The Werewolf Megapack. Александр Дюма
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The Vampire Megapack
The Victorian Mystery Megapack
The Werewolf Megapack
The Western Megapack
The Wizard of Oz Megapack
AUTHOR MEGAPACKS
The B.M. Bower Megapack
The Wilkie Collins Megapack
The Randall Garrett Megapack
The Murray Leinster Megapack
The Second Murray Leinster Megapack
The Andre Norton Megapack
The Rafael Sabatini Megapack
LEOPARD, by Jay Lake
Under cover of darkness, Mattie crawled among the grape arbors lining the path across from his parents’ cabin. The sharp, sour smell of fallen fruit mixed with rich loam and the salt of his sweat. The grid of Motherlights glowed dimly overhead to define the night. His little sister Juna followed close behind, as she always did.
Somewhere beyond the edge of the village, Leopard stalked the darkness.
They edged their way through the vines to seek a glimpse of the villain at his work. Mattie used his knife to cut where needful. Looking for Leopard was forbidden, as were most things in Mother’s worlds, but the two of them were driven by curiosity mixed with loyalty and terror.
By day, Mattie and Juna loved their brother Benno. At night when Benno put on his mask and dropped to all fours, they shared in the fear of their neighbors. Brother and sister had wondered together if Leopard’s love was more dangerous than Leopard’s hate.
“Inspector will be here in a few weeks,” Juna stage-whispered to Mattie. A beautiful child of seven, with brown eyes and browner hair, she was just learning the power of rumor and hidden fact. She annoyed his twelve-year-old sense of importance.
“Shhh…” Mattie eased a large cluster of grape leaves aside with the flat of his knife. “Look…” His voiceless whisper dropped to almost nothing. “I think he’s after one of the sheep.” The animals huddled in their small night paddock on the far side of the grapes, kept in place by ovine pheromone markers and low-voltage wires.
Leopard bound out of a stand of thick bamboo off to their right and leapt the electric fence to bring down one of the sheep with a swift economy that terrified Mattie. The startled squeal of the prey raised a panicked bleating among the other sheep. Mattie set his shoulders, strengthening against the shiver of fear that his sister might notice.
Juna was too distracted, however. “That’s Agnes!” she shrieked as Leopard turned to savage a favorite lamb. She began to cry, not the quiet sniffling of a well-raised child, but a shrieking, bawling wail which put Mattie in mind of swift beatings and angry visitations from Priest.
“Shut up!” He slapped at Juna with his free hand. “Leopard will kill us both.” Behind them, Leopard’s growl rose above the bleating.
“Will not,” screeched Juna, louder, fear dropping away in favor of defiance. She jumped to her feet. “Benno would never hurt me!”
“When’s he’s Leopard, he’s not Benno!” Mattie yelled back, forgetting himself as he stood to pull Juna down again. He barely had time to turn into the rush of the clawed, hot weight of the big cat before it took him.
“Benno!” Juna screamed. At least she forgot her lamb, thought Mattie, drowning in the salty copper taste and the thunder in his ears.
* * * *
“Leopard,” intoned Priest. “Hear me, Leopard.”
Mattie’s ears felt thick, waxy. He could feel the heat of a fire nearby. The air stank of smoke, meat and machine oil.
He was in the Lodge with Priest.
Why? The question barely framed itself.
“Leopard. You have slain your brother.”
Brother? Mattie was confused. Leopard had killed him…
He thought.
Mattie tried to flex his arms. Unfamiliar muscles rippled beneath a heavy skin.
“Leopard.” Priest’s voice rumbled on. “Take up your work. You have made it your own.”
Mattie tried to talk but succeeded only producing in a frustrated cough. New smells spoke to his nose; olfactory languages unlearned bringing understanding unearned. Priest was old, his Lodge much older.
“You have asserted your responsibilities. Take them up.”
Was Priest trying to throw him out? What had happened to him? Mattie pulled himself to his feet.
All four of them. Clawed, furred feet.
He was Leopard.
Mattie opened aching eyes. Priest leaned on a staff hung with skulls, feathers and electronics. His Lodge spread around them both, cluttered metal walls glowing and rippling in the light of the fire burning in the central pit. The heads of dead beasts leered over ancient volumes bound with their hides. Equipment racks winked red, green and amber through their draped rags and beads.
Priest was wrapped in ragged, loosely stitched pelts and fabrics, embodying the chaos and complexity of his Lodge. He stared down at Mattie with a mixture of sorrow and frustration crinkling the tattoos of his face. Priest’s metal eyes appeared to weep, but Leopard smelled only machine oil, not salty tears.
“Inspector will be here soon,” Priest said. “We must have our Leopard. You have won the mask both by kin right and trial of combat.”
Mattie tried to talk, but again coughed instead. His voice trailed off into a growl.
“Remove the mask if you wish to speak to me.” Kindness tinged Priest’s voice.
Mattie began to protest that he had no fingers, that the mask was all around him, when it fell apart at his thought. He stood naked and warm in the firelight, clutching a worn leopard pelt in his hands. Its head hung from one end. A strap dangling from the jaw where the pelt could be pulled around Mattie’s face to hold it on. His own jaw ached, the memory of fangs disturbing his now-human teeth. The symphony of odors was gone, replaced only by a generalized reek of rot and age.
“Benno?” Mattie’s voice rasped.
“Dead.” Priest’s face drifted into an echo of a smile. The tattoos had a language of their own, if only Mattie had the wit to read it. “By your hand.”
“Juna?”
“Spared by both of you. Frightened beyond the borders of her wits but recovering.”
Mattie shook his head, gathering the leopard mask to his chest like an infant.
“Mattie…” Priest looked to shed another oiled tear.