by Faith Hunter
A pain gripped my middle and I retched. Startled, I threw up the heated water I had just drank. That had never happened before. I was too hot. I had seldom run for so long in Beast’s form, and I was having trouble throwing off the heat. I could trot or walk for long distances, but a dead run was for the final killing sprint, when claws and teeth locked down on the hindquarters and leg tendons of escaping big prey, prey marked from a botched ambush, when dropping down from a high limb or ledge went wrong. Sprinting was for killing. Not for running city streets.
I forced myself to stand, pulled the travel pack from around my neck; it had slid during the run, choking. Unsteady, sweat slick on my skin, I made my way to the house and inside. Instantly I smelled another intruder, gone now; his scent hanging on the air was several hours old. Bruiser had paid me a visit. Dang, I was getting popular. I stumbled to the shower, tossed the now dry clothes outside the shower door and turned on the cold water, or as cold as water ever got in this heated swamp of a place. I stood under the spray, letting it wash away the stink of sweat and the gasoline I had splashed through, draining away the sick feeling. It took a long time. Longer than I expected. The shower pounded down and I drank the spray to rehydrate. Rubbed my cramping calves, one foot at a time on the corner seat. I shuddered with reaction.
No wonder the big cats native to this region were so much smaller than their Appalachian cousins had been. Heat dissipation was hard with a larger body mass. When I was finally cool, I dried off and walked to the kitchen where I ate two Snickers while cooking a big, eight-cup pot of oatmeal. I ate every bite standing up at the stove, naked and trembling and shoveling it in.
I shouldn’t have forced Beast, not made her run so long and hard. But then I’d have missed seeing the Joe search my garden. I had to find out who had given him a gate key. And take it from him. And teach him a lesson about invading my home.
My territory, Beast rumbled angrily. My den.
“Yeah. I agree totally,” I said between bites. “My territory.” No matter how temporary.
When hunger was sated enough for me to think, I twisted my hair out of the way, into a knot and long, wet ponytail, and walked through the house, scenting. Bruiser had entered from the side porch. Another interloper to deal with. Just how many keys to my freebie house and garden were there? Had Katie given them out like candy?
Bruiser had made his way through the house slowly, pausing at each of the places where I had discovered cameras. I knelt and sniffed at each; he hadn’t touched anything. Even in human form I was pretty sure his scent wasn’t on the wires or the cables. He just paused in each spot, as if studying the destruction. In the bath, he had touched the clothes hanging in the shower, still damp at the time, his scent on them stronger, as if he had inspected them for bloodstains.
His MO changed in my bedroom. He stayed by each camera longer, maybe looking around, studying, taking it in. His scent was on the handles. He had opened each drawer, looked in the closet. Touched my clothes, squeezing pockets and hems with a thoroughness that wasn’t carnal—it was a professional search. I got a chair and checked the box on the top shelf. I placed a finger on it, feeling the faint buzzing that indicated the obfuscation spell was still activated. He hadn’t touched it. But I couldn’t say the same thing about my weapons. They had been handled.
I carried the Benelli M4 Super 90 shotgun to the bed and checked it for tampering. This model M4 had been designated by the military as a Joint Service Combat Shotgun. Its steel components had a matte black, phosphated, corrosion-resistant finish; the aluminum parts were matte and hard anodized; the finish reduced the weapon’s visibility during night operations. The shotgun is considered by many experts to be nearly idiotproof. It requires little or no maintenance, operates in all climates and weather conditions, can be dumped in a lake or pond and left there for a long time and not corrode. It can fire twenty-five thousand rounds of standard ammunition without needing to have any major parts replaced. I had studied long and hard before investing in the weapon.
The Benelli, a smoothbore, magazine-fed, semiauto shotgun, is designed around the autoregulating gas-operated—ARGO—firing system, with dual gas cylinders, gas pistons, and action rods for increased reliability. Locking the barrel is achieved by a rotating bolt with two lugs. It can fire 2.75- and 3-inch shells of differing power levels without any operator adjustments and in any combination, and can be adjusted or fieldstripped without tools. It’s perfect for close-in fighting in low-light operations. It’s a totally cool weapon. Mostly, though, I just liked the fact that it was idiotproof.
The weapon was loaded for vamp with hand-packed silver-fléchette rounds made by a pal in the mountains. Fléchettes were like tiny knives, which, when fired, spread out in a widening, circular pattern, entering the target with lacerating, deadly force. The fact that each fléchette was composed of sterling silver decreased their penetrating power but made them poisonous to vamps, even without a direct hit.There was no way a vamp could cut all of them out of his body before he bled out or the silver spread through his system. I opened the cock, inspected each round with eye and nose. Bruiser hadn’t messed with the weapon except to see what I carried.
Other than camera hunting, I hadn’t been to the second story. Still naked, I followed Bruiser up there, from room to room, all four of the antique-decorated bedrooms, closets, and both baths. He was faster here. A lot faster, as if he knew I was seldom upstairs. Which was a little odd. He might guess I stayed downstairs, but how could he know?
Back downstairs, he spent a lot of time in the kitchen, especially looking in the refrigerator. Most of the original beef was gone, leaving only a few good quality sirloin steaks.
It took me some time to work through the emotional pheromones in the traces he left, but I finally settled on two. Disgust and curiosity were in his scent in equal parts. Now, why did the henchman of the head of the vamp council need to know about disabled cameras in my house? And look in my closet and drawers? My refrigerator? Had Leo sent him? If so, why?
The memory of the cave dream returned, bright and shocking in its intensity. For a moment, I was in the cave, breathing herbed smoke, shadow figures dancing on the walls. I jerked back to the now, putting out a hand for balance.
Exhausted, feeling violated at the intrusion into my home and garden, I walked from door to door, checking the locks—what little good that would do me with all the keys floating around. After that, with dawn graying the sky, I crawled into bed and was asleep instantly.
The dream came at me, slow, predatory. Slipped up, padding close, a vision of a pregnant moon, big, round, full of light, glistening on snow, reflecting back from icicles hanging from tree limbs. Stars in the sky were cold, less bright than on sickle moon nights. I was cat, but not Beast. Was myself but not quite, in the odd way of dreams. I scented the darkness, whiskers trembling, smelling the forest, alive beneath the snow but heavy with winter’s long slumber.
I sat, unmoving, short, stubby tail tucked close, staring over a pristine expanse of meadow left by white man’s fire. Pangs tore at me, hunger gripping my belly. I had hunted, had caught a rabbit days ago. Now I waited, watching for movement on snow. I had to eat or I would die.
The wind changed, lifting my fur. The frozen scent of meat came on the air. Blood. A kill, not mine, lay beneath snow. Close. Hunger clawed at my belly. I stood, opened my mouth, and pulled in scents as Edoda had taught me. Big-Cat scent was merged with the blood scent. Fear cut into hunger, fear of Big Cat. Panther. Tlvdatsi. Hope shot through me. Tlvdatsi. Edoda. I huffed hard. No. Edoda is dead. His blood scent was a cruel memory.
Grief brought the awareness that I was dreaming. An awareness that pushed me up and out of the dream, making me an observer. This is new, I thought. Not a dream. A memory. Excitement built along my nerves. In the dream/ memory, I sniffed deeply; flehmen behavior, another part of me thought, sleepily. Jacobsen’s organ, necessary for all creatures who use olfactory and pheromonal communication methods.
This
was a different cat scent, dangerous to bobcat—to we sa. To me. But the Big Cat was gone. It had hidden its kill. I crept across the snow, pausing often to crouch and to listen. To scent the wind. Gone. Big Cat had abandoned its prey.
The scent of blood grew, frozen beneath the snow. Hunger clawed at me as if alive, demanding, eat, eat, eat. The kill was shoved beneath the lip of a white and yellow rock, quartz white as snow, veined with the white man’s gold. The blood scent reached up through the snow. I unsheathed my claws and batted snow away, moon-touched fluffs flying in the dark night.
A frozen deer carcass was revealed and I tore into it with claws and sharp teeth. Eating, desperate. Blood melting and smearing across my cold fur and paws and jaws. Hunger stopped tearing into me, satisfied. And still I ate. Gorging.
Weight slammed me into carcass. Claws tore into my shoulders. Big Cat. I tried to run. My pelt ripped in her claws. The smell of my blood was hot in the night. Tlvdatsi screamed. Pawed me over, exposing my belly. I raised my paws, claws extended, ripping into her face. The scent of cubs, born out of season, was strong on her. Her blood fell onto me. Her fangs tore into my belly. Ripping. My claws slashed deep into her. Our blood mingled, running together. The snake buried in the blood of tlvdatsi opened to me. Pain tore into my heart. My breath stopped. I am dying.
I sank into the snake of the tlvdatsi. Deep. Deep. I saw where we were similar. And different. I couldn’t be Big Cat. I was too small. Darkness pushed inside me. Dying. One last clench of claw. Hopeless. Frantic.
I shivered into the snake. And stole the body of tlvdatsi. Not just the snake under her skin, to share her form. I took her. Stealing her body. Stealing her soul.
Light and cold and blood exploded through me. Tlvdatsi screamed in rage. Fighting me. Inside with me. Nononononononononono.
I took tlvdatsi. Made her mine. I shoved my memory into her skin. With her.
I/we rolled across snow. Heaving breaths. The world shifted, shuddered, quaked. I fought her for control. And I/we rose up, hunger demanding. I/we ate from her kill. My kill. Tlvdatsi screamed and raged. Eat, eat. Belly aching with need. Then, Kits. Kits. Kits.
I stopped eating when I was full. Satisfied. And big. The Beast was crouched inside tlvdatsi with me. Watching. Kits, she demanded. Showed me the path, back to her/our den. Scents, landmarks, places marked to make it ours/hers, hers/ours. Followed near the trail, in the spoor of a wolf, hiding my tracks with his. Would have to kill the wolf soon. Danger to kits.
Kits made hunger cries, chirping whistles. Squealed low-pitched. I/we followed my beast scent to den, low cave in rock, opening wide enough to crawl through, into the dark of earth, into cave. Leaves had blown in. Good den. I/we touched, licked, smelled cubs. Very young. Breath full of milk, open mouths in dark. I/we settled with them, grooming paws. Cubs pulled at us, milk teeth uncomfortable yet soothing as they nursed. Language and history and memory fell away. Buried. Beast was born.
I woke with a shudder. I was drenched in sweat, my heart an uneven trip-hammer. “Crap. What was that?” But I knew. I knew. It was a memory of my own past. It was the memory of how Beast and I ended up inside me together. I had stolen her body. And ended up with her soul, inside, with me.
Deep within, I heard Beast’s panting breaths. I tasted her anger, old and worn like a bone with nothing left inside or out, no marrow, no substance except memory.
“Dear God,” I whispered. “What did I do?”
Neither God nor Beast answered me.
This was outside the life of a skinwalker. I knew that without knowing how I knew. I had done foulest evil. I had stolen the body of a living creature. Beast had called me liver-eater.
I rose from the tangled damp sheets and stripped the bed, made it up with fresh sheets, tossing the damp ones into the corner. Stinking with flop sweat, I took a shower, standing a long time under the water as if it could really clean me. Exhausted, I climbed back in bed and pulled the sheets and coverlet over me.
Black magic. I had done black magic.
CHAPTER 15
I was still buck naked
I woke at the sound of a scream. Scream on scream. Women. In terror. Katie’s.
I was up and running before I came fully awake. Grabbing weapons and crosses from the closet. Slinging the shotgun free of its harness. I raced through the house and outside, into the half-light of predawn. Dropping crosses over my head, sticking stakes into my hair. I went over the wall without breaking stride, brick scraping my legs.
“Crap,” I grunted. I was still buck naked. Time to worry about that later. If I lived.
Katie’s back door was hanging open at an angle. Ripped from its hinges. I paused and took in the door; claw marks had scored the wood. The rogue’s compound scent was smeared on the door, the rotten reek uppermost, rank in the air. If what I had figured out in the previous long night was true, it needed to feed. Mad one. Liver-eater. Beast bristled and I growled.
I had just checked the loads, but my hands flew through the motions anyway. Satisfied, I set the stock at my shoulder and moved into the house, placing each bare foot carefully before transferring my weight forward, my hair brushing my back with each step. My breath hurt in my lungs as I tried to breathe silently after the run, unable to draw in enough air; my heart tried to slow from sprinting speed, pounding an erratic rhythm.
The sconce lights were on, but muted, dimmed for the night. I smelled blood, heard crying. Someone else gurgled with each breath, as if breathing underwater, or through a restricted airway. The blood and gurgling came from my right, the dining room, maybe.
An aborted scream tugged me the opposite direction. I took a hard breath, settling myself. Weapon muzzle leading, the butt tight to my shoulder, I moved left down the hallway. Silent, I stepped into Katie’s office. For an instant that lasted forever, I took it in.
Blood was sprayed over the walls and ceiling in huge, glistening gouts. Troll was against the wall. A lamp burned, casting the room into jagged shadows, cutting his face into planes of light and dark, his bald pate shining with sweat. He was watching across the room, cheeks red, fisted hands at his sides. Muscles straining. He grunted with effort. Immobile . Pinned, Beast thought. Not breathing; trying to get free. His skin was both flushed and gray. Tears coursed down his face.
At the desk, across the destroyed room, the rogue vamp was bent, hunched. He held Katie to his mouth, his fangs buried in her stomach. Sucking. Chewing. His hair streamed forward, hiding his face. Black hair. Dark skin showing through, coppery. Like mine. His hands were clawed—not recurved, retractile claws for catching and bringing down prey, but bird claws, for grabbing prey on the fly.
A drop of blood fell from the ceiling. Slowly. Catching the dim light. Landing on my shoulder with a soft, cold plop. I took in a breath, so heavily scented with vamp blood and rogue it was choking.
Faster than thought, pictures of possibility overlay one another in my mind. Me firing. Katie taking some of the poisonous rounds. Me racing in to place the shotgun into his side. Him stopping me with his mind. Me slapping silver crosses all over him, to watch him bubble and burn. Him stopping me with his mind. Me racing in to stake him. Him stopping me with his mind. No good alternatives. I pulled a stake from my hair. Sprinted in. Time went sluggish.
The rogue looked up. Vampy eyes, black pupils the size of dimes in crimson, bloody orbs. He lifted his mouth from Katie. Blood spouted over his face. His tongue was black.
His mind reached out, black tingles of power stinging along my skin. His mind gripped mine. Vampiric and frozen. Stop, he commanded.
Momentum fought his compulsion. I couldn’t stop. Stumbled. Beast reared up. I/we screamed. Caught my balance two steps away. Still moving. The black electric power tightened on me, gripping. Time slowed, taking on texture, thickening to a heavy, oily consistency. Feeling as if I moved underwater, my muscles stretched. I turned the stake for an underarm thrust. A killing strike as I ran. One step.
Gore coated his mouth and chin and spilled down his clo
thes. Fancy clothes. A tuxedo. A second step. He laughed. The laughter splashed over me like warm honey. Congealing over me. Stop. . . . Blackness took me. Momentum still had me in its grip. His mind . . . closed over me.
But Beast had my soul. With a scream that tore through my brain and out my throat, Beast ripped me free of his control. I crashed into the rogue. The Benelli and my body slid between his and Katie’s. She started to fall. The stake rose up on its arc from near my thigh. Lifting to slash up between us. Aimed into his belly and up, under his ribs. I caught a glimpse of his face. A man. Hawkish nose and chin. Lips pulled back from fangs on both upper and lower jaw. Not something I had ever seen before.
The air shivered. Cold. Icy. And the vamp was gone.
I fell forward, stumbling, catching myself with Beast’s reflexes. Bent-kneed, body in a half crouch, I caught Katie across my thigh. I eased her to the floor. Whirled. Whipped my head, following the rogue’s scent. His complex, compound scent changing. Beast sucked it in, over her/my tongue. Changing . . . liver-eater rot. Something else . . . rogue/not-rogue.
Troll’s breath like a bellows, ragged and hoarse as he knelt beside me. “Katie,” he said, his voice rising on the last syllable. He stopped, his hands hovering just above her, uncertain. Her dress had been ripped away, exposing small breasts with tiny pink nipples. A scar, brown and uniform, marked her upper arm. A fleur-de-lis. A brand, I realized. What the heck?
A hideous wound in her belly started at her rib cage and ended at the juts of her hip bones. Fangs had scored across her skin. A large portion of her torso on the right side was gone. Over the liver. It oozed. Katie had been eaten. “Katie,” Troll whispered. Shock and horror froze him immobile, as he had been when the rogue held him at bay. Beast’s hearing detected a faint thump.
“Her heart’s still beating,” I said, blood pumping once in her throat, up her carotid artery to her brain. “She’s still . . . with us.” Not quite alive. But not gone.
