Shifter Overdrive

by Scarlett Grove

  “Come in,” she said, moving toward the house, her toddler still held tight in her arms.

  Inside, she put Puma in a playpen and started to bustle around in the kitchen, setting a bowl of corn chowder and crusty fresh bread down in front of me. I sniffed. It smelled good. I took the spoon in my hand and scooped up a bite. If I wasn’t careful, all this food would go straight to my butt, slowing me down too much to fight.

  Aster handed Puma a piece of bread in the playpen and then sat down across from me with her own lunch. “The grimoire is in the attic,” she said before taking a bite of chowder.

  “Why is it up there?” I asked.

  “We don’t have much call for it. Most of our work is natural to us. We don’t have to do any research to grow plants and to protect the land.”

  “What about the goats going missing?”

  Aster frowned at me. Bear was an earth shaman. He was supposed to be able to protect their land and their animals from harm.

  “That’s what’s so strange. We’ve never had animals go missing before.”

  “Didn’t you want to look into it?”

  “Honestly, I didn’t think it was supernatural. I thought maybe it was bad fence, or at worst, a coyote. Don’t say any of this to Bear, please. He feels bad enough as it is.”

  “Where is Bear, anyway?”

  “He’s at the Farmer’s Market in south Portland today. We can go up and get the grimoire after lunch. Eat up.”

  Usually I lived on protein shakes and nutritional and magical supplements. Now I was operating on pure calorie power.

  After we finished lunch, we made our way up to the second story of Aster’s old farm house. She opened a narrow door that lead to a dark staircase. The faint musty smell of ancient wood wafted through the air. Creaking up the stairs, Aster pulled the cord to an exposed bulb overhead, illuminating the cramped space in dim light. Dust rose from the unused stairs and Aster sneezed.

  “We don’t come up here much.”

  I frowned, thinking that they stored a priceless family grimoire in a dusty attic. At the top of the stairs we entered a room with a sharply sloped ceiling and a small window that let in the afternoon light from outside.

  Among the boxes of discarded high school papers and old clothes, the grimoire sat on a pedestal under the tiny window. I followed Aster in, listening to her sniffling in the dust.

  She rifled through the pages for a moment and looked up at me. “We can take this downstairs,” she suggested.

  “Great. I can’t see up here.”

  I grabbed the book and hurried back into the light of the second floor with Aster waddling not far behind me. Back in the kitchen I dropped the book on the table and slid into a seat. Flipping through the dusty pages, I scanned the contents quickly to the section on local monsters.

  “I’m going to put Puma down for a nap,” Aster called from living room.

  I didn’t respond as I scanned the headings and summaries of the monsters the Hunter family had encountered in the generations their family lived in the Willamette Valley.

  There were full illustrations of beings like totem animals, various nature spirits, and ghosts. Then I flipped to a half-finished entry—a sketch of a naked human, blood dripping from his lips.

  The creature wasn’t named, but the short description mentioned cannibalism and super strength. As I looked more closely at the drawing, I noticed small nubs of horns growing from the human’s head.

  “Did you find anything?” Aster asked, coming back into the kitchen.

  “Yes. But the entry isn’t complete. It looks rather old. Do you know anything about this?” I asked her as she leaned over the back of my chair and gazed down at the page.

  “I have no idea, but it looks gross. Don’t tell me that’s what was on my land.”

  “Something like this. Yes.”

  “Please get rid of it, Olivia. It scares me to death to think that thing is running around out there near my kid.”

  “Doing my best,” I muttered, closing the book. “I need more information. This is a start, but I can’t track it down until I have a better of idea of what it does.”

  “I thought you had the ability to sense that type of thing with your Executioner talents.”

  “I only have those skills when I’m on duty,” I lied. It was getting more difficult all the time to cover up the fact that I’d been kicked out.

  “Maybe Margery has more information. She has an entire archive of information on supernatural creatures from around the world. It’s one of her areas of study.”

  “I’d seriously rather not,” I said, strumming my fingers on the table. “Have you found the sword yet?” I was beginning to lose my patience. This wild goose chase to find the goat guy was distracting me from my goal. The sooner I got the sword, the sooner I could get out of here, track down Vincent, and get my job back.

  I was doing this goat eater extermination thing out of the kindness of my heart. I did care about the family, but the longer they dangled the sword over my head, the less motivated I felt to help them.

  “That’s another good reason to go visit Margery. She has the key to the long-term storage spell. I don’t have it around here. Honestly, I totally forgot about it until you asked. I’ve been busy.”

  Puma’s wail echoed through the farm house from upstairs. Aster looked upward and then back at me. “See what I mean?” she said, getting up from her seat at the table.

  Someone knocked at the front door and Aster sighed. “I’ll get it,” I said. “It’s probably Raven.”

  Aster thanked me and waddled down the hall and upstairs to take care of her son. I slid from my seat and strode to the front door, pulling it open with a yank.

  Raven stood on the other side, his knuckles prone to knock. He gave me a surprised look. “Hi,” he said, lowering his hand. “Find anything?”

  “Kind of.” I flipped to the page with the illustration on it. “Just this unfinished description of a cannibal. See the horns?”

  “Strange. I’ve never seen this before,” he said.

  “There isn’t enough information here to help find this guy. I need to know his habits. His motivations.”

  “We found out the cause of death for the jogger. It was definitely a snapped neck. It would require a tremendous amount of strength to do that. We also found some bare footprints at the scene. About a size nine in men’s. That’s a smaller size.”

  “The man I saw wasn’t that big.”

  “We’re investigating the tooth patterns. Trying to match them up with dental records,” he said, moving into the house.

  “Anything yet?” I watched Raven move through the kitchen, bend in front of the fridge, and start poking around inside.

  “Does Aster know you do that?” I asked.

  “They don’t care. I don’t have much in my fridge besides ketchup and beer.”

  “If I had a fridge, there wouldn’t be much in mine either. But the Fanning women have fed me more in the last two days than I ate all last week.”

  Raven looked up from the fridge and smiled, pulling out a pitcher of lemonade. He poured himself a glass and then noticed the corn chowder on the stove.

  “Oh yes, Aster’s corn chowder.”

  I put my hand on my hip and watched him ladle himself a bowl and sit down at the table. He started to eat while I stood there, staring at him. This was a waste of time.

  “Sit,” he said between bites. “I’m hungry.”

  “Fine.” I slid into the chair and studied the page in the grimoire again, looking for more clues.

  Aster entered the room with a sigh. “I think he’ll stay down this time,” she said, plopping down next to Raven.

  “This is good, sis,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze.

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  “When will Bear be back from the Market?” he asked her.

  “Probably not until after dark.”

  “Don’t like the thought of you and Puma here alone with that gu
y out there. Make sure you keep the doors and windows locked.”

  “I still have things to do out in the garden,” Aster objected.

  “Just call me if you need anything, okay?” he said, looking at her with concern on his face.

  “I suggested Olivia visit Margery for more information about the monster.”

  I scowled at her more intensely than I meant to and she smirked at me before looking back to Raven.

  “That’s a great idea,” he said. “Isn’t she a mythical creatures scholar or something?”

  “Yes. Exactly. Plus, while you’re there, Olivia can ask about the long-term storage key.”

  “What’s in storage?” Raven asked, scooping up the last bite of corn chowder.

  “Benedictus,” I muttered under my breath.

  “The Sword of the Dawn? Why is that in long-term storage?”

  “Probably the same reason the Hunter family grimoire was upstairs in a dusty attic,” I grumbled. The Fannings seemed oblivious to the value of their heirloom magical items.

  “It’s safe up there!” Aster protested.

  “Fine, whatever, I’ll go visit Margery,” I finally conceded, standing from the table. Any step closer to Benedictus and solving this murder was one step closer to getting out of here and getting my life back.

  I hurried outside, Raven following. His boots crunched on the gravel behind me. When I got to my Camaro, I turned to him, squinting into the bright afternoon sun.

  “You don’t want to see your sister, do you?” he asked, opening the door to his SUV.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I can read you better than you think, Olivia Fanning.” He pursed his lips at me, slipping a pair of sunglasses over his black eyes.

  “Oh really?” I said, my tone more teasing than I’d meant it to be. I blanched at the flirtatious sound of it.

  “Yes. The events of five years ago are still raw for all of the Fanning women. Losing your father was painful for everyone, particularly Margery.”

  “I’m sure it was,” I muttered, climbing behind the wheel.

  “She still blames you,” he said. I turned to him, my mood darkening.

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “That’s what you think, right?” he asked me.

  “I don’t.”

  “Okay, then this visit shouldn’t be awkward at all.”

  Chapter 14

  During the entire drive across town to Margery’s university district apartment, I felt like I was going to puke. She was the last person I wanted to see.

  When our father had died five years ago, it had been a major blow for everyone. The entire family had blamed me to some degree for refusing my talents until it was too late. But Margery had blamed me most of all.

  She’d been quite vocal about it the night he died, and had said things that just couldn’t be unheard. Her words had been a knife in my heart.

  After that particularly harsh conversation, I left home and never came back. Coming to her for help now after all these years was setting off all kinds of alarms in my head.

  I pulled into the parking lot of her complex and cut the engine. Every fiber of my being was screaming to run, but I forced myself to get out of the car and close the door behind me.

  Raven parked beside me and met me on the sidewalk beside her building. “I let her know we were on the way through the witch network,” he said.

  “She knows I’m coming?” I asked, almost losing my lunch on the pavement. For someone who killed people for a living, my reaction to seeing my own sister was making me question my identity. I couldn’t be this much of a pussy.

  “Yes. Is that a problem?”

  “Yes,” I blurted. “I mean no. It’s no big deal. I mean, she just blames me for our dad’s death and made that very clear the last time we spoke.”

  “Have you even talked to her since you left?” he asked skeptically.

  “No, but…”

  “You mean the night your father died? I’m sure she doesn’t still feel that way, Olivia. It was an accident. Everyone knows that.”

  “It wasn’t really a mistake, Raven, it was my failure. But thanks for saying it.”

  “Olivia, you were eighteen. Is this why you left? Because you’ve been blaming yourself all this time?”

  “Everyone blames me!”

  “No one blames you.”

  “Margery does,” I said. I felt like a kid again. It was the most disturbing feeling I’d had in a years. Vincent was going to pay for this.

  “If she still blames you, then she’s wrong.”

  “It’s nice to have you around to break it all down for me, Raven,” I said sarcastically.

  He gave me a dark look and then smirked. “Same old Olivia. Can we just get this over with? I need to get back to the station.”

  “Fine.”

  We walked around the side of her old-world brick building and went through the wide double doors at the entrance.

  Raven pressed the button for the elevator and put his hands on his hips, giving me an appraising look.

  “I like the outfit,” he said.

  “This, is another Nelly Fanning special. It’s really my Executioner gear under her spell.”

  “Still, it’s a nice look on you.”

  “Always with the compliments. I’d watch out Raven, or I’m going to think you’re still interested.”

  The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Raven just stood there, narrow-eyed and glaring at me.

  “What? I’m just kidding. Come on. The harpy of Portland is waiting to claw out my eyes.”

  He followed me into the elevator and I pressed the button for the third floor. My sister had been living in the same building since she started university and never left.

  Unlike most of the witches in my family, Margery was more of a mage. She was an academic magician. Although no one at her university knew anything about it. To them, she was just an associate professor of ancient studies.

  To everyone in the paranormal community, she was a high magus of ceremonial magic. I didn’t even want to imagine what she was capable of.

  The women in my family were basically nature witches. They practiced magic with strict laws of karma. First do no harm and the law of three were their underlying tenets as nature witches. A mage, on the other hand, had no problem manipulating nature to her will.

  As an Executioner, I was neither a mage nor a nature witch. I was a death dealer, contracted by the Council of Elders to kill paranormal criminals without a trial. Not that a trial was needed. They knew if someone was guilty or not by telepathy and second sight.

  But they needed someone like me to deal the final blow. Most paranormals had some kind of protection from curses or spells, but being stabbed in the heart with an enchanted blade or shot by spelled bullets by a death-dealing witch was pretty hard to survive. Unless it was a psychotic vampire with an ancient protective totem around his neck.

  I came to Margery’s door and could already feel the magic vibrating from within. The fact that humans just ignored this kind of energetic vibration always make me kind of laugh. Humans. Raven just walked right up and knocked before I was ready and the door swung open almost immediately.

  “Well, if it isn’t Olivia Fanning. Did you come to finish the rest of us off?”

  I looked over at Raven and lifted an eyebrow. He just shrugged and sighed.

  “Margery, we need help solving a murder case. The same creature was on Aster’s farm, near your nephew. Can we put the past in the past for a while?” he asked.

  “Fine. For you, Raven, and for Aster. But I don’t understand why I have to talk to her.”

  “It’s great to see you too, Margery. How are things?”

  My sister’s massive strawberry-blonde afro puff shimmered around her face. She pushed her thick glasses up her nose and swirled around on her heel, into her apartment.

  She wore a long black robe, like what I’d worn at my high school graduation, but more formal. I roll
ed my eyes. She never lost the opportunity to let everyone know she was a professor. It was like she was saying, “Oh, look at me, I have a PhD. I wear a black professor’s robe around the house.”

  “Nice outfit,” I said, unable to keep myself from poking at her obvious pretentiousness.

  She gave me a death glare and walked over to a big thick book sitting on a table covered in a rune-encrusted cloth.

  “This is the Fanning family grimoire,” she announced.

  “Why do you have the grimoire?” I asked, still poking at her. It was childish, but hey, she started it.

  “Because, Olivia, I’m the scholar of the family. It has the most value in my hands. It isn’t like Aster needs it on the farm,” she said it with a tone of superiority that made me want to ring her neck.

  “Just show us what you’ve found,” I groaned, rolling my eyes. Of all the people in my family, Margery reduced me to a puddle of teenage snark.

  She flipped through the pages, giving me another glare for added effect. The pages landed on an illustration of a drooling beast with elk antlers, a dog’s snout, and a human’s body and eyes.

  “What is that?” I asked, my eyes growing wide. I’d never seen anything like it before.

  “This is a wendigo. They haven’t been common on this plane for hundreds of years. Every once in a while someone is infected with the curse, but it’s so rare, I hesitated to even show you.”

  “A wendigo curse? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m getting to that,” she snipped.

  Raven looked from Margery back to me and took a step back.

  “Wendigoes are humans who have been infected with curse. As the curse progresses they begin to transform into these beasts and crave human flesh.”

  “So the man I saw at Aster’s farm is going to turn into that?” I said pointing at the page.

  “If it’s a wendigo it will. Still, the occurrence of these creatures is quite rare. The magic only exists on the other side of the portal.”