Diaries of an Urban Panther (21 page)

God, it felt good. Where the hell did I get the balls to say that? Write it, sure, but to actually say it.

Wow, I felt like I deserved a cape, or a shot of tequila. Or both.

Sera joined me soon after, when the roaring in my ears had gone down but my head was still a little giddy.

“You all right?”

“Yeah, fine. Just a little disaster a la Kyle.”

Sera put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think he’d pounce so soon.”

I smiled at her words. “I’m fine, but he might need a Band-Aid.”

A smile swept across Sera’s fuchsia lips. “Go you.”

Go me.

I wanted to call Jessa. I wanted to tell her how ruthless I had been and she would love it and applaud me from across the country. But I couldn’t. Because I had told her she never really cared about me.

I needed to tell Jessa everything. As I thought about all the writers and producers in the room, I knew they weren’t my family. I may have spent the past five years working with them, having dinners at their house, buying presents for their kids, but they weren’t my family.

Jessa was my family and I had to tell her. I had to make things right. After the meeting. When I got back into town. And then there was that whole full moon thing. So I’d call her on the way back home, and then spend the weekend at Iris’s and then be able to make things right after that.

D
rew started up the meeting talking a mile a minute, as Drew tended to do. To be honest, I was only listening to every other word. I caught production cost, budget cuts, and lemonade somewhere in all that. Mostly I was just thinking about Jessa. Not the jerk sitting across from me. And even if I focused on the jerk across the table from me, I didn’t have anyone to rage to about it. I supposed I could impose on Sera a bit more, but she had to work with this ass here in LA. Jessa was the only person I even had on speed dial. Her and Stalker boy. And frankly Chaz didn’t seem like the tub of Hagan Das type.

Somewhere in the middle of the pity party for one, I heard my name.

“Yeah,” I perked up, sitting up straighter in my chair, looking around at all the eyes looking back at me.

“
Moon Blood: The Waxing
. We’re going with that one for the summer shoot.”

“Seriously?” It was the first word out of my mouth. Summer shoots were the big ones with the multiple locations, where we actually auditioned people and worked with some of the bigger houses with actual budgets.

“Yeah, Violet,” Drew said. “It was great. Pithy and touching and exactly what is going to boost our little company into Blockbuster’s view.”

I gulped. Drew was just about to give the green light on my cat therapy, the script that was me unabashedly displacing all my fear and anxiety onto someone else. Drew was about to green light the
truth
about shapeshifters. “Are you sure?”

“It’s great,” Sera said as she hit my arm. “Everyone loves it.”

I looked around, mouth agape at the other faces. They were all nods and smiles, but Chaz was going to kill me.

“Sera’s going to executive produce this one and we’d like to start sending the scripts out as soon as possible, with a few rewrites.”

“Seriously?” I whispered to Sera.

“Shut up and take your moment.”

I looked around the room, the familiar faces who I’d known forever. Even Kyle nodded his head in approval.

“Great,” I shrugged.

“Okay,” Drew said as she clapped his hands together. “I’ll give you the rewrites at the next break. And this means we know what you’re doing this summer.”

The entire table laughed at the bad joke and I smiled along with them, but who knew if I was going to be available this summer. Who knew if I was going to even be around then?

Chapter Twenty

I
had thrown my bag on the bed in my bedroom on the second floor of Iris’s house. I’d come there straight from the airport, ready for my monthly visit. After hair and teeth brushing, I hopped down the stairs to the kitchen where she was no doubt preparing a feast.

“Can I help with something?” I asked as she cut up potatoes and threw them into a pot of boiling water.

“Biscuits,” she said, pointing her knife to a tube of Pillsbury biscuits.

I bounced around the kitchen, remembering where everything was from last month’s visit. There may have been humming involved as I placed the sticky biscuits on the tray one by one.

“Why are you so happy?” Iris asked as she slid the rest of the potatoes in the pot.

“I don’t know. I got some good news at work. And I’ve been asked to collaborate for a comic book by a few guys back in LA.”

“Nothing to do with Chaz coming to dinner?”

I swear my mouth smiled at its own accord. “You need to get over your obsession with Chaz and I hooking up.”

Iris huffed and threw a handful of salt into the boiling potatoes. I finished arranging the gooey biscuits on the cookie sheet.

“Well, I do have a few more things to tell you. Didn’t seem right over the phone.”

I sat down at the table and listened as she busied around, opening cans of French cut green beans and cream of mushroom soup. I hadn’t had green bean casserole in, well, a very, very long time. I watched carefully as she added all the ingredients and started mixing.

She was having a hard time trying to formulate her words as she stirred away. Her lips were pursed and she would open them and then close them every now and then as the spoon went faster and faster in the bowl.

“There is one more thing that we are going to have to work on with you. And quick.”

“What?”

“You’re stronger than you were just last month.”

“I’ve mastered my shields. Don’t even have to think about it most days. Just leave the house and when I lock the door, I lock them into place.” I offered, turning to follow her small figure around the kitchen. “Sensei is helping me focus and concentrate. And kick some major ass.”

Iris shuffled to a cabinet where she grabbed a glass dish. As she pulled it from the high shelf, the glass slipped from her fingers. Her body was faster than even I could see as she caught the dish six inches from the floor.

“Damn pan,” she muttered to herself as she went back to her bowl. As I watched her, slack jawed, she just continued with her spiel. “Remember how when I brushed you, you nearly fell out of your chair?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well Rea . . .” she licked her lips and started over. “The Havertys have been known to use that energy as a weapon.”

I gulped. “Like when I threw Chaz into a wall?” I really wasn’t ever going to live that down.

Iris nodded. “Most shapeshifters can’t do that, Violet. Most shapeshifters can shift and that’s it.”

My entire body shivered and I stared at her. “I did that after my first full moon, Iris. Without even thinking.”

“Imagine if it had been an actual fight. He could have been in Ellis County.” Iris making a joke at a time like this unnerved me more than the information she was giving me. “Each person has his or her own strengths. In my day, I could lift a car if I needed to.”

I frowned. “And how often did you have to lift cars?”

Iris looked over her shoulder with a silencing eyebrow arch. I zipped my lip.

“The Havertys can use their power to physically harm others.” Iris took in a deep breath and she dumped the green beans into the pan. “I’ve seen them take another Wanderer’s power. Rip it clean out of their chests until there’s nothing left. Which means that you might be able to as well.”

I shook my head adamantly, tears beginning to form as I remembered Sensei’s story. “I don’t want to practice that, Iris. I don’t even want to think about that.”

Iris turned quickly and wiped her hands on her apron. She walked over to me and wrapped her arm around my shaking shoulder. “No, honey. I’m not going to make you.”

She rubbed my arm until the chill went away, leaving the smell of cream of mushroom on my shirt. “I just need you to know the Havertys are strong and you’re going to have some unique challenges along the way I can’t prepare you for. You’re just going to have to use that big imagination of yours to figure it out.”

As I took in a long steadying breath, she released my shoulder and went back to her fixings. I stared down at the checkered table cloth and picked at a small hole in the vinyl. It was the size of a dime before I stopped. “You mean being single in the big city isn’t enough of a unique challenge?”

Her shoulder shook with a chuckle. “If you’d just let Chaz . . .”

“Please Iris, it’s not going to work. I’m cute for about ten minutes and then it’s all a little too much to handle.”

“It’s not going to work because you’ve already made up that stubborn head of yours.”

I rolled my eyes. “God, Iris you sound like my . . .”

I couldn’t finish the sentence. The word knotted up in my throat. All these years and I could still barely say the word. I could talk about demons and monsters and other vicious things that go bump in the night but I could say one simple loving word out loud.

She turned around slowly with the red can of fried onions in her hand. “We know loss here, Violet. It’s why we fight so hard for the ones we love.”

My voice sounded small, childlike, but the words came out. “I run. Did that quite well before the attack. Something hurt and I was gone. I’ve never stayed and fought for anything.”

“Maybe you just haven’t had anything to fight for yet.”

A few things jumped to mind as I heard the telltale rumble of Chaz’s old Bronco grumble down the dirt road.

Iris smiled. “Go see if he needs any help.”

I didn’t exactly jump up to meet him at the door. But I made it to the porch before him, my hands in my back pockets.

“Hey there, stranger,” Chaz greeted, throwing his bag over his shoulder.

“Hey yourself,” I smiled. “We’re having turkey for dinner.”

“Well it is Thanksgiving,” he smiled.

I froze on the porch. “Seriously?”

I’d remembered a lot of bustle at the airport that morning. And I guess it was the end of November. “Huh?”

He held the door open for me. “You really do live in your own world, don’t you?”

As we both walked into the house, Iris was waiting for us in the doorway to the kitchen.

“I have a game for the two of you while you’re waiting for dinner,” she said with her hands clasped before her, like a true schoolmarm, hair bun and everything.

“But I’m hungry, Iris,” Chaz said setting down his bag in the hallway where we stood.

“It can wait,” she said quickly.

I had to laugh at the scolded puppy look on his face.

“Chaz is going to run around the house and hide, and Violet, you are going to find him.”

“You want us to play hide-and-seek?” I asked.

“With your nose,” she nodded. “Blindfolded.”

“Blindfolded!” I protested.

“You need to learn to track things with your sense of smell. It comes in mighty handy sometimes,” she said handing Chaz an old necktie. “Cat noses aren’t as good as canine so you have to practice.”

Chaz tried to keep down a smile as I stood there unbelieving.

“And I suggest that you get it done with before the turkey cooks much more.”

I looked over at Chaz. “This is weird.”

“This is nothing,” he said as he walked around me. “Try learning how to hone psychic GPS.”

“So that is the fancy term for what you do? Gonna have to write that one down.”

Carefully, he put the blindfold over my eyes and tied it gently. My skin chilled at him being close enough I could make out what kind of soap he used that morning and that he had tacos for lunch.

He tapped my shoulder and whispered. “Tag, you’re it.”

Chaz walked away quickly.

“You may want to take your boots off,” Iris hollered.

“Do I have to count to 30 or something?” I asked, getting a little excited by the game. It was a new challenge, a new superhero talent that needed to be developed. It was like when Peter Parker first figured out that he could shoot webs.

“Might be nice to give him a head start,” Iris said and she padded into the kitchen.

So I counted to 30 like a good little girl and then took in a deep breath.
Remember his scent
, I told myself, the soap, the taco, and the musky smell that was always around him. I didn’t need to be reminded of that.

I knew the layout of the house as I stalked through the downstairs. He had walked through the living area; the smell was cold but there. I can’t explain it more than that. It was cold like sniffing something out of the fridge. I followed it through the back of the house and then up the stairs. I hadn’t heard him walk up the stairs.

The smell was getting warmer, more alive.
This is strange
, part of my brain said as I followed the soap through the upstairs into the dusty storage room. Even through the smell of old books and the rising smell of the cooking meat downstairs, I could tell that his scent changed here, it was suddenly stronger and sharper. I stopped to listen and I could hear a heartbeat just to my right.

This was so freakin’ cool
.

“Marco?” I whispered as I reached for the blindfold.

“Polo,” he responded.

He slid out of his hiding spot next to a huge armoire as I pulled the tie off my eyes.

“Well that was just too easy,” I smiled.

“Maybe you’re just too good.”

“Maybe you just need to avoid having tacos for lunch.”

He gave me a funny smile and gestured for us to go downstairs for dinner. “You’re going to be an amazing hunter someday.”

We went down stairs to find a feast waiting for us.

“So the game went well?” Iris asked as she put the turkey on the table. The smell made my mouth water.

“Found him in record time.”

“Well, we will do it again tonight, outside,” she said as she handed Chaz a knife to carve our Thanksgiving meal.

T
he outside chase was a little harder. Out in the night air, the smell of the wild all around, I wanted to shift but I held it in check. It was something that I
had
to learn to do. No matter how strong the pull of a full moon was. No matter how much I felt the panther circle and pace within my chest. No matter how hard, I had to resist it.

The scent of Chaz was cold everywhere I went, the night spread the scent around with its light breeze. But near the barn, the scent warmed up. I stood as still as I could in the door and opened my eyes wide. The darkness in here was almost palpable, soft, welcoming.

Slowly, I moved through the darkness with my other eyes, with the widened pupil of the cat. Taking quickly little sniffs, I found him in the cage where I’d had my first shift.

“Marco.”

“Polo,” he responded as he stepped out into the center of the cage.

There was barely any light in here and I wondered how he had made it through the maze of Iris’s barn. I came to stand before him in the middle of the confining space.

“I’m not going to be here in the morning,” Chaz said softly.

“Okay.”

“You’re not going to throw me against anything?” he asked. His voice was as soft as the darkness around us.

I laughed, “No. Go, live your sacred destiny.”

I watched him in the little moonlight infiltrating the cracks between the beams of the barn’s roof. He was stunning. The gold in his hair was shining silver and the outline of his face was something from a Frank Miller comic book, all contrasts and lines. Simply beautiful.

“Be safe,” I said.

“You too.”

I watched as he walked away, respecting my need not to have him see me shift more than he had to. But this was the only space I could ask this question. There was something safe about the darkness, something like a confessional.

“Chaz?”

“Yeah,” he turned around quickly in the doorway of the cage.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” he said leaning against the door frame.

“Did Haverty kill Iris’s sisters?”

“What gave you that idea?”

I licked my lips. I was ready to tell him this. I wanted to tell him this. “I had this dream or a memory of a story my mother told me.”

“Like with the mirror?”

I nodded. “I know it’s probably nothing but . . .”

“Yes.”

His word hung in the darkness and over me like a smothering blanket.

Chaz sighed and moved back into the little space. His scent was all around me now, his body warmed by the pounding heart in his chest. “I’ve only got bits of the story. Found a picture when I was a kid, but I think they were friends at one point. I think he helped her run the city.”