Diaries of an Urban Panther

by Amanda Arista

  Spencer sat up not four feet from me, blood pumping out of the wound in his neck. His face was already pale with the loss as blood streamed down his bare chest.

  “Heirloom silver,” he said smiling, holding up the knife. “Really does the trick.”

  I looked down at the wound. It felt like he’d stuck me with a fire poker that only stabbed again and again each time I tried to take in a breath. “The picture frame.”

  “You were a cute kid,” he said as he pushed himself up and off the floor. “Too bad you turned out to be such a bitch.”

  “Better than a spoiled prick.”

  “Oh, Violet,” he said as he swayed over to the table where his jacket was. He slid the coat on and sat on the edge of the table. “Aren’t we beyond that?”

  The wound in my side began to fester and I could feel the curse burn like poison through my blood. I barely heard Chaz call out to Jessa, the echo of gunshots, as I pulled myself up against a china cabinet.

  “What the hell is going on here?” The voice roared through the showroom. It vibrated the crystal, leaving a tinkling echo in its wake.

  I smelled cigars. No, tasted ash in my mouth. And then the flash of energy poured over me. Hello, Daddy Dearest.

  Because my night wasn’t enough of a complete disaster.

  Rough hands grabbed my arms and lifted me from the floor. I cried out as the wound spread open and my feet roughly found the ground beneath me. My captor looked at me with black beady eyes. His father’s trained dogs.

  “Get your hands off me, dog,” I spat.

  He didn’t, just dragged me over to where the mirror still rippled, still waiting for some evil deed. Spencer and the mutts had already been corralled and lined up like naughty children, each with their own body guard. At least Jessa and Chaz weren’t here. My body actually relaxed when I didn’t see them in the lineup.

  Sharply dressed, his hair neatly combed, a silver-handled cane aided Haverty’s procession towards us. I straightened as he approached, despite the sizzle in my side. He was power. Like Iris was power. It was old and ancient as it rolled off of him.

  The two Havertys stood nose to nose, but Spencer’s eyes were downcast. Haverty said nothing to him. He took a step back and struck Spencer with the silver head of his cane. The man behind him held him on his feet as Spencer’s knees gave way beneath him.

  The mutts jumped and the fresh scent of burning flesh wafted over to me. When Spencer brought his head back up, a long slit on his face highlighted his cheek bone and the wound smoked like mine had. The Haverty’s heirloom silver.

  “I knew you were stupid, Spencer. But this? Jovan? That’s a level of stupidity they don’t have a word for yet.”

  Spencer didn’t say anything. He was defeated. It poured off of him. Or could I just feel it because he was my sire? That was a creepy thought. I shivered and when I did, the wound in my side flared to life again and I winced.

  Haverty’s eyes snapped to me. “And you must be the leftovers he never managed to clean up.”

  “I’d prefer Violet, thank you.”

  The man behind me held me tight as Haverty came over to inspect me. He snuck his nose into my neck and took in a deep breath. I flinched until he backed off.

  “Didn’t expect that.” He reeked of cigar smoke and cologne and being this close to him made my skin crawl. “Where’s the Key Holder?”

  “Far away from here.”

  He reared his hand back to strike and when it came down, I dropped my weight and the face of my captor caught the full force of the blow, blood spurting out of his mouth. His hands released my arms and I rolled back between his legs and away from Haverty. I was on my feet, but not stable enough for another round.

  In the distraction of my escape, Spencer broke from his captor with an elbow to the ribs and a claw to the face. The man cried out and all attention was given to the prodigal son.

  As if in slow motion, Spencer ran for the mirror.

  “No!” I cried out as I ran after him.

  An arm came around my waist and I was pulled backward, my heels dragging on the floor. Horrified I watched as Spencer leapt into the mirror, the silvery surface welcoming him in a shimmer of bright light. As his shoe disappeared, the surface grew calm for a moment.

  Chaz pulled me behind an antique armoire. I struggled against him frantically for a moment. Cool fingers curled around my forearm and I looked over to see Jessa sitting next to me, leaning against the wood, weak and pale.

  Oh god Jessa, I whispered and I threw my arms around her neck. My heart leapt. “I’m so sorry. I kissed her forehead. I suck at this guardian thing.”

  “Not from where I was sitting.”

  I glared at Chaz. “I thought I told you to get her out of here.”

  “Shhh,” Jessa said as she squeezed my arm. I felt her cool magic over my skin, calming me. “I told him I’d turn him into a frog if he took me away from you.”

  I looked back at Chaz. “She can’t really do that.”

  Chaz put his hands up in surrender. “I wasn’t taking any chances.”

  There was a rumble in the ground and the wood in my back. Thanks to my five years in California, I knew what earthquakes felt like but this was different.

  “It’s him,” Chaz gulped. “He’s here.”

  “No,” I corrected. “He can’t come to this plane without a host and Haverty’s got too much machismo to say yes.”

  I twisted around to see if I could make out what was going on. The wound in my side flared to life, but I could see the circle. The dogs were scattering. The man who’d been holding me ran like a little girl for the front door.

  “Something Spencer-sized goes through the mirror, something Spencer-sized comes out of the mirror.”

  “Did he tell you that?”

  I shook my head. “Those stories that I keep telling you about?”

  “Sonovabitch,” Chaz breathed. He immediately started loading every gun he had on him.

  “Hold on there, killer,” I winced as I turned back. My hand held my side. It had stopped bleeding but still felt like Mt. Vesuvius between my ribs. “You have to get Jessa out of here.”

  Jessa’s eyebrows drew into a hard line above her lavender eyes. “I need to close the mirror.”

  “I’m not facing your mother when she hears you’ve been eaten.”

  A roar deeper and louder than anything a lion from this realm could have produced screamed out into the warehouse. Crystal shattered and mirrors broke through the entire building.

  I shook my head. “Do I really want to know?”

  Chaz scooted out from our hiding position. I watched his face pale and his lips part. His wide eyes flicked to me and then back to whatever was out there. He slid back and looked at me.

  “Is it bigger than a breadbox?” I waited. “Smaller than a dragon? I just need a little detail before the imagination runs wild here.”

  “Clydesdale?”

  My head lulled back against the armoire with a dull thud.

  The battle began to rage on the other side of the showroom floor. Men cried out as they were thrown across the warehouse. And I was stuck on the sidelines with a wound that wouldn’t heal.

  “You’ve got to get out there,” Jesse winced as she scooted around. “Lift up your jacket.”

  At this point in the game, I wasn’t above flashing my best friend. I sunk down on the ground and lifted up the edge of the velour. The wound was red and angry. Jessa unwound the ripped T-shirt from her forearm and held the wound over mine.

  I scooted away. “That’s gross, Jessa.”

  “Shut up, Violet. I know what I’m doing.” She squeezed her arm and the blood ran freely again. “In theory,” she muttered.

  I looked away as warm drops of Jessa’s blood fell onto my side. At this point in the day, I was up for anything. I was officially down the rabbit hole and the jabberwocky was right on the other side of the armoire.

  Chaz was looking down at me, trying not to watch either. “You wer
e pretty good out there.”

  “In what world is gutted like a fish good?”

  He smiled and reached down to squeeze my shoulder. We both flinched as another roar echoed through the antiques shop.

  The flaming infection of the wound eased and a cool chill crept up my side. I pulled up my jacket and saw an angry red line where the gaping hole had been. “Hey. How’d that work?”

  Jessa was rewrapping her arm. “Do you want a metaphysical lesson, or do you want to get out there and stop that thing?”

  I pulled down the jacket and sat up. “Let’s go.” I moved to stand.

  Chaz grabbed my arm and pulled me hard back to the ground, ramming my butt bone into the cement. Just because I wasn’t festering didn’t mean that everything was perfectly healed.

  “You are not going out there.” The crease in his forehead was the deepest it had ever been.

  “But I am. I have to.”

  “Violet. You’ve never taken on anything like this.”

  “Yeah? How many evil beasties from the Neveranth have you vanquished?”

  Chaz just licked his lips.

  “Again,” I said as I slid my arm down in his hand and then took his warm palm. “Born and bred for this.”

  There was another crash and a scream, human this time, or as human as this group got. I smelled blood in the air; it tickled my nose.

  “Guys, this thing can’t get out. Those things from the Neveranth have been known to eat cities, or worse.” Jessa protested from her place next to me.

  I stood slowly and Chaz let me get to my feet this time. The armoire was big enough to keep us shielded from the fight. He stood beside me but Jessa stayed on the ground, holding her arm to her chest and resting.

  “Here, take this,” he said as he pressed a revolver in my hand. It was heavy but felt natural in my palm.

  “Silver?” I asked as I slid it into my pocket.

  He nodded as he looked at me. His gaze was steady; his eyes were wide and flecked with more gold than I’d ever seen. I could feel him, his warm, golden center slowly beating with his heart. And I got it. He did have a heart like a lion, all golden and fierce.

  The memory of my mother’s first fairy tale in the Violet saga brought a tear to my eye and I could believe that I was getting all mushy now, at crunch time.

  “You survive this.” His voice was low and intimate. “Because I will not lose anyone else to this monster. Do you understand?”

  “Look whose all Mr. Emotional Speeches . . .”

  “I love you.”

  Chaz reached out and slide his hand around my jaw. It was warm and nervous, slightly shaking. He pulled be forward and kissed me. My brain was frozen until I tasted his honeyed lips on mine. And then everything from the past two months came rushing in. I loved him. I loved that he brought me cinnamon coffee. I loved that he collected college T-shirts. I loved that he called me out when I wasn’t thinking straight. And that he chose the most inopportune moment in all of history to tell me.

  When he pulled away, his lips were pink and I was breathless.

  “Did you decide before or after the sexy velour suit?” I smiled as I bit my lower lip.

  He smiled and brushed a strand of hair from my face. “Nothing’s easy with you.”

  “Thought you’d have learned that by now.”

  As another scream and crash combination echoed through the shop, he shook his head. “I knew the moment you dropped your red high heels in the alley.”

  Jessa cleared her throat from the floor behind us. Right, saving the world.

  I took in a deep breath of him and smiled. “Okay. I’m going to go kick this whatever’s ass. You’re going to protect Jessa. And when it’s all done, you might want to ask me out for dinner.”

  “It’s a date.”

  We both flinched as something rocked the armoire we were hiding behind. His hand slid away from my face and went to the gun at his hip. My cheek was suddenly very cold, which focused my resolve to not so figuratively kick this S.O.B. into the next universe.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  This wasn’t something from one of my TV movies. The panther in front of me was liquid smooth and smelled of blood and death. Its fur was inky black and, sure enough, it was the size of a Clydesdale and twice as long, not measuring its tail whipping around. Which meant that I would need four Violets to even begin to threaten this thing.

  Guess one Violet and one maniacal bastard would have to do.

  Haverty was circling the huge cat, still in a mostly human form, but he wasn’t winning. The rest of the men were laying around the room like a dorm room full of tossed clothing from a wild night. Haverty’s perfect façade was worn, his hair was in all directions, and a trickle of blood ran from his mouth. His canines pressed down on his bottom lip and his nose was wider, darker.

  I just stood there watching the beast hiss and crouch and take sweeps at Haverty, who, weaponless and limping, was still fighting. What the hell was I going to do?

  “You gonna help or just stand there like a statue?” Haverty barked.

  “Figured I’d let him eat you before I saved the day.”

  The beast swooped his large paw at Haverty who jumped, spun, landed on his good leg, and hobbled over to me.

  “Listen here, girl. This doesn’t get out.”

  “The beast or the fact that your brilliant son let it loose?”

  He looked like he wanted to kill me. And I knew he’d have his chance.

  “Fine. What do we do?”

  “Soft spot in the back of the head, where the spine meets the skull.”

  That didn’t sound right. There was something itching in the back of my brain. But what did I know? Again, how many beasties from the other side had I kicked to the curb?

  “You distract it; I’ll jump on top and kill it.”

  I nodded. It was a plan. Not a good one, but with a plan, we could improvise from there.

  Haverty walked behind me and began to circle around to my left.

  I stretched my neck and reached my hands out. “Hey, kitty.”

  The beast snapped its black eyes to me and hissed. Its teeth were the size of my hairbrush and the muscles around his massive shoulders rippled.

  “That’s right, beastie. We don’t play well with others, do we?”

  I slowly began to move to the right and with each step, not only did the beast follow me, but I gathered power. My body hummed with energy by the time we’d spun 45 degrees.

  The beast grew tired with me and looked around to find the other play toy. Haverty was perched on top of a china cabinet. Note to self: cripple but still agile as hell.

  I called out to the beast. “No you don’t.”

  I can describe it. It was like a psychic smack. As with Jessa before, I was able to stretch out just the power of the panther and claw the beast’s nose. When I looked down at my hands, there was blood under my nails.

  I’d gotten his attention and when I looked up at the beast, he was pissed. And then he pounced. I was able to scurry from the attack, the beast landing a hair’s length before me.

  I ran and the beast followed. Ran like a woman chasing a marked down pair of Jimmy Choo’s.

  I ran in a huge circle, leaping over desks, hurdling over tables. The beast destroyed everything behind me, not being lithe enough to duck anything. I tried not to laugh as I thought I really knew what a bull in a china shop might look like now.

  I caught a flash of where Haverty was perched. As I ran, I picked up the heirloom silver knife that had stuck me like a prize pig and tossed it up to Haverty.

  And then I stopped running and turned to face it. The beast stopped too.

  I crouched down before it and caught his eyes. I got the distinct impression he was enjoying this. The chase, the game of cat and mouse, and I was small enough to be the mouse in this situation.

  Shifting my weight from one foot to the other, I leaned forward on my hands and something cold touched my hand. A flash of silver. Out of my periphe
ral, I saw Haverty’s cane just within reach. I reached for it and the handle pulled away from the black polished piece of the cane and a dagger slid from the end of the handle. Sneaky bastard.

  I looked up at the beast as I slowly picked up the dagger.

  It growled at me and I felt the power hidden within the beast. Just as it was about to pounce and start the chase all over again, Haverty leapt. Landing on the beast’s shoulder, he rammed the knife into the base of the panther’s skull.

  The cat screamed and reared up on its hind legs, exposing its chest.

  The world seemed to slow for a moment and I realized Haverty was just going to piss it off. The center of power wasn’t in the brain, it was in the chest. Like Chaz’s lion heart.

  As the beast reared up, my hold on the dagger tightened. I slid in and under the great paws and rammed the dagger into the beast’s chest, just under the breastbone and straight for the heart.

  It fell forward on top of me, his claws ripping into me as it ground my shoulder blade into the cement beneath.

  The beast flailed up again, bucking Haverty from his back. The man went flying, crashing into some unknown piece of furniture.

  As the beast fell back down, I rolled away to a safe distance. It landed heavy on the ground next to me and the blood poured out of the relatively small wound place just in the exact spot. The dark eyes were going glassy and the beast moved its head to look at me.

  I stood, holding my arm, and stepped closer to the body. Its breaths were few and far between. Moving in a little closer, I reached for the dagger from the wound and as my hand touched the silver, I felt the power within the great beast going dark. The knife came out with a sucking sound and the cat took its last breath.

  As I watched the regal beast die, a gunshot echoed around the antique store. I dropped to the ground and turned around to see Haverty staggering backwards, inches away from me. Chaz emerged from the shadows, his gun still smoking.

  Haverty held the wound in his palm as my silver heirloom knife dropped from his hand, the silver clattering loudly in the suddenly quiet showroom.

  “All that and you try to stab me in the back?” I hissed as I stood and my grip on the dagger hardened. “No wonder your son was such a coward.”