She finally reached her destination, a lavender house at the tip of a cul-de-sac, set up high on a hillside. Below, a terraced area spread out, an urban garden filled with squash and tomatoes and herbs. A long stretch of rickety wooden stairs wound up the slope, and she climbed them and disappeared into the house at the top.
Decision time. Did I go back to Victor’s? Did I go up there and deal with her myself? The obvious choice was to play it safe and get help. But the whole business bothered me. It didn’t add up, and I wanted answers. Victor makes a great backup, but he’s also prone to shoot first and ask questions later. Then again, if I wandered up to the house alone to politely ask questions, I might just as easily end up as tonight’s dinner menu.
What I needed was an edge. The shape-shifter had shown a resistance to attacks using talent, so relying on my talent wasn’t going to cut it. But what if it wasn’t precisely an attack? That gunk-on-the-face trick up by Coit Tower had worked pretty well. Some kind of holding spell? I began to get the germ of an idea.
Something that wasn’t designed to attack or overpower. Instead, maybe something that would interfere with the shape-shifter’s ability to change—sand in the gears of the mechanism. If it was unable to change, it wouldn’t pose much of a threat—the Morgan persona had puny human teeth and delicate nails instead of long sharp canines and rending claws. As long as it had to remain Morgan, it wouldn’t matter whether I could use talent or not.
I moved up to the edge of one of the terraces. The soil there was moist, fed by a makeshift drip irrigation system. I scooped up a good-sized handful of dirt and worked it into a ball.
The next thing I needed was some DNA. However the shape-shifter managed its transformations, it had to involve DNA on some level. Even if the transformation were accomplished by purely magical means, DNA still had to be the basis of the change. And if I could interrupt the DNA process, it would stay frozen in whatever form it had already taken.
The best source for the DNA I needed would be blood—not only did it contain the necessary DNA but blood also makes a spell more potent. Black practitioners use blood the most often, naturally; they can hardly cast a spell to make water wet without some. Personally, I don’t care to use it myself. Whenever I do it always seems like I’m tiptoeing along the line close to the dark side. But I have used it.
Using my own blood and DNA wasn’t the best option, though. The same principles that make self-healing so difficult also come into play whenever you try to use your own blood. It works for some things—in fact, it’s vital for certain types of spells, but this wasn’t one of those. I could use it and it would work, but it wasn’t ideal.
I took out the Buck knife I still was carrying and looked over at Lou. He stared at me with suspicion and took two quick steps backward.
“Come on,” I said. “I just need a drop. You won’t even feel it.” He retreated two more steps, putting more distance between us.
So it was my own blood or none at all. I pricked my forearm with the tip of the blade and got a respectable bead, then smeared it off into dirt and worked it in thoroughly until it was a neat ball the size of an orange. I sealed it with a pulse of energy, set it down on the ground, let some talent flow into the knife blade, and carefully sliced the ball of dirt in half. I took one of the halves, added another drop of blood, and repeated the process. A good-sized portion of earth still remained, and that quarter now had a history. It had been cut, then cut again. It was divided, interrupted, and incomplete. If I now smeared it on the shape-shifter, it would interfere with the other DNA and block any transformation. It wouldn’t be able to effect a change until the dirt was cleaned off.
A useful trick, but to use it you have to know who the shape-shifter is ahead of time and then get close enough to apply it. That can be a tricky proposition, but this time it wouldn’t be a problem.
I climbed the stairs to the door up above. No wards, but that was no surprise. It was a shape-shifter, not a practitioner. The door was slightly ajar, so Morgan hadn’t quite latched it when she came in. Or maybe she had realized she was being followed and was making it too easy for me. When you’re hunting monsters, there’s a fine line between being careful and giving in to rampant paranoia.
I pushed the door gently and it swung silently inward. Lou eased in ahead of me, alert but apparently not too worried. The inside was one long room, a straight shot from the door through a front section and into a kitchen area.
Morgan was sitting on a stool at a counter that divided the room part of the kitchen from the stove and fridge and sink. Her back was toward me and she was eating whatever she’d bought at the grocery.
I squeezed the earth in my hand, taking comfort in my weapon. It was my ace in the hole—if it worked, that was. There was no reason it shouldn’t; I’d thought it out clearly and constructed it well, but you never really know for sure if something will do the job until you try it out in real life.
“Hello, Morgan,” I said.
She jumped and knocked over whatever she’d been eating onto the floor. It looked like yogurt. She spun around on the stool and I got a clear view of her face. Surprise, almost shock, and some fear as well. Interesting.
We all like to think we can read faces, that we can tell when someone’s being evasive, or is angry, or fearful. But in truth, we can’t. Sure, some people are an open book, but most of us become quite adept at masking our emotions.
But if you startle someone, you can sometimes get a true reading. There’s still a problem, though—how to interpret what you see. Was Morgan the shape-shifter afraid because she knew I’d come for her? Or was it the real Morgan, afraid because she feared I was the shape-shifter myself?
“I thought you were out of town,” I said, keeping alert for the slightest hint of a change in her appearance.
“I couldn’t do it,” she said. “I was all set to go, and then I thought what if that thing followed me, tracked me down, and killed my parents, too? I couldn’t do that to them.” I nodded and looked around the room.
“Nice place,” I said. She glanced around abstractedly.
“It’s my friend Missy’s. She’s out of town.” She focused on me again. “How did you find me?”
I shrugged. I was more concerned with finding out for sure who she was than making small talk.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. “Why didn’t you answer your cell?”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to; it was obvious. She hadn’t trusted me. Fair enough—I wasn’t in a trusting mood myself.
I looked closely at her, hoping irrationally for some clue. My gut told me she was really Morgan, but the gut can be mistaken. If it couldn’t, there wouldn’t be so many failed love affairs. But my head also weighed in. I’d seen those tears by the pet store, when she thought no one was watching. They could have been faked, but for what reason? She’d thought she was alone.
But the Wendigo had fingered her. That should be proof enough right there—what possible reason would he have to lie about such a thing? Unless . . . More thoughts raced through my head. What if he weren’t the Wendigo at all? Shape-shifters weren’t restricted to human form, as I’d seen. Could the shape-shifter have killed him?
Maybe not—the Wendigo was quite capable of taking care of himself. But she wouldn’t have needed to. A perfect imitation wasn’t necessary—the Wendigo was so odd that I wouldn’t be able to tell what was normal for him and what wasn’t anyway. And Lou wouldn’t necessarily have caught on, either—since both the Wendigo and the shape-shifter weren’t quite of our world.
But what was the point in putting me on Morgan’s trail? If the shape-shifter wanted her dead, it would have been simple for it to kill her. A moment’s thought and I had it. If the shape-shifter killed her, I’d still be after it, more determined than ever. And if the shape-shifter somehow managed to kill me, Victor and Eli would never rest until they got it. After what had happened to the first shape-shifter, it had to be wary of us.
But if it convinced me that Morgan was the shape-shifter, and I killed Morgan, it would be home free. No more shape-shifter; problem solved. As long as it kept a low profile, we wouldn’t even know it was still out there. It could even leave, relocate to another city, and we’d never suspect. And as far as it knew, there was no reason I’d ever see the Wendigo again.
I sat down across from Morgan, keeping some space between us, and keeping the moist earth ready in my hand, just in case. I was 99 percent sure I had it right, but that 1 percent is what usually kills you.
“You should have left town,” I said. “It’s not too late. If you don’t want to go to your parents’ house, find a motel somewhere, anywhere, just so long as it’s away from here. I’ll have this taken care of in a day or two.” I hoped. “And answer your cell if I call—I’ll let you know when it’s over.” She nodded, resigned.
“Okay.”
Lou ran up to her, put his paws on her knee, and wagged his tail in an exaggerated manner. It was his way of reassuring her, and it worked. He can be a thoughtful guy. She didn’t smile, but the muscles around her eyes relaxed. I got up and walked to the door.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “It will all be over soon.” It wasn’t until I’d left that I realized that statement could be taken more than one way.
TWENTY- ONE
I THOUGHT THE SUPPOSED WENDIGO MIGHT BE waiting for me by my van, but no. At least that gave me breathing space. There was some more information I wanted to get before tackling him, and I knew just where to get it.
Twenty minutes later I was back at Ramsey’s apartment. The little creep had suckered us. He’d even made me feel a little sorry for him. But the one thing that had put me on Morgan’s trail, the thing that was too weird for coincidence and made me so quick to accept what the Wendigo said, was that little story of his about Ruby and sex and the odd trill. Why wouldn’t I have believed it? How else could he have come up with such a thing unless it was true? Unless he’d heard Morgan that night she spent at my house. Like if he’d been crouched outside my bedroom window, leaving only traces in the dirt to mark where he’d been.
He hadn’t just been in league with just the Ruby shape-shifter—he was in tight with the other shape-shifter as well. So, time for a visit.
I strolled around back of the Victorian to his door and politely knocked. No answer, but when I knocked again, louder, I heard movement from inside. Ramsey answered the door, bleary-eyed from sleep. Either he’d been up all night the night before or he routinely slept into the late afternoon every chance he got, or both.
“Mason,” he said. His tone was wary, but not fearful. Not yet.
“Ramsey. Invite me in, why don’t you?” He didn’t want to, but he was afraid not to.
“Sure,” he said, stepping aside. “Come on in.” Lou slipped in ahead and Ramsey peered around me, trying to see if I was alone.
“Victor’s not with me this time,” I said.
“Thank God for small favors,” he muttered, then looked nervously over at me as if he might have gone too far. I stared him down until he started getting ill at ease.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he said, false hearty, trying to make a joke out of it. He wasn’t very good at that sort of thing. I ignored him and walked the few steps it took to reach the kitchen area. I glanced down and saw that same piece of bacon from our last visit still curled up on a corner of the floor.
Ramsey had edged back and now was standing between me and the door, as if guarding against my retreat. Alarm bells went off. He should have wanted me out of his apartment, not in it. Which meant, quite possibly, that he wasn’t alone. Lou’s warning growl almost covered up the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. When I looked up I saw who it was.
For a moment I stood paralyzed. It was one of those situations so unexpected, so wrong, that your entire world turns upside down. The universe suddenly makes no sense. It couldn’t be. The room hummed as blood rushed into my head. Gliding down the stairs, smiling sweetly and relishing my surprise, was Morgan. Or maybe it was the smile of a gourmet about to embark on a particularly tasty meal. I almost let her get right up next to me, stunned as I was. Which was the point of her little deception, and it almost worked.
The hackles on Lou’s back raised up, and the sight of that cleared my head. How stupid of me. This time it wasn’t Morgan at all. This time it was a shape-shifter, clothing herself in Morgan’s persona. Maybe Ramsey hadn’t been exactly sleeping after all. She reached toward me, but I had a surprise for her as well. I reached into my pocket and balled up the change-inhibiting ball of earth I carried. Matching her smile, I walked right up to her, and for a moment she hesitated, unsure of herself. Then I flung my hand out, quick as a snake. She jerked her head back, but not in time. The glob of dirt plastered itself over her neck and shoulder, dripping down and staining her tee shirt. She couldn’t transform herself now until she cleaned it all off, and that would take her a while.
It was still two against one, but Ramsey hardly counted and the Morgan persona had no real strength or defense. And I wasn’t just one, anyway—I had Lou. He’s too small to have much use in a physical fight, but he has strong jaws and sharp teeth, and could keep someone like Ramsey at bay until I had time to deal with him. My talent could easily overcome Ramsey, and although the Morgan shape-shifter wouldn’t be affected much by it, I had one more thing as well. I had my knife.