by Amie Gibbons
Carla was gorgeous and the red dress emphasized her curves and cinnamon skin, but I wondered how the guys staring at her would react if they knew she could rip out at least one throat before they even realized she left my side?
She looked over the inside of the van. She knew enough from TV shows (she loves crime shows) and our lectures to know not to touch anything.
“What a waste.” She turned to me and shook her head, making her shining waves of dark hair dance over her bare shoulders.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sir, shouldn’t I touch the bodies?”
“Thought about it,” he said without missin’ a beat. “Figured you’d get more from the actual scene.”
“Yeah, okay.” I shrugged.
I caught Carla’s eye and didn’t quite get what I was seeing there.
“What?” I asked.
“If you’d killed him after he was convicted, this never would have happened,” she said. “Your system needs fixing.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“We have appeals for a reason,” Huxley said, makin’ me jump.
Where’d he come from?
“We don’t want to execute an innocent man,” he said.
She shot him a look. “This man isn’t innocent.”
She pulled me aside and I couldn’t help but go, vamp strength and all that.
“If we find him,” she whispered, “he isn’t making his next appeal. I saw some of the things this guy did in the news.”
I nodded. “No arguments here.”
“.... GPS was found ten feet away,” one of the guys was telling Huxley and Grant as we went back. “He dug it out from under his shoulder.” He held up the bagged, bloody knife.
“Perfect,” Carla said. “Blood.” She jerked her fingers at him. “Gimme.”
Grant nodded and the agent handed the bag to Carla. She opened it and took a deep whiff, then another.
She lifted her head to the air and sniffed, long and deep.
Carla’s the best tracker in the Nashville nest. Best this side of the Atlantic according to Quil.
“This way.” She pointed down the road towards the west.
The agent mumbled something and crossed himself.
Carla shot him a raised eyebrow look and he took a few quick steps back.
I had to bite the inside of my cheek until it was near bleeding to keep from laughing.
Grant took the bag from Carla with a nod and held it out to me.
That pretty much wiped out all urges to giggle.
“Right. My turn,” I said, takin’ the bag.
I slid my hand inside.
Rules of evidence say you don’t touch the evidence with your hands, you wear gloves, but visions are like STDs, your chances of catchin’ one go way down when you’re wearin’ a glove.
My finger grazed the hilt and I clenched my teeth.
Nothing.
“Ariana, relax,” Grant said.
Oh right. Lower the guards. Don’t tense up.
Nope, not working.
I took a deep breath, imagining my mind into a dark red void of a rose, openin’ up slowly.
Flash.
Truck at a computer.
I couldn’t really see much more than fuzz outside his immediate vicinity.
He hit a button on the computer and a loading bar came up, blinking that the transaction was completed after too long for his comfort.
He had to go.
He logged off and stood.
The doors looked kinda like the front of a shop.
He stood and I caught a glimpse of a few tables with laptops propped on them. A café probably, but were there even ones where they let you rent computers left since everyone and their dog had a laptop these days?
I blinked a few times and the world came back.
I was standing, but leaning back against Grant’s chest, with him taking practically all my weight.
“How long?” I asked.
“About ten seconds,” Grant said.
“Could be present time,” I said, summin’ up what I saw.
“Find me all the open internet cafés within a hundred miles,” Grant barked at the agent nearest to us. The one who’d crossed himself.
He gave me big, frightened brown eyes and nodded.
He had very nice wavy reddish-gold hair and sweet, boy-next-door features with a light dusting of reddish-gold stubble.
I met his eyes, tryin’ to understand him, to see why he was scared. When someone fears something, they either try to understand it, or get rid of it.
He forced a smile and I grinned back.
See, nothin’ to fear. Just your friendly, neighborhood psychic.
“Probie!”
We both jumped and I looked over at the owner of that hard voice.
He wasn’t a big man, maybe five foot eight and slender, though the ropes on his arms said there was more muscle hidden under the collared shirt and khakis. He had bright blue eyes and hair buzzed so short I couldn’t tell if it was blond or brown.
“Stop staring at the cute girl, Reed, and do as the man says,” he said, voice that cartoonish New York accent you didn’t hear outside of TV shows.
At least, I didn’t.
“Hey, I’m Andrew Woods. I’m the leader of team three for the Hack-and-Sack Division in Knoxville.”
I gave him a curious look, still cuddled into Grant, who was probably shootin’ a much stronger look at him.
“Serial killers,” he said. “We just call it that. You’re the psychic.”
It wasn’t a question.
He held out a hand and I looked at it.
“Your boss is using you as a teddy, but you have a problem with shaking hands?” he asked.
Either he didn’t know Grant, or he liked getting under people’s skin.
I was betting it was the second one.
“I’m Ariana Ryder,” I said. “If I shake your hand, I’ll get a vision. Are you okay with that?”
His grin widened, givin’ him a cute cast, kinda like a teenage boy about to play a prank on the girl he liked.
“Thanks for the warning, and yeah.”
I reached forward and grasped his hand, eyes glued to his.
Flash.
“Get him outside!” a woman with brown hair screamed as she opened the door.
The man grabbed the squirming boy of maybe twelve and struggled to pull him out the backdoor of a tiny kitchen.
The man was much bigger than the scrawny teen, but the boy bucked and writhed, face contorting as his throat worked soundlessly.
His arm caught on the doorframe, pressing against it.
“He’s going to hurt himself,” a small girl, maybe ten, cried. She had the same thick brown hair and strong features as the woman I was guessing was her mom.
“It’s early,” the man said, effort clear in his voice.
“When does it normally start?” the woman half screamed, eyes wide.
“Stop screaming, or someone will call the cops.”
The boy’s skin flowed over his arm, an army of peach ants marching one by one.
The man hauled the boy outside into a tiny backyard barely deserving of the name.
An apartment with a yard, maybe?
He dropped the boy in the grass and stepped back.
The boy curled up on himself, whimpers escaping.
Soft black fur erupted on his arm and the little girl stepped forward.
“Don’t,” the man said. “He needs space.”
Then why were they in some tiny apartment in New York?
Wouldn’t the neighbors see?
The boy’s face started to elongate.
The man walked outside. “Andy, does it hurt?”
“Itches,” the boy, Andy, cough-barked, wiggling his shoulders.
The shirt covered most of the twisting under it, but the black hair flowing out from under said it had already changed.
His legs shrank with a crunching noise.
He finally relaxed on the
ground as the transformation melted his skin and shifted his organs.
He grabbed his jeans with his still human left hand and yanked them off, his underwear following as his entire south half went completely canine.
He pulled off his shirt next and his hand turned to a paw.
The big black lab fell off the sitting position he’d ended up in to his side, panting.
He whined and his dad scratched behind his ears, whispering as he looked around the squat buildings around them.
Not New York City as I knew it. Maybe Brooklyn or Queens?
“You’re an early bloomer, my boy.” His dad patted him as he got to his feet. “We’re going to need to move. If any of the neighbors saw that… Never mind. It’s okay. You handled it like a man. I’m proud of you.”
“Whoa,” I breathed as I pulled out, legs shakin’. “What are you?”
He grinned wider. “I thought you were psychic.” He dropped my hand and leaned in, whispering, “I’m a shape-shifter.”
He backed up and tossed me a wink.
“A shifter?” Carla asked. “A true shifter?”
“As far as I know.” His smile stiffened.
“You’re rare?” Grant asked.
“Yes, sir,” Woods said.
“No,” Carla said.
I looked over. Her nostrils were flared and her eyes were dilatin’, taking on a reddish cast.
Uh oh.
“They’re not just rare,” she said. “They’re like psychics, maybe a few hundred in the entire world. Maybe. They taste wonderful.”
She stepped towards him and Grant let go of me and blocked her path.
“You’re here to work, not grab a snack. Pull it together and get back on the trail, or go home.”
Grant fixed his eyes on hers and I could tell he was pullin’ his whammy.
“Ryder, garlic?” he asked.
I nodded, pulled out the little baggie of the cloves I always keep on me, and handed one to her.
She squashed it in her hand like it was nothing denser than a marshmallow, and took a deep whiff.
“I should’ve eaten before I came,” she muttered after a moment.
I held a wet wipe out to her and she cleaned her hands off.
I looked around. We had a nice little ring of agents watching.
They were still working, looking up stuff on smart phones, calling people, processing the crime scene, but they were sneaking peeks at us and quite obviously straining to hear.
“You calm?” Grant asked Carla, spreading a long glare over the small crowd.
More than one jerked as his gaze passed over them, and got their butts back to work.
It was pretty darn funny.
“Yes.” She nodded and turned her nose back up to the air.
She sniffed once and looked at Andy. “Move downwind, please.”
My stomach growled and she smiled at me.
“Me too,” she said. “We’re going to need a snack.”
Andy moved with his hands up until he was standin’ next to me.
Carla went back to sniffing the air. “Got it. Follow me.”
Grant snagged a few agents to go with us. Huxley stayed on site, already ordering people into cars to check out the internet cafés.
We walked down the road towards our car. Andy was going with us and
“Can you do snake?” Grant asked Andy.
Andy frowned. “Sure.”
“Were you in the woods about an hour east of here on Thursday?”
“No. I was tracking a killer in Chicago,” Andy said. “Why?”
Grant looked over my head, sizin’ Andy up.
He looked down at me and gave a sharp nod.
I gave Andy a short version of what happened Thursday.
“It’s a shifter,” Andy said. “Can’t say if it’s like me or a witch or something else though.”
The light breeze made the hem of my skirt ruffle and tickle my bare legs.
“Maybe I can contact that shifter again,” I said. “He keeps trying to talk to me in my dreams. Maybe I can… call him?”
“Any idea how to do that?” Grant asked.
“Nope. But I can try.”
“How does being psychic work?’ Andy asked.
I shrugged and pulled out my flashlight as we hit the edge of the lights. “I touch people for the first time, I see the most important moment in their life. After that, I touch, and I see. Or I don’t. It’s kinda hit and miss.”
Grant pulled out his light and I glanced back at the other agents tagging along. They had theirs out too. Carla and Andy didn’t.
Something told me they didn’t need the extra lights.
“No way to control it?” Andy asked.
“No, there is,” I said. “I just haven’t learned the tricks yet. How does the shifting work?”
“I can turn into anything I’ve touched.”
“You have to touch it?”
“Yeah. It’s like my body recognizes it once it has felt it. So I just have to focus on that and change.”
“Can you do it a lot of times, or is it tiring?”
“Very tiring. After I change, I’m usually shaking and ready for a nap, and it takes a few minutes to get up. I don’t like to change unless I know I can stay that way for at least a few hours.”
“Can you change parts of your body but not others?”
“Now that’s really hard. It takes a lot of focus. I can do it, but it takes a lot out of me.”
“Can you-”
Carla stopped in that no deceleration needed way vamps have. Grant slammed on his breaks just in time to not hit her, and we skidded to stops too.
“I’ve got blood. A lot of it.” Carla turned the corner onto Eighth, quick walk makin’ me scramble even with her in heels.
She swerved off the road and over grass between two sets of restaurants, cutting over to a side road behind them.
Just behind a Mexican restaurant, right off the side of the blacktop, lay a heap of clothing, too big to just be clothes.
I shined my flashlight on the pile as Carla kneeled by it even though I already knew what it was.
The first person murdered by the psycho who escaped cuz I couldn’t control my powers and keep them from spillin’ out.
Chapter twelve
The man wore jeans and a light sweatshirt.
“He’s still warm,” Carla said. “Hasn’t been dead half an hour.”
The rest of us walked up to her and the body. He could’ve been asleep, kind of curled on his side, save for the ugly, bright red slash across his neck.
I looked at Grant and he nodded as he pulled out his phone.
I kneeled next to the guy, and lay the back of my hand against his arm so I wouldn’t leave fingerprints.
Flash.
“Fuck!”
The young man swerved into the other lane.
What crazy fuck just jumped into the road like that?
The man who cut him off waved his arms and limped a few steps into the pool formed by the streetlight.
It was Truck, of course.
The driver slowed to a stop, backed up, and rolled down his window. “Hey man, you okay?”
“My car broke down and my cell’s dead. Can I borrow yours to call a tow?”
“No problem, man.” The young man squinted. “Hey, do I know you from somewhere?”
Truck pulled the knife snake-quick and sliced right through the poor kid’s carotid. Blood shot out, spattering the side of the car and the asphalt, and tagged Truck’s boots.
Truck reached through the open window, unlocked the door, opened it, unbuckled the kid, and pushed him out.
He got in and made a face at the radio as he shut the door and buckled up, leaving the window down to let the fresh night air in. He put the car into first and jerked a bit as he took off.
He got the car into second and sped up, hitting the little road and going right on Eighth.
“Carjacking,” I said as my eyes refocused. “Truck flagged
the kid down, asked for a phone. The kid asked if he knew him, maybe he recognized him from the news or something. Maybe he didn’t know him from Adam and just thought he looked kind of like some other person he knew.”
Grant opened his mouth and I nodded. “Right, focus. Got it, General. He slit the kid’s throat, pushed him out, and took the car.
“It was a red, not fire engine red like my car, more like a kind of brighter maroon, Toyota Camry. I don’t know the year.”
I told him the license plate and he called in the bolo, then called Huxley. He gave him the quick version of the body in the road and said to send agents down.
I spent the next five minutes trying to get a vision telling me where Truck went and got nothin’.
When the agents got there to process the scene, we walked back.
Huxley’s team had found the internet café Truck was at. He was in and out quickly, was very polite, and the only reason the owner remembered him was cuz he was the only customer above twenty-five in so late.
Agents were already on the way there to check the computer he’d used.
Huxley had already sent people to talk to anyone who’d had contact with Truck while he was incarcerated, including his lawyer.
More agents were called in. Nashville Metro was informed of the escapee. The memo went out through the entire FBI and to every police station from Miami to Seattle.
The entire country was on alert.
Everyone knew what he looked like, what he was driving, and what he’d done. By morning he would be plastered all over the news. He wouldn’t be able to go anywhere.
But, he knew all this.
He could ditch the car and grab a new one.
And changing your appearance is easier than it sounds.
If he dyed his hair, put on some glasses, and didn’t shave the scruff off, most people wouldn’t notice him. He’d be another face in the crowd. Another driver on the streets. The cops were hopping on the roads, but they couldn’t watch them all. And the longer he was out, the further he could get and the more people he could kill.
We needed to find him.
Fast.
Grant called Jet over from where he was looking stuff up on a laptop with Huxley.
“Bridges there yet?” Grant asked.
“Yes, sir.” Jet squeezed my shoulder. “You holding up, girl?”
“Always,” I said.
