My breathing deepened. Heart rate sped up. And my bones . . . slid. Skin rippled. Fur, tawny and gray, brown and tipped with black, sprouted. Pain, like a knife, slid between muscle and bone. My nostrils widened, drawing deep.
She fell away. Night came alive—wonderful, new scents, like mist on air, thick and dancing, like currents in stream, yet distinct. Salt. Humans. Alcohol. Fish. Mold. Human spices. Blood. I panted. Listened to sounds—cars, music from everywhere, voices talking over one another. Gathered limbs beneath, lithe and lissome—her words for me.
Ugly man-made light, shadow-stung vision.Yet clear, sharp. She never saw like this. Scented like this. I stretched. Front legs and chest. Pulling back legs, spine, belly. Little clicks fell away. Things from her hair rolled off boulders. Delicately, with killing teeth, lifted necklace she dropped. Hopped from boulders. Landed, four-footed, balanced. Studied garden. No predators. No thieves-of-meat. Dropped necklace near food. Sniffed. Hack of disgust. Old meat. Dead prey. Long-cooled blood. Tip of tail twitched, wanting chase. To taste hot blood. But stomach rumbled. Always so, after change. Hunger. She left this, an offering.
I ate. Long canines tearing into dead meat. Filled stomach. Cold food did not appease need to hunt. Afterward, licked blood from whiskers and face. Pack and collar in way, but . . . important. Her things.
Memory she buried under skin began to stir. Ahhh. Hunt. For one of them. Drew in night air. Delicate nostril membranes fluttering, expanding, relaxing. Many new smells, some with value, some without. Unimportant: close-by smell of flowers, fresh-turned earth, mouse cowering in boulders, small snake on brick. Important: fish, pungent, sour. Salt. Old, still water full of tiny living things. Houses, many, ancient wood and brick. Bike she rode. She—Jane.
Strolled to it, muscles long and supple. Foul smells: gasoline, rubber, metal, wax, fainter smell of new paint. Magic tingle on whiskers. Good bike. Silent-not-dead now, roaring heart still. I approved of it and of her, sitting in wind, smelling world. Fast speed, too swift for hunters to follow. Her territory wherever she wished it to be. Jane hunted wide.
Stepping with care, though new den was walled and safe from humans. Prowled garden and lower porch of house. Drank from water running over man-carved stone. A good place. I coughed softly, approving.
Hunt, the command came again, from her. Long hairs along shoulders lifted in anticipation. Scented air. Food on breeze. Human food, dead, cooked. Human urine. Dog. Domesticated cat. Hacked in disapproval of being owned. Even she didn’t own me.
Smells of den grounds settled in olfactory memory. Went to pot. Sniffed cloth trapped there. Drew in scent. Blood. Fear. Humans, three. Alive when blood spilled. One female, ovulating, ready to mate. One man, old, wizened. Likely stringy, tough. New smell to skin.
Melanin, Jane whispered. He was a black man.
Last one was male, no melanin, young, healthy. All smelled of fear.
Beneath it all . . . was scent of rogue. Drew it in over tongue, over roof of mouth. Isolating. Parsing scent. Old. Very, very old. Anger. Madness. Many scents in layers, different parts of rogue.
Complex scent, she thought. Like many scents overlapping, compounded. How strange. And what is that smell? Image of her wrinkling weak, useless human nose.
Smell of madness, I thought at her. Strong. Smell of decay, rot. Rot . . . Ahhh. I remembered. Liver-eater. Long years since smelled a liver-eater. Felt her puzzlement. Pushed it away. Sucked in scent, opening mouth and pulling air over fluid-filled sacs in roof of mouth. Tongue extending, lips curling back. Tasting. Scenting.
Set liver-eater scent signature in memory. Named it mad one.
Complex, she thought. Compounded scent signature, many individual scent molecules, pheromones and elements make up its essence. I’ve never smelled anything like it.
Many, yes. Many scents for mad one. In a single bound, leaped to top of boulders. Small mountain. Nothing like my territory—no tall hills, deep crevasses. Easy hunt here in land of flatness. No challenge. Tail-twitching disdain for flatness, no tall trees and wild streams. Gathered self. Jumped to top of wall. Standing. Four feet in line on brick. Crouched, making smaller target. There. Scented vampire. Easy hunt. Only feet away.
No, her voice came.
Drew in night air again. Scent was wrong. This one female. Kill it anyway?
No. Hunt the rogue, her human memory whispered.
Dropped to ground, tail twitching. Eager. Liked hunt. Liked challenge. Liked danger. Moved through shadows of neighbor’s yard to street. No dog scent. Good place to come and go. Sat beneath big leaves of low plant, watching. Learning. Scenting.