He was bent over, leg-sitting, torso high. Shining beam of light over place where I ate. Rain washed blood away? Should have . . . He touched ground. Put fingers in light. Watery blood on them. She tensed, watching. Rick wiped hand on dirt, stood, looking at garden. I dropped low. Light and footsteps moved away. He left, locking gate after.
Raced to fountain and drank, drank, drank. Found her form in memory and shifted.
Heat steamed off my naked body in the warm, wet night air. The muscles in my thighs and calves cramped where I crouched on the boulder. Sweat broke out on me in huge puddles, pooling, rivulets running down my spine and between my breasts. Through my hair, tangling the strands. Nausea and hunger warred in my belly, cramping there as well.
A pain gripped my middle and I retched. Startled, I threw up the heated water I had just drank. That had never happened before. I was too hot. I had seldom run for so long in Beast’s form, and I was having trouble throwing off the heat. I could trot or walk for long distances, but a dead run was for the final killing sprint, when claws and teeth locked down on the hindquarters and leg tendons of escaping big prey, prey marked from a botched ambush, when dropping down from a high limb or ledge went wrong. Sprinting was for killing. Not for running city streets.I forced myself to stand, pulled the travel pack from around my neck; it had slid during the run, choking. Unsteady, sweat slick on my skin, I made my way to the house and inside. Instantly I smelled another intruder, gone now; his scent hanging on the air was several hours old. Bruiser had paid me a visit. Dang, I was getting popular. I stumbled to the shower, tossed the now dry clothes outside the shower door and turned on the cold water, or as cold as water ever got in this heated swamp of a place. I stood under the spray, letting it wash away the stink of sweat and the gasoline I had splashed through, draining away the sick feeling. It took a long time. Longer than I expected. The shower pounded down and I drank the spray to rehydrate. Rubbed my cramping calves, one foot at a time on the corner seat. I shuddered with reaction.
No wonder the big cats native to this region were so much smaller than their Appalachian cousins had been. Heat dissipation was hard with a larger body mass. When I was finally cool, I dried off and walked to the kitchen where I ate two Snickers while cooking a big, eight-cup pot of oatmeal. I ate every bite standing up at the stove, naked and trembling and shoveling it in.
I shouldn’t have forced Beast, not made her run so long and hard. But then I’d have missed seeing the Joe search my garden. I had to find out who had given him a gate key. And take it from him. And teach him a lesson about invading my home.
My territory, Beast rumbled angrily. My den.
“Yeah. I agree totally,” I said between bites. “My territory.” No matter how temporary.
When hunger was sated enough for me to think, I twisted my hair out of the way, into a knot and long, wet ponytail, and walked through the house, scenting. Bruiser had entered from the side porch. Another interloper to deal with. Just how many keys to my freebie house and garden were there? Had Katie given them out like candy?
Bruiser had made his way through the house slowly, pausing at each of the places where I had discovered cameras. I knelt and sniffed at each; he hadn’t touched anything. Even in human form I was pretty sure his scent wasn’t on the wires or the cables. He just paused in each spot, as if studying the destruction. In the bath, he had touched the clothes hanging in the shower, still damp at the time, his scent on them stronger, as if he had inspected them for bloodstains.
His MO changed in my bedroom. He stayed by each camera longer, maybe looking around, studying, taking it in. His scent was on the handles. He had opened each drawer, looked in the closet. Touched my clothes, squeezing pockets and hems with a thoroughness that wasn’t carnal—it was a professional search. I got a chair and checked the box on the top shelf. I placed a finger on it, feeling the faint buzzing that indicated the obfuscation spell was still activated. He hadn’t touched it. But I couldn’t say the same thing about my weapons. They had been handled.
I carried the Benelli M4 Super 90 shotgun to the bed and checked it for tampering. This model M4 had been designated by the military as a Joint Service Combat Shotgun. Its steel components had a matte black, phosphated, corrosion-resistant finish; the aluminum parts were matte and hard anodized; the finish reduced the weapon’s visibility during night operations. The shotgun is considered by many experts to be nearly idiotproof. It requires little or no maintenance, operates in all climates and weather conditions, can be dumped in a lake or pond and left there for a long time and not corrode. It can fire twenty-five thousand rounds of standard ammunition without needing to have any major parts replaced. I had studied long and hard before investing in the weapon.
The Benelli, a smoothbore, magazine-fed, semiauto shotgun, is designed around the autoregulating gas-operated—ARGO—firing system, with dual gas cylinders, gas pistons, and action rods for increased reliability. Locking the barrel is achieved by a rotating bolt with two lugs. It can fire 2.75- and 3-inch shells of differing power levels without any operator adjustments and in any combination, and can be adjusted or fieldstripped without tools. It’s perfect for close-in fighting in low-light operations. It’s a totally cool weapon. Mostly, though, I just liked the fact that it was idiotproof.
The weapon was loaded for vamp with hand-packed silver-fléchette rounds made by a pal in the mountains. Fléchettes were like tiny knives, which, when fired, spread out in a widening, circular pattern, entering the target with lacerating, deadly force. The fact that each fléchette was composed of sterling silver decreased their penetrating power but made them poisonous to vamps, even without a direct hit.There was no way a vamp could cut all of them out of his body before he bled out or the silver spread through his system. I opened the cock, inspected each round with eye and nose. Bruiser hadn’t messed with the weapon except to see what I carried.
Other than camera hunting, I hadn’t been to the second story. Still naked, I followed Bruiser up there, from room to room, all four of the antique-decorated bedrooms, closets, and both baths. He was faster here. A lot faster, as if he knew I was seldom upstairs. Which was a little odd. He might guess I stayed downstairs, but how could he know?
Back downstairs, he spent a lot of time in the kitchen, especially looking in the refrigerator. Most of the original beef was gone, leaving only a few good quality sirloin steaks.
It took me some time to work through the emotional pheromones in the traces he left, but I finally settled on two. Disgust and curiosity were in his scent in equal parts. Now, why did the henchman of the head of the vamp council need to know about disabled cameras in my house? And look in my closet and drawers? My refrigerator? Had Leo sent him? If so, why?
The memory of the cave dream returned, bright and shocking in its intensity. For a moment, I was in the cave, breathing herbed smoke, shadow figures dancing on the walls. I jerked back to the now, putting out a hand for balance.
Exhausted, feeling violated at the intrusion into my home and garden, I walked from door to door, checking the locks—what little good that would do me with all the keys floating around. After that, with dawn graying the sky, I crawled into bed and was asleep instantly.
The dream came at me, slow, predatory. Slipped up, padding close, a vision of a pregnant moon, big, round, full of light, glistening on snow, reflecting back from icicles hanging from tree limbs. Stars in the sky were cold, less bright than on sickle moon nights. I was cat, but not Beast. Was myself but not quite, in the odd way of dreams. I scented the darkness, whiskers trembling, smelling the forest, alive beneath the snow but heavy with winter’s long slumber.
I sat, unmoving, short, stubby tail tucked close, staring over a pristine expanse of meadow left by white man’s fire. Pangs tore at me, hunger gripping my belly. I had hunted, had caught a rabbit days ago. Now I waited, watching for movement on snow. I had to eat or I would die.
The wind changed, lifting my fur. The frozen scent of meat came on the air. Blood. A kill, not mine, lay beneath snow. Close. Hunger clawed at my belly. I stood, opened my mouth, and pulled in scents as Edoda had taught me. Big-Cat scent was merged with the blood scent. Fear cut into hunger, fear of Big Cat. Panther. Tlvdatsi. Hope shot through me. Tlvdatsi. Edoda. I huffed hard. No. Edoda is dead. His blood scent was a cruel memory.
Grief brought the awareness that I was dreaming. An awareness that pushed me up and out of the dream, making me an observer. This is new, I thought. Not a dream. A memory. Excitement built along my nerves. In the dream/ memory, I sniffed deeply; flehmen behavior, another part of me thought, sleepily. Jacobsen’s organ, necessary for all creatures who use olfactory and pheromonal communication methods.
This was a different cat scent, dangerous to bobcat—to we sa. To me. But the Big Cat was gone. It had hidden its kill. I crept across the snow, pausing often to crouch and to listen. To scent the wind. Gone. Big Cat had abandoned its prey.
The scent of blood grew, frozen beneath the snow. Hunger clawed at me as if alive, demanding, eat, eat, eat. The kill was shoved beneath the lip of a white and yellow rock, quartz white as snow, veined with the white man’s gold. The blood scent reached up through the snow. I unsheathed my claws and batted snow away, moon-touched fluffs flying in the dark night.
A frozen deer carcass was revealed and I tore into it with claws and sharp teeth. Eating, desperate. Blood melting and smearing across my cold fur and paws and jaws. Hunger stopped tearing into me, satisfied. And still I ate. Gorging.
Weight slammed me into carcass. Claws tore into my shoulders. Big Cat. I tried to run. My pelt ripped in her claws. The smell of my blood was hot in the night. Tlvdatsi screamed. Pawed me over, exposing my belly. I raised my paws, claws extended, ripping into her face. The scent of cubs, born out of season, was strong on her. Her blood fell onto me. Her fangs tore into my belly. Ripping. My claws slashed deep into her. Our blood mingled, running together. The snake buried in the blood of tlvdatsi opened to me. Pain tore into my heart. My breath stopped. I am dying.
I sank into the snake of the tlvdatsi. Deep. Deep. I saw where we were similar. And different. I couldn’t be Big Cat. I was too small. Darkness pushed inside me. Dying. One last clench of claw. Hopeless. Frantic.