Chapter 16

Petra uncurled her panther self to stretch, flex her claws in full, wash as a cat, and then return to human to brush her teeth. Cleanliness achieved, she checked her messages and found that her parents and David would be there the day after next – time zones were a bitch – and then a quick note sent not even an hour ago to say that they were taking off.

She wouldn't have admitted it at the point of her mom's Glock, but she was really glad that they were coming. She felt – and did not appreciate the feeling – out of her depth. Like, bottom of the sea out of her depth. She needed, she decided, to prowl and preferably hunt and kill some small animals, but first, she needed to eat.

Breakfast was basic: bread, butter, something that might have been jelly but was more like pureed fruit, porridge. She didn't much like porridge, but she ate heartily all the same. She'd need the fuel, and anyway she really didn't need to get angry because her blood sugar was low. She wasn't exactly overburdened with excess fat – in fact, her month wandering Europe had left her distinctly thin.

That done, she went down to the lakeside, and wandered through the market again, then looked around. Over to her right, there was a little ferry-port, a couple hundred yards away. She went to investigate, and found that there was a ferry which would take her to Port Baikal, which apparently had a small train, which ran round the edge of the lake for a distance. She could do that, then come back. Why not? she thought. She didn't want to go prowling until dark – not at all sensible, when there was the Sasha-asshole around.

Oh, God, she thought. I sound just like Mom. First I look just like her, now I'm even thinking like her. I don't wanna be Mom!

She sauntered over to the ferry port, managed to purchase a ticket for the round trip, and just made the ferry as it was ready to depart. The view was fabulous, she had to admit. She stood by the rail, enjoyed the late September sunshine, and watched the gorgeous scenery go by.

"You're lucky with the weather."

"Didn't you get the message the first two times? Leave me alone." Petra turned round to find Sasha-the-asshole. "What the fuck are you doing following me around anyway? I don't want to see you."

"I don't know why you're pretending you're not Katya," he said.

"Because I'm not. My name is not Kate." Petra, though rapidly becoming angry, kept hold of common sense. She wasn't going to tell some stranger her real name, and she certainly wasn't going to give away anything about her feline forms.

"For a long time you couldn't do this trip," he said. "They took a really long time to sort this out as a co-ordinated tour that you could do in one day, round trip. You used to have to stay the night at one end or the other."

Petra turned a cold shoulder.

"Of course," he carried on, "that wouldn't matter to you, since you worked out what you were."

"American. I am American. That's what I am."

She heard the sigh. "Katya, you weren't stupid at Stanford and I don't expect you're stupid now. You would have found out sometime."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Petra bit. "How often do I have to tell you I'm not this Katya person and I've never been to Stanford?"

"I met you at Stanford in 1999 when you were a freshman and we dated till Hallowe'en," Sasha hissed.

"Oh yeah? You can't have been much good because I don't remember that!" Because I wasn't born till 2016.

Sasha's face twisted angrily. "You did not say that when we were practising Russian."

"No? So how come you're here and I live in New York?"

"Because I should never have bitten you" – Sasha stopped dead. "Blyad!" His whole body radiated oh fuck I shouldn't have said that.

"That's what you're going with? I should never have?"

"I did not mean to!" He looked hunted, his gaze searching for an escape route. Petra watched him with considerable amusement: the cat playing with a mouse. "I was carried away!"

"Really?"

"Da. I should never have gone out with you on that night but I thought I could control it and then – you do know what happened? You must have worked out that you had been changed in thirty-four years!"

"Worked what out?"

He went white. "You did not? Did you not notice you have not aged?"

"You ever heard of Botox?"

"That is what you tell people? You have noticed. What else have you noticed?"

"I should have noticed something? You think you were that good?"

He leaned in. Petra resisted the urge to slap his face right off his skull – and if he tried anything, she would. Granted, that might raise questions, since at her full, shapeshifter assisted power he'd be in the lake, but she'd deal with that if she had to.

"You must have worked out that you are also a cat," he whispered desperately. "I cannot believe that you have never changed, Katya."

"You're crazy. Absolutely batshit crazy. Leave me alone." She took several steps away from him, and firmly turned her back, thinking furiously and doing some mental math. Her mom had been – she counted on her fingers – nineteen? Eighteen? Well, her mom couldn't go after her for anything she might do, then. Eurgh. She did not want to know that.

She grimaced out over the clear waters and small swells of Lake Baikal. Put together with David's message, it had suddenly occurred to her that her mom might be out for blood – possibly literally. In fact – oh my God. Oh, ugh.

She knew Sasha had been the one who changed her mom. Age eighteen or nineteen. Oh, fuck. Oh, crap. This was going to go very bad, very fast. And then she smiled nastily. That was why her mom had told her to stay put. This was going to be the best show in town. Oh, boy. Sasha-asshole wasn't going to know what had hit him.

The sun gleamed on the lake. Suddenly, it was a really good day. She smiled beautifully at the shoreline drifting past, and relaxed into the faint warmth on her back and shoulders. She could even get on board with the rest of the family turning up. She just bet that Sasha-the-asshole wasn't going to be anything like a match for her dad's and David's massive panthers – or her mom's concentrated, vicious lethality. She could, she admitted, see exactly why her mom was such a success in her job.

Sasha didn't come near her again for the rest of the ferry ride, and she made sure he wasn't near her on the little steam train, in either direction. She enjoyed the trip enormously, and took hundreds of photos. Tomorrow, she decided, she'd go to the museum, and if Sasha showed up anywhere near her, she'd continue this wonderfully entertaining pastime of never telling him a lie while being totally misleading. Her parents, she thought happily, would be proud of her. She ate her dinner on a flood of self-satisfaction and noted the timings for the day after with equal pleasure. The family was on its second flight, into Moscow.

The museum was small but interesting, and since Petra didn't speak Russian beyond please and thank you, fortunately explained in English. She spent a long time there, and then went out to – she said – hike up to the viewpoint. She did go up there. She simply didn't do it as a human, and, after due care that there was nobody and especially not Sasha around, her stretched out lope left her pleasantly exercised – and fed on a couple of small mammals that didn't expect to meet a large predator. At the top, she became human again, and looked out over the scenery.

She was almost disappointed that Sasha didn't accost her, but that was okay. She might slip up, and that would be disastrous, as she waited for the rest of the family to arrive. She'd really hate to miss the show. She slipped into the trees, and quietly loped back down, unconcerned and unaccosted by anyone – or anything.

The following morning Petra woke in good time, and waited impatiently until a message from David told her that the family had landed safely in Irkutsk and were on their way to the Baikal Cedar guesthouse. She guessed they'd take around an hour, maybe more, and then they'd need some time to sleep. (It didn't occur to her that two months ago she'd never have considered that. Travel was improving her immensely.) She'd still be there to greet them, though, and then when they'd had some sleep and food, they'd work out a plan.

Her parents would already have a plan, she was sure – but it was about time she thought up one of her own. She wasn't a baby. She began to ponder, and by the time she'd walked along to the guesthouse, she'd thought one up.

Castle, Beckett and David arrived at the guesthouse tired, grubby and desperate for proper sleep in a proper, non-airplane bed. Beckett, certainly, expected Petra to want to know everything at once.

"Mom, Dad!" Petra was waiting in the reception area. To Beckett's utter astonishment, Petra hugged her and – wow. That had felt like a tear. "I'm so glad you're here."

Her parents' jaws dropped. David stood like a stump, amazed, and then grinned widely. "C'mere, sis," he said, and swung her away from Beckett and into a massive bearhug, from which she was in turn pulled by Castle, which then turned into a massive group hug of the sort Petra would have disdained before she left.

"You must need some proper sleep," Petra said. "When do you want me to come back?"

"We slept on the plane," Beckett said.

"Planes. And we could really use a couple of hours. No more than that. Why don't you come back just before lunchtime, and we'll all have lunch and work out what to do?"

"I have" – Petra closed her mouth on a plan and changed it to – "some thoughts. Let's discuss when you've had some sleep."

"Okay," Beckett said approvingly. "See you around twelve." She yawned. "I'll set an alarm, I think." She smiled, tiredly. "Good to see you." She and Castle disappeared, leaving David with his twin.

"Uh," David said, "it was weird without you. School's good, though."

"Yeah?" Petra wriggled. "Uh, c'n I come up?"

"Sure."

Safely in David's room, she looked a bit embarrassedly at him. "Um, if I set an alarm, can we just curl up as cats? I, uh, really missed the company."

"Sure." David coloured gently. "Um, I did too."

Petra set her phone, and then turned into a cat; David followed, and they snuggled up together just as they always had when tiny. Seconds later, both of them were soundly asleep.

"So," Beckett said, munching with huge enjoyment on a slice of black bread, which she was dunking in her julienned mushroom appetiser, "you said you had some thoughts?"

"Yeah. Uh, I think you'd better hear the whole story."

"I like stories," Castle piped up. "Off you go, with details."

Petra relayed the story.

"Hm," Beckett said. "So he thought you were me – and he still thinks you're me?"

"Yes."

"Who is this Sasha anyway?" David asked.

Beckett and Castle exchanged glances. "Sasha changed me, when I was at Stanford."

"Thought so," the twins said in unison, and made identically eurgh faces before returning to their blinis.

"Then he disappeared. I never thought that maybe he shouldn't have done it. I just forgot about him, and anyway I didn't know I'd been changed for almost two years. It was a bit of a shock."

"I bet," David said.

"So," Beckett said again, "now that we've heard the story, what are your thoughts?"

"I think…I think that you and Dad want to talk to him."

"Oh, yes," said Castle, with a not-smile showing his teeth. "We definitely want to talk to him."

"So, 'cause he just turns up wherever I am, I thought if I went down to the market and was obviously there, he'd probably show up quite quickly, and then you could join me. But if he doesn't show, then all we have to do is go out this evening, change, and spread our scent all over the surroundings. If it was really late at night, we could even do the town, if we were really careful. There are a lot of dark places to hide in."

"Very good," Beckett said judicially. "That's exactly what I'd have suggested." She smiled at her daughter, who smiled back. "Let's do it your way." The smile turned a touch wry. "If he approaches you, bring him back to the bar here. Then we'll, um" –

"Swoop in," Castle said direfully. "Harass my family, will he? No" – there was quite definitely a word suppressed there – "way."

"Can you speak Russian, Mom?" Petra interrupted.

"Yes."

"Cool."

Beckett blinked, but managed to hide her surprise at a compliment from Petra. Her daughter had certainly done some growing up in the last month or so. "And I might need to speak some of it." Her bared teeth were no more a smile than Castle's had been. "When do you want to start?"

"After lunch? If you're okay."

"Okay."

Beckett was exceedingly interested to see how Petra would handle herself in this peculiar situation. She hadn't been lying when she'd said that would have been her own suggestion, though she'd have been the wanderer. She also noticed that Petra hadn't hesitated to eat a single dish, which, though neither twin was precisely fussy, wouldn't have been the case two months ago. David, naturally, was on his third large helping of pelmeni.

Stuffed full, and deeply appreciating authentic Russian food for the first time in many years, Beckett would rather have gone back to their room with Castle and indulged in another two hours' sleep. However, the problem of Sasha needed to be dealt with sooner rather than later, since she knew it was upsetting Castle, looked like it was upsetting Petra, and she wanted some answers, stat. Starting with how old Sasha really was.

"Okay," Beckett said ominously. "Shall we do this?"

She received back three identically vicious smiles, and returned them with one of her own. Petra stood up and sauntered out of the guesthouse, aiming for the souvenir stalls of the market.

It took rather longer than she'd expected for Sasha to slink up to her.

"Katya," he started, "I know that you know what you are. You are more than American. I can hear the growl in your voice. I am sure that you have changed shape many times. We must talk."

Petra produced a glare of which her mother would have been proud – and indeed, watching from a safe distance as Onyx, was proud. "I think you're totally batshit crazy," she said. "But if the only way to shut you up and get rid of you for ever is to listen, then let's talk. Not here. I don't want to be associated with you in anyone's eyes. You're totally lame and I am not Katya."

"Okay. You choose somewhere."

"The bar in the guesthouse there. I think I'm going to need something to drink to get through this without calling the cops on you."

"Da, okay, wherever you wish."

"Now. I want this over and done," Petra said irritably, and stalked off to the bar. Nobody noticed the slim black cat which followed her, radiating approval.

"This was your idea so you can buy the drinks," Petra said rudely.

"Da."

"Beer, please. Small."

As Sasha went to the bar, Petra rapidly texted David, who was with Castle, to tell them that they were here. He returned bearing two bottles of beer and two glasses, and sat down. Behind him, Petra could see David entering the bar, followed by her dad. She couldn't see her mom, which worried her. Suddenly there was a paw on her ankle, followed by a tickle of a tail.

"May we join you?" Castle said, pulling up a chair and entirely deliberately blocking Sasha's exit. David followed, carrying one chair for himself and one other, and sat next to his father with the empty chair beside Petra.

"This is a private discussion," Sasha said.

"Is it?" Castle asked.

"Yes. Outsiders are not welcome – blyad!"

The black cat had leaped up on to the empty chair, carefully positioned out of view of anyone except the four humans around the table. Sasha stared at it. "What is that?"

Three humans smiled viciously. A small shiver went through the cat.

"Katya!" Sasha stared from Beckett to Petra and back again. "You did – but…"

"Meet my daughter," Beckett said coldly. "Also my husband, and my son. We have a lot to discuss, Sasha."

He couldn't stop staring from Beckett to Petra and back, eyes skittering, terror on his youthful face. "Your daughter? Husband? Katya" –

"You can address me as Detective Beckett," she bit. "Because this is an investigation. You can start by telling me your age."

"Age? Why" –

"You don't need to know why. Answer!" Her command voice straightened four spines, not just one.

Sasha's face went through white to grey. "I" – he stopped.

"How old are you?" Beckett's implacability would have shattered rocks. "I don't believe you're only fifty-odd. So how old are you?"

"I….I do not know!" he wailed.

Castle and Beckett looked frantically at each other. "How can you not know?" she growled, the panther close to the surface of her voice. "You must know when you were born."

"I do not."

"What do you know about your childhood?" Castle asked, more temperately, but still iron-toned. Sasha stared at him, and shrugged. "You must remember something. A village, a town, any notable events?"

Under Beckett's ferocious intimidation and Castle's additions to her questioning, plus the wonders of Google, a picture began to emerge.

"At least a hundred and fifty. And you still look twenty-something."

Castle grinned. "My rugged handsomeness will continue." Beckett elbowed him.

"Not for you," Sasha said spitefully. "Just for Katya."

"Oh, yes, for him too," Beckett snapped. "Since both of us can change."

Sasha's mouth fell open. The small measure of skin colour he'd recovered drained again. "He…more?"

"I changed him," Beckett condescended to explain. "Just like you changed me, with a few minor differences such as informed consent. And knowledge of what I am now and was then. Before he asked, and I agreed."

Sasha whimpered. The promise of swift fatality lingered on Beckett's deliberate emphasis. Castle reached for her hand, and stroked it. The tension didn't drop.

"So tell me, Sasha, if that's even your name, why?"

He gaped.

"Why did you do it, and then run and hide? How many times have you done it to others? Tried to change them – how many times did you fail?" Her words lashed through the air, inaudible six feet away, but knife-sharp and just as piercing. "How many have you murdered?"

"No-one! Nyet, nyet! Nikto!"

"I don't believe you. You're already a rapist" –

"Nyet!"

"Oh, you are. What do you call changing me without my consent, huh? I call that rape."

Petra and David watched their mother eviscerate Sasha, utterly horrified that their mom could be so coldly, viciously intimidating. Suddenly, all the stories Chief Gates had told them, all of the tales from Aunt Lanie and uncles Ryan, Esposito and O'Leary, began to fall into place. Even their jovial, childishly teasing dad was hard and cold. It wasn't difficult, right here, right now, to understand why their parents were respected from one end of US law enforcement to the other.

"No!"

"Yes." The word fell heavily on the table, but it was Castle who'd dropped it there. "You can tell me why you were harassing my child. Had you planned the same for her?"

"I thought she was my Katya."

"Not yours. Never, ever yours." Beckett and Castle spoke in perfect unison.

"And even if she had been, that does not give you the right to do anything without consent."

Thank you to all readers and reviewers.

Congratulations to all those who'd guessed this was coming.

Happy Easter to all those who celebrate.