Hellcats: Anthology

by Kate Pickford

  “Yes, but if she finds you in here, she will ground me.” She sighed and dropped her head. “She will lock my small door and force me to remain within the walls.” Her voice anxious and tail down between her legs, her eyes pleaded with me to heed her warning.

  “Don’t worry,” I offered. “She will probably be so happy that she’ll give me this tasty kibble every day,” I assured her as I moved to the bowl for another bite.

  “Please, Tom?” She pleaded.

  “Ok, ok. We should tell the others about our close call with death anyway.”

  We exited and sat out on the top rail of the fence calling to our comrades.

  “Meoooooowwwww,” I yowled.

  We did, after all, owe it to them to tell the tale of the evil fiend. Regale them with the story of how we had been engaged in the fight of our lives with this demon from the deepest depths of hell. They would sing songs about this epic battle tonight in a serenade of meowls and yowling for all to hear, and we would be held in the highest regard.

  A shrill screech emanated from the open window above. The human cried out in anguish and fear! We both raced back through the small door and up the stairs to save her. The human appeared holding the shredded remains of the evil beast. Shouting and waving the carcass, long strips of its remains dangling grievously beneath her grip. Princess ducked her head looking left and right her ears flattened and sideways. I was perplexed at her low behavior.

  The human must have been so grateful. I stood tall, my tail straight up and purred, rubbing against her ankle. She would surely reward me for this heroic deed.

  Or so I thought… The furrowed brow and the shrill sound of her voice overwhelmed me. My tail slowly dropping, pointing my ears behind me, I backed away. This was not pride, this was anger. Perhaps she wanted to be the one to fight off this hell demon. Princess’s head went lower. And the human shoved her aside and stepped toward me... Princess looked at me, her eyes full of worry and I backed away a little more.

  “What’s going on?” I meowed to Princess. “Why is she so angry?”

  The broom came down catching only my tail. My legs were going as fast as they could go, but I was going nowhere on the slick floor. I bounded for the stairway and half leaped, half tumbled down them, and scrambled for the small door. Through the door and atop the fence I was able to duck before the shoe came whizzing past.

  “I’m sorry, Tom,” Princess cried out.

  “What happened?” I howled.

  “I didn’t know that it was the last toilet paper monster in the universe,” she hissed before the door slammed shut and I heard the latch on the small door imprison her.

  DJ Cooper is author, publisher, grad student, and internet radio host. She writes post-apocalyptic and dystopian books but likes a bit of humor at times. She loves the moments when characters toss in a twist but tries hard to keep them wrangled in for the reader.

  Find out more at authoroftheapocalypse.com.

  60

  Hellcats to the End

  By Chelle Honiker

  Sassy shifter Hendricks and her hellcat sisters are running out of time—can they stop the hounds from casting a misguided spell, killing them all?

  Hendricks opened her eyes to a melee around her. She scanned her body. No pain, but she was flat on her back, and she had a severe wedgie. Just one of many drawbacks of wearing a formal gown and impractical underwear to battle an international crime syndicate.

  She rolled on her left side and watched her sisters chase a pack of shifter hounds in their human form down the wide alley.

  Three of us to six of them. That hardly seems fair—to them.

  “Hendricks! Hendricks! Damn it to hell. Who’s got eyes on Drix? I need a status report now!”

  The voice in her comm was familiar and frantic. She stretched her arm to shake out the feeling of pins and needles, forcing her index finger to the earpiece that activated her microphone.

  “I’m here. I’m fine. Give me two seconds to clear my head, and I’m back.” Her voice was thick, matching her thoughts. She stared after her sisters, disappearing into a bank of smoke. The pop of their pistols grew fainter as their quarry scattered.

  “You’re not fine, Hendricks. You’re the opposite of fine. That’s another life, leaving just two. Lie low for another ninety-two seconds while your body regenerates.”

  Hendricks rolled to her right side to check her flank and tried to deal with her wedgie, but the layers of scarlet taffeta made access to downtown lady town impossible.

  Bad news: shot six times! Good News: the blood isn’t as noticeable in a red ball gown!

  The alley on the edge of the Savannah riverfront was clear of threats. The bodies of two hounds in their shifter form lay about thirty feet away. Unlike her, they weren’t coming back. It was fortunate that she and her sisters had nine lives. As a cheetah shifter, she’d lost seven of them in service to their queen and mother already. One more and she’d have to retire to live the days of her last life in peace and comfort as a pampered princess, taking tea with her majesty in the solarium at precisely 4 p.m.

  As if.

  Tanqueray, her raven-haired youngest sister, jogged to her side and offered her hand. Flawless makeup intact, she navigated 5-inch red bottom heels with ease. “I saw the shooter a fraction too late. I’m sorry you died again. Are you back?” Tanq’s lithe panther body was ideal to pull off the slick black gown with an indecent silver slit revealing her shapely thigh. From her seated angle, Hendricks could see that she wore spandex boy-shorts underneath.

  Very practical. No wedgies. Why did I have to pick the stupid blood bag dress and a thong?

  Hendricks took her sister’s hand and stood unsteadily, like a newborn foal for the first time on her legs. She finally fixed her underwear and surveyed the ruined gown.

  “Well, there goes this month’s clothing budget,” she remarked wryly. “Did we get the necklace?”

  Tanq said, “I’m not sure, to be honest. I know Sapph was close to the one that lifted it, but the shooting started before I could get confirmation. This one is gonna be a pain to clean up with the human witnesses. How do you explain a dead man instantly turning into a dog?”

  On cue, Sapphire emerged from the smoke, her long blonde hair framing her face and her iridescent green gown fanning behind her like a mermaid’s tail. Unlike Hendricks, she had no trouble navigating the couture dress. Her lioness in human form strode down the alley with the confidence of a runway model to join her sisters at the back of the gala.

  “Hendricks, do you read? I need to know that you’re okay.” Hendricks had almost forgotten the omnipresent voice in her ear. Almost. It wasn’t like she tried, but there was a reason he was her ex-boyfriend. He was clingy even when he wasn’t in the same physical space with her.

  Hendricks grimaced. “I read you, Plymouth. I’m fine. The team is regrouping. What’s the status inside? Is there a cleanup crew on-site?”

  “Oh, thank the gods. I was so worried. I’m on my way…”

  Hendricks cut him off with a stern rebuke, “No, you’re not on your way. Protocol says you’re there until we’re back. Don’t make this personal, Plym. I’m fine. Get your head back in the mission and give me a status report, please.”

  Tanqueray rolled her eyes so far back in her head she could see her brain as she mouthed, “OH. MY. GAWD.”

  Hendricks made a slashing motion across her throat, cutting her sister off, wishing again for a single day free of her sisters’ unfiltered opinions.

  Sapphire says he’s obsessed. Maybe she’s right. Maybe it’s time for him to move on.

  His overprotectiveness was one reason she’d ended things with Plymouth. One of the thousand reasons. Looking back, she couldn’t think why she’d taken up with him, and she now realized it was mostly at her mother’s urging to mate with another powerful shifter family. No doubt the elders had something to do with that. The queen was living her last life, growing older and more infirm by the day. It was Hendricks’ duty to take
the throne.

  But not yet, and not with Plymouth. That’s the worst timeline imaginable.

  Plymouth cleared his throat, and Hendricks knew she’d offended him.

  “Well then,” he said, “Here’s the situation. They escaped with the necklace. Four hounds followed you outside when you chased the thief. It seems the shooter was waiting for you to exit. There wasn’t anything you could have done to avoid the hit. The sweepers took care of the ones that came out of the alley on the other side. Inside, it’s a mess. There were a dozen humans who saw them shift, and the vampires are working to compel them to forget as quickly as possible.”

  Sapphire chimed in, “We’ll never hear the end from those bat shifters. They love that they can compel it all away after the fact. It’s not like they ever get their hands dirty in an actual fight.”

  Tanq pressed her comm button, “Plym, any fatalities? I mean, other than Drix?” She winked at the scowling Hendricks, who sighed and ignored her sister’s teasing.

  What is she? Five years old? She really needs a new favorite pastime.

  Plymouth broke in. “Negative. Your mother is pleased. I mean, not about losing the necklace or Hendricks losing another life, but, you know, no humans died.” The comm abruptly cut to silence before he returned and announced flatly, “She’d like you to head back.” Hendricks would bet money that their mother was standing behind him.

  “We’re on our way. See you in two hours.” Hendricks replied tightly.

  Basil “Beefeater” Springer picked a nonexistent piece of lint off his tailored shirt cuff as he listened to Pickering’s report. He paid little attention to the useless idiot—he knew the gist of it. The necklace was on his desk in plain sight. The Hellcats were a complication, but thanks to their new ally inside Hellcat Headquarters, they’d expected the sisters. Hell, they’d even known their playbook. The necklace was finally his. His outward calm didn’t betray his inner delight.

  Pick droned on nervously. “We caught their scent right away, of course, as soon as they walked into the place. Cats are nasty. I ducked into the alley while the others tried to keep them busy inside. Bailey followed me a minute later, and their leader followed him. I took her out good. Six shots and one of her precious lives lost—and then we came back here straight away.”

  Beefeater wondered if today would be the day he killed Pickering.

  He finished pretending with the lint and lifted himself from his leather wing-back chair, hating the feel of the expensive wingtip shoes and tweed jacket. His human persona was that of a genteel southern gentleman living on a large working horse farm in Georgia, and both his dress and surroundings protected his ruse. For the hundredth time that day he wished he could shift and run through the woods next to his home, but there were too many humans on the grounds and magic still bound him to never reveal his true self.

  He cursed the shifter elders again for their decision to force all shifters to remain hidden from humans. Then he cursed the coven of Louisiana witches who agreed to cast the spell that bound them before disappearing.

  It’s our birthright to rule the humans. Why didn’t they see that two hundred years ago?

  Pick finally shut up, and Beefeater scanned his opulently decorated office for something he could use to murder him. He nearly landed on the framed antique confederate flag hung behind his desk, but after a moment decided blood on the plush emerald carpets smelling vaguely of bourbon and cigars just wouldn’t do.

  To the humans, he was just another good old boy. He’d spent a lifetime in ease and comfort as the son of a prominent man, attending the most excellent boarding schools, and cultivating advantageous friendships. In every way that mattered, he was one of them.

  As if.

  Beefeater barely contained his rage most of the time. He was always furious that they forced him and his kind to live as equals to humans, and, even worse, pretend to be part of their world. The accord that bound them to secrecy was intolerable.

  Now he had the stone. And he had the young witch needed to unravel the spell. It was only a matter of waiting three days for the full moon to spill her blood, and the shifters would take their place as the gods they were.

  Beefeater smiled for the first time in a decade.

  Plymouth surveyed the rectangular driveway covered in pea-sized gravel, outlined by impeccably kept boxwood shrubs. Again, he wondered if anyone else noticed that the entire area looked like an oversized litter box. He marveled at the irony.

  Looking beyond the fountain that served as the focal point in the middle of the box, he gazed down the tree-lined driveway waiting for the sisters, who, by his precise calculations, should arrive at Hellcat Headquarters in forty-seven seconds.

  While he waited, he ran through the details of the failed mission again and what he would write up to ensure it protected Hendricks. She’d taken a risk he’d told her to avoid. Lately, she seemed determined to do the opposite of what he told her to do.

  Absentmindedly kicking some gravel as he paced, he counted down the seconds and ticked off his grievances. They took him for granted. He was the brains behind their brawn. He managed every detail of their missions, and they needed him. Drix needed him. The Queen didn’t have much longer. He’d proven himself a worthy mate to Hendricks. He came from a respected family.

  Why can’t she see that we are so perfect for each other? Together we could rule the cat shifters and create a dynasty. When her mother is gone, she’ll have to accept me as her mate. The elders will insist on it.

  He didn’t care that she told him they were over. “It’s not you, it’s me,” she’d said. Of course, it was her. He was considerate. Loving. Nurturing. Everything a mate should be. He was extra attentive and somehow that was a bad thing? He didn’t understand it.

  No wonder he had to do the things he did. She forced him to do them. He wouldn’t need to if she just saw reason for once and agreed to be his mate willingly.

  One way or another, she will be mine. I refuse to accept anything else.

  Forty-six seconds later, Sapphire slammed on the brakes of a large black SUV, causing a small plume of dust that theatrically framed the Hellcats exit from the vehicle. Hendricks took the lead, entering the mansion first as Tanq strode past Plymouth, who turned to follow them into the estate, with Sapphire bringing up the rear as usual.

  Plymouth called forward to Hendricks, “She’s in the solarium having tea. And she has a guest.”

  Sapphire sniffed the air and said, “I smell a human. What’s with Mother having a tea party when we’ve got a crisis on our hands?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” Plymouth replied, “but trust me, it’s important.” He looked after Hendricks with longing, frustrated that she hadn’t said a word to him.

  She’s left me no choice. What comes next is because she’s left me no choice.

  Ignoring their ruined formalwear, and the dried blood covering Hendrick’s neck and arms, the princesses walked single-file through the great hall, and down a brightly lit narrow corridor with a wall of windows facing the garden. The aging queen preferred the large solarium next to the garden, where she could shift in peace into her cougar and lounge on any of the many perches in the Georgia sunshine.

  Sapphire sped up the last few steps and stepped around Plymouth, blocking him from entering, spinning around to close the door, leaving him in the corridor, mouth open in surprise.

  Hendricks looked back, grateful for Sapphire’s assistance.

  Not today, Satan. Clearly you don’t take hints, so allow my little sister to make it crystal clear. You’re not family, and you never will be.

  Queen Glendalough always entertained in human form. Seated neatly on a gray velvet chair, she poured tea for an older woman perched on an identical chair opposite the rolling tea cart. The woman’s long silver hair wrapped into a loose braid on the side of her gaunt face. She smelled of magnolias, and her green eyes looked tired.

  Without looking away from the tea, their mother called, “Good afterno
on, girls. Do take a seat, and please allow me to introduce Madam Euphrosine Devereaux, Coven Priestess of Parish Lafourche.”

  Rose Devereaux surveyed the young cat shifters carefully. Hendricks felt Rose's eyes lingering on the dress and blood as the lady surveyed them. She seemed neither comfortable nor uncomfortable in their presence. Witches descended from the same magic as shifters, but without the ability to transform naturally. They were more like distant cousins than the same species. Most of the covens lived in and around the Louisiana ley line, where their magic was most potent and interacted with both shifters and humans easily.

  Rose’s great-grandmother was the witch who created the spell that bound the shifters to secrecy at the request of the elder shifters. Once they cast the original spell, they retreated deep in the bayou of Parish Lafourche to live in seclusion. The only condition they asked of the shifter elders was that the spell never be reversed because it would require the total sacrifice of a parish witch on a full moon with the same sacred bloodstone they used to cast the spell.

  The elders hid the bloodstone in plain sight, crafting it into a necklace. It changed hands and families every few years to protect its whereabouts, with only a select few aware of its exact location—until the hounds found it under the guise of a burglary. It was as if someone told them where to look.

  Aware of her mother’s unspoken disapproval, Drix crossed the room to a small gardener’s table, hoping to find something that she could use to wipe just a little more blood from her neck.

  “Madam Devereaux, it’s lovely to meet you. What brings you to Savannah?” Hendricks asked over her shoulder.

  I wonder what the Queen would say if she knew my underwear had been up my butt in public?

  Rose replied in a thick Cajun dialect, “Only the most urgent matter, Princess. One that threatens us all. Your mama has just made me aware that you've botched your attempt to secure the bloodstone and the hounds now possess it. That’s most unfortunate. Your utter failure could be the death of us all.”