Lucifer Mewel

A fat moon drooped over the farm. Lucifer Mewel sat high in the rag tree and weighed up the dull light's feeble glow from the distant window. His owner had settled for the evening. He knew from experience, no amount of meowing disturbed her reading. No cat-flap catch would be open for him at this hour; not with the threat of vermin burglars sneaking or burrowing into the pantry. So, he weighed up the wheat-field for signs of a snack.

The soft wash of silver light turned the daytime golden heads of wheat into pale ghosts of harvest. The whole field breathed with each passing billow of wind, like a quilt covering a slumbering giant, but Lucifer knew that looks could be deceiving. Mice, voles, and other tasty treats skittered about underneath those bobbing heads. Tonight he would compete for their flesh against an old adversary: the barn owl.

On cue, the hooting of his nemesis came out of the darkness, carried on the breeze. Lucifer stiffened and sharpened his claws on the branch that supported him. It was time to hunt.

Lucifer dropped. His soft pads made the lightest of landings; the wheat below quickly sprang back into its original shape. He looked into the straw fronds and waited, until a small shiver in the sheaves heralded prey. It was a field mouse. Its flanks moved in and out rapidly, in time with its tiny heart beat. Fear glinted in the shiny black bead of its eye, but Lucifer knew it hadn't seen him. The field mouse quivered its whiskers and then went back to investigating some of the plump, fallen husks of wheat that scattered the earth in front of it.

Mine, thought Lucifer. Slowly, head stooped and shoulders working muscles with silent and deadly precision, he edged toward the mouse. There was no sign of the barn owl. No other scents and noises indicated a threat. He could afford to play with his dinner for a little while.

Lucifer let a rumbling growl build at the back of his throat and watched the mouse's reaction to it. The mouse stopped nibbling at the husk and sat upright on its haunches, tiny ears flat against its head. Those beady eyes almost popped out of its skull, glistening like fresh caviar.

In half the time it took to blink, the mouse ran. He ran and Lucifer followed. This -- the chase -- was quite the best part about being Lucifer Mewel. Sure, there were warm laps, milk jugs, and the neighbor's she-cat, but nothing felt quite as glorious as the chase. Lucifer's whiskers brushed the sides of the corn, and without any conscious effort, they picked up the slightest vibration left in the wake of the tiny mouse. He altered course as necessary, relying on his excellent vision to compliment his fine hunting skills.

The mouse made for the storm doors, which led to the fruit cellar. Lucifer purred, and bounded over the ditch that ran by the field. This was going to be fun -- he prided himself on knowing every nook and cranny in the old cellar -- this chase could last as long as he liked.

He was halfway across when he saw the shadow. The flash of something wicked stole across the reflection of the moon in the yard's puddle. Then, everything seemed to happen so fast.

It felt as if steel barbs of wire dug it to his neck; like the wicked teeth of his mother used to when she moved him as a kitten. Then the ground fell away, and left him suspended in mid air, with an improbable vantage point of the farm door. He struggled. The barbs shifted, and he nearly fell, so he stopped struggling, but by now he howled, mewled, meowed and cried his affronted protestations at his assailant. The barn owl had never dared to come near him before. Lucifer was not amused.

He bobbed along -- away from the farm and gaining altitude -- back toward the driveway at the other side of the wheat field. The true horror of this situation hit him. Swooping down on the scampering mouse, before he made it to the storm doors, was the barn owl.

Lucifer twisted his paws and arched his back to see what it was that had him in its fearsome grip. His frightened green eyes took in the wicked sight of his tormentor; black, billowing robes, whipped by the wind flapped like carrion crows wings in his face. The barbs in his skin were caused by the hard bristles of a broomstick, and the bobbing flight path was due to the voluminous rump of a crone too large to leave the ground unaided by magic.

Lucifer made the split decision to use up whatever lives were left to him and jump. He felt a good chunk of fur stay behind, but felt a blissful rush of air beneath him as he fell away from the broomstick's clutches. His landing was not hard. Instead, more twigs tore at his fur. He let his claws scramble against them, watching as they became thicker, and more substantial. Giddy descent slowed to a halt, and the wood around him became recognizable as branch and bark. Lucifer was back in the rag-tree.

The harvest moon sat, waxing gibbous as ever, and the soft orange glow of his owner's reading lamp failed to puncture the inky blue of the sky. All signs of the mouse and the barn owl were gone, and all that stirred were the gentle eddies of a breeze in the wheat field. High in the rag-tree, Lucifer Mewel licked his wounds; one nervous eye locked on the silver skyline.

(943 words)
Written for "Short Shots: Official Contest"  [E]