Unleashed

by John Levitt

  A bathroom, surprisingly clean, was off to one side, and next to it a closed door, apparently to a bedroom. Victor crossed the room, crouched down so that his head was below the level of the doorknob, and reached up for it. Anyone inside the room would be expecting someone outside to be standing erect, and the most common attack is focused at chest level. The split second it takes to adjust can make all the difference.

  I moved out of the line of sight from the bedroom door. A couple of years ago Victor would have needed to remind me, but I’d at least learned the basics by now. He swung open the door, whipped his head into the doorway for half a second, then whipped it back before anything inside could react. None of these precautions turned out to be necessary. There was nothing in the room. At least, nothing alive.

  Ruby was there, of course. The real Ruby. Parts of her. She lay crumpled on the floor next to an unmade bed. Her chest had been torn open and there was an empty cavity where her heart had once pumped merrily away. Her head had been detached from the rest of her body, and the skull had been cracked open like a walnut. What was left of her face was swollen and barely recognizable, smeared with blood and gray brain tissue. Her long red hair was clumped and matted, like stuffing in an old pillow, and its once-vibrant color was dull and washed out. Everywhere, flies swarmed greedily around the carcass.

  I walked over to the doorway but didn’t go in. With the bedroom door open, the distinctive sickly sweet odor of rotting flesh was now evident—not overwhelming, but enough to make my gorge rise. I had to swallow several times to keep from throwing up. Lou backed away and went over to the front door, pretending to stand guard. I wished I’d thought of that first.

  Victor walked into the room and knelt down by her body as if this were something that happened every day. But he straightened up quickly and got out of there before very long. He wasn’t anxious to linger any more than I was, and there was little point in performing forensic tests. It’s not like there was any mystery about what had happened here. We took a brief look around the apartment to see if there was any indication of where Ruby, or rather, the shape-shifter, might be now. Papers were strewn over a table in the living room; handouts promoting bands and clubs, a brochure from a show at the Asian Art Museum, a flyer titled: “Open Studios at Hunters Point.”

  “Not much here,” Victor said. “She’s probably gone for good.”

  “You think? Maybe we should wait here in case she returns.”

  “No, I don’t think she will. She knew her game was up as soon as she met Sherwood. We won’t see her again, at least not in that guise, and definitely not here. She wouldn’t have had just this one spot—she must have known it might be discovered at some point, and a predator always has a backup lair, just like prey will have more than one bolt-hole.” He glanced through the door into Ruby’s bedroom. “If they realize they’re prey, that is.”

  “So how do we find her?” Victor pointed at Lou, but I shook my head.

  “I don’t think so. It’s like the fake Ifrit and the Wendigo—anything from the energy pool seems to be immune to his tracking sense.”

  “Yes, but he’s a dog, remember?” Lou whipped his head around and fixed Victor with a disbelieving stare until he amended his statement. “At least, he’s got some of the same capabilities. He doesn’t have to use his Ifrit sense. If we can narrow down her location, he can track her by scent alone.”

  I wrinkled my nose, smelling the overwhelming cage odor permeating the apartment. Victor had a point; I could almost track the scent myself.

  “Maybe,” I said. “But how are we going to do that?”

  “First things first. He needs to fix the scent in his mind.”

  Lou looked up at me inquiringly. He can’t really follow conversations, but he gets the gist of most things. But he wasn’t taking directions from Victor.

  “Go ahead,” I told him.

  I walked over to the corner where the nest of blankets and sheets lay, bent down, and took several deep breaths to illustrate the point. I instantly regretted it as the musky odor made me gag again. Lou followed me over and sniffed delicately. He probably didn’t need to, with a sense of smell as sharp as his, but he enjoys humoring me occasionally.

  “What now?” I asked.

  Victor didn’t immediately answer; he just looked at Lou and then back at me, as if considering something.

  “Wait here,” he finally said. “I need to get my bag.” Before I could say anything he was out the door, leaving me and Lou alone with a rotting corpse, slowly decomposing ten feet away. The room seemed suddenly hotter than before, closed in and claustrophobic. My chest felt tight, and I started to get dizzy. I’d been unconsciously breathing in shallow pants, trying to ignore the combination of feral reek and dead flesh. Carbon dioxide had been building up in my blood and I needed to get out of there before I passed out. I stepped out and waited in the hall until I heard the downstairs door open and Victor’s footsteps on the stairs. Then I ducked back into the apartment—I wasn’t going to show weakness in front of him.

  He came in, carrying his old black doctor’s bag, the one he keeps in the trunk of his car when it isn’t in his safe. Pushing papers aside, he set it on the living room table. Out came a knife, an old-fashioned mortar and pestle, and a vial of yellowish powder.

  “Okay,” he said. “Now, Lou can’t track a shape-shifter, but he doesn’t have to. We can use the same method that we used with the lead and the shotgun pellets—a little more subtle, but the principle is the same.”

  “Something in common?” I thought for a moment. “I can’t think of anything.”

  “Well, the shape-shifter devoured part of Ruby, and imprinted her essence on itself. But the rest of Ruby’s body is still here in the apartment.”

  I didn’t like where this was going. Victor’s knife implied some use of blood, and dealing with a corpse as well had definite overtones of the black arts. But I still didn’t see what he was driving at.

  “How does that help us?” I said. “You can’t very well . . .” I stopped, feeling sick. The stench of the apartment wasn’t helping.

  “Yes,” said Victor. “I can. A drop of blood. Some magnetized filings, and a bit of Ruby’s flesh. And Lou’s help.”

  “No way,” I said. “He won’t stand for it, not if there’s blood involved. Especially his.”

  “Not his; mine. All I need from him is a bit of his hair, taken while he’s focused on finding someone. Then I can track the shape-shifter myself.”

  I saw what he was doing—it was like what I’d done when I ran energy through Lou and into Sherwood so that she could borrow his tracking ability. Victor had his own ways of doing things, though. He picked up the knife and handed it to me before walking to the door.

  “I’m going down to the street. Tell Lou to find me, and then slice off a bit of his hair while he’s focused. Put the hair in the mortar bowl. Got it?”

  This sounded a bit convoluted to me, but I shrugged my acceptance. Victor nodded, stepped outside, and a moment later his footsteps echoed down the stairs. I sighed.

  “Lou,” I said. “Find him. Find Victor.” Lou slowly turned his head toward me, checking to see if I was serious. Didn’t I know this was no time to be playing hide-and-seek?

  “Just do it,” I said. He stared at me long enough to let me know he thought I was deranged and started toward the door. I caught him by his collar and brought the knife close. He stopped and half opened his mouth. He didn’t like knives, not at all, and was letting me know that if I tried for a blood sample, I was going to lose a couple of fingers. He’s a patient guy, but there are limits.

  “Take it easy,” I said. “I just need a snip of hair.” He let me saw off a little tuft, but didn’t relax until I moved the knife away. “Okay. Relax. Forget Victor.” Now he knew I’d gone off the rails. He walked over and sat near the door, keeping an eye on me, as if I might start dancing and gibbering at any moment.

  Victor was back in the apartment a minute later. He took the kn
ife back from me, used the tip on his finger to get a drop of blood, picked up the mortar bowl, and mixed it in with Lou’s hair. A sprinkling of powder from the vial was next, and he mashed it all together. He started at the mixture blankly, then took a deep breath.

  “One final ingredient,” he said and moved off toward the bedroom where Ruby’s body lay. I’d seen all I wanted to see.

  “I’ll wait outside,” I said and headed toward the hall. Lou was out the moment I opened the door. If Victor saw this as sign of weakness, fine. It was better than throwing up all over the potion he was mixing up.

  Just mixing it was bad enough. I didn’t know how he meant to employ it and I didn’t want to, although I could make a guess. I sat on the stairs and waited, trying not to think about it. After a while, Victor joined me, bag in hand. He looked a little green around the gills.

  “Did it work?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “You know where she is?”

  “Not yet. Ruby’s body is too close and its proximity too powerful; it overwhelms everything else. It’s like trying to see a candle flame in the distance while you’re standing next to a bonfire. I need some distance.”

  We left the apartment. The shattered lock was going to present a hell of a problem for the police department when they discovered the body. Their theory that an animal was responsible wasn’t going to hold up much longer, but they’d never come close to understanding the true state of affairs. I was beginning to regret having called Inspector Macklin earlier—Victor was right; it would make him wonder what I knew about it and why I was so interested. Maybe homicide would hush it up, though, put it on a need-to-know basis. If I was lucky, maybe Macklin would never even hear about it.

  Once back on the street, we walked for a block and then Victor stood, concentrating.

  “No good,” he said. “Nothing in this direction.” We retraced our steps until we were well past Ruby’s apartment in the other direction.

  “Got it,” he said. “East. Maybe across the bridge.”

  We got in his car and he started driving east. Victor drove almost as if he were in a trance, sitting stiffly erect, following his new sense. I hoped he wouldn’t crash the car, but there was no point in offering to drive. We ended up continuing east on Cesar Chavez, but instead of heading for the bridge, he angled off onto Third Street and through the Bayview district.

  “Hunters Point,” I said, suddenly. “There was a flyer in the apartment, remember, about the open studios there.”

  “Good guess. Out of the way, lots of space. That wouldn’t be a bad choice for her.”

  Hunters Point Shipyard lies at the end of Bayview, right on the water. At one time it was a thriving port and shipyard, but those days are long past. Now it’s mostly a toxic waste site, with a huge power plant that dominates the landscape. The old buildings of the shipyard have been converted into artists’ studios, where painters and sculptors work in happy isolation.

  Bayview is almost entirely African American, an urban slum rife with drugs and gangs, like Big Block and West-mob. Shootings are common, and it’s a dangerous place. But it doesn’t look dangerous, and it doesn’t look like what people think of as a slum, either. Older, detached houses sit on tree-lined streets, businesses dot the landscape, and people go about their daily life. It looks peaceful and rather pleasant. Appearances can be deceiving.

  At the very end of Bayview, right up against the edge of the bay, the old shipyard sprawls out across the shore. Victor drove partway down the sloping driveway that leads into the complex, then stopped. Spread out down below were the studio buildings, looking more like military barracks than artists’ studios, which is logical since that’s what they once were. Off to the north side a large expanse of tangled scrub and low bushes covered a steep slope, crisscrossed by narrow gullies. A perfect place for the lair of a beast, or maybe Ruby had taken on the persona of a random artist in one of the studios. That would be more likely, considering her habits so far.

  “She’s here,” he said. “But exactly where, I can’t tell. My locating sense is too diffuse.”

  “It’s a pretty big area,” I said. “It’s not going to do a lot of good to wander around there hoping we’ll bump into her.”

  Victor gestured at Lou.

  “This is where he takes over.”

  “Ahh. You have a plan.”

  “Lou picks up her scent and pinpoints her exact location. You follow him, keeping an eye out for her.”

  “Great idea.”

  “But I don’t think he’ll have to track her for very long—I imagine she’s already aware you’re here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you were present when the energy pool was formed and helped in its creation. That provides her with a connection to you—not a strong enough one to track you down, but enough to feel your presence as soon as you get close.”

  “But if she senses me closing in, won’t she just take off again?”

  “Not necessarily. I might be wrong on the connection part. And anyway, I think it more likely she’ll try to ambush you and rip you apart.”

  “I see. And what will you be doing when this ripping apart thing is taking place?”

  “Well, that’s the rub. I’ll have to stay up here. The point is to tempt her into an attack, and I don’t think she’ll take on both of us at once. After all, she didn’t have much luck even when she caught you alone, so she’ll be cautious. So I’ll hang back, far enough away so she doesn’t sense me, but still close enough to jump in when she attacks. You just have to fight her off long enough for me to get to you.”

  I thought about the body in the next room, torn apart and partially dismembered. Then I thought about Morgan and Beulah.

  “Okay,” I said. “But I’m going to need that gun of yours. She’s resistant to talent, remember.”

  “The gun could pose a problem. If you’re armed, she might be able to tell. And then she’ll slink away and wait for a better opportunity. You need to make her feel confident enough that she can take you so that she’ll launch an attack.”

  “Maybe you should just truss me up hand and foot and dump me somewhere she can find me,” I said. “Then, while she’s busy eating my brain, you can sneak up on her.” A ghost of a smile flitted across Victor’s face.

  “That has crossed my mind. Anyway, try to keep an open line of sight between us. And if you have to move behind a building, do it slowly and I’ll angle over to where I can keep you in sight.”

  This seemed like a haphazard plan to me, but I didn’t really care. I’d driven the shape-shifter off once already and I could do it again. I nodded and headed into the compound with Lou. We reached the bottom of the access road, where there was a large parking lot of gravel and dirt, muddy, with pools of standing water that had nowhere to drain. Across from it was where the first buildings started.

  “Do your stuff,” I said to Lou. “See if you can sniff her out.”

  He put his nose to the ground and started searching, moving out in concentric circles, adroitly avoiding the areas of mud and water. It wasn’t long before he raised his head slightly and moved off toward one of the buildings on the far side of the parking lot.

  I looked up to make sure Victor was still in sight. He wasn’t. I cursed quietly, trying to figure out where he’d disappeared to. If I’d pulled that kind of sloppy backup on him, he’d have ripped me a new one. I hesitated a moment, then followed Lou. I was going to find this shape-shifter, whether Victor was paying attention or not.

  Then, as we passed by the first building, I saw Victor come out from behind the rear of it. He put his finger to his lips in an exaggerated fashion and motioned to me. As I turned toward him, his body was violently jerked back around the corner as if something had grabbed him from behind. I heard a triumphant sound, somewhere between a snarl and a roar. Holy shit.

  They say a sudden shock or fear can paralyze you into immobility—the body just shuts down. Not so. My legs were carrying me toward the bu
ilding, sprinting at top speed, before my mind fully took in what had just happened. Lou was right alongside of me. With his speed he could easily have outpaced me, but he’s no fool.

  Right before I rounded the corner of the building Lou let out with a volley of warning barks. Kind of superfluous, I thought. But then he sprinted ahead, turned on a dime, and launched himself through the air at me, striking me square in the middle of my chest. At twelve pounds that wasn’t enough to knock me back, but it certainly slowed me up for a second, long enough for my brain to start functioning again. Why had I assumed that was really Victor?

  I was going too fast to stop, but I swung wide and sprinted past the corner of the building, angling away in a straight line. When the shape-shifter waiting there for me sprang, it missed me by a good six inches.

  It hadn’t had time to completely transform itself back from its Victor persona. Maybe being in the midst of a change had made it clumsier than usual. What I saw was a caricature of Victor, twice life-size, claws like a bear, but with a face almost unchanged. That typical, somewhat supercilious expression remained fixed on the shape-shifter’s face even as its arms grew longer and its teeth lengthened.

  I didn’t stop running. I sprinted toward the adjacent building, and by the time it saw what I was doing I had a good head start. It bounded after me, now on all fours, its transformation almost complete. I ran through the door at the end of the next building, a long, low structure with a corridor that ran all the way through. Before I was halfway down the corridor, it had appeared in the doorway behind me. I wasn’t going to make it out the other side before it caught up with me, and even if I did, what then?

  I frantically tried several doors until I found one that was unlocked and ducked inside. It was a sculptor’s studio, and thank God the artist wasn’t home. The room was full of large twisted metal sculptures, elongated figures that were all sharp angles and rough surfaces. Interesting, perhaps, but of no use to me. I can work with metal, but barely, and it takes me forever to accomplish anything.