P.A.W.S.

by Debbie Manber Kupfer

  Only then did Nora step back from the lifeless form, and Miri was horrified as she realized that there was blood on Nora’s lips from the slain wolf and that the blood seemed to be helping Nora, giving her strength.

  Now, as Miri looked around, she saw wolf eyes glowing in the dark all around them. Then one human shape stepped out into the clearing by the Jewel Box.

  “Well, well, well... what a touching family reunion.” Alistair casually strolled into the clearing. “So you survived, my dear Nora? And look, it seems that you do have a taste for blood after all. I always knew you would. Shame about Ryan, though,” he said, sniffing at the boy prone on the ground. “He was a very promising young soldier. But I have many others and will have many more, especially if you come back to me, dear Nora. Go ahead, dear, have some more. It will make you stronger. I’ve had plenty already tonight.”

  Nora stood frozen in place as the realization of what she had done swept over her. The waves of emotion that Miri could feel emanating from Nora were different now. Along with the terror, there was guilt. She had known Ryan. He was one of Alistair’s most recent recruits. He had been anxious to please Alistair, like a young puppy dog. It was not too surprising he had rushed into the fray.

  Jessamyn stepped forward and addressed Alistair. “How? How do you do that, Alistair?” she asked, staring at Alistair with her penetrating emerald eyes. “How do you hold on to your human form on the night of the full moon?”

  “Ah, my dear Jessamyn. It’s been a long time.” Jessamyn was standing tall and tense, her gaze never faltering from Alistair. “And, well, I’ve brought a friend to see you.”

  A huge eagle flew down and landed in front of Jessamyn. And then, as Miri watched, it morphed into a man. He was tall and dark, with features that Miri instantly recognized. This shapeshifter she was sure could only be Danny’s father.

  “Quentin,” muttered Jessamyn. “No, this is a trick, an illusion. Quentin is dead. I saw you kill him, Alistair.”

  “I know what you think you saw, Jessamyn, but I never died. I’ve been working for Alistair. He pays me very well,” Quentin said, his green eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

  He gazed at Jessamyn’s lined face. “The years haven’t been kind to you, Jessamyn,” he remarked. “But with Alistair’s help, we could fix that. You could be young again, Jessamyn. We could live forever, together!”

  “And all I want in exchange, Jessamyn, is… her!” said Alistair, pointing at Miri.

  “No!” screamed Jessamyn. She let a spray of silver flow from her scepter, and it found its target in Quentin’s chest. Quentin deflected it easily with a smile, and then he brought out his own silver wand. “You’re going to have to do a lot better than that, Jessamyn!” he said.

  “Now, now, now, children,” said Alistair. “Do we really have to fight?”

  The howling of wolves had been supplemented now by the squawks, screeches, and roars of a whole manner of different creatures. All around Forest Park there were creatures fighting, fighting for their lives. Miri could sense them but tried desperately to maintain her mental shield. She knew that if she didn’t do so, she would overload her power. She just had to pray that her friends were okay. She thought about Danny out there, and Josh, and Mandy, and even Lilith.

  And then, for the first time, Alistair addressed her directly. “So you’re Miri?” he asked. “Hmmm, you’ve caused me a lot of trouble, you know, young lady? I should punish you now...” And suddenly a wave of pain filled Miri’s body, and she cried out.

  “But... no...” continued Alistair. “I’m not an unreasonable man.” And just as suddenly as the pain started, it stopped. Miri almost found herself thanking Alistair. No, no, she thought. I mustn’t do that. I cannot show weakness. I must stay strong, whatever he throws at me.

  Miri listened attentively to what Alistair was saying but did not comment. And all the time she kept her mental shield intact, knowing instinctively that it would be extremely dangerous to sample Alistair’s emotions.

  “Nora, my dear,” Alistair said, turning once more to Miri’s mother, who was still having difficulty holding her form and appeared to be in a lot of pain. “What do you think? Should we keep her? I’ve always wanted a kitten!”

  Nora struggled to her feet and stood in front of Miri, a wounded mother lioness desperately trying to protect her cub. “No!” she screamed in a voice that was half-human, half-feral. “You can’t have her.”

  “But, you see,” said Alistair quietly, “I can have whatever I want.”

  He reached inside his shirt and pulled out the amulet, which was glowing with a light that almost outdid the moon. Then slowly, deliberately, Alistair began to transform. His body stretched taller and taller, and his teeth become long and snarly like a prehistoric saber-toothed tiger.

  Huge paws formed, each with long, fearsome claws, which could easily have ripped a person to shreds with one casual swipe. And still he was expanding, until he was a towering titan well over twelve feet tall.

  He stood upright. His face leered with features that were a grotesque combination of wolf and tiger. And then out of his mouth came a roar so loud and menacing that Miri imagined it could be heard all across Missouri!

  He leaped towards Miri, but once more Nora was in the way. This time she took the full force of his blows, and this time it was clear that she would not survive. Jessamyn was aiming her scepter. Huge flames leaped up between Miri and Alistair, but Miri realized quickly that they gave no heat. They were just illusions, but they were illusions that looked real enough to give even the monster that was Alistair pause. He backed away slowly, taking his time to assess the situation.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Miri saw the magician Quentin point his silver wand at Jessamyn and mutter a few words. She looked at him for a moment, stunned, and then instantly turned hawk and flew squawking loudly into the sky. Quentin, eagle again, rose in the air in pursuit.

  All around them the battle raged in the park. Everyone was too busy in their own fights to come to Miri’s aid. Miri stared at the terrifying creature that was Alistair. What had he done to turn himself into this monster? At the back of her mind, Miri had an idea, but it flickered there like a will- o’-the-wisp, just out of reach.

  The monster lurched forward and lunged at Miri with a front paw. She felt a piercing pain in her side and collapsed on the ground. The last thing that Miri saw was Alistair’s terrible face coming closer and closer to hers. His eyes now were a blood-red. His huge mouth was open, revealing diabolical fangs. Miri felt the terror and pain building inside her, and then there was darkness...

  Chapter 43

  There were two cats today – the gray cat with the green eyes and a tabby cat with yellow eyes. At first they just looked at Miri and said nothing. “Am I dead?” she asked.

  “No, mein Katzel, it is not your time yet,” said the gray cat.

  “Use your power,” said the tabby. “You cannot be afraid. You know what you have to do.”

  ***

  And then she was back. Miri was cowering on the grass with Alistair looking down at her. It was as if only he and she existed in the universe. The sounds of the battle being fought in the park were distant and muted. He had shifted back into his human form now, though Miri wondered if a monster like Alistair could ever be truly human.

  “Now I will take what is mine,” he said, and reached down towards her amulet. The moment he touched the charm, Miri clearly saw the tabby’s yellow eyes again, and finally, she understood what she had to do.

  Miri had been holding her mental shield intact, as Jessamyn had taught her. But now, very slowly, she lowered it. And as she let down her shield, she was assaulted by Alistair’s emotions – the greed, the lust, the hate, the cruelty, the rage. It was bubbling and fermenting inside him, a volcano ready to erupt, to explode. Miri did not shrink from it. She welcomed it inside her, all of it, magnified, intensified – fivefold, tenfold, fiftyfold, a hundredfold. She compacted all of Alistair’s terrible emotions toge
ther and drew them inside herself.

  Miri understood what she was doing now, but she also understood that in all probability it would kill her. But she had to try. This was the only chance to truly destroy Alistair. She had the power – no one else.

  Miri was building a bomb, an explosive made of all the terror and pain that Alistair had inflicted over centuries. She gathered Alistair’s despicable emotions from the deep recesses of his heart. And then, when it was completed, when she could not fit a single shred more of emotion inside its case, she detonated it and launched it with all the power she could muster. Thus she threw all of Alistair’s terrible emotions back at him.

  The roar that came from him the moment Miri’s missile exploded was desperate, earsplitting as it hit its target, and he fell senseless to the ground. Behind her the glass of the Jewel Box (both illusory and real) shattered all around. And as it shattered, so did Alistair, as the centuries of his being began to dissolve slowly, slowly into dust until there was nothing left – or almost nothing, for in the pile of dust Miri noticed a glint of silver. Winded and wounded, she inched towards it. There on the ground was a silver amulet on a chain. Like Miri’s, the charm was a cat, but a different cat, a tabby cat, and she felt a certain familiarity with it. She picked it up and held it in her hand. And then finally, her body gave way to exhaustion, and she drifted into unconsciousness.

  Chapter 44

  Miri woke up in the infirmary. Her body felt like it had been hit by a runaway freight train. She had bruises in places she didn’t even believe it was possible to bruise. But she was alive and conscious, and Danny was sitting next to her, holding her hand. He uttered an audible sigh of relief when she opened her eyes.

  “Welcome back, Miri,” he smiled.

  “Danny...” The memories of her fight with Alistair came thundering back. “I... I killed him, Danny. I... I used my power. He just sort of disintegrated in front of me. How is that possible?”

  “Well, Jessamyn thinks it’s because he was very, very old...”

  “Old, how? He didn’t look old.”

  “No, but he was. Centuries old. He used the flesh and blood of others to lengthen his life. But he got greedy; he wanted more. He wanted the power of the shapeshifters to combine with his werewolf powers.”

  “He transformed, Danny. I saw him. He wasn’t a wolf or a cat. He was a monster, a hybrid of canine and feline... Wait, the amulet. He had an amulet. Where is it?”

  “You mean this?” asked Danny, holding up the silver cat charm that she had taken from Alistair’s ashes.

  “Yes,” she nodded.

  “You were clutching on to it when we found you and brought you back here to P.A.W.S.” He handed it back to Miri, who took it and turned it over in her hand. It seemed amazing that something so small could have so much power.

  “Do you know who it belonged to?” asked Danny.

  “I think so. I have a hunch that it may have belonged to my opapa, my grandfather, Max. I never met him, but I think he might have been a shapeshifter too.” Miri remembered the two cats that had visited her when she was unconscious. Max. Something told her the second cat was Max.

  “Do you have any idea how Alistair got hold of it?”

  “No. Nora, maybe...” And then she remembered and let out a sob. “Nora... what happened to her?”

  “She’s dead, Miri. The wolves buried her remains. I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t really know her, but I owed her my life several times over. She saved me from Alistair when I was just a baby. I always thought she’d abandoned me, but...” Miri dissolved into tears. It all seemed too much. Deep inside her was the residue from the emotion she had taken from Alistair. She could feel it there and wondered if it would always be there. She had taken a life – a terrible, evil life, but a life nevertheless, the life of the man who had helped give her life.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Danny was stroking her hair, looking at her with his beautiful green eyes. How was it possible that he cared for her?

  “No, it’s not okay, Danny. I’m not sure it ever will be...” she sobbed. And now, for the first time, she started thinking about the others that may have been hurt or lost their lives last night, all because of her, because Alistair had wanted her charm.

  Miri looked around and took in the bustle that surrounded them. The infirmary was full of people today. There were patients in every bed and several in temporary cots that had been set up in every inch of space. Mrs. Bumsqueak and Zamir were making the rounds between the patients, and they seemed to have put Joey to work too. He was in kangaroo form and bounced back and forth, bringing supplies, as needed, in his pouch.

  Male kangaroos didn’t usually have pouches, she knew, but Joey, being an animagus, had thought a pouch might prove useful, and he was right. He bounced over to her bed and offered Miri a drink of lemonade, which Danny took for her and positioned it so she could suck from a straw. It felt good. Her throat was very, very dry.

  “Thank you, Joey.” Miri managed a weak smile, and Joey nodded and bounded away to the next patient.

  “Danny,” she began, feeling she had to know,

  “Jessamyn...”

  “She’s fine. Exhausted, but fine. She came back early this morning after flying all night. She’s resting now.”

  “Did she tell you about...”

  “Quentin,” said Danny quietly, finishing her sentence.

  “Yes, she did.”

  “He’s your father, isn’t he, Danny?” Miri asked.

  “Yes, I guess so...”

  “Did he survive? The last I saw of him, he was flying off after Jessamyn.”

  “Yes. We think his mission was to draw Jessamyn away so that Alistair could deal with you alone. It worked too. Quentin cast a very dangerous spell on my mother last night, one that forced her into her hawk form and kept her trapped in that form for hours. When she flew away, she was completely disorientated and flew for many miles until Quentin finally caught up with her. He tried to convince her to stay with him, but Jessamyn refused, and eventually, he took pity on her and reversed the spell. Then he flew away. We don’t know where. Jessamyn doesn’t think he’ll come back, not with Alistair gone. Probably a good thing.”

  Miri took in the bustle around them in the infirmary but could not really make out the occupants of the other beds.

  She took a deep breath and asked the question she had been scared to ask up until now. “Did everyone else make it?” Miri asked quietly.

  “Well,” Danny began, “all the P.A.W.S. members came back...”

  “Oh, thank God!”

  “Mandy was hurt in a fight with one of Alistair’s wolves. She’s over there,” he said, pointing to a bed on the far side of the infirmary. “Josh hasn’t left her side since she was brought back here. She’s hurt pretty bad, but Mrs. Bumsqueak says she’ll be fine with a few days of her potions and salves.”

  “And the others?”

  “Mostly cuts and bruises. Tessa clipped a wing. Sean had some nasty bruises on his flanks that are particularly painful now that he’s changed back.

  “Our wolf pack by the zoo took one loss – Chester. He was attacked by four of Alistair’s pack together. He never really stood a chance. Josh’s friend the hyena in the zoo was hurt, but she’s being cared for by the pack. All the other animals returned to their enclosures safely, and Ian has cast a whole bunch of new wards around the zoo, so no one will be any the wiser about their night out.”

  “What happened to Alistair’s pack?”

  “Five of them were killed, and several more ran off.

  Josh and our wolves will try and track them down over the next few weeks. We also have four defectors,” explained Danny, and he pointed to another corner of the room where Zamir was attending four patients who were covered in bandages. “When they are well, they will decide if they want to stay at P.A.W.S. or join the wolf pack.”

  Mrs. Bumsqueak was making her way over to them now.

  “Hello, Miri,” she said, in
her pleasant but stern voice. “I think that’s about enough chatting for now. You need to get some rest.”

  “I’ll come back later, Miri,” said Danny. He leaned down and gave her a light kiss on the forehead before he left. Mrs. Bumsqueak gave Miri a vial of green potion to drink. It smelled like pond water and tasted revolting, but within a few minutes she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 45

  Cynthia woke up with a start. Something felt different, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Over the last few weeks, the relationship between her and David had become more and more estranged. It seemed like they barely talked anymore. He would get up early each morning, shower and shave, and go to his office, where he would stay until late each night. He’d do this every day, even on the weekends. She wondered vaguely if he was having an affair, but he was so tired and withdrawn whenever she did catch up with him that it seemed unlikely. He was deeply worried about something, but if she ever asked him what, he just shrugged her off.

  She wasn’t surprised, therefore, that he was not in bed when she got up that chilly December morning, but she was surprised to hear the TV blaring from the kitchen. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d put on the television or, for that matter, even been in the house when she got up.

  Was he sick, maybe? Was there snow outside? Maybe they were snowed in? She raised the shade a little and looked out through the bedroom window. No, it was perfectly clear outside, a cold, crisp St. Louis morning.

  She went to the bathroom and studied her face in the bathroom mirror. Crow’s feet were forming at the side of her eyes; maybe she should have Botox? She put on a light blue robe over her nightgown and walked downstairs.

  David was sitting at the kitchen table staring at the local news broadcasting from the TV. He ignored her when she walked in (no surprise there). A half-eaten bowl of Cheerios and a cold cup of coffee were in front of him. She looked at the television screen.