Scarper loves to tell you about how clever and devious he is, but he's moments from walking under a camera with a shapeshifting bag of black meat the size of a pony.
You run for them and catch Scarper's attention.
"Fuck you want, cub?" he snaps, but you grab one end of Clay—in the darkness you feel fur but can't see what you're holding—and pull them both down toward a frozen culvert that borders the parking lot. But it's so dark away from the lights that you hesitate for a moment.
"The van's that way, fool," Scarper snaps. "Stop pulling him!" And before you can stop him, Scarper wrenches the writhing, shifting mass out of your hands.
"But there's a camera—" you start to say. But by then it's too late…and you hear a scream.
You look across the parking lot as Black Tarn, still in the shape of a huge wolf, rips that trucker's throat out. You study the situation and conclude there's nothing you can do: the man is either already dead or he'll bleed out in under a minute.
"Hurry, idiot!" Scarper shouts at you. You head for the van, and Scarper turns and shouts, "B.T., come on! We need…shit."
Scarper stares open-mouthed at the mangled corpse of the trucker. Black Tarn shifts into her homid form over the steaming corpse, then runs—naked and blood-smeared—through the view of the camera, and jumps into the back with Clay.
"Keys," Scarper mutters. You toss him the keys and run for the passenger seat, barely getting in before the van screams out of the parking lot.
"Drop me off and I'll hide that dead trucker." Mortals are nothing but trouble and we need to stop an investigation before it starts.
"What are we going to do about the footage? They're bound to look at it once they find the trucker." We still have time to cover that up.
"How's Clay?" I ask Black Tarn. We may not get along, but it hurts to see Clay suffer like this.
"Get off my back, Scarper. I did everything you wanted and Clay messed up." I'm sick of these old fools.
"Does anyone want to stop for breakfast? I'm buying if it's not horse." My elders are idiots and I'm enjoying this as I plan my way out of here.
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