You've Got Tail (12 page)

“I see.” He sat cross-legged on the ground beside me. “Judah.”

I snapped my gaze to Billy Bob. “You mean…he's really dead.” I'd known, but I hadn't known for sure. I would have to tell Babel. Oh, God. I didn't know if I could. Rubbing my arms, I fought to ward off the chill forming inside me.

“I'm afraid so.” His lips were pursed in thought. “The white ear. It's most likely him.”

Great. I was having a whole Haley Joel Osment, I-see-dead-people moment. Though in my case, it was dead animals.

“This means something, Sunny.”

“Ya think?” I still didn't get it. I'd seen Judah in my visions as a man. “Why does his…er…spirit look like a dog? Please don't tell me when we die we become animals.” If that were true, after death, I'd probably come to on the ethereal plane as a platypus or something.

“I'm going to tell you something, and I want you to listen, really listen, and take it in.”

His voice was so serious and somber, I simply nodded.

“Judah was a
therianthrope
of the
Canis latrans
variety, known to humans as coyote.”

I searched the databases in my head, trying to grasp ahold of anything resembling sense. “Therianthrope? Thrope. Like lycanthrope? Like werewolves?” It couldn't be that.

Billy Bob cleared his throat and said stiffly, “There's only one lycan in this area. The rest are all therian.”

“Oh sure.” I'd spent my entire life having people laugh at me in disbelief when they found out I was psychic, so I should've been less skeptic, but come on! Being psychic is way more feasible then being able to turn into an animal. “So…Judah's a werecoyote and…” I was trying. Really, really trying.

Demerol high or no Demerol high, there weren't enough pharmaceutical drugs in all the world to convince me that shapeshifters were real, and frankly, the topic was starting to scare me. “And his ghost, in coyote form, is haunting me. I get it. No problem. I think I'm feeling much better. Does Amtrak run through anywhere close?” He hadn't answered my questions about Chav, but at this point, I didn't care. I wanted away as fast as possible.

“Sunny, I know this is difficult to believe for a human.”

There, he'd said it again. He'd said “human” as if he wasn't.

He'd picked up a stick, absently drawing symbols in the dirt beside me. “Judah wants and needs your help. Otherwise he wouldn't have attached himself to you. And the fact that you can see him should be proof of that. Besides, I think he may hold the key to finding out what happened to Chavvah.” He averted his gaze and bit his lower lip. “You haven't seen a coyote with gray-blue eyes, have you?”

“No, just the one with the white ear. But in my defense, I'd never seen a coyote in my life until I came here.”

Billy Bob let out the breath he'd been holding. “Fair 'nuff.” He nodded. “Let's focus on Judah. He has come to you for a reason. You have to figure out why.”

I couldn't argue with the fact I could see this thing—I refused to call him Judah—but I still wasn't sure if it was a hallucination. And who was the coyote with gray-blue eyes? Chav had gray eyes. Did Billy Bob believe she was the same therianthrope, animal-shifting thing that Judah was?

I leaned toward Billy Bob and touched his hand. Immediately, I was somewhere else.

Out in the deep woods, the smell of earth and spring grass scented the air. A middle-aged man with short gray hair sat with a young boy, also gray-haired, on a log near a trickling creek.

The boy looked up at the older man. “Grandfather, why are all the wolves leaving.”

Grandfather? The man didn't look much past forty, while the boy was at least twelve.

The older man stared off into the trees. “It's no longer safe for them. Nor us. Men have come to hunt them. It means they hunt us as well.”

“I don't want to leave our home.” The boy's mood soured with every word.

“Home is where you make it, Billy Bob. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

The wild scents left, the breeze went away, the serene creek, all of it, gone. I found myself staring into the intense face of the shaman.

He held my hand carefully, like handling a snake. Very un-Shaman-like he said, “That was freaky.”

“What?” I was still adjusting to being back in the sweat lodge.

“Do you have some kind of seizure disorder?” Apparently the shaman was gone and the doctor was in.

I knew from other people that when I went into a vision, sometimes my body shook, my eyes would roll back, and it could look pretty bad, but not always.

“No. I…” Oh, hell, why was I trying to explain myself to him? He was a few brain cells short anyhow, believing in were-creatures and all. Actually though, it dawned on me, his belief in the paranormal might work in my favor. “You said that Chavvah told you about my abilities, right?”

“Yes, sort of. Go on.” He nodded and waited for me to continue.

“Well, sometimes when I have a vision, my whole body gets involved. It's as if the vision triggers a grand mal seizure, but it's not really a seizure.” I wasn't too concerned about him not believing me. I got the feeling the shaman believed in a whole lot of shit without much convincing.

I waited for Billy Bob to go off on some mystical explanation, but he just raised an eyebrow and stared at me curiously. “Interesting.”

“That's it.
Interesting
?”

“And you had a psychic episode just now?”

“Yes.”

Now, I wanted to tell him everything. Billy Bob made me feel relaxed and safe. I didn't feel as if he was judging me. Granted, it could've just been the pain medication still in my system, but I wanted to trust him.

“I saw you.”

His eyes widened appreciably.

Throwing caution to the wind, I told him everything I'd seen.

“I see,” Billy Bob finally said after a few moments of awkward silence. “This changes things even more, Sunny. When Chavvah had talked about bringing you to Peculiar, I was reluctant to support her wishes, but she felt so strongly, I agreed. But now that I see your ability is real and special, I think you were brought to Peculiar for a reason.”

“I wasn't
brought
to Peculiar. No one or nothing brought me here. I drove to town all on my own volition.” I didn't want to believe what Billy Bob was saying. Not about Peculiar, not about me, and not about Chav having a larger reason than friendship for wanting me to come here. But I had felt drawn to the place, hadn't I? Even before I drove into town.

Suddenly, I felt alone. More than ever I wished Chavvah was here. She grounded me. Kept me centered. The only other person…A twinge of tightness in my chest made it hard to breath. Where was Babel? Why wasn't he next to me right now? He'd said that he was drawn to me, ached for me like no one else, but I'd been in this damn sweat tent for three days and he was nowhere to be seen.

Fucking men!

“This is serious business, Sunny.”

Damn right it was. “Yeah, seriously fucked-up.” Had I said that aloud? I must have, if the disapproval showing in Shaman Billy Bob's eyes was any indication.

“Judah's disappearance has been a mystery. I think if he's dead, he wants to be found so he can be put to rest. And I also think he can help us find Chavvah.”

“Dead,” I said dully, feeling a little shocky. Oh God. Could it be true? My hands, trembling, went to my mouth. How would I tell my friend when I found her…and Babel?

“You can see things that are beyond our abilities as shifters. I think Chavvah was right. I believe you were meant for this town.”

How could he so readily accept my psychic prowess? It had taken me the better part of my pubescent years to come to terms with it. And just because he believed me, didn't mean I would automatically believe
him
. I mean, yeah, weird stuff had happened since I'd been in Peculiar, being attacked by a wild animal was just the topper. But ghosts? Were-people? People who could take animal forms?

As if he could read my thoughts, Billy Bob said, “If I prove to you that therianthropes and lycanthropes exist, will you at least try to believe everything else I've told you?”

“That seems reasonable.” What was I saying? Reasonable-shmeasonable. What possible proof could he offer?

Shaman Billy Bob stood up and started to disrobe.

Oh, man! He was going to get naked. He was probably all old and wrinkly under the makeup and clothes. I didn't want to see a wrinkly old guy's body. “What are you doing?”

“I don't want to get tangled when I shift.” The fur he wore around his shoulders hit the ground.

He was decidedly
not
old and
not
wrinkly in the chest. On the contrary, his muscles were smooth and wiry. Lithe even. He turned his back to me, then off went the leather trousers. His ass was shapely, firm and raised. You could bounce quarters off those buttocks. His body was that of a runner or swimmer. Taller than Babel and quite a bit leaner.

He glanced over his shoulder at me. “You ready.”

“Uh, sure.” I mostly expected nothing to happen, but he was easy on the eyes, which made it no problem to keep watching.

The air shimmered around him. I'd say it was a trick of the light casting off from the fire, but it was solely concentrated on him.

A thick push of air breathed over my body as his skin danced, dark gray and white fur sprouting like tumbling skinny dominoes covering his entire body. In half fascination, half shock, I stared as he turned and his nose elongated slightly, but not completely wolfish.

Gray eyes stared back at me, so human. In the next second, he dropped to all fours, his body shimmering into full-on gray wolf. I gasped. “Holy sweet mother.”

The wolf sniffed around me. Absently, I reached for its thick fur. I needed to feel it, to know I wasn't crazy. It was remarkably soft and dry to touch, much like the coyote had been in my dream. And warm.

The fur disappeared out of my hand, and kneeling before me, Billy Bob once again looked human. His gray dreads dragged the dirt floor as he titled his face upward to me and, even more shocking, the face paint was gone and he wasn't the old man I'd imagined. The unlined skin on his chiseled face nearly took my breath away.

He was beautiful, manly beautiful, but beautiful all the same. Babel was ruggedly handsome, while Billy Bob's face could have easily graced a Calvin Klein ad. He was the Jason Momoa of the Midwest. Wowza.

“Is that enough proof?” he finally asked.

Judah whined. I'd nearly forgotten the ghost coyote. I looked over at him and he yelped a bark. Tingles shot through my fingertips, lips, and tongue. I felt lightheaded.

“Sunny?”

I turned back to Billy Bob.

“Can you believe now?” He'd already put his pants back on.

“I believe.” I believed in werewolves. I'd seen one with my own two eyes. As to the part about me being there to help them solve some deep backwoods mystery? Well, that remained to be seen.

Chavvah Trimmel was my best friend. She had been my best friend for a lot of years. She knew everything there was to know about me, including the fact that I had a psychic gift. However, it was looking more and more likely that she had kept a secret from me. A really, really huge one. I wasn't sure how I felt about her deceit. It didn't change the fact that I wanted to find her, and I wanted her to be safe, but I wasn't certain what the future would hold for us beyond that. How could she keep this from me? I trusted her, but apparently, in our friendship, trust was a one-way street.

Billy Bob cleared his throat. “It's kind of cool, if you think about it.”

“
Cool
is finding a permanent cure for cancer.
Cool
is dating a millionaire.
Cool
is having perky tits when you're sixty-five. This—” I pointed at him. “—is so not cool.” Okay, it was a little cool, but frankly, it also scared the crap out of me. I didn't want to be this person. The bigot. The one who couldn't get beyond someone's idiosyncrasy, but shoot, this was BIG. I'd have to digest.

Billy Bob kept me in the tent one more night before giving me the A-OK to go back to my apartment. He'd explained more than once how were-animals existed, and even though I accepted paranormal creatures walked the earth and kept whole towns for themselves, it was still difficult to fathom.

Apparently, they could shift at will. It was part of their nature, but once a month, on the full moon, they were forced to shift into complete animal form without choice. Unfortunately, the full moon had happened my second night in town. The puzzle pieces were falling into place. They'd wanted me to leave for two reasons: my own safety and to prevent the exposure of who and what they were.

I couldn't blame them. On either count. Damn Chavvah for not telling me.

Babel picked me up from Billy Bob's and drove toward town. I had trouble looking at him. I felt humiliated and embarrassed. I'd slept with a man who wasn't a man who could turn into what? I hadn't even asked him. Though…I glanced over. His blue, blue eyes stared out at the road.

“You're coyote?” Of course that made sense. Judah was a coyote. So, duh, why wouldn't his brother be the same? For that matter, Chavvah too. “You saved me.”

He grunted uncomfortably. “Did I?”

“You don't remember? You pulled the other coyote off me the night I was attacked. Unless there are more animals running around with your exact eye color.”

“I don't remember.”

“How can you not remember? Shaman Billy Bob said you guys could think like humans when you were in animal form.” Was I really saying this out loud?

“What
Doctor Smith
didn't tell you is that on the full moon, we become more animal than human.”

The way he'd said “Doctor Smith” gave me the impression I'd hit a sore spot. What didn't Babel like about Billy Bob?