by Frank Hurt
“Good dog. Now I’m going to unlock one wrist, and you’re going to remain perfectly calm. Capiche?”
Rik winced, nodding once. “Capiche.”
Marcus stepped behind the post and swung his carbine to the side. He knelt and released one wrist, pulled both around the post and secured the cuffs again. He found an old rag to wipe his hands free of Rik’s sticky blood. He then dragged the heavy logging chain over and wrapped his prey up nice and tight to match his brother.
“Okay, good. Now that you both know there’s no way out of here, we’re going to play a little game. It’s called, ‘Do Exactly As Marcus Says, Always.’ You probably won’t like this game much, but I promise you that if you choose not to play, it will be very uncomfortable.”
The Malvern stepped over to the wall and unslung his rifle. He picked up the electric cattle prod and walked up to Arnie. “Since you’re bleeding like a stuck hog, I think you’d better go first. I have a feeling you won’t be with us much longer, anyway.”
“Arnie, look at me. I’m gonna get you outta here,” Rik hissed. “It’s gonna be okay.”
“Bzzzt! Wrong! You don’t get to talk, Rikky!” Marcus touched the cattle prod to Rik’s neck and tapped the button. The electrodes crackled and flesh burned as the changeling screamed.
When Marcus pulled the prod away, Rik’s glazed-over eyes rolled shut and saliva dribbled down his chin. He sputtered and dropped his chin.
“I think you won’t do that again, hmm? Back to Player One.” Marcus swung the prod to the younger brother. “This first round is simple. All you have to do is shift.”
“I…I can’t shift,” Arnie squirmed within the wraps of heavy chain. “I can’t!”
“Can’t? Are you, or are you not one Arnold Schmitt?”
“I…I am. But—”
“According to your personnel record, you are a coyote changeling, right?”
“Yes, but I can’t shift.” Arnie’s face pinched with frustration. “If you read my file, you’d have seen that I’m…disabled.”
“I did read that,” Marcus admitted. “But I’m betting it’s all in your head, this whole resistance to shifting. I can’t say I blame you, really. If I was cursed to be born a changeling, I’d probably be in denial too. I might even convince myself that I can’t shift. Maybe…just maybe, you’re lacking proper motivation, huh?” He touched the twin electrodes to the man’s blood-soaked lap and pressed the button.
Arnie howled and screamed, thrashing in furious pain. The man emptied his bladder and bowels simultaneously.
“Leave him alone, goddammit!” Rik roared.
“No! No, Player Two, you’ll have to wait your turn!” Marcus spun around and tagged the older brother with the prod, giving him a good five seconds of current. He would have continued, but the changeling’s thrashing knocked the device out of his hand. When Marcus bent over to retrieve the prod, something fell out of his chest pocket and clattered on the broken concrete floor.
His fingers curled around the silver steel cigar cutter. “Ah, what a glorious idea, Rikky! I’ve been meaning to test my theory. Can a double-guillotine cigar cutter slice through a human finger? I’m betting it can. What say you?”
Rik’s head wobbled, foamy drool dripping down the man’s chin as he mumbled incoherently.
“What’s that? Player Two wants his turn? Let’s see, you’re right-handed, yes? Let’s start with your right pointer then.” Marcus knelt next to the man, uncurled a bloody finger and slid it through the center hole between the two razor blades. “Are you watching, Arnie? Pay attention like a good dog.”
Marcus wrapped his hands around the guillotine cigar cutter for maximum leverage. He leaned forward and spoke low. “Now Rikky, I’d say this won’t hurt, but that would be a lie.”
31
Hunting the Changeling Hunter
“You’re late.”
“Jackie and I ran late interviewing one of the leads for the case.”
“Good excuse,” Debra said. “But you’re still late. Get warmed up so we can get outta here before the storm hits.”
Ember dropped her gear bag on the floor, near the entrance to the dojo. She eyed the approaching tempest through a tall window on the south wall. The smoldering August day had transformed into premature dusk as a dark storm front blotted out the sun to the southwest. Lightning flickered in the distance, its rolling thunder too far away for her ears to detect. The still air smelled faintly of fresh rain, as though promising a reward to those who could withstand the coming violence.
“Loosen up. Especially your neck.” The athletic woman demonstrated by rolling her head from shoulder to shoulder. “We’re going to work on takedowns today.”
“We’re not even going to talk about it?” Ember mimicked the stretches. “Why you covered for me yesterday?”
Debra shrugged her shoulders, the gesture transitioning into another warmup exercise as she brought her arms up in a windmill. “It’s what friends do, right?”
“Not that I don’t appreciate it, but from the sound of things, you took a right proper ding to your record, Debra.”
“What can I say, Dennis is a dick. Rodger’s a bumbling idiot. And you, you’ve got bigger fish to catch.” Tempered bronze eyes watched as the security officer’s voice lowered. “You’re hunting the Changeling Hunter, after all. The way I see it, if you’ve got a reason to visit the Ley Line, it’s not my place to stop you. Nor theirs, either.”
“What about what you said about following orders?” Ember stretched her calves by planting a foot on the floor and pressing her hands against the cold brick wall. “Like you’d said, the chain is only as strong as the weakest link.”
The tall woman bent at the waist to touch her toes, her long, dark ponytail reaching for the floor in a show of solidarity. When she stood, Debra said, “Give me a break; you’re anything but a weak link. Everyone knows that you’ve been putting in ridiculous hours, late into the night. That’s why you had to reschedule this morning’s training session for after work, right?”
Ember canted her head, estimating that her noncommittal response would allow her to avoid lying to her friend. It had been a late night, certainly—but she had spent it at the graveyard in Surrey. The ghost of Barnaby Harrison was surprisingly talkative as he shared insights into the traditional structure of the Druw High Council. He spoke with reverence for the role of the Supreme Inquisitor, how to his knowledge there never was more than one alive at a time. Whenever the reigning Supreme Inquisitor reached the end of his life, another would evolve to take his place. To Barnaby’s thinking, this was evidence of a deeper mysticism at play. He referred to it as a divine right, somehow ordained by ancestral spirits of the ancient Druws.
Ember struggled to wrap her mind around such a concept. She supposed it was similar to how NonDruw people would struggle to understand the existence of mages and changelings.
Barnaby’s tone had changed as he talked, referring to her respectfully by name rather than in derogative terms, insinuating that she had a larger role to play in events and all but suggesting that she was potentially this era’s Supreme Inquisitor. Part of her was excited at the prospect of a greater destiny, of being uniquely important. Mostly, it terrified her. Ember wasn’t sure she wanted such responsibility. She sure as bloody hell knew she didn’t want to prioritize that role over her friends and family.
After the visit with Barnaby, when she finally got back to her apartment in the early morning hours, Ember had sent Debra a text message to cancel their morning training session. Her instructor insisted on rescheduling for after work. Lacking a plausible excuse, Ember agreed.
“Alright, we’d better get started. I can hear the wind picking up.” Debra glanced out the window. “I don’t want my car out in the open if we get hail with this storm.”
Debra instructed Ember on the finer points of using leverage, inertia, and an opponent’s center of gravity against them. She demonstrated by knocking Ember onto the padded floor mats several tim
es. Earlier lessons involved teaching the student how to fall properly, to minimize potential injury. It was a skill that was paying off, as Ember was felled yet again.
“What’re you doing? I know you could’ve blocked me with this last move.”
Ember rolled onto her knees. “My head just isn’t here today, Debra.”
“Yeah, I figured that out for myself. You’ve gotta get with it. Attackers won’t wait for you to be in the mood to fight.”
“I know,” the Investigator pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “It’s just that Jackie and I have followed up on potential leads, sifted through personnel files, ran every sort of database query we could find. Aside from the victims all being changelings, killed with the same caliber rifle while in their animal subform in a rural location, there isn’t anything suggesting an obvious pattern.” Ember stood, her hand rubbing the shoulder she had just landed on. “We don’t even know what the killer’s motivation is. What if he’s a regular human who somehow found out about changelings? For that matter, there could be more than one bloody killer.”
Debra shadow boxed, feinting a jab at Ember. “Being half predator myself, I’d think your guy is targeting coyotes.”
“Nice theory, but the first victim was a fox.”
“Yeah, but he was with a coyote, right? What if he was just collateral damage? An accident? What if the fox wasn’t the target at all, but just a witness that needed to be silenced?”
Ember deflected a punch with her forearm. “I shouldn’t really even be discussing this with you. An active case like this.”
“Then don’t discuss it.” Debra swung with her left fist. “We’re supposed to be training, anyway.”
Ember dodged the punch and brought up her own left hook. Debra was too quick; the tall woman used her superior speed and reach to dance aside. She landed a kick on Ember’s thigh.
The mage winced at the pain. She knew that Debra wasn’t delivering even half the power she was capable of. All the same, there would be bruises.
“You’re too slow! Get your head in here, woman.” Debra swung to the side and delivered another kick, this time to the other thigh. “Come on! I know you can block these.”
Ember held her fists up and pivoted, trying to avoid another kick. Her mind continued to wander. What if Debra’s right? By excluding that scenario—that Brandon Albret was merely in the wrong place, at the wrong time—are we blinding ourselves?
Debra pressed forward and slid her leg behind Ember. The move knocked the Malvern off balance, and she landed on her butt. Ember rolled onto her knees again, but this time Debra didn’t let her get up. The instructor grappled Ember, pulling her arm around Ember’s throat. As she started to close the chokehold, Debra coached. “Too slow! Show me how you’re gonna get outta this one. Remember what I told you, that you’ve got just seconds to break this hold, or it’s lights out. You only get one chance to stop me.”
Thoughts flashed through Ember’s mind in the span of a heartbeat. Only one chance. The whole Druwish population of the Magic City colony has been warned of the Changeling Hunter. The killer likely knows that we’re looking for him, too. That leaves the bastard one of two options: to go into hiding or to collect another victim quickly before we figure out who he’s targeting. We can’t try covering all fifteen hundred changelings, but we could take a chance and focus on the coyotes. There couldn’t be more than a few dozen of them.
Her palms slammed against the padded mat as she fought to keep Debra from pinning her to the floor. Her instructor’s arm closed in around her neck, sliding beneath her chin and locking up tightly. Ember’s vision blurred as an object swung beneath her chin. It was the pendant she wore around her neck—the hand-carved coyote face. The face looked so much like Rik’s subform.
Cold realization quickly grew into full panic. Coyote changelings. Rural locations. Rik and Arnie.
She couldn’t speak, and Debra had her in a tight rear-naked hold. Ember closed her eyes and imagined the sequence of a simple spell. She pictured her hands clapping together. She willed mana into the word “sleep” and sent it into the arm wrapped around her neck.
The viselike grip relaxed at once. Debra’s muscled body became limp, a dead weight that Ember easily rolled out from under. The Krav Maga instructor laid on her back and softly snored.
Ember wasted no time retrieving her cell phone from the gear bag. She dialed Alarik’s phone. It rang several times, then went to voicemail. She hissed into the phone, “Rik, it’s me. When you get this, call me back immediately. It’s urgent.”
She dialed Arnie’s phone number, with the same result. Ember chewed her lip and paced along the wall, watching the darkening sky through the window. The third number she called was Stephanie Schmitt’s.
“Oh hi, Ember. How’re things?”
“I’m trying to get ahold of Rik and Arnie. Have you talked to them?”
“I did this morning,” Stephanie said. “They went out on a job someplace. I expected they’d be back around noon, but they missed lunch and now it looks like they’re going to miss supper. They never even called. Arnie usually checks in, especially when he’s running late.”
Ember grabbed her gear bag and hurried to the exit. “I need you to tell me exactly where they went.”
32
Getting Violent
“Okay, I found it,” Stephanie breathed into the phone. “Arnie wrote it down so I could include the physical location on the invoice. It’s a few miles south of Berthold.”
“The reservation?” Ember hit a button on the key fob to unlock her rented Highlander. She tossed her gear bag onto the passenger seat and got in. The SUV’s push-button ignition responded when she pressed it.
“No, no. It’s a little town north of here—north of Plaza.”
“How do I get there?”
“Well if you’re in Minot, you’ll need to take Highway 2 west—”
“Brilliant. I’m in my hired car and I’m leaving now.” Ember held the Motorola to her ear as she maneuvered the rented Toyota onto Burdick Expressway.
“Wait, you’re going there now? Is something wrong?”
“I’m not sure. Probably not,” the Investigator admitted. “I’m operating on pure instinct here. I’ll need you to give me turn-by-turn directions, yeah?”
“You’re making me nervous, Ember.”
“Don’t be nervous. There’s a good chance I’m just overreacting—”
“But Arnie didn’t call, and now you’re saying you’re going to go find them—”
“Just a precaution, that’s all.”
“This isn’t about the Changeling Hunter, is it? Oh god, tell me it’s not—”
“Stephanie, listen to me.” Ember drove through a red stoplight, weaved around a delivery truck, then cruised faster than the signage advised. The Highlander hugged the asphalt, accepting what was demanded of it. “I need you to stay with me here. I need you to focus and give me streets to turn onto, roads I need to take. Just focus on this task and let me worry about the rest. Yeah?”
“All…alright. I can pull this up online, use a map to relay directions—”
“Brilliant. Do it.”
Ember pushed past the speed limit, passing vehicles on the divided highway as if they were standing still. The storm front met her about ten minutes into the drive, bringing with it gusts which tugged at her SUV like a giant magnet. She switched her flip phone to the Highlander’s hands-free mode so she could use both hands.
Stephanie’s voice wafted from the vehicle’s speakers. “We’ve got heavy rain here. I’m worried we’ll lose power.”
“Can you write down the street names, just in case?”
“Already am,” Stephanie’s voice crackled with static. “Oh, jeez, that lightning is getting violent!”
Raindrops splattered the Toyota’s windshield with growing insistence, to the point where the most aggressive setting on the wipers could barely keep up. Ember felt a hint of hydroplaning that almost sent her int
o the side of a semi-truck when she passed it. She slowed down, just a little.
It took just over fifteen minutes for Ember to reach the town of Berthold. She drove two miles past town before turning south onto County Road 9, as Stephanie instructed. She saw the railroad crossing through the sheets of rain just in time to bounce roughly over three pairs of rails. “Bloody hell, I’m glad there wasn’t a train!”
“What?” Stephanie’s voice crackled as lightning flashed overhead. “Ember, you’re breaking up.”
“I’m on the main road. Highway 9. How far do I need to go until my next turn?”
“You—”
“What? Hello?” Ember dared a glance at the phone to find the connection dropped. She cursed as she redialed the phone. She kept driving on the narrow, paved road, though the diminished visibility forced her to slow down further. Deep blue clouds blocked the evening sun, and sheets of rain arrived in pulsing waves. She committed her odometer’s reading to memory so she could track her progress.
With her third attempt at calling Stephanie, she finally got through. The woman’s voice was tense. “We’ve got hail here now. Big hail. I can’t believe our power hasn’t—”
“Stephanie, how far?” Ember hissed through clenched teeth. She leaned forward, her face above the dash as she caught intermittent glimpses of the road whenever the wipers swished past. “I can barely see through my windscreen. How far do I need to go before my next turn-off?”
The static-infused voice sputtered over the speakers. “Um…from the railroad crossing…it’s…three…three-and-a-half miles, I think? It’s…Avenue North...”
“Repeat the avenue, Stephanie. You’re breaking up.”
“Thirtieth Avenue Northwest.”
“Then where? Right or left?” The rain was hitting the roof of the Highlander so hard, it sounded like gravel.
