Rick said, “He had babies.” He was a she.
The grindy woke, moving from balled up asleep into fighting mad and protective-mother-predator in half a heartbeat. Standing over her litter, she showed us long killing teeth, her arms out, claws spread, legs wide, her head forward, like any predator in danger. Multiple teats like a nursing dog’s hung on her belly, and when she shrieked, it was a high-pitched squeal, her eyes wild, not recognizing us at all.
Kem turned with a liquid grace and leaped from the cave. I backed away, not taking my eyes from the grindy, Rick’s shoulder touching mine. He was holding a nine mil, safety off, ready for firing. I felt better just seeing the gun. I had seen what the grindy’s claws could do to a boulder, and my flesh wasn’t nearly that tough. I also wasn’t immortal. If I lost my head I was done for. If I received a mortal blow, and didn’t have time to shift before blood loss took me, I’d be dead. My father had died that way, too fast for a shift to save him.
In the daylight I blinked at the sight of Kemnebi, on a log, still staring at the cave. He looked at us and patted the log twice with his left front paw before whirling, front feet leading his body, taking off up the hillside. “And that means, what?” I asked Rick, still processing the sight of the grindylow with babies. Babies with neon green fur. Angie had seen this. How weird was that?
“He’s hunting. We get to wait.”
“How about we do that upwind of the bone pile.” We trudged uphill, pulling our way with trees and roots when needed, until we found a stone outcropping overlooking the grindy’s lair, but upwind. We sat, our feet swinging over a seventy-foot drop. Rick opened his backpack, revealing apples, raisins, and nuts. I opened mine, showing packages of jerky made from three types of meats and six Snickers bars. “So how long do we wait?” I asked, taking off my shoes so my feet could dry.
A cat-scream and a roar sounded, echoing through the folded earth of the mountain. I jerked my gaze up, following the sound. The roar rang out again, followed by the challenge of a big-cat. Snarling. It was a fight. “I’m thinking Kem is trying to kill a bear. So not long,” Rick said, his tone wry. He took my feet in his hands and began to rub, his eyes watching out over the mountain below us. The sloppy sentimental thing called my heart did a little somersault.
Want to kill a bear, Beast thought at me, flooding my system with longing and my mouth with the remembered taste of hot blood and fat. Long time since I hunted black bear.
“Not today,” I said aloud. And shook my head when Rick looked at me curiously. I bit down on a strip of turkey jerky and chewed while Beast prowled the back of my mind, pouting. And Rick rubbed my cold feet. This was turning out to be the weirdest job I’d had in a long time. Moments later I was asleep.
Rick said, “He’s back. Wake up, sleepyhead.”
I sat up and yawned, spotting the dark shadow that was Kem, far below us on the opposing face of the mountain. He was moving erratically, jerking and sliding, backside first, dragging a black bear down the mountain. It looked like two hundred pounds, maybe two fifty. Beast couldn’t have dragged the bear. She hissed in displeasure, but it was true. Beast could drag a hundred fifty pounds, but not much more. Leopards have excellent musculature in head, jaw, neck, and shoulders, and superior climbing ability. They can even climb down a tree headfirst. The leopard could probably drag the bear up a tree, which is where leopards keep their dinners, safe from other predators or scavengers. Kem dragged the carcass inside the mouth of the cave. I looked at Rick. “I thought Kem was ticked off with the grindy for killing Safia.”
He shrugged. “Instinct is hard to resist. I’ve seen him feed the grindy while fighting the urge to kick it. He says the two species are linked, I’m guessing on a metaphysical level.”
I shook my head and put my cold, wet boots back on. Together, Rick and I descended the precipitous hillside, mostly on our butts. When we got to the bottom, Kemnebi stepped from the cave in human form. Naked. I averted my eyes. Rick opened his backpack and tossed Kem some clothes and a bag of nuts. Kemnebi dressed without the slightest sign of embarrassment, and ate the nuts, while I tried to affect a bored expression, pretty sure I wasn’t succeeding. Rick tossed him a package of granola, the kind with M&Ms in it. Kem ate that too. Then he walked barefoot toward us with that deadly-looking, catlike grace. Without preamble, he said, “They give birth only once a century. I did not know she was female, nor that she was carrying young.” I wasn’t sure how he could not know her gender, and he answered almost as if he had heard my thoughts. “They have very little external genitalia. They are very private creatures. I put her life in danger by bringing her to this country.” His voice was toneless, but his eyes were heavy with guilt and sorrow. He looked around the steep hills and back to the cave. “She has been deeply stressed by her inborn imperative to hunt down feral weres, while carrying young. She did not hunt enough for food, did not gain enough weight, and her litter is small. The bear will feed her baby-hunger for the remaining days of her nursing.”
I remembered the teats. I’d thought the grindy was an amphibian, not a mammal.
Without looking at Rick, Kemnebi held out a hand, imperiously. “Shoes.”
Before Rick could react, I jerked the backpack out of his hand and stalked to Kem. Far too close, inside his personal space. I felt his cat flinch at the intrusion. Beast huffed in defiance. “He’s not your servant. He’s not your slave. He’s not your punching bag.” Kem’s eyes went golden green so fast I didn’t even see the change. But I wasn’t finished. “And he isn’t yours to challenge or to kill. He’s mine. Get it?” I tossed the backpack into the pond. It landed with a splash. “Get your own damn shoes.”
I grabbed Rick by the elbow and yanked him downhill. “Yours, huh?” he said, sounding entirely too satisfied. I growled at him. “You do like to play rough, Jane Yellowrock. I like that about you.” I ignored him, dragging him along, Rick laughing under his breath, shaking his head.
I shook my head and hid a smile. “Shuddup.”
Back at the parking lot, I let the men go off in their borrowed, battered truck and I headed back to Asheville. I was cold, wet, exhausted, and really, really, really needed a nap. Which I got. Finally. Even though sleeping meant I still had not called Angie back.
By half an hour after midnight I knew there were problems, I just didn’t know what kind or how bad. The evening’s talks had been scheduled to begin at twelve, but Shaddock was late. Again. No one answered at the clan home. No one answered anywhere. It was like Shaddock and clan had been sucked out of the universe, and thinking about the thing in Evil Evie’s basement, the bite marks on her neck, and the pink spell, that might be possible. I just hoped he wasn’t stuck in the basement ward. If he was, I’d need Evangelina’s sisters to free him. And maybe a howitzer.
Grégoire, insulted, retired to his suite with his twins, having a midnight blood-snack and a massage, leaving me with orders to find Shaddock. Things weren’t going well for the local vamp, and if Grégoire’s expression was indicative of the future, Shaddock wasn’t going to be master of any city, anywhere. Ever.
Back in my room again, I closed the door behind me, stripped off my fancy jacket, and opened my cell. There were no voice mail messages or texts from Molly. No calls from Evan either. Nada. Nothing. They wouldn’t call now, not this late. There was also nothing from Rick.