Page 9 of Office of the Lost

Something hopped into the clearing.It was about the size and shape of an Earth rabbit, or maybe a westcat from Therrin (which as everyone knew were far nicer than the eastcats).Crispin knelt to look at the little thing.“Are you running too?”It stared at him with eyes almost as big as its head, trembling and shifting from foot to foot.It had five of them, so it took a moment to complete the exercise.

Poor thing looks frightened.

He felt Leo staring over his shoulder.“Bad juju.”

“What?”He wasn’t sure what bad juju was, but whatever it might be, this thing didn’t seem to have any.“He’s adorable.”The rabbit-cat trilled, a sweet sound that put Crispin in mind of a choir of angels.Really tiny angels with teensy-weensy harps.

Then he noticed that the forest had gone absolutely quiet.No more howls.No birdsong.No rustling purple foliage.“Maybe whatever that was… decided to go away?”

“Bad juju, dude.We should go.You don’t mess with bad juju.”

Despite being sketchy on the details of bad juju, Crispin was inclined to agree.He reached down to grab the little critter.At least we can get you to safety.

It opened its mouth, and he jerked his hands back.If its eyes were almost as big as its fuzzy head, its jaws were three times as big and lined with razor-sharp teeth.

Then it howled.

Crispin stumbled back as the rab-cat leapt at him, missing him by a hair’s breadth.“What in the holy oerk of Greebals?”He scrambled backwards, knocking Leo to the ground.

The thing howled again, and suddenly Leo was in front of him holding a big stick.He swung it as the thing leapt again, and sent it flying through the purple trees with a yip and howl.

“Score!”Leo thrust his hand into the air and did a little dance.“Out of the park.I always wanted to do that.”He seemed to have recovered from his earlier round of grousing about the Zima.

“We should go.”Crispin’s body shook, and he felt ill.He was lucky he still had his hand.I was about to pick it up.

Leo grinned.“Why?I just sent that little toothy fur ball to hell.”He looked longingly at a patch of purple blades.“The grass here is really good.You should try it.”

“He wasn’t alone.”Crispin scrambled up as five more, no, ten, no, seventeen—he’d always been really good at counting things—hopped out of the under-foliage.Leo swung around just in time to see the grand entrance.

For half a second, the two parties—the desk fae and hiscollectedvs.the rab-cats from hell—stared each other down.The forest was again absolutely quiet.

Then someone screamed like a baby—if Crispin was honest with himself, it was him—and he and his charge turned tail and ran on hooved feet into the purply-violet wood.

They stumbled over lavender shrubs that had little yellow flowers that rang like bells when disturbed, adding to the cacophony, and past plum fernlike things that reminded him of the fairy ferns back home, only these didn’t glow and were ten times larger.They rustled ominously as he and Leo passed, and Crispin wondered briefly if they wanted to eat him too.Consumed by a fernwas not the legacy he wanted to be remembered by when he one day slipped into the Black Woods.

All the while, the howls and growls followed them, now coming from all sides, and even from the canopy above.“Thea, what are those things?”The question came out in gaspy breaths as he stumbled over a mauve log that was half as high as he was.Thank god his hooves gave him good purchase on the rough surface.He prayed to the holy oerk that the rab-cats couldn’t fly.

“Doing an analysis now.”

That sounded like the old Thea he knew.He felt a sudden ray of hope.Thank the gods.

Then his little companion erupted in a stream of manic laughter.

Leopold grabbed his hand.“Come on!I think I see light ahead!”

They hadn’t known each other all that long, but the statement sounded uncharacteristically chipper for the morose human Crispin had collected—or tried to collect—in that dank apartment back on Earth.

One of the little rab-cats nipped at his ankle, and he gave a howl of his own, kicking it away and into the forest.Ignoring the ache, he hobbled after Leo toward the alleged light, looking up just in time to see Leopold’s legs fly up into the air—fortunately still attached to the rest of him—as his antlers caught on a low-hanging vine.He came down hard on his back, the air forced out of him with an audiblewhoosh.

Crispin rushed to his side.“Leo!Are you all right?”

The howling once again drew closer.They were being surrounded, hunted.His human struggled to say something.

My human.He had no time to reflect on that thought.They had to get moving or they’d be rab-cat food.“It can wait.Breathe.We have to go!”

Leo scowled at him.He closed his eyes, as if he could concentrate his way through the whole mess, and at last air filled his lungs again.“It’s Leopold, you daft bastard.Not Leo.”

Crispin grinned, not even minding the insult.“Glad to have you back.”He put a furry arm under Leo’s and helped him get up.“Just a little further, I think.”They stumbled together through the thinning undergrowth, toward the light.

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