Mahalia Takes A Walk

Malia Gooding--well, Mahalia, really, but it had been ages since anyone called her that--was walking through Perdido Beach. Not doing anything in particular, really. Just walking, hands shoved deep into her pockets, head down, shoulders hunched. She passed by a couple of kids who couldn't have been much older than twelve or thirteen, completely zonked out on some drug. One of them called out a slurred greeting as Malia passed, but she didn't answer. She kept going, finally turning up the street and walking up to the door of a random house. She opened the door carefully, ready to pull it shut again and leave if there was someone there.
Nope. Empty. She walked into the kitchen--bluck. It smelled of rotting food. There was even some in the sink. Malia turned to the living room. OK. Nice enough. Hadn't been cleaned, there was evidence someone had been drunk there and thrown up--there was a large stain on the carpet, but at least it didn't smell so bad. Malia plopped down on the couch and picked up a raggedy magazine that been laying on the coffee table. In Touch. Not the greatest reading in the world, but better than nothing. She shrugged and opened it to the first page when there was an enraged yowl.
Oh, great. Some kind of crazy animal. Malia carefully and slowly put down the magazine. Sitting on top of the broken-screened television was a cat. An angry-looking tortoiseshell cat with angry yellow eyes. It hissed at her, and lunged. Malia leaped to the side--but it was somehow in her face. She panicked, shrieked, and transformed to fire. The cat was suddenly gone. Malia, still in fire-form, keeping her flames very carefully contained so she wouldn't burn the house down.
The cat was on top of the coffee table, looking slightly singed and even more angry that it had before.