I had been running across the snow banks for ten minutes. Not just jogging, mind you, but a full on sprint. I was doing alright, but even my large wolf form wasn’t designed to run forever. The air was cold and thin, and I was starting to get tired.
I had plenty of motivation to keep running, though. About ten feet behind me was a pack of Pure tribe werewolves, and they were not at all happy with me. Their alpha was snarling insults at me as he ran. We all knew that we were at something of a stalemate, with none of us being faster than the others; they hadn’t caught me yet because I’d had a head start.
I cursed Fat Tony silently as I ran. He hadn’t told me that the item I was recovering belonged to werewolves. If I had known, I wouldn’t have taken the job. I don’t steal from People, and I don’t piss off the Pure. That’s one way I stay alive.
I would have given just them back their item if I hadn’t dedicated it to myself and made it manifest only in Human form. I sure as shit wasn’t going to stop running long enough to change forms, take the artifact out of my bag and apologize. I’d be dead as soon as I stopped moving.
Then I realized that this was no stalemate; they had a plan all along. They ran me right to the edge of a cliff, and I didn’t even notice until I went over the edge.
Well shit.
Luckily, the fall didn’t kill me, but they didn’t know that. When I landed, I shifted back to human form and called upon an old trick I learned. I can play the part of a corpse really damn well. The alpha made his way down the cliff much more gracefully than I had, and fished the artifact out of my bag. He kicked me for good measure, and led his pack back to their base, leaving the elements to deal with my body.