The blood began to sing in his veins, pulsing, exhilarating. He breathed in the scents of fresh mown hay, honeysuckle, and sweet summer evening. After dropping his jeans to the ground, he stepped out of them, then neatly folded and placed his lone garment on the front seat of his truck. As interim leader, he fought the change, keeping a watchful eye. One by one, the passel groaned and moaned, their humanity melting away to leave behind a legion of possum bodies foraging in the night.
Transformation was the time the shifter folk were at their most vulnerable, and Irene had told cautionary tales of foxes and coyotes that had nearly decimated the passel a century ago, catching them while shifting and feasting on their members. Occasionally a predatory bird still caused a scare; thus the leaders remained watchful. When the last of the jacks, jills, and joeys scuttled off to the relative safety of the forest, mouths full of baked goods or insects, Dustin nodded to Monica, who let out a relieved-sounding sigh and released her hold on the beast within. Her long blonde hair shortened, fading to brown and gray, and he briefly spotted the sprouting of a tail. In the blink of an eye, a furred creature with beady black eyes stared up at him as if to say, “What ’cha waitin’ for?”
He’d expended too much energy fighting the change. The moment he dropped his guard, he shifted, without even time to register whether or not the process hurt.
Rather than feast on day-old bread, crickets, or grasshoppers, the way the more snippy members of the passel planned to pass their one mandatory transformation of the lunar month, he and Monica took turns with the elders monitoring the group. He patiently waited his turn to slither through the grass while searching for the perfect, juicy June bug.
In the early morning hours, Dustin noticed his receptionist, Tiffany, was missing. He heard a scream a split second later.
SCRITCHscritch.Seth bolted upright in bed, tugging the patchwork comforter around his chin. His heart thudded a frantic beat in his ears. What was that noise? He inhaled shallow breaths, straining to hear.Old houses make noises, he told himself.It’s just the house settling.
He’d almost convinced himself whenscritch scritch!There it went again! His heart banged against his ribs. He slipped one hand out from under the covers and snatched at the pull chain on the ancient lamp beside the bed, flooding a corner of the room with light but not chasing back the shadows completely. The bedside clock displayed 5:00 a.m. Something had the nerve to wake him at five freaking o’clock in the morning?
Scritch scritchcame again, more insistent this time. Seth took a deep breath, eking it out in a relieved sigh. The cat. Irene must have had a cat after all, and the poor lost kitty wanted in. Or a mouse. Maybe a mouse. He turned out the light, plumped his pillow with a few wellaimed thumps, and nestled back down into the mattress.
SCRITCH SCRITCH SCRITCH!One second horizontal, the next minute vertical, Seth clutched the covers as a shield and turned on the lamp again. He listened, trying to determine where the sound had come from, relieved when it didn’t appear to originate in the bedroom. Cautiously, he placed a hand on the nightstand, easing over the side of the high bed to peer beneath. Nothing but a few dust bunnies, well on their way to becoming dust rhinos. He eased one leg from under the covers. Slowly he wriggled from between the sheets, summoning every bit of his nonexistent courage.
Searching for something, anything, to use for a weapon, he spotted the sword above the mantel, famed to have belonged to his great-great-grandfather. In his youth, he’d been wowed, but grown-up Seth privately suspected the keepsake had come from an auction. Properly armed, he gritted his teeth, praying the door didn’t squeak and announce his presence.
Scritch scritch?The nuisance’s telltale scratching came again, hesitant, questioning, as though the unwelcome nocturnal visitor daring to disturb Seth’s sleep now counted its days numbered.
One careful footstep after the other, Seth tiptoed his way into the kitchen, holding his breath while he flipped the light switch. Whatever lurked out of sight paused mid-scritch, drawing Seth’s eyes to the panel sealing in the water heater—the panel he’d replaced. “Aha!” he told his unwelcome guest. “Can’t get in since I covered the hole, can you?” He shuddered, wondering how many times his aging auntie had peacefully slept while a critter ran amok in her home. He recalled the chewed loaf of bread he’d found on the counter, and the massive amounts of decayed food. “You’ve mooched your last meal, my friend.”
Seth raised the sword over his shoulder, aiming to swing it baseball-bat fashion if necessary, and lifted the hook-and-eye latch holding the panel in place. He flung the door open and took a peek inside. “Holy shit!” screamed Seth, jumping back from the opening.
“Eeeeeeiiiiiiii!” screamed the thing, before appearing to faint dead away.
Having been transported a few feet away without realizing how he’d gotten there, Seth crept closer, eyes riveted to the humongous rat lying curled up on the floor next to the water heater, the sword point leading him like a divining rod toward the immobile beastly mass.
Was it dead? Had Seth killed the darned thing from fright? “I am the man!” Seth crowed. He hunkered down, realizing the intruder wasn’t a rat but a possum. Well, he supposed it made sense to find a possum in your house when you lived near a town called Possum Kingdom.
He poked the thing with the sword. Other than jerking with the motion of the blade, the hairy trespasser lay still.
Seth poked it again, watching for the thing’s sides to rise and fall with steady breathing. Nothing. He reached out a tentative hand, snatching the skinny tail, intent on tossing the creature outside and going back to bed. No sooner had he touched the wormlike appendage than the animal squirmed. He let loose and the possum dropped back to the floor, immediately flipping into its “I’m dead, leave me alone” position.
“That’s the deal, is it?” Seth screwed up his nerve, grabbing the tail again and then barreling for the door. Both beady eyes flew open, as did a mouth full of sharp teeth. “Hsssssssssssssss,” went the possum, before latching those jagged mouth-daggers onto Seth’s arm the moment he got the back door open.
“Aaaaaaaaahhhh!” Seth yelled.
The possum dropped to the front porch with a heavythumpand scurried away into the night.
Seth clutched his bleeding wrist, staring out at the darkness. “It bit me! Son of a bitch bit me!”
Chapter 11
AMISSINGshifter plus a howling human equaled major damage control needed. Waiting until dawn broke and the passel returned to human form had been sheer agony. Afterward, dealing with passel member’s petty grievances had eaten up even more of Dustin’s time. The moment he’d extracted himself, he took off for Seth’s.It’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s my fault, he chanted, his compact Ford Ranger burning rubber down Irene’s long drive. No, not Irene’s—Seth’slong drive. He hoped like hell that Monica had located Tiffany, and that the woman was okay. If she wasn’t, he’d soon hear from Andy.
A million scenarios played out in his head. What would he say, what would he do? How would he explain the sudden need to pay an early morning visit, when last night he’d claimed illness?
He passed the densely packed pine trees lining the drive, then pulled to an abrupt halt in front of the house. Irene’s truck wasn’t parked in its normal spot at the barn entrance. Dustin beat on the front door anyway. Where was Seth? Dustin’s blood ran cold. He visualized Tiffany sinking teeth into Seth’s arm, worst-case scenario playing out in his mind. Surely Seth hadn’t been injured badly enough to drive to the emergency room over in Crawfordville. Some doctors on staff had grown up nearby and knew the score, but an overzealous young intern might go into conniptions, believing he’d found something medicaljournal worthy in Seth’s bloodstream.
Calm downhe admonished himself.Maybe Seth just decided to drive twenty miles to the nearest McDonalds for breakfast. Maybe he’d only screamed because Tiffany startled him.
Dustin hopped back into his truck, checking his watch—ten minutes past nine. He should be at work by now. He hit the speed dial on his phone for his office, in the unlikely event that Seth had called or stopped by. Shit! No signal this far out in a hollow. Dustin sped back up the driveway, choking on his own dust. The moment the truck tires tasted asphalt at the top of the hill, his phone rang. “Dr. Livingston,” he answered.
A blubbering Tiffany yowled into his ear. “Oh God, Doc, I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I really, really, didn’t mean to.”
“Calm down, Tiffany. You didn’t mean to what?” He gave her the benefit of the doubt, though he fully believed he knew what her next words would be. Was it too much to hope that she’d merely broken a window or something at the clinic or double-scheduled a nine o’clock appointment?
