by Celia Roman
In a way, I reckoned she had a hand in who I become after all, didn’t she?
“I got questions,” I said. “You know, before we get down to this challenging business.”
Libby nodded solemn like. “Three may be asked.”
I speared my grandma with a look I hoped was as empty of care as was her own. “Why now?”
Betty’s smile widened, revealing sharp incisors. “You are vulnerable now in a way you haven’t been in a very long time, and since then, have been protected.”
Was I vulnerable because of Riley? Was that why she took him, to weaken me now so she could do away with me or whatever her intent was tonight? What protection was she talking about? Weren’t nothing different now’n there ever was, far as I could tell, but what did I know?
I was almost afraid to ask one of them questions, afraid I’d need the extra query before the matter was said and done. “What do you want from me?”
“From you? Nothing.” She shook her head, and her stick straight hair writhed around her bare shoulders. “Of you? Only one thing. For you to die the death of she who should never have been born.”
I flinched against the coldly spoken words, and my eyelids slid shut, blocking the sight of a woman what’d never wanted me. A dozen voices arose in the silence of my mind, echoing into one another in a reminder of ever slur and disparaging remark directed at me ‘til I learnt how to hold my own.
Worthless. Scum. Half breed. Red skinned bitch. Whore’s daughter.
If kids could think it up, I’d heard it.
That was behind me now. Words could only hurt if I let ‘em, and I decided long ago not to bow under their weight.
My eyes popped open and my gaze filled with the placid expression of my grandfather and of my cousin and of my grandmother, so little variation from one to t’other, they might as well be cut from stone.
That trait musta passed me by and then some.
“You coulda killed me a long time ago, old woman,” I said in a voice too soft to be mine.
“Your father.” The words ended abrupt like, and that smooth expression twisted for the barest moment into genuine grief. “He loved you.”
And she couldn’t bear to hurt him by killing me. It was there in her voice, in the longing she held to see him again.
At last, something me and her had in common.
My daddy was long gone. Weren’t no getting him back, but there was somebody out there what needed getting. I swallowed down my love for him and said, “I challenge you, what’s gonna happen to my kinfolk and Riley?”
Libby answered in Betty’s place. “As long as they don’t interfere, no harm will come to them. You have my word.”
I bit my tongue against the instinct to call her out then and there. I only had one fight in me tonight, though, and I was nigh on certain I was gonna need ever ounce of my strength for it.
“So be it,” I said. “I reckon you got rules or something.”
“One weapon,” Libby said.
“Each?”
“For you.” My cousin backed up a step, away from Betty into the painters waiting still and quiet around us. “She needs none.”
I handed my guns and flashlight off to Trey and dug Daddy’s knife outta its ankle scabbard. A gun was no good at close range, but a knife? Well, I knew firsthand what this ol’ hunting knife was capable of when the going got a little too close for comfort.
“Is that it?” I asked.
“It’s the only rule.”
Libby sank onto the ground, and between standing and lying, she morphed into a painter indistinguishable from the ones around her.
Son of a gun. After watching her transform slow and easy at the trailer, seeing her do it so quick startled me.
Betty Walkingstick shook herself from head to toe and that saccharin sweet smile returned, sharper now. “It was foolish of you to send the boy alone into the woods that day.”
What breath I held froze solid, the only reaction I was allowed. She took a half step toward me and leapt, and before I could squeak out my surprise, a painter was sailing through the air at me, its front claws extended for the kill.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Sunny!” Trey yelled.
I swung toward him on instinct. Quick as a flash, he wrapped a strong hand around my upper arm and yanked me outta the way. Betty thudded into the ground behind me, and I whirled around, dislodging Trey’s hold. She was standing about ten feet away, head lowered, green eyes sparkling at me. Waiting, I guess, though for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.
My brain was kindly numb anyhow, filled to the brim as it was with all the questions buzzing around inside it. Questions about Riley and his safety, questions about why Trey weren’t down on the ground after helping me.
But mostly, it was Henry what occupied my noggin. What did my estranged grandma know about his death that I didn’t?
I shook all them questions off before they could take root and do the damage I knowed darn good and well Betty’d intended. If I wanted to make it outta this in one piece, my attention best stay on her.
The knife’s hilt dug into my palm. I flipped it around blade down and waggled the fingers of my other hand at her in a deliberate taunt.
Two could play at this game.
She yawned, a slow curl of feline lips around glinting white teeth. The painters around her shifted in and outta the circles of light pooling on the ground around the trailer, cast by the moon and security lights and the flashlight Trey’d let fall to the ground. It was a surreal tableau. Me facing off against my grandmother in painter form amongst a coupla dozen of the two-natured. My grandfather standing stark nekkid where Betty left him, surrounded by a cone of light. And the rest of my family, my real family what’d loved me when nobody else had, parked statue still in the space between.
Somebody shoulda took a picture.
Betty’s back haunches bunched up and she sprang at me, but this time, I was ready for her. I waited ‘til the last minute, waited ‘til her claws was less than a foot from my throat, and swung my free arm around, knocking her front legs aside. At the same time, I twisted the knife’s blade up and stabbed into her gut. The tip caught her belly and slid along it, then bounced spine first off her rear leg.
I scrambled outta the way and fell into a defensive posture, free hand out, knife held up, body turned sideways, minimizing my breadth.
She landed and half-skidded, half-pranced through a thin layer of fallen leaves, and when she turned around facing me, her manner weren’t playful no more. It was mean and serious as death itself.
Good. Maybe that’d learn her to underestimate we puny humans.
I wrinkled my nose and sniffed loud. “Is that blood I smell, old woman?”
Fame’s quiet voice drifted to me through the oddly quiet night. “Don’t tempt fate, Sunny girl.”
Trey snorted, but it was Missy’s words what caught my attention. “Be wary, darling. The objects you carry hold only so much protection.”
I didn’t have even a full breath to wonder what she meant. Betty launched into a run straight at me. I stumbled back a coupla steps. One foot slid along the ground and I lurched to the side, off balance. Her front paws landed on my thighs, shoving me down with little more’n her natural weight. My hand dropped automatically, bracing for the fall. The knife sank into the soft ground, burying half the blade. My hand slid down the rawhide hilt, stinging my palm, and hit the knife’s guard, and my heart thudded double-time in my chest.
Oh, crap, was I in trouble now.
Claws dug into my skin through denim, drawing blood and pain and panic. I yanked the knife outta the ground and slashed sideways, aiming for her side. Betty released me and danced outta the way, and I rolled over and clamored to my feet, terrified she’d leap on me and pin me down.
If she toppled me again, I was good as dead.
No sooner had I fallen into another defensive position than she whirled and charged me. I feinted left and barely missed being sidesw
iped. She cornered around and come at me, not bothering to slow, and I twisted around. My feet skidded across the ground and I tilted to my right.
Not again.
She was on me quicker’n spit, butting her head into my left thigh. Maybe she meant to help me find my way to the ground, and she did. I tumbled down in a half somersault, arse over elbow, and come to rights in a sloppy crouch with my free hand slapping at her face. My fingers slid into her mouth and grazed her teeth and tongue, and blood welled up amongst the spit smeared across my skin.
I yanked my hand away a second before her jaws snapped shut, clicking her teeth together so loud, it sounded like two boards clapped against each other.
Too close.
I leaned back, shifting my weight onto my butt, and swung the knife in a half-assed stab at her front haunch. The tip grazed the skin, digging through fur into muscle. She screamed and swiped a paw at me. Claws ripped through my hip scraping bone, felt like, and pain blossomed in an agonizing ache along my side.
I screamed right back at her. Son of a bitch, that hurt.
Soon as I thought it, the hurt morphed into a whole lotta pissed off. Like mama, like daughter. I reared back, struggling against gravity and the searing pain in my side, and stabbed the knife hard into Betty’s side, right behind her front haunch. Luck held and the knife slid straight in between two ribs. She staggered to the side away from me, and I followed, too mad to let her go.
Dang it. Looked like the knife hadn’t gone far enough in to do any real damage.
Leaves crunched behind me. I craned my neck around in time to see a huge paw swinging toward me on the end of a painter what sure as tootin’ weren’t my grandma. I fell back, more instinct than plan, and hit the ground hard. Another painter leaped over me right into the one what’d tried to hit me, and before I knowed it, all hell broke loose right there in Fame’s yard as painters turned one against t’other.
Trey leapt for me and grabbed my arm, then hauled me up into a stumbling run. “C’mon, cuz. Let’s get you patched up.”
Outta the corner of my eye, I caught Betty slinking through the fighting groups in a limping gait. I jerked my elbow outta Trey’s hold. Pain shot through me, taking my breath, and I doubled over.
“Betty,” I gasped.
Trey glanced around and swore under his breath. “I’ll go with you.”
I shook my head, suddenly weary to the bone. “It’s gotta be me.”
“I know, honey, but you don’t gotta be alone when you do it.”
Fame jogged up to us right then. “Don’t let her get outta sight, Sunny girl.”
“I won’t.”
I straightened up best I could, sucked in a sharp breath to ease the searing pain, what good it did. Blood oozed outta the wounds and soaked through my clothes, creating a sticky mess against ripped skin. Hang it all. I was gonna have to go shopping again and get me some new jeans.
“Where’s Missy and Gentry?” I asked.
“Safe inside.” Fame wrapped a gentle hand around my upper arm, steadying me. “Let’s finish this once and for all.”
I nodded, too dazed by the fight to question him, and pointed myself in the direction I last seen Betty heading. My grandpa raised a hand at me, and I glanced over. His face was expressionless, more stoic than I ever seen anybody’s. I almost limped over and told him what I was about to do, how I was gonna track his wife down and make sure she never come after me nor mine again, but he waved at me and nodded. And me, I realized right then that he knowed what I was about the same way Fame and Trey had. Same way Libby did, I reckoned.
It was time to clean the evil outta the Panther clan.
I attempted a trembling smile for him, then shored myself up and went after the woman what’d spurned me and mine one time too many.
The night gradually faded to silent black as we trailed Betty into the deep wood. Trey lit the way using the flashlight he retrieved. Fame walked beside me, ever at the ready to catch me if I fell, and I near about did a time or two. Pride straightened my gait, that and a good dose of spitting mad.
I was getting real tired of people spurning me. I really was.
Couldn’t see spit beyond the slow sweep of the flashlight’s beam, but ever once in a while, a leaf rustled or a twig snapped, giving Betty’s location away. She weren’t too far ahead of us, far as I could tell. Coulda rushed her, maybe shoulda. I was content to trail for a while, least ‘til my side got good and numb.
Trey flicked the flashlight, jumping light against a dark stain on the ground between two straggly huckleberry bushes. How he seen it was beyond me, it blended into the fallen leaves so well.
“Blood?” he asked.
I knelt down, one hand held to my side, and swiped a finger through the wet drops splattered thin and narrow. I stuck my finger to my nose and sniffed. A faint metallic smell tickled my nose. “Yup, blood.”
We carried on, three soldiers in a war none of us anticipated fighting.
Well, maybe Fame. He was a thinker, was my uncle, and probably knowed when he took me in what the future held between me and my daddy’s kin, but that was like them questions tucked deep inside me. Best left for another time.
The forest crouched in around us, thickening into a laurel thicket we skirted, though I was nigh on certain Betty’d twisted her way through it. Was what I woulda done, if I coulda shifted into another critter the way she could.
We followed the edge of the thicket while keeping a close ear out for Betty. Only thing I heard was us breathing in the cold and our own footsteps jostling dormant undergrowth. The laurel knotted into a final, tangled copse, then opened into a wildlife food plot the size of my trailer’s yard. It was small and roughly elliptical, and bordered on the other side by the creek Fame took some of his liquor water from.
Claws scratched against rock and water splashed above the creek’s natural gurgle. Fame’s hand tightened around my arm. He tugged gently to my left, and I trailed him, skirting the edge of the clearing with Trey about breathing down my neck, he was so close behind me.
The creek weren’t wide a’tall. Trey ran the flashlight’s beam up and down it, then across to the opposite bank. The leading edge of light caught a glimpse of shiny black fur, and my mad settled into a steady calm.
Time to close in for the kill.
We hopped across the creek one at a time, Fame first, then me and Trey. The pain in my side had subsided to a dull throb and the ragged edges of my clothes rubbed stiff against my wounds. Maybe they wasn’t too deep, them claw marks.
I weren’t foolish enough to set store by such fragile hope, but hope I did.
My feet thudded into crunchy mud, jarring my side. I clamped my jaws together, stifling a whimper, and forced my heavy limbs to move. She was close. I could feel her out there in a low thrum along the nape of my neck, limping slower and slower as blood seeped outta that last knife wound I give her, stealing her strength. Could be, she’d pass out before we found her, but I weren’t counting on it. My grandma’d proved herself strong and wily, from what I heard about her. A piddling stab wound wouldn’t slow her down for long a’tall.
From a distance, something crashed into the forest. My heart fluttered once, then regained its natural rhythm. Sounded like the melee we left at Fame’s had hit the edge of the woods. Either that or somebody’d broke free from the fight and followed after us.
I couldn’t take that chance. Betty alone I could probably take down. Throw another painter or two into the mix, and me, Fame, and Trey might not be enough to do the job, ‘specially against the young and healthy. We had to find Betty before anybody, or anything, reached us and hampered the deed what needed doing.
As if they heard my thoughts, Fame and Trey split off from me and quickened their pace, Fame to the left and Trey to the right. I plowed straight ahead, one foot in front of t’other, though I could hardly feel ‘em now.
Where’d she run off to anyhow?
Stray shafts of moonlight pierced the thinning trees, illuminating th
e forest in an eerie glow. Shadow shifted not twenty feet ahead of me, shimmying under an arch created by a poplar growing sideways into a beetle infested hemlock. I picked up my pace, slid over the cockeyed poplar, and landed smack dab on top of my grandma’s heaving form.
She yowled and swiped at me, as much reflex as my own backward scramble. The crown of my noggin popped against the poplar and my vision dimmed as fresh pain swamped me.
The woods awoke with the sound of two large men crashing through it. “Sunny!” Trey yelled, and Fame shushed him in a far quieter voice.
Meanwhile, Betty seemed to’ve remembered her strength. She crouched beside me, near about indistinguishable from the night, her cat eyes glowing in the faint pricks of moonlight splashing onto us in thin slices.
I regripped Daddy’s knife, holding it at the ready. Couldn’t go nowhere without turning my back on her or losing my balance. Against this tree, I’d make my stand, even if my stand was carried out on my hind end with blood spilling outta ever cut it could find. Weren’t the noblest way to go down, but it was all I had to work with right then.
Her eyes was unwavering as her body stiffened for the leap. I braced myself against the poplar and sent an unvoiced prayer flying free. She pushed off against the ground and opened her jaws wide, and weren’t no time to think or plan or do nothing other’n react. Daddy’s knife come up, tip pointed straight at Betty flying toward me in a graceful arc. Her teeth growed bigger and bigger, filling my vision, then her chest hit the knife, pushing it back into my shoulder. I twisted my head outta reach of them sharp, sharp teeth, and she landed on me, cradled against me like she was a babe held safe in my arms.
Blood gushed outta her chest onto my hands and neck. One of her paws scraped down my arm, clawing open four deep runnels. She snapped her jaws against my ear, snapped again and clamped down on the fleshy part of my shoulder.