Excerpt: Cat Naps

Cat Naps

Dear God, what the hell was I drinking last night? I wonder as I wake up. It feels like there’s a man with a jackhammer in my head, and he’s pounding on my brain. My bed feels strange, not its usual comfortable self, and I try to sit up without my head falling off my shoulders. After a couple of false starts I finally manage to push myself off the pillow and look around. The room is unfamiliar to me, and I was right about the bed. It’s nothing like the four-poster I have in my refurbished warehouse in the Northern Quarter of Manchester.
The guy lying in the bed beside me doesn’t look familiar either. He’s not one of my usual partners that much I do know. I wrack my brains, trying to remember his name, or if he even told me his name, but I seem to be drawing a blank at the moment. Damn, I really need to stop getting pissed so often; it’s not good for my memory. At least I know my own name, and where I live. That’s a step up from my usual state of affairs after a night on the tiles.
Glancing at the blonde guy, who is half-covered by the sheets, I slip quietly out of the bed and collect my clothes from their various resting places around the room. I dress quickly and quietly open the bedroom window, slipping over the sill and climbing up to the rooftop. I fill my lungs with the semi-fresh air of Manchester – up this high it’s not quite as bad as it is at street level – and I feel my head starting to clear a little. It’s amazing what a little breeze and a climb before breakfast can do for you.
I plant a foot on the low wall around the top of the high-rise apartment block and look around at the streets, trying to work out where I actually am. I can see The Spire to my right, and the Arndale Centre is just across the road from me. That would place me somewhere around the Deansgate area I think. That’s good; it’s not too far across the rooftops to my own bed and my fifteen cats. Yeah, I know, fifteen is a lot of mouths to feed, but hey, it’s not like I can’t afford it.
I think it’s about time I introduced myself. My name is Calypso. Okay, so that’s not the name on my numerous credit cards, but it’s the one I tend to go by most often. I’m part of the hidden underground here in Manchester; one of those people that aren’t really one of you...
I’m not making much sense here, am I? Right, what if I told you that I’m not human? Well, I am half human, but the other half of me is kinda hard to explain. I am part of a race known as Bastet; half human, half big cat. My other half is leopard, but there are lions, cheetahs, lynx, and several other breeds that aren’t all as easy to classify... The Bagheera Clan are panthers and leopards, shape shifters, sort of like the Werewolves you will all have heard of at some point in your lives. Oh, the Werewolves are around here somewhere too, by the way. I have had the occasional run-in with one or two of them, and luckily I have survived to tell the tale. Not everybody is that lucky.
Anyway, I’m not really all that sure where the Bastet came from, but the point is, I’m not like you. I first found out about my... condition... shortly after my seventeenth birthday – which I’m told is rather later than usual, but hey I never was one to follow the ‘rules’. I was staying at my Uncle’s farm in Scotland at the time, due to my parents being killed in a plane crash when I was eleven, but that’s a whole other story. I remember him telling me that I killed a whole flock of sheep when I changed for the first time, so it’s a good job I wasn’t in the city back then...
All I can recall from that night is pain and a lot of blood, none of which was mine fortunately. My Uncle knew all about the underground world in which I now live, owing to the fact that my father was the same as me. Uncle Brian taught me how to fight and about the other creatures that I might meet now that I was ‘initiated’ into the dark side of life. I left him a year later and travelled around for a while before finally settling here in this fair city. I’ve been here for a few years now, and even though I sometimes have to go away to fight, it is here that I always return to. Well, I do have fifteen cats to take care of...
I take my usual route across the rooftops and head back towards my home. I avoid the traffic this way, and people don’t tend to look up too often so I don’t get bothered much. I enjoy the exercise, and it’s a good way to keep in shape. You should try it sometime... The adrenaline rush you get from the possibility that you might miss a leap between buildings is exhilarating, and that’s why I like travelling this way.
Making my way back to the ground, I finish the last part of my journey on street level. I head into the lot where my warehouse home is and make sure that nobody has covered my warning marks with graffiti, as the kids tend to do occasionally. Satisfied that everything is in order, I walk to the electronic palm scanner and place my hand on the pad. The screen turns green and I hear the lock click open. Pushing the door open, I’m greeted by several hungry meows. I must have forgotten to leave some food out for the cats yesterday.
I scratch behind several pairs of ears before heading for the kitchen area and throw a bagful of dried cat food in the many bowls scattered around the room before heading off to my nice big bed for some more sleep.