June and Brendan crouched at the tree line, Dr. Chase’s neighborhood just a short dash away across a quiet road. Brendan again insisted June Shift back to normal, but she refused. Dr. Crushov’s house had proven a dead-end, so the only person left was Dr. Chase. They knew the identity of the villain now, so why not go in full force? She wouldn't budge and he eventually gave up.

However, sneaking through an older neighborhood with small yards, small fences, and an inordinate amount of brightly-lit Halloween decorations proved a challenge for a werecat larger than a passenger van. Making clever use of the shadows and her speed, June, with Brendan riding on her back, arrived at the house of Dr. Chase unnoticed.

In the backyard, under the wide, deep shadow of a towering scarlet oak, June crouched and listened while Brendan climbed down. The house was long and narrow, with old green paint that gave it a sickly look. Brick steps led to a beige back porch. The house seemed to lean over the porch like it had an overbite.

June heard no sounds of life, but ears rotating, she could hear a noise, a frequency, that meant somewhere inside was a large and unusual machine. The kind of machine that could analyze the serum, she thought. Dr. Chase was definitely involved. Could he be a demon? Surely not—Cordelia said they usually had a beautiful human appearance, and that did not describe Dr. Chase. But someone must have put the little weasel up to it and he didn’t have the courage to resist. Of course he didn’t. Which made him just as guilty as whoever wrote the blood message. Her jaw tightened.

Then she had the terrible realization that Mr. Moseley had to be here, but she didn’t hear any signs of a living human being. Her lungs shrank two sizes and she took a shuddering breath. Her claws slid in and out, in and out, and she noticed Brendan watching her with his eyebrows high above the rim of his Scooby Doo goggles; this time she didn’t laugh at the sight of them. A scurrying noise came up behind them.

“Hey you,” said a voice, “what’s wrong with you?”

“You can’t be here, this is our territory,” said a second voice.

Two cats had come running up while June was studying the house, one all black with a white spot on the chest, the other a mottled gray and white. They walked to stand in front of June, their backs to the house. No collars hung from their necks, so they were probably strays. Combined, they looked like they might almost weigh as much as Abraham Lincoln—not that they were small, they just appeared to be healthy.

“We’re not staying,” June responded in English. The cats tilted their heads at her—they didn’t seem to understand.

She paused and tried to formulate her thoughts into meows. “We’re not staying,” she meowed. The cats perked up. “We’ve just got to get into that house and then we’ll be gone.”

“Why that house?” asked the black cat.

“We’re just seeing if some things that were taken from me are inside,” June responded. “Have you seen anything odd here lately?”

“Yes,” said the black cat. “The human here is extremely odd. He has never once marked his territory. So we've claimed it. We have marked it well.”

“Yes,” said the mottled cat, “and we have used that porch for our solid waste, if you know what I mean.”

June smiled and the cats seemed unfazed by the size of her teeth. “What are your names?”

“I’m Catriel,” said the black cat.

“Cairistine,” said the mottled cat.

Brendan’s eyes hopped back and forth between June and the cats. It reminded her of one of those cat wall clocks where the eyes moved back and forth to mark the passing seconds.

“Nice to meet you both,” June said. “I’ll tell you what. If the man inside is a monster, then I’m going to take him away, and you can claim the inside of his house too. And if he’s not a monster, I’ll make sure he leaves food out for you, and the yard will still be your territory.”

The two cats nodded briskly. “This one,” the black cat said, motioning with a paw toward Brendan, “seems to be odd too. Watch out for him.”

June chuckled softly. “Thanks, but he’s alright.”

Catriel and Cairistine gave her dubious looks and walked off down the street.

“What just happened?” Brendan burst out. “Why were you meowing at those cats?”

“To ask questions. They provided some useful information, so step carefully on the porch. And they thought you were odd.” She gave a wry grin.

“What? Me? That’s ridiculous,” he said, still wearing his pea-cloak and Scooby Doo goggles. “So you can talk to all cats, not just house cats?”

“I guess so. Apparently wild cats don’t know English. But it turns out I can meow to communicate.”

“June!” Brendan smacked a hand to his forehead. “That explains how someone got inside the lab. You said that giant snake was sitting inside an unlocked tank, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, and then it hit her too. “Someone told the snake to open the door!” she and Brendan said at the same time. “Jinx!” they yelled in unison. A dog barked nearby and they both squatted down lower to the ground and made for the house.

On the back porch, Brendan opened his mouth to speak but June flicked a pane of glass on the back door with a claw, breaking it before he had gotten a word out.

He craned his neck at her. “Whoa! You don’t want to even try the door first?”

She shrugged. “Too late. Can you reach in and open the door please?” she rumbled. “My arm won’t fit without breaking more.”

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“Last chance to go in with the masks, bank robber style,” he said.

“No. But you should still put on your mask.”

Once Brendan had covered his face, he cautiously reached through the broken glass, sleeve covering his hand, and popped the door open. He backed away quickly so June could enter first, which she did and immediately had to bend like she was playing Twister because she found herself in a cramped little laundry room. Brendan gently closed the door behind them.

Inside, the machine noise from outside became a humming sound vibrating up from below. “There’s a really suspicious machine downstairs,” June said. “Let's start there.”

Brendan pulled out the Geiger counter. “Shouldn’t we start upstairs and work our way down? A basement will be the hardest place to escape from if we’re cornered.”

June raised a furry eyebrow. “Look at me. Why would we need to escape from anything?”

“Come on, June, bad guys always leave traps. And you might be a superhero werecat, but you aren’t invincible.”

“I’m pretty close,” she said. “And we aren’t in the house of a mastermind, we’re in the house of an imbecile.”

“Then there’s no harm starting upstairs, right?”

She waved her massive arms in the air. “Fine, but it's easy for you to say, you don't have to contort your body to move around in here.”

Brendan rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “Look, June, I'm playing the world’s smallest violin to go along with your sob story of being gigantic and powerful.”

She growled at him playfully.

With that settled, they took a tour of Dr. Chase’s second and then first floors. Inside, the house looked and felt no less dreary than it had appeared from the outside, with a lot of dark wood, dark leather, and muted colors. Going up the narrow, arrow-straight staircase required some impressive bending from June—luckily, like all cats, her body was extremely flexible, what with a free-floating collar bone and all.

And being an old house, the rooms were smaller, much to June's dismay. Weathered, creaky wooden floors announced nearly every step they took, and a few times the floor groaned with such volume that June feared it would collapse. The entire house reeked of mothballs.

In the cramped little kitchen, Brendan marveled at the collection of different teas sitting in a corner on the white-tiled kitchen counter. An electric kettle stood guard over the various bags, pouches, and boxes. June could smell Earl Grey, cinnamon, and the earthy notes of what she assumed were various black teas.

“Just like Detective Winslow,” Brendan said softly.

“Who?” June asked.

“You know, from Blimey! Detectives.”

“Why would I know that?” She shook her head and left him to inspect the teas; the smell of them was becoming overpowering. She hunched next to a wall of aged white cabinets and listened to the house again. Still no signs of life, still a loud humming from the basement.

And while the tea collection may have been impressive, June was not impressed that the rooms they had searched didn’t have any hint of radioactive serum or any hint of a hostage in them. That left just the basement to check. Her stomach rumbled, both with nerves and with hunger. Brendan whirled around to face her.

“Please eat something,” he said. “A quick package of hot dogs.”

She hesitated. The rumble in her tummy hadn’t been painful. No one was home. She could wait until they searched the basement to eat. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just nervous. We haven’t found anything yet.”

Brendan set the backpack down on a chair next to a small, narrow kitchen table. As he dug through the bag, he said, “Do you think I’m like Robbie Alister?”

She tilted her head to the side, puzzled. “No.”

“What about Jeremy Brennan? Alex Cole? Luke Crane? Chad Eager?”

“Of course not. Why are you listing the boys in our grade in alphabetical order?”

“Because you’re acting like I’m no different from them.” He pulled out two packages of hot dogs and set them on the table.

“Brendan—”

“No, I think I know what’s going on here. It finally hit me. I know what the kids at school say to you. And I remembered that one time I got to have lunch at your house, with Cordelia.” He shivered at the name. “I saw the way she watched you eat. And you were nervous. At the time I thought it was because I was there and Cordelia hates me. But you only ever eat salads at lunch. You usually never finish your food at my house.”

“So?” June asked, but her heart felt like it taken up residence in her throat.

“Do you think I’m your friend because I care how you look?”

“Of course not,” she said, but a little part of her, way deep down, whispered, maybe.

“Then don’t treat me like I do! I love you for you—” He stopped talking and his jaw very clearly dropped to his chest inside the yoga-pant mask and his whole body wavered like he might faint. “I mean, you—uh, best friend, er—”

June walked up to him while he continued to stutter. She lowered her head onto his shoulder, careful not to crush him. He went silent. She felt him take a deep breath.

He said, in a soft and shaking voice, “I think you’re the most amazing person in the world.” Another breath, this time more relaxed, and his voice didn’t shake. “And that was before I knew you were a superhero werecat.”

June smiled and the fur around her eyes grew a little wet. She pulled back to look at him. Her heart was no longer in her throat; it was firmly in her chest, and her chest felt warm and full. She locked eyes with him for a long time. Approval, and something else, looked back at her. Now she knew what that something else was: deep friendship. He had meant he loved her as a friend, and she was just fine with that.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll take those hot dogs now. Really though, I need a lot more than hot dogs.”

Brendan grabbed the packages off the table and handed them to her. “Then we’ll find you more food. Meat, I’m guessing?”

She nodded. He started to turn around.

“No, it’s okay. I don’t care if you see me eat.”

*******

The basement stairs were wide and easy to use, a welcome deviation from the rest of the house. The basement contained a single, enormous room with concrete floors and cinderblock walls. On one side stood a large and elaborate work bench, hugged by tidy shelves filled with tools. The other side of the room was filled by an enormous machine.

“Check for the vial,” she said to Brendan, though she stayed next to the bottom step, studying the contraption.

Despite growing up in and around a research facility that contained cutting-edge equipment, this was one of the most complicated-looking devices June had ever seen, and certainly not something that belonged in anyone’s house. A fat cylinder, large enough for five men to stand inside, sat in the center of the contraption. The bottom half of the cylinder was covered with round steel and the top half of the cylinder was covered with round glass, frosted so she couldn’t see inside. Holding the cylinder upright were two large metal arms. If it was a robot, the size of those arms meant the robot would be strong. There was a large panel with buttons and knobs connected to the base of one metal arm, and some kind of screen that June could just barely see on the other arm. All manner of wires ran from the panels to the metal arms to the cylinder.

June clenched her teeth. It is Dr. Chase!’ she thought. He helped steal the vial! He’s the reason Mr. Moseley is missing! Her arms began to shake and her vision turned red around the edges. She listened. Unless Mr. Moseley was inside the machine, then he wasn’t in the basement.

Brendan had stepped into the room, the Geiger counter clicking slow and steady. He held the device up to the enormous machine—it’s clicking changed only slightly. He dutifully walked around the shelves, the workbench, the filing cabinets. The Geiger counter remained steady. He started back toward June, the machine lying between them. June felt like roaring. If the vial and Mr. Moseley weren’t here, then where could they possibly be?

As Brendan crossed in front of the cylinder, he paused to study it again. Without warning, the frosted portion spun open. Brendan jolted backwards, the Geiger counter falling to the floor.

“June!” he cried.