I woke facing a pond and a pair of gator eyes. I jumped backward from prone to standing in one move. I hadn’t even known I could do that. I screamed a little when I landed. I was pretty sure it was a girly scream and I was really glad Eli hadn’t heard it. He’d razz me forever.
The gator was huge and staring right at me. Tiny bumps broke the water for twelve feet behind it. “Holy crap,” I whispered. “Beast, I’ll freaking kill you.” At the sound of my voice, the gator’s long tail twitched slightly, sending ripples over the smooth, muddy surface.
Deep inside, my Beast chuffed and rolled over. And closed her eyes.
“Faker,” I muttered.
I unsnapped the gobag and pulled out a pair of pants made of thin material, a soft T-shirt, flip-flops, and a hoodie. I had forgotten to pack panties, which I didn’t need but which made me more comfortable. As I moved, I felt the odd place on my chest where the light-dragon scale had rested. The tingling was gone, as was the lingering pain of abdominal muscles twisted out of shape, into a half-cat form. All good and normal, including the hunger that gripped me. I dressed and nudged Beast when I saw the remains of the small gator. Did you kill that?
Beast yawned and showed me her canines. Beast is best hunter.
Uh-huh. I smell your blood. How badly were you hurt?
Beast turned away and ignored me. Dang cat.
Am not dang cat. Am Beast.
I looked at the pond. And that is an alligator. A huge alligator.
Know alligator. Alligator is not important. Know creature of light. Creature is important. Creature was shape-changer, like Jane but not like Jane. Not skinwalker. A memory of a denuded world, rock, bare earth, and withered tree limbs appeared in Beast’s memory. It was familiar but distant, like a scene from a book I read long ago. I was inside Beast’s head, watching a light-dragon eat a hank of raw deer, its energies coruscating and shadowed both, its snake tail whipping a small, tree-choked pond as it ate. It was summer, and in the memory I could smell the deer, ripe and going bad. Beast shared her memories as the thing, the rainbow thing, emitted a burst of white light and changed shape. It took on the form of a two-legged female. Almost human. Almost.
“Son of a gun,” I muttered. “I remember that. I remember you feeding it. How many of those things are there?” I asked her.
Beast knows many things, she thought at me. Have thought like Jane. Have decided like Jane. Jane must know.
Okay. Confusion melted along my bones, feeling like the aftereffect of magic, or maybe like worry. Just how much was Beast hiding from me?
Before hunger times, were many light-beings, Beast thought. Before white man dumped his waste into rivers and creeks, were many. Before white man cut and killed forest, were many. Before white man stopped rivers and creeks and made lakes, were many. Light-creatures lived in waterfalls, in fast streams that raced over rocks. Most humans did not see, but shamans and magic users could see. Big-cats could see. Pack hunters could see. Deer, fox, bison could see. Light-beings lived in water, played in water. Did not hurt Beast. Beast did not hurt them.
Softly I said, “When the white man came, he brought changes and disease and death to the people and the landscape and the environment. Everything the white man touched was ruined or damaged or killed or wiped off the face of the Earth. And that included the magical beings, the beings of mythology that died or went into hiding. Beings that used to share the Earth were destroyed and vanished into the oral tradition.”
When Beast didn’t answer, I finished dressing and headed back to my clothes and the car. Beast had wandered for a while, and I was well chewed by mosquitoes and had splinters and thorns in my feet when I finally spotted the clothes and, just beyond them, the SUV Leo had loaned me. Beast, paying attention to me for the first time since she revealed the light-being memory, thought my sore feet were sad. Should have paws and claws and killing teeth, she thought. Jane is stupid kit.
Hunting in the brushy, marshy, swampy land west of the Mississippi was easier now that I knew the terrain and knew where I could leave my vehicle without the locals wondering what was up. Some of the back roads in Louisiana, especially this far south, were little used, not much more than sinking tracks in the wet ground. Others were already underwater by as much as two feet. According to reports by the Army Corps of Engineers and any other government agency that cared to comment, South Louisiana was sinking fast, thanks to man changing how the rivers flowed, keeping their waters in place behind levees. With rising sea levels, most of the coastal regions would be underwater in a century, unless something drastic changed. Which wasn’t likely.