Page 13 of Shifter's Homecoming

“Seems to me,” the doctor said carefully, “that if the Deaden Curse exists, he already had it before he got here.”

“He wasshot.” Troy’s words were clipped.

The doctor pulled something out of his pocket and stuck it in Troy’s face. “I’ve got the bullet right here, you brought it to me. So there is nothing stopping him from shifting, right?”

Troy had no answer. The hostility leaked out of his posture. “But, human blood…” he said, trailing off.

“That’s a myth, you know, a superstition,” the doctor said. “Human blood does not give shifters the Deaden Curse.”

“Says humans,” Troy muttered.

The doctor stood up straighter and stuck his hands in his pockets of his lab coat. “I'm not sure what you expect from me," he said, the fear in his voice now replaced with irritation. "This is a human hospital. Itoldyou I don't know how to treat a shifter.”

Troy growled deep in his throat. It was soft, but both Trent and the doctor heard it. The doctor backed up several paces. He stammered something unintelligible.

The growling sheared off, stopping like Troy had just realized what he had been doing. “Sorry, doc,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to figure this out.”

The doctor nodded once, tightly, and turned around and stalked to the corner of the room he’d been working in.

“What about the vaccine?” Troy called after him.

“For the curse?” The doctor said, not facing him. “I’ll send a messenger to Doctor Atenboro. I should be able to have it here in a few days, as long as no shifter patrols stop us. If you could send someone with my messenger, it might help.”

“Rocko will go,” Troy said quickly. “Doctor Atenboro knows him, so do all of the enforcement groups from here to Illinois. He’s ready any time you need him, the sooner the better.”

Troy’s voice was soft. Trent, from his lax position on the hospital bed, could not see much of his face. Trent could not see the doctor either. Troy seemed satisfied with the plan as it was. He turned to face Trent then moved in close to the hospital bed.

Trent grabbed for him, wanting to make him understand. “Troy,” he said, licking his parched lips and gathering his words. “Don’t worry, I’m ok. But, I… I have something to tell you. Try to believe me. I’m .. I’m not Trent. I mean, I am Trent but I’m not the Trent you think I am.”

Troy stared at him, his eyes narrow, his face giving away nothing.

Trent, out of options, his strength ebbing, pushed on. “Smokey, he’s a cat, but he’s not a cat. He, he said I’m a traveler. I travel every night in my dreams. Well, I don’t, but I did. Or I do, but I forgot—”

Troy lifted his head and called across the room, “Ah, Doc?”

But the doctor was already coming over. He had a syringe full of something in his hand. Trent knew better than to protest. He watched the needle go into his arm. He felt the drug rush into his system.

Trent was out…

8 - The Catamounts

Trent opened his eyes in the meadow. It felt like late-afternoon, almost twilight, but there was no sun above, only flat blue sky. He was a man, laying on the ground on a dirt trail. He was without his wolf and it hurt more in the meadow. He ignored the pain and pushed to a sitting position. He was still exactly where he had flopped to his side and slept before.

He ran a hand down his face, feeling hard planes and coarse beard, still with no idea what he looked like as a man. He stood, thinking a mirror in the meadow was probably too much to hope for, but maybe he could find some standing water. He checked out the clothes he was wearing, glad to not be naked like in the hospital. He was dressed in a full, clean uniform with his badge on a chain around his neck and his gun at his side.

There was no blood on this uniform now, no hole in his pants or thigh, no bandage either. There were a few twigs on his pants though, and a bit of dirt. He brushed the dirt from his pants, then stood straight again and peered at the trees and dark around him.

His head was a little foggy, the drugs were still in his system. He felt the forest press in around him, something like claustrophobia. He'd never had that problem before. Trent tried to clear his head, to think of what would help.

He ran his hand down his face again, thinking he would like to shave, maybe, and just that quick, the beard was gone. His face was mostly smooth, like he had just shaved. He touched his chin and cheeks a few times, wondering.

Something moved on the trail in front of him, something big. Trent dropped his hand and softened his knees, ready for anything.

It was his wolf on the trail. Trent had never been so happy to see anyone in his life. Trent and his wolf merged. Trent shifted into a wolf, then sat on his haunches on the trail. Birds sang and insects droned around him like in any normal forest. Trent sat there as a wolf for a few minutes, or maybe it was more like a half hour.

His brain finally came through the drug cloud, his thoughts became clear. He shifted back into a man and his clothes were just...there. Like magic.

Interesting.

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