by Cathy Clamp
Flies began to buzz around Will’s head. His face lit up with a pleased expression when he discovered a fat, nondescript black beetle that had managed to crawl into the jerky roll. I shook my head as he popped it in his mouth and crunched down cheerfully. Birds and bugs. Ick.
I looked around the clearing as I put the now wrinkled, but drier, shirt back on. I looked like hell, and probably smelled as bad as Will, but he was right—we weren’t in a fashion show.
Life rose up around us in the growing sunshine like a wave. I saw flies and gnats hover around both of our sweaty heads, and heard larger insects and animals farther out in the jungle. I could see them, smell them, taste them. A python in the grass had considered us prey, but stopped as it sensed that invisible magic that screamed Sazi . . . shape-shifter . . . predator. It slunk back, retreated, and now was giving us a wide berth. The monkeys and colorful birds in the trees continued to screech and call and scold, their numbers growing as daylight made them bolder. And somewhere, deeper in the green sea of vegetation, a panther watched us. Sensed me sensing it. I turned my eyes toward the shadows and stared. I could feel a growl try to escape from deep inside of me. I didn’t let it surface, but I sent a trickle of magical energy out toward the hidden eyes and felt it react. This was my territory now. For as long as I was here. It disappeared into the artificial darkness.
This seemed an odd place for a clearing. But no trees had been cut down for a homestead or anything. The canopy of trees and tall ferns just seemed to . . . stop. The undergrowth had no such problem, and the vines and grasses were almost knee high. Damn, it was already getting hot! But luckily, the humidity’s only 100 percent.
“So,” said Will through a mouthful of salted meat, “what now? Which way do we go, bwana?”
“Who put me in charge?” I asked irritably. “You’re supposed to be leading me to the spot, remember?”
He shrugged gracefully, nearly a flapping of feathery wings. “That ended in the bar. You’re the one with the hindsight. Lots more accurate than my vision. I could tell you where we were if I was flying above. But on the ground, I’m not much better than human. I’m pretty sure we’re going the right way, and you seem to be doing just fine.”
Pretty sure? Great, just what I needed—to be lost in a jungle in Central America. Actually, though, as soon as he said it I realized he was right. I was sure where we were. We should reach the spot in less than an hour, if the breeze wasn’t playing games with my nose. I didn’t understand how I knew, only that I did. Living out someone’s memories is always strange, like déjà vu. Part of me doesn’t like this weird Sazi shit. But the other part, the hunter part, finds it perfectly natural. Like it’s the logical next step.
Maybe it is.
I took another drink out of the big canteen in my pack and carefully filled the smaller water bottle on my belt. Most of what was in our packs was water. But the load was getting lighter faster than I’d planned. I hadn’t counted on three days of blistering heat during the rainy season.
My elbow did the pointing toward the next thicket of green. “That way, another hour, give or take . . . if the bugs don’t chew us down to bone by then.” Another fly, another slap. I winced at the sound before the background settled into a monotonous droning of a thousand different insects that I never used to notice.
Monotonous . . . regular.
My brow furrowed. That one whine, high-pitched and steady, was a little too regular. No rise as it ventured closer, no fall as it darted away. Had it been there a minute ago? I couldn’t remember. But whatever the expression on my face was made Will cock his head and lower his brows.
“What?”
I shook my head again. “Don’t know. Something’s not right.” I stepped a few feet in one direction and then the other—in a pattern of ever-expanding circles with Will as the center. Still the whine persisted, as though coming from everywhere. “Can you hear that hum? It’s really high-pitched.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and turned around slowly, face intense. But then he shook his head, and lowered his voice to a near whisper. “Nothing, and my hearing’s pretty sharp. Tinnitus maybe?”
Could a Sazi get ringing in the ears without magic healing the nerve damage before it could register a sound? Well, I am as close to human as a werewolf can get, and don’t heal for shit, so who knows? “Lower your shield on me for a second. Let’s see if it gets better or worse.”
I felt the release before I even registered the dip of his chin—sudden enough to nearly drop me to my knees from the sheer weight of the moon that crashed down on me. Pinpricks slashed at my arms and legs, as the sharp tips of fur struggled to emerge from my skin. I stayed standing, but just barely, and had to clench my fists and jaw to keep from letting out a raging howl from the abrupt pain. He watched me, not so much in concern for my welfare, but to see if I could manage the strain.
I’ve had worse, so I could.
Once I could focus my head a little, I concentrated on the sounds around me, trying to filter out everything except that one whine. The thing was, I recognized the sound, but couldn’t remember from where. Whatever it was seemed out of context—familiar, but in the wrong place.
“Ignore it,” Will said while shouldering his rifle again. “It’ll go away soon enough.”
“Nope. Can’t do it. I’ve learned to trust my instincts . . . even the wolf ones. We’ll have to stay here until I figure it out.” I tried to think of other high-pitched sounds, but none of them matched in my brain. Electrical lines . . . no. Bats . . . huh-uh. Fluorescent light, compressor, computer . . . nope. But the word mechanical kept swimming up to the top of my brain over and over. This wasn’t a natural noise.
Will let out a frustrated little chirp, like a strangled screech—which it probably was. “We’re already running late. We can’t afford for you to figure it out.” But I ignored him and kept trying to find a name for the sound, until finally he lowered his rifle and pack to the ground and started to strip off his shirt. “You keep watch on my stuff. I’ll fly ahead and find their camp and then come back here to let you know how far it is.”
I couldn’t help but snort even though I didn’t bother to watch him strip. “Uh, right. And you don’t think a bunch of other shape-shifters will notice a bald eagle floating a few thousand miles out of range over the jungle? Feeling a little suicidal today, are we?”
He let out his own rude noise that was accompanied by a weird combination of scents—oranges and burnt coffee. He was apparently both amused and annoyed at my comment. Oranges is humor and laughing. Caramelized coffee tells me the person is pissed. “Give me a little credit, newbie. I’ve been doing this since before your granddaddy was a glimmer in his pappy’s eye. My eyesight is exceptional. I probably won’t have to do much more than get above the treetops to spot the camp and even if I have to take a few flaps, I’ll never be close enough for them to spot me through the canopy.”
The moon picked that precise moment to drop me to my knees with a strangled scream, and I had to bite my lip to keep more sound from coming out. The door between me and Sue flung wide open and I was abruptly in two places at once. She was grocery shopping, of all things, and the phantom image of shelves and produce overlaid on the ferns and vines. The squeak of the cart wheel was lower pitched than the sound in my head, but I suddenly realized I was hearing the same sound in two places.
What the hell?
Tony? I could hear Sue’s voice drift over the whine and the animals in the trees, and could sense a feeling of panic take her over. What’s happening? Are you okay? I see a jungle and hear lots of screaming.
I thought I shook my head, but I really couldn’t tell if it was moving or if I was only imagining it. Something was wrong . . . very wrong. Hearing the sound in Sue’s world only confirmed that and made my heart race faster. Animals, and they’re just ticked off, not hurt. But I can’t talk now. Bad things are about to happen.
Two things hit at once. First, Will shifted forms in a blur of motion
that my eyes really couldn’t follow, and spread his massive wings while bunching his legs to spring upward. Then, Sue moved her cart to near the automatic doors by the soda machines, out the way of other shoppers in case she couldn’t pull herself out of the crisis. The whine got louder in that part of my mind and the realization of what the noise was suddenly crashed home. I spent a dozen years of my life as a security consultant—installing and repairing alarm systems and the like. It was the shoplifting sensor near the door I was hearing, a beam of light between two contacts that lets out a nearly imperceptible whine . . . until it gets interrupted by an activated item.
I turned and shouted at Will, no longer caring whether anyone heard. “No! Don’t fly up!”
But it was too late. He’d already let out a flap that took him soaring a dozen feet high. Another click told me I was right and all I could do was race for cover as gunfire from a dozen points in the trees shattered the morning air. I stood a better chance surviving as a smaller target and could run faster in wolf form, so I stopped fighting the pressure of the moon on me. I felt Sue partially collapse against the shopping cart as fur began to flow and every bone in my body broke and reformed at lightning speed. The pain that filled my mind wasn’t from bullets . . . or at least, I hoped it wasn’t from bullets. It was a little hard to tell.
When the automatic rifles had expended their clips a few seconds later, and acrid smoke and silence filled the air, I finally poked my head out from beneath the heavy log that had taken the brunt of the damage. No surprise that the animals had booked it for the border. I would too in their place.
It was hard not to be impressed by such a subtle trap. Now that I knew what I was looking for, I could see the bits of metal scattered among the tall trees around the open space. We must have somehow tripped a switch when we entered the clearing that activated the sensors. Then, with no cover, any intruder trying to leave the clearing would be eliminated. No fuss, no muss—and plenty of warning to the bad guys to close up shop in case they missed anyone.
Will was on the ground, still in bird form. One wing was covered in blood, but he smelled more angry and embarrassed than in pain. As I stepped closer, struggling to ignore the scent of bird blood while my stomach growled, he opened that yellow beak and ticked his tongue across the edge, making a sharp sound that was probably a curse word in bird language. “Note to self . . . listen to the villain standing next to you so the villain in the brush doesn’t kill you.”
One of my ears flicked forward, the wolf equivalent of a shrug. “Can’t say I didn’t tell you to stay put. Anything other than the wing . . . winged?”
He shook his feathery head. “No, but my forearm’s busted clean in half. They were apparently expecting Sazi, because the bullets were silver. That’s why I haven’t turned back. I don’t want it to heal wrong during the change. Mind setting the pieces back together so I can shift back? Now that the camp’s been warned by the gunfire, we don’t have much time.”
I looked at him and down at my wolf form and raised a paw. “Any clues how to accomplish that? I’m not an alpha, remember? I can’t change back by choice, and as you can see . . . no opposable thumbs.”
Those too-bright eyes stared at me before he blinked once, down to up, like my python-shifter buddy, Bobby, does. “Well, hell. Doesn’t that just suck moss-covered swamp rocks? Yeah, I can change you and hold you, but I’m going to wind up healing damned slow.”
“You going to be able to handle a rifle? We’re going to need them to get out of here, I’m betting.” I was starting to hear shouts in the distance. Either they were coming for us, or pulling up stakes where they were. I looked toward the sound and so did Will. It occurred to me that I wasn’t seeing grocery items anymore, and couldn’t seem to sense Sue in my mind. It wasn’t uncommon that she would shut the door on her own when the crisis was done and there was blood on the ground. It turns her stomach and the fact that someone else’s pain excites me now isn’t something she likes to think about much. But I had to admit that the desire to pounce on my partner just to hear him yelp, and then savor sweet, metallic blood, was strong.
Kerchee interrupted my thoughts. “Don’t see why not. Just switch rifles with me. The auto has a shorter sling and my trigger finger is fine. It’s a room broom anyway, so aiming isn’t much of an issue.” He winced just then and his wing twitched. So did I, and that bothered me.
A lot.
“Actually, we’re going to have to speed up the process. The bone’s already trying to knit, and with it snapped like this, it’s going to try to fill in the gaps with new bone.”
“And that would be bad?” I’ve had more than one time since turning wolf that I considered it a really good thing that my body filled in missing gaps. Nothing like barely surviving a dragon feasting on you to appreciate healing abilities.
“Oh, that would be very bad. My arm would be crippled and I doubt my fingers would work right. And even if a healer re-broke it, it would try to remember the new form. It would take months and months to get it back to normal and it would be impossible to explain to humans, so I’d have to be off work until it was right again. Magic’s sort of like quirky software. If you stay in the parameters, it’s awesome. But press just one wrong key—”
Ah. Got it. Yeah, I’d noticed that myself. “So, you want to change me back and I’ll hold it steady?”
His wing twitched again and the feathers started to move. I didn’t think he was doing it because he stumbled a little and wound up having to catch himself with his other wing. “No time. Just grab it with your teeth. It’s a clean break, so all you have to do is hold it steady while the magic does its thing.”
I looked at him as askance as a wolf can. “You want me . . . the three-day wolf with barely enough magic to have human thoughts, to grab onto your bloody wing with my mouth? On the first day of the moon? You’re either very brave or very stupid, because I haven’t eaten since dinner last night and it’s everything I can do right now not to have you for breakfast.”
His lower jaw moved in what might be considered a laugh. “You forget I’m an alpha. I’m going to hold you motionless once you’ve clamped on. You won’t be able to move your jaw enough to chew.”
It was true that I’ve seen him do the magical freezing thing. He and Bobby, the third member of our crew, had a duel of sorts after we’d had a few rounds at the bar. Most Sazi can’t get drunk, since our brain cells heal too quickly to be impaired. But just the ceremony of drinking relaxed the two tough-guy alphas enough to try stupid things. I was supposed to be the judge to determine who had the strongest magic, but I had to call it a draw since neither of them wound up completely unable to move and the overload of magic was making fights break out all over the bar. Still, I was betting he could hold me just fine.
There are some things that are against my better judgment that I wind up doing anyway. This was going to be one of them, just so we could finish this and get out of here. I stepped forward, trying not to think too much about the plan. It seemed simple enough, but I’ve learned that not everything is simple in the supernatural world.
“Let’s go over to that tree,” he said, and I struggled to listen. But the closer I got to him, the stronger the smell of blood was. It filled my nose, started my saliva dripping, and tried to turn my brain to putty and put a red haze over my vision. “I can prop my wing tip on that broken branch so you can keep the bone straight.” I could see the bone now, the two sharp ends poking up through the feathers—bright white against the dark brown background. He turned and hopped toward a tree and I followed, transfixed by the spots of red that marked his path. My nose dropped to the ground without my willing it to and more of my brain shut down as the sweet scent filled me.
“You still with me, Giambrocco? Is the moon getting to you too much?”
“No, I’m fine.” Even as I said the words, I knew the wolf was taking over, lying to the bird so he could replace the fire in his belly with red, warm meat.
Cautious, slow. I moved
toward the wounded bird carefully. I didn’t want to startle it enough to fly. The part of my mind that was still human was rebelling. There was something about feeding on another human that it objected to. My heart started beating faster as I ran my nose slowly over the wounded wing. My mouth opened and I felt the sharp end of bone press against the roof of my mouth and feathery softness glide over my tongue. Clamping shut my jaw suddenly made the bird gasp and writhe and made my jaw convulse, tighten, until I could feel my teeth sink beneath the feathers into firm flesh. More warm, salty wetness slid down my throat and I swallowed it, but it only made me hungrier.
No more of this toying with the prey.
A growl escaped me and I started to twist and rip at the wing. Human words that I recognized as cursing filled my ears, and a second wing began to beat at my head. I laid my ears down, closed my eyes, and continued to feed. Pressure then against me, forcing me to stop. I tried to open my jaw, but it was fixed tight. That wasn’t acceptable. The prey doesn’t control the hunter. I reached out to fight against whatever bound me, kept me from the food, and felt my mate in the background. She was eating meat too, and the taste of it drove me wild. I fought harder and touched a thin line in my mind that was my pack. I hadn’t felt the other wolves for so long, but now they were with me. They could taste the prey too and wanted to share in the feast. I felt fur replace flesh and other teeth struggle to reach what I was tasting.
With renewed vigor, I snapped and ripped at feathers and flesh until it began to shrink in my mouth, change until it was an arm, not a wing. Then hands opened my mouth, threw me to the ground, forcing me to raise up again and pounce.
But the bird was gone, replaced by a man, who quickly climbed a tree and sat on the limb staring down at me with both anger and amazement. But it was the jaw-tightening scent of fear that made me jump against the tree, tearing bark off in my effort to get back to eating.