still hear the conversation above. It sounded as though three, possibly even four people had come in. They were loud—of mouth and step. Military-issue boots always hit the floor with a distinctive thud.
I glanced around to make sure I was alone. I was—except for cats. Cats were everywhere.
I darted anxious looks from side to side and up and down. Cats occupied much of the available space, even sitting atop furniture and bookshelves.
Did they bite? How many colors did they come in? There were some bright-orange ones draped across the back of a tattered couch, parts of the animals almost pink, especially their noses. The rest of the felines mostly came in whites, grays, and blacks.
Susan’s odd question suddenly made more sense. Had she been talking about cats?
A striped one approached me and weaved between my ankles, rubbing against my legs. The sinewy motion reminded me of a snake. Not that I’d ever been around snakes, either. In fact, the only living thing I knew how to deal with besides people was bees. How weird was that?
I stood there, still and quiet, nervous about what was above and nervous about all these unfamiliar creatures below. I tried not to startle the felines or seem threatening in any way. If they ganged up on me, they would totally win.
The smallish cat continued using my leg as a head scratcher while I gazed up, listening for clues as to what was happening overhead. Customers wouldn’t have freaked the owner out. But the Dark Watch… And those boots…
My gut clenched. I’d had my back to the door and a bag of stolen, unstamped books in my hands.
Bad move, Tess.
Did Susan get visits like this often? A military patrol banging into her shop?
“When are you finally going to clean this place up, Susan?” a woman demanded. I heard a chair clatter and scrape across the floor, as if roughly kicked aside.
My hands fisted at my sides. I was going to have a fit if they touched those wooden tables.
“Oh… Um… Soon. I’ve been meaning to.” Susan went quiet for a moment. “I got distracted by a book and…forgot.”
Someone snorted loudly. A male. “And what book had you so interested that you couldn’t clean up this shithole like we told you to last week?”
Shithole! This was the most amazing place I’d ever seen besides the apiary on Starway 8.
I swallowed the rage and protest burning up my throat. Now wasn’t the time to shout them out.
I could tell that Susan was moving out from behind the counter, probably drawing them away from me. She must have walked over to a shelf. “This one. It’s…it’s a bit older. All about the legends that sprang up around Mall Hall after its orbit changed and its moon drifted off.”
“No seal on it,” a third voice said a moment later.
“Oh? Yes, well, look at that. I’m not sure anyone minds so much about that anymore,” Susan said.
“The Overseer minds,” the man grumbled.
Actually, I was pretty sure the Overseer had bigger fish to fry, like the rebel squad that had just found and destroyed the unmanned probe that had been sneaking around Sector 17. It had probably been gathering information about the possible location of the rebel base.
Asshole goons. They’d never find what didn’t want to be found.
Even from downstairs, I heard the Dark Watch soldier scrape the saliva out of his throat with a vulgar grating sound and then spit. I didn’t have to see it to know he’d spat on one of Susan’s beautiful books, and it was all I could do not to tear upstairs and spit on him. If I hadn’t been outnumbered and armed with nothing but four books and a clingy cat, I might have tried it.
“Well, now it’s got somethin’ on it, doesn’t it?” the man drawled.
“It does,” Susan agreed without a hint of animosity in her voice.
Feet stomped, trooping all over the floor above. “Now clean this place up before we come back!” the first man growled. “Or we’ll double the fine from last time.”
The bell chimed violently, and then they were gone.
My pulse continued to roar, at odds with the new quiet in the bookstore. The cat still wove between my legs with long, sinewy caresses. The feline was small. Not a baby, I didn’t think, but slight and lithe. The rumbling vibration coming from its body was curiously soothing and helped to settle my incensed spirit and rattled nerves.
Susan wound down the spiral staircase and located me in the maze of