“But…”
Eliza walked toward the cash register, signalling that the conversation was over. If this thing was going to come for her, she would rather face it in her apartment. She’d have a better chance of creating some sort of improvised weapon in her own home, where she knew where everything was.
Pete paid the tab and they walked to the car without speaking. He was obviously annoyed with her, although he was doing his best to hide it. He’d always been good at hiding his feelings. She supposed she had to give him some points for consistency.
The silence continued all the way back to the zoo. There were a few times he cast a worried look in her direction, but she ignored his concern, even though she was gratified that it was there.
Dr. Armstrong’s SUV wasn’t in his parking place when they arrived, which Eliza took as a good sign. It was strange for the zoo director to be off site at this time in the afternoon, but it gave them an opening for Pete to show her his mysterious serum. Clearly he was thinking the same thing, because he walked straight into Armstrong’s office.
Eliza followed him in and closed the door behind them. “So, where is this stuff?”
He opened Armstrong’s credenza and pulled out a small metal box. “Right here.”
She took the box from him. It was etched with strange symbols, not really letters and certainly not numbers. She wondered at first if it was some kind of decoration, but her gut told her she was looking at writing in a language she didn’t know. The lid was held closed with a loop latch, pinned down with a long brown thorn. She pulled the thorn free, flipped up the latch and opened the lid.
A neat pile of vials, all of them capped with rubber seals that would allow a hypodermic needle through to the fluid inside without the need to remove the top, the metal part of which was crimped into place. She took one of the vials out and looked at it in the light. The fluid was dark, red but too orange-ish to be blood. There were tiny particles floating in it, and when she turned the tube, the liquid oozed down the interior side of the glass, oily and thick.
“This is what he’s having you give the cats?”
“Just those three, like I said. Raja, Chance and Pangur.”
She shook her head. “With this debris in the liquid, it’s too dangerous to inject. Infection, clots… so many dangers. But you’re the vet, not me.”
“I agree. It’s not something that looks safe.” He took the box back. Eliza pocketed the vial she had in her hand. “He’s got us doing IM shots every afternoon. The cats are getting sick of it, so I’m using a poke stick now.”
A poke stick was a long pole with the hypodermic loaded into the end. It allowed the keepers to jab the cats without getting too close to them. Raja, their majestic male tiger, had been in a foul mood for days, and now she thought she knew why.
“I’m going to look at this stuff under a microscope, maybe even send it in for chemical analysis,” Eliza said. “This is just too strange. It’s not like any medication I’ve ever seen.”
“I agree.” He looked at the clock. “It’s almost time for me to give it to them, too.”
“I wonder what would happen if you didn’t do it.”
“Uh… I’d lose my job, that’s what,” he responded.
They left the office and headed back toward the keepers’ ready area. She said, “No, I mean to the cats. What do you think would happen?”
“How would I know? I don’t know what they’re being treated for.”
Dr. Sawyer came into the room through another door. “Eliza! I thought I heard your voice. How’s the neck?”
“Twelve stitches,” she answered.
“They told her to go home and rest, but she insisted on coming back here.”
“Well, my car is here, so…” She paused. “Dr. Sawyer, can I ask you something?”
Pete’s eyes went wide and he tried to silence her with his expression alone, but Eliza was undeterred. The veterinarian shrugged. “Sure.”
“It’s about Raja, Chance and Pangur.”
“What about them?”
Pete sighed and she continued. “Are they being treated for anything in particular right now? Any illnesses or issues that need to be addressed?”
Dr. Sawyer looked at her like she had grown horns. “Not at all. They’re all very healthy cats. The only thing we do is give them their flea treatments and wormers once a month.”
“No daily treatments?” she pressed.
“No. Nothing. Why?”
Pete whispered, “Don’t.”
“I was just wondering,” Eliza smiled. “I know that they all came from private owners, and I wasn’t sure if their histories - maybe bad diet or something - had left them with any nagging chronic conditions.”
“Ah. No, they’re totally fine. The people who owned them before they came to us seem to have taken very good care of them. They’re three very healthy cats.” She came closer and pulled Eliza’s collar away from the bandages on her neck. “I can’t say the same for you. Are they going to give you the rabies vaccine?”
She pulled a face. “They were talking about it. I’m supposed to go back and get the shots. I don’t think I will, though. The cat wasn’t rabid, just… angry.”
“How do you know?”
Eliza didn’t have an explanation, but she was utterly certain. “I just know.”
“That’s not quite what I’d call clinically sufficient proof, but it’s your life. How does it feel?”
She laughed. “Like I got bitten and dragged by an apex predator.”
The three of them laughed, and Dr. Sawyer patted her on the arm. “Well, try not to work too hard. Maybe get one of the interns or Pete here to help you with any heavy lifting.”
“I don’t have anything hard to do today, just necessary.” She shrugged. “I’ve got cages to clean, enrichment activities to see to… the usual.”
Pete nodded. “Yeah, me, too.” He gestured toward the door that led to the zoo proper. “Shall we?”
“Absolutely.” She nodded to the veterinarian. “Thanks for the info.”
Together, the two keepers went out into the zoo.
The park had been split into zones roughly corresponding to the cats’ natural habitats. Pete had the Americas and Eliza had Asia. They shared Africa, which was the zone in the middle. They set out to do their chores for the workday, catching up on things that had been left undone while she’d been at the emergency room. Like every afternoon, she started with the Asian cats.
Raja was a spectacular Siberian tiger, and he shared his cage with Chance, a smaller male of the same species. Normally tigers were territorial and solitary, but these two had been raised together, and they had a singular emotional bond so deep that the decision had been made to house them together. There had never been any serious fights, and while there had been a few scuffles, the two cats seemed to genuinely love one another.
Eliza had to clean the floor of their faux-Indian habitat area, and to do that, she had to put them into the interior section of the enclosure. There were large indoor spaces that had wide windows made of bulletproof glass through which the visitors could watch the cats more closely than they could at the outdoor exhibits. She put bowls with red mush, or ground up meat and guts from prey animals, into their rooms and opened the lockout doors.
From the outdoor section of their cage, Raja watched her pulling the cord for the door. Chance trotted inside immediately, but Raja came to the fence near her, chuffing softly. His big golden eyes looked into hers, and he lowered his head slightly, his ears pricked forward.
“What’s up, big guy?” she asked. His nostrils flared. “Yeah, I probably smell like the emergency room. Sorry about that.”
Raja stood on his back legs, his front paws clinging to the cage above her head. He was a massive animal. When he stood up like that, she flinched, and she instantly scolded herself for her nerves. She had to stay calm when she was around the cats. Raja didn’t react badly, though, and he didn’t take her demonstration of fear as an i
nvitation to be aggressive. If anything, he looked concerned, and she wondered if that was the case.
She took a risk and put her hand up against the heavy chain link fence, her palm flat. “Are you upset about this morning?” she asked.
In answer, Raja licked her hand through the metal. She smiled.
“You’re a good boy, Raja. You have to go in and get your snack before Chance eats it all, though.”
He dropped back down onto all fours and walked into the interior, pausing once to look back at her. Once he had gone inside, she closed the door on the lockout and went into the cage.
While she used the high-power hose to wash off the evidence of nature’s call, she thought about the ghost cat. Like everyone else alive, she had seen werewolf movies and TV shows. She had heard of shapeshifters from Native American mythology, as well, and she had read a few romance novels about Alphas and Omegas. It had never occurred to her that there might really be shapeshifters in the world, or that the animals that changed form would be anything other than a wolf.
She wondered what it would be like to be a cat, and if the ghost cat had an animal’s senses but a human’s mind. Maybe they were something entirely different, with a mental capacity or function that her years of biology classes couldn’t explain.
In the next cage over, Pangur was yowling. Snow leopards weren’t terribly noisy animals, but he was definitely feeling the need to express his opinion about something. She went to the front edge of the enclosure, ostensibly to continue cleaning, but it gave her a view of Pangur’s cage. He was sitting as close to her as he could get, and his blue eyes were locked on her. He yowled again, and it was clear, at least to Eliza, that he was talking to her.
“Hi, Pangur,” she greeted. “I’ll be over there in a minute.”
She finished her work in the tiger enclosure and went back outside, where she opened the lockout door and secured it. Raja and Chance could go in and out of their room as much as they wanted for the rest of the day.
Eliza filled another bowl with red mush and took it into Pangur’s room, where she put it on the floor. As with the tigers, she opened the lockout door and waited for him to go in. Pangur, though, was completely disinterested in the food. Instead, he paced near her, vocalizing in high-pitched chirps as he did, punctuating his soliloquy with pointed looks in her direction. He wanted to see her.
She waited, and when he ambled closer, she said, “Thank you for wanting to protect me this morning.”
He looked into her eyes. A male voice spoke in her head.
-You’re welcome.-
She grabbed the fence and held on, fear lancing through her. Oh, God, she thought. I’m losing it.
The snow leopard chuffed. -You’re not crazy. Come inside.-
Eliza whispered, “I can’t.”
-Won’t.-
“Not with all these people here.”
Pangur stopped pacing and looked her in the eye. -So come after closing time. It’s not as if I won’t be awake.-
She felt foolish speaking to him out loud, but she didn’t know how else to do it. She whispered, “The cameras…”
-So disable them.-
I am not having a conversation in my head with a cat, she tried to reason. The shock of the attack must have gotten to her more than she realized. Maybe she really did need to go home.
-Come back after dark. Spend the night here with me where I can protect you from him.- He sniffed at the pocket of her khaki shorts. -Why do you have the elixir?-
“I… was going to test it. Try to find out what it is.” She put her hand to her forehead, seeing herself from the outside, a crazy woman carrying on a conversation with the voices in her head. I need help.
-You need to believe in yourself,- Pangur’s mellow voice told her. -There are things you don’t even know. Things that I can tell you, if you let me.-
“I….”
She had the keys. She had the combination to the electronic locks all through the zoo. If anyone could sneak in after dark, it was her. He was watching her carefully, waiting for her to make a decision. She nodded.
“Okay.”
If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn that the snow leopard smiled. -Good. I’ll see you then.-
Chapter Three
The zoo closed at 6 pm, and Eliza left work at 7. She finished her duties just like she always did, trying to deal with the increasing ache in her neck and the growing conviction that she was losing her mind. She was halfway to her car when Pete intercepted her.
“Are you finally going home?”
She smiled at his tone. He was fussing, and it was adorable, even if it was completely inappropriate. He was showing a lot of concern for someone who wanted them to see other people.
“Yeah. I think I’ve had enough fun and games for one day.”
He turned and walked with her to her car. “I didn’t give the cats their injections today. I’m going to wait until you get that analysis back on the vial you took.”
Eliza nodded. “Good! I don’t know what’s going on, but something tells me Armstrong is up to something, and I never thought I’d ever say that. I always respected him, but this is weird.”
“Yeah. It is.” He ran his hand over his face. “I’m going to see what I can find out about these collectors he got those three from. There might be a connection.”
She laughed. “Who knew we’d turn in detectives?”
Pete smirked. “Yeah, really. But the cats deserve it.”
“Yes, they do.”
They reached her car, and she unlocked the car with her fob. He opened the door and held it while she climbed in. He had a strange look on his face, and she wasn’t sure what he was thinking. She slid the key into the ignition, and he finally verbalized what was on his mind.
“I’m sorry. I never should have broken up with you.”
She sighed. “No, you shouldn’t have. But that’s all old news now.”
“I still care about you.”
“Yeah, I can tell.” She took the door out of his hand. “It’s just too little, too late.”
He stepped back so she could drive away, and she took one look at him in the rear-view mirror. He looked shattered, and while part of her was sad for him and regretted her words, another part of her was grimly satisfied. She’d worn that look not too long ago because of him. It was his turn to see how it felt.
She drove to her apartment, a neat one-bedroom in a quiet section of town. She went ahead with her normal after-work routine, hoping that the mundanity would help her keep her sanity, if she had any left. Park the car. Get the mail. Go up the stairs, unlock the door, check her voice mail. Turn on the news. Take a shower. It was all predictable, normal and routine. She was just as regimented in her life as the cats she cared for. It helped to keep the loneliness at bay.
She wasn’t supposed to get her stitches wet, but she didn’t know exactly how to do that and still bathe. She decided to cover the bandage with saran wrap and tape it into place. After she was cleaned up and dried off, Eliza used a hand-held mirror to look at her reflection in the mirror that hung over the bathroom sink. There were three bandages, one of which was huge. The cat’s jaws had been large, and the wounds from the two bites took up a lot of real estate on her neck and shoulder. She peeled the bandage off, since it was nasty with blood and other seepage. There was bruising around the bites, making an entirely ugly display. She took a photo with her phone and sent it to her best friend Jen along with a message.
::You would not believe the day I’ve had.::
She wanted to call Jen and tell her about the ghost cat and the talking snow leopard, but she knew better. Her friend would just insist that she spend the night with her, and she’d probably suggest some sort of psychiatric care. She knew she was crazy. Or she thought she was crazy. She didn’t know, and that in itself seemed to prove just how crazy she was.
Eliza put on jeans and a loose T-shirt, just in case she decided to go ahead and accept the date with Pangur. She picked u
p her clothes and carried them to her hamper, which was nearly full. The apartment laundry room was downstairs in the basement, and she didn’t want to deal with it today. She fished the vial out of her shorts pocket and sat down to contemplate the liquid inside.
She didn’t have a microscope or any similar equipment in her apartment, so if she went back to the zoo at all, it would be to go to the vet lab. She could defend that course of action to her rational mind, which was still insisting she was out of her mind and that Pangur had not been conversing with her.
But she knew without a doubt that he had been.
It was ridiculous, and she knew she was crazy, but she grabbed her keys for the drive to the zoo.
The parking lot was empty when she arrived, which was a good thing. Eliza parked as close to the veterinary entrance as she could, hoping to avoid the prying eyes of the cameras. She remembered Pangur - or the voice she’d assumed was Pangur’s - telling her to disable the cameras. How did a snow leopard know about such things? Her gut told her that there was something going on that she didn’t even begin to understand. She hoped that Pangur would be able to explain things that way he’d said he would.
She shook her head. She was still warring with herself over the truth or lie of this situation. Eliza couldn’t continue with half of her insisting that she was hallucinating and the other half believing that it was all real. She’d have to pick one side or the other until she could get proof.
She chose to believe.
She turned on the lights in the vet lab and went to the microscope station. She wasn’t a chemist or a veterinarian, so she wasn’t sure what she expected to be able to see in the serum. The best she could do would be to see if there were parasites or their eggs in the liquid, which she supposed was something. She could, however, package it up to go to the lab in Bismarck that did all of their intense testing. She got out the vial she had taken and withdrew a large portion of it with a hypodermic needle. She put it in a vacuum tube, labeled it as “?specimen” and got it ready to ship.
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