by Nara Malone
“When we’re in human form the rabbits still appear to sense our true nature. Oliver’s afraid of the wolves but not me. I can understand that, rabbits would not have an instinctive aversion to Yeti, as they would for a tiger. Why isn’t he afraid of you?”
Marcus shrugged and said, “I think he’s most comfortable with you.”
He didn’t say he’d wondered the same thing himself when Lilly, the rabbit he’d pressed on his son’s family, had been nervous around the two males but not their mate, Marie. Marcus assumed individual personalities had more to do with that than species. The other explanation—that Marcus’ core nature was a bit fuzzy—wasn’t something he could share with Jake. Only one Pantherian had known of Marcus’ ability to shift into the form of any Pantherian subspecies—Sharizad. The female had taken Marcus, a foundling, into the safekeeping of her nursery of newborns and raised him as hers, keeping the secret of his true origins even from her mates.
“No one must know,” she said when she’d catch him at his unique brand of self-expression, multi-shapeshifting, as a child. “The council would never allow you to stay here if they knew. For your sake. For mine. No one must know.” She’d passed from this life into the next realm centuries ago. Unwanted memories crowded at the edge of his awareness. Marcus changed the subject.
“I still haven’t learned what happened to Hella. If her kittens possess any strange abilities like the rabbits, we need to find them before those talents start manifesting.”
“Hopefully, that won’t be until they are around six months old. We may have some time yet. Adam doesn’t think the teleporting ability is something bred into the rabbits. He believes it is a natural outgrowth of artificially combining the species. A genetic switch gone awry.”
Marcus wondered if there was a genetic switch for computer skills. Apparently he lacked that. He wished Oliver did.
“Adam believes Hella might be a key, her feline genetics might be crucial to unlocking a cure for the wasting. She’s close enough to Marie genetically that he might be able to compare the two, find a common trait in them that sets them apart from females with the wasting.”
Jake’s words penetrated Marcus’ dismal musings. Marcus wasn’t a genetics expert, but his son, Adam, was. If Adam was right, Hella could bring a twofold blessing. The wasting sickness had depleted some Pantherian species beyond the point of recovery, others hovered at the edge of extinction. Not that it didn’t irk that animal experimentation might benefit the Pantherians medically, but the idea that Hella held answers and that Pantherians as a community might get behind his efforts to rescue the hybrids bolstered his flagging spirits. With new urgency attached to recovering Hella, with hope that the governing council might encourage all Pantherians to join his effort to rescue hybrids, Marcus felt for the first time that he wasn’t trying to empty the ocean with a teacup. It also meant he had to quit dragging out the situation with Allie.
“I’m meeting with Allison again, the woman who took Hella, the most exasperating human. Her mind remains closed to me. I’ve tried casually bringing animals, pets up. She just will not talk about herself. I have tried developing enough of a relationship to raise the curtain. Nothing.”
“What do you mean, exactly, by develop a relationship?”
Marcus shrugged.
“Sex? I know you, Magus. You’re not the type who can get involved without getting involved.”
“It’s Marcus. And I’m not discussing my sex life with you.”
Jake snorted. “Since when can a human female resist the mesmeric pull of a Pantherian male bent on seducing her? And you, high Magus, millennial being—”
“Shut up.”
“Millennial beings don’t lose their temper.”
“Jake!”
“You make my point, you’re involved.”
Marcus rose so fast the computer carcass at his feet fell over with a bang. Oliver burrowed between Jake’s flannel shirt and t-shirt, hidden but for his fuzzy tail poking out through the gap between shirt buttons.
It was time to leave. Before his mood could swing further out of control, verifying Jake’s assessment, Marcus headed for the door.
“Wait, Marcus. It’s none of my business. I’ll drop it. You don’t have to go.”
He didn’t turn around. “I don’t know how to reach her.”
“Humans aren’t telepathic, don’t have a need to keep anyone from their thoughts. It doesn’t make sense that one could lock you out so completely.”
Jake’s chair squeaked in relief as he stood. Marcus explained as Jake closed the distance.
“If she experienced some serious, repeated trauma, most likely as a very young child, she could have developed the ability as a way to protect herself from her own memories. It’s not meant to keep others out of her thoughts, but to keep her thoughts, or distressing memories, from sneaking up on her. How do I break through that without causing harm?”
Jake had moved around to stand in front of him. Oliver had burrowed his way to a spot just under Jake’s shirt pocket, the tip of his ear hung out from under Jake’s shirt collar. “You have to go carefully. If her mental state is fragile, an attachment to you won’t help.”
“She doesn’t remember my existence from one meeting to the next, I doubt attachment will be an issue. Today she accused me of being a criminal and a stalker.”
Jake looked Marcus directly in the eye. “Maybe it’s time to learn more about the origins of a woman who can not only block you from seeing into her mind, but is immune to your seduction.”
Marcus flinched, glanced at the computer. Learn about her from databases encoded with ones and zeroes? Study screens of facts, gathered dates and documents such as diplomas or licenses? The way to truly know a woman was as he had begun, skin to skin, tasting her, breathing her scent, learning the things that made her tremble in his arms, made her whisper his name like a plea. And maybe, she’d learn him too, long for the sight of his face inches from her own, smile when she saw him approach. The first way was a violation he couldn’t condone. The second would take more time than he had.
“No. We’re not intruding on her privacy any more than we have already.”
Jake’s eyes dropped to the rabbit and he didn’t answer.
“Promise me, Jake.”
“I wouldn’t go against your wishes, Magus.”
Marcus waited.
“Marcus.”
Marcus put a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
“How will you find out what happened to Hella?”
“Trust me.” If he’d known what Marcus intended to do, Jake wouldn’t have let him out of the door. Like all Pantherians, Jake trusted Marcus as the spiritual leader of his race. Sometimes Marcus wished there was just one person he could confide in, one person who realized he had no magic, no mystical guidance from the heavens. He was just an ordinary shifter trying hard not to let everyone down.
* * * * *
Attachments. Allie’s life was full of them despite the fact she’d done everything she could to avoid them. That’s what made leaving hard. She’d carved a life for herself here and was starting to believe she’d be okay. In time she might have even learned to be one of the “good” people.
The next bus out of town left at two. It gave her time to get her things. She’d already decided to forgo goodbyes. If they knew she was leaving, they’d insist on knowing where she went. Allie hadn’t decided anything beyond which town to escape to and plan her next move. That and that she should try to coax a letter of reference from her boss. Any connection back to Greyville was dangerous, but finding a newspaper job in this economy was hard. With the publishing business undecided as to whether newspapers would exist in the future and what form they’d take, it could be impossible. Yet Allie knew her particular skill set fit the newspaper business as it was now and in what it could become.
She drained the last coffee from her mug, the liquid cold and bitter against her tongue. But not as unpleasant as what she had to do next.
She put her shoulders back and stood, working out what she had to say as she went. She wished she could take this up with her boss, but the strongest reference would come from the chief editor.
Elaine’s office door was open. She liked the feeling of being able to watch over the newsroom activity.
Not that there was a whole lot of activity. This was a weekly in a small town. Three reporters and an editor each for the A and B sections made up the writing staff. The advertising department consisted of Allie, two ad sales reps and Cliff, the department head. Allie didn’t know if it was a plus or minus that the newsroom staff was so small. Fewer people meant fewer people to keep track of, but in a larger company or a larger city, it’d be more acceptable when she failed to recognize someone. Here people took it personally when she couldn’t call them by name the instant they turned up at her desk. She’d learned tricks to help her keep track of most of the staff, but Elaine had the generic blonde shoulder-length cut, average size and professional business suit wardrobe that made her tough to identify. The only time Allie was certain of her identity was when she was at her desk. Allie was searching for some feature of today’s outfit to glom on to for later reference when Elaine looked up.
Allie’s shadow had barely crossed the threshold. The boss’s attire inventory had gotten no further than pearl stud earrings and pearl necklace.
“Could we talk privately?” Allie asked, her inventory continuing. Mocha-colored skirt suit, cream blouse. In the back of her mind she pictured Elaine sitting in a coffee cup to help her remember the outfit should she need the info later.
Elaine pursed her lips, scanned Allie as if she were deciding whether the nature of her demand might be something Elaine could skim through quickly or would require an in-depth read. Apparently she decided in-depth because she rose to pull the blinds on the windows that served as the front walls of her office and shut the door herself. “Have a seat,” she said, waving Allie toward a chair as she returned to her desk. Allie sat knees together, palms smoothing her skirt. Elaine leaned back in her chair and took off her reading glasses.
“I need to leave the paper. Something’s come up.”
Elaine folded her hands on the desk blotter. Allie’s gaze drifted to the boxes, dates and appointments jotted in the black squares marking the days of the month. Elaine was waiting for more.
“It’s a personal situation.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“Um…” Allie kept smoothing her skirt, as if that might somehow unscramble her thoughts. The speech Allie had planned on the way in was gone. Lost as completely, under Elaine’s scalpel-like stare, as a dream upon waking. No new words lined up to take their place. This had been a bad idea, she decided, no way was Elaine going to want to give her a reference, especially when she learned Allie was leaving today.
Elaine was watching her, waiting.
Allie gave her head a little shake. It didn’t loosen her tongue.
Elaine held up a hand. “Let’s put this on hold a minute. I have something I want to show you first.”
Allie looked up, completely thrown off track. “Show me?”
Elaine stood, crooked a finger, and Allie followed.
She led her away from the newsroom, down the corridor past the break room to a storage area on the other side. Or storage was what the plate on the door said, but when Elaine closed the door behind them and turned, she said, “This is our old paste-up room. In the days before photo and word processing we did the task of laying out the paper by hand.”
Allie wasn’t sure what that had to do with her. She walked around, ran her fingers over the dusty surface of a drafting table that had been positioned to catch the light from a bank of windows behind. There were light boxes and cutting tools, cans of drawing pencils and T-squares set out on a long worktable. A row of file cabinets along one wall.
Elaine followed Allie’s gaze. “Those are our old stock photo files.” There were broken chairs and abandoned electric typewriters—a typical collection of accumulating office junk, mostly useless.
“Every time I stop and watch you working on a project, I think to myself that you belong back here. You work by hand when you begin a new ad, sketching ideas, cutting up the pieces and moving them around on your desk. I love the way you print a finished design and study it upside down to check the composition’s balance. Those are artist’s instincts they don’t teach in design school.”
How fast would Elaine get rid of her if she knew Allie had trained with an old-school forger? By the time Allie was twelve she could produce a full packet of counterfeit identity documents and of a quality that allowed her to replace her mentor when his failing eyesight and arthritic hands forced his retirement. She offered the best excuse she could for her composition methods.
“I know most designers do the entire process from thumbnails to final design on the computer. For me, I get my best ideas with a pencil in hand.”
Elaine smiled and leaned a hip against the table. “This is where I started, ad layout, when I was about your age.” There was a far-off look in her eyes, a whisper of nostalgia in her tone. She turned and picked up a pencil from the desk, a 4B. She rolled it slowly between her fingers, as if she were tuning over a memory. “I liked doing those first sketches in bold, dark lines that rooted themselves in the paper.”
Allie picked up a 2H. “I like lines that are barely there at the start.”
Elaine nodded. “Light and quick, easy to pick up and replace.”
You never make a permanent mark until the image is perfect. There was no erasing in her training. Mistakes meant trashing what you’d done and starting fresh. Mistakes wasted expensive materials.
Elaine turned back to Allie and looked her in the eye. “You are not easily replaceable, Allison. Not replaceable at all, to be honest. You have a gift and I enjoy watching it develop. I have plans for you.”
Allie struggled to hold the gaze. Where she came from, staring someone in the eye was asking for a fight. Being stared at made it difficult for her to think and speak at the same time. “I have—”
Elaine held up a hand. “Hear me out.”
She swept her arm out wide as she turned around the room. “Your new office. I want to give you a raise, a new title, and launch a new project that demands all of your talents and a few new ones besides.”
“What project?”
“A gardening magazine, it will include a digital version, of course. I’ve been talking with a fellow who has an app that feeds magazine content to a variety of tablet-style readers and phones.”
“You’d be talking about making something look good on a variety of screen sizes and shapes.”
“Exactly. And a high-quality print version, dripping with exquisite photographs, images that will send gardeners into bouts of orgasmic delight.”
Allie smiled, her mind already walking through possibilities and solutions.
“And not just flowers,” Elaine said. “People are fed up with the low quality and chemical content of supermarket food. They want fresh, flavorful, chemical-free food. They want to garden, but the old till-a-huge-plot style of gardening won’t work. They need low maintenance and small space.”
“So the garden club is working with you on this project.”
Elaine beamed. “All professional women with busy lives and a love for gardening. Also fat purses and a desire to pour money into something they believe in. But there’s more. They want the theme of each issue built around a nostalgic, centerfold-quality garden. We would work through a breakdown of how to re-create that masterpiece in a modern and manageable way.”
Allie turned around, looked at opportunity with a sinking heart. There was just no way. As much as she wanted to stay, she could feel trouble on her trail, nipping at her heels. It must have shown on her face.
Elaine gave her shoulder a squeeze. “I don’t know what’s up. I have my ideas, but I don’t want to pry into your personal life. Running away, starting over gets old quick, kiddo. I’d planned
to talk this job over with you in a couple of weeks, but it looks like now or never. When the pot is big enough, it’s worth staying in the game rather than fold. You’re a good worker and you’ve been an asset to the paper.” Elaine glanced at her watch. “Take an early lunch and let it run as late as you want. Give this some thought. I’ll have a contract and some project materials for you to look over when you get back.”
Allie wanted to say yes. The palms of her hands itched, stung with something similar to the craving she’d had when confronting the dark fantasy she’d stumbled into that morning. She wanted to grab this chance, snap up a fantasy job that would allow her to explore all she could do with graphic design. She wanted this almost as much as she’d wanted that fantasy prince in the park. But this fairy tale came with a dragon.
Did she dare stay and wait for Eddie to play his hand? Or should she go and give up the pile of chips Elaine had just dropped in her lap?
Chapter Three
The rain had stopped, but lingering clouds and mist suggested the break was temporary. Marcus could have walked around the town or gone back to the park to kill time before he met Allie again. The park was out. There amid dripping oaks and drenched grass he’d be at her mercy again. Filled with cravings. For her slick, satiny skin sliding against his. For the taste of rain on her lips, on her breasts. Filled with the craving to lick every inch of her. His primal urges would quicken, with the pace of her heart—a rapid thrum just under her rib cage, as he took a nipple between his teeth. What was it about that one small human female that could carry his mind off, unleash a version of himself he’d thought he tamed centuries ago? If not tamed at least contained. Yet now, in the strange, humming emptiness of her mind, he lost his mind.