Chapter 21

Sprinkles hit the Armory door like a truck, bowing it out as he crashed through it despite looking as though he only weighed three pounds, at most. Freyja had to use her powers to keep pace and even then was barely able to catch him before he bounded toward the figure of Sam, the neighbor from across the street, who had tripped in the overgrown grass of the backyard.

"I must destroy the intruder!" Sprinkles yowled.

"He's not an intruder, damn it!" Freyja shouted back as she used her powers to strengthen herself enough to hold the writhing faded orange and white cat once she caught him.

"He's not?" Sprinkles asked while going limp.

"Did...that cat just talk?"

Freyja looked down at Sprinkles in her arms. The cat glanced back at her then to Sam who stayed frozen on his hands and feet in the grass. A blue Hawaiian shirt, with his vape pen in the pocket, hung loose over his tank top. One of his sandals stuck out of the grass at an odd angle where it had gotten caught in an overgrown tangle while his foot had continued on.

"Yes."

You can't tell the enemy about me! Sprinkles shot to her through the Link as he began to struggle again.

"You're the one who talked first, you little shit," Freyja replied, holding on tighter.

The cat stopped again. "I did, didn't I?"

"You did." She turned her attention to Sam, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, uh, just processing that you have a talking cat. That's not the Old Man's cat, is it? His was a big ugly gray thing. Not a...cute...kitten..."

"Yeah, this is Sprinkles," Freyja said then held out the little cat in front of her with both hands. The faint orange tabby points on his ears, feet, tail and back were even more washed out in the daylight. He had a little more color on his ears and face, but not a lot. The stripes were so broken up they resembled spots, which explained his name. "He's got, like two brain cells, tops."

"Yet, he can talk."

"Really, that's the only thing he has going for him," she replied while pulling Sprinkles back to her chest where he couldn't do any damage. "You need help up? Want to come in out of the heat?"

"No, I'm good," Sam replied.

"Just gonna stay on the ground?"

"No, no, I mean I can get up," he said then shakily, got to his feet, eyes never leaving Sprinkles.

"He won't bite," Freyja said.

"But he can talk."

"He knows not to bite," she clarified. "Isn't that right, Sprinkles?"

"He is not the enemy, so I will not bite," he agreed.

Freyja turned back toward the Armory and sighed when she saw how bent the door was. It wasn't solid metal, but it was still pretty heavily built. If she had to break into the place she would have chosen to go through the window on the side where the small air conditioner sat. There was a large central AC unit so the additional window unit stuck out as suspicious to her. However, most people approaching would have missed the large AC unit on the other side of the building. Which was probably why the Old Man had lined the thing with razor blades. More proof the old bastard loved booby traps.

She held Sprinkles out in front of herself again. "Look what you did to the door. Naughty kitty."

"It was an emergency."

"No it wasn't."

"I...uh...," Sam stammered.

"Come on inside. I have AC, or I did until this little shit fucked up the door. I bet I can fix it but...you don't want to see me do it," she said.

"What?"

She glanced at him and pursed her lips. "You want the short version or long one?"

Sam scratched one of his dark eyebrows with his thumb. "Short?"

"House cats got infected by alien invaders and now I have superpowers."

"You mean, like the monster at the hospital last night?"

She nearly dropped Sprinkles. He said he wouldn't hurt Sam but she could feel through the Link that the little worm wasn't being entirely honest. 'Won't bite' to him merely left all the other ways he could kill open as fair game.

"The hospital?"

"It's all over the news. You haven't seen the videos?"

"Shit, Sam. Now you have to come inside."

He hesitated to follow, then backed up a couple steps, nearly tripping again in the process. "No, no. I'm good. I just wanted to check to make sure you were okay since I saw some guy drive off with your car this morning."

"That was hours ago," she said.

"I had a work thing and was tied up."

"Enough that you didn't want to check on me right away after seeing some strange man leave in my car?"

"I don't know you that well, Freyja. Thought he might be a boyfriend or something," he explained while trying to not look at Sprinkles yet, inevitably, coming back to stare at the little cat.

"Hahahaha! This human thought you were both a mated pair! His disguise was flawless!" Sprinkles crowed.

"I appreciate you coming to check on me and letting me know about the monster at the hospital," Freyja said.

Was it security footage or someone else nearby filming? Did they catch when I let Odin into my car before leaving? She wondered.

How should I know? Sprinkles replied hotly.

Freyja rolled her eyes then realized Sam was still there. His stare fixed on the wiggly marshmallow of a cat in her arms.

"Door's gonna be open if you want to come in and learn what's going on. And, Sprinkles, if you do anything at all to hurt Sam I will personally end you," Freyja warned.

Thanks to the Link, she could tell he wasn't happy about it, but resigned to obey her as she walked into the Armory and sat him down on the floor. She went back to the door to see if it would shut at all and was surprised Sam had moved closer to the building. He entered silently, careful to give Sprinkles a wide berth.

"Cover your eyes, Sam. Sprinkles, fix the door," she ordered.

Sam didn't question it, immediately covering his eyes and turning to face the safes in the back of the building. Sprinkles, meanwhile, padded over to her feet and sat down.

"Why can't you do it?" He asked.

"Because I'm not the one who broke it and I want to make sure you can actually do this," she said.

The little cat snorted then looked away.

"Sprinkles."

"You do it."

"Do I need to hijack you and make you do it?"

"A human could see me," Sprinkles cautioned.

"You already fucked that up, buddy. Fix the door."

He rolled his eyes before getting to his feet. She stepped out of the way as the little cat stretched out to grab the door, then spread over it, maintaining his fuzziness and light orange spots. The metal creaked and groaned as it flattened out. He slid off, like a fur coat falling from the back of a chair to the floor, then resumed the shape of a cat. The paint was chipped off where the door had been bent but, for the most part, it looked serviceable again. Freyja was even able to get it to shut and lock properly before turning her attention back to Sam, who remained where he had stopped, still covering his eyes, trembling slightly.

"You can look now," Freyja said.

Shakily, he let his hands drop as he turned around. His shoulders didn't relax as much as she hoped they would when he spotted Sprinkles at her feet.

"Aliens," he said.

"Aliens," she replied.

"Your cat is an alien and there was one at the hospital last night," he said, walking back over the facts.

"Humans can not handle this. He will go mad. I should devour him before it's too late. It would be a mercy," Sprinkles cautioned.

"Nah, he'll be fine. My family was fine with this," she said. "Speaking of, oh shit, my phone."

She hurried past Sam, grabbing her phone from the workbench. It was set on silent again, and she'd missed several messages from her Gunner. For the most part they were updates about leaving town. He needed to sign some paperwork at the hospital because the Old Man's body had gone missing. He didn't ask her to be there, however. The final text said, "Holy shit. Watch the news."

"Shit," she said.

"What is it?"

Freyja sighed as she turned the sound on her phone back on then texted her brother back, "Neighbor just told me about it. I'll watch it. Stay safe."

A moment later her phone chimed as Gunner replied, "You tell him about the cat?"

She replied back, "Cats. Got two now. New one's dumb."

"Uh...are you just going to text someone? I could come back," Sam began.

"No, sorry. My brother was supposed to message me and I forgot to check my phone."

"Is he okay?"

"He's fine. Has to do some stuff about the Old Man at the hospital..."

Sam's gaze settled on Sprinkles who licked his own butt.

"The monster at the Hospital was an alien?"

Freyja leaned against the edge of the work bench behind her, turning on her phone data with one hand and searching for local news about the hospital. The results weren't just local.

It had made national news.

He spoke up again when she didn't reply right away, "What the hell's going on? Are you living in here? Was the thing at the hospital the Old Man? I knew he was an asshole but I didn't think he'd eat people."

Freyja huffed out a laugh. "The Old Man was a monster, yeah, but the one at the hospital last night wasn't this cat."

The first clip she found showed Odin, in no uncertain terms, undulating out of the morgue and into the hospital hallway. Another video attached to the article further down featured him evading an axe wielded by the man who had let Freyja and Gunner into the morgue in the first place. A clip of Odin breaking throw the windows sat below a couple paragraphs about families being notified about the missing bodies. He looked like a featureless blob on video from a traffic camera from the highway. It wasn't high enough quality at that distance to pick him up when he transformed back into a cat and got in her car. As far as anyone knew, the creature escaped and vanished, scaring off someone in the parking lot who had been identifying a deceased relative.

Thankfully, no one had been killed.

But at the very bottom, the article detailed multiple instances throughout the country of people saying they had seen similar creatures over the last several months.

She stared at the word 'months.'

"What the fuck is going on?" Sam finally asked again.

"Sam, we've got a lot less time than I thought."