Free Nice Dragons Finish Last (Heartstrikers) by Rachel Aaron

stop himself and glanced down to see a large, fluffy white cat. And then he jumped again, not just because this cat was inside the ward where cats weren’t supposed to be, but because this cat’s body was transparent . It was glowing, too, shining with its own strange, blue-white light, almost like a—
    “Ghost!”
    He looked up to see Marci kneeling with her hands on her hips and a furious scowl on her face. “You know you’re not supposed to bother customers,” she said firmly, pointing at the far side of the basement. “Go on! Get out of here!”
    The transparent cat gave her a disgusted look and stalked off toward the couch. He turned his back on them when he got there, silently grooming his paws like this relocation business had been entirely his idea.
    “Marci,” Julius said, very slowly. “Why do you have a ghost cat?”
    “Technically, he’s not a ghost,” Marci said, going back to her spellwork. “That’s just his name. He’s actually a death spirit. You probably noticed Mrs. Hurst had a bit of a cat problem?”
    Julius glanced over at the wall of reflective eyes peering at them from the shadowy mountains of trash on the other side of the yellow plastic ward. “I noticed.”
    Marci shook her head. “Nice old lady, but way too soft-hearted. She told me she couldn’t stand to turn away strays but never had the money to get them fixed, so naturally the house began to fill up. They’ve had the run of the place for years, which sadly means a lot of dead cats hidden in the garbage, and dead bodies bring death spirits.”
    Julius looked at the transparent cat sitting on the couch with a cold shudder. “You’re saying he’s the job you did for the lady who owned this place? The one you traded for free rent?”
    “Yep,” Marci replied. “I was going through the public job boards when I saw this listing from an old lady who swore that a ghost cat was trying to kill her. I don’t normally take crazy jobs, but no one else had answered it and I needed the money bad, so I told her I’d come over and check it out. When I arrived, I found Ghost there sitting on top of my future client’s chest. He’d nearly sucked her dry by that point, and I ended up having to bind him just to make him detach.”
    Julius recoiled. “That’s horrific.”
    “You’re telling me,” Marci said, laughing. “I had to dodge furious cats the whole way in, and that was before I knew I’d be doing a binding.”
    “But why did you bind him?” Julius asked. “Why not banish him?” He didn’t know much about human magic, but he knew binding was a serious commitment that tied spirit and mage for life. That didn’t sound like the sort of thing you did on the fly with something as openly hostile as a death spirit.
    “I thought about that,” she said. “But if I banished him, he’d just come back again and bother someone else. Besides, he’s a bit of a rare specimen. It’s been hypothesized that cats have more natural magic than other domesticated animals, but this is the first time I’ve seen or heard of a death spirit specific to the species. He’ll be a great thesis topic if I ever get a chance to go back and finish my doctorate.”
    Julius stared at her, mouth open, an expression that was rapidly becoming his default around Marci. “You mean you bound a death spirit to yourself for all time on the off-chance you can write a paper about him if you go back to school?”
    “Well, he’s also pretty useful,” she said, brushing the chalk off her hands as she stood up. “When I can get him to obey, that is. Would you hand me the box, please?”
    Julius did as she asked, silently handing her the shaking wooden box he’d brought over from the wardrobe. The soft rattling stopped when Marci broke the paper seal, and she reached inside to pull out something long, black, and slightly ridged, like an animal horn. “What’s that?”
    “Chimera tusk,” Marci said proudly, holding the black object out for him to see.