Cricket and Young Sir Reginald split off, crossing through the living room and creeping their way across the kitchen floor toward the staircase leading to the basement. Reginald was ecstatic to be working with such an esteemed Hunter and couldn’t help himself. They made it about midway through the kitchen’s tile floor before the questions started. “Hey Cricket, dad says you do this a lot. Is that true? How many Hunts have you been on?”
Cricket smirked, and this time it definitely wasn’t just the facial scar. She didn’t get a lot of time around kittens on most Hunts, and never had any of her own, but she always enjoyed their company. Her tail curled upward as she bragged, “To be honest, I’ve lost count. But at least a hundred, all over the city.”
“Whoa! That’s so cool!” He crowed, darting down the staircase.
“Thank you. It is pretty cool, isn’t it?” she chirped, slowly following the young cat down into the basement, sniffing and checking cracks as she went. “I’ve helped a lot of humans in my day, whether they know it or not.”
Reginald had already exited the staircase, but he popped his head back into Cricket’s view to ask, “Can you teach me?”
Cricket stopped to sniff at the bottom wall of the stairway. Marginally distracted, she began rubbing her face on it repeatedly. “Teach you what?” she asked listlessly. “How to Hunt?”
“Yeah!”
“Of course, kitten. Isn’t that why you came with me?” She finished rubbing and descended the rest of the stairs, exploring the first room in a clockwise circle so as to not miss anything. Young Sir Reginald stood in the middle of the room, clearly unclear on proper investigative techniques.
Cricket noted this as he argued, “I’m not a kitten, Cricket! I’m a year and a quarter old, thank you. Dad says I’m in the middle of my growth spurt, and he thinks that someday, I’ll be even bigger than him!” He straightened his back and stretched out as long as he could, showing how big he’d grown. This quickly collapsed into a cleaning session, as he immediately realized that he missed his upper left thigh when cleaning himself that morning.
Cricket paused her prowl and stretched out herself, replying, “Oh, I don’t doubt that, but you’ll always be a kitten to me. You know, I may not look it, but I’m only a few years younger than Mittens up there. I’m older than your father by a couple years.”
Reginald stopped mid lick and stared at Cricket, tongue out, in wide-eyed disbelief. “I don’t believe you. You look even younger than dad! I wouldn’t guess a year over eight.”
Cricket flicked her tail up in amusement as she purred, “Flattery will get you everywhere, Sir Reginald, the Third was it?”
“Yes, ma’am. Sir Reginald Harvey Taylor III, at your service,” he replied nodding his head downward, an expression Cricket had only seen from his father.
Suddenly, something stopped Cricket in her tracks. In the corner of the first room of the basement was a human-made stand of wood, holding some kind of flat, wet, smelly, and somewhat slimy looking object. It appeared slick, and it smelled unnatural.
“All right, Sir Reginald,” she started, emphasizing the kitten’s title once more. “If you want to learn how to Hunt, the first step is learning to identify Signs. I’m assuming your father has recited The Covenant to you, though you’re a bit young to have it memorized at this point. Do you remember The Signs?”
“I think so, but there are so many to remember.”
“Then what do you make of this?” she asked, pointing her paw up at the smelly thing.
Young Sir Reginald immediately recognized the smell and giggled, “Well that’s an art, Cricket. That’s what Mrs. Taylor always calls it, anyway. I’ve watched her do it. She picks up a furry stick covered in that smelly goo and wipes it on the paper up there over and over again, until the whole thing is covered.”
“Why in the world would she do that?” Cricket asked, perplexed.
“I dunno. Maybe it’s like a scratching post for humans?” Young Sir Reginald guessed. “She does say it’s relaxing, and nothing’s more relaxing to me than a good, long scratch.” He stretched his nails at that thought, longing for his scratching post back home.
“Hmm, well, it doesn’t smell like any Greebles I’ve run into,” Cricket purred, slinking around the art, “but it’s slimy and smelly, two of the Major Signs.” She continued eying it suspiciously but moved on nonetheless, continuing in her clockwise examination of the perimeter of the first room.
Cricket explained to Young Sir Reginald that she was searching the room in a circle, systematically checking every crease and crevice, so as to not miss any Signs that might be hidden around it. She recommended going room by room rather than taking the whole perimeter at once. Since this basement only had two separate rooms, she explained, the approach didn’t make much of a difference in Sarah’s house, but for larger buildings with more rooms, it helps to keep them straight.
Once the cats had rounded back to the staircase, finishing their loop of the room, Cricket asked Young Sir Reginald if he noticed anything suspicious. Agreeing that neither of them had sensed anything awry (other than the art), they walked through the roughly cut doorway to the second room.
The instant that Cricket stepped into the doorframe, her nose twitched. She sniffed the air, taking in the distinctly stale smell of ozone. Young Sir Reginald didn’t recognize the scent, but he smelled something strange as well. He looked to Cricket, and seeing that she’d already dropped into a low prowl, he imitated her stance. He tried to sniff out the source of the smell himself, but Cricket’s finely tuned nose couldn’t be outdone after years of Hunting.
She darted across the room, making for the north-west corner, tense and ready for an attack. No sound came from the corner, but the temperature dropped several degrees as the cats approached. Coating the ground was a small puddle of thick, slimy, mucus-like goo. And lying in the center of that puddle was a hunk of soft, rubbery flesh, twitching and squirming on the ground like a sick maggot.
Her face crinkled and her tail fluffed as she growled, “Now that is definitely a Sign, kitten. A very bad Sign. This is a piece of a Greeble, meaning it’s already started to breach through The Gate tonight. We need to take this upstairs right now and warn the others. I’m afraid that if it’s breached into this realm this far tonight already, it may attempt again.”