(Before Ninja: The Cat)
In the town's defense, one of the bars was a strip club on the wrong side of the tracks, and the other changed owners so often that what it was changed on any given day - not to mention the long hike into the woods. No, The Cat was the only place in town to get a consistent drink, no breasts, no umbrellas tucked into blue liquor. It was a bar's bar, and Cat liked it that way. Oh, her start in town had been a front, a cover, a strategic deceit, but the bar had grown on her. She had her gaming halls in the Capital and Jersey, and she had lavish homes in multiple cities, but the tiny house behind the cheesy bar? That was, at present, home. And while she didn't work at the bar, not in the traditional sense, she did like to mingle. She talked to the cops, flirted with the businessmen, played pool with the college kids. Cat was nothing if not social, and she worked the floor of a bar the same as she worked the floor of a gala. Cat, she was good at this, evening dress or cowboy boots.
Now, tonight? She was slightly distracted. After all, it wasn't every day that men came back from the dead as little boys. Cat was good at hiding it, but her head wasn't in the game tonight. She kept drifting, and that was odd for Cat. Distraction was dangerous, and she needed to refocus. She had a job coming up next week, and she was finishing her deal on the Russian dacha. She'd made travel arrangements for Matt and herself, and she needed to focus.
She was about to give up on her small talk with the officers at the pool table, but the Russian accent walked in, and Cat was attuned. She heard that familiar lilt, and it sounded louder than Johnny Cash's singing about walking the line. Oh, the woman who'd just bellied up to the bar, she wasn't really louder than Johnny Cash, but Russian accents were deafening to Cat.
She understood, of course, that this was Svetlana - the new woman from the forums. Cat had known one Sveta in her life, and that girl had been 11. Cat had been 16, and it wasn't a brilliant part of Cat's life. She didn't like to think about Bone and his brothel. Thinking about that? Just made her think of her own cowardice, and those were the days before her suit. She'd been a scared girl then, and those days were so long gone.
But the accent drew her to the bar, and she heard the woman order the whiskey. "Not vodka?" she asked casually. Cat, she didn't have an accent. She didn't sound like her adopted Russian, and she didn't sound like her father's Italian. She didn't sound like the grimy back alley's of Jersey. She had no accent at all, and she wore jeans and a plaid shirt like she was born to them. Her hair wasn't sleek and polished. No, she was riotous curls and stilettos, and she smiled a lush and careless smile at the copper-haired Russian.