I woke with a chesty snort and flew upright into a sitting position. I was back in my room, gasping and covered in sweat. Blinking heavily, the events of the previous night came back to me in a nightmarish haze.

  Wait, was I dead?

  No, no, this couldn't be the afterlife. That would suck. Rapidly, my hands flew around my body, looking for wounds, and that’s when I realized I was naked. That was disconcerting. I threw back the covers and saw a knotted pink scar the length of my middle finger just above my hip and another thinner one running across my belly button. I poked at the scars, but they didn't hurt.

  I took several deep breaths, trying to order my thoughts and figure out what the hell was going on. The last thing I remembered was talking to that pigeon. Then I stopped myself, you don't talk with pigeons. That must have been some sort of hallucination. But I remember being stabbed. I remember bleeding and limping all the way to that churchyard. I remember the pigeon, his golden eyes, and his golden-tinted feathers. I remember talking to him and him talking back. I remember making some sort of deal… and then the pigeons had descended upon me, and now I was back in bed, seemingly healed. I scratched my head and groaned. What the hell was going on?

  I swung my feet out of bed, stood up, and saw my gear piled neatly on the floor, covered in blood. Well, that was disconcerting as well. Just as I was starting to blink some life into my eyes, I noticed my WristPod blinking furiously at me. I grabbed the little device, lifted it up, and saw I had seven messages. Now that was as unusual as having a pile of blood soaked clothing. I then checked the time and realized I was nearly three hours late for work. Panic set in. I opened the messages and saw they were all from Marilyn.

  I opened them up, and Marilyn's face popped into view.

  "Alex, where are you?" she said. "Listen, don't worry about that. You don't have to come in today. Mark sent me home, and he said you don't have to come either. He doesn't want us around in case, you know, those guys come back again. Just give me a message when you're up.”

  Then the next message played automatically.

  "Alex, where are you?"

  Then the next message.

  "Just message me. Let me know you're alright."

  Then the next message. It was just several question marks in a row. Then the next message.

  "Alex, are you hearing weird stuff around the estate?"

  And then the final message.

  "Alex, those guys, apparently they got beaten up and arrested yesterday. I don't know what's going on, but I think we're alright. I don't think they'll be coming back to bother us again. I've spoken to Mark, and he still wants us to stay away for a couple of days just to make sure. Have you heard anything?”

  I put the pod down and sat on the floor, breathing heavily. It had happened. I didn't just imagine it. I'd beaten those guys, and they had been arrested. Did that mean I'd saved Mark's shop? But if that was true, then that also meant I did get stabbed, and I did talk to a pigeon, and the pigeon did talk back. And then I checked the time again and realized I'd misread it. It wasn't 10 o'clock in the morning; it was 10 o'clock at night. I blinked and looked out of the window; it was dark. Had I been asleep all day?

  I stumbled over to the window, drew back the curtain, and then screamed. A pigeon was sitting there, as if waiting for me to appear. I jumped so hard I fell backwards onto my arse and just sat staring at the pigeon, and the pigeon stared at me. He then grew impatient and tapped the window with his beak. I crawled towards the window and pushed it open, and the pigeon dropped something through my window and then flew away. It was a scroll of some kind. I unfurled it and read a note: "Mageling, it’s time to pay the piper. Attend me at the churchyard. PK.”

  PK… the Pigeon King?

  Oh man, this was too weird. This was way too weird. I scratched my head again and then looked around my room and then down at the wound on my belly. It was all real. I’d been stabbed. I should be dead. I’d made a deal with a magic talking pigeon. I was freaking out. What did I do now?

  Before I knew it, I was changed back into my gear, well, the parts of my gear that weren't drenched in blood. I strapped Grandad's bat to my back. I didn't have time to craft anything, so I had to go as I was, with just my Grapple Cord and my Grandad's bat.

  It only took me about 15 minutes to get to the churchyard. As I walked in, I felt a weird energy in the place, something dark, not quite right. It set the hairs on my arms up and my teeth on edge. I saw the statue, and then at the bottom of it, I saw a congealed puddle of brown blood, and my stomach turned. That was my blood.

  "Little mageling, you grace me with your presence," a sardonic voice said from behind me.

  I spun around, but there was no one there. Then I looked up and saw the pigeon from last night. He was the size of a chicken, way too big for a normal street pigeon, with fiercely intelligent, glowing golden eyes. His grey wings had a golden tint, and his crest was also tinted gold. It almost looked like the pigeon was wearing a heavy golden chain of office. He cocked his eyes at me as if waiting for something.

  "Oh yeah, I'm here… You're real?" I asked.

  The pigeon flapped its wings and clapped its beak, clearly annoyed by the question.

  "Little mageling, you are now a feathery follower. You will refer to me as Your Highness, Your Most Graceful, Your Most Graceful Highness, or as Your Most Kingly Kingship, the Pigeon King. And it's customary to kneel before one's liege, yes?”

  I looked at him for a moment and then creakily knelt, dropping to one knee before the Pigeon King and bowed my head as that felt appropriate. The stupidity of bowing to a pigeon wasn't lost on me, but I had decided to go feet-first into this insanity and see where it led me.

  "You summoned me, Your… Liegefulness?" I said.

  The pigeon audibly sighed, I didn't know pigeons could sigh, but this one could. He ruffled his feathers and then flew from the tree to his perch on top of the statue, glaring imperiously down at me.

  Stolen story; please report.

  "Yes, I have summoned you, human, for last night I saved your pathetic little life, and as such, you are now my feathered follower, or rather my featherless follower, and I have a task for you.”

  I stayed quiet and waited.

  "You see, my kingdom is under attack, mortal.”

  "Your kingdom?" I said, looking around.

  "Yes, my kingdom," the Pigeon King snapped. "Could I call myself a king if I did not have a kingdom? My kingdom is under attack currently.”

  "From who?" I asked.

  "From felonious felines! Feral monsters!" the Pigeon King spat, and the pigeons in the surrounding trees squawked and flapped their wings.

  "Cats?" I asked.

  "Yes, the dreaded enemy, the wild cats of the city!"

  "What, like tabbies and house cats and stuff?" I asked, nonplussed.

  "These are no house cats and tabbies," the Pigeon King squawked. "These are feral fiends of the alleyways. They kill my brethren, butcher us mercilessly, chase us, and drive us from the marketplace that is my rightful kingdom. You, little mageling, you shall beat back this invasion and secure my kingdom for my creatures.”

  "You want me to fight cats?" I asked.

  "I want you to destroy them!" the Pigeon King said.

  "Umm… but I like cats."

  "They are flea-bitten mangy curs," the Pigeon King said, flapping his wings. "And besides, boy, you have no choice in the matter. I saved your life, and now you are in my debt."

  "But couldn't you just get rid of them?" I asked. "I mean, you seem pretty powerful for a pigeon."

  The Pigeon King stopped and cocked his head at me as if considering his response.

  "Now, why would I sully my own claws and feathers on such a task when I have a little mageling whose life is mine to do as I wish with? Why else would I have saved you if not to employ you in such tasks?"

  I didn’t have a response for that.

  “So where are these cats?” I asked instead.

  "They lurk by the market square. They're a feral pack that seems to have inhabited the surrounding alleyways. I need you to find them, and I need you to drive them out of there. Slaughter them if you must, but I need them gone.”

  "Okay," I said. "And then we're even?”

  The pigeon squawked.

  "Is your life really worth so little, human?"

  "I guess not.”

  "This is but the first task. How could you possibly repay me for your life? Remember that, human.”The Pigeon King raised his wing. "Now follow my feathery follower, Grey Wing. He shall lead you to the domain of the feral beasts." I looked up and saw a normal pigeon. It looked exactly like any other pigeon I'd ever seen. It hopped down from the tree and then looked at me expectantly.

  "Right, no problem," I said to the Pigeon King. "I mean, yes, my lord. I shall defeat the pigeons… I mean the cats, for you." I stood up and gave him a rusty bow before following the pigeon, who took to the air and flapped slowly enough for me to follow.

  As I walked out of the churchyard, I took stock of where I was in life. I was now apparently under the employ… no, that wasn't quite right; I was under the command of a magical pigeon, on my way to kill a bunch of wild cats on his behalf. Right. I nodded along with myself, wondering if at some point I’d lost my mind, or maybe I was dead, and this was some sort of bizarre pre death hallucination. If it was, me and my imagination needed to have a serious talk.

  I followed the pigeon to the old market square. During the day, the market square was a lively, if somewhat rough, place where several old-school-style market stalls were set up selling fresh produce, fish, meats, rugs, etcetera. After the stools cleared out, the place became a ghost town, where only desperate junkies would pass through. Right now, it was quiet, almost silent, and as with most places in the Boroughs, it was very poorly lit.

  I looked around at the crumbling brickwork of the buildings and then looked up at Grey Wing the pigeon expectantly. The pigeon looked back at me, and I could have sworn the damn thing shrugged before it flew off.

  "Okay, so I must be at the right place then," I said to myself. "Now, where are these cats? If I was a cat, where would I be?"

  I looked around and down the dark alleys and realized that if I was a cat, I’d probably be down there somewhere. So, I pulled my jacket tighter around me and made my way into the alleyway. The shadows were thick here; it was almost impossible to see further than a few feet. I tried to tread lightly, so as not to startle anything or give my position away to anything lurking.

  I stepped through the puddles, peering into the darkness, listening out for any sounds. Then I saw smears of blood, torn feathers, scattered scraps of meat, and claw marks on the walls.

  "I'm in the right place," I muttered, slightly put off by the evidence of such violence. I continued on, the smell of blood mixing with the garbage and the rain, and then I heard them.

  Cats make a lot of strange noises. TV and cartoons make you believe that they only ever say "meow," but cats make a lot of odd yips and screams, and the noises emanating from down this alleyway made my pulse race and beads of sweat start to drip down the back of my neck. There were eerie yowls and screeches that echoed around the hallway, as if they were simultaneously in pain and inflicting pain upon something else.

  I swallowed dryly and licked sweat from my lip. Grandad’s bat appeared in my hand. I don’t remember unsheathing it, but I was suddenly very glad to have a heavy chunk of wood with me. After hearing those demonic sounds, I was fully willing to use the bat on anything I came across. I made my way through the winding alley until I arrived at a dead end, where there was a large dumpster and sprawling masses of garbage littered around the place. There was more blood and more feathers than I thought possible. The air was thick with them.

  "What the hell is this?" I said quietly under my breath.

  It looked like a graveyard. No, not quite a graveyard; it looked like a mass burial site in some old war. There were pigeon bones everywhere: skulls, half-eaten carcasses, feathers, and claws. There were dozens and dozens of them. As I stared around at the massacre before me, I heard something land on the garbage bins to my left. I looked up and saw the thing.

  Calling it a cat was a gross mischaracterization of what it was. Yes, it had four paws, a tail, a head of some description, but it was not a cat. It was some feral monster. Its colours were mottled and spoke of inbreeding. Its claws were long and wickedly curved; even its face was too long to be a typical cat. It had tall ears, a short tail, and teeth as long as my fingers. Its eyes narrowed and it hissed and spat at me.

  "Nice kitty," I said, slowly backing away from it. "I just took a wrong turn down this alley, and I'm just gonna go."

  I slowly backed away and saw four more cats appear from within the darkness, their eyes glowing with unbridled hatred. I saw the hackles rise on the cat on the dumpster, and it lowered its head, ready to pounce.

  "Oh shit," I said, and then the cats leapt at me.

  On instinct, I swatted my bat at the lead one and caught it, sending it flying into the wall. That made me feel a little bit bad, but I didn't have time to ponder animal abuse or the ethics of it because the other four were on me in a flash. Their razor-sharp claws slashed and snatched at my jacket and my trousers. I felt sharp tears in the fabric, and then into my skin. One of them tried to bite me, and I just managed to pull my hand back. I jabbed at them with the bat, backing up and then turning and running into a full sprint as the cats chased after me.

  I ran as fast as I could, and I could still feel them leaping and scratching at my back. I cleared the alleyway and kept running. I don't know how long those cats chased me for, but they yowled and snarled and yipped the entire time until finally, I was so out of breath I thought I was gonna vomit. I skidded to a halt, turned around, bat raised, face red, breathing hard, and the cats were gone.

  I spat thick phlegm from my mouth, looked around, and then down at my trousers, which looked like they’d been through a paper shredder, and I could feel the stinging cuts that the cats had left all over my legs and arms.

  What the hell was that? Those weren't normal cats. No chance.

  Those things almost killed me!