The Shadows of Christmas Past

rancher gets a look at you up there, you're going to get shot."
    The Losimbas were as urban as most shapeshifters these days. Normally, when werefolk went out into the wild to take on their animal forms, they did so on large tracts of wilderness property owned and guarded by the Council of Clans. If you wanted to run free, you paid an annual fee for the privilege.
    Losimba snarled at Harry, then shifted in a blur of gold from cat to human form. He remained seated on the flat rock perch, looking no less proud and regal as a man than as a mountain lion. Instead of snarling, he sneered.
    "There are many reasons I have no use for humans. Their lust to murder all predators, including each other, is only one of them."
    Losimba was very much a political animal, and an arch-conservative one, at that. The last thing Harry wanted, especially since it was freezing out here, was to get into philosophical discussion.
    "Yeah. Well. Whatever. What are you doing here?" Harry asked. "Other than interfering with my investigation."
    "I want results." Losimba jumped down, light and graceful, from his perch. "I want my son back."
    "And the other kids?"
    "Yes. Of course." Then he sneered, "Except for the human. Something has to be done about her."
    Harry disliked the ominous tone. "The Council asked me to find them, that's all. No violence is intended toward that girl."
    "She can be made to forget, if enough pressure is applied."

    "If the boy's mated with the human—"
    "It doesn't bear thinking about," Losimba cut him off sharply. "My breed doesn't associate with that kind." He sniffed disdainfully, "while you obviously enjoy wallowing in the human sewer. There's human stench all over you."
    Harry caught himself growling deep in his throat and longing to rip the werecougar's throat out. He didn't let himself rise any farther to the bait, though. Losimba was famously old school in his attitudes. Except that the anti-human attitudes were really only the product of the last couple of generations. What had started out as a way to avoid extinction had turned into prejudice and snobbery in many werefolk. Those were games Harry didn't play.
    "Why aren't you searching for the children?" Losimba demanded. "What progress have you made?"
    Harry understood a parent's worry, but he didn't like Losimba's arrogance. He also didn't like the feet that the other were was here. When he took on a case, the area of the hunt became his territory. There wasn't room in his territory for another alpha, never mind the other shapeshifter's breed.
    "Did the Council send you to oversee my methods? Or are you trying to screw this up on your own?"
    "Why aren't you doing anything?" Losimba demanded. "You've had weeks—"
    "And in those weeks, I've tracked the kids down to this area." He pointed back toward the buildings far away on the hilltop. "To that place. All I can do now is watch and wait. If this was a human missing person case, I could use these more." He tapped his nose, then touched an ear. "Our kind are harder to track than humans."
    "We're better than humans."
    "Our senses are slightly different, and some humans come close to us in their physical and psychic abilities. And this isn't the time or place to discuss breed differences. I don't know about you, but my balls are freezing off."
    "You damn lobos are sentimental fools. You'll let the humans domesticate you and drag the rest of us down with you."
    Once again, Harry fought off the urge to mix it up with this guy. He reminded himself that Losimba was worried about his kid. People under that kind of stress often lashed out because it was the only way to deal with their frustration. Or, Losimba was just a jerk.
    "Stay out of my way," he told the werecougar. "Even better, go home."
    "I want action! I want news."
    "I've told you all I know, and all I'm doing. This kind of hunt takes patience."

    Losimba suddenly looked sad, and tired. "I promised his mother I'd have him home by Christmas."
    Harry didn't bring up the fact that Christmas was a human holiday, even though the celebration was one of the things that united werefolk with their shape-challenged cousins.
    Harry wondered what kind of miracle it would take to get that peace on earth, goodwill toward others thing going between the different sides of the evolutionary divide.
    He was tempted him to ask Losimba if he'd welcome a human daughter-in-law into his home for Christmas dinner. But the answer might be a not-too-flippant as Christmas dinner; and