Chapter 1

The golden glow of the sunset painted in autumnal hues the thick trees that surrounded the Confederate encampment.On the outskirts of camp,beyond the pitched tents,Private Caleb Chilson leaned against his rifle,one of a handful of pickets posted to ward off the coming night and the threat of a Yankee attack.Since the sun had begun to disappear below the horizon,a faint,familiar ache had blossomed in his lower belly,a cramp not unlike hunger pains,a burning that seemed to grow more desperate with each passing minute.The change was coming over him,responding to the rising moon.He felt it in his bones.

He had another hour,maybe two,before the rifle fell from his hands and he’dlose another good pair of pants to his damn condition.The last time it’d happened,the sutler laughed at the hole torn in the back of his dungarees.“You sure you caught this on a fence,soldier?”he’d sniggered,full of himself.“Or’d you just cut it out for easy access?”

“I’d shoot you for that,”Caleb had replied,“if I had the lead to waste.Just give me a new pair,or a kit to mend these.”

A particularly hard twist of his gut doubled Caleb over.He clutched at his stomach,closing his eyes against the pain.It was happening now,though the sun wasn’t yet completely down;he recognized the symptoms,he could feel his body begin to change.Already his mind roiled with a myriad of scents and wordless images—his heightened hearing categorized each of the soft sounds made by the camp as it settled in for the night,the crackle of firewood as it burned to ash,the scrape of metal utensils on metal bowls,the crunch of footsteps over dead leaves.His altered sense of smell picked out the clean,bland scent of boiling water,the sharp tang of gunpowder,the overpowering man-spore that filled the clearing.Glancing down,he noticed a sudden growthof pale blonde hair on the back of his hand…no.He shook his head to clear it,struggling to hold onto that small part of his mind still human.Not here,notyet,no.

Suddenly a warm hand clapped his back and he staggered forward,almost tripping over the barrel of his gun.“You all right,Cal?”

One of the other pickets—in his current state,Caleb couldn’t remember the man’s name.Another private,like himself,with a Southern drawl that markedhim as a rebel.The stench of his unwashed flesh filled Caleb’s animal senses,nauseating him.He struggled for words,and when he finally managed to set them loose,they felt clunky and odd in his mouth.“Sick,”he gasped,the pain tearing through him now.He had to get away from this man,this camp,this place.He had to get free.

He took a stumbling step forward and his comrade laughed.“Man,not you,too!”he chuckled.“Must be something in the water here,I swear.Half the camp’s out in the woods with the shits.”

Numb,Caleb nodded.Yes,the woods.That was where he needed to be.The trees reached out for him,their limbs stretching to claim him as their own.He feltthe leaves on his face like cool hands,brushing the blonde hair from his brow,smoothing over his face,as gentle as a mother’s caress.Bent double,Caleb hurried into the woods,eager to lose himself in their depths.He stumbled again and fell to the ground,out of sight from the camp.The hands that caught his weight were now paws covered in fur.As he watched,emotionless,his long fingers shrank into his palms as his nails grew into razor-like claws that retracted.His body compacted into itself,his thighs curving,his feet stretching,his toes taking his weight.His bones crunched with a sickening sound,reshaping themselves into the feral wildcat form overwhich he had no control.

The rip of fabric filled the air as his coccyx lengthened and grew into a short,thick tail.As the last vestiges of his humanity fell away,Caleb moaned,then reared back and let out a flashing cry that tore through the quiet of the growing night.He shook his head,his cap falling aside as twin tufted ears pushed it off.Wiry blonde hair,as shaggy as the uncut mop of waves that covered his scalp,erupted along his body,covering him in a thick,tawny pelt.

One long stretch and the buttons on his shirt popped open.The belt around hiswaist hung heavy on his now feline hips,but a good roll in the bushes relieved him of its weight.He kicked the pants aside,then wrestled with the shirt,nipping at the sleeves with long fangs that bit into the fabric until it hung in shreds around his forepaws.Unsatisfied,he cried out again,a raspy mew,and backed up,trying to get out from under the material encasing him.

A sudden shot ripped through the air.The bullet passed overhead and Caleb froze,all senses alert.He smelled cloying smoke and a piercing man-scent herecognized all too well—fear.From the direction he had come,he heard humans scrambling to their posts.Someone called out,“Jack,did you hit it?”

“Goddamn bobcat,”someone else muttered.

They mean me,Caleb thought,bemused.

“What the hellare we doing out here in these damn woods anyway?”

The first voice spoke up a second time.“Shoot it again,Jack.Can’t hurt.”

“Gimme your gun,”Jack replied,“if you want me to fire.I only got a handful of shot left.”

A low growl filled the woods,raising the hair on Caleb’s haunches.Then he realized the noise came from himself.With one last gnaw at the sleeve of his shirt,he gave up.Stretching the feline body that had replaced his clumsy human form,he darted through the low underbrush and raced into the forest.

****

The scent of man enveloped him.Each tree he sniffed,each branch,each bush,carried the smell of humans and their artillery.Dried blood and disease mingled with the smell,painful scents Caleb didn’t like.The shirt on his back only confused his senses,but once the camp was behind him,he took a moment to wiggle out of the torn material.He sniffed it,curious,then left it among the leaves as he hurried away,the growl still tickling the back of his throat.The sound warned anything away from his vicinity,and helped keephis mind off his churning stomach,or the bloodlust that filled his veins.

On four padded feet,Caleb crept through the forest as silently as a house catstalking its prey.He hunted half-heartedly,not quite ready to sate his appetite and call it a night.At some point he scared up a large hare,coming onto it from downwind,but the creature caught his scent moments before he pounced,and darted just beyond his powerful jaws to disappear into a hole too narrow and deep to dig in for long.Abandoning the prey,Caleb kept moving,always keeping the men and their smoke-filled camp at his back.He heard no more gunshots,and felt no urgency to hurry through the night.

Around him,the woods were alive in a way the human in him would never see.Small rodents raced over the forest floor,skittering through the moss and lichen,raising whiffs of fresh meat in their wake.Occasionally one would catch Caleb’s attention and he’d give chase,toying with the frightened mouse until it disappeared into a crevice of tree roots too small for his paw to fit through.He caught a couple,nothing large,and let each one go after playing a bit.He wanted something bigger,something worth the effort of a kill.Something—

Off in the distance,in the direction he was heading,he heard a gunshot.He stopped,ears trained on the sound,his whole body rigid and tense.Men.The word was anathema to him in his current state.He waited for another sound,a second shot maybe,or raucous laughter in the night,but nothing seemed to follow.The tip of his tail twitched,waiting.

Then a volley of shots rang out,three,maybe four,all at once.Caleb droppedinto a crouch and heard a wounded yelp cry out,a primal sound that tugged at his instinct.Another cat,he knew—a large one,by the sound of it.That damned growl of his started up again,and he sniffed the air,trying to smell powder or blood,but nothing came to him on the wind.

Could be Yanks,the still-human part of his mind whispered.Sensing an unprecedented opportunity,Caleb sat down on his haunches and licked one forepaw as he mulled over his options.Race ahead,get shot like the other cat.Or,no,sneak in and sneak out,but learn enough of the enemy camp to bring back to his commanding officer in the morning.Major Pennock would wantto know how he came about the information,but if they ambushed the Yanks,would it matter how he knew?