Instead, a lion stood on a nearby rise, the desert breeze ruffling his mane, the rising moon throwing silver sparkles across the golden expanse of his fur.
He loped down the hill, came at the army of hyenas with wild and savage abandon. Waded into them with claws and teeth and snarls. They scattered like pigeons. Unfortunately, they regrouped like pigeons too.
I braced myself for the onslaught, then sent out a thought to the lion: Run, Luther!
Luther was a street kid we’d picked up last month south of Indianapolis. He was a Marbas, the offspring of a lion shifter and a conjurer. His parents had been killed by other lions—a cadre of shifters descended from the demon Barbas—and we still weren’t sure why.
Luther had become the latest addition to the federation. He was an accomplished channeler and a damn good fighter—living on the streets tends to make that happen. I should know.
For an instant I thought he hadn’t heard me. Lions and tigers are similar, can even interbreed. Ligers, anyone? Or tigons? However, we aren’t the same species, and our telepathy might be funky.
But Luther cast me a scornful glance—the type every teenager gives his idiot parents—then went right back to fighting the hyenas. He seemed to be enjoying himself, crunching and munching his way through half a dozen.
My leg was healing—slowly, but I could put weight on it. With the addition of Luther, we held off the tide. However, at this rate, we weren’t going to win. It was only a matter of time until they did.
Luther roared, both pain and fury, and I drove forward, finishing off every hyena in my path until I reached him. Ever since I’d met the kid, I’d felt a bizarre affinity for him, a near maternal devotion I didn’t understand but couldn’t shake. When I saw one of the speckled beasts with his teeth sunk into Luther’s neck, I grabbed the freaky humpback by his hump and tore him free.
Luther bled from several nasty gashes, but they didn’t slow him down in the least. He turned to face another wave, and I snarled. He ignored me some more.
I couldn’t force him to leave; I had my paws full. But if we lived through this, we were going to have words. Despite Summer’s dig that I was no longer in charge, I was. Especially of Luther.
I don’t know how long we fought the hyenas, how many we killed or how many more poured into the fight. But there came a time when it was just Sawyer and I in the middle of the fray, and my chest seized up, thinking that some of the ash floating through the air was Luther.
Then I saw a flash of leonine tail at the outskirts of the melee. Luther trailed a circle of bloody footprints around the hyenas. And as he did so, they stopped fighting, milling within the confines of the paw prints, bumping against one another and snarling but never breaking the plane.
Now what? I thought. Should we slaughter them while they were confined? Or perhaps leave them within the charmed ring forever?
Get out, Sawyer ordered. Quickly, before the spell is complete.
Neither one of us had any problem stepping past the bloody circle. As soon as my pads touched the pristine dirt on the other side, a faint chanting arose. Foreign and rhythmic, yet still I recognized Luther’s voice in my head.
Blood, the moon, a chant—magic was definitely afoot. I stood back, so did Sawyer, and we watched and listened as the kid weaved an unknown spell.
The night stilled. Silence pressed on us as heavy as a rain-drenched quilt. Then the hyenas began to glow as if the sun poured down on them alone. A tiny flame blazed on each and every one—like E.T.’s heart light—then with a final yipping laugh-howl they burst into ashes. Bizarrely, not a single fleck landed outside that charmed space.
What in hell did you teach him? I murmured as Luther turned and loped toward Mount Taylor.
Not that, Sawyer answered, then followed the lion back home.
Me, I had a car to retrieve, clothes to put on. I might not care if Sawyer saw me in only my skin, but the kid was another story. I wasn’t that comfortable with shape-shifting. I doubted I ever would be.
Sawyer and I had run a long way as wolves, but I was able to retrace the miles just as easily as a tiger. Sure, a tiger was probably more conspicuous than a naked woman, but weird stuff happened around Sawyer’s place all the time.
The locals avoided the area, especially at night. The Navajo are very superstitious. They believe that all sorts of evil spirits walk in the darkness, and they’re right.
Sawyer had been outcast by his people. He lived at the edge of the Dinetah. No one talked to him, visited or even, I’d been told, said his name out loud, so I didn’t have to worry about running into any of the Navajo at this time of night. And if a white person happened by and saw me, well, they’d be much more likely to write off seeing a tiger than a naked woman to their imagination.
My car was right where I’d left it, my clothes too. I slipped into both and moments later the steady hum of the tires on the pavement lulled my still-racing heart back to a more normal beat.