Death's Rival

in swamp sank into deeps and water went still. Moon and stars were caught in water, trapped.

I shook again, flinging stinky water. Walked into the night. Inside mind, I found Jane. She still grieved, her mind curled tight, sleeping like kit. Near her in mind was dark thing, like mist and marshmallows, like shadow and sponge. From the dark thing a chain ran, to curl around Jane’s neck. I pushed on dark thing with paw. It moved. It stank of Leo.

I studied it, thinking, thinking like Jane.

This chain was a new thing. It had not been here in mind before, and now it was here. It stretched to Jane like leash. I understood. Dark thing was the creation of alpha vampire, magic of Leo. His ownership was like collar of metal, spikes poking Jane’s neck. Was like cage, holding Jane. Dark thing was binding of Leo. I growled. Put claws on binding, testing. Cutting down with sharp claw edges. Binding was not tight. Not strong. Could shift and shift and shift, maybe only five times, and poking collar of binding would be gone. Jane was not human to be bound. Beast was better than Jane alone and better than big-cat alone. Jane should not grieve. Leo hurt her, but did not defeat her. We would still be free.

I walked through woods, night like a gift of hiding. Black panther, black leopard, black big-cats liked night best, but Beast was good hunter by day or night. Could hunt in tall grass under sun, or at night under no moon. I tracked by smell moving on air, going to place Jane needed to see. Following stink of old meat, spoiled long ago under hot summer sky. I sat at edge of killing place, looking, seeing many bones. Many more than five deer had been killed here, stolen from Beast. Winter food, killed by thieves of meat, by pack hunter. Deer bones mostly gone now. Bones scattered. Wolves had taken food in bloodlust. In killing spree. Jane needed to see. To understand.

She stirred, eyes still leaking. Sad for being prey. Sad for Bruiser who was not Bruiser tonight. She did not understand that Bruiser would grieve too. Beast? she called. I huffed. She stared out at night through Beast eyes. Night was sharp with greens and blues and silver tones, everything bright and clear. Bones stood out in grasses and on top of pine needles. Bones? she asked.

Deer bones. Killed by wolves, by pack. Stolen from Beast. Thieves of meat, like in Hunger Times. Pack thinks like strongest, like alpha. Pack thinks like pack. Not like one. Not like two. Like pack.

Jane sighed, breath in mind tired and sad. Not understanding. Yeah, yeah. Got that. Sorry, but . . . I don’t get why we came here.

I growled, sound vibrating into night. Beast lost much here. Beast lost winter food. Beast lost meat. Hissed thought, Lost to pack. Tonight Jane lost to pack. Bruiser lost to pack. But Jane is not pack. Bruiser is not pack. Jane is Jane and Bruiser is Bruiser. I batted a rib bone hard with paw. It spun into dark and landed in brush. There is no shame in losing to pack with strong alpha. Shame is from not fighting again when pack is smaller, when pack-alpha is not expecting attack. Only shame is giving up.

Jane made strange sound, air and laughter like bubbles in mind. But when she thought, anger and joy thrummed in words. Like taking a pair of brass knuckles to a half-awake werewolf and knocking his butt into never-never land. Like sitting on a nice tree limb and dropping down on unwary prey. Patience. Yeah. Okay. I can wait to get Leo back for this. Her tears began to dry.

And Bruiser? I thought to Jane. He was prey tonight too, caught in alpha’s mind. In Leo’s pack. He smelled of grieving, like Jane smelled of grieving. Like Beast smelled of grieving when I killed injured fawn here, fawn left by pack to die slow death. Did not want to kill. Did not. But must. Forced by pack. Like Bruiser.

Jane made sound in mind. Like snort. Like disbelief. Like acceptance too. Yeah, yeah, okay. Bruiser is all innocent. When did you get so wise?

Beast is good hunter. Beast is good mother of kits. Jane is not. Jane said nothing to that. I hunt now. Go to sleep. I put paw on her mind, pushing down, forcing her to rest. I walked into forest.

* * *

I woke up at dawn, naked on a bed of pine needles, which Beast seemed to do to me as often as possible, knowing that needles hurt in places that tender skin should never be exposed to. I always figured it was a joke of sorts, reminding me who was really boss. But at least she had brought me back close to my clothes and my bike and I didn’t have to hike barefoot through the woods. I gathered up my undies, jeans, and boots, shook them free of bugs, and dressed. Collected my weapons where they had fallen and stuck them into their various sheaths and holsters. Braided my hair. And thought.

I was feeling calm, steady, clearheaded, seeing the world and my place in it with clarity. Without excess emotion. Envisioning what had happened the night before and my future options as if everything were laid out on a table for my consideration.

Beast was right. Bruiser had little responsibility for what had happened last night. He was blood-drunk and recently risen from the dead, or near dead. He wasn’t a vamp, so he was something else, though I had no idea what he was now.

Leo . . . Leo was a master of a city, a powerful vampire, politically and personally. That excused him nothing, but it explained a lot. Like kings and monarchs throughout history, the powerful did bad things to cement and keep their power. Leo believed that his taking of my blood helped him in some way. Weird as it was, Leo really believed that giving me his blood and binding me to him was a gift.

And as for me . . . I didn’t know what I was feeling, but I was done with grief. Though I was temporarily bound, it was an imperfect binding. I had options Leo didn’t know about. I could get on Bitsa and take off and never come back. I could claim my freedom. Or I could stay and put to rights what I had made wrong by killing Ramondo Pitri, even though that death was purely self-defense. I could maybe even save Bruiser from whatever fate now awaited him. I could still do my job. If I wanted. If I could face Leo without killing him.

I let that thought settle. I could leave. Or I could stay. I twirled the tip of my braid and tied it off with a thread ripped from the inside of my pocket.

I’d been hurt, but I wasn’t beaten. I could still work, could still be there for the friends I had in this city. I smiled slowly. I could get Leo back for the forced feeding and binding later.

Which led me to Leo’s own gang-feeding. A forced or coerced feeding from a human was a vamp’s version of takeout, though from the victim’s point of view it was an assault. It took away a person’s will and rights and it hurt. It hurt bad. What was it like when a powerful vamp was drained? What had Leo’s forced feeding been like, and how had it changed him? And how much of my internal debate was the binding? How much of my willingness to stay was Leo’s draw on my soul?

Holding my hair in one hand, I touched my throat, feeling again the slice of fangs going in. The electric shock as they sliced through me. I should want to kill Leo, tear him limb from limb, but I didn’t. I didn’t know what I was going to do about it. Not yet.

I rode at a leisurely pace, the sun rising gray and brown through a haze of pollution. My clothes were bloody, and if I got stopped I’d have a lot of explaining to do, but I needed some time to assimilate everything that had happened, everything I had learned. Hunger twisted my insides, the hunger of the shift that needed calories for fuel. But I didn’t stop for food. I needed to be fasting. I took the roads, heading for Aggie One Feather’s, the one place I might find a measure of peace.

Aggie was standing in the yard when I rode up, Bitsa puttering along with that signature Harley roar. The elder of The People was wearing jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and gardening gloves, holding a pair of clippers in one hand and a dozen sprigs of rosemary in the other. A basket lay at her feet, full of fall herbs, heated by the warm, late fall air. Fall, assuming there is such a thing here, lasts a long time in the Deep South. There would likely have been a frosting of snow in the mountains of home already. Tree limbs would be bare. Here it was still warm, even at dawn, and half the trees were still bright with fall color.

I parked in the shell drive, turned off the growling bike, and unhelmeted. As Aggie watched, I began removing my weapons, stashing them in Bitsa’s bags. Guns, blades, stakes. The cross in the lead-lined pouch. Everything. Nothing that might be considered a weapon could be brought into an elder’s house. I filled up one saddlebag and started on the other.

Paper crinkled in the bottom and I dug out a white paper bag. I had bought Aggie and her mother gifts while I was in the mountains, and left them in the bag in my bike. I closed the lid of the saddlebag, feeling the witchy-lock tingle under my fingertips as it activated. A thief would get a nasty shock if he tried to steal Bitsa. Carrying the