“You can’t heal here, you stupid bird,” I said, remembering our first conversation, the one that had told me wasn’t from Earth, or not an Earth I had ever known. “You might need that feather.” And then I fell over him and the light telescoped down into a tiny pinpoint of brightness that illuminated Eli’s boots. They were standing in my blood.

CHAPTER 4

I Always Wanted to Shoot Big Bird

I came to in a darkened room that smelled of vamps, human blood, and my blood. I was cold, so cold I couldn’t even shiver, though there was something warm wrapped around me, an electric blanket, I thought, coarse and fuzzy at the same time. Something cool and smooth was against my cheek. Something wet was wiping my side, cleaning the deadened flesh where I must be—or must have been—wounded. The pain that had been with me, even in the darkness of unconsciousness, was mostly gone, leaving a dull ache.

I sighed and my breath came easily, with a sensation that let me know I had been in agony for some time in the very recent past. But the pain was gone and my breath came and went, came and went. But I wasn’t ready to face the real world. Sinking inside myself, I reached for Beast.

She was in my soul home, crouched before a crackling fire. The flames were cool, giving off no heat, and the light within them, light that should have illuminated everything around us, was muted, as if hidden in smoke, except there was no smoke, no scent of fire or fresh-cut wood, no charcoal, no scent of anything. Everything was dark, except for the flames themselves and a shadowy Beast, so dark here that I couldn’t see the stone walls or the rounded stone roof, far overhead. Beast’s eyes were glowing gold, watching me in the darkness. Her golden pelt was dim, as if she sat in shadow, or as if she had taken on the pelt of the black panther, the rare melanistic Puma concolor, her pelt darkened beneath the black hair-tips. A tremor ran through her body.

I examined myself, seeing the leggings, long tunic shirt, and the plain, undecorated moccasins that I had begun to wear here, ever since I accepted that I was War Woman. I bent toward the flame. The medicine bag hanging on the leather thong about my neck swung forward, into the meager light. The green-dyed leather caught the light and faded into darkness, caught the light and faded into darkness as it swung, in time to my breathing, slow and easy. The leather bag filled with herbs had no scent, no herbal aroma, no wild tobacco, nothing. I had a bad feeling about . . . everything.

Jane is foolish kit.

So you tell me.

Jane let ambush hunter wound her with killing steel claw.

I thought he was testing us again. Making sure there was no indication of Beast in our eyes. No evidence of our new abilities. I thought back to what I remembered of the fight. The memory was fuzzy, but the memory of the pain was fresh and startling, of Gee’s blade sliding in under my ribs.

Jane should have allowed Beast to be. She drew out the last word, giving it import and heft, as though being was a weapon I had possessed but had kept sheathed.

I didn’t stop you, I thought back. I reached for you and . . . I tried to remember, but my memory was sluggish, as if the moment I looked for had been washed away by a flash flood.

I got the impression of golden eyes, a flick of ear tabs, and a faint chuffing sound. Beast was there. Waiting.

I don’t understand, I thought at her. What happened?

Litter mate killed him with white man guns. Yet Gee did not die. Jane was dying, but Beast was awake. Beast flicked her ears, thinking. Leo slashed Gee-bird with claws, like male puma slashes younger males, to warn away from territory. There was much shouting and human war screams. There was much I did not understand.

Yeah, well, that makes two of us.

Two. And one. Always. Forever. As Jane understands now and not now.

I reached for you in the fight. I couldn’t find you.

Jane is foolish kit. Beast can hide golden eyes and scent. Beast is . . . She went silent and I realized she was thinking, trying to find words. She settled on the familiar Beast is wise ambush hunter.

Yes. You are.

We are. We are Beast.

I knelt at the fire and rubbed her ears, the pelt not as warm as I expected on my icy fingers. I ran my hands down along her jaw. Her head tilted into me and she scrubbed it hard against me, scent-marking me. I wrapped my arms around her and held her close for a moment, her pelt slightly warmer than my cold skin, her breath a steady almost-purr that was more vibration than sound. She should have been warmer. Much warmer than I was. Puma concolors have a higher body temp than humans. Something was very wrong here. I thought, Are we in danger?

No. They heal us.

In the room where my body lay, I tasted vampire blood. Leo was feeding me. I swallowed. Then I tasted Edmund Hartley’s blood and I swallowed again. The vampire hadn’t been here before. I was certain. Voices were speaking, the sounds angry, but the words were indistinct, as if I had cotton stuffed in my ears. I pulled away from the arguing vamps and human and went back into my solitude.

In my soul home, the flames in front of us flared high for a moment, throwing off sparks. Suddenly they held warmth and light. The walls around us brightened enough to perceive that they were dove-gray rock, smooth and damp with wet. The scent of burning wood teased my nostrils as I took a breath.

Beast stood and shook herself, her loose pelt sliding around her strong frame. She was bigger now, just as I was bigger after my weight gain over Christmas. She would soon be at the top of her weight limit, without altering some genes, turning some on or off, to increase her possible weight. And I didn’t know how to do that safely. But her pelt was warmer, and her flesh beneath was warmer. That was good. My hand slipped from her and she padded into the shadows that lingered at the passageway to her niche, the ledge and shallow notch where she denned. Watching her, I stood. And I woke.