The Panther and the Thief

by Veronica Sommers

  "Yes, really. I'm—I was looking for Nali. She told me which bathroom she was headed to, but I got confused."

  "So you ended up in my room instead."

  "Of course this is your room," I say, glancing around.

  He frowns. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Nothing. Just that it looks like the room of a teenager."

  "I'm twenty-five."

  "Exactly." I move as if to push past him, but he shifts, blocking me with his body, propping his forearm against the doorframe, and looking into my eyes, his own flickering with suppressed humor.

  "You're a jittery one, aren't you? Judgy, too."

  "I am not. I'm very open-minded." The smell of him, the faint male musk underlying the cedar and vanilla scent, blurs my thoughts and quickens my breathing. He's so close I can actually feel his energy, a vibrating haze of power gathered over his skin. Its pull is unusually powerful for a human, seductive in a way I haven't felt before.

  He's still looking at me, his full lips parted, the colors of his eyes shifting in the light from the window, morphing from swamp green to smoky blue, to light brown again.

  "When was the last time someone kissed you?" he asks.

  "What?" I gasp, blinking.

  "You heard me."

  It's been two years. "I have a boyfriend."

  "Liar." He winks at me.

  I draw myself up to my full five feet five inches. "Mr. Ashton, my coworker and I are here to do a job. Either you step aside, or I will report you for sexual harassment."

  Hurt flashes through his eyes, and he moves out of my path. "I apologize. I wasn't trying to make you uncomfortable."

  "Yes, you were."

  "Okay, maybe a little. Forgive me?"

  Where did he learn that rakish grin? He must practice it in the mirror.

  "No," I say, and I stride away.

  When I finally find Nali, she's got a circle drawn on the bathroom tiles with compact powder, and she's writing runes in lipstick on toilet paper squares and laying them out.

  "Um—that's not going to work," I tell her.

  "Yes, it will. As long as all the elements of the spell are present, it doesn't matter how they are presented." She sighs. "If it weren't for that stupid barrier, I wouldn't even need all of this low-class magic. I'd be able to summon and speak to the spirits directly."

  I hand her the supplies I gathered. "How long will it take, doing it this way?"

  "Ten minutes? Thirty? I'm not sure. You should get back to work. They're not paying us both to sit in the bathroom. I'll let you know what I find out."

  Reluctantly I return downstairs to the study and set to work. With Nali absent and the Ashton trio elsewhere in the house, I take the liberty of putting on a playlist—quietly, so as not to disturb anyone. Soon I'm deep in the rhythm of evaluating, noting, and organizing, nodding along to the music as I work.

  Even though it isn't my primary occupation, I enjoy being a professional organizer. Sorting, cleaning, making things neat and accessible—it satisfies a gnawing need in my soul, a craving for control and perfection. Every piece of paper I can place in its appropriate stack, every random paper clip I can drop in its own acrylic cup, gives me a sense of satisfaction. I'm so involved in the work that I barely notice minutes passing, until Daera clears her throat behind me.

  "Where's your colleague?" she asks.

  "She's—oh gosh." I check my phone. It's been an hour. "She wasn't feeling well. I'll go check on her. Excuse me."

  I race upstairs to the bathroom and tap on the door. "Nali?"

  She doesn't reply.

  I open the door partway, but something blocks it from opening further. A dark head atop a slim brown neck. Nali lies on her side on the floor, unconscious.

  "Nali!" I squeeze in, stepping over her body and kneeling in the sludge of makeup and oils smeared over the tiles.

  Nali's eyes are closed, her breathing faint. From her nose trickles a rivulet of scarlet blood.

  I smack her cheek gently. "Nali, wake up!" Struggling against the oppressive influence of the dome, I gather my magical energy and send a faint pulse to her heart, quickening it just a little. She stirs, her eyelids fluttering open.

  "Sit up," I hiss, pushing the door closed. "Here, against the cabinet. I have to clean up this mess before someone finds it. What happened?"

  "I called and called," Nali mutters, holding her temples. "No one. Nothing answered. Nothing gets through the barrier, except—a voice. It told me that tonight, demons will come."

  "Demons?" A chill prickles over my skin. "You mean spirits?"

  She shakes her head wearily. "Not spirits, Cilla. Whoever this is, whoever put up the barrier—he can send things through. Things, you hear me?"

  I'm not sure I believe her, but I nod. "All right. We'll be careful."

  "Careful?" Her mocking laugh echoes off the tiles. "Careful isn't gonna cut it, Cilla. We're all going to die."

  "Whatever." I finish wiping away the mess and gather up the remaining essential oils. "I'd better return these. Can you walk?"

  "I think so." She hauls herself up and staggers into the bedroom.

  "You're going to have to fake it," I tell her. "Or they'll think you've been drinking. We can't afford to lose our five-star rating."

  "I thought you didn't care." She smiles wanly. "It's a fake business, after all."

  "I don't want to have to start all over with another cover profession. This one suits me."

  "Yeah, cause you're a closeted control freak." She pulls herself straighter, and we head downstairs. But before we reach the last step, she clutches me, her fingernails nearly piercing my skin, her dark eyes wide. "Demons, Cilla," she whispers. "Tonight, they're coming."

  -4-

  Killer

  Sunset comes late in the mountains, and as the light lingers in the peach and golden sky, the inhabitants of the house become more restless. Nali and I are still working in the study, sorting bills, receipts, deeds, and notes into separate piles for the Ashton siblings to look through. I've set aside a few piles of semi-rare books that may be worth selling. As I'm sitting near the half-open door, flipping through a verbose memoir, I hear raised voices from somewhere down the hall.

  "It's ridiculous!" Daera is protesting. "What are we supposed to do with them?"

  "Give them rooms. Let them stay the night." Oakland's voice is smooth, calm as a flowing river.

  "And what do you intend to tell them?"

  "That we've tried everything. That we need to wait."

  "But we haven't tried everything."

  "We can't risk trying to breach it, Dae."

  "I'll do it," she retorts. "I've got the balls, even if you don't."

  "No, Dae—" he protests, but another voice cuts in.

  "I'll do it." It's Ryden, his tone low and tense. "I'm the strongest, and I heal the fastest."

  "No," says Daera. "No, Ry! What if you get stuck in it?"

  Silence, and then Oakland's voice again, fainter and further away. I can't make out the words.

  I picture Ryden, with those laughter-filled hazel eyes and that beautiful body, walking up to the magical barrier. Striding right into it, shoulders squared. The lightning fizzing and spiking, jerking him around like a rag doll, spitting him onto the ground, his skin smoking and charred, eyes sizzling in their sockets.

  Terror throbs through me and I leap up, dashing out into the hallway.

  "Cilla, what the—" Nali's voice fades behind me as I race for the front entrance. I have to stop Ryden from trying to get through the wall.

  I reach the front door and peer through one of the tall, narrow windows that flank it. The lawn stretches golden-green in the light of the setting sun, the tips of the grass blades tinted lavender. Ryden's tanned body gleams equally golden and smooth—he's entirely naked, his clothes scattered on the grass. I have a prime view of his taut backside, long legs, and broad back. What is he doing?

  And then the shape of him shivers. Shimmers. Stretches, nearly transp
arent, and solidifies again—only this time, instead of Ryden, something else stands on the lawn—something with four huge paws, a lithe body covered in night-dark fur, and a writhing black tail.

  A panther.

  The big cat that was Ryden lowers its sleek head, ears twitching. I can't see its face, only its smoothly rippling haunches and surging back as it bounds toward the barrier and leaps, aiming to soar straight through.

  Its outstretched paws touch the flickering purple wall.

  A dazzling blaze of forked lightning envelops the cat, stiffening its limbs and standing its fur on end. The sight of the bushy fur would be comical if it weren't so horrible. I clutch the edges of the window frame, fighting the urge to open the front door and rush across the lawn.

  The panther thrashes, then rebounds from the barrier and crashes to earth, its fur smoking, patches flickering red from the heat of the lightning. I can see its face now—the dark ridge of its brow bones, the slopes of its cheeks and muzzle, the slack fold of skin at the corner of its open mouth, and a glimpse of sharp teeth.

  It's motionless. Is it dead?

  Daera claps her hands over her mouth. Oak clutches her upper arms, a restraint and a comfort.

  They wait.

  After a moment, the panther trembles and turns transparent again, coalescing into a man's shape. It's Ryden—solid, human, and stark naked, lying on his stomach on the grass. I watch until he lifts his head and gives his siblings a thumbs-up—and then I sprint back through the house to the study.

  Throwing the door wide, I gasp, "They're shifters."

  Nali's eyes widen. "No. No! The Patronage would have warned us about it."

  "Trust me, the Ashtons are shifters." I throw myself onto the couch by the wall.

  "I thought all the shifters along the East Coast had died out, or moved away."

  "Me too. But I just saw the young one, Ryden, go full-on black panther and hit the wall. He got electrocuted, but he's alive, somehow."

  "Shifters. Damn." She ponders, gnawing a glossy black fingernail.

  "Do shifters have an unusual aura to you?" I ask. "Because I felt something earlier, when I was close to Ryden—this kind of electric charge. Like a force, pulling me toward him."

  Nali snorts. "That's not shifter aura, babe. That's plain old hormones. You've ignored your sexual needs for too long, and now they're making themselves known. And the timing sucks, because of course you can't screw a shifter."

  "Why not?"

  She stares, incredulous. "Number one, we're on duty here. We have a job, and you're not doing anything to jeopardize it. Number two, it's gross. Shifters are beasts. They have the most base, useless, and degrading kind of magic—purely animal, purely carnal."

  "Carnal," I murmur, tracing the pattern of the sofa's upholstery. "Doesn't sound so bad."

  "You know what I mean. Carnal, as opposed to the higher forms of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual magic."

  I groan. "I don't need a magic classification lesson, thank you."

  She ignores me, her slim brown fingers tapping the spine of a book. "Your talent is physical magic—forces like magnetism and gravity. Physics, the push and pull of matter and energy. It's the lowest of the four prime classes, so I guess it makes sense that you'd be attracted to a carnal magic user." She prims up her mouth, head back, looking down her nose at me with a disdain that's only partly faked. For all her good points, Nali is a real elitist when it comes to the magic class system. I suppose I am, too—or I was until I saw Ryden shift into that magnificent, sleek panther.

  "We need to stop talking about it," I say, my eyes traveling to the doorway. "They'll come back inside any minute now."

  "Fine." She stands, straightening her shirt. "I'd hoped to be headed home by now. Looks like we'll have to spend the night here. I've never had a job go so hella wrong before."

  "I wish you could have reached someone at the Patronage. Even if we find the Madstone, how will we get out of here with it? We can't turn it over to that—voice."

  "We may not have a choice."

  I sit up on the couch. "Nali! You know the price of failure."

  "I know I'd rather be stripped and alive than empowered and dead."

  "You really believe that something's coming for us tonight?"

  "I don't just believe it, girl. I know it."

  Oakland's crisply dressed form fills the doorway. "Ladies. A moment?"

  It's comical, sitting on the couch, watching Oakland stumble through the whole "magic is real" speech, complete with a half-hearted explanation of the magical barrier. Nali and I play the part of clueless humans to perfection, settling into the roles we've established for ourselves. She pretends to be the angry one, in complete denial. I pretend to be shocked but willing to hear more.

  Oakland doesn't reveal anything about his sibling's status as a shifter. I'm assuming he and Daera are shifters too, since that form of magic usually runs in families.

  "The man who wants the Madstone and the other items is a powerful wielder, and obviously one who's willing to resort to hostage-taking to get what he wants," Oakland explains.

  "So give him what he asked for, and then we can leave," says Nali.

  Oakland shakes his head, licking his lips nervously. "We can't."

  "Do you have what he wants?" I ask.

  "That's not your business," Daera interjects. She's leaning against the wall, glaring.

  "It became our business the moment that shield thingy went down," I say. "Our safety is being compromised, too. We have lives, jobs, places to be. So yes, we're involved, whether you like it or not."

  I meet her stare, then Oakland's, then Ryden's. Ryden is smiling at me, eyes twinkling, and he slow claps. Daera huffs in disdain.

  "She's right, Dae," Oakland says. "To answer your question, Cilla, we do believe that all the items are here in the house. We know where some of them are, but not the most important one, the Sedona Madstone. That particular artifact was useless to our kind—to our family, I mean. I'm surprised our father kept it."

  "So you have no idea where it is?" Nali says.

  Easy, girl. I wish she could hear my mental warning. We can't act too interested in the Madstone.

  Oakland shakes his head. "No idea at all. We've checked the safes with no luck."

  "Maybe if Nali and I keep helping you sort through your father's possessions, we'll figure out where he put it," I say. "Then we can give it to Spooky Voice Guy and get out of here."

  Oakland, Daera, and Ryden exchange looks.

  "Like Oak said, we can't give it to him," says Ryden.

  "Why not?"

  "He's evil."

  "Evil?" I laugh. "What's evil? How is that defined for you?"

  Ryden shrugs. "Evil is holding people against their will. Taking hostages, blackmailing, stealing. It's not hard to identify." He narrows his eyes. "You don't believe that some people are evil?"

  "I believe that people are more complex than that. They don't fit into tidy little boxes of good and bad."

  "Enough philosophizing," Daera says. "I'm starving, and after dinner we should search the house more thoroughly."

  "We're not giving him the Madstone," Ryden growls at her.

  "Down, kitty," she says. "I just think we should know where it is, in case this goes on too long and we get desperate."

  Oakland sighs, rising. "Thank you both for your patience," he says to Nali and me. "I know this is a lot to take in—much more than you bargained for when you took this job. If you'll come with me, we'll have dinner, and then maybe you two can help us search."

  "Of course," says Nali, her eyes glittering. My heart jumps at the words too. This is the opportunity we've been hoping for. We need to secure the Madstone first, and then, once it's in our control, we will find a way out of this. We have to. If we don't report back to the Patronage with the Madstone in a week, someone will come looking for us—and it won't be to offer help or give us a motivational speech, either.

  We follow Oak to the kitchen
, where we all share a meal of pasta and garlic toast.

  "We're going to have to conserve our electricity," says Ryden around a mouthful of bread. "There's not as much fuel for the generator as I thought. Running the AC all the time is going to use it up fast."

  "Then we'll shut off the climate control to the upper floors, and we'll only use it downstairs during the hottest hours of the day," says Oakland. "Anyone who would like to sleep on the first floor tonight can do so. If you'd rather sleep upstairs, be sure to leave windows open for air."

  ***

  Windows open, ha. If there is a mountain breeze, it's being blocked by the magical dome. Plus, it's the height of summer in the Carolinas. I've only been in the guest bed for half an hour, and I'm already sweating between the sheets.

  I kick my legs, tossing off the light fabric, and send a weak pulse of energy at the overhead fan. The switch is off, but maybe I can power it up enough to cool me off so I can sleep.

  The fan moves, but slowly. My magic is still wonky, and my energy buzzes uncomfortably through my body when I try to use it. Damn.

  To distract myself, I think back through our three-hour search session this evening. The house has so many rooms, and those rooms have dozens of old-fashioned pieces of furniture full of cubbies and crevices—it's practically impossible to check every hiding spot. With the siblings' help, we combed the entire second floor and most of the first floor, but we haven't touched the third floor rooms, or the attic, or the basement. That will be a job for tomorrow—unless Nali's premonition was right and we die from demon attacks tonight.

  My pillow is hot, steamy, and too thin. I can't lie here. I feel like I'm stewing in my own skin.

  I rise and pad out of the room barefoot, in the tank top and shorts I borrowed from Daera. She's thinner and shorter than I am, so the clothes are tighter and skimpier than I'd like. I'm not a prude, but I have things I'd rather not show. Scars on my inner thighs, specifically, from the dark days in junior high, when I found relief in pain.

  That was before I understood—before I knew about my mother's magic, or my own.

  My magic is physical, attuned to the push and pull of natural forces. There's spiritual magic, too, like Nali's—she can summon spirits and speak to souls. The most advanced and powerful of her class can even pull souls from bodies, or put them back in. At least, that's the legend.