Panther Curse Page 4

  What the fuck?

  And I suddenly realized that my shoulder didn’t even hurt. The wound should’ve throbbed like crazy even hopped up on painkillers.

  Following a sudden hunch, I tore the bandages off. My next breath caught in my throat. The giant bite mark had healed, and only a vague outline of scar tissue served as a reminder of the panther attack.

  Fear gripped me. How was this possible? How many days had I been out for? Visions of discovering that I’d just woken from a year-long coma went through my mind. But people didn’t stir from comas looking like Mr. Universe. So what the hell could explain my body’s amazing transformation?

  I was still racking my brain for answers when I picked up approaching footsteps.

  I peered back into the hospital room, but it remained empty. The steps were emanating from farther down the hallway—on the other side of a closed door. How could I hear sounds through these thick walls?

  This day was getting nuttier by the minute. I still felt afraid, but below the churning terror, another emotion reared its head—exhilaration.

  What was happening to me?

  “It’s simple, Erik. The beast has cursed you.”

  I grew stock still. It was the same voice I’d first heard in my head back in the library.

  It was official. I was losing my goddamn mind.

  “On the contrary, my erudite friend. You’re perfectly sane. The sooner you accept the reality of what’s happening to you, the better your odds of making it through the night.”

  “Who are you?” I whispered, a part of me marveling at myself for even entertaining this dialogue.

  “My name is Kolvak. And I’m a warlock.”

  “A war-?”

  “Four hundred years ago, I was burned at the stake by my boneheaded neighbors. I had no other choice than to transfer my soul into the amulet you wear around your neck. You don’t understand how much mental effort it took for me to stop those doctors from taking it off you when they first brought you in to this accursed place.”

  I shook my head with growing disbelief. “This can’t be happening.”

  I clutched the medallion and was more than tempted to tear it off my neck.

  Without warning, it grew painfully hot to the touch, and I let go of the talisman.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the warlock advised.

  “What are you talking about?” I replied before I could tell myself this whole exchange was merely a figment of my imagination.

  “The curse of Bastet.”

  “Bastet?”

  “I thought you were a professor of archeology. Don’t they teach you damn kids classic mythology anymore?”

  The warlock’s words gave me pause. Of course I’d heard of Bastet, the Egyptian goddess with a human body and the head of a cat.

  “I know who Bastet is…”

  “Great, give the man a cigar and sign up for Jeopardy. I hope you remember what happened to the panther that attacked you after that lovely monster hunter pumped the beast full of silver.”

  Monster Hunter. Silver. Fuck, the voice was losing me again.

  “Okay, let me break this down to you. Just like the creature that took a bite out of you, you’ll change into a were-panther.”

  Silently, I shook my head. I refused to accept what I already knew deep down in my soul.

  “The blood of the panther is in your veins now. All too soon, you’ll transform into a murderous, rampaging—”

  No! If the warlock chattering away in my head was telling the truth, the curse had restored me physically and then some. But it would come at a terrible price.

  “But don’t get your panties in a bunch. There’s hope for you yet. Thanks to yours truly.”

  “What are you talking about?” My voice shook as I spoke.

  “I can hold the darkness at bay. As long you wear the medallion around your neck, your mind will remain human while your body undergoes the change.”

  I looked at the amulet. If I wasn’t having a mental breakdown of some sort, then the little disc of metal might be the only thing separating man and beast.

  These charged thoughts were still firing up my synapses when the door to my hospital opened and a nurse sauntered inside. The woman stared at me as I stood buck naked in the doorway of the bathroom.

  To my surprise, the nurse didn‘t quite share my embarrassment. Judging by her admiring glances, she enjoyed looking at me after she had recovered from the initial shock. I had gone from zero to hero, weakling to stud, and a part of me basked in the immediate attention despite my red-faced embarrassment. It had been years since any woman had looked at me with anything but pity or maternal concern.

  Her expression stirred something inside me, and I swiftly snatched the hospital gown and covered my privates before sailor boy woke up.

  For a moment we stared at each, and then the cute nurse took off without a word.

  “What the hell just happened?” I mumbled under my breath.

  “I think that nurse was ready to jump your bones. The curse comes with a few perks as you noticed yourself. Besides your new body, you give off pheromones that will make you irresistible to most women.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I said.

  “The good news is you might get laid a little more than you have in the past. The bad news is that both the Followers of Bastet and the League of Light will come after your ass.”

  Followers of Bastet? The League of Light? Had everyone lost their minds? What had I gotten myself into? I was still trying to make heads or tails out of all this when the door opened again, and a doctor entered with a different nurse in tow. He smiled at me as he approached.

  “I see you’re feeling better. Your recovery is miraculous considering the amount of blood you’ve lost.”

  I stared at the doc, at a loss for words. There was something off about his smile. He eased closer, the smile on his face unwavering as his hand vanished in the pocket of his knee-length white smock and came up with a curved dagger.

  The silver knife lashed out at my chest, but I stopped the blade with my right hand in mid-strike.

  My fingers clamped, vicelike, around the wannabe assassin’s wrist, the tip of the knife hovering inches over my heart, promising instant death. The doc sure had a strange interpretation of the Hippocratic oath.

  The nurse drew a Glock, confirming my suspicion that both of these people needed to work on their bedside manner.

  “Meet the monster hunters of the League of Light,” the warlock explained.

  I gritted my teeth. People were trying to stab and shoot me while a dead warlock was offering me a play-by-play running commentary. Suddenly, I missed my nice, boring lecture hall full of dozing students with all my heart.

  I snapped the fake doctor’s wrist, who howled in agony as he dropped his silver knife. My next move was to swing the bastard at the nurse with the gun.

  The doctor slammed into his homicidal helper, and they both collapsed in a sprawl as the shot from the Glock went wild.

  I burst into motion and zoomed past them, determined to get out of this place. A beat later, I emerged from the room into a sterile, antiseptic hospital corridor, the sickening smell of chemical cleaners permeating the air. Or maybe my enhanced senses had become more sensitive to them.

  I took a few steps and found myself facing down another group of medical staff who had to be members of the strange monster hunting league in disguise.

  My lips twisted into a snarl as I barreled through the trio, knocking them on their asses like bowling pins before they could empty their silver-loaded arsenal into me.

  As I plowed down the hallway, the fear and shock lifted. Crazy as it may sound, a mad joy gripped me and made me doubt my sanity. Even with fanatical assassins on my ass, I couldn’t contain the thrill my new body was giving me. I was running faster than I ever had in my life, and I was barely out of breath.

  Fucking incredible.

  I wondered what else I might be capable of.
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br />   My moment of happiness was cut short as gunshots shook the corridor, and a hail of bullets whizzed past me.

  “I know you’re on cloud nine, kid, but those are silver bullets, and they will fuck you up. You understand?”

  I understood. I couldn’t get cocky.

  I took Kolvak’s advice to heart and fled the hallway, where I was an easy target. I barreled through a nearby door and found myself on a spacious staircase.

  I was about to shoot down the stairs when I spotted three more members of the medical staff who’d traded their stethoscopes for guns.

  A burst of gunfire erupted from below, and I made a quick about-face and bounded up the stairs instead. I took multiple steps at a time, moving with the grace and power of the jungle beast whose blood supposedly roared in my veins.

  “Doubt my words if you like, but all too soon you’ll transform into a monster.”

  Nice way to spoil the mood, Kolvak.

  Boots slapped the stairs above me. More enemies incoming from above.

  This phalanx of new badasses was decked out in combat black, unlike the first wave that had pretended to be hospital staff. The laser lights of their assault rifles swept over me, and I froze in my tracks.

  I had reached the end of the line.

  Below me, footsteps grew louder, my pursuers closing in.

  You’re fucked, buddy. Hope you had fun while it lasted.

  And with that happy thought cycling through my mind, a pain like none I had ever experienced in my life before racked my body.

  I toppled over. The sound of bones breaking and reshaping themselves echoed through the stairwell.

  Even though the black-clad assault team in front of me wore helmets with dark visors, I knew they were watching me in rapt fascination.

  And terror.

  I didn’t blame them. It’s not every day that you see a man transform into a fucking panther.

  5

  The beast was waking up inside of me, eager to break free from its cage.

  I felt it stir deep within my soul, an alien, ancient presence separate from my mind. There was a sudden savagery to my thoughts as visions of blood and death flooded my head. I experienced the creature’s ravenous hunger, sensed its growing rage, heard its roar building at the edge of my awareness. My eyes exploded with a stabbing pain, which quickly spread to the rest of my body. All over my body, my skin prickled as if I was being stung by hundreds of needles.

  For a split second, I flashed back to the fateful day of the accident when I was a teenager. I was back in the Mustang, drunk out of my mind and unable to form a coherent thought as the road soared past me like a racetrack in a videogame.

  Seemingly from out of nowhere, a tree jumped into view. And it was headed right toward me it at sixty miles per hour!

  Reality sped up, my body bracing against the imminent collision.

  I was beyond fear. There was only me, the car, the tree…

  Followed by the devastating impact.

  Metal warped and shrieked and wrapped around my flesh, tearing muscles, breaking bones, rearranging my anatomy. I was being torn apart from the inside out.

  Don’t even ask me how many teeth I lost that day.

  Dimly, I realized that the replay of my terrible accident was a trick of the mind—my brain’s way of making sense of my torturous transformation from a man into a beast.

  The roar of the Mustang’s engine now morphed into the animalistic roar bursting from my throat and jolted me back to the present.

  Darkness pulsed in every fiber of my being as muscles flexed and thickened, stretching my flesh until it transformed into a dark, mottled hide.

  The hospital gown split at the seams, unable to contain my expanding frame. My spine began to bow with small clicking sounds and a horrible pressure of squeezed vertebrae.

  With audible snaps, fingers elongated and turned into razor-sharp talons. My incisors lengthened while invisible hands seemed to sculpt my skull into a monster mask.

  It felt like all my bones were breaking and being reset while bands of thick black fur spread all over my skin.

  The Curse of Bastet.

  Three little words that didn’t do justice to the hell I was experiencing.

  I was being ripped apart and rebuilt into a grotesque travesty of my former self.

  Through a veil of pain, I saw the three badasses in their body armor level their rifles at me. I smelled the quivering, sweaty fear under those intimidating combat helmets.

  Another roar ripped from my throat, and I charged towards them, new instincts taking over.

  Already the pain was subsiding, the change having run its course.

  For ten long years, I had avoided confrontation when I could—it’s not wise for a cripple to get into a fight.

  I might’ve mentioned this before, but the accident changed me in more ways than one. I’d been a tough kid with a chip on my shoulder. You picked a fight with me back in those younger days, and you got one helluva fight. Didn’t mean shit to me if you were bigger, older, or meaner.

  You could beat me to a bloody pulp, smash my nose, turn my face into raw hamburger meat, but I’d keep on coming like the Energizer Bunny. I wouldn’t back down, wouldn’t give up. After twenty minutes of me throwing punches at even the biggest, dumbest bully, they would get the message:

  Don’t mess with this kid. Erik Cross is fucking crazy.

  I don’t know what happened to all that rage, but it was gone after I was discharged from the hospital. Amazing what a car crash and six months of physical rehabilitation can do to you. My accident didn’t merely shatter my body; it broke my spirit and took my balls. Or perhaps it gave me some smarts, teaching me that actions can have consequences.

  You know what they say, analysis creates paralysis.

  Well, no longer. The beast now in charge had no patience for analysis, didn’t give a damn about consequences. With a fearsome roar, I leaped into action.

  To sum things up—Erik Cross had his balls back.

  I showed no fear, displayed zero hesitation as I pounced at the helmeted monster hunter who was targeting me with his assault rifle. My claws tore through his steel body armor as if it was made of paper. The helmet’s glass visor shattered, the shot went wild, and the man went flying.

  I whirled and knocked off another hunter’s helmet before he could pull the trigger, revealing the terrified kid under the steel mask. The next swipe drew blood and catapulted the wannabe-killer into the nearest wall.

  The third guy met a similar fate, and then I was leaping up the stairs with shouts and bullets erupting behind me. The violent sounds might have terrified me once, but now the screams and gunfire felt like music to my ears.

  Even though I hadn’t turned into a full panther, I used my arms almost like forelegs. I bounded up those stairs with surefooted leaps, an engine designed for speed. Taking five steps at a time, I left my human pursuers in the dust. Bullets whizzed past me, but instead of fear, I only experienced a savage glee — the thrill of being able to move again.

  Whatever I’d transformed into sure didn’t need the help of a cane to get around.

  The voice in my head had claimed it could tame the beast. Control it.

  But I didn’t want to be tamed. I relished my newfound freedom and power.

  “Trust me, kid, if that big brain of yours wasn’t in charge of this hairy beast, there would be no survivors. You’re still in the driver’s seat, so don’t do anything stupid!”

  I barely listened to the disembodied warlock as I barreled through a steel door at the top of the flight of stairs. A gust of night air greeted me, wind ruffling my coat. I didn’t feel the cold, my fur-covered body protecting me from the elements as I bounded across the roof.

  I looked down at the traffic slithering through the cement arteries below. About ten stories separated me from the street

  “Don’t get cocky,” the warlock warned. “Even in this new form, you won’t survive a fall from this height—much less a hail of
silver bullets.”

  Thanks for the pep talk, bud.

  My eyes narrowed as I took in the glittering skyline of downtown Los Angeles splayed out before me. The night was alive with sounds and sights and smells, my senses kicking into overdrive. Details usually masked by darkness revealed themselves to my enhanced vision. I spotted thin tendrils of smoke emanating from the chimneys of neighboring roofs, a couple making out on a bench two blocks up ahead, birds stirring from their rooftop nesting places, startled by my presence.

  Smart critters. They knew a predator was among them now.

  My ears suddenly turned in a different direction—a freaky but neat trick. I could hear voices, snippets of conversation that drifted toward me from hospital rooms where patients had left their windows open—tiny glimpses into other lives, other tragedies.

  And then there were the smells: the stink of exhaust mixed with the rotting garbage drifting from the dumpster-infested alleys below. The smell of sizzling fat coming from the Mexican man who was hawking bacon-wrapped hot dogs on the next block. And dominating all these heady scents, the intoxicating perfume of blood. This last smell wafted from behind the roof access door and most likely came from the monster hunters who’d experienced the power of my claws.

  The beast inside me perked up and growled in frustration, demanding I return to the staircase and finish my enemies.

  No, I’m in charge here!

  I was no slave to this beast. It served me.

  “Now you’re getting the hang of it, kid.”

  Perhaps. But resisting the call of the blood took all my self-discipline, and I already felt depleted fighting the needs of the monster trying to dominate my mind.

  As my gaze fell over the roof, it locked on my reflection in a puddle of water. The moon shone brightly above, offering a clear view of what I’d become. Neither man nor beast, a thing frozen in mid-transformation from one form to the other.

  The Wolfman meets a jungle cat—majestic and terrifying all at the same time. This thing bore no resemblance to my former self except for a sparkle in the slitted, green glowing eyes, a touch of humanity in the face of a monster. A black-colored nose wrinkled from left to right, and I marveled at my thickly whiskered muzzle and the gleaming row of razor-sharp upper teeth. Muscles rippled along my powerful body.