Nine Lives of an Urban Panther (8 page)

“Actually, that's what I'm looking for.” I pointed to Lexie curled up in the back corner. She was definitely related to me. She had her bag on the floor and was reading a book the size of
War and Peace
.

I adjusted the charm at my throat and walked over to her. “Hello, Lexie.”

“Hey, Aunt Violet.” She pushed up her glasses and looked at me defeated. She curled her feet up and hugged her boney knees.

“You okay?” I slid down in the chair next to her.

She scratched an ancient scar on her knee and kept her eyes down. “I just needed fresh air. I couldn't be cooped up in the hotel room anymore.”

“And you didn't think you could call me?”

Lexie's eyes darted up to me. “What?”

“Didn't occur to you that you've got a pretty amazing aunt who would gladly help you escape your tower for a while, if you'd ask?”

Lexie's lips parted.

Honesty was the best policy, right? Maybe I needed to take a moment to teach this kid something if she was going to be in my life. And as I looked at her, a blend of Waylon and Aunt Glory and maybe a little of me, I knew that I wanted her to be in my life.

“I know about moving around. It wasn't until Dallas that I felt like I belonged anywhere.”

“Why'd you wander around the country?”

I wondered if she knew what she was asking, what words she was using to conjure the story. But I told her the truth anyhow. “I was searching because I was alone. And I found it.”

“What was it?”

“A family. I found people who loved me, despite my many flaws.”

“And you found love.” Lexie shifted in her seat and I saw the book that she was reading. I couldn't even imagine the idea of love and searching that the latest teen fad was filling her head with; it had done a number on me at her age.

“What?”

“You found Chaz. Do you think you were searching for him?”

I thought about the man waiting out in the car, giving me the space I needed while staying close enough to save me from myself. The man who needed to fight, but was staying still for me.

“I think so. And when I found him, I opened up for a lot of others.”

Lexie bit down on her lower lip. “Is Dad angry?”

“Yes. You have no idea just how scared he was when he called me.”

“He's going to yell at me when I get home.”

“He probably will.”

Lexie closed the book. “Guess you'd better take me home.”

“Not necessarily,” I said as I curled my feet up too, matching her little cat position. “If you don't want to go home, we can stay here. We can go to my house, whatever you need to do to feel better.”

Lexie thought about it for a while. While she was thinking, I ordered a hot chocolate for her and a double latté for me. Chaz walked in at some point and stayed over by the newspaper rack.

“Soccer. I miss soccer.”

“You want to go play soccer?”

“Can we?”

“I think I can arrange a pick-up game.”

“W
HO ARE ALL
these people?” Lexie asked as we walked across the soccer field. The lights were only going to be on for about ten more minutes at the park just around the corner from my house, but ten minutes might be all I needed.

“Remember when I said I'd found family. These are them. Tucker, Nash, Kandice, and Shadow.”

Lexie gave a small wave. “You have a dog?”

“He chose me, actually. I do not claim ownership.”

Shadow danced around her legs and Lexie cracked a smile as she reached down and scratched behind Shadow's ear. “Dad won't let us have a dog.”

Tucker and Nash chuckled softly and Tucker spun the ball in his hands. “So I thought we were playing soccer?”

Lexie smiled. “I get Aunt Violet.”

“Your loss,” I sighed as we put our stuff on the bench and walked out to the middle of the field.

Lexie played hard and she was good, like too good. Against a super fast guardian, a panther, and three dogs, she'd scored three goals before we even knew what was happening.

I pulled out of the game and Shadow took my place as I went to make the phone call.

“Vi? Please tell me you found her,” Waylon sounded tired, like worrying had zapped all his energy.

“We found her.”

“Oh, thank heavens. Where is she? I'll come get her.”

There were a million questions I wanted to ask him. Watching Lexie, there was something special about that kid as she completely schooled a field of men at soccer. And how did she know about the coffee shop?

“How about I keep her for the evening? I'll order pizza and we'll talk. Maybe she just needs a girl right now.”

I heard Waylon run his fingers through his hair. “Okay.”

“Relax, Waylon. Isn't this why you came to Dallas? So your daughter would know her family?”

He just sighed as a response.

“What did you guys fight about?”

“She doesn't understand there needs to be rules, needs to be order. Especially now when so much is up in the air.”

I frowned. That didn't sound right. But I wasn't going to argue with his philosophy of being. But I could be the aunt she ran to when she needed a little freedom from the rules.

The pops from the lights echoed across the now dark fields. The group walked over, already sweaty.

I wrapped up my conversation with Waylon. “Got to go. I'll return her tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Violet. You have no idea what this means to me.”

As I looked at my line of boys and thought about another one of them disappearing, I knew exactly what Waylon meant.

“You owe me one.” I hung up the phone and looked at the group and then caught a whiff of them on the wind. “God, you guys smell horrible.”

“Yep,” Chaz said as he sat down next to me and put his sweaty arm over my shoulder so I could get a clear whiff of his armpit.

“How about some ice cream and then back to my place?”

“I'm staying with you?” Lexie asked.

“For tonight, yeah. And then I need to take you home, okay?”

Lexie nodded as she grabbed her bag from the ground.

N
ASH SLEPT ON
the couch, Kandice was in the guest bedroom, Shadow was someplace, and Chaz had volunteered to sleep in my writing chair.

“You're a saint,” I whispered to him as he took some pillows off the bed.

“Yes, I am. And I'm taking care of
my
niece. Hey Lexie, pecans or cinnamon?” he asked.

“Cinnamon?” Lexie answered.

Chaz smiled back at me. “She really is a Jordan.” He gave me a quick kiss, just long enough to leave me with the feeling of his lips and his stubble before he left.

“You guys really going to get married?” Lexie asked.

“Does seem to be the plan.”

I pointed to the bed and Lexie hopped on and snuggled underneath the soft blankets. She was fighting sleep and I knew it.

I flipped off the lights and walked around to my side of the bed. We both snuggled in, facing each other, blankets up to our chins.

“How come you already feel like family, Aunt Violet?”

“What?”

“I've only known you like a weeks and you already feel like family.”

I shrugged. “Dunno, Lexie. But it's mutual. I think you're stuck with me.”

Lexie smiled. “Dad was mad, wasn't he?”

“No, actually. Just relieved. Dallas isn't the safest place on the planet.”

“You live here.”

Good point. Dallas was dangerous for her because of me, though, how did I say that in a way that wasn't going to bind my words around my feet and let her trip me up? Avoid it.

“What drew you to the coffee shop?”

Lexie pressed her lips together. “I dunno. It was just inviting. And when I got there, I knew it was safe. And the manager was really cute.”

I chuckled. She was right. He was pretty cute. “But you weren't afraid?”

“I was afraid until I got there.”

“Why?”

“Don't know. It was well lit. And it smelled good.”

“Smelled good?”

“I like the smell of coffee.”

I laughed. There really wasn't any doubt that this was mine. Something tingled down my spine, and then I smelled roses. “We have company.”

I jumped out of bed and opened the door just as Jessa was fumbling with a tray of hot chocolates and a cosmetic bag the size of my head.

“Are you having a sleepover without me?” she asked as she pushed through.

“Jessa, this is my niece Lexie. Lexie, this is my best friend Jessa.”

“I'm so happy to meet you,” Jessa squealed as she set the cosmetic bag on the bed and doled out the hot chocolates.

I closed the door behind her and took my hot chocolate.

“How did you find out?” I asked as I carefully sat back down on the bed.

Jessa waved it off with more alacrity than I'd ever seen her blow off something. “Never mind that. We have a young impressionable girl. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here, Vi.”

Lexie giggled.

“Toes and nails now.” Jessa slipped off her slippers and it was then I realized that she was already in a pair of satin pajamas.

 

Chapter Eight

L
EXIE FELL ASLEEP
somewhere around midnight. Her toes were now a vicious shade of hot pink that hurt my retinas to even look at and she had flowers on her fingers.

“How's she doing?” Jessa asked softly, sitting next to me on my window seat as we both watched her sleep.

“She's amazing,” I said. “And I think she wanders.”

“Oh.” Jessa's perfectly arched eyebrow arched. “Really?”

“I've yet to feel anything off of Waylon, but she found the coffee shop.”

“Seriously?” Goose bumps covered Jessa's arms. “Guess it's official.”

“What?”

“You've turned the place into a haven.”

“What's that?”

Jessa sighed. “Think of a church. It is holy because people believe that it is. You've made it into a safe space because you and all your power believe it is a safe spot.”

I sighed in echo to her sigh as I got the whole picture. “And just like Wanderers will come to me when they need help because I'm a Prima, they will go there if they need help.”

“Bingo.”

“Poor Bastian.”

I sighed as I leaned my head against the cool window. Poor Lexie.

There was a cool ripple that echoed out from Jessa, like she was the pond that the stone had been thrown in. “Crap,” Jessa hissed as she clutched her chest.

I would have laughed and said something to the effect that I really was wearing off on her and not the other way around, but the light in Jessa's now lavender eyes told me different.

“The Veil.”

I
T WAS A
flutter of pink and taffeta. She spun in the mirror and smoothed her hand over her hair, perfectly done at the salon earlier that day. She adjusted the charm at her neck, hidden in the sparkling necklace that lay perfectly at her throat. Everything was perfect.

When the doorbell rang, she jumped and spun around again before the full-length mirror. She briefly touched a picture of a woman on her dresser and flew downstairs to answer the door.

Her father beat her there. He stood in front of the door with one of her uncle's shot guns.

She frowned and put her hands on her hips. “Dad, Seriously? Don't you think that's a little overdramatic?”

He looked down at the shot gun and then at his daughter. “I think it adds the perfect dramatic touch.”

“You've met him. It's just prom. I know the rules and I know what happens if I miss curfew.”

“And I already know that you will miss curfew.”

She smiled up at her father. “You only know that I will miss curfew because you missed curfew on your prom night.”

Her father looked away for a moment and dropped the shot gun to his side. “You understand that I have to.”

“Tyrant.” She smiled as she walked up to him. “I will go to the dance. I will have a good time and I will not do anything stupid. I promise.”

“I know.” He sighed as he ran his fingers through his sandy brown hair.

She leaned up and kissed him lightly on the cheek, making sure that she didn't get any lip gloss on him. “It would have been more effective if you'd flipped the safety off,” she whispered in his ear.

She smiled and headed out for the perfect prom night.

J
ESSA PUNCHED ME
in the arm. “Wake up. We're here.”

“What? I'm awake,” I said as I sat up and looked around from the front of her BMW.

“Fifteen minutes in the car and you were out like a baby.”

“Having a hard time sleeping.”

“Bad dreams?” Jessa offered as she got out of the car.

I opened the door and threw my tired legs out onto the pavement. As I stood, it took the wind to tell me exactly where we were. “Are we at a hospital?”

“Sort of and you're avoiding the question,” Jessa said as she grabbed a Coach messenger bag from the back of her car. Survival in style. “Are you having dreams about
him
again?”

“No. I'm having a hard time getting sleep.” I followed Jessa into the alleyway behind the huge red Dumpsters that read
BIO-HAZARD
. I held my hand over my nose as the smell of clotted blood surrounded us.

“Like you need some chamomile to relax?” Jessa asked, her hands pinching her nose together.

“No. Like everyone else needs to calm down so I can get some sleep.”

Jessa just shrugged. “You're the Prima. This is the life you chose.”

I really didn't expect to get any sympathy from Jessa. She wasn't the sympathy friend. She was the let's-kick-ass-and-look-fabulous-doing-it friend.

I shook my head. Technically, I think it was the life that chose me, but right now wasn't the time to argue because as we turned the corner, I knew exactly what had drawn us out that night.

I reached for the charm around my neck and slipped it off. As the spell dissipated, the chilling breeze from the open Veil fluttered all around me, like torn bits of gauze tickling at my skin. “I think we are getting stronger.”

“I'm getting stronger,” she corrected. “You're just playing catch-up.”

“And you're getting catty,” I joked as I followed her to a random spot on a wall. I didn't need to see the rip in the ether to know it was there. I reached out and it twisted between my fingers like organza with a soul.

“Come on, wonder girl, let's get this fixed up.” Jessa found a crate in the alley and pulled it up to the wall so she could reach the edges easier.

“Does it need blood this time?”

Jessa looked around the wall and ran her hand across the empty space. “Let's just try it the old-fashioned way.”

As both of us leaned up to begin to weave the tear back together, tying the loose ends and bonding them with little bits of magic, like trying to rework holes in pizza dough, I caught a scent of something rotting. I almost thought it was the
BIO-HAZARD
bin until it got more intense.

“I think it's time to change deodorants,” I joked before a large bloody hand clamped onto my shoulder.

Seven months of Jeet Kune Do kicked in, and I grabbed the wrist and ducked back and to the right. I twisted the arm of the foul-smelling man and nearly threw up from the stench. From behind, I saw rotten flesh down his neck and the chunks of scalp exposed. He smelled like that wondrous combination of old cat urine and the meat you left in Tupperware before you went on vacation. Only it was right up my super sensitive nose.

Even the wrist locked within my fingers seemed to writhe and I looked down to see the macerated skin tear away from his muscles with twist of his wrist.

I dropped him fast and pushed him forward. He slammed into the brick wall just to the side of the Veil.

“What the hell is that?” Jessa shrieked as she scurried closer to me.

The thing's skin still hung between my fingers. I shook the flesh from my hand and wiped the blood off on my jeans.

“Zombie?” I offered.

As it turned back around, a slow lumbering turn, it did share three common characteristics with the modern-day zombie myth. It stunk like rotting meat because it was rotting. The dull cataract eye lolled in our direction as it started back toward us.

The second characteristic was that it was slow. It didn't move, it lumbered. It was nothing compared to my shifter reflexes. It didn't seem super strong, just persistent, which led to the third characteristic of the zombies movies I knew and loved so well.

It was coming at me teeth first, like it wanted to take a chunk out of me.

“Are you serious?” I asked the universe, not really wanting a response, just wanting it to know that I, Miss Horror Movie Writer, thought it was being ridiculous with this one.

I dodged another attack and kicked him against the wall again.

“Careful of the Veil,” Jessa chided.

“Why don't you keep fixing it and I'll . . .” I trailed off. How did you kill zombies? “Bash his head in?”

“Sounds like a plan, but point the blood spatter away from me?”

I shook my head as the thing recovered. Jessa. Less about the details, all about the looks.

Just as I was looking for something to kill this thing with, another caught me around the waist and threw me to the ground like a sacked quarterback.

As I was wriggling away from its arms, I clawed at its face and brought an eyeball impaled on a talon.

“Awwgh,” I cried out. I shook my hand and flung the eyeball off into the night.

Drawing on my power, I threw the thing off of me and looked around. There were five now, one of me, one Jessa. How'd these guys get the drop on us?

I reached my power out around them to find their magic. Mine was a golden center of life and light. These were dark, like a black fire that burned within their chests that needed to be fed constantly before the light went out.

“I think they are ghouls,” I said to Jessa.

“I think they need to be dead,” she snapped back as she looked over her shoulder and wove the Veil as fast as her little hands could.

I looked around for a weapon. I was pretty sure I could kick their heads in, but these were new shoes and I didn't want to get ghoul blood on my new sneakers.

Where was Chaz when you needed a good shot gun? Oh, right. Taking care of my niece because he is the most amazing man on the whole planet.

Guess this one was all me.

I lunged at the first one. I would have said it caught him off guard if he even had a guard. He stumbled back and I landed on top of him. I grabbed his head and rammed it into the pavement, harder than I actually wanted to. I felt the crack of the skull in my palm, like crushing a fortune cookie.

Dark black ooze drained out of his cranial cavity and I jumped up quickly and wiped my hands on my jeans. I needed to remember to bring wet wipes with me. Add that to the survival in style bag.

Another one was close. I stomped on his foot and rammed my palm into his chest. His ribs cracked under my palm as he flew backward and his ankle snapped when I didn't let up on his foot. He went down, another head against the pavement.

It didn't get up.

The other two went down with relative ease, which would have begged the question why don't bad guys attack all at once, but that would have given these guys both a motive and cognitive thinking, which I really wasn't ready to bestow upon this particular band of misfits.

Until the last one looked me in the eyes.

He was either younger or older, but he was different. He wasn't as fragile as the other ones and nearly had all the skin left on his face, though part of his cheek did hang down. His suit was ragged, with brown fluid down the front.

His eyes were still juicy enough to burn darkly with the hunger that raged beneath them. If I was a gambling woman, I would have said this was their leader.

But you know me, I don't play games and I certainly don't gamble.

He rushed at me, but then quickly turned toward Jessa. I dashed for him and tackled him to the ground.

Which, once he'd pinned me, I knew was where he wanted me in the first place. He was stronger than the others, and even with my super strength, he was able to hold me down.

“Prima,” it hissed, only it didn't have the suppleness to the lips to actually make out the P and the M sounds, so it came out like “Reena.”

“You really should just give up now,” I said as I stopped fighting and started looking for weapons within arm's reach and a way to get out of this situation.

As this thing, this once-man, looked down at me, I got the feeling it needed me. His friends were just out for a midnight snack: I was used to that scenario. But there was a look in his eyes, a pinch in his voice that told me he didn't want to hurt me.

Just as I was about to say something, the brave and daring fairy princess I call my best friend decided to come to my rescue with pepper spray, barely legal pepper spray.

“Eat this,” she prefaced before she shot a long and close burst of pepper spray into his face.

Now, if I wasn't a werepanther and was just a girl, the spray that sent my attacker running out into the night with a scream that literally curdled my blood would have landed all over me, sending me into an eyelid-boiling, skin-bubbling, rage-inducing fit as I tried to wipe myself clean of the pepper oil.

But I am a werepanther and I have super senses. So take that, and multiply it times ten.

I screamed as the pepper burned my eyes, which only caused me to inhale a mouthful of it. The pepper burned down my throat like I'd swallowed Chernobyl.

I rolled to my side and kept my eyes closed and tried not to touch my face. The little Chaz had mentioned to me about the matching pepper sprays he'd given to me and Jessa was Don't touch your face if you accidentally get sprayed. It's oil and it spreads fast like oil.

However, he neglected to mention that if you got sprayed with it, it would feel like a million bee stings all over your body at once and you'd want to scratch out your eyeballs.

Somewhere above my own crying and the raging forest fire on my face, I heard Jessa's mantra, “Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God,” and there was a bottle of water splashed on my face.

“No water,” I choked out. “Milk.”

I don't know how she got me to my feet but we were moving. I couldn't suck in enough air to curse her to high heavens. I couldn't open my eyes to aim my foot at her butt. I could only stumble blindly in the direction she pulled me.

There were bright lights. The hospital? Had she taken me inside the hospital?

Someone who wasn't Jessa sat me down and I batted a hand away when they tried to touch my face. I cracked a puffy eyelid and only saw tiled floor and a blue uniform.

“Here,” Jessa said as her rainwater energy pattered around me.