Diamond Smith pushed her plate back, wiped her mouth with a naptkin, and stood up from the table. "Master, I'm going out."

Lacy stabbed a fork full of salad and asked, "Something up?"

The tall, black haired Diamond went to the coat closet and pulled out a shoulder harness with a pair of flat black .45 semi-automatics in holsters. She shrugged into it, buckled it across her chest, then slipped on a worn black leather vest that covered the guns and partially covered her small breasts. She smoothed down the short black leather skirt she was already wearing.

As a practical matter, her partial coverage of fine black and copper-striped fur was sufficient in itself. The rest was just to help her blend in on the street.

Finally she slung over her back a katana sword in a black scabbard secured on a silken cord. The handle of the sword was left to stick out, ready to grab, just over her left shoulder.

"Everything is fine," Diamond answered. "Just going for a walk."

She reached into an inside pocket in the vest and pulled free a police badge in a leather holder, which she lay on a small end-table near the front door.

Lacy had watched Diamond arm up, and now said, "Looks like you intend to let Darkatana out of her cage."

Diamond chewed her lip with indecision. A single dagger-like fang gleamed whitely for a moment, then she said, "Darkatana obeys you, too. If you tell her to stay, she will."

Lacy lay her fork down and picked up the evening paper again. The headline screamed:

17TH VICTIM FOUND DEVOURED!

She sighed and tossed it across the table and said, "Look tigress, if it's about these murders you may as well relax. You heard Captain Mueller; the guys in investigations got your back, just let them deal with it."

Then she added, “Is this somehow about your sister?”

Diamond looked down at her hands as if the answer were written there. She hadn’t conscientiously thought about Fortran, but there was now this restless need to do something she hadn’t felt in a long time.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” she began slowly. “I try not to think about it. She’s gone. It was a long... Master, I think... “

Continuous gunfire in the dark and onrushing headlights and a figure standing in the falling snow in the ruins facing them alone so small and pretty and alone and Diamond screaming at her to run and then – Fortran was gone.

The memory passed, and Diamond drew a deep breath. “I think I just need to go for a walk.”

Lacy looked at Diamond thoughtfully, then said, “I trust you, you know that. Be careful out there.”

And with that, Diamond was off her leash.

"Thanks. Don’t wait up for me."

She stepped through the door and flicked her long black tail out of the way just as it closed.

-----

Destiny waited on a street corner.

She was doing what girls on street corners sometimes have to do. Or as well as she could, being skinny and hungry and far from home. She was richly black even for a black person, twenty-two years old, and had been a prostitute as a matter of economic necessity since she was seventeen. At the moment she was new in town and some pimp had put her in a low-rent part of San Francisco overrun with cabs, newspaper racks and poor people.

Business had been equally poor. And it was breezy, and her dress wouldn't stay down, and she was cold.

And there were two creepy guys on the opposite corner watching her.

She hugged herself against the biting San Francisco cold and hoped someone would hire her soon.

The men took that moment to cross the intersection against the light. She eyed them warily.

"If you guys are buying, I’d get out of this cold," she launched in.

They looked at her a moment, smiled at each other, then without ceremony lifted her under the arms and hauled her off the sidewalk into an alley.

"Hey!" she shouted. "You gotta pay first!"

A knife flat laid against the side of her cheek implied otherwise.

One of the men was a heavy-set white guy, the other a thin Hispanic. They were dressed in casual street garb, hoodies and sneakers. The white guy was holding the knife.

"You're working our corner,” the white guy started in. “But I don't think you belong to Big Man Hector. What you think, Carlos?

Carlos hummed speculatively.

"I think you are right, Ace. I think we have a serious violation of rules."

Destiny became frightened. A girl alone falling on the wrong side of a turf war might disappear.

"Look, I was just doing what I was told. They said, Stay at the lamp pole."

Ace leered. "The lamp pole is the boundary. So you were half on the wrong side."

"So that makes it a half violation of rules," Carlos volunteered with a smile.

Destiny wasn't sure where this was going. "Then maybe I’ll go work a different..."

"You just will shut up," Ace hissed. Then he tripped her and forced her onto the ground and pinned her legs. Carlos jumped around and grabbed her arms at the wrists.

"Wait!” Destiny said with real fear in her voice. “I don't want any part of any gang thing. Please don't do this!"

Ace then did something Destiny wasn't expecting. He grabbed her dress at the waist and using the tip of the knife carefully split it open all the way up to the plunging neckline, exposing small breasts and a smooth expanse of belly set with a small silver navel ring.

Carlos was looking at Ace strangely. "Hey Ace, what you doing man?"

Destiny was crying and repeating, “Please don’t do this, please don’t do this.”

Ace was grinning down at her belly and said, "I'm thinking half a violation means half a girl."

His hand shaking, he placed the tip of the knife inside her navel.

“Can I watch?”

Ace looked up and Carlos had to turn around.

In the darker depths of the alley a tall, broad, jet-black form loomed out of the shadows as quietly as a cat.

“Get lost,” Ace spat. “This is business.”

“You were going to cut her, right?” Diamond said as she emerged into the semi-light. “I don’t see that every day.”

She sat down cross-legged a little distance to one side, and waited.

On casual inspection Diamond Smith appeared human. The illusion usually didn’t last long. That’s because she was, perhaps inexplicability but certainly without question, a tiger.

Her origins were not widely known; only a few had gotten close enough to her to hear the full tale, and of those most were unfortunately dead. Evidence of her provenance could be seen in the fine black and copper-striped fur down her front and back and at her distant extremities, and her long black tail. A permanent Kevlar collar was a reminder of her status as a captive animal, a reality she had at one time avoided but now accepted.

Perhaps the most feline thing about her was her face. Round and full, smooth and yellow-skinned, with large light-devouring golden eyes set wide apart, and a generous mouth prone to an enigmatic smile. A mouth that when it turned into a smile was like someone pulling open a drawer full of small, neatly arranged knives.

Diamond scratched her head.

“Do continue,” she said pleasantly.

Ace hesitated a moment as he appeared to assess the situation.

Diamond did her smile.

That seemed to decide it. He dropped the knife and reached behind himself. His hand came back with a small handgun.

He pointed it at Diamond and would have pulled the trigger and killed her except that by that time he was already himself dead.

He fell face-down onto Destiny, a small hole in the front of his head, a large hole in the back, and the previous contents of his skull settling in a pink film on the ground behind.

Destiny started screaming.

“Opps,” Diamond said. “Now look what you made me do.”

The .45 semi-automatic in her left hand smoked slightly at the barrel.

Carlos yelled. He jumped to his feet, spun around, tripped and fell to the ground again.

Diamond sat watching the man carefully, gun still pointing motionless into the space that had once held Ace’s head.

“Will you be killing me, too?” she asked him seriously.

Destiny continued screaming, too frightened to touch the body pinning her down.

“Madre de Dios,” Carlos answered softly.

Diamond put the gun away. “I’ll take that as a no. Make yourself useful and help her.”

He did as told, rolling the body onto the floor of the alley to stare open-eyed into the night sky.

Diamond leaned over and looked into the dead face. “Stupid. Cruel to be sure. But not the predator I’m looking for.”

Destiny had crawled across the alley and was now sitting with her back against a wall, sobbing and gulping in fright, trying to pull closed her dress.

Diamond regarded her shrewdly a moment, then turned to Carlos and said, “Go.”

He jumped to his feet and was gone like a shot.

Diamond looked over at Destiny and said, “You have a name.”

“Destiny,” she replied between sobs.

Diamond smiled faintly and said, “For now you are safe. Later – maybe not so much.”

The tactical teams from two gangs were at the scene in minutes.

Diamond stood on the sidewalk at the mouth of the alley, her arms crossed. Destiny was handcuffed to a nearby paper rack, blood smeared down her chest, moaning and sniffling and cold, her dress held closed by one free hand.

The groups faced off a stone’s throw apart in the street, casting insults and demanding vengeance. Diamond stepped out of the shadows and met them in the middle of the street. They stilled and watched her warily.

“Which one of you crackheads has been eating people,” she asked.

There was a stunned silence, followed quickly by a strident chorus of denial.

Diamond held up a hand.

“Okay then. Someone – none of you – is randomly killing and eating people. And no, it isn’t me.”

“I seen you before,” said a tall black man in blue workout togs to Diamond’s right, pointing at her. “You hanging with the cops, right? They calling you a tiger, and you being some hella bad ass bitch. Well listen good to TJ, Miss Kitty. These killings got nothing to do with Mission Street Company. You got yourself a loony, that’s all. Good luck with that.”

Both groups were in ready agreement on this point. Diamond looked over at Big Man Hector on her left, a Latino of middle age and great size, and their eyes met. He gave her a look that said he’s got it right. She nodded.

She returned her attention to TJ and asked, “Is this your girl?”

Diamond hooked a thumb over at Destiny.

TJ made a show of casually glancing over at Destiny before shrugging and saying, “Could may be. I got a lot of girls. Does it matter?”

“Not really. But you might want to take a little better care of your goods. She was very nearly sushi. For now I’ll be keeping her with me.”

Then to her left; “Your man Ace is back in that alley with his skull emptied. I’ll forgive everything this time, but right now this woman needs some new clothes as a result. You will fix her up with something suitable to her occupation, and you will do it now.”

Big Man shook his head sadly then tapped two of his deputies to attend to the matter. Diamond handed them the key to the handcuffs and said, “I meant what I said. I want her back and I want her right.”

They nodded silently and saw to Destiny, leading her off protesting to a quick clean up and then a thrift shop.

Diamond returned her attention to TJ and Hector.

“I’m working strictly off the books. No badge and no limits. While I’m moving around you better keep any amateur butchers off the streets. You can defend your turf later. On to business – you got anything I can use?”

Hector was conferring with Carlos, who he then pushed toward Diamond. Carlos looked around nervously and everyone watched fascinated as he approached the tigress.

When he was close enough to whisper, he said, “We hear things about a group of people who have been renting houses in gated communities and trashing them. Nobody knows what they do. But the rumor is, there is a lot of blood to clean up after.”

“Thanks for that,” Diamond said cooly.

Then he continued, softly. “About what happened. I didn’t know he was like that. Other people are acting crazy, you know? I have a sister. I just wanted to say –”

He trailed off, then shrugged helplessly.

“I got it,” she said. “It’s fine. Just stay clean.”

Carlos retreated back to his group. Hector nodded toward Diamond, apparently satisfied.

“That’s all I got,” Diamond said loudly so all could hear. “Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got turf of my own needs defending.” And with that she turned away and headed in the direction the others had taken Destiny. Around her, the men began to disperse.

As she walked away TJ raised his voice and asked, “Since when do you have any territory?”

Diamond spoke without turning, raising her arms in an all-inclusive gesture, “You listen good to Darkatana, human. It’s all my territory. Quit screwing with me, Okay?”

Hector and TJ just looked at each other from a distance, then shared an uneasy laugh.

-----

Destiny and Diamond walked down the street together, Destiny slightly in front. It was now past midnight. Destiny had been re-attired in a short black vinyl skirt, a thin silver belt, and a loose long sleeve blouse of some kind of reflective silvery material.

Around them there was nothing like the usual street traffic, certainly not on the sidewalks which were empty. As such, they were alone.

Destiny was fretting. “God it’s cold. I wish I had your fur and you had a pimple on your butt. Why do I have to be out here anyway? Can’t you do this yourself?”

“No I can’t,” Diamond replied firmly. “I look too much like a dangerous animal. I need you near by to help me look vulnerable.”

“Oh now that just fine. I’m vulnerable enough for two.”

Then after a pause she added, “What is wrong with this picture? I’m here three days and already I get the worst corner, in the middle of a turf war, and there’s a loony running loose who’s eating people, and then some psycho wants to cut me in half, but I’m rescued by a tiger who blows his brains out so she can use me as bait.”

“Oh and I almost forgot!” Destiny rounded on Diamond in fury. “I mean that whole and-it-ain’t-me thing, what is that about? Do you actually eat people?”

Diamond said, “Not often.”

Destiny stamped her foot and opened her mouth to protest.

“Be still,” Diamond interrupted her. “You are supposed to be bait, and we’re going to be out here until you interest a fish. So act timid and vulnerable already. And before you get the wrong idea I belong to my Master and she keeps me fed, and so long as she does you people have nothing to worry about.”

Destiny frowned. “Master?”

Diamond scratched the base of her tail and looked around. “A human who I choose to obey. She feeds me and gives me direction and helps me understand your screwed up world.”

“You serious? You some kinda slave?”

Diamond reached into an inside pocket in her vest and fished out a braided leather lead.

Destiny looked at it.

“Okay, some kinda pet,” she observed.

“Close enough.”

“But here you are all off your leash and acting like a scary bad ass. Is that it?”

Diamond sighed, reached up and snapped the lead onto the D-ring in her collar.

She handed the other end to Destiny, who took it cautiously.

“Try to relax,” Diamond said softly.

Destiny looked at the leash, then up at the collar around Diamond’s neck.

She dropped it and it hung down Diamond’s front, long enough to reach her knees.

“Listen, bad ass kitty. We black people have a history with masters and collars and being lead around. Being a slave is not a game.”

Diamond shrugged. “It’s either that, or the petting zoo.”

“Petting zoo? What is the matter with you?” Destiny growled in rising frustration. “What is wrong with this place? Tigers on the loose, and someone else – maybe some man-weasel – dining out and I mean way out. Is everyone here a total freak?”

She turned and stalked away, muttering, “I raise me any money, I am going home you hear me. You can have your weasels or whatever. I am quit of this. Destiny DeLong is Chicago bound on the next train out of here.”

Diamond put her hands on her hips and was wondering if maybe she should go about this on her own after all, when a van pulled up to the curb.

The side door slid open with a bang and Destiny stopped and turned.

Diamond shot forward as two men in ski masks grabbed the woman and dragged her kicking into the van.

The doors slid shut and the van, tires screeching, pulled away.

The windows were painted over and it was utterly dark. Diamond lay on top of Destiny where she had thrown herself inside just as the door closed.

“We got two!” one of the men said.

“You were supposed to grab the little one!” The driver shot back over his shoulder.

“We did, the other one jumped in!”

Diamond sat up, got her balance and pulled both her weapons, pointing one at the driver and the other at the nearest abductor.

“Pull over now!” she bellowed.

“She’s got a gun!” one of the men in the back yelled.

The driver slammed on the brakes in the middle of the street, toppling everyone in the back onto their faces, and opened the driver side door.

“Don’t move!” Diamond yelled at him, levering herself back up.

He reached under the driver’s seat and came up with a gun. Before he could aim Diamond shot him twice through the back of the driver’s seat. He was thrown against the door jam, clung to the door a moment, then fell into the street.

Destiny turned over and got onto one elbow, but seeing the drama developing around her she rolled into a self-protective ball and with a squeak covered her head with her hands.

The van began to roll backwards. The steering wheel cranked over and the van angled and ran up on the curb, where it struck something solid and stopped.

On impact everything lurched backwards. One of the abductors made a grab for one of Diamond’s weapons. She reached over with the other and shot him.

She turned her attention on the remaining abductor.

“I surrender!” he said, holding his hands in front of himself. “Don’t shoot!

Diamond crawled slowly toward the man, jaws parted, the leash trailing between her legs.

Destiny reached over and grabbed the end of the leash and said, “Easy, now.” Diamond felt the faint tug and stopped.

Destiny wrapped the leash around her hand, pulled back on it, and said to the man, “Son, if you got anything to say you best spill it now. Otherwise any second now this tiger gonna splatter you all over the inside of this truck and likely ruin my outfit for only the second time tonight.”

He apparently took the threat at face value.

“We get paid to pick people up, that’s all. I just started tonight, I didn’t know what was going on! I didn’t kill anyone!”

“But you know who did,” Destiny finished for him.

“Yeah! I can tell you things! They call themselves the Vampire Club. They were talking about people meat, and blood and something else – immortality – and I thought it was a joke. Someone has to put a stop to this. These people are crazy.”

“I guess they are,” she continued. “Okay tiger, what you wanna do?”

Diamond said nothing at first, but glanced back at Destiny then down at the leash wrapped around her small hand. Then she holstered her weapons and sat back.

“We don’t want this one,” Diamond said finally. “We want the ones where he was taking you.” Then to the man; “You just got way lucky, sucker. If you want to extend your streak – drive.”

-----

The van rolled up the driveway and into the garage of a private residence in a respectable gated, planned development built out with larger homes. The roll away automatic door descended with a hum behind it. As soon as it closed fully a door from the house opened.

“Hey everyone, it’s the meat wagaon!” called a voice.

A thin young man in business attire, loose red tie, and an open blazer jacket descended stairs leading into the garage. He was nursing a cocktail and smoking a cigarette.

The man behind the wheel of the van neither moved nor spoke. He sat gripping the steering wheel white-knuckled as if he were handcuffed to it and behind him someone unpredictably homicidal might be holding a gun to the back of his head.

All of which was correct.

The thin man stopped on the floor of the garage and put out the cigarette. “Hey Jim, buddy. Everything cool? Having a good time?”

Diamond slid open the side door of the van and burst through it, hitting the floor in a crouch.

Their eyes met and there was a very brief exchange, during which he was made to understand that she was going to eat her way right through him.

“We’re blown!” the thin man shouted into the house, throwing his cocktail against the wall.

He fled back in without closing the door.

Someone appeared behind the door, took one look at Diamond, and slammed it shut.

There was the familiar thump of a deadbolt.

Diamond cursed, took a few steps back, calculated a trajectory, and took a run at it. She leapt, turned in the air, and feet-first kicked in the door with her full weight. The door jam completely failed with a boom and the door flew open on its hinges and hit the wall with a bang.

She ended up inside laying on a laundry room floor, slightly buried under soiled sheets and towels that had fallen from a teetering pile on the washing machine. She quickly dug herself out but then paused in wonder.

The laundry was smeared in blood.

She hauled herself up and headed into an attached kitchen. It was empty but there was shouting and commotion beyond.

There was blood everywhere. Blood around the sink, blood on the countertop and dried into cracks on the floor. The smell of sour meat, something all too familiar to the tigress.

On the countertop were disposable plates and flatware, a pitcher of thick, red liquid, and a scatter of used plastic tumblers with crimson residue in the bottom and some with lipstick around the rim.

She noticed fresh bones and skin in a garbage can. Visible at the top of the pile, a tattoo of a black rose above an embedded a navel ring.

-----

Diamond was an expert at human anatomy, reason being that she had eaten humans, on and off, for much of her life. It wasn’t something she thought much about; the idea of “nature red in tooth and claw” was good by her. You hunger, you hunt, you kill, you eat. Then you sleep. Uncomplicated and easy to remember.

In the long, heated and ultimately unresolved debate over whether Diamond Smith were guilty of crimes against humanity, the argument usually came down to whether or not she was a detestable cannibal – or a fierce top carnivore. And the only one with the requisite expertise to decide the key question was – herself.

In her own defense, over the years she had seldom had to kill anyone who wasn’t already seriously begging for it, as she liked to put it.

Even then she tended to give them a running start. If she were to confess to anything, Diamond Smith was occasionally guilty of playing with her food.

-----

As she strode through the kitchen Diamond loosed the scabbard of the sword at her back and whipped it into her hands, to use as a blunt club until she needed it as an edge.

Ahead of her was fear and flight and noise, and all around her evidence of recent slaughter.

She suddenly, subtly, changed.

Several key intersections in her brain tipped over from being in a state of high anticipation to one of relaxed destructiveness, and a nominally human mind became a fully feline one. A single thought coalesced and lodged itself in the control room of the fighting/killing machine that was Diamond Smith.

And that thought was simply; mine.

Diamond leapt forward, turned the hall left, got traction and exploded on powerful legs, headed into combat.

The house had almost no furniture outside some loose mattresses tossed on the floor in places, a ratty couch and some folding chairs. There was trash in every corner. Young people in casual street clothes and sneakers ran in every direction, in and out of rooms, dragging each other toward the exits.

She wasn’t intending immediately to kill anyone until someone opened that door and invited her in. Which they would, because they always did.

Diamond ran head-long into a couple trying to get past her and to the front door. He swung at her with a fist but missed. She brought the scabbard around and struck the man in the side of the head. There was an ominous crack and he went down like a rag doll. The woman stumbled, got up and bolted for the door without him.

Mine.

Another more enterprising soul decided to take the direct approach and ran at her holding a folding chair. She skidded sideways and down as he swung at her, tripped him with the scabbard, and landed on him. He tried to push off her but she dove into his neck with her teeth, took a mouth full his flesh, and with a twist of her powerful neck ripped him open.

The salty-sweet taste of blood filled her mouth and her seething brain sang; mine!

She was up instantly and while acquiring her next target a thought found an opening and hammered itself into a dim corner of her mind along side mine.

This thought was; what?

There was a gun shot to her left that hit the wall behind her. She dove forward as if to flee down a hall but fetched up behind a corner and, finally, drew the sword and held it overhead.

A man in a white shirt and slacks flew around the corner aiming a handgun. He fired randomly down the hall before he was aware of the tiger at his shoulder.

Their eyes met.

He saw written in her eyes the course of his own destruction.

What she in turn saw in his shocked expression was... something familiar.

The sword sang downward in a shiny blur, catching his elbow and cutting the sleeve of his shirt and his lower arm off. The gun and the arm flew different directions as he let out a cry laced with terror.

She used a free hand to grab him by the front of the shirt and fling him head-first into the opposite wall. He fell to the floor in a heap and bled.

The thought unbidden developed further; what was that?

The front door was now open and people were fleeing into the night. Women in casual jeans and high heels were falling and screaming, men were effortlessly abandoning them to their fate and piling into a sedan idling at the curb with all the doors open.

Diamond drew one of the semi-automatics into her free hand and started shooting through the large double doors. She shot out the near tires in the sedan, and then put a few rounds into the engine compartment for good measure.

The driver drew a weapon from inside his jacket and snarled back at her.

She beat him to the draw and shot him cleanly in the head, blowing out the driver’s side window in the process. She watched his head fly backwards, but what caught her attention was his face.

Specifically his teeth.

Those who had been loading into the car took to the streets. Diamond returned her attention to the interior of the house.

She paused, confused. She had recognized something about that man. Indeed there was something familiar about all these people.

There was activity down a hall that looked like it might have bedrooms off it. Diamond slipped the gun back into its holster and slipped into the hall, turning out the lights as she did so and plunging that part of the house into total darkness.

Faint light and sound seeped out from under closed doors. Diamond’s eyes adjusted to the dark in seconds, her golden irises reduced to thin rings as her pupils dilated into light-devouring wells. In the dark she held a commanding advantage. Hushed voices of men and women could be heard in the rooms beyond.

What is it about these people, she thought there in the dark.

“It’s over. Come out with your hands in the air,” Diamond began calmly. “Do exactly as I tell you or die with the others.”

As soon as she finished she sped forward silently to a different position in the hall and knelt in deeper shadows between two closed doors.

She lay down the sword, looked around, and drew out both guns.

“Jason don’t!” an unseen woman cried.

The first door on Diamond’s right flew open and the thin man she had seen earlier stepped through it brandishing a shotgun. Not expecting darkness, he fired around the door jam in the direction Diamond had been when she’d spoke. Just then in the opposite direction another door opened and two young men, one in cut-off shorts and another in baggy pants, stepped through with their hands up.

The man Jason heard them, turned, and fired again without waiting.

The one wearing baggy pants took the full blast and spun back into the door way, falling partly into the room. The other man recoiled in pain and shouted, “It’s me! Don’t shoot.”

Then he saw Diamond in the reflected light and, wide eyed, pointed down at her.

Diamond swore softly and turned toward Jason. She leapt away from him, propelling herself backwards down the hall away from the shotgun.

Mine!

The shotgun roared again, this time nearly in her face, but Diamond was too close and the pattern was small and the gun was pointing a bit off the mark. The round went down the hallway and instead blew a foot-wide hole in a bathroom door. The man standing behind Diamond turned, tripped over the body at his feet, and fell into the room he had just meant to leave.

Diamond fired both weapons at Jason, standing just feet away.

Jason took both rounds in the chest and froze, wide-eyed.

Diamond, still flying through the air backwards, aimed along one side and fired again.

Jason turned and toppled forward and landed face-down, spread-eagle on the ground.

In the room, an unseen woman began screaming in terror and grief.

Diamond hit the ground at the same time Jason did, landing awkwardly on one shoulder. She winced in pain, then drew a breath and spun into a crouch opposite the door with the body across the threshold. The man beyond was laying on his side, clutching a bleeding hand peppered with bird shot, eyes wide.

She sighted down one of the guns.

He swallowed.

“Stay put,” she hissed.

He nodded.

She tried the last bedroom door, bursting in and finding two young women clinging to each other on a mattress on the floor. They yelped briefly and shrank away.

“Don’t hurt us,” one of them pleaded.

“Shut up,” Diamond snarled, staring at them. There was something odd about them, familiar but out of place. Diamond couldn’t but a finger on it. She approached the women, who cowered behind their hands.

One of them looked up at Diamond and gasped.

“You’re one of us!” she howled in dismay. “What is wrong with you?”

Diamond’s eyes went wide. For a moment a kind of irrational fear welled up inside her, a feeling she was largely unfamiliar with. This was her domain – her thing – she had nothing to fear from this bunch.

But there is was.

And then as quickly, she understood. She slipped both weapons back into their holsters and with her free hands grabbed that woman by the hair, threw her head back, and pushed back her upper lip.

It was the teeth. Long, shiny pointed fangs, like Diamond had, maybe even longer. Otherwise the teeth where human, the kind they needed for grinding vegetable matter and not much use for meat, unlike Diamond’s jaw full of scimitars. So, not exactly the same. She leaned down and looked more closely while the woman struggled in her powerful grasp. For an instant their eyes met. Metallic yellow and feline, looked into soft green and human.

We are not the same.

They were not even real, Diamond decided. The fangs that is. Some kind of dental cosmetic.

The fear began to subside, though when she released the woman’s head her own hands were shaking slightly.

Diamond straightened and stood over the girls.

“Stay put,” she said.

They nodded without speaking, faces tear-streaked, hugging each other.

“She’s one of us,” the woman repeated to the other.

“No I’m not,” Diamond replied without turning as she left the room. “Shut the fuck up.”

Well not exactly the same, she corrected herself again. Though for a terrible moment Diamond had thought she might have stumbled into a house full of tigers.

She started down the hall and realized with a start that the body of Jason was missing. The shotgun was right where it had fallen but there was no sign of him other than a large blood stain where he had fallen.

It was only vaguely annoying; she wasn’t intending to eat him in any event.

She found her sword near the wall and picked it up, and then the scabbard a ways further on.

The house was nearly silent. There was no motion and only the muted cries of the injured or dying.

The game over, she was no longer interested.

Retracing her steps through the house she headed for the kitchen and beyond that the garage, where Destiny was no doubt wondering what had happened. Assuming she hadn’t already fled.

Sirens wailed in the distance. Diamond wasn’t worried about that.

In the main sitting room she found an abandoned plate of meat cut into cubes. She carelessly popped some in her mouth. Chewing thoughtfully she recognized at once the familiar flavor.

As a rule Diamond only ate what she killed for herself, or what her Master provided, that being the deal. So without a backwards glance she headed for the garage.

We are not the same.

They were not the same. She was born to hunt, indeed couldn’t help herself half the time. She didn’t think humans had changed much so these people had been playing at something. What that game might have been she could not tell. She would leave that determination to the humans called police.

She started down the steps into the garage and saw Destiny peeking around the side door of the van. Her worried face relaxed when she saw the tigress, and she stepped out of the van and stood next to it.

“Damn it woman,” Destiny began. “That sounded like Grant taking Richmond. You alright?”

“Sure,” Diamond said from the stairs.

She looked down and noticed the red cocktail Jason had thrown aside in his haste. At the time she wouldn’t have guess it, but knowing what she did now she recognized the liquid at once.

“Blood,” she said. “He was drinking blood.”

Something clicked in her head, the beginnings of a thought about what was happening in the house. But she couldn’t hold onto it and so resolved to bring it up with Master, who was better at such things.

Destiny looked up at her and asked, “Who was drinking what?”

Diamond crossed the garage. She took Destiny by the wrist and said, “Stay close to me until we get clear of this mess. The place will be crawling with police in a moment.”

There was a side door from the garage that lead outside to a narrow walk. The walk connected to the driveway beyond, and that’s where they were confronted by the responding police.

They recognized her instantly.

“Get the Captain,” she told the first officer she met. Then she glanced over to notice a group of three approaching the house, weapons drawn.

“You should stay back!” she called over to them. “The fighting is over. I need to talk to the Captain before anybody goes in.”

An officer wearing the shoulder bars of rank pulled himself out from behind a squad car and came up to Diamond and Destiny.

“Okay Smith, what’s the deal?” he asked.

“Looks like I interrupted someone’s dinner, Captain Mueller,” Diamond said.

Destiny groaned, put her hands over her mouth, and turned away.

“Who is this?” the Captain asked, pointing at Destiny.

“She’s mine,” Diamond replied without going into details. Then she said, “You seem to be up a bit late, Captain. Having a rough night?”

The Captain, tall and about 60 years old, with a face deeply lined with years of police work, rubbed his forehead with a calloused hand. “I heard from O’Malley that you’d gone hunting. She said to expect unspecified trouble. Nor did it take long.”

“She knows me pretty well, at that. Listen, don’t send in any young guys. This place is a chop shop. I doubt you’ve ever seen anything like it. Other than the obvious, something seems really strange. Some got away. There are witnesses inside so try not to shoot them.”

Then she added, “I probably killed the leadership. Sorry.”

He looked at her sternly. “You should have called us in.”

Diamond smacked the side of her head with the heel of her hand. “See, I knew I was forgetting something.”

He gave her a doubtful look, then growled, “Darkatana, if it wasn’t for you master being Lacy O’Malley and the best cop I’ve got, I think I’d be scared to death of you.”

Diamond smiled happily at that.

Captain Mueller turned and barked orders around, detailing some officers to crowd control and others to preliminary investigations. A few hand-picked veterans he called over and gave a short briefing. They headed for the house.

Diamond took Destiny by the wrist again and headed for the street.

“Not going to hang around?” the Captain asked. “This looks like loads of fun.”

Diamond reached the sidewalk and turned toward downtown. “I already know how it ends. Besides I need to get this girl away from here before she hits me.”

Destiny twisted her arm and Diamond let her go, then she asked, “Okay, so what now? Can I go?”

Diamond leaned over and said, “I think we both need a drink.”

-----

Diamond sipped licorice tea and watched a votive candle burning fitfully in a globe. On the other side of the table were three empty cocktail glasses. Diamond leaned over and peered under the table at a sleeping Destiny, curled up on the opposite bench under a coat the barmaid had rescued from the Lost & Found bin.

The place was nearly empty. At the bar sat the maid in her apron sipping a soft drink, and behind the bar the barkeep was washing the last of the dishes.

“It’s three in the morning, Diamond,” he said. “Missy and I would like to go home.”

Diamond sat up and yawned, then said, “Thanks for letting us hang out here Harry. Listen, I need to ask a favor.”

She rose and went to the bar and sat down. “This woman needs to go home. Home in this case is a place called Chicago.”

Harry hummed and said, “That’s a fair journey right there.”

“Could take the train,” Missy opined.

Diamond continued. “Sounds like a plan. Harry, can you get someone to put her on an early train, then? And fix her up with some generous pocket money. Put the whole thing on TJ’s tab. If he gives you any static, tell him it’s a personal favor for me. Missy, you still keep a cot in the back?”

The woman nodded and said, “You plan on bedding down here?”

“Not for me, for that one.” And she pointed over at Destiny. “I don’t want her on the streets at all after tonight. From here it’s Chicago.”

Harry and Missy glanced at each other, then Harry said, “I heard a lot of sirens earlier. Sounded like the whole department was headed up the hill. Any part of this related to that?”

“Nope,” Diamond lied.

She pushed away from the bar and headed for the door.

At the door a silky, drawling voice from the corner booth said, “You know, you’re pretty slick Miss Kitty.”

Diamond paused at the threshold.

“Just trying to do the right thing, TJ.”

“Don’t know myself what the right thing is, most times.”

“Yeah. Seems like it gets harder every time I turn around.”

She pushed the door open.

“Hey tiger,” TJ called after her. Diamond stopped half way through the door without turning. “You ever get tired of their side of the street, I can find a place for you in my organization. I could use some of what you got.”

She took a long time before replying.

“Police. Gangs. Politicians. Corporations. Syndicates. It’s all the same to me, just this fog of monkey business that I can barely see through on my best day. Let me ask you something, Master TJ. What happens on the day I can’t tell one of you from the next? What are you going to say to me then to keep me from turning lose against yourself some of what I got?”

After a reflective silence he replied, “I think that’s one of those trick questions.”

“Good answer,” she said, and let herself out into the night.

-----

Diamond woke on the couch. She sat up, stretched and yawned magnificently.

She was naked (aside from fur), her clothes scattered in a semi circle around the front door.

In the kitchen Lacy was humming to herself as the radio played softly in the background. The sounds of cooking and the smells of eggs and bacon made her stomach growl.

Not that she would actually eat anything her Master might prepare for herself, but Lacy in the kitchen meant defrosted beef steak on the cutting block.

Diamond levered herself off the couch and dragged herself into the kitchen.

Lacy, wearing a white terry bathrobe and pink fuzzy slippers, turned at a sound and, seeing Diamond, greeted her with a cheery, “Good morning, lady cat!”

Diamond mumbled something under her breath.

“Ha. Serves you right, being out the entire night.”

She took a large knife and began slicing up the beef that would be Diamond’s breakfast. The tigress watched the motions of the knife with muted interest.

We are not the same.

For a heartbeat, Diamond saw her Master for what she was; bones, blood, tendons.

As meat.

She shook her head and tried to think of something else.

Where was Destiny about now? On a train she hoped. Headed the opposite direction from last night. On reflection Destiny had shown a certain bravery Diamond didn’t often expect from humans. She hoped the girl would hold up and be able to get on with her life.

Diamond was hoping the same for herself, actually.

We are not the same!

Lacy sat down across the corner of the table and pushed a plate of raw beef strips under Diamond’s nose.

Diamond smiled faintly. “Thank you, Master.”

She picked up one with her fingers, folded it, and popped it into her mouth. Sharp side-cutters sliced through it, efficiently cleaving through the fibers.

She swallowed.

“I got a call from Captain Mueller just before you woke.”

Diamond pretended to ignore her. Chew – slice – swallow.

“Aren’t you wondering what he said?” Lacy asked with a half-smile.

“Not really.”

Lacy leaned over and reached into the pocket of her robe. She placed Diamond’s badge on the table next to the plate of food.

“He said a lot of things, Diamond. But mostly it came down to, well done.”

Diamond picked up the badge and looked at it, then smiled timidly and said, “Okay.”

Lacy stood, and then did something she had never before done; she tilted Diamond’s head up by the chin, leaned over and kissed her gently on the forehead.

“Good kitty,” she said. And with that she returned to the kitchen, and humming went about breakfast.

Epilogue

Diamond was not nearly finished with vampires. She would fight them in one incarnation or another, off and on, for nearly 120 years. Which is probably revealing more about the real nature of Diamond Smith than is strictly fair.

Destiny DeLong stayed in Chicago, found gainful employment and eventually married, in time having two children. With seed funding from her “pocket money” she and her husband together founded what became a renowned bakery, and with a portion of the operating profits she was able to open a modest but well-respected shelter for women of the street.

Destiny would meet Darkatana again, though under different circumstances, as they would find themselves unexpectedly confronted with the further depredations of the Vampire Club.

But that would be another story.

----- -----