“Shall I come too?” Beth asks.
I draw a tick on the board. The more investigators, the better. She won’t be able to help with tracking, but she might be able to come in handy with other things. I want to solve this as fast as possible. I’ve come to like little Pumpkin, and the thought of him and other kittens being in danger tears at my heartstrings. And Mila… I don’t want to think of her as dead. Shara must be heartbroken. The two of them seemed to be really in love, judging from the heavy making out session I interrupted not long ago.
I never had much to do with Haru, but I remember him because he looked like an exact copy of myself, just a lot smaller.
“How’s Shara holding up?” I ask Ryker.
“She’s run away. Not sure if she’ll return. Her and Mila were planning to adopt a kitten soon…”
He looks at the ground, hiding his expression. Poor him. Two of his friends dead, his son and other kittens missing. No wonder Ryker is emotional.
I write FAST on the board, then hold out my paw for Bethany to remove the velcro brace.
“Alright, I’ll get Lennox and will meet you there. Will you shift then and explain what’s going on?”
I shake my head. I won’t be able to. Maybe tonight, but not until then. Which is a slight problem. I’m going to have to get to the chocolate factory without being seen. It’s the middle of the day and there will be people all over the place. Humans who wouldn’t understand a panther running through the streets. We’ll have to stick to the roofs, but I know there are some stretches on the way where there aren’t any houses lining the road. Well, I’ll just have to be careful. And fast. My muscles groan in protest at that.
“Suit yourself.” She drops her book on the table – I make a mental note to steal it later - and leaves the room with a yawn. Hopefully, she’s noticed that time is of the essence.
I give Ryker a nod and we run out of the house, up onto the roof and towards the industrial part of town. We’ve got kittens to save.
Chapter Seven
I’m in agony, but I’m trying hard not to show it. Reaching the last few houses before a long stretch of empty grassland is a relief. Jumping from roof to roof isn’t good for my aching body. I feel twenty years older than I am. No, make that thirty.
To distract myself from the pain, I let Ryker catch up with me until we’re running side by side. He must have trouble keeping up, being so much smaller than me, but he doesn’t complain.
“How many cats are there?” I ask him, not for the first time. Before, he always evaded my question, but now, it’s essential that I know. If he wants me to investigate this properly, then I need to have all the information.
“Thirty-six,” he replies grudgingly. He’s out of breath, just like me, but I manage to hide it better. “Thirty-four now that Mila and Haru are gone.”
A sombre silence falls between us, interrupted only by the soft sound of our paws hitting the ground and our ragged breaths exploding from our lungs.
I feel his sadness though, and it makes me want to distract him. Call it me being social. Or nice. Either sounds like a terrible idea.
“Who’s Pumpkin’s mother?”
Only after asking the question do I realise how that may not have been the right thing to say. I don’t need to remind him that Pumpkin is gone, but I’ve been wondering that for a while now. Especially knowing that he’s a shifter. Was his mate a cat? A shifter? It can’t have been a human since Ryker doesn’t know how to shift. I assume Pumpkin won’t have enough shifter genes to make him able to shift, but who knows. It would depend on Ryker’s parents and on the female who gave birth to Pumpkin.
He doesn’t answer for quite a while. I almost assume that I won’t get a response when he clears his throat.
“I don’t even know her name. She was a drunk one night stand. I usually don’t do that kind of stuff, but things had happened and I needed to forget. Twelve weeks later, another cat brought Pumpkin to me, said his mother had died on an overdose.”
“Wait, drunk? Overdose? Are we still talking about cats?”
He laughs darkly. “It seems you’re not as cattish as you think. Fermented apples are great for getting drunk. Pumpkin’s mother lived with human junkies though, and she regularly managed to lick up some leftovers of their drugs. I think they even put vodka in her bowl occasionally. She was an alcoholic, and the only reason I ever slept with her was that she was there in the right place at the right time. Not that I regret it. Pumpkin is the most amazing kitten.”
“That he is,” I say, remembering how the little cat first jumped into my life. He’s who started it all, my relationship with this strange family of cats. Without him, I might never have solved the Kindler case.
My resolve hardens. We need to find him before he’s harmed. And the other kittens. People who hurt children are the worst, whether the children are human, shifter or cats.
“We’re going to find him,” I tell him, and it’s a promise that I intend to keep, no matter what. “And we’re going to punish the monsters who took him and the other kittens. We’ll make sure Mila and Haru get justice.”
“You know he admires you?” Ryker mutters and it takes me a moment to realise that he means Pumpkin.
“He does?”
“You’re his hero. He kept saying how he wants to be like Kat when he grows up. Solve crime, help people.”
If I could blush, I would. That little kitten totally overestimated my humanity. I only solved the Kindler case because I got paid extremely well for it. And helping people… not if I can avoid it.
It takes so much time and energy. I’m not altruistic, I’m not a hero. I’m an assassin who branched out into investigating a case a single time. Never again. Well, except for this kitten case, but that’s different. I know the cats involved. It’s personal.
We run on in silence until we finally reach the abandoned chocolate factory. Its three chimneys reach high into the sky, almost seeming to scratch the clouds. I imagine the clouds purring for a second, then decide to focus on what’s important. I can’t get distracted.
Ryker leads me through a hole in the wall that’s almost too small for me to squeeze through. It unpleasantly ruffles my fur.
“Sorry, I’m the largest of us and I fit,” Ryker apologises.
“Are you calling me fat?”
He barks out an involuntary laugh. “No, just big boned.”
I snort and for a moment, I forget why we’re here. I like Ryker. He’s got a wicked sense of humour, he’s gorgeous and he’s kind. And I’m totally not interested. The only reason I keep him around is because I need his cats, and because I’m curious about how a shifter couldn’t know what he was all his life.
Shaking my fur until it aligns in the right way again, I follow Ryker deeper into the factory. Some machinery is still there, strange apparatuses that I don’t understand. Once, they made chocolate, now they’re just dark shadows in this massive hall. Light streams through a few broken windows, just enough to show the thick layer of dust covering the floor, interspersed only by a path of cat paw prints.
The air is thick with the scent of dozens of cats. They’ve each marked their territory, but the overwhelming scent is that of Ryker. This is home and he’s made sure that everybody knows it.
I sniff the air for any human or shifter scents, but all I can smell is cats. There are no footprints either, but that doesn’t have to mean that there were no humans. I’m sure there are other ways into this place. The factory is huge.
Ryker meows loudly, announcing our presence. I’m sure the other cats knew already, but everyone must be on edge.
Three sets of glowing eyes appear in the shadows to our left. I recognise two of their scents before I see them. Storm and Nyx. The latter has been spending a lot of time at my house, playing with Benjamin, letting him spoil her. Her white fur shimmers in the darkness, while I only see Storm’s blue eyes. Storm is black as the night and just as stealthy. She’s a great asset, just as much at home in the shadows as
I am. She’d make a great assassin, if she was a little bigger and had hands to carry weapons.
I don’t recognise the third cat, but there must be a lot of cats in here who I’ve not met before. Only some of them came to my headquarters to collect their reward.
“What’s the situation?” Ryker asks, his voice calm, but I can feel the tension rippling through his body.
“Nothing’s changed,” Storm replies. “We’ve not been able to find anything that would give us a lead on what happened to the babies. Let’s see if the half-cat can do any better.” She regards me with an arrogant look.
“Half-cat?” I’m kind of offended. I like to consider myself as a full cat when I’m shifted, and a three-quarter-human when I’m not. A human with feline benefits.
“That’s what they call you,” Ryker explains quietly. “Nyx, two of the other people who work with Kat will arrive soon. Wait for them outside and lead them here.”
“More two-leggers?” the third cat asks, a male with a hoarse voice. “Isn’t one enough already?”
He’s a tabby with patchy stripes, looking rather ordinary. A cat you wouldn’t give a second look out in the street, unlike Nyx or Ryker.
“They’re part of my team,” I say sharply. “If you don’t want my help, say it now.”
His spine arches for a moment, then he backs down, coming to his senses before I have to give him a lesson in respecting his betters. I really don’t have time to exult my dominance over Ryker’s cats. They better just do what I say.
“Show me where they were taken,” I ask Ryker.
He nods gravely and leads me on through another hole in a wall. “We’ve split our home into several areas. One for storage of supplies, one for the older cats who need some support, a nursery for the kittens, and a few other rooms for us adult cats. Mila was killed outside the nursery, Haru inside. They were trying to defend the kittens…”
I can almost see the sadness pouring from him. He’s trying to keep it together, but cracks are appearing in his armour, letting his emotions leak out.
We walk through a room filled with cats, all of them brimming with anxiety and worry. They stare at us, some of them without a spark of hope. They’ve already given up. It makes me angry. We’re going to find those kittens. There’s no alternative. And it won’t be of any help to have a bunch of sad cats around us.
Before we even get to the nursery, Shara’s cries shatter the silence. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a cat make these kinds of sounds. Grief, heartbreak, pain.
We round a corner, now entering a corridor that would have once housed offices. Shara is on the floor, wrapped around Mila’s lifeless body. Her moans echo off the metal walls, amplifying her sorrow. Poor thing. She was in love with Mila. The first lesbian cats I ever came across. They were so cute together, but now one of them is dead and the other heartbroken.
Anger fills me. This isn’t right. I’m going to find whoever did this and then kill them slowly, painfully. Rip out their fingernails one by one. Pull out their teeth until they’re shaking with pain. Draw lines on their skin with my sharpest knives. They’re going to suffer, just like Shara is suffering.
I don’t try to talk to her. I know she doesn’t care about anything besides her grief just now. Later, I will somehow have to get her to leave Mila’s body so that I can examine it, but that’s for then, not now.
Behind them is a wooden door with a large crack at the bottom. Large enough for cats to squeeze through, but definitely too small for me. I sigh and get up on my hind legs, pressing down the door handle. Luckily, it’s not locked and opens with a click.
Inside, it’s carnage. The remains of cushions and blankets are all over the floor, covered in feathers and scraps of fabric. Blood splatters paint the walls to our right, glaring down at Haru’s corpse. He’s covered in blood, his fur drenched with it.
My anger turns into fury. I slowly approach him, sniffing the air for any unusual scents. There’s a strange one hidden behind the smell of cats and cat urine (some of the kittens must have been too young to have full control over their bladder). It’s faint, hard to focus on, but it’s there, just about. It’s familiar, but I don’t recognise it, or at least I can’t name it. Like a scent from long ago, buried in my memory.
Haru is on his side, his eyes closed, his claws fully extended. They’re caked in blood. He must have fought for his life, for the life of the kittens. I’ll have Beth take a sample to test for DNA. Hopefully, it isn’t all his own blood. We don’t have a DNA database to test it against, but it would tell us if it was a human or shifter who did this. And maybe I can get Benjamin to break into the police headquarters again and access their lab. No, not maybe. I’ll simply order him to. Sometimes, I’m still getting used to the whole Kat-is-a-business-owner-with-employees.
I’d love to shift and examine him with my hands, but I know I can’t, not for a while. Despite their size, my paws are able to be delicate when touching things, but I do miss the opposable thumbs. They make my life a lot easier.
I’ll wait for Beth and Lennox to do it instead. For now, I walk around the room, taking in the scene. A few toys are strewn across the floor, all of them well used. Empty food bowls line one wall, although some of them have been overturned. By the kittens or the perpetrator?
I keep my nose close to the ground, soaking in every scent I can find. By the time I’ve circled the room, I’ve catalogued the scents of the missing kittens. They’re easy to separate from the scents of adult cats, which are full of hormones and arrogance. Pumpkin’s smell is somewhere in between; a teenager who’s slowly starting to come into adulthood. Haru’s scent is thick in the air, his blood increasing its potency. Even once his body has been removed, it will be hard to get his scent out of the room.
“Anything?” Ryker asks impatiently once I’ve circled the nursery a second time.
“There’s that scent,” I mutter thoughtfully. “It’s familiar and yet not. I don’t think it’s that of a cat, nor that of a human. Something else, something in between.”
“A cat shifter?” He sniffs the air. “I can’t smell it.”
I shake my head. “I doubt it. I don’t know of any other cat shifters in this town. And wouldn’t you be able to scent them? You can scent me, right?”
“Yes, but your scent is fainter than that of other cats. It’s how we recognise you. You smell of humans and a tiny bit of cat.”
I’m offended. A tiny bit of cat? I’m the biggest cat in the room and I feel just as catty as they do. Maybe even more so. Just look at my massive body, muscular and strong, my silky fur, my sharp claws. I’m a killing machine, a cat perfected by nature.
“Don’t you have any siblings?” Ryker asks. “Or parents?”
I hiss at him before I can stop myself. “No,” I snap, making it very clear that this conversation is not going to continue.
He backs off, bowing his head in submission.
Noises in the distance announce Bethany and Lennox. Even though she’s better than most humans at walking quietly, she’s still making a racket compared to the cats. Lennox earns himself some hisses and growls from Ryker’s family. Hopefully, he won’t take it personal. Cats and dogs have always been at odds, and even though he’s a wolf, that doesn’t make much of a difference. It’s a miracle him and I became friends. And now, we’re… what exactly? Still friends? Fuck buddies? Friends with benefits? Something more?
Urgh. I wish I didn’t need him for this, but he’s a better tracker than I am, and this is about little Pumpkin and other innocent kittens. I need to put my personal issues aside.
When they enter the room, Beth sucks in a breath at the sight of Haru.
“Poor kitty,” she mutters before kneeling beside the body. She puts on some gloves and gently examines the deep cuts, while Lennox walks around the room. He’s human, his muscular body confined by clothes. For a second, I regret that he’s not naked as I left him, but then shut those thoughts into a deep, dark corner of my mind. I’m not a cat in heat.
I’m a professional. I can work with him, no matter what happened between us.
“Kat, what happened?” Lennox asks, probably expecting me to shift and tell him.
“She can’t shift,” Bethany says before I have to resort to charades. “I think she’s overdone it.”
Lennox groans. “That may be my fault. Sorry. So, two cats dead, and from the scents in here, I assume there were more cats? That are now dead or missing?”
I nod. If I could, I’d correct him and tell them that they’re not dead, that they aren’t allowed to be dead, but I’m stuck with nods and headshakes. My body still hurts and shifting now would leave me incapacitated for hours. I don’t think I’ve ever regretted sex this much.
“Kat, do you know the jaguar shifter? Her scent seems familiar.”
Jaguar?
I freeze.
Fuck.
I should have recognised it. I’m a jaguar myself, after all, in a way. I prefer to call myself a panther, since I’m all black with no spots, but I know that technically, I’m a jaguar. I dimly remember that my father was a panther and my mother a spotted jaguar. That’s pretty much the only thing I remember about them. And now that Lennox has said that…
Yes, I know the scent. I do recognise it. Even though my subconscious has been trying hard for the past few minutes to fool me.
I remember the scent. From long ago, so long that it’s been just a faint memory that I almost forgot.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I run out of the room, ignoring Ryker’s calls, ignoring the cats that jump up as I run past them.
My mother is back. And she’s a cat killer.
Chapter Eight
It’s Ryker who finds me curled up into a ball at the edge of a field. I ran until my aching body refused to let me continue. I let myself collapse in the field, knowing that I’d be alone here. Able to think. The sharp stalks pricking my skin echo what’s going on in my mind.
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