It is said that no one who faces the Cats of Death returns alive.

I muttered grimly, throwing my vape to the ground and stamping it out.

Must you go Daddy? We don't want to lose you?

The kids clustered around me clutching at me with terror that the Manther they knew as Daddy was about to set out on a journey to the darkest depths of Scotland. A foul stenched hell mouth of a town that was called Lanark to face and bring back the fabled Cats of Death.

I jutted my jaw forth and stared resolutely into the middle distance with narrowed eyes.

You said you wanted kittens. Well, I got us kittens. Death Kittens.

I muttered darkly.

But Daddy, no one wants Death Kittens?! We just wanted kittens?!

The Little Lady mewed with dread.

We couldn't afford real kittens. I had to make a deal. A dark deal. A deal with the devil himself.

I spat out of the corner of my mouth onto our good carpet.

What about that woman at the end of the street? She was selling kittens? Couldn't we have got kittens from her?

The Little Boom squawked plaintively. He was young in years but old in soul.

Susan The Grinchy-Minge? Hell no, she was wanting £400 a pop for hers. Pedigree short hair something or others. No bueno, muchachos, no muy banjando.

I picked up the cat carrier and gave each of my children a goodbye kiss. I almost shed a tear myself.

It was a dark day and there were dark deeds to be done.

A visit to Lanark was no frivolous thing. It is said that the Devil shagged a Border Collie but in the wrong hole and the resultant shit that came out two months later was the town of Lanark.

Yes indeed. It was a place of wrongness. A place of Witchery and evil.

However, it was also the place that had advertised two rescue kittens. Smuggled out from the cruel streets and into care of the Cats Protection League. A bitter and violent left wing group which would probably be proscribed as a terrorist organisation in Amurca.

What are they like?

I had asked nervously as if buying a pair of used butt plugs.

Black. Black as night. Their last owners died of death. Are you sure you want to risk this?

The Lady on the other end of the phone had hissed at me.

I knew a challenge when I heard one.

I will take your black cats of death woman. Ready them for me and I shall be there forthwith.

I hung up with a snort of contempt, no doubt the Lanark Jezebel would have a different type of cat ready for me but I was in no mood to be playing feed the squid with some random mad haired villager.

The devil did not scare me. Nor his black Necro-Cats. Nor Lanark Lady's yokel'ish Thunder Cranny.

So it was, I journeyed to the dark heart of the West of Scotland.

I returned many hours later. A miasma of doom and foreboding hanging around me like like the smoke of burned books.

There. Take your devil cats!

I roared as I threw the cat carrier to the floor and the demonic entities within spilled out in hellish fury.

Behold the horror that is...

The Cats of Death!