The Ridge(66)

Audrey watched the cats and felt the flush of adrenaline that had caught her when she heard them banging against the fences fade out to a cold, damp fear.

One thing you should always remember when you’re out here at night, David had told her years ago, is that they can see in the dark six times better than a human. Think about that—six times better. So if they seem focused on something you don’t see, pay attention.

She’d laughed and told him that half the cats passed time by staring intently at nothing even in the daylight.

You’re the one who thinks they’re staring at nothing, he’d said, none of his usual humor evident. Maybe you’re wrong.

She stepped outside hesitantly, taking a flashlight with her, and called for the police officer.

“Hello? Deputy Shipley?”

Silence except for the cats. She looked at her watch and saw that it was past two. Shipley would be gone. Who was the other one? Wolverton.

“Deputy Wolverton? Can you come here, please?”

She was out in the preserve now, and in the cage at her side Larkin gave a low growl. The lynx was literally at her side, too, not at her feet where she belonged but stretched out to full length, bringing her head level with Audrey’s waist. Audrey stared at the cat, called for Wolverton again, and received no answer.

Some security, she thought, trying to mask fear as bitterness. They were supposed to be here to help me, not scare the shit out of me.

She took a step farther out and was just ready to shout for him again when she saw the blue light.

It was well into the woods, back where the ground gave way to steep stone walls, and it looked like some sort of flame. She watched it spark and flicker, then looked back and realized that every single cat was watching the light.

Call for help, she thought, but she didn’t move. She couldn’t take her eyes away from it. That cold, dancing glow was enchanting.

Numbing.

Jafar erupted with a harsh snarl then, and the sound jarred her back into the moment. She swung the flashlight around and fastened the beam on the spotted leopard.

“Easy,” she said. “Chill out, buddy.”

He looked at her but did not drop down to all fours. None of them did.

She swung the flashlight back out into the woods, toward the blue flame.

“Hello?”

There was no answer.

Has to be the police, she thought. He’s got some sort of special flashlight.

That wasn’t a flashlight, though. It was a flame.

There was no smoke in the air. No smoke, no crackle of fire, just that unmistakable flame.

She moved toward it despite herself, swinging the flashlight around, the beam tracing the trees and fences, catching eerie reflections when it hit on the eyes of the various cats that were watching her.

Go back inside, she told herself. Go back inside.

But she couldn’t. If something was wrong, she needed to know. The police were gone, and the cats were anxious, and there was one person left to deal with it: her.

The wind blew along in a sudden gust that had brittle edges of December cold. Above her, branches knocked hollowly off one another, and one tree emitted a long, whining creak that seemed directed at her, seemed plaintive.

The blue light was moving toward her.

She stood where she was, and the cats fell silent but did not change position, every one of them watching the woods.

I want your eyes, she thought. Just for a minute. Let me see in the dark like you, just for long enough to know what’s out there.

But all she could see was the silhouetted trees and the glimmering blue flame.

“Who’s there?” she called, and then she began to walk toward it, her own flashlight now a moving glow. The blue light seemed to have stopped between the crest of the ridge and the edge of the preserve. She wouldn’t go far. Just out past the cages, far enough to see, far enough to be heard. It was Wolverton, had to be. He just couldn’t hear her. With those gusts of northern wind pushing the trees and the cats roaring, it would be hard to hear her.

And hard to see a flashlight, Audrey? He can’t see a flashlight?

Maybe he was being silent for a reason. Maybe he was pursuing the source of that blue light himself, and the last thing he wanted was for her to come bumbling along, shouting and shining a flashlight and—

When the cat growled on her left, she wasn’t immediately concerned. She was used to walking past growling animals, had just come out in the darkness to be greeted by a lion’s roar. It registered slowly—far too slowly—that she was past the enclosures, and no cats were on her left.

No cats should be on her left.

She stopped walking, a sense of inevitable disaster descending over her, a soldier hearing the click of a land mine at his feet.

Ira.

There was another growl, a deep, warning note, and it was very near. The blue light ahead of her was forgotten now, irrelevant. All that mattered was this sound at her side and how to respond.