The stink of vamps and the smell of Wrassler blew in. Help was here. But that also meant that there wasn’t time to deal with the shared memory or to figure out what it might mean. “This stays between us. That I shared your memories,” I whispered to Edmund. “Between us.” The command pulled through my blood, electric, heated, charged with potency. And it bound him to my demand. His eyes widened, a human reaction of surprise and hunger.
Shock followed through my blood, shock and guilt. Guilt that I had power over him, that I could command him. That I had made him some sort of mental slave. This was what it meant to bind another. This was what Leo had tried to do to me. This was what I had tried to avoid my entire time in New Orleans. And now instead of me being bound, I had bound Edmund. My stomach went sour at the realization and at the knowledge that I couldn’t deal with any of it right now. I needed time to untangle the mess I had made.
Edmund eased his fangs from my flesh. “Yes, my master,” he murmured, his eyes holding mine, the light hickory-hazel brown irises gleaming. “Do not feel guilt. I am yours to command.”
I scuttled across the floor. Vamps poured into the house through the front door. Within seconds of the vamps arriving, I bolted to the backyard, pulling up the Gray Between as I stripped. Not thinking. Not thinking about Edmund and what I had done. Rain slashed me with frozen claws, icy and miserable on bare skin.
It hurt to change fast—it hurt—but I didn’t have time to shift a slower, less painful way, and time was urgent in the storm and rain. The scent of Edmund’s blood and the blood of his wounded attackers would be gone in minutes, the trail lost in the downpour. And I didn’t dare become dog to track waning scent patterns. When I became any form of tracker dog, I got lost in the scents and feared I’d never find myself again.
Beast tore out of me. I fell to the ground as Beast thrust herself through my skin, bending and breaking bones, muscles stretching and tearing.
? ? ?
Was heaving breaths, cat-gagging. Alex strapped Jane’s waterproof gobag around my neck. Held plastic cup of vampire blood to nose.
Smell good. Smell strong. I/we lapped blood. Licked small cup clean. Was still hungry in belly but strongness raced through body.
Alex slapped Beast on butt.
Snarled at littermate Alex. Pulled paws under belly and stood. Needed food. Needed cow or deer. Needed to hunt and pounce and kill and eat. Growled. Shook pelt like dog. Was wet.
“I can’t leave,” Alex said. “Not with vamps in the house. Be careful.”
Hacked at Alex. Padded to porch, to door where Edmund had come into den. Blood was everywhere. Edmund blood, rich and strong. Licked at blood. Some was good. Some was also silver. Looked up at Alex. Was man now. Held white-man gun in one hand, pointed at floor. Fingers on safe place called slide.
“I’ll clean up the mess,” Alex said.
Sniffed with scree of sound, lips back, sucking air over tongue and scent sacs at top of mouth. Smelled strange vampires, their blood mixed with blood of Edmund. Blood. Silver. Death.
Beast? Jane thought.
Am Beast.
Can you smell him? Oh yeah. There it is. I got it.
Jane nudged Beast brain. You need to stop taking canine scent genes in when we shift to dog. It’s getting crowded in here.
Strange vampire blood smell. Strange vampire ambush-hunted Edmund. Two vampires. Strong vampires. And humans, more than five.
Okay. We’ll talk about it later. For now, use those dog scent genes and track back on Edmund’s trail.
Beast sniffed. Beast wants good nose without being ugly dog. Do not want to be tracking dog, but do want good dog nose. Jane started to think Jane thoughts. To argue. Put paw on Jane and made her silent. Will not talk to Jane about nose.
Muzzle to ground, like dog Beast did not want to be, followed blood trail through rain. Alongside of house. Past Bitsa, covered with cloth. Past Edmund car, fancy car that Alex loved, with top and seats made of dead cow. Car was cold. Edmund had been on paws—on foot. Edmund did not have paws. Stopped at metal gate at end of alleyway. Stuck nose and muzzle through bars and sniffed. Looked. No people in rain. People were smart. Rain was cold and Beast was hungry. Even with vampire blood in belly.
Gathered self tight, looked to top of fence with metal flower. Leaped, pushed off flower with front paws, then back paws, over metal gate, and landed on smooth not-stone path, what Jane called sidewalk or concrete.
Uptown, Jane thought. Ed came from uptown. Bleeding all the way.
I/we began to trot, avoiding round places of streetlights. Rain fell, slowing. Water gurgled through downspouts. Tinkled off roofs. Plinked onto cars. Splashed as Beast trotted, covering much ground. Jane thought Jane thoughts. Sulking. Good word for juvenile kit. Sulk.
? ? ?
Beast was insulting me so I ignored her. It continued to rain, though the water didn’t penetrate Beast’s double-layered pelt. We had worked in Beast form in the rain before—rain being the normal for New Orleans at any season—but not in such cold weather. Her breath blew twin plumes of vapor into the night. Her paws splashed through puddles and runnels of water. Rain made the city smell fresh, releasing ozone and ions on the air. The scent of blood and vamp faded and I thought we had lost it, but we found it around the next corner, a puddle of blood and rainwater that had no outlet except across the concrete. The scent faded again, to reappear further on. Beast trotted around corners, doubling back, searching, nose to ground, keeping to the shadows. Melting into the dark when a car came past. She was smarter than any mountain lion. Adaptable. Reactive. Going on two hundred years of life would give any animal excellent survival instincts.
Even with dog genes incorporated into her brain and nose, Beast wasn’t the best tracker. I’d have better luck with a bloodhound nose, but I’d had problems lately changing back from canine to human. Without a handler and a leash, I could lose myself and stay dog forever; noses and the scent part of dog brains were that strong. Alex had known all that. He had understood what I was doing and why, possibly even before I raced outside.
The rain stopped. Started again. We passed restaurants almost empty of tourists. Bars full of drunk tourists. We passed churches next to Creole cottages, and we chased off a small pack of junkyard dogs with a single growl. Which made Beast chuff with laughter and victory. We passed cemeteries, the smell of old, old death and limestone and fresh white paint. We trotted beneath the I-10 interstate and were halfway to Highway 90 in what felt like a long way from home, though Beast wasn’t tired, just wet and grouchy. Mountain lions aren’t long-distance cats like jaguars or cheetahs, but in the cold, with the air decreasing the effect of heat buildup, we could travel a long way. A female Puma concolor’s hunting territory might cover a hundred fifty square miles.
Beast stopped. Looked both ways. Shoulders hunched. What? I thought at her, flooding back into her forebrain. I/we slunk close to a parked car and waited for two motorcycles to pass.
Like Bitsa, she thought, but not like Bitsa. Does not have Harley growl like Bitsa.