16 Chapter 16: Heaven 2.0, Part 4

Gretchen sped home, her fatigue forgotten. She ran upstairs and turned on her laptop, pacing as it booted. She snapped the USB drive into its slot.

The screen went black. Gretchen waited. After a minute, the low-resolution cartoon of Wynette appeared. She opened her pixelated mouth.

"Hello?" a voice said from the laptop's speakers. It sounded like a gruff old man from Brooklyn. The mouth opened and closed. "Hello? Anybody there?"

"Um, hello," Gretchen said.

"Oh, it's you," the voice said, "the one with the sax. How are you, kid?"

Gretchen swallowed. "Wynette?" she asked.

"Yeah, I was a dame with you, wasn't I?" Wynette said. "I hate being a girl, no offense, it just stinks having to wear diapers when you're in heat."

"I had you spayed."

"Oh yeah? Well once upon a time they couldn't do those fancy things."

Gretchen chuckled. Then she slumped forward, sobbing. It was as if a glass rod had supported her the last few days, and it had shattered.

"Hey, hey," Wynette said. The cartoon dog fell silent for a minute. "You'll be ok. As long as you can pull yourself to your feet and stand up on your own, you'll be ok."

Gretchen looked up at her laptop with stinging eyes. "But what about you?" she asked.

The cartoon dog shrugged. "I led a fun life. I've been reincarnated more times than I can remember," she said. "That's the difference between us and them. Don't believe their press. They live long, but only live once."

"Who?"

"Who?" Wynette looked left and right, her eyes narrow, her cartoon ears flat against her head. "The were-cats," she whispered.

Gretchen bit the inside of her cheek. She took a tissue from a box on her desk, and blew her nose into it. "The were-cats," she repeated.

"Shh, not so loud."

Gretchen rubbed her temples with her thumb and forefinger. "So, Oshiro is a were-cat?"

"No, not exactly, I just like calling them that. Sit down, this may take a while."

"Hang on a minute," Gretchen said. She streamed the program over her wireless router to her smartphone again. She lay on the bed, cradling Wynette's pixelated image in her hands.

"This feels a little different," Wynette said.

"I Wi-Fied you over here," Gretchen said. "I can stream programs from my laptop, and run them through my phone."

"Right, whatever that means," Wynette said. "How much do you know about Japanese mythology?"

"Zilch."

"Righty-ho." The Lab's digital tongue hung out for a moment. "The correct term is Bakeneko. It's a cat-demon from Japan. Or more precisely, it's a demon that's escaped into this world, possessed a cat that lived in Japan, and can sometimes take on human form, hence my snappy nickname for them."

"Uh-huh," Gretchen said. "And you're a were-dog?"

"No, I'm one of the Cynocephali."

"What's that?"

"Oh boy," the cartoon dog said. "Have you heard of Saint Christopher?"

"I've heard of a Saint Christopher's medal."

"Oy. Just listen," Wynette said. "The Cynocephali, my kind, were a race of canine-headed people from Africa. The unofficial legend of Saint Christopher is that he was one of us, but Jesus healed him, and he became a man. Still with me?"

"Yes. Keep going."

"The thing is, that wasn't quite what happened. What really happened is that we were given an offer. Take on the bodies of full dogs, and if one of us wipes out a Bakeneko, he or she gets reincarnated as a human. Until then, we keep living the lives of dogs, over and over."

Gretchen stretched, arching her back. "So how did you end up here?" she asked.

"Because you're my owner, and you signed my soul over in a contract," Wynette said. Gretchen clamped her jaw tight, grinding her teeth. "It's all right, it's happened that way for centuries. Demons are masters of legal trickery, it gets their rocks off. That's how Oshiro got a claim to feast on your life as well. That's what they do. They eat lives. Capisce?"

"But computers haven't been around for centuries."

"No, but computer programs are an art form like any other. Bakenekos have trapped us in poems, books, statues, paintings... That cute golden mutt in those 1970s movies was one of us. Now the poor schmuck's forever trapped in celluloid. That's how it works. Some of us become kiddie films, some of us become ones and zeros. Those are the breaks."

Gretchen nodded. "So what do we do now?" she asked.

"We?" Wynette said. "We do nothing. Me? It's been a good two thousand years. I had to get caught eventually."

"I'll kill him."

Wynette barked out a guffaw.

"What," Gretchen said, "you don't think I can defend myself?"

Wynette panted for a few moments. "You've got moxie, kid, I'll give you that," she said. "But even if I thought you were a killer, remember, this is a demon we're talking about. If they were that easy to kill, don't you think I'd have earned my opposable digits by now? The only way to off one is through the bite of a Cynocephali, and I don't see you growing a dog's head any time soon."

Gretchen ran her fingertips around the edge of her smartphone. "Were your teeth poisonous, or something?" she asked.

"It was just a matter of getting some of our essence into theirs," Wynette said.

Gretchen rolled onto her back, and stared at the ceiling. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes.

"I think," said Gretchen, "I may have an idea."

Gretchen perched at the edge of her couch. Her slender legs trembled, despite her earlier claims of bravado. She forced her eyes away from the door, and took in the objects around the room: the wireless router, her television, the silver tray on the coffee table in front of her. On the wall, the clock ticked away the seconds down to midnight.

She heard a hollow rapping on the door.

"Miss Healy?" Oshiro's voice was muffled and mewling. "It's time. I can wait all night, but we both know you're going to let me in."

Gretchen stood. She walked across her living room carpet with slow, deliberate steps. She unlocked the door, but kept the chain latched. She opened it until the links were taut.

"Hello," she said.

"Hello, Miss Healy," Oshiro said. The few inches of doorway cast a rectangle of amber light on his eyes. He narrowed them, sniffing. "So many scents in the air tonight," he said. "Fresh earth, and..." His eyes widened. "Is that tuna?" he asked.

Gretchen nodded. "I know what you are," she said.

"Really?"

"You're some sort of cat monster. And you hate dogs."

Oshiro chuckled. "'Some sort of cat monster,'" he said. His voice was still soft and purring, but there was a sharp edge underneath, like a barely concealed blade. "Dear child, just who have you been talking to?"

His fist shot forward and punched the door, snapping the chain and sending a chunk of the frame into the bridge of Gretchen's nose. She cried out, clutching her face as she fell back on the floor.