I remember the first time I saw Instinct. It was a sickly green colored liquid suspended in a syringe. Brakha told me I had to take it, that not only the lions, but the panthers, the wolves, the bears, and all of the shifters would die without it. I saw it a different way, I saw it as yet another means of controlling us. Why do we cower in fear of humans? Is it simply because they have the advantage of numbers? Shifters are stronger, shifters are smarter, and shifters deserve this world far more than they do.
I left the clan and gathered the other panthers to my side. We met in darkness and slept in the sewers beneath the city and the swamps that surrounded it. During the day, the French Quarter was our territory, and for a time Brakha respected that. He knew that I believed in our gifts, that I could control the panther within, and I didn’t need a drug to do it for me. Instead of trying to change our nature, I sought to embrace it.
The other panthers in my clan, like most shifters, couldn’t control when the beast took over. As animals, they would wander the streets of the French Quarter and wreak havoc. They would wander into Brakha’s territory and wound or kill his people all while under the influence of their other halves.
Brakha became furious, demanded that we take the drug and control ourselves. I still refused, and soon he declared war on the Black Hand, on my people. He was blinded by the drug, perhaps even addicted to it. I had to clear his mind to avoid more bloodshed among our people. I cared not about the humans, but it wounded me deeply to see shifters fight, brother against brother or sister.
I had to remove the drug, maybe then his mind would clear and Brakha would see that these are not gifts to suppress, but instead something we should embrace. If the humans would stand in our way, then they would become our new prey.
And so, plans were laid. I would join my fellow panthers and stop not only his incoming shipment of Instinct, but all of the ones coming into New Orleans. He would have nowhere to go, no one to turn to. I already destroyed two shipments over the last several weeks, and then this new one came to my attention. Perhaps Brakha paid for a rush delivery? It didn’t matter, when this one was gone, he would be left without recourse. Shipments came rarely so I only had one shot at this to prevent war between our people.
We approached as humans under the cover of night. A large shipping vessel was coming into port. I stood with six others at the fence that surrounded the docks.
“Give me the wire cutters,” I said.
One of the women with me handed over a pair of cutters and I went to work cutting through the chain-link fence. There was sparse security during these shipments. There were very few people they could trust to keep this secret under wraps. I cut in a circle and pushed out the center to create a simple yet effective hole in their security.
I stepped through first and we quickly made our way to one of the large stacks of metal shipping containers. We regrouped and I looked over to one of my girls. She was holding a large cloth bag with explosives that I acquired through my connections and with a few womanly wiles. There was something men found irresistible about a sleek and sexy black woman known for her roots deep in the Voodoo culture of New Orleans. I was a mystery to them, an enigma that they wanted desperately to solve.
If there’s one thing I learned, it’s that a good mystery on a woman is far more seductive than any dress. Curiosity was the ultimate downfall of any man. Their lust for knowledge and power are the strings I pull to get what I want, when I want it.
I pointed to each of my comrades. “Each of you, take a brick of C4 to your position. You’ve all done this before, and this time is no different. Remember to arm it when you’re finished. We will meet back here in ten minutes. If you’re not here, you get left behind.”
My girls split up and scattered into the shadows. The others were assigned structural weaknesses on the ship. My task was the most important. It wasn’t enough to simply sink the freighter, I had to be certain the Instinct within was eradicated as well. That’s why I always took the hold. The stuff was incredibly volatile when explosives were involved, so it made for the perfect catalyst.
I cut across the graveyard of containers stacked high above. Beams of moonlight broke through the gaps and painted milestones on my path to the ship. I clung tightly to the brick of plastic explosive in my hand. It was no larger than a standard package you’d receive in the mail, but it was enough to bring down an empire.
One of the guards near the ship was already unconscious. He lay sprawled across the ground just beside the bridge that led onto the ship. I told my girls not to kill unless they absolutely had to. I knelt down and pressed my fingers against his neck. I felt a pulse, a weak one, but it was there.
I made my way onto the ship. I expected to see at least one of my girls moving and winding through the maze on the upper deck, but it was deathly silent. The voice of the panther in the back of my mind told me that something was wrong, but I was so close to victory over Brakha that I ignored its cries.
As I made my way down to the lower decks where they kept the supplies of Instinct, I felt the panther’s influence weighing down on me. That side of my being detected danger and it didn’t trust me to handle it properly. A human was nothing compared to the raw power and skill of the Black Panther. I suppressed it and held it back. I needed human hands to arm the bomb.
I reached the hold and saw rusted barrels stacked high that held the raw liquid Instinct. It would be distributed in syringes and rationed out to the shifters in this area for months before another shipment would come. I walked over to one of the barrels and pulled the lid open. It was empty.
“What is this?” I asked.
“This, little panther is a trap,” a voice said. It was low and thick with a Russian accent tying the words together.
I spun around and stared into the darkness. I couldn’t see properly with human eyes. The panther within me screeched and roared for control. Now was the time. My body twisted, broke, mended itself, and then broke again in a hundred different ways before I adopted the sleek and stealthy form of a black panther. I darted behind a stack of barrels and looked through eyes that pierced the darkness.
I could smell his scent. He wasn’t afraid; in fact, he seemed excited by the thrill of the hunt. I slinked through the shadows and approached him from the left. He had the scent of a wolf on his skin, but he was in human form. It was like no other wolf I had ever smelled. The pieces were falling into place. It quickly became apparent who this was and why he was here. This was Sergei Ivanov. He was the creator and sole distributor of Instinct.
“You’ve made quite the name for yourself over the past few weeks. Our mutual friend, Brakha saw fit to travel halfway round the world to enlist my aid. Beyond your petty protests, I have no quarrel with you or your clan. Show yourself and we can resolve this peacefully,” he said.
His voice sounded tired, as if he had fought enough wars to know when it was time to fight and when it was better to simply speak. I wasn’t about to simply surrender to him. The panther within me would not allow it and for now it was in control. I turned a corner and saw him standing in the center of the dark hold. He was tall with a wide and chiseled frame. I couldn’t make out any other features in the darkness, but he exuded power and wisdom. I heard stories of him, but so few had actually been in his presence that I wrote them off as tall tales of an immortal and dying breed of shifter.
Some say he was thousands of years old. Standing in his presence, I was inclined to believe them. He didn’t look a day over 25, but the way he spoke and carried himself told the story of a man who had seen and done enough to fill a hundred lifetimes. Had we not met as enemies I would have been thrilled to speak with him and listen to the countless stories he could offer.
This was my chance to strike. I charged forward on light footsteps and approached from his left. He turned just as I was about to pounce and I felt his icy blue eyes cut into me through the darkness. He reached out with a thick hand and gripped me by the neck. He fell to his knees and flipped me onto my side. I struggled and shrieked but his strength was overwhelming.
“I do not have time for games! Return to your human form now or I’ll snap your neck!” He shouted.
The panther retreated and my body returned. I was naked; my clothes had been left behind the barrels on the other side of the hold. Sergei’s eyes wandered down my bare body. I could see a spark behind his gaze. How long had it been since he laid eyes on a woman? I heard he was a recluse, but the hunger in his eyes told me he hadn’t felt a woman’s embrace in some time. I could use that against him.
“When you’re finished looking, I’d like to get my clothes,” I said.
Sergei snapped back to the present. “I was not, I mean, I did not expect—”
“Pick your tongue up off the ground and let me get dressed. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. You won this round.”
I caught him off guard. His stone cold exterior was showing its cracks already. This would be too easy. I found my clothes and got dressed. Sergei seemed almost disappointed when I returned fully dressed.
“Lead the way,” I said.