For anyone wondering Kidnapped is still on the shelf right now. That started as an edit of two older (her very first actually) stories by rlm. I had her input up to the point she was too ill to work on it any longer. Now that she is feeling better as far as I'm concerned it is best left until we both find the time to get together to finish it. In the meantime I've been mulling over an idea for awhile.
I've watched my cousin rlm (raven lynn morrigan) read every book in "The Cat Who" series while she's been recovering from all her ailments. I picked one up once just to see what all the fuss was about over them. It was the one that dealt with the subject of UFOs over the course of a cat solving a murder mystery...not exactly my taste in reading material...but I was inspired to at least try my hand at a mystery of my own. A little buddy that I know rlm misses greatly passed on from feline leukemia back in December of last year. He was a brave little guy that held on as long as he did, I think, souly because he knew that rlm was very down from her long illness and needed him at the time. This is for that little tiger as much as it is for rlm.
RIP Nitro-13 Dec 2010.
The Mystery Cat
Nightwing perches on the edge of a roof overlooking the city. Its been a long night-the heavy snowfall seems to have kept the criminal element at bay for the night. He scans the city for any sign of trouble before heading back to his pent house and his dull boring alter ego as Richard Grayson.
The cat looks down from its perch in the shadows at the dark hero. Its him the one he has been looking for. He follows the masked hero as he jumps from rooftop to rooftop.
Nightwing finds himself longing, as he slips through the vent into a secret back room, for his lost youth when he lived with the titans as Robin all of the time. Those days have long since passed now. He hasn't seen any of his old teammates since they split up. He changes out of the Nightwing uniform and into plain clothes then opens the door that leads out into his apartment. Pulling his long hair back into a pony tail as he leaves the room he makes sure the hidden passage is locked.
The cat stops sizing up this last jump its a long one. He might just be able to make it but barely. He could climb all the way down this building and up the next but these are two big buildings and he is only one little cat out alone on a snowy night in a strange city. As the charm on the collar around his neck jingles in the breeze he decides to make a jump for it.
Now alone as Richard, he thinks about just turning in early as snow begins coming down harder than before. He starts to turn out the light when he hears a commotion akin to a screaming banshee out on the balcony. He opens the door cautiously at first but doesn't see anything until he looks up to see two little legs and a tail hanging down from the roof. He's quick to realize its a cat about to take a plunge into the street below. Cats might always land on their feet but a fall from this height he doubts even a cat could survive. He shuffles out onto the balcony carefully not to slip in the snow and fall down with the cat. He reaches the cat just as it slips off the snowy roof.
The cat looks around a bit bewildered at first as it drops into two warm hands. He looks up the mask is gone now but this is clearly the one he has been searching long and hard for.
"What's a little guy like you doing out on the roof in this snow storm? Are you lost?"
The cat longs for a telepathic connection like that which he shared with his mistress. He has to make this one understand help is needed and quickly before he ends up in another pound. He dashes out of the man's hands and through the open door. The cat looks around and rushes toward the back. He pounces on the bookshelf dragging down a fake book in the lower corner that opens a hidden passage.
Richard rushes in after the cat just in time to see the passage way open and a flash of yellow dash inside. He finds the cat pawing at the wall below a framed picture of the once teen titans. He is more amused than annoyed that out of all the people who have been up here a cat happens upon the hidden room. "Hey there kitty...its okay...calm down...and lets see who your owners are."
As he's picked up the cat swipes at the picture on the wall knocking it askew. He howls in protest as he is carried from the room.
He pauses in the doorway as he finally gets hold of the struggling cats collar and looks at his tags. "Nitro...interesting name you have there." Richard turns the tag over but there is no address or even a phone number on the back. The second tag is blank on one side but he almost drops the cat when he turns it over.
The cat stops struggling and howling once the man looks at the second tag.
That symbol...he saw it everyday for several years without ever really paying attention to it. He carries the cat back over to the picture on the wall and looks up at it. It is a little blurry in the picture but it is the same one. He looks down at the cat. "You belong to Raven?" A sudden chill and overwhelming sense of dread comes over him as the phone rings out in another room.