So that's how you want it to be. Tezcatlipoca had begun with threats, had progressed to complaints, and was now moving on to his third line of defense—the simple refusal to shut up. Well then, I guess it's time to bring out your reward a little early and prove how much I appreciate your past and future assistance.
Despite the twitching in his whiskers that suggested giving in to Tez's taunts was a bad idea, Finn found himself answering the god as he continued to place one pad in front of the other, stalking in a straight line toward he knew not what. My reward, huh? the shifter thought loudly, having perfected the ability to communicate with his pet deity nonverbally over the last couple of hours spent running in feline form. Call it what you like, but somehow I don't think I'm going to enjoy what you have to show me.
Au contraire, Tezcatlipoca responded in his rather terrible facsimile of a French accent. You wanted to meet another were-jaguar, and your wish is my command. Turn more toward the east and you'll find your precious shifter before nightfall.
It was a trap, of course. Tezcatlipoca did nothing out of the kindness of his heart, as evidenced by the fact that Finn had been within a few hours' run of another were-jaguar all afternoon without Tez making any effort to alert him to that fact. Probably this other shifter—if he even existed—was territorial or otherwise likely to give Finn the middle finger on sight. And from the tone of the wind god's voice, the deity was probably looking forward to the expression of despair on Finn's face when he was blown off by the only other member of his race that he'd met in his not-so-long life.
But...but...wouldn't it be worth fending off an attack if his opponent turned out to be another were-jaguar, even an unpleasant one? Finn had grown into his abilities since being forced to flee the claws of his mother and sister, and he was pretty sure that he could take care of himself against another feline now. And perhaps Tez wasn't well-informed about the unknown shifter. Maybe this other were-jaguar would eventually become Finn's friend....
Added to which—what else did Finn have to do with his time? The shifter's goal all afternoon had been to put as much distance between himself and Ixchel as possible in order to prevent any godly manipulation of the veterinarian. Along the way, he'd stopped for a quick snack consisting of a rather large iguana and had then sucked up a good long drink from a forest pool. And now, since he'd (hopefully) managed to achieve his goal of protecting the veterinarian by putting so much distance between them, there wasn't much else to fill Finn's hours while he held his ground against Tezcatlipoca.
So the were-jaguar sighed and gave his pesky god exactly what he wanted. Turning away from the setting sun, Finn continued to move deeper into the forest.
***
The shifter was so intent upon the smell of young-male-jaguar that he almost ran smack dab into the human who was stalking the same prey. The bulky man entered the clearing from the other direction, walking nearly as silently as Finn's own paws had on the dry leaves beneath both of their feet. And if the newcomer hadn't been humming a jaunty tune, Finn might have stumbled right into the path of his semi-automatic rifle.
The same rifle that had torn a hole in Finn's arm two days prior. A rifle wielded by a human that Finn thought he'd seen the back of.
Mirabelle.
The shifter stopped in his tracks, counting on his dark fur to blend into the shadows that were beginning to fill the forest. He'd been circling this same clearing for the last hour, trying to get a line of sight on the jaguar—were-jaguar?—that he'd smelled from a distance. But no matter how hard Finn peered between tree trunks, he'd been unable to find anything alive to match the scent. And—at a time when the shifter could finally use some godly advice—his elusive deity had gone strangely silent.
Unwilling to enter a dicey situation blind, Finn had continued to circle the clearing...until this blast from his past showed up to move the drama along.
"Anybody home in there?" Mirabelle called out as he reached the center of the clearing. The man halted, then peered intently at the ground a few inches ahead of his feet.
From Finn's angle behind his foe, the archaeologist appeared to be staring at nothing. So the shifter cautiously eased a bit closer to the gap in the trees, trying to determine what the man was fixating on. A cave?
At which point Tezcatlipoca finally decided to chime back in. Not a cave, you absurdly innocent jaguar, the god said. Try that limb over there. It'll give you a better view of act three.
Without conscious volition, Finn found his head moving to pinpoint a horizontal branch wide enough to support a jaguar while still arching over the edge of the clearing. True, the shifter would likely be able to take in what Mirabelle was looking at from that vantage point...but he'd also be much closer to the business end of the archaeologist's rifle. And Finn had learned the hard way that bullet wounds were nothing to play around with.
You're such a chicken shit, the wind god broadcast so loudly that Finn checked to make sure the clearing's other inhabitant couldn't hear him. Are you really going to make me miss the best part of the show?
Despite the god's prodding, Finn continued to hesitate, feeling at war with himself. On the one hand, all of his feline intuition told the shifter to turn tail and run. The fur on his ruff was standing on end, and Finn had a feeling he'd rather not know what Mirabelle was up to.
But, on the other hand, the scent of jaguar was even stronger now than it had been previously. And the shifter couldn't help wondering what was so interesting at Mirabelle's feet.
Curiosity killed the cat, he reminded himself. But the were-jaguar was already planning his ascent, picking out a limb-to-limb path that would allow him to reach Tezcatlipoca's designated perching spot without being seen from below.
Hurry up, scaredy cat. Or we'll miss out on all the fun.
Finn's pads moved faster over the bark of the tree at Tezcatlipoca's urging. Or perhaps the shifter had simply sped up because he'd caught the sound of a third inhabitant in the clearing, one who was beginning to mewl with pain.