Búrzi

Journal of Rowana, daughter of Rowetha
16 / 04 / 2120 of the Fourth Age, cont'd

I found the kitten licking up the blood by our front door. It was a young, ragged thing, all bones and skin and shadow-black fur, like a piece of the night.

Body disposal is an unpleasant chore at the best of times. Smoke rose from our waste pit, which in addition to bird bones, rabbit entrails, and fruit pits now contained the bodies of four Men, stripped of their clothes and gear and doused in petrol. The Shrike had found their vehicle near the track where I'd left the two assholes that had been transporting Azzie that first night. I'd siphoned their tank dry and left the vehicle where it was. Didn't seem any point in trying the same trick as last time, since they had found us anyway.

They had found us. Whoever they were. Whoever had bought Azzie, or grown her in a vat. It set my teeth on edge. Twenty years from assignment to assignment, military base to military base, and I finally had a patch to call my own and someone to share it with. Yet if we stayed here...would they leave us alone? Or would they come back again? Should we run? Where would we go?

Those were the dark thoughts as I tossed dry brush onto the pyre. It wouldn't be enough to dispose of the bodies completely, but it was a start.

So I trudged home, and found the little black cat there, licking up the blood. It raised its eyes to stare at me as I approached the open door. Tensed, but didn't run. I wondered if there was a name for Mordor-cats. This one seemed different. Too many toes. Big expressive ears that went wide and swiveled independently. A long, slinky tail.

We'd had barn cats, back on the farm. Good for rats, mice, snakes, crickets. This one was young, though. Too young. It should be with its mother. Tentatively, eyes still locked on mine, it lowered its head and licked at the blood. I sighed. If I fed the damn thing, it would just come back.

"Ro," Azzie said from beyond the doorway. "I want to keep their pants, they might fit me...oh!"

The cat turned, her ears wide. The Uruk's own ears fluttered. She had thrown on one of my shirts, but that was no pretense to modesty, only something she liked to do. Something about how my smell clung to it. The green woman dropped down to all fours, fingers splayed like claws, ass in the air in a way that emphasized the green globes. The cat assumed almost an identical posture. Opened its mouth—and that surprised me. No hiss, no mewl. A silent grin, matched by Azzie's own.

The Uruk stalked forward on all fours, and I watched, not sure what I was watching. Until the kitten leaped, right into the chest between those great breasts, and Azzie hugged the animal to her and ran her yellow-green fingers through the dark fur.

"Her name," Azzie said, as if an afterthought, "is Búrzi."

With a sinking feeling in my gut, I realized that we had just adopted a cat.

"Okay, Precious," I said, realizing there was no point in fighting over it. "I'll mop up the blood."

So I did.

It was not long before dawn when I scrubbed the last of the blood out from my fingernails. The washing machine rumbled with all the blood-stained clothes, and I wandered naked except for my web belt with gun and knife into our bedroom. I didn't see the cat until her eyes opened, to little slits in the darkness, so well did she blend in, curled into a ball atop my duffel bag near the bed. In the bed herself, Azzie lay. Sprawled wide. She opened her legs as I came in.

For a moment, her eyes looked like the cat's, almost luminous in the darkness before dawn. The ring glinted on the string between her breasts. I wasn't sure if it was an invitation or a command. Every bone in my body ached, and there was so much to do...if more assassins came...

Her eyes met mine. They seemed to drag me to the bed. My hand cupped her hairless mound and squeezed until she quivered, and her juices ran down my palm. Our lips met, softly, quietly now. The fire in her burned. She needed this moment, this intimacy, but she could feel the exhaustion in me. My hand moved, slowly, carefully. I slipped the knife, still in its sheath, off my belt. The nylon handle was waterproof, the smooth, rounded pommel cold and hard. With my hand on the sheath, thumb on the base of the guard, I ran the cold, hard metal of the handle up in her...and oh how she bucked, oh how she moaned in the Black Speech, harsh words whispered with the fervor of a prayer or incantation.

How she clung to me as I stabbed over and over, careful not to hurt her even as I went rougher than normal, all the accumulated fear and anger of the night transformed into something else, as if all the dark thoughts in my soul found expression in the near-**** of our lovemaking, and her nails dug into my back as I pushed the handle in deep and ground the guard against her throbbing clit.

When she went over the edge, the nails dug deep and I could feel the blood well up from the new holes. I gasped, pierced. Azzie did more damage to me that night than the hitmen had done.

From her nest, Búrzi watched.