“Right, before we get started. Please keep all questions to the end or, better yet, save them for conversation later. Just make sure to keep an eye on any norms about if you are talking in the bar. Along those lines, no photography, no video. Violators will, of course, be disemboweled.”
A low ripple of laughter spread through the room. Griffen joined in, though a little bitterly. He tried not to dwell on how flat his jokes had fallen the other night.
“Okay, then, on with the show.”
The presenter cleared his throat and glued his eyes on his cards as he began to recite in a slow monotone. Griffen could see why the shifters had chosen Jay to talk during the meetings.
“There are, of course, as many different ways of shifting as there are types of shifters. Some are born with their gifts, some cursed, some find means through spells and science. It all comes down to variety, which is of course what shape-shifting is all about.”
The door to the adjoining room opened again and two people walked onto the stage. One, a young man in a bathrobe. The other, a tough-looking man dressed in black jeans and a leather vest whom Griffen had seen standing with the loup garou.
“Take, for example, the ‘werewolf’ of legend. Here we have two very different varieties of wolf-based shifter. Gustov here is of the more common variety: He finds changing his skin easier under the light of a full moon and nearly impossible when the moon is dark. The moon is nearly full this time of month, so even in day he can assume his other form.”
Griffen watched frankly amazed as the young man somewhat nervously removed his bathrobe, carefully draping it so that at no time were his privates exposed to the audience. There were a few catcalls, but not many, and those that came were friendly.
Then, with a sheepish smile, Gustov lifted the robe in front of him. He held it open, blocking off everything from the eyes down, then dropped it. By the time it hit the floor, a large gray wolf stood where he had been.
The presenter only briefly glanced up from his cards.
“Notice the seamlessness of the change. None of the pain and agony Hollywood has become prone to showing in their special-effects pictures. Gustov is lucky, as there are indeed those who cannot change without pain, just as there are those who experience transcendent ecstasy as their bodies reconfigure. Kevin here, being what is commonly dubbed the loup garou, can change forms just as quickly but, by slowing and controlling the change, can take more than wolf form.”
Again, Griffen was astounded. His own encounters with such things had been brief and often so surprising that he didn’t notice the change till after it happened. He watched Kevin grow his nails and teeth to claws and fangs, then back again, then shift to wolf in an eyeblink. Then, with a small quiver, his form surged and there on the podium was a six-foot monster that combined all the best, or worst, attributes of man and wolf.
Many in the audience gasped, though not any of the group leaders. Griffen, conscious of the fact that several eyes seemed to flick to him on occasion, had assumed a poker face. Difficult though it was to maintain.
“Startling, isn’t it?” said the presenter. It was clear he had expected this reaction and put it on his note cards. “Not quite like anything Hollywood has come up with. Of course, part of that is because each garou tailors their form to what works best for them. This is Kevin’s wolf, and there will be none other exactly like it.”
Jay muttered next to Griffen.
“Unless it’s a good doppelganger or mimic.”
“What was that?” Griffen said.
“Oh, nothing. These are good basics, but it’s such a broad topic. Putting together an hour demonstration cuts off a lot of possibilities, you know,” Jay said.
Meanwhile, both of those onstage had become human-shaped again, Gustov hastily scooping up his bathrobe. Kevin was still fully dressed.
“How’d he do that without ripping his clothes?” someone called out. Griffen looked around and saw that it was one of the members of Estella’s church.
“What did I say about questions?” the presenter said, irritated.
There was a bit of a murmur from the crowd. The presenter looked a bit desperately at Jay and his fellow shifters, and received nods from them. He shrugged.
“Right, just this once, but after this, no more interruption.”
The crowd settled again.
“To keep it simple, clothes are a specialty skill. Some actually change the clothes themselves, some… well, let’s just say the clothes go somewhere else till they are needed again. Now, this is important: Most shifters who don’t have to strip or rip through their clothes when they change don’t know how they do it. They don’t need to, they just do it, and since it is a rare thing, it isn’t really studied or understood. No one else in today’s demonstration can manage the trick, so if you have the plums, buy him a drink and ask. Just keep in mind the parable of the centipede that questioned its own feet, okay?”
The two headed off the stage, and another figure came out of the door. She was easily one of the most beautiful women Griffen had ever seen. Tall and thin, curved enough that the one-size-fits-all bathrobe seemed strained top and bottom. Her long black hair fell straight to the small of her back.
She paused at the edge of the stage, making sure she had the crowd’s attention, and let the robe fall away. She strode nude onto the center of the stage.
The presenter stared openly for a few moments, till she caught his eye and quirked an eyebrow at him. He flushed and almost dropped his cards trying to find his place again.
“Uhhh, um… yes. Variety is important. Some of the most subtle tricks are also the hardest. For example, changing one’s hair and skin color.”
The woman closed her eyes and seemed to tense. At first it was gradual, her dark hair lightened, then reddened, then began to gleam. Her skin became tan, then brown, then black. Then she smiled and began to walk across the stage like a model walking a catwalk, and her skin began to swirl.
Multicolor whirls no natural skin tone could hold started to move across her skin. Blues and greens and purples blended and flowed and moved over her. Her hair was filled with metallic and jewel tones that seemed to flash into existence, then fade back.
Then the pigments of her skin become shapes. As if a film projector was using her as a screen, what started as unnatural colors became flapping songbirds in a rainbow of colors. All alive and realistic, like the world’s greatest tattoo. An animated tattoo.
The audience burst into applause.
“Of course, some tricks aren’t subtle at all,” the presenter said.
The woman threw her head back and, in midstride, she burst apart. Griffen was half-out of his chair, thinking something had gone horribly wrong. His jaw dropped as he realized the woman had become the birds, a hundred of them flapping about. A cyclone of color that seemed to dip, as if bowing, then flew off the stage and back out the door.
The audience was stunned silent by the showmanship of it all.
The presenter shook his head, clearly having been overwhelmed, too. And he had been expecting it.
“Keep in mind,” he said, “that even in the multiple forms her mass had not changed. This, among other things, keeps her from ranking among the highest shape-shifters.”
Griffen eased back down in his chair but leaned over to whisper to Jay.
“That may be so, but I don’t understand why someone with that kind of confidence hasn’t pulled up a chair with you four.”
“Maybe she wants to be invited,” Jay said thoughtfully.
Tail, the wild-haired shifter next to him, laughed in his gravelly voice.
“Invite her to sit? Ha! I’m inviting her to dinner.”
Apparently, despite the showstopping number, she was not the last on the docket for this demonstration. The presentation went on.
“Last but not least, one should keep in mind how broad the term ‘shape-shifter’ really is. There are many who are classified in other groups who have the means to change their form.”
For a panicky moment Griffen thought he, as a dragon, was going to be called on to perform. Thankfully, the door opened one more time and out stepped the changeling girl Tammy. She cast a brief, but heated, glance over her shoulder. Griffen was good at reading faces, and knew jealousy when he saw it. Tammy was feeling like a
