Diaries of an Urban Panther (29 page)

“Welcome to my life.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

E
ven though I had told her time and time again that they hadn’t been in my bedroom, she still insisted that we buy all new bras and underwear and socks and pajamas. It took a few stores for me to realize that she was
actually
putting together a new wardrobe for me. Which, I discovered between the third and fourth pairs of jeans I was forced to try on, I was completely okay with. New Violet, New Clothes. Where was the flaw in that logic?

But a new house? Jessa got the call around five that the house was done. We sat outside in her car and I stared at my house. This was very déjà vu. Me coming home, sitting outside, changed. There were too many parallels in this picture.

“It’s going to be okay,” Jessa said as she watched me.

“If you say that people can live through it, I think I might scream.”

Jessa got out of the car. She wasn’t going to allow this pity party. She wasn’t a pity party person. She opened the truck and grabbed an armload of bags. I followed and stared at the bags that went from one side to the other of her trunk.

“Are you ready for this?” Jessa asked before she knocked on the door.

I just took in a deep breath and nodded. “Sure, why not? It has to be better than it was.”

Jessa opened the door and the smell of crisp rain flooded my sense. “Honey, we’re home,” she called out as she entered the foyer.

I stayed out at the doorstep and looked at the fully flowering pot of green things out front. The empty terra-cotta pot was no longer empty. It actually looked like someone lived here.

“Violet, get your tail in here. It’s gorgeous.”

When I stepped inside, a chill danced down my back and I looked up to see a silver charm hanging above the doorway.

“The strongest barrier we could muster,” Kurt said as he joined me in the foyer. “There’s one here, and in the back and smaller ones woven into the curtains.”

“Holy Moses,” I breathed.

Kurt took the bags from my hands and set them down in the foyer under the new foyer table and the new mirror that hung there with a vase of lavender. “Lavender will ward off evil doers as well.”

I nodded as he put his arm over my shoulder and tossed a curl away from my face. “Fabulous highlights, BTW.”

“Thanks,” Jessa smiled as she flopped down on the new sofa.

The room wasn’t out of a magazine; it was out of my head. The soft gray couch, the silvery curtains, the mantle, everything was just as I had imagined and then tried to desperately recreate at IKEA.

“Seriously, guys?” I said as I pointed to the painting of a magnolia above the fireplace.

“It was the right color,” Kurt said as he pulled me through the front room and into the dining area. We stopped in front of a new turtle collection that was encased in a glass china cabinet.

“Unbreakable glass to protect your precious things,” he said and then pointed to a small mirror that hung in a collage of small paintings on the wall. “Break this one and Jessa will know something is wrong.”

“Providing I ever let her leave my sight again.” Jessa joined us on the tour with her hands stuck in her back pocket with a look of complete satisfaction on her face.

“Jessa will have one just like it at her place. Same thing, hers breaks, yours breaks.”

The other guys were in the kitchen burning a small cluster of herbs in a bowl. “Just finishing up,” they smiled as they tossed the herbs down the sink and rinsed them down the drain. “That should do it.”

“Protecting my pipes? That’s serious detail work.”

They all laughed and then stopped. It was still creepy. “No, just getting rid of the waste.”

A bright sparkly thing on the counter caught my eye. “Is that . . .” but the words failed me as I walked over to the brand new cappuccino machine with steamer. “It’s gorgeous.”

“My idea,” Jessa beamed as she leaned in the door frame. “Knew that you needed to be caffeinated to save the world.”

I playfully punched Jessa in the arm. “Aw shucks.”

In unison, the men lined up and marched to the front door. Jessa and I quickly followed.

“Thank you guys, so much.”

“Just don’t let the world fall around our ears. They are very handsome ears,” Kurt said before he gave us both quick air kisses on both cheeks and then the parade was out the door and gone.

I turned around to look at my new place. I walked slowly around the edge of the room, running my hands across the mantle, picking up pillows and squeezing them tightly.

“I’ve got one more little thing for you.”

Jessa went to one of the bags that she had pulled out of the car and pulled out a white box.

“What’s this?”

“Just take it already,” she said as she held it out between us, looking at the carpet (the new light gray carpet).

Flipped open the lid of the shiny box, I pulled out a small silver frame. It was a picture of us, a candid shot from some party we had been to ages ago, before the fight, before the panther, when it was just me and Jessa.

“It’s not a picture of your mom, I know. But I figure it would be a good placeholder until we get it back.”

I didn’t have words. Little Violet Jordan was struck dumb for the first time in her life. Maybe second.

My arms seemed to wrap around her of their own accord and I rested my head on hers. And between us, as she hugged me back, there was a warmth I felt in my chest and I didn’t think it had anything to do with any panther or fey mumbo jumbo.

“Are we done with the chick moment?”

“Shut up,” I said as I let her go and strode over to the mantle to put up a picture of me and my best friend.

I had a picture in my house. In my new house, in my new lair, and so help me god if anyone took this away from me they were going to be toast.

Chapter Twenty-Six

J
essa went upstairs to tell her family about what had happened. I wasn’t going to ask if she even needed to use a cell phone for something like that. For all I knew, she was using my bathroom mirror to phone long distance. We were going to need back up. Time to call in the cavalry.

As Jessa called her family, I called the only man who could kick my butt, my Sensei. It was later afternoon, between the daytime appointments and the evening sessions.

He answered on the first ring. “Violet.”

“That’s creepy.”

“Are you okay? You missed your session.”

“It’s happening. The thing. The reason They threw me in your path.”

“I’ve taught you everything I can.”

I frowned and leaned against the wall. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“You are going to ask me to help you.”

“Well yeah. You’re kick ass and one of the only other white hats that I know of. We are going to need people, information.”

“I have taught you everything that I can.” His voice was faint and strained.

His parrot act sent fear sliding down my spine that ended in a full body shiver. “But I need . . .”

His voice was suddenly strong and stern. “I can’t, Violet.”

I closed my eyes and listened to him, less with my ears and more with my heart. His pulse beat hard and his breath stuttered as he took in air. There was great pain in his words.

“I am an old man, Violet. I am weak and flawed. He took me once and I can’t risk that again. I have a family, grandchildren. I can’t be a liability.”

I clenched my hand into a tight fist, digging my nails into my palm to keep from crying. “I feel like I’m being broken up with.”

“Even though I can’t be with you now, in this, know that I am yours, Daughter of Jourdaine.”

Goose bumps rose all over my arms. It sounded like he was choosing a side in the battle to come and he was choosing me.

“I will see you on Tuesday?”

“If I’m not toast, that’s the plan.”

“Good-bye, Violet Jordan.”

The line went dead and I dropped the phone to my side. A sense of utter loneliness consumed me for a moment and I leaned my head against the wall. I couldn’t do this. I was just a writer.

The floorboards in my bathroom squeaked and I remembered I wasn’t alone. I had Jessa and a lioness I could call. She needed to know what her little protégé had gotten herself into this time. So much for staying out of trouble.

“Hello?” the fragile voice came over the phone.

“Hey there, Iris.”

“Hi Violet,” she said but then I heard muffled whispering of a man’s voice.

“Iris? Do you have male company?” I asked, a hint of scandal in my voice. Iris was old but maybe she still had it going on.

“No, just the TV, darling. What can I do for you?”

Iris never called me darling. It was mostly
pain in the tail
and
hairball
.

“What’s going on, Iris? What’s wrong?” The space between my shoulders twinged and my entire body felt on edge.

I could hear her orthopedic shoes shuffle across her laminate flooring, possibly into the hallway. “Chaz is here,” she whispered.

“Oh. Good guy talk?”

“Not exactly,” Iris sighed.

“I can hear you,” he hollered from the other room.

It was him. I hadn’t heard his voice in almost two days and it still made my skin sizzle. God, I was pathetic.

“Did you call for Chaz?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Defeats the purpose of not speaking to him.”

“I swear,” Iris railed. “You are the two most annoying people I have ever met.”

And she slammed the phone down in my ear.

Jessa’s footsteps skipped down the stairs and I met her at the bottom. Her face was pale, her lips slightly parted. “We have a problem.”

All the strength I had gathered with the new house and the new highlights teetered on the edge of completely losing it again.

“Mom and Dad can’t come.”

“Why? Another apocalypse that they have to avert?”

“No, like they tried and they
can’t
come.”

“Blanking on this one, Jess.”

Jessa walked into the living room and began to pace across the new area rug. “So part of the gig is that we can jump into mirrors, ride the Veil to where we need to be. And they tried and they couldn’t.”

“What does that mean?”

“Either they’ve gone rusty, or Haverty’s put up wards that we can’t cross.”

“So we are trapped?”

“Or he’s officially on Apocalypse countdown. I just know that whatever heavy hitters we might call on probably won’t be able to make it.”

Crap. Big Crap. “What about the Cause?”

Jessa shook her head. “We don’t play well with them.”

“You guys are the keepers of the Veil. How can you not be on the good guy side?”

Jessa licked her lips. “We keep the Veil. We keep people from crossing over on both sides.”

“Oh,” I said as I nodded. And then it hit me. “Oh crap.”

“Neveranth isn’t just for the bad guys, Vi. It’s anyone who has abused their power, including the witch who created it. And sometimes we butt heads when the Cause tries to bring an ancient across. A hole is a hole.”

So I had to get Chaz back to get back up, if he could even make it across whatever borders had been put in place. Destiny sucks.

I
ris called back as I was folding laundry. Too bad the Cleaners couldn’t install some sort of magical device that just took care of laundry by itself. It wasn’t the lugging it downstairs; it was the folding. The standing there and not moving allowed dark thoughts to race through my head. Like what was coming, like all the stories my mother told me about the other side of a mirror and whether I wanted Chaz back in my life.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” she said right off the bat.

“It’s okay, but I’ve got some pretty major news. Are you sitting?”

“Oh god.”

I told Iris everything I knew. All about Spencer and the dance floor and what Jessa and I had done. She was quiet. Too quiet for Iris. I was half expecting a huge lecture. I needed her to yell at me for being careless, but nothing. The only proof of life on the other side of the line was her slow and steady breath.

“So how’s Chaz doing?” I asked carefully.

“Good as he could be I guess. They’ve got him on hiatus right now. So he’s floating without purpose, which doesn’t suit him much.”

“Did he do something wrong?”

“No. They just stopped talking to him.”

Not being part of the good fight would kill him. He needed to be fighting; he needed to be out there rescuing the damsels. It was who he was. It literally ran in his blood.

“So I’m guessing he took off?”

“Yeah, just stopped by for a visit. Unlike you who only comes around when you need something.”

I had to chuckle. “Yeah. I’m such a taker.”

“Well, you do leave plenty of hair for me to clean up.”

“Hah, hah.” This was the Iris that I knew. There was a click in my head as another puzzle piece of the story fit into place. “Wait. Chaz was able to go to your house and then come back?”

“As far as I know. Why?”

“Jessa’s parents tried to come here and they couldn’t make it through some kind of ward that Haverty’s put up. Heard anything on the broadband lately?”

Iris was quiet on the other end of the line. “They’ve stopped talking to me as well.”

“Why?” I snapped.

“I don’t know. I tried to call Balzac and nothing. He wouldn’t answer.”

“Have you guys been blackballed or something?”

The line was silent.

“Iris?”

The line was quiet for a beat more. I could almost hear her face wrinkling more with concern. “You need to fix this thing with Chaz.”

I pouted instantly. This was not the kind of advice I wanted from Iris right now. “Trying to prevent the end of the world as we know it, Iris.”

“He’s really sorry for what he did.”

“Doesn’t mean anything unless he says it.”

“But he knows now why he did it. He wants . . .”

I cut her off. “No buts, Iris. If it doesn’t come from him, it really means nothing.”

“You’re too hard on people,” Iris snapped.

“I’ve heard that before. Anything new to lecture me about?”

Iris huffed. “I’m not going to continue to lecture two grown adults who should be able to take care of their own business.”

There was a deep sigh on the other end of the line and my frustration was fading fast.

“I care for you, Violet. You’re like the daughter I would have grounded until she was thirty. And it hurts to see two people I care about gridlocked in this game of wills. You’re going to learn very quickly how precious life really is.”

Her words were foreboding. It had been almost three hours since I had been reminded something big was here, that Haverty was still around. That Jessa needed to be protected. That even though Chaz and I were on the outs, we still had a common mission.

“I know, Iris.” I sighed playing with the fringe on the leg of my jeans.

“As long as you realize that.”

J
essa and I were crashed out on the couch of her apartment, keeping in behind our charmed doors and windows. Nothing to be paranoid about. If we couldn’t go to the party, we’d bring the party to us, steak and cheesecake style. I think I had already finished two slices.

“So why’d he really leave, Jessa,” I demanded as I shoved another forkful of turtle cheesecake. “He’s seen me in panther chic before.”

“Well,” Jessa said as she finished off her second slice. “I think he was scared.”

“Scared?”

“You can be a little intimidating.”

“What are you talking about?”

Jessa licked the caramel off her lips and put together her sentence carefully. “I’m saying, and this is not the cheesecake talking, that you have changed in the past six months since we moved here. After Kyle. It’s more than just the panther thing, Vi. You’ve gotten stronger and, now you’re gorgeous? Giving me a run for my money.”

I laughed. “Right.”

“He’s scared because you are amazing and if he screws up, he’ll lose you. Not to mention the whole end of existence as we know it.”

I sighed and looked across the cream suede at my friend. “So what do I do?”

“Nothing. He’s got to figure this out on his own. You just need to be your fabulous self, but give him the chance to apologize. If you want him to apologize.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Well, do you? Do you want little Stalker boy to come back and play the hero?”

Sighing, I stood and went to the kitchen to refill our plates. My lovely increased metabolism was burning through the calories on the first two slices of cheesecake I was trying to drown my sorrows in. I needed one night of just quiet, just peace and quiet, but there was a burning under my sternum at the mention of his name and my gut knew the answer.

“God, help me I do,” I sighed as I cut an even bigger slice than before.

I crossed her plush carpet and flopped pathetically on the couch.

Jessa laughed and held out her fork. “A toast. To powerful women and the loneliness that ensues.”

We clinked silverware and both took another huge bite.

A
bsorbed in a book on ritual mirror magic that too closely echoed what I already knew about mirrors, I neglected to check the number flashing across my cell phone when I flipped it open.

“Hello,” I greeted as I flipped through the section on protection spells. I did a celebratory spin in my desk chair as I found the one Jessa mentioned. I could finally stop looking. Been at it all morning and my eyeballs hurt.

“Violet. It’s Chaz.”

All the celebration melted away and suddenly I was awash in the pity party I had been throwing myself. My chair slowed to a sad stop.

“What do you want, Chaz?”

“We need to talk.”

“You need to talk,” I corrected harshly.

“I’ve got information on why else you were an assignment.”

“So tell me.”

“I’d rather talk to you in person.”

“Why? So you can just up and leave me again?”

The line was silent for a long while but I didn’t hang up. I hadn’t realized until now I missed listening to his breath over the phone.

“Please, Violet.”

Every bad thought about him flashed through my head but they were quickly outweighed by the good things he had done: saving my life, buying me coffee. And maybe the minor facts that he was an excellent kisser and had abs you could do your laundry with.