Cat Scratch Fever; Blue-Collar Werewolves V

Blue Collar Werewolves V:

By

(C)
Cover
art by Jenny Dixon, August 2013

ISBN: 978-1-60394-822-7

Smashwords Edition

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters,
events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be
confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is
merely coincidence.

Dedication

I had this nice long speech written out.
But, instead I’d like to tell you about
who
inspired this
story.

Spooky is a long haired,
almost
black
sneaky, conniving, ninja-cat.

Our relationship is somewhat adversarial but
not complicated, but that’s all part of having a cat in your life,
right?

Sitting on countertops, curled up in freshly
washed laundry baskets, grabbing your head when you open the
refrigerator,
loudly
announcing that it’s time to go out an
hour before the alarm goes off. See? Not complicated. You just have
to learn when and where to pick a battle of the wills when a cat is
the other player.

Then there is suppertime. That’s when our
ninja, push-your-boundaries cat becomes the sweetest feline in the
world. Yeah, that’s because gravy is involved.
Oh, sweet, sweet
gravy!

For the Spookmiester, there is never enough
gravy. I swear, whatever they put in canned cat food is highly
addictive; it should probably be illegal. Before Spooky, I’d never
seen a cat sing and dance for his supper. Later, the little sneak
pitifully cozies up as if he hasn’t already had his cat-crack
ration of the day.

Sometimes he wins. Mostly, I do. Not because
he doesn’t get any gravy. I would never withhold gravy from an
addict cat. He still has claws—that’s taking your own life into
your hands. No, I have the best show in the house, probably
lounging on a forbidden countertop right this moment.

Chapter One

“
Mrrr-eowwww-rrr.”
Ramses growled
from his favorite spot, underneath the fern on the porch table. The
plant was huge; the result of his elderly neighbor’s amazing green
thumb and a too small greenhouse. Last year, Matthew Ridley had
been roped into moving the monster plant from the well-lit
greenhouse shed to his porch as a belated housewarming gift. As in,
about six years belated.

The cat’s eyes gleamed through a lush
draping of bushy leaves. Personally, Matthew believed that the cat
picked him as his own personal human servant because of the fern’s
ability to hide a twenty-five pound cat. Since Matthew had never
had any particular affinity with animals before, that was the
theory he was sticking to.

“Hey, buddy. What do you want for dinner
tonight?” Matthew juggled his briefcase and a couple plastic
grocery bags while he fished his keys from his pants’ pocket.
“You’ve got a choice of chicken, fish, chicken and fish delight,
and seafood with shrimp. Me, I get to pick between a Mexican
microwave dinner and a different Mexican microwave dinner.” The
cat’s green eyes practically glowed, taking in the show with pure
feline amusement. Finally, Matthew maneuvered the key into the
lock. “Well, glad I could be of some entertainment. I live to
serve.”

“
Grr-owww-grrr.”
Ramses angry green
eyes turned toward the door while end of his tail slapped the table
in furious agitation.
“Rrr-rrr-rrr.”

“Not coming in?” Matthew asked. He raised
the bags hanging from his arm. “Seafood
with shrimp
. In a
can,” he urged. The cat growled again, sounding pretty pissed. Ah,
and once again, Ramses underlined the difference between
temperamental cats and easy-going dogs. “Okay, suit yourself.”
Matthew shook his head
. Apparently, freaking huge Egyptian Maus
are in a class by themselves. The cat probably thinks he should be
worshipped like his ancestors
. No, the cat definitely
did
think that.

Secretly, Matthew suspected that Ramses’
royal bloodline was a bit muddied for him to get so big. Ramses’
beautiful spotted markings were a reminder that smaller cats were
only domesticated because they wanted to be. Ramses size made him
look like he belonged in a jungle or on the lap of a goddess,
complete with the scarab mark on his forehead. One could see why
the ancient Egyptians revered them.

He’d never mention it to Ramses, just in
case—but none of the Maus he’d researched online were near that
big. Like his cat, they were extremely agile. Ramses’ front legs
were slightly shorter than his back, with an extra slip of skin
that supposedly let him run faster. And that cat was fast when he
wanted to be. And picky.

Matthew shook his head again and shouldered
through the door. Pre-Ramses, he would never have thought himself
one of those silly people that attributed human personality to an
animal. He’d become a crazy cat person. Or, maybe he just wasn’t as
much of an asshole as he used to be.

Dumping his briefcase just inside the door,
he felt the stress from his job evaporate from his shoulders.
Sheesh
. It constantly amazed him how childish grown men
could act. And these were
educated
professionals, with who
knew how many degrees behind their names.
Prima-donna, petulant
nerds
, he groused inwardly.

Matthew’s jaw cracked as he fought back a
yawn. He needed sleep badly—peaceful dreamless sleep. Thank
goodness, he had Ramses and a decent hobby to help him forget the
near fistfight between Milton Hambly, the division accountant, and
the new lab supervisor. He revised that thought; he
would
have
had Ramses to keep him company if the fickle cat weren’t
sulking on the porch.

Matthew was still amazed at the memory of
skinny, weasel faced Milton facing off with Dr. Theodore Drake, the
largest geek in the western hemisphere. Seriously, the man was
built like a pro-wrestler on steroids and had the personality as
that famous pointy-eared sci-fi alien. To put it mildly, the
confrontation escalated quickly. The doctor’s dry logical answers
for each expense infuriated Hambly so badly that the little bean
counter was sputtering and slapping at his reports.

Matthew tossed the mail on the entry table,
thankful not to be clutching the wad anymore. The keys jingled as
he hooked them into place on the key shaped iron wrought keeper
hanging by the door. The distinctive rattle of ice made him pause,
leaving the key to his workshop on the hook. It also explained
Ramses’ pissed off refusal to come inside. Not that anyone could
keep the cat out if he wanted in.

“Hello, Dad,” Matthew called, knowing his
father would be oblivious to the cold, flat tone of voice. Arming
himself with a neutral smile, he walked into the living room. There
would be time to unwind later, he supposed. Hopefully, he would
sleep tonight. “Make yourself at home.” Damned if he’d take
anything to dull the vivid dreams he’d been having. Sometimes
violent, sometimes mundane, or sexual. They were so real, almost
like living another life and he woke up exhausted.

Not surprising, Richard Ridley sprawled in
Matthew’s favorite chair, the leather recliner. That explained
Ramses’ determination to stay outside. Richard’s professionally
nurtured thinning hair fell into his pasty, once handsome face. The
expensive polo shirt and kakis looked slept in. With a clink of
ice, his father drained the half-glass and tilted it at Matthew.
“You’re out of scotch,” he said, with only a slight slurring. “A
good host keeps a well-stocked bar.”

Matthew ignored the jibe, taking the glass
from his father as he walked by. He set the crystal tumbler on the
bar, feeling numb. The groceries landed with a thump at his feet.
What was wrong with him?
He should be royally pissed at the
intrusion, not accepting.
That
irked him. In his dreams,
Matthew had balls of steel.
That,
Matthew—Mathias the
warrior— would have kicked the drunk out on his ass.

Idly, Matthew noticed that the cat had taken
a swipe at his father’s shoes, marring the expensive leather.
Matthew had to admire Ramses. The cat knew where to hit hardest
without calling attention to himself. “I’m out of scotch because
you drink like a fish.” He couldn’t muster the emotion to yell at
his father. Why? It wouldn’t do any good. Richard loved his booze,
and everyone else’s.

Richard
The Dick
Ridley, as his many
ex-wives called him, was a bully. After wasting too many years
trying to gain his father’s love, Matthew stopped trying. Richard
Ridley wouldn’t know the meaning of love if it sprouted fur and bit
him on the ass. Opening a small ten ounce bottle of cola, Matthew
took a deep hit of caffeine and sugar before sliding the plastic
bags back over his forearms—that addiction he could accept. “Since
it’s my bar, I guess you’ll have to drink what I like.” He headed
for the kitchen to drop off his load before changing clothes He
shoved everything, bags and all, into the refrigerator to deal with
later.

“All that’s left is that foul shit you
swill,” Richard yelled after him, clutching at the arms of the
recliner. He openly sneered at his son’s preference of the small
locally brewed low-alcohol beer. The full extent of Richard
Ridley’s alcoholism revealed itself as Matthew rerouted for the
sanctuary of his bedroom. He heard the refrigerator door open.
Bottled clanked as Richard no doubt contemplated how much of a buzz
the four bottles of non-alcoholic beer would give.

“There’s cola,” Matthew called out.

“
Cola
,” Richard sneered. “Maybe if
you drank something manly, you could keep a woman around for more
than five minutes. Christ, you don’t even say it right. It’s coke.
Only northern sissies and fags call it that.”

Matthew stopped slowly turning around. Bile
churned in his stomach, though he still didn’t feel angry. Tired,
yes. Edgy, yes. And now, claustrophobic. He tolerated a lot of
emotional abuse over the years, but he wasn’t going to be
emasculated. Not tonight. He used his free hand to jerk his already
loose tie from his collar. “I’d rather not go there today,
Dad.”

“Not go there?” Richard’s words slurred a
bit more as he returned to his chair with a whumping sound. “You
broke up with a
lingerie model
. A
human
lingerie
model for Christ’s sake. For what? So you could date an ugly freak
like your mother?” Richard’s voice rose with the same foul crap
he’d spewed all Matthew’s life.

The recent revelation that both vampires and
other supernatural things were real hadn’t just thrown his father
for a loop. The entire world was still reeling from the footage of
werewolves saving people from a fanatical offshoot of The Church of
The Clean. The vampires even came forward on CNN in support,
offering to undergo whatever tests the government required, as well
as laughable as it sounds,
proof
that they’d been good
little undead taxpayers for the last hundred years.

Richard peered out the door and frowned
harder. His father slipped sideways in the chair.
Hmmm, how much
scotch had been in that bottle?
Likely, Richard had already
tanked up on his own before letting himself into the house with the
key Matthew never gave him. “Well? Think of the connections you
just threw away. What poshible excuse is there?”

“Erika is a nice, attractive woman.” Erica
was magnificently enhanced, shallow, and a complete airhead. Ramses
delighted in rubbing fur all over the model the one and only time
he brought her home and the hives had been…scary. Besides, three
dates did not make a girlfriend in Matthew’s book.