A Study In Shifters

by Majanka Verstraete

  “Venom is delivered or injected using a specialized apparatus of some kind, like fangs or a stinger. Poison, on the other hand, is absorbed or ingested. Poisonous animals can deliver the toxin only when touched or eaten. Venomous animals can inject their venom at any time they see fit.”

  “You do know that I’m a major biology buff, right? Not to mention, I’m a snake, and we’re, by definition, venomous,” Indra said as she took a bite of her sandwich. “I know the difference between venomous and poisonous. Thanks for the reminder.”

  “Sorry.” I hadn’t even touched my sandwich yet, excited as I was about my latest theory. “So, I know I don’t have concrete evidence yet, but with what we know so far, Aria Forbes is a likely candidate for the murder.”

  “So, Aria cut off some jaguar’s claws, dipped them in her own venom that she extracted herself—even though that’s extremely painful—and then used them to claw open her best friend.”

  “You make it sound as if you don’t believe that theory at all.” I frowned at her.

  “I’m not buying it until Morant comes up with proof that it’s venom, not poison. You’re forgetting that I’m a snake, too. I once had to have my venom extracted from my teeth, and I can tell you, it’s excruciating. I’d rather have an elephant walk over me or a cannibal carve out my insides and eat them.”

  I scrunched up my nose. “Thanks for the gruesome picture. Now my appetite is completely ruined.”

  My jaguar blinked in surprise; obviously her appetite was still intact.

  “I’m just saying, I don’t think a snake would do it, take their own venom like that. Besides, just because Aria doesn’t like you and she’s disgustingly elitist—which she is, I’m not saying she’s not—it’s a far cry to turn her into a murderer.”

  “But she is our most likely suspect to date.”

  “You know what I think?” Indra took a huge gulp of her soda before she continued. “I think you’re elitist, too. I think that you hate snakes.”

  I frowned at her, confused by her statement. “I don’t hate snakes.”

  Although, Indra did have a point. I had never been fond of snakes, and I didn’t trust them. Yet, Indra was starting to warm up to me… And maybe she had a point that not all snakes were bad. Working together with her was far less painful than I thought it would be, all things considered. She was smart, too, and a good listener.

  “You do,” Indra said. I can see it in the way you behave around us. Just because Rollins is a slimy bastard who’d stab everyone in the back to get his way doesn’t mean all of us are.”

  I stared at her, dumbfounded, my mouth open. No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t slam my mouth shut again. My jaguar was equally shocked, because she stood dead silent, glued to the ground.

  “What did you just say?”

  “You heard me all right, and I have no intention of repeating that.” Indra shrugged. “I’m just saying that we’re not all the same. I don’t know why some people seem to think just because one person is a certain way, their entire species is. If all snakes were like Aria Forbes, I’m sure we’d be extinct by now. She’d backstab herself if she could. But does that make her a murderer? I don’t want us to jump to conclusions.”

  “Fine. You’re right.” I grabbed the sandwich and reluctantly took a bite. “I’ve always let myself be guided by facts, not feelings. She just gets on my nerves. But if Morant finds venom instead of poison…”

  “Aria is the first one we’ll check out, I promise,” Indra said. “Anyway, I plan on doing a background check on this Roan Black guy after dinner. See if he showed up anywhere after he went missing from the Academy. Unless they made a replica, the murderer must’ve gotten a jaguar claw from somewhere.”

  Roan Black. The locked-up-tight door to my emotions in my mind palace rattled on its hinges. Roan, my friend who had come through for me when others hadn’t. Who knew all my darkest, deepest secrets, and didn’t judge me for them.

  My jaguar pushed against my emotions-door, too, begging to be let out.

  When the Conclave judged me harshly for my involvement in Mannix’s crimes, Roan had stood up for me. Although I had betrayed him, when I asked for his help, he’d come from London to speak on my behalf as the only character witness I could summon to my trial—besides my mother.

  Certain members of the Conclave, Rollins and his allies in particular, thought I’d been in cahoots with Mannix from the start, and that I’d known his plans all along, even actively participated in them. They’d called forth witnesses on my behalf, and my mother, Saldor and Roan all came to testify to tell them I wasn’t an evil mastermind, just a girl who, to quote Roan’s words, “was too naïve for her own good.”

  When he stood there in that chamber below the earth and told the Conclave that, my heart just about broke. Was that really what he thought of me? Still, although it hurt, I was glad he’d stood up for me when nearly no one else had. Even my mother had trouble getting to terms with my involvement in the horrible crime Mannix had committed.

  So, Roan had been there for me in my hour of need, and not being able to help him now was the most horrible feeling I’d ever gone through. This hurt more than when I found out Mannix had betrayed me. It hurt more than finding out what the person I once loved was capable of. Nothing else had ever hurt this way and yet I couldn’t let that hurt in, couldn’t let it overwhelm me.

  I missed Roan. Missed his laugh, the twinkly lights in his eyes. I missed the feel of his arm against mine when we accidentally touched. We’d only seen each other a handful of times over the years, but each time, being away from him felt like being away from a part of my own soul.

  My jaguar jumped against its cage door with all its weight.

  In my mind, I shoved an armoire in front of the doors to keep them from rattling. I had to focus on the case. If I divided my attention between finding Roan and finding Elise’s murderer, then I’d fail—I’d seen the evidence of that during my last devastating case, when I’d divided my attention between Mannix and finding the wannabe demon summoner.

  “I’ll head to the library and read the paper Elise wrote.”

  Indra looked at me worriedly, the skin next to her eyes wrinkled. “Are you sure you want to do that? It seems like you’ve been confronted enough with that crap as it is.”

  “It’s not that I want to. It’s that I need to.” I swallowed down another bite of sandwich with a large gulp of cola. “I won’t be able to figure out who would want to hurt Elise without getting into her head. The only way I can do that is by getting to know her, and step one is reading that stupid paper.”

  “Well, I warned you.” Indra bit the sandwich again and pulled a disgusted face, as if someone had shoved dog poo under her nose. “God, the food here is terrible.”

  “It really is.” Yet, somehow, reading a paper on how weak my clan was seemed about a million times worse.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The library was crowded around eight, but by the time nine o’clock rolled around, it was practically abandoned.

  I’d picked a comfortable chair in the corner of the room, crawled on it with my feet tucked under me, and started reading.

  Elise’s dissertation paper was…

  Well-researched.

  All right, if I was honest, she made a solid case. She talked about the moral decline of all shifters over the years, targeting all the species, not just one clan, of how rebel groups were flaring up, fighting against the seats of power. She talked about how, with the human world already in political turmoil, we needed strong leadership. The paper had statistics of rises in shifter crime, even detailed charts about which shifter groups (obviously, the predators) were more crime prone than others.

  If I were a teacher grading this paper for one of my students, I would be impressed.

  However, as she reached her conclusion, her reasoning was much more nuanced than you’d expect starting from such an extreme standpoint. She said that, despite the weakened position of the jaguar clan,
publicly challenging it could do more harm than good, and with a lot of clans holding equally powerful positions, it could result in a full-out clan war.

  I stretched my arms above my head, quite impressed with how much time Elise Felton had spent on her paper. My jaguar, too, felt a begrudging respect for someone who would spend so much time on something—if anything, it took dedication. Although I might not agree with the position she took, I had a newfound respect for her.

  And a newfound loathing for whoever had killed her.

  I lingered in the seat for another hour as the last students cleared out of the library while I read through the thesis. Moonlight flooded through the tall windows, and along with the reading lights flanking the desks, it cast a warm, vibrant atmosphere over the room.

  Around a quarter to ten, Wyatt strolled into the library.

  “Oh, hey, Marisol,” he said when his gaze landed on me. “I hadn’t expected you here.”

  “Hey.” I held up the papers of Elise’s dissertation. “I came here to read these.”

  “Oh.” Wyatt’s face turned a ghostly pale. “I’m…um…”

  “It’s okay. She made a few fair points. And anyway, a wise person told me today that I shouldn’t care about what other shifters think about me or my family.”

  “Sounds very wise, indeed,” Wyatt said as he walked toward me. “Who would that sage person be?”

  “Roxanne. A friend of yours, she told me.” I sat up straighter in my chair. My back hurt from being curled up for the past two hours, and I stretched my arms to untangle my muscles.

  “She is. Good company.” Wyatt sat down on the recliner in front of the couch. “Aren’t you scared in the library on your own? What with Elise’s murder, I mean. A lot of other students are afraid to go out on their own anymore, especially this late.”

  I wrapped my arms around myself. “It’s terrible, what happened, but if police haven’t upped security, then I don’t see why we should be afraid. I mean… Most murders happen because someone is angry at you, or hurt, or wants to hurt you in particular.” Except maybe for Mannix, who would probably hurt people just for the fun of it. “There’s no reason to think whoever hurt Elise would hurt anyone else.”

  “I guess not,” Wyatt said. “Still, I used to be completely comfortable when I locked up the library for the night or when I checked the hallways to make sure everyone was sticking to the curfew. Now, not so much. In fact, not at all. I’m terrified just walking to my room alone at night.”

  I looked at him sadly. “It’ll pass. A few months from now, things will be back to normal, and you won’t be afraid anymore. Statistically speaking, you shouldn’t be afraid at all, but I can understand that you might be.”

  “Maybe it’s different for you,” Wyatt said as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “You’re a predator species. Otters… Well, we’re mostly prey. If something larger than a house cat jumps out at me, I’m toast.”

  “Elise was a leopard, and she was still toast,” I reminded him. “Besides, I don’t think strength is as important as brains. Outwit your enemy, and you have a lot more chance of survival.”

  Wyatt grunted. “Easy for you to say. You have both.”

  I didn’t really know what to say to that, considering in the strength department, he could probably outmatch me. Well, not outmatch—even as a human, I was strong—but since I couldn’t shift, I would never be able to unleash the full strength that came from being a jaguar.

  “Anyway, we shouldn’t talk about this, not this late at night. We’ll have nightmares. And shouldn’t you make me stick to curfew or something? It’s almost ten o’clock.”

  “True.” Wyatt’s trademark smile was back again, replacing his gloomier outlook. “Bedtime, I’m afraid. I can escort you to your room, if you want.”

  “Are you even allowed in my hallway this time of the night? I thought it was strictly girls-only after nine or something.” I repeated what he’d told Indra and me yesterday.

  “I’m a prefect, so the rules don’t apply to me.”

  “Ah.” I waved my finger left and right. “Yesterday, you said there were no additional perks from being a prefect. Now, you’ve proven yourself wrong.”

  Wyatt blinked a few times and smiled, seemingly surprised by my joke. “Seems like I have.”

  I was amazed at how easy it was to joke with Wyatt, as opposed to with other people. Even my jaguar seemed pleasantly surprised. She purred in amusement.

  We walked out of the library. Wyatt checked to make sure there were no other students still left inside and then closed the door behind us.

  “Do you do this every night?” I asked.

  “Yep. I’m the only one with the keys. Well, and a few teachers, but I’m the only student, I mean.” He patted the set of keys dangling from his belt.

  I pursed my lips. “Wyatt…I heard that you were the last one who saw that girl alive. Elise. In the library. Is it true?”

  He didn’t respond right away, so I added, “That must be so hard for you.” My tone was surprisingly fragile. Although I was prying a little, I also meant what I said. To know you were the last person to see someone else alive, to know that if you’d made another move, you might’ve been able to prevent them being killed.

  I knew that burden, since I carried it, too, and it was the most horrible feeling in the world, to be so overcome by guilt you could barely function.

  My jaguar whined in agreement and gave me a mental picture of hugging Wyatt. While my jaguar was all for personal and close contact, I wasn’t, so I settled for putting my hand on his shoulder in support.

  “I was,” Wyatt said eventually. I felt guilty because his good mood seemed to have evaporated in a matter of seconds. “She was here on Monday night, in the library, working on her paper. She wanted to change a few things. She’d asked me to read it, and I’d given her notes, which she was working on.”

  “She didn’t mention that she wanted to pull the paper? Because Roxanne told me that she’d planned on doing that.”

  “She did, but her sister was talking her out of it. Elise asked me for advice, and I told her that, like in her conclusions, I feared stirring up the unrest between the clans now would be disastrous. With no clan standing head and shoulders above the others in terms of strength, it would only lead to a full-out clan war.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if she wanted to pull the paper or not, or if she would go through with her plan to present it to the other clan leaders during the Gathering of Clans, but she was seriously considering it.”

  Wyatt took a deep breath. His shoulders seemed to carry the weight of the world. “She was a sweet person. A little too elitist in her beliefs, maybe a little too old-fashioned too, but she was kind and gentle and very smart. She didn’t deserve what happened to her. The last thing we did was argue. Well, not a real argument, more of a discussion.” He sounded genuinely sad.

  I knew I should stick to the facts not the feelings, but my feelings told me that Wyatt had nothing to do with Elise’s murder. My jaguar agreed with that, nodding approvingly.

  Still, feelings weren’t facts, and I couldn’t trust them because they’d led me astray in the past. I felt bad for hurting him like this. A minute ago, he’d been happy, smiling, and now his sadness had returned because of me asking him questions. And although my gut feeling told me Wyatt was innocent, logic said he could still be guilty, and I had to ask these questions because Elise Felton deserved to have her murderer punished.

  Wyatt locked up the doors. As he did, I heard footsteps shuffling from inside the library.

  I stared at Wyatt, but he was struggling with the lock and showed no indication of having heard.

  Pressing my ear to the heavy wooden doors, I listened again. I was right. Footsteps echoed from the closed-off library.

  “Someone is still in there,” I said. “I can hear them walking.”

  “What?” Wyatt frowned. “I didn’t see anyone when I checked.”

  “Well, there’s definitely someone in
there now.” My pulse raced and my breath quickened, adrenaline kicking in.

  With a sigh, Wyatt unlocked the doors again. Poking his head inside tentatively, he called out, “Hello? The library is closing. Please come to the doors.”

  No response came, but I heard someone running off in the distance, away from us.

  “They’re running away.” I moved past Wyatt, back into the now-darkened library. With the lights off and moonlight as our only guide, my enhanced night vision—courtesy of my jaguar bloodline—still allowed me to see, but Wyatt probably couldn’t make out a lot. He stared left and right, blinking to let his eyes get used to the darkness.

  By the time he found the light switch and turned the lights back on, I had sprinted farther into the library, in the direction of the fading footsteps. Excitement and determination took hold of me, pushing my fear at the thought of potentially coming face to face with Elise’s killer to the back of my mind. The sound of my own overwhelmed the other steps I had heard. My blood pumped, adrenaline raced through my veins, and my heart pounded in my chest.

  My jaguar roared, excited by the chase, the hunt, stalking down prey and—

  Shut it down, shut it down, the logical part of myself warned me. I couldn’t afford to let my jaguar out, couldn’t afford to have my feelings run away with me. If I did, then what happened to Amaranth could be happening to Wyatt this time…

  I shut my jaguar back behind its locked door, slowing down my pace just a little as I reached the spot where I’d been sitting earlier. The sound had vanished, though.

  “They went deep into the library, to the end of it,” I told Wyatt as he caught up with me. “I don’t hear them anymore now, though. Is there another exit on the other side?”

  “No.” Wyatt panted, completely out of breath. “At least not that I know of.”

  “Well, people don’t just disappear. Let’s search the place.”