The Jaguar's Romance

by Emilia Hartley

  As he approached, Oscar kept downwind. While he couldn’t scent his prey just yet, he did not want to give himself away. Finally, he came within sight. It filled him with dread.

  Even though he had been here when the bomb went off in the crumbling sawmill, what remained sent a shiver through him. A crater now dipped where a structure once stood. Trees all around were singed and broken. Yellow crime scene tape fluttered in the light wind. Oscar moved closer, sensing no human presence.

  What he could smell was bear. The odor was faint, yet prevalent. It sent him into the branches of an undamaged tree. The dilapidated sawmill was the one and only time he caught scent of Elathan Blood’s bear form. With thousands of square miles of forest and mountain to hide in, Oscar’s only hope lay in the fact that his quarry had spent time here.

  Time passed slowly as he staked out the site. It could be that the bear-shifter had only come here to lay his deathtrap. If so, all might be lost. Keeping Sally safe hinged on bringing Elathan Blood to justice.

  He nearly lost his purchase on the rough bark. A shadow lumbered into view, limping, moving silently. The man stood nearly as large as Thorn. The faint ursine smell still lingered despite the close proximity of the human. Even Oscar’s sharp vision could see no more than a silhouette. Blood was right there, yet Oscar had to concentrate just to notice him. How was he doing this?

  Boots crunched through burned leaves, heading into the pit that used to be a building. Oscar had no time to consider why this man could hide from his preternatural senses. Silently, he descended the tree for a closer look.

  Stone floor remained intact, the edges now revealed. Much of the surrounding soil had been blown away. The indistinct figure clambered down, crossing to the reddish rectangle in the center of the floor. He dropped a backpack beside it. Oscar could see the steel had buckled under the blast, but it still remained mostly intact.

  Then he blinked, feline eyes tearing up, and glanced away. He felt a strange buzz in his brain, familiar now. When had he felt this before? In the cellar of the farmhouse, he realized.

  Elathan Blood did something that attracted his attention despite the negative feeling projected by the steel door. From the pack, the man drew on yellow gauntlets, the kind a welder might use. Turning his face away, he crouched, gripped the metal.

  A purple glow issued, lighting Blood’s face. Oscar could see the expression of agony drawn over the rough features, see the sweat roll, hear the labored breathing. At the same time, that dim light sank into Oscar’s guts. Nausea nearly overwhelmed him. The cat took long, slow breaths. Squinting, he was barely able to watch the man at his labor.

  Sparks flew in all directions from the trap door, popping and sizzling reached Oscar’s sensitive ears. The man let out a scream that rumbled from deep within. Then, lifting with his legs, clothes smoking from the embers, gloves aflame with licks of deepest violet, Blood flung the door open. The groan and squeal of rusted metal settled in Oscar’s brain like a migraine.

  Panting, hands on his knees, Blood examined the gaping black hole. As if a switch had been flipped, Oscar felt all the negative energy disappear. He understood he was in the presence of magic. The steel door held some spell, some ward, that forced away any close inspection.

  Blood collapsed to the floor, shaking and huffing. It had taken all of his energy to open the portal. Oscar had a chance to take him out. Incapacitated, the man stood no chance against a great jaguar.

  If Oscar killed him here, it still left Sally a wanted woman. No, he had to understand the man’s motives. He had to know how he could shield himself from even the sharpest of animal senses. Slave to his curiosity, the jaguar raced back to Oscar’s discarded clothes. Dressing quickly, air pistol in a shoulder rig, he sprinted to the crater. He arrived just in time to see Blood struggle down into the hole.

  Oscar slid down the blasted banks, peering down. Footsteps echoed up. Rude stairs cut into the natural rock, slanting down at a steep angle. His vision could not penetrate the dark beyond.

  He shuddered at the thought of descent. The hole measured about two by three meters. Of the tunnel beyond, he could only guess. Sweat trickled down his neck. Oscar realized that this door was made of the same magic stuff as the doors in the farmhouse cellar. It would take little time to reach the house, and approach from the other side. He found the thought comforting.

  At the same time, Blood had exhausted himself opening this one door, less than half the size of the ones in the cellar. Even at a distance, Oscar felt the horrible effects of the magic. He realized, heart sinking, that there was no way he could count on opening the doors from the other side to pounce on Blood.

  No, there was only one choice. Oscar had to follow. He had to submerge himself in the narrow throat of a tunnel. He had to follow a dangerous man who could secret himself from Oscar’s highly tuned faculties. Even his cat eyes would be blind in utter darkness.

  Nausea deeper than the feeling brought on by magic staked him in place. Every fiber of his being fought climbing down into that horrid space. His skin crawled with sweat, breath whistling in his lungs, gut aflame and taut. Curiosity, the great driver in his life, was not enough to push him into that constrictive space.

  Tomblike, the tunnel breathed, the smell of ancient earth, of mold and decay. Worse, a disgusting odor drifted to him, something from his childhood, and something he had caught scent of recently. Sulfurous and smoky. The smell of the farmhouse cellar. Yet another compelling reason he should avoid this tunnel and simply race to the old house.

  A vision of Sally’s face appeared in his mind. He had to do this terrible thing. It was the only way to save her. Oscar had to bring this killer to justice. In order to do that…

  Taking great gulps of air, he set a shaking foot down on the rough stair. With all of his will, he placed his next foot down one more tread. Slowly, he submerged, as if into a pool of ink. Each step built the pressure around him as he sank into deeper psychological water. Blood sang in his ears as his eyes came level with the ground. Teeth clenched, he stepped below ground.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he gazed up at the rectangle of trees and stars above. Wind sighing through the branches stirred a thought of utter terror. He nearly raced up the stairs at the thought that the breeze might blow that door shut.

  No, it was almost too heavy for a big man to lift. It would take a hurricane to shut it. He stood like a statue until he could control his breathing. Footsteps had long faded from his hearing. Oscar could not say whether this was a function of the magic shielding Elathan Blood, or the simple fact that he had moved away.

  The tunnel stank, the disgusting odor much stronger here. Regardless where this narrow tunnel led, he had to force himself onward.

  Finding that his fists were clenched, his shook them out. Something between the magical doors motivated Blood. When Oscar learned what that was, he could set Sally free. He took a step into the arched tunnel. Another. Soon, he stood in utter darkness. With his eyesight, he never bothered with a flashlight.

  He had an idea. His cellphone was in his pocket. Without removing it, he pushed the button. The faint light was more than enough for cat eyes to see. Even as the stone tunnel came into sharp focus, he wondered if he shouldn’t have proceeded by touch alone. The walls were so close; he could touch either side without fully extending his arms. The floor ran slightly downhill, and soon he stepped into a shallow stream. The way curved beyond his vision.

  Throat tight, Oscar killed the light of the screen. Reaching out, he touched a slimy wall with his fingers. Keeping Sally in his thoughts, he took hesitant steps toward his quarry.

  She was alone in the woods. Her bear’s instincts were novice. Sally was alone, perhaps shivering with the cold, hungry, and afraid. All because of the man somewhere in the impenetrable dark before him.

  A boot splashed in the shallow water. Cats hunted by hearing as well as sight. Echoes gave dimension to the tight space, and direction. Blood was very far ahead of Oscar. He had to step up his pac
e.

  Pressing down hard on his phobia, Oscar moved forward. He tried to shake the sensation of walls closing in on him. That smell in the air, though rotten, was not the smell of death. Thoughts of Sally, left by herself in the inhospitable early winter woods, prodded him on with determination.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sally lounged on the bed, raising the last cheese-dripping slice to her mouth. Never had cheap pizza tasted so good. Her belly full, limbs no longer shaking, feet warm, she reached for the remote to find a movie.

  Instead, she saw her own face. Sally recoiled. It was a terrible shot from her Instagram, not even the kinda good one from her profile page. Crooked glasses with tape on the bow, hair wild, mouth wide open to eat a forkful of birthday cake, she looked like a psycho.

  “Oh my gawd!”

  “East County Sheriffs are still asking the public for help in finding a fugitive allegedly involved in the murder of a Ripple man,” the anchorwoman said.

  Fear sent the pizza in her stomach swirling. Did Billy the motel manager watch the local news? Oh, she was so screwed if he did. Hopefully, he would keep his eyes glued to his cell phone. Still, even if Billy didn’t watch the news, a whole lot of people did. How could she get out of this motel without someone calling the cops?

  This was a stupid idea, stupid, stupid, stupid. She should’ve stayed in the woods. So she was a little starving to death, so what? Her bear could’ve eaten some bark or something. Or moss. Really, there wasn’t much to eat out there in the late autumn woods. But no one would spot her there.

  Of course, the dope-smoking gun nuts had spotted her, but she’d been a bear then. Sally had seen ads on TV about reporting strange animal behavior to the parks department. And that billboard near the national park entrance, fightrabies.org. That was probably just the kind of thing they were talking about. Until now, it hadn’t occurred to her that those ads weren’t about rabid animals, but about shifters.

  Perhaps, more specifically, about novice shifters like Sally—shifters who weren’t good at being animals, and had to steal munchies from dopers.

  Authorities would be looking at her from both sides, both the bear and the woman. The hopelessness of her situation dawned on her. Oscar’s talk about fleeing the country now sounded more like a frightening reality than a romantic dream.

  How could she do that? Her college Spanish just barely allowed her to understand Oscar’s occasional code switching outbursts. She couldn’t survive in a foreign country. Hell, she never even asked Oscar which country he was from.

  Her heart plunged. Sally had been used. Elathan Blood wasn’t tough enough to take Thorn down on his own. He made her his tool, as much as he had made her a shifter. He preyed upon Thorn’s guilt, his protectiveness of poor old helpless Sally.

  The cops didn’t know any of this. It seemed they didn’t want to know. Detectives already had a motive. They thought Sally was jealous. Thorn took up with Felicity, and that drove her to murder. What a crock!

  Or was that theory as silly as it seemed on the surface? Sally was alone in the world, her family far away, she had few friends, no boyfriend or husband. A desperate loner. Since she owned a bar, they might even pin her as a drunk, even though she hardly drank at all. Again, that terrible photo of her popped up on the television. Yes, a desperate loner, a drunk, bent on murdering a man she had a crush on who had left her for another woman. From the way she was attacking that cake, was it so far a cry to think of her as attacking a six-foot-eight lumberjack?

  Her eyes shifted to the phone between the beds. Maybe she should turn herself in. Oscar would still come through for her. Spending time in jail made her break out in a sweat. But wasn’t turning herself in better than being hunted down? What if the cops broke down the door right now? Would she shift, and hurt the police, or worse? They thought she was dangerous. They might even shoot her.

  The knock on the door nearly made her pee herself.

  She considered hiding in the bathroom. There wasn’t any other place. The bathroom window was too small to squeeze through. Would the cops have the place surrounded?

  “Sally? Open up.”

  She recognized the voice. It filled her with more dread than thoughts of the police.

  “Sally, it’s Felicity Malkin. Open the door!”

  No way in hell. The woman could shift into a mountain lion. And Sally had killed her man. Felicity would make short work of her. The first time she had shifted, she got in a fight with Felicity’s cat. She could still remember the hind claws raking her, the fangs at her throat. The mountain lion was smaller than her bear, but the animal nearly tore her apart. Sally wasn’t going there again.

  She glanced around. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Shit!” she said.

  Sally paced around, ignoring the insistent knock. She had eaten—eaten a lot, a whole pizza, in fact—and she had energy. Her body was wracked from shifting, but she knew she could do it again. Over the past couple days, she’d done a lot of bear stuff. She rolled her shoulders like a boxer. Cracked her neck, her knuckles. Maybe she could beat Felicity’s cat in a fight. Or better yet, just knock her down and get past her. Swift as cougars were, they couldn’t keep up with a black bear. This shopping center wasn’t that far from the woods.

  Sally unbuttoned a few more buttons, to keep the flannel from binding when she shifted. She moved to the door. She planted her feet. She reached for the knob.

  “Bring it, bitch,” she said through her teeth.

  Sally called upon her inner bear. Power surged through her. Soon, the mass of muscle, fur and fangs would stand in her place. She flung the door wide.

  Instead of shifting, Sally did a double take. It wasn’t Felicity standing outside.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Oscar tried to retain rational thought as he moved beneath the earth. Fear made him sweat, and sweat made him stink. The rotten smell of the place might hide it, but he dare not take the chance. A bear had the greatest sense of smell on the planet. And enclosed like this—

  Enclosed, enclosed, the thought started echoing. Madre de dios, he had to shake his fear, slow his thundering heart. He placed a shaking hand on the sweating wall and stopped to catch his breath.

  ¡Càlmate, Oscar! He chided himself. Get a grip!

  He got lucky. Ahead, he heard a mechanical click. A glow suffused the curved wall in front of him. Had he not paused, he might have been spotted. The wall continued in a gentle curve, the way ahead unseen. He liked the tunnel no better illuminated.

  Creeping around the curve, he saw a chamber open up. The light came from a lantern in Elathan Blood’s hand. With a twist of the knob and a hiss of gas, the chasm brightened. Shadows danced.

  On the far side, Oscar caught a glimpse of stairs leading upward. He had no doubt these led to the farmhouse cellar. He had to duck back as Blood raised the lantern overhead.

  Oscar drew the CO2 pistol.

  Out of sight, Blood shuffled through the waterlogged chamber. Oscar could hear muttering, though he could not make it out. A sudden shout nearly made his heart stop.

  “Fuck!”

  With a loud clang, something small and metallic bounced off the wall just in front of Oscar. It splashed into the water on the floor.

  “Gone!” Blood roared. Something smashed against the stone. “Gone!”

  Light jerked and bounced, footsteps sounding. Blood was moving up into the cellar. Oscar crouched down, fishing the thrown object from the water. It was oval, perhaps two centimeters at the widest point, and glittered in the lamplight. Oscar turned it over to see crude images of a lion and a bull. It was a crudely minted coin. From the weight of it, it was solid gold.

  Thunder rolled through the tunnel. He realized it was the sound of those steel doors in the cellar being thrown wide. After a glance around the curve told him the chamber was empty, Oscar hurried in. Anxiety faded in this much larger space. He was finally able to take a complete breath. His eyes locked on the open doors above. Light faded as Blood hu
rried up into the cellar.

  A quick glance told Oscar very little. He saw dark ceramics, mostly smashed, a toppled chest in shining black lacquer, the remnants of fabric and splintered wood littering a broad cylindrical chamber, tables of strange design in rough alcoves. The rotten egg smell was pungent to the point of making him gag in here. That was fine. He needed to get out anyway. Blood was getting away.

  Or so he thought. Oscar smiled to himself and pulled out his cell phone. The man wasn’t getting far. He crossed the chamber and made for the stairs as he sent a text. It was time to end this adventure.

  The steel doors to the cellar remained opened, and Oscar’s eyes darted around before entering. From below, he glanced boots disappearing up the steps toward the kitchen. When the cell phone buzzed in his pocket, Oscar knew the trap was about to be sprung. He forced himself to remain hidden in the cellar until the doors opened and closed above. On light feet, he quickly sprinted upstairs.

  Freed of claustrophobia, Oscar felt suffused with glee. Everything now fell into place. The murderous Elathan Blood was finally his. He quietly shoved open the pantry doors that disguised the basement entry. Beyond, the house stood in darkness, yet ambient light filtered through the windows. Oscar was fully in his element, and finally confident.

  Even in boots, Blood made little noise as he crossed the hardwood floor of the living room. Hiking the backpack on his shoulder, he limped to the front door. Oscar followed just as silently, leading with the air pistol.

  Both he and his prey froze at the same time. Oscar understood why. He caught the scent of bear. Blood must have as well. It was enough to stop him a moment before opening the door.

  Suddenly, a huge fist slammed through the stout wood, clipping Blood on the side of his head. Stunned, the big man took a staggering step back. It saved him as the door exploded inward, frame shattered, hinges breaking loose. Had Blood been that half step closer, he would have been knocked down.