Black Beast (2 page)

And speaking of vipers—

He flipped to the section on shape-shifters.

The facial features of those profiled became less fey, more robust. He was fascinated and repelled in equal parts. Witches were gracile and androgynous, whereas shape-shifters had a wild, blatant sexuality that was almost obscene, making it impossible to look away.

No matter how much he wanted to.

Finn exhaled slowly.

He didn't, though. That was the problem.

Each section opened with backgrounds on the family, with multiple indexes identifying extended family members. Marriages and children were tracked, listed in long, winding footnotes that appeared hastily tacked-on.

He turned past several families that were well-known to him in his perusals. A number of shifters preferred to live as their beasts, switching to human form only as a necessity. The Glamors, however, were shape-shifters who preferred to live as humans and assimilated to human lives, trading freedom for security.

The Van Sants, the Vasquezes, the Trans, the Pierces. There were only a handful of Glamors in Barton. The fact that Barton could claim four families despite its size was quite a feat considering their relative scarcity.

Finn frowned. The last entry had a tag denoting an edit.
I authorized no edits for this file.

There were several notes delineated in the margins. Handwritten memos, glittering with trace elements of magic. Frowning, Finn leaned closer.

He knew this part of the file well. The Pierces had a delinquent daughter, guilty of multiple infractions of the First and Third Rules. She was several years his junior, attractive by their standards. That wasn't what had caught his attention—at least, not at present.

All fully developed shape-shifter had a beast, and the girl's should have been recorded. She was of age. He
knew
she was of age. But in the space where her animal should have been, it said only
UNKNOWN.

The word, with its faint ringings of failure, rattled him. Unknown.
How did I not notice this before?
The gods knew he had studied this file more times than he could count. Was it a clerical error, perhaps, or something far more careless? Even sabotage? His eyes hardened. Whatever it was, it needed rectifying.

It was time to pay the little shifter a visitation.

•◌•◌•◌•◌•

A voice had been screaming into Catherine Pierce's ear the whole way to work. A field mouse, specifically. Prey never liked being out in the open. A harmless walk in the park became a march to the death. Enemies were everywhere, lying in wait. One only need let their guard down for a second before getting torn to pieces.

She paused, tilting her head in a twitchy, mechanical way that looked decidedly not human—
though thankfully no one is around to notice
, she added to herself—performing a cursory scan up and down the empty street.

The Prey alarms went off a lot while she was outside. Every time a car whizzed by or a shadow passed overhead; every time a loud noise sounded with no discernible cause; every second of every day, that little voice was nattering at her, flooding her nervous system with adrenaline, as it was so certain it was about to die.

Catherine was surprised Prey's caterwauling had made it so far past her highly discriminatory thalamus. She was used to tuning Prey and the other voices out. She would have gone mad otherwise.

The DNA of countless beasts lay dormant inside her, waiting to be accessed. All Catherine had to do was look at a photo once, although video or real life worked better, and form the animal's image in her head.

Then, the Change came, as swift and fast as a cobra. She would know—after all, she had been one.

The trouble was, the voices of the beasts spoke to her, whispered to her, all the time. So often, and in such great number, that she was forced to divide the voices into two distinct categories for brevity's sake.

Predator and Prey.

Prey was being unusually aggressive today. Ordinarily it was content to curl up into a terrified ball in the back of her skull and whimper quietly.

Not today. No, Prey had been chattering at her from the moment she took her first step out the front door this morning. Was something wrong?

Yes
, Prey whined,
Danger everywhere, all around us.

I wasn't asking you!
She imbued the thought with a bit of Predator's fury and Prey cowered, receding.

Good
, she thought. Still channeling Predator, she whipped her head towards the rustling bushes, hazel eyes glinting with filaments of light.

The bush in question was a juniper hedge. Its branches stretched over the grainy sidewalk like the grasping arms of a panhandler. Furtive, nervous sounds came from within. Probably small birds or mice.

Other Preys.
Predator was dismissive.
Small Preys. Not worth the time it takes to catch them.

Prey slouched off, leaving jagged, fitful spurts of baleful fear in its wake. Catherine was concerned. Prey was rarely so adamant. Not while Predator was there.

She shook herself. Her hands, when she thrust them into the pockets of her jeans, were cold.

The air grew heavier, thicker as she walked. It wasn't due to the humidity. No, this was more forceful, more tangible. It was almost as if someone—or something—were physically holding her back.

Who would dare?

Beneath the sleeves of her flannel shirt, her skin buzzed and prickled with gooseflesh. The air was cracking with enough static to spark a flame and her own aura was discoloring, reacting with electrical and chemical bursts. As she watched, the nebulous haze surrounding her split off into hair-thin fibers.

Only magic could do this.

Only a witch would dare.

She stiffened. “Is someone there?”

Her voice came out as a squeak. She winced, cleared her throat, and tried again.

“Hello?”

Over the pounding of her heart she thought she could make out soft breathing. Measured. Not quick and halting like hers. Breathing like a hunter.

I'm not Prey.

Catherine fingered her cell phone.

She could call the police if she needed to. If someone was following her with the intent to do harm they would quickly find out she was nobody they wanted to mess with. Those who had underestimated her small stature in the past had not made the same mistake twice.

Her small smile disappeared, and her lips turned down. If what she suspected was following her was actually following her, the cops wouldn't do much good.

But what would a witch be doing here, of all places?

Hunting
, Prey whispered back.
Hunting
us.

Witches weren't predatory. They hid behind their magic as a shield to compensate for their lack of physical prowess. Also, they were arrogant, Machiavellian.

In a fight between a shifter and a witch, the shifter would often win—but only if they could keep the witch from speaking, usually by severing the throat or tearing out the tongue. If the witch was powerful enough, and quick enough, physical size didn't matter. Catherine had heard of the horrible ways the witches could kill their victims. Cooking them alive from the inside out, restricting oxygen flow through the nasal and oral passages by creating a vacuum, drowning them with vapor pulled from the very air.

It made fights between shifters look almost humane by comparison.

Of course, the Fourth Rule forbade all that.

But there are always exceptions.

Not me
, she decided.
I'm not going to be the exception.

She quickened her pace, trying not to rub at her arms and make her unease known. Her pursuer followed, and so did his electrifying presence. It was all she could do not to run.

Soon, her breath came quicker, and all she could hear was the rhythmic pounding of her blood in her ears and the sibilant whispers from the trees.
Runrunrun.
She was very relieved when she arrived at the library unscathed.

Before walking through the automatic doors, she glanced over her shoulder. The bushes across the street were still. Silent. Everything as it should be.

Except for a faint whiff of ozone, carried on the wind.

You're losing it.

Was she?

You're delusional.

She didn't feel delusional.

But then, she thought, wasn't that the point?