Unleashed

TWENTY

“WELL, GREETINGS, FELLOW TRAVELERS,” HE SAID. “Fancy running into you here.” He noticed Lou, who was looking at him with some distaste. “I see you found Lou,” he said to me. “Nice work.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Is that any way to talk to a friend? No thank-you for my troubles?”

“Thanks,” I said grudgingly. He had helped, but the memory of his pushing me into the energy pool was not a pleasant one. “I do appreciate that.”

“De nada.” He waited for me to say something more, then pouted when I remained silent. Finally he shrugged. “You were out looking for the other shape-shifter, weren’t you? Any luck?”

“What’s that to you?” Victor said.

“Nothing, really. I just thought I might be of some help.”

“And why would you want to help us?”

Eli, who usually smooths over such confrontations, watched and said nothing.

“Well, I don’t, actually. Not you, specifically. But Mason’s not so bad. Almost a kindred spirit. And I’ve decided I like it here.” He pushed himself away from the van. “I was getting bored; now I’m not. But I do want to blend in, and the less trouble, the better. Trouble has a way of expanding outward, and pulling innocent bystanders-like myself-into its orbit.”

“Terrific,” said Victor. He wasn’t impressed by this explanation, but I made a small “cool it” gesture with my hand. I saw no point in antagonizing the Wendigo. He surely had his own agenda, but he could also be a great help.

“Yeah,” I said. “We were out looking for it, but it’s gone to earth. I don’t suppose there’s any chance you know where it is?”

“Not right at this moment, no. But I can point you in the right direction.”

“That would be helpful indeed,” Eli said mildly, finally speaking up.

Victor shook his head in disgust and turned away. He wanted nothing to do with another uncanny creature. The Wendigo looked over at him.

“I get the feeling you don’t much care for me,” he said. “I’m hurt, deeply wounded.”

“I’ll bet,” said Victor. The Wendigo smiled.

“Come on,” he said to me. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”

I didn’t trust him any more than did Victor. He wanted something, I was sure, but there was only one way to find out what that might be.

“Sure,” I said.

I climbed into my van and the Wendigo got in beside me. Lou jumped in the back, not happy, but without protest.

“Watch him,” I told Lou. The Wendigo started to say something, but I held up a hand. “I know, you’re deeply hurt.”

“Anywhere in particular?” I asked as I pulled out of the driveway. He held up a hand for silence, as if he were listening for something.

“Do you know where the Beach Chalet is?”

“Of course.”

The Beach Chalet is a café across from Ocean Beach, just down from the Cliff House. They mostly serve food, but you can also get just a beer or a cup of coffee, and they have an outdoor patio around back, right next to one of the Golden Gate Park trails. It’s perfect for Lou-he can wander from table to table, begging snacks from soft-hearted diners.

On the way over, the Wendigo seemed content to sit quietly for once, although he kept up a constant drumming with his fingers. It would have been annoying on a longer drive, but I have to admit he kept good time.

We got a table in the back and ordered coffee and bagels with cream cheese at twice the price of an ordinary café. The Wendigo had no money, naturally, so I had to pick up the check. Lou darted off into the bushes on the other side of the nearby trail as soon as we got there. He hadn’t gone far, I was sure. He was watching us from a secure and undisclosed location under a bush. For once he had taken my instruction seriously; otherwise he would have been making the rounds at the other tables, begging for scraps.

“So what’s up?” I finally said, after we’d chatted for a while about music and ordinary things, just as if we were normal people. “I don’t have any more of those stones, you know. Really.”

The Wendigo crumbled up a corner of bagel and threw the crumbs on the ground, where a horde of small Brewer’s blackbirds were hopping around scavenging.

“I believe you. But I think I’ve found another way to remain here. Something’s happened to me since I crossed over-I’ve become more human, in some fashion I don’t quite understand. And I’ve lost some of my powers-not all of them, not by any means, but some. That’s why I wanted to get away from Victor. If he knew I was weakened, he might decide to do something about me, just in case.”

That was not an entirely irrational fear. Victor was big on preemptive action. And what the Wendigo was saying wasn’t that difficult to accept. Rolf and his friends had once been practitioners, as human as I was. Over the years they’d morphed into something not quite human. Some of them weren’t even remotely human, not anymore. I saw no reason it couldn’t work the other way around.

“Anyway,” he continued, “one of the things I seem to have acquired is a conscience of sorts. Things that once amused me no longer seem quite as funny. Like people dying.”

If he’d acquired a conscience, it would have been in the last couple of days, which seemed rather convenient.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” I said, smiling insincerely. Hopefully he hadn’t yet developed enough humanity to be able to read subtleties.

“So, I do want to help. And as I said, I haven’t lost all my powers. I can still find people, and shape-shifters, even if I can’t call them anymore. I know where the shape-shifter is, and who she’s adopted as an aspect.”

“Who would that be?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.

“You’re not going to like it.”

“I don’t expect to.”

“It’s your friend Morgan, the woman who helped to find me in the first place.”

“I don’t believe it,” I said, although of course I already did.

An expression of concern appeared on his face. It didn’t look exactly phony, but there was something not quite right about it, either. Maybe he felt nothing and was just aping human emotions. Maybe he hadn’t got the human thing down quite yet. True sociopaths will do exactly the same thing, but they have it down perfectly and it’s almost impossible to distinguish their manufactured emotion from the real thing. And sociopaths are still human, after all. In a way.

“I imagine it’s a hard thing to accept, that a friend could have been taken like that,” he said. “But believe me, it’s true.”

He pointed to the path that paralleled the back of the café. I followed the direction of his finger, and there, walking quickly with her head down, was Morgan. I sat very still, hoping she wouldn’t glance over and notice us. This was no place for a confrontation, and with the shotgun sitting uselessly in my van, it probably wouldn’t turn out well for me anyway. I couldn’t let her just stroll away, though.

She had already passed by when a small black-and-tan head poked its way out from the corner of a bush and looked at me inquiringly. I hesitated. Lou could follow her easily enough and he wouldn’t let himself be spotted, but chances were she was just headed for her car. It wouldn’t do any good for him to lead me to an empty parking spot on a curb.

The Wendigo saw my indecision and laughed.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I can find her again. I just wanted to show you I’m not full of bullshit.” He laughed again. “Not about this, anyway.”

Lou, meanwhile, was getting antsy. I shook my head, and he stared at me to make sure what I was saying, then disappeared back into the bushes.

The Wendigo sat quietly for a time, no longer fidgeting, again listening. After a while he nodded.

“I think she’s going back to her lair,” he said. “Or close by it. Shall we?”

It was all very convenient-him knowing exactly where she was and where she was going. Could he be in league with her for some reason? That didn’t make much sense, either, though.

“Why not,” I said.

We walked back to where the van was parked, Lou appearing behind us halfway there. He was taking his guard responsibilities very seriously for once, which was a good thing. But it also meant he sensed things were not quite right as well, and that wasn’t so good.

Once back in the van, the Wendigo went through his listening routine again before giving a satisfied grunt.

“Upper Haight,” he said. “Not that far.”

We drove down Fulton to Stanyan, then turned up Haight Street. We hadn’t gone more than a couple of blocks when the Wendigo told me to pull over. Easier said than done. Parking on Haight is as hard as anywhere in the city, harder than most. I pulled off on a side street and finally located a space.

“She’s a couple of blocks away, I think,” he said. She’s staying somewhere near here-I can sense the approximate area, but I can’t pinpoint it exactly. So we’ll have to follow her.”

That presented two problems. First, Morgan might recognize me. Second, the shotgun wasn’t going to do me any good. The Haight sees its share of violence, but I still couldn’t get away with blasting a shotgun at someone in broad daylight. Even if I disguised it, there was no way to disguise its effects.

The first issue was easy to deal with, though. I didn’t need to establish a full-scale illusion. All I needed was a slight alteration-make my hair a shade longer and lighter, change my nose, and put a few lines in my face. If you’re not expecting to see someone, or if you see them out of context, sometimes it takes a moment to recognize them, even if you know them well. A slight veneer of illusion is all you need to throw them off totally.

Lou presented more of a problem. Anyone walking down the street with a small dog by their side would instantly arouse her suspicions, no matter what we looked like. He’d just have to stay well back and out of sight.

I hadn’t been in the Haight for a while. It’s a place that still holds on to the sixties in many ways; the same head shops and coffeehouses, the same kids sitting on the sidewalk harassing passersby for spare change. But if you look at them more closely, they’re not the same at all. Their eyes are sly and knowing instead of open and friendly, cynical and jaded instead of naïve. Their faces are hard and wary. Fourteen-year-olds look twenty, twenty-year-olds look thirty, and their drugs of choice are crystal and smack instead of trippy psychedelics.

“Well, good luck,” said the Wendigo. “This is where I get off.”

“I thought you wanted to help,” I said.

“I have helped. But that thing is dangerous, and it’s your problem, not mine.”

He turned and walked back the other way with a cheery wave of his hand. This was looking more like a setup with every passing moment. But if he expected me to challenge the shape-shifter on my own, he was mistaken. I’d track it to its lair and come back later with the rest of the crew. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold, they say. They don’t mention how difficult it is to eat anything if you’re dead.

Lou and I continued up Haight Street, weaving our way through the people crowding the sidewalk. I didn’t see Morgan until I was almost on top of her and had to back off quickly. She was walking slowly, looking from side to side and occasionally glancing over her shoulder, obviously wary.

She stopped inside a small corner grocery and Lou and I waited half a block away where we had a good view of the entrance. A short while later, she came out holding a paper bag and continued up the street. As she passed by storefronts, she occasionally stopped and gazed in the display windows, just like an ordinary person out for a day of window-shopping. I moved up closer, trying to get a feel for what she was up to. Scoping out the area for potential victims? Picking up a Sara Lee cheesecake to tide her over until brain-eating time?

Farther down the street, she stopped in front of a pet store that featured a box of puppies in the window. I couldn’t tell what breed they were, but puppies are puppies, after all. The tumbled around, falling down randomly and launching mock attacks on one another. One of them, a black-and-white toughie, got hold of a littermate’s back leg and wouldn’t let go, even though he was dragged all over the place.

Morgan stood transfixed, and I took the chance and moved up closer. She was smiling as she watched them, with what I would call a sad, nostalgic air. Then, even though I was still a ways off, I could have sworn I saw tears running down her face. A moment later, she wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.

I drifted back, farther away. What was going on here? There was no one watching, as far as the shape-shifter knew. Was it like method acting, where she never slipped out of character? When she took over an identity, did she experience the same emotions, feel the same griefs? Was she becoming more human, like the Wendigo?

The scene nagged at me, instilling a seed of doubt. Maybe this wasn’t the shape-shifter after all. Maybe this was really Morgan, and I’d got it wrong again. It wouldn’t be the first time. But if this was really Morgan, what was she doing wandering around the Haight? What about the fake Ifrit at her home? How had the Wendigo tracked her down, and why was he so sure she was the shape-shifter? And most damning of all, why hadn’t she called me to let me know she was still in town?

She started walking again, so I kept on her tail. Whatever was going on, I was going to follow her until I came up with an answer. She was moving faster now, more purposefully, and before long we arrived at the corner of Haight and Ashbury, that infamous intersection. She hesitated a moment, then turned up Ashbury Street and followed it up the hill until it reached a residential section full of curving streets. Now that we were off the main drag, there were fewer people to blend in with, so I stayed even farther back, a block at least. Lou could always find her again if she unexpectedly turned a corner or entered a house or apartment, now that he had her in his sights.

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.