Changeling Hunter

by Frank Hurt

  “I’m…at my parent’s homestead. Near Berthold. He buried me in a field.”

  “You…you’re dead? He killed you?”

  “Yes.” The ghost’s voice was uncertain. “How can you hear me? Who…who are you?”

  “My name is Ember. I’m a Malvern. An Investigator.” Despite the goosebumps and the chilly air, she was sweating. “I am at Marcus’s house, north of Carpio. Can you focus on me? See if you can coalesce near my aura?”

  “I…coalesce?”

  “Just concentrate on my aura, on my presence. It’s just a hunch, but I think I managed to wake you up by touching your locket while saying your name.” Ember glanced down at the open brass locket in her hand. “I understand it’s…empty, where you are. Just focus on me. Use me as an anchor.”

  The ghost didn’t answer for some time. Ember thought she had lost the tenuous connection to this distant body. But what is distance when you’re dead? If time is a blur when you’re dead, do miles mean anything?

  “Nancy Shaw?” Ember spoke quietly. “Are you still there?”

  “I…I see you.” The thin voice was noticeably louder.

  Ember felt the ghost before her eyes fixed on the figure. An almost transparent, azure skeleton stood in the room, not ten feet away. Nancy Shaw’s ghost wore a heavy terrycloth bathrobe and slippers, her hair in curlers. Her fingers were bony, her facial features severe.

  “I see you, too, Nancy.” Ember swallowed. “You didn’t flee to South America. He killed you.”

  While attending the academy in England as a young mage, Ember had lived in an old dormitory. Lacking proper air conditioning, the brick building had been equipped with steel window fans for each dorm room. The one in her room emitted a high, thin whistle at its fastest speed, as air was forced through ventilation louvers that had been dented and bent out of shape over generations of hard use.

  Nancy Shaw’s voice reminded Ember of the high, thin note of that old window fan. If she hadn’t been forced to live with it for a summer, she might have found the ghost’s voice distracting. Instead, it reminded her of hot summer nights during an age of innocence.

  “He…he pushed me. Down…those stairs.” A bony finger extended from the terrycloth robe.

  “That’s terrible,” Ember said. “Why did he do that? Was he always abusive toward you?”

  “I didn’t know…how bad he was, until after we…exchanged vows.” A faint whistle filled the air when the ghost spoke. “My parents were deceased. I was…alone in the world. Young and…dumb. The only time I stood up to him was to protect her from him.”

  “Her? Your daughter?”

  “Caroline.” The ghost turned suddenly from the stairs. “My baby girl. I couldn’t stop him, but you could!”

  “What do you mean? Your daughter is still alive?”

  “He…couldn’t accept...wouldn’t accept that she had fallen in love with a changeling. He forbade her from seeing Jake. That…only made her want to see him more. I covered for her, kept their relationship hidden from him. But then she got pregnant.” The ghost’s empty eye sockets pleaded with Ember. “She and Jake were going to run away together. Marcus found out. I wasn’t strong enough to stop him.” Nancy’s lips pressed tightly together. “That poor boy…so young. He didn’t deserve to die.”

  More pieces slipped into place in the Investigator’s mind. Ember spoke sotto voce. “Where is Caroline?”

  “He lost control. He said he…wouldn’t let her leave. Ever.” Nancy looked away. “He’s kept her…locked up ever since. Please, you could help her.”

  “I will,” Ember said. “Show me where she is.”

  The ghost wordlessly turned north and floated through the walls of the farmhouse. Ember pocketed the locket and headed for the front door.

  Jackie stood up from the rocker. “Did you find something, Wright?”

  “I think so,” Ember called out as she stumbled down the porch steps. She gripped the railing just in time to arrest her fall.

  “Dang, careful there. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Nothing’s broken. I think there might be another victim. Follow me.”

  Ember chased after the hazy apparition as it glided over the predawn grounds. A well-worn path weaved through unkempt weeds, connecting the house to the small wooden shed. The ghost glided through the shed’s walls without slowing down.

  “Wait up,” Ember huffed. “We can’t move as fast as you can!”

  “What?” Jackie yelled from behind. “I’m running as fast as I can. Dang it, I can barely see anything, Wright!”

  Ember found the door to the shed unlocked. She stepped inside and found a light switch. Incandescent bulbs flickered to life, painting a yellow hue over the interior. The walls were lined with shelves, which were filled with cardboard boxes labeled in permanent marker.

  Jackie entered the shed a moment later. She gave voice to Ember’s thoughts. “It’s just storage. There’s nothing here. Why did you think there was another victim?”

  Before Ember could answer, the azure apparition floated into the room through a wall. “Behind here. You have to…use the number pad.” Nancy glided over to the shelf and pointed at a box.

  Ember walked up to the shelf. She saw no keypad. Assuming it must be on the wall behind the boxes, she began to lift the cardboard box the ghost was pointing at. The front panel of the corrugated box had been sliced on three sides, forming a hinged door. Within the box was a plastic, grey number pad.

  “Enter 7-7-78,” the ghost’s faint voice whistled. “Caroline’s birthday.”

  Ember touched the numbers on the keypad. Behind the wall to her left, an electric motor whirred to life. A portion of the wall swung inward and a light turned on within.

  “A hidden room behind a false wall,” Jackie gasped. “How did you know?”

  “Maybe I’ll explain later,” Ember murmured. She stepped into the room and found a narrow staircase with a door at the bottom. “Feeling brave enough to follow me down?”

  “No, not really.” Jackie followed anyway. “What is this place, some sort of fallout shelter?”

  “Looks like.” Ember cautiously stepped down to the bottom of the stairs. The steel door had its own keypad. Her index finger hovered over the “7.”

  “This one,” a faint whistle announced from the other side of the door, “is his birthday. April Second, 1955.”

  Ember’s finger moved over the “4” and slowly entered in the digits. Behind her, Jackie slipped her pistol back out of its holster.

  The door released with a faint hiss. Recirculated, warm air rushed past rubber gaskets. It smelled of vanilla. The air also carried with it the sound of children’s music.

  Ember and Jackie exchanged bemused looks. Ember led the way, nudging the heavy door forward with her toe and hand. Her heart thumped rapidly against her ribcage as she stepped down onto a smooth concrete floor. The walls were woodgrain paneling, and the room was dark but for the light invading from the stairwell.

  She found a light switch near the door and flipped it up with her knuckle. Fluorescent lights flickered and buzzed to life. Off a short hallway, a kitchenette comprised one wall. On the opposite side was a narrow bathroom with a shower barely big enough to turn around in. The hallway opened up to a 20-foot by 15-foot room which appeared to serve as a bedroom and living quarters.

  Something moved within that room.

  Jackie saw it, too, and brought her gun up to point at a faded pastel quilt. A woman held the covers up to her chin, her eyes wide with fear. Her skin was so pale it seemed to lack pigmentation altogether.

  Ember slowly held her hand up, gesturing for Jackie to relax. “It’s okay. We’re here to help. You’re Caroline, right? Caroline Shaw?”

  The woman nodded once, her wide eyes wet as she looked at the two strangers.

  Nancy Shaw’s ghost floated into view. Her voice cracked, “They’re going to get you out of here, my sweet…sweet, little girl.”

  Ember wondered if the ghost knew that onl
y she could hear her voice. “Do you want to come with us? We’ve got a car outside.”

  Caroline shook her head twice. “It’s a trick. He won’t let us leave.”

  “No trick,” Ember swallowed the lump in her throat. “He doesn’t have any say.”

  Jackie nudged Ember and whispered, “Us? She said he won’t let ‘us’ leave?”

  Nancy glided to a closed wardrobe. “In here. He’s very good at hiding.”

  Ember approached cautiously. As she did, Caroline tensed. Ember held up a hand and kept her voice low. “Someone is in here, hiding. Am I right? I’m just going to open this door, okay?” She touched the wardrobe handle.

  Caroline whimpered, “Please don’t hurt my baby.”

  “Your…baby?” Ember swung the door open.

  Curled up in a laundry basket was a creature Ember only recognized from television and books. Chitinous segments of scaled armor formed a balled-up shell around the terrified little armadillo. She closed her eyes, and the changeling’s human form appeared: a young boy curled up in the fetal position.

  Ember stepped back to give the scared creature space. “Your son? Jake’s?”

  “Do you mind filling me in?” Jackie stood by the door of the windowless shelter, craning her neck. Her foot was wedged to keep the steel door from swinging shut.

  “Jackie, this is Caroline Shaw, Marcus and Nancy Shaw’s daughter. And this is her son.” Ember ran her fingers through her hair and continued to speak low. “If I had to guess, I’d say he’s never been outside of this basement cell his entire life.”

  The scarlet-maned Investigator sucked in air. “Dang,” was all she said.

  “I think you’d better call Duncan and the others,” Ember said quietly.

  “We can’t get any cell signal here,” Jackie said. “We’re in a low spot.”

  “Take my car and head for the highway then. I’ll stay here with them.”

  “You sure?”

  “I am. Just…prop the door open, please.”

  “Okay. I’ll leave this, too.” Jackie sat her handgun on the narrow countertop, next to the sink. “I’ll be right back, as soon as I get done with the call.” She took one more look at the pale woman still crouched beneath the protection of her quilt. Then she was gone.

  Ember found a stiff wooden chair and sat on its edge. She tried to make small talk to help Caroline relax. What do you say to a woman whose only human contact for 13 years has been her son and her captor? Imprisoned by her own father!

  As she muddled through awkward conversation, she watched the ghost of Nancy Shaw.

  The apparition crouched next to the wardrobe. A terrycloth arm waved over the changeling boy as Nancy’s invisible hands stroked his back. She cooed and purred encouraging words that he couldn’t hear.

  The cooing suddenly stopped. Nancy’s head snapped up sharp and she turned toward the door.

  The hair on the back of Ember’s neck stood on end. What the bloody hell is going on?

  A faint, high whistle emerged from the ghost, answering her unspoken question. “It’s Marcus. He’s home.”

  37

  Can’t Be Caught

  He didn’t pay much attention to the redhead parked in the SUV at the top of the hill.

  Dawn was arriving in the east, but the morning was coated in a foggy haze from the night’s rainstorm. The vehicle was pulled over onto an approach alongside the paved county road, its headlights shining diagonally across the asphalt. She had the overhead light on and was engrossed in the papers she was reading—probably a roadmap. A phone was cradled against her left ear and her mouth was moving.

  She was just someone lost on this lonely road, probably trying to make a call to ask for directions but unable to get a signal without parking at a higher elevation. Happened all the time out in this remote location—just not usually at this hour.

  Marcus didn’t stop to offer his assistance. He wouldn’t have stopped even normally, but today he especially wasn’t in the mood to help some dim-witted damsel in distress.

  As he steered the Chevy pickup into the yard of his rural property, his mood devolved from sour to grim.

  Somebody had turned the lights on in his house.

  He had spent the night parked on a high hill about a mile from the Berthold farmstead that had once belonged to his in-laws. After his latest project had gone tits-up, he sat and brooded from afar. He knew all the angles in that neighborhood from years of deer hunting. It was simple to use his spotting scope to sit and observe the team of embassy employees move in and clean up evidence of his disrupted project.

  If only that changeling would have complied. If the younger one wouldn’t have forced Marcus to shoot him, or if the cur would have obeyed and just shifted when he was told to, everything would have been different.

  Marcus licked his lips and thought about how he would have done things differently. He had been impatient, hadn’t stuck with his plan. He should have let them finish their welding work. If only he could do things over!

  If only that bitch hadn’t shown up in the middle of the storm.

  It was impossible to forget a face like hers. She was the same one he’d seen at the Parker Building. She had been gawking at him, infatuated by his masculinity. It shouldn’t have surprised him that she would go out of her way to track him down. When he found out later that she was the Associate Investigator who had picked up on his handiwork, who had been obsessively stalking him, he even found himself a little flattered. She was referring to him as the Changeling Hunter, and everyone in the building—hell, everyone in the whole Druwish colony—was talking about him. He was finally getting the recognition he deserved. It felt good.

  He also knew that meant his time was limited. It was only a matter of time until the cute blonde stumbled across something which would lead back to him. That was the inescapable consequence of single-minded people. He should know.

  Still, he never expected she would catch up to him so quickly. He was certain he would have at least a few more projects in him. He had his hog disposal system he wanted to experiment with. There were still changeling coyotes in the population which needed to be culled. If he didn’t do it, who would?

  But now, someone had been in his home while he was away. That was just plain rude, and it pissed Marcus off.

  Marcus killed the engine and slammed a fresh magazine home into his carbine. He had emptied a whole magazine giving himself cover as he got away from the blonde bitch back at the Berthold farm. She had surprised him, otherwise he would have taken her out with one shot. Easily. He hadn’t expected her to shoot at him. All the animals he’d hunted over his life, not one of them had ever returned fire. It wasn’t something a guy can just stand and take.

  His ankle throbbed. The sprain which had tentatively healed had been aggravated from his sprint as he escaped the brief firefight with the bitch. It was another grievance he could credit to outside interference.

  He squinted at his house, bringing the rifle up to his shoulder. Surveying the yard, there were no vehicles. Realization seeped into his consciousness slowly: the redhead parked at the top of the hill.

  Fatigue clouded his normally sharp senses. He tried to remember what the blonde bitch’s car looked like. Wasn’t it similar to the one parked a mile away from his house right now? Was it the same? Had she been through his house, and was calling in backup?

  He muttered, “fuck me.”

  Though he had thought about the day he would get caught, now that it threatened to arrive he wasn’t sure he was ready to give up his freedom just yet. He still had so many projects to do.

  He would just have to lay low for a while. His home was compromised, but he could return to it, eventually. He would find somewhere to retreat to, to gather himself. To come up with a new plan. Nobody was better at planning than him. Marcus Shaw can’t be caught quite so easily.

  It wouldn’t be long before the redhead returned. He would need to make this quick, and recede down the section line so he could wat
ch from a distance with his spotting scope. The fog would make that difficult, but the sun would burn it off soon enough.

  Marcus slung the carbine over his back, hooking the strap over his shoulder. In his house, he found a laundry basket and opened the hidden compartment behind his bedroom nightstand. He had stowed away exactly $22,222 in US currency and $22,222 in Canadian cash along with his passport. Atop it all was a revolver and a box of cartridges. All went into the basket except the revolver, which he tucked into his jacket pocket.

  Downstairs, he grabbed his stash of cigars, along with food from his kitchen—just enough to make it through the next few days. He carried the overloaded laundry basket out to his pickup. He returned to the house to fill a couple jugs of water.

  As water flowed from the kitchen faucet, the wisps of a plan began to form in his mind. The border with Canada was porous in this part of the world. It would be easy to slip across at night, to head to Estevan and parts farther north if he had to. His first choice would be to stay in the area, though, where he was familiar. It would be wise to let the focus on him cool down, to let the people at the embassy forget about him after a month or two. Then, he could stake out his farm and approach if things were safe.

  He was filling the second gallon-jug when his thoughts went to Caroline. He restocked her quarters monthly and had just done so last week, so she should be good for at least three weeks. Her abomination of a child was eating so much now that he had hit adolescence. Her stocked pantry used to be enough to last twice as long as it now did. Would three weeks be enough time? Sometimes, I think she does everything she can to make her father’s life difficult.

  There was no time to fully restock her pantry, but he could at least warn her to ration what she had, to make it last longer. He would have enough time to do that.

  Marcus pulled out a plastic garbage bag from below the sink. He whipped it through the air like a windsock, making the bag billow open. He flung cabinet doors wide and dropped boxes of cereal, rice, and canned goods into the bag until it threatened to rip.