Catnip (9 page)

In spite of Harry giving up inches in height
and pounds in bodyweight not to mention combat training, Farrell
backed off and held his hands up as a peace offering. “Okay, I was
out of line. But she isn’t totally human, either. You know
that.”

Reason broke through and Harry’s rage cooled.
In his mind, though, Anastasia was still a girl, and after what
she’d been through, he privately resolved to help her if he could.
In a way, he felt responsible. He’d been doing the same research,
only he never—perhaps naively—figured anyone would reach this
level.

Farrell pointed at the room. “Do me a favor.
Go back inside and talk to her. If there’s anyone who can get
through to her, it’s you. She seems to trust you. I’ll go upstairs
and see what our defector doctor says.”

Harry nodded and went inside. Anastasia
glanced at him briefly as he entered and then quickly shifted her
position to face the wall. He sighed softly, flipped open the top
of his computer, and set about analyzing all the data in an effort
to find a link in the genetic chain that would solve the riddle of
her transformation.

An hour later, he was still working on his
hypothesis, on the verge of getting what he wanted when a hand fell
on his shoulder. Startled, he turned around. Anastasia, eyes still
red from her previous crying bout, had come out to stand beside
him. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She gave him a wan smile. “As long as I don’t
look in the mirror, I’m fine,” she stated.

Harry had nothing to say. She hadn’t asked
for this. While part of his mind thought science was still the
bomb, the other part of him thought it had blown up in the wrong
direction. He wanted to tell her it didn’t matter what she looked
like, but before he could say anything, she pointed at screen.
“What’s this?”

“It’s a possible way to reverse the process,”
he answered and looked right at her. She didn’t seem to mind,
however, and had a quizzical expression on her face. “What?”

“The way you’re looking at me,” she said.
“What, you don’t have a girlfriend or anything?”

Had he been staring? Apparently, he had. She
really had a direct way of speaking, got right to the point, and he
knew it. “No,” he muttered, “I don’t.”

“Aren’t you still in school?”

He started to tell her about his early life,
the bullying and the fact that he was ten times smarter than the
other kids, but knew it would come off as either whining or
bragging and he didn’t want to do either one of those things.
Instead, he settled for saying, “I was home-schooled.”

Anastasia shook her head and absentmindedly
licked her shoulder with a rather cute pink tongue. “I don’t
remember if I ever went to school. I’m pretty sure I did.” She
crouched down next to him. “I mean, I think I went—I can talk and
all that—but I can’t remember anyone I knew or what I liked or
anything. If I think too hard, my head starts to hurt.”

She dropped her gaze to the floor, staring at
the concrete as if trying to decipher a pattern in the cracks.
Harry tried a different tack. “Uh, you said your name is Anastasia.
That’s a start,” he said in a hopeful voice. “When you were
sleeping before, you said something like
nstasia.
Was that
your nickname?”

She looked up, her features twisting, and
then the muscles around her jaw relaxed. “Yeah, I did. It
was…
Stasia.
” She gave him a pleased look. “You can call me
Stasia or Anastasia if you want.”

“I like Anastasia better,” he decided.
Satisfied with his efforts, he tried another tack. “Is there any
food you remember eating that made you feel good or anything you
drank or—”

“Meat,” she interrupted. This time, her face
didn’t twitch. “I like meat and chocolate, and…” She stopped as if
unsure of what to say. “I don’t know if they made me say I liked
meat or if I really liked it.”

They
,
Harry thought as he took in her
features,
they
—the people who’d made her this way. He
decided not to push any more than he had to. He didn’t want to set
her off again. Then again, she
had
asked for hamburgers…

“Hey!”

Her voice came out sharply and she had a
dangerous glint in her eyes. “You’re staring at me again,” she
said, and this time her voice lost its warmth.

Embarrassed at doing the obvious, he bobbed
his head shyly. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that,” he apologized.
“It’s just…”

“That I’m half cat?” she asked. Her friendly
demeanor disappeared entirely and her voice turned into pure acid.
“What did you expect, that I’d want to be petted, that I enjoy
playing with string,” she mimicked batting at a piece of dangling
string like a housecat would, “or that I get off on catnip?”

Confused by her sudden anger, Harry shook his
head. “No, it’s not that…”

“How about I do some kitty jokes?” This time
her voice dropped an octave and she did a very passable imitation
of Farrell’s voice. “How do you get milk from a cat? You steal its
saucer. How do you know when a cat’s done cleaning itself? It’s
smoking a cigarette. What happens when a cat falls into the water?
It becomes a wet—”

“I get the message,” he interrupted. Her
voice sounded raw and angry, but then again, if he’d woken up as
someone different, he wouldn’t have been too happy, either. And he
had
been in jail…

“Tell you something else,” she said and poked
him in the shoulder with her finger. “Don’t even
think
of
calling me Miss Kitty. The next person who says that…”

“I’m sorry, okay?” Harry said and nervously
held up his hands. “I didn’t know, honestly, I didn’t.” He paused
to think for a moment. “Farrell told you that?”

Anastasia rose in a quick, graceful movement
and jerked her thumb toward the door. “Yeah, he and some of the
cops who arrested me were cracking jokes when they drove me over
here. Those were the nice ones.” She suddenly spat in the corner.
“They’re all morons!”

Then a frown crossed her face…at least Harry
thought it was a frown. He couldn’t really tell through the
whiskers.

“So, why are you working for them?”

He was about to tell her when the door
opened. Farrell and Oleg walked in both carrying coffee cups. The
Fed had a steaming pot of coffee in his hands, and both of them
were laughing quietly at something the Russian defector had said.
Anastasia’s ears twitched. “Are you two on better terms?” Farrell
asked.

“We’re getting by,” Harry answered quietly.
He didn’t feel like saying anything to the agent, not any more than
he had to, not now.

Farrell set the coffee pot on the table and
indicated the doctor. “Even though it’s sort of late, it seems Oleg
wants to take another crack at unlocking Miss Kitty’s memory banks.
You feel up to it?” he asked her.

Anastasia didn’t answer him. Harry thought
she’d gotten pissed at the
Miss Kitty
remark, but this was a
totally different reaction. She stood up straight, her body rigid,
and her nose and whiskers twitched wildly. “What is it?” Harry
wanted to know.

She didn’t answer him, but started to growl
in a low and throaty voice, and the fur stood up on her body. Her
claws quickly sprang out. A second later, a scream split the air.
Farrell pulled out his cellphone and yelled into it, “What’s going
on?”

No one answered, and then the sound of more
screams and a roar which didn’t sound even remotely human entered
the room. Farrell locked the door and bolted it, drew his pistol
and waved everyone back. “We got company,” he said with a warning
tone to his voice. “Everyone, get back…”

He never got to finish his sentence as the
door suddenly blew inward and flew off its hinges. It smashed into
Farrell and literally pinned him against the far wall before both
door and man fell to the ground. A creature stepped into the light
and Harry gasped out, “Holy crap!”

“You said it,” Anastasia answered, and they
both stared in wonder and horror at the invader. This thing had to
be almost seven feet in height. Clad in a lumberjack’s shirt at
least one size too small and a pair of ripped jeans, it had the
body of a bear—a very muscular and hairy bear—and a face more
ursine than human, with a long snout, fangs, and tiny blood red
eyes.

How in the hell could something so alien get
in here, Harry thought. Nothing that big could hide, and then he
backed up until his butt brushed the table.

Anastasia hissed and extended her claws as
far as possible. They came out a good two inches and she slashed at
the bear-man. It roared at her and returned her slashes, but she
deftly evaded them. The ex-KGB doctor wasn’t so lucky. He tried to
escape, but the monster grabbed his head between its enormous hands
and started squeezing.

“Help me!” he cried…and then the monster
closed his hands together as easily as a child would squish a
stuffed toy. The pressure caused the doctor’s head to crack like an
eggshell and subsequently explode.

Blood and brains sprayed in all directions,
and Harry fought down the urge to hurl. The creature didn’t seem to
be too concerned with him, though. It tossed the limp corpse aside
and turned its gaze on Anastasia. She drew her lips back over her
teeth and leapt at her much larger opponent. “Back off!” she
yelled. “He’s mine!”

She spat and slashed at it, and the monster
took everything she gave it, but she got too close and it clutched
her around her shoulders and started to squeeze. Strong as she was,
the bear thing was far stronger, and she twisted her head in
Harry’s direction, eyes imploring him for help. He stood rooted to
the spot, held back by fear and indecision.

You can fight back.
His father’s words
suddenly reverberated in Harry’s head and broke through his
self-imposed fear barrier. He ran over, jumped up, and slugged the
creature in the jaw as hard as possible. It was the hardest hook
he’d ever thrown in all his shadow-boxing days…and the thing didn’t
even blink. It simply backhanded him across the face, which sent
him to the floor.

He got up, staggered, and looked around for
something—
anything
—he could use as a weapon. The coffee…he
picked up the steaming pot of coffee on the table and flung it in
the monster’s face. Immediately it dropped its prey and howled in
surprise and agony while clutching its burnt skin. Anastasia fell
from his grasp and moved back a few steps, still gasping for
breath.

While the beast went wild, Harry gathered his
computer, flash drive and disc, and stood horrified as Agent
Farrell, now off the floor and with his right arm hanging
uselessly, pulled out his pistol with his one good hand and started
firing. “Get out of here!” he yelled over the sound of
gunshots.

Harry stared as the agent emptied his gun’s
contents into the creature and it still came. With nothing left
save for his Taser, he attacked the beast and the snap of
electrical discharge echoed throughout the room.

Anastasia’s command broke through his stupor.
She grabbed onto Harry’s hand and started to pull him out of the
room. “Hey, you heard what he said. We’ve gotta leave!”

He didn’t need to be told twice. They ran out
of the room and made their way upstairs only to be greeted by lots
of dead and dying bodies. The smell of blood and entrails and human
excrement was horrible, but the cat-girl beside him didn’t
hesitate. “Move your butt!” she yelled.

They ran through the lobby at high speed.
Harry stopped briefly to grab a trench coat lying on the floor and
Anastasia hurriedly threw it on. Their escape route took them past
a number of shocked citizens. Anastasia kept her head down, and
eventually they spotted an alleyway and tore into it. Harry leaned
against the wall and gasped for breath. His heart practically raced
into the next state while she sniffed the air as if trying to pick
up the other creature’s scent. “I think we lost him.”

“Who…no,
what
was that?” he wanted to
know.

“You got me.”

It didn’t seem to be much of an answer, but
neither of them had the luxury of time to sit down and think things
through. “Hey, there’re some boxes over here,” Anastasia said and
pointed to the rear of the alley. “We can hide out ‘til dawn.”

She dragged him over to the spot and with the
boxes they quickly fashioned a makeshift shelter for the evening.
“I won’t need this,” she said, and took off the trench coat.
Quickly, she folded it up as a temporary bed and lay down on
it.

Harry wedged himself in beside her and leaned
back against the dirty stone wall. His fellow escapee had already
fallen asleep, her breathing regular and quiet.

No rest for the fearful on Harry’s part,
though. As tired as he was, he couldn’t sleep and stayed on the
alert, occasionally poking his head out the opening and waiting for
the roar of the creature to come and finish them off. When the bear
creature didn’t make an appearance for the next two hours, he
finally gave in to his fatigue and passed out while the moon shone
down upon them.

“Hey, wake up.”

Harry felt someone nudge him and opened his
eyes. Alley, he was in an alley, lying inside a box. His hand felt
something heavy on top of him and he realized it was the trench
coat. “I put it on top of you last night,” Anastasia said and
gestured with her hand at the coat. “It was a little cool and you
were shivering.”

“Thanks.”

He threw the coat off and a grunt
involuntarily came from his mouth. He was stiff and sore all over,
his right eye hurt, felt swollen to the touch, and he couldn’t see
out of it very well. Great, he thought, a gift, courtesy of the
bear-thing that had attacked them only a few hours before. He got
up while Anastasia crouched inside the box, her whiskers moving
ever so slightly and her ears twitching. “Are you okay?” he
asked.