Page 17 of By Rude Strength

LA gritted his teeth but managed to mumble, “Thanks.”

“Aw, you’re so very welcome!” Cass picked up the painting. “See! Now did that hurt? Did it cause you any undue stress or discomfort?”

“What?”

“Being nice!”

LA rolled his eyes.

“Is this yours?” Cass peered at the haunted figure in the painting.

“Yeah.” LA shrugged. “All of these are.”

Cass looked around at the other paintings. “Oh! You’re an artist!”

LA frowned. “Yeah, I guess. I used to be anyway.”

“Used to be?” Cass smiled warmly. “You’re still an artist even if you haven’t picked up a brush in a while. These are quite stunning. It reminds me of a lovely human artist named Tanya Gomelskaya. She crafts the most incredible three dimensional paintings.”

“Oh! Hey, I know her.” LA actually grinned. “I mean, I know of her anyway. I’ve seen her stuff. With the creepy arms that are actually sculpted arms coming out of the frame? She’s awesome.” He snorted. “You guys have Instagram over there in monster world?”

“Duh.” Cass plopped down beside LA. “I have over eight hundred followers! My username is Fluffy Cass Bubbles.”

“Bubbles?”

“Yeah!” Cass giggled. “I make bubbles when I’m happy! Or sometimes when I’m not happy. Or just, you know, whenever.” He held out his paw and a flurry of iridescent bubbles appeared, floating lazily around them.

“That’s kinda cool, I guess.” LA fidgeted. “Can you summon up anything?”

“Within reason. I can’t make you adinosaur, but I can create small items using the matter in the air around us. Oh! And transmute, of course. That is to say I can change things that already exist into something else!”

“Like changing rum into chocolate milk?”

“Yes, exactly! But I can’t create a glass of chocolate milk out of nothing.”

“What about that pen? The notepad?” LA arched a brow. “How did you do that?”

“Those I just summoned through the interdimensional fabric that separates your world and mine. Think of it like standing outside your house and reaching through a window to grab something off your desk.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Not the slightest bit impressed, are you?”

“What? No! It’s cool. Whatever.” LA sighed. “Sorry. This day has been a fucking day.”

“It’s all right,” Cass soothed with another big smile. “We’re not going to solve all your problems overnight, you know. We have time.”

“Guess you can’t heal a busted spine, huh?”

“No.” Cass’s smile dipped. “I’m sorry. Does that have something to do with why you lost your job?”

“Everything.” LA thought back to the meeting. “And maybe… It was just an excuse to get rid of me. I was apparently a difficult employee.” He sighed. “I was good at my job. No, I wasgreatat it. I just wasn’t good with… people.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“No,” LA said flatly. “I just wanna figure out how to get it back. There has to be something I can do. They’re saying they can fire me because I can’t perform one of my duties, which is lifting or whatever, but they’ve let me work when I was injured before.”

“Oh?”