by Ran Cartwright
...............Dandelion sat in the dark. Somewhere nearby rats chittered and scurried about. She listened, her knees drawn up under her chin, her hands clasped around them. Her fate at the hands of those thugs she couldn’t it out of her mind. Maybe a slave, maybe death. Slave, death. Slave, death. They were equally as bad when it came to a young woman accosted by a roving street gang. Just my goddam luck coming here; I shoulda stayed home.
...............The dull light of the overcast morning sky crept through the dirty ground level basement window. Digger glanced at the window as he climbed into his clothes, and then grinned at the shivering form of Dandelion lying curled up on the basement floor. He’d injected her with another fix, the pain having begun to return. “I’ll be around when you need more,” he said as he pulled his jacket on. He cackled as he disappeared up the basement steps.
...............Drugs. Dandelion slowed her pace as she staggered along the sidewalk, dodging debris. She paused, exhausted, leaned against a store front, her outstretched arm supporting her. It’s the drug, she thought, last night’s memory of the assault rapidly fading. But the effects of Blood wouldn’t fade. It would persist, grow worse. And it would drive her to another fix...and another, never ending. A fix...another fix. She caught herself, her eyes wide. Oh my gawd! I’m already wanting... She sucked in breath and continued on, heading south, crossing the river over the South Avenue Bridge.
...............It was a closed in parking lot framed into an L-shaped building, the upper floors of the building in smoldering ruins, plumes of smoke curling into the sky. A four foot high wall ran the length of the parking lot along the sidewalk, cutting it off from the street except for the entrance. Rubble was strewn across the lot along with a few rusted and burned out car hulks. To one side a fire was burning in a five gallon drum, apparently warmth in the early morning hours for someone braving the walking dead and the vampires before they returned to their lairs. It didn’t stop the scavengers, Dandelion thought.
...............Dandelion awoke curled up on her side on the sidewalk against the parking lot wall. Across the street sat a huge black panther. Its eyes sparkled with a strange ethereal light as it watched Dandelion struggle to her feet. She was unsteady, swaggering back and forth. A sudden stab of pain caused her to grab her side and cringe. The stab lessoned until it became a steady nagging throb. And suddenly she realized that it was almost dusk. Digger was gone, and peering over the parking lot wall, she found the five scavengers and their victim were gone as well. All that remained was the battered body of the young man the scavengers had killed. Dandelion sighed relief. Maybe the panther..., she was thinking as she glanced across the street. The panther was gone.
...............Slowly Dandelion descended the stairs to the basement, hoping her slow even light steps would lessen the pain that racked her body. It did little good. She gritted her teeth, closed her eyes tight, and paused as another wrenching stab of pain tore through her. And then gasping, her tearing eyes wide, she continued toward the shadowed room at the foot of the stairs.
...............Siren’s songs. That was Dandelion’s first impression. The strange ethereal song flooded the night. An enchanting female voice carried on the wind. So soft, so delicate, yet so overpowering. The song echoed down streets and alleys, through parks, indoors and outdoors, drawing everyone who heard it. And they came. Vampires, scavengers, street thugs, mutants, the walking dead, the infected people were everywhere - all slowly wandering in the same direction. Toward the music. It was an amazing sight. All these creatures, all so efficient at inflicting pain, misery, and death, were walking together, trance-like, as if following the song of some mysterious Pied Piper.
...............Cathi Myers was heading back to her apartment on Grace Street. She staggered north across the South Avenue Bridge. Her head swam, and she was battered and bruised. Even in her condition, the vampires, scavengers, mutants, and street thugs still gave her a wide berth. She’d come to the Waste Disposal Plant off King Street to greet her master, but the treatment she received wasn’t what she expected. It hadn’t been a reward like those she so wantonly desired, like those she received for the sacrifices she brought to her apartment. What she’d received at the Waste Disposal Plant was a malicious assault.
...............Nadir was a beautiful, half naked, Nubian. Her legs were wrapped to mid-calf in soft satin silk, black in color, low cut on her stomach. A black satin shoulder wrap covered her right breast, leaving her left breast exposed. She wore heels and around her neck a diamond necklace with a softly glowing pendant. She was a shape shifter, a she-cat, the black panther that had watched Dandelion and stalked Digger.
...............Sex. The word drifted through Dandelion’s mind. Ordinarily, the thought of sex didn’t bother her. But this was Darktowne. Sex just wasn’t sex anymore. Although sex had once been a major interest, these days she was more interested in staying alive. And right now she didn’t know if she would live or die. She stopped and glanced at the smoking building. There was a crash of glass, and then a scream. She knew someone else was getting it, death by some manner or other. She dropped the hand full of dandelions she held and headed for the nearest cover. She hadn’t been watching, hadn’t noticed the oncoming dusk. If she were caught out after dark..., if those thugs caught her... She’d seen it happen to others, the pleading for mercy, the begging and crying - the beatings, the rapes, the blood, the murder. Some were raped then made slaves, others were killed on the spot. Some just disappeared. Male and female alike. It didn’t matter. Dandelion wasn’t about to be one of them.
...............Without waiting to see who or what came out of the building, Dandelion ran across the street, dodging burned out cars and chunks of broken buildings. This neighborhood was her natural daytime haunt; she knew a side alley two blocks north, and a building with a basement that was usually vacant - a place for her to hide. When it wasn’t vacant, the other occupants were usually rats. Rats she could stand. The scavengers, street gangs, and vampires she couldn’t. Of course, the vampires only came out at night. She didn’t. The thought of them terrified her. Images of possible fate clouded her mind as the dusk and smoke clouded her vision. Just a couple blocks, just a couple blocks...
...............She made it to the alley, tripped over a trash can, and rolled against the brick wall of a building. Shit! She glanced around fearfully, knowing someone had to have heard the crashing can. She pushed her shoulders against the brick wall, holding her breath, the fear rising. There was a shout, a male voice calling out to others about a sound over there. There was no time to waste. Dandelion had made a mistake. And she knew it could be a fatal one.
...............She jumped to her feet and ran toward the building and the basement that afforded her safety. Just through the open doorway and a crowd of thugs in chains and leather rushed into the alley. Dandelion hoped she hadn’t been seen. Inside the building she slowed her pace so as not to stumble over things thereby making more noise. It would lead them straight to her. Cautiously she made her way to the open door of the basement. Out in the alley she could hear the thugs grumbling and kicking trash about.
...............Two steps down and she stopped, held her breath, and waited for the thugs to come after her. It was dark in the stairwell of the basement, but her line of sight enabled her to see through the door and into the alley. Dusk was gray and darkening fast. The thugs were skirting the building front. Dandelion watched as they scuttled past and on down the alley. She let out a sigh of relief. Slowly, silently, cautiously, she descended the steps into the basement to spend the night with the rats.
...............A misplaced flower child, Dandelion was a young hippie girl displaced by over forty years, having had the misfortune of being born ‘after the fact.’ She had read everything she could find on the Flower Child movement of the sixties, the Haight-Ashbury years of free love and drugs, the rock festivals like Woodstock and Altamont. The lifestyle appealed to her - the clothing, the music, a journey of self-discovery. That was what she wanted to do, a journey of self-discovery; that was why she’d left the tiny crossroad village of Washingtonville for Darktowne - to find herself. She was a free spirited flower child. That was why her friends had called her Dandelion. And she liked it better than Amber, the name her mother and father had given her.
...............The name stuck. She lived the part - granny glasses, tie-dye T shirt, bell bottom jeans, beret, and a southwestern style handbag in which she carried everything she owned. What she owned wasn’t much, but it didn’t matter. Those thugs could have everything she owned; they just couldn’t have her. And that was something they would definitely want, something anyone would want. Male or female. But for different reasons. Males for sex. Females out of jealousy.
...............A chittering rat nearby caught her attention. She turned to the sound, missing the shadow looming up out of a dark corner. The scavenger pounced, taking her by surprise, pushing her further down, her legs splaying out on the floor. Her eyes wide, she gasped. The gasp was cut off by a hand pressed over her mouth, and another hand that clutched her throat. Terrified, she squeaked as the scavenger loomed close, his rancid breath washing over her face.
...............“Now you keep quiet, little lady,” the scavenger whispered. “We don’t need to invite anyone else down here. It’s just you and me, all night long.”
...............The scavenger let go of her neck, slowly drawing his hand away, his eyes locked on hers, her eyes wide and filled with terror. He slowly reached inside the tattered jacket he wore and took something out. Dandelion’s eyes darted to the object. Even in the shadows she recognized the object as a syringe. The scavenger held it up, the needle pointing toward the basement ceiling. She began to squeak again as she struggled against him for she knew what was in that syringe.
...............“Shhhh, shhhhh, keep it quiet, little lady,” the scavenger whispered as he shifted his position, using a knee to pin Dandelion’s right arm to the floor. “You need this, you know you do.”
...............The scavenger leaned, carefully turning the needle to Dandelion’s bare forearm. She gasped under his hand as the needle pricked her skin. Slow and steady the scavenger pushed on the plunger, the drug coursing into Dandelion’s arm, riding the flow of her blood stream. The effect was immediate and hard. It was hot, like molten iron, like a fire racing through her body. She tried to cry out as her body bucked and quivered beneath the straddling scavenger. He cackled as he pulled the needle from her arm, the drug spent.
...............“Nothin like Blood to make a slave outta some bitch,” he cackled, smiling down at his prize. He sat up on his haunches and grinned as he watched Dandelion moan and buck in pain. “When you need another fix, you just keep comin back to ole Digger.”
...............Dandelion’s worse fears were realized. She was a slave. Not only to Blood, but also to the scavenger to supply her with the drug. Blood was a habit no one could break. No one would die from it, but it was instantly addictive. It was a special designer drug created in Franklin Heights. No one remembered who’d created it or why, only that it had started to show up on the streets. And everyone knew that it only took one hit, one injection to become addicted. It kept one in pain, and to alleviate it to a mild nagging throb, you had to take the drug. It began the pain, and then counteracted to lessen the pain, but never totally eliminated it.
...............“Now that yur all good and in the mood, we gonna have us some fun,” Digger said. He took his hand from her mouth, rose to a crouch, and grabbed her ankles. Cackling softly, he dragged her by her feet to the middle of the room, Dandelion moaning in pain, her body quivering as the drug coursed through her.
...............Outside in the alley a snarling black panther stalked the shadows, aware of the events taking place in the basement of the building. It paused, staring into the shadows, and then turned and disappeared into the night.
...............Dandelion remained silent, softly sobbing, curled on her side and staring along the floor. Her thoughts were awash with what she’d experienced through the night, her addiction to Blood, the control the scavenger had over her, and the city spiraling out of control around her. This is crazy! And realizing that she couldn’t leave, her soft sobbing burst into a torrent of tears as she squinted her eyes and cried.
...............She fought the growing pain as she staggered through two more intersections, her eyes and ears as alert as possible. Approaching the third intersection, the corner of South Avenue and King Street, she began to hear strange ethereal cries and moans. These weren’t the cries of the assaulted, the raped or murdered. These were different, wispy, as though they were carried on the wind. Still, there was an element of anguish and torment about them that sent a chill up Dandelion’s back. And they were coming from somewhere to the east. A couple blocks toward the Waste Disposal Plant.
...............Her footsteps drew to a crawl, and then stopped completely. There was something about those cries, something that frightened her more than anything else she’d experienced in this dying city. And as she began to step back, the street nearly a block away split open, pavement grinding against pavement, a plume of greenish-black smoke curling into the air. Dandelion paused, her eyes trained on the fissure that had opened in the street. A thick green slime began to bubble out of the fissure, like churning lava. And with the bubbling slime came an unearthly howling cry of anguish and despair, and a guttural roar of something utterly alien. Dandelion winced and pressed the palms of her hands against her ears, trying to stifle the sound as it echoed down alleys and side streets, blanketing the city.
...............For miles around people stopped and stared, turning their heads, wondering where the sound was coming from. The walking dead stopped to listen. The vampires in their coffins were awakened by the hideous sound. Scavengers and street gangs fearfully slunk into cover. The few Normals who were left cringing in their hiding places wondered what new horror was descending upon the dying city. The infected heralded the arrival of their master. The four she-cats paused in their dance while the stranger on the bluff above stared down upon Darktowne and smiled. And high priestess, Cathi Myers, came to greet her master.
...............The howling cries began to fade, replaced by a hissing bubbling sound as the churning slime continued to bubble up from beneath the road. Dandelion slowly lowered her hands and stared at the young woman, half naked in black satin slacks and stiletto heeled shoes, who‘d suddenly appeared from a side alley near the fissure in the street. She approached the open fissure of bubbling slime, walking as though she hadn’t a care in the world and feared nothing this city had to offer. Not only did Dandelion see it in her manner, but she sensed it as well. There was something about this woman. An unexplained fear caused Dandelion to jump behind a cluster of building rubble. She rolled over, winched in pain and crouched. Slowly she pushed up and peered over the top of the rubble. The woman suddenly stopped and turned. Dandelion ducked.
...............I know you’re there. Cathi smiled. No need to worry; my interest is not in you. The little pathetic scavenger can have you. And with a soft laugh, too soft for Dandelion to hear, Cathi turned and continued toward the fissure in the street.
...............Scared, pained, and shaking, Dandelion suppressed her nerves enough to look again. She peered over the top of the rubble, and saw the woman standing at the edge of the fissure, the slime bubbling at her feet. As Dandelion slowly rose, tendrils of slime suddenly began to race up the woman’s body, crawling across her skin. What the Hell is... That was enough for Dandelion. She turned and bolted down a side street, oblivious to the stabs of pain that were cascading through her body. And as she disappeared, a large black panther with a diamond pendant necklace appeared in the doorway of a nearby building. The panther glanced down the street where Dandelion had fled, and then peered at the young blonde woman. The woman appeared to be gasping for breath, rocking her body back and forth, as the slime swam over her.
...............Enjoy your final days, the she-cat thought.
...............She’d been walking on the sidewalk, and had nearly stepped into the open at the parking lot entrance when a woman’s scream caused her to duck down behind the wall. She sighed relief, wondering why she hadn’t been seen. Certainly she should have; she was taller than the wall. A sudden stab of pain tore through her body. She grimaced, gasped for air, and clutched at her stomach. Her body quaking in withdrawl, she sat back against the wall and closed her eyes, waiting for the pain to subside. But the stabs of pain were becoming more frequent, and she knew she had to have a fix.
...............The woman screamed again and Dandelion turned onto her hands and knees to peer around the edge of the wall where it ended at the parking lot entrance. There, across the parking lot, a young man lay on the pavement as five scavengers bashed his brains out with wooden clubs. Backed up against a wall was his young female companion screaming bloody murder. Dandelion could hear the scavengers cackling as they beat the young man to a bloody pulp, his blood spraying in the air, the clubs coated in a glistening red. Shit! And Dandelion spun on her crouching heels, rising to run. She hardly got two steps before crashing headlong into Digger who’d been standing behind her and grinning. She gasped as she stepped back, her eyes wide.
...............“Well, he’s one dead fuck!” came the voice of a laughing scavenger from the parking lot.
...............At the sound of the laughing voice, Dandelion glanced momentarily toward the parking lot, and then turned her eyes back to Digger.
...............“Juz some of my friends havin some fun,” Digger chuckled as he nodded toward the parking lot.
...............Another stab of pain suddenly rocked Dandelion. She gasped as she clutched her stomach.
...............“The Blood’s wearin off,” Digger said with a smile. “You need some more, little lady?”
...............Gasping, she nodded hesitantly.
...............“Well, then, come to daddy,” he replied, gesturing with his fingers. “I’ll fix ya right up.”
...............Dandelion slowly approached him, her chin lowered, her eyes upturned. Digger took the syringe from his inside jacket pocket, held it up, and smiled as Dandelion glanced at the dark red liquid in the tube. He tested it; a thin line squirted from the needle. Dandelion slowly raised an arm, palm up. Digger took her arm, turned the syringe and gave her the fix she needed to settle the pain. She gasped as the needle pricked her skin, held her breath, and then breathed long and deep as the liquid flooded her veins. Digger slowly pulled the needle out, shook the syringe, and returned it to his jacket pocket.
...............“There now, little lady,” Digger cackled as he placed a finger under her chin and gently lifted her face. “All better now.”
...............She was gasping for air, waiting for the pain to subside, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Digger smiled as he glanced at her chest, her breasts pushing against the fabric of her t-shirt with each breath she took.
...............“Was gonna wait ‘til tonight to take my payment, but I changed my mind,” he cackled.
...............And grabbing Dandelion, he pushed her up against the wall face first, forced her to lean over it, her hair dangling down the other side. As the scavenger reached around Dandelion’s waist, unsnapped and unzipped her bellbottoms, and began to tug at the waistline, tears welled up in Dandelion’s eyes. A black shroud began to settle over her thoughts as though someone or something had purposely blanketed her consciousness to spare her the pain and indignities Digger was inflicting upon her. Slowly she began to lose consciousness and the last thing she remembered hearing were the cackling, taunting words of the five scavengers in the parking lot and the screaming sobs of their young female victim.
...............Another stab of pain tore into her, this one more severe. She gasped and tears came to her eyes. The drug was wearing off and the horrible pain would be returning soon. She had to get another fix, had to face that lecherous scum Digger again…in the basement. Alone.
...............“No!” she shouted her defiance at her addiction. “Not this time.”
...............But another stab of pain told her yes. She doubled over, grabbed her side and clinched her teeth. Again tears came to her eyes, but this time because she realized once and for all that there was no escape for her. She was enslaved to the designer drug and the slug of a man who supplied her. And she knew that however repulsive his demand would be, she’d do whatever it took to get her fix. The designer drug was well designed. Dandelion had no doubt that the addicted many times over had cursed the drug’s maker.
...............Dandelion ran through the streets and alleys, hands grasping her sides. She dodged debris and predators as screams of terror and pain echoed all around her. She heard maniacal laughter, crashing glass, and crackling fires. The smell of smoke was heavy in the air. The stabbing pain was growing worse. Soon the continuous torrent of pain would rip through her body.
...............She paused at a street corner to catch her breath, and realized she’d made it back to her old daytime haunt and the building where Digger would be waiting. The building was just down the street. A sudden stab of pain doubled her over. She gasped, waiting for it to subside. And then she started down the street toward the building.
...............A final step and Dandelion stood in the basement. She stopped and watched as a grinning Digger stepped from the shadows. His grin was of triumph, a grin of control. Holding the syringe, needle pointed toward the ceiling, he cackled as he crossed the room to where Dandelion stood. She shivered as he slipped the fingers of his free hand into her hair behind her left ear and tilted her face up to meet his gaze. Gasping and sobbing, tears streaking her face, she closed her eyes as Digger leaned forward. Their lips met.
...............It was short kiss as Dandelion pulled away and turned her pleading eyes to the syringe he held. “Please,” she sobbed. “I...I...” Her words were cut short as another stab of pain tore through her body. She knew the unending torrent was soon to follow; she had to have her fix.
...............“Okay baby,” he replied, injecting the drug into her arm. “A little rush for ya, and then we get down to business.”
...............He placed the emptied syringe in an inside pocket of his jacket, and then grabbed Dandelion by her hair and dragged her to the middle of the room. As she slowly dropped to her hands and knees, a shadow detached from the surrounding dark. Digger darted his eyes to the moving shadow. A diamond glinted in a strange light as the ghost-like form of a huge cat appeared out of the dark. A huge black panther. The panther slowly approached them, paused to snarl at Digger, and then faded back into the surrounding darkness. His lust for Dandelion suddenly forgotten, Digger turned and started up the stairs and out of the basement. Dandelion followed right behind. But it wasn’t the panther that had drawn them out of the basement. It was the softly singing voice of a female that had suddenly begun to echo on the night wind. The voice was enchanting, like the song of a Siren.
...............No one needed to be concerned with muggings, beatings, rapes, and murders. Victims and victimizers were walking side by side, following the song of that sweet musical voice. And they came from every direction, their pilgrimage taking them to the source of the enchanting voice, taking them to Homestead Park on Darktowne’s south side.
...............There in a small clearing in a corner of the park roared a bonfire, its flames seeming to eerily dance to the melody of the song. The enchanted gathered at the edge of the clearing and formed a semicircle about the bonfire. Digger and Dandelion pushed through the line to the front. Those gathered stared at the dancing flames, mesmerized, entranced. Enchanted. From behind the dancing orange light came the enchanting voice, so soft, so sweet. Suddenly the voice went silent. And those gathered waited.
...............A large cat suddenly appeared from beyond the bonfire. It was the black panther Digger and Dandelion had seen. Then two more appeared - a Bengal tiger and an albino leopard. They skirted the bonfire, approached the enchanted gathering, and then stopped about half way between.
...............“Three big cats,” Digger said softly, his eyes wide.
...............“Four,” came a soft musical voice from beyond the bonfire.
...............All eyes turned. It was the same voice that had sung the enchanting Siren’s Song. But this was not a cat. This was a tall lithe young woman who’d suddenly appeared. She was oriental with long silken black hair that cascaded over her shoulders and down her back. She was dressed in a black tight fitting wrap-around gown and heeled dress shoes. In the firelight her eyes sparkled as brightly as the diamond necklace and earrings she wore. Her lips were ruby red, and rouge highlighted her pale cheeks. Her bearing was regal, her beauty unnatural. And she moved with a slow graceful motion that would put fashion runway models to shame.
...............Stopping next to the three big cats, Ting smiled seductively at those gathered, and when her eyes fell on Digger, her smiled widened. “The song was for you,” she said in a soft and seductive voice, and then added with a nod to Dandelion, “And her.”
...............Digger’s eyes grew bigger, his heart raced, and he licked his lips as Ting swaggered past the three cats. Her hips swung suggestively, her head was tilted slightly, and she was staring at Digger through upturned eyes. Her smile was captivating, as captivating as her voice had been. And ten feet past the cats she stopped.
...............“Well, well, well,” he said, his eyes swimming over Ting’s voluptuous body. “What do we have here?” He started toward her, his longing having given way to sudden unbridled lust.
...............Ting’s smile turned seductive as she slowly rocked back and forth on one heel. “Got a little spare time?” she questioned softly, her voice alluring and musical.
...............“I got all the time you need sugar,” Digger replied as he stopped in front of Ting. He paused as he took in the curves of Ting’s body head to toe, and then added, “Never done me a Japanese woman before.”
...............Ting smiled and leaned close to Digger. “Chinese,” she whispered seductively into his right ear. She began to weave her head side to side. The motion was fluid, mesmerizing. Her eyes sparkled with a strange ethereal light. She ran the tips of her fingernails lightly over his skin while filling his thoughts with passion and lust.
...............His heart raced, his eyes grew wide and darted about. He reached for Ting to pull her close, impatient for his grand prize. “Come on, baby! Let’s do it!” And he began to cackle with delight.
...............She snuggled up to Digger, slipped an arm around his waist and lightly scratched the back of his neck with the fingernails of her free hand. A tingling sensation trickled down his spine. Suddenly she paused. Her fingernails grew into six inch long razor sharp claws, and then she struck.
...............Digger’s cackling ended abruptly. His eyes went wide and he gurgled as he lost all feeling from the neck down. There‘d been a momentary prick of pain as Ting’s claws entered the back of his neck and severed his spinal cord. And then Ting let go and pushed him away. He stumbled and collapsed to the ground, gurgling, unable to move, his wide eyes filled with terror as he stared up at Ting who stood over him.
...............Dandelion glanced back and forth between the two, fear and uncertainty etched on her face.
...............“Don’t be afraid,” Ting said in her soft musical voice as she turned her glittering eyes to Dandelion. “I won’t harm you. Come.” And she held out a hand.
...............Slowly Dandelion approached the beautiful and mysterious Chinese woman. She paused as she glanced down at Digger still gurgling at their feet, and then looked questioningly into Ting’s eyes.
...............Ting smiled as she rested an arm around Dandelion’s shoulders. “Your life has been spared.”
...............“Spared?” Dandelion questioned, shaking from the affects of the drug.
...............“Yes,” Ting nodded. “Nadir asked that your life be spared.”
...............“Who’s Nadir?”
...............“You’ve seen her; she’s been watching over you.”
...............Dandelion stared blank-eyed for a moment. Suddenly it came to her. She glanced at the three cats and then smiled at Ting. “The black panther.”
...............Ting smiled and nodded. Her smiled turned to a frown as she noted Dandelion’s pale complexion, the dark circles around her eyes, the shivering tremors running through her body. “You have the pain drug,” Ting said softly, her tone of voice darker. “Let me remove your desire.”
...............She turned and laid her hands to the sides of Dandelion’s head. Ting leaned close, her eyes squinted, brows furrowed, and stared straight into Dandelion’s eyes. A sudden warm and calming feeling washed over Dandelion. The affects of the drug began to fade along with the pain and desire. She began to feel new, reinvigorated. Alive. She felt a sudden jolt like an electric shock. The Chinese woman’s eyes suddenly and mysteriously flared a bright white, and then returned to normal. Ting smiled and released her. Dandelion was free of the drug.
...............“You’re welcome,” Ting said having read Dandelion’s thoughts. “Come, this is no place for you. We shall take you away from here.”
...............The three cats suddenly pranced in front of Ting and Dandelion to lead the way. Those gathered parted, and Ting, Dandelion, and the three cats passed through. And as they disappeared into the night, Ting’s spell over those gathered was broken. Vampires, scavengers, street thugs, mutants, and Normals who’d never otherwise have come outdoors after the sun went down stared at one another. Some were terrified, some delighted and surging with blood lust. And that night, in Homestead Park, there was wholesale assaults and mass slaughter.
...............The slime bubbling up from beneath the street had picked her up and tossed her around like a rag doll. Snaking filaments of slime had wrapped around her and entered her, constricted, brought pain to her body and mind. The fire-like pain had seared through her body as torrential waves of fear had poured through her mind. She was shown images of what her fate would be should she fail in the new task revealed to her. The task – find and destroy the cats. Her fate should she fail – given over to the mutant insect colony beneath the city where her pain and terror would be eternal.
...............Just off the bridge on the north side of the river, Cathi paused, doubled over in pain, and gasped for breath. She shook her head, her mind a disjointed puzzled of jagged thoughts about cats. Cats were everywhere in Darktowne, scavenging in alleys, trash bins, abandoned buildings, hunting for food like everyone else. Find and destroy the cats, Cathi’s mind echoed the task placed in her thoughts. What cats? All of them? There’s gotta be thousands!
...............And should she fail, she remembered the threat, she’d be given over to the mutant insects beneath the city. The full realization of that fate struck her, and for the first time in months Cathi was truly afraid.
...............She stood with Dandelion in a small clearing on a bluff far above Darktowne. Dandelion’s pack with all her worldly possessions was slung over her shoulder. She was leaving Darktowne forever. She shook her head, searching for the right words, but the y wouldn’t come.
...............“You don’t have to say anything,” Nadir smiled.
...............“Yes, I do,” Dandelion replied softly. “I want to say thanks for saving my life, and tell Ting thanks too.”
...............“You’re welcome,” Nadir replied. “And I’ll relay your message to Ting.”
...............“I guess I should be going,” Dandelion said hesitantly.
...............Nadir’s eyes glittered in the dark. “You will be safe no matter the path your footsteps take you.”
...............Dandelion smiled, nodded, and slowly began to back away.
...............Nadir smiled and nodded in return. She watched until Dandelion had turned and disappeared into the dark. And then Nadir walked the unseen path amidst the trees back to the campsite on the edge of the bluff above Darktowne where Ting, Daere, Flanna, and the stranger waited.
...............The three she-cats stood at the campfire as Nadir appeared out of the shadows. Like Nadir and Ting, Flanna and Daere had taken on human form. And like Nadir and Ting, the two remaining cats were stunningly beautiful, wore gowns, heeled dress shoes, and diamond necklaces. Flanna’s hair was a bright red, her lips and fingernails painted to match. She wore an orange gown highlighted in black. Daere was albino, her long wavy hair, skin, gown, and dress shoes were a milky white. Only her red eyes afforded her any color, and the sparkling of her diamond necklace.
...............“She’s gone,” a soft voice came from the shadows. It was the stranger. He stood quietly at the edge of the bluff, staring out over the dying city.
...............He appeared young, but was timeless. Dark hair curled about his shoulders, and he sported a salt and pepper beard close cropped about a chiseled jaw. His eyes were soft and wise, knowing. And though his voice was soft, contemplative, he was dangerous. And deadly.
...............“Yes, she’s gone,” Nadir sighed as she joined the other three she-cats at the campfire, her eyes glittering in the firelight.
...............“This is not like you, to take an interest in their affairs,” he replied. His words remained soft, emotionless. “You know we’re not here to save people.”
...............Nadir didn’t respond. She didn’t need to.
...............The man nodded in the dark. He shifted his thoughts, bringing to mind that which was soon to come. Events were coming to an end; he could sense it, feel it. There would be no survivors. They could not stay his hand. IT could not alter destiny.
...............“Ting’s song has made it aware,” he said softly. His eyes, deep pools of blackness and unbridled power, were on the city below. “The dance begins soon. Return to the city and keep watch.”
...............He slowly turned his head, his eyes peering over the dancing flames and into the night. The she-cats glanced at him, and then faded into the shadows. They changed form as shade enveloped them and their forms shrunk, molded into the dark of night, sleek forms bounding away and into the trees.
