Read Online Apocalypse Happens by Lori Handeland - Free Book Online

panther. Megan didn’t seem the type.
    In the dark, the thing was hard to see. Which might have been why it appeared slightly off—the shoulders and arms more like a man’s than a beast’s. The entire piece was ink black, except for the spooky sheen of its jeweled chartreuse eyes. Whoever had sculpted that had been either downright strange or just plain bad at it.
    A muttered curse was followed by the clink of one of Jimmy’s lock picks against the porch. I spun around—I’d given him enough time; now I was just gonna break the door—and the wind picked up.
    I paused, my head tilting as I listened. Not the sway of the leaves. Not the swish of the grass. What was that?
    I faced the yard. The damned statue was missing.
    “Shit,” I murmured.
    As if my whisper had brought it to life, a large, lean black panther slunk along the edge of the garden, yellow-green eyes fixed on me. He no longer appeared half human but all beast.
    The smooth slice of Jimmy’s switchblade announced his presence at my side. The cat shrieked, a wild, furious, primeval call that did not belong in a backyard in Milwaukee.
    The animal’s tail switched back and forth. His paws were huge, his claws even huger. The thing snarled and bared teeth that seemed sharper than average, though my experience with panthers was very limited.
    Jimmy flipped his knife around, something he did when he was nervous, then stepped forward. I pulled my own knife and joined him.
    I was so glad we’d come to Milwaukee. The thought of that thing crashing into Megan’s house, hunting Megan and the kids . . .
    The panther charged. I was so preoccupied with the image of finding the Murphys the same way I’d found Xander that I was too slow, and the beast slashed my arm. I dropped the knife.
    Jimmy sliced the panther across the back. The animal roared, but he didn’t burst into ashes.
    “Fuck,” Jimmy muttered.
    Not a shifter. Which meant we could poke the panther with silver until we were old and gray, but he wasn’t going to die. Now what?
    In the past, Ruthie would have told me ahead of time what we were facing. We would have found out how to kill him through research—books, Internet, phone calls to other DKs. But now we were floundering around a bit blind, and I hated it.
    The panther crouched, belly to the ground, tail twitching, rear end shifting. Jimmy shouted, “Lizzy!” and threw himself in front of me just as the cat launched himself into the air.
    As the paws left the earth, the animal became a man; inch by inch the beast arched, going up a panther, coming back down a person. He crashed into Jimmy, who smashed into me, and we all fell in a tangle of legs and arms onto the dry grass.
    Jimmy grabbed for the guy, but he slipped away—it’s hard to get a grip on the naked. Instead of running or kicking, biting, scratching and punching, he went to his knees.
    “Mistress,” he said, and kissed my foot.
    “Oh, brother,” Jimmy muttered.
    “I swear my allegiance.”
    “Swell,” I said. “You can—uh—get up now.”
    He got up; then I wished I’d let him stay down. Standing, naked in the moonlight, he was disturbing. Tall and sleek, he resembled the panther he’d so recently been. His hair shiny and dark, his eyes were an eerie yellow-green.
    I glanced at the garden. “You were the statue.”
    The man lowered his chin in agreement.
    “He was a statue?” Jimmy asked. “And you didn’t think this was something I should know before I stuck him with silver?”
    “I didn’t connect it right away.”
    “You see a statue of a panther, then a panther shows up, but you don’t connect it.”
    “Yeah, weird, hey? How bizarre that I didn’t realize the statue had come to life.”
    Jimmy lifted his eyebrows at my sarcasm but didn’t comment; instead he turned to the panther man. “Gargoyle?” he asked.
    The man spread graceful hands, the muscles rippling beneath his moon-pale skin. “I am.”
    Gargoyles had once been animals. They’d aided the