AUTHOR’S NOTE: Events of this miniseries take place before The Amazing Spider-Man #1

CAT’S PAW

Part II: From One Thief To Another

By D. Golightly

“Cat got your tongue, cher?” the man said as his eyes began to glow a soft red hue. “Maybe ol’ Gambit be able to loosen it for you, eh?”

Felicia had heard of this guy. Was he a mutant? Possibly, the way his eyes glowed like that. He balanced his staff on the back of his shoulders like he knew how to use it. The name Gambit, in her line of work, was spread throughout various rumors in the circles she traveled in.

The fact that he had already broken into the building that she was hired to check out, and she hadn’t even realized it until he let her see him, meant that he was good. Maybe better than her.

He looked like he was itching for a fight. The Black Cat, while capable of taking care of herself, wasn’t interested. She had already stayed in New York City longer than she cared to, and she hadn’t taken on the job tonight so she could get caught up in someone else’s business.

Which was why she had let her special little ability seep out into the room.

Felicia had never really been able to define the ‘back luck power’ that she used to her benefit in the field. It wasn’t something she could outright control, as it functioned more like a guardian angel looking over her shoulder than an active ability. It was difficult to predict what damage it might cause.

Gambit stood next to a grouping of cubicles, where several of the desk lamps illuminated the small work areas. He smirked and took a few steps toward her, swinging the staff off of his shoulders and gripping it tightly in his hand.

“I think we best start with your name,” Gambit said. “A girl lookin’ like you ought to have a real smooth name that just rolls off de tongue.”

One of the light bulbs in a desk lamp next to him suddenly flashed bright and then exploded. The Black Cat smiled and took advantage of the distraction, ducking back into the stairwell she had entered through.

It wasn’t that far to the rooftop. From there she could hop back on to her zip line and waltz across to freedom. Bruno, her handler, would be upset with her for reneging on the job, but he would get over it. Her employer for the evening would understand once he discovered that someone else had broken into his place.

She wasn’t a mercenary. She was a professional. And professionals knew when they were being tossed into something that they could, and should, avoid.

She ran up the first flight of stairs and, deciding that wasn’t fast enough, pounced on top of the railing in order scale the inside of the stairwell.

“Don’t run, cher!” she heard Gambit call from below her. “You’ll hurt ol’ Gambit’s feelings!”

There was a fizzle and a flash of pink light. On instinct, Felicia leapt off of the railing she stood balanced on and flung herself to the adjacent one. Just as her feet left the railing it was engulfed in pink energy. She looked over her shoulder just long enough to see the tale of some projectile dissolving the metal railing.

Several more fizzles, accompanied by the now familiar pink light, came from underneath her. She moved, not bothering to pause for a foothold. She used her momentum to keep her moving up the stairwell, bounding in the central open space by pushing off the railings.

Three more railings had holes punched in them before she shot out through the roof access hatch and back onto the top of the building. Directly overhead was her zip line, which she had used to walk over like a tight rope.

She jumped up, grabbed the steady line, and swung her feet up over it. Her near perfect balance kept her from falling over as she stood up on the zip line like it was no more difficult than getting out of the bed in the morning. Carefully, she trotted down the line until she was out over the busy city street below.

Glancing down, she held no fear for falling to her death. There wasn’t time to be afraid.

“Looks, moves, and style to match,” Gambit said as he ran to the edge of the rooftop. “Cher, I think I’m in love.”

“Aren’t we all?” the Black Cat replied casually.

With a flex of her fingers one tip of her titanium claws hidden within her gloves popped out. She sliced the finger down and severed the zip line behind her. Falling immediately, she wrapped her other arm around the cable and held on tightly.

The end she held on to was still connected securely to the roof of the other building. Physics, combined with a healthy dose of gravity, pulled her away from Gambit and away from danger.

She winked at him as she fell away, but the mysterious Cajun had already vanished.

The other building was coming up fast and she didn’t have time to wonder about where he had gotten to. She raised her arm, keeping it as steady as possible given that she was now hurtling toward a solid concrete wall, and triggered the spring loaded zip line in her gauntlet.

The line shot out, and the stubbed claw at the end of it pierced the façade of the next building over. She released the first line and let all of her weight fall on the second as she swung to the alley joining the two buildings.

Once clear of the street she let go of the other line and softly dropped down onto the fire escape. The metal gently clanged as her white boots tapped down. She yanked the ladder above her down and started to climb.

The cool night air did a lot to alleviate her anxiety. What was Gambit doing there? Why had he said something about them being there for the same reason?

She got to the roof and started trotting away from the scene, leaving it behind her in earnest. Once she was a safe distance she would open the channel to Bruno again and give him the bad news. She rounded the corner of an antenna array and got ready to leap over to the next building.

“Tsk, tsk. And here I thought we were gettin’ along so nicely.”

She stopped cold and her heart leapt into her throat. Either this mysterious admirer was really fast, or he was a ghost.

Gambit casually leaned against the lip of the building, his staff once more balanced on his shoulders. He smiled at her, the kind of smile that a confident man gives a pretty young blonde at the end of the bar.

He withdrew something from inside his trench coat and held it up for her to see. It was a playing card, the Queen of Hearts. “How’s about we play a hand, cher?”

She feinted to one side and then vaulted the other way, swinging behind the antenna array for a semblance of cover. Gambit’s eyes turned color again, as did the playing card. That same fizzle sound reached her ears and he threw the card directly at her.

The antennas melted from the hot energy that Gambit had chucked at them. Felicia tucked into a roll and sprung away to find new cover behind a chimney stack. She found herself thanking the landlord for not choosing to remove the Victorian era chimney in favor of more modern heat. Sometimes Manhattan socialites enjoyed a brisk fire in their apartments.

“We can end dis cat and mouse game anytime you like,” she heard Gambit say. “I just want to talk! Maybe…over drinks?”

“Sorry,” she said as she sprung out from behind the chimney, “I’m taken.”

Gambit had drawn closer as he talked, giving her the perfect angle to strike. She whirled her feet threw the air, lashing out with deadly kicks. He slipped his staff off of his shoulders and blocked most of the strikes, but one vicious snap kick managed to get by him. She connected with his ribs and she heard one of them crack.

If he was in pain, he didn’t show it.

“Easy, cher!” Gambit said as he backpedaled. He raised his arms in mock surrender. “Maybe we just try talkin’, eh?”

“Do you always talk to girls by throwing energy blasts at them?”

Gambit smirked. “You’d be surprised how many dates o’ mine have ended that way.”

The Black Cat returned the smile. She took a few steps back, keeping her distance. “Alright, pretty boy. Start talking.”

“Why you poking around the Steele building?”

“I was hired to check their security. Your turn.”

“Friend of mine was murdered. Trail led to Steele. He the man that hired you?”

“Maybe.”

Gambit let out a slow whistle. “That maybe gonna get you in a heap o’ trouble. Especially since I think you been lied to.”

“And why would you think that?”

Slowly, Gambit removed an envelope from inside his coat pocket. He winked at the Black Cat and offered the envelope to her. She hesitated, unsure if this was a trick or not. Deciding to throw caution to the wind, as had been par for the course already this evening, she reached out and snatched it.

She removed several pieces of paper. On the paper were written instructions for obtaining specific pieces of information from the computer systems in the Steele building. At the end of the instructions was a dollar amount to be paid upon completion of the job.

It was the exact same dollar amount that Felicia had been offered.

Moreover, it was the exact same set of instructions that Felicia had been sent through Bruno.

“Where did you get this?” she demanded.

“With my friend’s belongings. They were sent to me after his body washed up in the Hudson. He and I, we were what you might call kin.”

“You friends with a lot of thieves?”

The smile that was quickly becoming Gambit’s trademark returned. “More than you think, cher. My friend, he’s skilled. He takes this job and he winds up dead. I do a little sniffing around and I think I found out why.”

Felicia’s ears perked. Bruno was very thorough in his investigations into clients. She had specified several things when he was scouting for her, the top two of which were avoiding government contracts and staying away from the guys who couldn’t pay. The last thing she needed was to be stiffed on a bill.

If Bruno hadn’t found anything fishy about this job, then there probably wasn’t any dirt to dig up. Still…could Bruno be scamming her somehow? She barely knew him and had never actually seen him. How much had she trusted him?

“This guy that owns the building?” Gambit continued. “Imagine my surprise when it turns out he’s not the guy that hired my friend.”

“That’s a pretty big discovery,” the Black Cat replied. “Mind telling me how you made it?”

“The paper trail. My friend demanded a retainer for his services, just as Gambit taught him. Never take a job without something to wet the whistle, cher. See, my friend is hired to validate security there, but the account that paid him doesn’t match the account that paid the electricity bill last month.”

“Corporations have dozens of accounts for different things.”

“True. But different routing numbers? And across state lines, no less.”

He was right. A corporation might have one account for paying utilities and another account for paying consultants (which was what Felicia considered herself), but the routing numbers would still be the same. There wouldn’t be a point to using a different bank for mundane transactions like those. In fact, it would probably pop up a red flag with the IRS.

Gambit recognized the look on her face and said, “That’s right. You got played.”

The Cajun spun his staff in his fingers. She felt his eyes on her. For as smooth as he acted, there was a deadly man standing in front of her that would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. He had proven that when he chased her down after she thought she had lost him.

She stepped closer to him and returned his devilish smile. She came close enough to draw her finger up his chest, resting the tip of her glove on his chin. “I like to play,” she said. “About that drink you mentioned…”

“I think ol’ Gambit can still go for a nightcap. What you got in mind, cher?”

The Black Cat drove her knee straight into Gambit’s groin. He doubled over and the breath in his lungs exploded out. She slammed her elbow into his face and he fell back against the lip of the rooftop. He didn’t get back up.

“Answers,” she purred.

She had been set up. The only man that could tell her why was hiding behind his computer. It was time her and Bruno met face to face.

“Report.”

He clung to the shadows, but made sure to stay at an angle that he could see everything transpire. The female was quick. So was the male. Nothing compared to himself, but few could move with his grace and speed.

He tapped the ear piece he wore and said, “She’s left. Unable to verify if she retrieved the data or not. Someone inside scared her off.”

“Who?” the man on the other end of the connection demanded.

“Unknown. Instructions?”

The other man sighed. “Kill the informant. If she suspects something then he’s outlived his usefulness.”

He pulled in a deep and long breath through his nostrils. He could smell her, even from a block away. He would remember that scent. He was sure he would come across it again in the very near future.

Bruno Kreah had been a low-level SHIELD operative eight years ago. He had worked in special forces and been drafted into the intelligence community after displaying aptitudes in computer infiltration and logarithmic simulation. He had boasted to her one night that Nick Fury himself had been the one to talk him into joining up with SHIELD. She had her doubts, but his skills were obvious.

After finishing his two contracts with SHIELD he had gone into the private sector. They had stumbled across each other in Budapest while Felicia was on a job that involved a visiting sheik’s collection of tapestries. Bruno had been operating the secure online auction while Felicia was making off with the tapestries.

Liking what he saw on the video feeds, Bruno had contacted her shortly thereafter and offered his services. Felicia took him up on it, since being in the field and trying to make contacts with potential clients at the same time was a bit draining.

They made a great team. Until now.

Bruno had constantly offered her the casual abode he operated out of in New York City. When her travels had brought her here she thought it was a ploy to get her into bed. Now that the newest job had turned out to have a few holes in it, she was sure there was an ulterior motive wrapped up in the plot somewhere.

The only that could point it out was Bruno, which meant the Black Cat would be making an unscheduled visit.

Felicia slipped into the apartment without making a sound. Surprisingly, for someone who had precise knowledge about security features, his were quite lax. Only a basic magnetic brace kept his windows locked tight, and she could get through those in her sleep. She had her doubts about the address being legit, but upon entering she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

The place was a wreck. Furniture was overturned, books scattered on the floor, papers everywhere. But that wasn’t what gave her concern.

Etched throughout the wood shelves, the couch cushions, and sections of the wall were claw marks. Long, deep claw marks.

She heard a soft gurgling noise come from the hallway. She edged around the room, careful not to touch anything unnecessarily, and peered around the corner. The small bathroom was coated in white tile, and the white tile was coated in red blood.

In the center of the bathroom, lying on his stomach, was a man with short, brown hair. He wore glasses. From speaking with him she knew that Bruno wore glasses. Was this him?

She didn’t bother to ask, as the man who had thrashed the room beyond recognition was crouched in the windowsill. His eyes were golden and the irises were sharp slits instead of rounded ovals. His ears came to points and his teeth looked like they could tear through a porterhouse steak in one bite. His hands were covered in the same color red as the white tile.

Despite the bizarre differences in his anatomy from a normal man, what she was focused on the most was his fur. His entire body was covered in it.

The creature turned away from the window, as he was apparently ready to leap away. He breathed in deeply through his nostrils, almost like he was taking in her scent. He growled, a harsh, guttural growl that had no place in the city.

“Thank you for saving me the trouble of tracking you,” he said. “I’ll make this quick.”

The Black Cat braced herself. Something clicked in her head and she recognized the man-beast that was about to lunge for her throat and tear it out with his fangs. The Spider had talked about him, described him exactly as she saw him now.

His name was Thomas Fireheart.

Some knew him better as the vicious Puma.

To Be Concluded