Chapter Text
Catra’s day wasn’t going too bad, all things considered, until Shadow Weaver called. Catra’s phone buzzed in her pocket, startling her and making her glad she was hiding- uh, taking her break, in the back room of her shop. She had an image to maintain, after all.
“Hey, Shadow Weaver,” Catra drawled when she picked up the call. “Lose another shade?”
“Catra,” Weaver half-snarled. It was always nice to know that Catra could still make her angry. The odd silence that followed also told Catra that her guess had been on the money. “Yes. Several of their personal effects will be waiting for you in your… post box.”
Given that Catra and Melog had spread the bloody entrails of the last demonic delivery boy across half of Bright Moon, it wasn’t a huge surprise that Shadow Weaver had finally decided to listen for once and stay the hell away from Catra’s apartment.
“I can’t wait,” Catra replied, not bothering to hide her dripping sarcasm.
“Do not be flippant with me-”
“One more word and I hang up,” Catra snapped. The days of letting Shadow Weaver berate her were long over. Her escape might not have been as permanent as she would have liked, but she was still sort of free, and she was going to milk that as much as she could.
Shadow Weaver didn’t say anything for a long moment. Catra spent the time imagining the demonic sorceress muting her phone and screaming in rage inside her literal hellhole. Real or not, the idea made Catra feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
“This is a crucial task. Do not fail me, Catra.”
“You have so little faith in me,” Catra shot back, letting her smirk bleed into her voice. “I’ll handle it. And in exchange, you’ll release the third Link.”
Catra knew she was pushing it. If it was that important of a rogue shade though, she would take her dues.
“Fine,” Shadow Weaver said a moment later.
“Great. Thanks!” Catra crooned before hanging up. She cackled a few times, a rare reaction to finishing a phone call with her demonic adoptive ‘parent’. Normally talking to Weaver made her want to find the nearest bridge, but the prospect of losing her third Link was too good to let the sorceress corrupt her happiness. Assuming she didn’t fuck this up, she’d only have one more Link binding her to Shadow Weaver’s will. She’d be actually free, instead of the shitty Terms and Conditions Apply version she was living at the moment.
Catra ambled back into the shop proper, which was a dusty, gloomy place lined with rickety shelves bearing lots of weird shit. Most of it was garbage, fake necronomicons and talismans and whatever. The whole store was mostly just a cover for Catra’s actual business, namely that of handling whatever bizarre supernatural shit Bright Moon’s ‘in the know’ individuals needed help with. It turned out that being a displaced demon from Hell meant that Catra had an excellent pulse on local spooky shit, and she made good money investigating, expelling, and otherwise dealing with all kinds of weird stuff. Weird stuff by normal human standards, that is. The word had lost most of its meaning to Catra by now. After scraping gremlins off of the rolly part of a steamroller from 1922 with a pink plastic spatula, she’d learned to just kinda take things in stride.
Anyway, the shop was a good place to meet with clients, and an even better way to launder the cash she got for her less-than-legal activities. There weren’t any laws against banishing shades or killing vampires and things, but it was still better to keep the government out of it. Also, it was hers. Her space, her responsibility, her everything. Sure, she only had the one employee and by all rights the store should have gone under within a month of opening, but it was still hers. After growing up in Hell under Shadow Weaver’s heavy, oversized, invasive, evil thumb, that meant a lot to Catra.
Kyle jumped from behind the counter when Catra walked in, still smirking. He looked vaguely terrified, but he always looked like that around her. For some reason the skinny blonde was convinced he was one mistake away from being fired at any given moment. It was pretty funny. If Catra had been trying to run a legitimate business maybe she wouldn’t have hired her old roommate’s boyfriend, but he was mostly just there so she didn’t have to drag herself out of bed every morning to open the place up. That and to do customer service for the occasional normie who stumbled in. No one wanted to see Catra attempt that particular endeavor.
“Hi Catra!” Kyle squeaked. “What um, what’s up?”
“I don’t know, Kyle. What’s up?”
Pure terror shot across his face. Catra’s smirk became fang-filled, just for good measure. Actual sweat started to bead across his forehead, even if he couldn’t see the fangs themselves.
He was saved by the literal bell hanging from the front door. It jangled loudly as someone pushed the door open and entered the shop. Catra didn’t have any clients that week, which meant the newcomer was probably one of the aforementioned normies there to ogle all the scary occult stuff Catra stocked because it made her laugh. The real supplies were in the back.
Catra turned toward the door to get a peek, but whoever it was had already ducked behind one of the shelves. With her luck it was a robber or something. If Kyle got shot Lonnie would kill her. Customer service was pretty much the last thing Catra wanted to do ever, but if it was in the name of stopping Lonnie from finally trying to stab her, it would be worth it. Maybe.
She dodged around the edge of the nearest shelf and nearly slammed into them. Tall, wearing a worn red bomber jacket and dark jeans, with a blonde ponytail pulled back to make a dumb poof in the front, there was no discernible reason that Catra’s stomach decided to flip. Gray-blue eyes widened in surprise, and the newcomer’s mouth made a comical ‘o’ before their voice stammered to life.
“Sorry! I didn’t see you there.” They actually looked contrite, which would’ve been funny if Catra hadn’t begun to sweat for no reason at all. They gave Catra a second appraisal, which was never a good sign. She felt her hackles rising, and she had to sternly tell her tail not to knock anything off of the nearby shelves. “Cute costume. Do you come here often?”
Catra glanced down at herself. Costume? And does she come here often?
“Yep,” Catra drawled. “Given that I own the place.”
“Oh. Oh! You’re Catra!”
Uh, nope. Weird humans who knew her name but she’d never met were an even worse sign than the long looks. Catra’s ears pinned back against her head and her tail started to lash. She was very glad of the illusion covering her non-human features. She’d learned to control her expression just fine, but her tail and ears had long resisted her best efforts.
“Woah,” the newcomer breathed. “Are they animatronic?”
“Who are you?” Catra said, doing her best not to snap because this was a customer. Then their words sank in. They… could see her. They thought the ears and tail were a costume which, sure, it was only a week after Halloween. But they could see through Catra’s illusion.
Catra had escaped to Etheria just over a year ago, and her illusion had only failed her once before, when Entrapta had built those freaky interdimensional goggles that disassembled an empty parking lot before putting it back together perfectly. Before the explosion, she’d seen Catra’s true form. But that was it.
“Oh, sorry! I’m Adora, she/her,” Adora said, offering her hand with a wide smile. The tension in Catra’s belly redoubled, and she glared at the outstretched hand. Adora dropped it a moment later without losing the smile. Catra needed to hand this person off to Kyle as soon as possible, because no one in the world would be dumb enough to keep thinking her tail and ears were animatronic if they watched them for more than ten seconds. Adora had to be pretty oblivious to think that at all.
“Kyle can help you find what you need,” Catra said, even though Kyle didn’t know what a quarter of the things in the shop were, real or not. She just needed to escape before this feeling in her chest got worse.
“I hear you carry cleansed water,” Adora said, ignoring Kyle completely. Dammit. “How much will three bottles run me?”
“Can’t you just go to a-” Catra choked the word out “-church?”
“Cleansed water, not holy water,” Adora replied, wrinkling her nose in a way that tugged on something beneath Catra’s collarbone. “Holy water has too many side effects.”
Well, she wasn’t wrong there. “A hundred,” Catra said, mostly because she wanted Adora gone as fast as possible. To Catra’s dismay, Adora didn’t even blink.
“Done. Where is it?”
“In the back,” Catra said. “Kyle will ring you up while I grab it. Three bottles?”
Adora nodded. “I’d like to test it first. People have tried to sell me mineral water before.” She huffed. “Do I look like an easy mark to you?”
Catra couldn’t help but smirk at her. “Yes.”
Her eyes flicker back up to Catra’s ears, and the feline did her best to keep them stiff and artificial-looking. She fled to the back as fast as she could without making it look like she was running, and started rifling around the myriad boxes and other clutter that she’d already accumulated. She found the cleansed water easily enough, mostly because she’d been using it recently herself. Good thing, too. She somehow doubted that bottled water would fool Adora, ‘animatronic’ ears notwithstanding, and this way Catra got to stick it to some of the evilest corporations on the planet. A win-win in her book.
She grabbed three jars of the stuff and slunk back into the shop proper. Adora had her cash out already but was holding onto it for the moment. She gave the jars in Catra’s hand an expectant look. Catra plunked all three down on the counter and watched as Adora unstoppered the first and dabbed a bit of water onto her finger. She sniffed it, licked it, then held the jar up to the light, where it sparkled under the pale incandescence. Catra gave her a critical glance. Any one of those methods might have detected a fake, but all three was almost guaranteed to. Adora knew her business, then.
“Looks good,” she said before stoppering the bottle and plopping five twenties down on the counter. She stuffed all three bottles into her jacket pockets. “Thanks! Do you stock this regularly?” Catra nodded warily, because she did and this was easy cash. “Great! Maybe I’ll see you again sometime. Bye!”
She practically skipped out of the store. Fucking weird.
“I think I’m getting sick,” Catra announced while staring up at the ceiling of Lonnie’s apartment. She was laying on the big, squishy couch her old roommate had bought for the new apartment, trying to decipher the swirling sensations twisting through her as she replayed the day’s meeting.
“You’re a demon from Hell,” Lonnie replied from where she was slicing up chicken for the evening’s dinner. “You can’t get sick.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Uh, yeah, I kind of do. I’ve been dating one for years. Rogelio has quite literally never gotten sick, and neither have you.”
Catra groaned, because Lonnie wasn’t wrong about that. “Then tell me why I feel all weird.”
She turned to raise an eyebrow at Catra’s prostrate form. “Yeah, I’m gonna need a little more to work with than that.”
“This girl came into the shop today,” Catra began.
“You got a real customer?” Lonnie interrupted. “Damn, that is weird.”
“Fuck off. Anyway, she comes up to me and asks do you come here often, which like, isn’t that a shitty pickup line?” Lonnie nodded, eyebrow still raised. “Anyway, she knew who I was, which is creepy.”
"You did name your shop after yourself," Lonnie said mildly.
Catra paused. "Oh. Right. That's not important." She ran a hand through her hair. "Anyway-"
“What’d she look like?” Lonnie interjected again. “Maybe I know her.”
“Uh, tall, maybe five-eight. Blue eyes that felt like she was cutting a hole in me, blonde hair in a dumb ponytail thing, and cheekbones that-”
Catra stopped, because Lonnie was doubled over, shaking with wheezing laughter. She had to support herself with one hand on the kitchen counter while tears streamed from her eyes, gasping for breath.
“Oh my god,” she choked out. “Holy shit. This might actually be the best thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s not funny,” Catra insisted, growing increasingly irritated. Lonnie was always a bit of a prick, but she was usually more helpful than this. “I think she put a spell on me or something. I haven’t been able to think straight since she showed up.”
Lonnie snorted. “Yeah, you’re definitely not thinking straight.”
Catra was starting to get worried now. Was there something actually wrong with her? She knew that her understanding of humans was a little… skewed. Probably because most of her information about human interactions came from TV shows, and her only friends were the asshole in the room with her, said asshole's goofy boyfriend, another demon, and a geek who spent more time with technology than people. But this seemed like an overreaction from Lonnie.
“Are you gonna explain what’s so funny or just keep getting snot on our dinner?” Catra asked, because Lonnie was supposed to be making fajitas. “Do you know what’s happening to me?”
“Do I know-” she snorted, but kept it together. “Yeah, yeah I know. Your stomach flipped a few times when you saw her? Maybe when she talked to you?” Catra nodded, feeling relieved that Lonnie was familiar with this particular ailment. “You probably stared at her when you first saw her, right?”
“Yeah.” Catra sat up on the couch. “You seem pretty experienced with this. What’s wrong with me? How do I fix it?”
Lonnie barked out a laugh. “Fix it? Honey, you can’t fix it.”
“Fix what? ” Catra demanded.
“Based on your symptoms, I’d say you just got your very first crush.”
Catra blinked. “Crush?”
“Oh, come on, really?” Lonnie sighed exaggeratedly. “You know, you meet someone and you’re attracted to them. You can’t stop thinking about them, the thought of being close to them, touching them, is exciting. How many times have you gone over whatever conversation you had with her?”
“...More than once,” Catra admitted. “But I’m not- I’m not attracted to her. I’m not attracted to anybody. I’m a demon from Hell. I mean, how would that even work?”
Lonnie gave Catra a sidelong glance as she finally got back to making dinner. “Pretty easily. And yeah, from the sound of it, you are attracted to this girl. Don’t worry, it’s normal.”
“How long does it take to go away?” Catra asked, because it was seriously inconvenient. And weird.
“Depends on how serious,” Lonnie said. “You might forget about her next week. She might haunt you til your last day on Etheria.”
Catra groaned again and buried her head in her hands. “This sucks.”
“You know, there’s always one way to get over a crush quickly,” Lonnie said. Catra didn’t miss the devious undertone to her voice.
“What’s that?” Catra asked warily, because as much as she’d grown to fear Lonnie’s devious streak (with good reason), she definitely didn't want to spend the rest of her life thinking about someone she exchanged ten words with.
“Ask her out,” Lonnie replied promptly. “Either you hit it off, or more likely, you don’t and realize it never would have worked out. Way easier to forget about it that way. None of those pesky ‘what if’s’ hanging over you, you know?”
“I can’t do that!” Catra yelped. “I- I don’t even know how!” That wasn’t strictly true, but Catra was pretty sure that copying things from shows was more likely to mortally embarrass her than land her a date.
Lonnie rolled her eyes and chopped up another pepper. “Only one way to learn.”
“I’m not doing it,” Catra declared, turning her nose up at the very thought.
“Suit yourself. Don’t expect me to put up with your weird pining, though.”
“I’m not pining,” Catra shot back immediately. She definitely wasn't still imagining Adora's face, and certainly wasn't picturing it with the goofy smile the blonde had been wearing when she'd skipped out of Catra's shop. That would just be weird. And pathetic. And obviously not happening.
“Catra, you’re laying on my couch talking about a girl you spoke five sentences to. You’re pining.”
She tossed more spices into the bowl where she was marinading the chicken, which was starting to smell really good. Catra let herself get lost in the delicious aroma, both because it was great and well worth getting lost in, but also because it smelled better than literally all of Hell ever, and she suddenly wanted a reminder that she wasn’t there anymore. That she was mostly free, and got to do things like lay around on her ex-roommate’s couch while she made dinner and just talk.
Of course, that reminded Catra that she was going to have to spend the night hunting a rogue shade across Bright Moon rather than getting to curl up with a good book or rewatch one of her favorite shows. Maybe she could convince Melog to come along this time. They had to be bored after so much time alone in her apartment.
“So, about this date,” Lonnie said after flicking on the stove. “You’ll have to see the girl again at some point to ask. I doubt she gave you her digits.” Catra shook her head cautiously. “She might also just say no, which is the shortest solution. Don’t even have to bother with the date then.”
“I don’t know why you think I’m just gonna ask a random human on a date in the first place,” Catra grumbled. Then she remembered the perfect out to this whole conversation, which she really should have led with. “Especially when she can see through my illusion.”
Lonnie turned a wide-eyed glare on her. “You just thought to mention this?”
Catra shrugged. She wasn’t about to admit that it had almost slipped her mind in favor of daydreaming about- no one. Daydreaming about no one.
“What was she even doing in your shop?” Lonnie asked, still a little off-balance.
“Buying cleansed water,” Catra said.
“Can’t she get that for free from a church?”
“That’s what I said! But she complained about the side effects, which true, holy water has all kinds of issues. Fleeced her for a hundred bucks, though.” Catra probably shouldn’t have sounded proud about that, but Lonnie didn’t comment.
“So she knows the difference between two extremely similar magical… things,” Lonnie said.
“Reagents,” Catra corrected, just to be annoying.
“Whatever. That means she’s probably in the know. More than I was when I started dating Rogelio.”
“And your point?” Catra demanded.
“I don’t think it’s a big deal,” Lonnie said, grabbing an onion.
“Not a big- What?! How is me being from Hell not a big deal?”
“Rogelio’s from Hell and he’s one of the nicest people I know,” Lonnie countered. “I really don’t see the problem.”
“Yeah, but you’re weird,” Catra said. “Most people would have a problem dating a literal demon.”
“Because you’re such an authority on what ‘most people’ think,” Lonnie smirked. Catra hissed at her, because she wasn’t wrong but it was still rude. “If you think it’s a problem, I don’t know, wear a hat.”
“She’d still find out eventually! I have a whole-ass tail, Lonnie. It’s kinda hard to hide.”
“Yeah, and you leave enough fur around for two dogs,” Lonnie agreed. She paused. “Look, can I level with you?”
“Were you not before?”
Lonnie rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.” Catra shrugged and looked away. “I get why you’re a little freaked out about her finding out.”
“I’m freaked out about anyone finding out,” Catra corrected. “Pitchforks and torches, Lonnie.”
“Normal people, sure,” Lonnie allowed. “But if she’s already in the scene, it’s not a big ask. It wasn’t for me, anyway.”
“Again, you’re weird,” Catra maintained. “What if she finds out and tries to cut off my ears for her collection or something?”
Lonnie snorted. “Then you blast her ass and feed her to Melog. I’ve seen the two of you take down way nastier things than a hot blonde.”
Catra grumbled at that, even though it was true.
“Either you ask her out, keep pining, or get over it,” Lonnie replied. “The first one is the only actual solution, if you ask me, her weird ability to see through your magic aside.”
“Whatever,” Catra said, but Lonnie was in fact the expert here. She had in fact been on the opposite side of a sort-of similar situation with Rogelio, anyway. Whatever that was worth. Asking couldn’t hurt, right? Adora would just say no. Hopefully she’ll come back to the shop tomorrow for something else. Catra could ask her, she got to say no, and then they never saw each other again. That would be the simplest thing. Then Catra could stop feeling like angry bees were trying to bounce their way out of her insides. Easy.
Rogelio ambled into the apartment, hissing a greeting to Catra before attempting to sneak some of the grated cheese off of Lonnie’s cutting board. She smacked his clawed hand away and kept on cooking.
“Catra has a crush,” she announced, to Catra’s utter mortification.
Because Rogelio was a giant sap at heart, he turned and gave her heartfelt congratulations. Catra rolled her eyes and tried to hide her face in the couch cushions.
“She doesn’t believe me,” Lonnie explained.
“I didn’t say that,” Catra mumbled through the pillow. “I just don’t like it.”
“Why not?” Lonnie said. “Rogelio got one on me and Kyle, and look how that turned out.”
“Yeah, but…”
“But what, Catra?” Lonnie asked, and for once she didn’t sound sarcastic.
Catra felt her ears fall. “I don’t know.”
Rogelio sat down on the couch next to her and rumbled encouragement. She rolled back over and gave him a half-hearted smile, because she appreciated the attempt.
“Dinner should be ready soon,” Lonnie reported, sensing that a subject change would be welcome. “Kyle just texted. He’ll be home with the ‘surprise’, whatever that is.”
“Good. I’m starving,” Catra announced.
Rogelio mumbled something about her hunger for more than just food, and she glared at him without any real heat. Lonnie cackled but otherwise stayed on task.
Ten minutes of random conversation later, Kyle walked through the door. He greeted his lovers with a kiss and a hug each, promptly complimented Lonnie’s cooking and Rogelio’s new shirt, then opened the box he’d carried in.
“You bought a cake?” Lonnie asked, skepticism and confusion apparent in her voice.
“I was going to make one, but then it wouldn’t have been a surprise,” Kyle said brightly. “It’s for Rogelio’s third anniversary! I know he technically crossed over the day after Halloween, but today was the day when we first met him. Happy uh, sort of birthday!”
Kyle beamed at his boyfriend. Lonnie laughed as she crossed over to the cake and swiped a bit of frosting. Catra rolled her eyes, but couldn’t deny the warmth she felt at the gesture. For all the shit she gave Kyle, he wasn’t so bad.
Still, between the cake and Lonnie’s words before, she couldn’t help but feel a little melancholy for the rest of the evening. Her own ‘anniversary’ had been almost two weeks ago, and no one had bought her a cake. She probably would have laughed at them if they had, but seeing the easy love flowing around in front of her, she felt… lonely.
That feeling of loneliness persisted all the way back to her own apartment. She unlocked her door and dumped her coat on the floor instead of hanging it up before locking the door behind her. She turned and trudged towards her bedroom, hoping to get a few hours sleep before setting off on her not-particularly-voluntary mission. The moment she stepped into the bedroom, Melog leapt up from one of the nearby chairs and flattened her to the bed. Even in their disguised form, that of a huge Maine Coon with an astonishingly fluffy tail, they were heavy enough to pin Catra down while they greeted her effusively.
“Ew, gross,” she laughed as the hellcat licked her face. “I missed you too, buddy.”
“Food?” Melog asked.
“If you get off me,” Catra replied. “Lonnie made a little extra for you.”
“Awesome.”
Catra rolled off of the bed and returned to her discarded coat, where she’d brought a ziploc bag of leftover chicken for Melog. She fished it out and grabbed a bowl from one of her cupboards. Melog wound around her legs, doing their best to trip her for no particular reason.
“Dude,” Melog insisted when Catra put the chicken in the bowl.
“I gotta microwave it first,” Catra said. “You don’t want cold chicken.”
The look they gave her informed her that yes, they did in fact want cold chicken if it meant now chicken. She rolled her eyes and turned the microwave on. Melog’s gaze switched to the appliance, as if they could make it go faster by sheer willpower. Catra tapped one claw on the counter impatiently, because her bed was still calling to her. Finally the damn thing beeped. Catra took the chicken out, tested the temperature, and set it on the floor for Melog.
“There.”
“Dude,” Melog said gratefully. They gobbled the entire bowl up in about three seconds, tongue licking forlornly at the clear glass long after the last traces of chicken were gone. They looked up pleadingly at Catra. “More?”
“Sorry,” Catra said. “I’ll tell Lonnie to make more chicken next time.”
Melog seemed satisfied with the answer, though still a little sad. They trotted away back to the bedroom. Catra dumped the spotless bowl in the sink and followed them.
“Shadow Weaver called,” she told Melog, who’d already claimed the bottom half of the bed. “We’ve got another shade to return to sender. You wanna come this time?”
Melog sniffed, not raising their head from where they were sprawled on the bed. “Naw.”
“You gotta be bored,” Catra tried. “You haven’t left the apartment in like a week.”
“Naw.”
“Dude,” Catra said, aiming for their masterfully disappointed use of their favorite word.
Finally Melog lifted their head to stare at Catra. She could see the gears grinding.
“I’ll buy you more sausage,” she added enticingly.
Melog yawned incredibly wide, baring razor-sharp fangs that no Maine Coon in history had ever grown. “Fine.”
Catra scratched behind their ears, eliciting a rumbling purr from the hellcat. “Knew that one would work on you.”
Melog didn’t dignify that statement with a reply. “Now?” They asked.
Catra shook her head. “Gonna nap first. Never hunt a shade on poor sleep.”
Melog glanced back at her dubiously. “Never?”
“That one last month was an exception.”
“Huh.”
Melog could say more with single syllables than some people could with whole sentences.
Catra’s alarm blared beside her head and she swore viciously. Well, tried to. Mostly she just grunted unintelligibly. Melog was snoring incredibly loudly from the foot of the bed, and Catra nudged them awake with one foot. If she had to suffer, so did they.
The clock beside her bed sadistically informed her that it was 11PM. She stayed up later than that often enough, but somehow being woken up that late was deeply offensive.
She pulled on some thermal underwear because early November in Bright Moon got cold at night, then got the rest of her clothes back on. Melog had fallen back asleep, and Catra was tempted to just let them sleep. But she selfishly wanted the company, and maybe the help, so she poked their belly.
“Time to go,” she said.
“Dude,” Melog grumbled, telepathic voice full of reproach.
“If we do this quick, we can be back here and asleep in an hour,” Catra told them. She shrugged on her coat. “Just gotta run by my post box, grab the shade’s shit, use it to find them, and then send ‘em on back downstairs. We’ve done this plenty of times.”
“Uh-huh.”
No one has any faith in her.
If anyone on the subway thought it was weird to see someone carrying a full-sized Maine Coon on their lap on the train in the middle of the night, they didn’t comment. Catra gently stroked Melog’s luxurious fur, more to keep herself occupied than anything. Public transit was irritating, but she didn’t have a driver’s license and the one time she’d tried to drive Lonnie’s Civic she’d scraped half of the paint off of the driver’s side door. After that, everyone had wisely agreed not to let her behind the wheel of anything that moved faster than she could walk. At least she didn’t have to pay for gas this way.
The subway creaked and groaned its way to a halt at her stop, and she had to work to keep her tail from thwapping the empty seats beside her. Invisible didn’t mean soundless, after all. Melog yawned again, and Catra hauled them off her lap and to the floor of the train before standing. She was pretty sure she got at least one jealous look, because who wouldn’t want a huge Maine Coon that followed them around? The doors jerked open, and Catra walked through with a suspicious look at the gap between the floor and the train.
She and Melog ascended the stairs and emerged into the Bright Moon night. It wasn’t all that dark. Streetlights lined the road, giving Catra’s excellent night vision ample illumination to work with. Between Melog and her own demonically-sourced abilities, she wasn’t worried about any of Bright Moon’s nightlife bothering her.
She set off through the largely-deserted streets, heading for the post office. The office wasn’t open this late at night, but that had never stopped her before. Better yet, she had Melog along. She wouldn’t even need to do the breaking and entering part herself.
The post office was part of a long strip mall, but it had a loading dock out back for deliveries. Catra strolled down the alley like she owned the place, Melog at her side. She slowed, eyes scanning for her target. There. She pointed out one of the places they sent packages through to Melog, who promptly shrank down and bounded forward. They disappeared inside the building, leaving Catra to casually lean against a nearby brick wall. The wind picked up, rustling the trees and sending bits of trash dancing through the air. It also made her glad for her layers. There was no reason Bright Moon had to get this cold this early in the season. Fucking bullshit, if you asked her.
Melog reappeared five minutes later, pushing their way through the previously-locked back door with a brown paper bag in their mouth. They dropped it at Catra’s feet, went back in through the door, locked it with a swipe of one paw, and disappeared again. While waiting for them to complete the ritual of not getting some poor postal worker fired for leaving the back door unlocked, Catra busied herself by opening the bag.
Waiting for her inside were a variety of delightful objects. A fountain pen, a knife covered in dried blood gone a rusty brown with age, a worn bible, and-
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Catra snapped. “Couldn’t she have just given me some fucking hair?”
Melog picked that moment to reappear and peer down into the bag. They eyed the severed, withered finger for a moment before looking up at Catra skeptically.
“That’s not the sausage,” Catra promised. Melog looked relieved.
Wishing she’d thought to bring rubber gloves or something, Catra closed the bag up and stalked away. She needed somewhere more secluded to work her magic.
The nearby park was perfect. It was why Catra had picked this particular post office, in fact. All of the trees save the towering pines had lost their leaves, the bushes were little more than piles of sticks, and brown oak leaves crunched beneath her feet as she headed for the little hollow near the center of the park that was well out of sight of the surrounding streets. She reached it and crouched down inside, dropping the bag beside her. Melog sniffed it again, then decided to curl up on the ground a few feet away.
Catra pulled out the bible, the pen, and the knife. A piece of paper was taped to the back of the bible, and she pulled it off to read it.
“Maximilian Versod Cavendish,” Catra read aloud. “Born 1857, died 1894. Used this knife to murder six people before he was caught and hanged. Fun.”
It explained why Shadow Weaver was willing to ditch the third Link, anyway. Serial killer shades tended to go right back to their preferred pastime, only with the added perks of being able to go through walls. If Catra didn’t catch and banish this guy tonight, some poor human would probably end up dead. Catra really enjoyed those kinds of stakes.
“Just one more Link,” she growled to herself. “Then you’re done with this shit.”
To that end, she gingerly reached into the bag and picked the finger up with as little skin contact as she could manage. With her other hand she pulled out a jar of cleansed water. She was just lucky it hadn’t turned into cleansed ice. She popped out the stopper with her thumb and tilted out a drop onto the finger. Then, she drew on power. As always, it made her feel vaguely nauseous, but she persevered and formed the spell, murmuring the incantation as she guided the power through the water into the finger.
A brief spark, a sensation of vertigo, and a magical impulse against her senses told Catra the spell had worked. She waited a moment just to be sure. She felt the pulse again, pressing against the inside of her forehead in a slightly different spot than the first time. Good.
She shoved everything back into the bag, thankful she wouldn’t have to fuck around with anything more complicated. She could have used a matrix of the other objects to track the shade, but a body part was usually the simplest.
“Alright,” she said. “Doesn’t feel like they’re too far.” Bright Moon was one of the only places in all of Etheria where shades (and other things) could cross over from other dimensions. Catra used to know all the metaphysical bullshit that explained why, something about latitude lines and magical attunement, but she really didn’t care these days. What was important is that her quarry was probably only a single subway ride and some walking away.
Said single subway ride later and Catra was really regretting not finding some coffee before embarking on her grand quest. She’d nodded off on the train and nearly missed her stop. If Melog hadn’t smacked her in the face to wake her up, an event that had drawn no small amount of laughter from the three other passengers, she would have ended up halfway across the city. It was a good thing she’d been smart enough to connect the tracking spell to Melog before boarding the train.
Embarrassing catnaps behind her, she was now hiking through the University of Bright Moon’s crop research fields, or whatever they were. A bunch of empty cornfields in the middle of the city, basically. It was convenient, because it meant she wouldn’t have to worry about gawkers, but also really annoying, because she had to hike through a fucking cornfield at midnight. Melog was having a good time at least. They were bouncing around, rushing back and forth between sources of new smells with reckless abandon. It was pretty cute.
The pulses had been increasing in frequency since leaving the park, but now they were approaching critical mass. Catra was close. She spotted movement, her ears snapping to their alert posture. Melog picked up her sudden focus and started looking as well. Something was off, though. The pulses were slightly displaced from where she’d seen the movement. Had she fucked up the spell?
She crept closer, ghosting through the night. Melog was silent at her side, shifting back into their true form, all rippling muscle and short purple fur with a faintly glowing blue mane and tail. Catra spotted the source of the movement, and resisted the urge to gawk. It wasn’t a shade at all. It was a familiar tall blonde in a red bomber jacket.
“What the fuck?” Catra hissed. As she stared, Adora stopped in her tracks and glanced around. Catra wisely zipped her lips. Melog went stock still as well. When Lonnie had said to ask Adora out, she probably hadn’t meant in the middle of a cornfield at midnight.
After a moment, Adora resumed her… search, apparently. Because she was definitely looking for something. She was repeatedly consulting something in her hand while scanning the landscape. Catra picked up a few muttered curses as well.
Once she overcame her befuddlement, Catra set off after Adora, her mission forgotten. She could have blamed it on her natural curiosity, on the mystery posed by Adora’s presence here at all, or on her desire to irritate Shadow Weaver even when the sorceress wasn’t present. Catra didn’t even think of any of those excuses, because no part of her brain was even questioning why she was following Adora in the first place. It was quite simply inevitable.
Catra stalked Adora for a solid four minutes before the magical pulses increased in frequency to the point that they were a single continuous buzz. She shook herself out of her strange hyperfocus and stopped, because she had to be right on top of the shade. Which also meant that Adora was right on top of the shade. The serial killer shade, in fact.
And there he was. Standing in the center of the cornfield, head cocked slightly at Adora. He was dressed in old-timey clothes, and like all shades he looked a little too solid for Catra’s liking. Moonlight glinted off of his teeth as he grinned.
Adora spoke, her soft voice clear in the night. “Hi. I’m Adora. You’re probably pretty confused right now, and I promise it’ll all make sense in the end. Right now though, will you accept my help crossing over? It’s not right for souls to linger here.”
Cavendish just smiled wider. Adora took a step back, and Catra hoped she would just run away now. She obviously thought this was a shade who’d failed to cross over after dying, rather than the opposite. In the back of her mind, Catra couldn’t help but respect the attempt. No one deserved to be stuck in this world with no way out. Unfortunately, most of her brain was dedicated to freaking out about the fact that some random human was about to get sliced up by a murderous shade right in front of Catra. She was about two seconds into trying to find a way to stop this trainwreck without exposing herself as, you know, a demon, when Cavendish struck.
He moved impossibly fast, which, duh. To Catra’s astonishment, Adora managed to dodge the first strike from the shade’s spectral dagger. Great. Apparently he’d been so attached to his murder weapon of choice that he’d managed to take it with him to Hell.
“I’m trying to help you!” Adora shouted as she ducked another swipe. “You don’t belong here and you know it! You feel it.”
Cavendish didn’t speak, instead choosing to stab at Adora again. She probably would have dodged it had she not tripped on something, likely a broken-off cornstalk. Catra’s ears flattened against her head as Adora screamed in pain.
Fuck this. She wasn’t about to watch someone get killed to protect her secret, even if Adora would probably try to burn her at the stake just for existing after this.
Catra surged into motion, Melog flowing along with her in perfect sync. Catra went left, Melog went right. Catra channeled power and launched into the air with a blinding kick that sent Cavendish flying through the darkness, his victim long forgotten. Melog bounded after him, and by the time Catra caught up, Melog had the shade pinned to the ground, bleeding smoke. Catra wasted no time whipping out her cleansed water and dripping a circle around the immobilized shade. She chucked the bag of personal effects into the circle next to Cavendish and began the spell. Magic swelled, and Melog took it as their queue to leap away. Catra closed the circle with a mental impulse and completed the spell.
Cavendish screamed in rage as he began to dissipate, his essence seeping away into the cold ground below. His scream faded along with him.
Catra held the spell for a second longer, just to be sure. Adora’s groan shattered her focus anyway. The spell fizzled out and Catra rushed back to where the woman was lying in the dirt, blood pooling around her.
“Oh, shit.” That was a lot of blood. Catra wasn’t exactly a trained medical professional, but she knew that getting stabbed in the side was not a healthy life choice. “Adora, can you hear me?”
“Catra?” Adora murmured. She sounded woozy already. “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Catra said, both because she needed Adora to focus on staying awake and also because she needed Adora to not worry about that. “Just focus on me, okay? I’m gonna put your hands on the wound. You need to apply pressure while I call an ambulance.”
“No hospitals,” Adora gasped.
“Fuck that,” Catra snapped. Was this girl serious? “You got stabbed. I’m getting you to a hospital.” Where hopefully the medical professionals would save her life and assume any stories about people with cat ears and a tail were the product of painkillers or just general delirium.
“No hospitals,” Adora repeated. She sucked in a shuddering breath. “Please.”
Something about the word jolted through Catra, and it was her turn to take a breath. There was one other thing she could try, but it would definitely blow her cover even more than the night already had. But there was a woman bleeding out under her right now, and Catra couldn’t let that happen.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay, just… stay awake, alright?”
“Yeah,” Adora whispered, hands still pressed against her side.
Catra reached into the other pocket of her coat and drew out a small vial of glittering blue essence. She didn’t have many of these left, and only used them in emergencies. This qualified. She cracked the top open and dribbled a circle of the stuff around both of them, channeling magic through it as she did. This particular spell reminded of her worse days, but her childhood trauma was definitely less important than the vicious physical trauma unfolding in front of her. She murmured the words as she formed the matrix in her mind, checked that Melog was beside her and that no limbs were hanging outside the circle, and crushed the vial in her hand.
Shadow and confusion swirled around them for a short eternity, and when it cleared Adora was lying on Catra’s cramped kitchen floor, Melog beside her. Catra suppressed her surprise that the spell had worked and leapt to her feet. She didn’t have a first aid kit, because she didn’t exactly need one herself and there were never any humans in her apartment anyway. She did have a thin leatherbound spellbook of healing spells she’d ‘acquired’ a few months back, more out of curiosity than anything. She had yet to use it. She dashed into her bedroom, yanked her drawer open, and pulled the book out. She frantically flipped through the pages, searching for spells to fix stab wounds. Finally she landed on one that she had the ingredients for and rushed back into the kitchen, spellbook in hand.
“Please don’t fuck this up,” she muttered at herself.
“Hey, Catra?” Adora asked dreamily. “Where are we?”
“My place,” Catra replied, pulling a jar of saffron out of the cupboard.
“Wow,” Adora said, drawing out the word. “You move fast. I hadn’t even asked you out yet.”
The organ to the left of Catra’s sternum lurched, and she almost dropped the jar in her hand.
“This might hurt a little bit,” Catra warned as she shook saffron into her hand and began the spell.
Adora gasped when Catra pressed her hand onto the wound. “You weren’t lying.”
Catra didn’t reply. She was focusing too hard. She felt the wound beginning to knit closed under her palm. It was working. She let the spell draw more and more of her own energy, until the last of the gash was sealed up by new skin.
Her fingers shaking, she stepped back. Adora had passed out, likely because of the pain of regrowing a few inches of skin all at once, but she was breathing steadily, if a little pale. Catra’s limbs felt leaden, and all she wanted to do now was collapse into bed and sleep for a month. Instead, she bent down and lifted Adora off of the floor as gently as she could. She staggered into the bedroom, for once thankful for how tiny her apartment was. She tried to set Adora down on the bed but ended up dumping her onto it instead. Catra checked her pulse and found her skin cold. Blinking away fatigue, Catra hauled her prodigious collection of blankets over Adora’s unconscious form and tried to settle her in as comfortably as she could manage. Then Catra stumbled over to the comfy armchair stuffed into the corner of the bedroom, fell into it, curled up, and passed out.