I/we looked down and saw my hands, still holding the weapons. My wrists, hands, and fingers were pelted and tawny, my knuckles large and rounded, stronger than anything human, nails curled and sharp. Looked lower and saw pelted and clawed feet, paw-like, except that they were far larger than Beast’s—six inches across, claws extended and gripping the wood floor. Splinters came up around my Beast toes. Rubber gobbets from the practice mat littered the floor around me. I pulled into myself with an electric snap that tingled through me, and felt myself separate from Beast at some mental, almost spiritual level.
I dropped the practice sword and the vamp-killer and touched my face. The lower half of my face was outthrust. I had fangs, like small tusks at both my upper and lower jaw. My forehead and nose were human, or humanish. The pads of my fingers were thick and it was hard to feel, but I was pelted all over my face and down my neck. I pulled out my shirt and looked down. The pelt paled to cream and ended just above my breasts and my slim waist of solid muscle. The pelt ran down under my arms and across my shoulders, all the way to my fingers. I bent to my pants and pulled the ankles up. Pelt as far as I could pull the spandex. Bulky cat feet with huge knees and thighs. No way was I looking into my waistband. Crap. I was half-formed. Half Beast and half me. Without a mass change, my weight had been redistributed, my body cast in horror-movie mode.
But at least I was starting to think again, starting to think like a human, not the half-and-half I’d become. The first fully coherent thought was, I’m a monster. I managed a sound that might have been chuffing laughter. Even in the Party City of the South, I couldn’t go outside without a mask or a deep hood to hide behind. I’d scare the locals.
Close to the front of my mind I heard Beast rumble, Jane and big-cat are more than Jane and big-cat. I/we are Beast.
She sounded contented and determined and satisfied. As if she wanted to stay this way. And I had no idea what to do about that.
CHAPTER 8
You Want Me to . . . Wash Your Back?
What strength and energy I had left drained out in a rush and I landed on my knees on the ruined floor. Houston, I thought. We have a problem.
What is Houston? Beast thought at me.
Never mind. Are we stuck like this? Last time it went away naturally. And fast. But it’s worse this time. It feels . . . I don’t know. Permanent?
Jane likes half-Beast form. Jane hurt light-predator-snake-that-flies.
I thought about that for a moment. So I’m keeping myself like this? I’m doing it?
I/we are Beast. I/we like this form too.
So, that’s a yes. I thought about my human form, my Jane form. I reached deep inside of me into the memory of my human self, searching for the snake at the center of me, the double helix of DNA that made me both human and skinwalker. Instead, I found a jumbled mess.
My oddly shaped knees gave way and I sat hard on the splintered floor. It was cool beneath my backside. My peculiar-shaped hands folded, flaccid, in my lap, dangling from my too-big thighs. Hunger and weakness stabbed at me, striking deep into my middle, then twisting and clawing like the hand of a fanghead, talons extended. I groaned and gasped, panting to get enough air. But there wasn’t enough. Not nearly. Holy crap . . .
I pushed past the pain and studied the mess that was my current DNA. It no longer had just a double strand. It now had a triple strand in places, branching out and back in like a suspension bridge of weirdness. On the odd strands, the genes were doubled and tripled in places, genes totally missing in others.
“Jane.” I heard a voice from far away. I waved a hand to show I’d heard but was a little busy just now. Then I flapped it to indicate I should be left alone.
It wasn’t all the cells. Like, maybe half. Only half of my cells were cat. Made sense. My arms folded like a human, my feet like a cat. My flesh was half-pelted, half not. Feet were some weird paw shape; hands were more humanish. I zeroed in on one batch of cells, human cells, that made up my hip joints. All of that part of me was human. Totally human.
I exhaled in a rush, the panting growing faster. It had been a while since I’d needed to meditate to drop into the place of the change, to find the cellular structure and physiology that made me, me. Fortunately, I was halfway there.
Breathing deeply, holding the breath, I tried to calm my rapid heartbeat, tried to relax, to let the tension out of my shoulders and neck. Dropped my head and bowed my spine. Stretched back up, sitting straight, into a half lotus, funky hands on knobby knees. I released my breath until my lungs were empty. Fought the fear and the need to hyperventilate. Filled my chest with air slowly, exhaled, inhaled, breathing until my body was full of oxygen but the panic was under control. I exhaled one final time and let myself fall into the genetic structure that made me what I was. I had not left the gray place of the change completely and so, instantly, I felt my body twist and reshape. Bones snapping and popping.