Cat In A Leopard Spot

“This,” said Van Burkleo, “is what your Crystal Phoenix clients will be able to track, shoot, and bring home from here.”

She nodded, slowly, absorbing the enormity.

In the desert outside of Las Vegas, if you paid enough, you could slaughter an endangered species and have it shipped home on ice for the taxidermist. But how?

“Surely there are laws—?”

’We fly meat all over the country. This is a working ranch. Cattle.”

“Cattle.” That made as much sense as raising llamas. The only head that did not gaze back at her from the crowded walls was that of the humble steer or cow. Too common. Too domesticated. Too doe-eyed. Too easy.

“Cattle,” he repeated, pleased that she had so quickly learned their code. Their hypocrisies. “And what kind of ‘stock’ can I interest you in?”

“Nothing too exotic,” she said apologetically. “A big cat or two.

I suppose white tigers are—”

“Very difficult. Not impossible, but very difficult. Luckily, we have some excellent breeders locally.”

Temple sat still, shocked to her core. Was he implying that he could raid the breeding stock of the most public and protected big-cat programs in the country?

Such power—or nerve—was truly chilling.

“We really don’t care to compete on that level,” Temple said. “Something smaller would be fine. A panther. Or a leopard. Maybe both.”

He nodded. “Excellent choice. You do understand that obtaining a prime specimen may be expensive?”

“What attraction in Las Vegas is not?”

At that moment the broad coffered door leading into this den of iniquity opened again.

“A guest, Cyrus?” asked the woman framed by the doorway.

Temple had expected the aloof Courtney. Instead, she found herself riveted by the most exotic-looking woman she had ever seen. In fact, she blinked hard a couple of times to make sure she hadn’t been transported to the Island of Dr. Moreau.

The woman seemed to expect the unabashed wonderment of strangers. She slunk into the room, one leg crossing so markedly in front of the other that the gait underlined her resemblance to a jungle cat.

A tawny mane of painstakingly streaked hair haloed her face…or what was left of it.

Temple had seen TV reports on extreme plastic surgery: young adults having themselves tattooed, pierced, and cut-and-pasted into hybrid human/animals. The extremest example she recalled was a guy who was morphing into a lizard-man, surgically split tongue and all.

This woman’s case wasn’t as obvious, but it came close. Eyebrows plucked to a thin blond line were barely there. Her supplemented cheekbones jutted out so far they made her eyes look smaller and forced them into an unnatural tilt. Collagen-thickened lips went beyond starlet-swollen to misshapen, blending with her snubbed nose until together they made a…muzzle.

Worst of all, when she reached the desk, Temple saw she was wearing those patterned contact lenses. This amber-colored pair gave her pupils vertical slits, like a cat’s eyes.

Add all that to the fact that everything she wore was bronze or hide patterned, and that costly gold charms shaped into the heads and bodies of big cats dangled from her neck, ears, and wrists, all winking with tasteless constellations of diamonds…Temple was speechless.

“Leonora,” the woman said in a husky purr, extending a hand with nails so long they curved into claws. They were enameled a pale ocher color, which made them even creepier than if they’d been lacquered an obvious Carnivore Red. It was as if they were lying in wait for the real thing, like blood.

Temple had stood without thinking why. Maybe to be polite and shake hands. Maybe to be readier to run.

Leonora kept coming closer. She was wearing chamois suede capri pants, a tiger-striped silk-and-spandex top, cork-soled espadrilles.

One clawed hand, tanned pale mocha, reached for Temple.

Temple wasn’t sure if her hand lifted to meet it, or to paw it aside.

Smooth, cool flesh grasped hers. The curved nails brushed the thin skin on the top of Temple’s hand.

“Leonora Van Burkleo,” the woman emphasized.

Temple glanced at Cyrus in dazed comprehension. This was his wife. From the marked age difference, his trophy wife. From Leonora’s bizarre and deliberate resemblance to a beast, his literal trophy wife.

Leonora’s smile revealed Hollywood-white teeth, quite emphatically pointed. Temple had met people with markedly pointed teeth before. But these were unnatural. They had been filed, just as Leonora’s face had been reshaped.

Temple realized then that she had quite literally walked into the lion’s den.

Max wasn’t aware of being stalked until he was almost back to the drop-off point where he was to meet Temple.

He had sighted some of the ranch’s security forces early during his ramble. These were camouflage-attired men with rifles, the kind of professionals that turned his blood cold: hirelings, not true believers. Hard men who were used to doing unspeakable things. It was kill or be killed with their sort, and Max had always tried to stay well away from either role.