I fought free of the metal to clear ground and turned to face the center of the building. My ankle hurt like hell and I was pretty sure I’d cracked a rib or two. I shook off the pain and concentrated. There was a pool. The trail, wide and easy to spot even to my human eyes, led directly to it. And directly past about twenty rabid-looking dogs. They were the size and shape of Doberman Pinchers, but something about them was off. The way they circled around me, the way they waited to gather and cut off all means of escape except back into the fire, didn’t seem right. Normal dogs would have barked at the fire, would have been trying to find their way out, even if they were sick. Self-preservation demanded it and was the most undeniable instinct.
A dog snapped to my right, forcing me back onto the unstable fencing footing. I blinked a few times to bring up my cat eyes and that’s when I saw it. The same sort of vision that let me see trail clearly also let me see what was wrong with the dogs. Or at least what was inside of them. Red-eyed clouds seemed to form each animal, pulling and pushing this way and that, fighting the natural instincts to flee the fire and instead hound me in. I looked over them, towards the pool, wondering how much time I had.
Even if I hadn’t lost the gun in the fence fall, I didn’t have enough ammo in one clip to take all the dogs, and with my ankle I doubted I could jump all the way to the pool, cat or no cat. Changing wouldn’t help either. A cougar can take a dog, hands down, but not a pack. I fingered the throwing knives at my waist and saw the spirits hiss, making the dogs growl. I took one out and hit one animal in the eye. The animal’s body turned to ash instantly and the devil cloud over it seemed to steam, twist and scream until it evaporated. Interesting. My cat tickled the back of my head in pleasure.
The other dogs closed in now, but I was almost to the fire. The spirits were having a hard time fighting the form’s instinct to run from this much danger. I could smell my hair, pulled back in a rough pony tail, begin to smoke and singe, just a bit. I crouched down, into the flames and searched the wreckage of the fence I had landed in. There, about six feet to my left and near one of the more excitable dogs, lay my gun. I threw three out of four of my remaining knives quickly, to the right of me. The demon dogs disintegrated and the others howled.
A six-foot jump I knew I could make, even with a bum ankle, but it still hurt like hell. I hit the fencing, grabbed the gun and rolled under the dog, stabbing it through what would have been the heart with my last knife as I twisted up onto my knee. I didn’t wait for the thing to die; I just started shooting over the perverted death throes of the animal. I rapid-fire shot those closest to me before the spirits changed their direction and faced me.
I now had seven more creatures to face and exactly four bullets. Hopping away on my uninjured foot towards the pool seemed to excite them, so I gingerly planted both feet in a shooter’s stance.
“A gun and knives. How disappointing. I had expected a better showing from you, Shapeshifter.” A voice floated up from the pool.
“Eat me.” The dogs were advancing and I had no energy to spare for the Ghost Cat or witty repartee. I sucked up a deep, smoke-filled breath and squeezed the trigger. Cat reflexes aside, it was hard to miss this close and the devil clouds were more about numbers than strategy. The bullets didn’t kill them like the knives did so as the animals died, the spirits were let go like malicious balloons to hover close to the ceiling with the smoke. They didn’t seem to be able to influence the others, though so I counted my blessings. At least I would have if the remaining dogs hadn’t all jumped me just then.
I went down with three beasts all trying to get at my throat. I didn’t even feel my hands Change. Suddenly I had paws that ripped yelps from the demon puppy whose teeth were sunk into my right shoulder. It wasn’t dead, but with its leg that injured it wasn’t going to be joining in the fight that quickly. I dug into the dog leaping for my throat and tossed it over the fire into the yard beyond. I heard a satisfying howl and could concentrate at the beast with its fangs sunk deep into my left arm. It was yanking, trying to pull me off balance and buy some time by shaking me like a rag doll. I Changed my free hand back and pulled a vial out of my pocket, smashing it down on the dog’s snout.
Steam hissed and fizzed from the dog’s eyes where the liquid had splashed and the devil cloud was released. With it went the dog’s summoned form. I made a mental note to ask Jackson where he got this stuff from.
I turned my attention to the pool at last and heard clapping. That pissed me off.
“Glad you enjoyed the show.” I cocked my head. I could hear sirens, too far off to reach human ears. They abruptly cut out. I wondered if they were within 500 feet yet. “So, you going to do the decent villainous thing and monologue or something while I check out how wounded I am? Tell me all about how you plan to kill me and my friend? How about the girls? Wanna tell me about them? Or Tammy?” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice when I said her name, and the specter chuckled. I raised my arm to see how bad the bleeding was and watched as the wounds closed up right before my eyes. My ankle didn’t seem to bother me much either and I could almost take a whole deep breath of the clearing air without the sharp pain of bones jutting into lungs. This cat thing was developing a few benefits. She swished her tail in an I-told-you-so motion in my head and I smiled.
“Your offering of your friend was appropriate.” The voice echoed. I could finally concentrate on it and was surprised to find that it belonged to a woman. Reaching the lip of the pool, I gazed down past a floor littered with broken glass, metal piping, jagged car frames and other objects with shining, deadly points. In the center was a wooden stage, where Jackson lay under the woman’s hands. With my vision, I saw a shadow shimmer around her and knew how such a tiny woman had managed savage feats of strength that a grown man would have trouble with.
Her demon seemed to not be controlling her, but just beside, whispering in her ear, then weaving in and out of her body, giving strength to just the right parts at just the right time.
It was with a start that I recognized her. The reporter, Susan Lucas, stood draped in front me and it all clicked into place. The newspaper articles with the most details had come from her. They would have earned her an on-air correspondent position. And she could control how much information was leaked out, what details she’d give the press. She was her own best source, after all. She’d even chosen her own handle, Ghost Cat. And she had her brass claws lightly pressed against Jackson’s throat. I slipped my human form and shook out of the clothes. They fell away to be torn to shreds on the points below. I didn’t care much now. Lucas threw back her head and laughed with glee. I’d just given her what she wanted. She started talking again, but I was too far gone to hear.
I leapt in the middle of her confession, silent. She brought up a knife in her hand from under her cloak and I twisted in mid-air to land on the lee side of her, putting Jackson’s inert form between us. The dagger flashed, not towards me but down into Jackson’s chest and a very human scream escaped my mouth. I slashed at her with my paws, about to leap at her throat. The demon shimmered in delight, egging me on.
“Aislyn!” A few shots were fired. Susan Lucas’s body slumped in front of me, a gun raised right to my forehead, the demon urging her to pull the trigger. Her eyes gleamed with the joy of the insane and her lips moved in whispered benediction even as she was dying. I shoved my head into her and she fell backwards, off the platform, onto the waiting jagged metal ring she’d set up for me. The demon-shadow disengaged itself from the twitching corpse and glided towards Jackson.
I Changed again, even though my reserves were wearing thin at this point. I pulled Jackson onto my lap and yanked out the knife. Tears were dripping, mixing with the ever-growing pool of blood. I thought about the way my arm had healed, tried to clear my head. Panic swelled. Whatever made me different, a monster, a killer, a hunter, I poured through that link between us.
“Please, Jackson, please.” But he didn’t move. A shimmering caught my eye. The demon starte
d to worm its way towards Jackson, arrowing into his wound and he cried out. The demon was trying to gain control of Jackson and through him, me. His back arched, his feet pedaling.
I screamed again and felt something outside of me. Felt a tug and looked around. There was a trickle of light, sluggish and clogged, that the demon had leached onto. It was poisoning it, and then using the polluted flow to feed. I reached behind the demon. Light flowed towards me, a little at first, then faster, finally gushing like the river it was supposed to be, pure and cleansing. The demon let one unearthly screech out and fled. My vision flickered and the river disappeared from view. I didn’t understand it in the least. I looked down at Jackson in my lap. His chest was bleeding, but the wound was much shallower, not reaching the bone beneath at all. My own blood dripped onto his closed eyes and I saw all my recent wounds had opened up again. I was weak and alone. The cat was silent in my head. But I could still feel her, curled up to recover.
I looked up to the lip of the pool and found Rodriguez looking down at me. A couple of men raced up behind him, guns drawn, ready for anything, searching the room. They looked down at the tableau in the pool and brought themselves up short. I looked in Rodriguez’s eyes and didn’t see the revulsion I had seen in Jackson’s. Only shock, wonder and around the corners of his eyes, fear. In its own way, that was as bad. But fear I could live with right this moment. The cat stirred enough to utter one command. Sleep. And the world went away.
Chapter Eighteen: Aislyn
I woke up days later, in the hospital. The cat was still quiet in the back of my mind, which must have explained why I was healing so slowly. They had taken blood samples and determined that there was an “unidentifiable element” in the sample, taken more and realized it was just my blood. I was under observation until they figured it out or I got restless. I was content for the time being to watch TV and read the papers. The press had been shocked and dismayed to find that one of its own had been behind not just those five murders, but several more.
Rodriguez got the collar, even though the trail and the tracker he’d planted on my shirt sleeve had led him outside of his jurisdiction to Douglas County and the sheriff department there. I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that Rodriguez fought for it, or that the other department didn’t want to be responsible to clean up all the mess. It seemed everyone was anxious to avoid mention of two civilians being connected in any way with the word “bait” in the press or official reports, so few knew that Jackson or I had been involved. It all sort of felt anti-climatic to me.
Susan’s shrine was much more interesting to report. The press was absolutely in love with all the gore. And with Rodriguez. Seemed I wasn’t the only one who thought he looked good on camera. He was in high demand as the hero of the hour. On one local talk show, Rodriguez was able to make a few vague allusions as to how he put things together. How Lucas hadn’t emulated a true Ghost Cat’s style at all and that led him to wonder about her news sources and how the pattern of her introducing a fact and everyone else repeating it emerged. How he’d tracked down any outlying property (since they weren’t having any luck staking out her home or office) belonging to her or her family had led to the farm. The rest of the story he kept for me, when he came to visit.
“The farm had gone bankrupt several years before due to mounting medical costs for therapists’ bills. Susan hadn’t been a happy child.” He walked over to the window and looked down at what little view there was. My neighbors (all elderly women) had decided I needed to be alone with my “fella”, then giggled and left, so it was just the two of us. Let me tell ya how sexy a Johnny shirt makes a girl feel when you’re looking at a hot guy—insert eye roll here. I watched him for a few minutes more before I noticed the tensed shoulders and the knots on the neck. He looked at me in the reflection of the window and I patted the bed next to me, smiling in what I thought was an inviting way. He turned, crossing his arms in front of him, putting as much between us as he could.
“When her family lost the farm, she kind of just lost it.” It took me a minute to remember he was talking about Susan Lucas. I wondered when and how the demon came into the picture, but there wasn’t exactly a good person around to ask that. He leveled a look that would normally have me puddling if I didn’t feel so ridiculously underclothed. “What are you?”
I sighed and lowered my gaze. Here it was, the question from him I’d been dreading. I made weird hand gestures for a minute or two while I organized my thoughts.
“Jackson calls me a Shifter. I guess that’s what I am. I’m kinda new at it though.” I tried to make it a joke but the air was too tight, so I took a chance. “I’m a freak,” I admitted, even to myself. “I used to work in a warehouse, schlepping freight around in a forklift for twelve hours a day, then working at my foster father’s gas bar on my days off and weekends. No money, no prospects, no life. Then I met this really cool guy—” My throat closed up for a second at the thought of my ex-boyfriend. I started again. “I met this really cool guy and we started to date, so I thought my life was getting better, until he wound up ‘disappeared’. After that, his little sister shows up with a light show, some mumbo-jumbo, and bam, I get furry once a week. Not exactly something that you can explain to anyone or go to the clinic to get fixed. I wigged out and took off, where I wound up in Denver. You pretty much know the rest of the story from there. Me in a nutshell.”
“Or nut house,” Rodriguez muttered. He returned to contemplating the window, then whirled around. “You know I covered for you.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but just tossed up his hands. I pulled my knees up to my chest and put my chin on them, patting the bed again. He rubbed his eyes, then came over and sat at the edge, as far from me as he could get.
“Thank you.” My voice sounded tiny, even to my ears. Rodriguez moved so he was beside me and pulled me against his chest. I wrapped my arms around him, giving as much comfort as I was getting, I hoped. Eventually he kicked off his shoes, pulled the blanket over the two of us and stretched out beside me. I curled into him and we lay there until the sun went down.
When I woke up again, Rodriguez was gone but had sent me flowers with a note. It just said three words: When you’re better. I wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but I wanted to find out. He’d seen me Change and he was still here. That was something, I guess.
Jackson wheeled himself down to see me a couple of times. Rather the nurses wheeled him down to see me. Seemed he was getting quite a few sponge baths afterwards too. Seems the drugs Susan had given him had done some damage and the knife wound was taking some time to heal. He was going to have another scar across his heart. He didn’t like that. The nurses didn’t seem to mind as long as it kept him around a little longer. I didn’t care.
It did bother me that he was hiding something from me. With all the people around, he kept refusing to explain how he knew so much about Shifters. He reserved the right to tell me later. I was too tired to argue much, right then at least. We didn’t know what the link meant between us but we were grateful that it was there, this time. Dealing with Laura seemed a long way off. He still wanted the binding disappeared, but I wasn’t sure it could now. He wouldn’t Change like me, but he wouldn’t be normal again either. I’d mixed us a little too much trying to save his life.
There were two things I knew. One, that Jackson and Rodriguez had become mine. Jackson because Laura had forced him to connect to me, Rodriguez because he’d gone against his own rules and lied for me, choosing me over his brothers in blue. The second was that this was my territory, I was done running. It just seemed right somehow, like that river had done something to me too. A lot of things were up in the air right now, a lot of things were unexplained and most things were really weird. But two things I would die defending from here until doomsday would be my friends and my territory.
As for being a Shifter, well, the cat and I had an understanding however temporary. For now things were even. Even for me, at least.
About the Author
An adventurer by accident, Taryn Blackthorne often wonders how she winds up in her current situations. “I gave up seeing things as problems, now they are just learning opportunities,” she says. Her opportunities have included moving to the US just before 9/11, being in Colorado for the worst forest fire season, and living on a First Nations reserve in Northern Canada during one of the coldest winters on record. Her current adventure has her teaching in northern Manitoba. You can read about her daily “mis”adventures by visiting her blog at www.tarynblackthorne.com.
Is Emma ready for a bite?
The Wallflower
© 2008 Dana Marie Bell
A Hunting Love story
Halle Puma Series Book 1
Emma Carter has been in love with Max Cannon since high school, but he barely knew she existed. Now she runs her own unique curio shop, and she’s finally come out her shell and into her own.
When Max returns to his small home town to take up his duties as the Halle Pride’s Alpha, he finds that shy little Emma has grown up. That small spark of something he’d always felt around the teenager has blossomed into something more—his mate!
Taking her “out for a bite” ensures that the luscious Emma will be permanently his.
But Max’s ex has plans of her own. Plans that don’t include Emma being around to interfere. To keep her Alpha, Emma must prove to the Pride that she has what it takes to be Max’s mate.
Warning: This title contains explicit sex, graphic language, loads of giggles and a hot, blond Alpha male.
Even for Me Page 8