The friction of the footpads on the coarse, steep roof tiles was what held the black cat from slipping at that awkward climbing angle. Its paws were swift and its coat merged well enough with the night sky to make it invisible to men, too big to notice subtleties. The feline felt uneasy nonetheless. To its ears, the rustling of fur on the tiles was noisy, and so was it for the dogs in that arrondissement, which were a lot harder to trick than their owners. The dogs themselves posed no direct threat, given that they had no access to the rooftops from the inside of the apartments. They could wake people up, however, and the cat thought that there was one person in particular who it would rather have asleep that night.

  The feline jumped onto a nearby scaffold, landing with the front paws first, then hunching up a bit to make way for the rear ones. Some 15 meters below, the gare split in the shape of a “V", as the stream of a river after meeting with a large and pointy rock. The “rock", in that case, was Rutz Paris hotel, a big neoclassical building with lots of ledges and gaps where one could climb. Just a few more blocks…

  Another jump and the cat made it to the next building's rain gutter. It was a rather unpleasant surprise to find the metal pipes still puddled and cold from last day's drizzle. Hissing in a mix of irritation and fright, it leapt off that hellish water tub and then dragged its shaky body to the roof's crest, fairly conscient that any dignity it bore earlier that night had remained in the gutter. Sneaking into the hotel unnoticed was out of question now, so it might as well just sit by the chimneys and gaze at the city lights that sprawled far beyond its sight.

  It didn't take long until a man appeared through the maintenance door, as the cat expected would happen. His skin was as dark as the shadow he projected and his hair barely covered his head with silverish tufts. The newcomer wore a warm set of pajamas and brought in his arms a towel, one pair of pants and a hoodie two sizes smaller than his own. The expression on his face denounced that he felt tired, but not drowsy, as if the night was merely an extension of a long and busy day. After two quick swipes on a dirty chair behind the door, he dragged it to the plainest part of the roof, a terrace where he grew a small garden and where lay his cable antenna, and patted the floor by his side to draw the cat nearer. After a second of thought, it obeyed.

  It was casually handed the towel and the pants upon arrival, which were awkwardly dragged into the open door. A few moments later, another man emerged from inside the apartment, scrawny as the cat had been and with the same disheveled black hair. Unsurprisingly, he wore just a towel around his shoulders and a pair of dusty pants on his waist. He also brought a stool from inside, which he placed right next to the black man.

  “It's three o'clock." The man on the chair grumbled as a reproach while lighting a cigarette.

  “I just couldn't sleep. Sorry I woke you up, Marcel." The man on the stool retorted, not as na apology, but as a concession of defeat.

  “And I am sorry that you woke up the whole building. Did you want to go out for a dive or something?" Marcel tried to express more disapproval than he actually felt, the cat-man was sure, but he played his part. With his chin down, he accepted the hoodie from his friend.

  “No, but that's what I got anyway. Your gutter is either crooked or clogged, so I took a bath on that water from God knows when."

  “But I told you not to tread on gutters. If you slip from this height, nine lives won't be enough, Olivier."

  Whatever the man called Olivier grunted back was conveniently muffled by his putting the hoodie on. He appeared to be somewhat around his twenties, but Marcel's severity made him think that he was some sort of ill-behaved child.

  “Olivier…"

  “What?"

  “Your eyes. They look like a pair of flashlights."

  “Oh…" A blink or two were enough to transform his shiny, vertical pupils into opaque, round ones . The night immediately grew darker around him."

  “Better. Now, have a cigarette while you tell me about what you were doing on my roof."

  Olivier chuckled uncomfortably.

  “Thanks, but I don't smoke. As for what I was doing, I just wanted to go outdoors, get some air. It's been awhile since I walked the neighborhood like that."

  “You mean the irresponsible way. They killed a boy in England yesterday, so I heard. It seems like someone caught him in the middle of the turning, got scared and acted on it."

  “And the boy, what was he?"

  “A cat." Marcel uttered plainly, his gaze vaguely directed down below. “Caroline said she knew the parents. She also mentioned some suspicious deaths in Bordeaux, but nothing unusual made the news there."

  “Well, I'm not a boy anymore, Marcel. I know how to handle myself." Olivier defended.

  “And even so you forgot about the rain gutter and my neighbor's tiles. Mistakes like these are acceptable now, but people are starting to get frightened by all those strange news. In a couple of months, even street cats will draw some suspicious eyes."

  Oliver didn't bring himself to dispute that. Instead, they kept their silence and listened to the buzz of the city cars scurrying about on the streets. And so they stayed until Olivier asked:

  “How long is it since you last flew?"

  The black man blew out a thoughtful cloud of smoke.

  “Months. Not many of them."

  “Any amount is far too many months…"

  “ It's not worth the risk now. My neighbors were starting to ask about the hawk I raise inside my loft. One of them tried to snap a picture, but he makes an awful lot of noise when spying."

  Olivier frowned.

  “Is he watching us? I mean, right now?"

  “No. We wouldn't be having this conversation out here if that was the case." And he pointed towards a window some two hundred meters heading left on the intersection. “The bastard even forgets to turn the flash off sometimes. I should sue for privacy violation. Marie liked the idea, anyway.".

  “And what about her, how's she doing?" Olivier inquired.

  “She's alright, thank you for caring. Tonight she's out on night shift at the hospital." Marcel opened that repressed smirk that, to his standards, equaled a teeth-baring grin. “She'll be happy to know you came for a visit. There's a bowl of milk for you somewhere around here…".

  “Haven't you told her I'm a person yet?" An uncomfortable blush appeared to color Olivier's cheeks.

  “Of course not. The fewer people who know, the better. To her, you're a lovely stray cat which she calls 'Cherie'." A little bit of laughter managed to squeeze through his contracted lips, making Olivier feel a slight urge to shove his head underground.

  “You know, nothing prevents you from telling her I'm a male, though."

  Marcel, however, just coughed and waved, as to assure the other that there was no harm intended. Soon, he regained his serious expression.

  “But you should take my advice: avoid transformation at all costs, unless you are positive that no one is looking. I meant it when I said things are risky now. Maybe you think I'm being overzealous, but there's no stressing this enough. Nobody else should end like those kids in Bordeaux and the UK."

  Olivier nodded. He scratched his head, hinted with his mouth agape that he was about to say something, but it was withheld with a subtle shake of the head. That moment of hesitation did not go unnoticed under Marcel's truth-revealing gaze.

  “Spit it out. Now that you got me up, you may as well talk to me a little."

  The young man shrugged and pointed to the hotel opposite their place.

  “Right there, third balcony from left to right. Do you see it?"

  “A rhetorical question, I suppose?"

  “Ok, this girl arrived this morning all by herself and rented a family suite. I found out when the manager asked me to clean her room…"

  “Do you work in there?" The listener interrupted, slightly surprised.

  “Not full-time."

 “And here I was, thinking you would be someone when you grew up…"

  “It helps paying my tuition! As I was saying, the manager thought it was really odd, to the point of mentioning it during lunchtime. I overheard him saying that a woman called Suzanne Simon had purchased 15 nights in the 221, cash."

  “That's odd."

  “If everybody thinks so… Moreover, it so happens that we bumped into each other in the corridor after I had finished with the room, and I recalled having seen her before: she was at Sorbonne, in my class, for half a semester, when she just vanished."

  Marcel arched an eyebrow.

  “Carry on, please."

  And so Olivier did, after cleaning his throat.

  “Well, she didn't seem to recognize me at first, but I insisted on her memory until she remembered my name. She was sad and soon invented an apology to slip past me back to the suite. It got me thinking 'What could possibly make a 21 year-old book 15 nights in advance, alone, in her own city? Of course, she didn't give me no clues, but whenever I think about the whole story, from the college dropout to her nervousness today, I can only imagine she is running away from something."

  “And are you aware of what she might be trying to avoid?"

  “I'm not sure. That's why I'm up here."

  “To spy on an ex-colleague?"

  “You could say so."

  “In any case, make sure the flash is off. I hope that you snoop better than you sneak."

  Both of them laughed quietly, watching their laughter transform itself in little clouds, such as those of Marcel's cigarette, and rise into the cold air of the city of lights. The alarm of a car went off somewhere very far from there, but was soon cut dead, plunging the atmosphere back into the blank noise the parisians called silence.

  The tiles froze Olivier's bare feet. He itched to bring back the thick leather to his paws and the black fur to his skin. He glanced again at the balcony, the only still illuminated on that face of the building. A feeling surged inside him and it indicated that he knew precisely what was going on behind her curtains. It was fear, distrust of family and friends, desperation… She was starting to dive into the stage of foolishness, given the sum she had just burned for 15 days of fragile isolation at the Rutz, and people like them didn't last long on their own in those conditions. Suzanne had no one to count on when things got out of hand, as Oliver had Marcel growing up. They could not stand still as another tragedy unravelled before their eyes.

  “Marcel, I feel that I've been bothering you too much for one night. I should be on my way."

  “No need for ceremony, I'd better get some sleep if I'm to survive today's editorial board meeting."

  “Do you mind if I just leave your stuff around here?"

  “Not at all, just find her and do what you gotta do."

  Marcel let out a fake yawn as Olivier slowly shrunk inside the hoodie. Big white whiskers sprouted on his upper lip and his face retracted inwards the collar. In seconds, the clothes were empty, except for a black cat that now escaped from one of the coat's sleeves. The other man put out the cigarette as he watched his friend disappear among the sea of rooftops and chimneys of the neighborhood.

  “Just don't be seen." nor let them see her, he thought. Now all alone, he stood up, followed closely by the chair's moans of protest. The bowl of milk behind the cable antenna was picked up with a chuckle and emptied on the vase of a petunia nearby. Marcel wondered if he would dream of the sky that night too as he went through the door back to his cage.