Page 71 of The Inheritance

“Jovo!”

The lees was still bouncing and waving his knives around.

The darkness at the edge of the chamber shifted.

Bear snarled.

“Jovo!” I waved at him frantically. “Up! Up!”

Jovo glanced at me.

“Dangerous! Up!”

Bear broke into barks, snarling.

The shape within the darkness lunged forward.

Jovo leaped at the wall and scrambled up as if he had a ladder. A blink and he was thirty feet up, then fifty.

A creature stalked into the open, its lunge aborted at the last moment. It was definitely feline, but as big as an SUV, with the broad build of a jaguar. Its stocky frame rippled with muscle that shifted and bulged as it walked. Its dense fur was like nothing I had ever seen. Each hair started with a deep ruby, then darkened toward the end into tar black. Like a smoke-colored cat, except that smoke cats of our world went white to black and their coloring was solid, while this creature’s pelt shifted as it walked, the multicolored fur forming rosettes and stripes that vanished with the next step. Its paws were enormous, as big as my head, and they had too many toes.

Jovo shot up the wall, conquered the last dozen feet, and landed on the bridge next to me.

The beast below tilted its huge head and stared at us, its eyes a malevolent, terrible green.

I put my hand on Bear’s back. The shepherd clicked her mouth closed and glared at the monster.

This thing did not belong in the breach. Every animal that was a native part of this ecosystem – the stalkers, the goats, the bugs - was grey, blue, or purple with fluorescence or a flash of contrasting color here and there. The only exception was the red Grasping Hand, but that was a stationary invertebrate. It didn’t hunt or roam.

This cat didn’t fit the color scheme and that fur said it was a forest predator. It was as alien to the caves as Jovo and I.

There was a frightening intelligence in those eyes. It reminded me of Bear, the new upgraded version. When I looked into my dog’s eyes, something more than a typical canine intelligence looked back. This creature was like that: smart and cunning.

The giant cat took a step back, turned soundlessly, and vanished back into the gloom.

Now I knew why the corpses hadn’t been eaten.

“Skelzhar,” Jovo hissed.

I pointed at him. “Jovo…”

The fox shook his head and touched his chest. “Lees.” He pointed at the beast. “Skelzhar.”

Species name.

He pulled his marble out and squeezed it. Five gress walking out of the darkness, two skelzhars flanking them like hounds. When I compared it to Bear, I had no idea how right I was.

“Dan-je-rous,” Jovo said carefully.

The gress by itself was bad enough. This took it to another level.

I stood up. “Let’s get moving.”

11

The stench of decomposition started as a faint whiff of cloying odor. It drifted from the warren of passages and tunnels. The farther we walked, the stronger it became.

Jovo waved his hand in front of his nose.