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S moke and flame and blood: those were the scents in Tia’s fur and in the whole of the cavern.

I had no time to look, but I thought the reprieve was over.

Whatever my little magic overload had done, it hadn’t put all the fire out, and it was picking up speed again.

I had to quit screwing around, for all that torn fur and blurred vision and general heaving and panting suggested I hadn’t been screwing around at all.

Part of me screamed to finish it, to end the battle in as brutal and final a manner as necessary.

But I was a human in coyote’s clothing, and like it or not, Tia was at least partially human under her own lupine coat.

Decent humans did not go around killing one another.

But we weren’t exactly in the right physical forms to sit down and discuss the matter, and I seriously doubted Tia would shift back to her beautiful naked human self if I went that route.

In her shoes—or paws—I’d just jump on me and rip my throat out.

Which, as far as I could tell, pretty much left me with the option to do unto her before she did unto me.

I’d already shot somebody this week. I was not delighted with the prospect of causing grievous physical harm, by which I meant almost certain death, to a second party inside forty-eight hours.

Knowing I would lose time and ground, knowing I would almost certainly regret it, I went within and whispered, Rattler? Raven? Guide me?

We ssstrike, Rattler replied instantly. He was a white streak against blackness in my mind, barely there, as if he, no more than I, hadn’t yet fully recovered from the blast at the theater.

But he was confident in his response, which was more than I could claim.

We hunt, we shift, we heal. Life is sssacred, shaman.

Yours no lessss than othersss. Theirsss no lessss than othersss, and I knew he meant the men trapped in the wicker man above me.

You did not ssstart this battle, he told me. There isss no shame in finishing it.

Good enough, from a predator. I repeated Raven?, and my other guide soared out of darkness, power flexing with each beat of his wings.

It shed light on a field of war. There was nothing familiar about it, none of the tanks or guns or trenches from the past century or more of warfare.

Instead, a few surviving horses picked their way across bloody, mashed-down grass, and whickered in distress at the bloody short swords and leather armor that lay on and around innumerable human bodies.

Ravens by their dozens dropped to those bodies and sank talons into dead flesh, then rose again with souls clawed in their feet.

They winged into the sky as if burdened by the weights they carried, and one by one winked out, carrying the dead into another world.

They returned as rapidly as they’d left, falling to earth again and again, ferrying mortal souls into and through the Dead Zone to whatever lay beyond.

And when their duties were done, when no more souls were left to draw from one world to the next, they quite horribly landed on the bodies and began to gobble the choicest bits: eyes, torn bellies, tongues from open, once-screaming mouths.

I gagged and clenched my eyes shut against the vision, which was remarkably ineffective against something playing in my mind.

Raven swept his wings again and wiped away the images, then gave me a beady look from first one eye, then the other.

I swallowed bile and said Yeah, hoarsely, which I thought was a pretty good trick for a non-vocalized response.

I think I get it. Death’s part of the cycle, right? If that’s what it takes…?

He gave a satisfied quark! and both my spirit animals disappeared to leave me bowled over and rolling through fire wood with Tia Carley’s teeth snapping at my throat.

I’d clearly missed a couple rounds while I was talking to my guides.

We’d scattered from the wicker man and knocked embers and brush over half the cave.

I smelled burned fur, and it wasn’t all Tia: coyote fur somehow had its own special stink when it burned, distinct and separate from toasted wolf.

There was more blood than there’d been, too, some of it tinged with my scent, some of it with Tia’s. I hurt in new places all over my body.

I had spent a lot of time hurting in new places the last several hours, and it was starting to piss me off.

I writhed under Tia’s weight, flinging her away, and charged after her single-mindedly, leaping the fire ring again to put us right back under the wicker man.

She’d started this fight, what with murdering Naomi Allison and probably Lynn Schumacher, never mind the more literal attack just a few minutes ago.

She’d started it, but I was by God going to finish it.

With that thought, I let most of my rational mind go.

I’d been right. My longer legs and rangier form gave me a speed advantage, once I gave in to the coyote form.

Tia rushed me and I spun to the side, cornered on one foot, and tore flesh from her haunch as she crashed by me.

Her yelp was pure soprano pain and fury, but when she came back at me, I was already gone.

Gone up , in a leap very much like the one I’d performed outside the theater when people’d started screaming.

Coyotes were springy like Tiggers, a great mass of potential able to leap straight up and dive forward to catch a rabbit.

Or in this case, a wolf: I landed on Tia’s hindquarters.

She collapsed under my weight, which probably wouldn’t happen with a normal wolf and coyote, and in her surprise, flipped over to engage in another whirlwind struggle of tooth and claw.

But I already had the upper hand, and no compunction against using my greater weight to keep her pinned.

Panic soured her scent as I crawled up her body, and her struggles altered from attacking to escaping.

Her back claws raked my stomach and I snarled with pain, but disemboweling me would take more time than she had.

There was one thing she could do to—if not win, then at least not permanently lose—this fight, and she was much too deep in wolf-mind to think of shifting shape.

Grim and determined, I sank my teeth into her throat and held on.

Blood, salty, tangy, sweet, flooded my tongue.

I wanted to be all coyote, all predator, all beast, so that all the blood meant to me was survival.

I couldn’t divorce myself that far: I knew all too well that it meant Tia was dying, too.

She’d murdered at least two people. In a dog-eat-dog world, that certainly meant she deserved what was coming to her.

But coyotes weren’t dogs.

I eased off just a fraction, certain Tia had already lost enough blood to reduce her aggressiveness.

I was right: she flinched and gave me a wild stare, scrabbled a little, then lay still, gold eyes wide on mine.

Her breathing was fractured, blood pumping into my mouth with each gasp.

It drooled out again past my teeth and gums, taste growing more bitter.

More like death, I thought, and in weariness, released her.

She surged once, trying to regain her feet. I put my—paw; it was still a paw—out, placing it over the bleeding holes in her throat, and let my shoulders sink. Whispered, Rattler, one last time, and dreamed myself human again.

Blinding power deluged me, this time ripping away all the rich, overwhelming senses of the coyote form.

It was as debilitating to be human as it had been to be a coyote: suddenly I was blind, physically weak, unable to scent, barely able to hear.

Nearby fire was hotter against my mostly-bare skin than it had been against fur, the air drier and less comfortable to breathe, but I could hardly smell the flame.

I wanted to cry, bereft of the animalistic world, but instead I leaned forward, numb human senses all I had at my disposal, and risked calling the healing magic that was my birthright.

It responded: that was never the fear. It responded brilliantly, an outpouring of strength more significant than I’d ever commanded.

I clenched a fist over Tia’s throat, throttling my own magic back to something more manageable: I had no desire to repeat the cancer incident.

Just like always, I still needed control, not raw power.

The fire ring, battered and broken as it was, was a place of ritual.

Condemnable ritual, maybe, but ritual. I extended my other hand toward its boundaries and split my concentration: one part of me holding Tia in stasis a few seconds, not yet healing her, and the other part lighting up a power circle in what had, moments earlier, been a sacrificial monument.

The cave itself responded, magic flowing from its walls into the floor and then upward around the circle I created. Feeling like I hadn’t spoken in years, I said, “Raven,” out loud.

He dropped from the ceiling, a sketch of light and wings, to land by Tia’s head.

A look of unmistakable greed crossed his birdy face, and I chuckled despite myself.

“No. Her pretty gold eyes aren’t for you to eat.

I’ll bring you shiny food later, Raven. Right now she’s dying and I need you to help me walk the line and bring her back. ”

The bird tucked his beak into his ruff and gave me a disbelieving stare.

I said, “I know,” very quietly. “You gave me the all-clear. The warrior’s path permits her death.

Maybe it even encourages it. But it’s not what I want, Raven.

I don’t mind being a fighter. I can kill, if I have to.

But I don’t have to this time. I’m going to find another way. Will you help me?”