As the man fished his cell from his jacket, clearly intending to call the police, Natalia jumped to her feet. Her face twisted into a pain-filled mask, but she ignored the stabbing sensation rushing through her legs.
“Give me your phone.”
The couple eyed her as if she had addressed them in an unknown tongue.
Growing impatient, Natalia's hand snapped out. A few minutes and punches later, the helpful Samaritans lay on the ground, and Natalia was helping herself to their phone.
“I’m sorry, guys,” she said and meant it as she thumbed Cutter’s number into the cell. She didn’t know if her superior had survived the battle with the weres and was grateful to hear his gravelly voice on the other end of the line after two rings.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “How fast can you get a team to the Los Angeles Zoo?”
18
For a split second, I thought (or perhaps I hoped) that I’d imagined the gunshot. As more gunfire rang out in quick succession, I couldn’t deny the reality of what was happening.
Someone was shooting at us. My gut told me they were firing silver bullets.
I received proof of this a moment later when a round struck Santara’s soldier. The impact of the round spun the were around, and her panther form disintegrated into a rain of ashes. The sleek, fur-covered body evaporated, almost as if the beast was spitting out a woman it had consumed earlier. Her human form collapsed, eyes wide and empty, her torso pockmarked by gaping red bullet holes.
Somehow the League had learned about the exchange and was intent on crashing this party.
Santara glared at me, her sense of betrayal palpable. She blamed me for the werepanthers' death. I wondered if they’d been friends. Had the were-queen cared about her lieutenant?
And then she was gone. The shadows had swallowed her whole—taking the book with her.
Tufts of earth exploded around my padded feet, proving Santara wasn’t the only creature the monster hunters were targeting. There was only one explanation for the rain of bullets. Natalia had alerted the League. Somehow the hunter had freed herself from my restraints and contacted Cutter.
Fantastic. Really, this had just been the best week ever.
I darted behind a boulder as my face morphed into full panther mode.
If they wanted a monster, they’d get one.
As the bullets rained down around me, the line between good and evil blurred in my mind. I want to strike back at my enemies. How dare these bastards to shoot at me? I didn’t care that I was a dangerous beast, and my attackers were technically the good guys protecting humanity against things like myself. Only one thing mattered—survival, regardless of the cost.
Roars drowned out the gunfire, and a chill raced up my spine.
The sound was coming from the three panthers in the habitat. Santara had used her powerful will to temper their instincts, suppress their natural appetites. With her control gone, the panthers responded the way hungry jungle cats did when they were close to prey. They pounced on Ashley.
She had crossed about half the length of the habitat when the frozen felines came alive and turned their lethal attention on her. She was too far away from the boulder to run back to her safe spot--not that it would have done any good. She was also too far from my position for me to shield her from the three ravenous animals.
More gunfire erupted behind me, and under normal circumstances, I would have happily avoided the volley of bullets. With three panthers surging toward Ashley, I couldn’t allow myself that luxury.
I had to act. Now.
I unleashed a fearsome roar of my own, fear for Ashley’s life mixing with the rage of the beast.
More silver bullets chopped the rocks and trees, and I sought refuge in the habitat’s pool of water with a loud splash. As the water closed around my panther form—bullets sizzling overhead, way too close to comfort—the image of the disintegrating were-panther consumed my mind. One wrong move and a similar fate would befall me.
For a second, the gunfire ceased, and another, even more, terrifying sound filled the night — the roar of the three panthers mixed with Ashley’s screams.
Something snapped inside of me, and I burst out of the pond, water streaming down my hide as I powered toward Ashley. My amber eyes widened in abject horror as the first panther launched itself at her. I would be too late to save her.
Damn it, this wasn’t fair! I had played ball with Santara, given her what she wanted. I’d practically doomed humanity, and still, fate would not spare the only woman I’d ever loved.
As the panther buried Ashley under its bulk, I tore with all my strength and fury toward the beast, oblivious of the silver bullets whipping the air.
I was beyond thought, beyond self-preservation. Only one thing mattered at this point—saving Ashley. Come hell or high water, I wouldn’t let these wild cats tear her apart.
I reached the panther a beat later, my claw-like hand snatched the animal’s tail and swung it off Ashley with all my might as if I was auditioning for a new Tarzan movie.
The two-hundred-pound cat went flying into the nearest boulder with a bone-shattering crunch, his caved-in head leaving a wet trail of red behind.
I whirled toward the other two panthers, who hissed and roared at me but wisely didn’t attack. Determined to avoid the same fate of the first panther, the two jungle cats loped toward the relative safety of the pond.
I spun toward Ashley. A deep gash ran down her forehead where she’d hit the rock on the way down, but she was alive. Utterly terrified, but alive.
I’d done the impossible. I’d saved Ashley. Now I just had to get her out of here.
Then she saw me and began to scream. Gripped by mortal fear, oblivious that I was here to rescue her, she jumped to her feet and turned to run.
Another crack rang out, and a hole opened in her chest, and my entire world went numb. I watched in frozen terror as she collapsed in what appeared to be slow motion.
I dove toward Ashley, caught her body before it hit the ground and shot into the darkness with her in my arms.
Hiding behind a series of boulders, I lowered Ashley to the ground. Even though a monster hovered over her, she looked into my eyes, almost like she could see right through my panther form.
“Erik…?”
Her voice trailed off as she drew her final breath.
My heart thudded like a booming thunderclap in my chest, and then I went cold inside.
The human part of me gently closed Ashley’s eyes. The beast in me turned toward the murdering bastards crouched in the darkness.
“Erik, consider the consequences of what you’re about to do,” the warlock warned.
The voice that answered him wasn’t human. It was a roar beyond reason and human words beyond mercy.
Kolvak grew silent, realizing he wouldn’t be able to stop me.
As my fury intensified, I opened the door to the beast, and grief gave way to bloodlust.
I tilted my head in the direction of the shooters, now one with my beast.
As my gaze combed the shadowy habitat, I saw my attackers crouched behind trees and rocks — murderous cowards.
I reared up to my full height. What did the monster hunters see? My fangs gleaming in the moonlight, my eyes golden slits in the darkness? The claws that would tear them apart for what they’d done?
I let out a growl, low-pitched, and menacing. And then I exploded into motion.
The League was about to learn what the curse of the panther truly meant.
19
My mind went blank as the madness consumed me.
I burst into the darkness, uncaring of the hail of bullets ripping past me. I moved with incredible speed, zig-zagged and hugged the rocks and trees that littered the habitat while I zeroed in on my enemies. My tail acted as a rudder as I cut right and left, heart pumping, lungs bellowing.
I reached the first monster hunter within seconds. He grew still, and I knew the fierce amber glare of my eyes had hypnotized him.
My claws lashed out without mercy or humanity, and I left a gaping hole where the man’s neck had been. A scream lodged in his throat, fingers frozen on the trigger, the hunter slumped to the ground. He was dead by the time his head hit the soft grass.
I roared, the beast unleashed, my humanity reduced to a distant echo. The monster was in charge now.
I darted away from the man, homing in on the second shooter. My powerful jaw clamped down on the man’s wrist, and with a quick snap of the head, I flung the severed hand into the darkness. My snout winnowed into the screaming man’s throat and silenced him for good in a fountain of red. I roared and twisted away from the dead man, plunging into shadows, eager to chomp down on my next victim.
More gunfire, more screams, more hunters who succumbed to the wrath of the panther. Each time I identified another shooter, I ended another life.
I crossed the distance to the next assassin in a great, surefooted leap, and the man’s gun bounced off into the night. My claws reduced his features to tatters.
Without pausing to catch my breath, power, and exhilaration singing in my blood, I pinpointed the scent of another hunter and rippled toward the trigger-happy bastard in a mad dash. I opened my slavering jaw to crush the man’s throat and tore the shooter’s flesh into crimson ribbons.
As a hunter rushed to his aid, I skewered his body on my claws before he even knew what hit him. My fangs crunched cartilage and bone, strips of flesh hanging from my mouth.
It tasted good. I wanted more.
I don’t know for how long I raged or how many lives I snuffed out. I lost count after the first few hunters, my sanity taking a distant backseat to the beast who now controlled my actions.
When it was all done, and all the hunters were dead or dying, I flung myself over the electrified fence of the habitat and vanished into the thick undergrowth of Griffith Park.
Natalia arrived at the zoo at the same time Cutter did. The carnage that awaited them at the jungle cat habitat sickened her. When she learned that Erik was responsible for the massacre, she at first refused to believe it. But the two survivors who clung to life for a few minutes before they succumbed to their catastrophic injuries were telling the truth.
Once she discovered that one hunter had shot Ashley during the battle, Erik’s behavior started to make more sense, but it was still no excuse for this bloodbath. Maybe a part of her had hoped that the League might spare the archeology professor once they realized that he was on their side.
Seeing the woman he cared about die in front of his eyes had made Erik snap. The magical power of the medallion could not contain his beast. He was beyond redemption, salvation now. She would have to hunt Erik and down like any other monster.
With a heavy heart, Natalia turned to Cutter and started to tell him about the terrible ritual the Followers of Bastet planned to carry out three weeks from this date.
20
The next hours passed in a blur. Consciousness only returned when the sun kissed my face, and I found myself naked in some abandoned downtown parking lot. My nails were covered in red, and my heaving guts wretched up pieces of flesh. Guts roiling, I emptied the contents of my stomach in a scarlet torrent.
Numb from the night of horrors, I stalked the streets of downtown LA and passed through a homeless encampment like a zombie. The tent city had sprung up below a freeway overpass that offered some protection from the elements. My vivid imagination could see the whole structure collapse during some major earthquake and bury the settlement under tons of cement and metal, but the lost souls foraging out an existence on these streets didn’t care about such hypothetical dangers, focused on more immediate problems.
“I’m sorry about Ashley,” Kolvak said. “It’s always the innocent who get caught in the crossfire.”
Judging by the grief in the warlock’s voice, he was talking from personal experience, but I drew little comfort from our shared tragedy.
The medallion’s magic had failed me back in the zoo. My rage had been too overwhelming to keep a tight leash on the beast. Losing control had been both liberating and terrifying.
I helped myself to some clothes and somehow made it back to my Culver City apartment. I didn't worry about the hunters intercepting me. I had killed them all. It would take time for reinforcements to arrive in the city.
I showered the blood and grime off my body and got dressed. Taking in my one-bedroom abode, I realized that I couldn’t stay here. My job at the university, my apartment, even my Honda—they were parts of another life.
I had murdered innocent men and women. I was a killer and a monster, damned to be hunted down like a wild animal.
I had to leave LA to put some distance between myself and my old life. I had to figure out what would come next.
I knew the League would chase after me. I’d drawn first blood. Much of the night was a blur, but I sensed Cutter had not been among my victims. I would have remembered killing the scarred bastard. The monster hunter wouldn’t rest until my head had become his latest trophy.
I thought of Ashley as I stepped out of my home of the last five years. Her last moments tormented me, and I kept seeing her dying in my mind’s eye. I fought back tears as I walked out of my building.
I was dressed in a pair of jeans, a leather jacket, and a pair of boots. I was carrying a light backpack with a few essentials. Everything else, I’d left behind.
I headed to the nearest bank, cleared out my accounts, and turned my meager savings into cash. Then I cut up all my credit cards. I knew the League had the means to track any electronic transactions if I was foolish enough to use plastic. Finally, I traded my conservative Honda Civic for a beaten Kawasaki Vulcan motorcycle. I had ridden a few bikes as a teen and felt confident I could remember how to control this one.
I turned out to be right.
As I screamed toward the city limits on my new wheels, the vast stretch of desert awaiting me, I allowed myself to cry. I had lost a home, a life, a future. Worst of all, Ashley had died because of me.
I had no idea where I was going, but I knew what I needed to do. Stop the Followers of Bastet.
The next full moon would be in three weeks.
I could not allow Santara and her pride to carry out the ritual.
The hunters had shot Ashley, but I held the were-queen responsible for what had happened. Santara had pulled Ashley into this madness, and before that, she’d bitten me and cursed me.
“I get it. You’re all torn up inside, but you don’t even know where you’re headed, Erik. How do you expect to stop the Followers of Bastet without a plan?”
“Sometimes you have to clear your head so you can come up with a plan.”
As the urban sprawl of Los Angeles receded in my rearview mirror and the terrain grew more mountainous and stark, I vowed I would do everything in my power to stop the Followers of Bastet from carrying out their terrible agenda.
Perhaps it would take a monster to stop a race of monsters.
Only time would tell.
I cranked the bike’s engine and tore towards the barren mountains up ahead.
My old life had ended, but my story was far from over.
THE END
Erik Cross, the Followers of Bastet, the League of Light and a few other beasties will return in
PANTHER HUNT
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PANTHER CURSE: PANTHER MAN BOOK 1.
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William Massa’s Night Hunters
/> Also by WILLIAM MASSA
THE NIGHT SLAYER SERIES
Midnight War
Monster Quest
Shadow Plague
THE SHADOW DETECTIVE SERIES
Cursed City
Soul Catcher
Blood Rain
Demon Dawn
Skull Master
Ghoul Night
Witch Wars
Crimson Circle
Hell Breaker
Dragon Curse
Shadow Lord (coming soon)
THE OCCULT ASSASSIN SERIES
Damnation Code
Apocalypse Soldier
Ice Shadows
Spirit Breaker
Soul Jacker
Doomsday Disciples (coming soon)
THE GARGOYLE KNIGHT SERIES
Gargoyle Knight
Gargoyle Quest
STAND ALONES
Fear the Light
About the Author
William Massa is a produced screenwriter and bestselling Amazon author. His film credits include Return to House on Haunted Hill and he has sold pitches and scripts to Warner, USA TV, Silver Pictures, Dark Castle, Maverick and Sony.
William has lived in New York, Florida, Europe and now resides in Venice Beach surrounded by skaters and surfers. He writes science fiction and dark fantasy/urban fantasy horror with an action-adventure flavor.
Writing can be a solitary pursuit but rewriting can be a group effort. I strive to make each book better than the last and feedback is incredibly helpful. If you have notes, thoughts or comments about this book or want to contact me, feel free to contact me at:
Panther Curse Page 13
