Panthera Spelaea

I could tell the girls were excited about going to the beach and finding out more about my kind. I was looking forward to it as well. “What can you tell me about Edward?”

“He’s had his animal the shortest time of anyone except you. He’s English, receiving the gift after a German buzz bomb killed his father in late 1944. Unlike me, he’s never found his mate, and he has no surviving family.”

“How does he keep his nature secret?”

“He changes his identity every twenty years or so, moving far away. Right now, he runs a sheep station near Tewkesbury in northern Tasmania.”

“Australia?”

Art nodded. “The accent is easy to pick up, and he’s quite isolated with lots of wilderness around to run in. A few dozen people might learn his face before he moves on. After another forty years, and he can return to London. When you never age, you can’t stick around too long. People start asking questions.”

That made sense. “I’ll have the same problems with two women as well.”

“Yes. You don’t have to worry about it for a decade or two, and I’ll help when it is time. We fake an accident like a plane crash, then give you a new identity far away. The only other way is to become a recluse like me, where no one knows what I look like or who I am.”

I looked around me. “You own a superyacht and a major corporation. It must be difficult.”

He nodded. “I sometimes leave the boat and go in public, usually dressed as a member of the crew or in disguise. It isn’t a bad life; my family keeps me company, and I can run my empire from my desk. You will have to chart a path that works for you. The four, now five, of us cooperate in all things. None of us can afford our secret getting out.”

“How do you let your bear out when you are on the water?”

“Bears swim, we visit remote areas or private lands, and there is a large gymnasium onboard. I’m lucky that my bear looks like a brown bear but has the size of a polar bear. I’m sure an expert could recognize the differences, but most people won’t. If I am in a location with a wild bear population, I can blend in easily and spend weeks in that form.”

I didn’t have that option. “My size and lack of a mane keep me from passing as an African lion. Anywhere but there or a zoo, and I’d be out of place.”

“We are all switchers with extinct species, so we all have issues. The dire wolf is similar in size to a grey wolf, but it looks more like a Rottweiler with wolf fur, heavily muscled in the neck and shoulders. Ekatarina’s coloration is the same as modern golden eagles. High in the air, you don’t perceive how big she is. I try to switch a few times a week. How often have you let your lion out?”

I thought about it. “It wasn’t often when we were in Rybinsk or Moscow. When we were on the island or at the dacha, it was every day.”

“We like sleeping with our furry hot water bottle,” Anna said with a smile.

“And riding him like a horse,” Svetlana added. Anna couldn’t hold back her laugh, and everyone got the unintentional joke. “Can you tell us how it works? We can’t create mass from nothing. It should not be possible for him to quadruple his body mass in a second.”

“Or for Ekatarina to drop to a quarter of her body weight to become a bird,” Anna added.

He picked up a knife, putting butter on one side and jam on the other. “No one knows for sure, but this is my theory. The Switch isn’t natural; it’s magical. The two brains, human and beast, coexist and communicate. Only one of them can exert control over the physical being.”

“I’d agree with that. The first switches I made I don’t recall; after I was able to work with my cat, I could watch and push intentions, but the cat was in charge.”

“And his cat paid attention while he was human,” Svetlana added. “He knew where we lived and who we were. Even after tearing apart those men in the park, his lion recognized us and checked that we were all right. He somehow knew he couldn’t stay with us when he heard the sirens coming. He made his way home to our apartment without us.”

Art nodded. “Our animals are not stupid, but they have different drivers than us. They seem to understand what is needed to survive and avoid detection.” He held the knife just above his plate with the jelly side up. “Let’s say John is this knife. The jelly side is his human form, and the butter side, his cat. When you look at the knife, what do you see?”

“The jelly,” Anna said.

“Yes. John has both, but one form is in this reality, while the other is in a place we can’t perceive. It could be another dimension or realm; it is there, but you can’t see it. When the switch occurs,” he flipped the knife butter side up, “the body changes. Both exist, but only one is visible. The Switch just flips between them.”

Svetlana picked up on the obvious question. “What happens in death? Where did the previous Cave Lion go?”

Art took another knife, putting orange marmalade on one side. He scraped the butter off the old knife and onto the new. “Same cave lion,” he turned the knife over, “but new human. The old Cave Lion moved from the old, regenerating its body along the way. It probably scared the hell out of the others on the boat, and I bet the boatman had a weapon and lost his life. The other two probably drowned trying to get away. The new lion got out of the boat but didn’t know what to do. He switched back, leaving you near-death on the riverbank. Since the Cave Lion was now with you, the carcass disappeared. We’ve seen the same thing when a Switcher dies in their animal form; if human, there is just the surge of energy as the animal moves into its new host. I don’t know for certain, but it would fit with what we know.”

It made no scientific sense, but some things are beyond science. I’d accepted my cat, and now I knew more about what life with him and the girls would involve. We finished breakfast, with the Captain and crew briefing us on the activities planned.

We anchored mid-morning, just offshore a narrow sand beach surrounded by cliffs. Crew members sent drones and a boat out to verify no one was around. A stewardess found us swimsuits that would fit. The bikinis the girls put on showed off their athletic figures; unfortunately, they ran out of the bedroom before I could throw them down and screw the hell out of them.

I’d get that later.

The yacht carried six two-person jetskis, and we used them for over an hour. The water was still warm and was crystal clear, allowing us to see the coral and rocks twenty feet or more down. A few dolphins played in the distance, barracudas chased fish underneath us, and we had a great time. We finally pulled up on the beach, where the crew had set up grills for lunch.

When we’d eaten our fill, Art asked to see my cat. I agreed, but I wanted to see his bear as well. “We may as well sniff butts and get the introductions over,” I told him.

“Not here. We’ll go into one of the canyons so any boaters coming by don’t see.” We hiked up a trail overlooking the beach and down the other side. “Here is fine. We have crew members stationed around us to make sure we aren’t disturbed.”

“Girls, stay back with the others,” I told them. “I don’t know how my cat is going to react to another switcher.”

“I’ll go first, so my animal doesn’t surprise him,” Art said. He pulled off his swimsuit and moved away from me before switching.

His bear was HUGE. He stood over ten feet tall on his back legs, thick and heavily muscled. Even after he dropped his front paws down, his head was level with mine. I had studied the Cave Bear, especially the frozen specimen recently found, in my degree studies. Seeing the real thing was awe-inspiring.

Art’s bear didn’t move towards me; he sniffed the air, looking around at the others. I overcame my initial fear and approached him slowly, hands open and low. He sat down and looked at me, letting me touch his neck and scratch his ears. “Anna, Lana, you have to feel this,” I said.

The girls approached slowly, and Art sniffed them before they started to scratch at his thick fur. “He’s so BIG,” Anna said. “How much do you think he weighs? Eight hundred kilos?”

“Pretty close; 787 kilos last time we checked,” one of the crewmen told us. Damn, that was over seventeen hundred pounds, more than a ton. He was almost twice my weight! Between his big teeth, powerful limbs, and claws the length of my hand, he was a fearsome predator.

“Time for my cat,” I said when I felt my lion’s mood turn from wary to curious. “Stay back. We don’t want him to decide you’re in danger.”

The girls backed off, and I tossed them my swim trunks and sandals. Focusing inward, I switched into my lion and looked at the world through his eyes.