by Jay Barnson
Elise rolled her eyes. “Jessabelle, have you met Gabe? He just transferred here.”
Gabe smiled and extended his hand across the table. His teeth were brilliantly white, and his eyes gleamed. Jessabelle had to admit, he was one good-looking kid, for a minion of evil. “I’m Gabriel Arends,” he said. “Expert paper-pusher, filer, and coffee-getter. Also attending grad school.”
Jessabelle shook his hand and couldn’t help but smile. “Jessabelle Rose. Prisoner.”
Gabriel’s eyes danced between the two. Settling his gaze on Jessabelle, he smiled more broadly and said, “Ah. So you’re the one?”
Jessabelle frowned. “One what?”
Gabriel shrugged and smiled it all away. “I was told we had a dangerous guest.”
The Coven still thought she was dangerous. That satisfied Jessabelle on some level. “Where did you transfer from?”
“Another site. I probably can’t tell you that, either. I’m starting school near here in the fall, so they let me transfer.”
Gabriel seemed much more relaxed than Elise. There was some kind of tension, more obvious in Elise than in Gabriel. Whatever cat-senses remained to her as Jessabelle-the-girl could almost smell Elise’s anxiety. Did it have something to do with Gabriel, or maybe with Jessabelle?
Gabriel looked like he was about to launch into another line of conversation, but Elise jumped in as he took a breath. “What about your plans, Jessabelle? What would you like to study in college?”
Jessabelle tilted he head back. “College? I ain’t thought about it. I ain’t finished high school, and my mama sure can’t afford it.” With that, she felt the sorrow and anger return. Her mama didn’t want anything to do with her anymore, did she?
Elise said, “You know, the Coven will bring in the best tutors for you. You can graduate, and they’ll even pay for further education.”
“Why would they do that?”
Gabriel jumped back in. “It’s a benefit for employees.”
“I ain’t...”
“You could be.”
Elise cast her eyes down at her food. That was it. While Gabriel might be the new guy, he somehow outranked Elise. He was more than just a part-time intern while going to school. Jessabelle liked him, but more importantly, she found herself wanting to like him. This, as much as anything else, set off her alarms.
Not long ago, the witch Evelyn had convinced Jessabelle not only to turn against her friend, Jack, but to disbelieve her own eyes. It had made perfect sense at the time. Jessabelle forced herself to remember what the Coven was and what it did to her. They’d been treating her nicely and more like a guest than a prisoner over the last week, but she was still here because of their doing. They wanted something from her. Jessabelle focused her attention on her food.
Gabriel shrugged, gesturing in the air. “I mean, maybe I’m wrong. Elise, am I wrong? I don’t know how things work down here yet.”
Elise stabbed her spoon into her yogurt. “No. It’s possible. Nobody intends to keep you here forever, Jessabelle. Once things are resolved, and you are rehabilitated, I expect they’ll come to you with a couple of great offers. One will probably be an offer to stay with the Coven, especially considering your special abilities. The other would be to sign a non-disclosure agreement in exchange for a stipend which also might be enough to pay for school.”
Jessabelle frowned. “Why would they pay me? Do all this and pay me? I may be from Maple Bend, but I ain’t stupid.”
Gabriel answered. “That’s part of what the Coven does. It keeps the world safe from scary, supernatural things, like cat-people and witches. Or monsters. That’s part of its funding.”
“Sounds like a protection racket to me. Especially since I was set up.”
Gabriel opened his mouth, still smiling, but he didn’t have an answer. He turned it into a shrug and a hand-wave. Elise came to his rescue, and said, “Look, Jessabelle, I don’t know what happened to bring you here. I can’t say it’s perfect.”
“Our bosses are literally witches,” Gabriel interjected, with a broad grin.
Elise nodded. “Yeah, but we do some good in the world. On the whole, we’re the good guys. Plus, there are some great opportunities here.” She leaned over the table, and Jessabelle caught the flick of Elise’s eyes toward Susan, who still appeared to be ignoring them. “All I’m saying is that as if you are given a choice, try to keep your options open. The Coven does a good job of taking care of its people.”
Jessabelle mumbled, “Tell that to Evelyn.” Neither Gabriel nor Elise understood her, but as they asked what she said, she shrugged and filled her mouth with another bite of food.
As she finished breakfast, the talk turned small. Elise acted like the closest thing Jessabelle had to a friend down here. Gabriel was friendly and funny and treated her like he might a classmate, not like the most dangerous prisoner in the Coven’s secret underground base.
Later, alone in her room paying no attention to the television, Jessabelle stared at the ceiling and found herself looking forward to lunch. Every few minutes, she’d derail her train of thought by reminding herself that she hated these people.
After dinner the following night, as Elise and the two guards escorted Jessabelle back to the room, they were stopped halfway to the security checkpoint by the blare of an alarm. “All security personnel to the D wing!” a voice blared over the intercom system.
The guards looked at each other, and then at Elise. “Escort Miss Rose back to the cafeteria,” one guard said, and then they were gone, hands on their weapons.
“What’s this about?” Jessabelle asked.
Elise shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Jessabelle’s senses told her differently. Elise was a poor actress. Her body language was wrong. The cat in Jessabelle smelled something wrong. Or maybe she was being paranoid. “Does this happen a lot?”
Elise shook her head. “No. It’s probably nothing. We should head back to the cafeteria.”
Jessabelle followed Elise down the hallway when the alarm blared again, and the lights went out. For a split second, the entire complex was pitch-black, before the sparse emergency lights, white and red, snapped on. Elise pushed on ahead, leaving Jessabelle several steps behind. It seemed strange, but panic made people act strangely. Whether conscious or not, Elise gave Jessabelle an opportunity. The guards were gone, the complex was poorly lit, and Jessabelle was outside the security checkpoints.
In the space of a heartbeat, Jessabelle became the panther. The darkness between the pools of emergency lighting grew more visible. The scents became vibrant, full of detail and additional information. She raced around a corner, trying to double around into the general direction of the parking garage. Around another corner, she smelled the reek of motor oil, gasoline, and carbon monoxide fumes. She was closer. She could follow the stink all the way to the exit.
Somewhere behind her, Elise called her name. Jessabelle ignored her.
One more corner, and she was within range of the garage. Jessabelle-the-panther ducked her head down low, outside the nimbus of the emergency lights, and stared down the hall. The garage exit was down the hall, but the big fire doors were shut. A lone security guard stood watch with his stun gun in his hand. Jessabelle crouched, waiting. After a few seconds, his radio squawked. He keyed the mic and muttered something. While his attention was diverted, Jessabelle dashed down the hall, barreling toward him at full speed. She hit him full force in his chest before he realized what was happening. As he collapsed, he flailed with the weapon and made an instant’s contact. The electric shock stung like a hundred hornets, enough to cause her to lose control and slam against the doors, but not so bad it stunned her. As for the guard, she’d felt him hit the floor hard with their combined weights. He was hurt, but hopefully she’d done no permanent damage.
Hopefully? Why was she worried about these horrible people?
In a move uncharacteristic of a true predatory cat, she stood on her hind legs and pushed the crash bar. T
he door unlatched and opened enough for her to spring through. Before the metal door closed behind her, she heard the security guard speak into his mic. “Unit 15, down. The cat is loose!”
The parking garage was not full, but there were plenty of cars to use for cover to make her escape. Jessabelle-the-panther looked to the open ramp. Jessabelle-the-girl looked at the unguarded stairwell. Her best chance to remain unseen was with Jessabelle-the-cat. Going with experience and caution, she transformed. The world grew larger around her, and Jessabelle-the-cat hid under a black Malibu.
She wanted to hide under here forever, but sooner or later, they’d come looking for her. She had to move while the crisis split everyone’s attention. The guard at the door had gotten a warning out, so someone already knew where she was. She had seconds to escape.
As she prepared to bolt, she saw the blood trickling down the ramp. She followed the trail with her eyes. There was a great deal of blood. She froze. Fear nearly drove her back into the building, back where there were guards, and security checkpoints, and witches who would keep her safe in her comfortable prison. Up the ramp, death stood between herself and freedom.
Several weeks ago, she’d have made a different decision. But she thought of Jack and Jenny, and what they’d have done. She darted out from under the car, toward the rivulet of blood. A man seized her by the scruff of her neck. His clothes looked and smelled like they belonged to a homeless person. How he’d moved up to the car without her noticing him, she had no idea. She struggled, but he held her firm.
He hissed at her. “Quit squirming if you want to get out of here alive, Jessabelle Rose. I knew your father. I’m helping you escape.”
Jessabelle-the-cat froze. The man who held her stank, or more particularly, his clothes stank. She strained to get a good look at him as he tucked her securely in his arms. He was a pale man, with close-cut hair and a growing bald spot above his forehead, but he had plenty of hair covering his face. The muscles that held her were strong and spare. He was in good shape in spite of his appearance.
He moved quickly through the shadows of the parking garage. Rather than taking the stairway or the ramp, he took her to a beat-up Chevy pickup truck. The man slowly opened the driver’s-side door, which still creaked. He set Jessabelle down in the passenger’s side and said, “You might want to change and buckle yourself in. That, or hold on. We’re going to crash. Then you need to be ready to run!”
Jessabelle stared at him as he produced a key and started the engine. She jumped behind the seat and braced herself, digging her claws into the fabric. This man was crazy, but he seemed to know who she was and he’d said he’d help her escape. At least he might provide the Coven with another target and distraction.
He floored the engine and the truck roared up the ramp. He circled twice, tires squealing. Twice, she heard gunshots. Her strange savior laughed as he ducked down. “Here we go!”
The truck struck tire spikes and made a horrible noise below her, and the man spun the wheel while howling with laughter. Jessabelle found herself flattened against the back of the seat, and then hurled to the left, barely hanging on with her claws. The man pushed the driver’s-side door completely open and jumped out of the car. Jessabelle recovered from her surprise and bolted out the door, pausing as she hit the pavement to get some idea of what was going on.
Concrete barriers had risen from the exit to the parking garage. The man had driven their pickup through the entrance, across the tire spikes, and spun it so it stood sideways across the exit, a vehicular blockade beside the concrete-and-steel beams.
The crazy driver raced across the street opposite the parking garage. Jessabelle bounded after him while shouts and a pair of gunshots rang out behind her. They ran around the side of a laundromat, through a slender side parking lot, between a gap in a chain-link fence, and through someone’s overgrown back yard. When they reached another street, an SUV waited at the curb with both passenger-side doors open and the engine running.
“Get in,” the man said to Jessabelle. She leaped through the door onto the floor of the SUV, and from there to the back seat. The bearded man slammed the back door shut behind her and then jumped into the front passenger side. The moment he pulled the door closed, the driver—an older woman with tanned skin and huge sunglasses—accelerated smoothly, but quickly, to something not much faster than the posted speed limit.
The man ripped his shirt off and tossed it to the floor and then peeled the beard off his face. In less than a minute, he had strapped on a stuffed bra, a woman’s blouse, a blond wig, and sunglasses. “You might want to stay in that shape, Jessabelle,” he said, adjusting his wig in the mirror on the back of the passenger’s side visor. “Just keep low in case anybody is looking for a black cat. We don’t want to make their job easier.”
Jessabelle wanted to ask him a million questions, starting with “How do you know my father?” and “How did you know what I was?” But, it would have to wait. Men with guns were only a few minutes behind them, if that, so she dropped down to the floor of the SUV.
“How are we doing?” the woman asked.
“I don’t know yet. I wasn’t expecting the guards to fire at the gate. I’m glad Mickey still hides his spare key in the same place. I feel sorry for smashing up his truck, though. He loved that truck.”
The woman snorted. “That ought to learn him not to hide his spare key under the floor mat.”
“It might just. Hopefully it’ll take them a couple minutes to clear the truck to pursue us. We need to get to the freeway.”
The woman checked her side mirror. “None of them will be following us on a broomstick will they?”
The man laughed, but checked the mirror on his side. “Lucky for us, their top talent are in Maple Bend right now.” He twisted his head to look down at Jessabelle. “You doing okay back there? Just hiss at me or something if you aren’t.”
Jessabelle wanted to hiss. She wanted to scream. She wanted to jump out of the vehicle and run off into the woods where she knew she would be safe. Assuming she would ever be safe again. Was it a mistake to run away from the Coven? Would she ever be able to see her mama again, now that she was some kind of fugitive?
“You sure that’s her?” the woman asked. “We didn’t do all that just to run off with somebody’s pet, did we?”
The man laughed. “It’s her. We’re good. Jessabelle, my name is Leon Poulson. This is my friend, Josie. I knew your dad in the Army. I’m like you. I change into a big cat, and I’m also an escapee from the Coven. You and me, we got a lot to talk about.”
An hour later, it was still far from dark, but the shadows of the Appalachians had grown long. After driving along the freeway and innumerable tiny little roads, Josie finally pulled through an overgrown, hidden driveway up to a tiny trailer-home on a foundation of old cinder blocks. Once upon a time, it had been white, but years of neglect had stained the paint yellowish and covered it with a layer of grime.
They got out of the SUV. Leon removed his disguise and tossed it into the passenger seat. Reaching under the seat, he pulled out a license plate and a screwdriver to replace the plate below the rear bumper. Josie motioned for Jessabelle to follow her into the trailer.
The inside was much better kept than the outside, although it still had the feel of a rarely used residence, and the air was sweltering. Except for a bedroom and tiny bathroom, the entire trailer was one continuous space. Josie said, “You can change into girl-shape if you want. I should probably get your size if I’m going to go into town and get you some clean clothes.”
Jessabelle hesitated. For so long, she had avoided transforming in front of people. Now it seemed like everyone knew her secret. Josie ignored her, and rummaged through the cupboards, repeating their contents to herself as she took inventory.
Leon stepped inside, removing the rest of his disguise. He turned the window-mounted air conditioner unit on and grunted, “If the Coven doesn’t kill us, the heat will broil us alive. How are we doing on food, Josie?
”
“If you want to live on crackers, dry cereal, and a couple of cans of tuna that look to be right at their expiration date, then you’re golden. I ain’t looked in the fridge yet, but I don’t reckon there’s much in there that’s still edible. Burke’s sister ain’t been here since the beginning of May.”
Leon collapsed on the tiny couch and turned to Jessabelle. “Okay, Miss Rose. I know you’ve got questions, but you are going to have to get over that shyness and change so we can have a regular conversation.”
Jessabelle became Jessabelle-the-girl in front of them. Josie whistled. Leon nodded and said. “It’s strange seeing someone else do that.”
“Thanks for rescuing me,” Jessabelle said. “Both of y’all. But, pardon me for saying so, how do I know y’all don’t work for the Coven? How’d you know to be there when I escaped?”
Leon grinned. “Good. You think it was a trick because it really was a trick, right up until the point I got there. The whole thing is a set-up, their standard procedure for any prisoners they think they can turn. If you rise to the bait, they recapture you, and they tighten your leash. If you play it safe and follow orders, they begin integrating you into their organization. There were six guards waiting to catch you in the parking garage. They weren’t expecting me.”
“So it was all a test?”
Leon nodded. “Yes. No one actually escapes.”
“That don’t explain why you were there.”
“They recruited me three years ago.” He held up his hands as she backed away. “I’m not with them anymore. I got out. When I can, I try to hurt them.”
Jessabelle found her lips pulling away from her teeth. The cats in her wanted to bare their fangs. She turned it into a scowl. “Nobody gets out. Not for long.”
He met her eyes and nodded. “I know that better than you do.” He glanced over at Josie. She shrugged and offered him a thin smile. He faced Jessabelle again and said, “I got a story to tell you. After you are done hearing it, then, if you want, you can go out that door and never see me again. That’s my promise to you. I will have discharged my debt.”
