Most of the inhabitants didn’t care to mess with the large cat prowling the maze. Per kept his head down in an aggressive stance designed to deter potential assailants. A perpetual snarl marked his face. If something looked at him, he had only to let a growl undulate through the dusk to dissuade them.
Not that I have to make it up. I am ticked.
He’d found two downward spiraling tunnels to lead him in the direction he was anxious to follow. Hints of Sage flowed along a breeze forced through the passages. She was down there. Her heart was still beating. He could feel it.
Still don’t know what she looks like. He snarled to himself and reconsidered. Well, her were form’s tail is gold.
What did Per really know about Sage? He mentally catalogued as he trailed her unique aroma. She’s a college student. She has two roommates. She originally came from Washington state. She got turned in March by Martinez, the outlaw. No one knows how Martinez figured out that Sage would survive the bite.
Not all bites resulted in changes. Some resulted in an illness resembling blood infection. Some of those survived. Others perished, and their death certificates were inconclusive or plain out wrong.
But Martinez had selected Sage. He’d shadowed her into the mountains and attacked her. Sage in particular. No one really questioned a wild cat attack in a rough country area. It happened, even less than a hundred miles from Denver.
Why Martinez had picked Sage was an interesting query for the Cat Clan. In the past, changing humans was a questionable business. Per knew Donovan Lawton had done it simply to save his mate’s life. Donovan had had an edge there. He’d known Isabella was his mate before she was changed; the likelihood of her surviving the DNA exchange was twofold. Human mates also happened, but they were rarer than changing humans successfully.
Sage couldn’t have been chosen solely on the basis that she was young and a hiker. There were hundreds of young women who hiked the Rockies, possibly thousands. And the Denver area had a population of millions, a significant proportion of which loved the great outdoors.
Something about the way she looks? About the way she smells?
The question rattled about in Per’s brain, irritating even the laid back attitude of the inner tiger. All the tiger wanted was to find his mate and find her in a safe condition, or else he would rip something into little bloody bits in retaliation. Martinez was a likely target, simply for what he attempted to do to shifters of all kinds and to a greater degree, what he’d done to Sage.
Per heard something. His ears perked up and swiveled about to focus on the noise. Something large was moving through the tunnels. The walls began to vibrate. Dirt and debris shook loose and rained down.
Now fucking what?
*
A distant rumble reminded Sage of thunder, but she felt as if she was far underground, in a place unaffected by the tremulous meanderings of sturm und drang. The German phrase was used in psychology to indicate the turbulence and urgency of adolescents in turmoil. Sometimes it was used in a literary sense. And occasionally it referred to the weather. The phrase often came to Sage’s mind as she attempted to deal with the strange set of cards life had dealt her.
The rumble wasn’t internal to her, but something happening in the distance of the tunnels. Something was moving. Something very large was moving and making a lot of noise.
Likely it was the reason why the little glowing insect women had fled for the safety of their hidey-holes.
What next?
Sage began to trot. The rumble followed her.
Suddenly a surge of blackness poured over her limbs, thousands of tiny feet scrambled for purchase as creatures fled from the unknown and shot ahead of her. Startled, she lost track of what paw was supposed to do what. New at the business of being four legged, she often let the inner cat take over the take-for-granted matters of walking and running. When she stopped to think about what did what next, was when she got into trouble. Stumbling to one side, she tried to hop around the rolling throng beneath her.
Being in the dank Under obviously meant every little creepy, crawly thing imaginable. This was something she couldn’t discount. Sage attempted not to step on the multitude of things rushing over her paws and past her, hurrying along in an endless jaunt for safety. It was a tremendous swell of lightly clicking animals running from something.
Sage swallowed nervously. She glanced about and found a cracked ledge in the tunnel, high above her and the wave of darkened shapes dancing over her limbs. It extended out a few feet and was well above the mad charge. She didn’t stop to consider whether the cat could make the ten-foot leap because if she had she wouldn’t have made it. The powerful back legs of the cougar tensed and she jumped. One paw instinctively caught the side of the ledge with her claws before she tumbled over the other side.
Huffing lightly, Sage looked back down into the gloomy dusk. Perched on the side of the wall, she stared downward in sheer disbelief.
Oh God, cockroaches. Thousands of cockroaches. I’m gonna hurl. Do cats hurl? Oh yes, they hurl.
Something crawled up her leg and Sage twitched convulsively. She bent her head and started to shake her paw to loosen the insect from her.
Then it spoke to her and she froze.
“You shouldn’t stay here,” the cockroach said. About two inches long and blacker than night, its long antennae quivered at her in a knowing manner.
Oh, how is this going to look in my diary?
Sage took a breath and carefully put her paw back down. The cockroach clung to the top of her paw and gazed up at her. Her eyes glittered down at the roach. It looked like a roach. It looked like a big roach. It probably smelled like a roach. It looked like the kind that had tormented her as a child, crawling into bed with her as it sought something to eat, making her scream bloody murder because it had touched her flesh. She had a dreadful urge to smash it with her oversized paw.
But it’s talking to me.
“Yes, you, feline,” it added as if it could read her mind. “I don’t believe you can speak in that form. You know mirmirs can.”
Sage shook her head.
“Well, anyway, the nosrac are coming this way,” the roach said slowly as if Sage was a random were idiot wandering through Under.
Sage grunted. She hoped it came out the way she felt: confused. She didn’t know what mirmirs were, much less the nosrac.
Perhaps there’s a guidebook? The Big Book of Paranormal Crap I Don’t Know. And where does the common, everyday, average were carry The Big Book of Paranormal Crap I Don’t Know?
“The nosrac are big snake things who eat everything in their way,” the roach explained as it skittered off of her paw and onto the ledge. “They’re headed for the ocean. High tide’s coming up.”
What, they like to surf?
“They really like fresh fish!” the cockroach yelled as it did a little swan dive into its brethren and vanished. The entire mass kept moving down the tunnel. The crashing booms in the distance grew louder.
A moment later, while Sage cogitated, another mass of flying things passed her, not even paying attention to the cougar perched on a ledge. The little flying, glow-in-the-dark girls flitted past her as if their collective butts were lit on fire.
Maybe the nosrac like little glowing pixie things, too. What’s big to a cockroach and a flying pixie doohickey? Oh hell, just call it a pixie until someone tells me different.
Something else large darted by. It looked like an oversized fox with a fluffy red tail. It glanced at her as it dashed. A sound that was disturbingly warning-like drifted back to her.
Okay, I’ve got the message. I’m out of here.
Sage leaped down and began to lope in the same direction.
Something else brushed past her. It looked like it was half smoke and half man. “Out of the way, shifter!” it yelled as it sprinted.
Really got the message. Sage followed the smoke man as he sprinted. Apparently, the half incorporeal also had to worry about being eaten as much as
the next paranormal.
The way before her opened up into a large cavern, and the smoke man ran down one without looking back. The room looked as if it was hewn out of granite from within. Someone had chopped roughly through it and dispersed the rock willy-nilly. A faint light shown down from above.
She glanced up and saw what appeared to be a man-made tunnel exiting through the high ceiling of the room. The narrow hole led far away to a place where a bit of sunlight trickled in. Pausing, she stared at it. Even with the best leap, she didn’t think she could get up there, and furthermore, the walls of the hole seemed smooth and without grips. She’d have to be a werespider in order to make that ascent.
Sage didn’t even hesitate in following the smoke man’s rapid tracks. Behind her the rumble and rattle of stone against something sizable continued increasing the levels of noise.
The noise grew sharper. Sage couldn’t help looking back. She saw the beginning of something the size of a city bus nosing its way into the entry tunnel.
Oh snap. Someone say snakes? Big baDAbing snakes that would eat a twenty foot long, three foot round anaconda as an afternoon snack.
Her hesitation cost her. Sage saw something else. Ten feet away from her something glittered on the floor. Immediately she knew what it was; one of the shining pixies had been injured somehow and left behind.
Sage didn’t hesitate again. She twirled and went for the bug.
It looks like Tinker Bell, so do I really have a choice?
Bending she opened her mouth and gently grasped the wiggling pixie. The little being shrieked in rage, probably certain Sage was going to eat it. Sage felt something poke her mouth and realized the pixie was trying to stab her mouth with something small and very sharp.
What’s she got? A sewing needle?
Sage looked toward the snake and saw it was halfway in the room. It was moving like a gargantuan inchworm. One part would pull ahead and the rest would follow. It was a tremendous, ebony caterpillar shoving its guts forward and then dragging everything else up. No wonder the tunnels were worn smooth.
Spinning, Sage went for the tunnel where the smoke man had gone. She could feel a few sharp prods of the little pixie’s weapon as it fought her. Sage wished she could tell it to stand down.
As Sage loped through the darkness, the message must have gotten across to the pixie because it stopped poking her. Sage could feel the tiny thing arranging itself in her open mouth, holding onto her canines while Sage ran.
The rumbling behind her became a roaring din. She didn’t need to look back to know that the creature in the front had seen her. It was following her into the tunnel; perhaps it needed a lot of nutrition and a cougar looked like just the right pick-me-up.
Sage veered into a smaller side tunnel. She didn’t know how large the snake monster was, but she knew it wasn’t going into a hole smaller than its bulk.
Physiological semantics say screw you, snake!
There was an approving squeal from Sage’s mouth that wasn’t Sage. The pixie gleefully endorsed her actions.
Another smaller side tunnel appeared, and Sage darted into it. She paused to listen and the pixie yanked one of her whiskers.
Oww. That isn’t a rein.
The whisker was in the direction that the smaller tunnel led. Sage went into the blackness; the eerie green glow of the pixie showed the path.
Sage looked back. Behind her the snake creature plowed into the tunnel, moving rock and earth with the sheer force of its body weight. Its massive head rebounded against the opening of the tunnel, knocking the edges loose. It repeated it. The entire area juddered in response.
Rock and earth rained down. The snake’s huge eyes shimmered unnervingly in the darkness and focused on Sage.
The pixie yanked the whisker again. This time it nearly pulled it out conveying its urgency.
Sage spun about.
~ ~ ~
Chapter Eight
An old cat will not learn dancing. - Moroccan Proverb
I got it. I understand now. Per thought about it as he ran. He simply followed the colossal rumbling sounds. Sage Ingram is a magnet for trouble. She’s one of those people. Wherever she goes, bad things happen. An outlaw were bites her. An outlaw were changes her. An outlaw were kidnaps her and the much loved Second of my clan. Well, much loved by the Alpha anyway. So anyhoo, if there’s a huge freakin’ rumpus going on in Under, then that’s where Sage is going to be.
He darted down a tunnel and found a dead end. Pausing to regroup his thoughts, Per couldn’t help himself from thinking further down the same venue.
And what happens when she’s kidnapped? Why, she comes to Under, a place where all the otherworlders congregate and not the typical nicey-nice otherworlders who are vegans and like to pet puppies. Why no, of course not. Sage is in the place where everything wants to kill you and eat you, not necessarily in that order.
Per sniffed. It smelled like…snake. Just like snake. It was a dry scent, affiliated with earthy dirt and a touch of fish.
And what had Hawthorne said? “The Native Americans likened them to snakes.”
Rocks shuddered above him, and a few strays fell in clumps. The area was one big earthquake waiting to happen. Isn’t there a fault line a few miles away? The big one, the one they all said is going to go one day and leave half of California in the ocean?
He stared at the dead-end wall. It didn’t look like rock. It resembled inky black leather. Occasionally the surface would flash as if something caught a tiny glint of refracted light. It glistened lightly in the meager gloom. If he reached out to touch it, it might be a little soft and giving, as if alive.
And it’s moving.
It dawned on Per slowly. It’s not a wall. It’s something moving through a perpendicular tunnel. It’s as wide around as the thing with the three tentacles that leaped out at me from the side of the tunnel, but the Reaper said that stayed in one place.
He watched it undulate as it forced itself down the tunnel.
This is a lot bigger than the other thing. Snakes. Oh crap.
But something also smelled strongly of spices and cinnamon. The metallic hint of blood.
Wherever the snake creature was going, was where Sage was located.
See? Magnet. She. IS. For. All. Things. Bad.
*
Whatever the werecat’s shape was meant to do, it wasn’t intended for endless running without sufficient food or water. Sage knew she had slowed down. The pixie kept yanking at the single whisker as if that would motivate its ride into moving faster.
Haha. I should eat the pixie for a quick sugar high. With my luck, it’ll be made of something poisonous to felines.
The snake moved single-mindedly behind them. They could hear it plowing relentlessly through the tunnel, making a smaller one into a roomier trek.
So much for fresh fish.
Unless I just happen to be unfortunate enough to have picked the one way to the ocean. And how far is that anyway?
Sage would have paused, but she suspected she wouldn’t be able to get going again. Her muscles were shaking with the stress she’d put on them. Emma had said increased strength would be hers but not infinite power.
The pixie jerked again, and Sage went left into another tunnel. It sloped downward, and suddenly Sage lost traction on the smoothness of the sides. Sliding helplessly, she tried to get claws out into the rock for traction, but it was useless.
Tumbling out into a larger cavern room, Sage felt the pixie work its way out of her mouth and grab several of her whiskers to keep from falling away. Sage twisted and landed on her feet, grunting noisily with the forceful touchdown. The pixie got some air time but came down against Sage’s cheek because it was still holding onto whiskers.
With a single glance, Sage perceived the large room had several exits and she found a tiny bit of energy somewhere inside her. Exits meant another charge for safety. Exits meant hope.
She also perceived that it smelled strongly of the ocean and decaying fish
. They were close. Perhaps they were close to an exit. Sage knew how to swim, and no giant snake was going to keep her from getting out.
Let them eat…fish.
*
The tail of the beast went past Per and he ducked into the tunnel, then followed closely. Sage’s scent was stronger. She had come down this way. She hadn’t left sweat in her feline form, but there was a trail of heady musk for him to trace. It was as if arrows had been painted on the walls for him to trail.
She’s very close. Frightened. Alone. In her feline form.
All of Per’s inner alarms went off. A were he’d never met was in serious trouble, and he was compelled to rush to her rescue. He didn’t even think of not doing it. Even if her scent didn’t call to him like an intoxicating drug, he would have wanted to help her.
Emma had spoken of Sage. She’d said she was diffident, unsure, lost in her brave new world. Per wasn’t sure what to think of a woman like that, much less to fully accept her as his, and he couldn’t bring himself to think of the m word.
Muh. Muh. Muh…thafucker. See, he told himself cynically.
Ahead he could hear the snake creature barreling through rock and walls. It was thrusting itself into a smaller tunnel, and its immense being twisted and contorted to make itself fit.
Somehow Per knew what it was after. Sage, of course.
After a few minutes he emerged into an open area with several tunnels exiting it. A meager light from a hole in the center of the ceiling revealed the monster frantically working itself to move closer to its prey. The snake creature had shoved itself down one and continued to batter itself against walls Per could not see.
Per didn’t think about his actions, or he probably wouldn’t have done it. If Killian or Donovan had seen him do it, they would have laughed about it at his wake.
Leaping high into the air, Per brought his immense tiger body up and landed on the end of the tail. He raked through black scales and underlying flesh with his substantial claws.
A distant hiss boomed back to Per. He raked harder. He was going to deter the creature from its mindless pursuit, even if he had to take the snake apart one piece at a time. And he was just the cat to do it.
Blood Moon Cat Clan Page 6
