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As I padded over the silent earth, the scent of late spring threatened to cloud my senses It was hard to keep hold ofteht be dinner or a toy made me want to race off and explore But I was on a s and proobbled it up before racing over toward the noise

In h to hear Noas al I loweredto the shadows I was doind, so unless whatever it was had an extreht not notice rass, practically on nized It was Misha, a mouse that I’d formed a semblance of friendship with I still chased her, but it was all in fun, and she said it kept her alert and alive She’d savedthe winter, and we’d e a weird but viable alliance

Now she slipped out of her hole and ca on the land that shouldn’t be"

In my Were form, I could talk to animals and understand them Oh, it wasn’t the same form of vocalization that I used as a wonized by ave her a slight nod "I know, but I’m not sure what I haven’t picked up a scent yet, and I was just going to investigate"

She shuddered "Nasty thing Terribly nasty thing Big and dark It eats mice and rodents and other small creatures, so you’d better be careful Sticks them in its dark mouth and chews, chews, chews theood idea to head into this in cat for like this before?"

Misha sniffed "No, never Terrible beast It drools Gray, it is, and looks like a broken two-legs Not so tall and not so wide, but ugly, and hair stringing down its back, and its belly fat and bloated It has fur, it does, but not in the right places Not Friend" Creatures, aniories in Misha’s world--Friend and Not Friend

She scurried back toward her hole, pausing for a lance back at " And then she vanished into the earthen lair, back to her children

I waited until she was safely underground then crept forward again, one paw step at a ti small animals, I had to be careful I could be killed in cat fors As I neared a bend that would lead me into the wood, onto the trail toward Birchwater Pond, I paused, one foot inechoed from up ahead Whatever it was, it was a lot closer than before

As I neared the source of the noise, the wind shifted just enough to sweep an overwhel like sickly, overripe fruit And testosterone--thick and rance rode the scent of so pain Animals can smell the intentions of beasts and humans, and I could sense this creature was cruel He reveled in torht This was one vicious dude, whatever he was

I brushed aside a stand of tall grass withbetween the blades Froht struck the ground, breaking through the wispy clouds, illuh for me to see the source of the disturbance

A creature that stood about four feet tall was clawing at two prone tree trunks One had fallen atop the other, probably during the last big windstorm A whimper drifted out from between the downed trunks

Wait a hbor’s basset hound He occasionally escaped froure out where he was, I saw that he’d wedged hiet out But his woodland cage was also his saving grace The creature, whatever it was--and I suspected De, twisted hand into the opening, Speedo seeh roo before the de, he’d be able to access what lay below And beloas Speedo, obviously a Happy Meal just out of the deht, but even the dunore the obvious, at least not for long Poor old Speedo was a goner unless I did so in as a cat would never work He’d eat ht me I could probably take him down by myself, but I’d have to shift fast While in midtransition, I was helpless, and if the de away, I hid beneath one of the nearby fir trees in a bushy patch of maidenhair fern and huckleberry The thorns on the huckleberry would hurt when I transforods eren’t under a fullin a deep breath, I envisioned ed body Golden shag haircut, six foot one, athletic, a few scars here and there frohts we’d been in over the past few months, emerald eyes, just like e, I began to shift and willed the transformation to co whoosh I hit the ground as ed back into my clothes It hurt a little--I had shifted too fast--but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle Sort of like being spanked all over with a rubber mallet As soon as I was sure I’d fully transformed, I ripped out of the huckleberry bush and shook off the fern fronds entangling me

"Get out of here, you ape!" I raced toward the demon at full tilt, ready to kick butt The e, my sense of dread and fear had shifted to I’m pissed off, and you betterup at me with a bewildered look on its face, but his puzzlely claws and slash at ly brute was a lot faster than he looked I’d al to rip ht three pair of the coolest indigo low-rise jeans from my favorite store the other day, and I wasn’t ready to punk theain, Bubba!"

I pivoted on one foot, lashing out with the other to land a kick right in theshuddered as it made contact It felt like I’d just kicked a brick wall Well, ht look like a little pissant, but he was resilient This was going to be ht Worried, I took aiain, my foot bounced off him, this time with a kick to the stomach

"Watch out!"

The unexpected shout startledused to combat situations, I obeyed and dove into a so, too, because the creature opened hisbelch of flame I heard the crackle of dry tinder as I rolled to my feet and spun around

A s was on fire Next to it was standing a talla leather duster

The de two opponents wasn’t such a hunky-dory idea, and he turned tail and went crashing through the woods, away fro toward one of the boundary lines that divided our land from a protected wetlands area

"Roz, be careful! He’s hard to kill," I shouted as I gave chase