“You could always do as leaders have in the past,” Irene murmured. “Name Monica your official mate and keep a male lover. If he doesn’t interfere with passel politics, they’d accept such an arrangement. Plus, Seth’s a McDaniel. They have to respect the name.”
“Such an arrangement wouldn’t be fair to me, him, or Monica.” “Ah!” The lady smiled, the uplifting of her mouth easing pain lines from her face. “You admit there issomeone?”
“Not anymore,” Dustin murmured.
Irene ran her knotted fingers gently against Dustin’s cheek. “You still miss your Reynard.”
No use denying. “Yes, ma’am.”
“He chose tradition, took a vixen for his mate. It wasn’t personal, and he still thinks highly of you.”
Dustin nodded. “We remain friends, nothing more.”
Irene tugged Dustin down to swipe her chapped lips against his cheek and whisper, “You deserve better.”
Picturing Andy and his missus, laughing, happy, and planning the arrival of their twins, Dustin closed his eyes, willing the residual hurt from his mind and heart. “Yes, I do.”
Dustin stayed at Irene’s bedside until the sun began to set. He didn’t need to see the moon edging over the rim of the world—lunar power pulsed deep within him. Irene’s widened eyes and her fingertips scrabbling against Dustin’s face told him she sensed the moonrise too.
“One more time,” she whispered. “Help me!”
Having seen her naked on most full moons, and being her doctor, Dustin didn’t hesitate to help the elderly lady disrobe. The coroner, on the other hand, suddenly found the drapes of great interest.
“I have to go,” Dustin said, slipping off his jeans and T-shirt. He wore nothing underneath. The less clothes the better. The passel had no problems with public nudity.
“Dusty! You better get out here!” Monica shrieked from outside the door.
Torn between his duty to the passel and the need to be with his leader when she breathed her last, Dustin hesitated.
Irene relieved him of a tough decision. “You go on. In a few moments, they’ll need you more than I.”
“I’ll be with her,” Ralph said, stepping up to the bed. Pressing his lips to Irene’s forehead, Dustin replied, “Until we meet again, my Jill.”
A transformation that years of med school couldn’t explain rippled through Dustin’s body, shortening his limbs, elongating his snout, multiplying his teeth, and judiciously applying a tail. He squeaked and scurried off, grateful to Monica for pulling the door ajar while she still possessed human hands.
Outside the door pandemonium reigned, furry bodies scampering around Irene’s kitchen, devouring any food in sight. Two fat, gray possums scuffled over an olive. Dustin ordered, “Follow me,” and barreled through the hole in the wall, sidestepping a puddle of water from the leaky water heater. He blazed a trail outside, where the passel would engage their beastly sides until dawn. “June bugs beware!” Dustin chirped, wading into a moveable, or rather, moving, feast.
From sundown to sunrise, Dustin reveled in his animal nature, keeping a cautious eye out for others of his kind. Unseen, nonshifting guards hovered around the perimeter, alert for predators.
The sixteen-year-old Johnson boys, the passel’s newest fullfledged members, had shifted for the first time six months prior. They’d proudly visited Dustin’s office to show off their recently learned ability to shift at will. Dustin only hoped he wouldn’t be called to the county high school anymore to explain when one accidently lost control in gym class. He’d done a heck of a lot of lying to the other students to convince them the three brothers had merely played a prank, and Eddy Johnson hadn’t actually turned into an animal during a volleyball game. A bit of fast-talking and a little smoke and mirrors involving the football team’s mascot, Petey the Possum, had effectively covered the trio’s shenanigans—for the time being.
One other needed watching over too, and Dustin moseyed over to the spot where he’d sensed a relatively new member snuffling around in the grass. One night a pretty young bride, wanting to share everything with her new husband, had said, “Bite me,” a phrase with a literal meaning in Possum Kingdom.
Those not born with the Channing-Frost virus—colloquially referred to as the changeling virus—in their blood were prone to more animalistic instincts, resulting in unfortunate accidents like the one involving Seth’s mother. Without her human knowledge, she’d merely stood in the middle of the road, mesmerized by a car’s headlights. Seth’s father had raced back to save her, too late. Both died in possum form. Empty caskets lay buried in the First Baptist Church of Possum Kingdom’s cemetery, a proper burial held to appease Seth’s “Yankee” grandmother. As an added precaution against history repeating itself, Dustin had put this bride to work in his practice as his receptionist, maintaining an ever-watchful eye.
Not for the first time, Dustin wondered where Seth was, what he was doing, and hoped he was happy doing it.
Daylight came and Dustin straggled back to the house. He crept naked into Irene’s bedroom and slipped on his jeans.
Ralph sat beside the bed in a brocaded chair, eyes red from a combination of tears and lack of sleep. He stroked a still, furry body on the bed. “She went quickly,” he said. “Without pain.”
A stack of forms lay on the dresser, and Dustin, heart heavy, signed on the appropriate lines, making Irene’s death official before shoving the documents back into the envelope and handing them to Ralph.
“Would you like to come with me?” Dustin scooped up the tiny body, hugging his beloved leader’s remains to his chest and lightly stroking an ear. A single tear slipped down his nose, splashing against her fur.
“Yes, please.”
Together the two men stepped out into an early summer day. Men and women in varying degrees of nakedness fell in stride beside them. Dustin’s steps slowed as he trudged toward his destination, a small pond situated on the back of Irene’s property. Beneath a pin oak, he placed the body into a prepared hole and then paused to take a deep breath. While her second-in-command had every right to tend her body, the moment Dustin lifted the waiting shovel and tossed the first bit of earth into the hole, he announced his intention to provide a successor for Irene, either by choosing a viable candidate or assuming the role himself. He heard a few murmurs from various passel members, some favorable, some not, but chose to ignore them for the time being.
