Broom had also made a new friend. It had met Paul's familiar, a thaumagenetically engineered pet named

Gomez, a ratty-looking street fighter of a cat, black with white markings on its face and paws, and one

eye missing from a set-to with some local competition. Paul had taken the animal to a thaumagenetic vet,

who had set a Chinese turquoise with a fine matrix into the cat's eye socket, an ornament of which

Gomez was inordinately proud. Gomez looked like a perfectly ordinary cat, but thaumagenetics could be

deceptive. There was a well-developed brain inside the large cat skull and, like Broom, Gomez could

talk. His fondest pastime was to sit on Paul's bed and read pre-Collapse action-adventure novels.

Gomez had his own bookshelf, the shelves at convenient floor-level holding an entire run ofThe

Executioner series,The Destroyer, and the complete works of Mickey Spillane and Raymond

Chandler, as well as theSteele series by J. D. Masters. Befitting his battle-worn appearance, Gomez

talked like private eye Mike Hammer, out of the corner of his mouth. He had decided, for some reason

known only to him, to refer to Broom as "Cupcake," which seemed to please Broom as much as it

irritated Kira.

"A fucking sexist tomcat," she groused to Billy. "It figures."

"The stick seems to like it," Billy replied.

"That only makes it worse," said Kira. "You explain to me how a broom that hasn't even got a face can

simper."

"I thought you liked cats."

"I do. Cats like Shadow, that rub up against your legs and curl up in your lap and purr when you stroke

them. Not cats that wink at me and call me 'baby.' If he does that to me one more time, I swear, I'll have

him neutered. I just can't understand an intelligent, sophisticated, well-mannered man like Paul having that

four-legged geek for a familiar. What have they got in common?"

"Kira," Billy said patiently, "you're talkin' 'bout a bloodycat ."

"Well, aren't familiars supposed to be your friends?"

"You can't always pick your friends, y'know," Billy replied. "Sometimes, they pick you an' then you're

stuck with 'em. Like relatives."