Feversong (Fever #9)(144)

“You found your way home, Yi-yi?” he said tremulously. “You did it? You finally made it?”

My heart melted. The happiness in his voice was unmistakable, happy for me, because I’d finally gotten what I’d been seeking for so long. “Yes, and because of that damned infinity of mirrors—”

“Not infinite, tiny red. Four-hundred-thousand seven hundred and sixty-two,” he corrected.

“—I was trying to find a way to mark the correct one from the other side so I could bring you home with me. I’m so sorry, Shazam!”

Suddenly he manifested fully, dropping from the sky to plop fatly on the trashcan. I blinked. Good grief, he really was fat. His furry white belly draped both sides of the trashcan. I made a Jada-face to mask my astonishment. No way I was hurting his feelings now. He might vanish again.

Behind me, Mac gasped.

“See—she thinks I’m fat!” He shot an accusing glare at Mac.

“That’s not why I gasped,” Mac said, sounding oddly strained.

He thumped the trashcan with a paw and turned an accusing glare on me. “You sent it through empty. What kind of Yi-yi does that? Not a speck of food. Not an ort. Not even a morsel.” He tossed his shaggy head and scowled, then a belch escaped him and a brilliant orange feather floated up into the air. He hastily licked his paw and began scrubbing at his whiskers with an innocent expression.

My eyes narrowed. “Did you eat the tribesmen?”

He swung his great head from side to side in elaborate denial. “Not me.” He belched again and half a blue feather drifted out.

“How many of the tribesmen did you eat?” I demanded.

“You told me not to eat people. I didn’t. Well, maybe I did. But only a few. The rest,” he said, slumping a mound of fatness and foul mood over the rusted can, “decided I was too fat to share an island with.” He shot me a meek, pitiful look. “They went away.” He turned his nose up in a snit. “I have no idea where.”

“Shazam,” I said warningly.

“They took my Yi-yi away from me!” he snarled.

“How many did you eat?”

“They were going to eat me. You would probably prefer I’d let them.” He glared at me, eyes narrowed, nose crinkling. “Then you wouldn’t be bothered with me,” he added in a small voice.

“I’m never bothered by you. I adore you. Answer my question.”

He stood up, back arching into a horseshoe shape with porcupine bristles ridging his spine. “What did you expect?” he said defensively. “I ate them. Okay? I have problems. You know that about me.” He sniffed and tears began to flow. “Now you don’t want me anymore. I should just die. We’re all going to die anyway. What does it matter if I do it now? Who would care?” He flung himself dramatically off the trashcan, rolled midair to land flat on his back on the ground, where he lay like a dead thing, head lolling to the side, paws up in the air.

After a moment he squinted an eye open to make sure I was looking. Then closed it hastily and resumed being dead.

“You ate all of them?” I said incredulously. “The entire civilization? We talked about this. You said you wouldn’t do it again.”

“I was hungry. And bored. There was nothing to do. You said you would be back. You WEREN’T. Your expects. Not bars on my cage anymore.”

“Dani,” Mac said warningly behind me. “You do know what Shazam is, right?”

I shot an inquiring look over my shoulder. “You mean, like, what species?”

Shazam leapt to his feet, instantly alert, and drew up to his full height. “I have no species. I am a singularity.”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Mac said.

I shook my head. “He wouldn’t tell me.”

“Because I belong to no species,” Shazam said tightly. “Don’t listen to her, Yi-yi. She lies.”

“He wouldn’t tell you for good reason. He’s a Hel-Cat,” Mac said.

“Am NOT.” Shazam reared up on his haunches, eyes narrowed to thin slits, and spat and hissed alternately.

Mac said, “They’re nearly extinct. Or more precisely, there’s said to be only one left in all the universes. They’re as mythical as the unicorn.”

“What’s a Hel-Cat? And how do you know what he is?” I said.

“No one knows exactly what they are, or what their true form is. They were legend to the Fae. I saw a picture of one of them in my files. The form he’s adopted is the one they use to lure others close. Highly evolved, they have uncontrollable appetites and were destroyed because they kept wiping out civilizations. They were hunted by every world in every galaxy. They learned to hide in higher dimensions, coming down only to prey. Dani, you made friends with the last remaining Hel-Cat. Hel-Cats don’t make friends. They eat them.”

I looked at Shazam, who was staring at Mac with a venomous gaze. “You will never find me to hunt me, tiny white.”

He vanished.

“Great. Now look what you did,” I snapped. “Legends are always bigger and badder than the real thing. You of all people should know that.” To the air, I said, “No one is going to hunt you, Shazam. I’ll protect you.”

His eyes materialized in front of me. “You will? Promise always?”