Using my inventory on a relatively flat portion of rooftop across from Angel Hammock’s small manor, I changed my appearance and my clothes. Terra changed her coloring to that of a fat white Persian, then curled up for a brief nap. Since I didn’t have to be back at the college until later tonight, I had the luxury of watching the results of our nighttime activities.

Climbing +1

Exp +10 (2,530/788,209)

“You’re white and fluffy,” came Dom’s disgusted voice in my mind. I’d been so focused on the window of Angel’s room for movement that I hadn’t noticed Terra disappear.

I could feel Terra roll her eyes as I summoned her back to me.

“I’m in the Capital,” Dom’s tone was tired, but I couldn’t help the leap of joy to know that he was so nearby.

“We’re watching for the morning fireworks, but I can come meet you,” I nearly leapt to my feet, hastily casting a silence spell around me to hide the slipping sounds.

Dexterity +1

Luck +2

“I’d rather watch with you than have you miss the show,” Dom replied.

“You sound tired,” I ran a nervous hand over Terra’s head. “I can’t believe you got here so fast, but maybe you should get some sleep.”

“I’m just waking up,” Dom seemed to shake the sleep from his mind. “I slept in the coach.”

“Maybe –” I started, but his impatient thoughts interrupted me, as Terra disappeared again.

“I’m fine,” he growled, and it made me smile. He was so yummy when he growled at me like that. “I’ll use Terra to find you.”

“Then you need to hurry because Terra has her part to play too,” I warned them, but I needn’t have worried. They got there in plenty of time.

“I have a surprise for you both,” Dom smiled into my mind in a way that made my insides melt. I’d missed him so much.

“What is That!?!” Terra hissed in our link.

“My surprise,” Dom purred out, then his mind flipped from mentally lazy to alert. “Don’t chase him! Terra stop!”

“Crows are tasty!” I could feel Terra become minutely focused.

“He’s my familiar,” Dom scolded Terra, having relaxed, so I figured that he’d gotten her to stop stalking his pet. “His name is Spite.”

“Just so he knows his place,” Terra sulked.

“Congratulations,” I told him, trying to feel for his familiar as they walked the mostly deserted streets of the Capital as dawn broke.

I caught Dom up on my machinations as they all made their way toward my perch near a chimney that helped to take the nip out of the air of a crisp morning. This world had mild seasons in that trees changed color in the fall, like they were right now, but it didn’t snow, and it was never overly hot. Morning was crisp, night cold could bite if you didn’t wear long sleeves, and midday was warm enough to make you sweat in black leather, but nothing was truly uncomfortable at any time of year.

Spite reached me first, giving a soft caw as he alit upon the top of the chimney at my back. He was a beautiful bird with shiny wings and a jet-black beak that looked like it could double as an industrial can opener. He cocked his head to the side, and I almost felt Dom’s essence within the bird. So much so that I gave a little laugh, which I then covered with a silence spell. Spite gave a little silent caw and hop.

“It’s a bird,” Terra groused, but I ignored it.

“Spite isn’t competition, my love,” I reassured her, tossing a bit of meat at the bird in question.

I’d set up a little picnic near a chimney across from Angel’s house. Our hide and sneak skills did more than enough to hide us from the unobservant guards who came pounding on her door an hour later. No, we didn’t have CMS on the roof. That’s a little beyond me. Take that however you’d like. We ate our breakfast together with little touches and kisses that reassured each other softly in a way that settled most of the qualms I’d had just hours before. Much to Terra’s ire, I learned to summon Spite after befriending him with morsels of food. He didn’t have Terra’s mind speech yet but summoning him did allow Dom and I to mentally communicate the way we did when he summoned Terra.

Summon Familiar +1

Flirting +2

Exp +30 (2,560/788,209)

“Good. You can use him as your telephone from now on.” Terra gave a little stretch and then performed a miraculous leap clear across the street to Angel’s roof. Not for the first time, I wondered if I underestimated Terra.

“Always,” she purred in my mind with a satisfaction that made me smile. Maybe she enjoyed surprising me with these little perks as much as I enjoyed slightly annoying Dom. “Definitely.”

Dom and I ate meat pies and listened to the conversations going on inside the house across the street. We didn’t need any special skills to overhear it all as Angel was more than distraught enough to not think about disturbing her neighbors with her complaints, no matter the still quiet of the rest of the neighborhood. Dom kept up a silence spell around us as I summoned Spite over and over to keep our comments to each other quiet. Spite, unlike Terra, didn’t mind the summoning and seemed to actually be more enamored with me for being able to do it. I could sense basic feelings in Spite, but not words, yet.

Summon Familiar +2

Exp +20 (2,580/788,209)

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“Someone has been in my house!” Angel complained at the front door.

“You were robbed?” the main guard asked, and this is where Angel just couldn’t comprehend that she was in a world that didn’t have laws that covered breaking and entering without them being combined with robbery or vandalism.

“I’m sure I have been,” Angel struggled to explain, ushering the two guards into the house and shutting the door.

Their voices were muffled until they reached Angel’s room. In the meantime, Terra levitated herself down and through the window completely unnoticed by those inside.

“You can levitate?” I demanded through our mental link.

“Yes,” she purred out.

“You have to teach me,” I told her, trying to keep secret my gratitude that Spite had spurred Terra into showing off.

“Maybe,” she mentally flicked a tail at me, and I felt her slide under the covers of the Vampire Lord’s bed and curl up into a fold of the comforter.

“You say that things have been moved, but not stolen?” the guard was asking Angel, who was oblivious to how crazy her claims sounded.

“Yes!” she asserted, waving her hand at the huge bed in the center of her room. “That isn’t my bed.”

“Not your bed?” the guard sounded fed up already.

“Do I look like a person who chooses red velvet draperies?” she scoffed.

“No?” the second guard was still trying to be respectful, but I could swear I heard the first guard huff a quickly hidden laugh.

“Is this funny to you?” her ire became louder again.

“No ma’am,” the first guard sounded stern, but there was no hiding the amusement in his tone.

“Is this your jewelry, ma’am?” the second guard said, probably trying to distract her from his partner.

“Yes!” Angel pounced on the new subject. “And it’s all mixed up!”

“A lot of this looks very valuable,” one of them said, but I couldn’t tell if it was the first or second guard that time. “Is any of it missing?”

“How would I know?” and I could see her through the window flinging her arms around. “Nothing is where it’s supposed to be. Most of it is there, but something might be missing. It’ll take a bit for me to remember. I’m very upset right now.”

As upset as I was at having to go to a class that I’d been assured I could skip or make up later? Did it make you forgetful or confused to be jerked around by contradictory feelings or instructions?

“You don’t know if something might be missing?” the guard asked, and I felt and saw Dom’s silent chuckle.

There was a pause and then, “I think I’m missing a bracelet, and one ring.”

She was missing two bracelets, three rings, and two earrings from two different pairs of them. The bracelets both had her initials as a charm on them, two of the three rings had inscriptions in them that were very personal. The earrings were just to mess with her. It occurred to me that she didn’t realize how insulting it must be to a relatively poorly paid guard that this hysterical idiot had so much jewelry that she didn’t notice that some of it was missing?

“I’m feeling a bit woozy,” Angel claimed, her hand massaging her head.

“Maybe you should sit down,” one of the guards suggested.

“It’s that smell!” she complained as she sat on the bed near where Terra was hiding and pointed at the closet.

“It’s coming from the closet?” The first guard moved across the room to the closet and opened the door.

“Oh, my god,” the second guard covered his face and choked out a few mild explicates that I couldn’t understand.

“It’s cat piss,” the first guard stated, also covering his face. Terra might have overdone it.

“I don’t have a cat!” Angel insisted. “I hate them.”

Terra took her cue, sticking her head up out of the covers behind Angel and giving an exaggerated stretch. I watched the guards give each other looks, though Angel hadn’t noticed Terra yet.

“You don’t have a cat?” the first guard asked.

“No,” Angel asserted, as Terra pushed her head under Angel’s hand. I don’t care who you are or if you like or hate cats, there is an automatic response to touching something silky soft. Angel’s hand automatically slid down Terra’s white fluffy muff and straight across Terra’s back, more because of how Terra moved than a conscious movement by Angel.

“Perfect, my love,” I sent to Terra, our giggles and laughter smothered by the silence spell.

The next instant, Angel was halfway across the room, eyes bugged out like she’d been bitten by a poisonous vorpal bunny.

“That’s not my cat,” came her horrified whisper.

Terra stood and gave Angel what looked like an adoring look and a questioning meow.

“Ma’am,” the second guard approached the flinching woman. “Maybe you just…”

“Don’t patronize me young man,” she spat at the offered comfort, and I figured that made what came next her own damn fault. “Do you know who I am?”

The guards took a collective sigh. Nothing good comes after a person makes that statement.

“Did you maybe hit the tavern a little too hard last night?” the first guard had less tact.

“I am a professor at the Universal Neophyte Leveling Venue,” Angel managed to muster a bravado that was made comical by her billowing harem nightgown. “I will not be spoken to like some delinquent. I’ve been violated! My privacy has been violated and I demand that you do something about it!”

“Unless you can tell us what’s been stolen, we can’t really find the crime here,” the second guard told her.

“That smell should be criminal,” she spat out. “It’s vandalism! That’s a crime, even here, isn’t it?” Fizzbarren’s spell gave a little hiccup at her statement, a statement I doubted she’d remember making.

“But ma’am,” the second guard tried to be reasonable with her. “It’s obviously a result of your own cat.”

Terra meowed on cue, her gaze lazily and blankly going from the guards to Angel.

“I told you, that’s not my cat!” Angel insisted.

“Are you sure?” the first guard questioned. Terra took that moment to jump down from the bed and dare to twine between Angel’s shaking legs. How did it feel to be about to faint even as you’re being vilified by those who are supposed to protect you?

I nearly summoned Terra as Angel reared back a foot to kick her, but Terra was quicker, feigning a fear I knew she didn’t feel and scampering under the bed. I bit my lip as I felt Terra’s relief as she added to the urine smell and followed it up with a very loud hacking hairball for good measure. Dom rocked with silent guffaws that were echoed in the movements of the crow behind him. I wanted to feel guilty, but I didn’t. If that made me the bad guy, so be it.

Angel was screeching like a street urchin being beaten by a guard for stealing. The guards left muttering about crazy rich people. Terra howled from under the bed, matching Angel’s ranting tone until those guards were out of sight and hearing. In a fit of rage, Angel cast what was obviously a fireball onto the bed. Dom barely held me back from summoning Terra to my side.

The Terra that emerged from beneath the bed was neither frightened nor timid. Once again showing off, a being of fire with eyes of burning coals lithely stretched out from under the bed like a six-foot clown squeezing out of the mini-car last. Her shoulders moved like a stalking lioness as she strolled past the woman who had become frozen to the floor. Still slowly moving toward the window, Terra licked her chops and gave a huffing growl that African lions use to flush out prey. With a mighty leap, Terra burst through the window, and I could only think that it probably looked like she’d disappeared into ashes from inside. From the outside, we could see her levitate to the roof even as she morphed back into the dark mottled color she used to slink through the shadows. Even in the full light of the sun’s cresting glory, Terra was hard to spot crossing the roofline back to where Dom and I sat.

“Close your mouth, dear,” Dom drawled, dripping with lovely amusement. Ah, he’d summoned her which is why it had looked like she’d melted into the shadows.

“Not that I couldn’t have done it without both of you,” Terra preened under my obvious awe.

“Where did you learn all that?” I goggled at her.

“Scaring mice, of course,” Terra gave the flippant remark like it was nothing. It was nothing of the sort. I knew that she leveled with me, but I hadn’t given her enough credit for how she’d matured.

Angel stuck her head out the window, probably finally getting the nerve to check to see if something other than supernatural tomfoolery had been the cause of what she’d seen. We deftly slid behind the chimney, so all she saw was a silently laughing crow. Dom shifted our silence spell abruptly, allowing the laughing caw to taunt the woman even as our laughs remained hidden. Dom nearly laughed himself off the roof, and I finally joined in.