“After the pancakes,” Rick said. He looked at his mom. “With blueberry compote and whipped cream?”
She wiped a tear from her cheek and nodded. “Anything you want, son.” She bustled out of the room, followed by his uncle, leaving him alone.
Rick shoved the pillows back against the headboard and propped himself up on them, listening to the chatter between Uncle Tom and his mother. He looked down again, studying the cats on his shoulder. Unsure what he would feel, he raised his hand and touched the amber eyes of the bobcat and then of the mountain lion. They felt like flesh—warm, resilient—and he could feel the pressure of his fingers as he traced the eyes. Nothing new in the tactile sensation. Just fingers. Just skin.
But the cats were part of the binding ceremony, part of his future that Loriann had read, had seen, and maybe had changed. She had done something to him, to his future, when she’d made him choose an animal. He knew it. He had felt it, like some tremor in the possible paths that life would offer him. A new branch, darker, more shadowed.
Rick didn’t know what it meant to have the cats on his body, beneath his skin, part of him. But he figured the future would come whether he wanted it to or not. He had no control over that. He never had. It was just that, until now, he had never known how little power and influence over life he really maintained.
With that unhappy thought, he got out of bed, feeling stronger than he’d expected. He pulled on jeans and a long-sleeved white T-shirt, hiding the tattoos, and looked at himself in the mirror over his bureau. He looked unchanged. But only on the surface. Beneath, wildcats had entered his life. And he would never be the same.
Kits
I wrapped the tools of my trade in padded cloth and secured them with Velcro. The bundle of stakes, knives, and my most important blade, a silver-plated main-gauche, was small enough to fit into the saddlebag of the old Yamaha bike and still leave room for a change of clothes and for odds and ends. The Yamaha wasn’t my dream bike, but it would do for a while longer until I earned enough to buy the Harley I lusted after.
I tucked my money into the inside pocket of my jeans beside the red lipstick I favored. I French-braided my hip-length hair into a careless plait and tucked it into my leather jacket where it wouldn’t be in the way or get windblown too badly. The jacket was used, purchased at a consignment store, and it still reeked of the last owner, at least to my sensitive nose. I’d tried spraying it with deodorizers, but nothing worked. If I took down the vamp I was gunning for and earned the bounty, I had promised myself a brand-new leather riding jacket. That and two real vamp-killers to replace the less than perfectly balanced main-gauche a local smith had modified with silver. Last, I adjusted my gold nugget on its double chain for riding. The necklace was my only jewelry.
I looked over the small efficiency apartment I had rented, making sure I was leaving nothing important behind, and locked the door after me. I helmeted up, keyed on the Yamaha, and headed out of town. I had a gig hunting down a suspected young rogue vamp that was terrorizing the inhabitants outside of Day Book, North Carolina. But first I was stopping off at a local restaurant to pick up a small tracking charm that would let me follow the whacked-out vamp through rough country, and to pay the balance of the cost to the earth witch who’d made it.
I parked the Yamaha in front of the herb shop and eatery, and entered. Seven Sassy Sisters’ Herb Shop and Café, owned and run by the Everhart sisters, had a booming business, both locally and on the Internet, selling herbal mixtures and teas in bulk and by the ounce. The shop itself served high-quality brewed teas, specialty coffees, daily brunch and lunch, and dinner on weekends. It was mostly vegetarian fare, whipped up by the eldest sister, water witch, professor, and three-star chef, Evangelina Everhart. Carmen Miranda Everhart Newton, an air witch, newly married and pregnant, ran the register and took care of ordering supplies. Witch twins Boadacia and Elizabeth and two wholly human sisters, Regan and Amelia, ran the herb store and were waitstaff. I was looking for Molly Meagan Everhart Trueblood. Names with moxie seemed to run in the family.