Leopard Moon
LEOPARD MOON
Jeanette Battista
Copyright 2012 Jeanette Battista
All rights reserved
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Table of Contents
Kess went from sleep to waking immediately, eyelids flying open and eyes already searching the room for danger. It was a trained response by now. No more for her the slow slide into wakefulness. Nope, she was ready to fight or flee as soon as her eyes opened these days. She forced herself to lie still in the bed, trying to calm her breathing. Something had triggered her waking; one thing she had learned in her months on the run was that you listened to the little instincts that told you something was off. Ignoring them could cost you your freedom. Or worse.
The room she was in was empty. It was a long-term rental motel room, grungy and beat down from hard use. She slept with the lights off, but her pupils were larger than strictly human now so she had no trouble seeing in the dark. She slid off the bed, crouching next to it--letting it shield her--still trying to figure out what was wrong.
She heard it then—the scuff of shoes against cement outside her door. Keeping low, she slunk over to the door, ears straining for another sound that might give away whoever was outside. She was grateful the dilapidated window unit wasn’t on; it would have masked the sound with its wheezing and mechanical death rattles. She heard the doorknob turn. It was loose in the setting so it always jiggled a little in the door. It was one of the built-in alarms of the room, alerting her to uninvited guests in the middle of the night.
Kess grabbed her jeans off the rickety chair and slid them on, then stuck her feet into the shoes she’d been waiting tables in last night. Her bag was packed and ready to go. She’d gotten wise after the first and only time she’d had to run with what she had on her. Now, she was always ready to move.
She stopped and listened again. Nothing. It could be a thief looking for easy pickings or it could be someone looking for her in particular. Neither possibility made her want to stay one minute longer. She didn’t want to risk a look out the curtained windows in case someone was still out there. She pulled the duffle’s strap over her shoulder and edged over to the dresser. Keeping as low as she could, she stuck her hand behind it and removed the duct tape that secured a plastic bag to the backside of the dresser. The bag held her spare sets of papers and a stack of cash for emergencies. She stowed everything in various pockets and crept to the bathroom.
There was a window above the plastic tub/shower combo. It was part of why she went with a room on the end of the row. She’d already made sure the window was in working order when she first took the place; now she slid it open and popped out the screen. It made a slight clatter when it hit the ground, followed by the muffled thump of her duffle bag. Then she hoisted herself up on the small ledge and slithered through awkwardly. She stopped her controlled fall out the window by catching herself on her hands, the gravel of the lot digging into her palms. It was early morning, and the horizon was beginning to glow with the coming dawn.
She was in a narrow alley between the two rectangular motel buildings. Her car was parked a couple of blocks away. She didn’t like the walk, but it also kept her car and lodging separate from each other and she tried to do this wherever possible. She scooped up her bag and was slinging it over her shoulder when a man came around the corner from the back of the building. She froze.
"Kestrel Saleh?"
Damn. Her real name. He wasn’t a wereleopard, at least not one she’d know from her clan, which meant that he was probably one of the many private investigators her father had tasked with finding her. He was tall and bulky, dressed in a pair of khakis and a polo shirt, maybe in his mid-forties. She probably couldn’t outrun him, not with the bag and her shoes, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try.
She spun around and took off, pounding around the corner and trying to pick up speed when she was at the front of the hotel. He caught her arm after only a few yards. He pulled her backwards, towards his chest.
"FIRE!" she screamed. "FIRE! FIRE!"
His hand clapped over her mouth, cupped so she couldn’t bite down. He was still trying to pull her backwards, but she saw some lights coming on in several of the rooms. If she could break his hold, she could probably make a run for it when people started sticking their heads out of their rooms to see what was going on.
Her shoes had a heavy, chunky heel which she dug into his shin as hard as she could and dragged down the front of his leg. She heard him curse and his hand came away from her mouth. "FIRE!" she shrieked again, pretty sure that she would sprain a vocal chord with all of the screeching she was doing. His grip hadn’t loosened, so she stomped down on the top of his foot near his instep, grinding that chunky heel into the soft leather of his shoe.
His hold relaxed and she jerked aside, sprinting away as doors opened and her neighbors began filing out to see where the fire was. Adrenaline gave her an extra burst of speed and she crossed the few blocks of empty parking lots and closed businesses in a matter of minutes, checking for pursuit all the way there. She was panting when she reached her car, flinging her bag and herself inside. She struggled to get the key in the ignition because her hands were shaking.
Kess pulled the car into the street, not really sure where she was going, knowing only that she couldn’t stay where she was. Soon her father would know and that meant Sek would too. She’d need a new car, in case the P.I. reported this one, or new plates, but she’d worry about that after she’d put some serious miles between herself and California. Once she had some space she could figure out where she was going next.
She hadn’t even been in California three months.
Sek prowled. Even when he wasn’t in leopard form he liked to think that he still moved with the lethal grace of one. His steps ate up the open expanse of grass between the back fence and the guest house, the guest house to the main building, a massive white house modeled after a Mediterranean palazzo that served as the main body of the estate. He prowled the limits of his domain, a jungle cat trapped in an expensive cage.
The sun was setting over the water, and dusk was bringing some relief from the heat. It wasn’t as bad as it was in high summer, but Miami didn’t have seasons, it just had different degrees of heat. The calendar read November but the temperatures made a liar of it.
He entered the house through the pool-side doors, the cold air like a slap against his sweaty skin. He passed room after room as he stalked down the hallway that ended at his office. The house was empty except for him and his father's advisor. He enjoyed the quiet of not having the clan sequestered here; he was a cat after all, and cats enjoyed their solitude. But he missed Kess and rocketing around the place like a marble in a maze only served to drive home her absence. Each time he walked a hallway or turned a corner, he expected to see her, and each time he didn't was like a fistful of claws to his gut. It was why he couldn't stand to go near her wing of the house very often.
Once in his office, he poured himself a drink from the bar by the door and turned on the large plasma television to hear of the day’s events. He found he couldn’t pay attention to the bobbleheaded anchorwoman spouting off the headlines. He felt too restless to concentrate. Sek rubbed his temples and took another sip of vodka.
A knock on the open door roused him. Bomani, his father's advisor, entered and from the look on his face he did not bring good news. Sek felt his neck tighten at the thought of more disappointment. "What is it?" His voice was rough from the alcohol and the tension building inside him.
"One of the investigators thinks he found your sister."
Sek felt himself rise out of his chair, but at Bomani’s upraised hand he sat down again. "The bad news?"
"He lost her."
Sek did nothing for a moment. Then he stood and flung his glass at the wall, smashing it and spraying the wall with liquor. He did not feel any better. He wanted to give his temper free rein to overturn desks and slash leather chairs and break furniture down to component parts. But Bomani was here and watching him. He clamped down on it, feeling his teeth grind together in frustration. "How?" he managed to grit out.
Bomani relayed the investigator’s report: the confrontation with Kess, her escape, the investigator's attempts to find her before giving up and calling an hour ago. Sek made an effort to listen, but the more the clan counsel talked, the more enraged Sek became. "Why would he try and grab her?"
"I would guess he feared losing out on the bonus you offered to anyone who found her."
"The orders were to observe only. I plan to collect her myself." He was seething.
"The man got greedy, Sek."
"Idiot." Not only was Kess gone and he’d have to start tracking her all over again, but the man had dared to lay his hands on her. "Call the Eaters."