The Brinded Cat

By Chantal Halpin

Insurance claims worker, Sam, doesn’t want to do any more jobs for the Community. She just wants to fill in her nice, harmless forms. But when she is coaxed into rescuing a witch’s familiar from a tree, she finds her charge is more than an average kitty.
Faced with the option of handing him over to the authorities, she instead risks her liberty and flees across London with the witch hunters in hot pursuit. But for a change it seems the Latino pyromaniacs are not the most dangerous players in this game of cat and mouse.
This is a short story of approx 10,000 words with British spellings set in London and the author wishes it to be available as a free download.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chantal Halpin
• Release date: Jan 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301757695

Chantal Halpin

Chantal Halpin lives in the South West of England. She mostly writes Urban Fantasy and loves anything in the Paranormal genre. If it has fangs, can shift into an animal or uses magic then it is pretty cool by her. Radically, she has been known to write the odd normal romance too. *Whatever ‘normal’ is. *Shameless quote from Quadrophenia

Book preview

The Brinded Cat

Chantal Halpin

Published by Chantal Halpin at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Chantal Halpin

License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com.

Thank you for your support.

Disclaimer

All spellings in this short story are British. Consideration was given and it was decided that as the characters are British and it is set in London, it should stay true to form and keep the writing in their native tongue.

This short story is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locale or organisations is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Quote

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Epilogue

About Chantal Halpin

Other books by Chantal Halpin

Connect with Chantal Halpin Online

Other books by similar authors

Acknowledgements

Thank you to my beta readers, critique partners, proof readers, cheer-leaders and friends; Gayle Ramage and Pippa Jay they have the patience of ten saints.

I must thank my daughter for making the cover, otherwise she’ll kill me.

A final thank you to New York Times best selling writers, Ilona Andrews, for blogging about my last short story, Foul is Fair. You brought me to the attention of many more readers than I could have reached on my own.

Some people who read my last story emailed me to say how much they enjoyed it and wanted to know when and where they could read more. So Sheila, Ann and Mar – this one is for you.

Chantal Halpin

We Are Going On A Witch Hunt

Quote

First Witch: Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed.

Macbeth, Act 4 Scene 1

William Shakespeare

Chapter 1

Fin stood in the doorway to his office. I could see him hesitating from the corner of my eye. ‘No,’ I said without looking up. I was form filling. This was the most hateful part. I had just finished an evaluation and the insurance world loved forms.

‘I haven’t told you what it is yet,’ he huffed, shoving his hands into his trouser pockets.

‘I don’t care, the answer is still no.’ I was tired, had just been soaked in the rain and was in no mood for one of Fin’s jobs.

‘What’s biting your arse?’

‘The bus was late,’ I explained. ‘Then the bloody thing broke down three times before I walked off.’ I pushed my wet hair over my shoulder before it dripped and spoiled the form. ‘Then it started up again when I was half way down the road and it went through a huge puddle. The bastard.’ I looked down at my mud splattered jeans. I’d had to walk miles to Cockfosters, which was the nearest tube station. I