Cat Tales

I held out my hand for the photographs of the couple who had been savaged. The poor-quality, grainy, low-pixel-count photos were clear enough to make my knees weak. Yeah. Provided I could find evidence to support it, I knew what had attacked the couple, unlikely as that might actually be.

 

According to witnesses, the young woman, who went by the moniker Itty Bitty, had been attacked first. Though in her twenties, she was tiny enough to look like a very young teen—hence the nickname. In the photos she was swathed in bandages, except for a few superficial wounds on one calf, and those were familiar. I had a few fading scars that looked similar. The man, her boyfriend, was former military, and his wounds were more severe. He’d defended her and paid the price., Neither had been able to identify the creatures that attacked them in the dark of early evening and pulled them under the water, mauling and biting. Itty Bitty had seen nothing at all; her hero boyfriend had reported hairy men, dogs, and vampires.

 

Without looking up, I handed the photos back to the deputy. “Yeah. I know what attacked the couple.tacked t?uple.t Holding in a resigned sigh, I pushed my sunglasses back over my eyes and tapped the scarred rock with my boot heel. “But it isn’t what made this.”

 

“So what did?” the cop asked. “Fangheads, right?”

 

I pulled my gaze from the water-washed rock to the river guides, the cop, whose name was Emmett Sontag, and my best friend, Molly—here for moral support and curiosity. “These three cuts were made by a grindylow.” At the guides’ blank reactions I said, “Grindies are like the enforcers of the were community. They kill weres who try to turn humans, and keep an eye out on the young weres to make sure they abide by were-law.” When the guides still looked blank, I spelled it out for them, keeping my own reactions inside, hidden. “I think werewolves attacked the couple last night.”

 

“We got werewolves here?” a young guide said, his steel tongue stud catching the light. “Awesome.” He turned and looked around, as if seeing his workplace in a new and exciting way.

 

Molly’s eyes widened as she took in the implications of werewolves and a grindy in the Appalachian Mountains. From her mutating expressions, Molly was figuring out everything I just had, and most of that information was not something I was willing to share with the others. I caught her gaze, directed it to the sheet of photos in the cop’s hands, and let her read my concern. Her gaze slid up Mount Sterling, as mine had, worried. She did an eyebrow shrug, raising and lowering them in sympathy, saying clearer than words, This is gonna be a mess of trouble, Big-Cat.

 

I managed a defeated grin at the sentiment.

 

“Werewolves. Damn.” Emmett looked around, eyes narrowed, and rattled off a series of questions that suggested he was more than just gun, swagger, and belly. “Is this grindy thing dangerous? Can you prove it was werewolves? Do we need to pull the rafts?” He resettled his heavy utility belt, one hand on the butt of his 9 millimeter handgun. It was cop body language, looking for trouble and being ready for it. Not. A werewolf would eat his innards for dinner.

 

Pulling the rafts off the water would mean a financial hardship for the rafting businesses operating along the river. I started to say it was safe, but closed my mouth on the words. I had no idea what grindies ate or whether they were primarily nocturnal. I was assuming that the grindy was here because of its life mission, but I’d drawn conclusions and made deductions before based on insufficient info, and humans got hurt. I didn’t want that happening here.

 

Having weres in the hills wasn’t gonna make the locals happy. Like the itchy deputy, local law enforcement types all over three counties were already agitated—passing out stakes, holy water, crosses, and garlic against vamps—and there was grumbling about taking down all the fangheads in an old-fashioned hunt. Now they’d be after weres too, and I had good reason to want them not to. I said, “Grindies don’t eat people, and werewolves are mostly nocturnal. Keep everyone off the water after sunset, but you don’t have to pull the rafts during daylight hours.”

 

Emmett didn’t like it. He wanted action, and he wanted it now, but he was also conscious of Cocke County’s economic situation. He pursed his lips, thinking, fin [thiuntygers tapping his gun butt with little pats of sound. “Mike, Dave,” he said, addressing two river guides, “you’ll see word gets passed? I’ll run patrols down here throughout the night, but I’d rather not have to arrest somebody or pull a dead stoner outta the water.”