I huffed and lay chin on paws, peering through tall grass. Smelled blood on air, strange blood. Like blood dropped on hot stone, vampire blood and pack blood, mixed. Scorched and burnt. And smell of magic. All coming through open front door.
I hunched shoulders and shuffled paws forward, through grass. Raised belly off ground and crouched toward house, through flowers, over shredded bark, moving slowly, like stalking, but no prey to pounce on. Moving toward Leo house and blood smell.
At bottom of front steps, smell of magic and blood grew stronger, smells flowing on air from open door of Leo house. Big-cats do not hunt for prey in daylight. Dusk hunter. Night hunter. Dawn hunter. Best under pregnant moon, full and bright on ground. Not day hunter, to creep up man steps to man house to see inside. But lifted paw and set it on bottom step. Pawpawpaw up steps fast, sheriff-deputy-wolf-smell beneath paws. Ready to leap from steps into bushes. But no need. No people moved. House was silent. Smell of blood and magic growing stronger.
Witch magic, Jane thought. Which makes no freaking sense. Witches and vamps don’t work together unless the negotiations are a lot further along than I thought. But then, nothing about vamps makes a lot of sense. Let me see inside.
I padded to front door. Looked inside. White marble floor was splattered in blood. A young female lay on stone, eyes wide, one hand lifted up. Blood looked fresh, wet and new. Much blood. Female did not breathe. Heart did not beat. But she did not look dead and blue.
Not yet, Jane thought. Nettie. She served me breakfast once. She helped me with the search of Tyler’s room. She can’t be twenty-five.
Careful to avoid blood, I padded with hunter’s crouch into house, stubby tip of tail jerking with Jane’s worry. With fear of being in man house in Beast form. Walked across bird of prey in stone. Leo’s heraldic device, Jane thought, studying bird. Whether that thing is an Anzu or not, I don’t know. But it isn’t a phoenix. How could I have missed that?
Inside foyer, in living room, found more bodies, looking dead, no breath. Many bleeding from bite marks. Not alive. But not dead. Afraid. Standing or sitting in small groups, looking at nothing, as if they had been herded into room like sheep.
Maids, enforcers, gardeners, grooms, the butler, and chef, Jane thought. Stasis spells everywhere. The werewolves attacked, bit a bunch of them, and put stasis spells over it all. Spells they bought from a witch. But the deputy said the spell went wrong in the daylight. But . . . What do they want?
To take over as alpha of city, I thought. Working with Leo’s enemies.
Yeah. Okay. Power play. I get why they bit Leo’s blood-servants. Turn them and take away his support system. But why kill Nettie?
Girl ran? Predators would chase; instinct for chasing. Girl fought? Predators would subdue. Kill may be accident. Or wolf-bitch, jealous. Like Jane with Ricky Bo. Heard sly tone in voice, hacked with laughter.
I’m not jealous.
I blew through nose and padded across room, around stasis spell, careful to avoid blood droplets. Into a corner where something gleamed. Metal. Silvery. Jane’s chain-mail throat collar. It was mangled, torn by predator’s killing teeth.
Jane stared, thinking. They wanted someone to think I was part of all this.
Pack hunters planned to make Leo think you are enemy. Make Leo think you turn against him. Jane was surprised. I snorted again. Sometimes Jane stupid.
Take it. And let’s get out of here.
I lifted necklace in mouth and turned, tail swinging. Started from room. Heard click. Froze, dropped belly to ground. Useless move. No tall grass to hide behind. Belly-crawled to sound, to doors, like closet doors in Jane’s house-den. Door was cracked open. Click inside.
Maybe more chickens. Maybe rabbits! Clicking inside. Unsheathed claws on right paw and caught door, silver collar dangling from jaw. Pushed it open with soft squeak of metal.
Sweet! Jane thought, pushing into front of brain, taking over as alpha. Leo’s security system.
I stood on back legs and put front paws on desk. Lights blinked. Light box with picture showed Leo, his image fuzzy and reddish, like blood flowing in stream. He was awake and sitting on a bed, holding his arm close to his body. Blood was drying on his clothes, much, life-stealing blood. Spell over Leo’s bed was red. A witch spell like one from Jane’s Molly. Hedge of thorns.
The time stamp is moving forward. This is real-time, Jane thought. Leo’s in his lair, awake, and injured, bleeding. Behind a hedge of thorns spell. And what is that, in the corner? It looked like part of a human hand, fisted. His attacker is there with him, caught in a stasis spell. Which makes no sense because they passed me on the road and set up the ambush.
As if he could hear Jane thoughts, Leo turned to the monitor camera and stared, his eyes ringed with pain like prey. I thought at Jane, Protective spell, in his den. Evangelina gave it to him? Cat eyes fell on small object on floor at Leo’s feet, inside hedge of thorns. Stake. Enemy attacked.
And it’s silver-tipped. Crap. It’s one of mine, one I lost at Booger’s Scoot. Leo needs help, but I can’t call for help in cat form. I can’t shift until dusk, and we can’t risk breaking the spells before dusk or Leo might just up and die. Again. Crap. This sucks.
Beast is alpha. All day. In daylight. I turned and padded from house into yard, across sun-heated ground, into barn. Wolf smell was everywhere, thick carpet of it. I entered stall and dropped Jane collar in shadow near barn door. Drank from horse water in stall to remove metal taste from mouth. Smell of pregnant female horse everywhere, in water, in straw on floor of stall, old urine and dung strong. I sneezed to force dust and horse smell out of nose. Pregnant horse would be much meat. Winter food to replace deer stolen by wolves.
No! Jane thought. No horses!
I hacked and spotted hole in ceiling. Cave to sleep in. Leaped up wall, paws on railing, against window sill, pushed up into hole, front claws scrabbling, pulling body through. Moments later, was in darkness of hayloft and lay across pile of hay. Hungry again. Lay still, listening to mice. Too small to hunt. Only one mouthful crunch. Across barn, female cat hissed in warning, showing killing teeth, saying she would protect. Smell of kittens and milk showed reason. I yawned and lay head down.
Heat felt good. Closed eyes and slept.
Not long later, I woke. Dusk was near. Light like skin of fruit in sky. I was hungry. Barn was still silent but for horses below, milling and frightened. Scent of wolves and big-cat predator in their barn. I could kill and eat horse.
No! Jane thought.Little horse. Baby horse.
No! Hey . . . Wait. You could eat a horse. You’re making a joke.
I hacked in amusement and padded to end of barn. Door for hay was latched closed. I unsheathed claws and caught latch with one claw. Let it fall. Beast is smart. Good hunter.
I pushed open door. Movement in tree line pulled eyes. Black shape. Spots showing beneath black coat. Kemnebi. The black were-leopard leaped over a downed tree, long, slender tail moving like tail of house cat, different from stubby Beast tail. His legs were short, his body long.
Graceful. Lissome, elegant. He’s beautiful, Jane thought. Almost as beautiful as you are.
I chuffed, the sound nearly lost in the movement of horses below. But the leopard flicked his ears, swiveled his head. Found us in the gloom. His eyes were greener than Beast’s, his skull larger, snout angled down.
He spun and jumped to the downed tree. Crouched. Stared at us, tail whipping. And he roared. Leopard roar, jungle cat roar, chuffing hollow sound. Beast pelt rose as air vibrated with his call. Horses milled below, snorting and stomping. One bugled. Barn shook as horse kicked wall. And Kem pushed away from tree, his body rotating, spinning, twisting in mid-arch. The scrub claimed him when he landed. I looked at ground fifteen feet below. And dropped down. Headed back to Bitsa. Jane could be alpha now. Next time big-cat was alpha in daytime, wanted to be in mountains, near loud stream. Sleep on sun-warmed rock. Hunt and eat deer. Better than chicken.
I came to lying on the dirt in my dried blood. I was starving, naked, and worried. I sat up and inspected myself, checking for new scars. And, yep, I had a new one. The bullet wound was an angry-looking, round, puckered, red hole under my left arm. The bullet had entered between my sixth and seventh ribs and punctured my left lung. And nicked a major vein or artery, to take me down so fast. The new scar was a handspan away from the other bullet scar on my chest, the one that had likely resulted in my shifting from Beast’s cat form to human when I was twelve. I’d wandered out of the forest shortly thereafter and lived as human for a long time before I’d found my Beast form again.
I didn’t scar much, except for life-threatening injuries, and most of those decreased in severity over time as I shifted back and forth from Beast to human. My throat, arms, and chest were ridged with scars from this gig, however. Working for the vamps was proving to be dangerous business.I pulled my clothes out of the brush and shook them. My undies had been ruined by one of Beast’s claws. My bra had a bullet hole in it and was so caked with dried blood that it flaked off when I shook it. My silk long johns were crusty with blood. I knew from experience that I’d never get the stains out. I couldn’t make myself put them on. Ants had found their way into my leather pants, swarming the caked and clotted blood, and they didn’t want to leave. I turned the pants inside out and beat them against a tree. Ditto my leather jacket, which had a bullet hole under the left arm, to complement the wolf-teeth rips in the elbow. All the leather gear would need work. As soon as the clothes were free of insect life, I dressed, commando style. I thought about putting on the church skirt still in the saddlebag, but combined with the butt-stomper boots and the bloody jacket it wouldn’t look or work any better.
As I dressed, I had to wonder why no one had called in the peculiar situation at Leo’s. Was the stasis spell strong enough to take all the blood-servants and -slaves over? Maybe it was combined with a keep-away spell. I wondered how much a spell like that might cost. But mostly, I was hungry. Ravenously hungry. And I remembered the boudin balls and the peanut bar—because chocolate would melt—the chips—for starting a fire, not that I needed one—and bottled water in the saddlebags. I ate everything and drank all the water, relieved myself, and dug out my GPS cell phone. I dialed Bruiser and he picked it up on the first ring.
