Gaze skimming the backyard, Drina moved to the edge of the deck and paused at the bench that ran around it. She squinted, searching the dark shadows, automatically turning off the safety on her gun as she did, but didn’t see anything. Of course, she’d taken long enough to gear herself up that whatever she’d seen could have climbed up onto the roof by now, she thought a bit irritably.
The possibility made Drina glance back toward the house, her eyes searching out the roof. Of course, she couldn’t see all of it from that angle, so sighed and moved to the stairs to descend into the yard and start toward the back fence. She glanced back occasionally to see how much of the roof she could now make out, but was nearly to the back fence before she could see all of it.
There was nothing to see. No raccoons, hungry enough to break from their winter sleep and go in search of food, and no rogue creeping about, looking for a window to slip through.
Which didn’t mean they hadn’t moved around to the front of the house, Drina thought, and moved closer to the house until she was sure Teddy could see her, then pointed at herself, made a walking signal with her fingers, and then gestured toward the road-side of the house.
Teddy seemed to understand and, in response, pointed to himself, and then pointed in the same direction, which she presumed meant he would follow her progress via the ground-floor windows. Drina turned and started around the house, crossing the driveway, and then walking along the sidewalk beside the house to get to the front. She kept glancing up toward the roof as she went, spotting Teddy at various windows as he followed her progress, but also scanning the roof to be sure there was nothing and no one creeping up there.
At the front of the house, Drina paused at the wrought-iron gate and took a good long look at the yard and house. She noted Teddy’s presence at the front-door windows, but as in the back, the roof at the front was empty. She was about to turn away and head back around the house to return inside, when a rustling caught her ear and made her freeze.
Turning slowly, Drina searched the front yard more carefully, checking every nook and crevice. She frowned when she spotted movement in the shadowed snow in the corner of the yard in front of the upper and lower porch. Whatever was moving was too small to be human. She hesitated, but curiosity won out and she opened the front gate and stepped inside.
The worry about rogues gone now, Drina started across the yard, another concern rearing its head. It might be a poor abandoned, hungry, and freezing cat rooting in the snow for food. Drina liked animals, often more than mortals and immortals, and wasn’t above bringing the poor little bugger a bowl of milk or something to help it see its way through winter. Or if it looked uncared for, maybe even letting it sleep in the garage for the night, where it would be protected from the elements. She could always take it to an animal shelter in the morning.
“Oh, what a cutie,” she murmured, slinging the cross bow over her shoulder by the strap as she got close enough to better make out the animal. It was a chubby little sucker, white and black and digging away as if scratching at kitty litter. As she moved closer, she crooned, “Here kitty, kitty.”
The cat stilled at her call, growled, and stomped its feet like a child throwing a tantrum. It made Drina chuckle as she continued forward, and she bent forward, trying to make herself smaller and less threatening as she continued to call, “Here kitty, kitty,” hoping to lure it to her.
Animals were so adorable really; cute, cuddly, affectionate. In the darkest part of the front garden though it was, she could still make out that it was hunkered down to the ground, looking oddly flat and wide. Not starving then, but—
Drina stopped abruptly, a choked sound slipping from her throat as the damned thing lifted its tail and somehow pissed at her. She was a good eight or ten feet away still, and the damned thing hit her right in the face and chest and—
Dear Lord, the smell was the most god-awful stench she’d ever encountered. Drina staggered back, wondering with horror what the hell the animal had been eating that its urine would smell so damned foul. That was followed by the wonder as to whether it was some damned mutant to be able to pee out its butt at her, but they were brief thoughts that flashed across her mind, and in the next moment were gone, replaced with dismay as her eyes began to sting as if someone had shoved burning hot pokers in her eyes.
Gagging and choking, Drina stumbled and fell on her butt and rolled to the side. Her hands rose to cover her burning eyes, and moans were gargling from her mouth.
“Drina?”
She hadn’t heard the front door open, but she heard Teddy’s shout and the stomp of his feet as he raced down the front steps.