Promises to Keep

his unease.

Grass rustled like bones creaking back to life. The rocks themselves groaned in response, making his body ache and his skin twitch. He growled.

He woke grumpy, sore, and more tired than he had been before his nap. His sunbeam had left with the morning, his headache had returned, and he knew the mysterious shapeshifter from the woods was somehow responsible.

Jay had too much magic to mistake outside power for a mere dream. Something was trying to communicate with him, something powerful enough that even in cat form, his unconscious mind had instinctively wanted to hide.

Well, whatever it was had ruined his attempt to sleep, which as far as Jay was concerned was a hangable offense.

Hanging.

He still couldn’t get Brina out of his head. Could this dream have been a manifestation of her pain, or an impression from the mind of someone else he had encountered at Kendra’s? His dreamscapes often echoed lingering bits of the strongest minds he encountered.

No. Vampires didn’t rattle him like this. This was something more powerful, more alien.

His stomach rumbled. Still lost in a strange jumble of kitty and witch thoughts, he sought the kitchen.

To a cat, scents were more powerful than sights, and the scents in SingleEarth were always exciting. There were humans and witches and shapeshifters of every kind. Some SingleEarth havens were huge complexes where hundreds of individuals lived, but Haven #2 was small, just a few buildings. Residents mostly cooked for themselves.

People said hello as he opened the refrigerator, trying to figure out if there was something he could make quickly and easily.

Bacon … mmm, that had promise.

He tossed four strips into a frying pan and turned the knob on the stove, listening for the click- whump sound of the gas going on.

As he waited for the bacon to begin crackling, a nagging feeling at the back of his neck whispered to him, warning, There is something out there, something big. It’s creeping up behind you, and you’re making bacon?

Food is important, he thought, trying to reason with his own mind.

Survival is critical.

Okay. Fine. He would look in on the shapeshifter, see how she was doing, and maybe figure out the stupid mystery of the ominous lurking power. Maybe she was a hyena or lion or some other predator that his cat mind had sensed and blown out of proportion in his subconscious?

Jay lay his bacon on top of some napkins and carried it with him as he returned to the medical building. The strange shapeshifter was being examined by a human doctor whose mental patter gave him away as Caryn’s fiance. Underneath his forethoughts, which were mostly concern for the still-unconscious woman, he had dance steps on the brain. What was it about dancing?

“Have you tried asking the serpiente?” Jay suggested.

The human jumped, spinning around. “What?”

Why did so many of his conversations begin with people asking, What?

“About dancing. You and Caryn are both so stressed about it. Why don’t you ask the serpiente? They’ve danced professionally for thousands of years.”

“Thanks, but we’re going for a more traditional—I mean, traditionally human—well, traditionally— We’re not going for serpiente style dancing, um …” He trailed off when he realized he didn’t know who he was talking to.

“I’m Jay Marinitch,” Jay provided. “We’ve met, but only once.” Jay wouldn’t have had the foggiest idea what this young doctor-in-training’s name was, either, if it weren’t for the convenient name tag reading Jeremy Francisco, Medical Assistant. “How is she?”

“Nervous enough to shatter,” the human answered with a shake of his head. “We’re supposed to go by my mother’s this afternoon—for Christmas, you know. It’s the first big family event Caryn’s come to, and—” He broke off, looking sheepish. “You meant the patient, didn’t you?”

Jay had meant the patient, yes, but now— “You don’t really think they’d hurt her, do you?”

“What? No, I … Wait. Jay. I remember you now,” he said, thinking, Caryn was right. He is always this way. “One of my uncles had a bad run-in with a shapeshifter psychopath a long time ago, and now most of my family is of the opinion that not-human equals bad. When I first told them I was in SingleEarth and marrying a witch, a lot of them talked big and bad. Some of the worst of that still goes through my mind when I’m worried, but I would never bring her anywhere I thought she would be in danger.”

“Physical danger isn’t the only kind,” Jay pointed out.

“Right. But, see, this holiday is my mother’s big effort to show her support before the wedding. If we don’t go, we might as well write off my whole family, and I’m not willing to do that as long as they’re halfway trying. I already told my mom flat out that if anyone gets nasty with Caryn, we’re leaving.”

Jay knew he was a little late to take on the role of big brother. Time to change the subject.

“So, how is the patient?” he asked.

Jeremy’s frustration with his parents blended seamlessly with his frustration with this patient. “Physically, we can’t find anything wrong with her. Even magically, Caryn says she is stable now. I was about to hit the library, to see if I can identify her breed or where she might have come from. Want to help?”

“No, thanks,” Jay said automatically. He could read just fine, but given a choice, he preferred not to. Books were just words to him, flat and static and frustratingly slow to reveal themselves.

“Okay. I’ll let you know if I learn anything,” Jeremy said. “Mer—um, have a good day.”

“Thanks. Merry Christmas,” Jay answered, since Jeremy apparently celebrated that holiday. Most of Jay’s kind didn’t, though some had picked up some neo-pagan leanings and had started claiming holidays celebrated by human witches in the last few decades.

Once Jeremy had left, taking his anxiety and wedding obsessions with him, it was easier for Jay to focus on the other mind in the room. If the problem wasn’t medical or magical, then it was probably psychological. That meant Jay was better equipped to deal with it than the doctors. It was silly that they hadn’t asked him yet.

Skin-to-skin contact made mental contact stronger. Jay reached out to take her hand.

Yes, the shapeshifter slept, but not in any normal or healthy way. In sleep, people’s minds still worked. Even when they didn’t dream—even if they were medically brain-dead—they let off sparks from unformed thoughts and neurological impulses. A telepath might hear nothing unless the person were dreaming, but Jay could pick up on the basic static that was life.

This woman’s mind was as silent as a corpse’s. Either there was absolutely nothing happening in her mind, in which case her body systems should have stopped, or else something very powerful was keeping Jay out.

Normally, he would have taken that as a challenge to which he must rise, but this time he hesitated. Back in the woods, this had gone badly, and he couldn’t help but remember the presence that had stalked him in his dreams. Did he want to seek this woman’s mind?

CHAPTER 7

“JAY, QUIT IT.”

The sharp words came from a familiar voice and mind just as Jay had steeled himself to reach for the shapeshifter’s hidden psyche.

He drew back carefully from the shapeshifter before standing with a long stretch of his spine and saying, “Hi, Vir. What are you doing here?”

Vireo didn’t bother to answer the question, or to continue addressing Jay in any way. SingleEarth had called