by Faith Hunter
“Your grindy knows about them and is hunting them. I’m hunting them. When I call you, you will get off your drunken ass, get sober, and hunt them too.” I dropped his head. His face bounced on the ground. I stood and walked away. I caught a glimpse of Rick’s face as I did. He was smiling slightly. His eyes were too warm to be remembering me making Kemnebi my beta, so maybe Rick was remembering the first time I took him down. It was our first date, walking along the Mississippi waterfront after a good meal—a great meal—in a New Orleans dive. Rick said something, I don’t remember what, and it ticked me off. I dropped him, but he’d been face up for it. I tilted my head on the way past, letting a half smile touch my lips.
“You fight dirty,” he murmured. “Like you do everything.”
I stopped. He was talking about sex. My face heated. He leaned across the fish-cleaning board, blood and fish and fish heads between us, and breathed in, his nose only inches from my neck. Beast reared up and took me over, faster than I could think. She sniffed, pressing her face, my face, into the soft tissue of his throat. His scent filled my nose, my head, and reached right into the center of me. I/we rubbed my jaw along his, his bristles far softer than they looked.
Pelt, Beast thought. Good mate. Mine.
I wrenched away. Moments later I was down the path and keying on Fang. And sooo outta there. Tears would have made the narrow road hard to follow, but I wasn’t crying. I was mad. And not sure why. Halfway down the park road, my cell vibrated in my pocket. I pulled onto the narrow shoulder and flipped it open, looked at the display. It was Rick’s number, his picture in the small screen. I heaved a breath that hurt my throat. “Yeah?”
“The grindy smells weird,” Rick said, “and he’s not hanging around much.”
“Maybe the grindylow is tired of Kemnebi’s drunken anger.”
Rick laughed softly. “The grindy and I would agree on that one.”
I thought about how I might get the little green-golem-Yoda to partner with me. Beast rumbled, Would taste like dead fish. Good eating. Big meal for winter food. I pushed her away as Rick spoke again.
“Kem says he smelled wolf last night. He’ll hunt with you when you call.” His voice dropped an octave, soft as the pelt on a big-cat’s stomach, “So will I.” I laughed, the sound hoarse in my aching throat. “I’ve been given the rest of the day off,” he said. “Wanna do lunch?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Not raw fish.”
“Wait for me at the crossroads. I’ll be there in fifteen.”
CHAPTER FOUR
If the Vamp-Poo Became Airborne
We stopped for a late lunch at a little mom-and-pop store that sold local produce, local honey, jellies and jams, chutney, molasses, homemade breads, used books, and local arts and crafts: leather belts, handbags, handmade quilts. They also had a lunch bar and sold the best egg salad sandwiches I’d ever tasted. Between us we ate six sandwiches, out under the shade tree, sitting silently at a heavy cement table on hard, cool benches. The view between the trees, straight down the mountain, into the gorge, was entertainment.
In the middle of a bite, I noticed Rick’s new key chain and lifted it, letting one corner of my lips curl up as I swallowed. He mirrored the expression and added a little shrug, laughter in his eyes. The old key chain to his red crotch-rocket Kawasaki hadn’t been seen since he was captured and tortured in a hotel room in New Orleans. The new one was a growling, enameled, black leopard on a silver base. Were-humor. Beast hacked with amusement. I pulled out my own and set them together, my Leo key chain with the female African lion and a stylized sun at one paw, next to his black leopard. I left them there, side by side, wondering if now was the time for the Big Talk.
I finished off a chocolate Yoo-Hoo with the last sandwich and ate a banana MoonPie for dessert. They were food I remembered from my youth and brought back memories I didn’t have time to think about just now. Not with Rick suddenly turning his attention from the view to me.
“We gonna talk?” he asked. Yep. Time. His voice was smooth, calm, not at all accusatory. Even pleasant. There was no reason for me to cringe inside, but I did. “Talking’s overrated,” he added, searching my face, “but there’re things between us that need to be said.”
I crumpled up the papers and carried them to the garbage can, knowing I was dithering and not knowing how to stop.
“Jane.”
I halted with my back to him. Not seeing the view. Not seeing anything. My eyes filling with unwanted, stupid tears. There was so much gentleness in the sound of my name on his lips.
“I cheated on you with the were-bitch.”
My shoulders tensed. I raised a hand and brushed away the tears. I took a breath that shuddered through me. But I didn’t turn around, keeping my back to him. Coward.
“You and me, we weren’t . . . going steady, or whatever. And I didn’t have any choice in the matter, once I was infected with the were-taint, but I cheated on you. I knew it even when I was sick. I was used to talking my way into women’s good graces and beds for information. It was easy; always had been. And I paid the price for it. I lost my humanity—”
“Maybe,” I interrupted.
“Maybe,” he conceded. “Probably, if the pain of the last full moon was an indication. But I also lost you. And that’s the part I can’t stop thinking about. I cheated on you, and yet you came and got me out. You saved my life.”
“Maybe,” I said again.
He chuckled, the tone mocking, and I hitched a shoulder. The were-bitch’s dead body had been crumpled at Rick’s feet when I found him. If the werewolves had found her, they’d have killed him without a second thought, holding him responsible. I found her, and Rick, first.
“But you don’t have the wolf-taint. You’re infected with black were-leopard,” I said. And that was the sticking point. The were-bitch had raped him. I knew that from the smell on the mattress in the hotel room where he had been tortured. But Safia had—
“I was infected, but not by sex. We didn’t—” He stopped. “It never went that far. Safia bit me.”
I blinked, letting my eyes go unfocused, putting the timeline together. It fit. It was possible. My mouth opened slightly. I inhaled, feeling the air move through me. Tension, anger, jealousy, and something even more primitive, lifted off me, as if a rotting, uncured pelt had been resting on my shoulders, and had then fallen away. Deep inside, my Beast began to purr. She smelled the truth of his words. “Rape isn’t cheating,” I whispered. “And were-taint makes humans crave sex.” I turned and met his eyes. “Not your fault. Not your guilt.”
He shrugged, clearly holding himself responsible still. “Your turn,” he said.
I came back to the table, and sat on the edge of the hard, concrete seat. I was as far from him as I could get and still be at the table. “What do you want to know?” I hedged.
He laughed, the sound free and easy. He looked so good sitting there, the black T-shirt accenting his olive skin, the tips of the cat-claw tats and scars peeking beneath the sleeve of one bicep, the white and jagged scars marring the flesh on his other arm. He bent up a knee and clasped his hands around it. “I’ll likely turn furry eventually, into a black were-leopard, maybe one with a wolf tail or wolf ears. I’m not human. Neither are you. What are you? Start there.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it when nothing came out. Opened it again. Blinked slowly. The Big Talk. “Uhhh . . .” Rick chuckled again. I smiled and shook my head, looking away from him to the view. It wasn’t often that I said the words aloud. I took a breath and said, experimentally, “What do I smell like?”
Rick shook his head. “I knew you weren’t gonna be easy, not you.” When I didn’t reply, he said, “I haven’t turned yet. My sense of smell is heightened but not what it will be. Maybe,” he said, beating me to the equivocation. “But you smell like big-cat. Mostly. Like Kem, but not like him. Like a bird. And like a dog. Just a whiff. But mostly like big-cat. You’re not a were.”
“No,” I said. My mouth went dry
. “I need something to drink.” Before he replied, I was up and inside, my head in the drink cooler. I stayed there too long, cooling off, but eventually, the sales lady called out to me. I made my purchases and came back out with two colas. I put his on the table and opened mine. Drank half of it and still felt dry-mouthed. I took a breath and blew it out. “I’m a”—the words were raspy, and I had to stop in the middle and take a breath—“a skinwalker.”
Rick nodded, sitting there, looking calmly at me. “Did you try to turn me,” he asked, “when we had sex?” There was no accusation in the words, just honest questioning.
I thought about being offended, but I had sex with him without telling him anything about me, which was a form of lying. I’d lied once so I might lie again, right? “I can’t turn anyone. I was born this way.”
“Okay. I’ll buy that. Black magic practitioner?”
“No!” I stood fast. Inside, however, Beast hacked with derision. Stole my body. Stole my soul. Jane is killer. Worked black magic. I forced her down, and myself back to the seat. I put my hands on the table, fingers splayed, staring at them instead of the man I had lied to. And who had lied to me. Things were so screwed up.
“My kind were the protectors and the warrior leaders of the Cherokee for a thousand years, until the white man came. The word Cherokee once meant people of the caves, or people who came from out of the ground. Something like that. They were cave dwellers; skinwalkers kept them safe. Then the early Spanish came, and, I think, brought some contagion, maybe. My kind started to die out. Started to turn to the dark arts. But we don’t have to do evil. I don’t have to.” Beast didn’t respond to my claim this time; she was too tightly focused on Rick.
“Can you shift into any animal? Tiger, sparrow, catfish?” He hesitated. “Mountain lion?”
“I need bones or skin to change. I use DNA to adopt the shape I want. I can’t change mass very well. It’s dangerous. So I stay with animals of my mass most of the time.” He wasn’t looking at me like I was an escapee from a supernat zoo. That did happy weird things to my insides, and I clenched my hands into fists before relaxing them again. “I’ve never tried water animals. Only land mammals. Rarely birds. We were protectors so predators are easier.”
I stopped. He’d asked about mountain lions. Though he’d been on the brink of death, Rick had seen me in my Beast-form once, the first time I’d saved his life; I’d made a habit of that lately, in between occasions of leaving him in danger. I knew what he was asking.
I drained the rest of my drink. “I usually choose mountain lion. And yes, that was me you saw when the sabertooth attacked you.” I’d been at a larger mass than my own, thanks to a glitch in the shifting process. That was what I was calling it, a glitch. Not a Beast-took-control-and-forced-a-mass-change-to-the-top-of-the-genetic-range-situation, which was
closer to the truth.
Rick nodded, which I saw in my peripheral vision. I risked a direct look at him. His eyes were steady, calm, nonreactionary. “Have you been in counseling or something?” I blurted.
He laughed and said, “No. Not unless you count Kemnebi’s drunken ramblings. Not since I woke up sick, in pain, and bleeding, with the Mercy Blade. Gee DiMercy talks a lot, and I was too sick to push him out of the room, so I listened.” He waved that away, wry, self-deprecating. “But I’ve had time to do a lot of thinking.” He bent over the table and rested his weight on his elbows, chin in hand, holding my gaze. “Time to get over the anger. Time to remember. So that was you.”
He was back at the memory we shared of Beast. Rick being attacked by a shape-changer in sabertooth lion form. Me saving him. Beast having forced the mass increase was the only reason I’d been big enough to fight the sabertooth lion off.
“Yeah. Me. I chased the sabertooth off you and got help.”
He nodded. “Okay. So if I go furry, can you do the whole black leopard thing?”
Beast moved closer inside me, padding, shoulders hunched, belly tight against me, the way she would hunt unwary prey. I smiled slightly. “If I have the bones or skin or teeth of a female black leopard, yes. Probably.”
Good mate. Strong, Beast thought.
“A real one?” he asked. “Not the bones or teeth of a were-female. Not Safia’s bones?”
“No! That’s black magic.” And besides, I wasn’t sure how the DNA of a were differed from the DNA of a normal animal or mundane human or skinwalker. And I wasn’t curious to find out. “I can become a real black leopard. If I want to. If I have the DNA material. Soooo. Are we . . . good?” I asked, not sure what I meant by that. Beast hacked in amusement. I ignored her.
Rick extended his hands across the table and I placed mine into them. “We’re good. Or as good as we can be until we find out if I survive the next full moon, furry, or not. Till then, it’s a good day to be outside and free.” He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed the back of my fingers. His lips were warmer than a human’s and soft, and something melted inside me. Beast purred. This man was one of very few people on the face of the earth—to include Molly, her husband Evan, and Angie Baby—who knew I was a skinwalker. And he was okay with it. His scent warmed as if he knew my thoughts, and he pressed my Leo key chain into my palm. “Let’s go for a ride.”
We helmeted up and I followed Rick’s red crotch-rocket Kawasaki out of the small parking lot and up and down switchback roads. We didn’t talk. We roamed the hills, catching one another’s eyes, much like mated big-cats might, pointing to prey and old barns and cabins covered in undergrowth. We followed the scent of grindy and once of werewolf until it faded.
At the first shadows of night, we were back at the campground. I keyed off Fang, set the kick, and straddled the bike while the engines cooled, studying Ricky Bo. While I watched, he secured his bike for the night, his movements more graceful than once upon a time. Though he hadn’t gone furry, he was picking up the traits of a cat: stealth, grace, improved senses. He unstrapped his helmet and I pulled off mine. His hair swung forward, damp, matted by sweat.
I caught the scent of him, musky, salty, cat, all male. I stood and took a step toward him. He met my eyes for a single moment. Heat flared between us, and I was in his arms, his mouth on mine. The world tilted, my hands clawing under his shirt. I was slammed against something hard. Pinned. Bark gouging through my leather jacket. I curled a leg around his, pulling him close. Breath hot. Tongue and mouths and the rising scent of musk. One hand cupped my head. The other my butt. Pulling me close into him. Grinding.
“Get a room,” someone said. Too close.
Rick jerked back, baring teeth. But the man was gone, the scent of sweat and irritation on the air, footsteps receding. Rick huffed a laugh and I made a sound perilously close to a giggle. He bent his forehead against mine, our hearts pounding together. “Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus,” he whispered, catching his breath. “What the hell was that?”
“Cat scent?” I gasped. “Mating pheromones? It’s just a guess.”
“You never did it . . . I mean not with another skinwalker?”
My smile faded. So did my joy. I put my hands against his chest between us. Pressed until he let me to the ground and stepped back, though Rick refused to be pushed entirely away. His hand was still on my nape. I turned my head and rested my cheek in his palm.
“What?” he asked, and I could smell Rick’s confusion, his worry. His cat.
“There are no other skinwalkers,” I said. I tilted my head and searched his eyes. “I killed the last one when it went crazy and started eating people.”
I could see him putting things together. “Leo Pellissier’s son? Was a skinwalker?”
“Maybe. Probably. One who did black magic, took a vamp’s DNA, and the two natures didn’t mesh.” When he didn’t comment, I said, “It was a lot older, I think. Like weres, walkers live a long time. They don’t get nutso until they get very old, or do something stupid like try to become vampire on top of being a walker. I’ve never met another one.”
“Once Kem
goes back to Africa, I’ll be the only black were-leopard on this continent, and the only one on the face of the earth who might not be able to change at the full moon. Looks like we get to be singularities together.” He gathered up my hands and pulled me away from the tree, back to Fang. “You’ve got a long ride back. Be careful, Jane Yellowrock.”
I helmeted up, feeling curiously empty and full all at once, drained and vacant and joyful. “You too, Rick LaFleur. I’ll be back.”
“I’ll be here,” he said, “at least until the day after the full moon. If I’m alive then, my whole world will be different.” I reached for Fang’s key. “But I’ll still want you, Jane.”
I looked up at that, but Rick was gone, fading into the lengthening shadows.
Back in my suite in the Regal Imperial Hotel, I rushed through a shower, looking longingly at the whirlpool tub with its candleholders and plush towels. And at the bed I hadn’t used in a day and a half. Maybe at dawn. Which seemed a long time away. I braided my black hair, which was windblown and needed a scrubbing it wasn’t going to get anytime soon, and tucked it up into a tight, compact queue. It could still be used as a handle in a fight, but the bun was better than loose hair over three feet long. I wasn’t vain, and I could be called beautiful only by the most generous or the most inebriated, but my long hair was gorgeous.
I was security on this gig, not chasing rogue-vamps, and the different job description had required a change in a lot of my possessions, from clothes to weapons. The clothes had been commissioned by Leo Pellissier to give me “elegance and utility,” his phrase. And I liked the clothes, which was such a girly thought that I’d not said it aloud. Dodging the bust of some long-dead founding father on its tall stand, I tossed clothes from the closet—all black, which made wardrobe decisions so much easier—onto the bed and drew on Lycra undies, narrow-legged pants, silk tank, tight vest, tall, leather boots, and slung an elegant nubby silk jacket over my arm.