by Faith Hunter
“If there are no undumb questions, meeting adjourned.”
CHAPTER 9
It Was a Girly Scream
Eli drove home slowly, watching behind us and up and down the streets we passed. “Problems?” I asked.
“We’re being followed. Three vehicles—two black or charcoal SUVs and one black four-door coupe. They’re playing ABC with cars.” ABC was a method of tailing a subject using a three-man team. In cars it meant each vehicle altered its position according to a prearranged system. The method was difficult to detect because the target subject was never given long enough to recognize any team member. It was hard enough to detect on foot. In cars, with traffic, it was near impossible. Eli was better than impossible. In the ABC system, the A vehicle followed the subject car. B followed A, and C paralleled either A or B. When the parade reached an intersection, C would speed up and cross or turn ahead of the target. This allowed the C vehicle to keep the subject vehicle in view in case it turned unexpectedly.
As C turned the corner, A would slow down, while B sped up to take A’s place. After a decent interval, A would pull out, find B’s back, and tail him. It could get complicated. “Cars?” I asked.
“A is behind us. B is the charcoal SUV a block back, and C is on Royal. You want me to lose them?”
I remembered the black SUV I had thought might be tailing me earlier and grinned. “Nah. Let’s play with them.”
Eli chuckled and made several fast turns, which had us going back the way we had come, the C car, which had tried to keep up with the turns, in front of us. I took down the tag number. Moments later, the C car pulled away and down a side street at speed. The two other cars veered off as well, knowing they had been made. Meanwhile, I texted the Kid with the license number and Eli turned back toward home.
Fun, Beast murmured deep inside, to hunt prey with metal bones and bad-tasting blood. Hunt prey now with blood and flesh to tear and eat?
“Yeah,” I said aloud. “Keep the engine running when we get home. I’m going hunting.”
Eli pulled up in front of the house and got out, grabbing an armful of my fighting leathers from the backseat as he did. “Be safe,” he said as I slid over the gear console and into the driver’s seat. I waved my agreement and took off. After a complicated set of turns to make sure I hadn’t been tailed again, I headed across the river. I had three hours, more or less, until dawn. Beast needed to hunt.
• • •
I woke on path with dirt under belly and paws. Studied place. Jane had picked good spot to change. Tall grasses and deep shadows. Strange bent and stunted swamp trees. No standing water fallen from sky—from rain. Smelled of fish and rotten things and snake and skunk and opossum and scat of bobcat. Wesa, bobcat, had marked territory on tree. I chuffed with laughter. Jane had been Wesa when she took big-cat’s form and soul. Jane as Wesa had been strong, good fighter.
Looked for Jane in den of mind. She slept. I, Beast, pressed paw onto her and forced her deeper into sleep. Jane did not know Beast could do this. There was much that Jane did not know. Beast could not decide what to tell her. How to tell her. Was confusing. Jane was like Wesa. And not. Jane could need to know much of what Beast knew. But much would hurt her. Chuffed out breath. Confused. Did not like confused.
Hunger gripped belly like Wesa claws. Was not confused at hunger. Understood hunger. Stood and stepped over pile of Jane clothes on ground. Stopped. Looked back at thing on top of Jane-shirt. Was supposed to smell thing from fight, thing like scale of fish. Lowered head and snuffled, nostrils fluttering. Opened mouth and pulled in air over tongue and roof of mouth in soft scree of sound, taking scent deep.
Strange thing smelled of fish and snake and water of Mississippi. Smelled of burning green things. Knew this creature. Had smelled one before, many years in past, during start of hunger times, when white man had killed off all animals and cut down all trees, and land itself washed away in rains. Beast had wanted hunter out of territory. Wanted snake/fish/winged-like bat hunter of prey gone. Wanted it dead. But it was too big to fight. Fangs were full of bad things, smelled of danger.
Beast had thought like Jane. Had shared part of kill with creature. It crawled from small pool of water and ate deer. Then flashed with light, like sun. When light went dark, it was standing on two legs, upright, like human. But creature did not smell like human. Smelled like this, fish, snake, water, and fire-burning-grass.
Beast had taken thing-of-light to mouth of river, to show it water-path to bigger water and safety, far away from Beast hunting territory. Beast was not being-doing-thinking emotion that Jane called kind. Just wanted thing-of-light-that-ate-prey gone.
Creature was happy and swam away, leaving Beast’s hunting territory. Should remind Jane of this. Thing had scales like fish. Like snake. Like this. But could change shape. Like Jane. But was not like Jane. Did not smell like skinwalker.
With teeth, Beast pulled shirt over scale. Hiding it. Patted it with paw.
Yawned. Stretched hard, pulling on front legs and chest and down belly. Felt good, except for Jane gobag on Beast-neck. Did not like bag, but bag held Jane-clothes. Did not understand Jane. Jane could grow pelt but would not. Jane did not like pelt. Jane liked clothes.
Silent, moving with night wind, I, Beast, trotted into darkness.
• • •
Later, lay on bank of small pond, water still and unmoving. Not creek, fast and falling through mountains, not bayou, slow and crawling through swamp. But still and muddy and deep. Good place to catch and kill sleeping alli-gator. Alli-gator. Jane-word for big predator in water. But Beast was smart. Did not hunt and try to catch big alli-gator. Leaped on small one and caught it in jaws. Fought it. Dragged it to shore by back leg. When Beast let go, little gator whipped back and bit Beast. Took bite of Beast skin from Beast, at place where leg met belly. Now smelled Beast blood on air. Licked wound. Hurt. But had learned how to hunt predator with many killing teeth.
Should not grab leg. Would be smarter to grab gator-face and jaw and muzzle when gator-mouth was closed. And bite down. Hard. Breaking gator-jaw. Pull snake with legs and many teeth to shore. Then could play with injured gator like playing with rabbits.
But did not think big gator would be so easy. If big alli-gator bit Beast, Beast would die. Did not want to die in many pieces in gator-belly. Chuffed. Wanted to live. Did not want to hunt gator again. Small one was enough. It was long as Beast and tail. I pawed gator-foot. Lowered head and bit it. Crunch of claws and bone and thick skin and scales. Tasted like frog-fish-snake. Beast belly was full, and all good meat gone. Buzzards would eat rest. Buzzards and big rats called nutria.
Beast rose and pawed rest of dead alli-gator. Moved its teeth into moonlight. Was good predator, good hunter. But Beast was best hunter.
Felt magic, like Jane’s magic, but not Jane’s. It tingled through air, foreign, strange magic, full of green lights and good smells of blood. It smoothed along pelt. Beast looked up, into night, saw lights, like Jane’s light, but not Jane’s light. Light reached into Beast, to touch Jane’s gray place of change. It wanted gray place, full of power. Beast leaped, high into air and away from light-thing. Growled. Light-thing pulled away, watching Beast. Was same light-thing that bit Leo and Gee. Light-thing had followed Jane and Beast. Had been watching. Like hunter of prey. Beast is not prey! Beast raised head and screamed. Go away! Go away, magic snake. This is Beast’s place. Go away!
Magic coiled back, like rattlesnake on rock, faded like moonlight into fog. Was gone.
Beast padded along pond and lay down facing water. Facing sunrise. Lay down and thought of Jane. But did not know if Beast should tell Jane of magic. Was better that Jane did not know? Was better to keep Jane like kit, safe in den? Jane did not know many things. Must think like Jane. Must decide.
• • •
I woke facing a pond and a pair of gator eyes. I jumped backward from prone to standing in one move. I hadn’t even known I could do that. I screamed a little when I landed. I was pretty su
re it was a girly scream and I was really glad Eli hadn’t heard it. He’d razz me forever.
The gator was huge and staring right at me. Tiny bumps broke the water for twelve feet behind it. “Holy crap,” I whispered. “Beast, I’ll freaking kill you.” At the sound of my voice, the gator’s long tail twitched slightly, sending ripples over the smooth, muddy surface.
Deep inside, my Beast chuffed and rolled over. And closed her eyes.
“Faker,” I muttered.
I unsnapped the gobag and pulled out a pair of pants made of thin material, a soft T-shirt, flip-flops, and a hoodie. I had forgotten to pack panties, which I didn’t need but which made me more comfortable. As I moved, I felt the odd place on my chest where the light-dragon scale had rested. The tingling was gone, as was the lingering pain of abdominal muscles twisted out of shape, into a half-cat form. All good and normal, including the hunger that gripped me. I dressed and nudged Beast when I saw the remains of the small gator. Did you kill that?
Beast yawned and showed me her canines. Beast is best hunter.
Uh-huh. I smell your blood. How badly were you hurt?
Beast turned away and ignored me. Dang cat.
Am not dang cat. Am Beast.
I looked at the pond. And that is an alligator. A huge alligator.
Know alli-gator. Alli-gator is not important. Know creature of light. Creature is important. Creature was shape-changer, like Jane but not like Jane. Not skinwalker. A memory of a denuded world, rock, bare earth, and withered tree limbs appeared in Beast’s memory. It was familiar but distant, like a scene from a book I read long ago. I was inside Beast’s head, watching a light-dragon eat a hank of raw deer, its energies coruscating and shadowed both, its snake tail whipping a small, tree-choked pond as it ate. It was summer, and in the memory I could smell the deer, ripe and going bad. Beast shared her memories as the thing, the rainbow thing, emitted a burst of white light and changed shape. It took on the form of a two-legged female. Almost human. Almost.
“Son of a gun,” I muttered. “I remember that. I remember you feeding it. How many of those things are there?” I asked her.
Beast knows many things, she thought at me. Have thought like Jane. Have decided like Jane. Jane must know.
Okay. Confusion melted along my bones, feeling like the aftereffect of magic, or maybe like worry. Just how much was Beast hiding from me?
Before hunger times, were many light-beings, Beast thought. Before white man dumped his waste into rivers and creeks, were many. Before white man cut and killed forest, were many. Before white man stopped rivers and creeks and made lakes, were many. Light-creatures lived in waterfalls, in fast streams that raced over rocks. Most humans did not see, but shamans and magic users could see. Big-cats could see. Pack hunters could see. Deer, fox, bison could see. Light-beings lived in water, played in water. Did not hurt Beast. Beast did not hurt them.
Softly I said, “When the white man came, he brought changes and disease and death to the people and the landscape and the environment. Everything the white man touched was ruined or damaged or killed or wiped off the face of the Earth. And that included the magical beings, the beings of mythology that died or went into hiding. Beings that used to share the Earth were destroyed and vanished into the oral tradition.”
When Beast didn’t answer, I finished dressing and headed back to my clothes and the car. Beast had wandered for a while, and I was well chewed by mosquitoes and had splinters and thorns in my feet when I finally spotted the clothes and, just beyond them, the SUV Leo had loaned me. Beast, paying attention to me for the first time since she revealed the light-being memory, thought my sore feet were sad. Should have paws and claws and killing teeth, she thought. Jane is stupid kit.
Hunting in the brushy, marshy, swampy land west of the Mississippi was easier now that I knew the terrain and knew where I could leave my vehicle without the locals wondering what was up. Some of the back roads in Louisiana, especially this far south, were little used, not much more than sinking tracks in the wet ground. Others were already underwater by as much as two feet. According to reports by the Army Corps of Engineers and any other government agency that cared to comment, South Louisiana was sinking fast, thanks to man changing how the rivers flowed, keeping their waters in place behind levees. With rising sea levels, most of the coastal regions would be underwater in a century, unless something drastic changed. Which wasn’t likely.
As usual, my vehicle had remained safe overnight, except for the fact that it was now mired down in the mud. Fortunately, the armored vehicle came with a heavy-duty winch, which I knew how to use. However, I was covered in mud and irritated beyond measure, both of which Beast found highly amusing, by the time I had the SUV free.
Mad at the world, not knowing what to do with what I knew, I stopped at a mom-and-pop grocery and glared down the aging couple’s stares at my filthy condition, as I bought most of the breakfast sandwiches they had made. I ate all ten egg-and–Andouille sausage rolls on the way home. Traffic was light. One good thing out of the morning.
I was home, stripped, cleaned up, and in bed, flopping onto the mattress in a boneless heap. The smell of catnip was everywhere in the house, a thick, heavy scent that had both of my souls purring. Every breath a sensual indulgence, I slid into sleep.
• • •
I woke tangled in my own hair, my head pulled back and pinned beneath me, the bane of hair that had never been cut. I had forgotten to braid it before I plopped on the bed. Yanking on my scalp, I managed to roll over and out of bed and to the bedroom door, where Alex was knocking. I could tell it was him by the tentative taps and the stench wafting under the door. I double-checked to make sure I was dressed—and saw a pair of new sleep shorts and an old tee. I was sorta presentable. Sleeping in clothes had become mandatory since the guys moved in.
I twisted the knob and said, “What’s up, Stinky?”
The Kid, standing there with three tablets in hand, lifted an arm and sniffed. Sounding guilty and defensive, he said, “I bathed.”
“Day before yesterday, maybe.” Eli and I were trying to teach the brilliant but late-blooming teenager to take regular showers. We had been doing pretty well until now. “No pizza this week. Now whaddaya want?”
“Two things. I got the video of the light-thing attacking your SUV, and the video of it and you guys fighting at fanghead HQ. Where do you want it to go?”
“Send it to my e-mail and to Soul at PsyLED.” When he looked at me in shock, I said, “Soul knows stuff about them. I want her input.” I’d rather have her input here, now, but I figured her arrival was going to be a waiting game. Meanwhile, I’d play bait and hook, offer a bit and tease with more to get her here sooner, whet her appetite. “What else?”
“The Otis people are certifying that the mechanical parts of the elevator itself are working perfectly, but because of the electrical surges and brownouts from the building’s electrical system, which is misdirecting the cage, they’ve shut down the elevator until they can figure out what’s going wrong. Eli said he’s been down the shaft and he smells ozone and something burning on the lower levels, like wires and bad meat. He didn’t go exploring where he shouldn’t, but he wants security to check all the wiring in the basements, including the deepest subbasements where no one goes. His descent proved that there are five, by the way. But Leo said no.”
“They woke him up to ask that? In the middle of his night? After he’d been bitten by a giant dragon? And he said no? Gee, wonder why?”
“You wake up snarky.”
I raked my fingers across my scalp and through my hair, catching on snarls, which hurt. But it was marginally better than belting the Kid. “Tell Eli to get the security team to walk around the lower levels that are accessible to them. If they spot something, Derek can deal with it. And tell Eli to get home and get some sleep. We’ll ask Leo about the subbasements tonight.” I started to push the door closed but the Kid stuck his hand in the way. “What?”
“You got a te
xt.” He handed my cell through the crack in the door. “It’s from Rick.”
I froze, holding the official cell, the bullet-resistant one, with the titanium lid and Kevlar cover. I could feel the tiny devices the Kid had loaded into the fancy cover. Stuff I had never used. They were hard and rounded beneath my fingertips.
“I know it’s none of my business, but Bruiser loves you,” Alex said, sounding terrified but determined. “He sends you presents. He waited on you when you wouldn’t let Rick go.”
Cold, air-conditioned air hurt the back of my throat. My fingers closed on the cell phone. It was frigid, and I remembered dropping some of my clothes in a heap in the foyer, beside the air-conditioning vent, the cell on top.
“You need to let Rick go,” Alex said, his voice a distant, muffled roar inside my skull. “I know broken hearts take time to heal and all that sh—crap, but you’ve waited long enough. You need to start living again. And stop being such a little girl.” The door closed in my face and I stood there holding the cell. The cover was open, the blinking red light telling me that I had a text.
“There’s nothing wrong with being a little girl,” I said to the closed door. “Sometimes it keeps me safe. I know a lot of big macho men who’d still be alive if they’d been a little more like a little girl.” That didn’t seem like enough, so I shouted, “That was sexist!”
“Deal with it!” Alex shouted back.
Holding the cell as if it were a bomb—and maybe it was—I crossed to the bed and sat in the pile of tangled sheets. After a moment I activated the screen and opened the text. Hey, darlin’. Checking in. I’m on sabbatical from PsyLED. Am in mountains in national park. Am okay. Will call you soon.
On sabbatical. In the mountains, where his black were-leopard mate could hunt and roam in cat shape. Where he could do the same if she had managed to free him of the magic that kept him in human form, unable to shift into his were-cat. His mate . . . And he had called me Darlin’. Again. So much in that short text, and so little. And . . . why would Rick even think I’d care where he was? Rick had always been a player, too good-looking for his own good. A chick magnet. And he likely always would be. I considered my heart, my once-broken heart. And it was fine. Not broken anymore. How ’bout that?
