The Tiger's Tale

by Nara Malone

  “Give it your best shot.”

  Adam tipped his head back. There was a dent in the ceiling tile above him. Lilly scrabbled in the corner of her pen. When he looked her way she ducked under her baby blanket, her fluffy tail still visible just under the pink satin edging.

  “Adam?”

  “Hmm? Right. I think Marie is an aberration, an abandoned Pantherian baby that developed the white tiger mutation in the random way any mutation develops.” Adam yawned. He hadn’t slept in two days. He tried to keep the rest of the explanation brief.

  “My father thinks it’s likely a pair of Pantherian males mated with a naturally occurring human chimera. It’s possible such a female could conceive in a Pantherian triad. The unique aspects of Marie’s genetics could have come from that combination. The unexpected pregnancy would never have been believed by the fathers. The mother found herself in a bad situation, couldn’t raise her baby. You can take it from there.”

  Ean tossed his pencil on the desk and leaned forward. “She wouldn’t have multiples?”

  Adam shrugged. “Who knows? It seems unlikely she’d have one baby, but not impossible. If she had twins, it wouldn’t have caused any unusual notice. But we are not talking about a situation with any unique markers that could stand out and point to Marie’s parents.” He looked around again. “Now, about my lab?”

  “Most of this stuff is your supplies. We had to get them out of the way to get the nursery ready.”

  “And the rest of it?” He tapped the box he was sitting on.

  “Diapers, formula, car seats. Babies need a lot of gear.”

  “And you couldn’t put some of the gear in the garage?”

  “We did.”

  Adam pinched the bridge of his nose. The beginnings of a headache throbbed behind his eyes.

  “We’ll sort it out better tomorrow.” Ean stood up and stretched. “So we’re at a dead end with Marie’s biological parents?”

  Adam led the way out of the lab and up the stairs into the kitchen. “I can’t think of any new avenues to investigate.” He shouldn’t feel annoyed about the lab. It wasn’t like they were packing him up and moving him out of his house. But it felt that way.

  Adam paused at the dining room door. He was surprised Marie wasn’t under the table. The soft murmur of the television led him down the hall.

  Maya dozed, tucked under a blanket on the couch, while an infomercial for wrinkle cream blared. Ean turned off the set. The drapes drawn over the sliding door flapped.

  “Why is the door to the deck open?” Adam asked.

  “Marie’s been restless all evening. It’s the only place she would settle.” The deck was screened so they’d let her out whenever she wanted. She particularly liked to be out in the evenings. Adam went to call her in and the words froze in his throat. The screen at the far end of the deck was shredded. Marie wasn’t there.

  Chapter Ten

  It was an icy snow, little pellets that stung when she inhaled. It hissed and swirled around her. The drifts were cool against her aching paws. A faint light filtered through, edging the black night toward a milky dawn. Marie wanted to be away before the light came. Need pressed her. She waited on the riverbank for the slow tightening across her belly to peak, then ease back. She slipped into the water, the ice cold easing the ache in her swollen nipples and swollen body. Her skin had stretched so tight over her growing belly Marie thought it might part down the middle like a zipper if she dared breathe too deep.

  She wanted to stay there, float in the swirling pool, but anxiety gnawed. She needed to find a place, something dark, private, away from others. She scrambled up the opposite bank and moved into the woods. The tightening came again, the episodes moving closer together. The Marie she recognized slipped further away with each contraction, and the tiger instinct, a more primitive knowledge, took over.

  She tipped her head and sniffed the breeze. Her fur rose. She wasn’t alone in the woods. Men. Two men and their dogs. Her heart quickened and she pressed on, not stopping when the pain rose.

  * * * * *

  The snow dwindled to flurries making her easier to track. The sun was rising, a milky presence behind pregnant clouds. Ean wished he could drag it from the sky and bury it or at least bring the storm back in a driving sheet. The wind carried the scent of men and dogs. Hunting season had ended a month ago. And while he could track Marie without light and through the snow, those two protections from the hunters were gone.

  He pulled his jacket zipper higher. The cold he normally relished left him numb to the bone this morning.

  Just ahead of him Adam stopped. When Ean caught up, he saw Marie had changed course, crossing the river she’d been running parallel to.

  “Her pace is slowing here and she’s been stopping at regular intervals. The distance between stops is shrinking.”

  “Labor’s accelerating.” Ean squinted at the other side of the river. A distant, excited yip broke the morning quiet and a chorus of baying joined in.

  Fear and adrenaline spurted through Ean. His heart was doing the equivalent of a spinout in his chest. Adam grabbed his shoulders.

  “If we’re going to protect her Ean, we have to be smart. Remember that. Promise me.”

  Ean was panting, straining to hold himself in place while his body screamed at him to shift and shred every last threat to Marie. He nodded.

  “She’s headed for the barn. Go up river.” Adam peeled out of his jacket. “A few yards ahead, the river narrows and you can cross over the rocks. You’ll find the main trail from there. You’ll recognize it.” He fished a cell phone from the back pocket of his jeans. “Call Maya and have her drive the truck to you. Tell her what you need her to bring for the birthing.”

  “Marie will not have our babies in a barn.” His voice was embarrassingly shrill, a child’s voice.

  “Just in case.” He patted Ean’s arm.

  “Maya can’t drive,” Ean argued. “It’s not allowed. Driving’s dangerous. I doubt she even knows where to put the key.”

  Adam ripped his shirt open sending buttons flying.

  “Maya can drive. The snow will be a challenge for her but you’d be surprised what she can do.”

  He was working his way out of his boots. “We need that truck. You can talk her through. Go.”

  “Adam, let me deal with them. Marie needs you to shift her for the birthing.”

  The jeans went next.

  “I know the area better. Besides, when they see you shifted, they see an ordinary tiger and they will shoot without a thought. When they see me…they aren’t sure what they see, and that pause to consider gives me the edge.”

  * * * * *

  In a creaking barn she prepared, shredding straw bales, pushing straw to make a thick nest. The pain rose and receded in waves, urging her to hurry.

  When she could lay her weary body down, it was with a sad sigh. All the old fantasies came back to replay like a black and white movie. The dream of being a new mom, propped up on pillows, snug in a sweetly ruffled nightie, gazing lovingly at a chubby-cheeked baby, counting tiny fingers and toes. There were throngs of nurses and doctors in her fantasy, poised to attend to the slightest hiccup.

  Wind moaned around the eaves. The barn shuddered. This was not her fantasy. She groaned through the next contraction. She didn’t know what she was giving birth to. Sometimes she dreamed she gave birth to human babies with cat heads. How many toes should baby tigers have?

  What scared her most was love. Would she love them? Would she be able to look at her babies and feel a connection, recognize them, feel a swelling of love in her chest? Had her own mother abandoned her because she couldn’t love or look at what she had given birth to?

  * * * * *

  They needed time. They needed time to steer the hunters away. They needed time to get Marie shifted before the birth. They needed time to get home. Ean had a feeling all that would add up to more time than the babies would grant.

  He teetered on humps of snow-slick rock
, picking his way across the river. His progress was maddeningly slow, but going faster risked breaking a leg or his head. Downriver, the hounds’ baying changed and took up a new direction, moving away. Adam, he thought. It was a mixed blessing. Adam could draw them off but it put him farther from his goal. If they were to be born in human form, the babies had to be shifted while their energy remained shielded and merged with their mother’s. On their own, the immature nervous systems were no more capable of connecting with an adult’s transitioning energy than a newly hatched chick was capable of flying.

  Ean made the last leap to the riverbank, missed and hit water. He caught hold of a sapling and managed to limit his dousing to knee deep. He pulled himself up onto the bank, skidded in the snow and staggered forward. The wind turned his soggy jeans stiff in minutes.

  He had to get to her. Adam had to get there. This was the one test they could not fail. The little ones would remain in the form they were born in until they reached puberty when their parents would guide them through shifting. If that form wasn’t human, the damage would be irreversible. He’d been a fool to let Adam go.

  He found her in the throes of a particularly intense contraction. She snarled and thrashed in agony. He could cross “early stage of labor” off his hope list. Ean waited for the contraction to pass, squatting in the semi-dark and wishing it didn’t sound like those hounds were headed in his direction again.

  “Easy sweetheart,” he said, dropping to his knees to crawl the last couple of feet. She hissed but didn’t raise her head. Her sides heaved like she’d just run a mile but the respirations were slowing. Her breath was his guide. He kept a respectful watch on the uppermost front paw. “I know you don’t want company, but you need it.”

  She moaned and the keening of it made him feel like a slug. Her paw lifted, curled, poised to bat him away.

  He flipped open the cell and speed-dialed Maya.

  “How we doing kiddo?”

  “I’m on the way. How’s Marie?”

  “She won’t let me close enough to touch her.”

  “I found all the supplies you wanted. And I think every towel and blanket Adam owns is in this truck.”

  Ean kept an eye on Marie. Her panting had slowed. Her eyes closed. The strike paw had uncurled. He didn’t want to need what Maya brought.

  “Okay, Maya, drive careful. The truck can get away from you faster than you’d think in the snow.”

  “I’m fine, Ean.”

  “We still have some time. Stay safe.”

  He flipped the phone shut and crawled closer, talking aloud to ease his mind and soothe Marie. “She’s never driven before and it’s snowing. Makes me nervous.”

  Marie made a huffing sound but didn’t lift her head. Ean scooted close enough to run one finger around the edge of her ear. The fur was damp.

  “Look sweetheart, I don’t want to worry you, but leaving you out of the loop hasn’t worked well.” Marie grunted and flicked her ear but didn’t stop him when he moved closer. He stroked her side.

  “You can’t have the babies until Adam gets here, not if you want them born human.”

  She raised her head. How much did she understand? He scooted closer and sat cross-legged beside her head.

  “There are only a couple of Pantherians in the world with the power to shift an adult, let alone an adult with six babies. I’m not one of them.”

  She dropped her head into his lap with a heart-tugging sigh.

  “Look on the bright side, pretty soon you’ll be able to tell me exactly what you think of me and the muddle I’ve made of all this.”

  She started purring. Ean wasn’t sure that was a good sign. He moved his hand lower and her uterus contracted under his palm. Marie lifted her head slightly, her ears aimed in the direction of the road. Ean heard it too, the rumble of the truck engine straining through the snow. The snow had stopped by the time he’d reached the barn. It made things easier as far as transporting Marie but it meant the hunters would linger rather than go home. He could hear the hounds too. They were close, but not getting closer and he assumed that meant Adam had created a diversion.

  Marie panted and thrashed. He rubbed his cheek against hers, and stretched out beside her, stroking his hand gently along her side. “Easy mommy,” he murmured, “easy now.” He hummed his lullaby for her. It seemed to help. She hissed through her teeth at the worst of it and he nuzzled her. “Sh…it’ll get better in a minute…sh.”

  Maya was tugging at the door by the time Marie’s head drooped against Ean’s chest. “That’s the way sweetheart,” Ean told her, “rest while you can.”

  The barn door screeched open. Straw swirled with a gust of wind. Ean went to help Maya.

  “How long?” Maya asked, sliding open the side door of the van.

  “Not long enough,” Ean said. “It’s going to have to happen here.”

  “Adam?”

  Ean jerked his head toward the woods. He’s still out there somewhere. Ean was happy to see she had bundled things in garbage bags. “Let’s keep it all wrapped up. Pull out a couple of blankets and my medical kit for now. I hate having to deliver in this dirty barn.”

  Maya grabbed Ean’s arm. “What happens if Adam doesn’t get here, if she doesn’t get shifted? Will it be so bad?”

  “Language skills and the cognitive processes that rise from that development are formed in the first five years. The children would be well past that window of opportunity before they could be shifted.” Ean thrust a bag into Maya’s arms. “Their cognitive development would be permanently damaged.” He grabbed some blankets and his bag. “Normally a female could shift herself at the first signs of labor. Marie can’t.”

  While Ean sorted supplies, Maya soothed Marie.

  “Deep breaths, ocean breaths, like in yoga,” Maya coaxed in a chirpy voice that grated at Ean. But it was working for Marie and he was grateful for that.

  The hounds were getting closer and Ean found himself breathing along with Maya’s exaggerated ocean breaths, hoping his fear wouldn’t show. He held his mind open for a whisper from Adam. The silence remained. He was either too far off or too busy. From the sound of things distance wasn’t the problem.

  For the first time in his life Ean wished for a gun, for the power to kill something. The knowledge that he wouldn’t hesitate was like an ice-cold finger down his spine. If they got too close he would shift and go after them himself.

  “Ean,” Maya called. Ean went to them, but Marie was thrashing mindlessly through a contraction and he couldn’t do anything but stay clear of her paws. To make matters worse the din of baying came on rapidly and broke into hysteria a few yards from the barn.

  “Adam?”

  No answer.

  Marie lifted her head as the contraction eased. Her ears were aimed toward the commotion outside.

  Ean’s heart raced and his breath came in pants. He’d tossed his jacket aside in preparation for the birthing. Even in the frosty barn, sweat streamed down his back, trickled from his armpits.

  Maya wrapped her arms around Marie’s neck and gave Ean a warning look that had him doing the same.

  Marie tried to scramble to her feet. Ean didn’t know what the hounds of hell were supposed to sound like but he was pretty sure they were savaging Adam just beyond the barn. Marie seemed to think so too.

  The hounds squealed and bayed and yipped and barked in an hysterical frenzy.

  He and Maya clung to Marie with the tenacity of bull riders. Ean even lifted a knee over her back, trying to keep her down. She could shake them off like straw from her fur if she put her mind to it. She was close to succeeding.

  Just as he pressed his full weight to her heaving body the blast came.

  Adam’s roar boomed. A tiger’s roar can paralyze its prey. That roar, on the heels of the gun blast, paralyzed Ean’s heart.

  A man screamed in a long, keening, crawl-over-your-skin kind of agony. His next scream had a nauseating gurgle to it and broke off to dead silence at its eardrum piercing
peak.

  Ean shuddered.

  Another man squawked hysterically, the voice receding like a yapping hyena. Hounds yelped and yipped, scattering in all directions.

  Then silence.

  The only sounds now were Marie’s labored panting and Ean’s own ragged breath.

  He looked at Maya. “Breathe,” he said.

  When she did a sob came with it.

  They all waited for a sign. None came.

  Adam! Ean screamed in his mind.

  No answer.

  “Adam,” he screamed aloud, his bellow loud enough to carry to the next town.

  No answer.

  Chapter Eleven

  The bullet hit like a wrecking ball, slamming Adam into a great oak. Time unreeled in slow motion. He would have said it took at least an afternoon to fly three feet, connect with the granite trunk and slide down, down, down.

  There was screaming—men, dogs, Marie, Ean. Their voices thrummed at his eardrums, or in his head. Meaning didn’t penetrate.

  He should feel pain, he thought. This should really hurt. But he was oddly detached, floating, floating above himself.

  Blood stained snow around him. Judging by the size of the stain, he hadn’t been on the ground long. Red seeped over white at a pace that promised it wouldn’t matter much longer.

  He could see the dark shape, a man lying at the edge of the river, the top half of his body bobbed face down with the current.

  He needed to move. There was something he had to do. All he wanted to do was float, float higher and higher above the trees, above the clouds. He tried to make sense of the sensations that he was above his body but still part of it.

  He needed to shift, recharge, but he couldn’t accomplish that from this split state. The greater the distance between his mind and body, the fainter the pain, but he couldn’t escape completely. A weight held him like a tether. He tugged on that invisible leash but his body wouldn’t let him leave. There was something yet… Something he had to do.

  What could he do with that wreckage? He felt sorry for that bloody fur rag draped over the tree roots. Not sorry enough to return to it.