Per could see the undulation working its way back down the tunnel. The tail came up in a tremendous wave of motion.
Hooking his claws into the flesh, Per rode out the wave. He roared in response. The great end of the snake thundered onto the ground, and the walls shook in response.
If there was one thing Per understood, it was that all living things have weaknesses. The hard-eating business end of the snake was on the other side of the tunnel, trying to reverse itself to get at whatever was causing its pain. But the tunnels precluded it turning around efficiently or at all.
Per raked again and tugged off more of the sizable black scales. Blood began to spurt from the tender flesh under the snake’s scales and Per was getting saturated with it.
Not the way I envisioned my day. Soaked with snake blood. It smells worse than wolf shifters!
The agitated rolling of the beast rippled back with vengeance, and Per held on for dear life.
Ride ‘em, cowcat!
*
Sage figured out it was low tide, and the room she was standing in would fill up with ocean once the tide turned. Her paws crunched on something below her and she glanced down to see thousands of fish bones. She couldn’t take a step without breaking the fragile, disembodied skeletons.
If big snaky things liked fresh fish, and they normally lived in Under where the monsters and the critters play, wouldn’t they like to come to a place where fish might come to them?
The enormous head of the snake came bursting through the same hole she’d slid down. The pixie made a shrill noise and yanked on the whiskers it was hanging onto. Rocks and dirt cascaded down, and Sage made for the opposite side of the cavern, keeping an eye on the snake above.
Why, yes they might. And you’re standing in the middle of it.
The upper holes around the first snake filled with blackness and several ginormous heads began to pop inside. There was a dawning realization that the snake creature chasing her had inadvertently or advertently chased her into their hunting ground.
Maybe they had an idea for an appetizer. A little cougar bite before the main entrée?
Sage chuffed to herself, forgetting she couldn’t speak in her cat form. As a human it would have come out as a human chuckle, half hysterical and all wild.
See how funny I can be when I’m about to be eaten by something that eats everything in its path. A talking cockroach told me so.
Turning slightly, Sage watched the sparkling eyes above her. One by one they focused on her. She looked around her. The pixie wasn’t moving or speaking or shrieking so Sage wasn’t getting any guidance from it. It hung on to the side of Sage’s feline face and stayed motionless.
Abruptly, the first snake hissed deafeningly. It was so loud the walls of the chamber trembled. The others cast their attention to it. Its huge body shuddered as it contorted itself.
Sage grasped it was starting to back up in the tunnel. Why was anyone’s guess. It didn’t seem too cheerful, but she couldn’t picture one of the great animals in their happy place to begin with, so she wasn’t the best judge.
I wonder if they’d like to eat my father? No, he’d give them indigestion and they’d be pissed about it. Bad idea.
The other snakes seemed a little puzzled by the first one’s actions. They looked at her and then at each other. One by one, they began to retreat backwards, forcing themselves back into the tunnels.
Sage blew air out in a hefty feline sigh.
The pixie climbed up Sage’s face, bracing one tiny foot on the slant there and jammed it against the edge of the leathery nose. Sage had to restrain herself from sneezing. Instead she stood there, with all of her muscles shaking, while the pixie hung onto to some of the short hair. One of the little arms reached up and firmly grasped several of the whiskers above Sage’s eyes.
Sage twitched uncomfortably. The pixie stared into one of Sage’s eyes. Sage found she could focus on the teeny thing if she crossed her eyes. Apparently cougars didn’t have the best up-close vision.
Sure as hell, the little pixie had a needle stuck through a belt around its middle, not unlike a sword. One of its wings appeared broken. It was difficult for Sage to think of the creature as an it. It resembled an insect-like Tinker Bell. It looked like a minuscule green girl.
It also looked like it wanted to communicate with Sage.
Well, unless you know the Vulcan mind meld…
The pixie pointed toward one of the tunnels. Then it pointed at her.
Sage frowned. She could swim. She thought she could swim in feline form. She didn’t know if she could keep the pixie up on top or from washing away.
But she didn’t need to do that. Sage saw a green glow descending toward them. A prodigious cloud of flitting emerald shapes arrived en masse. The pixie cavalry had arrived. They virtually ignored Sage as they took the injured pixie with them. Two of them carried the one with the broken wing, and they flew away.
A few others made a line of green light in the air for Sage. It pointed in the same direction that the injured pixie had indicated.
Sage would have shrugged, but she was too tired. She turned in the direction and padded wearily.
A strong scent of ocean flowed over her. This was an exit. Somewhere down this tunnel was the ocean. She didn’t know where she was in California, but she thought she could figure it out quickly enough. All she had to do was say she had been kidnapped in Colorado by a fruitcake.
Naked. Bruised. Flaked out. What does the fruitcake look like? Hard to remember. Think he drugged me. Don’t remember much? What day is it? No, you can’t take a sample of my blood.
That was a story Sage could live with, and hopefully the Cat Clan could live with. If Martinez came for her later, then she would deal with that in another way. She wouldn’t be going with him again. She’d discovered something important about herself in Under.
The air flow through the integral tunnel abruptly reversed. Sage lifted her head and sniffed. It was inherent. She couldn’t help herself.
There was the strong aroma of blood and snake. She thought it was the smell of snake. It was earthy and dirty and had a darkness to it she couldn’t put into words, as if something tainted the beast.
There was something else behind her, in the area that was all danger and monsters. It was the smell of the thing that had faced off the one talking beast trying to break into the locked room.
Musky heat. Cat. Interesting. No, fascinating.
Sage waited. She had an urge to run for the scent. She wanted to find it and roll in it. She wanted to throw herself at it. It was urgent. It was more than urgent. The imminent danger didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but that remarkable smell.
The cloud of pixies was vanishing through one of the higher exits when Sage found yet another hidden reserve of energy. She spun on her paws and began to track the smell that so intrigued her.
~ ~ ~
Chapter Nine
The cat is a good friend, only she scratches. - Portuguese Proverb
Per had systematically dissected about half of a huge snake creature before he knew it had stopped struggling. What was left of the tail limply flopped over in the room and lay motionless.
Helluva fish story! It was this big!
The beast was dead. He stopped, utterly mired in blood and gore. His head was down. His mouth was open and sucking in preciously needed oxygen. His sides heaved with exertion. If he was correct, the head of the thing was where Sage was to be found, and he thought his efforts likely had the effect of stopping it from consuming the new changeling. With something it couldn’t reach shredding its tail into bits of snakity goodness, it had to have lost interest in eating something else. It had been worth the shot.
Teach you to mess with my muh…
Panting with exhaustion, Per looked around the larger room. It wasn’t safe to change. There were dozens of other scents around. Nothing was present at the moment, but the coppery tang of blood had a way of drawing out the scavengers, and some of those could b
e ruthless. He quickly had to find Sage and find her before something else tried to eat her. And then discover a way out of this oubliette hell.
And then what was he going to say to her?
Hey, babe. What’s a nice cat like you doing in a place like this?
Hey, cuteness, is that a claw or are you just happy to see me?
So what sign are you? Har. Har. A leo?
Per chuffed to himself. He’d never had problems with females before. But that was before. Before this happened, whatever this happened to be.
Of course that was the point when a few more snake heads began working themselves back into the cavern. Through intense effort and perseverance, Per had killed one. He didn’t think he could do…
One. Two. Three. Four. Well, call me a purple-headed pee monkey. What do they say about bad things coming in multiples? No, that’s in threes. This is way more than three. It’s three times a thousand.
Per snarled, and it echoed in the room. It was a clear warning, and any shifter in the vicinity would have told them not to mess with the tiger, but everything else living was conspicuously absent.
The snakes focused on him. He couldn’t tell if they were aware he had killed their brethren, but they didn’t seem very joyful.
The tiger inside him spoiled for the fight. The tiger that had been restrained from his mate was furious with the entire situation. The tiger was pissed the fuck off!
Bring it, it said. Bring the meat to the platter right now! I’ll make scrambled snake for breakfast!
*
Six pixies accompanied Sage. They flew in a standard formation at which she would have marveled if she hadn’t been preoccupied with the scent. They nattered at her in buzzy, chirpy, disapproving sounds she thoroughly ignored.
It wasn’t just the intoxicating smell drawing her away from safety. There was more to it. That little something inside her, the instinct that told her she was in danger when her father had hit her with a baseball bat and when Martinez had first attacked her, was telling her something needed her. It needed her now.
Hurry. Faster. He needs you. Needs you now!
It wasn’t even an it; it was a he. He needs me.
Sage couldn’t begin to ignore the call to arms. With the last bit of strength she trailed through tunnels of rock and dirt. Nothing else was about. Seemingly everything with a brain had fled for securer arenas.
She scrambled a steep embankment to a tunnel arching upward. The scent’s path seemed to pour from there.
The pixies continued their angry buzzing around her ear, and Sage rumbled threateningly at them.
One of them landed on the side of her face, grasping her whiskers like the injured one had done. Apparently, they could and had communicated with each other. The original damaged one had spread the word about using Sage’s whiskers as a guide. It used its insignificant body weight to yank at the whiskers, trying to get Sage’s attention.
Sage huffed and paused. The pixie lit off her face and pointed in the direction she’d come from.
Go back was what it was telling Sage. Sage couldn’t go back. That inner voice she’d trusted a handful of times before, the same inner voice that had saved her bacon more than once, was telling her there was something she needed to do, someone she needed to help, and there wasn’t anything that was going to stop her from doing just that.
Sage was tired of knuckling under.
She heard the awful hissing before she came into the open area. Recognizing the chamber, she knew she had been in the area before. This was the one where she’d picked up the wounded pixie. It was a vast open cavern, roughly hewn from the rock. A man-made opening was at the top, leading far away to a distant light. There were many exits, although the room was far from empty.
The meager shards of light pouring down revealed a gore covered animal whipping and careening through the heads of several more snake creatures. They raised their heads and aimed at the large cat. The cat waited for his moment, until the snake’s head had committed to the movement, and dodged. One thundered down onto him, and the feline sidestepped. His claws flashed in the dimness. The mighty beast hissed as the cat whirled away. Another snake creature propelled itself up to make a killing blow.
How do I know that cat is a him? Sage didn’t know the answer to her question. The oversized feline was much larger than she was and blanketed with thickened blood. All that could be seen was the glint of golden yellow eyes and snowy white claws.
The pixies buzzed around Sage’s face, and she grumbled warningly.
The sound found its way to the other cat, and the animal wavered in the moment he most needed all of his capacities. The head came down like a colossal hammer, aiming for the mass of the feline’s body.
Sage recognized several things in a single moment. One was that the gore-covered animal was a tiger. She could barely make out a white belly, black stripes, and hints of orange-yellow fur. Two, it had fought one of the snakes and killed it by virtue of slashing its tail until it had bled out. The room was awash with crimson carnage. Three, it was about to be smeared into paranormal roadkill by a tremendous snake head larger than a VW Beetle. Four, and most importantly, under the smell of blood and tissue, the feline was the source of the smell that so attracted Sage’s attention.
Screaming at the snake, Sage surged into the fray.
The snake heard the scream and it shuddered in reaction as if it tried to change its almost inevitable course. The tiger threw himself to the side, and the snake’s head just missed the mass of his torso. The resulting collision with the ground caused the huge feline to be thrown headfirst into the nearest rock wall. The force was so hard Sage heard bones breaking. He crumpled into a heap, and another enormous snake creature began the move to finish him off.
Sage didn’t hesitate. She hit the back of one of the snakes and used claws and teeth to make it understand she was serious. The insensible form of the tiger came into her sight and she screamed again. It was the sound of feline fury no longer contained. She bent her powerful back legs and drove her body over the gap between the snakes, smashing into the snake that was aiming itself for the tiger’s immobile shape.
Catching the snakes flesh, Sage used her claws like ice hammers on a glacial shelf. She dug in with all of her weight, and when she pulled each paw free she brought scales and flesh with her. The snake creatures weren’t used to things fighting back. They used their impressive bulk in narrow tunnels and their sharpened teeth to corner and kill their prey. They ate what was in their way. They didn’t typically go after something that attacked them in return.
Obviously, the snake creatures didn’t like the resulting pain Sage and the other cat were causing them. Their confusion showed in the way their attention vacillated from the unconscious were and Sage.
Sage rendered her way to the head, using teeth and claws to make the worst type of impression on the beast, and went for the eyes. The other snake creatures were muddled by the dreadful hissing of the animal she assailed and started to withdraw into the tunnels. She screamed again, the triumph echoed in the room. The snake creature lurched in response and started to remove itself.
Raking the flesh around its eye, Sage waited until it was about to drag her into the tunnel. She leaped off, and her legs felt like moldering Jell-O. Using her absolute last bit of strength, she positioned herself in front of the downed tiger.
The snakes slowly vanished into the darkness. A few minutes later, the dead one was dragged off as well. Something distant was taking the corpse with it. To where, Sage didn’t really care. Why, she cared about even less.
Sage panted with the effort it took her to stand there in defense of an animal she didn’t even know.
It’s him. You don’t have to be afraid of him, the inner voice told her.
Thanks, she told herself. Great. I’m having conversations with my inner self. That’s always a positive sign.
There was another moment of incessant droning. Sage thought it was the pixies returning to chastise her
once again. She looked around, but the little green twinkles had vanished. Perhaps they had written her off. After all, a hundred pound cougar doesn’t normally come out ahead against multiple snake beasts that weigh in on the tonnage level.
Well, that’s what I would think. The truth is snakes: zip, weres: 1. Fuck you and the paranormal horse you rode in on.
But it wasn’t the buzzing of the pixies. Dark spots danced on the periphery of her vision. Sage’s head dropped to her chest because she was unable to keep it up any longer. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. Her skin tightened in primitive response to something she didn’t understand, and she saw the fur rippling down the muscles on her forepaws. The world tilted, and she knew she had fallen over to her side. She could see the tiger lying next to her; his eyes were still closed, and his blood-splattered maw was open and gaping.
Indistinctly, she noticed a glinting something around one of the larger canines on the bottom of the tiger’s mouth. She would have said something if she could have. The change was forcing itself back upon her, and what she really wanted to do was shriek with the torment of it. Emma had told her it would become easier and almost perfunctory with time. But in the present, it was an agonizing act that made bones and muscles rearrange themselves, and she felt it in every part of her being. Whether it was because she was beyond exhausted or because she couldn’t psychologically hold the shape any longer was immaterial.
A minute later, a sweat-soaked human Sage lay beside the unconscious tiger. She was too weary to lift a hand, but as her normal eyes adjusted to the gloom of the great room, she realized what was looped over the tiger’s canine.
It was her grandmother’s cameo ring.
~ ~ ~
Chapter Ten
Blood Moon Cat Clan Page 7