by Renee George
Naked. I was naked! I nearly undid all his good work on my shoulder trying to yank the fur up around my breasts.
He didn’t seem in the least fazed. “I sent word to town after I transported you here. Ruth brought you a fresh set of clothes. Yours were shredded pretty badly. They had to be removed so I could make sure you didn’t have any more injuries.”
I appreciated the clinical way he spoke about treating me. He was an old guy after all, probably like an elder or something. My modesty should be the least of my concern. “Who are you? And where is Babel? If you sent back word to town, how come Ruth came and Babel didn’t? Why am I fooling myself? So we’d had a one-afternoon stand. No commitments. Hell, I’d even told him as much by word and deed. Plus, I’d told him about my abilities, which I’m sure he thought means I’m insane.” Suddenly, I stopped talking and stared at the old guy. “Did I just say that out loud?”
He nodded. His mouth formed a small smile, a little teeth. Very white. Like the rest of the townsfolk. “I’m the town’s shaman.”
A shaman? “So, do I just call you Shaman? Like, is that your name?” Maybe I had misunderstood.
“Shaman is my title. Name’s Billy Bob Smith. You can call my Billy Bob.”
I snorted. “Shaman Billy Bob?” I laughed and wished I hadn’t. It made my shoulder hurt worse. “Seriously. Billy Bob?”
He sighed. Heavily. I couldn’t blame him. I was sort of being an ass.
“I’m sorry. That was very rude of me.”
“It’s okay.”
“So, Billy Bob.” I tried to hold back the smirk when I said his name again. “Is this your teepee or something? Do you live here?” Seemed like awfully small living quarters.
“No. My house is just up the hill. This is a sweat lodge. It helps purge your body, giving you the ability to heal quicker.”
“Again. Seriously?”
“Seriously.” He poured more water over the pit.
The steam actually felt really good, comforting. Like a wet hug. I didn’t really believe the whole “purging” theory, but I was alive, and as long as I didn’t move around too much, I didn’t feel all that bad.
“Sooo…Billy Bob.” I giggled. I couldn’t help it.
He sighed again. “Yes, Sunny.”
Well, of course he knew my name. He’d obviously talked to Ruth and who knew who else from the town. “How bad’s my shoulder?”
“The muscle was torn to the bone, but you didn’t have any nerve or tendon damage.”
“You sound like a doctor.”
“I am. Medical school in Columbia and a three-year internship in general medicine at the VA hospital.”
I giggled again. I felt a little…high. “What did you give me?” I smiled.
“I put a Demerol patch on your back to help you manage the pain when you woke. It’s a two-day patch, so you should be good for another day.”
“I’ve been here a day?”
“And night. You were pretty out of it.” He stood and had to stoop to keep from hitting his head on the top of the tent. If possible, he was taller than Babel.
Babel. Had I asked about Babel? Where was he?
“I found you in the ditch yesterday morning. You had me worried for a while.”
“Let me get this straight. Your official title then is Doctor Shaman Billy Bob?” I sniggered again.
Billy Bob shook his head. Obviously he needed his own Demerol patch to appreciate me. “Rest now, Sunny. Sleep. Sleep will help you heal.”
He left the tent after putting a few hot stones into the pit and adding more water. His advice seemed good, sound even. I took it.
I felt the lick of a rough tongue on my shoulder, and I reached out, filling my hands with warm, thick fur. My eyes fluttered open. I stared into the eyes of the big beast that had saved my life. Its blue eyes were intense and almost human in the way they expressed worry. The beast licked my injured shoulder again.
“I’m all right,” I said. I wasn’t feeling any pain. I stroked the beautiful fur, so much softer against my fingertips than I imagined. The animal that had attacked me, the fur was coarse and cool to touch, but not this one. He—yes, it was a he—was luxurious to touch.
Having him so close felt like home—felt safe. He nudged me over with his muzzle until I made room for him to snuggle down next to me. He lay his head across my stomach, and together we slept.
When I woke up again, I wondered if the blue-eyed coyote had been dream or vision, or maybe a little of both. All I knew for sure was that a part of me that I didn’t understand felt a painful loss at his absence.
Shaman Billy Bob was back. I’d sensed him hovering before I even opened my eyes.
“I’m alive,” I said.
“I had no doubt.” I could hear the amusement in his voice.
“How long was I out this time?”
“Six hours.”
Jeezus. “I can’t believe I’m still tired.”
“It’s the pain meds.” He reached down, his hands firm and unlined, that of a younger man.
The patch tugged at the skin on my shoulder as he peeled it off.
“That a good idea?” I wasn’t in much pain, but I wondered how I’d feel when the good ju-ju wore off.
“You’re healing well. Better than expected. I think we can switch you over to something less…potent. Like ibuprofen.”
I sighed, closing my eyes. “Spoilsport.”
A rustling at the edge of the blanket made me open them back up. The white-eared dog, which I now knew was probably a coyote, or at least a figment of a coyote, rested at my feet. “Oh, you again. Go away. You’re not real.” There was a big part of me disappointed it wasn’t my blue-eyed boy.
The shaman gazed at me curiously.
I shook my head. “Don’t mind me.” I nodded to the patch he held. “Good drugs,” I said by way of excuse.
He walked around the edge of my blanket, and I jumped when he stepped through Fido. He knelt down beside me and felt my head. “No fever.”
“Is that your professional opinion?”
“You’re funny.” He didn’t smile, those spectacular gray eyes of his gazing wearily at me. “Do you see the spirit?”
“Huh?” Maybe we were both nut-jobs. “You see it too?”
He shook his head. “No.”
Great! I’d just admitted to a perfect stranger I was seeing things. Shaman Billy Bob was a tricky sucker.
“I don’t see it either.” Hah! Two could play this game.
He basically ignored me. “Chavvah told me you were powerful. That you can see a spirit is powerful earth magic. I have felt its presence since I brought you here.”
“Uh, sure. Okay.” Chavvah had talked to him about me. Why? What did this old man know about me? About her?
“Tell me about the spirit,” he said.
“Tell me about Chav. Were you friends with her?” I chewed my lip, contemplating the ramifications of telling Billy Bob what I knew. I wanted tit for tat. He had been close enough to Chav that she told him about me. Maybe he knew something that could help me find her.
I glanced at the ghost or whatever it was. It moved its head onto my leg. He didn’t have any weight to him, which made sense. He isn’t real, I reminded myself. “Dog-like animal, reddish-brown fur, white ear…” It looked up at me. “Green-blue eyes.”
“I see.” He sat cross-legged on the ground beside me. “Judah.”
I snapped my gaze to Billy Bob. “You mean…he’s really dead.” I’d known, but I hadn’t known for sure. I would have to tell Babel. Oh, God. I didn’t know if I could. Rubbing my arms, I fought to ward off the chill forming inside me.
“I’m afraid so.” His lips were pursed in thought. “The white ear. It’s most likely him.”
Great. I was having a whole Haley Joel Osment, I-see-dead-people moment. Though in my case, it was dead animals.
“This means something, Sunny.”
“Ya th
ink?” I still didn’t get it. I’d seen Judah in my visions as a man. “Why does his…er…spirit look like a dog? Please don’t tell me when we die we become animals.” If that were true, after death, I’d probably come to on the ethereal plane as a platypus or something.
“I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to listen, really listen, and take it in.”
His voice was so serious and somber, I simply nodded.
“Judah was a therianthrope of the Canis latrans variety, known to humans as coyote.”
I searched the databases in my head, trying to grasp ahold of anything resembling sense. “Therianthrope? Thrope. Like lycanthrope? Like werewolves?” It couldn’t be that.
Billy Bob cleared his throat and said stiffly, “There’s only one lycan in this area. The rest are all therian.”
“Oh sure.” I’d spent my entire life having people laugh at me in disbelief when they found out I was psychic, so I should’ve been less skeptic, but come on! Being psychic is way more feasible then being able to turn into an animal. “So…Judah’s a werecoyote and…” I was trying. Really, really trying.
Demerol high or no Demerol high, there weren’t enough pharmaceutical drugs in all the world to convince me that shapeshifters were real, and frankly, the topic was starting to scare me. “And his ghost, in coyote form, is haunting me. I get it. No problem. I think I’m feeling much better. Does Amtrak run through anywhere close?” He hadn’t answered my questions about Chav, but at this point, I didn’t care. I wanted away as fast as possible.
“Sunny, I know this is difficult to believe for a human.”
There, he’d said it again. He’d said “human” as if he wasn’t.
He’d picked up a stick, absently drawing symbols in the dirt beside me. “Judah wants and needs your help. Otherwise he wouldn’t have attached himself to you. And the fact that you can see him should be proof of that. Besides, I think he may hold the key to finding out what happened to Chavvah.” He averted his gaze and bit his lower lip. “You haven’t seen a coyote with gray-blue eyes, have you?”
“No, just the one with the white ear. But in my defense, I’d never seen a coyote in my life until I came here.”
Billy Bob let out the breath he’d been holding. “Fair ’nuff.” He nodded. “Let’s focus on Judah. He has come to you for a reason. You have to figure out why.”
I couldn’t argue with the fact I could see this thing—I refused to call him Judah—but I still wasn’t sure if it was a hallucination. And who was the coyote with gray-blue eyes? Chav had gray eyes. Did Billy Bob believe she was the same therianthrope, animal-shifting thing that Judah was?
I leaned toward Billy Bob and touched his hand. Immediately, I was somewhere else.
Out in the deep woods, the smell of earth and spring grass scented the air. A middle-aged man with short gray hair sat with a young boy, also gray-haired, on a log near a trickling creek.
The boy looked up at the older man. “Grandfather, why are all the wolves leaving.”
Grandfather? The man didn’t look much past forty, while the boy was at least twelve.
The older man stared off into the trees. “It’s no longer safe for them. Nor us. Men have come to hunt them. It means they hunt us as well.”
“I don’t want to leave our home.” The boy’s mood soured with every word.
“Home is where you make it, Billy Bob. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
The wild scents left, the breeze went away, the serene creek, all of it, gone. I found myself staring into the intense face of the shaman.
He held my hand carefully, like handling a snake. Very un-Shaman-like he said, “That was freaky.”
“What?” I was still adjusting to being back in the sweat lodge.
“Do you have some kind of seizure disorder?” Apparently the shaman was gone and the doctor was in.
I knew from other people that when I went into a vision, sometimes my body shook, my eyes would roll back, and it could look pretty bad, but not always.
“No. I…” Oh, hell, why was I trying to explain myself to him? He was a few brain cells short anyhow, believing in were-creatures and all. Actually though, it dawned on me, his belief in the paranormal might work in my favor. “You said that Chavvah told you about my abilities, right?”
“Yes, sort of. Go on.” He nodded and waited for me to continue.
“Well, sometimes when I have a vision, my whole body gets involved. It’s as if the vision triggers a grand mal seizure, but it’s not really a seizure.” I wasn’t too concerned about him not believing me. I got the feeling the shaman believed in a whole lot of shit without much convincing.
I waited for Billy Bob to go off on some mystical explanation, but he just raised an eyebrow and stared at me curiously. “Interesting.”
“That’s it. Interesting?”
“And you had a psychic episode just now?”
“Yes.”
Now, I wanted to tell him everything. Billy Bob made me feel relaxed and safe. I didn’t feel as if he was judging me. Granted, it could’ve just been the pain medication still in my system, but I wanted to trust him.
“I saw you.”
His eyes widened appreciably.
Throwing caution to the wind, I told him everything I’d seen.
“I see,” Billy Bob finally said after a few moments of awkward silence. “This changes things even more, Sunny. When Chavvah had talked about bringing you to Peculiar, I was reluctant to support her wishes, but she felt so strongly, I agreed. But now that I see your ability is real and special, I think you were brought to Peculiar for a reason.”
“I wasn’t brought to Peculiar. No one or nothing brought me here. I drove to town all on my own volition.” I didn’t want to believe what Billy Bob was saying. Not about Peculiar, not about me, and not about Chav having a larger reason than friendship for wanting me to come here. But I had felt drawn to the place, hadn’t I? Even before I drove into town.
Suddenly, I felt alone. More than ever I wished Chavvah was here. She grounded me. Kept me centered. The only other person…A twinge of tightness in my chest made it hard to breath. Where was Babel? Why wasn’t he next to me right now? He’d said that he was drawn to me, ached for me like no one else, but I’d been in this damn sweat tent for three days and he was nowhere to be seen.
Fucking men!
“This is serious business, Sunny.”
Damn right it was. “Yeah, seriously fucked-up.” Had I said that aloud? I must have, if the disapproval showing in Shaman Billy Bob’s eyes was any indication.
“Judah’s disappearance has been a mystery. I think if he’s dead, he wants to be found so he can be put to rest. And I also think he can help us find Chavvah.”
“Dead,” I said dully, feeling a little shocky. Oh God. Could it be true? My hands, trembling, went to my mouth. How would I tell my friend when I found her…and Babel?
“You can see things that are beyond our abilities as shifters. I think Chavvah was right. I believe you were meant for this town.”
How could he so readily accept my psychic prowess? It had taken me the better part of my pubescent years to come to terms with it. And just because he believed me, didn’t mean I would automatically believe him. I mean, yeah, weird stuff had happened since I’d been in Peculiar, being attacked by a wild animal was just the topper. But ghosts? Were-people? People who could take animal forms?
As if he could read my thoughts, Billy Bob said, “If I prove to you that therianthropes and lycanthropes exist, will you at least try to believe everything else I’ve told you?”
“That seems reasonable.” What was I saying? Reasonable-shmeasonable. What possible proof could he offer?
Shaman Billy Bob stood up and started to disrobe.
Oh, man! He was going to get naked. He was probably all old and wrinkly under the makeup and clothes. I didn’t want to see a wrinkly old guy’s body. “What are you doing?”
“I
don’t want to get tangled when I shift.” The fur he wore around his shoulders hit the ground.
He was decidedly not old and not wrinkly in the chest. On the contrary, his muscles were smooth and wiry. Lithe even. He turned his back to me, then off went the leather trousers. His ass was shapely, firm and raised. You could bounce quarters off those buttocks. His body was that of a runner or swimmer. Taller than Babel and quite a bit leaner.
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “You ready.”
“Uh, sure.” I mostly expected nothing to happen, but he was easy on the eyes, which made it no problem to keep watching.
The air shimmered around him. I’d say it was a trick of the light casting off from the fire, but it was solely concentrated on him.
A thick push of air breathed over my body as his skin danced, dark gray and white fur sprouting like tumbling skinny dominoes covering his entire body. In half fascination, half shock, I stared as he turned and his nose elongated slightly, but not completely wolfish.
Gray eyes stared back at me, so human. In the next second, he dropped to all fours, his body shimmering into full-on gray wolf. I gasped. “Holy sweet mother.”
The wolf sniffed around me. Absently, I reached for its thick fur. I needed to feel it, to know I wasn’t crazy. It was remarkably soft and dry to touch, much like the coyote had been in my dream. And warm.
The fur disappeared out of my hand, and kneeling before me, Billy Bob once again looked human. His gray dreads dragged the dirt floor as he titled his face upward to me and, even more shocking, the face paint was gone and he wasn’t the old man I’d imagined. The unlined skin on his chiseled face nearly took my breath away.
He was beautiful, manly beautiful, but beautiful all the same. Babel was ruggedly handsome, while Billy Bob’s face could have easily graced a Calvin Klein ad. He was the Jason Momoa of the Midwest. Wowza.
“Is that enough proof?” he finally asked.
Judah whined. I’d nearly forgotten the ghost coyote. I looked over at him and he yelped a bark. Tingles shot through my fingertips, lips, and tongue. I felt lightheaded.
“Sunny?”
