Kelley Armstrong - The Gathering

I swallowed. I knew what I was looking at. I knew what it meant. But I couldn’t let the thought form. Not now.

Rafe was still talking, sharper now, telling the cat we were okay. She crouched, hindquarters shifting, the tip of her tail twitching.

“No,” Rafe said, jumping forward. “Don’t—”

The cat leaped just as the guy wheeled to run. He managed to dodge her, stumbling slightly as she brushed him. Rafe took off after the cat, yelling, but she tore after the guy. I followed.

The guy ran full out, knowing he was running for his life, but the cat was faster. As the gap between them narrowed, the cat hunkered down for a flying leap. Rafe shouted something I couldn’t quite make out. Or maybe I could—I just wasn’t ready to believe what I was hearing.

Just before the cat leaped, the guy’s arms windmilled, legs buckling as he skidded to a stop right at the edge of the ridge we’d climbed the afternoon before. He turned, hands going up, and shouted “Okay! Okay!” as the cat crouched, tail flicking, amber eyes fixed on him.

“Call it off!” the guy yelled as Rafe raced toward them. “Call that thing off and I’ll go away, okay? I never found you, okay? Just call—”

The cat jumped. Rafe shouted and this time I heard exactly what he said.

“Annie!”

The cat hit the guy, and they flew over the cliff. Rafe kept shouting her name, running toward them so fast I thought he was going to fall, too, and I lunged, screaming, but he stopped right at the edge.

I raced up beside him. Below, the cat lay on the guy, who was sprawled on the grass, his eyes open. Open and unseeing. The cat lifted her head and whined. We started climbing down.

At first, the cat just lay there, whimpering. When she tried to rise, she stumbled onto three legs, her left front one dangling.

“Stay there,” Rafe yelled down. “Don’t move. Just stay there!”

The cat made a noise low in her throat and looked up at us. I looked into her eyes and I knew what I saw —who I saw.

“Annie,” I whispered.

Rafe looked over sharply. He tried to make eye contact, but I turned back to the ridge. Blood pounded through my veins so hard it hurt.

Annie. The cougar below was Annie.

As crazy as it sounded, I never once thought, “But that’s impossible!” Because I knew it was true.

I saw that dark patch on her haunch and I knew when she was human, there’d be a birthmark in the same place. I knew what it meant for her. And I knew what it meant for me.

Yee naaldlooshii .

Skin-walker.

WHEN I REACHED THE bottom, I knelt beside the fallen guy. I checked for a pulse, but his staring eyes told me he was dead.

I thought of Mina Lee. Eaten by a cougar. Possibly killed by a cougar. I glanced over at Annie, then tore my gaze away. I couldn’t think about that now. I couldn’t think about a lot of things now.

Rafe noticed the hole in my jeans and realized I’d been shot. It was only a graze. Slap on a bandage and I’d be fine.

He crouched beside the cat as he checked her injuries, and if there was any doubt that it was Annie, it disappeared as I watched her letting him touch her hurt foreleg, only whimpering when he brushed a sore spot. I crouched beside them, and she stretched her head back and nudged me, giving a chirp of greeting, eyes closing as she rubbed her head against me.

“Is it broken?” Rafe asked me.

I ran my fingers along her leg.

“It doesn’t seem to be,” I said. “I think it’s just a sprain. It should be wrapped, though. Can she …?” I swallowed. “Can she Shift back? To human?”

“She will, but it’s not really …” He paused. “It isn’t under her control. She just will.” He looked at me. “I know you have a lot of questions—”

“All of which can wait. Give me your jacket. I’ll wrap her leg and see if she can stand on it.”

He stripped out of his denim jacket. Underneath he was wearing the same sleeveless tank top he’d had on on Saturday. When he twisted, once again I saw the dark edge of what I’d presumed was another tattoo. I remembered yesterday, when he hadn’t wanted to take off his shirt to wrap the arm.

I caught the armhole of his shirt and pulled it away before he could stop me. There, below his shoulder, was a paw-print birthmark.

For a second, I couldn’t breathe. I just stared at that mark until he tugged the fabric from my fingers.

“Maya …”

I turned back to Annie. “Hold her still. This will hurt.”

He leaned down, trying to catch my gaze. “Maya …”

“Hold her,” I snapped. “We need to get her to safety and take care of—” I glanced at the dead guy and couldn’t bring myself to finish, so I just looked over at Rafe and said, “I’m guessing you don’t want to take this to Chief Carling?”

He shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Then we have work to do.”

I didn’t need to splint Annie’s foreleg. I’d just set to work when she started her Shift back, and I don’t know what I expected—a screaming, tortured transformation, I guess—but instead she started to twitch and quiver and whimper, and Rafe told me to get back, then she was human again.

It only took a couple of minutes as she morphed in a process that looked more like something from a sci-fi movie than a horror flick. It took a lot out of her, though, and she lay there, curled up in a ball, gasping and panting, naked and covered with sweat.

Then she sat up, looked around, saw me, and crawled over. She curled up, half in my lap, like a scared child, shivering, her heart pounding, snuggling against me for warmth. After a moment’s hesitation, I hugged her and told her it would be okay as Rafe draped his jacket over her. Within minutes, she was asleep.

“We need to”—I glanced at the dead guy—“move him.”

My second body in as many days. I should be horrified. At least with Mina Lee, I’d felt a hint of grief. Even then, though, my response had felt wrong. Cold.

Now it was even worse. I felt nothing. This guy had come for Rafe, and he’d been willing to kill me to get him. He’d died by accident. If he’d had his way, he’d have done a lot worse to us. Still, to feel nothing didn’t seem right. Too sensible, even for me.

“I know a place,” I said after thinking for a moment. I carefully slid from under Annie, lowering her to the ground and adjusting the jacket over her. I stood and looked down at the body. “Is anyone going to come looking for him?”

Rafe shook his head. “The Jacksons must have put out a bounty on me. He wanted to collect it himself, which means he wouldn’t risk telling anyone else where he was going.” He stepped toward me, fingers closing around my arm. “I’m sorry, Maya. I never would have gotten you involved—”

I pulled from his grasp. “Don’t lie to me. Not now. That’s why you’re here. To get me involved. Not in this”—I motioned to the dead guy—“but this.” I tugged my shirt away from my jeans, showing off the top of my matching mark, and as I did, I watched his expression, praying for a look of surprise and knowing I wouldn’t get one. I didn’t.

That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? You said you were looking for something special in a girl, and that’s what it was .

I didn’t say the words. Even thinking them made my gut clench, made me want to run as far from him as I could get, but I couldn’t do that. I needed answers.

“I can explain,” he said.

“I expect you to,” I said. “But first, we have to get rid of him.”

We carried the body to a narrow cave farther down the ridge, where erosion had eaten away at the cliff side. We took his ID. He didn’t have keys, so he must have hitched a ride. We put him in the cave, then stuffed the opening with rocks and branches, to keep scavengers away.