“What’s that?” Picka Bone asked, startled. His bone head was hollow, but this was normal for a walking skeleton, and he could see, hear, and think well enough. Magical creatures were not handicapped in the manner of mortal ones; they were not subject to the ills of flesh. As it happened, they were just completing their hourly tour of the cemetery they were patrolling.
“It’s a living cat,” his sister Joy’nt said. She was his age, twenty-four, with nice bones. “With a bird sitting on his head.”
“That’s what I thought it was. Don’t live cats normally eat live birds?”
“Normally,” Joy’nt agreed. “There may be an interesting story here.”
“And we could use some interest in our dull routine.” For that was a liability of their state: terminal dullness. Without the fear of pain or death, they seldom got exited. Intellectual interest was about all that sustained them, and they were not great intellects.
The cat was coming directly toward them. It was a nondescript male with blond fur, evidently mundane. The little bird was flapping its wings but not flying, as if trying to get their attention. It was a male parakeet with brownish feathers, another mundane creature. They halted right before the skeletons.
