Free License to Ensorcell by Katharine Kerr

muttered.
    “Uh, well, yeah,” I said. “Sort of.”
    Kathleen pressed the electronic gizmo she was holding. The gate lock buzzed, and I opened the wire panel.
    “Hurry!” I said to Nathan. “Get in before any of the cats get out.”
    He obligingly darted inside, and I followed. I shut the gate fast and pulled till I heard the lock click. As we started up the path, I kept an eye out for more dogs, but Kath had sent her pack around the house to the garden. It’s not that she can talk with animals like Dr. Doolittle, rather that she communes with them, or so she describes it. She understands them, they understand her, and they do what she wants. When the wolf-form took Pat over, she was the only family member who could reach his actual mind within the wolf-mind.
    “How many cats does she have?” Nathan said.
    “Don’t ask,” I said. “I hope you’re not phobic or anything.”
    “No. Just curious.”
    On the way up to the porch I spotted a couple of feline faces among the shrubbery, plus one tabby lounging on the sunlit walk, who fled at the first sight of us. An elderly gray Persian sat on the porch and sneered as we climbed the steps.
    “That’s four,” Nathan said.
    Kathleen greeted me with a hug. Although all the O’Gradys are good-looking, Kath is one of the two beauties of the lot of us, with wide dark blue eyes and perfectly straight black hair that falls to her always slender waist. When we were teenagers, I had an additional reason to hate her beyond our having to share a room. All the boys flocked around her and never noticed me, or so I thought at the time.
    “This is Inspector Ari Nathan,” I said. “From Interpol.”
    “Cool.” Kath glanced his way. “Hi.”
    “How do you do?” Nathan said.
    She ignored him and led the way into the house. After the bright sunshine outside, the wood-paneled hallway was dark enough to make me blink. I nearly stumbled into the Louis Quinze writing desk that stood by the door into the living room. Kath switched on the Tiffany desk lamp. By its light I noticed that some feline vandal had ignored the forest of scratching posts in the hall and clawed one of the desk’s legs nearly through.
    Cats scattered ahead of us or raced up the staircase beyond the living room. Nathan counted under his breath but stopped when he reached fifteen. I could catch the whiff of cat boxes on the air.
    Despite its white walls, the living room lay in semi-darkness, thanks to the trees right outside the windows and the dark blue velvet furniture. Kath gestured at a couch, and I sat down at one end. Nathan paused to look at the Childe Hassam winter landscape—an original, of course—hanging over the mantel of the natural stone fireplace. He started to sit down on the middle cushion of the couch, but just as he was about to lower his seat onto the seat, something yowled and he yelped. He stood up fast as a gray and black striped cat shot off the sofa.
    “Archie!” Kath intoned the name like a priestess in some ancient rite. “You know you’re not supposed to sit on the furniture in here. Go to your room!”
    The cat stalked out, tail held up, a flag of defiance.
    “Uh, sorry,” Kath said. “I hope he didn’t claw you.”
    “No, no,” Nathan said. “It’s quite all right.”
    “You’re a Brit?” Kath gave him a stiff smile. “At least they like animals.” She turned away before he could answer and glanced around the living room. “I guess the rest of the guys are somewhere else. Jack hates it when he sits on a lot of cat hair.”
    “Especially when it’s still attached to the cat,” I said.
    She grinned at me and flopped down into an overstuffed armchair opposite the sofa. “I’d offer you drinks,” she said, “but the police aren’t supposed to have them, are they? When they’re on duty, I mean.”
    “Quite so.” Nathan reached inside his sports coat and brought out a small black box. “Now, Mrs. Donovan, is it?”
    “That’s right.”
    “This is a