'What about cats?'
Lightstone cocked his head curiously. 'You're asking if I'm afraid of cats?'
She nodded, her gold-flecked green eyes suddenly sparkling with what Henry Lightstone could only define as humor — a vision that effectively distracted him from the persistent uneasiness he'd felt since entering the strange room.
'I guess the truthful answer is that I've never seen one big enough to — ' he began. But then a soft (but at the same time very heavy) thump behind his back caused him to whirl his head and shoulders and instinctively bring his hands up into a defensive position — then freeze when he found himself staring into a pair of half-lidded yellow eyes with tightly focused dot-like pupils set terribly far apart hovering in midair.
'— scare me,' he finished in a hoarse whisper, as his own pupils dilated from adrenaline-induced shock when he realized why those incredibly hypnotic eyes appeared to hover.
'Don't move,' she warned in an amazingly calm and soothing voice.
'Don't worry, I won't,' he promised, but he did anyway, slowly, incrementally, relaxing his hands and bringing them down to rest flat on his crossed legs, because that seemed like the right thing to do.
'What is it,' he whispered, truly amazed that he could form the words with his fear-numbed vocal cords.
'You'll see…'
Slowly his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness and he did see — the low forehead and partially flattened ears, the whitish orange whiskers that bristled on either side of the thick velvety muzzle.. but most of all, the huge, muscular, silver-tinged blackness.
Oh my God.
Panther.
For a brief moment, Henry Lightstone believed that he was about to die a horrible death. His heart pounded in his chest, and some primitive portion of his mind screamed at him to run, fight, cover up, do something, before it was too late. But then, for some reason that he didn't comprehend at all, he sensed that the only partially flattened ears might be significant.
Don't move. No matter what, don't move.
He had no idea if he thought that, or someone — the woman? — actually said it.
But then, in a motion really too fast to see, the cat suddenly moved forward — lunged, actually- and heavy, leathery pads pinned Lightstone's hands to his legs, terribly sharp claws lightly dug into his wrists, and long whiskers brushed against his throat before the huge cat suddenly emitted a deep rumble and rubbed her forehead against his chin.
'Are you all right?' she asked sometime later — moments, hours, Lightstone had no idea — in that same calm, reassuring voice.
'I have a feeling that's completely up to him,' Lightstone replied in a very quiet strangled voice.
'Her,' the woman corrected him softly.
'Sorry, I didn't notice,' Lightstone grimaced when the wickedly sharp claws dug deep into the backs of his hands each time the purring animal flexed her huge paws contentedly.
'That's all right, she did,' the woman replied with an underlying edge of sarcasm that — to her amazement — bordered on bitchiness.
'Is it all right if I try to pet… her?' Lightstone asked, not at all certain he wanted to do anything whatsoever to disturb the cat's presumably benign behavior, but at the same time, very much aware of his extremely vulnerable position. He knew that at some point, if this cat were like every other cat he'd played with as a kid, it would suddenly and unpredictably do something different — which, he assumed, could easily include biting or clawing. He tried not to think about the impact of those terribly sharp claws on his soft and vulnerable skin.
The truly amazing part, Lightstone realized, was that he didn't feel afraid — at least not in the trembling, whimpering, bowel-voiding sense. If anything, he felt deeply and intensely intrigued. By both the cat, and the woman who apparently owned her.
'I think she'll let you' — the woman's voice carried a barely discernible edge that Lightstone picked up on immediately — 'but take it slow. We're in unexplored territory here.'
'What exactly does 'unexplored territory' mean?' he asked hesitantly.
'She's never done this before… with a stranger,' the woman almost grudgingly admitted.
'Is that good, or bad?'
'I don't know. She's usually very predictable. That's why I'm concerned.'
The woman grew silent, keeping her own hands firmly on her lap, watching the big cat rapturously rub her face over Lightstone's.
'Your left hand,' she suggested softly to her guest. 'Can you pull it free?'
'I don't think so.'
Not unless I want to lose it, Lightstone thought as the powerful claws continued digging in to the point of not quite breaking through the skin on the backs of his hands.
'When I tell you,' the woman directed in an almost hypnotizing voice, 'raise your hand — the left one, not the right,' she emphasized, 'very gently, very slowly, but firmly… stay relaxed and maintain contact,' she instructed him in that same smoothing voice, 'then turn your hand and gently rub the pad of her paw with your thumb. Don't jerk away or make any other rapid movement, no matter how she reacts. Do you think you can do that?'
Henry felt himself relax in response to her voice.
'Yes.'
'Then go ahead,' she ordered calmly.
'Any suggestions what I should do if she doesn't like it?' Lightstone asked.
'Whatever you do, do not make any sudden movements,' the woman repeated in that same calm and gentle voice. 'She's perfectly capable of killing either one of us in a matter of seconds, if she wants to. But I imagine you already guessed that.'
'Oh yeah, first thing,' Lightstone whispered hoarsely.
'I have a control collar — a device that I can use to track or sedate her remotely if necessary — which she wears when I take her out in public. But as you've probably noticed, we're not out in public, so she's not wearing it right now.'
'So how do you control her, if you have to?' Lightstone asked, having a good idea that he already knew the answer to that question.
'If it turns out that I can't control her with my voice, which is unlikely but certainly not impossible, there's a tranquilizing gun on the table about ten feet to your left. It's armed and auto-loading, and the safety's off. One dart will calm her down very quickly, two will put her to sleep, three will kill her. However, you must remember something very important: there isn't a chance in the world that you could get to that gun before she could get to you; and in any case, I don't want her to die unless it's absolutely necessary.'
And if she does die, so will you, whoever you are, the woman thought. 'Does that answer your question?'
'I… don't think we're going to need to worry about the tranquilizer gun,' Lightstone responded with a sense of confidence he prayed had resulted from some degree of sanity.
'Just remember, slowly and firmly. Don't forget, she's extremely strong, and very quick.'
'I don't think I'll forget that,' Henry murmured grimly as he began lifting his hand — and immediately felt the claws digging deeper into the back of it. But he continued to raise his hand until he sensed it supported the cat's paw a couple inches above his thigh, aware that the cat had stopped rubbing him, but still rumbled contentedly.
Maintaining pressure as directed, he slowly rotated his hand and began to rub the soft leathery pad with his fingertips.
The cat paused mid-purr, fixed the federal agent with her two glowing orbs for a brief, heart-stopping moment, and then — to his utter amazement and relief — resumed rubbing and purring even more intensely… plus occasionally pausing to lick her elevated foreleg and paw. As she did, Lightstone felt the claws of that paw extend and dig farther into the palm of his hand. Slowly and methodically, he worked his hand up the cat's leg… and then her shoulder… until, finally, his fingers stroked the deep crevice between her muscular shoulders.
The cat's purring and rubbing increased even more in volume and intensity until suddenly, without warning, she let out a blood-chilling roar and sprang away.
