Changeling Hunter

by Frank Hurt

  She walked across the muddy road in the direction the ghost had gone. Ember couldn’t see the faint, transparent spirit in the bright sun. She heard its wailing, though. It was coming from near Mel’s minivan.

  “Where are you going?” Jackie called out as Ember trudged past. “Dang it, you’re a mess! You are not getting back in my car with all that mud. What were you doing, rolling around in—”

  Ember turned and faced Jackie. She placed her index finger, clad in dangling blue latex, against the woman’s lips. “Shh! I’m trying to listen.” When she withdrew her hand, Jackie’s lips were painted with a vertical line of slimy mud that extended from her nose to her chin.

  Jackie sputtered, eyes wide, as Ember continued walking to the south ditch.

  Her shoes squished as she walked, forcing mucky water out of her saturated socks with each step. The shovel was heavy in her slippery hands, but she held it away from the gravel road, lest the noise impede her hearing.

  “Oh Brandon, what did he do to you!” The ghost’s wails made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

  She found the coyote at the opening of a dented, rusty steel drainage culvert. The pipe was buried within the approach that Mel’s minivan was parked on.

  Ember crouched low, her back to the living. She whispered, “Who’s Brandon? What’s wrong?”

  Through the spirit’s transparent form, water trickled past a blockage. A bloated mass of red-and-white fur dangled limply, half-in, half-out of the culvert.

  The ghost-coyote cried. “He was my best friend. The bastard killed him. Killed us. You’ve got to catch the guy who did this.”

  “I’m so sorry that you and your friend were killed,” Ember whispered. “But you were shifted into your animal forms. It’s not easy to hear this, I‘m sure, but there’s nothing I can do. It’s not illegal for someone to kill wild animals, and that’s what your killer thought you were.”

  The coyote looked up, its face pinched with anguish. “You don’t understand. He shot at us while we were in human form, in our garden at home. We tried to escape. He saw us shift. The guy knew we weren’t wild animals. He knew we were changelings. He hunted us down and murdered us anyway.”

  10

  Why am I so Fat?

  “What do you mean, the killer knew you were changelings?” Ember spoke sotto voce. “How can you be sure?”

  “Because he was watching us when we shifted,” the coyote looked down at the bloated red-and-fur blockage within the culvert. “We were trying to get away, and he chased us. He shot us when we were in human form, then he watched us shift and shot us again as animals. You gotta believe me.”

  “I do,” Ember whispered. “I’ll need proof, though. Where was the man positioned when he killed your friend?”

  The coyote looked up at Ember, then toward the sunflower field. “He followed us out of the field. Over here.” The ghost-coyote glided effortlessly through the ditch and up the slope into the muddy field.

  Ember followed with much more effort, stepping over the long, narrow pond of sludge that pooled at the base of the ditch. Her shoes were ruined, but she hardly noticed.

  “What in the world is she doing?” Jackie stared from the road. She looked at Mel and shook her head.

  “I’m just…um…following tracks,” Ember lied. “Just give me a minute.”

  The ghost-coyote stood at the edge of the sunflower field, listening. “They can’t see me, but you can?”

  “Correct,” she mumbled. “It’s complicated.”

  “How can you see me, and I can see you but…I can’t see Brandon? His…ghost, I mean?”

  “I haven’t awakened him yet.” Ember slipped in the wet weeds, landing on her knees. “Oof! I’ll wake him soon, so I can ask him questions, too.”

  “Wake him? From what? Where is he now?”

  “I call it ‘awake’ but that’s just my term for it. It’s how I call on your ghost from…I don’t know, the spirit world I suppose.” Ember knelt beside the coyote and picked at the weeds with her fingers, looking for something shiny. “I don’t understand it all myself. Not completely. Are you sure this is where your killer was when he shot Brandon?”

  The ghost-coyote soundlessly walked a circle around her. “It is. You’re looking for a shell or something?”

  “I am, yes. You said he shot you with a rifle. There should be a spent cartridge somewhere.”

  “It’s a yard to your left. It’s covered in mud.”

  “You can see it? Even though it’s buried?” Ember stepped over to the spot and began poking the soft soil with her fingertips until she found it. She wiped the brass case clean and held it up. There was writing on the headstamp, but she couldn’t make it out. She made a mental note of where she found it, then looked back at the culvert and the body lying within. It couldn’t have been more than twenty feet—probably an easy shot with a rifle at a stationary target. Well, an easy shot for someone with better marksmanship than I have.

  “What is it, Wright?” Jackie sounded irritated. “What are you looking at?”

  “I found a rifle cartridge,” Ember called back. “And another body. In the culvert over there.”

  Jackie and Mel met Ember at the rusted drain pipe. Jackie folded her arms and frowned. “What was it?”

  “That’s a good question. I tell you what, can you go load up the other body, and I’ll dig this one out?”

  “I am not dressed for this,” the other Investigator complained.

  “And I am?” Ember looked up at Jackie and pointed at the dirty water coming from the pipe. “Hey, if you want to come down here and dig this one out of the pipe, be my guest. It’s bloated and wet.”

  “Dang it! Fine. But I’m taking the shovel. You can use your hands.” Jackie stamped her foot once on the gravel surface in protest before walking away. She continued grumbling, “Heywood better reimburse having my car detailed after we get back, or I’ll bitch to the Viceroy. Don’t think I won’t.”

  Mel offered to help Jackie, and the two redheads left Ember alone in the south ditch. Alone, except for the ghost-coyote and the bloated corpse.

  Ember crawled on top of the culvert and leaned over the edge, straddling her legs around the corrugated steel so she wouldn’t slip into the ditch water. She plunged both hands into the cold run-off, found a grip on the wet fur, and lifted. Please don’t fall apart, Brandon.

  She silently chastised herself for having such a macabre thought but was nevertheless grateful that the small animal—heavy as it was to pick up from that angle—was still intact and in one piece. She hefted the body onto the approach, laying it down next to Mel’s muddy minivan. Ember didn’t see the other two women, so she leaned over the bloated red-and-white fur and said, “Brandon, awake. Speak with us.”

  Ember shivered though the sun was high in the sky. The transparent blue form of a fox stepped up from the corpse and looked around.

  The coyote spirit ran a circle around the fox and touched its nose to the other ghost. “Brandon!”

  The fox stared in silence for a few seconds with its ears pointed forward. “Evan? What’s going on?”

  The coyote pointed its nose at Brandon’s body. “You died. We both did. That guy that was shooting at us, he shot you in the head, then he got me.”

  Evan noticed his body for the first time. “That’s…that’s me? Why am I so fat?”

  “Your body is bloated. It was wedged in this drain here,” Ember explained. “I dug you out.”

  The ghost-fox stepped back. “Who is she? She doesn’t look like us.”

  “That’s Ember,” Evan said. “She’s some sort of Sixth Sense chick. She woke up our ghosts or something. She’s gonna help us find the fucker who killed us.”

  “Oh, that makes me Bruce Willis then, right?” Brandon sauntered over to Ember, his nose twitching. “I can’t smell you, Ember. We can see each other though, and hear each other?”

  “Correct. Nobody else will be able to see you, but you will see them, for as long
as you’re awake.”

  “How long will that be?” Evan asked.

  “Until I release you.” Ember pulled the cartridge from her pocket and rolled it in her hand. “I won’t keep you here any longer than necessary. Once your killer has been caught, you can rest.”

  “I don’t feel tired,” Brandon said. “Matter of fact, I don’t feel anything at all. No pain, nothing.”

  “I feel something,” Evan’s hackles stood like a razorback. “I feel angry. Angry that some stranger killed us. Angry that he took us from the life we were building.” The coyote looked at Ember with vacant eyes. “You’re going to get him though, right?”

  “I will. I’ll not stop until I find the man who killed you, and see that he’s punished, I can promise you that. Tell me everything, please. It sounds like you didn’t know your killer? Do you have any enemies?”

  “I never saw his face. He was wearing full camo from head to toe, carrying a black rifle, and he just started shooting at us when we were in our backyard. We ran through the sunflower field to here. We were both shot and couldn’t run away, so I shifted so I could hide in the culvert. We don’t have any enemies, do we, Evan?” Brandon looked to the coyote, who shook his head. “We were working in our garden at home. It’s the house you see to the south across this field. We were getting ready to go on vacation, to Beulah Bay.”

  “Beulah Bay?” Ember dipped the rifle cartridge into the water flowing from the culvert, swishing and rubbing the mud from the brass.

  “It’s a recreation area on the shore of Lake Sakakawea,” Evan explained. “We have a cabin there. We both work at the Falkirk Mine. I’m a dragline operator, he’s a bookkeeper. We timed our vacation days so we could go fishing. It was going to be a nice trip.”

  “It would’ve been,” Brandon agreed. “I just don’t understand why someone would want to kill us. We never pissed anyone off—surely not to go all psycho on our asses. Wait, what day is it? How long have we been dead?”

  “It’s July 22, 2010.” Ember shrugged. “As to how many days—”

  “Twelve. We were working our salsa garden on the ninth.” Evan looked at the house to the south. “Our poor tomato plants. They’ll all be wilted by now.”

  The fox huffed. “Our tomato plants, Evan? Really? What about our parents? They wouldn’t even know we’re missing, much less dead.”

  “I will tell them,” Ember said soberly. “What are your last names? I’ll pull your files from the embassy database.”

  Both ghosts looked at one another with some confusion. Evan was the one to answer. “He’s Brandon Albret. And I’m Evan…Davies. Why is it I remember his name so easily but not my own?”

  “Each spirit remembers people and events differently as they coalesce.” Ember tried to focus on the coyote’s transparent face in the bright sunlight. “Usually starting with things that were most important to them.”

  Jackie called out, “Wright, did you get yours yet? We finally got ours. You’d think he could have had the decency to die somewhere more accessible. I think I’ve ruined my manicure.”

  Ember winced. She whispered to the ghosts, “I apologize for my colleague. I’m working on her sensitivity.”

  Brandon floated over to Jackie’s metallic red car. The ghost-fox lifted his hind leg as though he was urinating on the tire. “This is what I think of her sensitivity.”

  Mel helped Ember place Brandon’s body into a garbage bag. It was loaded in the trunk of the Chevy, next to the larger bag containing his friend’s body. Ember patted the bags somewhat reverently as the other two ladies watched.

  Ember handed the brass cartridge over to Jackie. She had to make her assessment sound convincing, so she had to be realistically imprecise. It was a skill she picked up while working cases with Wallace to help cover the fact that she could talk to the dead; they always had to work their way back using the victim’s testimony to find tangible evidence. “This was from the rifle that shot them. They were killed about ten to fourteen days ago, probably by the same man. The body I pulled from the culvert had been shot in the head at short range. I noticed that the coyote had been shot in the head, too. They were both killed, execution style.”

  “How could you know this,” Jackie squinted at Ember. She held up the brass cylinder in her now dirty opalescent fingernails. “The numbers on the primer look like ‘5.56x45mm’. That’s a common varmint hunting caliber. Even if these two were shot, they were probably just killed by a farmer or some kids. They were in animal form, hanging out on the road. Somebody drives up, sees a coyote and a fox, so they pull out their gun and start shooting.”

  “That would be a reasonable guess,” Ember admitted. “Except that there are tracks through the field. Three men—human tracks. These two were in human form, pursued by the killer through that field.” She turned and faced the south. “I’m betting the conflict originated at that house. We should go check it out.”

  “Dang, you found tracks in the field? After two weeks and rain to mess them up?” Jackie looked at the sunflower field and then back at Ember. “How is that even possible?”

  Bloody hell. Ember acted nonchalantly. “I trained with Wallace Livingston and served as his partner for a dozen years. There’s no better tracker than The Legend. Of course, you are welcome to go down there and verify what I’m saying. It’s muddy and the mosquitoes will carry you away, but if you don’t trust what I’m saying—”

  “No, that’s fine,” Jackie snarled as she swatted at her arm. “I’ve already donated enough blood to them today, dang it.”

  Mel had been standing nearby. She looked pallid. “Are you saying there’s a murderer in my neighborhood? Someone who knows about us changelings?”

  “We don’t know anything,” Jackie said. “Nothing for sure. It’s just a theory. Just relax, I’m sure you’re safe.”

  “But how do you know that? How do you know this guy isn’t going to come after me and my kids next?” Mel’s eyes darted from Jackie to Ember.

  “My colleague is right,” Ember held up a muddy hand, trying to calm Mel. The woman’s aura had become wild with nervous tension. “This is just my theory. A working theory. There’s absolutely no reason to think that you are in any danger here.”

  “But there’s a chance, right?” Mel’s green eyes were wide. “Someone might be hunting changelings?”

  Jackie shot a glare at Ember. “Wright is just a rookie. She’s speaking out of her ass. There’s nothing to get panicked about, Ms. O’Connor. Now, I’ve got your information and I’ll call you if I need anything further. Thank you for your assistance today.”

  Mel licked her lips nervously. “You’ll call me if you find out anything? Anything I should be worried about, right?”

  “That’s right, I will. Please drive safely now, okay?” Jackie all but shooed the petite woman back to her minivan.

  When Mel was gone, Jackie scowled at Ember. “What was that all about, Wright? Getting that lady all worked up with your harebrained theory on such flimsy evidence. Do you realize what a panic this could cause if she starts spreading rumors? People talk in small towns.”

  Ember stiffened and prepared a defense. Instead, she tried another tack. “You know what, you’re right, Jackie. I was wrong to share my findings with a civilian present. I feel confident that there’s something more going on here, but it’s not proven. It was unprofessional of me to say that in front of her. I apologize.”

  The wind was taken from Jackie’s sails. She grumbled, “we’d might as well go check out that house.”

  11

  Don’t Be a Hater

  The house was a midsized split level with an attached two-stall garage. A faux rock façade adorned the lower three feet of the exterior walls, above which was clad manufactured wood siding, painted mint green with eggshell trim around the windows and doors. A cedar-stained deck wrapped around the house, where wind chimes hung from the eaves. The house was constructed near the center of a ten-acre parcel with young hardwood and pine trees planted t
hroughout. The nearest neighbor had to be over a mile away.

  “The mailbox is overflowing,” Ember noted while Jackie parked Cali in the driveway. She pulled the stack of mail out of the box and read the labels on a magazine and a bill. “The oldest cancellation date is from two weeks ago. This one is addressed to Evan Davies. The other is to Brandon Albret. We’ll check these names against our database back at the office, but I’ll bet you that these are our victims.”

  “Okay, I’ll take that bet. Loser buys lunch. You sound pretty confident, Wright.”

  Ember shrugged, “just my Investigator’s Instinct, that’s all.”

  Nobody answered when Jackie rapped her knuckles against the front door. Since it was unlocked, she invited herself in. She called out repeatedly, “hello, is anybody home?”

  “The door is unlocked, even though the mailbox clearly shows that the residents are away.” Ember stepped past the threshold behind Jackie.

  “That doesn’t mean anything; almost nobody locks their doors in North Dakota, especially out in the country like this.”

  “Aren’t people worried about someone breaking in? Stealing their belongings?”

  Jackie shook her scarlet mane and chuckled. “If you’re still here come winter, you’ll see folks leave their cars running and unlocked when they run into the post office or bank. Less now than it used to be when I was a kid, but it’s not uncommon.”

  Ember felt the air get suddenly colder, just a few seconds before she heard Evan’s voice. All the same, she was a little surprised to see the ghost-coyote in the living room. Evan said, “you won’t find anything in here. The guy shot at us outside, in the backyard.”

  “He was standing on our back deck when he took the first shot, wasn’t he?” Brandon added. The ghostly fox glided through the wall behind Ember. “The bastard interrupted a good song, too. We were listening on our phones.”

  “It wasn’t that good of a song,” Evan added.

  Brandon cocked his head at the coyote. “Don’t be a hater, Evan.”