“Crap,” I whispered. Beast awoke inside me with the instant attentive awareness of the predator, and focused through my eyes at the screen. I eased up the volume one notch and drew on Beast’s excellent hearing to listen to the commentator, whose voice-over spoke about the picture of a reporter, blond-haired and fair-skinned, holding a microphone.
“Though no independent confirmation exists, BBC investigator Donald Cooper, seen here in the center of the screen, has released an interview with an African man referred to only as Kemnebi, pictured in the upper portion of the screen. Kemnebi claims to be a were-cat, a black leopard. In the footage that follows we see Kemnebi remove his clothing and shift into a jungle cat. We caution our viewers that the BBC footage is graphic and depicts partial nudity common to his culture.”
I leaned toward the screen and watched as footage began to roll. The man from the still shot, who was carefully filmed above the lower hips for decorum’s sake, began to remove his clothes, dropping them one by one to the floor. He bent, most of him disappearing from the screen as if to remove his pants, and then crossed the room. He was tall and thin, muscles well defined, his skin stretched over a frame without an ounce of fat. He moved with a lissome grace uncommon in humans other than dancers. Still silent, the man knelt on a cushion on the floor, the camera viewing him from the side, the long, lean length of his body gleaming—a lot of skin for an American cable TV network.
Tension raced through me. It could be a joke. No new supernatural being had appeared on the world stage since the vamps and witches came out of the supernat closet after the Secret Service staked Marilyn Monroe while she was trying to turn the president in the Oval Office. No elves, no pixies, no trolls, no brownies, no nothing. Certainly no weres or skinwalkers—or there wasn’t since I killed the only one of my kind I’d ever met. That very old, very nutso skinwalker had stolen the form of a vamp and taken to killing and eating humans and vampires, so it had been a sanctioned kill. Since then, as a shape-shifter in hiding, I was a singularity in the world of humans, vamps, and witches. No longer, if the BBC’s claims were real. If.
I closed my fingers on the arms of the chair, digging in with my nails. I’m a skinwalker, not a were; I didn’t know if the magics would be the same, totally different, or only subtly dissimilar. If it was real.
The man began to lose focus. A pale fog seemed to sift from his skin and surround him, blurring him, the mist moving slowly, as if caught in a breeze. Dark lights sparkled through the haze, looking like black crystals on the digital footage. It wasn’t exactly the way I looked when I shifted, though a lot of things might affect what I was seeing, from the digital processing software to my cheap TV. But it was familiar. Very achingly familiar.
The black lights surrounding Kemnebi increased as the mist above his skin darkened, deepened. His bones popped, a sickening sound, as they shortened or lengthened and the joints reshaped. He threw back his head, mouth open in what looked like a silent scream, like gut-wrenching pain. Black hair sprouted all over his body. His spine bowed and arched. Canines grew up from his gums, an inch long on the bottom jaw, longer on top. His jaw and skull took on different contours, flowing into a catlike form. I could see the effort and agony as his flesh rippled, stretched, and restructured into something else.
I couldn’t look away from the screen. Cold sweat broke out on my body. I could hear my breath, coarse and uneven over the soft patter of rain on the metal roof. My heartbeat raced and stuttered.
Beast placed a clawed paw onto my mind as if to calm me, her gaze intent on the screen before us. Beast is not prey, she thought at me. Will not be afraid.
Yeah, right, I thought back. I never looked away from the transformation on the television. My eyes burned, hot and scratchy. I shivered, skin prickling. Two minutes passed. The fog that was a man wisped away. A jungle cat sat on the floor where once the man had knelt. It had a black coat, with barely visible muted spots that caught the light. Its paws had retractable claws like my Beast’s, but its tail was long and slender, unlike my Beast’s heavy, clubbed version. The black leopard looked into the camera. Huffed. And, I swear, it grinned.
Beast trembled deep inside, her coat bristling against my skin, coarse and almost painful. Big-cat. Like Beast. But not like Beast. Beast opened her mouth and chuffed in displeasure, pulling back her lips, showing her fangs deep in my mind, as if the leopard on-screen could see her challenge and her strength. Beast is better. I/we are better hunter. Stronger.
“Is it real,” said the CNN reporter when the screen flashed back to a still of Donald Cooper, “or is it a hoax? Or maybe it’s only special effects for an upcoming British action-adventure blockbuster. Or”—his voice dropped lower—“may be other supernatural creatures like Kemnebi, the African black were-leopard, have been living among us all along. More on this breaking news as it develops.”
I flipped to the BBC, finding only footage of a war zone somewhere, and began flipping cable news stations for more on the were. There was nothing. Not yet. From behind me, I heard the bed squeak and had a moment to school my face as Rick rolled over and glanced at the television, then stared at me, sitting naked in the stark shadows created by the TV’s glare. He smiled slowly, his eyes roaming over me in the bluish light, his teeth white against his black two-day beard. Even with the stubble—or maybe in part because of it—he was stunning. Black-eyed, slender, my six feet in height or an inch more, he had the smooth golden olive complexion of his mostly French and American Indian heritage. With his shaggy, bed-head black hair, he was by far the prettiest man I had ever known. Just looking at him could make my heart speed up, dance around, and melt into a puddle of happy hormones. Even this morning, when the world was changing around me. “Morning, babe,” he said, voice gravelly with sleep. “What time is it? I smell coffee.”
“Morning, yourself. Sorry I woke you. It’s five a.m. I put on a pot.”