Last of the Shapeshifters

Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

SASHA

Sasha drove quickly to Charlie Kinnear’s house, hoping that her hunch would prove fruitful. She pulled into the driveway of a house a block away, and reclined her backrest so that she could see past the passenger-side seat. Out of the glove box she pulled a pair of binoculars. It was standard issue for every unmarked police car.

Peering up at old man Charlie’s house, she could see the bright yellow tape flapping loosely in the light breeze that there was. But the breeze wasn’t enough to keep her from growing hot. Seated inside the car in an unsheltered driveway, it was sweltering. But she’d have to brave it, ignore it, if she wanted to catch Dylan Macready.

Nearly half an hour passed and there was still no sign of Dylan. She tried to calculate how long it would take him, with long strides, to get here from where they had last spoken. Not more than thirty minutes, she should think, unless he took a break somewhere.

Or unless he wasn’t coming.

She decided that she would wait for an hour, and if he still didn’t turn up, she’d cruise around in and look for him. Perhaps the superintendent was right. Maybe she should have just brought him in and sat on him for twenty-four hours to see what happened. Maybe the doctor would turn up with something.

But she couldn’t help keep doubts from creeping into her mind, infiltrating her senses. What if she had been too eager to guess as to what Dylan Macready would do? What if she had connected him to the crime too hastily?

Damn it, she didn’t believe in coincidences! There was no such thing. Everything pointed to him being connected… somehow. The old adage about returning to the scene of the crime? That was truer than most people knew. If he came, it would be all but positive confirmation…

Even if he didn’t turn up, he couldn’t have gone far. He hitched a ride into town, so he didn’t have his own car. She knew if she needed to get him again she could just call it out on the radio and a uniform would pick him up. It felt odd to her that she was giving orders now. Just two days ago, she had been in a khaki-green uniform herself, with black boots and in a squad car that said in big red lettering ‘POLICE’ on the side.

Now she was ducked down in an unmarked car that was like an oven, with a pair of binoculars, looking at the house where a possible murder was committed. Sasha realized that she was on a stakeout, her very first. It brought a smile of satisfaction to her face.

She’d finally made it, crashed through the glass ceiling Superintendent O’Neill had put in place. It felt good.

When nearly forty minutes had passed, and Dylan still hadn’t turned up, she started wondering if she should pack it in. Sasha had always been the impulsive type. She trusted her instincts and believed in herself. She didn’t get to where she was today by playing it safe and not taking risks.

She reached for her radio, pressed down on the transmit button and took a breath to speak. “Unit seven.”

The radio crackled. “This is seven.”

She saw him then, Dylan Macready, walking down the other end of Lester Street. “Never mind.” She let go of the transmit button, heard the radio give off its static buzz, and then she trained her binoculars on the man.

He was walking slowly, staring at each house as he walked by, head craned to the side. He had a thick and muscular neck, and she pulled the binoculars down his body for a moment. He was in great shape, and it would make apprehending him more difficult.

Gathering herself, she looked again at his face, saw that hard handsomeness, the polar opposite to the kind of pretty boys she had used to like when she was younger. His eyes were alive with a suspicious curiosity, and through the binoculars, she could see their bright green color with ease.

Sasha chided herself for letting her mind wander. Through the binoculars, she could see that Dylan had spotted the yellow tape now, and he was making a beeline straight for Charlie Kinnear’s house. He looked genuinely surprised, as though he hadn’t expected such a large crime scene, or any crime scene at all.

“Gotcha, you son of a b***h,” she whispered to herself as he started to duck under the yellow tape. But then he didn’t. He stopped, and instead looked at either house flanking old man Charlie’s.

“What are you doing?” Sasha murmured to herself. Dylan began to approach the house on the left, Sally Clark’s, the drunk’s.

She saw him knock on the door, and it seemed like as good a time as any to get a little closer. Easing herself out of the car, and shutting the door as quietly as she could, she actually felt cooler outside in the sun, which was something to think about. Sasha crouched down low and crept toward the crime scene, keeping herself as hidden as possible behind fences and other parked cars. She knew she must look a little ridiculous, but this was police work, not a looking-cool contest.

Crouched low behind a car parked on the street, she peeked around the edge of the boot, and saw Dylan walking toward old man Charlie’s house. He dipped beneath the yellow tape, wrapped his hand in his t-shirt, and went inside the unlocked house.

“Bingo.”

DYLAN

Dylan crept through the house, taking great care to touch nothing. Everything looked in order and undisturbed, and he was starting to wonder what the actual crime was. That wondering ceased when he entered the bedroom, and saw a pillow stained in blood. Shifting to the side of the bed, it was quite clear that whoever was hurt or died here was in bed at the time it happened. The pillow was still depressed with a head imprint, and that was no doubt due to the dried, clotted blood sticking the feathers together.

A spray of muddy red shot up the wall above the bed, and Dylan took in the grim sight with teeth clenched. This was horrible. Judging from the amount of blood, it was unlikely that anybody could have survived what happened.

“f**k me sideways,” he said. Some of the blood splatter even reached the ceiling.

Dylan stalked through all the rooms of the low-ceilinged bungalow, having to duck through doorways. There wasn’t much around, and the person who had lived here seemed to have no sentimental collections, bits and bobs that accumulated over time. The furniture was equally spare, with only a few dusty, cushioned rattan chairs, a single dining table, and a single pot hanging above the stove.

He pointed his nose up, and sniffed the air. There was a scent here, something strange, something different. Damn it, if only he could smell as well as his bear when he was his man! With his suspicions aroused, Dylan began to remove his clothing.

In his mind raged a storm of conflicting emotions. What if the shifter he’d been tracking had done this? That would mean the only other shapeshifter he knew of was a grade-A psycho. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for his kind.

He told himself that it wasn’t certain this was the wolf’s doing, yet. But that was just him not wanting to believe it. He knew that. His instincts told him this was the wolf. Instincts told him that the shapeshifter he had been chasing all this time might not be the companion he sought. This would be no friend.

When completely n***d, he crouched down, resting his elbows on the floor and putting his head in between them. Hair sprouted from his back, and his body jerked and jolted as his bones started to break. He winced when he felt his sacroiliac ligaments snap, disconnecting his lower spine and sacrum from his pelvis.

“Come on,” he growled, waiting for the thin white threads that weaved throughout his body – his nerves – to melt down into their organic soup. Once they did, the pain disappeared.

He closed his eyes, stilled his breathing, sensed the exact moment his heart stopped. Fur exploded out of the pores on his back, and his shoulder blades tore through his skin, leaking crimson that was immediately scooped up by scar tissue. His skull cracked, realigned. His jaw dislocated, lengthened and narrowed into a snout. His green eyes turned black, and halved in size.

In the middle of the living room was a moon bear, otherwise known as the Asian black bear, and it was a hulking beast. The bear huffed the air, pointed its heart-shaped nose upward.

Yes, he could smell something. The olfactory cortex of his moon bear’s brain, paired with his bear’s honed, acute sense of smell, filtered through the air particles and filled his subconscious with information he could not possibly hope to put into words. There was a duality in his mind, like a split personality, as though his human consciousness was like a paddle boat atop a great lake that was his bear’s subconscious.

He followed the scent into the bedroom, and amidst the bitter and metallic smell of dried blood he was able to glean the odor of a canine, male. The wolf had been here. He was surer than ever of it.

The great beast padded back outside, and Dylan was careful not to leave scratches on the creaking wooden floor. His claws could cleave a thick branch in two, never mind aging wooden floorboards.

He shifted again, clumps of flesh and fur disappearing inward into his body. He felt that intense and potent pain again, blinked it away, and was back on his knees, head between his elbows, n***d and sweating.

The shift was always painful. He didn’t know if it was just for him, or for all shifters. He didn’t know anything about shapeshifters. That was why he was searching for another. Dylan sought answers. He sniffed the air again now, and a wry smile visited his features when he couldn’t smell anything.

The change was so addictive, so penetrating. Being a bear, having all that new information filtering into his brain, it was amazing. He could take from a mere strand of scent so much more information than he could ever put into words. The words simply didn’t exist for the knowledge he suddenly had access to as a bear. The hearing was different, too. Trained more toward the higher frequencies, as a bear he could always hear the ever-present whine of a light bulb, or the minute electrical squeal of coils within a simple clock-radio.

Perhaps he should be thankful these heightened senses did not leak into his human form, or he would never get any sleep.

As he pulled his t-shirt down over his body, he heard the sound of the front door opening. He grinned. Trap sprung, he supposed.

The luscious D.I. Sasha Monroe appeared in his sights, her curvy body as enticing as ever. Her cheeks were reddened and her eyes made heavy by the afternoon heat, and Dylan fancied that it looked a little like she was aroused. His gaze traveled to her neck, slick with a glittering sheen of sweat. An urge hit him square in his center; a pang… a need. He wanted to draw close to her, smell her, taste her.

He growled at her his greeting through a grin. “Sasha, what brings you here?”