The Turning Season by Sharon Shinn

focused, and he’s gathered his big body from relaxed to ready in the space of a heartbeat.
    â€œStay here,” he says, a command that’s loud enough to include everyone in the immediate vicinity, and then he takes off in a cautious run for the alley. He’s staying close to the building, as if hoping its bulk and shadows will protect him from violence, and I have a weird, fake-memory flashback of seeing him approach another crime scene in just such a grim and careful fashion. Dressed as a cop. Weapon in his hand. Death around the corner.
    There’s another noise explosion, more metal trash cans being kicked or battered, and then a shape staggers out from behind the building. It’s just one guy, but he looks off, somehow, like he’s drunk or disoriented. One hand is pressed to his cheek, one to his chest, and the only way to describe his gait is
reeling
. As Joe steps up to intercept him, I recognize him as the junker’s good-looking brother.
    Where’s Celeste?

CHAPTER FOUR

    D espite Joe’s command, I step closer to the alley, trying to figure out what’s happened. For a moment, I can hear their voices—Joe’s low, authoritative, and soothing; the other guy’s angry and steadily rising—but I can’t make out their words. Then the handsome stranger makes a wild gesture with one hand, and I see the bloody track marks on his face.
    Holy mother of God.
    At that exact moment, the audio station in my head tunes in to his frequency and I can understand every word he says. “I’m telling you, asshole, she turned into a
lion
. We were making out, and she—she wasn’t a
person
anymore, she was a
lion
, like a
mountain lion
. She
scratched
my
face
! She—crap, how can something like that happen? She, like, she—she wasn’t human! She was this—she was like this
animal
—”
    Oh my God oh my God oh my God.
    I’m not the only one inching nearer to the confrontation. All around me, smokers and romantic couples are drifting over, trying to get close enough to hear, their faces reflecting fascination and amusement. Joe’s voice sounds again, still untroubled, soothing.
    â€œI’m sure that was quite a shock. You look like you’ve been injured, maybe we—”
    â€œFuck
yeah
I’m injured! She tried to claw my
eyes
out!”
    â€œSo maybe we should get those injuries looked at, Bobby. I’m just sayin’.”
    Bobby. So either Joe knew the guy’s name before or he was able to extract it a few seconds into the encounter and is using it now as a way to keep the man calm. Either way, I’m impressed.
    But the tactic isn’t working on Bobby, whose voice gets angrier. “What you should be
doing
is looking for a crazy woman who turned into a lion right here in the middle of the city!”
    That’s sort of what I’m doing. I’ve gotten to the edge of the alley by now and I’m squinting at the pile of shadows behind Arabesque, behind the nearby buildings, looking for the chatoyant glint of cat’s eyes staring back at me. I don’t really expect Celeste to have stuck around this long, but I’m not sure where she could have gotten to safely in the minute or so that’s passed. I’m as worried about that as I am about what the
hell
she’s just done.
    She changed shapes? In the arms of a stranger? Okay, sure, I’m not surprised he got fresh and he might even have gotten rough and maybe she panicked, but she
changed shapes
? It’s axiomatic that shape-shifters don’t tell ordinary people who and what they are unless they have absolutely zero choice or they have absolutely perfect confidence. So much is at stake—not just their own lives, their own secrets, but the lives and secrets of the entire community of shifters who have existed for thousands of years beside their human brethren, unknown and unsuspected. She has jeopardized everyone.
    She