S Stirling - A Taint in the Blood

When you transform again, it would still be in your stomach, and one not intended to handle raw mouse, bones and all.

And the flush of salt savor was not really satisfying. This body was built around the DNA of a timber-wolf, but within it was Shadowspawn still. Only human blood would do. He kept on until he reached the perimeter wall of the estate; a dash for a man was an easy trot in this shape.

Ellen’s scent was strong, many trails over many days overlain on each other. He whined slightly, mixed with a growl. Part of what his nose caught said prey, and raised visions of rending and tearing and the hot tang of blood. The other message it carried was of an overwhelming femaleness, that arched his tail and made his gait stiff-legged. Kill and mount her warred in the sharp limited consciousness of the wolf mind, amid images that mingled pink-and-golden nakedness with something furry and four-legged.

There was another scent mixed with Ellen’s; his sister’s. That raised the fur along the beast’s spine, and lips curled back to show long white fangs. His ears flattened to the massive wedge-shaped skull of the wolf in challenge-response, and he had to suppress a growl that rose from the animal’s deep chest.

The man-mind within prompted, and the Mhabrogast prickled and twisted in his head. When he rose on two feet he was Adrian Br?z? again. A stare, and the iron of the gate set in the estate wall turned translucent. He stepped through it, and a cold grating sensation ran along his nerves for an instant. Here he was in a courtyard garden, a tiled expanse amid raised flowerbeds and small trees, with a brick fire pit barbecue in one corner. Trellised roses gave the night a sweet-musky scent, strong to his Shadowspawn nose, dull by comparison with the wolf’s but much sharper than a human’s. A small trickle of water flowed from a ceramic lion’s mask into a bowl, and an owl flapped through the night above.

He stiffened at that for an instant, but the Power told him it was a natural bird, off about its business.

There were two lights through the windows of the house, a pleasant Spanish-revival building with a red-tile roof that might have housed a doctor or accountant in a hundred older Californian suburbs. The glass doors showed a living-room that had a lived-in look, with bookcases and art prints on the walls, and a thick scatter of volumes on the coffee-table; those were more reproductions, from the large format. Ellen was seated on the sofa, dressed in a long peignoir of sheer white silk, with a drink by her elbow. As he watched she leaned back and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.

His night-walking form was imperceptible to humans, unless he wished it. Now he did, bringing it into solidity, and tapped gently on the door. Ellen started, and then shot to her feet when she saw him.

“Adrienne?” she said, when she’d slid the door open and he stepped through; the golden hibiscus-scent of her filled his nostrils. “I… um, I thought you were with Monica tonight.”

Adrian’s brows went up. He looked down at himself; unequivocally male, and interested male at that. Then he mentally cursed.

“Of course. She has used my aetheric form with you.” Damn her presumption! “Remember Amalfi, Ellie… someday we will honeymoon there in reality.”

The joy in her face and mind blazed; it warmed him even as she dulled it with the glyph he’d taught her and threw herself into his arms. Long moments later she drew back, took several deep breaths and nodded in a businesslike fashion.

“You have an extremely self-disciplined mind,” he said.

“Oh, right now I’m not feeling very… well, yes, I wouldn’t mind a little discipline…”

He groaned. “I can’t.”

Her blue eyes sparkled. “I know, but teasing you is so much fun. When we’re together again, well, if you felt like punishing me for it… maybe in her form…”

She laughed at his expression. “Now I’ve shocked you, darling! Hey, if I’m going to have a vampiric shapeshifter for my guy, I intend to take full advantage of it.”

“I just may take you up on that.” Adrian grinned, and gave her a quick tweak that made her yelp and jump.

Then he sobered. “But now we must hurry. I need to scout the area where the ceremony is to take place, and I need you with me.”

“Why?” she said. “No problem, but… I’m not the fem-ninja type.”

“Because your blood and mind are involved with any Wreaking she’s been doing lately. Shadowspawn call it sourcing.”

“Sort of like me being fuel, right?”

“Right, but there’s an element of… flavor involved, with repeated feedings. Now I need to see what Wreakings have been preset there. She would have done that before Hajime arrived-he’s not as… as subtle a user of the Power as she is.”

She drew a deep breath. “OK, let’s get going. I’ll put on something more suitable.”

She looked down at her filmy garment. “Suitable for something besides being ceremoniously ripped off me like the wrapper off a chocolate truffle, that is. Or used to tie me up. Or both. I knew from popular culture that being a vamp-victim got you great lingerie and fabulous hair-”

Adrian snorted incredulous laughter at the dry humor. That’s my Ellie! “-but I run through these things pretty damned fast. It’s a shame; they’re handmade and really pretty.”

She vanished for a moment, leaving him with a brief vision of stripping a silk peignoir off her that was arresting even with urgent business at hand. When she returned, it was in practical khakis.

Though she looks enchanting in anything, he thought.

“I’ll carry you to the ceremonial ground,” he said. At her surprise: “That will be much quicker on four feet than two. Be prepared. This is going to be, ah, startling.”

“What will be startling?”

“The form. Smilodon populator. Big cat. Very big.”

Transformation took him.

Eeek! Ellen thought, jumping back a little at the sparkling blur that didn’t last quite long enough to really see.

Then aloud: “Oh, my!”

The sabertooth looked up at her. Its eyes were on a level with her chest; she didn’t suppose it was more than six feet from nose to stumpy tail, not outlandishly more than a big lionWhich is plenty long enough! -but it was much thicker-built, giving an impression of something halfway between a cat and a bear in build, a hulking heavy-shouldered gracefulness on paws the size of dinner-plates. Art training had made her good at estimating volumes; it must weigh as much as a smallish horse or a medium grizzly. The great curved ivory daggers of its canines stretched below its lower jaw, longer than her hand from wrist to fingertip, and the tawny hide was spotted with darker circles, fading to a light cream under the throat-ruff and belly.

“That’s… quite a critter, Adrian,” she said.

She could smell it, too; not a bad scent, but hard and furry and dry, the breath slightly rank. Tentatively she put out a hand, running it along the long skull of the beast, over the short slightly bristly fur; it licked her hand with a rough tongue the size of a facecloth and gave a deep rumbling sound like a diesel engine trying to purr.

No, it sounds like a sabertooth the size of a small horse, purring. It’s scary, but magnificent. Christ, no wonder our caveman ancestors worshipped the Shadowspawn!

Her half-adopted orange tabby Just-a-Cat had been sleeping on top of an ebony?tag?re she used for art-print books. It came awake, gave a look of bug-eyed horror at its distant relative, and made a flying leap that took it out the sliding door without touching ground amid a squall of: “Eeerrrow!”

She didn’t know if sabertooths could laugh, but Adrian obviously came close. Then the great fanged head butted at her and jerked over its own shoulder.