Outfoxed (The Fox Witch #1) - R.J. Blain Page 0,33

illumination to identify the victim as a man who’d crossed someone with a gun.

Huh. Usually Mother Nature got the kills, and I wondered if he’d crossed Anna. Few bothered with guns anymore between the expense, the legalities, and our lethal weather. Why kill anyone when waiting for the next storm might do the job without a potential prison sentence? The stench promised he’d spent a few days under the sun.

Any other day of the week, I might’ve stopped to check his body, but I resumed my sprint, searching for a place I could ditch my pursuer. I’d already had my fill of firearms, Anna carried one, and I didn’t want to share the poor bastard’s fate.

Anna yelped, and something squished. Grimacing at the thought of the big woman making a close acquaintance with a dead body, I took advantage of the moment, turned the corner, and dove for yet another debris-strewn alley.

Perfect.

I climbed over another dumpster, gave a courtesy check for more corpses, and dropped down when it seemed clear. Shifting in a hurry hurt like hell, exhausted me, and would make the rest of my night a misery, but it beat capture. Grateful my possessions transformed with me, I shook out my fur and crawled under the dumpster to wait for Anna to catch up and pass me. The refuse would help hide my bright fur, and I prayed Mother Nature would hold off on trying to kill us for the twenty extra minutes I needed to ditch my unwanted company and find the nearest access point for the maintenance tunnels and my new cellar home.

As expected, Anna followed, and she cursed me for being clever and slippery. She also cursed the corpse she’d fallen onto, and I shuddered at the thought of wearing some dead guy as an accessory. I almost huffed my amusement at her vulgar descriptions of how she’d rather wear her men.

She took care going over my dumpster, and without slowing, she kept going, heading for where the alley opened to a major street. Keeping still tested my patience but being too hasty could cost me everything.

Anna was a lot of things, but she wasn’t stupid, and she had good reason to do a double take if she saw a fox where she expected me. Magic made strange things happen, and people wanted vixens who could fully shift.

As long as I protected my secret, I would be fine, but the instant someone saw a fox where a woman should have been, it would be game over. While there were a lot of stupid people in the world, a single assumption—a correct one—would remove any hope of maintaining my freedom.

No one could catch sight of me as a fox.

Anna halted in the intersection, still cursing while lightning danced across the sky. The low rumble of the storm kicking into full gear decided her; all predators were prey to Mother Nature, and she wisely chose to pay attention to the weather’s dire warnings.

She ran, and I followed her most excellent example.

Back tracking was dangerous at best, but unless I found shelter, I wouldn’t have to worry about the bounty on my head. I’d be dead. A little too late to be of any use to most, Inner Tulsa’s warning sirens blared.

I bolted for the nearest entry into Asylum’s tunnels several blocks away. While I couldn’t afford anyone seeing me shift from fox to woman, I couldn’t afford to be caught out in the streets during a bad blow. I transformed, and when I coughed, not even the rain could mask the heat of my blood in my mouth. Shifting again to access my cellar might be enough to kill me, but I had no choice.

Either I sheltered, or I died.

I hauled the manhole cover away, slid into the hole, and spared the moment to restore the plate to its rightful place. Then I climbed into the dimly illuminated tunnel and ran like I meant it, hoping for the best but expecting the worst.

Five

I’d found bodies in the tallest branches of stubborn trees before.

Sunday, May 3, 2043.

Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The Alley.

* * *

When Mother Nature finally showed up for her date with Tulsa, someone must have pissed her off something fierce, as she took her temper out on the city. The maintenance tunnel shook, and dust and bits of concrete rained down on my head. Shifting again could kill me, but I feared what the storm might do if it tore out one of the manhole covers and went fishing