CHAPTER ELEVEN

The sun was only just barely starting to rise as Viola made her way through one of the Felidae Headquarters lower levels. She found an exit into a stairwell and tried to get her bearings: was she above, or below ground? How many flights had they taken on that elevator when the security guards had brought her to the cell? She wracked her brain, then finally gripped the metal bar that was the handrail and hauled herself up.

With a stroke of luck, she’d made the right call, and found herself exiting into a parking garage that was one floor below ground level. She stuck to the shadows, sliding in between the wall and the cars that had been parked there overnight. She wondered if the limo was in this lot, wondered if her driver was ok. But she didn’t have the time to check.

Finally, she saw the road that would lead her out onto the streets and grant her the freedom she had been seeking. It passed a guard gate that, from a distance, appeared to be empty. Viola crept hesitantly forward, her eyes wide and alert as she made her way toward the exit. The guard booth was indeed empty, but just as she was nearing it, a guard swung in from the outside, around the corner, and headed toward his station.

He froze when he saw her, a fresh cup of coffee held aloft, as he tried to figure out who and what she was. She must have looked rather like a doe in headlights at first, startled into silence, but it only took a moment for her to force her body to relax and adopt an air of forced levity.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she said, walking right up to the guard. “I’m so turned around.” He didn’t say anything to her, just latched a pair of dubious eyes to her expression. He set down his coffee cup on the cement block that held up the guard rail, and placed his hand on his hip, near his weapon.

“Is that right?” He said at length. “What is it you’re trying to find?”

“Is this…I’m looking for building 228, is this it?” She flashed her most brilliant, toothy smile and hoped that her hair wasn’t too disheveled from 36 hours of tossing and turning on a prison cot. But she wasn’t wearing a jacket, she didn’t have a purse, and he was looking at her like he had an idea of who and what she might be.

“No, it’s not. Hang on a sec, I’m gonna call in to get you some directions. Not sure exactly the best route…” He was reaching into his pocket for his phone or his radio, and she couldn’t let him give away the fact that she’d escaped.

“You know what?” She said, inching forward. The exit was six, maybe seven feet away and all that was standing in between her, and it was this guard. He was stocky, mid-forties, with skin the color of fresh brewed coffee and piercing hazel eyes that gave away his status as a shifter of Clan Felidae. He was very close to being another person, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. “It’s ok, it’s a nice morning, I’m sure I can find it on my own.”

But it wasn’t a nice morning. It was the kind of morning that was cool, but somehow still managed to be humid, overcast and somewhat hazy. And the guard knew, then, who and what she was, and had his weapon trained on her in an instant. “Now hang on a second there, miss,” he said, arching one eyebrow up high over the other. “I’m thinking that maybe you’re the lady that got locked up the other night, and somehow you wriggled your way free.”

Viola batted her lashes, clinging fiercely to a ruse that she had hoped would get her out of this precise situation. She didn’t want to kill this man. But she would. “What are you talking about, locked up. Is this a prison?”

“No, but…” He narrowed his eyes at her and took the safety off of his pistol. She raised her hands slowly into the air in front of her. “What’s your name?”

“Debbie Satlzman,” she said, picking a name out of thin air as quickly as she could.

“Identification?”

“I haven’t got any. My purse—that’s why I’m looking for building 228. I was…well…I was with this guy last night and I probably shouldn’t have been—you know how that goes. Well, anyway, I woke up this morning and thought to myself, Debbie, you have just got to get yourself out of here as quick as possible. And wouldn’t you know it? I left my purse behind, cell phone and everything. Thank God I remember the building number. Hopefully the apartment number is somewhere in this head of mine as well.” The lie left her lips as easy as any truth, and Viola swallowed hard, waiting to see what the guard would do.

He hesitated, and she tensed her muscles, waiting for him to give her any indication that he didn’t buy her story. Because if he didn’t, she’d spring into action, and she was a trained assassin. She wondered if the guard knew that. Canting her head to the side, she locked her gaze on his, a gaze that challenged him to make a move.

“Debbie Saltzman,” he echoed.

“That’s me,” Viola said flatly, staring. Her expression sent a shiver up his spine. He knew. And she could tell that he knew.

“I’m sorry, Miss Saltzman,” he said, taking a few steps forward. “But I’m not supposed to let anyone on or off the premises.”

“More’s the pity,” she said, heaving a sigh. “Ah, well.” And with that she dove forward, dropping down into a crouch and jabbing the heel of her hand directly onto one of his kneecaps with such force that it knocked him off balance. With a wail, he went down, squeezing the trigger of his gun as he went so that it sent a bullet to ricochet off of the concrete walls. Instinctively, Viola’s hands went up to shield her head, but she was faster than him, and she snatched the gun that had fallen just out of his grasp when he fell. She rolled out of reach and jumped up to her feet, cradling the pistol in both hands as she aimed it down at his skull.

The guard was scrambling to his knees when she pulled back the hammer and peered down the sights at him. He was beginning to lift his hands over his head.

“Please, don’t kill me,” he stammered. He was aging, and obviously not important enough to the Clan to have a very distinctive position within it. Perhaps the clan meant as much to him as he did to it.

“Would you have afforded me the same courtesy if our roles were reversed?” She asked, pressing forward.

He sniffed, his eyes welling with tears he refused to let himself shed, and shook his head. “No.”

“I didn’t think so.” She should just kill him. It’s what she did, wasn’t it?

But no, she wasn’t a Somnus Sacrae agent any longer. She was no longer the cat’s trained killer. Everything could be different now. “Give me your phone and your radio,” she said, and he obliged, plucking the items out of his pockets and sliding them across the pavement to her feet. “Oh, and your money. I’m starving and I need a cab.” She canted her head to the side. “Do you have a car?”

“Yes.”

“Car keys, too.” Wallet, keys, all of it, right at her feet. She smiled: her day was beginning to turn around. She crouched down and swept the items up, shoving the wallet and the radio and the phone into the pockets of her jeans until they were stuffed to bulging. She pressed the unlock button on the key fob and was pleased to hear a little chirping sound directly behind her. “What’s your name?”

“Daniels,” he said. “Anthony Daniels.”

“Well, Anthony Daniels,” she said, taking a few steps back. “Today is your lucky day. Now, it’s time for you to run. Run all the way home, Anthony Daniels, and never come back to this place.”

Anthony Daniels scrambled to his feet and darted out the front of the parking garage. Just as he reached the corner, Viola saw him shift, until a black cat sprang out of a puddle of his clothes and disappear into the morning.

Heaving a sigh, Viola spun around and found his car, a 2013 Toyota Camry in black. Plain, responsible, perfect for her purposes. She climbed in, tossing the gun, wallet, phone, and radio onto the passenger seat and started the car. Indie Rock radio began to play, and she shifted into drive, ramming the guard rail until the wood splintered and gave way, and she was free to drive out onto the streets, past a black cat that sat and watched her from the sidewalk.

~ * ~

It would impress no one to learn that her first stop was to a McDonald’s drive through for an iced coffee and an egg McMuffin, but to expect her to proceed without caffeine on an empty stomach seemed like the height of folly. She sat in the parking lot with her food, sipping intermittently from the giant plastic cup while she tried to think of her next move ought to be. Don’t go home, Rowan had said, and that seemed prudent. But she had to see Verity. She had to make sure that she was all right, that Clan Felidae hadn’t turned on her when they’d thrown Viola in prison. Yes, she needed to get to the hospital, and she needed back up.

She snatched Anthony Daniels’ smart phone from off of the seat next to her and opened a Safari browser window, into which she typed “Graham McCallum Contact Information”. The results showed a number, which was obviously his office, and she clicked on it, initiating a call.

Immediately, an answering service clicked on: You have reached McCallum Incorporated. Our business hours are 8AM to 6PM, Monday through Friday. If you know your party’s extension, please enter it at any time. For our subsidiaries, please press one. For our directory, please press 2—

And she pressed two. The names of the directory seemed to scroll on forever before she finally got to Graham. She entered in his extension number, and a wave of relief swept over her, even from the sound of his recorded voice on his voicemail: You’ve reached Graham McCallum. I’m not available to take your call, but if you leave your name and contact number, I will get back to you as soon as I am able.

“Graham,” she said, as soon as the beep indicated it was her turn to speak, “It’s Viola. I need to speak with you, but I can’t go home. You can call me at…shit. Um. Hang on. I don’t know the number…” She looked up Anthony Daniels’ number in the settings of his phone: “Um, 919-763-0090. Until the battery dies, that is. Thanks. Call me. It’s important. Ok, bye.”

Then, she sat there for an hour, wondering why her message had been half important business and half heart-struck teenager. But when a full hour had passed and her iced coffee was gone and her egg McMuffin had long been consumed, she pulled out of the McDonald’s parking lot and used the GPS to find her way to the hospital.