“Yes, apparently they see it as prey and it’s just one more thing that they can’t do. They can’t come out of my body and be whole, and now they’re trapped inside me with a prey animal that they’re not supposed to eat.”
“I don’t understand,” Damian said.
“That would be very frustrating,” Bobby Lee said.
“Did they complain about the rat before you did it?” Nathaniel asked.
“My control is really good now,” I said.
Nathaniel looked at me. “Anita?”
Domino came to stand in front of me. “You didn’t talk to them first, did you? You ignored them.”
I opened my mouth, closed it, and shrugged.
Nathaniel said, “Marianne taught you how to meditate and communicate with your beasts. I thought you were doing that regularly. I thought that was part of your new uber-control over them.”
“If I said I’m sorry, would that help?”
“Are you saying that your inner beasts’ anger transferred to Nathaniel and Damian?” Bobby Lee asked.
“Maybe.”
Nathaniel paced away from me, then back. “Anita, you can’t keep pretending that you don’t carry the beasts inside you.”
“I don’t pretend . . .”
“Control doesn’t mean you ignore your beasts. Control means you make peace, or something, with them. It’s a cooperation, not a dictatorship.”
I shrugged again. “I’m powerful enough that most of the time I can dictate.”
“Losing control once a month or more isn’t a curse, Anita. It’s a release,” he said.
I shook my head. “I don’t like losing control.”
“Well, that’s an understatement,” Bobby Lee said.
I frowned at him.
“Don’t give me grief when you just fucked up your inner menagerie.”
“They didn’t complain when I caught the hyena.”
“That was another predator and an accident. You let Rafael cut you up in rat-man form, hoping to catch what we have.”
“I didn’t think they’d see a difference.”
“You mean your beasts wouldn’t see it as different?”
“Yeah.”
“Why wouldn’t they see the difference between an accident and a deliberate act?” Bobby Lee asked.
I didn’t want to say it out loud, because even in my head it sounded condescending and stupid. But sometimes if you’re thinking loud enough, the people tied to you metaphysically can hear you thinking. I thought I had control of that, too, but I was going to be wrong again.
Nathaniel stared at me. “You didn’t think they’d know the difference. Even a real leopard knows what an accident is, Anita.” His face let me see just how disappointed he was in me.
“That’s pretty species-ist, Anita,” Domino remarked.
“No, it’s human-centric,” Bobby Lee corrected. “She still thinks of herself as human first.”
“No,” Damian said, “I can feel . . . She thinks of herself as human, period.”
“Just because you don’t shift into animal form doesn’t make you human,” Nathaniel said.
“I think it does.”
“So the fact that I shift to leopard means I’m less than human?” And there was the anger again, him speaking for my beasts, or maybe just for part of me that I couldn’t accept.
“No, of course not,” I said.
“But being human is better,” he said.
“I didn’t say that. I would never say that.”
“You’re still relieved that you don’t shift,” he said, and his lavender eyes stared into me as if he saw my thoughts and feelings laid bare, because he was right. I was relieved that I didn’t change form. I did think it was better. Did that make me the species equivalent of a racist? Did it make me human-centric? Maybe it did.
“Wow, okay,” Domino said, “that’s a lot of truth to share all at once.”
“Can you feel what she’s feeling, too?” Nathaniel asked.
“I hear her thoughts more than her feelings.”
Nathaniel turned to Damian. “Are you her thoughts, or her feelings?”
“Her thoughts, your emotions, I think. This level of contact is new, so I’m not positive which way it runs.”
“As the only person in this room not tied to you intimately, I’ll say this: You have to consider your beasts as a real part of you, Anita. You are one of the most powerful metaphysics I’ve ever met, but eventually you’ll need to become whole, and that means embracing all of yourself, including the parts that want to turn furry once a month,” Domino said sternly.
“Even if they don’t turn furry once a month?”
“Maybe especially then, because contacting them through meditation and magic is the only way you can communicate with them.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. “It’s a little late to apologize.”
“Apologize to who? Your beasts, Nathaniel and Damian, Bobby Lee?” Domino asked.
“All of the above,” I said.
“That’s a start,” he said.
Bobby Lee said, “You asked me who else goes to Ireland. How about Domino? He de-escalated this nicely.”
“Yeah, thanks for the help, Domino.”
“It’s my job. Besides, this is nothing next to some of the fights Max and Bibiana used to get into in Vegas. When your Master of the City and the queen of your clan go at it, you’ve got serious trouble.”