Excerpt: Turkey Bourke and the Family Spine

Chapter 1: Second, and third, and seventh chances

Part of the problem was that Turkey was lonely. He had thought he'd made friends in the Eastern Marsupopolis Police Department. He really thought he'd made connections. But then Rodentia Raines had fled the country, and Squeaky McLean had deserted his post for slightly more metallic pastures - well, let's just say he was chasing metal office implements for concerned clients of lawyer friends. It was absurd.

But more to the point, those two had been Turkey's main contacts within the EMPD. Particularly Rodentia, the graceful lady rat who had always moved to defend Turkey where there was a need. She had defended him both physically and verbally. Turkey had really become quite taken with her - of course, a lot of guys found themselves quite taken with her. She had been a model, after all. But Turkey thought they'd had a connection.

And he had really admired Squeaky McLean for his utter determination in the face of inexplicable evil. The mouse was a legend in his own right, and Turkey quite understood why. But in recent months - well let's be frank; it was since all the furor in the wake of the battle of Mousecatcher Manor had died down - Squeaky had left his reputation behind. He'd done himself quite unproud by leaving the EMPD - temporarily, he claimed, but still... - to take on pathetic cases of no value at all.

And Rodentia, of course, had skipped down. She'd been gone for a long time, and had not sent one single postcard Turkey's way! He found it all very sad indeed.

So yeah, he was lonely. And add that to his sheer boredom, and you got quite a dangerous cocktail. Turkey had itchy feet, itchy claws, itchy feather-tips and an itchy heart. He had to get out and do something soon - make a difference again - or he was sure he would go insane!

* * *

The bedraggled cat blinked in the harsh light of early evening. Well, yeah, any light was harsh to him okay? But give the guy a break - he'd been away a long time!

Thousands of years, in fact.

His name was Pertinent, and he was the very definition of bedraggled, this cat. Some might've likened him to a drowned - or rather drowned, wrung out and half reheated in the sun. He felt a bit like one, which was to say he felt like Emanuel Wont in the aftermath of the earthquake in Egypt. Yeah, that Emanuel Wont - the one who got crushed beneath the collapsing pyramid. Cursed earthquakes never did anyone any favours.

Pertinent had been there that day, the day when the old civilisation began to fall. He had watched his world go up in flames or down in piles of broken rock. He had watched the natural order of things collapse, and his rightful stranglehold on society weaken. He had been shamed and hunted and driven into hiding. And he had been hiding a long time.

He cursed the day the pyramid fell, and he cursed the world he walked in now. It was a very different world to the one in which he had ruled, and he despised it with every shred of his noble being.

But he was here. Seemed as if he was stuck, really. He was living out his seventh life - anyone would be shocked to learn that this one had lasted so long. But it had, and he was here. And he had work to do.

Pertinent set his jaw and kept walking.

* * *

Missisauga Rattingham was a tired old guy. He felt that he'd been done a serious disservice in recent years. But he supposed a lot of folk felt that way. He was living amongst miscreants of the worst kind, people who had been born low or had sunk down to that level for one reason or another over the years. He knew that they saw him as just another one of them, and he very nearly could not stand living with such knowledge. But there was one thing that kept him going, one thought that shone like a beacon in his mind at all times: he was going to get his revenge on all those who had crossed him.

As long as this light shone for him, Missy would put up with whatever indignity he had to. As long as he had a reason to live, he'd willingly live like the scum that surrounded him now at every turn. His time would come, a time when he would show them all who was still boss.

He thought this exact thought again as he watched a pair of punk-ass hoodlums stroll by sniggering about something. He glared at them from behind a look of stupid apathy, relishing the thought of one day sneering down at them from high above, the way he had in the past.

* * *

The two mysterious figures had been in discussion for an hour or so, in the alleyway behind Sing's Mouse-Kebab Magic, a popular eatery in drudge part of town. The figures were very mysterious indeed, for even if you saw them in broad daylight you'd think...oh, whatever. Just a pair of cats. The fact was, though, that these two were not just any cats. They were ancient cats who had lived for thousands of years. They were essentially the root of all that was bad and nasty in the world, or so they liked to prove on a regular basis. They hadn't had much of a chance to prove this badness in recent centuries. But they were gearing up towards a showdown of the most spectacular sort.

They were planning it together now, rubbing their paws together gleefully and hissing just for the heck of it. They were overjoyed, because they were planning events that would bring them an immense amount of joy. And they also knew that one of their brothers had survived the centuries as well. He, too, was free, and apparently heading for Marsupopolis even as the two of them huddled here in this small town on the coast of Costa Ratca.

They were Pryx and Proserpina, and their brother was Pertinent. One aspect of their grand plan was that all three of them would end up together again, wreaking the most terrible sort of havoc imaginable.

Personally for Pryx, the greatest joy would come when the ratcamps were up and running again. Proserpina on the other hand was most looking forward to getting into the swing of public mass executions. Those had always been her favourite things.

They had no idea what was up Pertinent's alley nowadays, as they hadn't had a chance to speak with him in about 580 years. But they had time...oh yes, they had plenty of time.

Life was just beginning for feline kind - it was all beginning again.