The room was large and filled with windows, but the light seeping in was yellow and dusky. There were plenty of shadows for a cat to hide in.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. I twisted around and sighted, the whine of the laser cutting through the silence as my finger pressed against it. I released it when I saw that it was something small and furry with a very long tail.
Not a cat. More likely a rat.
I blew out a breath and continued on, keeping to walls and running low. Kade was on the other side, keeping pace with me simply because I wasn’t moving at vampire speed. The whine of his laser was a sharp echo of mine.
Again, something moved in the shadow. I swung the laser around, but it was only another rat, scampering along the wall.
Which was odd. We weren’t anywhere near the rats to scare them, so if they were running from the cat, why couldn’t we damn well see her?
Even under infrared, there was no sign of life other than the rats.
Then it hit me.
The bakeneko could change sizes. Why wouldn’t she be able to go smaller than a tabby as well as larger?
I stopped and swung round.
Saw something big and black emerging out of the shadows where the rat had just been.
“Kade! Behind you!”
I fired the laser even as I screamed the warning, but the bakeneko was moving way too fast. She’d consumed a lot of souls, and now she was faster than anything I’d ever seen before.
It didn’t matter. I kept hitting the trigger.
And kept missing.
Kade twisted around and fired blindly. The shot scoured the creature’s side and she screamed—a high sound of fury that made my ears ache.
Then she was on him, her sheer weight and speed flinging them both backward, until all I could see was a fighting ball of black and brown.
I swore and raced across the room. They were still rolling, tumbling, across the filthy concrete floor, but Kade had somehow managed to get his hands around the creature’s neck. The corded muscles in his arms were evidence enough of the strength he was using to try to strangle her, but he seemed to be achieving little more than holding her wickedly sharp teeth away from his throat. And all the while, her claws were ripping at him everywhere else.
I couldn’t risk a shot. Like before, I could kill Kade as easily as I could kill the bakeneko. So I reached out and grabbed her tail instead.
“Hey, bitch, try tackling someone in your own species group for a change.”
I hauled back as hard as I could, and ripped her away from Kade. But she came away fighting, twisting around and slashing with her claws. I ducked the blows and flung her sideways with all my might. Then I fired the laser.
This time, I hit the bitch.
The bright beam scoured another trench down her side then flung itself toward a rear leg, slicing through flesh and sinew. The burnt smell of fur and skin tainted the air, but even as I pressed the trigger to fire again, the bakeneko was on the move, her speed seemingly un-hampered by the wound.
Kade, bleeding from a dozen different wounds, scrambled to his feet and ran to the left. He swooped up his laser and pressed the trigger, but with the creature running at full speed, neither of us were having much luck. She crashed through the door at the far end of the room and disappeared.
“She’s playing hide-and-seek,” he said. Blood poured down his arm and both legs, and his stomach had several deep slashes. When combined with the still-raw—but no longer bleeding—wound he’d received in the apartment, he wasn’t a pretty sight.
“You’d better shift shape to stop the bleeding,” I said, “Iktar should be here by now. Go find him while I track the creature.”
“Fuck that.” He snorted softly. “You think I’m going to let you go after that thing alone? You’ve got rocks in your head, sweetheart.”
I might have rocks, but I was swifter and faster than he was. I was also less injured. “Kade, we need help to bring her down.”
“Iktar can track emotions as well as I can. He’ll find us quick enough. Move, Riley.”
There was no point in arguing. That was obvious not only in his tone, but in the anger in his eyes. He wanted to bring this creature down bad.
I ran forward, following the scent of cat and burned flesh. Power shimmered across my senses as Kade shifted shape to stop the bleeding, then the sound of his footsteps echoed as he followed.
We crashed into the next room. The bakeneko was nowhere to be seen, but there were several shimmers of life crouching in the corners.
“The bitch is playing rats again.”
I raised the laser and fired at the nearest nest. High-pitched squeals met the assault, and those rats I didn’t kill went scattering.
One of them was faster than the rest, and it was running—changing and growing, until it once more resembled a big cat. And she was running straight at Kade again. We fired, the twin beams of blue cutting across the grimy shadows, missing the bakeneko but cleaning up everything else. Windows, walls, rats.
She launched herself in the air, her body little more than a blur of black.
“Kade!” I screamed, a warning he didn’t really need.
He threw himself sideways, but the giant cat’s paw hit him mid-leap, sending him flying straight at one of the grimy windows. Glass shattered, then Kade was gone.
I swore and fired the weapon, keeping my finger on the trigger and sending a continuous beam the bakeneko’s way. The laser grew hotter in my hands, until it was almost impossible to hold, but it didn’t do much good. The bitch was moving faster than any vampire, and while I left a trail of burned and smoking brick, plaster, and debris, the bakeneko remained whole.
As the red light began to flash on the weapon, warning that its charge was failing, I backed toward a wall and looked around for another weapon.
Unless I wanted to slap her senseless with a dead rat, there wasn’t much here.
The laser finally gave out, the bright beam dying with little fanfare. I shoved the overheated weapon away and flexed my fingers. It looked like I’d have to do this the hard way—at least until Kade and Iktar got here.
The bakeneko finally stopped moving, her form shifting as she took on human shape again. But it seemed to take her longer than before. Maybe the energy she was expending was finally taking a toll.
“You,” she said. “I shall eat. Your flesh smells sweet.”
Her voice was low and oddly scratchy—the voice of someone not used to controlling vocal cords. It made me wonder how she’d kept up the facade of being Alana Burns for a whole night. But there again, maybe there’d been no need for her to say much. She’d been with a politician, after all, and they were notorious for loving the sound of their own voices.
I shifted my stance a little, my weight on my toes so I could move fast if needed. Although I was more than happy to keep her talking until the cavalry came to the rescue—in fact, I had to. I couldn’t risk letting her escape. There’d been too many deaths—and too many souls lost—already.
Besides, I’d rather fight with words than fists. I had enough scars as it was.
“So why me?” I said, watching her eyes and ignoring the satisfied smile teasing her lips. “Why not the man you threw out the window? He tastes a whole lot better than me, trust me on that.”
“He is not a pale one. It is the pale ones I must kill.” She began to walk toward me, the lazy smile on her lips growing. A cat playing with its prey.
I flexed my fingers, trying to ease the tension winding through my muscles. “Why only us pale types? That hardly seems fair.”
“Pale women killed my mistress. She hated them, and they killed her.”
“Your mistress was killed by a vampire out for revenge. Her death had nothing to do with any of the other people.”
Or me. But I don’t think the bakeneko cared. Her quest for vengeance had slipped into outright lust for murder.