Dawn of the Panther

The Panther prowled the night in search of her prey: crime.

 

(F, FM, FM, exh)

By: Punchinello for Pulp Erotica

 

New Strathon City, 1937

The dawn fell over the city like a cool breath. It streamed in the window of Anita Corvis’s loft and splashed silently on the hardwood floor, staining it the color of morning. Soon, it fell across a large bed done all in white and crept over the olive-skinned figure asleep in it, bringing her slowly back to life. She blinked, wrinkled her nose, and turned over, drawing the crisp white sheets up to her head.

The sun, boor that it is, continued to intrude until at last the young woman pushed the sheets away, allowing the sunlight to splash across her nakedness, and stretched her body out to its full five-foot-seven-inch measure. She was glorious—her skin as smooth as glass...but for a few old scars. Her hair was somewhat long, wavy and tousled, and a shiny, jet black that set off her face and its dark, mysterious eyes. She rubbed her eyes, caressed her long throat, her bare chest, down to her flat belly and her muscular thighs, breathing the morning in long, deep breaths. She fondled herself in luxury, pulling the sheet up between her legs, rubbing it lightly across her bushy mound.

Anita rolled over slowly and crawled out of bed. She strolled around the room—bare feet on the cool floor, naked body washed with cool air—taking in the pale morning light and letting it wash over her body along with her hands. She caressed herself slowly as she wandered about, stroking her round breasts with one hand and her soft, smooth thigh with the other.

At the window, the young woman brushed a hand thru her hair and squinted against the brilliance of the sun. The light was warm on her skin, invigorating. She stared out at the distant city with placid eyes; the perpetual fog had actually broken for once, and she could make out the lesser buildings as well as the tallest.

The dark beauty slowly stroked the silky fur between her legs. Her fleshy mound was warm and wet, eager for this bit of morning teasing. She caressed her big breasts and stroked herself harder as she began to fantasize about a tall stranger and his strong hands. She could feel his strong fingers press hard against her, rubbing her hot clit and smearing her own love juices over her crotch.

In a few moments, Anita began to feel warm and weak-kneed. She stepped back from the window towards the bed and lay back on it. Her imaginary lover roughly spread her long legs and forced his hand harder against her wet mound. She stroked herself with a quick, rhythmic pace, building slowly toward a frenzy.

She threw one leg over the bedpost and pumped harder. Her soft breathing broke into heavy, labored pants as she recognized the sound of her warm, wet sex sucking at her own fingers. She rubbed her pussy harder and fingered her clit with her free hand. Her pants became moans of pleasure. Her hips bucked in rhythm with her fervent fingering.

“Oh, ohh!” she moaned aloud to her fantasy lover. “Mmmm, ahh.” She could feel herself nearing climax, peaking at total satisfaction. “Go, go, go, go,” she told her fantasy man. “Ooh, ooh, oh, uh, uh, ah, ah, oh, oh, yes, mmm, mmm.”

Anita abandoned herself completely to her pleasure, frigging madly, crying out, thrusting and bucking with abandon. “Oh, OH! Oh, yeah. OH! OH! OH! AH! AH! YES! Oh fuck! Oh yes! Mmmmm.”

At last, the woman calmed, completely spent, her hands and thighs wet and sticky with her own sex juices. She smelled her own pussy. The smell was powerful, musty, and sexy. She imagined the scent lingering in her room when the servants came to tidy up. They knew the vigor of her sex; the men she brought home to the mansion to entertain.

 

In the shower, Anita felt the hot water wash away the sleep and sex and soothe the aches in her lean muscles. She hadn't had a good fuck in weeks—or a good fight either. That would have to change tonight.

The girls scampered out of her way when she came back thru to dress. Still naked, she wolfed down part of the breakfast they had laid out and threw on a white silk kimono just as Hannah brought in the morning newspaper.

“Trouble at the steel mill,” the tall blond said. She laid front page out as Anita slipped into stockings. “It looks like sabotage.”

Anita examined the photograph. “Only a small explosion, not much damage. Maybe it’s just an accident.”

The six-foot-tall Swede pointed to the third paragraph. “There was a calling card. The police aren’t saying what kind.”

“Maybe blackmail,” Anita observed, stepping into a pair of silk drawers. “I’m sure the Panther will be checking it out tonight.”

Hannah opened the door to Anita’s closet. “Some are suggesting the Panther might already be involved.”

“Hmmm.” The dark millionairess tossed the kimono on a chair and glided into the wardrobe topless. She picked out an elegant daytime dress with a broad collar she could leave open to reveal her cleavage.

As she dressed, Hannah reported the agenda. “Meeting with the foundation at eleven. Lunch at Ingati’s at one. No one this evening.” She was referring to gentlemen friends.

“Have Paulette bring the Archer around, Hannah.”

 

The meeting with the Corvis Foundation went boringly. Funds would be paid out to two research hospitals. Anita’s father Andre ran the show; he liked to shovel the family fortune into holes he thought he could fill. It wasn’t his money, strictly speaking. His father had made it, and Grandfather Corvis’s companies were still filling the family coffers.

Anita stretched out in the back of the long, elegant Archer V10 as it drove her to Ignati’s. The lunch—with one of the ladies of the foundation and her friend—was also boring, but not as much so as the foundation meeting. She made small talk and laughed at the pleasantries, but always in the back of her mind was the explosion at the steel mill. When she brought it up, foundation member Brenda Forsham had an interesting tidbit. “I heard that Henry Dasher had a man threaten him in his office not two days ago; he’s the general manager, you know.”

“You don’t say?” remarked Anita.

“You don’t suppose it was that awful Panther, do you?” asked Brenda’s friend Glinda.

“This was a man, dear. They say the Panther is a woman,” Brenda said.

“I don’t believe it,” Anita huffed. “What respectable woman goes around looking like that and acting that way?”

But Anita had another thought brewing. When dessert was served, she found a small red rosette made of pastry icing capping her vanilla mise-étoile. She asked her waiter to give the pastry chef her compliments, which quickly brought the man out: handsome, flashing-eyed Laurant Imhof. “It is finest pleasure, Miss Corvis,” he said in his slight accent.

“The pleasure is in the eating, monsieur, I assure you,” she told him.

“You are very kind. I will leave you now. I must get to the Republic Hotel; it is their annual Grand Affair tomorrow night.”

Brenda Forsham’s friend Glinda spoke up suddenly. “Oh, I do love the Grand Affair. It’s so...so terribly...elegant!”

“Laurent, I’m just finished here. Let me give you a lift to the Republic,” Anita suggested.

“Oh, ma’amoiselle, I couldn’t.”

But Anita was already rising. “Don’t be silly, darling. I insist.” She excused herself and asked the waiter to run ahead and call for her car. Her driver Paulette brought the car around quickly and picked up both Anita and Laurent, who had quickly traded his chef’s coat for a blazer.

They were only just around the corner when Anita said, “You randy devil, putting that rosette on my dessert.”

“I hoped you would notice,” he smiled.

“Notice?” she said. “I recognized it immediately,” she said leaning close. “And I remembered where it was you put the last pastry rosette you gave me.”

“Ah,” he said, taking her in his arms. “The pleasure was in the eating....” Anita pressed a button to activate the opaque divider between the passengers and the driver.

The pearl gray Archer crept thru downtown New Strathon slowly, going around the grid in a meandering path that led nowhere near the Republic Hotel. On the other side of its dark windows, Anita pushed Laurent’s jacket off and tugged at the buttons of his shirt. “Mmmm,” she said, “you smell like pastries.” She opened his shirt and felt his manly chest, thick with curly hair and muscles.

“Oh, Anita, you precious flower,” he breathed. “Open your dress for me, darling. Your breasts make me crazy for you.” The buttons on her blouse popped one by one, spreading her bodice and letting her heavy breasts spill out of the demi-cup brassiere. “Oh, they are magnificent,” he swooned, taking them in his hands and kissing them both.

“Oh, yes!” she gasped. “Oh, yes, Laurent. Ooh....”

Down came his trousers and shorts, revealing the glorious tool of a master. It was long and stiff, thinner than most, and curved gently upward like a saber. Anita hoisted her dress and let him pull off her fancy silk drawers. He ran his hands up her silk stockings and grabbed hold of her bare bottom. “So firm,” he said. “Like no other.”

The millionairess lay back on the creamy leather of the big sedan and spread her legs. Laurent pulled her closer under him and leaned over her. “Yes,” she panted. “Now.” She took his cock in her small hand and guided him into her wet cunny.

“Oh!” he grunted, sliding his prick in slow and deep. Anita ran her arms up and down his strong back under his open shirt, reveling in the muscled smoothness, pulling him into her deeper and harder.

“Yes! Yes!” she huffed. The sedan was rocking on its springs now, rolling thru the streets of downtown New Strathon. Their kisses quieted their moans, but only for a little while as they rocked harder and harder together, their tight, strong bodies working in counter-rhythm.

“I’m going to come,” the Frenchman groaned.

“Hold back, darling,” the lady urged. “Hold back!” She arched her back and felt her clitoris brush against him. Then she threw her head back and cried out. “OH YES! Yes now! NOW darling!”

“UNH!” he grunted. “Oh, Anita!”

They relaxed and sighed together, kissing lightly and wetly for a few minutes. And then the raven-haired woman helped clean him up while the chef was still half-stiff by doing something no other woman had ever done for him: licking the sticky sex off his shaft. She opened the little liquor cabinet and used the soda water and a handkerchief to finish the job.

When they finally arrived at the Republic Hotel, Anita gave Laurent a last kiss. “Sometime I’m going to have to take you home and ravish you all night,” the disheveled girl teased.

“Oh, ma’amoiselle,” he smiled, “I can only dream....” He stood on the curb, staring at the car as it pulled away into downtown traffic.

 

Anita cat-napped even after the Archer finally broke thru traffic at Haversham Bridge, where the city ended and Coastal Highway allowed Paulette to race up to ninety miles an hour. The elegant sedan roared along the coast, where the afternoon light glinted off the white-capped waves whipped by an angry wind.

“Take the back way,” Anita said and began unbuttoning her dress.

Exiting at a little side road, down toward the rocky coast, thru the fog rolling in off Strathon Bay, and into the dark woods the big car went, making sure they weren’t being followed. Thru the trees, Anita could just see the waves roiling up to crash on the ragged rocks. She tossed the dress off and laid it on top of the panties that she never put back on.

Then they jagged into one of several unmarked gravel drives along the road. Most went nowhere or twisted back on themselves or cut to another side road, but this one twisted around before leading at last to a broad wall of rock with a large pair of wooden doors set into it.

The Archer’s headlamps illuminated the dark green doors in the fading sunlight while they sat for a moment. Anita rolled her stockings down her lithe legs as Paulette sounded the horn. Slowly, the doors opened outward to reveal a natural cavern lighted with electric lamps strung along the ceiling. The Archer rolled in just as the sun turned from yellow to red in the final hour of the day. The pearl-smooth sedan came to rest next to the sleek, dark figure of another car: the glossy black custom Burgonelle roadster of the mysterious heroine known as the Panther. Its chrome exhaust pipes and snarling chrome grille gleamed proudly.

In the Panther’s Lair, Paulette opened the back door of the Archer for her mistress. Anita stepped out completely naked but for her heels. She went up the steps to the control room, where Hannah met her wordlessly with an open door. Below, Paulette brought the Archer to the lift that would carry it to the carriage house above.

Hannah wore white silk dressing gloves to keep her fingerprints off her mistress’s gear. Sitting in the leather chair in the control room, Anita traded her shoes for black knee socks and slipped into a pair of black, French-cut cotton panties that, tho not as pretty as the silk drawers she had left in the Archer, were much more practical for her purposes. The beautiful heiress slid her lithe legs into the black leather catsuit Hannah presented. She pulled on a pair of square-heeled jackboots and zipped the suit up over her bulging breasts, then buttoned the second panel on the opposite side. The doubled-breasted design kept the weak point—the zipper—inside and allowed the bullet-resistant lining a double thickness over her chest.

Next came the black leather gloves, then the belt that held her cat’s claws and, strapped to her thigh, a little black .38 autoloader—her “last resort.” Finally, Anita took the black cowl that Hannah offered to conceal her mistress’s identity as beautiful heiress Anita Corvis and complete her transformation into the Panther.

“The Panther is going prowling.” Her voice was lower now, smoky.

The Panther fired up the big V10 of the custom Burgonelle roadster as Lilly the mechanic gave her the all-clear and pushed the doors open again. The fog crept in from the ocean, but the growl of the Burgonelle chased it out again when the Panther dropped it into gear and roared out of her lair.

 

By the time the Burgonelle rolled into Quangor Steel, night had fallen fully. The calm warmth of the spring day had given way to a more seasonable chill and windy night. And the ever-present fog kept the land blanketed and muffled. Most of the cars were gone from the parking lot, but she knew the place would never really be empty. Scattered lights, shadowy figures, and puffs of smoke and steam were all around.

The Panther hid the car away from the plant and crept across a field to the buildings. The wire fence presented no obstacle. She climbed it gracefully and dived off the top to roll to her feet on the other side. She had her eye on a lighted window on the second floor and made her way across the unkempt yard to the building. A service ladder gained her access to the roof, where she quickly went to the edge above the suspect window and, securing herself with a steel line, slid down the wall upside down to peek inside.

A man and a woman were engaged in sex play on the sofa of an executive’s office. She was bosomy blond with her tits out and her skirt up, and he was a balding lump who was about to find out that she dyed her hair. The Panther slid down the wall further and turned right side up to get comfortable for the show. Down came Blondie’s panties and in went his fat face. He lapped at her dark snatch for a long time, on his hands and knees on the tile floor while she laid back on the sofa, legs up in the air, cooing softly and massaging his scalp.

Just then, a shadow fell across the frosted window set in the door. Joe Pussylicker couldn’t see, but Blondie could, as the door opened and a hulking side of beef stepped in with a blackjack in his hand. The blond didn’t even scream as the sap put the sucker out like a light.

The Panther steeled herself to swing out and burst in thru the window to put an end to the violence with more violence, but Blondie just laid back and offered seconds to the party-crasher.

The big guy closed—and locked—the door and dropped his pants so Sugar could bring his pecker to life. As soon as he was stiff, the bull laid into her with a passion. Blondie took everything he had and panted for more. She didn’t get it for long, tho, since boyfriend number two popped his nut early and pulled out. She pretended to have enjoyed it anyway and started putting the woofers away while he went thru the boss’s paperwork.

The sapsucker started coming to and getting to his hands and knees. The big guy shoved him onto the sofa and went back to the paperwork. He gathered up a wad and started shaking them at Woozy. The Panther couldn’t make out what they were saying very clearly, but the gist seemed to be that Big Boy wanted his own line item on the cost sheets so he could take home some of the cash that passed thru the mill. Sad Sack opened his desk and handed over a fat envelope that Big Boy fingered thru like it was his first birthday present.

When the bull and beaver had left together, the punching bag got up and went to open the window for some fresh air. As soon as he sat down at the desk, the Panther unhooked her beltline and swung over the sill.

“Rough night, Henry?” she asked.

The mug spun around so fast he nearly fell over. He took one look at the leather-clad Panther and nearly backed up over the top of his desk. “Who are you?”

“Let me guess. Giggles wants a piece of the steel business, right? And he’s got you by the nuts in both hands.”

He huffed a little laugh. “Yeah. Yeah he does.”

“Now you didn’t set off any firecrackers around here, did you?”

“What? Me?”

“Yeah you. And you didn’t leave any calling cards with it, did you? Something with a little black cat on it?”

“Oh Jeezus,” he said, wiping the sweat off his upper lip. “You’re the Panther!”

“Maybe you wanted to scare up some extra cash from your boss for security—cash that could fit into a big fat envelope?”

“Oh! Oh, God, I’m finished.”

The Panther stepped away to lock the door again. “Calm down. I’m in a position to change your position.”

But when she turned back to him, he had pulled a gun. “Don’t move.” He went toward her. He was going to try to take off her mask.

“You don’t want to use that, stud,” she said, reaching out to him a little with her left hand. Meanwhile, in one smooth, lightning-fast motion, she snatched her cat’s claw off her belt with her right hand and raked the gat out of his hand.

The pistol went clattering across the tile under a side chair, and Henry was left clutching his hand and nursing three nasty gouges. “Holy shit! What is that thing?”

“That’s my cat’s claw, Henry. Don’t make the Panther play rough. Sit down.” She shoved him onto the sofa. “Now listen good. You’re going to tell me who your playmates are and you’re going to promise not to turn this plant into the Fourth of July anymore, aren’t you?”

“I never hurt anybody. I was real careful. A— And it wasn’t much damage. Just a scare really. I didn’t realize the cat thing—”

She stuck her boot in his chest. “Shutup. Now spill the story before I get itchy again.” She brandished both claws to the dull light of the office. The black steel blades glinted only at their razor-sharp edges.

“Jonah Breckenridge,” Henry said finally. “And the girl is Sally Pelman. I guess maybe they’re in this together.”

“You think?” the black-leather cat asked sharply. “I think she put him on to you because she knew you’d cave in. And she probably made sure she had some real pretty pictures of you and her in a flophouse somewhere getting friendly.”

“Yeah,” he said sadly.

“Where do I find this guy Breckenridge when he’s not putting the muscle on guys like you?”

“I— East Side Harry’s I guess. It’s a... pool hall.”

 

East Side Harry’s wasn’t exactly a pool hall, and it wasn’t on the east side of anything but the Massahatta River. But the Panther had connections that closed the gap. It was close to midnight when she rolled into the alley behind it.

Peeking in a window, she could see girls dancing provocatively for the patrons. It wasn’t a striptease club, but the pool tables weren’t getting the bulk of the attention either. Jonah Breckenridge was yukking it up at the bar, spreading his folding money around like he didn’t know how to fold it up again. Sally Pelman was drinking her way toward a liver disorder at a table nearby. The Panther wasn’t sure how to call them out.

Then Sally Pelman got up and headed for an exit. Her bladder was probably the only thing working full time at the moment. The Panther snatched off her cowl and went to the back door just as the floozy stumbled into the corridor. “Psst. Sister? Got a hanky you could loan a girl?” she asked, just cracking the door open.

“Sure, honey,” the drunk mumbled cheerily, and veered away from the ladies’ room to the back door. The Panther popped her mask back on and pulled the blousy dame out into the shadowy alley.

“Hey! What’s the big idea?” the girl protested. But the Panther conked her on the back of the head and let her collapse into her arms. In a few minutes, she’d pulled off the girl’s dress and set it aside, pulled the girl’s bra off, and used it to tie her up in nothing but her panties. The sinewy crime-fighter stuffed the unconscious girl into a broken-down Ponto coupe.

The Panther ditched her leathers and boots in the Burgonelle—but snatched one little item from her pouch—and went around the front in Sally’s dress and oversized shoes. The girl was shorter than the Panther, so the dress only covered to mid-thigh, but that was all the better for her purposes. The girl was also just a little bustier, so the Panther’s bosom moved enticingly under the bodice without a brassiere.

Inside, she wasted no time sidling up to Jonah Breckenridge. “What are you, stud, about six foot four?”

The big man laughed and got big eyeful of cleavage when he turned. “Six five since I was nineteen years old, miss....”

“Cora...” said the Panther. “Cora Calloway.”

They exchanged small talk, but it was clear that Jonah was interested in one thing, and the Panther started shaking it. The dime-a-dance girls in the club clearly didn’t cotton to the idea of a newcomer drawing any attention away from them, but Jonah made it clear that he was going to spend a little time—and money—with Cora.

“Cora” danced a little to the slow juke joint music, swinging her hips and shaking her tits in about the lewdest dime dance ever. Jonah was stuffing dollar bills into Cora’s bodice faster than most girls got dimes—and feeling up her breast every time he did it. “You’re quite a dancer,” she told him. “And you got quite a wad in your pocket....”

In five more minutes, she was buying him a beer for the road. Only this beer had an extra kick—the Panther’s little lullaby pill. But as they were leaving, he wanted one last dance. He pulled her to a dark corner by a pool table and put her hand on his crotch. “You feel that?” he asked. “That’s thunder, doll.”

“Ooh,” she cooed. And she wasn’t faking. This ox had an handle like a hammer!

“Take it out, baby. Nobody’s watchin’.” He pressed her up against the pool table, his back to the crowd, and swigged his beer.

Cora moved against him provocatively and stroked his boner thru his trousers. “Wow,” she breathed. “Maybe just a little peek....” Out it popped thru his fly, straight and proud. “Wooh,” said Cora, losing a little more of her heroic detachment.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and played with the pecker like a teenaged tease. Maybe if she got him hot enough, he’d be ready to step out and finish off in the car—where she’d make sure he knew the score. But stroking that long, hard shaft made her warmer and warmer, wetting her pussy in a very worrisome way.

“Come on, honey. Work on it.” For his part, Long Jonah started feeling her up under her dress. His fingers got into her panties in a very distressing hurry.

“Oh, you stud,” she sighed, and proceeded to whack his dick feverishly. His strokes matched hers, and in a moment she was coming all over his hand, right there in the club! “Mmmm! Mmmmm!” she moaned, biting back a heavy cry as an orgasm made her flush all over and gush sex juices.

“Oh yeah! Unh!” he groaned and leaned against her heavily as his enormous dick blew wads of semen all over her hand and dress.

“Cora” relaxed and caught her breath. No one was staring. No one seemed to have even noticed. “Finish that beer and let’s go out to the car,” she said softly.

“Yeah, sure,” said the stud. With his half-hard cock still out, he whipped out a twenty dollar bill and slipped it under her dress, where he stuffed it roughly into her panties. “That was great, doll. Sorry about the stain. Buy yourself a new dress.”

Jonah finished his beer and followed her outside, but he was stumbling by the time she got him around to the back and practically out when she shoved him into the passenger seat of the Burgonelle.

The Panther cut Sally loose but left her unconscious in the coupe; maybe she’d catch a ride home with some stiff who’d finally get a little action after spending all his money on dances with club girls. The crime-fighter stripped off the come-stained dress and stuffed it in a dumpster. Then she slipped back into her catsuit—belt, boots, and all—slid into the driver’s seat of the roadster, and tore out of the lot.

 

When Jonah came to, his hands were tied behind his back. His jacket and sap lay on the ground next to him; the sap lay on top of his empty money envelope. The chill wind lashed at his face. All he could see was ragged, misty coastline, crashing waves, and seagulls arcing in off the ocean.

“Wh— Where the fuck am I?”

The Panther put a boot on his ass. “You’re at Chiseler’s Point, Jonah Breckenridge. And if you don’t stop moving around, you’re about to meet your maker.”

“Wh— What? Who are you? What did I do?”

“You can’t go around putting the muscle on businessmen and expect there to be no complications.”

He twisted around, trying to get a decent look at his accuser. She gave him a little shove. Just a few more inches and he’d be eating rocks for breakfast. “Who are you?”

“I’m a complication.”

“Oh, God! Don’t kill me please! Please! Oh, please, don’t kill me!” He twisted around again. “Jesus! Y- You’re that dame! You’re that Panther lady I heard about.”

“Yeah stud. And the Panther is about to pass sentence. Down on your knees.” He had to step back to find the room, but he got down on his knees. He was still nearly as tall as she was. “Jonah Breckenridge, you will go to the police and confess to planting an explosive device at the Quangor Steel plant. Do you understand?”

“Yes! Yes!”

“And if you don’t end up in jail, I will find you and I will hand down my own sentence. Do you understand?” But the big man had got himself half turned around now and was pulling at the cords that bound his hands. He was stronger than she imagined, because the cords came apart suddenly like rubber bands.

“You ain’t so big!” he shouted as he lunged for her throat.

The Panther side-stepped him and let him crash to the ground, still woozy from the Mickey Finn she’d slipped him. He got back up tho and came at her again. This time, she calmly drew her claws and slashed him across the face. He howled in pain and fell to the ground again. The Panther jabbed a boot in his back and started to threaten, but the big man rolled over and grabbed her leg. He picked her up over him and tossed her toward the precipice. The agile girl managed to catch herself at the edge and snap to her feet.

“I’m gonna stomp you like a melon!” he shouted and rushed her again. The Panther took a glancing blow but jammed her claws into his gut and spun him full around or else he would have careened over the edge of the cliff. Jonah stumbled away, bleeding and panting, but came right back at her again, one fist swinging, one fist clutching his belly.

“Jonah Breckenridge, you are tempting fate!” she growled and landed a clawless punch in his mashed potato face. But the ox-like man grabbed her crotch and shoulder and lifted her up over his head. He went to the end of the cliff and looked out toward the ocean.

“Here’s your fate, kitty-cat!” he cried. But the Panther twisted out of his grasp and kicked him in the back as she fell away. Jonah stumbled forward and collapsed to the ground, one leg over the edge, both meat hooks clutching desperately for the grass at the cliff’s edge. The Panther pulled her steel line from her belt and went to him, but he batted it aside and, trying to stand, clutched at her.

The Panther did a quick back flip and kicked him on the chin as she went over. As he stood up to his full six feet five inches, he lost his balance on the grass. His whole body lumbered over backwards like a falling tree, arms flailing, an awful scream of terror escaping his thick throat, and fell... crashing to the jagged rocks thirty feet below.

The Panther wrapped her line around the lone tree on the overlook and slid down to the body. He was dead, smashed on the unforgiving granite of Strathon Bay. Out at the water’s edge, the waves pounded in, lighted crudely by a half moon, driven by the chill wind. The Panther crawled back up to her car and let the pain and anger drain out of her for a minute before starting it up.

She could still help Henry Dasher. She would return the security money tomorrow. Tomorrow would be a new dawn.

 

THE PANTHER WILL RETURN IN LAIR OF THE PANTHER!