Fatalis

Grand needed to find a weapon, something to keep the cat at bay. He noticed the discarded fire extinguisher several yards out on the opposite side. It was lying on its side near the driver's-side door.

Releasing Ha

Grand's ears rang with the quiet. The air was heavy with the smell of musk and gunpowder.

The scientist crept back to the truck, stretched a hand to Ha

Mindar walked over to Grand. The lieutenant looked pale. Perhaps he wasn't; perhaps be only seemed that way because of the bright blood splashed on his cheek and forehead. He called for medical assistance and men, told two of his men to stand by the holes and watch for more cats.

"Are you okay?" the officer asked Grand and Ha

"Sure," Ha

Grand nodded.

Grand excused himself and took a quick walk around the truck where most of the fighting had been centered. Ha

Grand returned suddenly and was about to say something when Captain Mclver's radio came on. Mindar retrieved it. The voice on the other end was hot and screaming.

"Captain, this is Lieutenant Carr! Are you receiving?"

Mindar picked up the radio. "Captain Mclver is down. This is Lieutenant Mindar of the National-"

"Lieutenant! We're at the public garage on Ogden. We need backup now."

The raspy pops of gunfire came over the radio and drifted down the ramp a moment later.

"What's wrong?" Mindar asked.

"They're like ghosts! Leaping-vanishing! I don't know if we can hold them-"

The radio went silent.

"Lieutenant Carr?" Mindar repeated.

Silence.

"Lieutenant Carr?"

"I'm going over," Grand said.

"What the hell is happening there?"

Grand ran toward the exit ramp. "The pride elite have arrived."

Chapter Seventy-Six

The dead cats were all seven-footers and all males. Because there was nothing distinctive about them, Grand had suspected the leader was not among the dead. The police report from the museum seemed to confirm that. And the police lieutenant had said there were cats, plural. The Chumash painting showed twelve and only ten cats had been killed so far. That meant the leader had at least one lieutenant.

A quasi-military structure among animal predators. The leader, the general, remaining somewhere else and watching the fight. Participating only when he had to. Some pack dogs and insects like ants had that kind of organization. But for cats to be operating at this level was unprecedented.

Grand reached the ground level and ran across Wilshire. Lieutenant Mindar and three of his soldiers were close behind with Ha

Several of them intercepted Ha

The scientist ran past the Page Museum and then past the Los Angeles County Art Museum. The three-level, concrete parking garage was across the street from the art museum.

Grand saw police officers along the lighted sides on all levels, firing into them.

On all levels, he thought. There were more than two cats.

The men were firing into the center of each level, shouting instructions to one another and moving here and there to pin what were obviously very fast-moving creatures. There were columns and parked cars, which were obviously making it difficult for them to hit the creatures.

Grand arrived at the bottom level. Halfway across the garage a chain-link fence had been torn from the concrete wall and crumpled.

"What the hell was there?" Mindar asked.

"A blowpit," Grand said. "I should have thought of that."

"I don't understand-"

"The tar ebbs and flows through underground cha

"And this is one of those places," Mindar said.

Grand moved closer. The iron lid had been pushed off and the heavy bolts that held the fence to the wall had been ripped out He was angry at himself not only because he hadn't thought of the blowpits but because the cats always moved in divided, flanking patterns.

As Grand and Mindar reached the northwestern side of the garage they saw a police officer tending to two fallen comrades by the ticket booth, which was forty yards to the west. To the north, in the garage, two other officers were stalking a golden cat that was behind a vintage Wildcat convertible. Grand could just see the animal's forequarters. The cat was larger than the ones they'd seen, with high, powerful shoulders and a low-slung head. The nearest of its fangs was broken off toward the point.

The two officers were moving forward slowly. They were apparently looking to approach the cat from either side of the car.

They never got the chance.

The cat withdrew behind the car. The men continued forward. They were about three yards from the car and three feet apart. A moment later the cat jumped onto the roof and then launched itself onto the officer to the left. Man and cat hit the asphalt and then the saber-tooth twisted and bounded toward the other officer. As the officer turned to fire, the cat tilted its head sideways, the top toward Grand. It bit the officer through the back and his gun fired wild, the bullet ricocheting off the floor and striking one of the cone-shaped support columns. Dragging the howling man forward, the cat swept back toward the first officer. The saber-tooth reared up and landed on the grounded man, crushing his chest. Then it dropped the other man on top of him. The officer writhed for a moment and then was still. The action lasted less than five seconds.

Mindar was still holding his MPS. He raised it to fire but the saber-tooth did not remain where he was. Grand wasn't surprised. If lone predators killed something, they usually left quickly. Scavengers and other predators tended to respond quickly to the scent of blood.

The cat turned to its left and raced toward the low wall that stood between the garage and Ogden. Grand ran with it. The creature leaped the wall easily. With another bound it cleared the chain-link fence outside the garage by vaulting into an overhanging branch of an adjoining tree and then jumping to the street. As the cat landed. Grand looked up. Two other cats were jumping off the second level of the garage, which was fifteen feet from the ground. They landed cleanly on the other side of the fence. For the moment that they were under a streetlight, Grand saw that one of the saber-tooths was the same size as the cat from the ground level. The third was behind the other two and not all of it was visible. But what Grand could see was surprising. The cat towered over the others.