He was just beginning to wonder exactly how long the island was when he burst out of the jungle onto a groomed lawn that made a perimeter around a tall stone wall. To one side, a lit driveway led to gates, and he immediately smelled the guards who lurked in shadows on either side.
He turned back to the edge of the jungle, fighting the tiger self who knew that Amber was behind that gate, and that she was in trouble. But training kept him in control; it didn't make sense to charge in without reconnaissance.
It took a long careful time to pace fully around the estate and return to the driveway; the compound was the size of a small town, and fully walled. There was only the one gate, the walls had barbed wire at the top, and Tony noticed mounted cameras at several intervals. He suspected it was only darkness and luck that had kept him from being spotted when he had bolted out of the jungle, and was grateful for the natural camouflage of his tiger shape.
Tony even climbed into a tree, which groaned at his weight, to peer over the walls. The grassy perimeter meant he couldn't get close–jumping from the tree would have been impossible–but it gave him a view of the layout beyond the wall. A house was nearest the gate, and what looked like a orchard to one side. Copious solar panels on most roofs suggested the source of their power. What puzzled him was the section behind the house, which was a sprawling labyrinth of squares with half-mesh roofs. It took Tony a moment to recognize that it looked like a zoo, and then everything clicked into place.
Relief flooded him; the collector was keeping the shifters he was capturing, not killing them, which meant Amber was safe.
Anger followed on the heels of relief, because alive or not, they were keeping his mate from him, locking her in a cage, and Tony realized he was growling out loud.
He gave it some thought and decided, from his vantage, that the best place to scale the walls was back by the orchard. There was a natural rise in the grass at that point, making the wall a little shorter, and if he was careful, he might be able to take out the camera on his way over. There was a building just beyond that he thought he could hit with a good jump. They couldn't be expecting him, he thought. What were the chances that someone was actually watching the monitors at that exact moment?
His tiger demanded action, and for once, Tony was in complete agreement.
He ran across the open lawn like a streak of justice, leaping for the wall. Walls meant to keep most animals out–or in–weren't going to stop a determined tiger, but it was still a stretch, and the barbed wire at the top drew blood on Tony's paws.
Tony wasn't as lucky as he'd hoped. He missed the camera, and landed with a heavy THUMP on the roof of the building beyond. Alarms immediately began to blare.
He leaped down from the building, and ran, full out, in the direction he remembered the enclosures being. If subtlety wasn't going to work, perhaps sheer force would.
Voices shouted behind him. He spun to find three black-uniformed guards. Two of them held guns, and the third had a staff that Tony recognized as a shock stick. He didn't care about them, and turned in the direction that he knew Amber was, only to feel the sting of a needle in one shoulder. They were tranquilizer guns, he realized, and he was halfway across the orchard before he felt another one hit him.
The door separating the orchard from the zoo was wide open, and for a moment, Tony thought he was going to make it through–they couldn't possibly have planned their shots for a tiger's weight–when the effects of the drug hit him and his run turned into a stagger.
To his astonishment, his tiger legs were suddenly a man's, and he was crawling, naked and drunken, across the manicured grass. He didn't even realize he was lying down until a pair of stylish shoes made their way into his field of vision.
“A shame we already have a Siberian tiger,” a crisp British voice said. “We don't have any use for this one.”
“Could get a good price for his pelt,” a Spanish-accented voice suggested.
“You... have... my... mate...” Tony managed to say. It didn't have the dramatic affect he intended, coming from a mouth half-stuffed with grass, and then blackness engulfed him.
Chapter Nineteen
Amber walked meekly with the guards, trying not to be too obvious about looking around. The dog-catcher was lying unexpectedly loose at her shoulders, and when she glanced at the man holding the pole, he glared back and fingered a button on the handle. The other guard, walking behind her with the gun trained on her, cleared his throat, and Amber put her head down and continued to shamble with them. She was short, so it was easy to walk slowly and look like she was using a normal pace.
The looseness of the noose around her neck got her brain spinning.
They were expecting a mountain cat–an American mountain cat. A big mountain cat. If she shifted, it would be tight around the neck of a big cat. But around her small cat shape...
As quickly as the idea occurred to her, Amber put it in motion, shifting as she pretended to stumble.
Her clothing fell away from her cat form even as she jumped–straight through the noose–and scrambled for the wall of the mesh enclosure they were passing. She heard the crackle of the dog-catcher rather than feeling it through her thick fur, and realized belatedly that it must be electrified. She wasn't sure if she would have made this attempt if she'd known that, but it was far too late now, and her coat, meant for cold mountain winters, had protected her from the worst of it.
She climbed with all the panic in her stomach, and agility of her cat form driving her, and as the guard behind her fired and missed, and missed again as she switched directions up the enclosure and reached the roof, she heard the zoo erupt into roars and animal cries of encouragement. A human voice even cried out, “Go, kitty cat!”
“Shit!” the guards said in unison.
More wild shots followed her. Needles hissed by as Amber made it up to the roof of the enclosure. She ran and leaped to the next. She was already two cages away while the guards were still peering up onto the first. Then she switched directions entirely and leaped across the path to a new row of cages.
Her night sight let her see better than she had as a human, and her height gave her a clear view. Lights all along the wall had come on, showing her that she had no real chance of getting over them–though she could probably squeeze between the barbed wire with little damage thanks to her coat, she was too small to make it to the top of the wall to try; nothing was built up close to it. She noticed the cameras, too, now swiveling back into the enclosure to try to find her, and had a glimpse of a helicopter on one of the low roofs towards the back.
“Goddamn it, do you see it?” one guard called to the other.
“Beehag said it was a mountain cat, not a goddamn little cat!” the other complained.
Their voices were clear to Amber's excellent hearing.