Diaries of an Urban Panther (31 page)

“Enjoy what?” came from behind me.

I jumped and spun around at the male voice.

“Nothing,” I snapped as I gaped up at Chaz.

I just stared at him. The vision of what was underneath that baggie black sweater made my mouth dry. Not that I hadn’t felt what was under them on a few occasional but to have the visual keep flashing before my eyes . . .

“Catching flies,” Jessa whispered.

I snapped my mouth shut.

“What’s going on?” Chaz asked, his furrow in full force as his eyes bounced between the two of us.

“Nothing,” Jessa repeated, fighting giggles. I couldn’t figure out if they were aimed at me or the previous discussion. “What’s the scoop?”

“Chaz has been fighting the good fight.” I filled in.

We turned to him, ready for a story.

“I talked to this guy who thought he might know of a man who’s been looking for a guy to find him a key to the Neveranth.”

Both of us girls gulped.

“Really?” Jessa asked, looking over at me. “Anything else?”

“Not really. Info gathering is usually a long hard business.”

I wasn’t paying attention as they went into detail as to where Chaz had found the information or when. I was just trying to keep my cheeks from flaring red as the picture flashed before my eyes. Unfortunately, my tasty thoughts of Chaz’s chest were destroyed by the sudden smell of dog. God, I hated that smell.

I flinched and my brain went into hypersensitive mode. That’s all it was now, like flexing a muscle. Perked ears and focused eyes, I took in a deep breath and looked slowly around. I didn’t see anyone suspicious, but then again, we had a guardian, a panther, and a fairy princess at our table and we weren’t turning any heads.

Chaz’s hand came to cover mine. “What’s going on?”

“Dogs,” I whispered. “Not the ones from before. These are cleaner?”

He squeezed my hand and stood up. My speeding heart pumped blood even faster through my veins and I caught a whiff of his wonderful smell, which made my panther stir a little in my chest.

He motioned with his hand for us to stand. Jessa’s eyes were filled with panic. She hadn’t looked this scared, well, since the night at the party when I was attacked and Chaz came to the rescue. So it had been, what, four days since mortal terror and a near dead experience? Wondered if that was a record in one of those mystical books somewhere?

I nodded to Jessa who slowly stood and grabbed her purse. I followed, keeping the senses perked.

As Chaz led the way to the front of the diner, I could see the moment they both felt the beasts that I had smelled earlier. From behind, I watched as the feeling crept down their necks and they shivered in sync.

Chaz held the door open for us and kept his eyes peeled on the crowd that had gathered on this Friday night in West Village.

“Car’s this way,” he said as I passed him and he went to take my hand and lead me to the street.

“My car’s in the lot,” I said back to him, making sure that both hands were casually in my pockets.

“They know what you drive.”

“Your tank can be heard for miles.”

Chaz paused for a moment and his hazel eyes met mine. Something passed underneath them as his hand was held out between us empty. It dropped slowly to his side.

Poor Jessa was stuck between us.

“Let’s just go,” she said, pushing both of us towards the parking structure.

Chaz and I both stumbled in that direction with her harsh shove but eventually moved to keep her between us on the sidewalk.

As we slowly walked to my car, me in the front of the line, I couldn’t help but feel that this was the way things would be from now on. If this was what I was made to do, then I was determined to do it well. I wasn’t a writer anymore; I was a Guardian.

As determined as I was, I still wasn’t fast enough. A large black dog came flying out from the corner of a stairwell, not ten feet from my car. Mouth open, teeth bared, it chomped down on my arm and sent me flying across their path. I twisted to land on my back, the dog on top of me, teeth sinking quickly through my jacket and into my forearm.

Jessa screamed and out of the corner of my eye, I saw another.

“Behind you,” I called out and Chaz moved quicker than I had, missing the pounce of the second attacker.

I stared down the Rottweiler’s muzzle as it tore my jacket. When the dog’s teeth finally sunk into skin, the panther leapt in my chest, like she was clawing up my throat to get out.

Angry heat sizzling down my body, I sucked in a deep breath and gulped her down. I was not going to shift in front of the crowd of people who had gathered to see wild dogs attack this nice little threesome. I was not going to become the monster I knew raged inside.

The dog ripped its head away from my arm, taking flesh and cotton with it. I didn’t feel it, the adrenaline and panther both running hot through my veins. The dog lifted his head enough that I reached under with my uninjured hand and grabbed its throat.

That was the only thing I let the panther do. No escape, but defense. The inky power slid down my arm and claws easily wrapped around the beast’s neck, nails piercing its soft dark fur.

The dog began to stomp on my midsection as he tried to pull away. His wind gone, he stopped attacking and tried to tear his airway from my grasp. Blood began to run down my hand and I was about to let him go. No need for dead. I could see in his eyes, in the laid back position of his ears, that he was defeated.

But a gunshot tore his body away from me. The dog flew a few feet and landed limply on the ground.

I sat up and clenched my arm to my chest. Surely Chaz hadn’t opened fire. I turned around to see a police officer with a rifle. Wow, authorities came through on this one. I took in a deep breath as I saw the other dogs back away quickly and then hightail it out of there. The panther calmed herself and went back to her little lair for the moment.

Jessa peeled herself away from the wall and rushed to my side.

“Are you okay?” she asked as she helped me up.

“Peachy,” I grunted as the fire flew down my injured arm, not enough adrenaline to drive the pain away now.

Chaz joined us with the two police officers.

“Ambulance is on its way,” the officer said. “You may want to sit down, ma’am.”

Jessa didn’t let me protest. Wasn’t like I could say, “Don’t worry, it will be healed be tonight.” She escorted me over to the stairwell where the dogs had been hiding.

One police officer stayed with me and the other took Chaz off to answer some questions.

“You handled yourself pretty well back there,” the officer said.

I looked up at his name tag and then his warm brown eyes. “Thanks. Can’t say I practice much.”

“Are you in self-defense?”

I nodded. He was good; his soft voice drew my attention away from my throbbing arm.

“Jeet Kun Do.”

His eye brows arched. “No wonder you took that fall so well.”

“You saw it?”

“You were pretty amazing.” The officer immediately looked down at his feet when he realized what he said. “I mean, I’m a black belt in judo and you don’t find a lot of people who can move like that so instinctually.”

If you only knew,
I thought to myself.

The flashing lights of the ambulance guided me away from his comment. The officer offered a hand to help me up from the stair, which I didn’t take, but he walked me over to the back end of the ambulance before joining the other officer interrogating Chaz.

Jessa stayed quiet as the tech double wrapped his latex gloves and pulled out the scissors to cut off my very ruined jacket.

The tech asked some fairly basic questions which I answered in a fairly basic way. The arm looked worse than it felt and as I looked up at the tech, there was a spark there. Something silver in his light blue eyes and in the cool flutters of his fingers over my wounded arm. Something not quite human.

I looked at Jessa and she nodded, confirming my suspicions. Wanderer. So much for being one of the few, the proud. Stories filled my head as to how he’d escaped Haverty’s wrath, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask. He knew what I was and I knew what he was. It was enough of an exchange for right now.

“Wow, you’re good,” I said to the tech.

“Thanks,” he said with a small smile.

Jessa slipped up closer to us and ran her finger along the edge of his ambulance. “So what is it? About a quarter witch blood?” Jessa asked him in a hushed tone.

The EMT looked at her and I could see that there were going to be digits exchanged later. He had that doe-eyed look that all men got when they looked at Jessa. All men except Chaz.

I strained around to find him. He was still talking to the officers. He glanced over his shoulder and looked at me steadily. I winced but didn’t break eye contact as the tech poured something over the wounds that stung like mad. He winced with me and then smiled slightly when it was over.

Any girlish thought of Chaz without a shirt was gone and all I saw was the man who was trying to protect me. I looked away, back down at my arm already feeling better. It wouldn’t need any more than the glue the EMT was putting on it now.

Twenty minutes and a boatload of questions later, the police, ambulance, and animal control drove off, leaving the three of us standing there in silence.

“So what do you think that was all about?” Jessa asked.

“The universe not wanting me to wear a fitted jacket,” I said as I turned for the car. Chaz had returned my purse to me and now I fished for my keys.

“You’re going to drive home?” Chaz asked.

“And you’re going to follow me.”

“Just like old times.”

Jessa grabbed the keys from my hand and I didn’t protest. Everything would be fine in a few hours but right now my arm throbbed under its tight bandages.

“They’re out to get us, whether they know the truth or not,” I explained to them. “We need to stay together. At least for tonight.”

Chaz nodded. Jessa was a little harder to persuade. “Are you suggesting your place?”

“I am. Farther away from the incident and more exit routes. Not everyone can jump nine flights.”

“They know where you live, Violet.”

“I need my shower, Chaz. And my house doesn’t smell like French fries.”

“It’s safer,” Jessa said. “We’ve made sure of it. They might tear up the yard, but we’re good there.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

T
he three of us circled around my new dining table and just stared at each other. I had made coffee, as I do in time of crisis.

“Aren’t you the expert at these things?” Jessa asked Chaz, who was sitting quietly, staring down at his cup of coffee. She rubbed her arms covered in goose bumps despite the hot mug that steamed before her.

“Never actually been the huntee before, usually the hunter.”

Jessa’s shoulder slumped. “Well, what are we going to do?”

If this was my movie, and I had the three main characters together in a crisis, what would I do? “We need to know how much they know. That’s got to be the primary thing.”

Both looked at me. “When did you become the strategist?”

I shrugged. “I’m a writer, I see the big picture.”

“How’s the new movie going, by the way,” Jessa asked as she leaned her head on her hand, casually sliding into girl talk mode.

“Going great actually. Got the first scripts done and off to Sera whose editing them right now.”

“You got a movie?” Chaz asked confused.

“Yeah, based on a character I created. Well, technically, Kyle created, but I brought to life.”

“That’s great,” he said with a perky smile that faded into a scowl. “Can we get to the life and death stuff now?”

“Fine,” I snapped. “Since you’re the only one who knows the whosits and whatsits, Got any suggestions as to where to look?”

“Already been searching. Nothing’s panned out yet.” His hands had clasped in front of him and his knuckles were turning white.

“Well, you’re obviously not searching in the right places.”

His scowl did not improve.

“All we need is a hint of what they know before we try to high tail it out of here.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jessa protested.

My eyes snapped to her. “They are after you.”

“They are after us,” she corrected.

Damn, I hated when she was right. It threw my worldview when the little princess came up with something good.

“But they all went after you first,” Chaz said.

My cheeks flushed as I remembered our night out when things were still cute and light and flirty. I looked at him and he looked back at me. His hazel gaze met mine and I knew he was thinking the same thing. Things were never going to be like that again. No more games of hide and seek. It was going to be Defcon 5 from now on, until we stopped whichever Haverty was after us. No rest for us wicked.

“Let’s spy on him.”

Chaz and I broke our little staring contest and looked over at Jessa. Her hands were spread wide on the table, but this wasn’t her drama pose. This was something deeper. This was a resolution pose, knowing that she had the answer. “Get me a mirror,” she ordered. “Jerk gave me a card. Should be enough to make a connection.”

There was an edge in her tone that made me jump up and run to my bathroom. The handheld mirror was plastic and purple but it would do.

“Is this toothpaste?” she scrunched her nose and handed the mirror back to me.

“You suck,” I muttered as I went into the kitchen to wash the mirror of its white spots.

As I was washing off the remnants of my dental hygiene, I heard the front door open and close. Chaz and his jacket were gone when I came back.

“Where’d he go?”

“All I got was a glare.”

I handed her the mirror.

“Better?” she said with a raised eyebrow.

“Not all of us can have a cleaning service.”

“Think I just found your next birthday present.”

“Providing I get to my next birthday.”

Jessa jumped up from the table, making me take a quick step back and she confronted me, her little frame puffed and her hands on her hips. “Don’t say that.” Her dark eyes teared up. “You can’t say that. We are going to survive this and I’m going to be the pain in your side for a long while.”

Jessa had never said anything like that to me, ever. My eyes watered up just looking down at her little figure.

“Looking forward to it.”

She hugged me. A tight, trying to squeeze all the air out of me hug and I couldn’t help but return the gesture. She let out a little humph at my enhanced strength and when we let go, she was laughing.

“Okay. Let’s spy on Spencer, shall we?”

“I
t’s not working,” Jessa said as she slammed her hands on both sides of the travel mirror.

“Why not?”

She jumped up and began pacing next to the living room table. I’d seen that a lot lately and suddenly knew how she kept so skinny. “I need a bigger mirror.”

“Thanks to the Cleaners, I’ve got lots. Take your pick.”

Jessa sucked in a deep breath and put her hair into a ponytail. I’d never seen her like this before. So determined and capable. “I need a needle.”

“Why?”

“Do you have to question everything, Violet?”

“Yes,” I said as I walked to the wet bar, which had a sewing kit still in its original package. “I’m curious,” I said as I ripped open the package and pulled out the package of needles. “Apparently it’s built in.”

I handed her the needle and stood behind her. I could see over her head in the mirror and the reflection was comical. But by the look on her face, the hard determination, I knew this wasn’t time for a joke.

With a small wince from both of us, she jabbed the needle in her forefinger and smeared it across the silvery surface.

Just as I was about to say “eww,” the surface of the mirror rippled.

My skin chilled as the room filled with Jessa’s power and the overwhelming scent of roses and raindrops.

She began to whisper to the mirror. It didn’t sound like another language but what did I know about any of this stuff? A smoky figure began to form.

“He’s too hidden.”

I put my hand on her shoulder as an act of sympathy, but a jolt of lightning ran down my arm. As our powers joined, Jessa jumped and the image in the mirror became crystal clear. The Wonder-Twins had nothing on us.

“Holy Crap,” I whispered as I watched Spencer.

“Guess you’re a better connection than a business card.”

He was in an office talking to two straggly men I recognized from the alley.

“We can’t hear them,” Jessa sighed.

“Yes, you can. Put your hand on the mirror.” I said it before I realized what I was saying.

“Thought I was the fairy princess.”

I took her hand and put it on the lower corner of the mirror, mine covered hers to keep the connection.

His crisp voice racked through our skulls.
“Idiots! It was a simple grab.”

“She is stronger than we thought.”

They were talking about me. Little old me.

“She is one girl,” Spencer raged.

“I think she’s more than just a girl.”

The echo of knuckles on chin resonated perfectly through our link to the mirror.

“This is creepy,” Jessa whispered.

“Uh-huh.”

Spencer pulled a revolver out of the desk drawer and looked at it, measuring the weight in his hands. The other men gulped and shifted uneasily on their feet.

“This isn’t for you,” he snapped as he opened the chamber and spun it. “I’ve got a guest in the other room. I’m returning a gift to him.”

He reached under the collar his shirt and pulled something off a chain around his neck. He rolled the silver bullet around in his fingers.

“We knew that she was strong, got that from your brilliant routine in the alley. But now, she’s got a little family. She’s got something to fight for. He says that little stunt they pulled at the club is exactly what we needed. He says that the night we need is coming soon and we’ll need the fairy for that.”

“So why don’t we just grab the fairy?”

“Don’t question me,” Spencer roared.

Jessa and I brought our hands away from the mirror, like putting the conversation on mute. Her body was rigid and I put my other hand on her shoulder as I took her hand and put it back to the mirror.

“I want her there. I want her by my side. It will be sweeter with my sister there.”

Spencer dropped the bullet in his fingers into the chamber of the revolver. He snapped it closed with a flick of his wrist and pointed it at the man on the right. The man whimpered and ducked his head. He looked up at the men and smiled. “You have no idea what it’s going to be like when he’s here with us. It will be fire and chaos and power and I want to watch it burn in her green eyes.”

“Watch her and when I tell you, I want them both.”

The men nodded.

“Out!”

The grown men scurried out like mice.

Spencer leaned forward on his desk and shook his head. With a deep breath he straightened up, grabbed a knife on his desk, and strode out of the room.

Jessa pulled our hands away from the mirror and backed away from the fading image on the mirror quickly. “I’ve never done that before.”

“Welcome to being six steps up the apocalyptic food chain and having a Guardian with a big G.”

Jessa walked to the other side of the table. I got the sense that she needed to be as far away from the mirror as she could. Not a magic thing, just a creeped-out thing.

I took one of the wipes from the first aid kit and wiped her smear of blood off the mirror. My mother’s pale green eyes stared back at me. Her fair skin. Something itched in the back of my brain. Something about what he’d said.

I went into the kitchen to toss the wipe but emerged with a frown on my face.

“What’s wrong? Outside of the fact that we’ve just learned that I’m toast.”

“We’re toast,” I corrected as I leaned forward on one of my chairs.

Something was there, aching in the back of my head to get out. It wasn’t the cat. It was a memory, I thought. Something I couldn’t remember.

“How are you with memories?”

Jessa shrugged. “Why?”

“I need to remember the day my mother died.”

Jessa grimaced. “Violet, why would you want to see that?”

“Because I don’t remember it.”

Jessa frowned. Well, really, she frowned more, if that was possible. The crease in her forehead ran almost all the way up to her hairline.

“Not a single thing. Like it’s been blocked. The only thing I feel I have are these stories that I dream.”

Jessa slowly shook her head. “I don’t think we need to drudge up such traumatic events.”

“No,” I said as I looked back at the mirror. “Spencer said something. Something about sister.”

“Metaphysically, he would be your sire.”

“I know but . . .” I sighed and dropped my head. The words just weren’t there to explain the feeling in my gut. “Please Jessa.”

“Fine,” she shrugged as she grabbed the needle off the table. “Never been this juiced before. Probably take you back to your conception.”

“Eww, that’s gross.”

A small smile curled up at the corner of Jessa’s mouth.

She turned me around to face the mirror. “God, Sasquatch. I can barely see around you.”

“Shut up.”

Jessa jabbed and pinched the end of her finger and a red drop bubbled up. “Here goes.”

She drew a circle around the edge of the mirror, having to stand on her tiptoes to get there and put her other hand at the base of my neck. My skin chilled immediately and I was surrounded by roses.

“Think about the closest thing that you remember afterwards.”

I did exactly as she asked me. I thought of the moment that my Aunt Glory said that they were dead.

Jessa began to slowly draw her finger counterclockwise. An image formed in the mirror, smoky figures walked about, and I saw a woman standing before me.

“Here,” I whispered.

Jessa drew her hand away from the mirror as the picture cleared. It was from my perspective, through my thirteen-year-old eyes.

My twenty-seven-year-old eyes watered as my mother came into focus. She was in her green dress. I remembered that green dress with little pink flowers on it.

“You look just like her,” Jessa whispered in my ear.

I clutched my hand to my chest. As confident as I was about all this, I still wasn’t sure that I wanted to hear what she had to say when I saw her again.

Jessa nudged my elbow from behind.