Mass to mass, stone to stone. Sound of drums rose in night, heard only by me and by her. Soft whistle of flute. Mass to mass, stone to stone. Scent of herbed flame rose in memory. Shadows danced against stone walls. Shifting. Pain. Painpainpain. Mass decreasing, moving through earth, back to rock with gold on it. Mass to mass, stone to stone. Dark magic.
Complex magic, she thought, becoming alpha, becoming Jane. Weight and muscle, skin and bone, slid away, through the grayness of the place between. Back to rock. Back to yellow rock. In my mind, I heard rattle of old bones, and crack of boulders.
I came to myself under a bush, dirt and grass under me, something sharp stabbing my face. I brushed a shell away. I was itchy, sticky with sweat, and being dive-bombed by mosquitoes. I pushed to a sitting position, running my hands over my face, along my sides to my hips and down to my toes. Ten fingers, ten toes, five on each limb, and all where they belonged. I thought I was pretty much my usual size, too; I didn’t want to add a hundred pounds of muscle and bone just so Beast could be Big Cat whenever she wanted. When I worked with mass, I was always afraid I’d come back all wrong, and this shift had been a first in many ways. Beast had never forced mass upon me, had never taken over and made choices against my will. And I had never given back mass through the gray place. I didn’t have time to worry about all that now.
I remembered the memory Beast had shared, and I shivered in the heat. It had clearly happened before Beast and I joined. And it showed just how much I didn’t know about her, how little control I might really have over her. It was another thing I didn’t have time for. Not now.
My stomach growled with hunger. I pulled the travel pack off. There was a tear in the leather, a claw tear, long and lethal if it had caught on prey. As in me. I opened the pack. My clothes spilled out: tightly rolled T-shirt, undies, thin cloth pants. Shoes. I dressed in a hurry and raced into the house, still pulling on my shoes as I ran. “Rick?” I shouted, stumbling through the front door, into the mess. It was worse through my eyes than through Beast’s, a lot more bloody. Rick lay in the center of a pool. I knotted my hair out of the way and knelt on the floor beside him, knees half in the blood, unable to avoid it. Rick was in bad shape.
I pressed a pillow against his neck, which was seeping. His eyes opened. He struggled to focus. “Mountain lion,” he murmured. “Sabertooth lion.” He worked to take a breath, his chest moving with obvious pain. “Lions fighting.” I pressed, knowing I couldn’t tie the pillow at his neck without cutting off his air, so I settled for minimal pressure, the cloth for a clotting surface. Not sterile, but infection worries were for later. If he lived. “Biggest . . . damn things,” he said.
“Uh-huh.” I found another pillow and laid it on his chest. The claw marks that scored across him had opened up from his left pectoral, laterally across his upper abdominals, and down to his right hip, deep enough that muscle had been ripped and white rib showed where the flesh had been torn away. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I spotted a drapery tie and yanked it off, wrapping it around his chest. Ludicrous yellow pillow, stained scarlet with blood, and a buff-colored, silky tie, the tassel hanging from his side. Not very good for a field dressing but marginally better than nothing.
My stomach growled again, demanding. “I heard you on the phone. Did you call an ambulance?” When he didn’t answer, I called, louder, “Rick!” and slapped his cheek. Not an approved medical response, but it had the right effect. His eyes fluttered open. His pupils were dilated, his face way too white. Shocky. I eased him down to the floor, and pulled an ottoman over, propping his feet on it.
“Jane?” he mumbled.
I met his eyes. “Yeah. Did you call for an ambulance?”
“Backup. Called for”—he stopped to breathe—“backup.”
I considered his choice of words. Cop words. Without permission, I patted his pockets.
“Not a good time, babe. Not quite up to . . . wild monkey sex.”
I chuckled, pulled his wallet and flipped it open, half expecting to see a badge, but there was only a driver’s license and bank cards. No official NOPD ID. But there was an odd choice for his “in case of emergency” number hand-printed in a little clear plastic wallet window. I was pretty sure it was Jodi Richoux’s cell number. I took the cell from his limp fingers and snapped it open, noting that he had called that number most recently. I tapped REDIAL. The call was answered almost instantly.
“Rick?” Jodi’s voice demanded. I almost answered, but instead I held the phone to Rick’s ear. “Rick?” she asked again.
“Yo, babe. I’m . . . kinda hurt.”
“Help’s on the way.”