I glanced at Marc in the mirror, bracing for the disgust I was sure I’d see on his face, but it wasn’t there. He looked fascinated. He leaned forward to see the changes up close. Again. “How the hel did you do that?”

“Don’t know.” Donno.

“Look at your eyes.”

I leaned toward the mirror until my nose almost touched the glass. He was right. They were different. But as with my jaw, the Shift was incomplete. The shape of my actual eyebal s hadn’t changed, but my pupils and irises had. Rather than the normal round shape of a human’s pupils, mine were vertical y oriented ovals, with pointed edges at the top and bottom, instead of gentle curves. They were a cat’s pupils, and even as I watched, pulling back slightly from the mirror, they narrowed to slits, constricting the flow of light into my eyes.

But my pupils weren’t the most amazing part. My irises were extraordinary. I’d always thought the color remained the same in either form, but I’d been wrong. I’d only seen my cat eyes two or three times, since a cat had few reasons to look at its own reflection. As a cat, I hadn’t been able to see the tiny yel ow specks, or the subtle color variances in every shade of green. And I had certainly never noticed the dizzying pattern of striations echoing the shape of my iris.

Yet for al that my eyes had changed, brightening the room almost unbearably, my vision stayed the same. I stil saw the full spectrum of colors visible to the human eye, and objects were clear even at a distance. The odd combination of human and cat characteristics was disorienting, and brought to my mind images of the Egyptian goddess Bast, though I didn’t real y resemble her with my human ears and nose. I had an urge to laugh at the absurdity of my own appearance.

Marc didn’t find it the least bit funny. “Here. Try this.” He flipped the wal switch, and the light went out. It wasn’t a very good test of my night vision because the sun was stil up, and light filtered into the room through the cracks in my blinds.

But it was enough. In the pale evening shadows, I saw like a cat, in muted hues of blue and green, and a dozen shades of black, white and brown.

“Cat vision,” I said, and again he understood me.

“How did you do that?” he asked again.

I shrugged, looking around my room in awe. “I was thinking about what I’d like to do to Sean and his accomplices, then my face ached and I tasted blood.”

“I’ve never heard of a partial Shift.”

“Me neither.” Eee-er. Though surely I wasn’t the first to have such an experience. I made a mental note to ask around about it once everything was back to normal. Assuming that ever happened.

“Can you Shift them back?” Marc asked, stil eyeing me in amazed curiosity.

I shrugged again and closed my eyes in concentration. After a moment, it worked. My face ached again, in my jaw and behind my eyes, like a sinus headache.

I ran my tongue over my teeth. They were back to normal.

My reflection confirmed it. I looked human again. Completely.

“Your father’s not going to believe this.”

I cringed, trying to imagine surviving two interrogations in one day. And what if I couldn’t perform on command? I’d look like a fool. Or worse, like a spoiled child trying to soak up al the attention on a day of mourning.

“I don’t want to tel him. Not right now,” I said. “He has enough to deal with as it is.” And it just seemed wise for me to stay safely below his radar until his temper cooled a bit. Or until I had a chance to swipe his key to the cage and have a copy made.

Marc opened his mouth to argue, but I held up my hand to shush him, turning toward my bedroom window. Tires crunched over gravel, and I recognized the low rumble of a van’s engine. “Parker’s back with Kyle.”

Sixteen

Two car doors slammed, and more gravel crunched as Parker and Kyle approached the house. Marc and I slipped into the living room in time to see my father usher a bewildered Kyle through the foyer and into his office. For once, I was thankful for the extra-thick concrete walls. I could imagine Kyle’s reaction well enough without having to hear it.

A plaintive stil ness descended in the house around us as Sara’s death began to sink in. Only her mother’s disconsolate sobs marred the uneasy silence.

The Alphas appeared composed and sedate in their conservative suits, glancing at each other with grave, knowing expressions. But their calm was like the visible portion of an apparently tranquil sea, hiding a churning, agitated current beneath its glass-smooth surface.

They had come together to combine forces and expand the search for our missing tabbies. Now they had my description and Sean’s scent as a solid starting place, and Sara’s murder to fuel their fury. When they found the captors—and find them they would—the Alphas would strike with the full power of the council, making an example out of Sean and his accomplices, the memory of which would echo forever in werecat lore.

As stunned as I was by Sara’s murder, dark anticipation thril ed through me at the prospect of a large-scale hunt, even though I knew better than to get my hopes up. My father would never let me help.

Umberto Di Carlo left for the airport shortly after Kyle arrived, without having said a word to anyone that I heard. He was going home to arrange his daughter’s burial. Donna wanted to go with him, but she was in no shape to travel. I never found out what they used to sedate her, but half an hour after her husband left, she sat in the kitchen staring at my mother with unfocused eyes and a gaping mouth.