by Bebe Balocca
“I hate so much to say it,” Hunter whispered in her ear, “but we’ve got to get going. We still have a ways to go to get to the pick-up point, and I don’t want you having to handle the canoe by yourself. Once the sun goes down, I won’t be much good with a paddle.”
Faline agreed. “I hear you. Let’s pack up before your claws come out.”
For the promise of a future Jeep tour at Kat’s Crest, an employee at the canoe outfitter was more than happy to give Faline and Hunter a ride back to the refuge, and without a moment to spare. The teenager’s hatchback bumped down Faline’s driveway just as a cottonwood tree inside the fence stood fully outlined by the setting sun. “Almost time,” Hunter said. He pulled her to him and kissed her, crushing her mouth with his. Faline pressed her body against his wide chest, firm stomach and bulging crotch.
“Are you sure you want to go to the refuge tonight?” she asked. “You could sleep in my house again, and I could pick up whatever you want to eat.”
Hunter’s nostrils flared as he sniffed the air. “The change is close,” he whispered excitedly. “Thanks for your offer, but I’ve missed the hunt. Butchered meat isn’t gonna cut it.” He grinned with animal ferocity. “You’ve got some good game in the refuge, Faline,” he chuckled. “I can’t wait to sink my teeth into it.”
“Meet me here tomorrow late morning,” she told him as she unlocked the gate to the sanctuary. “You can ride in Sabrina’s truck, and that way you’ll be close to Abetzi’s zoo so that she can remove the curse.” Hunter nodded.
He stepped inside the perimeter of the refuge and began to strip in the dying light. He folded his clothes and placed them on the inside of the gate, obscured from view by a clump of black-eyed Susans. Backlit by the sinking sun, he looked formidable, masculine and completely wild. Faline ran her hand down his side and over his semi-erect shaft. She wrapped her fingers around it and tugged him towards her for one last kiss. As she ran her tongue over the edges of his teeth, she felt his canines grow longer and his cock grow thicker in her grip. The small barb reappeared on the tip of his shaft, and Faline traced the pad of her thumb over it with interest. Hunter squeezed her shoulder in a tight clench before releasing her and falling forward onto his hands.
His body transformed before her eyes. Orange and black hair sprouted and spread like a striped wildfire over his skin. He became bulkier and longer, and a lashing tail grew from his lower back. His fingers curled into balls. Knifelike claws sprang from them and dug into the dusty earth. Hunter’s head fell between his shoulders and he gave a pained, deep groan. When he raised his head to gaze at her, Faline clutched her throat involuntarily and took a step backward. Hunter was gone. He was no more. Tonight and for the entire next day, a tiger walked in his place.
The tiger huffed and rubbed its wide head against Faline’s thigh before loping off into the night.
Chapter Eight
Sabrina had insisted upon a hot breakfast for Faline before their departure. Faline felt impatient and nervous, but she had to admit that the full night’s sleep, scalding hot shower and breakfast of waffles, juice and scrambled eggs had fortified her. Mick and Paul, still elated by the unexpected Kat’s Crest financial salvation and blissfully unaware of Hunter’s dilemma, checked in with Faline at nine.
“I’m going to go Jeep shopping, if that suits you, Ms Hopper,” Paul informed her. “I’ve got a buddy who works at the dealership in Sterling, and he was mighty pleased to learn that we were in the market for some new vehicles. I’ll get some prices and options for you to consider.”
“And I’ll get back with the insurance agent,” Mick added, “now that we can afford the deductible. I’ll get a couple of bids on cleaning up the debris from the storm and fixing the carport, too. Sound good, Faline?”
Faline desperately wanted to tell them about the bizarre events of the past couple of days, but she didn’t want to worry them and, to be honest, she didn’t want to take the time to explain it all again. If things went how she expected them to, none of it would matter anyway.
Faline took a deep breath. Time for the big lie. “Okay, well,” she said with forced lightness, “Sabrina and I are going to drive in to Denver to talk with an architect about a series of viewing platforms in the refuge. Nothing set in stone, of course,” she continued, rushing through the fib as quickly as possible, “but I just thought that, you know, it would add value for visitors. Wildlife photographers could set up, you know, and see some night-time feeds and maybe some mating activities.” Her cheeks burned bright pink and beads of sweat popped out on her forehead.
Paul raked his fingers through his thick, gingery beard and tilted his head at her. “Not a bad idea,” he mused. “Jonas would be intrigued.”
“I look forward to hearing about it,” Mick said. “And I reckon we’ll be on our way, then.” He nodded at Faline and Sabrina then left with Paul.
Faline exhaled with a loud whoosh.
“I thought I was a bad liar,” Sabrina muttered, “but, girl, you take the cake.”
“I just hate hiding the truth from them,” Faline moaned, “especially after they’ve been so good to me.” She covered her face with her hands. “They were like brothers to my dad.”
“So why didn’t you just tell them everything?” Sabrina queried. “If you like them so much, you should be able to trust them.” Faline shrugged in response. “I’ll tell you why,” Sabrina said grimly. “You’re afraid that they’d talk sense into you. Nobody goes up against Abetzi and gets the good end of the bargain.” She shook her head. “Nobody.”
“I thought you were feeling empowered by Manitou,” Faline protested. “I thought he’d be with us and help us out.”
“Being with us is one thing,” Sabrina countered. “I have no doubt that he’ll be with us and do whatever he can. But, Faline, Abetzi is a witch. She’s a witch who’s in cahoots with a demon. You are playing with fire and you know it.”
Faline strode out to the perimeter and unlocked the gate. A flash of orange and black sped over the grasslands towards her. In spite of her certainty that it was Hunter, Faline feared that the sight of a charging tiger would stop her heart. The tiger leapt over the ditch at the interior of the fence and loped through the gate.
Sabrina opened the cap on the back of her pick-up and the great cat climbed in. The truck bed was padded with old quilts and blankets, and a cooler filled with ice was tied to the inside corner. Hunter settled down on the padded floor and looked back at the women with intelligent amber eyes.
Faline stroked one hand on his whiskered cheek before closing up the truck cap. “Let’s go, Sabrina,” she said calmly.
After a brief stop at the bank, during which a very concerned Margaret Braughm provided Faline with a sizable cashier’s cheque, Faline treated Sabrina to lunch at a roadside diner. Sabrina parked the truck in a shady spot at the remote edge of the diner’s parking lot and opened the truck cap to let in some fresh air. “If anybody tries to mess with you or the truck,” she quipped, “just eat them, okay, Hunter?” The tiger yawned and rolled onto his side.
Even with the clatter of dishes and shouted orders for patty melts and huevos rancheros, the meal was a quiet, solemn affair. Sabrina ate half of her burger before pushing the plate away. “I’ll say it one last time, Faline. I think you should consider leaving well enough alone,” said Sabrina. “Hunter got away from Abetzi with his life and his freedom, and you’ve already saved three tigers from her place. I think you should just let it be.”
“What she’s doing is wrong,” Faline replied calmly. “Abetzi is caging and abusing animals, and no one will stand up to her. She abused Khan, Taj and Sahib, and she would have kept Hunter locked up forever. Who knows who her next victim will be?”
Sabrina swiped her lips with a paper napkin, crumpled it and tossed it onto her plate. “Just don’t let it be you, okay, Faline?”
After a few more hours of tense driving, Sabrina pulled into a dusty parking lot. Abetzi’s place of business looked about as
un-witchy as a Taco Bell. Hot pink and neon green paint stripes decorated the scalloped metal awning and black letters advertised, ‘ Exotic Animal Zoo—Fun for the Whole Family!’
Faline exited the truck and opened the truck cap for Hunter. The tiger lifted its head, purring like a lawnmower, and rose to a sitting position on the patchwork quilt. Sabrina slammed her door and joined Faline, frowning. “Abetzi’s fast, Faline,” she insisted, “and pure evil. Stay on your toes.”
“I won’t let anything happen to me,” Faline promised. “And I’ve got you to help, right? If Abetzi doesn’t want to do business, we’ll split. Simple as that.” She reached out to stroke the tiger’s wide forehead. “Stay here, please,” she told Hunter, “and keep an eye out for us. We may need to get out of here in a hurry, but, with luck, we’ll be calling you in for a spell removal.”
Sabrina and Faline approached the corrugated metal building cautiously. “Think she’s here?” Faline whispered. “I don’t see any cars.”
“Oh, yeah, she’s here,” Sabrina answered in a shaking voice. “I can feel the power of her presence coming off the building in waves. It feels like the blast of an oven. Oh, Faline, with Nyeeah’s power behind her, Abetzi is capable of—”
The glass front door of the building flew open. A tiny, wizened woman stood in the doorway and beamed at them. She looked like a sweet little Native American grandma, complete with long, black braids and crinkled brown face. Her lavender velour tracksuit and orthopaedic sneakers didn’t exactly match her turquoise jewellery and the primary coloured feathers at the ends of her pigtails, but the entire effect was oddly…cheerful.
“Abetzi,” Sabrina breathed.
“Come in, come in!” the woman chirped gleefully. “I haven’t had any visitors for days, ever since my tiger got loose.” She pulled them into the dimly lit structure and bolted the door behind them. Immediately, Faline’s nostrils were assaulted with the stench of filthy animal cages and putrid organic matter. Plastic vines and flowers draped the cages while lurid murals, set aglow by black lights, decorated the walls and ceilings. Most of the cages appeared empty, but in two of them Faline saw the flap of a cockatoo’s white wings and the emerald curl of an iguana’s tail.
Abetzi led them to a cage that was roughly the size of a parking space. It had sturdy, thick bars and a scattering of straw on the concrete floor. She waved one hand sadly at it and cast her eyes downward. “Not much of an exotic zoo without a tiger, wouldn’t you say?” she said mournfully. “I don’t know how I’ll make ends meet without it.”
“Cut the crap, Abetzi,” Sabrina spat. “We know what you had in that cage, and it was no natural tiger.”
“Insolent brat,” Abetzi snarled. The turquoise face pendant she wore, its expression frozen into a gruesome, permanent laugh, gleamed in the faint light of the room. “You were pissing your diapers when I first saw your ugly face. You shouldn’t speak to your elders in such a way, girl.”
“I’ll speak to you as I wish, witch,” Sabrina countered, with a slight tremor in her voice. Abetzi’s black eyes flashed. “Yes, I know just what you are, and you know I know it, too. We’re here to make a deal.” Out of the corner of her eye, Faline saw Sabrina ball her hands into fists.
Chapter Nine
Abetzi cackled, exposing her blackened, toothless gums. “Let’s hear it, then,” she countered, “and be quick about it, little bitch.”
“Take the curse off of Hunter,” Faline said calmly. “I know you did it, and that you’re the only one who can remove it.”
“Oh, blondie speaks, does she?” Abetzi scoffed. She placed her gnarled hands on her hips and turned to Faline. “And why in creation would I do that, little girl?”
“For money,” Faline answered. “Lots of it. You don’t have to run this place. You don’t have to bother with the animals at all. I’ll give you enough money so that you can live in luxury for a long, long time.”
Abetzi pursed her wrinkled lips and cocked her head to one side. “Just how much money are we talking about?” she asked.
“Two million dollars,” Faline replied. “I have a cashier’s cheque for you, and it’s all yours the minute you remove the spell from Hunter and promise to leave tigers alone for as long as you live.”
“Two million, eh?” Abetzi mused. She tapped her fingers, as twisted and gristly as strips of beef jerky, on her whiskered chin, and turned her back to them. Her rear end sagged halfway to her knees beneath the elastic hem of her velour jacket. Faline wondered how in the world she could ever have thought that this woman looked cheerful. She was a vicious miniature troll dressed up like an Easter egg. Terrifying.
“That’s a lot of money,” sighed Abetzi, “and a poor old friendless woman like me could certainly use it.” Sabrina snorted. Abetzi turned and held her palms up regretfully. “I won’t take the curse off, though.” She jerked one wrinkled brown thumb towards the door. “Now get out.”
Faline’s heart raced and her face grew hot. “It’s no way for someone to live,” she sputtered. “It’s just not fair. Hunter is a human one day and a tiger the next—”
“Ah!” Abetzi shouted. “I wondered if that would happen when he left me. So he’s on the every-other-day plan, huh? Well, tough shit, chica. Doesn’t sound so bad to me. And I’m still left with the problem of an empty tiger cage.” She looked Faline up and down appraisingly and fingered the leering turquoise face on her pendant.
Sabrina grabbed Faline’s elbow and tugged her towards the door.
“Wait,” Faline protested, wrenching free from Sabrina. “Couldn’t you even try?”
“I won’t do it, I told you!” shrieked Abetzi. Spittle flew from her mouth and her eyes flashed angrily, then the beginnings of a sly smile curled across her lips. “But perhaps I have another way to help you and this Hunter guy out. You feel that he’s all alone, right? You can’t bear for him to live as he does, isolated and set apart. You’ve got a soft spot for him, anyone can see that.” She shook her head and thrust out her lower lip in a gruesome pout. “Well, then, why don’t you join him?” Abetzi jabbed Faline on the breastbone with one stiff finger and scratched her with her horny nail. A capuchin monkey at the far end of the room shook the bars of its cage and shrieked. “Might even be fun. Aren’t you the tiger girl who runs that do-gooder ranch? You could live with him as a human, and then join him as a tiger every other day. Sounds like a fuckin’ romp to me. What do you say, tiger girl?”
“No,” Sabrina insisted. “No, Abetzi, we’re not interested.” She yanked Faline’s arm. “Faline, we’re leaving.”
“Wait,” said Faline. “How do I know you’d do what you say, Abetzi?”
“You have your watchdog here, don’t you?” Abetzi said, indicating Sabrina with a withered hand. “It’s true that I am most devoted to Nyeeah, but I will swear to both Nyeeah and the Great Spirit Manitou that I will abide by our agreement.” She smiled and looked every bit the loving, trustworthy grandmother. “Then you and your Hunter can share your lives. Even one as old and lonely as I, knows the value of love and companionship, after all.”
“Don’t believe her, Faline,” Sabrina hissed. “She would never do anything to help anyone else.”
“Ah, such cold words,” cringed Abetzi. “They’re like spikes in my heart. But don’t worry, I’m not doing it solely out of the goodness of my heart. Two million dollars is the price. Pay it or leave.”
“For two million dollars,” Faline stated, “you will cast the same curse on me that you put on Hunter. I’ll be a tiger every other day, just as he is. And you will never, ever keep tigers in cages again. You promise?”
Abetzi’s lips curled in a repulsive parody of a smile. “I swear it. By both Nyeeah and the Great Spirit Manitou, I vow to use my power to make it so that you change from tiger to human every twenty-four hours at sunset, just as soon as you depart from this structure. The process will reverse at sunset the next day, and again at sunset the next day, and so forth, for your entire life. I will do this for the
sum of two million dollars, and the spell will be irreversible. I also vow that I will never keep tigers in cages again, nor will I turn another human into a tiger. If I do not do just as I promise, Nyeeah and Manitou may take my spirit from my body and cast it into eternal fire.” She bowed her braided head. “I so swear it.”
Faline glanced at Sabrina, whose face was taut with fear. “I don’t trust her,” she mouthed. “Let’s go.” She indicated the door with a toss of her head. “Please,” she pantomimed with wide eyes. “Now.”
Faline stared at the witch’s grey-streaked bowed head for long seconds. Finally, she cleared her throat. “Okay, Abetzi. It’s a deal.”
“A wise choice,” Abetzi nodded. “Now give me the money.” Faline handed her the cashier’s cheque. Abetzi held it up, squinting. “Good, good,” she muttered. “Very good.” She placed the cheque in a drawer in the table next to the door.
Abetzi took Faline’s hand in her clawed grip and led her to the centre of the darkened room. Even though the glass front door was curtained, Faline could tell by the quality of the light that nightfall was approaching. The painted blacklit vines and jungle flowers curled overhead, and the monkey chattered. Sabrina shifted her weight from foot to foot.
Fingering her pendant, Abetzi gripped Faline’s upper arm and squeezed. Faline winced in pain at the unexpected strength of the witch’s grasp. Abetzi’s face grew slack and her eyes rolled back in her head. “Nuhaha nooch Abetzi. Nuni mooh Nyeeah, ” she chanted. “Suu waini.” Faline felt a tremor begin in the soles of her feet and rise up through her body like the bubbles in a glass of beer. “Suu waini…” Abetzi dug her fingernails into Faline’s flesh and shook her like a doll. “Nuni mooh Nyeeah! ” she shrieked. “Mahmuhch! ”
Faline felt the floor shift beneath her feet and caught herself on her outspread palms. “Oh, Great Manitou!” she heard Sabrina scream. Faline was immobilised by searing heat and dizziness. She dug her fingers into the floor and was surprised to see that they left gouges on the grimy linoleum. Abetzi kicked her in the ribs and knocked her onto her side, then the minuscule witch stomped on a lever on the floor.