Diaries of an Urban Panther (35 page)

“Get your hands off me, dog,” I spat.

He didn’t, just dragged me over to where the mirror still rippled, still waiting for some evil deed. Spencer and the mutts had already been corralled and lined up like naughty children, each with their own body guard. At least Jessa and Chaz weren’t here. My body actually relaxed when I didn’t see them in the lineup.

Sharply dressed, his hair neatly combed, a silver-handled cane aided Haverty’s procession towards us. I straightened as he approached, despite the sizzle in my side. He was power. Like Iris was power. It was old and ancient as it rolled off of him.

The two Havertys stood nose to nose, but Spencer’s eyes were downcast. Haverty said nothing to him. He took a step back and struck Spencer with the silver head of his cane. The man behind him held him on his feet as Spencer’s knees gave way beneath him.

The mutts jumped and the fresh scent of burning flesh wafted over to me. When Spencer brought his head back up, a long slit on his face highlighted his cheek bone and the wound smoked like mine had. The Haverty’s heirloom silver.

“I knew you were stupid, Spencer. But this? Jovan? That’s a level of stupidity they don’t have a word for yet.”

Spencer didn’t say anything. He was defeated. It poured off of him. Or could I just feel it because he was my sire? That was a creepy thought. I shivered and when I did, the wound in my side flared to life again and I winced.

Haverty’s eyes snapped to me. “And you must be the leftovers he never managed to clean up.”

“I’d prefer Violet, thank you.”

The man behind me held me tight as Haverty came over to inspect me. He snuck his nose into my neck and took in a deep breath. I flinched until he backed off.

“Didn’t expect that.” He reeked of cigar smoke and cologne and being this close to him made my skin crawl. “Where’s the Key Holder?”

“Far away from here.”

He reared his hand back to strike and when it came down, I dropped my weight and the face of my captor caught the full force of the blow, blood spurting out of his mouth. His hands released my arms and I rolled back between his legs and away from Haverty. I was on my feet, but not stable enough for another round.

In the distraction of my escape, Spencer broke from his captor with an elbow to the ribs and a claw to the face. The man cried out and all attention was given to the prodigal son.

As if in slow motion, Spencer ran for the mirror.

“No!” I cried out as I ran after him.

An arm came around my waist and I was pulled backward, my heels dragging on the floor. Horrified I watched as Spencer leapt into the mirror, the silvery surface welcoming him in a shimmer of bright light. As his shoe disappeared, the surface grew calm for a moment.

Chaz pulled me behind an antique armoire. I struggled against him frantically for a moment. Cool fingers curled around my forearm and I looked over to see Jessa sitting next to me, leaning against the wood, weak and pale.

Oh god Jessa, I whispered and I threw my arms around her neck. My heart leapt. “I’m so sorry. I kissed her forehead. I suck at this guardian thing.”

“Not from where I was sitting.”

I glared at Chaz. “I thought I told you to get her out of here.”

“Shhh,” Jessa said as she squeezed my arm. I felt her cool magic over my skin, calming me. “I told him I’d turn him into a frog if he took me away from you.”

I looked back at Chaz. “She can’t really do that.”

Chaz put his hands up in surrender. “I wasn’t taking any chances.”

There was a rumble in the ground and the wood in my back. Thanks to my five years in California, I knew what earthquakes felt like but this was different.

“It’s him,” Chaz gulped. “He’s here.”

“No,” I corrected. “He can’t come to this plane without a host and Haverty’s got too much machismo to say yes.”

I twisted around to see if I could make out what was going on. The wound in my side flared to life, but I could see the circle. The dogs were scattering. The man who’d been holding me ran like a little girl for the front door.

“Something Spencer-sized goes through the mirror, something Spencer-sized comes out of the mirror.”

“Did he tell you that?”

I shook my head. “Those stories that I keep telling you about?”

“Sonovabitch,” Chaz breathed. He immediately started loading every gun he had on him.

“Hold on there, killer,” I winced as I turned back. My hand held my side. It had stopped bleeding but still felt like Mt. Vesuvius between my ribs. “You have to get Jessa out of here.”

Jessa’s eyebrows drew into a hard line above her lavender eyes. “I need to close the mirror.”

“I’m not facing your mother when she hears you’ve been eaten.”

A roar deeper and louder than anything a lion from this realm could have produced screamed out into the warehouse. Crystal shattered and mirrors broke through the entire building.

I shook my head. “Do I really want to know?”

Chaz scooted out from our hiding position. I watched his face pale and his lips part. His wide eyes flicked to me and then back to whatever was out there. He slid back and looked at me.

“Is it bigger than a breadbox?” I waited. “Smaller than a dragon? I just need a little detail before the imagination runs wild here.”

“Clydesdale?”

My head lulled back against the armoire with a dull thud.

The battle began to rage on the other side of the showroom floor. Men cried out as they were thrown across the warehouse. And I was stuck on the sidelines with a wound that wouldn’t heal.

“You’ve got to get out there,” Jesse winced as she scooted around. “Lift up your jacket.”

At this point in the game, I wasn’t above flashing my best friend. I sunk down on the ground and lifted up the edge of the velour. The wound was red and angry. Jessa unwound the ripped T-shirt from her forearm and held the wound over mine.

I scooted away. “That’s gross, Jessa.”

“Shut up, Violet. I know what I’m doing.” She squeezed her arm and the blood ran freely again. “In theory,” she muttered.

I looked away as warm drops of Jessa’s blood fell onto my side. At this point in the day, I was up for anything. I was officially down the rabbit hole and the jabberwocky was right on the other side of the armoire.

Chaz was looking down at me, trying not to watch either. “You were pretty good out there.”

“In what world is gutted like a fish good?”

He smiled and reached down to squeeze my shoulder. We both flinched as another roar echoed through the antiques shop.

The flaming infection of the wound eased and a cool chill crept up my side. I pulled up my jacket and saw an angry red line where the gaping hole had been. “Hey. How’d that work?”

Jessa was rewrapping her arm. “Do you want a metaphysical lesson, or do you want to get out there and stop that thing?”

I pulled down the jacket and sat up. “Let’s go.” I moved to stand.

Chaz grabbed my arm and pulled me hard back to the ground, ramming my butt bone into the cement. Just because I wasn’t festering didn’t mean that everything was perfectly healed.

“You are not going out there.” The crease in his forehead was the deepest it had ever been.

“But I am. I have to.”

“Violet. You’ve never taken on anything like this.”

“Yeah? How many evil beasties from the Neveranth have you vanquished?”

Chaz just licked his lips.

“Again,” I said as I slid my arm down in his hand and then took his warm palm. “Born and bred for this.”

There was another crash and a scream, human this time, or as human as this group got. I smelled blood in the air; it tickled my nose.

“Guys, this thing can’t get out. Those things from the Neveranth have been known to eat cities, or worse.” Jessa protested from her place next to me.

I stood slowly and Chaz let me get to my feet this time. The armoire was big enough to keep us shielded from the fight. He stood beside me but Jessa stayed on the ground, holding her arm to her chest and resting.

“Here, take this,” he said as he pressed a revolver in my hand. It was heavy but felt natural in my palm.

“Silver?” I asked as I slid it into my pocket.

He nodded as he looked at me. His gaze was steady; his eyes were wide and flecked with more gold than I’d ever seen. I could feel him, his warm, golden center slowly beating with his heart. And I got it. He did have a heart like a lion, all golden and fierce.

The memory of my mother’s first fairy tale in the Violet saga brought a tear to my eye and I could believe that I was getting all mushy now, at crunch time.

“You survive this.” His voice was low and intimate. “Because I will not lose anyone else to this monster. Do you understand?”

“Look whose all Mr. Emotional Speeches . . .”

“I love you.”

Chaz reached out and slide his hand around my jaw. It was warm and nervous, slightly shaking. He pulled be forward and kissed me. My brain was frozen until I tasted his honeyed lips on mine. And then everything from the past two months came rushing in. I loved him. I loved that he brought me cinnamon coffee. I loved that he collected college T-shirts. I loved that he called me out when I wasn’t thinking straight. And that he chose the most inopportune moment in all of history to tell me.

When he pulled away, his lips were pink and I was breathless.

“Did you decide before or after the sexy velour suit?” I smiled as I bit my lower lip.

He smiled and brushed a strand of hair from my face. “Nothing’s easy with you.”

“Thought you’d have learned that by now.”

As another scream and crash combination echoed through the shop, he shook his head. “I knew the moment you dropped your red high heels in the alley.”

Jessa cleared her throat from the floor behind us. Right, saving the world.

I took in a deep breath of him and smiled. “Okay. I’m going to go kick this whatever’s ass. You’re going to protect Jessa. And when it’s all done, you might want to ask me out for dinner.”

“It’s a date.”

We both flinched as something rocked the armoire we were hiding behind. His hand slid away from my face and went to the gun at his hip. My cheek was suddenly very cold, which focused my resolve to not so figuratively kick this S.O.B. into the next universe.

Chapter Thirty-One

T
his wasn’t something from one of my TV movies. The panther in front of me was liquid smooth and smelled of blood and death. Its fur was inky black and, sure enough, it was the size of a Clydesdale and twice as long, not measuring its tail whipping around. Which meant that I would need four Violets to even begin to threaten this thing.

Guess one Violet and one maniacal bastard would have to do.

Haverty was circling the huge cat, still in a mostly human form, but he wasn’t winning. The rest of the men were laying around the room like a dorm room full of tossed clothing from a wild night. Haverty’s perfect façade was worn, his hair was in all directions, and a trickle of blood ran from his mouth. His canines pressed down on his bottom lip and his nose was wider, darker.

I just stood there watching the beast hiss and crouch and take sweeps at Haverty, who, weaponless and limping, was still fighting. What the hell was I going to do?

“You gonna help or just stand there like a statue?” Haverty barked.

“Figured I’d let him eat you before I saved the day.”

The beast swooped his large paw at Haverty who jumped, spun, landed on his good leg, and hobbled over to me.

“Listen here, girl. This doesn’t get out.”

“The beast or the fact that your brilliant son let it loose?”

He looked like he wanted to kill me. And I knew he’d have his chance.

“Fine. What do we do?”

“Soft spot in the back of the head, where the spine meets the skull.”

That didn’t sound right. There was something itching in the back of my brain. But what did I know? Again, how many beasties from the other side had I kicked to the curb?

“You distract it; I’ll jump on top and kill it.”

I nodded. It was a plan. Not a good one, but with a plan, we could improvise from there.

Haverty walked behind me and began to circle around to my left.

I stretched my neck and reached my hands out. “Hey, kitty.”

The beast snapped its black eyes to me and hissed. Its teeth were the size of my hairbrush and the muscles around his massive shoulders rippled.

“That’s right, beastie. We don’t play well with others, do we?”

I slowly began to move to the right and with each step, not only did the beast follow me, but I gathered power. My body hummed with energy by the time we’d spun 45 degrees.

The beast grew tired with me and looked around to find the other play toy. Haverty was perched on top of a china cabinet. Note to self: cripple but still agile as hell.

I called out to the beast. “No you don’t.”

I can describe it. It was like a psychic smack. As with Jessa before, I was able to stretch out just the power of the panther and claw the beast’s nose. When I looked down at my hands, there was blood under my nails.

I’d gotten his attention and when I looked up at the beast, he was pissed. And then he pounced. I was able to scurry from the attack, the beast landing a hair’s length before me.

I ran and the beast followed. Ran like a woman chasing a marked down pair of Jimmy Choo’s.

I ran in a huge circle, leaping over desks, hurdling over tables. The beast destroyed everything behind me, not being lithe enough to duck anything. I tried not to laugh as I thought I really knew what a bull in a china shop might look like now.

I caught a flash of where Haverty was perched. As I ran, I picked up the heirloom silver knife that had stuck me like a prize pig and tossed it up to Haverty.

And then I stopped running and turned to face it. The beast stopped too.

I crouched down before it and caught his eyes. I got the distinct impression he was enjoying this. The chase, the game of cat and mouse, and I was small enough to be the mouse in this situation.

Shifting my weight from one foot to the other, I leaned forward on my hands and something cold touched my hand. A flash of silver. Out of my peripheral, I saw Haverty’s cane just within reach. I reached for it and the handle pulled away from the black polished piece of the cane and a dagger slid from the end of the handle. Sneaky bastard.

I looked up at the beast as I slowly picked up the dagger.

It growled at me and I felt the power hidden within the beast. Just as it was about to pounce and start the chase all over again, Haverty leapt. Landing on the beast’s shoulder, he rammed the knife into the base of the panther’s skull.

The cat screamed and reared up on its hind legs, exposing its chest.

The world seemed to slow for a moment and I realized Haverty was just going to piss it off. The center of power wasn’t in the brain, it was in the chest. Like Chaz’s lion heart.

As the beast reared up, my hold on the dagger tightened. I slid in and under the great paws and rammed the dagger into the beast’s chest, just under the breastbone and straight for the heart.

It fell forward on top of me, his claws ripping into me as it ground my shoulder blade into the cement beneath.

The beast flailed up again, bucking Haverty from his back. The man went flying, crashing into some unknown piece of furniture.

As the beast fell back down, I rolled away to a safe distance. It landed heavy on the ground next to me and the blood poured out of the relatively small wound place just in the exact spot. The dark eyes were going glassy and the beast moved its head to look at me.

I stood, holding my arm, and stepped closer to the body. Its breaths were few and far between. Moving in a little closer, I reached for the dagger from the wound and as my hand touched the silver, I felt the power within the great beast going dark. The knife came out with a sucking sound and the cat took its last breath.

As I watched the regal beast die, a gunshot echoed around the antique store. I dropped to the ground and turned around to see Haverty staggering backwards, inches away from me. Chaz emerged from the shadows, his gun still smoking.

Haverty held the wound in his palm as my silver heirloom knife dropped from his hand, the silver clattering loudly in the suddenly quiet showroom.

“All that and you try to stab me in the back?” I hissed as I stood and my grip on the dagger hardened. “No wonder your son was such a coward.”

Haverty’s eyes burned dark with power—and not just his power. It was the first time that I’d been eye to eye with the power of the Order. It was black and cold and seemed void of any life. Haverty’s energy flared out around him and he tried to smother me in it but I brushed it away like dust.

“You aren’t worthy of such power,” he hissed through intensified canines.

“I worked my ass off for such power.”

Haverty lunged towards me and another shot echoed from the barrel of Chaz’s gun. Haverty staggered back and a large red stain appeared on his shoulder.

I looked at Chaz whose face was hard and hate-filled. It wasn’t a good look for him.

“Don’t do this, Chaz. You won’t like yourself in the morning.”

He made a wide circle around Haverty and stood beside me. “Funny. Feels pretty damn good to me.”

Haverty fell to his knees. His shoulder bleeding, his hand held tightly to his chest. He looked defeated. But I knew better. He glared up at Chaz. “You’re that Guardian’s brat.”

“His name was Seth Garrett,” Chaz growled.

I would have put my hand on his shoulder but my arm hung limply at my side. Good thing I had another. And that one had a knife in it that could quickly kill a Haverty.

“I took him down like a rag doll, boy, and I’ll do the same to you.”

Chaz didn’t flinch as he pointed the barrel at Haverty’s torso and fired another round. I let him. This was therapy. But that’s all I allowed.

“Stop,” I said as I moved into Chaz’s arm.

“That’s right, rein in your little pet.”

“Oh, be quiet!” I snapped.

“What are you going to do about it?”

I walked up to him and looked down at his crumpled figure. He glared up at me, panting like a tired dog on a hot day. Sweat dripped down his face. Bruises formed on his cheek and his ash-flavored power lapped low but sharp around him.

“I’m going to live a long happy life and kick your ass every chance I get.”

“You are nothing.” Spittle flew out of his mouth as pain ripped deep wrinkles into his face. “I made you what you are.”

“Yeah. Thanks for ruining my life.”

“You are my blood. You are my daughter.”

“I am nothing like you.” I screamed. Pain filled my head and my eyes went dull for a moment.

There was a crash behind me and I looked to see Jessa push over the mirror with a small smile.

Chaz’s eyes didn’t leave Haverty and his gun still remained clenched in his hand. Then, Chaz flinched. And I knew what was happening before it happened. I turned, prepared for Haverty coming at me.

It was as if the knife jumped into his midsection. Haverty was inches away as the dagger slipped easily between his ribs. I swept his legs and he fell hard. I kept on top of him and drove the knife down so hard into his chest with both hands, the bit embedded in the concrete beneath him.

Panting, I kept the force down on the blade until I knew that he wasn’t getting up again. The movement ignited all my injuries, those known and unknown. I fell to my rear but didn’t take my hands off the knife.

Haverty didn’t cry out; he fought against the sizzling in his chest. He clumsily pushed at my hand, my arms, my face. He kicked and flopped like a dying fish. Burning flesh filled my nose.

“You little bitch,” he spat out blood that landed on my cheek.

I removed one hand to try to wipe my face only to find that I was covered in blood. Mine. The beast’s. And now his. “You did this to yourself.”

Haverty slowly stopped fighting. His arms went slack and his eyes went glassy. I could taste his blood in the air around us as it spilt out of the wound on his chest.

“Take it then. See if you do any better,” the man whispered and the light left him.

I looked over him and felt nothing. No victory, no satisfaction, no disgust. Just the knowledge that I had done something that needed to be done. And the day was over.

Slowly, I pried my hands off the silver handle. As I tried to rise, my legs went numb and failed me, sending me sprawling on the cement floor next to him. My skull made a dull thud against the floor and his head turned towards me as the last of his blood trickled out of his lips.

I panted hard, the pain digging into my shoulder. The room began to spin and I didn’t have the energy to lift my head. My eyelids grew heavy and finally closed, as I focused on just breathing.

Silver light filled the darkness behind my eye lids. And then I was warm and everything smelled of golden hay and I was in Iris’s barn. Chaz was lying across from me in a wide puddle of moonlight. This was a pain-induced vision, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to hold his hand and sleep because I was so tired.

Unfortunately, the sleep would have to wait as I was accosted by the sour cigar scent of Haverty. It hovered around me on the soft hay, gathering strength like a summer storm, becoming thick like humidity. The silver light around me became hot, searing. It pressed down on me like an iron as it seeped into my skin, burned my eyes, until every inch of me felt like the burnt end of a cigar.

I gasped and my eyes flew open. I sucked in deep breaths of the death and dust around me but I was breathing. Knives of pain jabbed upwards and inwards from my torso and then burning white heat flared in my muscles. It burned in my shoulder, in my side, in my head, sent spots into my vision as the power burned through me and then settled.

Chaz and Jessa hovered: Jessa watching me, Chaz watching Haverty’s cold body beside me.

I pushed myself up to a sitting position and looked over at the dead beast and then the dead man. The smell overwhelmed me and I grew nauseous. And this was a good day?

Slowly, testing every muscle, I pushed myself to my feet and swayed a bit. Chaz’s arm saved me from biting the cement. The muscles in my shoulder were mending, weaving themselves back together at a speed I knew was far from human, with energy from a place I wasn’t ready to think about yet.

“I know you can heal better the other way,” Chaz said softly as he led me to the door. “But you came in a convertible. Don’t think we can explain a panther in the backseat to the cops.”

With a painful chuckle, I held his hand tightly to my arm. Jessa rushed to my side, offering a hand to hold. And I did, squeezed it so tight I was pretty sure her fingers might fall off. She didn’t flinch or pull away, just squeezed back.

“Do we need to get you to a hospital?” Jessa asked.

“Nah. I’ll patch it up when we get home,” I managed, though talking and breathing hurt.

“Violet,” Chaz started softly.

“Please don’t start, Chaz. It’s been a rough day.” I said softly.

“You really are difficult.”

“Get used to it, Wonder boy.”

With super speed, Chaz swept me off my feet and held me close to him, my legs dangling over his arm and my head immediately resting on his shoulder.