away before she could be dazzled.

When she looked next the demon was gone.

The wolf, where it lay amongst the shadows, suddenly twitched. Violet jolted back, nearly upsetting the lantern, and the cat quickly joined her, staring out into the night.

Had she been wrong? Perhaps the wolf had merely been unconscious. Maybe it was about to get back up and stagger after its fellows. But instead of standing, Violet watched as the wolf’s head jerkily raised and it took a deep, ragged breath. The sound was muffled through the glass but Violet still heard it, a coarse, dry rattle that made the little hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up. And when the wolf exhaled there came words.

“H e lllllp ---- m eee”

An icy, horrified shiver rolled along the length of Violet’s whole body and she shuffled instinctively back. The words were toneless and strange, as though pronounced by someone who had no understanding of what they meant or even what they were. Again the wolf’s sides rose, a forced, almost mechanical breath expanding dead lungs, and again a dry hiss of air rushed from its muzzle, the corpse’s mouth manipulated to try and form words.

“G i i r rllllll,” the dead wolf pleaded, head twitching to face the window. “H ellll pp ---- p l eeea see. . ..”

Violet left the lantern where it was and dropped out of sight. The wolf’s eyes had glittered in the light, dull and off kilter from one another. She felt newly frightened, the numbness from earlier cracking along its edges.

“I’ll take care of it.” The cat said, and once again Violet opened the door. She did not look to see what the cat did, only heard a sudden groaning exhalation from the wolf’s manipulated corpse and then a chatter of dispersing demons.

When she let the cat back in it did not look at her, only shook its head and returned to the office chair. Violet shut the door and though she listened carefully there was not even the slightest hint of demonic noise playing at the back of her mind. Once again the night was silent and still.

“I think you could probably turn out the lantern now.” The cat said after a while. It seemed dispirited, troubled by what it had seen with the false animals and the influence and now the demon possessed wolf.

Violet made no move to do so. It would turn off on its own after a while, once it ran out of charge. When it did that she’d leave it alone, but until then….

“Cat?” She asked.

“Hmm?” Her companion mumbled, glancing up from where it had curled back into its previous spot.

“When I couldn’t sleep at home, my mother always told me a story.”

The cat’s gaze was uncomprehending for a moment, then it straightened quickly up.

“A story?” It asked, suddenly bashful.

“You know…fairies and knights and stuff. It always helped me sleep.”

“Oh.”

“You told me a story earlier,” Violet said. “Please?”

“That was to prove a point,” the cat sighed, half to itself, then glanced back over to Violet as she arranged her bedding in the center of the floor. “I don’t know anything about fairies.”

Violet snuggled into her blankets so that only her eyes were visible and looked expectantly to her companion.

“Okay,” the cat cleared its throat and then began. “Once upon a time there was a little girl and a cat.”

“That’s just you and me.”

“Hold on,” the cat protested. “It was a very large cat.”

Violet looked skeptically to her companion. The cat rolled its eyes.

“The girl was very, very ordinary,” it said. “But the cat was made of metal and powered by springs and cogs and things like that. The little girl had to go on some sort of ill considered adventure, and the cat was there to serve as her protector. And when the little girl’s enemies arose, her protector ripped them from limb to limb!”

“Cat….” Violet protested.

“What?”

“I don’t want a scary story.”

“She’s being protected from harm, what’s so scary about that?” The cat asked.

Violet only stared, and finally her companion relented.

“Fine. When the girl’s enemies arose, as they often did, the cat sprang out and…frightened them. Badly. And they ran off, never to return. Is that better?”

Though her companion sounded disgruntled, Violet still couldn’t help but smile.

“Thanks.” She said quietly.

“The girl and the cat had many adventures, and saw many things, and then eventually they reached the object of their journey and I guess everything was alright from there. That’s how stories end, right?”

“Yes.” Violet confirmed, and then yawned and allowed her eyes to slide shut.

“You’ll stay right there while I’m asleep, right?” She asked.

“Of course.” The cat said, and settled back down. “Goodnight, Violet.”

“Goodnight.” She answered, and did her best to fall sleep.