Catlock: Holiday In Hell

Sher-cat is sleeping right now. He's been doing that a lot recently.

Oh, Hello. It's me Watsoncat.

Typing is so soothing right now. It feels like everything is easing back to normal. It's not of course, I'm just lulling myself into a false sense of security; but I'm becoming weary of being on alert all the time.

My sense of security is trashed and my trust in others has never been lower. Not even as a stray. I was really betrayed by someone I thought I cared about, but who turned out to be an imposter.

No, it's not Sher-cat. He's one-hundred percent genuine snoring slightly on the chair behind me. Thank goodness for that little bit of consistency in my life.

I was typing a bit of a journal entry a few days ago when I heard Sher-cat talking to someone at the window. When I heard my name I jumped next to him to see who it was. It was a cat I knew kind of well. I had seen her picture on my tumbler lots of times. She was a pretty brown kitty with big green eyes and perky wedge shaped ears. I really like nice ears on a cat, mine being a bit damaged and all.

"Lily? Is that you?" I asked incredulously.

"Watsoncat! I thought I could find you here!" she exclaimed.

"I didn't know you lived around here!"

"I didn't either, but a friend said she knew where you lived and… Would you come out with me?" she asked sheepishly.

I felt my face get hot and my vision started to swim. But it was a good feeling. It was like a song was bubbling up in my chest and I couldn't hold the warm happy notes in.
That song came out as a soft, mulish squeal. I cleared my throat quickly and brushed away my horror and embarrassment, trying to play it cool for what appeared to be the first time in my life.

"You mean like a… date?" I asked trembling slightly.

"If it's okay with you." She said turning her head sweetly to the side and shyly smiling.

"No. No no no. Not okay, goodbye cat." Sher-cat said nudging me in the ribs.

I was petrified for a moment with outright shock. Sher-cat couldn't be that much of a jerk could he?

"Sher-cat. Be nice!" I scolded.

"No time for nice, you're pretty head is wandering off to pheromone land, from which it will never return. We're about to go clue hunting around town and for all you know that little she-cat could be a spy. She can't come with us."

We had been searching for clues about this Moriarty-cat for days and killing ourselves all day and night as we hunted around the city for tidbits of useless information. I was a bit peeved.

"Then I'll go out with Lily, you can hunt for clues alone." I said huffily.

"Be reasonable!" he demanded. "You met this cat over the internet; you don't know who she is or what she's capable of!"

I jumped down off the window sill madder than I had been in a long time. It might have been the exhaustion, but I saw red. He was being pompous and he wouldn't even give Lily a chance. I didn't have any friends other than Sher-cat and it wasn't fair that I had to slave away for him and dedicate all of my time to his clues while a perfectly good friend was ignored.

"I don't care what she's capable of, I want to spend the day with her and that's final. I haven't been on a date in eons!" I said.

What I didn't say was that I'd never been on a date. In the large house where I'd lived before John had taken me to the flat, there were no other cats for miles and as a stray love really isn't the number-one priority, staying alive is. Some strays have this weird sense of love where they would find a female cat and fling themselves at their feet until[…] but I was a bit more romantic and ambitious than that.

"You haven't lived for eons." Sher-cat said smugly, as if that settled the whole affair.

If I couldn't change his mind the normal way, then I was just going to leave him to his own devices. I walked out of the flat assuring him "You can deal with yourself for a few hours. I'll be here when you are done."

Outside the morning was warm and sunny and I felt like laughing. I was going on a date! With a girl! Me!

Lily walked over to me and brushed up against my face with her cheek. I almost fainted.

"Want to see my apartment?" she purred.

"Okay!" I said a little bit too eagerly.

"Then just follow Me." she licked my cheek tenderly. Yellow spots danced in front of my vision and I made a weird noise, like a cooing dove as I stumbled after her down the side walk. Smooth right?

We walked past the flat and I saw Sher-cat looking down on us from his window perch. He didn't seem pleased, but that just made it even more fun for me.

For a while I followed Lily blindly, not noticing anything but the swishing of her thin, dark tail and the cute way she rotated her ears, but after a few minutes without conversation I began to get nervous.

"What if she thinks I'm boring?" I worried silently. I decided to force some conversation.

"So how's Tyson?" I asked hopefully.

"Who?" she said.

"Tyson. You're roommate?"

"Oh." She said sadly. "He's dead."

"Dead!" I exclaimed, feeling awful about bringing up such a tender subject. "That's awful! I'm so sorry!"

"Well… that's life. I think I'm handling it well, all things considered." She said sadly with her head bowed.

"I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to bring up such a tender subject!"

"It's fine. You couldn't have known."

The whole rest of the trip was spent in silence. I wanted to say something nice to make up for hurting her feelings, but I was too scared that I would just be pouring salt into the wound, so I kept my mouth shut.

We approached a large, fancy building and Lily stopped and looked over it appreciatively.

"This is where I live." She said proudly.

"It's a beautiful building." I said.

"It is isn't it?" She said mysteriously.

I wanted to ask her a few more questions, but she turned around and licked my cheek again and all of the words in my vocabulary melted away like butter.

"Thank you so much for coming out. I really appreciate it." She said in a soft murmur.

I didn't say anything. My legs gave out and I sunk down to the pavement wearing a stupid grin. Mr. Smooth.

She showed me a back entrance that she liked to use and that had been propped open for us today with a folded up newspaper. She removed the newspaper, which I thought was odd but she explained that it was to keep the humans from becoming too suspicious, which made sense.

We walked up the stairs (cats shouldn't use elevators) to the second floor and she rewarded me with two more licks for being good. Once to initial euphoria wore off I began to become a bit suspicious of her. Why was she rewarding me for doing something as easy as following her? It seemed like she was afraid I would run away or something? Was there something wrong with me? Did I give her the wrong impression?

She showed me down a hallway to the room and asked me to open the door for her.

I happily jumped upon the door knob and actually offered to teach her how to open doors. She politely refused.

"No thank you, maybe later." She assured me.

Lily's apartment was nice. It was small and neat, but there weren't really a lot of cat toys or dog things lying around. There was really nothing at all to indicate a cat lived there.

Except for clods and clumps of cat fur that were literally everywhere. I could smell another cat's scent thick and strong on every surface. It was a little bit over powering, and I could just barely smell Lily at all.

"I didn't know you lived with other cats." I told her.

"My humans take in foster animals sometimes. Are you hungry?" she lazily wandered into an area of the room that looked vaguely like a kitchen.

"No, not really. I ate before I came." I said.

I was honestly beginning to panic. Sher-cat's warnings echoed in my head and I realized that the more time I spent with 'Lily' the more suspicious she became.

"You'll really want to try this food. My human bought it special. It makes you feel great. I was thinking we could play a little bit. I have this great toy that swings around all on its own…" her voice drifted over the flat, but I was beyond listening. I was too absorbed in the cat hair on the floor.

The black cat hair on the floor.

Moriarty. No sooner had I thought his name than the entire episode made perfect sense to me. I had been lured into a trap. No, I had fallen right into a trap like an idiot. Sher-cat was right. He's never been wrong, but this time he was extra right.

I turned to try and open the door, and 'Lily' walked out of the kitchen.

"Where are you going?" she asked. Her eyes darted from me to the door nervously, and she couldn't pretend to hide the thin veil of fear in her big beautiful eyes. Like placid, perfect green pools. It hurt to think she was betraying me, but I had the facts right in front of me. I would have been a greater fool to ignore what I saw over what I felt.

"Home. I need to see Sher-cat." I told her, wondering if she would attack me at any moment.

"You can't leave." She said. "You haven't eaten."

"I know a great spot for take-out." I said sarcastically as I jumped upon the door handle.
"Don't go." She cried pitifully but the door was already open, and I didn't plan on sticking around and waiting for her to figure out how to finish me.

Suddenly something collided with me as I hung from the door. It pushed the air right out of me and threw me to the floor. I coughed and sputtered for a moment, dazed and confused wondering where I was and why my head hurt and then I looked up into the face of the most hideous cat I had ever seen.

His face looked as though he'd been slammed into a brick wall. It was flat and all of his features were folded giving him weird wrinkles. His teeth were huge and sharp and jutted out of the bottom of his lips like tusks giving him a primal and feral look.

He stood on top of me, pinning me to the ground completely and spewing his hot breath into my face. I couldn't move enough to even turn my head, let alone fight back.

"Well, he's not at all as stupid as he portrays himself." I heard a soft drawling voice from somewhere over head. I cried out a bit as I attempted to throw the weight of the other cat off of me, but with one paw he pushed down on my throat and silently threatened to choke me.

"Good Morning Doctor."

I gasped as I looked up into the face of the cat from the Baskerville's yard. There was no doubt in my mind that I had finally come face-to-face with Moriarty.

He smiled when I called him by that name, but it wasn't a good smile. It was the 'cat has a mouse under its paw' smile that I had come to associate with acts of great cruelty from my time on the streets. His eyes were cold and dead. The expression on his face didn't reach them at all. I shivered.

"We almost had ourselves a situation. Your work here is done Mrs. B." he turned away and the ugly cat roughly shoved me and rolled me over into a corner where he blocked me against the wall.

"Be gentle with him. He's all fur underneath." She said.

"Traitor!" I hissed, tears of frustration beginning to well up behind my eyes. I would not let them fall by any means, but I couldn't help the crack of emotion in my voice.

"You're payment is in the sink, and as soon as you're done we can begin your second and final job for the day." Moriarty said in a curt, casual, business-like manner. I thought I was going to be sick.

"What do you want?" I asked pushing myself as far back against the wall as I possibly could go. The ugly cat's thin pink tongue kept creeping out of his deformed mouth and wetting his lips as he eyed me hungrily. I was dizzy again, but this time with fear.

"Sorry sir, I couldn't get him to eat anything. He was too suspicious."

"And rightly so. No matter." He said with a lazy flick of his paw.

"Seb," he barked. "Finish it." From the hallway another cat appeared. This cat was huge; easily twice my size with a long, elegant neck and long, gazelle-like legs. Its ears were extra-large and rotated like satellite dishes on top of its small, heart shaped head. This cat gave me the impression of being a direct descendent of lions or cougars and it had spots and stripes on his coat like a leopard.

Both cats responded to being called "Seb", so I really don't know who he was referring to, but leopard-cat joined tusk-cat in cornering me. I swiped at them both a little with my open claws and they easily avoided every tentative attack.

Leopard-cat ducked down beneath my assault and the next thing I knew, he was gathering my scruff in his mouth, practically paralyzing me and picking me up at the same time.

He was such a big cat. I'm not ashamed to say that I felt a lot like a kitten at that moment. I was carried from the main room to a bedroom behind the kitchen where I was tossed inside. In the room there was a small paper plate with a gross-looking liquid something that the leopard-cat pushed me into.

"Eat it." He said.

"No."

He shot me a dangerous look. I take it that he hasn't been refused often before.

Tusk-cat appeared behind him. In a flash he leapt onto me and pushed my face into the wet-stuff. It's a cat-instinct to lick stuff off of your face, and I fought it for as long as I could, but my neck hurt and I was scared.

Almost as soon as I had licked the stuff my hearing and vision became funny. The two cats chatted amongst themselves as though I wasn't there.

"What is that stuff?"

"It's used in surgeries I think."

"So he won't be bothering us for a while."

"He should be ASLEEP IN JUST A FEW MOMENTS!" Suddenly their voices were unbearable and the room was spinning so I closed my eyes and covered my ears and prayed for it to stop but it wouldn't stop.

I could hear their distended voices echoing through my paws, and I could hear my heart beating in my ears a hundred times louder than normal and the sensation of spinning just got worse and worse.

"HEY thumpathumpathumpa WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HIM thumpathumpa."

"IT'S JUST A thumpathumpa NOTHER AFFECT OF THE DRUG thumpathumpa. Thumpathumpathumpathumpa HE SHOULD BE OUT ANY TIME NOW! Thumpathumpathumpa."

I sobbed as the pain and sickness became little more than insufferable. Bile bubbled up in my throat and threatened to leak out of my mouth but I swallowed it. Then suddenly from within the pain a flower of darkness bloomed, and with the dark came calm and relief and I gratefully seized my chance to leave the world behind.

My next memory was that of being moved slightly from where I was comfortably curled up. I tried to fight the movement, but I was too tired and I just let my body get pushed, rolled and jabbed by someone's sharp cat-paws.

After that was another few seconds of relief (it was probably a few hours, but it only felt like a few seconds.) then a horrible jolting like that which I had never felt before.

It felt like claws pressing into my neck and a tremor of fear rocking straight into my heart at the same time. I tore at my throat, still only semi-conscious and roared in pain and confusion.

Then as suddenly as it had started, it ebbed away leaving me pawing at my throat and trying to understand what the heavy, plastic box was where the pain was supposed to be.
"Fascinating. Much more effective than I initially gave them credit for. I'll have to start using these commercially."  

I looked around and found that I was on a bed somewhere and standing above me were Moriarty's lackeys, leopard and tusk-cat. Moriarty himself was sitting on a small night table grinning wickedly above a thin, gray box with a black switch.

"Good evening Doctor, how do you like our new shock collars? I bought them in bulk without testing them out first. They work beautifully, and that was only the first setting."

"There's more?" I asked feeling stupid. My mouth was heavy, and the weight of the collar seemed to be dragging me down. Drowning me, maybe even.

"Ten settings in total. I can't wait to try them all out." He said giddily, but like I said before his emotions didn't reach his eyes. In his eyes I saw something cold and calculating that I couldn't quite place.

I couldn't imagine the pain becoming ten times worse, but I was rapidly trying to come up with a plan. The shock had really woken me up and I realized I wasn't as drugged as they thought I was. I just had to make them think I was really drugged, and then I would grab the switch when they weren't prepared and run for my life.

Not the best plan I'd ever made but a fair one, all things considered.

"Time to move." Moriarty nodded to his minions who circled me menacingly.

My eyelids felt like they were weighted down and I blinked heavily while trying to figure out what on earth he could have meant by move. My brain felt like it was covered in a cold fog and thinking was hard.

Leopard-cat roughly shoved me with his shoulder and I toppled over, unable to stop myself and uncertain as to how my limbs worked anymore. One or two more shoves and I plummeted off the bed and landed on the hard floor.

Moriarty softly landed near my head. I could hear his four paws hit the thin carpet at different times. He put one paw on the top of my head and rubbed it vigorously until it hurt.

"Careful, we wouldn't want to damage him now, would we? What would we do for fun later?" He cooed.

I thought I was going to puke out my heart I was so scared. Psychopath; that word kept popping up in my mind, though at the time I was having trouble figuring out why.

The other cats jumped on each side of me while Moriarty kind of lead the way and they bit and shoved me until I walked on my own. The collar felt like it weighed ten pounds and it was hard not to scrape it against the floor.

It was awkward progress as I was constantly being jostled by the two mean cats that were pressed so close against me that our shoulders were rubbing. I guess they really didn't want me to run away. There goes my plan.

I was escorted out of the building onto the streets where I came up with a new plan: Find a cat (maybe a Yarder) and scream bloody murder.

It was a long way to where ever we were walking and after a while I gave up hope of finding another cat the streets seemed deserted. My third and final plan involved giving Sher-cat a clue as to where I was going, but it wouldn't be easy. I would have to trick all three of my captors.

I tripped and stumbled to the ground, scraping my face against the pavement. In an instant tusk-cat and leopard-cat were roughly jarring me with their shoulders and generally beating me to my feet. I picked myself up haggardly and staggered on trying hiding a slight smile that twitched at the corners of my lips. I had scented the ground heavily, now all Sher-cat needed to do was find it.

I 'tripped' several times leaving a trail when I thought it was safe and only when Moriarty wouldn't notice. I was almost certain that they thought I was extremely loopy from the drug, and I contemplated how to use that to my advantage. In the end all I could think of was trip, scrape my face, and move on.

It was about late afternoon by that time and the sun sank below the buildings of the city. Even though it still threw beams of light across the clouds and sky, down beneath the buildings it was as dark as night.  I couldn't help but stare at the cats around me. When I thought back to Ghost, the mysterious stray that Moriarty had sent to his doom I shuddered to look at tusk-cat's teeth. Ghost's tail had been chewed off by another cat. I felt like bringing my tail closer to me, but I really needed it for balance. The drug had largely worn off as the city began to cool, but every few minutes a dizzy spell would throw me for real and I would feel like throwing up.

Suddenly the trio turned into an alleyway and we approached a fire escape attached to some red-brick building. Moriarty turned and spoke to me for the first time in hours.

"You first."

I glanced around, hoping that there would be a cat by some miracle walking down the street that I could turn to for help but there was no one coming or going. We were totally alone.

I stepped forward and had the crazed notion that if I started running then maybe I would somehow be able to get out of range and the shock collar wouldn't hurt me. All I knew was that once I was off the ground and up the ladder, there would be no help.

As if sensing my intentions Moriarty shocked me briefly. It was only for a second, but it was much more painful than before and I yelped in pain.

"Hurry." He ordered.

I reluctantly started to climb the ladder with the black cat right on my heels. As soon as I made it to the first floor he ushered me onto the second floor, and so on, and so on for sixteen floors. I only was able to 'trip' once and I feared that Sher-cat would not be able to follow the break in the trail.

The sixteenth floor wasn't a floor at all, it was actually the roof.  I tripped for real over a short concrete wall into a pit of gravel and was stomped upon by Moriarty.

"Get up." He hissed.

I pulled myself to my feet, suddenly terrified of the ice I heard in his voice and glanced around. There was nowhere to go and nothing to hide behind. The roof was large and flat and lonely and a perfect place for a confrontation.

Sher-cat.

My brain, now free of the restricting effects of the drugs made the final connection and I realized that the only reason I was even still alive was to lure Sher-cat to the roof. I probably didn't even need to leave a trail; no doubt Moriarty had left him some clues.

"You finish the set-up, I'll check on our friends progress." He said lazily and with another wave of his paw the leopard-cat grabbed my scruff and began to carry me to one edge of the building. I fought him this time, twisting and straining as much as I could while the edge of the building loomed dangerously just out of the corner of my eye. What if I was wrong and they just tossed me over the side of the building?

"Wait." Moriarty said and leopard-cat froze dead where he stood, me hanging limply from his mouth like a piece of raw meat. I sighed in relief for the moment, but I was weary of what he would say next.

"I want to see something." He said and leopard-cat dropped me roughly to the ground. I saw the small gray switch under his paw and said a silent prayer. He turned the switch as far as it would go, and suddenly everything started happening in slow motion. Tusk-cat started to laugh like a hyena, his shoulders trembling in anticipation and leopard-cat took a large, graceful step away from me and for the first time the smile on Moriarty's face reached his eyes.

Then the pain.

It was a hot knife into my chest, straining my muscles until I feared they would snap; a guttural choking that was my own voice, unable to breath, unable to move.

It was a red flower opening up in the night sky, and every star screaming one final death roar as they were wiped away by the red and black flood.

It was the strange, duel sensation of being two people at once. One person detached from the whole affair and drifting away into a calmer, quieter place and one person who was supremely physical, who felt everything from the gust of gentle night air to the liquid fire in his veins.

And then it was over. Just as quickly as it began everything was removed, vanished, dissipated like a puff of smoke but the sensation lingered and caused twitching and writhing long after the shock was gone. It took some effort on my part to understand that the writhing, groaning creature that sounded so far away and pitiful was me.

I swallowed the cool night sky gratefully, sobbing uncontrollably. It hurt so BAD! I couldn't even describe it all. I didn't just cry, my eyes had watered from the pain and leaked down my face like hot rivulets. It hurt so bad! I would face the vet one million times if I never had that pain again. It hurt so bad! I can't think of anything else to say. It was so powerful, so painful… so bad.

"I thought so. Go ahead."

I was picked up again by the scruff, but I was only barely aware of it. I was still trying to come to terms with still being alive. I was trying to understand that the pain and I were separate now, where we had been one and the same before. It was bad.

I began to come back to reality a bit when leopard-cat put me down. He put me down on a concrete perch over the side of the building that was just wide enough for all four of my paws to stand on and over looked the street below.I saw cars like roaches scuttling over streets and humans like ants walking calmly, oblivious to the peril above their heads. The sudden perspective was almost enough to make me faint, but I held on.

I cried and tried to jump back to the safety (If you could call it that) of the roof, but leopard-cat pushed me back and I almost slid off and fell.

"Stay." He said motioning behind him. I didn't have to look twice to know that he was motioning to Moriarty and his switch.  

"Oh God." I whispered in a raspy voice, for the pain had drained me of almost all strength. My legs were weak and shaking. One false slip and I would tumble over the side of the building and fall sixteen stories to the hard, gray concrete. Just one more body for the Yard to investigate, just one more body for the road-kill truck to take away.

I didn't know if I could hold myself up for long. I didn't have much of a choice though. In my mind I was playing a quick game of odds and sizing up my chances of surviving. Moriarty, the switch, the ledge, the fall, Sher-cat.

Would Sher-cat come? Did he solve all the clues? Would Moriarty let me live if he came, or was he waiting to kill both of us at the same time?

I could see it in my mind's eye; the black paw coming down on the switch, me recoiling in pain and falling down, down, down until I stopped suddenly against the pavement, every bone in me crunching horribly before... what? I had no clue what came after life, I was a bit too occupied with staying alive.

My legs almost gave out on me, but I held them firm. I just told myself that I wasn't going to die.

The waiting was torture. The sun had sunk hours ago and the wind began to pick up, whipping me back and forth and threatening to push me off of the ledge. I took it silently like a man. I wasn't about to show any weakness in front of the other cats. I just gritted my teeth and pretended I didn't notice.

Finally I heard the groaning of metal as something climbed up the fire escape. At first I hoped it was Sher-cat, but as I waited I realized that if Sher-cat never showed up, then we both would probably live longer. The waiting was agony, but I was afraid a resolution would mean death.

Sher-cat heaved himself up onto the concrete and hastily glanced around.

"Sher-cat!" I called to him and he found me in the darkness with a surprised expression.

"Good evening Mr. Holmes." Moriarty drawled from where he was sitting in the center of the roof. He sounded casual; even though it was apparent he'd been planning this for quite some time.

"…you." Sher-cat growled, finally meeting his 'master thief'. "Moriarty."

"Well, two for two. Look who's so special. I honestly didn't think you'd put a name to my entity yet." Moriarty said; his back turned to me so I couldn't see his expression.

"It's a nice night. This seemed like a good place to talk." He said casually, as if he'd invited Sher-cat for snacks instead of to a standoff with a hostage.

Sher-cat's eyes flickered in the starlight as he took in his foe. His face did not betray a single expression and he remained composed like stone.

"All the little puzzles, making me dance; running me around London it was all to distract me from this."

"Right you are. Also it was a little test to see if I was overestimating your abilities."
"And the results?"

"You're right on par with what I had expected."

"Thank you." Sher-cat said.

"It's not a compliment."

Their voices were low, so low I could barely hear them over the whistling of wind in my ears. I was afraid that at any moment the words would be swallowed completely, so I listened intently.

"You're in my way." Moriarty said "But you're interesting. I'd been meaning to set up an interview for some time."

Sher-cat said nothing, but I thought I caught a flicker of light flash my way.

"Cat criminals, the first of their kind, headed by a boss and reveling in riches on a human scale." He murmured. "Brilliant."

"You mark me too highly. I merely dabble at crime myself. Most of my accumulations come via fees for my service."

"Consulting cat-burglar?" Sher-cat asked.

"Just so."

Both cats seemed remarkably restrained towards each other, like two friends who had met by accident and were chatting idly. Only the sense of impending dread and the tense expression on Sher-cat's face betrayed anything even resembling the standoff.

"You've actually managed, completely blindly and by chance I might add, to hinder a few of my smoother operations. And now I hear that you're seeking me out by name? I can't just let you roam around now? I'm running a business."

Sher-cat glanced at me once more and I glanced at the switch under Moriarty's paw. He'd been walking around it for a short distance, but never far enough away for Sher-cat to grab it. Not that Sher-cat could have known its significance at the time.

"Don't get me wrong, you're little escapades are mere flea bites in the face of my organization, but there's been a bit too many of these bites and now they're beginning to irritate me."

I was getting scared of where this conversation was going. It didn't sound like it was going anywhere near safety and was actually sailing south towards murder.

"If you wanted me dead, why are we here?" Sher-cat asked.

"Mm. Don't know. I keep changing my mind about you. That's the trouble with me. I'm soo changeable." His voice suddenly took on a mocking, sing-song tone that sent a ripple of terror through me and briefly I threatened to topple over the ledge, I was so shaken.

"You're right though, if I wanted you dead you'd have never made it up here. I'm certainly going to kill you one day, but I find that leaving you alive grants me staggering possibilities. Imagine someone like me, thinking that I was all alone and isolated on this heightened intellectual plane, and then along comes you. You, perhaps even on the same level as me, but working on the side of the angels! Delicious! Can you blame me for seeming a bit intrigued?"

"Cats have died." Sher-cat said in a low, feral growl.

I saw Moriarty turn and sneer. "Cats do little else."

There was a moment of silence while the two enemies finished sizing each other up. The wind song in my ears had grown into a constant roar and I feared I wouldn't be able to hear them for much longer. Suddenly the wind died down, and it was so unexpected it threw me. I caught my balance just in time to keep myself from flying over the edge into the sky below.

"Are you alright?" I heard Sher-cat say and I looked up.

I wanted to tell him I was fine, but the truth was that I wasn't fine. Not at all.

"Please Sher-cat." I croaked, unsure of what I was asking, only certain that I wanted to see our flat at Baker Street again and fearful that I never would. "Please. Get me out of--"

"DO YOU KNOW how PATHETIC you sound when you beg?" Moriarty screamed at me, silencing me as his paw wandered over to the switch. My heart stopped dead for a few beats.

He shook his head and the sudden burst of annoyance was wiped away, seemingly as though it had never happened.

"He's cute. I can see why you might keep him around. Such blind faith and loyalty; but then again one does get sentimental about pets, after all."

If Moriarty was waiting for a reaction from Sher-cat he didn't get one. His expression remained stone.

"…I'm late for a business appointment. You wouldn't mind if I cut the party short would you?"

Sher-cat blinked, unable to think of an immediate reply.

"No. It's your party." He said finally.

Moriarty motioned towards the switch one last time, and I said a silent goodbye; but he kicked it across the roof where it lay useless and forlorn.

I was too scared and relieved to move immediately and I tried to wrap my mind around being safe for the first time that day.

Moriarty walked right by Sher-cat, brushing up lightly against his coat and Sher-cat unconsciously bristled aggressively.

"Catch you…later." Sher-cat said staring forward determinedly.

The three cats, Moriarty, tusk-cat and leopard-cat stood at the top of the fire escape, as if they were three actors about to take a bow before disappearing off stage.

"No… You won't." Moriarty said. Then he turned to climb down the fire escape after his two minions and the last we saw of him was his tail, swishing slowly like the tale of a snake.

As soon as he was gone I leapt back to the roof and kissed the ground. It was so good to be back on solid ground, so good not to have the wind threatening you by rubbing its cold fingers through you're fur, or being too scared to look down because you know you'd be looking sixteen stories to your doom.

The next thing I knew, Sher-cat was standing over me looking slightly concerned.
"Help me get this collar off!" I demanded and together we unbuckled and pulled the hellish thing over my head and off of my throat. Already I felt better, being able to hold my head up. I collapsed to the ground, gravel and sharp stones pressing into my stomach and ribs. I didn't care.

"That was…um…uh…" For once, Sher-cat was speechless as he paced slightly back and forth.

"Hell." I finished for him "That was hell."

"Uh…right…" He was panting, as though he'd run a long distance. I'd never seen him so worked up before.

"Let's get you home. You know, before he changes his mind." Sher-cat suggested.

"Yeah. Because he's so changeable."

We limped home under the cover of darkness, never meeting a single cat. It was as though when Moriarty had disappeared he'd taken every cat with him somehow. I wondered how large his 'organization' really was.

When we turned onto Baker Street One more surprise was waiting for us at the corner. It was Adlercat, still as alive and unharmed as the day I'd first met her. I was only somewhat surprised to find she was not dead, as she had passionately sworn she would be by this time.

"I see you found the Doctor. Did you find the cure?"

"Indeed." Sher-cat said.

"And?" she pressed.

"There's not much to say."

"Ah. I see how it is then." She nodded.

"I suppose this is the last we'll be seeing of you?"

Adlercat nodded. "Perhaps. The future is uncertain. I relish that."

I stood sullenly by while the two chatted. I was tired and beginning to sink away from the world, plus their conversation didn't seem to matter until I found out a bit more about their relationship later.

"Goodbye Watsoncat." Adlercat licked me on the cheek and I let her, feeling to tired and numb to fight it.

"Goodbye Sherlockcat." She licked my friend who blinked a few times rapidly, like he didn't know how to compute the action.

That was the last time we saw her to this day. But like she said: The future is uncertain, and I have a feeling that someday, once again, the spy-cat will darken our doorstep.

For a few days after the event I didn't feel like doing much, so I implored Sher-cat to write his side of the story based on his deductions and his mental techniques. That gave me a lot of resting time.

Many thanks to the concerned readers who voiced worry about me, I'm doing fine. It was just a bit traumatic, you know?

I slept the whole next day and made sure the drug was completely out of my system; I ate a lot and was pretty lazy until John got home. I bothered him until he sat down with a book, then I curled up in his lap and he petted me until I fell asleep. It was warm and safe and nice, the best kind of therapy.

The day after Sherlock (the human) brought home a laser pointer and Sher-cat and I played for the longest time, just chasing a red dot around like how we had chased clues the week before. It was a fun distraction.

After three days I was ready to write out what happened, hoping that confronting it and not repressing it would make me feel better, but Sher-cat hogged the computer, insisting that I needed to give his art time. In the end he got bored and I was able to write this anyway.

To Lily, my good friend, I'm sorry I didn't realize sooner that it wasn't really you. I hope you can understand that I didn't mean you any harm and I hope we can still be friends.

And to Moriarty: I know that you're still out there somewhere. Reading this. You're too pompous not to relish in your own work. I'm speaking on behalf of Sher-cat as well as the rest of the Yard. We're not giving up until we put an end to you and your organization. London will be the better for it, I know.