Chapter 7 #4
Percy sighs. “I don’t believe it was a natural occurrence,” he says heavily. “In fact, I think Sam may be a child of an earlier genetic manipulation experiment.”
I can literally feel the blood rushing away from my head, and I sway, extremely thankful to be sitting.
“Say what?” I whisper.
“There’s no other way to explain it, Sam, I’m sorry.
It looks like the tiny particles of matter that make you up are wearing human disguises.
You were, for all intents and purposes, human, but the…
let’s keep calling them disguises for now, they’re starting to degrade.
It looks like they’ve been doing it for a long time, but very slowly.
I don’t know if it ever would have gotten to the point that your shifter side came out naturally before you died of human old age. ”
“This is just surreal. You’re saying that my cells or genes or whatever are wearing human suits? Like the old parable of the wolf in sheep’s clothing?”
He pulls a face. “Somewhat. Honestly, I find it difficult to understand it myself, and even the magic seems… disconcerted. And angry, which tells me this wasn’t any kind of human spellcasting.”
I rub my forehead, feeling a headache come on. “Remind me why?”
“Because if a human had done this, they would have had to use the magic that makes up the universe,” David explains. “And the magic would know it had been done. Whereas a sorcerer utilizes their personal magic from within themselves, which can’t be monitored, so to speak.”
“It can be traced, though,” Andrew says grimly. “Did you get any sort of signature?”
“Yes, but it was… muddled. I think there may have been several sorcerers involved. It will take time to sort that out, and I don’t feel that’s our priority this very second.” Percy leans toward me. “Sam, are you okay?”
“I’m freaked the fuck out,” I admit, not even caring that I just said “fuck” to the lucifer. “What does this mean ? What’s… is something going to happen to me?”
“I’m not sure,” he says, “but we’ll do everything we can to make this easy for you. I have a few questions, if I may?”
I concentrate on breathing evenly and nod. In the next moment, a warm, hard hand is pressed to the back of my neck and Gideon’s huge, solid presence comes to stand at my side.
“Has your hair really always stood up like that, or did it begin at a certain time?”
I stop and think about it. “I… I think it began when I was in middle school? I remember complaining about it and my mom saying it was probably because of hormones. I don’t think it happened before then.” That was back when I still had a mom.
“Anything else that could be considered unusual?”
I wince but decide to come clean. “I don’t know if this counts, but you said that I’m still young for a shifter—how young?”
“You’re an adult, if that’s what concerns you,” Elinor assures me.
“Our brain development is complete at around twenty-five, same as humans. But our bodies are a little different, probably because of our longevity. Those reproductive hormones you had as a human wouldn’t kick in for a shifter until aro— Oh. ”
Andrew cackles. “Been feeling horny lately?” he teases. “World of Wangs getting a workout?”
“ What? ”
“World of what?”
“Andrew, please don’t sexually harass Sam,” Percy interjects before that rotten vampire can explain. The others look disappointed. “Sam, you’re in your late thirties, right?”
I nod. Gideon’s hand shifts against my neck, an extremely comforting presence.
“That’s about the age most shifter species become fertile. With you actually being a shifter, it makes sense that you’d be feeling more… sexually aware right now.”
I clear my throat. “That’s been the case. So… great. But I still don’t understand any of this, really.”
“It’s complicated,” Percy says again. “Really complicated. And parts of it are still unclear. What I know for certain is that you are a felid shifter. That’s visible to me when I look at you on a cellular level.
But there are human cells in your system as well, and they seem to be holding back your shifter side.
It’s still there, but dormant. You can’t access it.
Those human cells are degrading, though, which is what tells me more than anything, even if there weren’t also sorcery weaves around them, that they’re not supposed to be there, and small parts of your shifter self are coming through—like your hair and hormones, I suppose.
There seems to have been a bit of an acceleration to the degradation today—I’d say that might be a result of trying to use magic? David?”
David nods. “Definitely. He was able to feel his own energy so much faster than we expected, and he said it tingled. Shifters often describe their animal as a tingling inside them.”
“Did it feel like a rush of goose bumps under your skin that just got more and more intense, until your whole body was alive with energy that wanted to burst out?” Elinor asks.
I think about it. “Sort of. The goose bumps, yes, but it didn’t really feel like it wanted to burst out.” I bite my lip. “Is that bad?”
“It’s probably the influence of the sorcery weaves in the human cells,” Percy says reassuringly.
“The bursting out part that Elinor refers to is the surge of energy before shifting. Since the human cells prevent that, you wouldn’t necessarily feel it—yet.
” He takes a deep breath and meets my gaze solidly.
“You have two options here that I can see, Sam. We can leave things as they are and see what happens. As I said, the human cells may not fully degrade before you die of old age, which means you’d live your life mostly as a human.
As you get older, certain felid tendencies might come out.
Or the cells could degrade faster than I expect, and you could develop felid tendencies over the years, perhaps even the ability to shift.
I don’t know, and for your safety and the safety of the community, we’d ask you to have regular checkups to monitor the situation. ”
“Yeah, of course,” I mutter. A future filled with uncertainty—even more so than usual? Sounds about normal for me. “And the other option?”
“We try to unpick the sorcery weaves and remove the human cells, allowing your shifter biology to come forward.”
My head spins a little, and I’m glad I’m sitting down. Gideon’s palm burns against my neck, a wonderful anchor to reality.
“This is some weird-ass coincidence,” I blurt, not yet ready to address the other part.
“Of all the humans in the world, I’m the one who came to work here, despite having absolutely no connection to any member of the community.
Harold had to get special permission to interview me.
And now we find out that I’m actually a shifter who was tampered with?
Right in the middle of a case that’s probably about genetic tampering? I mean… what are the odds?”
Andrew gets up and begins pacing. “It is weird. The thing is, we don’t know how existential magic really works.
We don’t know when and why it’s going to step in and do things.
Maybe… maybe it was trying to bring you back to the community?
No,” he answers himself. “Percy said the magic was surprised when it realized what had happened to you.” He shrugs.
“Maybe it is all just a huge coincidence.”
“Does it matter right now?” Lily asks gently.
She comes to sit on the coffee table in front of me and takes my hands.
“It might be something we’ll never know.
And I’m a little more worried about how it is that you can genetically be a felid and yet our background check for you shows only humans in your family tree. ”
Ooops.
I wince and withdraw my hands.
The vibe in the room becomes more alert. “Sam?” David asks.
“So, uh, my official background is not technically… correct. Parts of it aren’t entirely true.”
Gideon’s fingers twitch on my neck.
“But there are still only humans in my family tree,” I rush to assure them. “I swear. I knew nothing about the community until the day I came in to interview with Harold.”
Lily looks utterly bewildered. “What parts aren’t true?”
I look up at the ceiling and purse my lips. “Well, my name is Sam… but my last name’s not Tiller. Well, it wasn’t. It is now. Legally, I mean.”
“You changed your name?” David’s frowning. “That should still have been in your file.”
Fuck, this is not an easy conversation. “Yeah, except the way I changed it wasn’t exactly legal. There’s this guy… I paid him a fuck ton of money for a new identity. And for him to hack some systems and have the old me listed as dead.”
Gideon’s hand tightens. Andrew, who’d stopped pacing to listen, sits. Just… folds right up and sits his ass on the floor. “What?” he asks.
“Okay,” David begins, then stops. “Okay,” he says again. “This is obviously going to be a long story. Sam, are you up to telling it now?”
It’s kind of late… but the more I think about it, the more likely it seems that in my old life, I was the result—victim?—of some kind of genetic manipulation plot. And that might turn out to be important and relevant to our current case.
“Yeah. It’s… Thinking back, it seems like my life could be some of the missing puzzle pieces we need, and wow, that sounds so dramatic and egotistical.”
Andrew, still sitting on the floor, laughs. It’s an almost hysterical sound. “Sam, you’re a felid shifter sorcerously disguised as a human on a genetic level. I think it’s okay for you to be a bit egotistical right now, since we’ve never known anyone like you to exist.”
Good point.