Unleashed

by John Levitt

  “Fair enough, I guess. Okay, ask away.” I told him about my encounter with the redheaded practitioner and the beast in Glen Park. “What I can’t figure out is the connection between the two and why he chose the aspect of the murdered boy,” I said. “What do you think?” Rolf looked at me with an expression that was hard to read.

  “I think you’ve wasted a question,” he said. “It doesn’t take any special talent or knowledge to answer that one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, think about it a minute. You have a practitioner that’s taken on the aspect of one of the victims, right? Which indicates first of all that he was involved in the murder, and second, that he can alter his appearance. You follow him, and he vanishes. Suddenly, a creature springs out at you. You don’t see the connection?”

  “You mean he was able to transform himself into that creature?” Rolf let out an exaggerated sigh.

  “You’re not getting it. There was no practitioner. There’s only the creature, the one who killed all those people. It’s a shape-shifter; it took on the persona of its victim, that’s all, and then reverted back to its natural self when it got you alone.”

  “Oh.”

  “A shape-shifter? How can that be? Does that mean it could imitate anyone?” Sherwood asked. “Even one of us?”

  “I don’t know. I know it can take on the aspect of its victim, but I don’t think it can imitate just anyone, at least not as successfully.” He pointed at Richard Cory, who was blithely paying us no attention at all. “I’m sure Richard could tell you. He knows all about such things. But he doesn’t talk to people anymore. Ever since he came back from his time with the Wendigo, as you call it, he barely talks at all, even to me.” He smiled, showing teeth as usual. “And by the way, it isn’t a Wendigo, not a real one. If it had been a real one, you wouldn’t have come back.”

  “Yeah? Well, thanks for pointing me in that direction, then.”

  “Maybe Richard will talk to me,” said Sherwood. Rolf started to shake his head, then looked at her closely.

  “You know, he just might. There’s something different about you. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s there.” I’d been thinking much the same thing myself, ever since her return. “Just remember, he’s not all there these days. And don’t look in his eyes—that can be a disturbing experience.”

  Sherwood walked around the fire and squatted down on her heels next to Richard. He ignored her, but then she started talking in a low voice, almost whispering. I instinctively leaned forward to try to hear what she was saying; her voice was oddly compelling, almost like the Wendigo’s. Richard Cory turned his head as if seeing her for the first time and answered in a low, mellifluous tone that rose slightly at the end, clearly asking a question.

  Rolf stroked his dreadlocked beard, obviously impressed. “Let’s give them some privacy,” he said, moving off farther under the bridge. Cars rushed past on the bridge access ramp high overhead, sounding like far-off surf. The figure in the shadows followed us, coming closer, soundless and menacing. Rolf turned toward him, his aspect changing in an instant, revealing the gnarled and leathery troll-like persona that was always lurking right below the surface.

  “No,” he said, in a thick guttural voice. “Not for you. Nor the other.” The figure drew back, disappointed.

  “Who is that?” I asked. “Or maybe ‘what’ is a better question.”

  “Vlad,” he said. “He’s almost all the way gone. Soon he’ll be too dangerous to be around, even for me.”

  “Vlad? Is he Russian?”

  “No.”

  We turned and watched Sherwood and Richard Cory, deep in conversation. Several times, Sherwood nodded her head, and once she shook it, definitively. After a while, they stopped talking, and Richard Cory leaned forward, put his hands on either side of her face, and stared intently at her.

  “Uh-oh,” Rolf said.

  Lou appeared from the other side of the fire, circled around, and started creeping up behind them, moving one paw at a time, slowly, like a stalking cat. Sherwood reached up, gently took Richard’s hands from her face, and held them for a moment. Then she patted him on the shoulder and stood up, motioning to me. Rolf whistled, or he tried to. It sounded more like a horse with asthma.

  “That’s quite a woman,” he said.

  Rolf walked us to the gate and again made a bow to Sherwood, but this time it was very short and not at all mocking. Sherwood’s expression was grim.

  “Did you learn anything?” I asked, as we walked back to the van.

  “Quite a bit. More than I wanted to, actually. Richard Cory is an interesting . . . person.”

  “Could you get a read on him?”

  “Not really. He’s hardly human anymore, just like you said. There’s just enough left to be able to communicate with him. He’s not an evil person by any means, but he is spooky.”

  “How about Rolf? Can he be trusted?”

  “Depends on what you mean. He’s basically okay, but he has a different idea of right and wrong than we do, I think.”

  “That much I’m aware of,” I said.

  “Yes, I would think so.” Sherwood stopped for a moment, thinking. “I think the best way to put it is this: if he thought he could gain some personal advantage by pushing you into a raging river, I don’t think he’d do it. But if you fell in on your own, and that benefited him in some way, I’m not sure he’d try to pull you out, either.” That sounded about right.

  “And Richard? What did he have to say?”

  “It’s not good. You were right; there was another creature that came from the energy pool. And what it needs to survive is life force—it kills people and devours all their internal organs. Then it’s fine for a while, until it has to feed again.”

  “Sounds like a bad horror movie.”

  “It gets worse. It’s protean—the creature that attacked you is its natural form, but it can shift and imitate almost anything.”

  “It’s got to have a tell,” I said. “I can’t see how anything like that could fool Lou.”

  “Yes and no. If it copied someone you know, a friend, it wouldn’t be totally effective. It could fool you for a while, but you’d catch on sooner or later. And it wouldn’t fool Lou for a second. But when it kills someone, I think that’s a different matter. It absorbs their essence, somehow.”

  “The brains.”

  “The what?”

  “The brains. It cracks open the head and sucks out the brain tissue, leaving an empty skull.”

  Sherwood shuddered delicately.

  “How delightful. But however it does it, it can then replicate its victim right down to the last detail. Appearance, memories, skills—in essence, it can become its victim. I doubt even Lou could see it wasn’t the original person.”

  “So if it killed me and took my place, would it be able to play guitar?”

  “Apparently. It might lack your creative spark, but it could play.”

  “Could it use talent?”

  “That he didn’t know, but it’s not unlikely. It is a magical creature itself, after all.”

  “And Lou would never know the difference? That I don’t believe.”

  “Well, that’s different. Lou’s almost part of you; there’s no way he wouldn’t figure it out the moment he saw you. But if it were me who was being copied? Or Victor or Eli? I’m not sure he could tell there was anything wrong.”

  A sharp clatter from right behind us made us both jump and spin around. Talking about this had set our nerves on edge. A metal garbage can lid was lying on the sidewalk, knocked off a can next to a doorway. Lou had scented something he thought might be edible. He poked his head around from the back of the can with a sheepish expression and a slight tail wag that meant, “Oops, sorry.”

  AFTER I DROPPED OFF SHERWOOD BACK AT VICTOR’S, I went home. But on the way back to my flat, I started thinking. If there was a shape-shifter out there, it was targeting not only random victims to keep itself going. It was also t
argeting those who might threaten it. Like Ruby. And me. And people who might be able to help track it down. Like Morgan.

  That was why we’d warded her house, of course. And that was why we’d told her not to let anyone in that she didn’t know. But what about someone she did know? Or someone she thought she knew. Someone who looked like me, for example. Like a shape-shifter.

  I made a U-turn and headed toward her house. Chances were she was fine, but I had a bad feeling. Warding her house was not enough; she was going to have to get out of town for a while. A nice return visit to her parents might be in order.

  There were lights on at her house, so she was home. When I rang the bell, deep woofs came from the other side of the door. Beulah was standing guard, in her own ineffective way. But Morgan didn’t answer the door. I rang the bell again and knocked loudly. The woofs turned into whines. Maybe she was afraid to answer the door. Maybe she’d gone out for a moment to the store. Maybe she had been taking a nap and didn’t want to get up. And maybe it was something worse.

  Lou was standing very still, never a good sign. I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t bother trying the door to see if it was unlocked. Victor’s useful wards were great protection, but they’d keep me out as surely as they would anyone else. But I had warded the backyard, including where it touched the back door. I should be able to get in there.

  As I edged my way to the back, along through the narrow gap that separated Morgan’s house from her neighbors, I hoped no one would see me and call the cops. That would be all I needed.

  My own wards were solidly in place, but since I’d made them, it was no trouble to circumvent them and create a small opening by the gate. I slipped through into the garden, and looked up at the back deck. The door to the deck was open, making entrance easy. Beulah had come out onto the deck and was staring down at me. She saw me and started up whining piteously, bobbing her head up and down and throwing in an occasional bark. Worse and worse.

  She backed away as I came up the back stairs but kept whining, wanting help but also afraid of me. I tried to pet her as I passed by, but she ducked under my hand and retreated into the house.

  In the kitchen I found a plate with a half-eaten sandwich on it. The water in the sink was running. I turned it off, and when I called to Beulah again she screwed up her courage and crowded up against me as if I were now her best friend. “Morgan?” I called out. Nothing. Beulah bolted suddenly, running to the bottom of the stairs that led to the second floor, and then started barking again. Lou joined me at the bottom of the stairs, glanced up, then glanced back at me. He showed no fear, but no inclination to go upstairs, either.

  So whatever was up there wasn’t good, but whatever danger there had been was now gone. I didn’t want to go up those stairs, but what choice did I have? I walked up the stairs, and every step was an effort, as if my feet had turned to stone. At the top of the stairs was a small landing with a bathroom directly in front and two bedrooms on either side. The door to one of them was open, possibly a guest room, with a colorful comforter on the bed and everything neat and in place. The door to the other room was closed.

  I knew what I would find before I pushed it open. My hands started shaking and the walls of the room brightened and rippled, seeming to move in and out as if they were breathing. I heard with perfect clarity the faint sound of Lou quietly panting.

  Morgan would be lying across her bed, clothes soaked in blood, chest torn open, eyes open and staring. Her organs would be missing and her skull cracked open, with traces of gray matter around the edges of the wound. Every detail was etched into my brain before I ever saw it. I couldn’t catch any air, and a metallic taste filled my mouth.

  But I was wrong, thank God. No one lay across the bed and there was no one in the room, alive or dead. Lou started forward but I held him back. It still wasn’t all right. There was blood on the floor, quite a lot of it. Morgan might be lying crumpled in a corner, out of sight, and if so, the cops would be on this one eventually. They might not connect it with the other murders, so they would start investigating. They’d start with her boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, and then expand out into her friends. Peer groups, they call it. Sooner or later the ripples would cross mine and they’d be coming to talk to me.

  There were a lot of physical traces of me lying around the house. The principle of transference would make sure of that. Whenever someone enters a crime scene, they leave something of themselves—hair, skin cells, lint from their clothes—something. And they pick up and take something away as well. It doesn’t matter how careful you are; with today’s high-tech forensics there’s always some trace to be found.

  But that wouldn’t be a problem for me. Morgan was a friend; I’d been there with Victor and Eli, and any traces of my presence in the house would be entirely natural. But if some of my DNA, or Lou’s for that matter, ended up mixed in with her blood, that would put an entirely different slant on things.

  In the far corner an armchair was pushed against the wall, clothes strewn carelessly over it. And something behind it, barely visible. My heart stopped. It was long and thin, furry and black and tan in color and red at one end. It took me a moment to make sense of what I was seeing, then all at once I saw what it was. It was a leg, but not a human leg. The leg of a dog, separated from the rest of its body. A black-and-tan leg, like that of a Rottweiler. Poor Beulah. All her fears had come true at last.

  But wait, Beulah was downstairs. It took the clicking sound of dog nails on hardwood coming up the stairs to jolt me out of my confusion. Lou got it about the same time I did and took up his guard position directly behind my knees. A shape-shifting creature doesn’t have to take on human form. An animal form could be a very useful change of pace.

  The Rottweiler’s head appeared, peeking over the landing. Its head looked heavier than I’d remembered, and the teeth looked stronger and larger. It wasn’t as impressive as the shape-shifter in Glen Park had been, but a giant Rottweiler with human intelligence is frightening enough. I took a step back, almost tripping over Lou, and let loose my talent, reaching into the room behind me. This one was easy. That room was full of death, and death was what I gathered. I used poor Beulah’s leg to direct it specifically toward the Rottweiler. There was an ironic sense of justice in using it to strike down its killer.

  I focused and let loose a burst of deadly energy, striking the shape-shifter square in the chest just as it leapt toward my throat. It collapsed in midflight, but as soon as it hit the floor it was up again. That blast should have killed anything, but as I’d feared all along, this thing was immune to magical energy. Or if not immune, highly resistant, like the fake Ifrit. The staff I’d constructed when I met it in Glen Park, using a water stream, had been far more effective; this shape-shifter was something that needed to be fought on a physical level. But it had teeth and I didn’t. I’d put everything I had into the strike, and now it was shaking off the effects as if it had been merely hit in the nose with a sharp blow. Painful and surprising, but not lethal, and not even that effective.

  I vaulted over it before it could get its bearings and tore down the stairs toward the back door. Lou was well in front of me and was already at the back door by the time I had reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “Yeah, but you can’t open the door, can you, now?” I said, sprinting over and throwing it wide. I heard the shape-shifter barreling down the stairs after us. It seemed to have recovered completely. We made it through the door, but we were never going to make it down the back steps or out of the backyard in time.

  I looked around for something to use as a weapon as I reached ground level at the garden. There was a shovel leaning against the back wall, but I wasn’t going to be able to reach it quickly enough. But next to the shovel a small bit of ivy, glowing brightly in the psychic realm, clung to the back fence. That was where I’d wrapped up the energy of the wards, compacting it into that one little space. The energy I’d locked up there was concentrated, containing all the effort I
’d expended in the half hour it had taken to set up the wards. As a result there was four times as much power waiting there as I could have summoned up on the spot. I reached out and unlocked the energy, and as it flowed out I redirected it toward the Rottweiler on my tail.

  It sprayed out like a fire hose, and this time it had a sizable effect on the shape-shifter. Resistant is not invincible. It stumbled and went glassy-eyed, as I sprinted over to the back wall and grabbed the shovel that was leaning there. Before it could recover, I was at it, swinging the shovel like a baseball bat, hitting its skull with the sharp edge. It staggered to its feet and snarled. I hit it again. It was tough, but it was still shaken.

  Lou, seeing how unsteady on its legs the shape-shifter was, took heart and darted in, trying for a hamstring. Lou’s not very big, but his jaws are twice as strong as an ordinary dog his size, and if he got in there, he could easily cripple a leg. The Rottweiler whipped around to get him, and when it did, I hit it yet again. It turned to face me and Lou was at its back legs again. Tag team.

  Not surprisingly it was still confused from the effects of the two previous energy blasts. It should have been dead. Unexpectedly, it decided it had had enough for the day, turned, and bounded off toward the side fence. The fence there was a good six feet high and I didn’t think it could make it over, but as it sprang upward its body elongated and its front legs became rudimentary arms and its paws almost hands. It grabbed the top of the fence, pulled itself over, and dropped to the other side.

  I waited ten minutes to make sure it was gone, peering cautiously through the gate every couple of minutes. The adrenaline surge was fading rapidly, leaving me exhausted with a headache and a dead feeling in my legs. I went back inside and sat down heavily at the table in the kitchen. I was so burned out that when I heard a noise from the front of the house, I reacted in slow motion. Fortunately, it didn’t cost me.

  The front door opened, and there stood Morgan. She looked at me in puzzlement, and I looked back at her in some surprise.