As I had been taught by my father so long ago, I sought the inner snake lying inside the bones and teeth of the fetish necklace, the coiled, curled snake, deep in the cells, in the remains of the marrow. Science had given the snake a name. RNA. DNA. Genetic sequences, specific to each species, each creature. For my people, for skinwalkers, it had always simply been the inner snake, the phrase one of very few things that was certain in my past.
I sank into the marrow hidden in the fetish bones. I reached into the snake and dropped within. It was like water flowing in a stream, a whirling current. Like snow beginning a slow roll down a mountainside, gaining momentum, a tongue of destruction swallowing everything in its path. Grayness enveloped me, a cloud of energy sparkling with black motes, bright and cold, as the world fell away. I slid into the gray place of the change.
My breathing deepened. Heart rate sped. And my bones ... slid. Skin rippled. Fur, tawny and gray, brown and tipped with black, sprouted. Pain, like a knife, slid between muscle and bone. My nostrils widened, drawing deep.
Jane fell away. Night was rich with wonderful scents, heavy and heady and speaking of life. I panted, soft hacks of sound in the back of my throat, and listened, ear tabs twisting left and right. Hum of cars, notes of music, laughter of humans, animals rustling. Good sights, better with cat eyes, brighter, clearer. Good smells, better with cat nose. I hopped from rocks. Sniffed at food. Curled nose and snout. Old, dead, half-cooked meat. Dead prey. Soon would hunt, would tear flesh from bone. But stomach ached. Shifting took much from us. I ate.
Belly full, I stepped to top of rocks, broken and sharp, and leaped to top of tall fence, brick warm and high like limb in sun. Dropped down, into yard. Small dog living there was asleep and safe. Easy prey, but Jane says no. Only opossum, deer, nutria, rabbit. Wild prey.I padded around house to street. Crouched beneath big leaves of plant, good hiding place. Smelled of Beast spoor. Stared into street. And saw man. Standing in shadows across street. Watching Jane house, her den.
Not Rick, though Rick had stood in night and watched Jane house before they mated. This was man from fight place, man who was man and not man, man with blue and purple magics on his skin. Man who smelled wrong.
How did he find me? Jane asked.
I sent her mind picture of big-cat sniffing spoor.
The son of a gun put a find-me amulet or a tracking device on me or Bitsa. I never even thought to look. I’m getting sloppy.
I sent her mind picture of blue magic on her hands like mist moving on ground.
Gee spelled me, Jane growled, and followed me here. She went silent a moment. The house wards felt it. That was that odd electric pulse.
I hacked in agreement and padded back, to alley, over wall, and up another street. Man-city was never silent or dark, but night was better than day to run through streets and find truck to ride, like claws in hump of bison, into the country. Trucks everywhere, not running in packs like deer or elk cow and young, but each like solitary hunter, going its own way. I chose small one that smelled of bread and fried potatoes and leaped onto top, heading across river.
When I jumped from truck into shadows, I was far from city, and smells were rich and thick as fresh blood, good smells, not man smells. Opossum, wild dog and feral cat, water birds. Wet smell of turtle, frog, rat, dead things stinking. And ... deer scat.
Mouth watered. My territory. Hunting grounds I marked as my own. Good place to hunt. Half a moon since I claimed it. I paced slowly away from street, into woods, marking ground with scent, rubbing musk glands onto brush, scraping bark from trees with killing claws as a sign. Mine. My hunting grounds.
Water smell was everywhere, still and stagnant with dead plants, thick with small moving things. Smell of alligator. Wanted to hunt alligator, but didn’t want to get in water. Alligators big in water, bigger than Beast. Fast. Pelt hard as bone. Deer better. Followed deer scent into woods, heavy with piney smells, summer flowers, trace of skunk on breeze.
Inside forest, on edge of lake, smelled deer, saw hoofprints, two-toed, in mud, from empty-moon-night. Last night. Counted smells and scents. Was more-than-five deer, more than Beast could count. Jane used numbers of more-than-five, not Beast.
But deer had not come to drink tonight. Odd. I crouched and breathed in feel of wind. Touch of moonlight dim under trees. Stars, many overhead, not like man-cities with man-lights on poles and houses. Water dark and deep, with stars in them too. Remembered when kit tried to catch stars in water. Got wet. Good hunter now, left stars in water and followed deer into night.
Later, hoofprints dug deep into ground. Running. Smell of deer in fear. On top of deer track was new scent. I stopped. Tested air, drawing in scents over tongue and through nose, long scree-sound of tasting-smelling. Growled. Hissed. Knew this scent. Wolves. Found prints, wide and big as Beast’s, claws digging deep. Wolves running. Chasing Beast’s deer.
I tightened body, curling shoulders in to protect spine, paws close. Remembered long ago ... Wolves stole hunting territory, stole prey, making Beast hunger, belly hurting. Wolves and man brought hunger times, killed off good things to eat. Hunger times bad, like deep hole with no way out. Remembered. Hissed in anger. My territory! Wolves again hunted on big-cat-spoor-marked ground. Stole Beast-prey. I raised my head and screamed, she-cat sound, echoing back over water, through trees.
Jane was worried, thinking of man-not-man watching her house, her den, and werewolves at Booger’s. You haven’t hunted in a while and this is the closest forest to the city, Jane thought. Is it the same wolves? Werewolves? Here on your hunting ground? Asking human questions, like questions of kit.
Same scents. I tried to show Jane traces, parts of one scent, parts of many, but humans are scent-blind, even Jane; deer scents were too many for her to understand, wolves were too many. I raced into the night, deer hunt forgotten, following wolves. Hit new scent. Strong and rancid. Blood. Much blood. Wolves had killed and feasted, the night before attacking Jane in Booger’s. I growled, hacking displeasure. Kill wolves. Wolves die for this. This time Beast will not run.
I padded to kill-site, blood-stink strong on wind. Meat and bones scattered. Half eaten. Blood soaked into ground. Deer wasted. Stolen. Wolf-stink heavy on air. Fury filled chest and lungs. Pounded in blood and heart. I screamed. My grounds. My deer. Mine!
Soft sound, like breath drawn. Stopped. Listened. Again, breath of wounded prey. Hunched to ground, senses reaching, smelling, tasting, seeing, hearing, feeling of air. There. Padded silently to side of killing ground. Found fawn, injured, laying beside body of doe. Dried blood down haunches. Studied fawn.
She’ll be okay, Jane thought. It’s only superficial lacerations.
Has spots, tiny hooves. Too young to survive alone. Fawn panted in fear and pain. Eyes liquid in dark of night. Anger inside grew. Took fawn throat in killing teeth. Jane hid from death in back of mind. Silly Jane.
I wrenched, tearing fawn throat. Drank hot blood. Ate in fury, tearing meat. Fawn should have been food for winter hunt. Doe gone. Cannot save. Waste, waste, waste! Wolves are waste. Ate in anger, tearing, ripping with teeth.
When stomach was satisfied, anger died. Padded away from kill-site. Sat. Groomed pelt. Thinking Jane-mind-thoughts.
Stood and padded through night, around kill-site, around and around in widening circles. Like dog, hunting for scent. Hacked in displeasure, pausing, staring around at dark forest. Put head down, padded on. Sniffed. Big-cats do not hunt like stupid dogs with nose to ground. Brain not right for scent-hunting like dogs. Big-cats hunt with eye and ear, ambush hunt. But Jane in mind with Beast, made Beast do what other cats cannot.
Found scent of another. Stood, motionless, front paw up. Head to ground, breathed in, drawing air through nose and over scent sacs in mouth, scree, scree. Unknown scent, yet familiar. Big-cat scent.
Another mountain lion? Jane thought, startled like bird in bush, rising up.
Big-cat. Not like Beast. I tested wind. Looked up into trees. Saw moss hanging like dead prey in trees. Tasted moss once. Plant. Bad taste.
No big-cat waited to pounce from trees. Found and followed scent. Tracing back through pines in rows, as man plants forest. Paws in mud showing size, showing claws like Beast’s.
Paws almost as big as yours, Jane said. Retractable claws.
Left prints in wet ground. Not good hunter. I nosed prints, sniffing, thinking. Big-cat had followed wolves. Hidden in trees and scrub, off to side, downwind of wolves. Big-cat was young. Female, like Beast, but not like Beast.
A female cat of another species, Jane thought.
Watching. Tracking wolves. Makes no sense. I followed scent a long way, back along wolf trail to man’s road, hot tar and dead things along its sides. Wolf and big-cat scent disappeared. Not on other side of road. Just gone. Smell of magics faint on air, like mist above stream. Wolves changed into humans here. Got in car or truck. Big-cat maybe travel like Beast, on top of same truck.
Jane thought, So the were-cats know where the werewolves hunt.
Too many predators. Not enough prey, I thought back. I went back to kill-site and sat, looking over dead prey, winter-full-belly wasted to summer wolf-kill. Padded around clearing, smelling, looking. Found more big-cat sign, curls of bark on ground. Looked up, into branches; leaped into tree, smelling cat. High up, was limb good for waiting on prey. Hunched and moved along branch, paw, paw, paw, balanced. Her scent rank and strong here. Downwind of kill-site.
Good place to watch. Smart cat. She marked territory, claws raked along high branch, scent marked on limb, claiming hunting ground. But she let wolves hunt. Cat had watched wolves kill prey she claimed. Now she is stupid cat. Makes no sense. And after wolves gone, cat had not gone down to eat. Wasted more deer. Left hurt fawn. Stupid kit mistake.
All predators are trespassers in Beast’s hunting ground. Anger burned hot in belly, like grief when kits killed, like anger when Jane first steal self, like hunger times come again.
Dawn was gray in sky when I paced away, under low tree, where pine needles were piled deep, and thought of Jane. Gray fog grew up around Beast. Pain pain pain, cutting self deep. Letting her be alpha.
I came to on the needles, breathing deeply, being pricked all over. I didn’t know why, but Beast liked shifting on pine needles, which hurt my much-more-tender skin. As usual, I was starving. I pulled the travel pack off my neck and unrolled the clothes inside. They had been there for two weeks and the wrinkles were set in as if I’d ironed them in. I checked the bars and charge on the cell phone. I hadn’t brought Leo’s phone for several reasons: I didn’t want to ruin it if I had to take a swim (there had been a couple of wet close calls and I’d been lucky), I didn’t want Leo to be able to track me via the GPS device in the phone, and I valued my privacy. Leo didn’t know this number. No one did. So no one could call me.
