The Shadow Cats

7

ZITO rolls with the jaguar, striking it with his spear. “Run, Alodia!”

I spin. My ankle catches in a root, and I hear a great crack like splintering wood. I scream, falling to my knees. Through a haze of tears and a red curtain of pain, I see death leaping toward me. The jaguar has abandoned Zito to attack me.

I fumble for the knife. I pull it from my belt and yank off the sheath, which I fling at the jaguar with a cry of fury. It bats aside the piece of leather with a giant paw the way a man swats a harmless mosquito. It leaps, but I roll, and the snapping jaws barely miss my neck; the raking claws slide off my leather vest.

The cat lands behind me, and I barely have time to twist on the ground to face it before it is on me again, forcing the air from my lungs with the weight of its body.

I grab a fistful of fur and flesh at its throat and, with strength born of desperation, hold the jaws at bay just enough to avoid having my skull crushed. Its warm breath reeks of sour meat, and one fang is dark with rot. The cat snarls as it rolls its head, trying to pull loose from my grasp. Claws rake my shoulder, trailing white-hot pain.

But I do not let go, and I stab wildly at its face, over and over, until the knife slides into a yellow eye. The jaguar roars, wrenching its head, yanking the knife away. I grab for the hilt, trying to reclaim it, but the massive cat collapses on top of me.

I pound at the animal with my fists. Seconds or minutes pass until I realize the creature is limp and dead. I manage to shift a little, just enough to fill my chest with air. A sob of joy at deliverance wracks my body.

After collecting my breath, I try to shove the cat aside, but I can’t. I start to leverage my way out, but I scream the moment my ankle pushes against the ground.

My tears dissolve into laughter. I have killed the jaguar, but it may yet kill me.

A shadow passes over me. Then, a grunt. The cat is flung aside.

“Zito!”

“Alodia! Are you—?”

He crouches beside me and peers toward my wounded shoulder. It’s probably bleeding badly. I hardly care. “Zito, I thought you were . . .” I can’t even say it.

“You were its target,” he says. “It saw you limping and pegged you as easy prey.” I wince as he pushes back my sleeve to get a better look. “Poor creature—it had no idea who it was tangling with.”

“We have to cut open the cat’s stomach,” I say. “We have to find out if it . . .”

He nods, wrenches his knife from the cat’s head, and expertly slits open its belly. Organs spill out, steaming and stinking. He grabs the white-pink stomach and slices it open. The contents ooze out, like stew from a cracked bowl. I don’t know what I expect to see—the girl’s body, her face, her other muddied shoe—but none of it is there.

Zito pokes through the mess with the knife. “This hunter has not been eating well. I see a feather. Small rodent bones.”

“Then whose blood was in the garden?”

He shrugs for an answer, shifts to the other side of the creature, and stares at its hindquarters. A faint rosette pattern is barely visible in its matted black fur. “There’s an arrow deep in its haunch,” Zito says. “It was the hunted, not the hunter. Maybe it leaped into the garden to escape. The blood smears were the jaguar’s, not the girl’s.” After a pause, he adds, “You were lucky, Alodia. If the cat had not been injured and starving, you may not have been able to handle it.”

It’s getting harder to think as the fear and fury of battle dissipate, leaving only agonizing pain in their place. “That doesn’t make sense,” I manage. “If anyone in the village shot it, they would have raised the alarm.”

I don’t like the look that passes across Zito’s face.

He thrusts the knife into the cat’s flank, digging and prying. Blood oozes slowly now that the cat is dead, disappearing into the thick black fur and leaving a sticky sheen. A moment later, Zito pulls out an arrowhead. A string of muscle sways from the serrated edge. The shaft has been chewed off.

“Zito?”

“This is an Invierno arrowhead,” he whispers, and his eyes lift and scan the surrounding area. “That would explain what drove the jaguar out of the mountains. And perhaps more than that. We need to get back to Khelia Castle immediately.”

But it’s too late. Speak of evil, and you summon it. Voices filter through the jungle.

“It came from over there,” comes a clipped voice.

“The cat is long gone by now,” says another.

“The whole castle was out looking for it last night. They’ll come again. We need to find that arrow before they do.”

Zito and I must escape. But I’m in no condition to go anywhere.