Shapeshifters Anonymous

by J. A. Konrath

  “Hello, sexy.”

  Weston stared at Irena and had an overpowering, irrational urge to bark at her. He managed to keep it in check.

  “Remember,” Scott said. “He’s wearing armor. It’s claw-proof. Go for his head and neck, or use blunt force.”

  They formed a semi-circle around the door, except for the immobile David and the still-seated Ryan. Then they waited. Weston heard a licking sound, traced it to Andy, who had his nose buried between his own legs.

  “Andy,” he growled. “Quit it.”

  “Are you kidding? I don’t think I’m ever going to stop.”

  Then the crazed Santa’s helpers burst into the room, screaming and swinging weapons. Weston recoiled at first, remembered what he was, and then lashed out with a claw. It caught the helper in the side of the head, snapping his neck like a candy cane.

  Andy quit grooming — if you could call it that — long enough to gore a helper between his red shirt and pants, right in the belly. What came out looked a lot like a bowlful of jelly.

  Phyllis fired twice, then picked up the scythe and started swinging it like a mad woman and swearing like a truck driver with a toothache.

  Scott had two helpers backed up against the wall, using his enormous shell to squeeze the life out of them.

  Even David had managed to get into the act, snaring a helper with his tiny, translucent tentacles. Judging from the screams, those tentacles had stingers on them.

  Weston searched for Irena, and saw her hanging onto a helper’s back, biting at his neck.

  Two more Santa’s helpers rushed in, and Weston lunged at them, surprised by his speed. He kept his arms spread out and caught each one under the chin. His canine muscles flexed, tightened, and their heads came off like Barbie dolls.

  And then, there he was.

  Kris Kringle was even bigger up close than he was on the TV monitors. So tall he had to duck down to fit through the doorway. When he entered the room and reared up, he must have been eight feet tall. And wide, with a chest like a whiskey barrel, arms like tree trunks. His long white beard was flecked with blood, and his tiny dark eyes twinkled with malevolent glee.

  But the worst thing were his hands. They ended in horrible metal claws, each blade the length of a samurai sword. One of his helpers, the one Irena had bitten, staggered over to Kringle, clutching his bleeding neck. Kringle lashed out, severing the man into three large pieces, even with the Kevlar suit on.

  It was so horrible, so outrageously demonic, that Weston had to laugh when he saw it. In spite of himself.

  Scott waddled over to Kringle and pointed his stubby fingers at him.

  “Your reign of evil ends today, Kringle.”

  Kringle laughed, a deep, resonating croak that sounded like thunder. Then his huge black boot shot out, kicking Scott in the chest, knocking him across the room and into the back wall. Scott crashed through it like a turtle-shaped meteor.

  Andy said, “Holy shit,” then tore ass through the hole in the wall after Scott.

  Kringle took a step forward, and Weston had an urge to pee; an urge so strong he actually lifted a leg. There was no way they could defeat Santa Claus. He was a monster. He’d tear through them like tissue paper.

  Kringle appraised Weston, eyeing him head to toe, and said, “Robert Weston Smith. Werewolf. You’re on my list.”

  Then he looked at Irena, who’d come to Weston’s side, clutching his paw.

  “Irena Reed. Werecheetah. You’re on my list too. Want to sit on Santa’s lap, little girl?”

  Irena hissed at him. Kringle’s eyes fell upon David next.

  “And what the hell are you? A were-onion?”

  David released the dead helper. “I’m David Kessler. Werecoral.”

  “David Kessler. Yes. You’re also on my list. Now who is this crazy bitch?”

  Phyllis put her hands on her hips and stuck out her jaw. “Phyllis Lawanda Marisha Taleena Allenby. Am I on your stupid ass list too?”

  “No.”

  “No? You sure ‘bout that, fat man?”

  Kringle smiled. “I checked it twice.”

  Phyllis’s eyes went mean.“You saying I’m not one of them? I’m one of them. I’m one of them in my heart, you giant sack of —”

  “Enough!”

  Ryan stood up and walked over to Kringle.

  “And who are you, little human?”

  “I’m tired of running, Christopher. I’ve been running for too long.”

  Kringle’s brow furrowed.

  “That voice. I know that voice.”

  “I had some work done. Changed my human face. But I’m sure you’ll recognize this one.”

  Ryan’s body shook, and then he transformed into a werewolf. A giant werewolf, several feet taller than Weston.

  Kringle took a step back, his face awash with fear.

  “Bob.”

  Weston watched, awestruck, as this millennia-old battle played out before him.

  Kringle snarled, raising up his awful Satan Claws.

  Bob bared his teeth and howled, a gut-churning cry that reverberated to the core of Weston’s very soul.

  But before either of them attacked, before either of them even moved, Kris Kringle’s head rolled off his shoulders and onto the floor by Bob’s feet.

  Phyllis Lawanda Marisha Taleena Allenby, scythe in hand, brought the blade down and speared the tip into Kringle’s decapitated head, holding it up so it faced her.

  “Am I on your list now, mutha fucker?”

  Bob peered down at Phyllis, his lupine jaw hanging open.

  “You just killed Kris Kringle.”

  “Damn easy too. Why the hell didn’t you do that five thousand years ago?”

  Scott, a round green hand pressed to his wrinkled old head, stumbled back into the room.

  “What happened?”

  “Phyllis killed Kris Kringle,” Irena said.

  “You go, girl.” Scott gave Phyllis a high-five.

  “You all fought bravely.” Bob stood tall, addressing the group. “Except for the pig. For your courage, you’ll now have full control over your therianthrope powers. You can change at will, and shall retain control of your inner creatures.”

  “So how do we turn back?” Irena asked.

  “Concentrate.”

  Scott went first, morphing back into his human form.

  Weston and Irena changed while holding hands.

  David’s face scrunched up, but nothing happened.

  “It’s not working,” he said. “I’m still coral.”

  “How about me?” Phyllis asked. “I’m the one that killed that jolly old bastard.”

  “I can turn you into a werewolf, if you so desire.”

  “These guys offered me that before. But I don’t want to be no wolf, or no cheetah, or no turtle, or no dumb ass coral. No offense, David.”

  “None taken. I’m concentrating, but nothing’s happening.”

  Phyllis folded her arms. “My inner animal is a hippopotamus. That’s what I want to be.”

  Bob’s shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry, Phyllis. That’s the extent of my power. But… maybe… just maybe…”

  “Maybe what?”

  “I don’t know if this will work, because he’s dead.”

  “Just spill the beans, Lon Chaney.”

  “Try sitting on Santa’s lap.”

  Phyllis raised a drawn-on eyebrow. “You serious?”

  “He might still have some magic left. Try it.”

  Phyllis walked over to the fallen Kringle and sat on one of his massive thighs.

  “Now what?”

  “Make a Christmas wish, Phyllis. Make your most heartfelt Christmas wish ever.”

  She closed her eyes, and her lips whispered something Weston couldn’t hear.

  And then Weston felt something. Kind of like a breeze. A breeze made of Christmas magic. It swirled around the room, touching each of them, and them coming to rest on Phyllis.

  But nothing happened. She didn’t morph in
to a hippo. She didn’t morph into anything. A minute passed, and she was still the same old Phyllis.

  “I’m sorry, Phyllis.” Bob helped her up. “I wish there was something else I could do.”

  A sad silence blanketed the room.

  Then badboy rapper LL Cool J strutted into the basement, sans shirt. He took Phyllis’s hand, gave her a deeply passionate kiss, and cupped her butt.

  “Gonna take you back to the crib and make love to you all night, girl. But first we gonna stop by the bank, get your hundred million dollars.”

  LL picked her up and carried her out.

  “See you guys next week,” Phyllis called after them.

  “Someone push me over to Santa’s lap,” David said. “This coral wants a house in Hawaii.”

  “What about all of these corpses?” Scott made a sweeping gesture with his hands. “The police are gonna have a field day.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” Bob rubbed his stomach. “I didn’t have any of the donuts.”

  “Little help here.” David wiggled in place.

  Weston felt a tug on his hand. He stared into Irena’s eyes.

  “Want to, maybe, grab some coffee?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Weston died a little inside. Irena’s nose twitched, showing him a brief glimpse of her inner cheetah.

  “Instead of coffee, I want you to come to my place. I’ve got a leash and a king sized bed.”

  God bless us, everyone, Weston thought as they walked hand-in-hand out the door.

  Panama

  November 15, 1906

  “Where is it?” Theodore Roosevelt asked John Stevens as the two men shook hands. Amador, Shonts, and the rest of the welcoming party had already been greeted and dismissed by the President, left to wonder what had become of Roosevelt’s trademark grandiosity.

  Fatigue from his journey, they later surmised.

  They were wrong.

  The twenty-sixth President of the United States was far from tired. Since Stevens’s wire a month previous, Roosevelt had been electrified with worry.

  The Canal Project had been a tricky one from the onset—the whole Nicaraguan episode, the Panamanian revolution, the constant bickering in Congress—but nothing in his political or personal past had prepared him for this development. After five days of travel aboard the Battleship Louisiana, his wife Edith sick and miserable, Roosevelt’s nerves had become so tightly stretched they could be plucked and played like a mandolin.

  “You want to see it now?” Stevens asked, wiping the rain from a walrus mustache that rivaled the President’s. “Surely you want to rest from your journey.”

  “Rest is for the weak, John. I have much to accomplish on this visit. But first things first, I must see the discovery.”

  Roosevelt bid quick apologies to the puzzled group, sending his wife and three secret service agents ahead to the greeting reception at Trivoli Crossing. Before anyone, including Edith, could protest, the President had taken Stevens by the shoulder and was leading him down the pier.

  “You are storing it nearby,” Roosevelt stated, confirming that his instructions had been explicitly followed.

  “In a shack in Cristobal, about a mile from shore. I can arrange for horses.”

  “We shall walk. Tell me again how it was found.”

  Stevens chewed his lower lip and lengthened his stride to keep in step with the Commander-in-Chief. The engineer had been in Panama for over a year, at Roosevelt’s request, heading the Canal Project.

  He wasn’t happy.

  The heat and constant rain were intolerable. Roosevelt’s lackey Shonts was pompous and annoying. Though yellow fever and dysentery were being eradicated through the efforts of Dr. Gorgas and the new sanitation methods, malaria still claimed dozens of lives every month, and labor disputes had become commonplace and increasingly complicated with every new influx of foreign workers.

  Now, to top it all off, an excavation team had discovered something so horrible that it made the enormity of the Canal Project look trivial by comparison.

  “It was found at the East Culebra Slide in the Cut,” Stevens said, referring to the nine mile stretch of land that ran through the mountain range of the Continental Divide. “Spaniard excavation team hit it at about eighty feet down.”

  “Hard workers, Spaniards,” Roosevelt said. He knew the nine thousand workers they had brought over from the Basque Provinces were widely regarded as superior to the Chinese and West Indians because of their tireless efforts. “You were on the site at the time?”

  “I was called to it. I arrived the next day. The—capsule, I suppose you could call it, was taken to Pedro Miguel by train.”

  “Unopened?”

  “Yes. After I broke the seal on it and saw the contents…”

  “Again, all alone?”

  “By myself, yes. After viewing the… well, immediately afterward I wired Secretary Taft…” Stevens trailed off, his breath laboring in effort to keep up with the frantic pace of Roosevelt.

  “Dreadful humidity,” the President said. He attempted to wipe the hot rain from his forehead with a damp handkerchief. “I had wished to view the working conditions in Panama at their most unfavorable, and I believe I certainly have.”

  They were quiet the remainder of the walk, Roosevelt taking in the jungle and the many houses and buildings that Stevens had erected during the last year.

  Remarkable man, Roosevelt mused, but he’d expected nothing less. Once this matter was decided, he was looking forward to the tour of the canal effort. There was so much that interested him. He was anxious to see one of the famed hundred ton Bucyrus steam shovels that so outperformed the ancient French excavators. He longed to ride in one. Being the first President to ever leave the States, he certainly owed the voters some exciting details of his trip.

  “Over there. To the right.”

  Stevens gestured to a small shack nestled in an outcropping of tropical brush. There was a sturdy padlock hooked to a hasp on the door, and a sign warning in several languages that explosives were contained therein.

  “No one else has seen this,” Roosevelt confirmed.

  “The Spaniard team was deported right after the discovery.”

  Roosevelt used the sleeve of his elegant white shirt to clean his spectacles while Stevens removed the padlock. They entered the shed and Stevens shut the door behind them.

  It was stifling in the small building. The President immediately felt claustrophobic in the dark, hot room, and had to force himself to stand still while Stevens sought the lantern.

  Light soon bathed the capsule setting before them.

  It was better than twelve feet long, pale gray, with carvings on the outside that resembled Egyptian hieroglyphics to Roosevelt. It rested on the ground, almost chest high, and appeared to be made of stone. But it felt like nothing the President had ever touched.

  Running his hand across the top, Roosevelt was surprised by how smooth, almost slippery, the surface was. Like an oily silk, but it left no residue on the fingers.

  “How does it open?” he asked.

  Stevens handed his lamp to Roosevelt and picked up a pry bar hanging near the door. With a simple twist in a near invisible seam the entire top half of the capsule flipped open on hidden hinges like a coffin.

  “My dear God in heaven,” the President gasped.

  The thing in the capsule was horrible beyond description.

  “My sentiments exactly,” Stevens whispered.

  “And it is… alive?”

  “From what I can judge, yes. Dormant, but alive.”

  Roosevelt’s hand ventured to touch it, but the man who charged up San Juan Hill wasn’t able to summon the nerve.

  “Even being prepared for it, I still cannot believe what I am seeing.”

  The President fought his repulsion, the cloying heat adding to the surreality of the moment. Roosevelt detected a rank, animal smell, almost like a musk, coming out of the capsule.