Kitty's Mix-Tape

by Carrie Vaughn

  “What?”

  “Check it out.” He handed the card over, pointing out a little hole that might have been made by a thumbtack. I had only noticed it before as standard wear and tear.

  When I held it up, the image in the photo lined up with the scene in front of us. And the pinhole—I squinted, peered through it. I moved the card away just to be sure of what I was looking at, checked the makeshift viewfinder again. It pointed toward a spot on a distant hillside, a small clearing in the pine forest.

  “X marks the spot?” I asked.

  “Sure, why not?”

  Cormac stopped the Jeep a couple of times to double check landmarks as we took one dirt road after another, passing occasional homesteads tucked back in the trees. Finally, we turned onto a two-track path and he got to practice his off-roading skills. I held tight to the doorframe as we rocked and bounced over stones and hillocks. I looked back once to see a great view of the town, and yes, we seemed to be headed to the right place. Finally, he parked.

  We’d come to a small mountain meadow, bounded on one side by a patch of aspens, bright green among the darker conifers. This was how he’d identified the spot back in town, the landmark he’d used to guide us. The clearing was maybe fifty yards across, quiet and isolated. Elk came here to graze—lots of droppings lay scattered, and their scent was everywhere.

  A small cabin sat tucked up against the trees, almost invisible. Made of rough-cut logs, its low roof was covered in pine boughs. The whole thing was barely big enough to count as a closet. But someone was living here, I could smell it.

  Cormac stalked forward, studying the cabin’s exterior and the space around it. On a bare patch of ground, he found a fire circle, ashes ringed by scorched stones. A blackened stick still had a shred of burnt meat on it.

  “Fire’s still warm,” he said. “Whoever it is was just here.”

  “Is this who you’re supposed to deliver the message to, or another clue?”

  He looked around, agitated, like he was searching for the hidden camera.

  I settled myself. Breathed deep, took in the calm of the forest, the hush of a soft breeze through the trees. Let my Wolf side out, just a little. Her senses, hearing, vision, and sense of smell that could track a rabbit across a prairie. Felt the itch across my shoulders of invisible hackles rising. This was a hunt, and Wolf was ready.

  The firepit. The door. The wall outside—and a pile of clothes, army surplus camo pants and a ratty sweatshirt. The scent was all over them. And it wasn’t entirely human. I didn’t know what it was, except . . . lycanthrope. Canine.

  I looked back at Cormac. “It’s the same scent as the fur in the box. It’s a guy, he’s shapeshifted.”

  He pulled the fur out of his jacket pocket, and I held it to my nose. It had lost some of its strength and had taken on some of Cormac’s own smells of leather jacket and maleness. But yeah, it was the same.

  “He headed into the woods. Probably saw us coming. I can track it. Or Wolf can track it.” If I shifted, Wolf would able to follow that smell anywhere.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  I was already taking off my shirt. I wanted to see this through to the end, to find who that fur had come from. Cormac looked away, frustrated, as I shoved my jeans down around my ankles.

  “It’s too dangerous,” he said.

  “Yeah, probably. I’ll be careful. We’ve come too far to not keep going.”

  Cormac turned his back as I stripped off the rest of my clothes. He’d seen this before, and I’d been a werewolf too long to be self-conscious. But he would never be comfortable with it.

  The chill mountain air felt good on my skin, and Wolf was ready.

  Werewolves had to change on nights of the full moon, but we could shift voluntarily whenever we wanted. Sometimes, I wanted to an awful lot. To be Wolf was to be strong, free. To flee worry. Wolf was always there, just under the surface.

  I imagined my ribs were a cage, holding her in. Most of the time, except for full moon days, she slept. A presence, but not obtrusive, unless I was angry or scared or in danger. Then, she woke up. Then, I could feel her pressing against the bars of the cage, fighting to get out. Claws pressing at the tips of my fingers, ready to burst through the skin.

  Most of the time she slept. But when I called her, she was always ready.

  “Kitty,” Cormac said. I glanced over my shoulder. “I’m right behind you.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I knelt, put a hand on the ground, my fingers digging into the earth, and I imagined a door opening, the bars of a cage dissolving. And she was there. Hundreds of pinpricks stabbed my skin, fur bursting through. My back arched, and I grunted as bones melted, broke, reformed, my whole body wrenching into something else. This pain was familiar, and the best way to cope was to let it happen, let it wash through, fast, fierce—

  —blinks at the sun, she so rarely sees daylight, she is a nighttime creature, a child of the moon. She shakes out her fur, remembers . . . she has a job. The scent. Strange, mysterious, like her but not. Muzzle to ground, her nose lights up and she finds the trail. Runs.

  She is followed, two-legged footfalls. Hesitates, glances over her shoulder. She knows him, his scent, he is pack, so she continues on. A true hunt, friend at her back, quarry ahead.

  The trail is strong, growing stronger. The prey flees, weaving around trees but moving constantly uphill. So wonderful to run, free, surrounded by wild, soft earth under her paws, cool air through her fur, she can keep running, just keep going—

  No. Remember the job. Her other self drives her.

  She catches sight of her target. Pushes harder. Closes. Her quarry wheels, dances in place. Curious, she pulls up. Studies it, nose flaring. Doesn’t bare her teeth because she doesn’t feel threatened. It has four gangly legs, scraggily tawny coat, narrow face, smaller nose.

  Wary, tail straight out, she waits for a challenge. Braced to spring if she needs to. The other paws the ground, backs up. Isn’t staring but isn’t backing down. Offers a yip, an uncertain greeting. And then she has a name for him.

  Coyote.

  A thrill. She—her other self—wants to meet him, speak to him. But he is wary. She circles. He springs. She dashes ahead, cuts him off. He whirls on hind legs and again she blocks his way. He’s bigger, but she’s faster. She is no threat, her hackles are down. If she can show him that she only wants to talk—

  She sits. So does he, some distance away. She licks her snout. Her other self, the daytime, two-legged self is struggling, she wants words to explain, but she only has this body, so she lies down, tucks her tail, waits.

  And so does he. Rest, just rest.

  She is uncertain, confused, curious, not sure this is safe. But his manner is calm. Her other self urges her, sleep, sleep . . .

  Rubbing my face, I woke from strange dreams. I didn’t always remember my time running as Wolf. Images, the taste of blood on my tongue after a hunt, flashes of vision. This time felt particularly odd, unreal. Then I remembered a name: Coyote.

  I sat up, forest dirt covering my naked side. My hair was a tangle, and I itched.

  A young man sat across from me, leaning up against a beetle-eaten pine tree with sparse boughs and dried-out needles. He wore a blanket over his shoulders but was otherwise naked. I took a breath, and yes, he was my quarry, the coyote. Were-coyote. I’d never met one before.

  “Hi,” I said, sitting up, hugging my knees to my chest. About twenty feet separated us. Just enough to really look at each other, far enough away to not feel threatened.

  “Hi,” he said back, without enthusiasm. His straight black hair fell to his ears. He was lean, muscular. His dark eyes were wary.

  “I’m Kitty,” I said, and waited for him to introduce himself.

  He stared. “Of course you are.”

  Cormac jogged up, then stopped, looking back and forth between the two of us. The coyote flinched, but held his ground.

  “Who are you?” Cormac demanded, and I was
sure the were-coyote would flee again, so I interrupted.

  “Cormac, I think that envelope is for him.” He had the envelope tucked under one arm, he’d gone back for it, as if he suspected he might need it. Under his other arm, he held a bundle of clothes. “Are those my clothes? May I have them, please?”

  He handed them over. I dressed as quickly and smoothly as I could, which wasn’t very, wiggling to pull up my jeans. I just shoved the bra in my pocket.

  “You haven’t been a lycanthrope very long, have you?” I asked the coyote. He glanced away, picked at the edge of the blanket. “That’s why you’re out here, hiding. While you figure out how to keep it together.”

  “Feels safer here,” he said.

  “We have a message for you,” I said. “I think. Cormac?”

  “Fine. Take it off my hands.” He tossed the envelope to the guy, who fumbled with the blanket for a moment but managed to catch it.

  Warily, he opened it. Inside, several folded sheets formed a letter. The guy held it up. The outside of the sheaf of pages had one word written on it in block letters: COYOTE. Brow furrowed, confused, he unfolded the pages and started reading.

  Cormac’s face was expressionless, as if he was just done having opinions about the whole thing. I went to stand next to Cormac, scuffing my bare toes in the dirt. He’d forgotten my sneakers when he’d picked up the rest of my clothes.

  “What do you think this means?” I asked softly.

  “I don’t really care anymore, as long as the check clears.”

  Well, deciding not to think about it was certainly one solution. The coyote kept reading. Then he glanced up at us.

  “Well?” I asked. “What’s it say?”

  “I can’t tell you,” he said. “But . . . thank you. This is important.”

  “But what is it?” I pleaded, almost whining.

  “Sorry.” The young man seemed more at ease than he had a moment ago. He leaned back against the tree, snugged under the blanket, and regarded the pages of the message like it had told him something wonderful. Maybe if I was fast enough I could grab it from it. Run away with it just long enough to see what it said. Maybe.

  “Well. What’s your name, then?”

  He offered half a grin. “Can’t tell you that, either.”

  A key from fifty years ago. A safe-deposit box from ten years ago. A guy who wasn’t born yet in the first case and would have been just a teenager in the second, and certainly not living anywhere near where the postcard had marked his location . . . “None of this makes sense. It’s not, like, time travel—”

  “I’ll say this much,” the were-coyote said. “Mr. Crow sends his regards.”

  I fumed. Clenched my hands into fists and set my jaw. I wanted to yell. “And who is Mr. Crow?”

  He just grinned, for all the world like a coyote yipping in mockery.

  I glared a challenge. “My Wolf could have totally taken you, if she’d wanted to.”

  “I’m sure she would,” Coyote said, grinning.

  “Kitty, we should go,” Cormac said.

  But I hadn’t gotten the whole story. I wanted to know. I said, “My pack runs in the foothills south of Boulder. You know, if you ever want to come visit.”

  “Maybe I will. But he’s right, you should get going.”

  Cormac was already walking away. In the end, I knew a wall when I saw one. And this guy . . . he had a big story, I could tell. As much as him not telling me might drive me crazy, I couldn’t do much about it. So I followed Cormac back to the tiny cabin, found my shoes, and we left.

  We spent the drive back in silence, at least until we hit I-70. Returning to the reality of big highways and traffic seemed to break a spell.

  “It’s not time travel,” he said, abruptly.

  “No,” I confirmed. “It’s not time travel, because if time travel existed, then it would always already exist and would never not exist and we would know about it.”

  He stared at me. “I don’t think I understood a word of what you just said.”

  “It’s not time travel,” I reiterated.

  “So what was it?”

  “Coyote and Crow,” I said softly. “Tricksters. We’re in someone else’s story.”

  He tilted his head, as if listening. Amelia, explaining to him, maybe. “It’s probably for the best we don’t know more,” he said finally.

  “Probably, yeah.”

  “It’s probably messy. Messier.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We don’t really want to know.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Goddammit,” he muttered.

  We stared ahead, driving away from the westering sun.

  Sealskin

  RICHARD'S HAND WAS SHAKING. The noise, the closed space, the lack of easy access to the door were all getting to him. He pressed the hand flat on the polished, slightly sticky surface of the bar. The webbing between his fingers, mutant stretches of skin reaching to the middle joints, stood out. The hand closed into a fist.

  Doug noticed him staring at his own hand. “Ready for another one?”

  “No, I think I’m done.” Richard pushed away the tumbler that had held Jack and Coke.

  “This is supposed to be a celebration. I’m supposed to be congratulating you.”

  “I’m thinking of getting out.” He hadn’t said the words out loud before now.

  Richard appreciated that Doug didn’t immediately start arguing and cajoling.

  “Can I ask why?” Doug finally asked.

  He offered a fake grin. “Well, my knees aren’t going to last forever.”

  “Fuck that. Why?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t deserve the promotion.”

  “Richey, that’s exactly why you deserve it. Nothing’s worse than an entitled asshole in command.”

  It was nice of him to say so, but Doug had been on that last mission; he knew what had happened. Richard stared at the empty tumbler, trying to figure out what to say to make his friend understand.

  Doug kept talking. “You didn’t screw up. It could have happened to anyone. Besides, what’ll you do if you get out? You have some kind of plan?”

  He didn’t. His skill sets were highly developed, but highly specialized. He could spend ten minutes underwater on one breath. He could infiltrate and escape any country on Earth undetected. He could snipe a Somali pirate on a life raft from a hundred yards on rough seas.

  He said, “Private sector? Make a fortune while the joints still work, then find a beach somewhere to retire to?”

  Doug gave him that “bullshit” look again. “Sounds like a waste of meat to me. Maybe you can buy an ice cream stand.” He smiled, indicating he’d meant to tell a joke. But he kept studying Richard. “That last trip out really spooked you.”

  His team was on call to mobilize for rescue operations. The four weeks of boredom and two days of terror routine. This time they’d been tasked with rescuing hostages from pirates in the Arabian Sea. The target he’d shot had been fifteen years old. At the time, all Richard cared about was that the guy had an AK-47 pointed at a boatful of civilians.

  The people he was killing were younger and younger, while he was feeling older and older. He didn’t know where it ended. When it was his turn, he supposed. So what was the point? Just do as much good as he could until then. By shooting teenagers.

  Yeah, it had probably spooked him.

  Doug’s phone rang. “I have to take this. My sister’s been in labor all day and Mom said she’d call with news. I’m going to be an uncle.” He grinned big as a sunrise.

  “Congratulations,” Richard said as Doug trotted out the door. Richard was happy for Doug, and Doug’s sister, the whole family. But that left him sitting alone, staring at the rows of bottles on the back wall.

  “Can I get you something else?” The bartender was an older woman—Richard couldn’t guess her age, either a worn fifty or a youthful sixty-something. Not the usual young and hip type of bartender. She might have been doing this her w
hole life.

  He gestured with the empty tumbler. “Naw, I’m good.”

  “Looks like you got left.”

  “He had a phone call. He’ll be back.”

  He must have looked like he was in need of conversation, because she kept going. “You stationed out at Coronado?”

  “That obvious?” he said.

  “We get a lot of you boys out here. You have the look.”

  “What look is that?”

  “Let’s just say we don’t get a lot of trouble here, when you and your friends are around.”

  It wasn’t his build, because he wasn’t that big. It was the attitude. You spotted guys like him not by the way they looked, but by the way they walked into a room. Surveyed the place, pegged everyone there, and didn’t have anything to prove.

  Doug came back in and called out to the room, “It’s a girl! Seven pounds eight ounces!” Everyone cheered, and he ducked back out with his phone to his ear.

  “Well, isn’t that nice?” the bartender said.

  “I wouldn’t know.” It just slipped out.

  “No siblings? No kids in the family?”

  “No family,” he said. “Mom died last year, I never knew my dad.”

  “Well, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s just how it is.” He shrugged, still staring at his empty glass, trying to decide if he needed another. Probably not.

  “Then you’re all alone in the world. The soldier seeking his fortune.”

  Is that what it looked like? He smiled. “I know that story. You’re supposed to give me some kind of advice, aren’t you? Some magical doodad? Here’s an invisible cloak, and don’t drink what the dancing princesses give you. Or a sack that’ll trap anything, including death.” He’d have a use for a sack like that.

  “Got nothing for you but another Jack and Coke, hon. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll tip big anyway.”

  “You change your mind about the drink?”

  “Sure, I’ll take one more.”

  Doug came back in then. Richard expected him to start handing out cigars, but he just slapped his shoulder.