Year of the Rat

Chapter 6

Cyrus pushed through the shadows. His whiskers slipped across mud, sediment, and broken chips of wood. He scampered through debris and pitch blackness, his nose low to the ground.

He stopped, sniffed, and caught a skewed whiff of old, evaporating scotch that had lost its astringency.

The scotch evoked Rocco"s voice, and he was back at the Wicked Cat again surrounded by the din of clinking glasses, hushed talk, and the Grateful Dead playing a little too loud from the speaker in the corner of the room.

"Suppose you run into money trouble," Rocco said. "What would you do?"

"Huh?" Cyrus asked.

"You have a job, and boom—you don"t have a job anymore," Rocco said. "What do you do?"

"Find another job," Cyrus said. "Duh."

Rocco lifted his glass of scotch. "What if there aren"t any jobs?"

"It"s Chicago, dude."

"Just hear me out," Rocco said.

Cyrus"s whiskers brushed against something cold and rigid as a bone.

He stopped. Tensed. Sniffed the air.

There was a sudden rank smell of decaying insect exoskeleton—papery and like saliva. Cyrus"s hair stood on end. Something shifted in the darkness and stalked toward him.

He backed away and ran toward the light. His claws scratched the ground as he ran.

"If there weren"t any jobs, I"d ask my family for money," Cyrus said.

"Good idea," Rocco said, sipping more scotch and wincing as it went down. "But let"s say you don"t have any family. Or better yet, they won"t give you any money. Then what?"

"You"re killing me. I guess I"d rob a bank."

Rocco laughed out loud. "Not bad, bud, but you don"t exactly want to go to the slammer for the rest of your life, do you? I mean, you wouldn"t have money problems anymore, but you"d have a lot worse problems."

The lightning bolt of light—the alley—loomed near.

But why was he running?

No, he couldn"t turn back.

Whatever was behind him was close now.

Becca was depending on him. The clock was running out to catch JoJo. He ignored his rat instinct, dug his claws into the floor, and twisted around.

Six atomic eyes glinted back at Cyrus, followed by two mandibles that clicked against each other.

"You"re running out of options," Rocco said. "What do you do?"

Cyrus thought about Rocco"s words. "I don"t know."

"Suppose you hear about a guy," Rocco said, leaning in, "who has all the money you need."

Cyrus gulped.

"All you have to do is talk to him and he"ll give it to you," Rocco said.

Luna hung her head and the color drained from her face and she swallowed hard.

“Babe, seriously, you have to stop,” she urged.

Rocco ignored her. "The money"s yours, except there"s just one condition," he said.

The spider clicked and clacked as it moved, like gears and cogs grinding. It was the size of Cyrus"s rat head.

The giant spider struck at Cyrus first, raising up its front legs. The legs flashed in the light, but then disappeared. The spider had the advantage.

Cyrus bared his incisors with a loud hiss. He let his whiskers guide him, and his body sidestepped to the right as the spider chomped at him.

Wham! Cyrus threw his weight into the spider’s side, crushing it against the wall.

WhamThe spider snapped at him, but he dug a claw into its eyes, smashing in its head.

The arachnid"s eyes powered down like a giant mech unplugged. It lilted to the floor, its legs curling upon itself. Its juices leaked onto the ground, mixing in with the mud.

The blackness of the building spread out before him like a velvet curtain, and he charged as fast as he could toward the original scent of alcohol.

Soon, he broke into light. Tile floor. Warmth that radiated around him like air in a blistering desert.

He was in a canyon of stainless steel and cracked tile. Somewhere nearby, a familiar odor licked into the air, and he smelled raw chicken and oil. A fryer.

Cyrus slunk along the bottom of an oven past a volcanic burst of heat. In the distance, his poor eyes made out the faint shape of a swinging door. He ran as fast as he could toward it.

"You"ve got two options," Rocco said. "Pay the guy back within a certain amount of time—with serious interest—or do something for him that"s equal to the money he"s giving you."

"And if you don"t?" Cyrus asked.

Rocco made a slicing motion across his neck.

"Jesus, man," Cyrus said.

"I told you he was Mr. i***t," Luna said. "Now that you believe me, Cy, why don"t we change topics?"

Cyrus slipped out of the swinging door and hugged a wooden wall. He was under the bar now.

He stood on his hind legs and sniffed.

No one was in the bar. The bartender had gone.

Still seeking safety, he scurried along the bottom of the bar, toward the spiral staircase that led to JoJo"s office.

The steel on the staircase was coarse—textured enough for him to climb easily. He hopped onto the first step and clambered up a baluster shaped like a drill bit. Soon, he was running up the handrail, his tail working overtime behind him and keeping him balanced. He slid up the staircase with the speed of a toy race car.

His whiskers caught a whiff of hard cologne and his instinct jumped him off the railing. He zoomed under a couch just as his eyes detected a man"s shadow on the platform.

JoJo was leaning on the railing and looking over the dance floor. He had helped himself to a beer from the tap and drank it like a kid drank their favorite soda on a hot day. The ice jingled in the glass as he glugged the beer down. The hops in the beer were so strong, Cyrus could taste them under the couch.

Cyrus"s heart raced as JoJo strode across the platform. His bluchers passed the couch and tracked into his office.

Cyrus crawled out of the shadow of the couch and toward the door to JoJo"s office, which was slightly ajar.

"So you"re telling me to go to a loan shark?” Cyrus asked Rocco. “I don"t need money."

"You don"t need money, but you need magic," Rocco said. "And that, Cyrus, is the only difference."

"So there"s such a thing as a loan shark for magic?" Cyrus asked. "A magic shark?"

"Wow, that doesn"t quite give the image you"re looking for," Luna said.

Rocco laughed. "They call him JoJo the Demonsharp, to be exact. He traffics in demons. If there’s anyone who can solve Becca’s problem, it’s him. But he ain’t pleasant, bud. I just thought you should know.”

“He’s bad news, Cyrus,” Luna said. “Please stop listening to Rocco and trust me.”

“Sorry, Luna,” Cyrus said, meeting her eyes. Normally, her big brown eyes could have made him do anything. Luna had a way of mesmerizing him. But the charm wasn’t working today. He nodded to her as if to say, “I’ll listen to you next time.” Then he turned to Rocco.

“Tell me more."

The conversation faded from Cyrus"s mind. He tried to ignore his accelerating heartbeat as he zipped into the c***k of the door jamb just before it clicked shut.