Chapter 9

"What's the job?" Dee had been practically vibrating ever since they left the office.

"Finding a lost pet."

"Huuuuuh?!" they exclaim. "I thought you meant a real job!"

"This is a real job."

"Well it's fucking lame!" they cross their arms and stomp their foot, refusing to continue walking. "Not doing it!"

He supposes it does sound kinda lame when he puts it like that. "It's not just any pet though…" he tries to clarify, trying to get them to stop throwing their fit. "It's a carbunclo."

"Still not doing it!"

He didn't want to have to recur to this method, but… "You'll get paid if we manage to complete this job."

"Ah?!" Dee's interest has been piqued. "How much?"

"Hm…" he pretends to be thinking deeply about it, "if you do a good job, perhaps you could get fifty beans."

"You promise?"

"I said IF you do a good job."

"Just wait and see," their eyes shining with determination, "I'm going to be the best fucking carbunclo catcher ever!" Dee bounds up ahead of him, but they stop after a few metres, turning to look back at him, confusion written all over their features. "Um… One question though… What exactly is a carbunclo?"

Kit really REALLY wanted to strangle whoever had been in charge of this kid's education.

~~~

Ruby, the lady in charge of the Carbunclo Sanctuary, hasn't stopped crying since they arrived twenty minutes ago. Kit suspects she probably hasn't stopped since this morning, when she discovered one of the little creatures was missing.

"I just- I don't know what to do anymore!" Kit extends to her a box of tissues, and she takes one, blowing her nose loudly. There is a concerning amount of them already littering the floor all around her. "My poor little Cream Puff, I don't even want to imagine what he might be going through right now," she cries.

He rubs his temples. "I'm sure they're alright. A little scared at most."

She ignores him, "What if something has happened to him?! Anyone could have seen him and killed him for his garnet!"

"That's very unlikely. Killing a carbunclo is punishable by law, and I doubt anyone would risk it," he tries to reason.

"What if some wild animal found him though? They're not bound by those restrictions," she grows more agitated as more and more horrific scenarios, each one worse than the one before, cross her mind. "You know, I've heard people saying they saw a fox around these parts just yesterday!"

"Um." He glances at Dee, who is playing with a couple of the small creatures out in the garden. "I'm sure those are just rumours." The chances of Dee having killed Cream Puff, the lost carbunclo's name, are very low, judging from the charmed look on her face as she pets the animals brave enough to come near her.

"What is a carbunclo?" Dee had asked him on their way here.

"It's a magical creature," he had answered.

"Yeah, that doesn't tell me shit. I had figured out at least that much, you know," she rolled her eyes. "I want to know what they look like."

"Let me finish first then."

"Fine," they huffed.

"A carbunclo," he began again, "is a magical creature with a garnet stone in its forehead. There's three main varieties of them," he listed them off on his hand, "the first one resembles a small dog, the other a cat, and the third one looks like a small armadillo."

"How small?"

"Hmm. Well, when they roll up, they're about the size of a baseball ball," he mimicked holding one in his hand. "There used to be another two varieties, but they died out some decades ago."

"How come?"

"Well, you know, people used to hunt them for their stones. It was said that catching one of them could bring the person who killed them a huge fortune. How accurate the rumours are, I don't know, but apparently a lot of people seemed to believe them, because the population started going down drastically. Until some thirty years ago, the government labelled them as an endangered species and people were prohibited from hunting them down."

"Oh." Dee had looked pensive for a few seconds. "Well I'm glad they didn't completely go extinct."

Kit stared at her from the corner of his eye. "Yeah, I suppose I'm glad too."

Back in the present day…

"Ma'am," Kit handed Ruby another tissue (the box was almost empty by now), "I know you're worried about-" He sighed. "Cream Puff," (he was loath to call the creature by its given name; it sounded absolutely ridiculous), "but I need you to make an effort, so please, try to remember when and where was the last time you saw him." She had finally calmed down enough for him to start asking her questions. Though she was still crying, at least she was able to speak now. When they had just arrived, she had been so inconsolable she hadn't even been able to even stand up straight.

"Just this morning, when I gave them all breakfast."

"Where do you give them breakfast?"

"Right here, in this room." She points to all the bowls of food lined up against the entirety of the left wall of the room, which he had somehow missed before. "His bowl is the one right there," she points towards the middle of the row.

"And afterwards?"

She pauses, thinking back to that morning, "well, after they had breakfast, I let them out to play in the backyard for a while, but I was supervising them the whole time!"

There were at least thirty animals living in this house, if Kit's estimates were accurate. With the amount of animals you have I doubt you can even tell them apart from one another, he thinks to himself, let alone keep an eye on all of them. "The whole time?" he asks.

"Well…" she wrings the cloth of her skirt between her hands, "I left for a few minutes to go check the mailbox. But the whole backyard is fully fenced!" she's quick to defend herself, "Besides, I have the same routine every day, and this had never happened before! And Cream Puff is a very lazy guy, most of the time. Even when they're all given outdoor time, he just likes to find a patch of grass in the sun to lie down to sleep. The only thing that can ever motivate him is treats."

Kit nods. "Most likely he hasn't gone far then."

"Y-you think so?" she asks hopefully.

"I'm almost sure. You wouldn't happen to have a picture of them? Perhaps something of his like a toy or some fur would be better."

"O-of course! I'll be right back!" She quickly gets up from her seat, heading to the adjacent room.

Kit also gets up, stretching his arms above his head and walking towards the glass door that leads to the backyard. Sliding back the door, "Hey, Dee," he calls. She looks up from the dog-like creature she has been petting. He motions for them to come over, and they get up, brushing the fur off their shorts.

"Did the crazy lady stop crying yet?" she asks.

He flicks her forehead, "We're gonna have to do something about those manners. And yes, they stopped crying. Come on," he turns to head back inside, "we're gonna start looking for the creature now. Clean your shoes before you come in."

When Dee finally enters the house, Ruby has returned. She's carrying a little box with a few toys and a blanket, plus a photo album on the other hand.

"These are all things he liked to play with. This one especially," she holds up a small mouse plushie. She places the toy on her lap, opening the photo album to a marked page. "This here," she takes out a picture, handling it with extreme care, "this is him. I took this picture a few days ago on his birthday."

Kit holds out his hand, and she passes him the photo. Dee cranes their neck to look at the picture over his shoulder. It turns out Cream Puff does, in fact, look an awful lot like a cream puff. (If a cream puff were to take the form of a cat.) The creature in the picture has cream brown colored hair, exactly the same as most carbunclos do. It is fluffier than most, with grey flecks of fur sprinkled across its back, resembling the powdered sugar on a pastry. But perhaps the most outstanding feature is the blue gem in the middle of its forehead. Now he sees why Ruby was so worried about Cream Puff disappearing. A carbunclo with a blue garnet was extremely rare, almost unheard of. Even if it hadn't been killed, the chances of it being stolen were higher than if it had been a red, or even any other colour, stone. He purses his lips. This whole job had just become more troublesome…

"Could you also hand over the toy?" He extends his hand again. A few moments later, the plushie is dropped wordlessly onto his palm. "This toy," he rolls it around in his palm, "did only Cream Puff use it?"

"Not exclusively," Ruby informs him, "but for the most part yes."

"Hm. I suppose that must suffice. Hold this for me," he hands both the toy and the photograph over to Dee as he takes out a small roll of parchment paper and a fountain pen from the pouch he carries around his belt. He spreads out the sheet on the coffee table, sitting cross-legged in front of it. "Watch closely, okay Dee?"

Both Dee and Ruby peer curiously at what he's doing.

He puts the tip of the pen to the paper, tracing a graceful, sloping line across the page. Then comes a slightly vertical line, a neck, followed by a head, two droopy ears, an elongated snout, a line curving upwards for a stomach, four short legs, and lastly, an upright tail.

"It's a dog!" Dee shouts when he's finished. "Why though?"

Instead of answering, he pricks the tip of his finger, letting a drop of blood fall right in the middle of the page. But instead of spreading across the page, the ink seems to absorb it and it starts glowing softly with a reddish hue. The drawing seemed to start moving, and slowly, gradually, it rose from the page, until it was standing upright on top of the table. It was still two dimensional, the places on the paper that had been blank were now see-through, and everytime the little dog moved, it would leave a trail of small drops of ink.

"It's a hound," he says at last. "It's going to sniff out Cream Puff." He holds out his hand for Dee to give him the mouse plushie. Placing it in front of the ink dog so it can sniff it and pick up Cream Puff's scent. It lowers its head, sniffs it for a few moments, and then suddenly it takes off running, floating across the air.

"What do we do now?" Dee looks at him eagerly, waiting for the next step.

"Now," he stands up, rolling his wrists to get rid of the tension, "we wait."

"What?" bothe Dee and Ruby speak at the same time.

"We're not going to go after it?" Dee gazes after the ink hound longingly.

"No need," he takes a seat on the chair he had previously been occupying. "I can see everything it can from right here," he taps his temple once for emphasis, "so there's no need to go running all around town. When it finds our creature, I'll know."

"Huh? How come?"

"When I let some of my blood mix with the ink, I was establishing a telepathic link with it."

"You're able to do that?!" Kit nods. "That's so cool! When will I learn that?!" Dee almost jumps with excitement.

"Um. Not in a very long time."

The mind-linking technique he had used just now was simple at first sight, but a lot harder to grasp in reality. First, one had to mention the ink life summoning technique, which requires a thorough knowledge of seals and a fine control of one's magical energy. Infuse the drawing with too much energy and it would explode in your face; too little and it wouldn't work. He remembers his first attempts at it, all the times he had gotten a face full of ink, the smell lingering in his nostrils even after he had scrubbed his face multiple times. It had been even worse for him since all he had to guide himself by were old books with chunks of text already faded and worn out. Because it was a technique considered to be outdated, it had only been preserved in old textbooks at the Academy's library, but there was no one who could have taught it to him. The truth was, it was a little bit pointless. With the recent technological advancements, there were now all sorts of trinkets and gadgets a person could use instead for the same end, instead of going through the whole trouble of drawing and then having to summon an ink figure. Still, it was the preservation of history that mattered, not the efficiency. But he digressed.

"Aw, man," Dee slumps her shoulders, "what a killjoy."

He closes his eyes, linking with the ink figure. He can see it going around the perimeter of the house, it gives a few rounds around the block, before once again picking up Cream Puff's scent and taking off running again.

They watch him anxiously, Dee crowding him, with Ruby sitting at a more respectable distance. Every once in a while, a few sniffles from Ruby will break the silence.

After about an hour, the ink hound finally stops in front of a tree. There, sitting on one of the uppermost branches, is Cream Puff, meowing (? do carbunclos meow? what sound do they even make?) miserably.

He opens his eyes. "I found them."

"Where?!" Ruby shoots up from her seat.

"They're at the park a few houses down from the convenience store."

"How did they get all the way there?"

"I don't know." That isn't my job, he wants to say. But he thinks of the trouble being rude to a client would bring if they decided to place a complaint. And judging by this client's looks, they were definitely the type to place complaints. "Come on, Dee. We're bringing it back home."

~~~

He did not think beforehand on how to get a carbunclo down from a tree.

They've been simply staring at the creature for the last five minutes. It stared back at them, occasionally meowing (he doesn't care if that isn't the correct term, he really doesn't know what else to call it). Ruby had declined accompanying them, saying she had the others to take care of, but now he's regretting not making her come. Maybe if the creature saw its caretaker, it would be motivated to climb down and make his job easier.

"Hey kid," he asks Dee without looking at them, "do you know how to climb trees?"

"I think so?"

He does turn to look at her now, "What do you mean you think so?"

"It means, I've only ever done it in fox form."

"But you can."

"I guess… Do you not know? Isn't that like basic knowledge?"

He gives an awkward cough. He had been a bit of what you could call an overprotected child. "I don't think those branches would support my weight though."

Dee just looks at him suspiciously.

"Just climb the goddamned tree if you want that paycheck," he threatens.

"Bitter old man," they mutter under their breath, but they still comply.

However, it turns out, carbunclos and foxes do not get along. At all.

When Dee gets to the branch where the creature is, it immediately arches, hissing and spitting. When it feels Dee getting too close, it bats at her with its paw, claws out.

To be fair, he should have seen this coming. So the blame is partly on him.

But Dee really shouldn't have bitten back. So the other part of the blame is definitely on them.

From there, it grows to a full blown cat fight(? again, he's not sure what to call it). And eventually, both Dee and Cream Puff, fall out from the tree.

Thankfully, Cream Puff lands on its feet, and Kit rushed forward to catch them and place them in the kennel Ruby had given them beforehand.

Dee, however, having transformed mid fall back into their human form, is not so lucky. They land awkwardly on their left side, the arm pinned beneath their body making a sickening cracking noise.

"Ow. Fuck."

He rushes to where they have landed. "Are you okay?!" he asks dumbly.

"I think I broke my arm. And my ribs. Actually, I think I broke my whole body," they roll around on the floor miserably. "Ow, ow, it really hurts like a bitch, you know. I would appreciate it if you would do something other than stand there like an idiot."

"R-right." He doesn't move.

"Call an ambulance or I'll die!" they shout so loudly that a few birds are scared away from the treetops around the area.

That breaks them out of their daze, and they finally dial the emergency number.

When the ambulance gets there, he's already called the office, explaining the situation. Jessica had been eerily calm about the whole situation.

"I don't think she broke her whole body," she had said, sounding somewhat amused.

He looked down at Dee, still rolling around in pain on the ground. "I don't know… It sure looks like it."

There was a huff of laughter on the other end of the line. "Trust me, they didn't."

He had decided to take Jessica's word with a grain of salt. "If you say so…" He'd never broken any bones, so what would he know? he reasoned.

"You were lucky this time, kid. It looks like it's just a broken arm," the paramedic tells him, "but they will need to go to the hospital to get a cast."

"Will they be alright?" he asks anxiously.

The paramedic stares at him, his expression seems to be saying 'are you shitting me right now?' "It's just a broken arm."

"R-right." He gives an awkward cough. How embarrassing. In his defence, Kit wants to argue, he's never encountered any situation with a broken anything. The most had been some nasty scratches or grazed knees.

"Are you their father?"

"Guh-" he makes a strangled sound. "No. I'm their…" he looks for the word, "guardian." He will settle for that.

"You'll have to come to the hospital with them then."

He makes another choking noise.

He really loathes hospitals.

~~~

It isn't so bad.

All he has to do is sit in the waiting area, and, well, wait. Turns out hospitals aren't so bad when one isn't the one being prodded and poked at. Though the sterile scent permeating the air is still horribly offensive.

Thankfully, he doesn't have to wait long. After about twenty minutes, Dee is released, and they walk out, looking virtually the same, except for the cast now enveloping their left arm and a few cuts and bruises that have already been disinfected and bandaged.

"Hey." He gives them a little wave from where he had been waiting.

Dee had shuffled up to him. "Just know, I expect that payment to be extra generous."