Cat In A Leopard Spot

Prologue

Caged Heat

The big cat kneaded, kneaded, kneaded its clipped claws into a huge pillow covered in plush leopard print.

Its long, spotted body lay in leafy shadow, blending with the dried mesquite leaves beneath its splayed hind legs.

Distant security lights cast urine yellow puddles on the varying terrain the big cat called home. Like walls, sheer slick stucco cliffs enclosed areas of thick, glossy tropical greenery, rocks where mini-waterfalls plashed into deep and drinkable pools, and desert scrub with ready-made dirt wallows where the sun would heat earth and fur into one harmonious purring, simmering mass.

He lived alone, the big cat, except for the birds of passage that paused in the higher branches of his compound, but he answered to the name of Osiris. It was called by those who fed him and played with him and took him away every nightfall to a vast, confusing place where he performed tricks in other, cooler pools of light.

Osiris’s sharp shoulder blades shifted as he bent to groom one massive paw, huge canine teeth gnawing matted tufts of hair between the pads. He knew this life and accepted it. Sometimes he would meet others of his kind who performed the same rituals he did. They understood each other and walked softly around their scents and space, except for an occasional growling match. They too had clipped or even missing claws on their forepaws, and were more likely to hit than slash.

The big cat rolled over, stretching long and lithe. His neat ears flicked backward. Did he hear the brush of a footfall on a dry leaf, a rustle in the night? He turned, his expanded pupils studying shades of gray, most of them familiar.

He twisted and vaulted to his feet. Something came.

A warning growl warmed his throat, soft but escalating.

Something moved. He moved as swiftly.

And felt a sting in his shoulder, sharp as a cactus thorn, but with a burn that didn’t ease after first prick. No, this pain dug in deeper and wider, until his whole big frame felt as soft as the pillow he had been pummeling. He collapsed bonelessly beside it like a litter mate, lost to the night and his own senses. Dead to the world.