Were-

by Seanan McGuire

  The ground sagged under her feet, slipping away, and Herman’s tail disappeared from sight. She followed it, not only letting herself fall, but jumping into it.

  She screamed and the rush of air carried it away. Below her, the Whale hit the water with a splash that touched her as she fell. Her two fears warred with each other, a battle of wills, and the deeper one, the one she’d feared longer, came out on top of death.

  Her inner self ripped through her human form, a searing pain that was both freeing and terrifying. Her sight blurred, her hearing turned muddy, but when she hit the water, clarity struck her. The water held peace.

  She wiggled out of her over-sized shirt and tasted her own blood in the water. It was barely a scratch.

  Herman was a massive shape beside her, a danger only in size. His breath rippled the water around her and her instincts told her to back off. But she swam closer to the eye watching her.

  The Whale shrank, as if a vacuum had been placed over his center, sucking him inward. Mara was pulled toward him as the water rushed to fill the empty space. When Herman’s pink form swam to the surface, Mara followed at a safe distance and changed.

  “A shark?” Herman exclaimed once her head broke the surface. He was treading water with too much effort. He laughed and slipped under before fighting his way back up. “A little shark!” he crowed.

  “I’m a shark that’s bad at being a shark,” Mara said. The words came fast, grateful to be freed. “My human weight transfers to fear in the water. I’m defenseless. My own prey isn’t scared of me.”

  “Curse of being a lightweight.” Herman’s teeth flashed in the dim light. “If it helps, I’ll be scared of you.”

  “We have to find that girl.”

  Herman struggled in the water, watching her. He finally said, “Come with me.”

  Fear weighed Mara down and she spat out the water that slipped into her mouth. “I suppose no one’s going to attack me if I’m with a whale.”

  “No one will approach us.” The words were meant to comfort her, but the pain in his voice ruined it. The ocean was a lonely place for a whale that wasn’t quite right.

  “I’m not very fast,” Mara warned as she started placing some distance between herself and the Whale.

  “I’ll go slow.”

  * * *

  Herman coasted in the water, sometimes pausing for Mara to catch up. Eventually they worked out a speed that didn’t leave her behind. After the first mile, Mara realized she’d stopped looking for danger. She listened with ears that hadn’t heard in years and reveled in the water going to her lungs. If she were human, she would have laughed.

  Beside her, Herman’s eye tracked her and his long mouth twitched in a whale’s smile. His breathing shook the water and eventually became a calming presence. He would sway away from her, at first a terrifyingly far distance, to breach the surface. Miles passed before he stopped jumping. He drew close to Mara, who was panting as only a shark could pant, and kept quiet. She thought they must be nearing the boat.

  He stilled and the Whale was sucked inside again. Mara fought the current and swam to the surface. She floated on her back, breathing hard and watching the stars sparkle in the night sky. Her hair fanned out around her head, brushing her cheeks. She heard Herman cough when he surfaced.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, trying to look at him with as little movement as possible.

  “Amazing,” he said. His grin took up his entire face. “Just winded.”

  “Yeah,” Mara agreed.

  Herman pointed to their right. “The boat’s there, about five hundred meters. What’s the plan?”

  “We climb on board, free Katherine, subdue the captors, and take the ship home.”

  “Oh, okay,” he said. “If that’s all.”

  “You can stay in the water,” Mara said.

  “No.” Herman turned and swam human-style in the direction of the boat.

  The call from her superior was still strong in her mind as Mara followed Herman. The people who had been assigned to Caleb understood the unspoken plea that accompanied their job. Please keep the elephant alive.

  But it hadn’t been enough. The love of other Weights, made desperate by what was at stake, could not lift the pain. Another elephant had agreed to spend the necessary time as a human to cross the ocean for him, but even that might not have been enough. In the end, it was Caleb’s choice whether he wanted to live with the weight or not. Mara couldn’t change that. There were only four elephants left now.

  The only Blue Whale in existence.

  Her hands touched the wood sides of the boat and she tried to keep her breathing quiet, to no avail. They circled it, and when they found no easy way up, Mara swam away and changed. She charged the boat and jumped, hoping she wouldn’t hit the side, especially in front of Herman. She flew over the railing and changed, hitting the deck with a splat that dragged at her skin.

  The ship was dark, the captors hopefully asleep. She anchored a rope as best she could with hands that shook, and tossed it to Herman. He pulled himself on board while she tried to calm her exhausted heart. If she couldn’t stop shaking, she wouldn’t be much use against an attack.

  Herman leaned against the railing, his eyes roving over the deck. They passed Mara and returned, widening slightly. He met her eyes and winked. “Hey there.”

  Mara huffed and pointed toward the cabin. “They should be in there,” she whispered. “Let’s check below for Katherine.”

  Herman kept his gaze on the cabin while Mara lifted the creaky trapdoor. She slipped down the ladder and squinted through the dark. Boxes crowded the sides of the ship, leaving little room to move. She risked saying, “Katherine?”

  Something shifted to her left. “Who’s there?”

  Mara crouched before a tiny cage, just big enough to squeeze the girl into. “Hey sweetie,” Mara said, smiling her relief. “I’m here with Herman. We’re getting you out of here.”

  The men had secured the cage by placing a heavy box on top of it. Mara lifted it off and while she focused on not falling over, Katherine pushed the lid up.

  “You’re naked,” she whispered.

  “I’m like you,” Mara said.

  “Mara!” Herman hissed down. “They’re waking up.”

  “Don’t move,” Mara ordered him. She crouched in front of Katherine. “You need to change. Now. Can you do that?”

  Katherine nodded and her small human form sucked in on itself, until a seagull stood among a pile of clothing.

  “Good girl,” Mara said. “When we get to the deck, fly. We’ll be right behind you.” She picked up the bird and held her in one arm while she climbed the ladder.

  Herman was leaning against the cabin door, shoulders straining as the men inside gave muffled shouts. “I may have moved,” he said. He lifted a hand in a wave. “Hey, Katherine.”

  Mara growled under her breath and released the seagull. Katherine gave a hop and took off.

  “Don’t move!” A man stepped out from the other side of the cabin. Mara felt the pressure of the gun over her heart, far away as it was. To Herman, he said, “Step away from the door.”

  “Do you want me to not move or move? Because it’s a bit—”

  “Move! Or I shoot the woman.”

  Herman stepped away from the door, his gaze on Mara. He smiled, a question in his eyes. Mara tilted her chin up.

  “Politicals?” Mara asked the gunman, as his friend stumbled out of the cabin.

  The man snorted. “Something this amazing? I’m not wasting my intel on those zealots. Two of you will fetch a better price than one.”

  “I think,” Herman said, “you’ll find us a bit more troublesome than one small bird.”

  The gun shifted to Herman. “And what are you?”

  The last eyes the man ever saw were the Whale’s. “I’m the leper of the sea.”

  He changed, a sudden disappearance of a man and the overwhelming presence of a Blue Whale. His side smacked Mara and she flew off the ship
and into the water. She changed with the crash of the ship breaking, amplifying the tearing sensation she always experienced.

  Herman seemed to enjoy the destruction part a bit too much, and as he thrashed on top of what remained of the boat, Mara made a note to ask him exactly how much he loved Moby Dick.

  When she tasted blood in the water, they started their return. A seagull followed them, gliding on the air to keep with their slow pace. The sun was breaking over the horizon by the time they dragged themselves onto the beach, far from the cameras at the docks.

  Mara carried the seagull up the beach with Herman trailing her. She stopped at a tent near the tree-line.

  “Police,” she croaked. “Get out.”

  The tent jerked and a man unzipped the opening enough to stick his head out. “Oh, hi, Herman,” he said. His eyes went over Herman, then Mara. They jerked away at her expression and he gave Herman a wink. “Nice.”

  “Give me your fucking phone,” Mara said.

  He handed it to her and she walked away, ignoring what Herman might be saying. She called her captain.

  “I have Katherine. You’d better come up with a story fast.”

  * * *

  Mara sat on what remained of Herman’s porch, sipping lemonade and watching the considerably closer ocean. The sun warmed her puffy hair all the way to the roots and made her sigh with contentment. “So what’s it like being the town hero?” Mara asked.

  “Bit traumatizing, to be honest. It’s not every day a guy goes swimming with his new cop friend and discovers a missing child and a much abused boat. Hit a rock, so I hear.”

  “The FBI bought it. The debris had moved inland enough for it to be believable. At least, more so than the truth. I feel bad for Shelly though.”

  “Don’t. She met a nice FBI chick yesterday. She doesn’t know that the lawyer was interested in me, and how I might benefit her bank account.”

  “We obviously need to vet our human lawyers better. Try some questions like, ‘How do you feel about kidnapping?’” Mara laughed at her own joke and found she was in no hurry to stop. Katherine’s kidnappers were presumed lost at sea, and Mara found she couldn’t feel bad about that. The lawyer had given up the names of the men she hired to capture Herman, and they had been taken into Weight custody. He was safe. Herman’s house could even pass for the unfortunate victim of a cliff collapse, if no one looked too closely. Katherine was unharmed, and it looked like Mara would get to visit her new lightweight friend soon. All was well.

  “Will you be going back soon?” His voice was too casual.

  She looked at Herman but he kept watching the water. His shakes weren’t so bad now. “I thought I might take some vacation time, actually,” she said. His eyes flashed to her. She took another sip of lemonade. “It’s become apparent to me I’m one of the worst swimmers alive. Thought you might help me change that.”

  Herman grinned and failed to quiet it. He looked away and leaned back into his chair. “I’ll check my calendar.”

  ANZU, DUBA, BEAST

  Faith Hunter

  “We will hunt. Ready yourself. We leave after dusk. Gee.”

  I hated orders. But I owed Girrard DiMercy—the vampires’ Mercy Blade—a hunt, which he had won from me in return for information. Gee had a good memory, but his timing sucked.

  I flicked the note against the fingers of my other hand, thinking. With vamps and their playthings, you have to be one step ahead, and thinking things through had proved better than attacking first and asking questions later.

  Gee expected me to shift into something like a hawk or an owl and hunt at his side, while he shifted into the thing he really was under layers of glamour. If that happened, he’d set all the parameters and I’d be little dog to his big dog—earth bird to his Anzu. So far as I knew, the feathered Anzu were not native to earth, and had once been worshipped as storm gods. Big honking storm gods with claws, wings, a raptor’s beak, and attitude.

  “Does Leo know about this invitation?” I asked, crumpling the note. Leo was the fanghead-vampire Master of the City of New Orleans and my boss. Gee’s boss too, in a way.

  The blood-servant-messenger’s face broke into a smile that said I had asked a question he could answer. “Yes, ma’am. He knows. My master said, ‘May your hunt be bloody. May you rend and eat the flesh of your prey.’”

  “Well crap.” I had plans. I was spending a four-day weekend with my sorta-boyfriend, eating and sleeping and everything my heart and body desired, in bed. Plans. And the following Tuesday, I was flying to Asheville, North Carolina, to spend a few days with my BFF Molly, to see the ultrasound of her baby, the one where the doc tells if it’s a boy or a girl. And then I was gonna pick up my Harley, Bitsa, from the repair shop in Charlotte. Finally. Big plans. Leo liked jerking my chain, and he would feel just peachy messing with my life.

  But…it was only Wednesday. The hunt we bargained for was for twenty-four hours. I should be back by Thursday night. Friday morning at the latest. I’d still have a few days to myself and my honeybunch. Plus, Gee didn’t know that I had aces up my sleeve. Well, not exactly aces. More like Jokers, both of them wild, cards that didn’t belong in the deck of cards the Mercy Blade expected to deal. “Hmmm,” I said.

  The helpful human said, “Mr. DiMercy and the Master of the City have requested the courtesy of a reply.”

  “Did they, now. Well, tell them I said this.” I shut the door in the servant’s face. Turned the lock. Pulled my official cell phone, the Kevlar-cased one that allowed the Master of the City to track me, listen in on me, and read all my texts. It was daytime and he was probably in bed, but no way could I just take this. Vamps had a thing for pecking order. I couldn’t refuse the invitation, but I was neither blood in Leo’s fangs nor at the bottom of the suckhead hierarchy. I was the Enforcer to the MOC. This required more finesse than my usual hammer-and-machete-style of retort.

  I scrolled for Leo’s number. It was listed under Chief Fanghead.

  As a skinwalker—a supernatural being who can shape-shift into animals, provided I have enough genetic material to work with—I’ve actually flown, and not just in planes. But Gee might not know that. A familiarity with flight was my first wild Joker.

  Deep in the darks of my mind, my Beast huffed. Eat order from Gee, she thought at me. Beast didn’t like it when I took the form of an animal other than hers—the puma concolor—the mountain lion. She especially didn’t like flying.

  We made a promise, I thought back at her. I wandered to my room as I punched Leo’s number.

  Promises are stupid human things. We are Beast. Eat note.

  Beast is opinionated, with a mind and feelings of her own. I had pulled her soul into my body in an act of accidental black magic when I was five years old, while fighting for my life. That was back in the eighteen hundreds. Skinwalkers, even the two-souled, can live a long time.

  The cell trilled the first ring. Thinking that I would balk at the order, Leo would keep me waiting.

  My second wild Joker was a blue feather. Not so long ago, I came upon the glamoured body of a slain Anzu. She had looked perfectly human, albeit dead, except for the bright blue feathers on the floor around her body, downy and fluffy, catching the air currents and waving at me as if alive.

  I hadn’t intended to take a feather. I had forgotten I had stolen one. I’m guessing that Beast did it while I wasn’t looking, a theft she had accomplished using my hands while my mind was occupied with more important things, which is scary in all sorts of ways. I hadn’t discovered the feather until much later, in my collection of magical trinkets, but had never used it because taking the form of a sentient being was one of the darkest kinds of evil. Black magic. Unless I had permission. “Jane,” Leo answered my call. “You have refused Girrard’s invitation.”

  “Nope. But I need to talk to Sabina.” Sabina was the woo-woo priestess of the Mithran-Vamps and she lived in the vampire cemetery. I’d need permission to enter.

  There was a long pause, and I wa
s sure Leo’s brain was clicking through all the possibilities of why I’d need to talk to the eldest of the local Mithrans. “One moment.”

  A much longer pause later, I heard the sounds of movement and the shush of fabrics and soft-voiced instructions. The ambient noise changed and I knew I was being put on speakerphone, which made no sense. Until a voice spoke. “I am here,” Sabina said.

  I blinked and opened my mouth. Closed it. This saved me hours of afternoon traveling across the Mississippi and back. But I had to do this right. I drew on the scraps of vamp etiquette I had learned in my time as Leo’s Enforcer and said, “Sabina Delgado y Aguilera, outclan priestess of the Mithrans, keeper of the sacred grounds, keeper of the Blood Cross, arbiter of disputes, I have a question and…uh…and I wish you to determine if the path I wish to take is one of sin.”

  “If I say it is sin, will you take another path, my child?”

  “Yes.”

  “Speak.”

  I took a deep breath. “I want to know if it’s black magic for a skinwalker to shift into the same kind of creature as Gee.”

  The silence on the other end of the connection was total. And then, in the background, Leo laughed. It was one of those vampire laughs, the kind that writers and producers and other creators of fiction got right. Seductive, warm, enticing, like heated silk sliding across my skin. A laugh that reminds you vamps are predators, built to seduce and charm before they kill. The liquid notes cut off in mid-peal, interrupted by a gasp of surprise or pain.

  “You wish to know if this will turn you to the path of u’tlun’ta,” Sabina said, “the demon your kind becomes when they eat of sentient flesh.”