Catopolis

“I’ve never been so insulted in all my life!” The downy-furred golden animal sat up on its haunches. “I’m a hamster, you preshrunk puma!”

This latest insult was one too many for the badly stressed young cat. “Oh, so what?” she snapped. “Go away before I pounce on you where you stand and flatten you like a pizza!”

“I’m shaking,” the hamster replied dryly. “And I’m not going to go away. I’m the one who lives here, not you.”

“I don’t have time for this.” Lulu stood up and started back for the city streets. “Good luck not becoming someone’s lunch, with that attitude,” she declared as she stalked off. “Good luck and goodbye.”

“And good luck to you with Señor Pantalones!” the hamster hollered after her.

Lulu froze, every hair on her body standing upright. She could scarcely draw a breath. Her paw pads felt dank and cold. “How-?” The word was a hoarse whisper. She turned and regarded the hamster nervously. “How to you know about Señor Pantalones?”

“Same way I know about lots of things.” The hamster met Lulu’s curious gaze with a complacent smile. “I know that the thugs that killed Shirley are Señor Pantalones’ minions and that he sent them here to test your limits. Again. They’d rather see if you can read the future in your own entrails, but they’re willing to wait for that. No matter what you see in the omens on the night of Catopolis’ full moon conclave, the final score’s going to be Señor Pantalones, 1; you, dead.”

“Why-?” Lulu’s voice was barely a whisper. “Why are you telling me all this?”

The hamster ran its dainty pink paws through its whiskers. “Because you’re my best hope for payback on Pantalones for Shirley, even if you are a cat. The enemy of my enemy, right? I was just a pup when I escaped from my cage and found my way here. I didn’t know the first thing about surviving in the wild. Shirley taught me how to keep my freedom without ending up as kitty chow. Fu

“-dead,” Lulu cut in. “Why do you make it sound as if she’s still speaking to you?”

“Uh, because she is.” The hamster gave Lulu a let’s-not-allow-you-near-any-sharp-things-just-yet look. “And she’ll keep on speaking to me until I manage to give her remains a decent cover-up.” He cast a mildly sickened look at the spot where Lulu had relieved her belly. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but if I don’t send her off properly on the Last Cheese Hunt, she’ll be on my case about it until she decomposes all the way.”

“This is nonsense.” Lulu shook herself vigorously, as if she’d been caught in a rainstorm. “I refuse to believe that your dead friend talked-still talks to you!”

The hamster uttered a contemptuous sniff. “And how many cats believed you the first time you claimed you could read the future in the entrails of dead rodents, O Oracular One?”

Lulu’s eyes went wide. “Oracular One? That title is secret! It was Lady Bast’s gift to me when she consecrated my powers! How do you, a mere rodent, know it?”

“Well, duh,” the hamster said, quite calm. “There’s nothing mere about reading minds.”

“You can do that?”

“How do you think I knew about Señor Pantalones and his moggy mob? I can’t see everything going on inside someone else’s head, but accessing their life story’s always a piece of seed cake. You’re Lulu, child of the feral female Yurrrrr and a miscellaneous tomcat. You and your litter-mates were discovered behind a bookstore, in a discarded shipping box for one of the Harry Potter novels and taken to a no-kill shelter from which you were all happily adopted. You discovered your special gift at six months old when you had some kind of vision.”

“The dream,” Lulu whispered, awestruck. “The dream Lady Bast sent to me.”

“You and a couple of other cats. They were your witnesses, right?”

Lulu nodded. “When I told the Elders about the dream, the other two cats confirmed it, as Lady Bast commanded.”

“All of which mystic hoo-hah officially made you the Seer of Catopolis. Nice work if you can get it. You have the admirable power to gaze into the future, though I can’t say I care for your methods. Ever consider using something besides my kinfolk’s entrails? You know, there’s more than one way to skin a-”

“Who are you?” Lulu demanded. “

What are you?”

“My name is Huey. As for what I am-”

“Besides a hamster,” Lulu put in quickly.

“Shush, you’re ruining the moment.” Huey struck a dramatic pose. “What am I? I am, like you, one of the few, the gifted, the chosen, the Oracular!” He paused for a reaction from his audience of one, but Lulu only stared, gape-jawed and gobsmacked. At last he said, “Kitty, close your mouth before someone sticks a cheeseburger in it. This is real simple: I am an Oracular hamster, you’re an Oracular cat, together we fight crime!”

That fetched her. “We do what now?”

“It’s not a crime to eat rodents you’re only going to barf up two seconds later? I saw how miserable you were when you ate Shirley. The cats who brought her were watching every bite closely, as if they wanted you to quit. Hey, you looked like you wanted to quit, too! Why didn’t you?”

Lulu sighed. “Once a Seer has examined and interpreted the pattern of the entrails, she must ingest all traces of the Reading.”

“And if you don’t, won’t, or can’t eat the whole thing?”

“Then it’s a sign that the omens in the Reading are reversed inescapably. Seekers who don’t like what I see in their future always hope I’ll overlook the last bite.”

“Like the cats who brought you Shirley’s body,” Huey concluded. “I could tell they were really dissatisfied customers even before I read their minds.”

“Reading minds… speaking with the dead…” The impact of being in the presence of such power was too much for Lulu. She pressed her belly to the ground and hid her face against outstretched paws. “Huey, your gifts outshine my own. I am but a dust-bu

The hamster affected a modest look. “ Reading minds and talking to the dead just lets me know about what’s going on in the here-and-now.

You can see the future. Closest I come to that is a little recreational seed-reading. The results are unreliable. That’s why Shirley laughed off my warning tonight.”

“Seed-reading?”

“That’s the way my kind foresee the future. It’s a lot like your method, finding the answers to a Seeker’s question in a pattern, only the Reading material’s not so messy-bloody-sticky-hork-hork-hork- bluargh!” He winked at her. “The Seeker brings me some sunflower seeds, I throw ’em into the air and interpret the design they make when they fall. Then I have to make the Reading vanish, just like you do, or it won’t come true.” He puffed out his cheeks happily. “Being Oracular rules; we always get to eat!”

Lulu murmured something under her breath.

“Say again?” Huey pricked up his ears.

“Don’t like…” The rest was lost.

“Don’t like what?” the hamster persisted.

“I don’t like-I don’t like eating rodents, okay?” Lulu yelled so loudly that Huey was bowled backwards, tail over toes. “I loathe having to eat the Reading afterwards.” She shuddered with revulsion. “The smell, the taste, the fur in my throat, the crunchy bones, the way the liver always pops in my-”

“Enough!” Huey groomed himself frantically, a sure sign of anxiety in hamsters. “These are my kin you’re talking about! Our lives are short enough without you making them shorter and dissing our livers! Do you know why so many of us have died for your stupid Readings lately? So this Señor Pantalones creep can find out just how big a Reading has to be before it’s impossible for you to eat it all!”