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I raised my eyebrows at him. “I have to follow a scent trail like a dog?”

“If you were a true shapeshifter, you could do it,” Jacob said.

“This isn’t a fair test,” Rafael said. “She hasn’t had her first change. Most of our secondary powers don’t appear until after our first full moon.”

“It doesn’t have to be scenting,” Richard said, “but it must be something that only a shapeshifter could do. Something that only a shifter powerful enough to truly be Nimir-Ra, or lupa, could do.” He was looking at me when he said it, and there was something in his eyes, something he was trying to tell me.

“That doesn’t sound very fair either,” Micah said.

Richard kept looking at me, willing me to understand him. I didn’t know why he didn’t just drop his shields and let me see his mind.

Almost as if Richard had read my mind, he said, “No werewolf or wererat or wereleopard, no one can aid you in finding your leopard. If anyone interferes in any way, then the test is invalid, and he’ll die.”

“Even if that help is metaphysical?” I asked.

Richard nodded. “Even if.”

I looked at him, studied his face, and frowned. I finally shook my head. I’d had a vision of where Gregory was, and under what circumstances, but it gave me no real clue. All I really needed to do was ask someone where a hole was with bones at the bottom. But I couldn’t ask anyone there. Then I had an idea.

“Can I use my own metaphysical abilities to aid me?”

Richard nodded.

I looked at Jacob, because I knew the objection would come from him, if anyone. “I don’t think your necromancy is going to help you locate your leopard.”

Actually, it might have. If the bones Gregory was lying on were the largest burial sight in the area, then I might be able to track the bones and find him. Or I might spend all night chasing after piles of buried animals or old Indian graves. I had a faster way, maybe not better, but faster.

I sat down on the ground, Indian fashion, resting my hands lightly on my knees.

“What are you doing?” Jacob asked.

“I’m going to call the munin,” I said.

He laughed, a loud bray of sound. “Oh, this should be good.”

I closed my eyes, and I opened that part of me that dealt with the dead. I’ve heard Marianne and her friends describe it to be like opening a door, but it’s so much a part of me that it’s more like unclenching a hand, like opening something in my body that is as natural as reaching across the table for the salt. That might sound like an awfully mundane description of something mystical, but the mystical stuff truly is a part of everyday life. It’s always there, we just choose to ignore it.

The munin are the spirits of the dead, put into a sort of racial memory bank that can be accessed by lukoi who have the ability to speak with them. It’s a rare ability; to my knowledge no one in Richard’s pack could do it. But I could. The munin are just another type of dead, and I’m good with the dead.

In Tennessee, the munin of Verne and Marianne’s pack had come quickly and eagerly—so very close to being real ghosts, crowding around me, eager to speak. I’d practiced until I could pick and choose who would join with me and be able to communicate. It was close enough to channeling or mediumship that Marianne had suggested I could probably do this with normal ghosts, if I wanted. I didn’t want to. I didn’t like sharing my body with another being, dead or alive. Creeped me out, yes it did.

I waited to feel the press of the munin spreading around me, like a ghostly card deck that I could shuffle and pick the very card I wanted. Nothing happened. The munin did not come. Or rather a gathering of munin did not come. There was always one munin that came when I called, and sometimes when I didn’t.

Raina was the only munin of Richard’s pack that traveled with me always. Even in Tennessee, surrounded by munin from a different clan line, Raina was still there. Marianne said that Raina and I had a etheric bond, though she wasn’t sure why. I’d managed to call munin hundreds of years old, and Raina, the very recently dead, came