Demicore

Chapter 20

They exchanged glanced with each other. The cat. Apparently the great cat the shaman had spoken of was the key to finding Erik. No one seemed to notice that Andrea seemed peaceful bordering on happy. The rest were concerned that there was another mention of a large cat in combination with him and very confused as to what the meaning of this could be.

In an unsettled silence, they set out in the direction this cat had been seen last, hoping that it was still in that vicinity and that Erik would be somewhere near but not eaten. He was, after all, dumb enough to attempt to pet an animal that could and would tear him to shreds as soon as looking at him. Two hours into wandering around the jungle looking for a cat they couldn’t track and a man they hoped to find alive, Andrea pulled Elizabeth aside.

“My time here is almost up, but there are a couple more things you need to know. First: when you find the cat, do not let Sonya or Katlin approach. It has to be you. Second: This is only the beginning. There are more pieces to this puzzle that will need to be put together but he will understand them much more after this. Third: Once he has the basic knowledge and understanding again of who he is, you have to tell him this; the Great Battle is coming, prepare yourself,” Andrea paused her urgent speech, fading slightly so that Elizabeth could almost see through her, “The fourth item is a request of you and I will understand if you cannot but if you can and will, please tell him that I loved him that way. I never meant to hurt him by leaving the way I did, it was the only way I could see to do it on my terms.”

Elizabeth nodded, “Thank you,” she said softly, “for taking care of him while I was away and for coming back when we needed you.” Andrea inclined her head slightly and pointed to the sky, then was gone.

Elizabeth caught up with the other two, contemplating what Andrea had said to her, mostly unaware of what was going on around her. She barely perceived them stop, paid no attention to Sonya slowly pull a tranquilizer gun. She was so lost in thought that she tripped over a root and tumbled into a decline in the terrain. Her scream was cut short by a sharp growl.

Sonya and Katlin ran to the edge of the decline, weapons drawn prepared to protect their mother at all costs.

“Stop!” she called to them quietly.

They assessed the situation in front of them. Elizabeth was mostly on her back, standing over her was a very large black cat, teeth bared looking like it just might eat her. Sonya pulled out small binoculars. She studied the spots on the foreleg. Elizabeth looked slightly terrified, but still somehow calm. They took a moment to wonder what happened to Andy, they could really use her insight right about then…

“I need to run some tests,” Sonya whispered to her sister as quietly as possible, “but I could swear that is the same cat we replicated in the lab.”

“That’s not possible, is it?” Katlin asked, “How can you be so sure?”

“Because it is about the same size as the DNA in the lab called for, the spots are exactly the same on the foreleg, Erik is chasing it for all we can figure, and it is in the wrong part of the world to be here naturally,” Sonya replied, somewhat indignantly.

“What do you mean it’s in the wrong part of the world?”

“I mean that cat is a jaguar. They are indigenous to South America, not Africa. Last I checked, this was an African jungle.”

“And you got all of that from a strand of DNA?” Katlin asked just to get a rise.

“Of course not. I did a little research on it when it came up in the lab – same thing you would have done if it had been you studying it instead of me.”

“So did you get anything from the DNA or your studies that might tell you what its hunting habits are so we might have a clue why it didn’t kill our mom or where it might have taken her while we were chatting?” Katlin asked, pointing out that both Elizabeth and the cat were gone. “And how can you tell it’s a jaguar anyway? It’s solid black!”

“By using very astute powers of observation and looking at the way the coat shines. It still has its spots,” Sonya would have been irritated with Katlin if she didn’t know that Katlin was just doing this for that exact purpose, “The melanistic traits is what makes it black, not because it’s a different species.”

Somehow neither girl quite wanted to give up the discussion. It seemed like ages since they were able to banter like that. They weren’t worried about Elizabeth. Almost like they knew she was safe… or something was distracting them.

“You can’t tell that just from looking at it from this distance under the jungle canopy,” Katlin shot back. Thinking about it, they both wondered how that had been accomplished, neither of them really doubted that Sonya had been right, though.

Elizabeth followed the cat away from the place she’d fallen. Away from the girls playfully bantering back and forth. Away from any protection she might have had with them watching. Still, he pulled her sleeve a little faster than she was comfortable walking, let alone off balance. She wondered if she had made the right choice by following him, no idea where they would end up or if they would be able to be found.

By the time they stopped, she couldn’t have found her way back if an entire group of people’s lives depended on it. Then he sat. Everything about him was a cat – albeit a very large one – his eyes were not. They were dark brown, full of kindness and understanding… human eyes. Erik’s eyes. She reached up to touch the side of his face and his ears flicked back, but his head did not move away and his teeth were not bared. She momentarily paused, remembering that this was in fact a wild animal. She reached again, this time touching the side of his face and opening her heart to the love she felt for Erik. Something happened, she felt the world shift and knew that it had stayed the same.

Sonya and Katlin had very little difficulty tracking Elizabeth and the cat. The problem was they had a head start and knew more about where they were going. The two were beginning to worry when they heard laughter. It sounded nervous, but heartfelt.

It was so easy to know her laughter… That was one of the ways they had known Erik was right when he said she was their mother. Past all the DNA they had tested, past the green flash of the portal saying it was her, past the physical resemblance, it was her laughter. Like her smile, it carried everything she was and is in it. They were sure that Elizabeth’s laughter was in some ways like a rainbow – a physical sign of God’s love on earth. It gave both of them a sense of peace and safety.

They followed the sound. Carefully. Silently. Neither woman wishing to disturb whatever was going on by alerting the great cat to their presence before they determined if it was safe to do so. They prepared themselves mentally for anything they could imagine… So slowly it tested every ounce of patience they learned in all their martial arts mastery they moved the last few leaves aside to see what was going on as they both hid behind the overgrown vegetation.

Katlin almost burst. Sonya almost shot him. The great cat had Elizabeth pinned down and was tickling her with his tongue. Elizabeth was nervous having teeth that close to her, but she knew he wouldn’t harm her. Instinctively she tickled back.

He laughed. The sound was not anything a cat could have made, no matter the size or species. It was a human laugh. Erik’s laugh. Katlin and Sonya almost stopped breathing and looked between each other and the large cat rolling around with Elizabeth in a rather interesting tickle fight.