Even using the wall for support, TK could barely make her way out of the alley, still confined in the heavy leather straightjacket her now unconscious kidnapper had put her in.  The muzzle was still there too, forcing her to breathe heavily through her nose, and her heavy, rubbery legs were making her escape excruciatingly slow at best.  Though she wanted to sit down and take a breather, she knew that she couldn’t; time was far too precious to waste.  If the psycho somehow woke up and was still fueled by whatever it was that drove him to kidnap her, she wouldn’t be able to fight him off again.  So she struggled on, nearly tripping over a poorly placed trashcan, but finally coming to the edge of the building and the nearby street.

Looking around, TK saw several cars parked along the roadway, but at this time of night, she saw no traffic moving through, and nobody on the streets.  “Can’t just one thing go my way tonight?” she asked herself, huffing behind the muzzle as she started up the street, looking into the buildings on either side, hoping to see someone still there.  After a couple blocks of seeing nothing moving but herself, TK had to stop and lean against a lamp post for a moment, her head suddenly spinning, legs quivering as she threatened to succumb to her exhaustion.  As she fought to keep her focus, she heard the rumble of an engine coming from up the street.  Hope returning, along with a sudden burst of energy, she hurried to meet the vehicle before it could turn down another street.

Soon enough, TK saw the headlights rounding the bend, and coming right down the street she was on!  Suddenly losing strength in her legs, TK tumbled down and banged her knees painfully on the concrete sidewalk; groaning and shaking her head, she fought to regain her footing.  The car was almost to her now, and she couldn’t let it pass her.  Doing the only thing she could think of in her overwhelmed mind, TK kicked with the last ounces of strength she could manage, hitting the blacktop in front of a parked truck and rolling into the road, right in front of the oncoming car.

“Maybe this was a bad idea…” she thought with sudden, palpable fear, as the car didn’t seem to be slowing.  The headlights growing larger, TK squeezed her eyes shut and pulled her legs to her chest, hoping that what was about to happen would be over quick.  Then she heard the squeal of tires on asphalt, daring to open her eyes just in time to see a white bumper sliding to a halt just inches from her face.  The car door opened, and she struggled to her knees, and was immediately flooded with relief as she saw the man coming around the front of the car; he was a cop!

“Holy…” he started, grabbing at his radio and sending a report into his dispatcher.  “Miss, are you okay?  What the hell happened to you?” He asked, hauling TK to her feet.

“Mmmph!” she mumbled vigorously, shaking her head back and forth and looking at him with wide, imploring eyes.

“Oh, right…just a minute…”  Clumsily, he pulled her hair aside and worked at the straps of the muzzle, having some trouble before he finally managed to get it unbuckled.

With the muzzle falling to the ground, TK breathed deeply for several moments, finally managing to look at the cop and find her voice.  “Oh, thank you, thank you!  He’s crazy!  Some psycho kidnapped me and put me in his basement!  Just a couple of blocks down that way, look for the door that’s been kicked open in the alley…hurry, he’s…he’s dangerous…I knocked him out, but…” TK heard the cop radioing in again, but she couldn’t understand what was being said.  She was confused at first, then surprised when she felt herself fall against the warm hood of the police cruiser, but knew that as she fell into darkness, that she had reached her limit.  She needed rest, and she was getting, whether she wanted it or not.

* * *


Mumbling something she couldn’t even understand, TK slowly came back to the real world, her nightmares of the psychopath threatening to pull her back into a terrible, restless slumber.  Finally she opened her emerald eyes, blinking in the dim light.  She heard movement all around her, and when her vision finally focused, she saw that she was in a lounge somewhere, lying atop a well-worn leather couch and covered in a thick blanket.  Through the glass by the door, she saw several police officers passing by, and knew that she was finally safe.  Her body was aching all over, especially her legs, but TK was awake now, and restless from her nightmares.

She had just managed to sit up, tossing the warm blanket aside when the door opened and an older man came in, wearing a thick beard and a disheveled, button-up shirt and a badge on his shoulder holster that said he was a detective.  He had two steaming Styrofoam cups, and offered her one as he took a seat on the edge of the coffee table. “How are you feeling, Miss TK?”

Taking the offered cup, TK sniffed the coffee, then took a slow, sip.  It may have tasted terrible, but that didn’t stop it from being the best coffee she had drank.  “Just fine now, by the looks of things.  I’m still feeling a little worn out, but otherwise, well, I’m fine.”  It wasn’t the first time she had been captured, but it had been one of the more disturbing ones.  She just need a day or two to clear her head, was all.

The detective shifted, and had an uncomfortable air about him.  “Now, I know things were pretty chaotic back there, and I know you’re probably still feeling pretty tired, but you did tell the officer that found you that you knocked the man out, right?”

“Uh…yeah, I think so.  It was just before I passed out, but I think I told him that…”  TK knew that there was something she wasn’t getting here, and the detective seemed to be getting more suspicious of her by the moment.  “What happened?  Was he gone when you got there?”

“Not exactly…look, I’ll tell you this bluntly…I know the man was a creep of the highest order, but it’s still a crime to lie to the police, no matter what the circumstances may be.”

TK narrowed her eyes, and fought to keep herself calm.  “What are you talking about?”

The detective looked her right in the eyes, a fury there that TK had a hard time believing that could have been hiding there.  “You said you left him unconscious.  You didn’t tell us you had ripped him to shreds and spread him all over the basement!”

TK’s jaw dropped, and she nearly let the steaming coffee cup slip from her hand.  “WHAT?!  I never did that!  I’ve never done anything like that!  I might have broken a bone or two, but he was breathing just fine and in one piece when I left there!  Is this some kind of a sick joke?”

“I’m not joking, Miss.”  To prove his point, the detective put a hand in his shirt pocket and pulled out a few photos, splaying the out on the table in front of her.

TK’s stomach churned and she felt bile rising in her throat.  The photos…that was the basement she had been held captive in…she could see the chunks of the stocks she had broken free from, and the chain he had tried to bind her legs with.  The rest…it was horrific.  There was blood everywhere, and chunks of…she had to turn away and take deep breaths.  Hands shaking, she finally managed to look back to the detective, with complete seriousness.  “I did not do that to him, Detective.  I know you know that I’ve had my fair share of strange adventures, and this one takes the cake, I’m sure, but I’ve never, ever, killed anyone.  And to do something like that…no, that’s monstrous, that’s beyond me in every way.  Despite what he did to me, I would never have even thought about something like that happening to him.  You can look somewhere else, because I DID NOT do that.”

The detective didn’t look convinced, and finally broke eye contact with her, huffing as he gathered the pictures into a pile and stuffed them back into a pocket.  “We’ll be the judge of that, Miss.  An officer will be here shortly to take your statement, then you can go; you’ve already been cleared by EMS.  Just don’t get any ideas about leaving the city in the meantime.”

TK watched as the detective left, and took hold of the coffee cup in both hands, staring into its dark depths.  Was someone trying to frame her?  There was no way someone could call that massacre justice…That had to be it.  Someone wanted her to go down for murder, despite the whole self-defense situation.  The first name that popped into her head was Sonya, but TK didn’t think even she was capable of something that terrible.  “Well, then, I guess I’ll just have to find the real killer and haul them in here…” she mused to herself, narrowing her eyes and sipping at the coffee.

* * *

A couple of hours later, TK was finally able to leave the station, already mid-morning by this time, after giving a detailed account of what had happened to her, especially after she had knocked out the psychopath and escaped the basement.  Declining an offered ride from the police, TK had returned to her home to clean herself up and get something to eat before getting a good lot of sleep in her bed.

She woke up near sunset, and to her surprise, was still untouched in her bed, with no sign at all of anyone intruding.  Still, she walked through the house fully alert and tensed up, ready to strike should the need arise.  Thankfully, the need never came, and TK started to put her plans into motion.  She quickly changed into a ‘sneaking’ suit, which to her meant another black top, with black pants and soft-soled black boots.  Stealth was hardly her best attribute, but the fewer chances she took, the better; she was going back to a crime scene, after all.

Within the next hour or so, TK found herself on that same street, though this time there was still a handful of people on the sidewalks.  She kept herself as innocuous as she could, even walking right by the building, though she did glance into the alleyway.  She saw the crime scene tape stretched across the alley and the door, and quickly walked on down the way, using the alleys and side streets to make her way back after another couple of blocks.

Seeing nobody else as she once again approached the building, TK paused in the shadows at the corner, listening and sniffing the air.  She heard vehicle traffic in the distance, but nobody moving near her.  The smell in the air, however was very distinct; it was heavy with blood, and a dozen or more scents from all the people that were probably scouring the scene for evidence.  Knowing that she had a difficult task ahead of her, TK nonetheless moved away from the shadows and toward the door, careful to leave the bright yellow tape undisturbed.

The smell of blood in the air was nauseating, so much so that TK was having trouble keeping her dinner down.  She crouched beside the small window that overlooked the basement, and immediately had to hold a hand to her mouth.  It was just like the photos she had seen earlier, only the remnants of the body were gone, leaving just the dark pools of blood all over.  She could even see that there were blood splatters on the walls, reaching as far as the window she was looking through.

Focusing herself to keep her stomach settled, TK walked carefully to the door, which was still broken from where she had burst through on her way out.  It was crisscrossed with all kinds of the crime scene tape, so much that there really was no way she could slip inside without dislodging at least some of the tape.  Blowing out a sigh, TK picked at the edge of one of the strips, pulling it loose from the frame and letting it fall to the ground.  Another pair of strips fell by the time she had a hole she could squeeze through, a little below the midway point on the door.

Taking a long, slow breath, blowing it out just as slowly, TK eased one leg through the opening, careful to keep from dislodging more of the tape when she brought her body through.  The tape nearly caught on her ears and hair when she brought her head through, but at last she managed to bring her other leg inside without mishap.  She made her way through the kitchen and down the stairs to the basement, pausing a few steps up from the bottom and lowering herself into a crouch, using her hand to cover her nose.  The smell was revolting this close, to say the least, and it took her several minutes before she was able to continue down.

Once she had reached the concrete, she winced after the first step, feeling her boots sticking to the dried blood.  “Good thing I wore them…” she mused to herself, careful to keep from disturbing the little, yellow plastic triangles that littered the floor, each with a different number, marking a piece of evidence.  From what TK could tell, the evidence was mostly gone, aside from the blood stains.  Even with her sharp eyes and superior sense of smell, she could see nothing that could even begin to hint at what had caused this.  Wild animals maybe, but nothing looked disturbed, and there were certainly no reports of a pack of feral beasts roaming the streets that she could remember hearing about.

No, if it was an animal, she should have been able to make out at least a hint of their scent, and there would have been tracks in the blood.  The only tracks she saw here were boots and shoes, and they looked very much like the kind of soles on police-issued footwear.  Keeping her stomach under control, TK crouched down in the center of the room, making extra sure to keep her tail out of the mess, and closed her eyes, trying to think of someone, something that could have done this.

Her ears twitched at the sound of wood creaking above, then again.  Someone had just come into the building!  Standing quickly, TK hurried to the stairs, stepping lightly where the wood was secured to the bracing, holding her breath on each step.  If it was a cop, he should have called out for whoever was inside to come out, or would have radioed before he came inside; at least, that’s what TK thought a cop would have done.  Sudden doubt filled her, realizing that she would be in big trouble if she was caught back here.

Making it to the basement door, TK peeked out toward the kitchen, where she had heard the footsteps.  At first she saw nothing, then someone stepped into view, shining a flashlight over the floor.  TK couldn’t make them out due to the glare from the light, but she knew for a fact they could not have been a cop.  She could make out no gear belt or uniform, only dark, form-fitting clothes not unlike her own.  She stepped back quickly as the light moved toward the basement door, thankful that the floor didn’t creak.

But that didn’t matter.  A female’s voice called out, with an Asian accent, from what TK could tell.  “Whoever you are, step out slow and easy.  I know you’re there, I can smell you; I picked up your scent the moment I stepped inside.”

Gritting her teeth, TK took a chance, extending her hands first, then stepping out with them raised.  She winced when the figure put the light directly in her eyes. “Okay, you caught me; now what are you going to do?”

“I suppose that’s up to you.  What are you doing here?”

TK smirked.  “I could ask you the same question.”

The figure dropped the light back to the floor, and as her eyes adjusted, TK could make out more details now.  It was another tiger-girl, with reddish fur and crimson hair, and what looked like blue eyes.  “I guess you could…I’m looking for the one who killed that man down there.  Was it you?”

“Oh, really, like I would come back to the crime scene after just one day?  Only the really crazy serial killers do that kind of thing,” TK said, refusing to give too much away.  If this woman didn’t know who she was, that she had been a victim here, she apparently didn’t know much.  “If you’re with the police, you should know who I am.”

“I never said I was with the police.”  TK detected a hint of smugness in her tone, and tensed herself.  “I suppose I can’t have any witnesses here who have seen me…”

TK saw the woman move her hand, and that was all the impetus she needed.  Her body already tense, she leapt forward like a coiled spring, catching the woman by surprise.  She clumsily tried to swing the flashlight toward TK, but TK grabbed her forearm, landing a solid knee into the woman’s stomach.  The woman staggered back and fell to the floor, the flashlight falling to the ground and rolling off to the side.  TK stepped forward, intending to head toward the door, but the low, threatening growl from the mystery woman froze her in her tracks.

“You’ll regret that, kitty.”  Before TK could fully turn, the woman had risen to her feet and sprung at TK, catching her fully and dropping them both to the floor.  Snarling, TK grabbed at the woman’s hair, trying to pull her off, finding only pain as the woman bit into her hand.  Yelping with outrage and surprise, TK found herself on her back, the woman straddling her and raising her fist to deliver a punch.  The woman was apparently not the best hand to hand fighter, because her movements were slow, undisciplined.  TK grabbed her hand as it descended, and used her momentum and off-balance stance to send the woman flying through the air.  TK pushed off with her legs against the woman’s stomach to add extra momentum, and a second later she heard the satisfying sound of wood breaking as her mysterious assailant crashed through the kitchen table.

“I’ve had enough of this for one day, lady!  You won’t take me down so easily!” TK shouted, springing up to her feet and whirling around in a crouch.  The woman was mumbling incoherently, grabbing at her back as she writhed on the shattered remains of the table.  TK stood warily, and quickly made her way toward the exit.

Just as her foot touched the street outside, she heard a sharp, angry hiss from behind, and the clatter of wood.  Instinctively, TK dropped and spun, whipping her leg out behind her.  Her booted foot connected solidly with the woman’s ankles, sweeping her off her feet and onto her back with another unceremonious thud against the wood.  “Damn you!”

TK stood again, backing away with her hands raised to guard against another attack.  “Just give it up already!  We can both see that you’re no match for me, so why don’t you keep whatever bit of dignity you’ve got left and just call it a night, huh?”

“I will not let you tell anyone you saw me here!  I cannot risk it!” the woman hissed.  As she tried to sit up, the red-furred tiger-woman’s eyes glared at TK, seeming to glow in the dim light.  

No, wait…they were glowing!  Each of her sapphire blue orbs was pulsating with an unnatural light.  TK’s fur rippled as a chill went down her spine, a cold wind suddenly swirling through the alley, whistling in her ears.  “Hey…what’s with your eyes?” she stammered, her mind trying to understand exactly what she was seeing, but failing to find a description that fit.

The woman came to her feet, brushing dust and splintered wood from her jacket as she did.  “I may not be a strong martial artist like you, but I have talents that you couldn’t possibly imagine, kitty.”

“Hey, look, I’m not wanting a fight here, okay?  I was just looking for clues about who did this!  Someone is trying to make it look like I was responsible here!  I’m telling you, I’m not!” TK pleaded, her normally iron resolve disappearing under the woman’s glowing eyes.  She held her hands up in a sign of peace, her back to the wall behind her.  She actually felt herself trembling as icy fear overwhelmed her.

Without warning, the glow in the woman’s eyes vanished, the unnatural fear that had consumed TK along with it.  The woman cocked her head to the side, seeming to look at TK with a renewed curiosity.  “You were the one here before?  You are the one the man had kidnapped?  And you too seek the one who murdered him?”

Nodding, TK started to rebuild her resolve.  “That’s right.  I was just going to take a quick look and then leave.  I didn’t think there would have been someone else-“ TK winced, suddenly blinded by a bright white light from one end of the alley.

“This is the police!  Stop right there! Hands up!  You’re under arrest!” commanded the policeman, and as TK shielded her eyes, she could make out the faint outline of his gun aimed at her beside his flashlight.

“Great,” TK thought, “just what I didn’t want…”  Maybe he would listen to reason. “Wait, officer, you don’t understand!  There’s just been a misunderstanding-”

“On your knees, hands behind your head…slowly.  I will fire if I have to!”
Damn, he wasn’t going to budge.  TK ground her teeth together as she looked toward the shadowed doorway, seeing the woman wearing an amused grin.  TK heard the officer thumb back the hammer on his gun.  “Okay, already, I’m getting down!  I don’t want any trouble.”  Reluctantly, TK put her hands behind her head and lowered herself to her knees, staring hard at the ground.  “This is not going at all the way I planned it…Come on, TK, you can get out of this!  There has to be a way, just think of it!  If he brings you in, that detective is going to throw you in jail…”

TK’s breath quickened as the officer came closer, and she glanced toward the mystery woman, who still hadn’t moved.  If she told the officer there was someone else here, it could make things swing her way…What did the woman have planned?  Her eyes were closed, and her lips were moving, but she wasn’t speaking aloud.

“Don’t move, lady.  You’re under arrest for trespassing into a crime scene.”  The cop was right next to her, and hadn’t seen the woman just a foot or two away from him!  His flashlight was focused right in TK’s face as he holstered his weapon and drew his handcuffs.  A split second later, the officer was slammed against the building, then hurled against a dumpster further down the alley, his flashlight clattering and rolling to a stop several feet from him.

TK was on her feet in a moment, rushing to him, fingers going to his neck to check his pulse.  He was still alive, still breathing, but unconscious.  Fury burning in her eyes, TK whirled back toward the doorway, and watched as the tiger-woman stepped out of the building, plucking one of the dangling crime-scene tapes off the wall, seeming to give it a disinterested examination.  She wasn’t even looking toward the officer, or TK, for that matter.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!  He was just doing his job!” TK yelled, hands balled into fists as she stalked forward.  Her last nerve had just been struck tonight, and she wasn’t going to take it anymore.

“Don’t worry; he’ll be fine.  He’s just knocked out.  I made sure not to kill him; there are only certain things I will bring myself to slay, and he is not one of them.  The good news, however, is that I’ve decided not to fight you...”

“Oh, you just decided that, did you?  You are going straight to jail, lady!  I’m going to haul you there myself, magic or not!”  TK hissed when she lunged forward, intending to catch the woman by surprise and then calling the nearest police station.  

With no apparent concern for the furious, and highly dangerous, tiger-girl rushing at her with fists that weren’t going to be gentle, the woman casually tossed the bright yellow tape toward TK.  TK could have laughed as it fell away from her, had she not suddenly felt something grab her legs and send her sprawling painfully to the hard ground.  

Landing with a grunt and pushing away the pain, TK struggled to catch the breath that had been knocked out of her, forcing herself up with her hands.  Glancing to her legs, her eyes widened.  Her legs were neatly wrapped in the crime-scene tape, from her ankles to her knees.  She tried moving her legs back and forth, but the stuff was stuck there, not loosening a bit, though she saw no knots or any other reason as to way it should have been there.  As a cold wind began to swirl around her, TK turned her anger to the woman, who was now wearing a mocking grin and casually leaning against the door frame.  TK saw other strips of the tape floating on the winds, coming toward her.

Roaring defiantly, TK hopped to her feet, bracing herself on the wall as she tried to hop toward the officer, thinking she could make it to his cruiser that was probably parked on the street.  But, she was too slow, one of the tapes grabbing onto her tail and jerking it hard enough to topple her forward.  With her hands extended forward to catch herself, TK cried out in frustration as yet another piece of tape seemed to be waiting, looping around her wrists several times over the course of a single second, then circling her waist, securing her hands in front of her.

“Damn you!” TK shouted, mumbling and wincing. Her chest and chin were throbbing from having hit the ground, yet again.  Before she could give the woman a piece of her mind, another strand of the tape wrapped around her mouth and across the back of her head, effectively gagging her.

TK heard footsteps behind, already struggling furiously against the tape, rolling to her back as more seemed to come from nowhere, encircling her body, immobilizing her…mummifying her.  When the woman crouched down beside her, TK let her have it.  “Mmph!  MMpphnm!  Gngmkmi oomph!”

All she did was smile in response, as one of her fingers stroking TK’s gagged chin.  “I said I wasn’t going to fight you.  I never said I wasn’t going to use you.  Oh, don’t bother struggling; I’ve enhanced the strength of that tape, and my binding spell will make sure that whatever effort you put into trying to get out will only strengthen the bonds.  You see, kitty, my name is Shizurei, and I am hunting the one responsible for not only the murder of your kidnapper, but several other grisly murders all across the country.  I am close now, and it seems that my prey has taken an interest in you.  I’m going to use you as bait, you see.”

“MM fmph mmph!” TK cried, shaking her head furiously, blood pounding in her ears as she once again went into a frenzy of struggles, rolling back and forth, putting all of her strength into trying to loosen the tape.  Shizurei watched, and after several minutes, TK was breathing hard through her nose, glaring daggers at her captor.

Shizurei chuckled, stroking TK’s chin again, her eyes glowing again.  “It’s useless, as I’ve told you.  Now, we have precious little time, and I need to bait my trap.  So, I must ask that you be a good girl and stop struggling.  As a matter of fact, why don’t you just rest up?  I’ll wake you when it’s time.”  TK shook her head, having no intention of going without a fight, but she found her eyes suddenly very heavy, her body feeling exhausted.  Her eyelids drooped, and soon TK was floating through a dark, dreamless void…