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I lifted my Bible "Is there any penance for the death of another?"

"Abel died" His New Orleans accent faded away, his voice now pitiless "Cain was marked with the mark of the Beast and exiled But he lived I confessed to ave me harsh penance, and then he left the country never to return Mithrans and their crimes were more than a man of God could bear It took twenty-five years to work off my penance In the twenty-five years, I found freedom and peace And you will find peace as well, if you choose it"

Mark of the Beast Yeah, I know that one "I’m not Catholic"

Brian soddess"

I stood and gathered up o now?" Brian stood and pulled the chair out of the way I left the suite

I drove to a little church I had found--a wooden, white painted, two-hundred-year-old building on a crossroads, tucked into the side of a hill The steeple rose against a backdrop of dying helow Boulders the size of srassy yard all around, one behemoth half as tall as the church itself The land was unsuitable for farifted to a congregation, would be a contribution to be remembered It wasn’t the church I had once attended when I lived here, but a new one, where no one knewthat I didn’t want to look at too closely It was the sah they eschewed the word denomination This one was called si a revival-type service all week long

I was early, only one truck parked in the lot, the front doors wide to air out the day’s heat, half the lights on, but the sanctuary e totime since I had prayed And I didn’t knohat to say to God I settled on confession, beginning with the whispered words, "Today I killed a ive him time before death to confess To seek you" Tears started to fall, hot and searing "I killed a man," I whispered, the words like the breath of hell in my mouth "I didn’t really mean to kill him But all I can see is his body fall And fall And fall Like so many vamps and weres And I have to wonder if they were all as precious to you as a human is I have to wonder if the blood ofSoftly

in Mountain-Water Tongue

No one bothered me while I prayed No one bothered hts came on, and the heat went up despite the open s I stayed through the service, singing with the congregation, without the benefit of instrumental music I listened to the earnest minister and his sermon on what it meant to be drenched in the blood of the laht have reacted to, but this once, she re the last hymn so I wouldn’t have to talk with any of them It was the chicken’s way out, but I wasn’t ready to be welcoh to try to reach out for the presence of God hiht find it easier in the silence of the forest and ragged hills, far from other humans

My Cherokee self, the part of ed Had been broken by the death of ed by the loss of ht By the years I spent as we sa, a bobcat, before I stole Beast And by the hunger times, lived in her form I had tried to find that ancient, hue it ho I was now, creating one cohesive self I felt that if I did, if I could find ht finally feel whole But I was fractured, broken, and I didn’t have the ti Solanced back at the s away as the last notes of the last song poured through the open, stained-glass s, along with the stained light I had a search of a different sort to begin

A half hour later, after a stop at an Ingles to purchase ten pounds of raw steak, a dozen granola bars, and a roll of paper towels, I turned off the paved road near Hot Springs, onto a well-kept gravel road, still some six mountain road miles from the site I had decided to search It was near the Rich-Laurel Wildlife Area, on a little feeder creek that emptied into the French Broad River There were no people close by It was late and the weekend caathered at their tents, fires burning merrily here and there, easy to spot and easier to avoid in the dark

I ot out to reconnoiter, leaning against the arrasses ainst my skirt and boots I let Beast rise slowly to the surface, her senses expanding I could discern her heartbeat, slohen at rest than ly beneath ht, dark beneath the overhead foliage, grew perceptibly brighter as ht My lips parted and drew in air over tongue and through h I had no scent sacs in the roof of ht breeze was sun-heated and rich with the perfume of the earth, river-wet from the French Broad only feet from me Fish and water plants Warrowth arden plants, basil in flower and so spicy-bitter But no human scent nearby No human sound or voice carried on the air I was alone I started to pant in the warht for hunt, Beast thought at nant doe

I carried my supplies to the base of the Paint Rock The red rock cliff was jagged and broken, rising a hundred feet or more above the French Broad River It was once covered with ancient paintings, paintings that predated the Cherokee, drawn in red pigments, but time and the elements and the stupidity of man had erased most of the figures over large parts of the fractured surface But with the breath of the river flowing across the earth, the place still had power

I opened the steaks and dropped them on the smooth earth at the base of the eration With the roll of paper towels, I cleaned rocery bag and sealed them Carried the trash back to the SUV

I stripped in the front seat and leftno one would towup my supplies, I stepped from the SUV, barefoot and soundless,containing my fetish necklace, I set the necklace of the Puma concolor over my head It was est fe a legal hunt, the pelt and headrooh a taxiderhout the western United States and thought to be extinct in the eastern states, though so a comeback east of the Mississippi One could hope I didn’t have to use the necklace to shift into this creature--the memory of Beast’s form was always a part of me--but it was easier I locked the SUV

Already it felt weird walking on two legs, as Beast rasses sharp and cutting on h surface of the earth rocky beneath my tender soles I returned to the Paint Rock and the stack of raw, bloody steaks on the ground

Beast wanted to lick the I was panting, salivating Hungry, she thought Because Beast is so outside my skinwalker nature--an independent entity who shares my body and, more and more often, my mind--I don’t have complete control over her And I know, in my bones, that if other skinwalkers exist, they don’t have a Beast-soul living inside We had ended up together through an accident, if blackabout it always leftover old chain, swinging free Together, they looked like an expensive collar and tote,Beast look like an escaped exotic pet I leaned into the Paint Rock and scraped the gold nugget across a space unold The gold was like a hos, a way to find my way back, if I was lost after a hunt

Yesssss Hunt, Beast thought at me She was ready to scope out the territory, unfah it was close to Asheville and seeht have explored Naked, I sat on a sun-heated stone and closedthe power of the world in this place, the strength of the breath ofthe fetish necklace, I closed my eyes Relaxed Listened to the wind, the pull of theabove the horizon I felt the beat of my own heart, and Beast’s She rose in me, silent, predatory

I slowed the functions of my body, let ainst , I sank deep inside,away, all but the purpose of this hunt That purpose I set into the lining of my skin, into the deepest parts of my brain, as I always did, so I wouldn’t lose it when I shifted, when I changed, because oftentiht after a shift, Beast had complete control, while my own spirit and mind slept I dropped lower, deeper, into the darkness within me where old pain and memories swirled in a shadoorld fouled with blood and fear The night wind on my skin cooled The river whispered a susurration, leaves hed Memories firotten, both mine and Beast’s