I chuckled softly. “Most gators are hibernating. Water’s still too cold for them to feed.” I looked up under my eyebrows. “Sarge told me. Anyway, swimming is only important if I really need it.”
“And?” The word was phrased the way he must have spoken in the Rangers, sharp and cutting and demanding of more than just an answer.
“Newfoundland,” I said. “I have the bones of a huge black Newfoundland, two years old, who was in training to work with an SAR team because of her swimming ability and because she had an air nose.”
Eli grunted. “Change in here or the Kid will want to watch. I’ll go get some protein.” He left, closing the door behind him. He hadn’t asked about the air nose comment, because he knew what it meant.
Some dogs track on the ground. Others over water. Yet others—some very special few others—can track through the air, sometimes for miles. They were the wunderkinds of tracking dogs as far as I was concerned.
I stripped and put the folded clothes into the bag. It was bright pink with big flowers in hot pink, red, and fuchsia, with green leaves on it. Peonies maybe. The zippered duffel had been a gag gift from the Kid, who expected me to retch and throw it away. Instead I’d brought it on two other jobs. And Eli made him carry it while we both cooed about how cute he looked. Mean? Yeah. Probably. But turnabout’s fair play had been fun.
Naked, sitting guru-style, I adjusted the length of my doubled gold chain around my neck. On it was wired a gold nugget from the first place I’d changed after I left Bethel Nondenominational Christian Children’s Home when I was eighteen, and a tooth from the biggest mountain lion I’d ever seen. It was a sort of safety tool, a last-ditch survivor device. If I got killed, and if I had time between my last heartbeat and death, I could change into my Beast form and maybe live. It had saved me a couple of times already, and I went nowhere without it.
I propped a pillow behind me, got comfy on the bed, and dropped into the place of the change. Once upon a time, and not that far in the past, changing into a different shape had been much more difficult. I’d had to calm my heart rate and breathing, meditate, really work at it. Now—maybe because of the times I’d changed in extremis, which could also be called near-death experiences—I could drop into the place of gray energies much faster.
My magic was some active form of quantum mechanics, but I wasn’t smart enough to understand it. I just knew how to use it in the same way I could turn a light on without knowing how electricity worked. I held the fetish necklace in both hands as my breathing evened out; I again dropped into the gray place of the change.
I sank deep into the bones and teeth and marrow of the Newfoundland, finding the snake that lives in the heart of all animal cells, the double helix of DNA that skinwalkers knew about and knew how to use long before the human medical research community discovered it.
I let myself flow into the genetic makeup of the dog that had died saving its trainer from an attacker, shot before she could ever use the training she was getting to save more lives. My skinwalker energies rose. Pain shocked through me, sharp as a knife blade slicing along my bones. I sucked in a final breath and . . . changed.
• • •
Smells and smells and smells. Snuffled in scents and blew out, dewlaps fluttering. Snorted. Scented in again. I was Beast, but not Beast. Something was wrong. I smelled female human, scent strong and powerful. Layered beneath her were smells of many other humans. Strong, vital, sick, old, young. Many humans. Much smell of fish. Rain. Female human scent was familiar.
Oh. Jane’s scent.
Jane woke slowly in brain of dog, stunned, as always, by overwhelming power of scents around me/us. I chuffed, Beast’s sound different from New-found-land-dog’s mouth. More . . . doggy. Do not like dogs.
Beast? Jane murmured into the deeps of mind.
Beast is here. Ugly dog. Tilted big dog head. Not as ugly as last dog. Good smells. Good fish smells. Feed us? Am hungry.
Eli said he’d have food, Jane thought back, trying to remember why I/we were in this form. The smells nauseating to her, too strong, disorienting.
As Jane struggled to get her bearings, Beast stood on the covers of the bed, stepped to the floor, and went to the doorway, where I/we rose on my/our back legs to make me/us taller.
What are you—? Stop!
I snuffled with laughter and tapped on door with claws. Ugly black claws, hard and short and not made for hooking prey.
Door opened. Kid smell swept out.
Lunged inside. Knocked Kid down. Stood over him huffing into his face, drooling on his jaw.
“Holy crap. How can you have dog breath?” Head tucked, he rubbed his head on the floor back and forth as if to protect his throat and get away at the same time. Stupid prey move. Should attack instead. Alex Kid shoved with his hands into our belly, making us oof out a breath. “Ugh. Get off me!” he shouted. Loud in dog ears.
Stepped to side and chuffed up at Eli. He was leaning against wall, shoulder taking his weight, smelling of laughter, small smile on his face. He looked to us. “Did you sign a no-pets clause on this room?”
Jane took over for us and snorted with laughter. Shook head, like human shakes head. Eli held out a leash. Again Jane shook head. I trotted back to deeps of mind and let Jane take over.
• • •
I wanted to say the ambush wasn’t my fault, it was a big-cat move, but I was laughing too hard. The Kid’s body odor was strong enough to choke a goat—or a Newfoundland—this morning. No more snack foods for him. He stank of the house-made, Cajun-style rémoulade sauce and fried fish and obviously hadn’t showered today. Or last night. Ewwww. And then I smelled eggs cooking.
Eli bent and put a plate of microwaved eggs on the floor beneath my head. Like maybe two dozen eggs. And they must have been delicious because I inhaled them—probably nearly literally because dogs don’t have a great sense of taste to complement their great noses.
While I changed, Eli had been loading up the SUV and we were ready to go. Rather than stay near the Kid, I licked the egg plate clean, trotted out the door and down the stairs to ground level, and leaped into the backseat. From the seat, I jumped over onto the gear in the very back. And we were off.
• • •
The rented airboat was loud. Like really, really loud, when Eli cranked it over. There was no ear protection for dogs as part of the rental, so I’d just have to stand it. The craft was a wide, flat-bottomed johnboat, powered by a gasoline engine and a wooden, aircraft-type propeller in a massive cage. It had two bench-style seats, the back one mounted higher than the front one, with the accelerator and the steering mechanism—a long handle that operated rudders—located up at the backseat.
I leaped onto the front seat and shoved Alex off it, forcing him to sit up behind me with his brother on the backseat. Eli clearly had a massive sinus infection because he was able to ignore Stinky beside him. I let Eli strap me into the seat belt, figuring that a sideways spin might slide me right into the water without it. As we took off from the dock, I stretched out on the seat I had claimed, closed my eyes, let my tongue loll out, and took in the wind. It buffeted my facial hair, flopped my ears back, caressed my face, and filled my nose with goodgoodgood smells, and I was in doggy heaven.
Even Beast seemed okay with this form. Inside me she rolled over and lay on her side, eyes closed in enjoyment.
Time is different when I’m in animal form. Minutes and hours seldom matter. There is only now, this moment, this set of smells, all finding places in my doggy brain. A scent dog’s brain is wired vastly differently from a human’s brain. It’s like a huge card catalog, each smell, with its breakdown, root smells, tucked in a different niche or drawer, each interconnected and attuned to memories. But I had no dog memories in this form, so each smell had to find its place. I’d done this before, in bloodhound form, and the experience was totally befuddling, disorienting, and weird. And
wonderful.
The other times I’d been in dog form were before I met Eli and Alex, working alone, usually for a single fast bit of reconnoitering. This would be something very different. I’d be working with humans. My humans. Like my brothers, or my family. Possessive, personal, intense. That was the way the dog instincts made it feel. As if the Younger brothers were my humans.
In this form, with them present, I wanted to work. Despite how great I felt as the sun rose around us, heating the air and warming my coat, no matter how great the world smelled, I felt excitement rushing through me at the thought of getting to land and starting a search for big bad uglies.
Maybe this feeling was why humans had begun to domesticate wolves and breed dogs into today’s breeds, because some wolves had wanted to work with humans, had liked the challenge, and because wolves could breed down into something manageable. Maybe. Or maybe humans bred wolves to have something around that fleas liked better than they did humans.
Flea catcher, Beast murmured into my hind brain, chuffing with laughter. Stupid dogs.
There was no awareness or measurement of time, except the sun lifting from the watery horizon, until the stench hit me, I sat up on the seat, my nostrils widening and fluttering. Werewolves. A pong on the air like rotten flesh, wet-dog stink, a reek like nothing else, especially in this form. I stayed upright, taking in the wind, snuffling and shaking my head when the odors of dead fish and dead carrion—turtle, I thought—buzzards, armadillos, rotting vegetation, were too strong. Seeking the were-scent. I could get used to being a dog.
Beast chuffed, her ear tabs lying flat in disapproval. Ugly dog, she thought at me.
• • •
The airboat ran up on the ground with a slight lift and change of its center of gravity. I rocked back and forth on the seat, digging in with my claws, and huffed. Without opening my eyes, I took in the site, smelling human males. They had urinated everywhere, used one particular area as a toilet for other functions, another as a fish-cleaning station, pitched tents in the lee of some kind of aromatic tree. They had done a little fishing, a little target practice. I smelled guns and nitrocellulose, beer. Lots of beer. No weres had been here. The wide-bottomed boat shifted again and I barked.
Okay. That felt weird. Sounded weird too. I opened my eyes to see the brothers looking at me. Musta sounded weird to them too. I focused on Eli, who had one foot up in the air, about to get off the boat, and shook my head slowly. He stopped his weight transition, thinking, and put the foot back into the boat. “No one here?” When I didn’t respond he asked, “No were-smell here?”
I huffed again, agreeing with his statement.
“Can you smell them?”
I huffed, broke our gaze, and turned my head. We were on a long, straight canal that ran, unwavering, for several miles through the swamp. The stink of werewolves floated down the wind from that way. Eli returned to his seat, started the rented airboat, and backed us off the flat expanse of muddy land. I kept my gaze in the direction that I wanted us to go.
It wasn’t far. It was actually within visual distance of the drunken fishermen, just as they had said. I stared hard at the small outcropping of land and—despite the seat belt—wagged my tail at the site. Eli, following my visual cues, pulled up to the shore, and beached the boat. Saw grass grew in bunches here, some taller than my dog form’s shoulder, and stunted, weather-twisted trees, with a number of buzzards sitting in the branches. It was hard to estimate in a dog brain, but Beast whispered to me, More than five birds of the dead. Something large dead here. It was jungle, reeking with the overpowering stink of . . . Ahhhh . . . dead alligator and stink of werewolf. Eli released me from the seat belt and I leaped out to the muddy bank, paws sinking into mud. There was no smell of human, just were—
The attack came from my left. It bowled me over, into the mud, and rolled me into the water. Teeth, fangs like razors, came at me from above. Beast ripped me away and slung me to the back of my mind.
• • •
Rolled away from attacker, deeper into canal. Feet found log beneath, not deep. Pushed off. Leaping, rising, slinging self out of water. Screaming with dog roar. Leaping, stretching, leaping, hard, muscles pulling. Seeing two attackers. Werewolves. Sick. Male. Smell of were-taint on air. They lunged. Heard gunshot.
Landed on smaller werewolf. Bowled him over. Saw hairless belly. Sank teeth into ab-do-men. Foul, stinky blood, awful taste in mouth. Ripped into belly. Shook head, tearing flesh free. Heard yelps. Dog screams. More gunshots. More than five. Swung head hard. Tore out chunk of werewolf flesh. Spat it out. Bad taste.
Wolf scrambled onshore, wolf claws sinking into mud. Insides of wolf trailing on ground. Prey-enemy-pack-hunter was wounded. Beast is good hunter!
Lunged for wolf.
Was hit in side. Lifted. Batted away by paw. Big paw. Bigger wolf attacking. Was slammed up. Into air. Beast side rammed into sharpness of airboat. Screamed, yelped. Fell. Wolf-killing teeth/fangs sank into Beast neck. Tore into flesh. Smelled/felt hot dog blood. Was yanked to side. Painpainpain. No breath. More gunshots. Too many to count. Bigger wolf staggered. Stumbled. Jaws opened and Beast/New-found-land fell free. Rolled into water.
Beast tried to swim. Could not move. Pain arched across ribs. Sank deep. Water covered head. Painpainpain. Cannot breathe. Looked up. Saw through water. Big wolf had gray coat, hairs with black tips. White underbelly. Black claws and muzzle. Big teeth. Biggest wolf ever. Short back legs. Sloping back. Big. Bigbigbig.
Dire wolf, Jane murmured into brain. Holy crap. A dire werewolf.
Wolf backed away. Carrying injured, smaller wolf in jaws, like pup.
World began to go black around edges of eyes. Beast—I/we—was damaged. Was wounded. Blood poured into dark brown water, staining it with blood. Death striking deep.
Oh crap, Jane thought. We’re bleeding. Holy crap. We’re dying. Too late to shift! Again.
Saw Alex dive into water, spindly arms and knobby legs. Water moved in ripples of cold. Felt Kid grab ruff of neck. Darkness fell over Beast.
• • •
“You will not die, damn you.”
Eli voice. Saying words Jane did not like.
But breath did not come. Only blood bubbling from mouth. Ribs cracked and moving out of order. Broken. Piercing lungs. Throat shredded. Am dying.
Light began to go. Darkness flickered around edges of vision.
“Damn you! You will not die! I will not lose another one!”
“Bro. Stop.” The Kid’s voice, full of pain. “She’s gone, bro. Stop. Jane’s dead.”
Eli grabbed head and swung it around. Stared hard into eyes. Fierce. Lips pulled back to show blunt human teeth. “If you die, I’ll fucking kill you myself. Again. So shift or I’ll shoot you, I swear to God, I’ll shoot your dead body full of silver.”
We had never done this—shift from another, lesser animal into Beast.
Inside, Jane laughed, sound broken and far away. We got nothing left to lose. So. Try it. Shift already, she said.
I reached down into self, and . . . shifted.
Eli scrambled away. Shaking his hands in pain. Cussing.
Jane laughed, laughter half-wild and feral. Yes! she shouted into mind.
I fell into self. Into Beast. Energies like lightning and fire, and loud, like thunder. Rumbled through gray place of change. Screamed with pain. Am Beast!
I died.
And lived.
• • •
I lay in water, half-in, half-out. Took breath. Filled lungs. Vomited water out of lungs, onto shore. Gagged with misery and agony. Spluttered water onto land. And breathed. I lay on Beast paws and closed eyes, body half in water of canal. Deep in brain, Jane cussed. I breathed.
Clawed onto land, out of water. Pulled self onto shore. Claws extended. Body, mud-caked. Stinking of mud and rotten flesh. Dead alligator loomed at eye level, thick
skin torn open, flesh spilled onto mud. In rushes saw dire werewolf, small dead werewolf in jaws. It watched and growled low. Smelled of anger and confusion, watching big dog that was now big-cat.
I clawed to feet and stood. Screamed into sky. Am Beast. Have killed pack hunter. Have killed enemy. Have killed werewolf. Screamed into sky. Have won!
Yeah. Go, us, Jane thought into mind, thoughts tasting of sadness. Attack it.
I lunged. But bigger werewolf dragged smaller one away. Deep into saw grass. Into shadows of trees. It ran.
I chuffed. Jane and Beast live.
I was in Beast form. Puma concolor. I looked to Eli and the Kid. They smelled of fear. I chuffed. Do not be afraid. I am Beast. Will not eat you.
“Jane?” Eli asked. “Are you there?”
I chuffed in laughter. And I smelled the were-magic of the change. Wolves changing, one still alive. Then smelled second one, smaller one change. Heal. In distance, I heard sound of boat starting, high-pitched, mechanical, electrical. Human sound. Boat moving off small area of land, and into water. Humans did not hear—too far away.
Well, crap, Jane murmured, we lost them.
Smelled smell that was familiar. Will find them again.
Well, maybe. Maybe not. We just got bitten by a werewolf again. Jane took over thoughts and padded to airboat. Sniffed blood on boat sides. Stepped over low side and up onto seat. Lay down. Closed eyes.
• • •
Woke to hear the Kid, voice on cell phone—metal thing with ears and mouth, alive and not alive. Heard voice on other ear of cell, then another voice. Then heard voice of Gee DiMercy, Mercy Blade of Leo. “Tell me exactly what happened,” Gee said. Alex told him about wonderful fight with werewolves. Told how Beast killed one. Beast is good hunter. Told how werewolf bit Beast in dog form.
I opened eyes. Sat up on the seat of airboat. Mercy Blade killed rogue things. Would kill werewolf Jane. Deep inside, Jane woke. What? she asked. I/we stared at the Kid.
“How soon can you be here?”