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I added cheese to the egg in the pan. “It’s—cases work like this,” I explained, frowning down at the melting cheese. “And, really, eliminating a lead is progress, it just feels…” I shrugged, not really sure how to explain.
“Like it leaves you back at the beginning?” Taavi suggested.
“Yeah, pretty much.” I added mushrooms, cream cheese, and bacon, then took another bite of my own omelet. “That’s the way the fucking cookie crumbles.”
* * *
Taaviand I finished our brunch a good deal more subdued than I’d originally intended, although I was trying to be optimistic, and Taavi is by nature fairly positive. But there’s just something a wee bit mood-dampening about discussing cult murder over breakfast.
The plan for the day was a walk past the art museum and out around the lagoons at Byrd Park, a stop on the way back for ice cream and an afternoon movie at the old movie theatre at the bottom of Carytown that still played its Wurlitzer organ. They ran old classics throughout October, and today’s feature was a Halloween classic:The Wolf Manwith Lon Cheney Jr.
Doc, Ward, Jackson, Beck, and Ward’s librarian friend, Fiona, were all meeting us there. I’d also texted both Dan and Mays to invite them—at Ward’s insistence—although I had no idea if either was going to be able to show up. As Mays had pointed out, they’d be there if nobody died.
Leaving plenty of time for meandering, we headed out into the pleasantly cool—for Richmond—October afternoon, the leaves on the neighborhood trees starting to turn shades of yellow, orange, and sugar-maple red, their vibrant hues splashed in with green.
As we walked, Taavi threaded his fingers with mine, and although I’m not normally a public affection kind of guy, I enjoyed the warm pressure of his hand, the solid feel of his callused fingers, the slight roughness of the pad of his thumb as it absently stroked the skin on the back of my hand.
He told me about the kids at his work, a few of the shifters who lived in Richmond who were in and out of Hands and Paws—volunteers, a psychologist who ran one of the support groups for the recently-transformed, a bear shifter who came and went every few months as he found or lost jobs.
As sad as some of the stories were—and some of them were downright fucking depressing—the fact that places like Hands and Paws and the AAYC existed at least meant that there was something like a support network for people whose families and friends were dickbags about their Arcana transformations.
I didn’t know if I’d ever get how you could do that—just give up on a friend or a sibling or child who got sick and ended up looking different or having different needs than they used to. We didn’t changewhowe were when we grew fur or fangs or pointed ears. I was the same crass, foul-mouthed asshole I had been before I went all leggy and gorgeous. My manners didn’t improve one iota. In fact, I bet that with my contrarian personality, I probably got even ruder to compensate.
But I was stillme. I still loved my parents. I still liked beer and cheese—hell, I still liked burgers, they justreallydidn’t like me back, as I discovered the one time I’d tried a bite because how bad could it be, really?
Bad. Like anaphylaxis bad. That was a fun night in the ER getting treated like a pincushion while the nurse monitored my histamine levels and tried to convince my body that murdering me over some Burger King really wasn’t worth it. Last time I tried that, though, let me tell you.
“Taavi?”
He looked over at me, a little startled. We’d been walking in silence while I got lost in my own head. “Yeah?”
“How do you think you’re different from a transformed shifter?” It was something I’d wondered for a while, but I hadn’t wanted to ask. Because it might be rude.
I guess I’d decided I didn’t care. Or maybe I’d just decided that Taavi was going to get me unfiltered.
Well, no. I was going to filter. Preferably the really extra-stupid shit. But I wanted to know more about how he thought about the world, and that stuff I was just going to ask. Because there wasn’t anything about Taavi Camal that I didn’t want to know.
“Oh. Um.” He looked thoughtful. “I assume some things, I guess. It’s hard for me to think about what the world looks like, sounds like,smellslike, for the rest of you. Most shifters who are new come in and talk about how loud everything is, how strong the smells are, how overwhelming.” He shrugged. “I’ve always had shifter senses, so the world just is the way it is to me.”
And that made me wonder what the world looked and sounded and smelled like to Taavi.
“What was different for you, after?” he asked me.
“Definitely louder,” I confirmed. “Not as much as for shifters, if my conversations with others are any indication, but I’ve got better hearing than humans, and definitely more sensitive than mine used to be. I can see better, although not really in the dark—just farther, sharper. Kind of… fisheyed, maybe? I remember being really disoriented right after, walking into walls and shit. But as far as I can tell, my sense of smell isn’t any different.”
Taavi nodded. “Touch?” he asked, holding up our joined hands.
“That’s… hard to say. I’m not sure if my skin got more sensitive or if it was just really painful for a while. I did grow quite a bit, so a lot of me was really sore and tender for a few months, and I’m not sure if I had to heal or I just got used to it.”
“How much?” he asked, looking up at me, his head cocked to the side.
I barked a laugh. “I used to be five-nine.”
Taavi’s eyes widened. “You grew seven inches? In how long?”
“Four days.”
“Ouch.”
