I tried calling the witch, or the black magic practitioner, and there was no answer. There was a message, about her conferring with a demon and would be back on the mortal plane sometime later. I hung up and didn't leave a message to call me back.

_______________

You have a time wasting decision to make. The impact on the story is minimal.

A) Stay at home and vegetate. B) Watch mind-numbing TV. C) Work out. D) Masturbate.

Are... are you kidding me? I thought in shock and read the options again. That can't be a real choice! I shook my head. I'm tempted to choose it, just to see if it actually... no. No. I'll go with work out. At least that's productive. I choose C.

_______________

I figured I'd burn off some pent up frustration about everything while I waited for Steve and Mikki to get back to me with any information they might come up with. The best non-lethal way for me to do that, was to exercise myself into exhaustion. There was just one problem. I had no one to do it with.

Mikki was great if all I wanted to do was run, since she did that so easily as a were-cat; but, I liked to mix weights and machines in between running. Over the last couple of months, I had to settle for just arm work on the weights and rolling around in my wheelchair for my exercise. Now? I had my legs back and by God I wanted to use them.

I went over in my mind who I could call to help spot me, and I had nothing. I was about to give up on exercising completely, until I thought of someone who might want to join me. I called Mikki's parents and asked them for Jillian's home phone number. After promising them that I wasn't going to assault her with zombies, they gave it to me. She picked up on the second ring.

“Yeah.”

Short and to the point. Nice. I thought. “Hi, Jillian. It's David.” I said and thought I heard a gun clatter around and then a magazine sliding into place with a click, which made me smile.

“When and where?” Jillian asked.

I chuckled. “Thanks; but, it's not like that. Nothing's wrong.”

“Oh.” Jillian said and I heard the gun be put down. “What's up then?”

“I was kind of looking for a workout partner.”

Jillian was quiet for a moment. “Really?”

“Yep. I need to work off some steam. Interested?”

“When and where?” Jillian repeated.

I smiled, because it was the same as if I had called her to guard me. “How about we meet here at my place in half an hour and we can head to the club together?”

“Club?”

“I want to get a good workout that free weights just won't do for me and the machines they have can give me a good rounding out, muscle-wise.” I said. “Is that okay?”

“Sure. I'll be right over.”

“See you then.” I said, then she hung up before I could say goodbye. Maybe professional people have to be trained in phone courtesy? I asked myself with a chuckle.

I went into the bedroom and dug out my old workout things that I hadn't used in months. A muscle shirt with no sleeves and bicycle shorts with a stripe down the side. They were the best to work out in, since they didn't let sweat gather in certain places. Yeah, those places. I put on an unbuttoned white shirt over the muscle shirt and I was dressed. I carried my gym bag with the essentials out to the living room to wait.

Jillian showed up at my place ten minutes later, just within the half hour I had asked. To my surprise, she wore a sports bra under a muscle shirt with a loose unbuttoned white shirt over it, and a pair of bicycle shorts with a red stripe down the leg. She also had a similar gym bag with the essentials in it.

I almost laughed at the expression on her face when she saw that I wore an identical outfit, except that I had a blue stripe on my shorts. “Hey, I can go change if you...”

“I can take the ridicule if you can.” Jillian said with a teasing smile, as if daring me to change.

I chuckled. “If I can take a squad room of police officers teasing me over playing with corpses, having people at the gym laugh at me for dressing like you, should be a piece of cake.”

“Should be.” Jillian said with a big grin.

“Just get in the jeep.” I said and grabbed my wallet, keys, and cell phone.

We took my jeep and headed downtown to the health club that was just a more expensive version of a classic gym. I had called ahead and arranged for a day pass for Jillian, gave a fake reason for it, namely that she was looking to apply for membership, and that I wanted to show her around. The manager said that they normally don't do that; but, because I was such a valued member that they would make an exception, for a fee.

Of course. I thought and I paid when we got there. I received a look from Jillian that I usually get from women when I jump ahead and try to pay for everything during dates. It steps on their independence and their choices, apparently. When we were out of earshot of the clerk at the desk, I said as much.

“I did ask you to join me.” I said and gave her a pleading look. “It wouldn't be right to make you pay for it when I'm the one that brought you here.”

Jillian gave me a look that I couldn't read, then she shrugged her shoulders and let the matter drop. “Where do you want to start?”

I looked around the club and noticed that we were the only ones there. Not a lot of people come to work out that early in the day, so we had the run of the place all to ourselves. We got towels out of our gym bags to wrap around our necks so we could wipe our sweat off of the machines. It was just a courtesy that some people completely ignored.

“Legs. I haven't used my legs in months and I need to work on them something fierce. See?”

I lifted the edge of the bicycle shorts and showed Jillian that I'd almost lost all the muscle definition in my thighs, even though they were bigger. Not using them had severely downgraded their usefulness and while in the wheelchair, I had lost both muscle and fat. I could only imagine what my legs would have looked like if they had been healthy when I used my power to activate the potential were-cat abilities I had.

Jillian reached out and ran her fingers over the muscles and she shook her head. “David, you need to rebuild these almost from the ground up.” She looked at me. “It's going to hurt. A lot.”

“You're preaching to the choir.” I said.

Jillian gave me another odd look and nodded. We headed over to the leg machines.

“I usually do a set on the machines, run a few laps on the track, and then repeat. How's that sound?” I asked. A lot of people forget about the need for a cardiovascular part of a workout. If you don't pace yourself, you could end up causing damage and not building the muscles correctly.

“So, you're not just a pretty face after all.” Jillian joked.

I stopped walking and stared at her.

Jillian started laughing. “You know that's not the way I meant that.”

“Yeah, but...” I closed my mouth on what I wanted to say.

“Come on. Let's get moving. You really do need a lot of leg work.” Jillian said and I nodded.

We started with a little stretching, first standing and then sitting. It was not a good idea to start a workout without limbering up a little first. Not too much, because over-stretching was a good way to get hurt. You can't just do all of these exercises right of the bat. You needed to work up to them.

We set up on the thigh machine and Jillian set the weight. I tried it and it was way too light. She adjusted it and it was a little too heavy to do a full set, so she lowered it a bit and I pushed myself. When it was her turn, I went around the back to set the weight and spot her like she did for me, and I noticed there was a hundred and fifty pounds set on it.

I didn't change the weight and Jillian did her set without me spotting her. I just stood there, a little dumbfounded. When she was done, she got up and looked concerned at my expression.

“David, what's wrong?” Jillian asked.

I really didn't know what to say, so I just pointed at the weights.

Jillian got it on the first try. “You've never lifted that much on your thighs before?”

I just shook my head.

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“Hey, it's okay. It's okay.” Jillian stepped close and rubbed my back. “You'll get used to the extra strength.”

“That's not the problem, not really.” I said. “I'm still weak and not at my full strength, remember? I just did that set and it was hard; but, I did it.” I took a deep breath and let it out. “What am I going to be capable of when I'm healthy?”

Jillian didn't say anything as she took me into a hug. It was a little weird being hugged by a woman that usually guarded me when I called. Jillian was a little taller than me, by a couple of inches, so my chin rested just above her chest. My brain didn't quite register that fact until she let me go.

“Come on, you said that you run the track between sets. You'll have to show me where to go.”

I nodded and took her upstairs to the wraparound track with the mirrors on the walls. The mirrors were there so runners could see themselves running. When I used to do this before the accident, I would set the pace and push myself to get a good workout for myself. I told Jillian that I wasn't sure how to handle it with her, since her legs were a bit longer than mine. She said that I could still set the pace. With a bit of a laugh, she also said that she would try to keep up.

I started at a leisurely pace and gradually increased my speed while Jillian and I talked. She didn't have a hard time keeping up with me at all, like I had suspected at her joke, so I poured on the speed until I could speak only a few works between breaths. Jillian still kept up with me; but, she was breathing heavily, too. She managed to ask me how many laps I did and I told her I used to do ten laps.

I thought I heard her say we were at sixteen and I stopped dead, not even slowing down like I normally would. I kind of shouted when I spoke. “We just started!”

“David, this track is so small that when we run, all we see is a flash of ourselves in the mirrors.” Jillian said. She said 'run' like it was in all capital letters or something.

I thought about it and realized that she was right. I was so concerned about getting a good workout that I didn't even notice the difference between how I used to run and how I had just run. I only needed a few long strides to go the full side length of the track. The whole length. I knew that I had were-cat in my blood; but, I think I was still a little in denial about it. Until now. Jillian stepped close and hugged me again.

I put my arms around her and held her for several moments. “I'm fine.”

Jillian chuckled and the press of her breasts into my chest felt really nice. She had laughed, because she had heard the slight shock in my voice. She let me go and the look on her face told me that she didn't believe me.

“Really, I'm okay. I think... I just had a bit of a revelation is all.” I said and then took another deep breath. “I'm not a were-cat yet; but, I can't be shocked every time something like this happens. I'll never be able to function if I did.”

“So, you're saying that you're going to choose to be one of us? Just like that?” Jillian asked, as if she had asked others the same question.

“I can't choose to be one, since I'm becoming one anyway. Denying it can't help me, though.”

Jillian smiled and nodded as I thought about that statement. I realized that it would have been something that Natalie would have said to me. When I thought of her, the tears started to flow down my cheeks. The traitorous bastards.

“David, what...” Jillian started to ask, concerned.

“Natalie.” I whispered, then I sat down on the floor, my strength suddenly gone. Jillian sat with me and we were both silent as the tears kept going. I hadn't cried at the funeral, because I just didn't understand at the time what her being gone meant. All the little things I would miss with her, pounded into my head like a jackhammer. Watching her when she didn't know I was admiring her. Spending time with her. Holding her tightly in my arms. It all came roaring back.

What am I going to do without her? I thought as the anguish felt like it was going to consume me, then Jillian grabbed my hand.

“Let it all out, David.” Jillian said. “Holding it in won't make the pain go away or make things better.”

I looked at her when I heard the sound of unhappiness and knowledge in her voice. “Tell me about it.”

The look of shock on her face lasted for only a second and she nodded her head.

“I was dating this guy, and he was a great guy. Daniel lifted weights and we had been together for about a year. One night while he was away at a bodybuilding contest, I was attacked by a were-cat. He tried to...” Jillian took a breath and let it out. “He tried to rape me. I fought him. I fought hard and I fought him off. I even ripped his ear off with my teeth. He cut me up pretty badly, though. I barely survived.” She spoke in that emotionless tone that survivors had when they retold a horrible story. “The big shock happened a few days later when my boyfriend came home.”

“Oh, Jillian.” I said, pretty sure what she was going to say.

“Please, let me finish.”

I nodded and squeezed her hand tightly.

“He was missing an ear.”

I knew it. I thought and she must have seen something on my face, because she nodded.

“Exactly.” Jillian looked at me with a twisted smile on her face. “He said that he wanted me to be a part of his life and to be just like him.”

I didn't say anything because I was sure that she had more to tell.

“I freaked out. I was so angry and I couldn't tell if it was the beast growing inside of me or just my own outrage.” Jillian said, then her tears flowed like mine. “It doesn't matter, though. I killed him. I beat him to death.”

Dammit. I really do hate being right sometimes. I thought.

“Mikki's father Carl showed up with his guards to see what happened to Daniel, because he had left the safety of the pack during a full moon and wanted to know what happened. He found me crying over Daniel's body.” Jillian didn't wipe at her face, just like I didn't.

The tears needed to be shed.

“I told Carl about the attack and he just nodded like he understood. I found out later that Daniel had lost a lot of blood because of the ear and couldn't heal that much damage quickly. I didn't understand why until Carl said that Daniel was pretty weak compared to some of the other were-cats and that a more powerful shapeshifter would have survived.”

I nodded, since I had encountered a lot of the weaker ones while dealing with Mikki and the pack.

“I told Carl that I was going to call the police and he said that they took care of their own and that I was welcome to join them, if I wanted to.” Jillian chuckled. “Like I could go anywhere else.” She said. “The full moon had just passed, so I had a whole month to wait before I knew if I was infected. I was, and that wasn't a surprise, since my wounds started healing a couple of weeks before the full moon. I've been with the were-cat pack ever since.”

I think this was the first time that I had ever heard anything about Jillian that wasn't work related, so I just sat there and absorbed what she had said. She was a survivor and a kick ass bodyguard.

How did she get like that? I wondered. Since we were deep in sharing territory, I simply asked her. “How did you become a bodyguard?”

Jillian must have known that was the most logical question I was going to ask because she answered it without thinking about it. “Carl either recruits soldiers or has them trained as soldiers. What about you?”

The question rocked me for a minute, until I understood what she meant. I recovered and answered it truthfully.

“Experience. I was born with an innate ability that I use to raise zombies and an affinity with the dead. It gives me an upper hand when dealing with vampires. When you're just a human with a bit of talent, you have to pick up some skills to survive.” I said. “Of course, having a few years training as a police officer definitely gave me an upper hand in how to deal with certain situations.”

We sat there and wiped at our faces with our towels for several minutes, then Jillian stood up and so did I. We brushed the imaginary dirt off of our backsides and I thought of something else to ask.

“Mikki's bodyguard Charlie lifts weights because he said that it gives him an edge against other were-cats. I always thought you got your muscles for the same reason, to give you an edge.”

“Nope.” Jillian said and ran her hands down her sides to her hips. “This figure is mine in all its pre-were-cat glory. I just keep up with the weights to stay toned and to keep the muscles healthy. Can you imagine me walking around like Charlie?”

I was surprised when she puffed up her cheeks, hunched over, and posed like a heavyweight bodybuilder. She was in the double arm across the chest pose that pushed out her shoulder blades like small wings when we heard the door to the running track open. We both glanced over at the noise to see two women frozen at the sight of Jillian posed. They had similar shocked looks on their faces while they performed a synchronized one hundred and eighty degree turn and promptly left.

Jillian and I looked back at each other and then we started laughing that full-throated laugh that people almost completely lose during childhood. Tears streamed down our faces again before we could stop laughing. Jillian dabbed at her tears with a towel and I reached for her hand.

“Thank you.” I said. I hoped she knew that I just didn't mean the thank you for the laugh. I motioned towards the machines. “Think we can finish the workout?”

“That depends on if you can keep up with me.” Jillian said with a smirk on her face.

“Jane go! Me Tarzan, follow!” I said and beat my chest once.

Jillian had a surprised look, then she laughed and took my hand. “Come on, monkey man.”

We finished up on the legwork after nine more sets and several dozen more trips around the running track. I was about to suggest we go ahead and do the arms when my phone rang. It took me a minute to hear it because it was bundled up in the clothes in my gym bag back by the door.

I ran over to it and dug out the phone. “Hello?”

“I got the address.” Steve said.

I looked at my watch and realized I had been at the gym for over three hours.

“I'm headed back to my place, so meet me there.” I said and nodded to Jillian. “We can load up on guns and ammo, then kick some ass.”

“I'll be there.” Steve said and hung up.

I stuffed the phone back into my bag with the towel. “I'm sorry, Jillian. I'm going to have to cut this short. I was going to ask you out to lunch; but, a friend of mine has info about Natalie's killers and I don't want the trail to get cold.”

Jillian's eyes hardened and her voice was deeper than it had been only a moment ago. “Need help?”

I was surprised she offered, considering she was usually only a guard. “You know I don't need cannon fodder on this mission.” I joked and Jillian punched my shoulder hard. “Ow.”

“Wimp.” Jillian said with a grin. I knew she could handle herself, because I had seen it a few times and she had been put in similar situations. I was going to be concerned for her safety and I wasn't sure I could afford that.

“I can always use an extra pair of eyes, but...”

“Just because I don't have a dick, that doesn't mean I don't have balls.” Jillian said.

“Maybe.” I said with a smile. “If we go up against a vampire that might have cats as its familiar...”

Jillian lost a bit of her determination and I think she thought that I didn't trust her to have my back.

“I didn't mean that you're not trustworthy, Jillian.” I said and put my hands on her shoulders. “You've been my bodyguard how many times now? It's just that... the situation I'm going into, I... I don't want to have to worry that I'll lose you. Understand?”

“Understand what? That I've moved from bodyguard to friend and now I'm not worth having around?” Jillian almost spat at me.

“No! I'm not worth losing your life over to protect me!” I nearly yelled.

My words stopped her.

Jillian looked like a fish out of water for a minute until she shook her head. “Of course you're worth it! You are one of the most unselfish people I've ever known, David. The were-cats and the vampires owe you big time for all the things you've done for us over the years.” She said. “I don't protect you because I get paid, dammit. I do it because I want to!”

I think my heart skipped a beat, because even Jillian looked a little surprised at her admission. I smiled, reached out, and hugged her. I squeezed her a little harder than I meant to, because I heard her grunt. I let her go before I did any permanent damage.

“You should practice with that extra strength more.” Jillian said with emphasis on the extra.

“I've already asked Mikki to look for people to help with that. What I need is a teacher who is already a were-cat, so I don't have to worry about hurting them permanently.” I said and grabbed my bag. “I'm running late, so we better go. We can get cleaned up at my place.”

“Only if I get a rain check for that lunch.” Jillian said.

I smiled at her and agreed. It looked like the start of a wonderfully new working relationship between us. Now if we could only stay alive long enough to keep it, that would be great.