She catches sight of her target. Pushes harder. Closes. Her quarry wheels, dances in place. Curious, she pulls up. Studies it, nose flaring. Doesn’t bare her teeth because she doesn’t feel threatened. It has four gangly legs, scraggily tawny coat, narrow face, smaller nose.
Wary, tail straight out, she waits for a challenge. Braced to spring if she needs to. The other paws the ground, backs up. Isn’t staring but isn’t backing down. Offers a yip, an uncertain greeting. And then she has a name for him.
Coyote.
A thrill. She—her other self—wants to meet him, speak to him. But he is wary. She circles. He springs. She dashes ahead, cuts him off. He whirls on hind legs and again she blocks his way. He’s bigger, but she’s faster. She is no threat, her hackles are down. If she can show him that she only wants to talk—
She sits. So does he, some distance away. She licks her snout. Her other self, the daytime, two-legged self is struggling, she wants words to explain, but she only has this body, so she lies down, tucks her tail, waits.
And so does he. Rest, just rest.
She is uncertain, confused, curious, not sure this is safe. But his manner is calm. Her other self urges her, sleep, sleep . . .
Rubbing my face, I woke from strange dreams. I didn’t always remember my time running as Wolf. Images, the taste of blood on my tongue after a hunt, flashes of vision. This time felt particularly odd, unreal. Then I remembered a name: Coyote.
I sat up, forest dirt covering my naked side. My hair was a tangle, and I itched.
A young man sat across from me, leaning up against a beetle-eaten pine tree with sparse boughs and dried-out needles. He wore a blanket over his shoulders but was otherwise naked. I took a breath, and yes, he was my quarry, the coyote. Were-coyote. I’d never met one before.
“Hi,” I said, sitting up, hugging my knees to my chest. About twenty feet separated us. Just enough to really look at each other, far enough away to not feel threatened.
“Hi,” he said back, without enthusiasm. His straight black hair fell to his ears. He was lean, muscular. His dark eyes were wary.
“I’m Kitty,” I said, and waited for him to introduce himself.
He stared. “Of course you are.”
Cormac jogged up, then stopped, looking back and forth between the two of us. The coyote flinched, but held his ground.
“Who are you?” Cormac demanded, and I was
sure the were-coyote would flee again, so I interrupted.
“Cormac, I think that envelope is for him.” He had the envelope tucked under one arm, he’d gone back for it, as if he suspected he might need it. Under his other arm, he held a bundle of clothes. “Are those my clothes? May I have them, please?”
He handed them over. I dressed as quickly and smoothly as I could, which wasn’t very, wiggling to pull up my jeans. I just shoved the bra in my pocket.
“You haven’t been a lycanthrope very long, have you?” I asked the coyote. He glanced away, picked at the edge of the blanket. “That’s why you’re out here, hiding. While you figure out how to keep it together.”
“Feels safer here,” he said.
“We have a message for you,” I said. “I think. Cormac?”
“Fine. Take it off my hands.” He tossed the envelope to the guy, who fumbled with the blanket for a moment but managed to catch it.
Warily, he opened it. Inside, several folded sheets formed a letter. The guy held it up. The outside of the sheaf of pages had one word written on it in block letters: COYOTE. Brow furrowed, confused, he unfolded the pages and started reading.
Cormac’s face was expressionless, as if he was just done having opinions about the whole thing. I went to stand next to Cormac, scuffing my bare toes in the dirt. He’d forgotten my sneakers when he’d picked up the rest of my clothes.
“What do you think this means?” I asked softly.
“I don’t really care anymore, as long as the check clears.”
Well, deciding not to think about it was certainly one solution. The coyote kept reading. Then he glanced up at us.
“Well?” I asked. “What’s it say?”
“I can’t tell you,” he said. “But . . . thank you. This is important.”