Puma

by Jorrie Spencer

  A sick feeling wound through him. Eleanor was going to arrive, ask him questions and he was going to answer every single one of them. Part of Dev wanted to rise, to leave, but such action seemed hopeless. The word failure echoed in his empty brain and he gritted his teeth. There had to be something he could do.

  So he went to work with what he had, which wasn’t much. He tried to fill his brain back up with Dev thoughts. They were there, even if hard to pin down at times. Elusive, but not impossible to find. It seemed to take forever, but at last he forced his gaze to rest upon a porcelain vase that held five pink roses. Pretty. More than that. Breakable. While Dev couldn’t bring himself to move—Eleanor was not yet here to give him orders—he visualized his hand taking hold of that vase and smashing it in order to create a shard that could slice into human flesh. Eleanor’s human flesh.

  Hours passed, or so it felt to Dev. After a while, he remembered how Eleanor liked to forbid a zombie to move and leave them on their own, in their moldering brain, so that when she arrived, they were anxious for her to tell them something, anything, to do. But still he sat.

  More time passed and all Dev could do was focus on that vase and its contents, imagining the flowers scattered, the vase shattered. Not the most powerful idea ever, but at least Dev knew the idea of breaking that porcelain belonged to him and no one else. In his mind’s eye, he picked up the vase again and created a weapon.

  Dev was barely aware of the car’s arrival. The car door slammed, and that noise jerked him awake. He turned his head, but he didn’t rise as he gazed out the front window to observe a taxi in the driveway, its top light shining in the dark as it slowly backed away. Footsteps sounded heavy on the stairs. It took a few minutes before the front door actually opened, as if the visitor was waiting for something, or someone.

  The door shut again, but from the couch, Dev couldn’t yet see who it was. Then three steps into the house, and Scott came into view, meeting Dev’s stare with a wince and a hangdog expression. Shame and so much else passed over Scott’s features. Too many emotions for one teenager. The boy looked sick. He didn’t even say hello to Dev.

  Instead he shifted to face the stairs leading up to the second floor and called, quite timidly, voice thin and reedy, “Eleanor?”

  They waited in silence, he and Dev, until the blue-eyed stranger reappeared, jogging down the stairs. Presumably this man was Eleanor’s equivalent of a butler.

  “She’s been waiting for you,” he told Scott, whose only response was to hang his head more. “Go sit in the living room with your zombie.” Scott’s body jerked a little and Dev thought, He’s been pushed. “Don’t talk. Don’t move.”

  Scott, of course, obeyed. To the letter, as he seated himself stiffly beside Dev on the couch.

  Dev offered him a half-smile. “I wasn’t told not to talk.”

  Scott’s glassy gaze met Dev’s, and he couldn’t help but think he was in bad shape if “his” Minder was worse off than himself, a zombie. Dev should have been more dismayed by the situation, by the fact that Scott was here when Dev had tried to ensure Scott wouldn’t see Eleanor ever again.

  Instead Dev stared at that vase. If he reached out his hand, he could touch its neck, curl fingers around the porcelain and swing it down against the glass table.

  Not yet. Wait till Eleanor gives you the orders.

  It didn’t take long for Eleanor to descend now that Scott was here. Her butler, an apparently obedient soul, followed behind. Eleanor was a middle-aged woman who looked bizarrely congenial. Dev could imagine that she fooled everyone who came looking for psycho Minders. She might have been an elementary-school teacher, or a matronly nurse making sure you took your painkillers after minor surgery. She even smiled in greeting as she approached them.

  Dev struggled to keep up his guard and it wasn’t easy.

  “Where have you been, Scott?” An outsider might have thought this mild-mannered question was gentle curiosity, but it had Scott wringing his hands.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” His weeping began immediately and it appalled Dev afresh, the loss and the fear in that sound. Though it wasn’t the first time he had witnessed this kind of scene.

  “Where’s Max?” asked Eleanor in a friendly way, as if Scott weren’t crying, as if Scott were a friend. “I haven’t heard from him, which is highly unusual. Max is always careful to keep in touch with me. Unlike you, my dear.”

  Scott rubbed his eyes. Once. Twice. His breath hitched, but no words came out.

  Eleanor regarded the boy steadily, her expression now one of companionable concern. “I asked you a question, Scott. You will answer it this time. Where is Max?”

  Scott gulped air, then blurted out, “Max is dead.” The breathless, terrified voice made Dev angry. A red haze began washing over him, but Eleanor must not know how angry he was. It was forbidden and therefore unsafe.

  “Dead?” Eleanor sounded doubtful. She even shook her head to indicate someone had made a mistake, got their facts wrong. “I find that hard to believe. Dev?” she said, facing him. He jerked his head up to meet her gaze. That was one of her rules. Meet her gaze so Dev did. “Where is Max?”

  He blinked once and while a part of him wanted to shut up, to just not speak, Eleanor deserved to know the truth. Dev wanted to tell her, her gray gaze said as much.

  “I shot him in the mouth,” Dev said baldly. “Max bled out on the floor. Bit of a mess,” he added unnecessarily.

  Eleanor’s eyes widened and she went a little pale, which was kind of strange given that Eleanor was never discomposed. Never. She stared at him a good long time, assessingly, then spoke very quietly. “Now, why would you shoot Max, Dev?”

  Dev searched for an answer. Callie came to mind, and Puma, but he set her aside. He could not speak of Callie here. She was too precious. But Eleanor, Eleanor needed an answer, and he was taking too long to provide one. He licked his lips and mumbled, “I wanted to.”

  “My, you are evasive, and unclear. I don’t approve.” She shifted her gaze back to Scott. “You’ve lost control of your zombie, Scott. You will have to kill him.”

  Scott pulled in a long, shaky breath and began to nod before the weeping took him again. Dev closed his eyes and then he remembered, in his mind’s eye that belonged to him, the vase. Within reach. However…

  Wait for Eleanor, he reminded himself. Wait for her orders.

  “Scott.” She said his name like a whip and Dev opened his eyes to see Scott twitch in reaction. “Tell Dev what he has to do.”

  Dev faced him, ready for orders. Then Scott did this very strange thing. He lifted his hand to his own throat and grabbed hold, like he might hurt himself. Dev felt baffled by the action.

  “Stop that,” Eleanor snapped, her voice sharp. “Take your hand off yourself.”

  Instantly, Scott’s hand dropped and, worried about the boy, Dev thought of the vase again, stared at it, though he was under Eleanor’s orders, and she’d said nothing of the vase.

  He still wanted to break it. He focused on this desire to break it.

  “Scott,” said Eleanor as if she were speaking to a very dim child. “You must—”

  On a sob, Scott slammed his head down on the table, hard enough that it cracked the glass, and he slid to the floor.

  “Jesus,” said the butler, awe in his voice. “I’ve never seen that before.”

  “Quiet,” demanded Eleanor as she regarded Scott’s slumped form. Her face gave nothing away, but Dev recognized that she was uneasy, and that meant she was even more unpredictable than usual. She bent down to look more closely at Scott.

  And Dev knew. If he didn’t lift his hand, force himself to reach for that vase, Scott was going to die. Dev should have waited for Eleanor’s orders, he truly believed that, but he was first and foremost responsible for taking care of Scott. From beginning to end, he was Scott’s protector.

  In one movement, Dev rose from the couch, grabbed the porcelain vase and swung it in an arc through the air, water and flowers
flying. Eleanor turned her face up towards him. “St—” The vase smashed into her mouth, breaking apart on teeth and bone.

  A large, jagged shard was left in Dev’s hand, and it became his only weapon and his one chance. He jammed it into Eleanor’s throat, hoping for blood, or at least to slice open her voice box so she’d never talk again. It was too late to wait for orders, he thought, as skin and tendon gave way against the sharp edge of his weapon.

  After one final push, Dev let go. Eleanor attempted to reach for the piece of porcelain, in a futile attempt to pull it out of her neck. But blood spurted, her fingers slipped and fumbled before her arm fell away, and she collapsed.

  Time seemed to stand still. Suspended. Then…

  “Thank you.” The sincere voice came out of nowhere, or so it felt, for there was a roaring in Dev’s head as time moved forward again. He couldn’t see anything except Eleanor’s bleeding body and the blue shard sticking out of her neck. There would be no more orders. Dev shuddered and should have felt relieved. Instead he was strangely numb, slightly out-of-body, unsure where he was, who he was with. The voice came again. “Look at me.”

  Dev raised his face to stare at the butler, whose large blue eyes mesmerized him. Perhaps this man could help.

  “Thank you, Dev.”

  He frowned, trying to remember what he was being thanked for.

  “Now,” continued the butler, “I want you to call nine-one-one and tell the police you just murdered this poor woman. It’s important you do that right away.” Those eyes bored into Dev as he realized this death had to be reported to the authorities. After all, Dev wanted to be a lawyer. He believed in the police doing their job. So when the butler pointed to a side table where a phone lay, where the vase used to sit, Dev wanted to pick it up. Even if he couldn’t move quite yet.

  “Nine-one-one, Dev,” the butler repeated. “Dial those numbers now.”

  Callie prowled through the ravine. During the ride over, she’d studied this area on Trey’s laptop. He’d downloaded Google maps and the detail they gave was really quite incredible. Slowly she made her way up the steep bank that led to the back of the house that contained a dangerous Minder named Eleanor.

  Trey was wolf beside her. After so many months, there was once again their particular animal bond. A bond she had yearned for, until she’d met Dev. It was something to shift forms with another and to travel as puma and wolf. That was what had drawn her so strongly to her ex-boss. She’d thought she was in love, but it had been loneliness and a rare, but shared, ability. She might never shift with Dev, but she could be with him. He gave her love and a sense of belonging.

  He wanted her.

  Trey, well, Trey wanted to help her when she needed him and wanted her help when necessary. He had only ever been her friend, and a distant one at that.

  This wasn’t the time to think relationships. Callie focused back on the here and now, where they had to help Dev and Scott and anyone else who’d become victim to Eleanor and her pod.

  “These Minders,” Trey had said, “don’t know about shapeshifters and our resistance to their pushes. Better to keep it that way.”

  So they were crawling up the side of a ravine—which was densely inhabited by bush, plants and trees—as cougar and wolf, scouting out the pod’s home base. Between Trey’s sense of smell and Callie’s sight, and both their hearing, they’d be able to understand just who was there and perhaps where people were located in the house. Trey wanted the kill to be as clean and quiet as possible. No confrontation, just death.

  They approached the house slowly and Trey, with his superior sense of smell, stiffened first. Callie lifted her head to breathe through her open mouth, and identified Dev. She also identified the awful smell of death and blood. Trey growled, low in his throat, but Callie didn’t stop to decipher the wolf’s meaning. The time for planning was past. Violence and confrontation had already begun. Dev was at risk. So she ran, bounding towards the house, and leapt, aiming for the screened window.

  Chapter Nineteen

  She flew through the wire mesh, breaking it, and landed on linoleum to skid across the kitchen floor and slam into the wall with her shoulder. The stench of death washed over her. Fear for Dev followed closely on its heels.

  “What the hell was that?” came an unfamiliar voice. Then a command, as if he expected complete obedience: “Don’t move, either of you.”

  By the time Callie righted herself, she was looking up into the face of a stranger who appeared stunned by the presence of a cougar in his kitchen. As he processed what he saw, his expression changed from that of disbelief to terror.

  She hissed and the stranger scrambled backwards. They entered the living room. In a glance, she took it in—dead woman bleeding out, Scott sitting on the floor looking both bleary and weepy. Dev standing, wild eyed, pale, pushed.

  She was ready to kill someone.

  “God, Callie.” Dev sounded distraught, and baffled. “You’re here? But you shouldn’t have come. Not here. Never here.” He blinked at her then lifted his hand to indicate he held a phone, stared at it as if its existence baffled him. “You shouldn’t have come,” he repeated, blinking at the phone now. “Just, I have to make a call, okay?”

  Scott lurched towards Dev. “No. Don’t—”

  “Shut up, Scott,” snapped the stranger and, snarling, Callie clamped down on his leg. He screamed and she released him, leaving him to clutch his leg while he fell to the ground. Maybe he would shut up if he had a damaged leg. He was lucky she hadn’t torn the muscle open, just punctured it.

  She wasn’t sure why but Scott stumbled into Dev, grabbed his wrist and shook the phone out of his hand. Dev let the phone fall.

  Then Scott stomped on the phone, or tried to. He fell over on his second attempt, as if he were drunk or something, but she didn’t smell alcohol. However, since Scott wanted the phone destroyed, Callie obliged him—she knew enough about Minders and their pushes. Picking up the phone in her mouth, she crunched it dead. If Dev actually needed to make a phone call, rather than being pushed to make one, it would have to wait.

  “Dev,” began the stranger, voice full of pain but determined. Callie turned and bit down on his leg again. It was going to be in shreds if he kept this up, but she found it hard to care even as the stranger screamed in pain again. Surely twice would teach him? She let go, he stopped yelling and she eyed him, waiting for his next move. This time he dragged himself out of the room, his ragged whimpering accompanying him. Normally, noises of pain upset her, but not now. All she wanted was this stranger to stay away from Dev, and Scott who seemed to be hurt.

  Next thing she knew, Dev was sinking down beside her. His arms came around her shoulders in a hard hug. His face pressed against her neck and he simply breathed.

  “I can’t keep this up, Callie,” Dev said in a fractured, bewildered voice. “I’m really losing it this time. Where’s the phone?” He lifted one arm from her and reached for the broken phone. Gently, she caught his hand in her mouth, stopping him, then licked the nasty cut. Somehow he’d sliced his palm open.

  With that, he gave up trying to retrieve the phone, just rested against her as if it was the most he could accomplish, while she licked him and purred. “Everything’s red when I’m angry,” he murmured, “but I’m not angry now. Not with you.”

  She chirped in reassurance, wishing she could tell him it would be all right, that it was over. He didn’t seem to know it, even though that had to be Eleanor dead on the floor. Callie chirped again.

  “I don’t know what that noise means,” he told her, “but it’s charming.”

  She nuzzled his shoulder.

  More footsteps and both Callie and Dev stiffened, only to see Trey emerge from the kitchen into the living room. Dev gripped her more tightly.

  “We want to get the fuck out of here,” Trey announced after a quick sweep of the room. “No sense in explaining this death when we can just disappear. Who else is in the house?” He looked at Scott, who sat on the floo
r, glassy-eyed, unable at this point to take any of it in. “What’s wrong with him? He’s got an egg growing on his forehead.” He reached down to look at Scott’s eyes and the boy flinched. Probably because Trey was a very large naked man Scott had never before met.

  Dev lifted his head from Callie, spoke over her to Trey. “Scott didn’t want to kill me so he knocked himself out.”

  “Jesus Christ.” The disgust in Trey’s voice was palpable.

  “That made me angry,” Dev muttered in Callie’s ear, though Trey with his sensitive ears heard it too.

  “I can imagine,” Trey responded. “Okay, who else is in the house right now?”

  “A butler,” said Dev.

  Trey stared, not making sense of Dev’s information, and Callie wished she were human and could speak.

  “Never mind,” said Trey. “I’ll figure out what to do with him later. For now, to the car. Where I can get dressed and retrieve my gun, and we can all leave.”

  Somehow they managed to get Dev and Scott out of the house. They hid in the shadows while Trey ran to the car and drove it back, then they piled in. Puma sat in the back, lying half across Dev’s lap while he kept his arm on her like he wouldn’t let go. Scott huddled in the passenger seat, and Trey reminded Scott not to fall asleep since he might have a concussion. Scott stared at him with something that lay between terror and awe, because Trey had mentioned he was a werewolf and Callie a cat shifter.

  The rest of the night, as they headed back to the safe house, went by in a blur. They were all kind of stunned, not just concussed Scott. Dev, protective of Scott as ever, kept wanting to explain that Scott hadn’t pushed him to leave this morning, that it had been Dev’s own will. Since Callie chose not to shift in a moving car, she simply purred as soothingly as possible. She would keep her counsel here, at least for the time being, because she didn’t think Dev could know if it had been his own will, which had been so dangerously intertwined with Scott’s will this past year.