Demicore

Chapter 21

The playful battle before them stopped and the cat began to transform. Slowly it took on more human features while not losing the cat appearance. Everyone present was shocked at the transformation except Erik. He inspected his body as someone who has just found something precious after it had been lost for a long time. He felt his fur, extended and retracted his claws, purred.

When he was finished, he knelt next to Elizabeth, ran a fur-covered thumb over her cheek and said, “Thank you.”

Confused she replied, “For what?”

“For helping me find myself again.” Erik’s voice was definitely Erik’s, but it was weird to hear him purring like that while he spoke.

“This is not any way I have ever known you to be…” she replied, confused, “How is it that I have done anything?”

“I am Krys Kaya-Sar. One of the Chosen. Demicore, we are called. And it is you, my loving human wife, who have helped me to find myself again. The falcon will be here soon, we should go out into the open so he can find us easier. Also, it will take some great convincing to help our daughters to understand. For now, please go to them and show them you are whole and unharmed.”

For a moment she didn’t move. She sat there in shock at what he had just said. There was no way this was happening. He said he was what? But then, they had been following him after a great cat and now he was standing in front of her half human, half jaguar and all crazy. And yet… there was a sense of trust. Like just maybe he was the only one there who had even a small clue what was going on. She took his hand and got up. He pointed her toward the place where Sonya and Katlin were standing, hidden still behind the overgrown vegetation. They gasped and came out, weapons at the ready.

The three women exchanged hugs and went over the experience as it had happened since they left each other’s company. The cat-man waited. He sat, quietly, meditating while they spoke to each other.

“What are we going to do now?” Sonya asked.

“Well, we can’t just take him back home like this…” Katlin replied.

“I don’t think we’re going home right away, we are waiting for a falcon to arrive,” Elizabeth told them, “I think our journey has only just begun.”

Katlin and Sonya exchanged glances, hoping Elizabeth wasn’t right and knowing somewhere deep inside them that she was. They both looked over at the cat-man that was their father. He was sitting on the ground, legs crossed, eyes closed, hands on his knees looking like he was meditating. He was muscular, that much was very easy to see under his shiny black fur. He was unclothed, which didn’t surprise anyone. The fact that he looked completely feline and completely human at the same time was disturbing.

“We are looking for a what?” Katlin asked, hoping that she has misheard.

“A falcon,” Elizabeth said, “and according to him, it’s already on its way.”

”Does Erik the cat-man have any other instructions he’d like to give us?” Sonya broke in sarcastically. She was tired, frustrated, and found all of this hard to comprehend. Portals and living an extra long life she could handle, having her father merge DNA with a feline and then go looking for a falcon was just a little more than the logic side of her brain could process right then.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Elizabeth informed them, “we need to start moving. When the falcon arrives, we would be in a better place were we in the open instead of a jungle.”

“Of course,” Katlin said as she started collecting her gear, “because with Dad, nothing is ever as easy as it’s supposed to be. We couldn’t just come into the jungle and find him. Oh, no. We had to go chasing cat stories and figure out that he is one and the same with it and now go bird watching God-only-knows where.”

Sonya and Elizabeth laughed. Even though the situation felt hopelessly long, Katlin’s humor brought back a sense of reality and ‘we can handle this’. The three women heaved a heavy I-don’t-really-want-to-do-this sigh and started gathering their belongings. Erik the cat-man got up and took the lead. To their surprise, he first headed back to the village they had visited on their search for him.

The three women were confused as they followed him to see the chief. They were startled when he morphed back into the cat before getting there. He didn’t have a single human characteristic. From all they could tell, there was nothing of Erik there. They gaped as he sat patiently and waited for an audience. Then he spoke with Erik’s human voice.

“What is he saying?” Elizabeth asked Katlin.

“Um…” it took a moment for her to process and start translating, “he is very eloquently telling them that his time with them has come to an end and that he prays for their continued prosperity.”

“Eloquently?” Sonya and Elizabeth asked together. Elizabeth continued, “Erik is clumsy at best when it comes to words, what is going on?”

“He is half cat and expecting a bird of prey and you ask what’s going on because he’s learned to use a few words?” Katlin asked, finding it disturbing that her mother would lock on to the least important part of what was currently going on, “He has had a long time to practice.”

“In that time, has he really gotten any better?” she asked with a knowing smile on her face.

The three of them laughed a little together. They all knew the answer: Erik was just as clumsy up until this whole cat thing as he ever was before Elizabeth had been hurt. When he left the small village, they simply followed him. He walked without tiring, but seemed to know when they were nearing their limits and would pause long enough for them to rest. Without once asking them to hurry or continue, he pushed Elizabeth to her limits. Sonya and Katlin were wearing thin and thanking God their father had given them so much martial arts stamina training. They travelled north, much to Sonya’s dismay. She wanted to go get the supercraft.

After two days of walking, Sonya picked up her phone to check in with Steve again. “What happened to you guys? You were supposed to check in every day! I thought you’d been eaten and the transmitters were walking around inside some sort of animal.”

“No, you didn’t, Steve. You can tell by the movements that the transmitters are not inside of anything and by the proximity that we are still in a group moving together and logically deduce from there that we are still alive and moving of our own accord,” Sonya replied coolly.

“OK, you’re right, but I was a little worried about the whole large animal problem and I have been obsessing about watching the monitors to make sure you’re ok,” Steve replied, dropping almost all of the concern in her voice.

“If you only knew… the issue of a large animal isn’t all that far off. I will explain later. For now I need you to activate the remote return on those craft. We have to go north for a while and will find a ride home from wherever we end up…” Sonya let her voice trail off thinking of what could have happened since they abandoned her pet project.

“What large animal?” Steve questioned, heartfelt concern back in her voice no matter how much she knew they could handle themselves, “Or are you referring to Erik, whom I’m seriously hoping you have found?”

“One and the same,” Sonya tried to play off the alarm she had accidentally raised. She knew that Steve could tell. They bantered back and forth constantly. It was a way they showed affection for each other. They were both too logical for practical jokes, but they pretended on occasion to be emotional.

“So Erik is a large animal that’s giving you problems,” Steve replied flatly, “At least he is found and really, it’s no surprise he’s giving you issues. Give him a swift kick for me and let him know he is needed back here.”

Sonya looked at her father and the feline form he was currently entertaining. He smiled as if he knew exactly what was going on. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

“What did she have to say?” Katlin asked.

“She wants us to convince Dad to stop being problematic and to come home,” Sonya said with a slight scoff in Erik’s direction.

“But she will recall the craft and keep tracking us, right?”

“Naturally,” Sonya reminded her sister with a look that Steve didn’t need reminding to keep a watch on what was going on with them. Then she used sign language to tell her “I think he is listening to us somehow.”

Katlin nodded. She wished she knew how he seemed to be hearing them or knowing what was going on. It was body language that gave him away. It always had with Erik. He couldn’t keep anything secret from his girls, they knew him too well. Even now with all of the changes that were taking place, they could tell by the way his mouth curved or his head twitched that he was eavesdropping.

Finally, after Elizabeth had lost all sense of how much time had passed since they began this crazy, monotonous, eventful journey, something changed. The jungle foliage began to thin and the sunlight poured down to the overgrown vegetation they slowly walked through. Erik morphed completely into the cat.

He began to run and play, pouncing at a leaf blowing in the breeze and looking devastated when it didn’t fight back when he caught it. Back into the edge of the jungle, up a tree only to come flying out of it letting out deafening roars at odd intervals. Sonya turned on sensory cams that were in her suit to record this strange behavior just in case they were all about to die or would need to evaluate it once they got him back to the lab.