Funk-N-Fiction

Black cats and the Halloween/Samhain season just go together. Check out this brief nod to Authurian legend (and her Hedge Witches series) from Amy Lane – the first of our authors to find inspiration in this majestic, mischievous feline.

Merlin

by Amy Lane

*Note—The Hedge Witches Lonely Hearts Club is one of my favorite burs of happy series—and one of my favorite revisits every Halloween. Percival and Merlin are completely new characters, but if you enjoy them, and would like to know more about the folks we meet at the end, by all means check it out.

It all came, Percival thought as he hauled the body into the garage, of having parents who were English majors.

Parents who were English majors resulted in children named Tristan, Gawain, Lancelot, Arthur and Percival.

Having brothers named after Knights of the Round Table resulted in having to cat sit your brother Gawain’s cat, Merlin, while Gawain was on a honeymoon trip to Tintagel with his new wife Guinevere.

And having a black cat named Merlin in your house resulted in opening up your door to find the body of the guy who’d tried to grope you into submission in his car the night before dead on your doorstep, looking very surprised, with what appeared to be five knife wounds in his chest.

With the cat, sitting on his groin, sharpening his claws on what was now a very frayed pair of 501s.

“Ach! Merlin!” Percy had gasped. “What the hell?”

The cat had glanced up—after one final rip of the claws—and narrowed giant pumpkin-colored eyes. “Don’t just stand there. Help me move him before the neighbors see!”

“Ach! Merlin! You can talk!”

“The neighbors, Percy—your DNA was all over this guy when I took him down and there’s no way you’re escaping a murder rap if you don’t get him into the garage right now.”

Percy had met the local police once when his car had broken down. They, uhm, hadn’t seemed that bright. Or imaginative. Or inclined to believe a work-from-home computer programmer when he said he didn’t kill the guy who’d tried to force himself on Percy the night before.

“But… but talking cats…”

“Later, Percy. Seriously. I can’t believe your brothers don’t set a guard on you 24/7.”

Percy lived in a small house back from a tiny, ill maintained road—but there were many houses on the road, which made it dangerous for pets, which was why Merlin was not supposed to be out!

“How did you escape?” Percy asked, giving up and stepping into the crisp October morning in just his boxers and a T-shirt. “I took special pains to make sure all the doors were locked because Gawain will kill me if you get wiped out by a car!”

Merlin leapt lightly off the body and turned around to clean his paws and supervise as Percy grabbed the corpse by the shoulders.

“Is that the only reason you’d be sad if I was unalived and road waffled?” he asked coyly.

Percy grabbed the body by the shoulders and started hauling. He was slender, but he worked out regularly, and Bob or Robert or Bill or whatever his name had been slid right along on the slick grass. He did not, Percy noticed, leave a blood trail, but then, the corpse was pretty light—and pretty pale—so perhaps most of his blood had been left somewhere else.

“No,” he confessed, answering Merlin’s question. The cat had sat with him for the last two months, purring on his lap as he’d worked, burrowing against his neck as he’d watched television—even watching him work out in the weight room, sitting on the cat tree Gawain had brought with him and judging Percy as he’d done his cardio on the treadmill, in that way cats had. “You’re pretty good company.” He paused and gave the body a particularly frustrated tug. “Even before you could talk.”

“Thank you,” Merlin said, leaving off his grooming and trotting to catch up. “Put him in the backseat of your car and pull a blanket over him—maybe that blue waffle thing that smells like your ex-boyfriend. We can burn that.”

Percy grunted. “How did you know—”

Merlin hissed and spat, and the garage door opened immediately, on its own, as though terrified into acquiescence.

Percy got the feeling that maybe there was more to his brother’s cat than just the ability to talk.

And the homicidal tendencies.

/

An hour later, after Percy had tucked the body in the back of his car and covered it in the rather pungent blanket that Paul had left behind when he’d moved out, Percy had showered, caffeinated, and found a hoodie and a hat, because damn he was still cold from going out in the frost in his boxers.

He’d gone through the kitchen door to the garage, not surprised when Merlin followed him and hopped smoothly into the passenger seat, head forward, whiskers back, as though anticipating the ride.

The cat had been disturbingly… overprotective, as Percy had gone about his morning routine. He’d felt rather… scrutinized as he’d showered, and the purring emanating from the far corner of the bathroom had sounded damned proprietary.

Percy wondered if Gawain had ever seen this side of his giant black tomcat.

“No,” Merlin said, after Percy had pulled out of the garage and lowered the door.

“No what?”

“No, your brother has never heard me talk nor gotten ogled in the shower. He’s very much in love with his wife and it felt rude. Do you know where we’re going?”

“No, Merlin. You told me to get the asshole in the car and to get ready to go for a ride. Since I didn’t kill him, I’m very much dependent on you for ideas.”

“Apologies,” Merlin said—and he sounded genuinely apologetic. “I… I had not meant to reveal myself this way. It’s just…” The cat growled. “He had his hands all over you. And you refused to take a ball peen hammer to his balls.”

“Ouch!” Percy yelped. “He was an asshole, Merlin—I’m not sure he deserved to die.”

“WE shall just have to agree to disagree,” the cat said. “Crack the window for me, would you? And turn right here. We’re heading to Plymouth.”

Percy did as the cat requested—cranking the heater up a tad to make up for the chill air. “What’s in Plymouth?”

“A coven’s clowder,” Merlin said. “They’re famous, actually—first they almost sent an entire neighborhood to hell completely by accident, and then they fixed it and vanquished a presence so powerful it almost ate half a town. It’s in all the songs. It’s too bad you don’t speak cat—they’re really quite epic.”

“A coven’s clowder…” Percy frowned, parsing for a moment, and then asked, “Did the coven do all the magic, or the clowder?”

Merlin pulled his thin black cat lips back, showing his long pointy teeth in appreciation. “The coven—but the clowder was very supportive. We call them The Nine. Some of my favorite cats were in The Nine—one of them was even named after the same king as your brother. It’s very prestigious.”

“Yes, well, powerful names are important,” Percival admitted grudgingly. It was something his parents had said—often—when their five sons had complained about their own names. Percival, the loyal, the steadfast, the kind. Percival had been so very jealous of his brother, Gawain, because Gawain had been known for his poor judgment and his ability to hold grudges, and it felt like Gawain got away with a whole lot because he’d been named for somebody who was not known for being steadfast and kind.

“So they are,” said the giant black cat named Merlin. He raised his whiskers into the wind just a tad more and let it blow back his lips.

“What are the Nine going to do with the dead guy in my car?” Percival asked after a moment. Merlin did seem to be enjoying himself. Gawain had insisted the cat not be allowed outside, but Percival was seeing how exceptions might have to be made.

“The Nine? Nothing. It’s the coven that will do the things,” Merlin asked. “You can raise the window now.”

Percival complied, and Merlin curled into a ball and eyed Percival as though he might suddenly forget how to drive. “What things?” Percival asked.

“I don’t know. Witchy things. I’m sure there will be lots of discussion and I’ll have to give a speech or something. Who cares. Just get this—” Merlin made a purely cat noise then, and it was obviously a swearword, full of hissing and spitting, “—out of your car and then we can go home and you can work out today.” Purr. “I like it when you work out.”

Percival sent the cat a side-eye. For the first time, it occurred to him that this cat seemed to take rather a lot of pleasure in seeing Percival without his shirt.

“Why did you kill him again?” Percival asked.

“I told you why,” the cat said. “He touched you.”

“But I’m sure he’s touched other men—”

“You’re only making my case,” the cat said. “But the matter is, he touched you, and that was his last mistake. Now excuse me, it’s been a long, rather trying night, and I’m going to have to make a speech, so I need my nap. Wake me up when you get to Plymouth. You can crack the window and I can smell our way to the coven.” The cat made irritated biscuits on its own tail. “And if you see a McDonalds, stop. I could really use a sausage patty right now.”

Percival’s eyes popped open. “You little rat bastard—”

“If you didn’t want me to eat them, you shouldn’t leave them on the table,” the cat grumbled. “Now tune the Spotify to Boxer Rebellion and let me sleep.”

“You’ll get Eddie Vedder and like it,” Percival muttered, but the cat was already asleep, and, well, he’d already killed somebody, so Boxer Rebellion it was.

/

Jordan, the leader of the coven, was tall, blond, beautiful, and very very taken by the shorter, darker, but no less beautiful Macklin. Both of them regarded Percival and Merlin on the porch of their neat and tidy doublewide trailer home with surprise—but not shock.

“A body?” Macklin said. “Whose body?”

Percival winced. “Some pratt I went on a date with last night. The date ended badly with too many hands in too many private places and I thought that would be the end of it, but, well, I heard a clawing at my door this morning and there was Merlin with the body.”

Both men dropped their eyes immediately to the cat, which told Percival he was probably in good hands.

“Do you go about killing handsy assholes all the time?” Macklin asked, and he had a rather ferocious brow, so Percival hoped the cat might show some respect.

“Only this one,” Merlin said shortly. He heaved a sigh. “I know Percival hasn’t thought of it but the only reason I could get to him was because he was sitting a block away from Percival’s house with a gun, plotting something not nice. It took me forever to clean the blood off my fur—I don’t plan to make a habit of it.”

Percival stared at the cat and shuddered, suddenly freezing in spite of the hoodie and the stocking cap he’d pulled over his long brown hair and his ears. “A gun?” he squeaked.

Merlin gave him an almost embarrassed glance. “I don’t think Handsy Asshole there likes to hear ‘No’ very often.”

“A gun?” Percival said again, his vision going a little dim.

“Get him, Macklin,” Jordan said. “I’ll get his other side. That’s it. Come on inside. I’ve got a tea that’ll fix you right up. That’s the way. Merlin, are you coming?”

There was a pause, and while Percival had his back turned to the cat, he could imagine Merlin sniffing the air.

“Arthur is inside?” he inquired. “Big orange cat? Got bit by a rattlesnake two years ago? He’s famous, you know.”

“He has a sunspot in the kitchen,” Jordan says. “Although, we’ve, uhm, never heard him speak.”

“You won’t,” Merlin said. “He’s a cat, you know.”

“What in the hell does that make him?” Macklin muttered under his breath as they hauled Percival into their home.

“Given the looks he keeps giving this one, I’m going to say his boyfriend,” Jordan muttered back.

Percival grunted, and tried and failed to get his feet under him. “He does like to watch me shower,” he admitted.

/

An hour later, Percival was surrounded by people he couldn’t keep straight but who all seemed to have his best interest at heart. There was even a baby, and since only two of Percival’s brothers were married and children weren’t on the roster yet, the baby sitting in his lap proved to be a wonderful change from worrying about corpses.

A slight young man named Bartholomew was feeding him some shortbread cookies that really did seem like they could fix the world when Macklin and Jordan quietly slid out of the house.

They returned a few moments later, Macklin bearing Jordan’s weight, and Kate—the only woman in the coven and the mother of the delightful creature bouncing on Percival’s knee—had everybody make way for him so he could collapse on the kitchen chair next to Percy’s.

Bartholomew gave him shortbread, his handsome boyfriend gave Jordan hot chocolate, and a pixyish blond guy named Sully ran off and came back with what looked like a handmade quilt to wrap him up and keep him warm.

“What happened?” Percival asked, feeling very much like they’d made a big deal out of him for nothing?

“Bad guy,” Jordan said succinctly. “Bad guys—really bad guys—have a lot of psychic weight. I can normally portal somebody with just a little help from Macklin but this guy… oh my God.”

Percival felt a sharp scratch and Merlin said, “Ditch the bald kitten and let me up.”

Without missing a beat, Kate’s husband, Josh, hefted their son up onto his hip and Merlin jumped into Percival’s lap and started purring and kneading biscuits. “That’s it,” Merlin muttered to himself. “No more dates for you. You obviously can’t be trusted to watch after yourself.”

“Merlin,” Percival murmured, stroking a soothing hand down the cat’s irritated ruff. “It’s okay. You did good. You got him—”

“Oh no,” Merlin said, with a particularly vicious dig into Percival’s solar plexus. “Enough of this shit. I give up. I wanted to talk to the Nine, I talked to the Nine, they’re a great bunch of felines, but fuck it. I’m done.”

And then he turned into a naked human, draping his arms over Percival and hugging convulsively. “He could have killed you,” Merlin muttered, licking Percival’s ear.

Then he started to cry.

/

They stayed the night.

There was explaining and talking and witches and wizards and spells and voluntary shapeshifter curses and by the end of it, Percival was exhausted and didn’t care. They found Merlin some sweats, which Percival had to admit was a shame because his long, sinewy pale human body was particularly attractive, as was his thick mane of black hair, and the two of them slept curled up in Jordan and Macklin’s spare room.

The next morning, after a fabulous communal breakfasts at Bartholomew and Lachlan’s house, which was like a Keebler Elves treehouse on the inside and a boring old prefab on the outside, Percival got his new friends’ numbers, promised to try the starter spells they gave him since they thought he might have some latent magic ability which attracted all this weird attention, and then got into his mercifully empty car, with Merlin the human by his side.

It was the first time they’d really been alone since Merlin had shapeshifted on his lap the day before.

“You, uh, could have told me,” Percival said softly, as he put the car into gear.

“That I could turn into a human?” Merlin asked. “No. You would have wanted to know why I wasn’t turning into a human now. I liked being a cat. I didn’t want to turn back. I was fine.”

“What changed?”

Merlin gave him a pouty look from pumpkin colored eyes over a Roman nose and a pointed chin. “You kept taking off your shirt,” he said shortly.

For the first time in three days, Percival smiled. “Yeah?” he asked.

“Yes,” Merlin said. “And then you let me lick your neck. It was very unwise of you, you know.”

“Think it would be any different now?” Percival asked.

Merlin gave him a sideways look, and a particularly feline smile. “Shut up,” he grumbled. “And crack the window.”

“Boxer Rebellion it is,” Percival said. He wondered if Merlin would enjoy getting his neck licked as well.