Forest Gump once said "Life is like a box of chocolates". Deep, very deep. Well, if that were true, then my chocolates each had a bite eaten out of them by some snot nose grubby little kid, and then put back in the box.

I know the point of the quote was that life is unpredictable, that you bite into a piece of chocolate and don't know what you'll get, but who cares. It's chocolate! My life wasn't feeing very chocolaty as I stepped out of my blue hodge-podge Volkswagen beetle into the thick September evening. I was covered in sticky whatever and stunk to high heaven; as did now my car. That was going to take forever to air out. Damn. This is the total opposite of chocolate.

If I haven't previously introduced myself, my name is Harry Dresden, and I am Chicago's one and only phonebook wizard. I even get my own section in the yellow pages; under wizards. Don't laugh. I'm the real deal. I'm typically hired by clients who have lost items or jinxed objects and whatever. I do not do love potions, psychic readings or create custom curses; so don't bother asking. Tonight's fiasco was me trying to wrangle a cursed squash plant, and in the process coming out with enough goo and gunk on me to be mistaken for a preschooler on art day.

I shuffled the short walk from parking lot to my apartment, which was the basement of a boarding house. It was cool in the summer, protected from the winter, dark, small and mine. Mister, my twenty eight pound grey catzilla, jumped from nowhere and met me like a battering ram does a medieval castle. If I wasn't accustomed to this greeting it would've sent me sailing into the bushes, but I've learned to automatically brace myself for it by now. I bent down to give him a rub, and then took another move toward the steps down to my door. There, sitting on the flowerbed wall along the steps was a strange cat. Not that the cat itself was strange, just that I don't see to many cats around other than Mister, though I'm sure he's not the only one. He must have friends somewhere; that is assuming cats have friends. It's not something that's ever really come up in our conversations.

"So Mister, aren't you gonna introduce me to your friend?" I looked down to find Mister staring as intently at the other cat as it was him. Mister's tail began to twitch back and forth but the other cat stayed perfectly still. I didn't know if this was a good sign or a bad sign, as I was never good as reading what Mister actually wanted. I understood 'I want in' 'I want out' and 'Feed me' and that was about it. I'd never seen him react to another cat, so I wasn't sure if this quiet stillness was normal or not. "You know guys, I'm tired, sticky and stinky, so I'm going in with or without you." I whispered a few chants to disarm the protective wards set around the house and opened the door to my cool apartment. "Are you coming?" Mister gave a low cat growl that sounded more like the throaty sound an annoyed teenage girls makes when she rolls her eyes at something her parents have said or done. The stranger cat then sat stared at me, and I hated that, because I was always a sucker for someone in need. I tried not looking it in the eyes, and not just because I would be filled with sympathy for the poor deserted animal, but more out of habit to not look directly into anyone's eyes. Looking into someone's eyes is like looking into their soul, called a soulgaze actually. During soulgaze you see that person's character how they really truly are, and they see yours. But you never know what you or they will see, and you can never forget.

"I guess it won't hurt to give you something to eat, and then send you back on your way. Come on." The cat just sat on the step. "Come on there kitty, kitty, kitty." I hate cutesy; but it worked. The cat jumped down and ran inside straight to Mister, who promptly looked at me as if to ask "Why?"

"Hey, we can't just leave it out there hungry. I'll give it something to eat then out, deal?" Look at me; bargaining with a cat. Smooth. "Now," I told the strange cat. "I'm gonna give you something to eat, but you can't stay here. I already have a cat; and he's really only here part time." It gave me one of those cute cat looks with the tilted head and started purring. I had to admit, it was a cute cat.

After putting down some various lunch meats I had, I kicked aside one of my numerous floor rugs and opened the trapdoor that lead to my sub-basement. Even though I myself live in a basement, the fact that I have a basement myself makes it feel all the more homey. I use this space as my labora-tory, and yes, I do like to pronounce it like some eastern European Dr Frankenstein. There is barely room to walk down there because the walls are covered in cheap shelving stacked with bins, bottles and bags filled with god knows what and a long work table runs through the center of the room. The part of the room that doesn't quite fit with the rest of the décor is a section of shelving covered in old snubbed candles, a human skull, romance novels and risqué magazines that normally come mailed unmarked in brown envelopes. The most important piece on that shelf would be the bleached human skull, and it was currently drooling over the newest Victoria Secret catalogue. Well, he would be if skulls had drool.

"Bob," I said to the skull stepping farther into the earth. "That neutralizing potion didn't work."

"Wha- Harry?" His orange glowing eyes never left the magazine. "What potion?"

"What potion? The neutralizing potion you helped me make to freeze that out of control squash plant. All it did was piss it off."

"Did you make it right?"

"I made it exactly how you told me to make it." I was tired of talking to a skull only half paying attention to me, so I stalked over and closed the catalogue.

"Hey! I was just getting into that. The next is teddies and garters! It's an early Sweetest Day edition. What do you have all over you?"

"It's some kind of goo or whatever that the plant's flowers squirted at me. It was just lashing out at everything coming near it when I arrived, which I thought the potion would stop it from doing. Instead, your little juice drink made it even more violent and start spraying nectar goo. And chopping off the vines would disarm it, but they released the worst smell imaginable."

"Woo. I'm sure glad I can't smell anything then. You must not have dissolved the powder enough before heating it with the other liquids. I told you that would have to be absolutely dissolved or the solid particles would react."

"I know, I know." While I was talking to Bob, I didn't realize that the strange cat had followed me down to the lab and was wandering about. It took an interest in Bob, probably the lights and movement, and jumped up onto the shelf holding the talking skull.

"Who's the new addition? We're not a zoo Harry."

"I'm not keeping it, but it was sitting at the door when I came home. I couldn't help it."

"You and your incessant need to help. That probably means its female."

"Yeah, you're probably right."
"Well in that case, at least Mister might be having some fun, even if you're not."

"How does my sex life keep coming up in so many of your discussions?"

"Because it doesn't exist, and I figure if I keep reminding you of that you might actually do something about it."

"Thanks to know you're so concerned, but I'm doing just fine." Who was I kidding? Sex right now seemed like a concept so unreachable it might as well have been the moon. I haven't been close to anyone since Susan left, the woman who, for all intents and purposes, I probably did really love. At least at one time. But our relationship kind of hit a brick wall when being together meant she had to fight her vampiric hunger to drink my blood. You know. The normal stuff.

"Well, all that said, I am about to be less than fine if this cat rubs any closer. I may not have any eyes but I don't appreciate cat hair clogging the sockets. And another thing— AAACCHOOO!!"

I stared at the sniffing skull in disbelief. "How can you sneeze?" And can you sneeze with your eyes open if you don't have any eyes?

"When I was alive I was allergic to cats. This is just my spirit remembering that fact."

"Oh. Well what was it you were going to say before you went kablooey?"

"I don't remember."

"Whatever." I picked up the cat and held it in the crook of my sticky arm and went back upstairs to the apartment. I put the cat down and it went strait to the couch, climbing onto the back and curling up, but still watching me. "Okay, you can stay tonight… I guess. But in the morning it's adios muchacho. Alright?" I took the absolute no change in facial expression to mean that was hunky dory. I was still a sticky mess and stunk to high heaven thanks to the cursed squash plant. The whole thing was stupid. My client was an avid gardener and competed annually in a veggie contest. His biggest rival put a hex on his squash plant, but it got out of control, lashing out its vines on anything that moved. Not particularly dangerous, but sure as hell was annoying. It didn't start spraying sticky fluid until I used Bob's miracle potion, and if we tried cutting the vines it released the most putrid smell imaginable. I was able to fix things by the end of the day, but I sacrificed my olfactory organs to do it.

I was in desperate need of a shower, but as it was going to be one without a water heater, I was less than excited to begin it. Afterwards my bed felt extremely comfortable on my achy tired limbs. I was just beginning to drift off to sleep when I felt not one, but two forms jump up on the bed. Mister, my normal sleepmate went straight to his normal spot. The other though wandered around to lay down leaning against my side and be level with my hand, compelling me to scratch it to sleep. Yep. It's female.