Shadow

by Jan Stryvant

  “Well good luck with that. See you in a month?”

  “Possibly, let us wait and see?”

  Tomas smiled then got up and left. This Shadow Cat was an interesting one, he was different than the others, he’d dare say he was different than any of the good guys as well. What that officer had told him many months before was true, Shadow was playing by his own rules, his own standards, his own morals, and though Tomas had no idea what those rules were, yet, he suspected Shadow would become quite useful in the future success of Tomas’ goal to build a first rate team and protect the people of this city. First the Senator’s child, then Fiona, and more recently that kidnapped officer; yes, Shadow was definitely going to be very useful.

  Karen

  Thinning the Herd

  It was a pretty wild party, a lot of drugs had been consumed, more were lying out yet, and alcohol was flowing like a river. As always there were tons of girls, including a rather huge contingent of young and barely legal runaways, hard little bodies ready, willing, and oh so able.

  In short it was a fairly typical bad guy bash. A lot of the ‘anti-heros’, the current media name for the bad guy/evil supers, were in attendance, even a few of the top shelf ones were there. Shadow was a regular fixture at these events, always looking at the eye candy and recruiting new ‘talent’ for his own little private party afterwards. He also supplied some of the more exotic substances for the event, at a nice mark up of course, making it profitable as well as entertaining.

  He was reclining on a rather large couch stuck in a nice dark spot, a few girls around him, captivated by his fur, and probably the rumors that surrounded him. The only reason he wasn’t on the official ‘villain’ list was he kept a lower profile, but occasionally even he made the news, they just were never quite sure what to make of him; but down here in the underground everybody knew that people who crossed the Shadow Cat often ended up being made rather unpleasant spectacles of, and then there was his association with Circe. People feared Circe, even here in the underground, and while they didn’t know what he did for her, it probably wasn’t good and they definitely weren’t going to ask.

  Shadow yawned widely and curled his tail around the hot little number straddling his hips and running her fingers through his chest fur. She apparently had a thing for big black cats and was doing her best to make that clear. She giggled as he yawned and leaned forward to kiss him on the nose, so he laid a deep soul kiss on her and was impressed that she didn’t pull back when he slid his tongue into her mouth. A lot of the young gals took a while to get up to that, or some drugs. She was heavily into it from the get go and didn’t smell like she was on anything beyond a beer. He’d have to think about this one.

  He pulled her down to him as he laid there and started making out with her, he wasn’t in a rush and the night was young yet. So he missed the opening rounds of the attack. Once he realized what was going on he was pretty surprised, this was a big party, for anyone to try anything was insane. But the building shook with the force of some kind of power strike and the music stopped and the yelling and screaming began.

  Shadow rolled on to the floor taking his new friend with him. She looked pretty panicked and he glanced around from his position on top of her. It was definitely a super raid, and from the sounds of it, it was more than just the city’s local team. The feds must have flown in a bunch of support, which would only make sense considering the size of the party. He idly wondered how they’d found out about it, but decided that could wait.

  “What’s your name?” he asked the gal.

  “Karen! What’s happening?” she gasped looking around in shock.

  “Super raid, they’re going to try and arrest some people I guess.”

  “Oh no! Don’t let them get me!” she shivered.

  “You wanted for anything?” he looked at her then back at the fights going on across the building. No one had made their way back here yet. He’d picked this spot for being on the far side of the warehouse where the crowd was lightest.

  “No, but I’m a runaway,” she confessed.

  He smiled, yup; he’d have some fun tonight for sure. “Okay, Karen, these things are done by certain rules. When I get off you I want you to crawl to that doorway over there,” he pointed to one a lot of girls were already running out of. “They’re after supers like me, so they won’t give you a second look. Go to Bell’s bar, wait for me near the back. Tell them to put you on my tab if you need anything. Got it?”

  She nodded wide-eyed.

  “Good.” He slid off her and gave her a pat, “Now go.”

  She went.

  Shadow watched her until she got to the doorway, shifting to his stealth form and splitting his attention between the people rushing in and the people rushing out. These things had rules, and so far no one had been breaking them. The first rule was you let the civilians go. The supers of course being good guys couldn’t do anything to them, and while bad guys usually didn’t care, this was their party and the civies were their guests. So you took care of them or attendance would be down next time.

  The next general rule was if you got away, they didn’t come after you. That was more due to legal wrangling and lawyers. Shadow was sure they had arrest warrants for some of the folks here, they wouldn’t have bothered otherwise. Next of course with all the illegal drugs, weapons, and other things floating around here, they could arrest anyone they caught and hold them on suspicion. During that time they’d search you and maybe find a few things you shouldn’t be having. The reason they didn’t come after you if you got away was proving you were there and doing something you shouldn’t be was difficult, if not impossible. Unless of course you killed somebody.

  Shadow moved deeper into the shadows, blending into his element and watching what was going on. Getting out would be tough, they would have set up a pretty tight perimeter with all sorts of goodies to trip up any supers coming out the door, and his rather unique appearance, a large black furred bi-pedal panther, made him easy to pick out. So he’d let some of the others soften up those avenues first.

  He picked out most of the local super team, Tomas, Fiona, Centurion, Thadieus, and Chen were all rather apparent. But there were a good half dozen others he’d never seen before plus a lot of supporting normals. So he found a good spot to watch from.

  They were being well coordinated and had definite targets in mind. There were four serious bad guys here, and a dozen or so second stringers. Most all of the stringers worked for one of the four and were trying to sort themselves out to support their bosses. Three were already out of action, one was unconscious, one was glued to the floor, and the third was being held immobile in the air by some sort of wind. Thadieus controlled air, so that was probably his doing.

  The other fifty or so bad guys were either just henchmen, super normals ­­­– but not super heroes; or other hanger-ons – new powers to the area who hadn’t sorted themselves out yet. For the most part those that weren’t associated with one of the four were trying to make escape routes, and about fifteen of them had been tagged one way or another and would be going to jail tonight Shadow was sure. He spotted Clyde, who was one of Circe’s, she was a minor power and had been tagged. From the looks of things she’d gotten hit in the initial attack. Shadow decided to work his way over there and see if he couldn’t at least free her from the net holding her.

  As he watched the targets of the raid became obvious, they were going after Laughing Boy and Scorecard. As soon as that became obvious the other two started to withdraw, fighting their way out and taking their people with them. Shadow got to Clyde at that point and used a knife to cut the ropes. The way Clyde was snoozing he didn’t want to touch them, and he dragged Clyde off into the shadows and woke her up.

  At that point the entire situation changed. Those withdrawing were working their way out, clearing a nice exit through a blasted set of holes in the floor and the walls, and for the most part the supers weren’t doing much but harassing them to keep them from forming up w
ith their real quarry. But Laughing boy and Scorecard were serious badass customers and they suddenly switched over to the heavy artillery and the building started to crumble around them. Several supers got blasted back across the room and a couple didn’t get up.

  Pushing Clyde to follow Dongle, one of the super normals Shadow knew that was escaping, Shadow went to check on the two downed supers. One came to and got up before he even got near, going back to the attack. But the other had landed behind the bar and had a large piece of metal sticking through them. And the way the fight was going on, no one was going to get to them anytime soon. The supers had upped the ante as well at this point, and people were getting seriously injured now. But this gal was going to die in a few minutes if someone didn’t do something, and Shadow realized with a sinking heart that it was up to him. He could just walk away and leave her there to die, no one would know. No one but him of course, and that was the only person who mattered.

  Switching forms again to his medic/healing form he slinked behind the bar and started to examine her wound. She was one of the out of town supers, he’d never seen her before, but she was still alive, it had gone right through her chest below her right breast, but she was bleeding heavily, including some frothy blood from her mouth.

  “Hold it right there!” he heard and looking up he saw Centurion, hovering over the bar. Centurion was mainly a tank by the way Shadow classified supers. He could fly somehow, and could do a few other interesting, but standard, things. Primarily though he was super powerful and tough. He was also a straight, law-abiding, standup kinda guy.

  “She’s dying,” Shadow said, “can you help her?”

  “Just move away from her, Shadow Cat. Help will be here soon.”

  “She doesn’t have soon Centurion.” Shadow almost smiled as Centurion blinked at hearing his name, they’d never really crossed paths before, “and that piece of metal is anchored in the bar so I’m afraid to move her. And I don’t have anything to cut it with so you can get her out of here. So your choice is simple, let me try to save her or watch her die.”

  Shadow turned his back on Centurion and quickly dug through the wreckage of the bar looking for a first aid kit, he found that and some towels. He could hear the fight was still going on hard and heavy, Centurion had had to dodge something once or twice and the building was shaking constantly now. Turning back to the girl he started to cut her costume away from the wound, there was still a lot of blood.

  “What are you doing?” Centurion said angrily. “How can I trust you, Shadow Cat?”

  Shadow didn’t even look up, “What have you got to lose? If I do nothing she dies anyway. If I kill her your word alone would send me up for life. Just keep everyone else away, and stop drawing fire. I’m not sure I can do this, it’s pretty bad.”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t!”

  “Just shut up already!” he growled. Shadow cleared the wound site and opened up the kit to see what he had. Bandages mostly, not much else. Grabbing a couple of bottles from the bar he pulled out his small emergency kit and opened it up as well. It had a few clamps and sutures in it, plus a few syringes.

  “You got x-ray vision right?” Shadow asked.

  “Of course!”

  “Good, get your ass over here and take a look at her insides. She’s bleeding pretty heavy, I need to know where from.”

  He nodded and flew over, looked at her and shivered. “It severed a vein right under her ...”

  Shadow swore, “Inferior vena cava. This is bad, really bad. How’s the fight looking?”

  Centurion looked up and moved back to where he had been, “Not well.”

  Shadow grabbed a couple of bottles and lined them up, opening them. “I’m going to need a couple of favors from you, Centurion,” he said pouring vodka over the wound, then his claws, the clamps, and the needle. Trying to get things as sterile as possible.

  “Why?” Centurion asked suspiciously.

  Shadow ignored the question. “First I need you not to try and kill me when I cut her open, this isn’t going to be pretty,” he stuck the needle in a bottle and drew a lot of alcohol into it. “Second is I don’t want you telling anyone I saved her, assuming I do. Make some shit up.” He grabbed the syringe in his paw and concentrated, a brief glow appeared for a moment.

  “What was that?” Centurion asked confused.

  “Making a sedative, this is going to hurt and I can’t risk having her coming to or having convulsions while I’m cutting.”

  Shadow injected her and then repeated the process.

  “Now what?”

  “A local to paralyze the muscles in the area. Now...” A large explosion shook the area and Shadow covered her body with his, grunting as debris bounced off of his back.

  “Good news or bad news?” he asked.

  “They’re moving away from us.”

  Shadow nodded and started to cut carefully, using his claws to pull back tissue as he went in. This was a bit beyond him, but she was still bleeding profusely and he had to do something fast. It took him a minute to get down far enough to find the vein, then he put a clamp on it, then put one on the other side as well.

  “That’s the worst of it, go get some help; I need to bandage this mess.”

  “I don’t know, Shadow ...” Centurion started.

  “Dude, give it a rest and go get some help already.”

  Shadow worked fast to bandage her, the bleeding had slowed a lot and even though her right lung had collapsed, the left seemed to be holding up. He gave her a small shot of adrenaline to keep her heart going, then peeked over the bar top. They were rounding up stragglers now and it appeared the fight was over. They had several wounded and Centurion was gesturing wildly while talking to Tomas. He looked at her again and figured she had as good a chance as he could give her, she wouldn’t bleed out soon. So changing back into his stealth form he withdrew just as they came over.

  He heard the gasps of surprise and the call for a medic and an ambulance. He watched as Tomas reached under her and cut the metal bar. Tomas had a lot of power, psionic’s mainly, but he had to touch in order to bring the more powerful aspects to bear. He figured at that point she’d be okay, so he left.

  It took Shadow an hour to get to the bar he’d told Karen to go to; he had seen that they had Scorecard, but not Laughing Boy, and about twenty others on his way out. About nine had to go in ambulances, one of which was the gal he’d worked on, and another super under his own power. There were a couple of dead bodies too apparently. He wasn’t sure who.

  He was feeling a little edgy when he got to the bar, there was still some blood in his fur and the scent was affecting him. There were only a few in the bar, and all looked on edge like himself, they’d obviously escaped the party and they all nodded to him, noticing the dirt and dust, and probably the blood as well. He went into the back and Karen was there, looking small and scared and nursing a rather stiff drink.

  “You okay?” he asked her sliding on to the seat beside her.

  “Yeah, I think so,” she said, “it was like you said, they just let us run right by.” She looked at him, her eye’s widening, “You’re hurt!”

  He shook his head and took a sip of her drink, vodka martini. “That’s not mine, I’m fine.”

  Her eyes got wider then and he stood up and took her hand, “Let’s go back to my place, I need a shower and you need a place to stay.”

  “No, that’s alright,” she started slightly pulling away.

  Shadow turned and pulled her close, “You came this far, you might as well go all the way,” and he kissed her hard pressing her against his chest. She stiffened at first but surrendered soon enough, making him purr. “Good girl,” he whispered in her ear. “Now let’s go.”

  He led her out and took her back to his place. It was a nice large two-bedroom apartment, with a full kitchen and all the trappings of home; it was where he usually slept when he wasn’t sleeping over one of his many girl friends’ places or at Circe's.

  She
was meek at first; he stripped down as soon as they got in the door and stripped her down as well. But as he washed in the shower, and washed her as well, she started to warm back up to him, and it wasn’t long before they were necking heavily again. They dried off next, and he led her to the bedroom and he made love to her. She was hesitant when he moved to mount her, but she didn’t push him back or say no, and she definitely wasn’t a virgin. The way she moved under him once they got going told him that she was rather experienced as well. All in all they made love twice that night and then he fell asleep with her cuddled against him.

  He woke in the morning feeling refreshed with her spooned back against his chest, purring he rose up and let her roll onto her back in her sleep, then lowering his muzzle he slowly started to lick at her sex, causing her to spread her legs and let him slide his tongue in. He proceeded slowly at first, working his long feline tongue up inside her, when she finally awoke and grabbed his head he had her pretty excited and he concentrated fully on bringing her off. Then of course he fucked her brains out until she was moaning and crying out rather loudly. He kissed her and smiled when they’d finished and she’d plastered herself up against him clinging rather tightly.

  He quirked an ear as she held onto him, rubbing her face into the fur of his shoulder. Rolling onto his back he put his paws around her, one high, one low on that tight young ass and gave a low rumbling purr. She was a hot little sex toy, and if she wasn’t bred solely for fucking, someone had sure spent a lot of time teaching her how to do it right. She obviously enjoyed it, and she obviously was enjoying him a lot more than he’d normally found with these runaways. So curling a leg around hers to let her know there was no escaping he asked her, “So what’s your story?”

  “Well I was out with my friends and we heard about the party and ...”

  “No,” he interrupted her, “You’re here in my bedroom because I wanted to fuck you.” He purred as she gave a little jerk to the roughness of his words. “Why are you here in the city? Why did you run away? You know what I want to hear, cut to the heart of your story.” He rubbed his jaw over her head as she lay on his chest.