Oracle's Moon (Elder Races #4)(5)

Gravity yanked. She fell, and the ground hurtled toward her.

She woke with a start, her heart hammering. Her clothes were clammy with sweat. The sun had shifted, and she was alone in the living room. The television was off. So many things were not right with the scene, but before she had a chance to panic, she heard Max and Chloe giggling in their bedroom.

“I want you to be a doggie now,” Chloe said.

A male voice said, “But at the moment I am a cat.”

Grace knew that voice. She had only heard it for a brief time, but she would never forget it. It was the voice of the Bane of Her Existence. It sounded deep and clear, with a kind of purity that somehow hurt the heart, and it held the power of a cyclone.

It belonged to a creature whose whirlwind arrival on her doorstep had heralded confrontation and violence.

And the killing.

And it was visiting with her kids.

She was off the couch and moving down the hall before she fully knew what she was doing.

Chloe said, “I want to ride the doggie!”

“I believe what you want would then be called a horse,” said the Bane.

Max shrieked, a happy sound that escalated so high it could shatter glass.

Sharp pain shot up her leg. Just as it threatened to give out from underneath her, she reached the children’s bedroom and grabbed on to the doorway as she looked inside.

Max stood in his crib. He couldn’t walk on his own yet, but he could stand when he held on to something. The single wisp of dark brown hair at the top of his head waved as he bobbed up and down. He was grinning from ear to ear and watching Chloe, who sat on the floor along with a black cat, who sat in front of her.

The cat had to be the Bane of Her Existence. The Djinn. Khalil Somebody Important. Visually, it looked like a normal, fairly large cat, perhaps twenty pounds or so, but to her mind’s eye, it felt immense with a shadowy, hazardous Power.

The cat said, “For something so small, you emit a great deal of noise.”

Chloe grabbed the cat’s tail and yanked on it. “Doggie!” Chloe shrieked. “Doggie! Doggie!”

“That is my tail,” the cat remarked. The little girl stabbed at his furred face with a plump finger. “Now you have discovered one of my eyes. Oh look, you have discovered the other one. I think you have awakened your aunt. I told you we should be quiet.”

The trio turned to look at her as she stood frozen. Two delighted children and what appeared to be a normal black cat but was instead an alien, enormously Powerful, infinitely dangerous creature.

“Look, Gracie!” said Chloe. “It’s the doggie-cat! You said we can keep him.”

The cat’s strange, wrong eyes narrowed. “Did you?” he said. His triangular face looked distinctly unfriendly, whiskers held awry. “That wasn’t what you told me earlier.”

Grace lunged forward to snatch up the cat, and he allowed it. His body hung boneless from her grip just like a real cat would. “I had no idea you meant this doggie-cat, Chloe,” she said, her voice hoarse. “That changes everything.”

“Which other doggie-cat could she possibly have meant?” said the cat. “You don’t exactly have a plethora of them hanging around.”

Grace growled to Chloe, “Stay here.”

Chloe pushed to her feet and whined, “But I want to play with him.”

Grace looked at the little girl. “I said stay here, young lady.”

Something in Grace’s expression must have made it clear she meant business, because Chloe kicked her toys on the floor. “You never let me do anything fun. I’m never going to live here again.”

“Fine,” Grace said between her teeth. “Just do as you’re told.”

She limped out of the bedroom. Max gave a wordless yell, clearly displeased at recent events. Chloe shouted, “Horrible! He’s MY doggie-cat! I found him first. You’re not fair! I hate everything and everybody!”

Grace hissed at him. “Thank you. Thank you so much for that. There are so many things wrong with what just happened. What the hell is the matter with you, anyway? Have you got no sense?”

“You are every bit as impudent and disrespectful as you were earlier this morning,” he said in a cold voice.

The cat grew as she walked down the hall, until suddenly she held on to a weight that was much too heavy for her to carry. She dropped him, and he continued to grow until he became the massive black panther from her dream. A thrill of shock iced her skin. Her gaze slid sideways to look at the impossible behemoth slinking along beside her. He was the size of a large pony, yet he still seemed small compared to what her mind insisted was the immensity of his true presence.

She would not give in to what she was feeling. She would not.

“Stop it,” she snapped.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said the monstrous feline. He turned his head to look at her with bizarre eyes that sparkled with malice.

They reached the living room. Grace rounded on him. She used her fury to propel her forward. She shoved at the giant creature. It was like trying to push a mountain. She shoved at him again. “You’re trying to intimidate me. Well, guess what, ass**le? It isn’t going to work. This is my home. Those two kids are my niece and nephew. And I did not give you permission to spend time with them. You are trespassing, and it is not okay.”