Shifters (Feline english version)

Chapter 7-2

I stopped a few steps behind Jude who turned his back on me. He was standing a few centimetres from the corpse, his gaze still riveted on it.

- 'You're not going to achieve much from where you are, that's for sure!' he snapped at me as he turned around with a sneer, which vanished as he glanced at my face.

Given the sudden pity or rather dismay I saw in his eyes, I had to look really pathetic. However, instead of the nasty comment I expected, he caught me off guard and approached me and gently put one hand on my shoulder.

- 'First corpse?'

A stupid question in my opinion, since the small smile he wore meant that he already knew the answer. I didn't even bother to give him one and gathered all my faltering courage to take one more step forward.

- 'If you really want to try, you're going to have to get closer. Close your eyes, it can help,' he told me before moving away towards the entrance, where he stopped and began to scan the surroundings, as if he were standing guard.

If I hadn't been so distressed and nervous, I probably would have told him to keep his advice to himself and in less polite terms, but I held back. After all, in his own way, he had still tried to comfort me; and besides, I didn't have a choice. I had already decided to do it, so all I had to do was get started. I knelt carefully beside the body and took great care not to look at it or touch it before lowering my eyelids.

I waited a few seconds until I found a sense of calm, then took a deep breath, except that I couldn't detect any smell. However, after a few minutes, the cold and viscous sensation, which I began to associate with snakes, returned. It seemed to come from the right, the part of the cave hidden in darkness. So dark that it was impossible to determine the exact size.

I opened my eyes again, lifted myself up and began to move in that direction, Jude on my heels. When I stopped after a few steps, due to lack of light, he almost bumped into me and shouted a few very creative swear words. He could call me all the names if it suited him, there was no way I was going to take one more step when I couldn't see beyond the tip of my nose. I was going to break my neck!

He passed me by growling between his teeth incomprehensible words, even if it seemed to me to discern the word "bat", before he sank into darkness. I chose not to comment and wait for His Lordship to come back. He did so relatively quickly, stopping in front of me with a deep sigh.

He looked for something in one of his pockets and finally handed me a small silver cylinder, which turned out to be a flashlight, to finally step back and wait for me to resume where I had left off. I lit the light while glaring at him, to which he replied with a mocking sneer. Aware that we were at a dead end in terms of communication, I tried to refocus and carefully resume my work while following the small beam of light. After a few meters, the sand and earth gave way to uncut rock and we arrived at the bottom of the cave, in front of an impenetrable stone wall.

I might have the obvious in front of my eyes, but my senses told me that Martha had arrived through there. I directed the luminous pen towards the ground and began to look around when I remembered her animal form. Scanning the floor, I finally found a kind of tunnel hidden in the shadow of a wall cavity. Almost impossible to see if you didn't know it was there and barely big enough to crawl in. I didn't know why, but there was something terrifying about this narrow opening and I couldn't help but shiver.

- 'Did she come through there?'

Frankly, did he have any other stupid questions like that? I asked myself as I watched him kneeled down in front of the opening.

- 'What do you think, Sherlock,' I said ironically before I could stop myself.

- 'Let's go,' he said, beginning to engage in the narrow opening.