Otherworld 10 - Frostbitten by Kelley Armstrong

Author:Kelley Armstrong
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, Fantasy Fiction, Horror, Contemporary, Alaska, Fiction, Romance, Werewolves, thriller, Paranormal
ISBN: 9780553589627
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2009-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

PROFESSOR

"NOW THIS IS more like it," Clay said as we walked into our new hotel room.

I tossed my suitcase in the corner and headed for the room service menu. Clay snatched it first.

"Excuse me," I said. "You're supposed to be reading Dennis's notes, remember? I believe that was an order."

"My stomach exercises its power of veto. Food first, work later."

AN HOUR LATER, his stomach full, Clay was propped up at the head of the bed, reading Dennis's notes aloud and adding lecture bits as he went. I was curled up with the pillows beside him, eyes closed as I listened. Dennis's notes were mostly about other shapeshifter myths, ones Clay already knew. There was the Bajang from Malaysia, a dwarfish human that can transform into a polecat. Or the Grecian Striga, a witch that shifts into a screech owl. Or West African leopard men, the offspring of humans and leopard gods, who can take on the form of a cat. Go to Bali and you'll find the Leyak, black-magic practitioners who change into animals at night. The Scots have their Selkies, seals who can change into human. Brazilians have Encantado, humans who shift into animals, particularly dolphins. And that's only the beginning.

The most popular shape-shifting form, though, is canine. Maybe that's proof that humans are, in some way, aware of us. But canines are also the animal they're most familiar with, from the companion dog to the predatory wolf. Canines work beside humans, live with humans and have, for centuries, competed with them, for both food and territory. Is it any wonder that when people imagine the animal shape of their dreams and nightmares, it's the dog, the fox, the jackal, the wolf?

In almost any culture that has canines, you'll find tales of hybrids or shifters. The Flemish have the monstrous black doglike Kludde, the Japanese have the raccoon-dog shifting Tanuki and the fox-shifting Kitsune, Ethiopia has the wolf-dog Crocotta, North American Natives have their coyote and wolf shifting skin-walkers.

Clay knew all of them, but as he read, he infused every scrap of well-trodden myth with the excitement and passion of a new discovery. This was another part of Clay. The father, the lover, the enforcer and the professor. Four sides entwining into a whole-simple yet complex, fascinating and infuriating.

I propped myself on one elbow and leaned over to look at him, my hair grazing the notes in his hand.

"I love you," I said.

He swiped my hair away. "You interrupted my lecture for that? Tell me something I don't already know."

"I hate you."

"Know that, too. Keeps things interesting. Now where was I?"

"Pompously expounding on the arcane minutiae of shape-shifting lore."

"Been doing that for the last hour. Question is: which bit of minutiae was I expounding on?"

I lifted the notes to his nose.

"Ah, the tlahuelpuchi. Actually, more a vampire myth than shapeshifter-"

"Similar to the nagual," I said, "but differing in both the variety of transformation and the transmission of the power. A nagual shifts into recognizable animal form and is believed

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