Secret Shifter

by Louise Cypress

  My socks and undie drawer was already spotless, so I moved onto the middle section of the dresser, where all my T-shirts were folded so that they stood upright like presents. Running shorts and a couple of pairs of faded jeans from the Goodwill were neatly arranged next to them. The bottom drawer of my dresser had three hoodies and a windbreaker. That was the extent of my wardrobe. Oh, except for the plaid skirt in my closet made of stretchy fabric. Coach Jackson had given it to me to wear for graduation, along with a pair of tights and patent-leather flats.

  “Suspected sexual assault in progress along North Torrey Pines Road,” squawked the police scanner.

  I slammed the dresser drawer and paid attention as the dispatcher noted the address. “Paramedics headed to the scene. Victim unconscious. Bystanders waiting for police to arrive.”

  Yikes. North Torrey Pines Road was only a few blocks away from my dorm. That could have been me. I grabbed my reporter’s notebook and my running flashlight and charged out of the room.

  Living on the tenth floor of Tioga Hall meant killer views of the ocean, but also an epically long wait for the elevator. I usually took the stairs, but tonight I waited it out so I had time to turn on my flashlight and strap it to my wrist. I walked into the elevator right when my phone blared again with another notice from the police scanner.

  “Officers arriving on scene,” said the scratchy voice. “Victim unresponsive.”

  Dammit, this was bad. I texted Mario, my editor at The Triton, and told him where I was going. Be safe, he texted back. And if you can turn this in by 2 p.m. tomorrow, you can have the front page of the weekend edition.

  Sweet! Landing the front page was a huge honor. Too bad it was because of an awful situation. As soon as I reached the lobby, I charged through the doors and took off at a run. Pounding the pavement at full throttle felt awesome, even though holding the notebook was awkward and the pages rubbed against my palm. The flashlight tied around my wrist was easy to carry, but I needed to angle it down on the ground. I knew from experience that there were eucalyptus roots busting up the sidewalk along this stretch of the path, and I couldn’t risk tripping. At this speed, I would fall hard and crack bones.

  “Attacker nowhere to be seen,” said the scanner. “All units, stand by. Witnesses describe assailant as man in his forties, fifties, or sixties.”

  I frowned. That described half the people in La Jolla. It wasn’t a lot to go on.

  Red-and-white lights flashed up ahead. There was a paramedic’s truck parked with two wheels over the curb, along with three police cars blocking traffic. One of the officers stood in the middle of the street with orange light sticks, directing passing vehicles off to the side.

  That was odd. Why had they closed North Torrey Pines Road? Nobody’d mentioned that on the police scanner.

  A Dodge Charger screeched to a halt in front of the emergency vehicles and a woman with brown hair stepped out. She wore black trousers and a crisp white shirt. She reminded me of Sandra Bullock. I slowed my pace to a walk, letting my pulse cool down, and approached the scene.

  “Sergeant Jill Byrd, from the San Diego Homicide department.” The woman flashed her badge to campus security. “What have you got?”

  The campus police officer widened his stance. “I’m not exactly sure, Sergeant Byrd, and maybe this is nothing, but when you spoke to our department last spring you said to call you if we found a victim who was…” He paused and tilted his head to the side. “Bloodless.”

  “Let me see her,” said the sergeant.

  Bloodless? Was this a vampire attack? I stepped closer, to where a crowd of onlookers stood. Police officers were interviewing a few of them, but the other students were looky-loos. I nosed my way to the front of the gathering. There was a body sprawled out in the dirt underneath a eucalyptus tree. All I could see were the victim’s legs. One high heel was tossed to the side a few feet over, and the other shoe was missing. Sergeant Byrd crouched down, holding a flashlight.

  “Move along, people,” ordered an officer carrying one of the orange light sticks. “Go on back to your dorms.”

  I held up my reporter’s notebook that had ‘PRESS’ written on it in capital letters. “I’m a reporter with The Triton. Can I ask you a few questions?”

  The officer, a middle-aged man with a scar on his chin, looked at me sharply. “No, you may not. If you want information, contact the media liaison officer down at the precinct.”

  “I’ve only seen this once before,” Sergeant Byrd said to the other officers. “Good work calling me.”

  I had to get over to that body to see what she was talking about. Maybe I should contact Van and Natalie Xander, especially if this might be vampire-related. I pulled out my phone and texted the number Natalie had given me two weeks ago. Check the police scanner, I wrote. There’s a bloodless victim on North Torrey Pines Road.

  “I said, get a move on.” The officer shepherding the crowd away shone his orange light wand in my eyes. “That includes you too, Lois Lane.”

  I scowled at him. “Really? Journalism is the bedrock of democracy.”

  Sergeant Byrd spoke loudly to the officer standing next to her. “Clear the area, keep North Torrey Pines Road closed to traffic, and get every officer you have out here to find whoever did this.” She looked back at the crowd. “All of you there, go home. This is a crime scene and we can’t risk you tampering with evidence.”

  “I’m twenty feet away!” I shouted. But the people beside me were already walking into the night. Now I was the only person remaining.

  “Move it, Lois.” The officer tapped me on the shoulder with his light stick.

  I sighed loudly and walked back the direction I’d come from. But I wasn’t about to let a campus police officer with a chip on his shoulder boss me around. Instead, I turned off my flashlight and crawled into the darkest cluster of bushes I could find. A minute later when I emerged from the shrubbery, I was a bloodhound.

  Chapter 8

  I was 105 pounds of muscle with a keen sense of smell, tireless energy, and the innate ability to track. Mom had said beagles were her favorite hound to shift into, but I preferred bloodhounds, even though they were more likely to attract attention.

  My nose lifted into the air and caught a peculiar scent—intestinal fluids and blood. I’d only smelled that odor once before, the afternoon my mother had died.

  Every fiber in my DNA wanted to howl, but I pushed down the instinct. If there was a vampire on the loose, Sergeant Byrd and the campus police officers were in danger. I couldn’t risk distracting them when they needed their full attention to stay alive and ward themselves.

  My nose hit the ground and I retraced my steps, trying to ferret out any clue I might not have noticed before. The menthol smell of eucalyptus roots overwhelmed me at first, but then I detected the rubber scent of my sneakers, as well as dozens of other shoes leading the way back to the crime scene.

  The onlookers were gone now, and the medical examiner had arrived. He wore long rubber gloves, a flashlight on his forehead, and a vest with ‘Medical Examiner’ on the back. Nobody noticed me as I lurked in the shadows, my fur blending into the dark.

  I could see the victim now, her curly hair scraggly like a bird’s nest, eyes staring vacantly into space and tongue lolling out of her mouth. Her underwear was knotted at her ankle. There were two puncture wounds on her wrist.

  Her wrist? That surprised me. Maybe this wasn’t a vampire attack after all. Mom’s murderer had bitten her on the throat.

  I sniffed the air again, trying to find some trace of the Xanders. I wasn’t sure if I could identify Van’s or Natalie’s scents. When I’d prowled around Slayer Academy I’d been a cairn terrier. I’d noticed every mole hill on the property but hadn’t registered smells very well.

  But so far, there was no sign of slayers. Were they on their way, or had they just ignored my message altogether?

  The campus police officer in charge angled a portable floodlight on the victim while Sergeant Byrd too
k pictures. The medical examiner logged information on his tablet.

  “When you gave that presentation to our officers in the spring, you said you thought there might be a serial killer on the loose,” said the officer. “How many victims have there been so far?”

  “Five, by my count.” Sergeant Byrd grimaced. “All with puncture wounds like this one, in different spots on their body—but none of them bleeding.”

  “You don’t really think this victim is bloodless, do you?” asked the officer. “That’s impossible.”

  “Is it?” Sergeant Byrd snapped another picture of the victim’s wrist. “Look how pale she is. Her arteries appear blue.”

  “Almost like she’s made of blue cheese,” said the medical examiner. “I sure could go for a salad.”

  “This isn’t the time for jokes,” Sergeant Byrd scolded. “We’re talking about a potential rape victim.” Sergeant Byrd massaged her forehead. “This is someone’s child.”

  “Sorry,” said the medical examiner. “I forgot you have a daughter around this age.”

  “This job will warp you if you’re not careful.” Sergeant Byrd turned around. “Did you find her wallet or student ID?”

  The air rippled, but not in a way the Statics noticed. The stench of blood and bodily fluids grew rank. My eyes watered, like I was slicing onions. I watched in horror as the corpse blinked her eyes.

  “No,” the campus police officer was saying. “We think that the—”

  “Blood. Blood. Blood,” the victim groaned. She leaped to her feet and kicked off the underwear dangling at her ankle. “The life force calls.”

  “What the hell?” The medical examiner screamed and jumped back. He held his tablet in front of him like a shield.

  “Stand down!” shouted Sergeant Byrd. She unholstered her weapon and aimed it at the vampire. “Put your hands up, or I’ll shoot.”

  “How to quench this aching thirst?” The vampire tilted her head to the side coquettishly. “So many choices. So many tempting morsels.”

  The campus police officer didn’t give the vampire a chance to obey orders. He fired off his gun over and over again, targeting the girl straight at her heart.

  The vampire lurched back, like someone had punched her. She looked down at her bullet-ridden chest and raised her eyebrows. Then her expression morphed from confusion to fury. She lunged forward, fangs bared, and clawed his eyes out. There was a sickening plop as his eyeballs hit the ground.

  Sergeant Byrd shot every bullet in her gun at the vampire, and so did the other officers present, but their arsenal was no match for the newborn.

  The vampire feasted on the campus police officer, then looked up and wiped blood off her mouth with the back of her sleeve. She turned her attention to the others.

  “Stand down,” Sergeant Byrd ordered.

  “You smell tasty,” the vampire hissed. “I need you.” She snarled her lips and prepared to chomp.

  No! I howled as loudly as I could. Come get me instead! The thought of another motherless daughter was too much to bear. I didn’t know Sergeant Byrd, but I’d do anything to make sure she got safely home to her family.

  The vampire cocked her head and peered into the darkness, locking eyes with me. “Little doggie wants to play?”

  I’m not little, I barked, stepping into the floodlights. I prayed that the officers wouldn’t shoot me, and they didn’t. Something horrible happened to you tonight—truly horrible, but this isn’t you, I barked. You’re not a murderer. I didn’t know if she could understand me or not.

  “I am,” the vampire hissed. “This is what I’ve become because that monster did this to me.”

  I charged forward and stood directly in front of Sergeant Byrd. My fur raised and my tail pointed to the sky.

  “Don’t shoot!” Sergeant Byrd commanded. “This dog’s saving my life!”

  “Roger that,” called an officer on the perimeter.

  Let me help you, I growled. There’s medicine you can take called vamproid that will make you better.

  “I don’t want to be better,” the vampire screeched. “I want to destroy every man I see, and any woman who tries to protect them.” She snarled and jerked toward the medical examiner, preparing to strike.

  The medical examiner might have been a jackass, but there was no way I’d let him be vampire-food.

  I leaped through the air and grabbed the vampire by the throat, my powerful jaw piercing her skin and breaking her neck in two. We landed on the ground in a thump, and I severed her head, just to be safe. The taste was unbelievably rancid, like biting into rotten meat. I spit on the ground and puked up bile. Then I licked my fur to make the awfulness go away.

  “Holy shit!” screeched the medical examiner. “Is that a hellhound?”

  “No.” Sergeant Byrd reached out her hand, palm down, for me to sniff. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is a bloodhound.”

  I stepped back, painfully aware that law enforcement officials surrounded me. I needed to escape fast before someone hauled me off to Animal Control. I knew what happened to dogs that bite. They were euthanized.

  I backed away slowly, not taking my eyes off Sergeant Byrd. She was the alpha in charge of these officers. I needed her help if I was going to leave.

  “Grab it!” someone shouted.

  “Get a rope from the car!” called another voice.

  I backed into someone and whined. It was the medical examiner with a gun aimed straight at me. “This dog is a killer,” he said. “We should put it down.”

  “No!” Sergeant Byrd ordered. “Let the dog go. We have enough strange things to explain to the commissioner tonight without adding a dead bloodhound to the mix.”

  I saw my chance and bolted. I didn’t stop running until I reached the bushes where I’d stashed my things. As soon as I shifted, I threw on my clothes and ran full throttle for Tioga Hall. It wasn’t until I reached the stairwell of the dorm and was climbing up all ten flights of stairs to calm down that I checked my phone.

  There was a message from Van: Stuck behind police barrier. Do you have more information?

  My thumbs tapped the keypad. No, I texted. I’m in my dorm. I don’t know anything. Not anything I could tell him anyway.

  Chapter 9

  I woke up the next morning royally pissed. Why hadn’t Slayer Academy chosen me yet? While Natalie Xander, the supposedly famous vampire slayer, sat in her car twiddling her thumbs, I was out on the streets slaying vampires. If it weren’t for me last night, that whole group of police officers would have been dead. I shuddered. Or worse, undead. Natalie didn’t know that of course, but still…

  I threw on a pair of running shorts and a T-shirt and went down to the dining hall. My scholarships paid for three meals a day, and I never missed the opportunity to feast. One of my foster homes had had weird rules about food. No snacking, padlocks on the cabinets and refrigerators—that sort of thing. As if that hadn’t been awful enough in its own right, I’d been a student athlete who needed a mega amount of calories to be able to run cross country. After I’d fainted at practice one day, Coach Jackson had stocked my locker with Power Bars so I wouldn’t go hungry. She must have also called Child Protective Services because I was moved to a new foster family two days later, luckily one that was still in the boundaries of my high school.

  When I’d arrived at UCSD and had unlimited access to food, I’d binged. Instead of gaining the freshman fifteen, I gained the freshman twenty. I would have gained more except I ran so much. Now, I was back to my normal weight and trying to make better choices. I ate poached eggs for breakfast every morning with grapefruit and a piece of whole wheat toast on the side.

  Today was Friday morning, and since my Asian American Lit class met Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I had class today. I was excited because I’d really enjoyed the book we were studying, The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston. I’d finished my essay about it yesterday afternoon while I’d done my shift at Barktacular. But as much as I looked forward to our class disc
ussion, my thoughts kept drifting to Slayer Academy. I checked my phone for the tenth time this morning. No, nothing. Not one text from the Xanders.

  “Hey, Kate. Good to see you.” Joshua stood in front of the building, like he was waiting for me.

  “Hi,” I said, reaching for the door.

  “Let me get that.” Joshua pulled the door open for me to enter.

  “Thanks.” I grunted, annoyed that he hadn’t let me do it myself. I didn’t need guys opening doors for me. This wasn’t the Victorian age. The most Victorian thing I’d done in my entire life was fainting at the Torrey Pines Cross Country Meet, and that was because of the aforementioned foster placement with the cruel rules about food restriction.

  Once we were in the lobby, Joshua leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are my favorite days of the week.”

  I froze, not knowing what to do or say. Our dog-bed make-out session from last night flashed through my head. I didn’t want to lead Joshua on, but I honestly had no idea what I thought about him. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but I didn’t feel a spark. “I like Fridays too.” I put both hands on my backpack straps so he wouldn’t get the crazy idea to hold one of them.

  “Did you do the DNA test yet?” Joshua shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down at the worn linoleum floor. “I mean, it’s okay if you didn’t. It’s no big deal.”

  “I did actually. Thanks.” I still hadn’t dropped it in the mail, but I intended to. I’d looked up the company last night and had been shocked to see how pricey the kits were. Joshua had given me a $100 present and yesterday, I’d been too clueless to realize this. “I had no idea how expensive those kits were,” I said. “Can I repay you?” I’d scrape up the money somehow.

  “No need.” Joshua shrugged. “Since my mom works for the company, we get them for free. I just hope the test gives you answers. Who knows? Maybe your birth father is in the system and you can reconnect.”