Changeling Hunter

by Frank Hurt

He hefted the bag over his left shoulder opposite the side of the carbine. Marcus headed outside to the shed.

  38

  I Don’t Need You Alive For That

  The burlap sacks were itchy and smelled of moldy potatoes. The rough material scratched at her face and invited her to sneeze. Ember kept perfectly still, despite the urge to rub her nose. Even the slightest movement would transfer to the sacks, giving away her hiding spot.

  She held her breath and listened. She heard nothing. Ember whispered, “Nancy? Are you still with me?”

  A thin, high whistle accompanied the ghost’s voice. “I’m still here.”

  “Then what’s going on? What do you see? Bloody hell, you’re supposed to be my eyes and ears out there. I can’t see a thing.”

  “Oh,” the ghost muttered something unintelligible.

  “Nancy, you need to speak up. I can’t hear you when you whisper.”

  “I don’t want him to hear me.”

  “I’ve told you, only I can hear you. You can talk as loud as you want, and he won’t hear you. But if you whisper, then I can’t hear you either.”

  “But you’re whispering,” Nancy said.

  Ember sighed. “Do I really need to explain this now? Please just keep talking to me. Give me a play-by-play, yeah?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I need you to tell me what you see. What’s he doing? I need to know if he’s approaching and if he does if he’s armed, if he’s alone, things like that.

  “Oh, okay.” Nancy was silent for several seconds.

  “Well?”

  “Well, he’s not in here,” the ghost hissed.

  Ember rolled her eyes. “Nancy, please go out and see where he is at, and come report back to me. And you’re still whispering.”

  “Sorry. I’ve never been a lookout before.”

  Minutes passed. It was plenty of time for Ember to second-guess the wisdom of her hasty plan. She stood against the wall of the shed, inside the storage room on ground level. Long, empty burlap sacks hung from nails on the exposed studs, so she tucked herself between the bags and the unfinished wall. She stood heels inward, keeping her feet parallel to the wall, her body as flat against the surface as she could. Her shoulders squeezed between worn wall studs. She was a proper sardine in a can.

  She hoped that she was fully concealed. Nancy was not able to coalesce her form as rapidly as Barnaby could, so her ability to see the physical world was inhibited. Ember was tempted to pull the sacks aside so she could view the room, but she didn’t want to risk knocking a sack loose from its nail. She visualized having the curtain drop right as Marcus walked in. She shuddered, then bit her lip as even that movement caused the burlap to shake.

  “He’s coming!” Nancy hissed. “Marcus is on his way here! He…he’s got a rifle and…and a bag.”

  Ember stifled a noise that tried to escape her throat. Her thumb checked the safety on Jackie’s pistol for the fiftieth time. Her palms were sweaty, bringing a new concern: what if I drop the gun?

  Heavy footsteps landed on the other side of the thin, wooden walls. Ember stiffened and held her breath. The Changeling Hunter is literally inches away from me right now.

  The door creaked open, and the light switch was toggled. The room lit up, allowing Ember to see the hint of movement through the open weaves of burlap. Plastic rustled, and something thudded to the floor.

  “He’s…he’s setting down the bag. It’s a garbage bag, I think. And…and he’s setting down his rifle, leaning it against the wall.” Nancy’s whisper wouldn’t have been audible, but for the fact that Ember was holding her breath.

  The man’s boots scuffed along the floor past her. He seemed to be walking with a limp.

  Nancy hissed, “now he’s…he’s going for the box. The one with the number pad.”

  Ember closed her eyes, waiting to hear the cardboard flap. Right. You can do this, Ember. You have to.

  The burlap sacks parted, and Ember pushed her way through. She took one step forward and raised the semiautomatic. Her left hand joined the right to complete her grip. Guns love to be hugged and held.

  The man spun around. He tried to take a step back but ran up against the shelf of cardboard boxes. His eyes widened, exaggerated by the magnification of his thick glasses. “What the fuck?”

  Ember turned her head slightly to the right. She leveled the handgun, aligning its front and rear sights with her dominant eye. Marcus wasn’t more than ten feet away—he could lunge at her before she got a shot off if she hesitated even for a second.

  “Alright, Investigator. You got me.” Marcus leaned away from the shelves. His left hand lightly gripped the shelf’s edge behind him. His right hand moved forward to his hip. “I know when I’m beat.”

  The transparent, azure figure of Nancy Shaw floated over to her killer’s side. She crouched, her terrycloth robe draped over an almost skeletal body. The ghost whispered, “he’s got another gun! In his jacket pocket.”

  Ember tried to slow her breathing, but she had been holding her breath for too long. Adrenaline pulsed through her body. The muzzle of her borrowed handgun shook with each heartbeat.

  “You should just let me go.” The corner of his lips quirked in a fake smile. “We’re both Malverns. We mages need to look out for one another. Changelings are the ones you should be pointing a gun at. Not one of your own, like me.”

  “You’re not one of my own,” Ember said through clenched teeth.

  “You’ll think otherwise when you hear what I have to say. I’ve got a speech prepared for my trial. It’s my manifesto to the world.” Marcus nodded. “I’ve got a lot to say, and it’s time for people to listen. Eyes will be opened at my trial.”

  “What trial?”

  The man blinked. “My trial. For…for the Changeling Hunter. That was a great moniker you gave me, by the way. I should thank you for that.”

  “You’re confused, Marcus. This is Druwish Law; there isn’t going to be a trial. There’s no need for it.”

  “No need? But I’ve got to be tried. I get to have my day in court.” His fingers flexed below his waist.

  Ember squinted down the barrel at him. “You’ve already been proven guilty, so there’s no need for a trial. You won’t get your stage. You’ll just be locked up in isolation until the day arrives when your sentence is passed. You’ll be stripped of your mage abilities—a painful process, I’ve been told—a deep Memory Wash will be administered. You’ll spend the rest of your miserable life in some sort of detention center, drooling and talking to yourself between meals of applesauce and tapioca pudding.”

  Nancy’s whispered tone had evolved into a shrill urgency. “What’re you doing talking to him? I told you, he’s got a gun in his pocket!”

  His feigned smile melted into an authentic glower. In one short motion, Marcus tucked his hand into the jacket pocket.

  Ember sucked in a breath, steadied her hand, and squeezed the trigger. The gun answered with a single, deafening snap. The shockwave of the blast in the enclosed space sent dust floating from the shed’s rafters. Burnt gunpowder filled her nostrils.

  The man fell back against the shelves, his face registering confusion. A blossom of carmine appeared at the center of his sternum. Marcus slid down, his legs crumpling beneath him awkwardly. His hand dropped out of the jacket pocket, the revolver harmlessly clattering to the plywood floor.

  Ember took three steps forward to stand over him. She nudged the revolver aside with the toe of her shoe.

  “You…you wanted him to go for the gun. Didn’t you.” Nancy’s whispered statement wasn’t a question.

  Marcus sputtered. Droplets of blood sprayed across his mustache. He looked up at Ember, his magnified eyes blinking rapidly. “You bitch!”

  She stood just four feet away and pointed the muzzle of the handgun at his face. She said nothing. She felt nothing. A carousel of images slid through her mind. Ember imagined the last moments of life Tara Bennett had experienced before Marcus shot her
between the eyes. She pictured Brandon Albret and Evan Davies and how they, too had been shot in the same manner. Had she not gotten to them in time, there was no doubt that Arnie and Rik would have met the same fate.

  He must have noticed something, recognized something in her because his tone shifted. Marcus pleaded with her. “There are…there are other bodies. I can tell you where I buried them. I can tell you why I killed them. I can tell you…I can tell you everything. You need to bring me in alive.”

  Ember’s voice was flat, exempt from emotion. “Marcus Charles Shaw. I don’t need you alive for that.”

  The second round landed exactly where she was aiming. The bullet entered between his eyes, blowing the back of his skull out and painting its contents against the cardboard boxes.

  39

  Just a Formality

  The mahogany boardroom table in the Viceroyalty offices was polished to a mirror shine. Deco fixtures were tuned to just the right ambient lighting to complement the late morning sunlight. The floor was carpeted beneath the high-back, wheeled chair she now sat in. It was the first time she had been invited to the Eighth Floor. Aside from the opulent woodwork and fine art hanging on the walls, there wasn’t much about the place that would make Ember wish to visit again. The lower levels of the Parker Building suited her just fine.

  She was seated at one end of the ellipse surface. To her left and right were three men each, with a seventh man at the opposite end of the table. Each had an open binder in front of them, to match the one she held.

  “That summarizes the technical aspects of our investigation into the so-called Changeling Hunter case.” Ember turned a page in the binder. The men each duplicated her action, like a poorly-timed chorus. “This brings us to Marcus Shaw’s confession.”

  “The moment we’ve all been waiting for,” the Viceroy said from the far end of the table. “Please, continue.”

  “The details are all included in my report, but to touch on the salient bullet points—”

  “Pun not intended, I’m sure,” Elton Higginbotham muttered. The shark grin never left his face.

  “—after I got the drop on him, he confessed to the kidnap and murder of Tara Bennett, in detail as summarized on Page 39 where you will also find statements from Heath Bennett. Marcus also confessed to stalking and murdering both Brandon Albret and Evan Davies at their home near Underwood.”

  A sniffle interrupted her presentation. The Viceroy leaned forward and patted his hand on the Director of Information’s back. His hushed tone reassured, “I’m sorry we have to do this, Curt, but it’s important for you to be here.”

  Curtis Davies sniffled again and said, “I know it’s important, Will. I’m sorry, I’ll keep it together.”

  “Nothing to apologize for, my friend. We won’t drag this out.” William Roth looked past the grieving father and gave a nod to Ember.

  She continued, “the kidnapping and attempted murder of Alarik and Arnold Schmitt were Marcus Shaw’s last victims. He confessed to two murders prior to this recent killing spree.”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt you,” the Viceroy held up a hand. “What is the status of these Schmitt boys, Elton?”

  Director Higginbotham cleared his throat. “Well, Alarik Schmitt was treated and released. He’s missing his index finger, where the Changeling Hunter severed it above the metacarpal in the course of torturing the poor boy. As to Arnold, Doctor McMahon assures me he will be ready to go home within the next two days. He’s alert but she’s still treating him against potential sepsis.”

  “Very good,” the Viceroy nodded once. He held his hand out in a gesture to the other end of the table. “Please, continue, Ember.”

  “Right. Anyway,” she looked back at her binder. Her mind’s eye recalled the interrogation of Marcus Shaw’s ghost. Knowing his full name, she had been able to force his cooperation. “Two prior murders he confessed to. The first was his abused wife, Nancy Shaw, in 1997. That one was—he claimed—an accident; they were arguing over the fate of their daughter and he pushed her down the stairs of their second-story home, breaking her neck. He reported publicly to everyone that Nancy had taken their daughter Caroline to the South American colony, never to be heard from again.”

  She thought of the terrycloth-robed ghost. Ember swallowed the lump in her throat. “Refusing to accept responsibility for the murder of his wife, he buried her remains in a shallow grave at the abandoned farmstead which Nancy Shaw had inherited from her parents, south of the town of Berthold. Note that this farmstead is the same location where Marcus Shaw had captured and tortured the Schmitt brothers.”

  “Familiar ground,” Elton Higginbotham muttered.

  “Marcus Shaw assigned blame for his wife’s death to his daughter’s boyfriend, one Jake Montgomery.” Ember looked up from her binder. “This reinforced a lifelong obsession of accusing changelings for the ills of Druwish society. In an attempt to get away, Jake Montgomery shifted into his animal subform—which happened to be a coyote. Marcus executed Jake and buried him in a wooded area at his primary residence, the farmstead north of Carpio, North Dakota.”

  “And these two bodies, what is the course of action for reclaiming them?” Viceroy Roth steepled his fingers and leaned forward. “To provide them with a proper burial?”

  Duncan Heywood tapped a yellow, plastic mechanical pencil against his cleft chin. “We are in the process of lining up excavation, sir. As we can’t bury them in a regular NonDruw cemetery without raising attention, they’ll be reinterred at the private Druwish graveyard north of Towner. This will be done early next week.”

  “I’ll be with the Security detail assisting,” Rodger Wilke spoke up. He was the only changeling present at the table. Somehow, he had managed to go through the entire meeting without spitting snuff into a cup.

  “We will want to arrange so that the interment of Marcus Shaw’s body occurs at a separate location within the Towner graveyard, I think.” Viceroy Roth met the gaze of each of the men. “It would be undiplomatic to include his burial at the same memorial as his victims.”

  All heads around the table nodded.

  “I apologize for interrupting you again, Ember.” William Roth gestured at the woman. “So you’re saying Marcus’s motivation for these murders was driven simply by bigotry toward Changelings?”

  “That was at the base of it, sir. He was a psychopath who developed a lifetime of such bigotry, leading up to the greatest affront he could imagine: his only daughter falling in love with a changeling boy. When she became pregnant by Jake Montgomery, that sent Marcus over the edge.”

  The Director of External Relations, Bartholomew Samson, peered above the rim of his spectacles. The tuft of hair between his eyebrows twitched when he spoke. “I’d be pretty picky about who my daughter dated, too. But I can’t imagine what kind of a sick mind would think that locking her up in a cellar was good parenting.”

  To this declaration, the men around the table nodded again.

  Ember continued, “Marcus didn’t kill again for 13 years. That was when his grandson—a changeling due to the dominant genes of the boy’s changeling father—reached his Manifestation Day. Caroline Shaw tried to hide her son’s manifestation, but Marcus discovered it. This triggered his second wave of killing, specifically targeting changelings whose subforms were coyotes. It was evidently his attempt at preventing more such offspring.”

  “What was the boy’s chosen subform?” Rodger asked.

  “It’s on the next page. He’s an armadillo.” Ember reflexively touched the carved coyote-face pendant which hung around her neck. “On their Manifestation Day, adolescent changelings adopt the warm-blooded animal they most identify with. It makes sense that the poor kid would become something like an armadillo. His entire life consisted of living in fear, hiding from danger.”

  “Is that why you’re a sheep, Wilke?” Elton nudged Rodger’s distended belly with the corner of his binder. “Baaa, baaaa?”

  “Mine is a llama, Higginbotham.” Rodger s
cowled as he slapped at the offending binder. “Llamas are protective of their flock. You know, Security.” He pointed at the Security Office patch on his collared shirt.

  “Gentlemen, if we could wrap this up, please.” The Viceroy squinted at the men, then at the rest of the faces assembled around the table. “Does anyone else have any questions for Ember? Deputy Director Shadbolt, you’ve been quiet this whole time. Do you have any comments or questions, Geoff?”

  “Nah, I got nothing.” Geoff Shadbolt shook his full beard. Along with being the least interactive of the personalities in the room, he also seemed to be the least curious. He looked almost bored.

  He also was the only person in the room whose aura was shrouded by the dark shadow of a Deference Spell. Ember and Duncan were supposed to be under Higginbotham’s influence and they still pretended to play the part. It made sense that if Higginbotham was trying to cover his corruption that he would want the Investigators under his control. But why the Deputy Viceroy? Or, more telling, why not also the Viceroy himself? What about the Directors of Information and External Relations? Is this a clue to who Higginbotham’s co-conspirators are?

  “This was all such a deeply troubling situation,” the Viceroy said. “I could never pretend to understand why someone would behave in the manner which our one-time colleague Marcus Shaw conducted himself. As Deputy Director of Information, he had access to the colony’s most sensitive files. I shudder to think of what more damage he could have caused to our loved ones, were it not for the persistent actions of our guest Investigator here. This was truly top shelf Investigative work. Wouldn’t you agree, Duncan?”

  “I would, sir.” Duncan met Ember’s eyes and nodded once. “Top shelf.”

  The Viceroy tapped his open binder. “It was good that he confessed before he tried shooting at you. While a formal interrogation would have been satisfying, I for one am grateful that you drew faster than he did, Ember. Were it otherwise, Caroline Shaw and her son would remain imprisoned, and doubtless, additional victims would pile up. The Magic City Colony owes you a debt, Ember Wright.”