by Ayer, T. G.
Pity I couldn't jump too.
I loped to the top of the hill and flew over another low wall, landing a few feet from where Cassie hunkered down out of sight of the hut, both our backpacks at her feet.
I took a step toward her but I was too late.
The demon shimmered, twisting shadows slowly forming into the creepy vamp. He stood, profile to me, studying Cassie who was halfway onto her knees, her invisibility beginning to shimmer, distorting the air around her.
The demon's teeth glinted and I sprang at him. Cass's eyes flickered in my direction but the demon must not have much of an instinct going on. Granted, all he saw was a black panther. But how many black panthers lurked around the farmlands of Scotland?
Cass flickered into nothing but the demon wasn't to be bested so easily. His fingers snapped out, sharp black nails sprouting in a blink as he wrapped them around Cassie's invisible neck.
Cassie shimmered again, visible now, eyes wide. Something was wrong. He could teleport and now he had the power to see Cassie while she was invisible.
This is not happening.
The demon laughed, tightening his grip. Cassie was unable to get away from him. The bastard must have some sort of spell on him that held her in this plane. That we hadn't expected.
Cassie let out a furious grunt, using the force of her solid state to tug away from his razor sharp grip but all she managed was to topple over the fence. Which wasn't the best idea. It saved her ass, but it also meant the vamp's claws sliced into her skin and tore a good portion of her flesh open. Thankfully, the injuries weren't mortal; it would take a good deal more than that to threaten the life of a high-level paranormal like Cassie.
And, the demon seemed to be the I-like-to-play-with-my-food variety. A good thing in this case or--judging by Cassie's shocked face and her grimace of pain--maybe not.
She paused, raising her the fingers of her right hand, closer to her comms, but the vamp wasn't as stupid as she'd hoped. He grabbed the earwig and flung it into the grass.
It landed a foot in front of me.
I stood frozen in the darkness considering my next move. If he really meant to kill her he was taking his time. Any sudden move on my part could finish the job if I wasn't careful.
I studied the location of his nails in her throat, the lines of the blood trails on her skin, the ragged flesh where he'd torn her open. Cassie gasped as he tightened his grip, her bulging eyes searching wildly for me as he held her neck stiff preventing even the slightest movement.
When he leaned forward I thought nothing of it until I saw the glint of a sharp lengthening canine. Okay, so he wasn't going to muck around after all.
I sprang at him, aiming parallel to the stone wall to allow Cass to fall on this side of the fence if he suddenly let go of her.
He didn't let go.
I hit him broadside. His head snapped around, eyes shocked and furious at the interruption. When he realized his attacker was the black cat he'd so recently dismissed he didn't release his prey. He fell sideways, hitting the ground hard, his fingers still clamped around Cassie's neck as he dragged her with him.
She shrieked and I sank my claws into his arm. But he was a stubborn bastard. My presence didn't seem to discourage him and he only gripped harder.
And as she lay very still beside him, Cass made a strange, hair-raising sound. The sound of dying; last gasps, final desperate breaths before the end.
Not on my watch.
I shifted my paws and threw my weight forward onto his neck. keen to provide him the same treatment he was meting out to Cassie.
Your turn, asshole.
The vamp-demon grunted, lifting his shoulder as if that small action would dislodge my claws. When I didn't move he rolled onto his back, lifted his knees and kicked his feet into my abdomen.
As prepared as I was for his reaction, the force of the blow still winded me. For all his scrawny appearance, he packed a wallop. I grunted, and it must have sounded too human for any kind of feline because he gave me an odd, worried glance.
Sounded human, huh?
Too bad. His new position gave me more claw to skin surface area than my previous angle had, and I took advantage of it. I pulled my razors free and then plunged them into the base of his throat. My paws thumped hard on his chest side by side, and I pressed with all my weight. I'd break his sternum. Stop his ugly heart. Rip into his throat deep enough to drown him in his own blood--
A bit on the vicious side, aren't you, Kai?
With his full attention on the basic need to survive, the demon's survival instinct finally kicked in. He dropped his hold on Cassie.
Part of my brain registered that she was no longer dying but coughing and gagging for breath, the ragged breathing and hollow coughing of my poor, near-suffocated partner.
But I didn't have time to celebrate. As I sucked in my own breath a shudder rippled through me. My gut twisted, as a red haze began to fill my vision fear gripped my throat. I might have saved Cassie but the bloodlust of the walker had finally come to claim me.
I'd danced around bloodlust since I'd shifted. It had been easy enough to avoid--until blood started to flow. Now that sweet, coppery scent began to entice my inner feline. Soon it would be a raging frenzy.
Usually the blood call forces the human-to-feline change. But because I was already in cat form, my visceral need was more powerful, a deep-throated bellow to my panther's wilder nature.
A call for the kill.
I strained against the call, the pull of pain in my teeth, the ache in my bones. I'd heard of this type of bloodlust. It went deeper than just being a walker. It was a more primal, unadulterated animal instinct that demanded dominance. I'd heard tales of walkers going over to the darker side, giving in to the primal need and never being able to come back to normality.
The walker could return to human form, but the bloodlust came home with her, and she'd have to spend the rest of her life fighting it. I didn't want that for my future. I had too many things to consider.
Too many people I cared about.
I stiffened my resolve. Tightened my jaw--
Cassie's fear filled my nostrils and her strangled cry brought me back to awareness.
I blinked.
My jaws were clamped tight around the vamp-demon's neck. Horrified, I spat him out, scrambling backward on my hind legs.
No. No.
One moment, I was a hulking black panther stricken by bloodlust. The next I was a very naked female, pale skin streaked with blood.
CHAPTER 3
I CHOKED, SHOCKED AT WHAT I'd almost done.
Huddling on the wet ground, I watched as Cassie crawled to the demon and studied him, pressing a hand to her wounds. They trickled a thin stream of blood but I was sure she'd been through worse.
Paranormals were a tougher brand of human.
She looked up at me and shook her head, her pale-grey eyes wide and bright. "He's too far gone. He'll be dead in a minute or so."
I opened my mouth, then closed it, unsure what to say. And she understood.
She got to her feet, dabbing her neck with fingers before giving them an annoyed glance. Then she wiped her bloody hand on her equally bloody jeans, grabbed a fistful of clothes from my backpack, and threw them at me. I snatched them out of the air. "Put something on before he dies of shock instead."
I glanced down at him.
Death for a vamp-demon was always a slower process than for a human. This one's neck was a mess, and thick black blood seeped into the ground beside him, but he still seemed to be in control of some of his faculties. His eyes especially. Despite being moments from dead he studied me. Leered at my naked body.
Cassie snorted, searching the grass for something; probably her comms. "Or before he dies of something else." She grinned as she found the device and dusted it off before inserting it into her ear.
I shook my head, trying not to think about the anatomy of a vamp-demon, and proceeded to dress as fast as possible more concerned with th
e cold than the dying creature.
When I'd finished, I stepped closer to study him. I wasn't usually the morbid type but he was still conscious.
"You're her," he rasped, his voice rumbling.
"Her who?" I asked. I already knew what he'd meant. When he didn't respond, I said, "If you'd stopped when I told you to then you'd still be alive."
He shook his head, coughed, and splattered blackish blood all over my boots. "I know your type. Kill before asking questions."
"Not the way I operate. You didn't need to attack her." I pointed a thumb at Cassie who stood beside me, glaring at the reddened tips of her fingers as they continued to come away from her wounds bright and wet. She was taking longer than normal to heal and she didn't seem to be the patient type.
"She would have killed me."
"Damn straight I would have," Cassie snapped, colder than the night air.
He cocked a weak eyebrow. "See?"
"Cassie."
"Okay, well, if she had insisted I would have left you alive." Cassie shrugged, her expression a confused mashup of guilt and regret.
"See?" I repeated his word back at him and got a look of regret for my trouble.
Not that it helped. He was still going to die.
"Well, I'm on my way out, but you can still save him," the demon whispered, his voice still gritty but now a tad weaker.
"Save who?" I asked, leaning over him.
Cassie's grunt warned me not to get too close but it didn't matter. His eyes, blank and fixed, stared unseeing into the black sky.
"He's gone," said Cassie.
"No shit."
Cassie grabbed her rucksack and threw it over her shoulder. "What's with you?"
She pressed a white bandage to her neck and from the pink speckles it looked like her wound had finally stopped bleeding. Although Cassie was primarily a shape-changer, I knew, from spending a few days in her company, that the power to change form helped her to heal too.
"Nothing's with me," I snapped, reaching for my backpack. "He's dead."
"Yeah. He's dead. So maybe keep your distance before he goes poof in your face."
I grunted and turned on my heel. Vamp-demons didn't go poof, as she well knew. They merely disintegrated to ash and had to be dealt with using a good old broom.
I was about to tell her to take me home, when a low sound caught my ear. Tilting my head I glanced at Cassie, in silent question.
She narrowed her eyes and frowned as my ear shifted slowly from human to feline, its pointed end pricked to pick up even the merest hint of sound.
There, again.
I shifted around toward the sound, finding myself moving back in the direction of the hut.
It came again, low. Pained. Agonized.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I launched into a run. Cassie hurried down the hill at my side and we took the low wall like the trained agents we were.
Or rather, Cassie was a trained agent, I was merely house-broken.
We neared the hut and separated, Cassie pointing around to the side of the building. She'd enter through one of the empty window holes, while I crossed familiar territory, paying even closer attention this time around.
Outside, there had been a hollow note to the cry. When it quivered through the building this time my panther ear and my instinct told me to search below the floor.
I moved slowly along the floor, sweeping my foot left and right, shifting soil off the stone. Where would I find the entrance to a cellar in a place like this?
Moving into the second room I saw Cassie slipping over the empty sill. She closed in and we stood still waiting to hear the cry again. When it came--plaintive, mournful, and very loud--I shivered. So did Cassie.
The walls around us were bare, the rafters in full view, so again we were left with the floor. I began to stomp the surface of the dirty stone until something clanged beneath my weight. I toed the dirt away.
There under the soil-covered surface lay a thin square metal panel. Made to look like the stone of the floor, it blended into the surrounding rugged tiles aided by darkness and shadows.
In the daylight it would be harder to hide, but I assumed our demon hadn't cared. Considering the abandoned state of the property he wouldn't get many visitors.
I crouched in front of the panel and slipped a finger underneath it, before hiking a brow at Cassie.
She nodded.
I heaved the panel up and took few steps back in case we were peppered with gunfire. In case this was a trap.
But no bullets flew out of the black hole, only that pitiful sound again. Cassie dug around in her rucksack and retrieved a heavy-duty flashlight. She flicked the switch and white light flooded the coffin-sized space below.
A young man lay there, all protruding ribs, pointy elbows, and knobbly knees. He was curled in a fetal position, his matted hair almost dreadlocked, dark arms hiding his face, his gasps somewhere between relieved and terrified.
I touched Cass's hand and she aimed the light away, leaving just enough illumination to cast a soft glow into the burrow. I knelt at the edge, afraid to touch him in case he panicked.
"Are you okay?" I asked. Despite lowering my voice, I heard the sound echo within the room and inside the hollow dug-out.
Stupid question, Kai.
But it seemed to pull the boy from his panic and he shifted his hand from his face, revealing one very black eye.
And one very ravaged neck.
It didn't take a genius to figure out the kid had been turned.
Cassie sucked in a breath.
"Whatever you're thinking right now," I told her, "stop." I kept my attention securely on the boy, but my voice was hard and low, and meant business.
"Kai, it's protocol."
Protocol meant humans that were turned were considered a liability to be terminated at will. An archaic rule that I certainly didn't agree with.
"You know what you can do with your protocol."
Cassie snorted. "It's okay for you. You're not exactly 'on the books'."
"Just tell them I didn't give you a choice."
"And reveal to all and sundry that you have me by the brass ones?"
"They're brass?" I asked, a grin in my voice.
She clicked her tongue. "Just get him out of there before I change my mind."
I didn't respond, just sank to the floor and put one foot in the grave beside the shivering boy. His shoulders shuddered as I leaned forward and rested a hand on his bony arm.
I'd barely touched him before he sprang away, slamming his head into the back end of the box so hard that I could have sworn I heard something crack. Closer inspection of the tangled mop covering his head told me he'd live.
"I thought you said you were going to save him?" Cass peered into the hole. "Sounds like you're going to kill him anyway."
I gave her a blistering stare and returned my attention to the terrified boy. Up close, he had more than just dusky skin and deep black eyes going for him. Give him a few meals and a hot shower and he'd be positively cute. If a little dead.
I wasn't sure how to deal with the damage to his neck, but that wasn't a priority. Waiting only until he stopped shivering I moved in a little closer. Little by little, I managed to ease my way into the hole.
No danger here, kid. Just your neighborhood kitty-cat come to curl up and purr.
I'd made it all the way into the space thinking the feel of human warmth might help him when he looked up at me, his obsidian eyes gleaming as he studied my face.
This close, I recognized the signs of starvation, the blue-black veins, the dark rings beneath his eyes . . . and the grayed, almost lifeless skin.
I stiffened, but I wasn't going to back away now. I refused to think he was so far gone that I couldn't help him. It wasn't his fault that he'd been turned.
Or was it?
I shook that thought out of my head. "Look, I'm not here to hurt you. And he's dead, okay."
The dark eyes went wide.
> So he understood English.
Progress.
"We need to get you somewhere safe. Can you sit up?"
He paused for a few seconds, his hands trembling while he considered my offer. Knowing his master was now truly dead seemed to have a positive effect on his terror.
He gave a tiny nod, so small a movement I almost missed it. Sliding an arm behind him I ignored my instinctive flinch and my panther's discomfort. I just waited, supporting him as he tried to lift himself upright.
Time seemed to move in slow motion as he progressed to his knees and then to sit on the side of the floor. With him out, I glanced up at Cassie and gave her a short nod.
She rolled her eyes, her version of 'finally'.
Then she, pressed the button to the comm in her ear and summoned Larsson, our on-call teleporter who materialized within second, his red hair a stark contrast to the drab day.
He took my arm and we jumped from the grotty hut.
CHAPTER 4
LARSSON TRANSPORTED US DIRECTLY TO the Sentinel offices. Then he disappeared with a smile at Cassandra and a short not to me.
Not a small-talk kinda guy.
The light from Cassie's flashlight bounced around the room and she shut it off and stowed into her backpack. Though we'd jumped time-zones, inside the room time didn't seem to matter.
The room was intimidating, small, square, filled with a gigantic mirror and steel walls. Screamed interrogation.
And I worried that the boy would panic, but he kept his eyes on my face as if the sight of me was enough to calm him. Odd that I would have a reassuring effect on anyone.
The boy wavered on his feet, his knees threatening to collapse under him. His face seemed paler, if that was possible. Cassie and I grabbed his arms before he toppled over and plunked him down on the nearest chair.
We didn't have long to wait before the door slammed open with a crash.
