Diaries of an Urban Panther

by Amanda Arista

  “Not much to tell,” he said as he finished with his salad, putting the fork on the plate.

  “Right, because all the men I know answer to an actual higher Power and carry around guns with silver bullets,” I whispered the last part.

  Chaz leaned forward on the table and clasped his hands. His eyes took on a steady look but I matched it easily. Very little was scaring me these days and there was no way I was going to be intimidated by a deep stare from a handsome man.

  “I was born here actually. And raised by my dad . . .”

  I leaned forward and listened as he dropped his voice a little.

  “Like I told you before, it turned out I had the same gift and he taught me the trade, got me involved with the Cause, and by 17, I was working my own missions for them”.

  “And do all of them involve stalking single woman?” I asked.

  “No. Some are more dangerous. Some are as simple as delivering a package.”

  We were silent as the waiter brought out the meals. My mouth immediately began to water as I looked down at the pink meat. At least I could eat this without guilt. I needed the protein to keep me grounded until I went to Iris’s next full moon. She had promised a quiet place to work and shift because she was certain I was not going to be able to stop it this early in the game.

  The steak was heaven on a plate. Hot and thick and juicy and not a bunny in sight. I closed my eyes on the first bite and just sorted out the spices that had been used and savored the flame-grilled taste.

  “Good?”

  I opened my eyes to find him watching my little display. “Perfect. Thank you.”

  He just smiled and looked back down at his meal.

  We really didn’t start talking again until we were both finished. Steak isn’t a really conversation meal, with all the chewing. Pasta was more of a date food. One dainty ziti at a time, with a toss of the hair and a flirty smile.

  But this was not a date, I kept telling myself. It was just two people, enjoying a meal on a Thursday night together. Dressed in heels and a suit and complete with awkward silences, but this was not a date.

  As the waiter cleared away the plates, Chaz drank the last of his wine. “You said something the other day.”

  “I say a lot of things, mostly with my foot in my mouth.”

  He licked his lips. “You said that the job wasn’t who I was, just what I did.”

  “I do remember something like that.”

  He leaned forward, clasping his hands together. “I’ve worked my tail off for the Powers for six years now and I can’t remember the last time I did something I wanted to do.”

  “Sounds like one hell of a revelation but you could have eaten steak alone.”

  He shook his head. “I eat too many meals alone. Out of paper bags. I wanted some decent company for once and silverware.”

  “And the car? Was that something that you wanted?”

  Chaz laughed and again, I was surrounded by that golden wamrth. “God yes. Dad’s Bronco is great for lugging things around, but I’ve been eyeing the new design of the Challenger for ages.”

  I laughed and drew the jealous glance of everyone around us. Something had changed. This wasn’t the Chaz that had previously been stalking me behind plastic house plants. He was different, despite the same half smile he was giving me now.

  And here I was, well fed, well dressed, and willing to suspend my disbelief for at least one evening to also be sitting across from a man having a nice meal that I had no intention of paying for.

  “So where to next?” I asked. “Drinks might be nice but nowhere too packed.”

  “Something wrong?” he asked, arched eyebrow.

  “Can’t I just want a quiet place to talk?” I countered as I leaned back.

  Chaz chuckled. “And I just wanted a place to listen to music.”

  I looked hard at him. “You wanted a place where you can avoid questions.”

  “Guilty,” he held his hands up in defense. “Well, that, and there’s live jazz at this place down the street.”

  “Jazz?”

  “Got a problem with jazz?”

  I shook my head. “You just don’t seem like the jazz type.”

  “What type am I?” he asked, a smile curling up only one side of his mouth.

  “More Motley Crüe than Miles Davis.”

  The waiter stealthily put the bill on the table and he paid. I didn’t protest.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said as he stood.

  The hostess held the door for us and we exited into the cool night air. It refreshed me immediately and I took in a deep breath of the downtown air. Smelled like people and coffee and rain. Didn’t remember bad weather on the forecast but the nose knows.

  Chaz smiled and stretched on the corner as we waited for the pedestrian right of way. He swept back his jacket and put his hands in his pockets. Looked like a Versace ad with a small hand gun tucked into the side of his pants by the strange lump there. Knowing Chaz, there was a knife somewhere under that flawless suite.

  Filled with steak and bravery because of the rising moon, I just had to ask. “Did you ever do any modeling?”

  Something shimmered over Chaz’s brown eyes for a split second as he looked down the street and I knew I was right. It was like the cherry on the top of the meal. “You were a model.”

  His jaw clenched. “I have to make money somehow,” he shrugged as he motioned that we needed to cross the street while the light was good.

  I jogged along next to him in the high heels, still giggling to myself.

  “What?” he grumbled.

  “You are a model,” I repeated with a sing-songy voice.

  “What about it?”

  “Nothing. Just never imagined the guys on the billboards with shotguns in their cars saving damsels in distress.”

  He stopped walking in the middle of the sidewalk and turned to me, chin lowered and eyes dark.

  I froze. Who would have known that of all the other things I egged him on about, this would be the touchy subject?

  “Like I said. It’s a job. Pays the bills and keeps my schedule free for things like this.”

  “Dates or sacred destinies?” I asked quickly.

  Chaz just lifted his left shoulder briefly and the glare faded into an odd grin. “Both.”

  He turned quickly and started up the street.

  But I was still frozen. Damn it. He might have just admitted this was a date. My cheeks flushed and so did my senses as I caught a tendril of his scent on the wind, that starchy musk that had come over me earlier. I wanted to close my eyes and curl up in a little ball surrounded by that warmth.

  He was half a block down when he realized that I wasn’t next to him. He stopped and turned around confused. “What?” he called out.

  Suddenly, there was a shift in the wind and I was no longer caught up in his smell and the idea of a first date. I was surrounded by dogs, the smell of wet dog, mildewed and sewage-soaked, coming from up wind. Made part of my steak dinner come up a little. A shiver racked my spine and I moved quickly for Chaz, as quick as I could in three-inch heels.

  He knew what I knew in the moment he caught my elbow.

  “Lose the shoes,” he said in a low growl as he pulled me quickly down the street, gracefully guiding us through the growing night crowds.

  As smoothly as I could between our long strides, I slipped off the red pumps and carried them in my free hand.

  I could still smell them, the way they felt in my head. Iris had always said you could tell the good guys from the bad in an instant. I chilled, finally knowing the bad guys felt like thick, sticky fear that crept down my back.

  The boot steps quickened behind us and Chaz pulled me into a run, my bare feet slapping against the cold sidewalk.

  “Run,” he said, dropping my arm, stopping in our flight. “Go someplace safe.”

  “Are you insane?” I snapped.

  “Go!” he repeated and I caught a light in his eyes, a glint of somethin
g more powerful than I had ever given him credit for.

  I simply nodded and took off down the street at panther speed.

  I didn’t hear anything beyond the wind in my ears as I cleared two blocks in three seconds. I stopped and stood flush against a building to look back down the street. No one was following me, Chaz was gone, and the passer-bys didn’t even look twice at the woman breathing heavily against a building corner. I was nicely dressed and therefore not a threat to their normal Thursday night.

  It was dark and quiet and there was no dog smell on the wind, no Chaz smell either. I sucked in the cool safe air.

  What the hell was I doing? I asked myself. Who were they? Haverty’s men come to collect? And why the hell had I run? I’d just left him there, to fight my battles. Just left Chaz to deal with the beasties because they were his thing; they were part of his world.

  Screw that. When the last time Violet Jordan let someone else fight her battles?

  Oh, that’s right, until I met Chaz, there were no battles to fight. And if there was anything that invaded my little fortress, I ran. It’s what I had always done. Run, move, and start all over with a fresh slate when things got hairy.

  Wasn’t getting any hairier than this.

  I looked up at the waxing moon and felt the stir of the cat in my chest. I wasn’t the Violet Jordan who ran anymore. I was the Violet Jordan who threw drinks in men’s faces and threw sensei’s across the room. I was the Violet Jordan who dated male models.

  And those jerks had just ruined the first good date I’d had in years.

  Without a plan, I went back. Half-way to where I’d lost Chaz, I jumped as I heard a cry carried on the wind. It was him. I looked around at the other people who walked around unknowingly of the battle going on down the street, looked at their happy faces and listened to the echoing laughter.

  Chaz. I couldn’t leave him there, despite the mixed signals, despite the threats, despite his completely butting into every aspect of my life.

  I could hear grunts and caught a whiff of Chaz’s starch.

  It only fueled my blood as I walked past an alleyway where I could feel them again. I stepped around a garbage bin that was blocking most of the alleyway from view of the sidewalk.

  I gulped and had a very vivid flashback. Two months ago, me in an alleyway, trash cans, my shoes in my hand. And we all know how wonderfully that went.

  My resolve faltered and I slid behind the dumpster. What the hell was I doing again? Right: saving the boy. Me against three grown “men.” Banner idea, Violet.

  Closing my eyes, I tried to swallow the steak-tasting fear rising in my throat. I should run, call Iris. She surely knew someone who was burlier than me. Hell, Iris herself could probably take these guys down with one flick of her little finger.

  The distinct crack of bone echoed through the alleyway and I could taste blood like copper in the air.

  He would do this for me, had done this for me. And, hell, I healed pretty fast the last time. Without Chaz, I’d be dead in an alley. Look like things were about to come full circle.

  “Here kitty, kitty,” one of the men called out from the alley.

  “Crap.” I had been made. Though part of me doubted they could smell my magnolia over their sewer stench.

  With one last deep breath and the passing thought that I really wished I had finished the last edit on that script I’d been working on, I slid around the corner.

  Chaz was on his knees. In the faint light, blood glistened as it poured from a cut in his forehead. Two men held him by the elbows as the third punched away at his ribs.

  I dropped the heels and they made a wonderfully hollow echo as the sound bounced up into the night sky. I also dropped any pretense of my shields as I opened the door to my town house and let my power dance excitedly along my skin.

  The pummeler, the one doing a number on Chaz’s torso, looked over at me with a grimace and I flinched. It wasn’t that he was ugly, but his animal was right on the surface, seemingly right under his skin, and the canine features were pushing against his lean face.

  I vowed I would never look like that as I stepped fully into the alley.

  “Violet,” Chaz breathed, trying to threaten me again.

  “Sorry. Terrible with instructions,” I apologized.

  He shook his head and left it down. His fight was gone. Mine wasn’t. These were the bastards that chased me. These were the mutts that had me on house lock down. As I watched them, smelled them, watched as they licked their lips, every muscle in my body tensed and then I relaxed. I could hear Iris, “Embrace your beast and it will set you free.”

  “You’re the one we wanted anyway,” the closest one said as the wall of a man turned slowly towards me.

  The magic he invoked danced in the small space of the dark alley as he reached for his animal.

  I remember him coming at me with lightning speed I knew I could beat.

  I remembered catching him mid-step, mid-leap, mid-shift as my nails dug into the flesh around his throat and into his abdomen.

  I don’t remember screaming into the night as I slid down into the darkness in my chest and let the panther take hold.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Once there was a very lonely fairy princess who couldn’t sleep. For when she slept she had dreams of great adventures, but when she woke, there was no one to go on an adventure with. So she sulked around her castle looking for playmates. She asked her mother for a little sister, she asked her father for a little brother, she even asked her maid for a dog. But no one could give her what she needed.

  So she ran away. As most princesses do at some point.

  She walked as far as she could and when her feet were tired she took a rest on a stone by a lake.

  “Why don’t you have a drink?”

  The fairy princess looked around and finally looked down to the surface of the lake to see a young face in the ripples of the water.

  “Who are you?”

  “Just a boy in the water. You look tired. Take a drink.”

  The water looked cool and refreshing. She looked back at the long road that she had taken and the long road ahead of her.

  She reached her hand out and dunked it under the surface of the pond. Just then a cat came out of the reeds and, teetering on the rock next to her, the cat scratched her hand.

  “Ouch,” the fairy princess cried as she clutched her hand to her chest. Little drops of blood fell into the water.

  The water rippled fiercely and the face of the boy pressed against the surface. The cat scratched at the face. Bubbles poured out of the mouth in a silent scream and the face sunk into the darkness.

  The cat sat pleased on the rock next to her. “He tried to pull you in.”

  “What?”

  “If you went in, he could come out.”

  “I’ve never heard of that.”

  The cat sighed. “I supposed that you have never heard of a hagfin or a liger, either?”

  “What’s a liger?”

  The cat shook its head. “I suppose that I’ll just have to protect you then.”

  The princess jumped off the rock and looked down at her hand. The scratches were just small pink lines now. The sting was gone.

  “I don’t need a silly cat to protect me!” The princess balled her hands up into little fists and stomped away.

  “That’s the way you came,” the cat said casually as she licked a paw.

  The princess huffed and turned around sharply to head in the correct direction.

  The cat lazily jumped off the rock and began to follow the princess.

  “Stop following me,” the princess yelled.

  The cat simply followed the girl down the road.

  When she settled in to sleep, her body exhausted from the adventure of that day, she said “I don’t want a cat. I want a real friend.”

  “But who will protect you from water dragons and reedwasps?”

  “You’re making them up,” the princess said as she curled tighter into
her pillow of grass and weeds.

  The cat curled up in the folds of the princess’s dress and slept. As she had never been this close to a cat, her mother and the cook had always shooed them away as foul beasts, she looked down at its sleeping form and smiled. The princess fell into a peaceful sleep, lulled by the soft sound of purring.

  I sat up quickly, naked as usual. Surprisingly enough, I was okay that. The mongrels were all face down on the blacktop of the alley. I could make out the shreds of the black dress that had only been worn once. Does it still count as one hell of a date when you wake up naked surrounded by burly men?

  Quickly, I drug the nearest body closer and pulled off his long trench coat. Ignoring the offensive smell, I wrapped it around my bare shoulders. I reeked but I couldn’t be picky.

  I stood and looked around. There wasn’t much blood, couldn’t smell any, which was good. I cinched the black trench coat tightly around my waist and stepped over the bodies and the shreds of my new cashmere coat. Damn it.

  Tidbits of what happened floated behind my eyes, feelings of it ran up and down my skin. I remembered Chaz cornered and then I shifted. I remembered grabbing someone’s throat and backing someone against a wall and something about a brick but it was still fuzzy. I remembered only three, but as I counted, there were five bodies on the asphalt. Go Chaz.

  When I found Chaz, I ran over to him, my bare feet splashing through the puddles in the alleyway. I had been out long enough for it to have rained.

  He was unconscious as well. I knelt down by him and curled my fingers underneath his head. It was wet and warm, and when I drew my hand back, it was covered with blood.

  I gulped. Blood meant a concussion and concussions usually meant hospitals and I wasn’t sure I wanted to walk into a hospital wearing only a trench coat.

  I reached down with my clean hand and touched his skin, ran my fingers across his bruising cheek bones. I could see the model features in the shadows of the alleyway.