Chapter Twenty-One
My partner didn’t like that conclusion. My partner thought that conclusion was ass. As he explained at length and in terms he did not normally use in front of the kids.
I didn’t bother arguing with him because I didn’t like this any better than he did. Relics were as scary as hell and had almost destroyed not only the Clan Council, but the leaders of most of the major clans on Earth barely a month ago. I did not want to hear that name ever again.
And yet here I was, looking at one of them.
And then I acquired another couple of problems. Sophie and Jen had just come in, and I guessed they hadn’t found anything outside, as Sophie didn’t offer any information before pushing in front of me, her nose twitching.
And then bared her teeth when I abruptly pulled her back, which was less weird than it sounds, as she was a Were, too, although not a wolf.
She was something far more unusual, being a Nagual, a shifter who can only transform at night, into a jaguar. The Corps did not like Naguals—mostly because of that, I thought, as a ghostly snout poked itself out past Sophie’s freckle-strewn nose. And started sniffing around.
All shifters were stronger, faster, and had more acute senses than their human counterparts, but that didn’t worry the Corps. They had spells that could compensate for all of the above and then some, rendering them at least a match for any misbehaving Were. Except for that one.
The rumor was that Naguals could separate their jaguar essence from their human one, sending the latter out into the world to bring back information or prey.
They were also said to be able to walk in the spirit world, to see things invisible to human eyes, and to invade people’s dreams. There were even stories of Naguals killing victims while their human half was hundreds of miles away, eating pizza with witnesses when the crime happened.
No one knew which, if any, of the stories were true, because there were almost no Naguals left. And there was going to be one less shortly if the body on the floor was booby-trapped. I hadn’t tripped anything, but I’d been careful and knew what to avoid, unlike a certain overly eager redhead.
“Observation only,” I reminded her, and saw her eyes flash gold.
That happened when she was either irritated or her power was surging, with the vivid color overwriting the usual pansy blue.
But today the beast’s eyes were also visible, and were spaced farther apart than her own, probably a testament to how large she would be when transformed. They freaked me out a little.
Hadn’t seen that before.
And the Nagual didn’t appear to like being touched.
Too bad; I didn’t like interference in an investigation by inexperienced types who had been specifically told not to touch anything.
My wolf didn’t like it, either, which was more of a problem since I had yet to get my own beast fully under control.
I’d only transformed for the first time a month ago, after Jenkins’ brew broke through the Neuri Syndrome I’d been born with, which occurred sometimes in human/Were marriages.
It acted as a type of immunity to the Were bite, ensuring that the resulting children could never Change.
So when I did, it was the culmination of a lifetime’s worth of longing, but it had also created some problems.
A few of which I was still working out.
Among other things, I’d gotten the impression that my Were thought I was pretty damned slipshod as an instructor. Cubs needed to be trained, lovingly, if possible, but correction should be applied swiftly and painfully when needed. How else would they learn?
Which was why I felt my hackles rise when Sophie continued to ignore me, and my eyes go wolfy before I could stop them.
Calm down! I told myself, which did no good. The Nagual’s eyes narrowed as her own hackles rose, and great. This was just all I needed.
“Hey. What’s going on?” Caleb asked, looking between the two of us.
I doubted he could see the ghostly snout now all but engulfing Sophie’s human face, but he knew something was up.
Probably because of me, I thought, wrestling with my other half.
Who wanted to put a paw on the rebellious cub’s neck and press her in submission to the floor, while the Nagual’s expression clearly said: “Try me.”
And goddamn it! That was a challenge. Not spoken, but Weres don’t talk much when transformed, and my wolf had read it loud and clear through body language alone.
“Down.” My wolf voice was harsh and resonant, echoing around the small space and coming back to us.
Sophie didn’t answer, but she didn’t back down, either, whether because of her rebellious streak, which did not like authority figures, or because of her beast’s, I didn’t know, but either way—
“Down!”
It was a roar that time, and the challenge was no longer unspoken. My wolf had had enough of the cubs’ insolence lately, as they struggled to adjust to being out in the everyday world, yet not truly a part of it. I had known this was coming, but damn it, not here!
Only my wolf didn’t agree.
“And if I say no?” Sophie asked, her voice also half transformed, but lower, silkier, less a roar than a murmur. One she did not get to finish before—
Damn it! That was a new outfit! Which was now in shreds on the ground because my wolf had decided to emerge unbidden.
“Holy shit!” That was Caleb, scrambling back from the huge, silky-coated, black wolf with firelit eyes that was suddenly taking up all of the room—and jumping the Nagual.
Sophie squeaked, whether because she’d just been borne to the floor or because her other half had torn loose from its own fleshy cage, I didn’t know, but she sounded scared.
And I remembered that she was just a girl, not quite sixteen, and likely overwhelmed by all of the recent changes in her life.
But my wolf didn’t remember—or didn’t care.
She was whirling with lightning speed on the ghostly Nagual, which was now fully free of Sophie’s body.
So the rumors were true, I thought, as it landed yards away.
It was beautiful, a black jaguar with barely discernible rosettes, crouched low to the ground, its long tail whipping behind it, and ready to pounce.
Only I pounced first and got my claws in it, bearing it to the ground once more. And causing an almost comical look of shock to take over its features for an instant. Right before the fight was on.
The damned thing was fast as well as big, being almost as large as my wolf.
But like its mistress, it was untrained and used to using its ability to vanish like smoke as it had just done, only to reappear out of harm’s way, something it couldn’t do with my claws in place.
That seemed to surprise it, like the fact that I could both see and touch it, which didn’t appear to be normal, either.
Of course, none of this was!
“Cut it out!” I snarled at my misbehaving other half and got only another roar back in response, while my students scattered, hugging the walls and looking very confused as to what, exactly, I was fighting.
But none were flattened when my wolf ignored me and threw the rebellious jaguar the width of the room, despite several of them being in the way.
The big cat remained a spiritual manifestation when the sun was high, I remembered, yet it had some sort of substance.
Aki gave a shriek when it passed through him, and then grabbed Kimmie and teleported them both out of there.
And Dimas shielded and screamed when that didn’t work, because shields don’t impede spirits.
He abruptly vanished instead, not shifting out as Aki had done or going invisible so much as matching the color of the floor like a chameleon and scurrying off.
I didn’t see where he went; I was too busy seeing the massive jaguar pushing off the wall and coming back at me, apparently not yet having learned her lesson.
And was met halfway through her leap and taken down by a furious Lupa.
More specifically, by her Lupa, and a Lupa’s word is law. Having to repeat herself was already enough to infuriate my wolf, but being ignored after that, and then challenged? Yeah, that was a paddlin’.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
“Stop it! Stop it, both of you!” Jen yelled, her necro abilities allowing her to see what was going on in the spirit realm. She had not fled but had crawled over and grabbed the human part of Sophie and was now shaking her.
“I’m trying! I’m trying!” Sophie shrieked. “My beast isn’t listening!”
“Then try harder!”
It was the same advice I was giving myself, with the same result.
I didn’t understand what was happening, as my wolf had never been this defiant.
Most young Weres were Changed as children, and learning control was just another rite of passage as they grew up.
My Change had been delayed for years, but that shouldn’t make this much difference, should it?
Adult humans were sometimes bitten by clans that wanted to adopt them, although that was less common than most people thought, as few outsiders were deemed good enough.
But it did happen, and I’d never heard of any of them having this much trouble.
But I was, I very definitely was, and all of this was so sudden and so unexpected that I had no idea what to do about it.
And neither did Sophie.
But her leopard did, and it wasn’t backing down any more than my wolf was. What had started out as a minor correction from a leading packmate to a junior one was now a full-blown, no-holds-barred fight, and that was dangerous. Hell, that could be deadly!