Jason didn't scream, he growled, that low, fur-standing-on-end sound that has nothing to do with hunting and everything to do with fighting, not for food, but for survival. It was a sound for guarding territory, chasing out interlopers, getting rid of troublemakers. The sound that says get out or die.
She screamed back, a sound that should have frozen the blood in my veins, and reminded me that my ancestors had huddled around their small fires and watched in terror for the shine of eyes outside that flame. But I wasn't thinking like a person. I wasn't even sure thinking was the word for what was moving through my mind. It was more like I was in the moment, completely, utterly. I could feel the leather seat cupping my body, Nathaniel pressed against my legs, his hands tracing higher, Caleb at my shoulder, his cheek against my face, his jaw straining as he snarled, Jason's hand on my arm like it had taken root, become a part of me.
I could smell Caleb's skin, the soap he'd used that morning, and the fear like something bitter under that clean skin. Nathaniel moved up on his knees, higher, so that his face was superimposed behind the saber-tooth's head for a moment. But I could smell the vanilla scent of his hair, and there was nothing from the phantom cat.
Jason moved in closer, putting his face close to mine, sniffing the air, I smelled soap, shampoo, and the smell of Jason, a scent that had begun to mean home to me, the way the vanilla scent of Nathaniel's hair, or Jean-Claude's expensive cologne, or, once, the warm bend of Richard's neck affected me. I didn't mean in a sexual way, but the way fresh baked bread or your mother's favorite cookies make you feel safe and smell like home. I turned my head to Caleb, so that my nose touched his skin, and under the fear, the soap, the soft skin, he smelled of leopard, faint in his human form, but there, a nose-wrinkling, skin-prickling smell. I turned to the weight pressing against the still-glowing cross. I looked into those yellow eyes, gazed upon those fangs that were like nothing that walked the earth today, and it had no scent.
Jason was snuffling the air in front of me. His pale wolf eyes met mine, and I knew that he'd figured it out, too.
As a vampire she smelled of cool evenings and sweet water, vaguely like jasmine. As a wereanimal she had no scent, because she wasn't here. It was a sending, a psychic sending. It had power, but it wasn't real, not really real, not physical. No matter how much power you put into it, a psychic sending has limits to what it can do physically. It can frighten you into running into traffic, but it can't push you. It can try to trick you into doing things, but it cannot hurt you without a physical agent. When she was a vampire, the cross and my faith kept her at bay. As a wereanimal, she wasn't real.
Nathaniel had literally crawled up through the image I could still see hovering over my chest. He was the one who said it out loud, "It has no scent."
"It's not real," I said.
Caleb's voice came with an edge of growl so deep that it was almost painful to hear, "I feel it, some great cat, like pard, but not."
"But do you smell anything?" Jason asked.
Caleb sniffed along my body. Any other time, I would have accused him of getting too close to my breasts, but not now. He was as serious as I'd ever seen him, as he sniffed along my chest, pushed his face almost into that evil face. He stopped, staring into those yellow eyes from inches away. He hissed like any startled cat. "I can't smell it, but I see it."
"Seeing isn't always believing," I said.
"What is it?" he asked.
"A psychic projection, a sending. The vampire couldn't get past the cross, so it tried another form, but the kitty-cat doesn't travel as well as the... whatever the hell she is." I looked into those yellow eyes and watched that massive mouth roar up at me. "You have no scent, you aren't real, only a bad dream, and dreams have no power unless you give it to them. I give you nothing. Go back to where you came from, go back to the dark."
I had a sudden image of a dark, dark room, not pitch black, but as if the only light were reflected from somewhere else. There was a bed with a black silk cover and a figure lying under that cover. The room was oddly shaped, not square, not circular, almost hexagonal. There were windows, but I knew somehow that they did not look out upon the world. Windows to gaze down upon the darkness that never lifted, never changed.
I was drawn towards the bed, drawn the way you're drawn in nightmares. I didn't want to look, but I had to look; didn't want to see, and had to see.
I reached out towards that shining black silk, I could tell it was silk because of the way it reflected the light from down below, far down below outside the windows. The light flickered, and I knew it was firelight. Nothing electric had ever touched the darkness of this place.