I was or why. It took Jim about two seconds to kill something. If we both shifted in the middle of a room full of ninjas, by the time I could see straight, they would all be dead and Jim would be wiping blood from his hands.
All my life I was told I was special, the mystical white tiger. Guardian of the West, King of Beasts, Lord of Mountains, Slayer of Demons. Majestic of bearing and fierce in battle. The irony was thick enough to swim through.
Jim pointed at the floor. I looked down. Gashes scored the wood, digging deep into the floorboards. Something had clawed the floor, something large and powerful. Here and there small sections of black marker lines peeked from under the scratches, but no force on earth could decipher what had been written there.
I glanced at Jim and shook my head. He jumped down and I followed him deeper into the house. We passed a small file room on the right, separated from the counter by a partition. If people had died here, something must’ve taken their bodies.
The doorway to the stairs waited, a darker rectangle in the dark wall. I took a step forward. Magic washed over me, bad, terrible magic, smelling of death and blood and corpses, as if someone had taken a piece of ice and dragged it from the base of my neck all the way down my spine. The paper on my chest shivered. I froze, trying to catch every tiny noise, every hint of movement.
Jim was looking at me.
“Bad,” I mouthed, letting him read my lips. “Bad magic.”
Above us the ceiling creaked. We looked at it.
Another creak. Something heavy moved across the floor over our heads.
Jim pushed ahead of me and we padded up the wooden steps upstairs.
THE STAIRCASE WAS narrow and Jim’s muscular back took up most of it. I gave him a couple of feet to make sure he had room to strike if we ran into something unpleasant.
Magic saturated the staircase. It dripped from the rail in long viscous droplets, it slimed the steps, it boiled in long coils along the wall so thick and potent I wished I’d brought a rain slicker. Now, that was a totally irrational thought. It seemed insane Jim couldn’t see it, but I knew he couldn’t.
We reached the landing. A hallway ran perpendicular to the staircase, and right across it, a doorway was lit by a pale yellowish glow. I smelled lamp oil.
Jim paused for one long second on the upstairs landing and strode on, through the hallway into the room. I padded after him.
A lone lamp burned on the floor at the far wall, illuminating a naked woman, who sat cross-legged on the grimy boards. Her dark honey hair hung in ragged strands down her back. I inhaled, sampling her scent. Michelle. But the scent was wrong. A living scent is hot, vibrant. This was a cold odor, laced with traces of toxic stenches: feces, a touch of urine, and a revolting patina of putrescence, like a meat broth left out for too long. Degrading amino acids. I’ve smelled this nauseating cocktail before: cadaverine, putrescine, and a dose of indole for good measure. My eyes told me Michelle was alive and sitting in front of me. My nose told me she was dead and had been so for at least two days. I trusted my nose. It never lied.
Jim pulled a knife from his sheath. It was his giant G.I. Joe knife, dark gray with a wicked curved tip and a serrated edge near the handle.
Michelle turned and looked at us. Her eyes were empty. Dead eyes, like two dark holes in her head. And I had really liked her, too.
Behind Michelle, another body lay in the corner on its side, long dark hair fanned out on the filthy floor like a black veil. Roger, a werelynx. Dead as well.
Michelle’s left arm jerked up and forward, resting on the floor. Her right followed, like she was a puppet on a string.
“What do you want?” Jim’s voice was a low snarl. That’s why Jim was in charge. I didn’t have to explain that something was controlling the dead. He figured it out all on his own and wasted no time on being weirded out by it.
Michelle’s body turned, flipping her into a crouch.
Many things controlled the dead. I had to figure out who pulled the strings, before I could try a curse. Think, Dali, think.
“Any advice?” Jim asked, his voice casual.
“Keep her busy, so I can figure this out.”
Michelle’s mouth gaped open, showing dark nasty teeth.
“And try not to get bit.”
Michelle launched from her crouch, hands outstretched, fingers like claws. Jim lunged at her. He grabbed her arm, the knife sliced in a furious arch, and Jim hurled Michelle across the room into the wall.
I clenched my calligraphy brush. This thing could’ve sent Michelle at us the moment we stepped through the door. But no, it taunted us from the window with the light. It made the ceiling above us creak on purpose.
Michelle rebounded from the wall, flipping in midair, kicking at Jim. He sidestepped, but she was fast. Her nails raked his chest with unnatural strength, ripping through clothes. Blood swelled through the tears. Jim grabbed her arm and twisted, his knife biting deep into Michelle’s shoulder. Something crunched and Michelle’s arm came away in Jim’s hand—he’d cleaved the ball joint from the socket. Like cutting a wing from a chicken.
Michelle spun around. No blood spilled from the cut. She bared her teeth and lunged at Jim again, swiping at him with her remaining hand. Michelle was a jackal. They didn’t claw, they bit.
He’d have to mince her into tiny pieces before she’d stop.
Something chuckled in the corner, where the magic knotted into a dark bramble. It was laughing at us. Playing a game, a cruel game.
Michelle clawed at Jim.
Just like a cat.
I began drawing my
Jim jerked Michelle down. He cut in a vicious swipe and her head plunked down on the floor.
A dark shape coalesced from the knotted magic in a blink and leapt over Roger’s corpse. I hurled my curse at it. The rigid white strip hit it between the eyes. Magic pulsed and I saw yellow cat eyes glowing like two moons at me from a round fur face.
Roger rammed into Jim.
The cat beast leapt in a blur, straight at me. The huge body knocked me off my feet. I flew and the back of my head bounced off the boards.
The cat clamped me down, its weight crushing my chest. A dark feline mouth gaped at me, exhaling fetid breath into my face. Pain punctured my shoulders like red-hot needles. I tried to snarl, but I had no air and only a small squeak came out.
The black mouth bit down. The
The paper burst into a dozen strips. They shot outward, jerking the cat off of me.
I blinked, trying to suck in a breath. Jim leaned over and thrust his hand down to me. I grabbed it and he pulled me up. Roger’s corpse, broken and twisted, crumpled on the floor. Above it, a long feline body hung about two feet off the ground, wrapped in long strips of paper. It was six feet long and shaggy with orange and white fur, a house cat that had somehow grown to a leopard size. The strips adhered to the walls and ceiling, clutching the cat like the wrappings of a mummy.
The beast wasn’t moving. Two paper strips had caught its throat in a makeshift noose. Its head hung limp, mouth open, a long tongue sticking out of the corner of its mouth. The yellow eyes, once glowing with bloodlust, were dull now.
I swallowed. My mouth tasted bitter. The cat monster was dead. My hands trembled from adrenaline. I had screwed up.
“WHAT THE HELL is that?” Jim asked. His voice was calm. His hands didn’t shake. Cool as ice. Why couldn’t I be more like that?
I sniffed, trying to hide the trembling. “Two tails or one?”
Jim took a step to the cat and lifted two long furry tails.
