Diaries of an Urban Panther Read online

  Diaries of an Urban Panther

  Amanda Arista

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Announcement Page

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  As I stepped into the crosswalk, the boy next to me ran across the white stripes to his mother’s waiting minivan. His blue book bag danced wildly on his back as his hands waved in reckless abandon. Just down the road to our right, a car engine revved and the driver accelerated towards the crosswalk.

  The space between my shoulder blades tingled and the scene before me slowed. The manic screams of the children on the playground across the street quieted. The breeze stopped carrying the sweet scents of fall. The police officer’s stop sign rose slowly and froze just above his head. Everything faded into the background as my senses focused on what was going to happen. I knew that in five seconds, there was going to be a schoolboy pancake with a side of scrambled Violet.

  Instinct took hold and I darted out in front of the car. Scooping up the small boy from the asphalt, I leapt onto the hood. The motion sent the two of us sliding, leaving a clean streak across the hot metal. We flew off the other side and tumbled to the ground.

  I hit the pavement hard, almost on all fours. Kneeling, I held the boy tightly, his arms clutched around my neck. His little heart beat wildly, almost as fast as mine. I looked up to follow the driver down the street. It was the same car that had been parked outside my coffee shop. I caught a flick of blonde hair and a flash of white teeth as the driver laughed and sped around the corner out of sight. His parting shot echoed out his open window, “See you later, Leftovers.”

  The little boy began to wriggle in my tight grasp and pushed back to look up at me. I saw his doe-like eyes, his mouth in a small O, and the pulse in his neck. His little face puckered in panic and a small finger worked its way up to poke me in the eye.

  That’s when the world seemed to start up again. The wind swept through the trees carrying the scent of excited children. Doors slammed. People suddenly hovered all around us. “ “Oh my god, Tomas,” a woman cried out and the boy was snatched from my arms.

  I leaned against the car beside me, blinking rapidly to make the sting from his grubby little finger go away.

  As I pushed myself to my feet, I caught my reflection in the side view mirror. Yellow eyes stared back. Crap. Guess if I saw a monster with yellow eyes, I’d poke her in the eye as well.

  “You all right?” The police officer’s musky cologne and the smell of leather from his holster drew my attention as he walked closer. He was a police officer. Just a public servant. Not a threat.

  “Fine.” I bent over, hands on my knees, hiding my face, simply taking in long deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. I’m just a writer. And I’m fine. Just fine. Everything’s friggin’ peachy in Violet-Land.

  My hands were shaking; my knees were weak. I heard the roar of blood in my ears and saw the pulse in my vision. My glance darted to the other side of the street where people had lined up to watch the show. Just people, I told myself. A boy nearly gets run down by a sports car and people are going to gawk. Nothing weird about that.

  “I’m fine,” I repeated, still taking in deep breaths, still processing everything that had flown by. Did the world actual stop moving? Had I actually just run out in front of a car? Who was that guy that called me Leftovers?

  A slight chill ran down my body as the breeze cooled the sweat on my skin. My heartbeat slowed; my pulse less visible. As I turned back at my reflection in the car window, I looked like me again. Just Violet.

  The boy’s mother reached out and touched my forearm with cool fingers. “You saved my little boy’s life.”

  I turned towards her quickly. I had. I had saved a life. Little Violet Jordan was a hero.

  The woman hugged me, smashing the boy between us. It threw me off balance for a moment as her rose perfume assaulted my senses but I patted her back softly. She pulled away and, without meeting my eyes again, headed toward her car. Tomas’s frightful eyes peered over his mother’s shoulder and he stared at me until he was securely fastened into his seat.

  The police officer watched silently as I tried to catch my bearings. I didn’t know where home was. There wasn’t a school anywhere near my house. I thought I’d run west, but with all the turns and shortcuts, I couldn’t be sure any more.

  “I’ve never seen anyone do that,” the officer said with a smile as he scratched behind his ear, lifting up the edge of his hat.

  “Adrenaline, I guess.” I forced a half smile and watched Tomas and his mom drive away.

  “You training for a marathon or something?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I watched you speed around the corner. It was like a woman with a mission.”

  I gulped. “Just running,” I squeaked out.

  He nodded and waved to the gathering crowd to disperse. As the people slowly retreated to their cars or back into the school building, five black dogs remained on the sidewalk, panting, staring at me.

  Frozen, I stared at the motley group of mongrels. My skin crawled and the space between my shoulder blades tightened, the hair prickling down my neck. They’d found me. My vain attempt to blend into a crowd of schoolchildren three feet shorter than me hadn’t worked as well as I thought and now they were waiting with baited breath.

  “Is your ankle alright?”

  “My ankle?” I looked down to see a gash just above my ankle soaking my sock with deep red blood. “Where’s my shoe?”

  The officer pointed to the middle of the street where my size ten rested like a big white speed bump. “You clipped the front; that’s what made you spin.”

  “I spun?”

  He nodded and looked at the dogs, then back at me. “Do you want me to call you an ambulance?”

  I tried to put pressure on my swollen ankle and fire flew up my leg. Not just bleeding, broken. I gulped but tried not to show just how painful it really was. “I’ve survived worse.”

  He pulled out a small memo pad from his breast pocket. I almost expected him to lick the tip of the pencil like in the old detective movies, but he didn’t. “Did you recognize the car?”

  I could only shake my head; my lips clamped shut. I couldn’t positively identify it as the one that had been parked outside the coffee shop where I spent half my waking moments. I mean there were probably thousands of BMW convertibles in Dallas.

  “Would you like to press charges?”

  “Press charges? The guy sped off.”

  With an unsatisfied sigh, he put the pad back in his front pocket. “Well, I’m going to have to fill out a report anyway, b
ut since you’re refusing an ambulance, can I at least give you a ride home?”

  I looked down at the empty street, then at the dogs lined up just waiting for me to be alone again. “That would be great,” I said with a pain-filled smile.

  I’d never been in the back of a police car but I could see the odometer from there. As I gave the officer directions, I watched the numbers tick away. Seven miles. I’d run seven miles, saved a boy’s life, and broken an ankle. That was a bit more than my standard afternoon. I longed for the days when I stayed in my office to write my little stories and only ran after ice cream trucks.

  We stopped outside my townhouse and the officer rushed around the front of his patrol car to let me out. He offered a hand as I gingerly slid across the vinyl seats and stood on one leg. I looked down the quiet residential street. No dogs. No speeding sociopaths.

  “Thank you again.” He closed the door and walked back around to the driver side of the car. “We need more heroes like you.”

  I watched as he drove off. Wincing with every uneven step, the walk to my house felt like another mile in itself. As quickly as I could, I found my key, unlocked my door, hobbled inside, and slammed the door shut.

  Exhausted, I leaned against the door and slid down to the floor. The sock was a lost cause. I’d forgotten my shoe at the scene of the crime. There was so much pain in my leg I didn’t know if I would ever move from this spot.

  Now I had a reason to never leave my house again.

  I hate dogs. I hate lost shoes and I really hate exercise.

  And thanks to what happened two weeks ago, I’d never enjoy another Cosmo again.

  Chapter One

  Two weeks earlier.

  That Friday in the middle of October was like all the other Fridays since I’d moved to Dallas: a swanky uptown bar with dark corners, expensive drinks, and less clothing than a beach cabana. Jessa had called the usual suspects together for a small celebration after landing a new client. Jessa, Carrie, Adrianna, and I were curled around a table at the back of the dance floor when goose bumps ran across my skin. Usually this is nothing; my hands have the ambient temperature of the polar icecaps and probably the number one reason I drink coffee like it’s going out of style.

  Straightening up to see around the bar, I caught a glimpse at the man who had lurked in our shadow for the last two months. A prickle ran down my spine as our eyes met.

  “Stalker boy’s here again,” I said as I sipped my drink, looking over at Jessa.

  “Who’s Stalker boy?” asked Carrie, short blonde who had never had to worry about calories or paying for a drink,

  Jessa rolled her eyes and flicked her gaze over her shoulder towards the man. She set her hands flat on the table, fingers spread wide. That was her drama pose. After two years of friendship, I was intimately familiar with the drama pose. In fact, everyone at our table stopped talking and leaned in, knowing it was time for a story.

  “Like a dog with a bone,” she started over the DJ’s music. As she leaned forward, her black curtain of hair slipped down around her heart-shaped face. “So this guy came up to me in the bar and we get to talking and I don’t think anything of it until he shows up at the same place I go to the next night and the next night. One conversation and it’s like the guy is everywhere I go now.”

  Carrie frowned. “Why didn’t you called the cops?”

  Jessa smiled. “Because the boy is hot.”

  I shook my head but smiled as the other girls laughed. Classic Jessa. All about the looks, less about the details. Personally, I’d spent two months collecting the details. Stalker boy wasn’t overly tall, blending into the twenty-something crowd with his black jacket and dark jeans, but an edge haunted his soap star looks. Even here in the smoky club with the dancing strobe lights, he was different from the other men who stared at our table.

  Looking back at me steadily, he took a swig of his beer. The intensity of his gaze sent another bout of chills down my spine and the thought crossed my mind that maybe Jessa should have called the cops. Maybe this guy was trouble.

  Jessa nudged my arm. I looked at her and followed her pointing finger to another man at the bar. He was skinny but hid it well with a corduroy jacket with patches on the elbow. “What’s his story?”

  I smiled at my best friend and sunk into the familiar storytelling game we played almost every Friday night. “He’s a child prodigy, went to college at fourteen, and now teaches psychology as the youngest tenured professor in the university’s history.”

  “And why aren’t you asking for his number?”

  “Chronically antisocial. He finds human companionship tedious and is waiting for the day he can clone himself to have a decent conversation.”

  Jessa laughed and playfully slapped my arm. “You are too hard on people Violet.”

  After two more hours of gabbing, dancing, and fending men off Jessa, I managed to herd the girls into a taxi and drop all of them off without any missing shoes, lost purses, or the maiming of clingy guys who didn’t know “you leave with who you came with.”

  Applauding myself for remembering cash for the taxi, I paid the driver and trekked to the red front door of my little two-story townhouse. I was nearly to the door when a noise from the alleyway echoed between the two buildings.

  “Not again. Stupid dogs.”

  Now normally, I’d have let my trash bags fend for themselves. But I had a few drinks in me and had managed to block a Dallas Cowboys linebacker from taking Jessa home, so I was feeling braver than usual. I was going to teach those stupid mutts a lesson: My trash is not a free buffet.

  The broken safety light in the alley left me tiptoeing through darkness. Luckily, I knew my way around: four steps and a gutter; three and a dip to the left in the sidewalk.

  Now, I write for a low-budget horror movie company whose creations are found only on the highest numbered cable channels. Even in cult circles, Cloak and Dagger Productions is well known for taking the imaginative leap a little too far. But nothing, even in my line of work, could have prepared me for what I saw, actually saw, as I stepped into the alley of garage doors.

  A dark, solid shadow loomed over the pale fur of Happy, my neighbor’s golden lab. The dog lay limp under the crouching form. By the snap of tendons and slow smacky chomping that echoed around in my ears, it was leisurely eating man’s best friend.

  I cupped my hand over my mouth from the stomach-churning sight. Part of me had known it was Happy eating my garbage. But this? I would never wish this on anything.

  As I tried to stealthily back away from the gruesome sight, I bumped my garbage cans, sending them clattering loudly behind me, spilling my white bags all over the driveway. Crap.

  I could make out only yellow eyes in the inky blackness as they snapped towards me. Double Crap.

  Frozen in the eerie stare, I didn’t move again until the shadow growled. The low, earthy sound echoed off the long corridor of metal garage doors.

  Alone, in the darkness with a monster, I panicked. I had keys in one hand and a small purse with a credit card, cherry lip gloss, and loose powder in the other. None of that was going to do any good unless the black figure felt a little shiny.

  The shadow began to move, its dark legs slowly stepping over Happy’s golden fur. Its long body stalked towards me. I used the only weapon I could think of: my shoe. It was big enough to knock out anything.

  My patent heel bounced off the black mass and clattered on the cracked driveway. The creature growled again unaffected by the barrage, keeping me in its sights.

  One shoe off and three drinks to the wind, I darted back down the shadowy sidewalk between the buildings as fast as my tired size tens would carry me. Even with the adrenaline pumping through my veins, I couldn’t push my legs fast enough.

  Fire ripped through my body as the thing leapt and sharp, steely hooks pierced into the muscle of my shoulder and tore down my back.

  Falling forward with its weight, I hit the sidewalk hard. My hands caught my fall, saving
my face from the concrete, but losing a layer of skin in the process. My glasses flew off my face, landing just far enough away to be lost in the darkness.

  The shadow ripped deeper into my shoulder. It shredded my shirt, snapped my bra straps, and tore through the tender flesh.

  I must have cried out because, suddenly, help arrived in the form of black boots. The thing on top of me growled or screamed; I wasn’t sure. The pain seeped into my ears making them useless, as spots filled my blurry vision.

  There was a hollow click and I saw another sequence from the movies: the world fading to black. I could only hope that along with those big black boots came a white hat.

  Chapter Two

  “In the beginning, it was gray. Among those who wandered among the world, Guardians protected us. Not that there was anything to protect us from. We minded our own business, married our loves, had children, and lived peacefully.

  “And then there were these new creatures called humans who lived among those who wandered among the world. They were small and frail and couldn’t weave water, or see into trees, or change shapes. But they were passionate and artistic and curious. They were kind and cruel and humorous and sullen all in little mortal packages.

  “As the humans evolved, so did those who wandered. Once gray, there were then light ones and dark ones, those who protected humanity and those who believed they were above it.

  “A war raged in the dark silence around the fragile humans. Both sides had their soldiers. Once watching over us like angels, the Guardians now protected wanderers and humans from their darker counterparts, the Grifters. Guardians had speed and strength and inner fortitude to save those who needed to be saved. And hearts like lions and . . .”

  “Mom, they didn’t really have lion hearts, did they?”

  Mom smoothed out my hair and whispered. “Some do, kitten. Just like lions.”

  I wasn’t dead, but with the way my body hurt, I wished I was. Everything throbbed, including a telltale headache from too many drinks. I cracked my crusty eyes open and the first thing I saw was red-brown plaid sheets.