by RJ Blain
It would solve so many things for everyone, especially for me. Cats didn’t care about the world of men; they were above it, outside of it, and flitted in and out of it at their discretion, and my cheetah offered it all to me.
I couldn’t sense any hesitation from my spirit beast, only the hope of remaining with me until the end of days.
“Sean?” Idette called, and I was so focused on my cheetah’s wishes, I hadn’t realized I had come to a halt.
“Coming. You’re quite a bit better at this than me.” While I lied, it was also the truth; as long as I pretended to be human, she would always be better at skulking through the woods at night.
“Don’t fall behind!” Her voice sounded farther away, and her mocking laughter filled the quiet forest.
My cheetah growled, and I echoed him. Together, we hunted Idette. The beast in me wanted to end the chase in bloodshed.
The human in me didn’t care, and that worried me most of all.
The full moon rose, and a wolf stalked me through the trees. The animal made no noise; it was only due to my cheetah’s heightened senses I noticed it at all. While my cheetah wanted me to assume his form, I didn’t dare, not with Idette somewhere in the forest with me. After her final, taunting call, she had vanished into the darkness, leaving no trace of her passage.
My wife’s disappearance infuriated my spirit beast, as did the wolf who dared to consider us prey. As a human, I was prey, but if Idette found out about my cheetah, being prey would be the least of our problems.
I’d rather die to a wolf than live as the research subject of a scientist determined to figure out how a man could transform himself into a beast.
If I didn’t figure out how to fight off a wolf, I wouldn’t have to worry about stalkers or anyone finding out about my magic. Frustration and anger burned through me, and while I was aware not all of my emotions were my own, I embraced them all the same.
No matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to catch a break. My cheetah growled, but unlike most animals, the wolf either ignored his presence or was unaware of him. Running wouldn’t do me a lot of good. While I was fast, thanks to my cheetah’s influence on me, I couldn’t beat an animal who had spent all of its life hunting in the forests.
I cursed myself for being stupid enough to cater to Idette’s preferences. My version of a good time didn’t include becoming prey. When—if—I made it back to the lodge, I had a feeling I would become a threat to the local wine supply, and I didn’t care what Idette thought about it.
If she didn’t like it, she could go out into the woods on her own and get eaten by a wolf.
I made my way into a clearing littered with the scattered ruins of old fires ringed by stones and sand. The loose ground gave under my feet, and I turned to face the animal stalking me through the trees. A faint luminescence surrounded my cheetah, and he snarled and swiped at the approaching wolf.
When I stared at the wolf, tracking its movements through the trees, it turned its ears back and showed me its teeth. During my efforts to evade the animal, I hadn’t noticed its size.
The wolf was twice as large as my cheetah. In the moonlight, its golden fur was mottled with red. My eyes widened, and I jerked my head up to stare at the full moon overhead.
Wolves weren’t gold and red, nor were they the size of a pony. They also lacked glowing eyes, although I considered blaming the moonlight for the vibrant yellow gleam.
Werewolves weren’t supposed to be real, but I had a ghostly cheetah haunting me, so who was I to say what could and couldn’t exist? I swallowed. A sane man would have been afraid, but my fear was smothered by my cheetah’s fury, although I didn’t understand why he was so enraged.
Something about the wolf set my spirit beast off, and he yowled his rage.
The distant cry of another wolf answered him, but the animal hunting me showed no signs of hearing its kindred’s call. It prowled closer, skirting the clearing to circle around me. Instead of the lithe movements I expected, it pranced, its tail lifted and head held high, its gaze fixed on me. My cheetah swiped at the wolf and yowled at his inability to rend his prey. The distant wolf howled again.
The relationship between predator and prey often shifted; as a cheetah, I had run into prey who became predator when cornered, which made the hunt more enjoyable. For the moment, I was the prey, and I had no idea how to become a predator using the thin skin and dull teeth of a human. My lack of claws didn’t work in my favor, either.
My cheetah, however, gave me strong legs. When the wolf lunged for me, I was ready for it. I wasn’t proficient in any specific martial art, but I went to lessons from time to time to delay returning home. I didn’t study any one form, instead participating in whatever class could fit me in.
I never would have considered using a roundhouse kick against a wolf before; I was tall enough to make my strikes too high to be effective. But, when my opponent was more of a pony than a canine, its head was the perfect height for me to kick.
I spun to give myself extra momentum and slammed my shin and the top of my foot against the wolf’s head. The wolf staggered, and I hopped back, resetting my stance as I had been taught during class.
The same stunt wouldn’t work twice, not if the oversized wolf had any experience with hunting. Clenching my hand into a fist, I waited for the unnatural creature to strike.
For the first time since it had picked up my trail, the wolf growled. I saw my death in its eyes. Even if I tried to shift to my cheetah’s shape, the process often took up to half an hour, time I didn’t have. While I could force the transformation, the effort would leave me weak and easy pickings for the predator.
I should have been afraid, but my cheetah had taught me well. Death came to all things, and I would face it with pride. I would fight until my last breath, and the adrenaline rush I so loved about the hunt surged through me. I breathed deep, and the scent of cinnamon teased my nose.
The wolf leaped for me. I spun away from its snapping teeth and whipped my left arm, smashing the back of my hand against its neck. My wrist bounced and struck its bony shoulder.
Sharp pain blinded me, stabbing up my arm. My legs buckled. The wolf snarled. With its eyes glowing a brilliant gold in the moonlight, the wolf lunged for me.
Its fangs closed over my throat.
Chapter Five
Cheetahs couldn’t cry, but my spirit beast’s mournful wails filled my ears, drowning out all other sound. The throb and stabs of pain from my wrist were accompanied by a chill far more intense than the cool autumn night. Pressure against my throat revitalized the memory of the wolf tearing at my neck.
While my eyes were open, my vision was limited to a narrow, blurred tunnel. My spirit beast’s translucent tail lashed back and forth. The thought of moving sent a shudder running through me, and the pressure against my neck strengthened, pinning me to the damp, leaf-strewn ground.
Something streamed down my neck, scalding against my cold skin. Shuddering, I realized it was my blood, and the weight holding me down was my cheetah’s paw as he desperately fought to staunch the bleeding. He wailed again.
I wanted to reach out to comfort him, but my body refused to move, and my arms and legs went numb, and even the chill convincing me I still clung to life faded.
A silver flash on the edge of my dimming vision drew my attention.
During the long years of having a ghostly cheetah for a companion, I had never seen another spirit beast. The wolf stared at me, its eyes the bright, glowing silver of the full moon. Its fur shimmered with the blues and whites of stars. Its nostrils flared as it breathed in my scent.
My cheetah’s cries softened to a pitiful mewling, which the wolf answered with a growl. The weight on my throat lifted, but I couldn’t find the strength to do anything other than sigh.
A sense of betrayal cut through the numbness isolating me, and my cheetah resumed his wailing. Movement caught my eye; my spirit beast lifted his paw, once again applying pressure to my throat where the wolf had
torn through my skin.
My cheetah’s grief was a cold, deep, bitter thing. When he ceased wailing, his cries were replaced by distressed purrs. The wolf warbled a question in my ear, but I didn’t understand what it wanted from me.
In my effort to soothe my cheetah, I reached out and touched his paw. I couldn’t feel his fur under my hand, and his usual warmth was faint. My fingers twitched.
Breathing hurt, and when I tried to speak, I couldn’t hear the sound I made, but my cheetah moaned, low and deep, and he dragged his tongue over my cheek.
The wolf warbled again, and I was aware of a sense of demand.
An old memory surfaced; the feeling was the same as the first time I had met my cheetah. He had stared at me with untrusting eyes.
The wolf was no different. Beneath the light of the cresting moon, instead of sealing my death, he took my life and made it his own.
I lived, I breathed, and I hurt, which confused me almost as much as the fact I was whining. Humans didn’t whine, not like a dog. My memories were a confused blur of pain. The worst of it radiated from my throat and my wrist.
No, the pain was in my paw. It felt wrong; my feline paws were flexible, as agile as the rest of my body, primed for speed and ready for the hunt. My body was stiffer, my pads broader, and while I could splay my toes, my claws refused to retract or extend as I expected. Puzzled, I tried to sort through my blurred memories.
When I shifted to my cheetah’s form, I was keenly aware of being a feline. When I returned to my human form, the rigors of my life smothered away the wildness.
In my head, a wolf howled, and my cheetah yowled a joyful reply. The warmth of his relief flooded through me, and while it didn’t ease all my pain, I was able to stagger to my paws. I trembled from the effort of rising.
I sucked in a breath, but instead of through the stiff nose of a cheetah or the flexible nostrils of a human, I panted out of my mouth.
I should have died the moment the spirit wolf had taken my body for himself. Some rules couldn’t be broken. On some instinctual level, I had always known one absolute truth: I could borrow my cheetah’s form only because he permitted it. His body wasn’t mine for the taking, and had I tried to, my precious cheetah’s life would have ended. The wolf had no such scruples about laying claim to what belonged to him—me.
I should have ceased to exist, leaving the wolf in full possession of my body.
I meant to shake my head, but a sense of wrongness froze me in place, and another whine slipped out of me.
When I became a cheetah, I was aware of my spirit beast’s presence lingering in my head, fused with me so he might guide me in the ways of the wild. He was still with me, but so was the wolf, and it was the wolf who urged me to halt my frantic panting and use my nose to breathe in the myriad of forest scents.
Cheetahs used their sense of smell, but not in the same way as a wolf. At first, I had no idea how to hunt for a scent; my cheetah constantly sampled the air, isolating and identifying new scents as he detected them. Panting dulled my sense of the world around me. When I couldn’t quite figure out how my strange new body worked, the wolf seized control and breathed for me.
My cheetah never had done such a thing; when I borrowed his body, I decided who was in control, although I surrendered control to my feline as often as not. When I did, I knew I could wrestle back control of my body.
My body was no longer my own, and that truth terrified me far more than the prospect of death.
The sharp, metallic stench of my fresh blood filled my nose. The wolf’s worry chilled me.
The wolf who had sought to take my life remained a risk to us; I—we—still bled. I staggered as the control the wolf had so casually seized returned to me, although he lurked in my head, ready to rule over me again if needed.
My cheetah purred in my head, and he did so for himself as much as he did for me.
I took a step. My left front leg throbbed, and the sense of wrongness returned. I shifted my weight to my right side, lifting my paw in an effort to ease the discomfort. Unlike my feline’s purrs, whining didn’t soothe; it made my throat hurt and woke the memory of the red and gold wolf’s fangs digging in deep. I shuddered and hopped in a slow circle, careful to avoid putting any weight on my left leg.
The last I remembered, the moon had been high overhead. I had no way of knowing how many hours had gone by, but its light spilled over the forest as it descended to the horizon, and the paling of the eastern sky warned me of the rising sun.
Somewhere nearby, a wolf howled, and both of the spirit beasts in my head tensed, their anxiety becoming my own. As a cheetah, I would have remained silent, but my wolf’s instinct was to voice a low whine, tuck tail, and back away, slinking into the brush to escape the rival predator.
It was simple enough to fulfill the wolf’s first two desires. My body was in motion before I comprehended the new instincts flashing through me.
Slinking, however, was a problem. I made it the first two steps, and then I attempted to put weight on my left paw. The pain burst up my leg, flared over my shoulder, and burned through my head with such intensity I swayed and fell on my side, which triggered rolling waves of agony from my throat.
I’d been hurt before as a cheetah, and his reaction to pain was to fight to remain silent; solitary predators such as us hid to heal. The wolf yipped, and in its staccato call, I heard his need and desire for a pack.
The rival wolf heard us and answered with a questioning howl, but instead of the comfort of company, my spirit animals feared what lurked in the woods.
The red and gold wolf found me before I could shake off the pain enough to stagger back to my paws and make my escape. My nose informed me it was a female, and there was a sour undertone to her scent that worried my wolf.
While I had always been aware of my cheetah, we only melded when I assumed his shape. We were together in the wolf’s body, and my feline recognized the massive beast; his hatred surged through me, leaving no room for doubt who—and what—the red and gold wolf was.
I wasn’t the only one with a secret, and my wife was a wolf who had come hunting for me. Idette’s madness burned bright in her golden eyes. My wolf recoiled from the taint in my wife’s scent, and after so many years with my cheetah, I reflexively made room for him, sheltering him from what he feared, although I didn’t understand the significance of the smells filling my nose.
I decided it didn’t matter what the sour odor signified; it made my fur stand on end while my skin crawled, and that was enough of a warning for me.
I struggled to rise, but Idette smacked her paw against my shoulder and drove me to the damp ground, pinning me beneath her unnatural weight. At one-sixty, my cheetah was as large as the species came. Idette dwarfed a mastiff, and I was a much, much smaller beast. To her, I was nothing more than a puppy. I shuddered as she lowered her muzzle towards my throat, and the wild instincts of my wolf drove a whine out of me.
Instead of biting down with her jaws as I expected, she dragged her tongue over my fur, and the scent of my blood overwhelmed the rich scents of the dawn forest. I wanted to join the wolf within and recoil from her. A new scent taunted my nose.
Fear was a bitter and sharp stench, and I stank of it, although most of it welled from the pair of beasts in my head. My wolf’s anxiety was the most pungent, and his world narrowed to the feel of Idette’s attentions to my injured neck.
He expected her to bite and undo all he had done by saving me for the sake of my grieving cheetah. In that moment, the knowledge of what they had both done seeped into me until their memory of joining and binding themselves to me became my own. They had, as my life bled away, broken through the barriers separating man and beast.
My cheetah and my wolf would remain with me for however long I lived, and I worried for them far more than I did about Idette’s intentions. If she killed me, would they die as well?
Idette would kill me, or she wouldn’t. There was nothing I could do to change that. My body hurt
too much to fight her, and the shaky weakness of blood loss and shock sapped me of the will to try.
When I had fought her, I had understood death came to all things, myself included—but my cheetah had feared the unknown beyond the end of my life. I had adopted nature’s regard for death, and my spirit beast had been consumed by the human way of worrying over the future instead of the present.
My ongoing survival was a puzzle I couldn’t solve, no matter how hard I thought about it. The wolf had done what my cheetah hadn’t been able to do, taking my dying human form and forcing me to assume his shape. I don’t know how my cheetah had managed, but he had convinced my wolf I was worth the effort, and that he would pay any price, so long as I could be saved.
How would we live, three individuals sharing one body? Would they consume me, or would I wear away at the wildness of my beasts until they were nothing more than the shapes of animals with a human’s mind?
Idette seized the nape of my neck in her teeth, and I yipped and whined from the pain. With a growl and a shake of her head, she silenced me. My wolf’s terror surged, and my body curled up, my hind legs lifting as I tucked my tail in response to his fear.
I couldn’t hold the pose long before my flagging strength gave out, and I hung limp in Idette’s jaws.
Chapter Six
Idette carried me to the kayaks and dumped me at the water’s edge. In the sunrise light, she transformed from wolf to woman. In the past, when I shifted, it was a slow but relatively painless endeavor. The worst part was the moment when fur made way for flesh, leaving muscle exposed to the open air. During my shifts, that part of the process happened fast, but it lit every nerve on fire.
My wife’s bones broke with audible cracks, and while she made no noise, her body convulsed on the shore. As a wolf, I had no real sense of time. Unable to tear my gaze away, I watched as she shrank, her bones snapping and reforming to take on her human shape. Her fur fell from her flesh and dissolved before it had a chance to drift to the ground.