That was fast. Mirabelle had certainly shown up on the vet's doorstep quickly enough. And although Finn was pleasantly surprised not to have been ratted out, Ixchel was also the world's worst liar. The archaeologist had to realize that Finn had visited her practice the previous evening, and chances were good that the private security company Mirabelle had hired would be scoping out the joint in short order. Time to move on.
Slinking back into the woods, Finn stepped out of his feline form and unfolded his human body upwards. Then, turning directly back into the shift, he fell down onto four paws.
Unfortunately, those paws were still the size of silver dollars. Seriously?
Luckily, Finn had a pretty good idea what was going on. Having never enjoyed the dubious pleasure of transforming into a pussycat prior to the previous evening, obviously the purloined statue was at fault.
"Okay," he said, shifting once again, the speedy transformations making him pant slightly but otherwise leaving little mark. "Let's try this again." Setting the figurine down on a nearby log, Finn closed his eyes and shifted a fourth time...then stretched happily as his usual jaguar shape solidified around him. That's more like it.
Not that he was willing to leave the statue behind. Not after braving a gunshot wound to find it.
Which left the option of escaping on human feet. Finn had considered that scenario the night before, when Ixchel's car key lay serendipitously in the palm of his hand. It would have been so easy to hit the road in a stolen vehicle then swap the vet's car out for a hot-wired pickup a few towns over. By the time he'd hopscotched his way through half a dozen stolen vehicles, Finn would be all the way across the state and solidly off Mirabelle's radar.
But as he went to put the key in the ignition, the shifter had found himself wondering what Ixchel would go through in the aftermath of the theft. Would her insurance cover the loss? Would she be stranded out here on this seldom-traveled road until she was able to hire a rental vehicle?
Would she regret stitching up a stray thief's wound?
So, in the end, the shifter had closed the car door silently behind him and figured he'd make his escape on feline paws. And how strange is that, to feel guilty at the mere idea of a little larceny? Finn didn't keep himself in designer shoes by working a steady job. No, ever since donning his human skin fifteen years before, the shifter had put bread on the table through thievery.
At first, he'd stolen simple items—electronics from the mall to be fenced at the pawn shop, for example. But then Finn's research into archeology had drawn him deeper into the world of true valuables, and he'd begun pilfering ancient Egyptian artifacts and priceless Aboriginal ornaments. The way Finn looked at it, he wasn't really stealing. After all, no one had paid for those golden necklaces and clay pots in the last ten centuries. So it was a case of finders keepers...and Finn was the ultimate finder.
Which drew his thoughts to the one human whom Finn had built a long-term relationship with—Mick Carlton, the receiver of all his lifted items. Perhaps the solution to the shifter's current dilemma was to mail the figurine to Mick and ask the fence to hang onto it for him, which would allow Finn to transform into jaguar shape and throw his pursuers thoroughly off the trail.
The trouble was, while Finn trusted Mick not to turn him in to the cops, he didn't trust the fence not to cheat him of out every last dime in his pocket. And he definitely didn't trust Mick not to sell the figurine out from under him.
And Finn couldn't think of a single other human's address where he might mail the statue for safekeeping.
"This is absurd," Finn said to the little stone were-jaguar. Was it just his imagination, or did the Olmec figure suddenly appear smug? "You're supposed to be the source of were-jaguar power, a link to my people. Not an albatross slung around my neck."
But before the shifter could consider the matter further, his head whipped around. Immediately, Finn thrust the statue back into his pocket and began to run as fast as he could back the way he'd come, only this time heading toward the veterinary practice's back door.
Because a piercing human voice had cut through the forest just then, and Finn was certain he could identify the source. He'd just heard Ixchel scream.