Jaguar Read online

  She tells me this story over and over again like a loop and I just keep on throwing rocks. In waking, I don't know anything about my past. Before I started having the dream a few months before, I didn't know anything about any jaguar legends or god like warriors. I didn't even know if it was an actual legend, or just something my brain had dredged up. I have no recollection of any mother besides these eerie fragments of a menacing dream.

  The next morning, I told Jones what I had sensed at the wharves.

  "I read you," she said after a long silence. "In the runes."

  I have no patience for fortunes and all the hocus pocus that goes with it. The then and the now of life is hard enough to deal with without looking around corners hoping for a cheat. What if you didn't like what you saw? Is there any way to avoid it? Or what if it was wrong and you spent your days trying to avoid something that didn't exist. I never liked it when Jones started poking around my life with charms and those runes she always had jingling around in her bag. It meant she was looking for trouble, and so far in my life I had no difficulty finding my own trouble without going looking for more in the future. Still, with all this stuff about dreams and the weird sensations tickling at my instincts, I indulged her.

  "And?"

  "Something is off."

  "I already knew that," I said

  "No," she said, frustrated. "There's something else, around you. Like a shroud of chains. It feels old but kind of fresh."

  "Shroud of chains? That's your metaphor?"

  "It paints a picture doesn't it?" Jones said. Her brow lowered and wrinkled. It was an expression that I only saw when she was really worried about something.

  "Look, you don't know anything. You don't know where you came from, or even what you are. I'm not trying to be offensive, Fil. I just want you to be careful. Something has targeted you, and in Guessing that could mean just about anything and likely nothing good."

  "I can look after myself, Jones. I've been doing it for a long time and I plan on doing it for a lot longer still. This isn't the first time a big bad has come to take me down. Remember that pack leader last year and his army of mechanised dogs? What the hell, right? But I put each of them in a grave. Well, left their bodies to rot where I killed them, but you know what I mean."

  "This is different," Jones said. There was an almost plea in her voice. "Can you please just let me take you to Thel? She can look into your auras more deeply and knows pretty much everything about everything. She'll tell you what's happening."

  That was exactly why I didn't want to go anywhere near the old witch, but to make Jones feel better, and because I did not have anything better to do that morning, I agreed to go with her to Thel's.

  Chapter 5

  Thel

  The smog levels were up and grime clung to my skin as Jones and I made our way through the daytime streets of Downtown towards Thel's. The heat was irritating me. The prospect of magic was making me nervous. It wasn't a good combo.

  The top level of Thel's smelled like coconut and bananas. A little bell chimed as we entered. Thel sat behind the glass top counter. She wore a pale blue blouse with great swathes of billowy fabric that suited both the witch and the hippy look. Her long dark hair was pulled behind her head with a silver pin. She sipped on a verdant drink that looked like it was made of algae and, knowing Thel's penchant for weird concoctions and tonics—and I'm not talking about the magical kind—it probably was. She had a spread of tarot cards before her. A thin red painted smile stretched across her lined face. It was not a smile I trusted, but I tried to be polite and forced myself to smile back.

  "Filomena," she greeted me. Her accent was thick, something European that I'm sure she put on for effect. "Guessing's very own feline fighter. Now this is an auspicious event. Can I offer you a kale and seaweed smoothie?"

  I would have preferred to drink paint. I tossed her a quick hello and politely declined her offer. I let Jones tell her about the reading.

  "Come," she beckoned, and I followed her and Jones down the stairs at the back of the shop and into the Magic Room that was the other side of Thel's business.

  The Magic Room smelled like cloves and incense. Every time I went in there, which was something I avoided if I could, my skin prickled and the incessant involuntary flicking of my tail betrayed my discomfort.

  Thel took both of my hands in hers. Her syrupy perfume made my nose itch as she stared at me with an unsettling intensity.

  "Yours is a history that I should be very interested to learn," she said.

  Her and me both, I thought, but I didn't say anything.

  "You are scared," she continued. "And not just of me."

  I started to object, but she hushed me to remain silent.

  "There is something else, something surrounds you, something that has been placed there."

  "Would that be your shroud of chains?" I asked Jones, it was meant to be a bit of a joke but no one else was smiling. Thel kept talking, staring at me harder, gripping my hands tighter.

  "Your aura is split but not both sides of this dualism belong to you."

  "And what does all of this mean, exactly?" I said, getting impatient.

  "Filomena, you are under a curse."

  Pause.

  "What do you mean, cursed?" I said.

  "As you think it means," she said. "Cursed. Hexed. Enchantment. As to what it means for you exactly, I cannot tell you."

  "That's it?" I was almost yelling.

  "There are few specifics in this line of craft. I have told you all I can know with the knowledge I have. Perhaps you will submit to a trance state?"

  "A what now?"

  "I can put you in a trance, much like hypnosis. It will be as if you will take a walk through your spirit life, and you may be able to learn the true nature of what is binding you."

  "Not on your life," I said leaving no room for further questions.

  "It could save your life," Jones threw in. "You can see who, or what, is putting the attack on you, it's not like reading the future, Fil. It's reading the present."

  "You might also be able to learn your past," Thel added.

  Curses. Trances. Did I mention how much I did not like witches?

  "Fine." I said. But I was anything but.

  Chapter 6

  Trance

  "Are you sure you're not just doing this for your benefit?" I asked.

  Thel smiled in a way that told me I was at least half right. "Call it a professional curiosity," she said.

  We were in a small room off the side of the Magic Room. There wasn't anything else in there besides a narrow folding cot, the kind someone might use for camping, and a dusty lamp covered in cobwebs and bug corpses sitting on a milk crate. It was the complete antithesis to the austere cleanliness of the rest of her place. I wondered what she used this grimy little room for, besides putting cat people into trances. I lay back on the cot, nervous as hell.

  Jones was putting on a brave face and she had assured me at least eight dozen times that it was going to be OK. Whenever something needs that much reassurance, there's a good chance that it's going to end up being something quite removed from OK.

  I lay back on the little cot and it squeaked as if in protest.

  "Just try to relax," Thel said.

  Yeah, right.

  Thel moved her hands in front of my eyes like she was weaving the air through her fingers. Her collection of rings caught the light from the little side lamp. So many colours in those stones. Little coloured lines formed in their wake like thread-thin webs of rainbow vapour trails.

  "You are walking in the place of your aura," Thel said, her words like a voice in my own head. "Tell me what you see."

  I am confronted with an image, a memory I have not thought of in a long time. Outside of the Guessing city, The Sprawl. Rows and rows of tall concrete blocks, uniform, like soldiers, with families piled on top of one another, crammed into the tiny identical apartments. It was not even close to being unusual for anyone in Guessing to h
ave grown up in The Sprawl but I've never mentioned it to anyone, not even Jones that this was where I started out.

  Or at least, that's where my memories start. I was about ten, a scrappy wiry kid, just like most children running those streets, except for the whole cat thing. The neighbourhood kids had all stopped trying to pick fights with me, partly because they know they can't win, and partly because I took to hiding in the basements and other deep places during the daylight when they were about.

  At night, they all have families to go home to and I just wander the streets, foraging for food in trash cans and occasionally finding a forgotten plaything—a book, a toy, once a bicycle—to amuse me. I don't know how I came to The Sprawl. I don't know why no one else had a tail.

  These memories aren't anything I don't already know.

  "Go deeper," Thel says to me from the present. Her voice echoes off the concrete walls in the basement where my child self is hiding. "Look behind you."

  The vision of the grey Sprawl start to flicker, like ripples on a lake and everything blurs. I can see images moving but they all look like they're underwater and nothing is clear.

  I can feel myself start to panic. My chest grows tight and it's suddenly hard to breathe, like I'm slipping under the water too.

  "Come out, Filomena," Thel coos. And I follow the sound of her voice away from the water's edge.

  I'm back in The Sprawl and I see the first werewolf I killed. It was a young thing, a teenager from one of the Sprawl families probably, tracking some kids and their Dad. I was about eleven and I leapt on the thing from behind from on top of a skip bin, digging an old bent steak knife I'd found into its neck. No one thanked me or seemed to even care I'd saved their life. They just went from being scared of the dog to being scared of me. A few nights later, I took my old steak knife and left for Guessing city to find more things to kill.

  I saw my first boss, Mack. Mack's weapons and army surplus store where I'd worked night security and helped Mack out with a dog problem when I was about seventeen. It was the place I'd gotten my Good Hunter. I saw that place burn down and, for the second time, I saw Mack die.

  After that, I'm back living on the streets on whatever I can find. There's plenty of food in a city if you're willing to dig for it. I'm not above stealing, and actually quite good at it, but I save petty crime for those times when things get really tricky.

  And then there's Jones. She's bright and gorgeous and makes me happy. She says she'll take care of me and she's the only family I've known. I've got a home with a fridge and a pantry. I don't need to steal and I sleep in a bed and everything is perfect.

  Then something starts clawing at a perfect present and the edges of my vision start melting. Someone else is in my head and it hurts like all unholy mother hell.

  I sit up like I've just been electrocuted. Jones is there beside me, her arm around my back, passing me a glass of water I can barely hold for shaking hands.

  "It worked, right?" I asked. "You saw what you needed to see?"

  "I saw the pattern of the curse," Thel said. "It's what pulled you out of the trance at the end." Her usually calm and confident expression had slipped into one of confusion and worry.

  "And?" I said. I really wasn't in the mood for any more of her witchy double talk and metaphors.

  "I saw you," she said. "You've placed this curse on yourself."

  Chapter 7

  Kin

  It was almost one in the morning and I was skulking down the shadowy streets behind Chinatown looking for a werewolf to vent on and not having any luck. Thel had said I wouldn't remember a thing about what I saw in the trance, but every detail of my past was now on constant play back in my head. And for what? I still didn't know where I came from and Thel hadn't been able to see anything more about this so called curse I was apparently under.

  My shoulder was killing me and I was considering going home empty handed before I picked up the scent. My spirits lifted instantly. The foul stench of dog led me into an alley behind a restaurant where the werewolf wasn't the only thing that stank.

  The hairy mutt was crouched, gorging itself on some sloppy muck. I slid a blade out of my jacket sleeve and let out a shrill whistle. The dog leaped up and hurtled towards me, jaws dripping with whatever filth it had just been eating.

  My shoulder shrieked with every blow, but it was an easy fight and I had it down in less than ten minutes. I wiped the blade clean on my already filthy jeans, feeling a little better from the release of the action.

  I set to leave the alley but was stopped by a familiar scent. That same organic smell that I had picked up at the wharf. I froze, sniffed and listened. There was no sound besides the usual hums of a city in the small morning hours, but I knew that something was there, watching me.

  "Show yourself!" I yelled. Nothing.

  "Coward!"

  A tile fell from a nearby roof and shattered on the concrete. My gaze snapped upwards. A figure. In the dark light, I could only make out a silhouette. A man. Tall and broad. He stood motionless on the rooftop, looking down at me.

  "Fuck off!" I yelled. He turned and in the dim light I saw it—the distinct outline of a cat's tail.

  "Wait!" I called. It was too late. He was gone.

  "You have got to be kidding me!" Jones said.

  I assured her that I was not.

  "Another cat? Like you? Do you have any idea what this means?"

  That was just the thing, I had no idea what this meant. I had always been alone. No parents, no brothers or sisters, no family. I had accepted that I was the only one of my kind, and what that kind was exactly, I could never be sure. That was why I had moved to Guessing city, where whatever doesn't fit, finds a place. In a city of 20 million people, with countless werewolves, warlocks, witches, faeries, demons, spirits, and if you believe the rumours, vampires, I was the only real cat-woman. And now, what was this? A cat-man? This was starting to sound more and more like some ridiculous comic book scenario.

  It was still dark and in the few hours before dawn I tried to get some sleep. My head spun with a hundred half formed possibilities and a thousand fully formed fears. I wondered if it may have had something to do with the curse. Or perhaps it was just coincidence. He had been following me for at least two nights. He knew about me, he knew that there were others of his kind. Why didn't I know? It bothered me that I was already thinking of him as 'my kind', 'our kind'. Kin. I fell into a restless sleep and dreamed again of my mother.

  Chapter 8

  Vele

  I kept telling myself that I was on the prowl for wolves, but really, I knew I was looking for him. He had found and followed me for two nights and I was betting he would do the same on the third. I headed down to the wharves where I had first encountered him. I caught a whiff of dog along the way and ignored it. I was not looking for a fight that night.

  There was a ship in dock so the harbour side was unusually busy with rousties and dockers. I kept to the shadows near the buildings and waited for a sign of him. I did not need to wait long.

  "I wanted to find you."

  His voice came from behind me, though I knew he was there before he spoke. He sounded like he smelled; dark and intense. He was close. I turned around. He stood a good head height taller than me, his shoulders were wide and his chest like it was carved out of rock. His face was entirely human, a slender jaw, a long crooked nose and eyes that looked almost black. His tail was like mine. I wasn't going in for a good look, but it looked like he did the same as I did, cutting a custom slit for his in the back of his jeans. It was a weird trivial detail to focus on, I guess. But I wanted to know everything.

  "I have been looking for you," he said.

  "You have been looking at me," I replied. "Following me. It's more than a little bit creepy."

  "I needed to make sure that you were real," he said. "I had to make sure that it was true, that you were like me."

  My mouth felt like sand. I did not know what to say or what to do. A cat's tail never lies and I
saw he was just as nervous.

  "What are you?" I asked him.

  "Same as you."

  "Fine. What am I?"

  He laughed. It was not the reaction I was expecting.

  "My name is Vele."

  I started to tell him my name, but he said he already knew. Again with the creepy.

  "I know you," he said. "I know your longing, I know your loneliness. I know you are caught in between the human and the animal, craving the solitude of the cat and the community of the human."

  Presumptuous much? I asked him where he came from.

  "I travelled a long time, through dreams and storms to get to you," he said.

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

  "We have enemies, you and I," he continued.

  "Werewolves?"

  "The werewolves are nothing—mindless foot soldiers in a war bigger than any of us. A war that promises terror more frightening than anything you could have possibly realised. You have to trust me, Filomena. Trust that I can help you."

  The first one of my kind I meet and he's a harbinger of doom talking in infuriating half riddles with a lot of words and not a single answer. I started to ask him more but he had already turned and started to move away, slinking into the shadows like an alley cat.

  Chapter 9

  Meeting

  I didn't tell Jones anything about meeting with Vele again. She knew I'd been out looking for him, even though I hadn't told her that either. I didn't like lying to Jones, and it wasn't planned, but when she asked I said there hadn't been a sign of him.

  I was going to tell her. I wasn't keeping him from her. I just needed to know more about him, to work out what I really felt and thought before I let anyone else in there. Even Jones. This was mine. It was me. It was the first time in my whole life I'd had anything so personal, it felt almost sacred.

  The instant Vele had turned away the night before and left me standing there, blinking as if I'd just seen a spirit, I knew I'd be out looking for him the next day. And that' what I was doing.