Crimson Claws & Fangs ch.09

    As night begins to fall Grey Wolf pulls his jeep off the road onto a desert path driving up the dirt path to the top of a mesa. The drive from where Samantha had been has taken hours at this point and Samantha had nodded off, as she awoke she asked, “are we there yet?” as she yawns she notices they are atop a mesa looking over the desert and asks, “why did we stop up here?”

    Grey Wolf’s answer is to simply turn the review mirror towards Samantha who utters a simple, “oh” as she looks back at her vulpine face. She had completely forgotten during the drive that her and the man driving didn’t look the same as everyone else, something she finds very disturbing, the best she can guess to rationalize that feeling is because they are both wearing cloths.

 

    “I guess we would draw some attention like this.” She says. Grey Wolf gets out of the Jeep and says, “This is as good a place as any to practice turning back into human. We will continue back to San Diego after dark just incase you shift back by accident.” He sees the way she is looking at him, “don’t worry” he says, “its not hard to learn to turn human, but it takes practice to stay that way.” With very little effort he turns into his human Native American man form.

 

    Samantha notices that his cloths shrank back down to match his human shape, “the cloths can adjust both ways.” He tells her noticing her gaze.

 

    “Your turn.” He says, “All you need to do is remember what it was like to be human and focus on that.”

 

   Samantha thinks back to her life in San Diego, to walking around on the soles of her feet, moving slower than she does now, not being able to smell so well, and the feel of the air on her bare skin. As she does so she begins to shift back to human with her muzzle and ears shrinking, this startles her causing her to revert back to her were-dire form.

 

   Grey Wolf says, “As far as your body is concerned your were-dire form is its true form so it will take some focus to turn human and stay that way. Its like driving, its gets easier as you get used to it.”

 

    Samantha tries again and is finally able to return her human form, her brown hair, her pale skin, everything is as it was before Versa turned her. But with each slight loss of focus parts of her try to revert to their furrier clawed versions.

 

   As they drive back down the mesa and onto the road about an hour goes by before Samantha falls asleep and reverts back to her Crimson Vixen form. Grey Wolf flips a panel from under dash board covered in odd button and hits a small one that causes a fabric jeep roof to sprawl out from all side and mesh together, looking like any other soft Jeep roof.

 

    Grey Wolf looks at Samantha sleeping on turns on his cell phone. Samantha is woken up by Grey Wolf’s voice, but doesn’t let on that she is awake as the first things she hears is Grey Wolf’s voice saying, “Shadow Vixen, I have her. I am bringing her into the San Diego base as we speak. However I’m taking her by her old home first, she wanted to see it. I think the sight of her empty house will make her more agreeable to join us.”

 

    Samantha can hear both sides of the conversation thanks to her fox like ears. She hears the woman she assumes is Shadow Vixen say, “Good, Censa will be glad to hear we finally found her and that we have her.”

 

  Grey Wolf in a worried tone says, “I have one other thing to report, Versa was out in the desert and led me to her. She told me to call the target Crimson Vixen in order to gain her trust.” With a brief pause he continued, “and apparently had also appeared to our target in a dream just before I found her, telling her to seek out others of her own kind.”

 

    Shadow Vixen on the line states, “Censa is the oldest daughter of Versa, it isn’t impossible they may be working together. However be watchful Versa has shown disdain for Censa’s plans in the past & may be up to something.” Grey Wolf says his good byes and mutters to himself after hanging up, “and what exactly am I supposed to do if an ancient Dire like Versa decides she has other plans for this girl?”