A Study In Shifters

by Majanka Verstraete

  “Elise Felton and Aria Forbes, Best Friends for Life,” Indra said out loud.

  “I don’t think we can ignore the facts any longer.” I looked straight into my supervisor’s eyes. “Right now, Aria Forbes is our most likely candidate for the murder. And if that list from the Conclave confirms what I suspect—that this school has no other snake shifters in it besides Aria—then I’m willing to bet she killed her best friend.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  After spending four hours holed up in halfway interesting classes, Indra and I finally headed over to lunch, where I was greeted just as icily as I had been the other day. Indra had received the list with shifters from the Conclave, and we were browsing through it, trying to be as discreet as possible.

  She had the list open on her laptop, and we sat with our backs against the wall, so no one else could read it.

  Most of the students were the common types of shifters: owls, weasels, squirrels—the not-so-lethal types of shifters. Roxanne was the only fox shifter. Reyna was the only leopard shifter left, now that her sister had passed away. There was one other otter besides Wyatt. The school only had a handful of other predator shifters left: two bear shifters, three wolves, four hyenas, five coyotes and a mountain lion.

  Most notably, however, was that the school only had one snake shifter—besides Indra.

  Aria Forbes.

  “It’s her,” I said as I leaned back in my seat, relief flooding over me. “She grabbed the bracelet. Snake venom on the claws, and her being the only snake here makes her the only one who can easily obtain snake venom. It also explains why Elise didn’t move to defend herself—Aria could’ve hypnotized her. Since Aria was her friend, Elise would’ve trusted her and not been alarmed to meet her outside the school, even in such a deserted place. Aria has a political agenda: she hates half-bloods, she hates the jaguar clan, so why not blame a jaguar for her best friend’s death? Two flies, one stone.”

  “Hmm.” Indra crossed her arms. “I think you might be on to something. We need more proof, though, before we can openly accuse her. In any case, I don’t want us to send this conclusion to the Conclave before we hear back from Morant in regard to whether or not the venom in Elise Felton’s wounds is snake venom.”

  I nodded. I agreed with Indra that we’d better wait until we were absolutely positive. “Does the list specify what kind of snake Aria is?” I asked.

  Indra scrolled back up to Aria Forbes’ records that we’d received from the Conclave. She clicked on Aria’s name, which opened up the tab with her details. Reptile, Snake shifter, it said on top. Then, under it stood her shifter genus.

  Calliophis.

  And underneath that, the species name.

  Calliophis bivirgata.

  The hint I’d received yesterday from Mannix… The clue had been absolutely correct. And if I believed the clue, then it proved Aria Forbes was the murderer.

  But could I trust Mannix? After everything that had happened, all my instincts told me I couldn’t. That I shouldn’t trust him, ever again.

  My jaguar growled, agreeing with me. Trusting Mannix was the last thing I could ever do. If the clue came from him, then he might even be pointing me in the wrong direction on purpose.

  The clue might be a hoax, though, but the evidence wasn’t, and all the evidence right now was pointing straight toward Aria Forbes.

  I exhaled slowly, feeling myself getting exhilarated. I always felt like this when a case was coming to a close, as all the individual clues started to pull together and pointed in one direction, to one solution.

  “Let’s do a Google search to find out more about our Calliophis-whatever friend,” Indra suggested. “Unless you happen to be an expert on snake species.”

  “I’ve always been intrigued by their venom, but an expert I am not,” I said.

  “Google, it is.” Indra typed in the Latin name, and a bunch of links popped up. We browsed through a few websites until we found one that seemed interesting.

  “Calliophis bivirgata or blue cobalt snake. They’re originally from South East Asia, and they have an extremely powerful venom.” I summarized the sentences as I read through them. “The venom causes all of the victim’s nerves to fire at once, instantly triggering full-body spasms, paralysis, and a quick, horrifying death.”

  I gulped. Horrifying. That certainly didn’t sound good.

  “That coincides with what happened to Elise,” I said. “Once stabbed with the venomous claws, she spasmed for a few seconds, but was otherwise paralyzed. She couldn’t even throw up her arms to protect herself anymore. She just collapsed to the ground, dead.”

  “That’s one potent venom.” Indra whistled between her teeth. “Their prey freezes instantly with muscle spasms. The venom uses a new type of toxin: calliotoxin.” She traced her finger over the sentence she was reading.

  “Calliotoxin attacks the prey’s sodium channels, the pathways that turn nerves on and off. God, that sounds terrible.”

  “They like to hunt other snakes, too,” Indra pointed out. “The article even called them…the killer of killers.” She gasped. “I don’t like snakes who like hunting other snakes.”

  “Call Morant. See if she has an update. If Aria is behind it, then she’s dangerous. A lot more dangerous than I gave her credit for.” I’d been so cocky toward her when she threatened me—twice even—saying I’d beat her easily, but if she bit me or scratched me with that venom…

  Then I’d be dead in seconds. Just like Elise.

  “I will. Give me one minute. I’ll head to the bathroom, make sure I’m alone.” Indra got up, leaving her lunch half-eaten.

  I stared at the screen and wondered why Aria had turned on her friend. We were all predators—if I could shift, I could easily turn into a jaguar and bite through someone’s skull. Indra was a cobra, and she, too, had a toxic venom, although perhaps not as toxic as Aria’s. But we grew up abiding to rules, to moral codes. You don’t kill was one of them, and perhaps the most important one.

  So, why had Aria killed Elise?

  As I pondered that question, someone shoved a chair back and sat down next to me. Wyatt. One of the few of us who was not a predator.

  “Oh, hey,” I said. “Sorry, I was lost in thought.”

  “That’s okay. Hey to you, too.” Wyatt smiled at me. “Doing research on snakes?”

  “Yeah, Indra being one, she wanted to find out more about her species.” I tried to put the screen of the laptop down.

  “I didn’t think she was one of those.” Wyatt glanced at the picture of the blue cobalt before I could close the screen completely.

  “She’s not. She’s a cobra. She just likes to research other species.” I shrugged, embarrassed at the lie. Somehow, lying to Wyatt felt wrong. He was a good guy, and he didn’t deserve to be lied to, especially since he’d confided in me already.

  “I see.” Wyatt had brought spaghetti over for lunch, but he didn’t touch his food. “So, you’re researching the very same species you heard about in that cryptic note yesterday?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I opened my mouth, tried to speak, couldn’t, and closed it again. “I…”

  “I looked it up, you know, calliophis bivirgata. I even printed out a few pages about it, in case you needed it.” He started randomly stabbing his spaghetti. “What I don’t know, however, is why someone would go through such lengths of letting you know the name of a snake species. Why all the secrecy? The hidden messages? The codes?”

  “I…” I still didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know, either.”

  “What does it matter? The blue cobalt snake, extremely deadly, sure, but what does it have to do with anything? And ‘let’s play’?”

  “I don’t know, Wyatt.” I looked him straight in the eye, trying to appear as honest and open as possible. “I swear I don’t.”

  “Then, at least tell me this. Is it meant as a threat? Is it a game?” He put his hand on my arm. “Are you being threatened?”

  “I�
�m…” I hadn’t really thought about this yet until he asked me the question. Was I being threatened? Did Mannix mean to harm me?

  Despite all his flaws, I had never thought him capable of harming me, but in retrospect, that was probably naive of me. If he had been able to hurt my cousin, an innocent fourteen-year-old girl, then what was stopping him from harming me? Because he had feelings for me, at some point? I didn’t even know if he’d felt anything real or not. He could’ve faked those feelings, could’ve hidden his real feelings as easily as he did his real self.

  Or maybe I just didn’t want to think him capable of doing that. Maybe I was still as naïve as Roan had once made me out to be.

  I swallowed hard before I replied, “No, I don’t think so. But can I ask you something? And this would help toward me not feeling threatened, in any case.”

  “What?” Wyatt asked, sounding a little less friendly than usual. I wondered if he figured out I was keeping things from him, and was upset about it.

  The thought of upsetting Wyatt didn’t sit well with my jaguar, who snarled at me. For some reason, she was very fond of this otter shifter.

  “Are the doors to the school locked at night? I went out for a run early this morning, and the doors were open. I was wondering if they’re open all night.”

  “No.” Wyatt’s gaze softened. “The concierge locks them at ten thirty, eleven, every evening, and unlocks them for the cleaning ladies and groundskeep personnel at five thirty every morning.” He softly pinched my arm. “Marisol, if you’re being threatened by someone, then tell me about it. I can help. You don’t have to go through it on your own.”

  Once again, I was lost for words. Wyatt was such a genuinely nice person. He deserved the truth, but I couldn’t give it to him, and it hurt me a lot—more than I thought it would. Telling him went against Conclave rules, however. They’d specified that we couldn’t inform anyone of our real purpose here. And besides, no matter how much I liked Wyatt, he still could be involved in Elise’s murder somehow. I knew better than to trust anyone who was still on my potential-suspect list. “I…”

  Indra appeared back in the cafeteria, her eyes the size of flying saucers. She looked as pale as if she’d just seen Elise Felton’s ghost. Half-stumbling, half-running, she raced toward my table. Meanwhile, almost on autopilot, I shoved my seat back and got up.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Indra looked from me to Wyatt and back to me. “We have to go,” she said to me. “Now.”

  I didn’t need her to tell me twice. Grabbing my coat, I moved from behind the table. “Talk to you later, Wyatt, all right?”

  Before he could reply, I turned toward Indra and let her guide me out of the lunchroom… and right into disaster.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “What is it? What did Morant say?” I asked Indra when we were out of earshot. Indra was guiding me upstairs to the first floor.

  A uniformed police officer stood in the hallway, looking grim and stern. Another one flanked the door on the other side.

  “What’s going on?” I was growing worried now, panic spreading through me like wildfire.

  “Morant said it’s venom. She has the lab results back already; a potent snake venom. She’s emailing over the details, but when I said blue cobalt snake, calliotoxin, she said that sounded about right.”

  “So, it’s definitely Aria.” I breathed a sigh of relief. We had her. We’d caught the killer.

  “No,” Indra said, to my surprise. “Whoever it is, it’s definitely not Aria.”

  I arched my eyebrow, and before I could ask her why, she pushed open the doors of the library, revealing to me exactly why Aria Forbes couldn’t be the killer.

  Aria Forbes was dead.

  Utterly and completely dead, her chest torn open in the same way Elise Felton’s had been. She lay on the library floor, with minimal blood around her, her arms and legs slightly bent next to her. As if in one moment, she’d just collapsed.

  Her dead eyes stared right at me. For a second, it was Amaranth lying there, not Aria, and her dead corpse seemed to blame me: You’ve failed, Holmes, you’ve failed again, those dead lips said.

  Then, the image vanished, and Aria Forbes was lying there, deadly still, instead of my cousin.

  “This doesn’t make sense.” My voice sounded shaky, quivering. I wanted to push the memories of Amaranth back into my mind palace, but it didn’t work, not completely—that door wouldn’t lock. My jaguar panicked, pacing around, her worries about me becoming more and more obvious.

  “How can she be dead?” I blinked at Indra. “She’s our killer. This can’t be possible.”

  “And yet you always tell me that although it can’t be possible, if it’s a fact, then it is possible after all,” Indra said. “Possible or not, fact is Aria Forbes is dead. And by the looks of it, killed with her own venom, no less. Now, you go investigate the body. Don’t touch it unless you want the wrath of Morant on your back. Anyway, we have some time since the police are cooperating with us—I spoke to their superior, who is in the know about the Conclave—but if we want our operation here to stay undercover, then we have to hurry. So, do your thing, just ramp up your speed.”

  She patted me on the back and walked back to the door, conversing with one of the police officers. It wasn’t uncommon for the police to cooperate with the Conclave. While most regular officers weren’t told more information than that they needed to cooperate with us, we had shifters all over the globe who had infiltrated law enforcement, and there was always a Conclave member in a senior position who could give orders from on top.

  “Who found her?” I called out after Indra.

  “Reyna Felton. She’s gone to the infirmary. She’s in shock. We can talk to her later,” Indra promised.

  “Okay.” I looked back at the lifeless body of Aria Forbes.

  I felt guilty for thinking she was the murderer. Everything regarding the murder of Elise Felton had pointed in Aria’s direction, the venom most notably. Yet, if she had killed Elise Felton, then she wouldn’t be lying dead on the library floor right now, stabbed by a claw which, by my first guess, was dabbed in her own venom.

  I paced around the body, looking at everything. No wrinkles in the clothing, so she wasn’t moved. Same claw marks, slashed from top to bottom, yet minimum blood spatter. The same acidic smell when I leaned over the wound and sniffed it as with the previous body.

  My jaguar recoiled at the smell, not very fond of anything chemical.

  No defensive marks. She must’ve died instantly, too.

  An identical murder, yet my sole suspect, the sole person in this entire school who could’ve been responsible, was now the victim.

  “How ironic. A snake died from her own poison,” Indra said as she appeared next to me.

  “Snakes aren’t immune to their own poison, contrary to popular belief,” I said while I looked at the body from a few different angles. “Venom is built up of proteins, which are built from amino acids. Snakes can eat prey they’ve injected with their own venom because the venom still in the prey goes into the digestive system, and there, the stomach acid and enzymes break down the protein. When it falls apart, it’s harmless. If Aria would’ve just swallowed the venom, she would’ve been fine… But to have it stabbed into her like that killed her instantly.”

  Indra slapped my back. “Stop being such a know-it-all. For the third time today, I’m a snake. I’m sure I know better than you do how my own digestive system works, thank you.”

  “Sorry. I’m just thinking out loud, forgetting that you actually have a brain, too. Nasty habit of mine,” I said as I bent my knees to get a closer look at Aria Forbes’ body.

  Her eyes were wide open, frozen in shock, and that instantly brought back the haunting image of Amaranth.

  Go into Sherlock Mode, go into Sherlock Mode. Finally, after a lot of struggling, I shoved the memory behind the doors in my mind palace and locked the door.

  As I inspected every inch of the crime scen
e, one thing about it was different than the original crime scene. Aria Forbes’ hands were balled into fists.

  I looked at the fists, the clenched fingers. On the left hand, nothing out of the ordinary popped out. On the other hand, she was wearing her friendship bracelet—identical to Elise Felton’s bracelet—and a small slip of white appeared from between her clenched fingers.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Indra had gone back to talking to the officer, who was making rapid gestures—I couldn’t read lips, but from his movements, I gathered he wanted us to leave as soon as we could.

  I pried open Aria Forbes’ fingers, so the white slip I’d noticed fell out. It was a piece of paper rolled into a scroll. I quickly unfolded it and read the message.

  Terrible vent et pluie

  - M

  Terrible wind and rain.

  Reading those words threatened my lunch, or whatever small amount of it I had managed to shove down, to come back up into my throat. Barfing on a corpse was the last thing I wanted to do, so I turned around, grabbed a garbage can, and threw up the contents of my stomach.

  “Marisol!” Indra rushed over to me. “Are you okay?”

  I balled my hands into fists, slipping the note in between so she couldn’t see.

  Once I finished vomiting, I put the bin back down and wiped my mouth with my sleeve. The officer approached us too, looking anything but pleased that someone had just thrown up right next to his crime scene.

  “You go to the bathroom. I’ll deal with this,” Indra said as she shot the officer an equally grim expression. “I’ll come find you.”

  She didn’t have to tell me twice. I rushed out of the library, away from the smell of fresh corpse and dark betrayal as fast as I could.

  Chapter Twenty-Five