She frowned and put her hands on her hips. “Dad, Seriously? Don’t you think that’s a little overdramatic?”
He looked down at the shot gun and then at his daughter. “I think it adds the perfect dramatic touch.”
“You’ve met him. It’s just prom. I know the rules and I know what happens if I miss curfew.”
“And I already know that you will miss curfew.”
She smiled up at her father. “You only know that I will miss curfew because you missed curfew on your prom night.”
Her father looked away for a moment and dropped the shot gun to his side. “You understand that I have to.”
“Tyrant.” She smiled as she walked up to him. “I will go to the dance. I will have a good time and I will not do anything stupid. I promise.”
“I know.” He sighed as he ran his fingers through his sandy brown hair.
She leaned up and kissed him lightly on the cheek, making sure that she didn’t get any lip gloss on him. “It would have been more effective if you’d flipped the safety off,” she whispered in his ear.
She smiled and headed out for the perfect prom night.
JESSA PUNCHED ME in the arm. “Wake up. We’re here.”
“What? I’m awake,” I said as I sat up and looked around from the front of her BMW.
“Fifteen minutes in the car and you were out like a baby.”
“Having a hard time sleeping.”
“Bad dreams?” Jessa offered as she got out of the car.
I opened the door and threw my tired legs out onto the pavement. As I stood, it took the wind to tell me exactly where we were. “Are we at a hospital?”
“Sort of and you’re avoiding the question,” Jessa said as she grabbed a Coach messenger bag from the back of her car. Survival in style. “Are you having dreams about him again?”
“No. I’m having a hard time getting sleep.” I followed Jessa into the alleyway behind the huge red Dumpsters that read BIO-HAZARD. I held my hand over my nose as the smell of clotted blood surrounded us.
“Like you need some chamomile to relax?” Jessa asked, her hands pinching her nose together.
“No. Like everyone else needs to calm down so I can get some sleep.”
Jessa just shrugged. “You’re the Prima. This is the life you chose.”
I really didn’t expect to get any sympathy from Jessa. She wasn’t the sympathy friend. She was the let’s-kick-ass-and-look-fabulous-doing-it friend.
I shook my head. Technically, I think it was the life that chose me, but right now wasn’t the time to argue because as we turned the corner, I knew exactly what had drawn us out that night.
I reached for the charm around my neck and slipped it off. As the spell dissipated, the chilling breeze from the open Veil fluttered all around me, like torn bits of gauze tickling at my skin. “I think we are getting stronger.”
“I’m getting stronger,” she corrected. “You’re just playing catch-up.”
“And you’re getting catty,” I joked as I followed her to a random spot on a wall. I didn’t need to see the rip in the ether to know it was there. I reached out and it twisted between my fingers like organza with a soul.
“Come on, wonder girl, let’s get this fixed up.” Jessa found a crate in the alley and pulled it up to the wall so she could reach the edges easier.
“Does it need blood this time?”
Jessa looked around the wall and ran her hand across the empty space. “Let’s just try it the old-fashioned way.”
As both of us leaned up to begin to weave the tear back together, tying the loose ends and bonding them with little bits of magic, like trying to rework holes in pizza dough, I caught a scent of something rotting. I almost thought it was the BIO-HAZARD bin until it got more intense.
“I think it’s time to change deodorants,” I joked before a large bloody hand clamped onto my shoulder.
Seven months of Jeet Kune Do kicked in, and I grabbed the wrist and ducked back and to the right. I twisted the arm of the foul-smelling man and nearly threw up from the stench. From behind, I saw rotten flesh down his neck and the chunks of scalp exposed. He smelled like that wondrous combination of old cat urine and the meat you left in Tupperware before you went on vacation. Only it was right up my super sensitive nose.
Even the wrist locked within my fingers seemed to writhe and I looked down to see the macerated skin tear away from his muscles with twist of his wrist.
I dropped him fast and pushed him forward. He slammed into the brick wall just to the side of the Veil.
“What the hell is that?” Jessa shrieked as she scurried closer to me.
The thing’s skin still hung between my fingers. I shook the flesh from my hand and wiped the blood off on my jeans.
“Zombie?” I offered.
As it turned back around, a slow lumbering turn, it did share three common characteristics with the modern-day zombie myth. It stunk like rotting meat because it was rotting. The dull cataract eye lolled in our direction as it started back toward us.
The second characteristic was that it was slow. It didn’t move, it lumbered. It was nothing compared to my shifter reflexes. It didn’t seem super strong, just persistent, which led to the third characteristic of the zombies movies I knew and loved so well.
It was coming at me teeth first, like it wanted to take a chunk out of me.
“Are you serious?” I asked the universe, not really wanting a response, just wanting it to know that I, Miss Horror Movie Writer, thought it was being ridiculous with this one.
I dodged another attack and kicked him against the wall again.
“Careful of the Veil,” Jessa chided.
“Why don’t you keep fixing it and I’ll . . .” I trailed off. How did you kill zombies? “Bash his head in?”
“Sounds like a plan, but point the blood spatter away from me?”
I shook my head as the thing recovered. Jessa. Less about the details, all about the looks.
Just as I was looking for something to kill this thing with, another caught me around the waist and threw me to the ground like a sacked quarterback.
As I was wriggling away from its arms, I clawed at its face and brought an eyeball impaled on a talon.
“Awwgh,” I cried out. I shook my hand and flung the eyeball off into the night.
Drawing on my power, I threw the thing off of me and looked around. There were five now, one of me, one Jessa. How’d these guys get the drop on us?
I reached my power out around them to find their magic. Mine was a golden center of life and light. These were dark, like a black fire that burned within their chests that needed to be fed constantly before the light went out.
“I think they are ghouls,” I said to Jessa.
“I think they need to be dead,” she snapped back as she looked over her shoulder and wove the Veil as fast as her little hands could.
I looked around for a weapon. I was pretty sure I could kick their heads in, but these were new shoes and I didn’t want to get ghoul blood on my new sneakers.
Where was Chaz when you needed a good shot gun? Oh, right. Taking care of my niece because he is the most amazing man on the whole planet.
Guess this one was all me.
I lunged at the first one. I would have said it caught him off guard if he even had a guard. He stumbled back and I landed on top of him. I grabbed his head and rammed it into the pavement, harder than I actually wanted to. I felt the crack of the skull in my palm, like crushing a fortune cookie.
Dark black ooze drained out of his cranial cavity and I jumped up quickly and wiped my hands on my jeans. I needed to remember to bring wet wipes with me. Add that to the survival in style bag.
Another one was close. I stomped on his foot and rammed my palm into his chest. His ribs cracked under my palm as he flew backward and his ankle snapped when I didn’t let up on his foot. He went down, another head against the pavement.
It didn’t get up.
The other two went down
with relative ease, which would have begged the question why don’t bad guys attack all at once, but that would have given these guys both a motive and cognitive thinking, which I really wasn’t ready to bestow upon this particular band of misfits.
Until the last one looked me in the eyes.
He was either younger or older, but he was different. He wasn’t as fragile as the other ones and nearly had all the skin left on his face, though part of his cheek did hang down. His suit was ragged, with brown fluid down the front.
His eyes were still juicy enough to burn darkly with the hunger that raged beneath them. If I was a gambling woman, I would have said this was their leader.
But you know me, I don’t play games and I certainly don’t gamble.
He rushed at me, but then quickly turned toward Jessa. I dashed for him and tackled him to the ground.
Which, once he’d pinned me, I knew was where he wanted me in the first place. He was stronger than the others, and even with my super strength, he was able to hold me down.
“Prima,” it hissed, only it didn’t have the suppleness to the lips to actually make out the P and the M sounds, so it came out like “Reena.”
“You really should just give up now,” I said as I stopped fighting and started looking for weapons within arm’s reach and a way to get out of this situation.
As this thing, this once-man, looked down at me, I got the feeling it needed me. His friends were just out for a midnight snack: I was used to that scenario. But there was a look in his eyes, a pinch in his voice that told me he didn’t want to hurt me.
Just as I was about to say something, the brave and daring fairy princess I call my best friend decided to come to my rescue with pepper spray, barely legal pepper spray.
“Eat this,” she prefaced before she shot a long and close burst of pepper spray into his face.
Now, if I wasn’t a werepanther and was just a girl, the spray that sent my attacker running out into the night with a scream that literally curdled my blood would have landed all over me, sending me into an eyelid-boiling, skin-bubbling, rage-inducing fit as I tried to wipe myself clean of the pepper oil.
But I am a werepanther and I have super senses. So take that, and multiply it times ten.
I screamed as the pepper burned my eyes, which only caused me to inhale a mouthful of it. The pepper burned down my throat like I’d swallowed Chernobyl.
I rolled to my side and kept my eyes closed and tried not to touch my face. The little Chaz had mentioned to me about the matching pepper sprays he’d given to me and Jessa was Don’t touch your face if you accidentally get sprayed. It’s oil and it spreads fast like oil.
However, he neglected to mention that if you got sprayed with it, it would feel like a million bee stings all over your body at once and you’d want to scratch out your eyeballs.
Somewhere above my own crying and the raging forest fire on my face, I heard Jessa’s mantra, “Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God,” and there was a bottle of water splashed on my face.
“No water,” I choked out. “Milk.”
I don’t know how she got me to my feet but we were moving. I couldn’t suck in enough air to curse her to high heavens. I couldn’t open my eyes to aim my foot at her butt. I could only stumble blindly in the direction she pulled me.
There were bright lights. The hospital? Had she taken me inside the hospital?
Someone who wasn’t Jessa sat me down and I batted a hand away when they tried to touch my face. I cracked a puffy eyelid and only saw tiled floor and a blue uniform.
“Here,” Jessa said as her rainwater energy pattered around me.
Suddenly, there was something cold and thick running down my face. When I gasped, a bit of it fell into my mouth.
“Ice cream?” I gurgled out.
Jessa wove her fingers through my hair and pulled my head back and smeared an entire ice cream cone over my face like some fancy new exfoliant.
Between the cold milkiness and her soft excited energy pattering along my skin, the burning very slowly dissipated.
“Ice cream, Jessa?” My voice was still raspy, and according to Jessa’s smart phone, would be until the inflammation went down from the pepper’s oil.
My skin was puffy and sore like a bad sunburn, but with the super healing, that would be gone soon. We sat across from each other at Braum’s, known for their homemade burgers and their all-night ice cream. They are not known for their triage, though the woman working behind the counter hadn’t flinched when I came in screaming.
“You said milk and this was the closest thing.”
“I’m still getting over the fact there was a Braum’s across the street from a Botox place.”
“Not missing the irony,” she said as she ate her ice cream. She’d at least offered to pay for dessert after smashing the first round all over my face to calm the burning of the spray.
“What was that thing?”
Jessa’s ice cream seemed to turn sour in her mouth as she put her spoon down and pushed the cup away. “I think you had it right with a ghoul. I’ve only heard stories.”
“What are the stories?”
Jessa ran her hands up her arms. “Ghouls tend to rise when things are unbalanced. Their hunger contradicts something good.”
I frowned. “So the universe thinks we are too good now?”
Jessa shook her head. “I’m just telling you what I know.”
“So the universe wants everything to come down around me ears. Awesome.”
“All I know is that the universe is about balance. It’s one of the reasons that the Veil is so hard to keep up. It’s not supposed to be there. We put it up to keep the humans safe.”
“So they wouldn’t get snacked on in back alleys?” I asked.
Jessa just gave the look that clearly said she wasn’t in the mood for joking. “I’m just saying, if the ghouls are rising, something is out of whack.”
“Huh.” I smiled through my stinging skin. “You said ‘whack.’ ”
Jessa rolled her eyes and gave up.
Chapter Nine
“VIOLET? ARE YOU all right? You look like you’ve been crying.” Chaz cupped his hand under my chin and forced our eyes to meet. His furrow was back and from the bags under his eyes, he hadn’t slept either while us girls had been away.
“Met with the rough end of some pepper spray.”
“What?”
Jessa pushed me through the doorway. “That would be my fault.”
“Why did you pepper spray her?” Chaz asked.
“We were attacked. She was being helpful.” I made sure my air quotes around the last word were particularly emphatic.
“It was in the heat of battle and the thing was trying to eat her face.”
“It wasn’t trying to eat my face,” I snapped as I flopped down on the couch.
“It was trying to eat her face,” Jessa repeated as she perched on the arm of the chair.
Shadow raised his head from the fireplace and then nestled back down again.
“Lexie still asleep?” I asked.
“Hasn’t budged.”
“Maybe she didn’t notice I was gone.” I sighed. “I need a shower.”
“Yes, you do,” Chaz said. “You smell like death warmed over.”
“I’m pretty sure I was attacked by death warmed over.”
The space between my shoulders was beginning to ache and I was getting that crick in my neck I’d get on editing marathons for three days straight with no sleep.
“I’ll take a shower on one condition.”
“What?” Chaz asked as he offered his hand to help pull me off the couch.
“You make a full breakfast. We’re talking eggs and coffee and pancakes, and coffee.”
“Got it,” Chaz smiled. “Get upstairs.”
Jessa just waved and headed for the door, to no doubt take three showers to get the smell of the ghouls off her. I was as quiet as my leaden feet would allow as I slowly climbed the stairs. The kid must have my su
per hearing. The second I slipped in the door, she started to stir.
“Is Chaz making breakfast?” Lexie asked as she sat up and rubbed her eyes. Her hair was kinked up on one side and I was thankful that she didn’t get my curly hair.
“He’s getting started on it right now.”
“Did I keep you awake? Dad says I talk in my sleep but I can’t prove it.”
I sat on the edge of the bed next to her. “You didn’t keep me awake. How are you feeling about going home this morning?”
Lexie sighed and rolled her shoulders, stretching. “I know Dad has rules and rules are important, but he’s got to let me make a few mistakes for myself. I’ll never learn anything if he keeps me locked away.”
“I think you’re too smart for your own good. You must be a Jordan.”
She rubbed her nose and then lay back down on her pillow. “Tell me a story of growing up with Dad.”
“We didn’t grow up together.”
“Tell me about something about Dad as a kid.”
I looked across the barren side of my bed and meant to slink across the lush covers but I think it was more of an elephant tromp because Lexie giggled. The moment my head hit the pillow, I knew it was a bad move. My body relaxed against the memory foam and the aching seemed to stop for a moment and the smell of squishy death faded away.
“Does your Dad still like card tricks?”
Lexie rolled her eyes as she mirrored my position. “He tried to do them at my last birthday party.”
I laughed. “He could guess my card every time. I think he even carried around a deck of cards with him, and if I started moping, he’d pull out those cards.”
As I thought back to those bright and golden days, I couldn’t help but feel I’d wasted every single one of them. Being so damn angry at the universe. Ignoring the family that was really just there for me the whole time. Just waiting until I reached out for them. Which I never did, because, I think we’ve already established, I’m stubborn.
With a resolute sigh, I looked at Lexie. I wasn’t going to give her the choice. I was going to be in her life kicking and screaming. “I’m going to take a shower and you can go down to breakfast when you smell the cinnamon, but not a moment before. Must remember to keep the boys waiting for it.”
Nine Lives of an Urban Panther Page 9