I climbed out of the vehicle and crunched across the snow to hunch behind a boulder heaped with snow and ice. I stripped, folded my clothes, shivering and miserable, and shifted to Beast.
* * *
* * *
Slinking slowly from drift to drift, Beast carried Jane folded clothes back to SUV. Dropped clothes at tire. Crouched. Gathered body tight. Leaped. Landed on warm hood. Shoved our face at windshield. Showing teeth. Snarling. Eli didn’t look up. He just gave tiny lip quirk that passed for human smile. Began speed-loading magazines for white-man gun. Beast dropped belly to top of warm SUV engine, thinking. Was still thinking when Jane woke in Beast mind.
What are we doing?
There is no prey to chase at inn, Beast thought. Want to chase wild turkey.
You know they can fly, right?
Chase bison in Edmund car.
Not happening.
Window came down. “Com’ere,” Eli said.
We leaped to ground and raised up, putting front paws on SUV, shoving head inside where warm air scented of Eli and home. He reached out and secured gobag around our neck. “I got food, a gallon thermos of coffee, new reading material, and a few new weapons. I’ll put out laser monitors and cameras on the bumpers once you’re out of the area. I have a signal”—he waggled his cell at me—“and if you start wavering in and out of range, I’ll send you a ping on your cell.”
I/we lifted a paw to gobag next to gold-nugget-and-cougar-tooth necklace we never took off, and peered at seat beside him. Fanned out on it were slippery papers called magazines.
Jane read: Guns & Ammo, Handguns, RifleShooter, and one titled Garden & Gun. That’s for the highbrow, überwealthy, übersnooty, übershooty types.
On top of papers was Eli newest toy, called tech bow.
I/we chuffed at it and Eli said, “PSE Archery Carbon Air ECS 32 Compound Bow, in black. Fifteen hundred dollars. Modified to fire handmade arrows constructed of carbon fiber reinforced with ash wood and plastic with silver tips.” He patted deadly toy. “I’ll be here. Take as long as you need.”
I/we leaned in and swiped at his neck and ear with tongue. He tasted of Eli. We snorted into his ear.
“Stop that,” he said, laughter hidden in tone. “Go do whatever it is you need to do.”
I/we dropped to ground and trotted into snow, leaping and dodging rocks and fallen trees. It was midafternoon.
Jane thought, I’ll give us three hours or until the snow starts again, whichever comes first. The storm front isn’t stuck over us, but it’s a narrow band, several thousand miles long, and it originated in the north pole. It’s riding along the ridges of the Appalachians. We’ll have more snow or sleet or freezing rain soon.
Hate sleet.
* * *
* * *
Beast jumped into the nearest tree and clawed her way up. We paused there and she sniffed for male big-cat. She got no hint of cat, but did smell bear and squirrel and owl and maybe a hint of magic, though it vanished as fast as it came. She leaped to the next tree. And then the next. Covering ground fast. I let her run, chasing whatever she wanted, while I thought.
Molly and I once had a conversation about my soul home. The gist was that Molly wanted to know if it was a real place. I was pretty sure it was. At the time I had believed the limestone cave was located near the white quartz boulder where I found my Beast shape, near Horseshoe Mountain. But now I had other thoughts. Now I thought it might be located near the Nantahala River gorge, near the spot where my father had told me I was expected to care for my baby brother. In the memory, I had looked down at my feet, and they had been small next to my father’s. My mother had been pregnant. I must have been just past my first shift. The gorge was a sacred place for The People. So all that made sense. But I was more than a hundred miles from the Nante—the Nantahala River—and nearly that from Horseshoe Mountain, via rough terrain on foot. I had to make time to go search for the cave, in case Moll had been right about the importance of the physical cave itself to my well-being. Soon. As soon as I killed some more fangheads.
Beast came to a stop. We were perched over a narrow cleft of gorge.