Apocalypse Happens by Lori Handeland

prints, bumping against one another and snarling but never breaking the plane.
    Now what? I thought. Should we slaughter them while they were confined? Or perhaps leave them within the charmed ring forever?
    Get out , Sawyer ordered. Quickly, before the spell is complete.
    Neither one of us had any problem stepping past the bloody circle. As soon as my pads touched the pristine dirt on the other side, a faint chanting arose. Foreign and rhythmic, yet still I recognized Luther’s voice in my head.
    Blood, the moon, a chant—magic was definitely afoot. I stood back, so did Sawyer, and we watched and listened as the kid weaved an unknown spell.
    The night stilled. Silence pressed on us as heavy as a rain-drenched quilt. Then the hyenas began to glow as if the sun poured down on them alone. A tiny flame blazed on each and every one—like E.T.’s heart light—then with a final yipping laugh-howl they burst into ashes. Bizarrely, not a single fleck landed outside that charmed space.
    What in hell did you teach him? I murmured as Luther turned and loped toward Mount Taylor.
    Not that , Sawyer answered, then followed the lion back home.
    Me, I had a car to retrieve, clothes to put on. I might not care if Sawyer saw me in only my skin, but the kid was another story. I wasn’t that comfortable with shape-shifting. I doubted I ever would be.
    Sawyer and I had run a long way as wolves, but I was able to retrace the miles just as easily as a tiger. Sure, a tiger was probably more conspicuous than anaked woman, but weird stuff happened around Sawyer’s place all the time.
    The locals avoided the area, especially at night. The Navajo are very superstitious. They believe that all sorts of evil spirits walk in the darkness, and they’re right.
    Sawyer had been outcast by his people. He lived at the edge of the Dinetah. No one talked to him, visited or even, I’d been told, said his name out loud, so I didn’t have to worry about running into any of the Navajo at this time of night. And if a white person happened by and saw me, well, they’d be much more likely to write off seeing a tiger than a naked woman to their imagination.
    My car was right where I’d left it, my clothes too. I slipped into both and moments later the steady hum of the tires on the pavement lulled my still-racing heart back to a more normal beat.
    The hyenas had scared me.
    Not just that there were hyenas where they did not belong. That happened in my world. But that there were so damned many of them. Would Sawyer and I have been able to handle the swarm without Luther and his spell? How long until something I couldn’t handle came along?
    Tiny sparks appeared to my right—the lights of Sawyer’s place. I wheeled off the main road and headed down the dirt drive. The night was too dark to see everything, but I knew what lay at the end of the lane as well as I knew the tattoos that graced Sawyer’s skin.
    The house—a small ranch with two bedrooms, a kitchen, bath and living area—sat at the foot of the mountain, along with a hogan, a traditional Navajo dwelling made of logs and dirt.
    Behind it, dug into a hill, was a sweat lodge, andbetween the two ran an open porch that could be used for both eating and sleeping when the temperature climbed too high.
    Sawyer lived in the hogan most of the time, and though he used the coffeemaker in the kitchen, he often cooked his meals over an open flame. Right now that flame leaped toward the sky, sending flickers of shadow and light across the two figures in the yard.
    Since Sawyer often wore the traditional breechclout of the Navajo several centuries in the past, I was surprised to see him in a pair of jeans. He’d tied his long hair back with a strip of rawhide, throwing the planes of his face into sharp relief.
    Luther was dressed nearly the same as he’d been the first time I’d seen him. The clothes were just newer and a whole lot cleaner. Sneakers, jeans several sizes too large and a T-shirt. Plain. Olive