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Dante waited for hours for Chero to speak again. He wondered whether he should leave him alone and go for some air, but Chero might panic, so only opened a window. Not much better without the wind.

It had been nearly three weeks and Dante realized his life was not his own anymore. He hadn't worked and hadn't gone out and resented being so consumed with the task in front of him. His premonitions were not comforting..

Worse yet, his tools of scrying and reading the patterns of Destiny were useless now. Since the revelation yesterday, they were in fact worse than useless. The crystals became opaque and cold; the cards turned one way and then another with no rhyme or reason to their patterns. The bones scattered across the floor and far away from one another and Dante dared not try blood-sight given how inauspicious the portents were.

Before, a kind word or a symbol would throw him money, good sex, a free beer, or put him in the right place at the right time. It had always been easy, natural; not like this.

Chero was the cause of this, but the reason still wasn't clear. How had someone occupied the single focus of his thoughts? How could a near perfect stranger so totally consume his attention and curiosity?

Chero was so light in his arms he could have carried him all the way back in the rain if he had to. But why was he so sure he would have done so if the situation had come to that?

His friends would be wondering where he was. He hadn't called Velta and she would soon lose interest. She was a nice girl, and a great mount. She might even be nice enough to be a girlfriend, he briefly wondered. Better than other girls he usually met.

Again, the vision of white came through his mind. What had possessed him to act that way the other night in the bath? Had Chero drugged his food?

No, he was confusing events. Or a nightmare had taken a life of its own and was bleeding over from the dreaming world into the waking world. .It wouldn't be the first time in unrecorded history this had happened, nightmares were infectious. That still wasn't an answer.

In moments when Chero didn't seem on the verge of a nervous breakdown or a temper tantrum, he was...how could Dante even begin to describe him? How could he encapsulate the strange lilt to his voice had a dozen nuances that kept even casual listeners constantly attentive? Some hours he was distinctly male in his casual dismissal of the world and his control of his body, and other times distinctly feminine in softness and effervescence. There was no boundary the white mouse seemed to fit neatly into, and he avoided every opportunity to take the option.

Then there were all the things that Dante had not revealed. The white card at the end of the reading did not just frankly warn them of the gaps in Chero's memory. The picture was the purest form of Sentience in its uncorrupted and uncomplicated form, the Sublime.

White was a color of purity and cleanliness, of bright clouds and sunlight and napkins and highlights on water during summer noon days and moonlit nights. White was a color of funerals and sterile medical offices, of flesh as it cooled, of bones and of the embalming fluids.

Had the Demon, the cavernous devouring darkness that ate stars and planets and brought finality to everything come at the end of the reading, Dante would have run and never looked back. What Dante did not tell Chero, and he did not realize until after he had lay the cards down, was that he had laid the last two cards in reverse order.

Only now did he see that the error carried greater weight, and he had been pulled in by forces larger than he was. It had been dangerous to touch the photographs and names of missing people with such strong, negative psychic energy attached to them. Love, despair, terror, grief, and the thousands upon thousands of hopes and hopes-broken that had coated him now with an invisible film. It was bad luck.

While Chero had been washing, Dante wanted to perform a cleaning ritual of his own. He would eat soola, a variation of flowers, and guzzle down hot water to amplify the effects. In the hallucinatory state, he could rid his aura of the small, grabbing fingers that were clawing at him and tearing tiny holes to speak to him. This was what he intended.

When he opened his pouch and felt for the soola, he found the bag -turned upside down.

The remains of the flowers were scattered all across the bag and crushed to pulp. They were gone, and it would take him weeks to get more. Now he desperately wanted a bath.

He sulked with a cup of coffee. The shower still running brought back more obsessive thoughts. There was nothing to distract him or break him away. His mother would know what to do. She was bon-swat, she knew older ways to dal with this. She would know how to deal Chero in a way a male could not. He was truly out of his league.

She would scold him for not extricating himself when he promised he would have. Now he felt himself become an instrument of forces beyond his control. Resistance would only bring disaster.

He moved his mind to another matter. He called out the names he had heard called out in dreams and asked them for guidance. If they had Chero's best interest, they would answer. The dead were speaking to him, this was their season.

No voices came. No whispers or clues or even chills of their presence. Perhaps the room was too sterile for them, Dante reasoned, even in this time of the year. He hated the room now for the very reason it belonged to no one and would have been empty because no one else could afford to stay here. No spirit would want this place.

By the time Chero came out of the shower, all bubbles in champagne, Dante was in a foul mood. He was on his sixth cup of coffee on an empty stomach and he rushed into the latrines to relieve himself.

When he came out, Chero had taken his seat and was drinking tea. He was wrapped in a large white bathrobe that made him nearly invisible. "You're tired of me, I can see that," he said. "If I were looking at myself from my right mind, I would not tolerate my behavior. It's inexcusable to lose composure so often."

Dante sat opposite the mouse and tried to stay angry. The way the mouse ran his fingers up and down the sides of the cup was pitiful. "You've got a lot on your mind," he said.

Chero winced. "No, you should not have to tolerate outbursts. I wouldn't. Certainly no one else I knew would."

Dante opened his mouth but Chero primly pushed an envelope toward him and kept speaking. "Go see your friends, go find a lover or five, but be yourself again. I can't stand the way you've become today. Open it."

Dante slid his claw to tear open the seal. Inside were a money card and several passes with barcodes on them. "What is this?"

"Your allowance," Chero said. "You can eat on your own, get a room of your own at least. The slips are for a better car insurance policy than the one you have. I checked the glove box."

"Why, this place is big enough. It's big enough for twenty of us."

Chero frowned and shortly huffed. "You're not making this easier, Dante-san. Sometimes I think you deliberately try to infuriate me."

Dante pushed the envelope back. "I'm fine. I don't need this. I just need you to be straight with me."

Chero pushed the envelope back. "I can't promise that. I can't show you what I can't even look at by myself yet. Perhaps not for the rest of my life."

Dante kept his paw on the envelope but did not push it. "I'll take this if you tell me something else. Just one thing."

Now Chero was cross but pursed his lips in resignation. The cartouche jangled once as he nodded.

"Where did all this money come from? Most of us would work our entire lives and never earn a piece of this."

Chero smiled and looked away. He pulled out the credit cards from his leather pounch and laid them out in front of him like an army of soldiers. "I haven't counted the sums, but I would guess the combined wealth of these is enough to purchase a small country." He moved them in a slow dance over the glass. "These were prepared for us in secret. Each of us was supposed to get one and manage the remainder of the funds between us." He pushed a gold card forward and pushed the others back. "This one is mine."

Dante kept his paws clearly visible. Chero still smiled running his fingertips over the colors as if they were marbles. He was pleased that Dante was not impressed. Most people would have been deplorably fascinated with these common objects.

"But who gave it to you? To them? Chero-san, why won't you talk to me? Aren't I your friend?"

Chero pointed a finger up and shook his head. Then he pushed the envelope forward with satisfaction. "You are my friend, so go away. Shoo! Scat cat! Go play without me for a while. I want to catch up on my reading."

Chero almost giggled at Dante's expression. This time he bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood to avoid his last faux paux.

The moment the door closed behind him, Dante hated Chero to his guts.

***

By the time Dante got to Chopa's, he had calmed down enough to avoid being thrown out by the bouncer as possible riff-raff. He downed two mugs of beer without pause and then hid in the latrines until the alcohol began to take effect. Now he was presentable in public.

Chopa's was the place to be. Here males were males and females were free and easy. A fox glided by in embroidered white and blue charms with a male fox on her arm. She was curvy and wore perfume that dampened her musk. She must be really ready to go, so he and her companion were certain of. He had mastered the sidelong glance to make viewing her derrier seem a casual coincidence. Oh yes, she was ready.

There were few panthers in any city, but they always seemed to find one another. Months earlier, Yana-Gains-de-Horace found Dante during a game of dice and the two found common ground between lager and football. When Dante said he would be paying his full tab back from last year, Horace made it a special point to arrive with an empty stomach. His respect for Dante quadrupled in magnitude at the presentation of a was of fresh bills.

When they settled, Dante started them with a round of the cheapest lager they had. It was his private insult to the money in his pocket.

Instead of plain black, Horace was a dusky brown with fingers fatter from years longer in comfort. "Seet! What are we having?" [2]

"Alder-grain and hot wings," Dante decided. He needed to assert his own tastes tonight instead of someone else's.

Between the two panthers they devoured a plate of meat until Horace relented and washed it down with the beer. "Next time we get onion, the peppers were too mild."

They laughed. Horace had a higher tolerance for spice.

"So where's the next tree?" [3]

"I'm staying with a friend for a while. Just until the end of winter."

"You said that about Yani-Tak, what happened to her?"

"Her mother found out and had a conniption." Dante grinned at the memory of the cute ocelot begging her mother to let him stay. "She was fun, but I didn't hear from her after that. How's the taxi fleet?"

"Had to lay off ten of them," Horace said. He ordered another pint. "The tourism's dropped off since last year and I couldn't keep them. I tried as long as I could, but I've got a business to run."

Dante shrugged. "There'll be more rain now, you'll get them back in spring. The Flang Festival will get a lot of business." [4]

"That's months off, assuming there's rain. What say you? Are we going to have rain or not?"

Mysterious gestures could soften any admission of ignorance. Horace humored him.

The spoke at length about the news and the upcoming Olympic games. Part of the drop off in the tourism was also due to the increase in poverty and crime in the outer parts of the city. The new agricultural reforms had not yet taken effect and the enforcement authorities of parliament were slow to give them muscle. Fires had occurred in some of the older tenement compounds where faulty wiring and poor insulation led to injuries and surrounding property damage. All of these indicators of eroding infrastructure were hurting the local economy.

"You're distracted ketcha, what tail did you leave behind?" [5]

Dante smirked. In all honesty, the conversation bored him. "No female this time, just have a lot on my mind. After the season I've got to move on, find more work. Nobody wants to know what's coming at them and nobody wants to know what's happening now. Bad money when there's willful ignorance."

"Or maybe they're just happy and don't need to know anymore than they do."

The two toasted. "You coming to the festival tomorrow?"

"Huh?"

Horace pulled out digital phone and showed him a picture. It was one of the subtle displays of wealth that he knew Dante would tolerate because it was a toy. "My girlfriend's going as one of the goddesses. Got her head done up and a nice set of shells." [6]

Dante whistled. Yani-Heth was hot. "Nice, where'd you pick her up? She's a side and then some." [7]

"So are you coming? Just put on a pair of wings and make something up."

It was the first night of the Days of the Dead. How the month had flown.

"I'll let you know. Just have some stuff to do tomorrow."

Horace picked his teeth clean with a personal ivory bone pick. He kept his elbow down and his mouth closed because of the mixed company. "So who is she?"

Dante smirked. "I'm...sort of on a job, helping a friend out."

"Oh? What's the pay?"

"Room and board. You know, the usual."

Horace whistled. "Hey, that's what females are willing to give, you take it!"

"It's not a girl. He needs some help and he keeps me around."

"Who is he?"

Dante took a dk but that was the worst option. This pause only fanned the flames of curiosity and Horace was ready to pounce on him from across the table

"He's moshva. I just show him around, he's new to the city." [8]

"Nice gig. What color?"

"White. White as sagebrush."

"Now that is money. How'd you land it?"

Dante covered his ignorance again with a sip of beer. The oncoming stupor was numbing him. "One thing led to another. Nice sal, high-strung. Stuck up prissy brat really, but you know, kinda nice."

Horace laughed. "So bring him out tomorrow. It'll be fun."

Dante wondered what kind of fun Horace meant. He wasn't known for spending time with anyone that didn't share his dietary habits. Then he realized he didn't care. "I'll ask him. He gets nervous around strangers, kinda weird."

There was a roar from the bar and whoops and hollers. The New Delhi Pirates had scored a shocking long-distance goal. One more step toward the cup!

"Is he yam? You shouldn't stay then, they're allergic to us!"

"No, he's young. Like, barely yana he's so young, totally jailbait. Doesn't get out much."

"But he's having you take him around? And he's rich? What moshva does that?"

GOAL!!! More whoops and hollers came and drops of beer hit Dante in the face.

They were absorbed in the thrill of the sports team and for a while, Dante felt like himself again. Carefree, enjoying whatever fate threw at him. He cheered with the crowd for reasserting his space.

"You know what? I'll come. If he doesn't come, he won't stop me from going. It'll be fun."

The two friends toasted. Another goal scored and the effects of the alcohol finally settled in. Dante could relax.

Dante and Horace told jokes and soon had a couple of beautiful females at their table that had been lured by their laughter. Because Dante had no expenses for the last week and all his savings from his last jobs, he could throw a round of drinks for his companions and be a hero. Horray!

Yani-Set was good looking as far as a gray lioness went, but she couldn't hold her liquid to save her life. She laughed too loud at the worst jokes, but she had a double-pair of breasts that were just off from her time of the month and the lingering smell of her heat. He was too drunk to care how stupid she was, just that she was the greatest person in the world!

Something distracted him and she was gone. Where'd she go? Bitch. He scowled and turned his sights back on the other females in the crowd.

Dante often attracted Bats. Not only were they the most numerous in this neighborhood, but his coloring appealed to their vanity by contrast with their coats of silver, black, red and dark gold. Yani-Booten kept eyeing him and fluttering the back of her wing to catch his attention with the sparkling zirconia piercings and for a while, he was captivated. She had a beautiful curve to the hip and her fingers were alien, webbed and manicured. After years, it still surprised him when the most eligible would come to him and whisper her intent in his ear like a Muse.

Kissing her was like having the softest, wettest velvet fish in the mouth. Her nose had ticklish hairs offset by her velvet textured lips. She wrapped them in her wings in a dark corner for a moment of privacy.

She was demanding and forceful, she fulfilled her stereotype well. She pushed his paw down under her sari and the blast of heat on his fingers was scorching. She returned the caress with a sound of satisfaction. This would do nicely.

She pulled him out back of the bar and their kissing continued. She was bold!

In a moment, his shaft was down her throat and he jumped. Oh wow...

His head was swimming. He didn't know who was watching and he didn't care. She knew how to please. When he tried to hold her ears, she dug her claws into his wrists and held him to the wall. No interruptions.

"Yani-chan, I'm close...ease up! Ease up!"

She pulled back but only to dare him to stop her. The way she looked, he grabbed her head and slammed down her throat. She looked too pretty to say no to. He groaned and exploded.

She was voracious. She swallowed everything he had to give and then some.

She wiped her mouth and ran a claw up Dante's neck.

"Very nice." Her voice was velvet, butterfly wings and crunching dry grass. "Think you can fight back next time?"

He grinned. "When do you want to find out yani-chan?"

She had no place to host. Her roost never had privacy. Could he meet during the day? He boasted of the room that could hold them any time. She was hooked.

He sat in the car with a silly grin on his face and her phone number in his pocket. Things felt on track again.

He started the car and it came to life. He'd be home in no time.

He hit the pedal and the car stalled.

He started it again to the same sputtering. Again. Again.

Dante slammed the wheel with his fist. No!

He threw his head back and groaned. He didn't have enough money for a tow truck. His head was throbbing. He looked at the clock and saw it was already much later than he had expected. He had to just relax and think.

He'd broken down before, he could handle this.

He dialed the phone but couldn't see clearly. Focusing on the light made his nauseated. He had to lie back down again.

He didn't move for a long time. If he budged an inch, it began to hurt. Soon a pressure was building up and he had to relieve himself. Easy enough.

He opened the door and stumbled out onto the parking lot. He steadied himself on the car door and stood. Easy right?

He caught himself from falling. Just barely. See, just enough to get buzzed. Still standing.

Oh yes...sweet relief.

All too soon though, the smell hit his nose. It was a dry night and the asphalt stank. Combined with his own fluids, the stench was sharp and overwhelming.

He puked.

Not once, not twice, but a gushing fountain followed by bursts. Just the sight of what came out of him brought more out and ever more violently.

A punch in the stomach and a bat to the brains later, Dante stumbled toward the car. Hardly putting his paw on the door, another convulsion overcame him and he spasmed. More gushing fluid came out and -

CRACK!

He jumped out of the way and fell on his tail scrambling backwards. The nausea was momentarily stopped by the horror of what he could see.

The driver door had fallen off the hinge.

The panther crawled forward and touched to make sure the damage was real. The rust was clearly visible where the hinges had been, and the giant holes that were clear viewing to the engine.

He puked again.

Oh...oh he couldn't go home like this...nonononono...

He cradled his head in his paws. What had he done? There was no way he could fix this. He forgot about his new windfall entirely and lamented how he would ever get the door fixed. Wait, what if this door wasn't the only one about to fall apart?! No! Nononononono...

He laughed being fully wrapped in ticklish denial and bargaining mindset. Sure, he could put it back on. He lifted the door easy and -

He dropped it.

The glass in the window shattered.

Dante yelled out, cursed out, every which way out and up and down until the whole night echoed with his fury. Up, down, up and down, yelling until he had no voice left. If only somebody was here he could yell at!

All alone, the fury soon burned itself out. Then he sat back in the passenger's seat and sobbed. His baby! His beautiful baby!

The sky was getting pink by the time Dante realized he was cold. He pulled out his sleeping bag and wrapped his shivering body.

When the shaking stopped, he realized he needed help. He called Horace four times with no answer. He called Yana-Tompkins and Yana-Snell, two buddies who had always been good to him. No answer. What? Was everyone such a lightweight that they all had to go to bed so early? It was almost dawn! They should have been up and moving!

Soon he was sober enough to remember he had new money. He hated Chero again for giving him help exactly when he had needed it.

He checked the card and dialed the number on the back to check the balance. He listened as the bank asked for card information that Chero had written down neatly in cursive with a note attached.

Dante replayed the messages again until he was sure he heard right. Woah.

Woah-woah-WOAH.

This wasn't an allowance, it was a car from next year's model lineup. Imported.

The shock knocked him back for several minutes. The sheer magnitude of what he was holding...he couldn't even conceive of that much money it was so beyond his scope.

The blasted malignant sun was up now and in his eyes. Nothing brought sobriety back like daylight.

Holding a world of possibilities between his finger tips, Dante scowled. His car was wrecked, his powers were gone and he was probably richer than he had ever been in his life. What a horrible way to start a morning.

Now he was sober enough to realize how stupid he had been. Last night's drinking was far beyond his limits. Even when he had been deep in his cups before, he had the sense to sleep it off until he was safe. If the car had started properly, he was sure he would have crashed.

The realization came with a shudder. He pulled the sleeping bag over him only to feel more coldness.

He didn't know what to do. No one was answering calls and he had so much money someone might think he stole it. Worse, his stomach was now empty and he was ravenous of hunger and thirst. The potato chips and soda in the car were unpalatable.

The sun was up and over the horizon by the time Dante decided to call Chero for help. He needed a tow truck, but more importantly, he needed to get back to bed. He couldn't walk into the hotel unescorted in his shape, he'd be thrown to the curb instantly.

He called four times but there was no answer.

Dante was terrified.

He called the hotel front desk and asked to be connected. When put to Chero's room, there was an answer. Finally!

"Hello? Front desk? I'm sorry about all the noise, really! We'll stop!"

Wait. That wasn't Chero's voice. He wasn't answering. Who was -

"Velta?!"

[1] elder; witch; sorceress; female of significant power; origin, Panther, Southwest.

[2] "Good meeting." Sth-sh-eh-ee-tah. Pronounced with a long hiss and a rattle on the roof of the mouth. Origin Panther.

[3] slang, place you're living. Origin, Panther. From the periods when Panther were nomadic.

[4] Festival outside the city of Alladas when cactus and flowers bloom ever 2-3 years. Tourists come from across the world to view the flowers.

[5] "friend", "clandestine confidante", origin, Panther.

[6] jewelry or fashion accessories. Often interchangeable if the items are of marginal worth, or crafted from non-precious or semi-precious objects.

[7] metaphor -very attractive. More common among Carnivorous Species. In bad taste for other species to use.

[8] Mouse Species. Slang, origin, Mouse, eastern territories, during the War of Wooden Pillars. Generalized term for Mice of very pure breeding or high social status.