Bobby sat, hunched over his own haunches, on the top of the fake marble tombstone.  He reached up with his little paws and quickly cleaned his nose and whiskers.  Then, he stretched himself over to the edge of the tombstone to look down at the small group below him.  The hooded figures moved around the edges of a circle, chanting in Latin, and the warm summer evening had developed a distinct chill.

“I hate this job,” Bobby squeaked.  He had meant to mutter it quietly, but the high pitched comment earned him a warning look from Lily’s deep green eyes.  He shifted back from the edge and tried to keep his comments to himself.  Even then, Lily’s hearing in pure-cat-form was so good that he was afraid to even think certain things.  It was, after all, much better to be safe than sorry - especially when you were a were-hamster dating a were-cat.  Bobby’s loose skin crawled up his back and bristled out as he was once again reminded that his girlfriend could eat him in ways he never even wanted to dream were possible.  However, he had to repress the sudden urge to stuff his cheeks with food for comfort because the temperature dropped a few more degrees as the chanting got louder. 

He and Lily both looked to the center of the summoning circle.  Whatever came through that thing was going to have to be sent back to whichever dimension it came from, and there was no way of knowing just what would need to happen.  Lily casts the spell, and I go mid-form to scare all these stupid kids out of the way, he thought to himself, trying to prepare himself for the change.  In his case, mid-form was a huge hamster with incredibly long claws and fangs.  It actually wasn’t easy to hit someone with this short little rodent arms, but nobody had ever stayed around long enough to find that you.  They just didn’t want to argue with two hundred pounds of rude, slobbery, dangerous looking, tail-less rat sort of thing.  For which, Bobby was truly grateful.

The chanting rose to a high point and deep grey smoke began boiling up out of the ground.  Lily leaned forward, preparing to change forms and begin the spell simultaneously.  Bobby wished once more for a seed to crack, and then, it was on.

O’Pie shuffled across the grass on his stubby rodent feet and snuggled his black nose into the giving blades, sniffing for snails, slugs, bugs and snakes. His white face gave the opossum the appearance of a rat with silver-grey hair wearing a white, nondescript mask. Gone from his life but not his memory were the days of riding with his brothers and sisters on his mother’s back. She never seemed to mind much. His favorite position was hanging off the side of her head behind her ears.

“Mmm, yes, yes. Mmm, oh yes. No, huh-uh, nope. Hmm. Yes, a most appreciative yes,” he said as he sniffed and chewed and swallowed insects. O’Pie paid a little attention to the noise wrapping ‘round the wide trunk of the old tree ahead. “Hmm, yes, magic, no, not good,” he mumbled taking a quick run across a barren stretch of compressed earth.  O’Pie stopped at the base of the tree and scrunched his nose. His whiskers jittered up and down, left and right, catching nuances of scent carried kindly by the breeze.

O’Pie’s tail lay straight on the ground, and his haunches dropped his stomach close to the cool grass. He sat watching, mesmerized by the unfathomable performance of motion and sound. What are they doing? he wondered. A crackle tickled his whiskers. He turned his snout toward a tombstone and well past the crazy carnival of hoods circling and uttering patterns of sound. “Cat? No, not good, not good,” he said passing his tongue back and forth over his sharp teeth. A sudden and undesirable shiver rippled from his neck to his tail. “Oh, cold, yes,” he said.

He backed slowly away from the scene and behind the tree just far enough to peek around at the dancing. He couldn’t see the tombstone and that worried him. The air seemed alive and whispered that this was not a good place to be just then. He closed his eyes tight. It always worked and he never asked why or tried to explain. It just worked. He would just not see things and by some agreement signed by more important creatures, things would not see him, either.

A spark flashed in the center of the thick smoke. The violet charge popped and the scent of lavender filled the air. A loud whoosh sounded and a radius of air exploded strong enough to knock the hooded figures to the ground. Nipper appeared, hovering in the center of the summoning circle, a bath brush with a wiggly mouse attached hanging from her tiny hands. The smoke made her cough and sneeze several times. Bubbles discretely covered her well enough that no censor boxes were needed and her wine colored hair was piled in a soapy sculpture atop her head. She was twelve inches of fiery werefairy, with creamy skin and dazzling golden eyes. At that moment, they were fixed on her companion in an angry stare. Her brow knitted as she glared down at the soaked ball of white fur.

Squeak returned the stare, her stubborn grasp on the brush unrelenting. A set of beady pink eyes looked up the length of the object of her affection. Normally, the pint sized ninja could take Nipper with one paw behind her back, but she was at a disadvantage at the moment. Water dripped from her tail as she swung back and forth, her feet kicking and trying to get a better grip on the soap filled bristles. She was quite attractive by mouse standards; her coat was always glossy and her large front teeth pearly white. The only flaw was the way her nose was scrunched up with annoyance.

“Give it to me, you flying pain in my ass! Its mine!!” she wailed in a high pitched voice.

“Piss off! I told you to stay out of my baths, Rat,” was Nipper’s reply.

“Th.. that’s not a demon…” gasped one of the hooded figures, drawing the new arrivals’ attention from their argument.

Nipper looked around with genuine surprise, then screamed and dropped the brush to cover herself with her hands. Squeak hit the ground with a thump, the brush still in her hand and her eyes wide. She let out a yelp of her own, then went invisible and scurried off to hide behind a stone. The only indication of the direction she went being the brush bouncing along behind her and the miniature footprints in the dirt. She was satisfied to let Nipper handle the situation.

The werefairy growled and snapped her fingers, making a flimsy frock appear on her slim body. Her eyes began to glow, thick plum colored fur quickly spread to cover her form and long claws sprouted from her fingers. Her dainty wings fluttered madly, creating a whirlwind around herself. She became a tiny tornado of fury as she realized what must have happened. How dare these fools summon her in the middle of her bath, how dare they summon her at all.

“This is not what Latin class is for, you boobs!” her voice took on deep and raspy quality as she howled her displeasure.

As she darted about, biting hands and faces, the larger beings scattered, yelling that the devil himself was after them. She chased them until the last one disappeared into the trees, then turned around, searching for her friend.

“You can come out now, Squeak. They are gone,” she flitted towards the circle again.

“NO!” her small mousy voice demanded, “There’s still someone here.”

“Oh brother,” Nipper sighed and put her hands on her hips. She looked around again, then called out in her normal voice, “Whoever you are, come out this instant!”

Bobby was caught, not to put too fine a point on it, off gaurd to say the least.  As the smoke cleared, and the dazzling bubbles winked, his form stretched down the back of his tombstone until he was struggling to hunch behind it.  He leaned up, preparing his leap into the ring of kids when the fight between fairy and mouse became audible.  His jaw hit the grey granite.  He didn't know what to do.

"Bobby!  The plan," Lily growled at him from her perch.  She had shifted forms already and was beginning the spell to break the summoning and send it back to where it came from.  She didn't seem surprised that it was tiny and flying and covered in some sort of sweet smelling bubbles.  As always, Lily seemed cool, calm, and competent - ready for anything.  "Get those kids out of there!"

Bobby didn't feel ready for anything.  In mid-form, his large, beady hamster eyes were stretched to their limits - the size of small saucers, and for lack of a seed, he had shoved his own hands into his mouth.  He and the kids were rapidly reaching the same conclusion.  Whatever this thing was, it was not a demon.  Then, it changed.  It happened so fast that he almost missed it.  One minute, she was bubbles and bliss, and then, out of nowhere, she turned into a screaming and howling purple tasmanian devil. 

As the kids scattered, he looked to Lily.  Her hands were waving gently in mid-cast, and her eyes were closed in concentration.  A simple silence settled around her - an area of quiet.  Then, Bobby stared back at the thing in the circle and the small bath brush hanging out from behind the tomb.  Then, it spoke to them, it's small voice echoing through the almost empty cemetary. 

Without thinking, Bobby responded to the tone of the command to show themselves, which was just like the one Lily used sometimes.  He knew, mid-form or no, people who didn't do what they were told with that form of voice, didn't feel very well later.  Lily wasn't mean.  No.  He wouldn't even say that she was cruel.  Just occaisionally vindictive.  And this one just seemed like a bit more of the same.  So, he rolled, like a summer fat bear, over the stone to sit upright on the other side. 

"Ummmm....  Ok?"  His voice was gutteral which thankfully covered most of the shakiness.  He felt two sets of female eyes burning into him - one from each side and both wondering what the hell he was doing where he was.

No amount of invisibility separated O’Pie from the noise. Hooded bipeds scrambled in all directions, stamping their heavy feet across the grass and pathways. At least two passed near enough to O’Pie at the tree to give him the shivers. “Stamp, stamp, ouch. Maybe stamp O’Pie, yes,” he worried. Preceding that had been noises O’Pie didn’t want to think about. Words like “Piss off”, “Rat”, “Demon”, “Boobs” and the most awful of all, “Whoever you are, come out this instant!” wrapped around the tree trunk and assaulted his nervous ears. But O’Pie was not in the mood to open his eyes. Anyway, the shrill voice could not possibly have meant him. He was invisible, right?

A slow lumbering rhythm of hooves approached the tree at just that particular angle that keep whatever it was from being noticed without making an attempt. O’Pie opened one eye barely a sliver to see if it was who he thought it was. His tail and the tips of his ears became visible. “Oh, yes, Heifer, yes,” O’Pie said to himself, and then opened his eyes completely. He became fully visible, as expected.

Cannibal Heifer’s gait was slow and even. She had heard the commotion from the clearing behind a row of mulberry trees and made her way toward it. Spying O’Pie in her warm, round brown eyes, she decided to find out just what was what.

“Hey, Heifer,” O’Pie said in a small, mostly uncertain voice. He was certain of Heifer, but not the voices just around the tree.

“Moo,” Heifer said dryly. “You wouldn’t have a hamburger on you by any chance?” she asked with hope in her eyes. O’Pie sat back on his haunches and crossed his arms over his furry chest.

“No beef, Heifer, none I can tell you,” he said shaking his head in earnest. Heifer stopped beside O’Pie and looked down to him. Disappointment was obvious in her saddened eyes. “Well that’s a damn shame. A nice veal cutlet would go down pretty good, too,” Heifer said. A plaintive grown rumbled in her stomach and she sighed.

“I’m all bound up, O’Pie. Too much cheese,” she said as she lowered her head closer to the opossum. O’Pie jumped up on Heifer’s head and scrambled around behind his ear. He settled in holding firmly to the cow’s hide.

“We got trouble, yes. Over there,” O’Pie said pointing a claw in the direction of the noises. Heifer swayed her head lazily in either direction taking in what she could make of the scene. “Let’s go, ok yes?” O’Pie whispered into the cow’s ear. Heifer stepped around the tree and stopped. She’d never seen anything like it.

“No! I mean let’s go the other way!” O’Pie yelled. Heifer winced. “You mind not doing that in my ear, Pie? Thanks,” she said. She walked closer into what had been a circle and examined the assembled menagerie with confusion. She shook her head slowly.

“Moo,” she said. Cannibal Heifer, the Silencer of Calves, stared at the fairy, the strangely deformed hamster, the rat and the cat. She blinked. Twice. Naw, it’s the cheese, she thought.