When I arrived, the hyena was circling him silently, and the silence was what bothered me the most. It should be cackling. But it was just quiet. I'd seen enough hyenas hunting to know that this was wrong.
I looked at my options, felt out with all my senses to see what living creatures were nearby. Posessing the photographer was no good, since he clearly had no weapons and not much physical strength, even with my intellect of fighting capabilities. If I possessed the hyena, if The Shadow was already inside (and I knew it was, no hyena was that...
I clung to the mast as the sea tossed them from wave crest to furrow and back again. This was not what I'd thought it would be when I volunteered to document the tallship's maiden voyage.
The curse of the weatherman'd struck at the worst of times. The forecasters had confidently predicted firm winds but that the real storm would happen far south of the ship. They'd proudly proclaimed fair weather for the day's sailing with winds at our backs and sun overhead.
I wondered what they thought, staring at their radars and maps, tallying numbers, crunching data. Did their...