Nine Lives of an Urban Panther (25 page)

My eyes focused on Spencer for one moment and the panther was gone from my side, taking with her the warm scent of wet earth.

“This is my fight,” I repeated to myself. Even though he wasn't a threat to my pack on the other side of the Veil, he was still a threat. Jovan, the Biggers, they backed away. They knew that the two of us weren't right, the boy who eats souls and the panther masquerading as a girl.

Maybe I belonged in the Neveranth with all the other monsters who had gotten too big for their britches. Mystical realm built to house powerful Wanderers or not, there was only room for one of us on either side of the Veil.

“What kind of deal did you make?” Spencer's voice echoed across the grass, carried by the wind. He ran his fingers through his hair and wiped his bloody nose on what was left of his sleeve.

“No deal. Just the truth.”

“Biggers eat half-breeds like you.”

“Not if they don't know what the other half is.”

A smile passed over his lips. He'd used that same line against the Biggers just months before.

“I had no clue how special you were going to be, Violet. You were just supposed to be a midnight snack.”

“So you really didn't know about the prophecies or our connection or any of it?”

Spencer shook his head. “I was just hungry.”

I stretched my neck, rolled my shoulders, and slipped the knife from my belt. “Guess we've both grown up a little since then.”

“Says the drunk girl in the alley.”

“Says the reckless playboy.”

He threw a cloud of power out at me, but I quickly darted around it. I wasn't stopping this time. Not until the pointy end of this knife was embedded in his chest. But I'd take his abdomen or eye socket as well.

I ran past him and took a broad swipe with my claws down his injured arm. He wasn't as fast as me, he was vulnerable to the panther and he hadn't been tossed around by a Jeet Kune Do sensei for the past eight months. I knew exactly how many hits I could take; he didn't.

I circled around his back and stopped. I knew I could beat him on the ground. It was just a matter of getting him on his back.

He had to spin around to face me again, and when he did, I ran toward him.

We swapped hits to the face and fists to the torso. I kept at him, hoping that between the power plays he'd been making all night and the sheer violence, he would be worn out. Lord knows I was feeling the strain down my back, in the tension down my legs.

After one particularly rough exchange, I skidded back, my bare feet ripping up grass as I stopped. I looked down at the simple knife still clutched in my hand, my bloody knuckles, and my ruined blue jeans.

My gaze darted up to him to find him panting, bleeding, and not looking anything like the boy that ran away through the mirror. He tore off what was left of the white business shirt, exposing the scratches down his chest and his purple shoulder.

I knew what I needed to do; I could see it in my head. I'd done it a million times in the dojo. I just needed him down. “Just fall down already,” I whispered, thinking that if I used the words and pushed at them with my will, he would just magically fall down.

He didn't. There is a downside to fighting something that always lands on its feet.

With a deep breath, I launched at him again, slicing the knife upward. He leaned back.

And then he fell.

I was coming after him so fast that I too tripped over the root arched up out of the ground. The root that neither of us had tripped over so far in the fight.

I landed on top of him and rolled over his head.

He was down. And I had about a fourth of a second before he was back up. I stabbed the knife into the ground by his head and jumped on his chest.

His hand immediately went for my face. I slammed his wrist against the ground and ground my knee into his hip to keep him pinned. I wound my arm through his and got him into the most perfect figure four. I pulled his arm up and his knuckles drug across the ground.

His back arched and he cried out. With a sharp twist of my torso, I pulled his shoulder out of its socket. The pop echoed through the empty field.

I released his arm and it fell to the ground limp.

Something else snapped within him, the civil part, whatever was left of the human part and I was faced with what a demon really looked like. Wild, raw, and with a single-mindedness that was aimed at my throat.

His blue eyes turned black and his good arm shot out at my throat. I caught it easily but he still managed to flip my entire body over like a full-body arm-wrestling match.

I wrapped my long legs around his waist and squeezed. Arching my back, I was able to keep his one good arm from strangling me, bracing my shoulders against the ground.

I let my claws slide out through my hand and brought them down quickly across his face.

He caught my hand with his and pinned it above my head, grinding my bones into the dirt. His wild eyes focused in on me and his teeth grew sharper. I felt the dark power squirm within him, begging to just take one more soul.

He wouldn't get the chance. The sun caught the edge of the silver blade.

My right arm darted out to where I'd tucked the knife into the ground. I tore it from the earth and rammed the blade into his side, slipping it between his ribs and up to the hilt.

He screamed out above me and reared up, letting go of my arm. I dropped my legs from around his waist and scurried back.

Panting, I got to my knees and watched as he tried to grab at the blade, the silver sizzling away at his skin.

He fell to his back and gasped for breath. Burning began to grow in my own chest as I crawled over to him, the exhaustion of the battle finally settling into my bones as I saw the end.

I reached out and pulled out the knife. Blood poured out into the grass, staining the ground beneath him. I couldn't help but think of how Iris talked about giving it back to the earth.

Spencer gasped for air as he lay back on the ground. The darkness faded from his eyes and his blue came back.

“We knew there was only one ending to this story,” I said softly.

His eyes darted toward me.

“The good guys win.”

“You're not the good guy,” he whispered. “Not anymore. Not after this.”

“Maybe not. But I'm the one who's still breathing.”

With one final push of energy, I drove the knife into his chest, through his heart and felt it embed into the ground beneath him. There was a symmetry in it that all endings needed.

Spencer gasped, blood trickling out of his mouth. His blue eyes landed on me. His hand clasped around mine on the hilt of the blade.

I took his injured arm and brought our hands to his chest and waited.

The field was too quiet. His last breaths, too loud.

“The Haverty line doesn't end. If that matters to the human part of you left. The empire your father made is still the most powerful in the Wandering world. I intended to make it the strongest. And my pack will continue on with that.”

There was one more fluttering look in his navy blue eyes before his breathing stopped and his head lolled to one side. I reached over and closed his eyes.

That's when our connection snapped. The thick steel line that held us together for eight months, that criss-crossed our energies, our brains, broke. The force of it sent me flying across the field.

I landed softly on the ground, as if it caught my broken body. It was done.

My muscles gave up and I just looked up at the clear blue sky. The grass created a pillow under my head. The sun covered me like a warm blanket over my aching body. Sleep came swiftly.

 

Chapter Twenty-Four

H
AY.
I
SMELLED
golden hay. I forced my eyes open and saw dust dancing through golden light as it streamed through the familiar slats in Iris's barn, as it filtered between the bars of the cage where I'd first shifted, where Chaz had seen my panther and loved me anyway.

I pushed myself up and looked down at my shirt, my knuckles. No blood, no bruises. Just a white T-shirt smelling slightly of starch, and jeans, unstained by the mud I'd just been dragged through.

“Why a barn?” the voice echoed through the familiar space with an equally familiar tone.

Heaven. Was this heaven? Was Iris was meeting me in heaven? Someone had surely gotten the paperwork wrong.

I walked out of my cage, and the door moved silently on its hinges. In fact, everything was silent. No squeaky gate, no cooing birds in the hay loft, no rustle of a breeze through the rafters. It had been cleaned out of its usual broken-down farm equipment and the open space looked like a checkerboard of light.

There was a woman standing in the middle of the open floor of the barn. Her dark hair floated in a breeze I couldn't feel, but I could smell. She smelled like honeysuckle, strong sweet honeysuckle.

“Why did you choose a barn?” she asked again.

“For what? For heaven?” I'd never been a believer before, but this wasn't the Neveranth. It felt different beneath my bare feet. And it was hardly Dallas. There was a completely different feel in the energy of the place, a deep, more thrumming sort of power.

“For your safe place. For most people it's their childhood homes or fluffy clouds.”

The woman's sea green eyes landed on mine and I couldn't help but smile. “It's a long story. Where am I?”

The woman matched my smile. Her face was so familiar, but I couldn't place it, like my memories were far away.

“We are in between all that,” she said softly.

I wanted to hug her and my arms seemed to ache for it, but I didn't know why. “In between life and death?”

“In between even that,” she repeated.

“Well, we can't be in my brain. It's not this neat.”

The woman laughed and it sounded like a wind chimes, twinkling and light. “You are too funny, Violet Jordan.”

My name sounded oddly formal on her lips.

Her shoulders dropped and so did her smile. “You'll need to keep that humor.”

I looked around the quiet barn. It was so peaceful here and I didn't hurt and there was something about this woman that was just so very something I couldn't remember.

“And you'll need to go back.”

“Are you sure about that? I'm not doing a great job of it.”

“No.” She chuckled. “But the job is getting done.”

She moved toward me and I didn't hear the rustle of her long skirt along the ground or the press of her foot against the hay.

“You've done exactly what needed to be done, Violet. And I wish that you could rest here, but you can't.”

Her long pale fingers reached out past me and pointed to the cage that I had come from.

A dark shadow loomed, trapped behind the bars. The man-sized beast was a tarry mess of teeth and fur and it burned to just look at the void of its existence.

“What is that?”

“The power that he collected. The tortured souls of those he killed.”

My stomach churned. “This is what a demon looks like?”

“Demon power, yes.”

I had to look away and soothed my eyes on her curly hair and her smooth, milky skin. Her pale green eyes were at my level and her rosy lips were pressed together.

When she touched my cheek, I knew this was more than just a dream. This was more than just a vision or a concussion. This was when I felt the in-between, felt the pull in both directions and felt what she really was.

“You're the Mother,” I breathed.

She simply smiled. “I've been called worse.”

“The all-seeing, all-knowing being who created the Wanderers knows who I am.”

“And has one last thing she's going to ask of you.”

I took in a deep breath of air. Was it even air? It was whatever she wanted it to be.

“There was a prophecy about you.”

I nodded. “I would stop the demon from destroying the world. Done. Finito. Covered that chapter last December.”

“There was another.”

I knew it, like she'd brought it back to the forefront of my brain. It echoed in Cristina's smooth voice. “The demon will be freed and we will know and love her.”

The woman nodded.

I put the pieces together quickly. “You want me to take that power and go back to Dallas.”

“Yes.”

I panicked. My heart jumped up in my chest and I couldn't breathe. “I can't harness that. A Legacy, sure. Dealt with that but not a demon. It will kill my panther like it killed Spencer's.”

“It's just the power,” she repeated.

“It's not, it's all the souls of the people Spencer . . .” The wave of my own words came flooding back to me. I bent over, my hands on my knees and took in a deep breath.
It's not the power; it's how you use it. It's not how you live on four legs but on two.

“I know you are strong enough to do this, Vi.”

“How?”

“Because I made you this strong.”

I stood up straight for that one. “If you're responsible for all the crap I've been through, I think you and I need to have a conversation.”

“I think I'll pass. I saw the conversation with Yasmina last winter.”

I took in another deep breath of honeysuckle. I could taste it on my tongue, the sweet thick scent that reminded me of something.

“How does it work?”

She looked down at her long fingers as they rubbed together. “I know what I need, but the choice is up to you because the task is up to you.”

“Why can't it just stay here?”

“Because when you are gone, this place is gone and it will find another, weaker, to host it and continue on its way. Creating unbalance.”

“And unbalance equals chaos.” Finally one of Jessa's lessons had sunk in.

I couldn't have that. Too many innocents had already suffered because of my weakness. “So I have to take carry-on luggage when I go back?”

“And because of the Key Holder, the window for your choice is getting smaller.”

“Jessa?”

“She's coming for you.” The woman looked off into the sunlight. “And she is very powerful.”

I smiled. “You should see her when she's shopping.”

The Mother smiled.

“I'm open for suggestions on how do to this?”

“You take it back with you, keep it prisoner. You already know how to harness a power that isn't yours. Just protect it. It is our people, Violet.”

“That's a lot to ask.”

“It's you or an innocent. It will keep feeding until it doesn't need a host. Until the Neveranth can't hold it anymore.”

I looked at the spiky mess as it hovered in the cage.

“You have your pack to keep you strong. You've got Chaz and Jessa to keep you, Violet. You've got a good shot at doing something that no one else has done.”

“What's that?”

“Reforming a demon.”

I shook my head. “I still think you've got the wrong girl.”

“You've always been the right girl, Violet.”

I looked back at the beast and then at the woman. “This thing kills even more of our kind if I don't do this.” I felt the chill of raindrops down my back. “Jessa.” The silly girl was coming for me.

The woman's light green eyes sparkled silver with anticipation.

“Fine. But if you could make the next couple of months a little easier, me and MacTarball here would appreciate it.”

The woman nodded.

I looked at the raging power and walked toward it. I really wasn't the smartest color in the box, cleaning up another mess that Spencer had left for me.

As I reached out my hand to touch it, I saw the perfect sparkling ring on my finger. Chaz. The boys. Jessa. They'd helped me clean up the first mess and I knew that I could count on them to help me again. Because they were my family.

I reached into the dark, slick mass and the hot sinews wrapped around my arms. The Legacy met it with a hot fierceness as I looked over my shoulder at the woman standing there, wearing the same green dress with the white flowers that I had seen all those years ago.

“I have faith in you, kitten.”

Tears in my eyes, I turned toward the demon power and was swallowed into the blackness.

“D
AMN IT,
V
IOLET.
If you don't wake up I'll torch your copy of
Firefly
signed by the whole cast.” Jessa's shrill voice echoed through my throbbing head.

“You do that, and I'll haunt your ass forever.”

Arms encircled my neck and I was pulled up to a sitting position.

And the pain in my everything was back. My eyes flew open and I saw everyone. Chaz, Tucker, Tyler, Nash. It was like waking up from Oz. But right now I felt more like the witch smashed under a house.

“Finally.” Jessa sighed as she released my neck.

I looked up at Chaz. In one glance, he knew that something was off. He offered a hand that wasn't occupied by a very large shot gun. I carefully took his hand and he pulled me to my feet roughly.

Chaz held me against him for a moment and I closed my eyes. He was different. Hotter, his power was out, for a change, out and swirling around him. He read the questions in my eyes because he knew every thought already in there. “What is it?” he whispered into my ear.

“Cristina was right,” I whispered.

The moment I stepped away from him, I could feel the demon squirming around in there, like a hyperactive octopus undulating just below my breastbone.

“What the hell was that?” Jessa asked.

“Did someone have sushi for lunch?” Nash asked as he held his chest.

“Not exactly.”

I looked at my family and didn't even think about lying to them. “Spencer's Legacy was a demon. The Mother asked me to take it.”

“You're a demon?” Jessa gasped.

“Just like Cristina said,” Tyler growled.

“And the Mother spoke to you?” Tucker asked.

“Apparently, I've got one more prophecy to live out. And I'm not a demon, just a host of demonic power.” There was a hum in the ground, like it was urging us forward. “I think we need to go.”

“The phrase ‘high-tailing it' never seemed so appropriate,” Jessa said.

I looked around at the others. Tucker looked down at Spencer's body. His usually tan skin had gone white in the failing light of day and there was a blue tinge to his lips.

Tucker looked up at me and then down at the body. With one quick movement, he lifted the dead body and carried it easily in his arms.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I need to make sure that he's really dead. For good dead.”

“You need proof?”

“Yes, and the others will follow with proof.”

I wanted to protest but I needed peace. I felt it more than ever burning beneath my breastbone. I needed no one to doubt me. “I trust you, Tucker.”

“I would hope so. Now do what Jessa says.”

W
HEN
J
ESSA PULLED
me through, the demon power did a clog dance in my chest, excited for the opportunities on this side of the Veil. I fell to my knees and bathed in the pitter-patter of Jessa's energy around me as she struggled with closing the Veil.

I looked down at the cement beneath my hands and it took me a moment to realize where we were. “Is this your office?”

“Good thing I totally ignored your mandate to brick this place up.”

I could feel the rest of my pack around me and realized how much of their strength I'd missed while disconnected from them. It felt like home again. I felt closer to me already.

With every ounce of energy I had left, I built a hard shell around the power in my chest. It was nothing more than the candy coating for it, but I felt better.

“Violet.” Chaz knelt down beside me. “What do you need?”

“Time. Strength. A caramel macchiato.”

Chaz waved his hand, and then there were warm hands on my shoulder. Nash, and then Peter, and when Tyler's hand appeared before me, I took it and pulled myself to my feet.

His hand tightened around mine and I met him with my gaze and my power. With all the focus on the demon ball, my Legacy got free reign to wave around as it wanted.

Tyler pushed back. Testing me like he tested the younger members, making sure I was still me.

I smiled. “I'm okay. Tyler. Just stay close.”

There was a surge of roses in the room. I turned around to find the tear in the Veil still open. Carefully, not sure of my footing or anything else, I joined Jessa. “Problem?”

“You know,” she said as she wove her fingers through the air. “I really didn't think this through.”

“When did our plans ever go right anyway?”

I touched her shoulder and I don't know if it was the demon or the bond, but I could see the rip in the Veil. Could feel it against my skin as I stood with my best friend, the Key Holder to my Guardian.

“I'm not strong enough,” Jessa confessed in a whisper. “This isn't going to work this time. It's been ripped too many times.”

“You shouldn't have opened it.”

“And leave you there to rot? Never.” It was possibly the first time I'd ever heard Jessa growl. She officially had been hanging out with me too long.

Time to put the thinking caps on. “What can we do?”

“Always seemed to like blood before.”

I offered up my already bleeding hand and the Veil lapped at my palm, like a cat licking a wound. But then it wrapped around my arm and began to pull me back.

The Legacy and the demon fought and I felt like I'd been splattered out like a paintball on a concrete wall, all my colors going in a million directions. The Legacy pulled away from it while the demon power fought to dive back in.