Harte wasn’t so much a friend as an ally, but that potentially made him more useful in what was a tricky situation.
Reba was about to step out and greet him, but Bryon put a hand on her arm, and gestured to the cat on his shoulders. Misty’s instinct for trouble, more specifically, her dislike of troublesome people, was well honed. Reba had learned to pay attention to her reactions and rate them above her own.
In this case, Misty was crouched, ready to leap, her mouth drawn up in a silent snarl of fury. Whether it was Harte, or Harte’s companion that was triggering the cat’s Two figures in grey hooded cloaks hiding in a rubbish-strewn alleyway at night in a fantasy citybelligerence, Reba wasn’t about to test. She and Byron edged down the alley, hoods drawn forward, eyes and teeth were irritatingly reflective even in the dim light of the street lantern at the opening.
“There.” The unfamiliar voice echoed down the alley. “I saw movement.”
Misty leapt from Bryon’s shoulders with a furious yowl and shot down the narrow roadway, springing onto a teetering pile of rubbish, then up, onto the roof. The rubbish pile quivered for a moment, then collapsed in a clanking, shattering avalanche of glass, old wood, tin scraps and rotten food.
Byron and Reba used the cacophony to slip down an unlit side path, Byron glancing around and up, nearly knocking Reba over, until a familiar grey form ghosted down to a window ledge within arm’s reach, then delicately picked her way along Byron’s outstretched arm to her usual place, draped around his neck.
The DNA of Stories 