Nothing was out there, nothing he could see, nothing he could hear, yet he felt threatened. Stalked. Nervously he stepped off the porch, thankful the owners were away for a few days. It had been easy enough to find out that the couple was taking a vacation. This property was the perfect vantage point to keep an eye on the Wentworth home. He paced back and forth. Never once did he see the cat approaching him, its body low to the ground, creeping forward inch by inch. Silent. Deadly. Dilated eyes boring into its prey. Never once did the man suspect that an enemy far more powerful than he was only a scant few feet from him. When the attack came, it was fast and explosive. The animal was on him, its strength enormous, its claws grabbing and piercing his vulnerable throat in total silence.
The leopard leapt onto the roof of the house, taking the carcass with it. It cached its prey between a dormer and the sharp slant of the A-frame. Dayan had to wrestle with the instincts of the big cat, hungry for its prize. It had been harder and harder to defeat the darkness growing and spreading within him, yet now with Corinne in his life, making him complete, he was strong again. He had someone to live for, someone to love. Someone to make it all worthwhile. Dayan breathed deeply and directed the leopard back toward the street.
The jungle cat leapt easily to the ground, moving swiftly through the thick fog up the street toward the Wentworth residence. A man waited in Corinne’s backyard for her to come home. He had a gun and a knife, and orders to bring her back to a laboratory or kill her. The cat could smell the man even through the thick fog. A second man was huddled in her doorway, with the same orders and the same determination. They were very alert, afraid even. Two of their friends had disappeared without a trace. The society wanted answers fast. The Wentworth women were going to provide them.
The leopard moved with the same calm confidence, the same silence as when it had begun to stalk its prey. The wrought-iron gate was cleared with one easy leap, and the animal landed softly on cushioned paws. The fog was moving now, small eddies at first, becoming a thick, swirling pudding with a life of its own. It brushed against the legs of the man in the yard. The man glanced wildly around, looking for something alive that might have touched him.
With an oath he paced from one side of the lawn to the other, peering down toward his feet. The fog moved again like a giant snake, wrapping loose coils around him from his feet upward. He was moving toward the house when he noticed the unusual phenomenon. With a pounding heart, he pushed at the vapor, and his hand traveled right through it. His relief was tremendous. “Mike?” He called out to his partner, suddenly wanting to get out of the oppressive fog. It was so thick, he felt as if he couldn’t adequately breathe.
Mike, inside the doorway, heard the muffled call and turned, trying to see through the thick mist. “Drake?” He thought he saw a tall, pale figure moving in the fog, but it was vague and shadowy and not at all of the same build as his partner. Squinting, he leaned closer into the thick, soupy stuff, certain now there was more than one figure moving. He brought up his gun, trying to center on the amorphous, almost transparent shapes.
It was an animal, not a person, he decided, lowering the weapon. He was listening, but the strange fog cushioned the sounds so it seemed he was locked away from the rest of the world. Definitely not human, the shapes inside the white veil took on the forms of large cats. As he stared at them, nonplussed by the strange phenomenon, the cats seemed to turn to stare back, fixing glowing eyes on him. Red eyes. Eyes that flamed and seemed eerie and threatening in the midst of the fog. To reassure himself, Mike took a firmer grip on the handle of his gun even as he took a step backward to flatten his body against the wall, making himself as small as possible.
If it was an illusion, why was a cat moving forward, emerging out of the fog, staring intently, ferociously, at him? Its ropes of heavy muscle rippled like fluid beneath its mottled fur; its head was down, yet it never took its eyes off its prey. Mike tried to bring up the gun, his finger working at the trigger over and over in a desperate attempt to kill the thing, but his hand seemed paralyzed. The gun must have jammed. Nothing worked right.
He was still staring intently into the flame-red eyes when something hit him hard in the chest and he coughed once. It was the last sound he ever made. The leopard was so strong that when it attacked it crushed the man’s chest even as its razor-sharp claws pierced his throat for the kill. The leopard dragged the body of the man out from the doorway and into the yard toward the other human.
Drake was fighting his way through the terrible bands of fog toward where he believed Mike was waiting. Coils of the stuff seemed to wrap around him as if he were a mummy. He thought he could feel the coils brushing here and there against his body, yet when he tried to shove them away, his hands went completely through the mist. It was a frightening feeling. He felt claustrophobic in the soupy stuff, and he hated the insidious whispers coming from inside the fog.
“Mike?” he found himself whispering, moving his feet carefully, cautiously, feeling his way through the grass. He was searching for the brickwork signaling he was close to the house. The toe of his boot hit something solid. It didn’t feel like brick. Gingerly he felt around the object with his foot. A sick feeling began in the pit of his stomach. “Mike?” he whispered again as he bent down to feel with his hand.
Breath exploded from his lungs. It was Mike. Drake gasped aloud, swinging this way and that, his gun in his hand, his eyes wild as he searched for the enemy. With his free hand he explored the body, looking for a pulse. His palm landed in thick fur. He inhaled sharply, his hand moving of its own accord over the shape of a skull. The whiskers, the open mouth with sharp canines. Drake tried to scream, but the cat had already launched itself, burying its teeth deep in his unprotected throat before he could get off a warning. A sound gurgled deep, then died away.
Dayan shape-shifted immediately, catching the man in his arms, placing the gun in his waistband as he collected the second body. He took two running leaps with the men slung over his shoulders. Their weight was nothing to him as he soared through the sky under cover of the thick fog. He took a moment to snag the third body from the rooftop and once again headed for the forest miles out of the city.
It took minutes to dispose of the bodies the same way he had the other two. He incinerated them with a lightning bolt before burying them deep and strewing vegetation over the site so that it seemed undisturbed. The guns were buried deep in the earth with the ashes. Then Dayan returned to Corinne, dropping silently out of the fog beside the car.
Chapter 7
I am here with you, honey.
Dayan made the calm announcement before he touched the door handle of the car, afraid of startling her. He was a shadow in her mind, knew she was already afraid, and worried about his safety. The fog was oppressive to her. He could feel how uncomfortable she was, sensed that the baby was kicking strongly, but her heart and lungs were laboring. He sent the warmth of his love into her mind, strong and intense, his reassurance that he was in good health.
Corinne reached for the door even as he opened it. At once she flung herself into his arms, uncaring what he might think. “I was so worried about you.”
He held her tight, savoring the feel of her fragile body against his. “Breathe, honey. You scare me to death when your heart tries to work so hard. I was never in any danger. Never. I told you that. You need to listen to me when I say important things.” He buried his mouth against her soft neck, inhaling her fragrance, breathing evenly, willing her lungs to follow the steady pattern of his.