“Why should I follow your lead, Hoss? I’ve been a werecat longer than you have. I’ve actually hunted wild hogs, and those babies have tusks this long.” Occam held out both hands a ways apart. I let the outer door close behind me and didn’t look up to see his expression. “They can rip open a predator’s gut in a heartbeat. You, my kitten friend, are the probie here. You have hunted exactly two full moons and brought down exactly fourdeer. Sweet little Bambis. With help from me, let me remind you. I should take point.”
From nowhere, a grindylow leaped onto Occam’s back, her neon green coat looking yellowish in the outside lights. “Ow,” Occam said, grabbing her and tossing her to Rick as they walked.
The SAC caught her in midair and placed her on his shoulders without missing a step. He blew out a breath in a cloud and cocked his head, catlike. His eyes were glowing green in the parking lot’s security lights. The shadows of the men lengthened and shortened as they walked. I followed. When Rick spoke it wasn’t to the grindy, which he petted almost in a reflex, but to Occam. “I’m a black wereleopard. My melanistic coat is perfect for night hunting. Your spotted one is more visible.”
“I’m more sneaky.” Occam opened the driver’s door of his fancy car. “When you’re in cat form, you’re thinking like a cat in the wild, not like a human, and your cat’s out of control. Not a good thing on an op.”
“I’m SAC.” Rick got in the passenger side, tossing the grindy to the dash.
“Which means jack nothing, Hoss. I’m better qualified and you know it.”
“We have protocol—” The car doors closed. The engine roared and they drove away. Leaving me standing there alone in the parking lot.
I put both fists on my hips and huffed in disgust, watching their taillights, my small gobag over my shoulder. I turned and waved at the very obvious security camera over the door to HQ, knowing that Tandy had seen the entire exchange. Upstairs, the lights in the office blinked off and back on. The fact that I had been abandoned had been acknowledged. Tandy was probably all worried about me. If it had been JoJo she would have been laughing so hard she’d snort coffee. I had seen that happen. Had to hurt.
I got in my truck, punched the address into my cellular GPS, and pulled into the street. I had driven a mile when my cell rang. It was Occam. I scowled at the cell and let it go to voice mail. Twice. On the third try I punched accept and said, “What?”
“Nell, sugar. Where are you?” Occam sounded properly quiet and deferential. “We left you in the parking lot. I’m sorry.”
An apology went a long way to fixing things, but I had been raised with men who treated women with less respect than they did other men. “Yes,” I said. “You did. And I got in my truck, and I turned it on, and I am driving. Alone. I am perfectly capable of arriving at the correct GPS on this, my first level-two nighttime op. I will see you there.” I hit end.
JoJo and T. Laine would both say I was being bitchy. And then they’d high-five me and say, “Give ’em hell, girl.” A woman had to stand up to men, even in this new, modern world. Women always did. And never more so than with alpha males who seemed to have a cat rivalry of some sort going on. I just hadn’t thought it would be Occam who made me defend myself this time. Tears prickled my eyes, and ruthlessly I squashed them.Thatwas stupid. I would not cry because men acted in human character and in cat character.
I took a right and headed toward Millertown Pike, and then Rutledge Pike, also known as Highway 11 West. As I drove, I thought about Benjamin and what would have happened had he been in Occam’s place. He’d have asked me to bring him a cup of coffee and maybe have a good dinner waiting for him when he got back. The likelihood of him even thinking about me going on any mission was low to none. A woman’s presence on such a mission would have been considered valueless. Occam just forgot about me. Or his cat did.
Men. Dang ’em all.My hands tightened on the wheel and I followed the cell phone’s directions out of Knoxville.
•••
DNAKeys’ research facility was out of town, down a narrow, privately maintained, paved road on the far side of House Mountain State Natural Area. There were no streetlights this far out of town and no visible security measures, but there was also no gated entrance, so the lack of obvious security measures was likely occult—not meaning paranormal,meaning hidden. Occam’s fancy car—a 2015 Ford Mustang two-door Fastback GT with all the bells and whistles—was parked in the dark off the side of the road and down a little-used driveway with an overgrown For Sale sign in the weeds, about a mile from the turnoff to the facility. I pulled in behind it, turned off the engine and the lights, and closed my eyes, letting them adapt to night vision. As I waited, I set my comms earbud in my ear, adjusted the mic, and hooked the comms system at my waistband. When my vision was more attuned to the night, I got out, carrying my flash, which I didn’t turn on, and walked around the fancy car.
The men were nowhere to be seen, which meant they were changing shape or were already hunting. They hadn’t been that far ahead of me so I was betting on shape-shifting somewhere out in the dark. I sniffed and listened to the night, taking in the smells and the sounds. A little exhaust. My coffee. Something musky. The wereleopards, most likely. I heard no sounds except what might be the far-off hum of cars. In the distance were city lights. Closer were security lights, which I assumed would be DNAKeys’.
I returned to my truck and sat, engine and lights still off, in the growing cold, sipping coffee from my insulated mug, strong and black. The caffeine was a drug, too bitter to be a froufrou drink, too strong to be my “regular.” I waited, my senses straining into the dark, kneading my rooty middle, literally putting my fingers on my non-humanness. The cold seeped into me, and I pulled the pink blanket over me. I had rescued it from the truck bed and it no longer felt like maggots.
If this had been Soulwood I could have put my hands in the earth and discovered the cats’ location easily. Out here, so far from home, the land wouldn’t even know I was alive, especially in the dormant season. Trying to read the land would be harder. A lot harder. And I’d grow leaves that I would then have to prune. I shoulda brought me a good book.
The first indication that the men had shifted was athumpthat rocked the truck and Occam’s cat face pressed against the windshield, staring at me, lips pulled back, showing me his fangs. He hissed. My only reaction was to grip my cupso hard I feared I might bend the metal handle. I wanted to jump or squeal, or both, which I presumed he had intended. Occam’s cat was mischievous. I narrowed my eyes at him, knowing he could see me clearly in the dark. His lips lowered to cover his teeth and he stared at me, white whiskers touching the windshield.
Occam was a pretty cat, all gold and dark brown, his golden eyes lined with black like an Egyptian king’s with kohl. Deliberately, I sipped my coffee and stared back at him, giving as good as I got. Maybe better. He snorted, blowing twin spots of condensation on the glass. He lay down, belly on the warm hood, his huge, dappled body vanishing in the night, his face close to the glass.
He didn’t shift his gaze away.
I was being hunted. I scowled at the cat and set my coffee in the mug holder, pulled on the headgear, drew my service weapon, and set it on the dash. Occam now appeared as a greenish spotted killer, haunches and tail hanging off the truck. “Take that, you dang ol’ cat,” I muttered. Occam blinked. Looked at the gun on the dash. At me. And turned away, giving me the back of his head. He flopped his head down flat on the hood. In cat-speak, it was a complete dismissal and a refusal to consider me anything but a bore, and certainly not a threat. It made me want to laugh or shoot him, or both, but I refrained. “Tit for tat,” I said, knowing he could hear me through the windows. “Don’t push it, pussycat.”
Occam chuffed and started purring. I could feel the vibration through the truck body. He was having fun. The grindylow joined him, and started grooming Occam’s fur, her long, improbable steel claws combing and probably trimming as she worked.
About ten minutes later, there was a secondthumpand a black big-cat joined him, a comms unit strapped around his neck, but otherwise hard to see in the night. My hood bowed, so I tapped on the window and waved them away. They ignored me. I tapped my mic to turn on the recorder and said, “Night op.” I gave the date and the location by address and GPS coordinates. “Time is three twenty-six a.m. Occam andRick LaFleur at recon. Nell Ingram as backup.” Without glancing my way, Rick nudged Occam. The two cats, with the grindy riding on Occam’s back, slid to the ground and vanished, leaving the truck rocking and the hood returning to normal. Dang cats.
I adjusted the mic into a more comfortable position and holstered my weapon. Drank down most of the coffee. When the cold started to creep in, I got out of the truck, crossed the road to a tree I had seen when I reconnoitered Occam’s car, and sat on the low branch. I adjusted the fit and the gear until I could see and hear and talk with ease and played with the headgear, switching back and forth from IR to low light.
I identified a small herd of deer moving along the hillside, their bodies reddish on IR, heated against the colder earth, and when I flipped the knob to low light, greenish. Later, two large dogs raced down the road, well fed and enjoying a night of freedom, possibly escapees from chains or small pens, from the way they played and loped and chased each other. They never saw or smelled the deer. Or me. An owl flowed over the ground, silent as death, and dropped on a rabbit. Its squeal of pain and fear was quickly cut off as the owl carried it to a branch and started eating.
Feral cats hunted, small spots of color depending on which visual spectrum I used. Minutes passed. The excitement of playing with the new night oculars wore thin. The cold deepened. I prepared to be frozen and bored. One thing the long wait gave me was time to think and I realized that being left in HQ’s parking lot wasn’t a gender thing. It was totally a cat thing. If Tandy had been their backup, he would have been left standing there too. As slights went it was small, and only seemed big to me because, as T. Laine would say, it had pushed my buttons.
•••
Ninety minutes after the cats departed, the sun was starting to gray the eastern sky and low clouds were dropping, fog rolling down the hillside like an avalanche and along the road like a vaporous flood. A car rolled past. Then another heading theother way. A school bus rumbled and squeaked on a parallel road beyond the trees. The human world was starting to wake up and head to work and school. We needed to be out of here.
