Шеррилин Кеньон: Dark Side of the Moon

“Yeah. According to him, the vampires are out to kill all of us off. No offense, Ang. I think Jimmy needs some help. Has he been doing a lot of overtime?”

Anger flared deep in Angie’s eyes. “Jimmy’s not crazy, Sue. Not by a long shot.”

Maybe, but she didn’t want to argue with her friend. “Yeah, well, thanks for the hot news tip.”

As she started for the door, Angie stopped her. “Here. Take the cat with you.”

She gaped. “Excuse me?”

“Please. For whatever reason, Jimmy is terrified. Take the cat to keep up appearances and I’ll come by and pick him up after work.”

Sue cringed at the thought, but she would do anything for her best friend. “All right, but you owe me. Big-time.”

“I know.”

Growling low in her throat, Susan picked up the box and followed Angie to the counter out front.

Angie handed her some papers while she wrote out a check for the adoption fees. “Now don’t forget to spend time with him until he gets used to you.” She was back to being stilted and odd again.

“No problem.”

“Hope you enjoy your new pet,” the receptionist called.

Yeah, when pigs fly. “Thanks,” Susan said with a smile so fake, it would make a politician proud.

Sneezing again, she headed for her car and set the cage in the backseat. “Thanks a lot, Puss in Boots,” she said as she eyed him with malice. “I hope you seriously appreciate the misery I’m enduring for you.”

Angie watched as Susan pulled out of the parking lot and headed south toward her house. Releasing a relieved breath, she turned to see Jimmy motioning for her on the other side of the door that led to the employees only area of the shelter.

One minute, she mouthed to him.

She was just about to grab her coat from behind the counter when she saw Theo heading straight for her. His handsome face was paler than normal as he slammed the door shut from the cat room. Two seconds later, his assistant, Darrin, came out of the cat room just behind him.

Theo’s dark brown eyes were flaming angry. “Where is he?” Theo demanded as he stopped in front of her.

Angie was baffled by his anger and accusing tone. “Who?”

“The cat.” He spat those words at her as if they were evil. “The one that was brought in early this morning. Where the hell is he?”

“Is that the one that was just adopted?”

Angie cringed as the receptionist spoke. “Is there a problem with him?”

Theo and Darrin exchanged a hostile glare. “Yes. He’s feral.”

“Oh.” Angie started to say she’d go get the cat back when she saw Jimmy making odd gestures at her through the door. It looked like he was telling her to run toward him. She frowned at her husband.

Theo turned to see what she was looking at. Jimmy dropped his hands and tried to look nonchalant.

Something dark descended over Theo’s face as it turned to stone. “Darrin?”

“Sir?”

“Lock the door and shut the blinds.”

Ravyn wasn’t sure if he should be happy or not by his rescue. One thing was certain, he’d be a whole hell of a lot more grateful had his rescuer not put him in direct sunlight on her backseat. The painful rays forced him to cower in a corner, and cowering wasn’t something he relished.

He sniffed the air. Damn. Was that his fur getting singed? Of course it was… what would make him think for one minute that it wasn’t him getting burned?

Nothing was worse than to have burning hair and a heightened sense of smell. Well, maybe there was something worse—burning flesh and turning into a pile of flaming ash, which was exactly what he’d be doing if he were in human form.

Okay, on second thought, this was better, but even though he could tolerate the sun as a cat, it still hurt like a mother. He might not burst into flames like this, but if they didn’t get him out of here soon, he would be blistered pretty badly.

“What’s that smell?”

He ground his teeth at Susan’s question. It’s me, genius. He would project that thought out to her if it weren’t for the fact that it would shock him and he’d been shocked enough for one day. Ravyn hissed as sunlight cut across his footpad and blistered it. He jerked his paw and tucked it up under him.

His head was throbbing and honestly, he didn’t know how much longer he could maintain his form or hold back his magick. Time was running out for him.

“Is that you, Puss in Boots?”

Ravyn glared at her as she stopped for a red light. Irritation at her aside, she was rather cute in a very girl-next-door kind of way. Not a knockout by any means, but wholesomely pretty. With dark blond hair and bright blue eyes, she looked like she should be on a farm somewhere, tending a dozen or so kids. There was something about her that reminded him of a no-nonsense Mennonite woman. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. If it were down, it’d probably fall just below her shoulders—the same length as his.

She rolled down the car windows. “Gah, what did you eat, Puss in Boots? I’m thinking I shouldn’t have taken that Benadryl. A stopped-up nose would definitely improve this aromatic nightmare. Someone shoot me.”

Oh, to have the ability to speak as a human right about now… Get me out of the sunlight, lady, and we’ll both be a hell of a lot happier.

Ravyn tried to swallow only to learn that he couldn’t because the collar was suddenly constricting his throat. His body was starting to grow again even with the ionic inhibitors of the collar that were keeping him in small-cat form. Since it wasn’t his natural form and it was daylight, his body wanted to return to being human, and before much longer he would switch back whether he wanted to or not.

If he were still wearing the collar when the change came, it would kill him.

Drive faster.

Susan jerked as she heard what seemed to be a man’s voice in her head. It was followed by the cat hissing in the backseat.

“Great,” she mumbled under her breath. “I’m losing my mind now. Next thing you know, I’ll actually see one of Jimmy’s vampires or, better yet, I’ll buy into Leo’s psychosis.” She shook her head. “Get a grip, Sue. Your sanity’s all you have left and as worthless as it is, you can’t afford to let it go.”

And still she had this prickly feeling on the back of her neck as if her skin were crawling. It was so disturbing. It was as if someone were staring at her, but as she looked around at the traffic, she couldn’t find anyone. Completely unsettled, she closed the windows and wished that she hadn’t left her gun at home this morning.

By the time she pulled into her own driveway, she half-expected something freaky to happen. She wasn’t sure what that freakiness would involve—maybe her Toyota coming alive like Christine or Herbie (which begged the question, if the car could talk would it have a Japanese accent?), or her newly adopted cat talking like Morris, or even one of Jimmy’s vampires waiting in her house.

“I should write fiction,” she mumbled as she pulled the cage with the cat out of the backseat and slammed the car door. “Who knew I had this kind of imagination?”

Yeah, right. She really wasn’t creative at all. Her feet had always been planted firmly on the ground, with her only trips into the fantastic being the occasional Star Wars movie.

As she fumbled with her keys in the front-door lock, the cat started jumping around in the box as if he were in pain. “Stop it, Puss, or I’m going to drop you.”

The cat calmed instantly as if it understood her. Sneezing and miserable, Susan pushed open the door and set the carrier down just to her right before she shut and locked the door. She headed for the Kleenex, intending to keep Puss in Boots in the cage until Angie came to retrieve it, but as she blew her nose, she looked to see the cat crawling out of it.