Authors: Margo Bond Collins
The next day felt much longer than it really was.
I didn’t know how long Kade and I had spent out in the state park, or what time we had gotten home—or for that matter, how much time we had spent in that half-magical shifter-sex trance—but I knew for certain that I hadn’t gotten enough rest.
It was difficult to believe it had been such a short time since the first night I had met Kade. I didn’t go around kissing strange men, and I didn’t hop into bed with them, either.
And yet that was almost exactly what I had done.
I hadn’t even met with Emma Camelli yet—the young shifter who had killed her molesting stepfather.
I had left a message with her mother the day after the attack, but had been too distracted by the shapeshifter events in my own life since then to do any further follow-up.
To be honest, I hadn’t thought of her much at all, assuming that Moreland would give me a call once everything was lined up for her case.
She might be a shapeshifter, but surely we could follow standard intake procedure, right?
All I wanted to do now was get home and go to bed, sleep for a year or two before I had to deal with anything else. I knew that was a futile dream the instant I heard Emma Camelli’s whisper on my voicemail. “Please come help me. Someone is trying to kill me. Someone like you.”
Icy fear poured down along my spine as I stared at the number recorded on the screen. I didn’t recognize it, couldn’t tell if she had called me from her home phone or a cell.
I had a reverse-number program on my office computer. I could find it that way.
I could also call the police, or even Scott.
But bringing them in to search for
someone like me
might mean exposing the shapeshifter community, and although no one had said as much, I suspected that the Council wouldn’t react well to that.
I considered my options as I unlocked the CAP-C building and, once in my office, turned on the computer.
What if I did contact the police and we found Emma in her shifter shape? I hadn’t gotten a clear description from her, but what she had described using as she killed her stepfather sounded suspiciously like a limb covered by a kind of carapace. If I was right, Emma was some sort of insectoid shifter. How might the human world react to that?
No. I had to turn to the shifters for help with this.
But Kade was the only shifter I knew how to contact by phone, and when I dialed, he didn’t answer.
Dammit. Was he ignoring me?
Fear bloomed in my stomach. Was there something worse going on?
I dialed again, even as I pulled up the reverse-number search engine and typed in the number Emma had called from.
A cell phone, registered to Emma’s mother.
I hadn’t met the woman yet—their follow-up appointment with me wasn’t scheduled until next week—but I knew where they were staying while they waited for the crime scene in their home to be released by the police.
Still no answer from Kade.
Maybe he was dealing with an emergency at the hospital?
Shutting down the computer, I left the office and strode quickly to my car. As I started the engine, I tapped in a text message to the mongoose shifter:
Emma Camelli in danger. Going to check on her
. And then I added the name of the hotel Emma’s mother had given the CAP-C receptionist when she called. Finally, I called one last time and left the same information in a voicemail.
The hotel wasn’t terribly far from my office. If Emma was there and simply panicked, then this would be a quick trip.
If she wasn’t there, I would have to figure out what to do next.
And if she’s not alone there?
I hushed the voice in the back of my head. If she wasn’t alone—if there was another lamia there—I would take on the fighting shape Kade had taught me earlier.
No matter how exhausted I might be.
On the way over to the hotel, I told myself that I would keep my phone with me. I could call Moreland if things looked sketchy.
But when I got there, the whole place looked risky. The sun had just dropped below the horizon, and the purpling twilight made the whole area, poorly maintained at the best of times, look like it had been bombed out and abandoned at some point in the recent past.
I drove my car around behind the motel, pulling to the far side of the lot to park. I stepped out and stood there uncertainly, one hand resting on the still-open car door, the other holding my phone.
Emma’s room was on the second floor. I couldn’t tell anything from out here. The windows were all featureless and blank, showing nothing but the stained white waves of the vinyl blackout curtains.
“This is stupid, Lindi,” I muttered to myself. Not to mention dangerous.
Without taking my eyes off the motel rooms, I moved around to the trunk and dug out a tire iron.
It was the closest thing I had to a weapon—other than myself. I didn’t want to shift unless I absolutely had to.
Scrolling through my contacts, I found Moreland’s number, and dialed. I was in the middle of leaving him a message when I heard Emma scream. The sound spurred me into motion. As I dashed across the lot and up the concrete and metal stairs, I hissed into the phone, “Something’s happening. Hurry!”
Without bothering to thumb it off, I dropped the phone into the pocket of my pants. If I had to shift, I wanted to know where to find it afterwards.
I slowed as I drew closer to the room.
The smartest thing to do would be shift before I tried to burst in. But that would leave me exposed to anyone who happened to walk by, or even look out a window.
Not to mention the difficulty not having hands might cause when it came to breaking into a hotel room.
Okay, then.
Break in first.
Shift later—if possible, or even necessary.
I stopped long enough to check the doorknob, just in case the door was unlocked. When it wasn’t, I lifted the tire iron behind my head and closed my eyes to draw on the power I knew I could use to shift.
It wasn’t the Earth magic of the Holy Circle, but it was something powerful, all the same. With a deep breath, I pushed at that energy, shoving it down through my arms in one mighty wave even as I swung the bar I held.
With an enormous crunch, the window spider-webbed, cracks crawling across the glass. A second, concentrated swing sent it spraying inward in a shower that I hoped didn’t injure Emma.
I took a step to one side and used the crowbar to pull the curtain back.
After the huge crashing noise, I half-expected a manager to round the corner at full-speed. Instead, the entire motel complex seemed even quieter than before, if that was possible.
I could see only a small portion of the room from my place beside the window, and from what I could tell, it was empty. As slowly as possible, I tugged the blackout curtain back farther, and took a quick peek inside before ducking back against the outside wall.
Standard low-rent hotel room. King bed, dresser, bathroom vanity against the far wall.
And I swear I had caught a glimpse of the tail-end of a snake slithering into the tiny enclosure with the shower and toilet.
More importantly, though, were the forms on the bed—at least three of them, all too small to be adults.
All human, at least at the moment, one of them with dishwater blonde hair that I was certain belonged to Emma Camelli.
If that had really been a snake slithering into the bathroom, did that mean these children had been taken by another lamia?
I almost couldn’t decide if I wanted to believe that there were other lamias out in the world, or to hope that my eyes had been playing tricks on me.
Almost.
Another, longer look into the room suggested that the way in was clear, at least for the moment. Draping curtain fabric over my arm to protect it from any remaining glass shards, I reached around and popped open the lock.
The door opened without any trouble, though I’d been half afraid someone would be waiting behind it. At the noise, though, one of the forms on the bed began whimpering.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “I’m here to help.”
I used the crowbar to do a quick check under the bed-ruffle.
Nothing but a board blocking guests from losing anything there.
All of the bodies on the bed were young girls, ranging from about six to ten, and there were four of them, not three. They all watched me, but none of them moved.
What had been used to subdue them? Keeping one eye on that bathroom door, now closed, I quickly pulled the coverlet back far enough to get a look at the girls.
No restraints.
Drugs, then.
No clothes, either.
I could think about what else might have been done to them later, after we were all safe.
“Everything is going to be okay,” I repeated. “I’m here to save you.” It hardly mattered what I said, as long as I kept talking, kept reassuring them. “Emma called me to come get you. I’m going to put this cover back over you to keep you warm. No one else will hurt you.”
Flicking my tongue out, I tasted the air around me. At least two of the girls were mammals of some sort, and the scent of their fear permeated the room. Under that, though, I could taste other scents. A bird of some sort, presumably one of the girls. Something insectoid—whatever Emma was. Fainter than that, humans, people who had come in and out of the room over the last days and weeks. And interweaved with all the other smells, just the tiniest hint of something familiar. Something serpentine.
Another lamia had been here, sometime fairly recently.
Emma whimpered, pulling my attention back to the girls on the bed.
The youngest, a tiny brunette with dark brown eyes, watched me intently, tears leaking out from under her eyelids. The others alternately watched me and glanced wildly at the bathroom door.
I nodded toward the bathroom to let them know I understood. “I know. It’s all okay. The police are coming, too.”
I hoped that was true. I had left enough messages, anyway.
A rustling noise—maybe the shower curtain?—drew my entire attention toward the back of the room. I hefted the tire iron up like a baseball bat and tiptoed toward the closed door. The flicker of tail I’d seen disappearing hadn’t looked like it belonged to an especially large snake. Probably no bigger than my own cobra shape. The vanity was outside the bathroom, leaving little space for anyone inside to shift to a larger shape.
That’s what I hoped, anyway.
Slowly, I placed my left hand on the knob, hefting the metal bar in the right.
I could do this. I had to do this. I couldn’t just wait for someone else to show up and take care of the problem.
The possibility that the Council might do terrible things to humans who discovered shapeshifters flitted through my mind, and I dismissed it for later consideration.
I took a deep breath and began turning the knob.
“Freeze!” The deep voice came from outside the door, and I jumped in surprise, letting go of the unopened knob.
“Drop the tire iron.” I peered in the mirror, but I couldn’t see anything but a vague figure outside the room—only his hands and gun were clearly visible.
The iron clattered to the floor, and I put both hands in the air, remaining perfectly still, until Scott Carson entered the room, holding a gun on me.
When he made eye contact in the mirror, he blinked, pulling his finger off the trigger and pointing the barrel of his weapon straight into the air.
“Dammit, Lindi,” he breathed. “What are you doing here? You could’ve gotten hurt.”
Crap. Of all the people who could have shown up, why did it have to be Scott? I might have been able to get Moreland to help me—might have even been able to tell him about the shifters and trusted him to keep it a secret.
Could I trust Scott with my deepest secret? I couldn’t very well let him go into that bathroom blind.
“I think I heard something in there,” I finally said, gesturing toward the closed door as I stepped away.
“Something or someone?”
I shrugged. “Just a noise.”
With a nod, he waved me back out of the way. “Go stay with the girls.”
I was impressed. He’d barely glanced at the bed in the room before identifying the victims. Moving to the bed, I perched on the edge, murmuring to the children still immobilized there. “It’ll be okay. Mr. Carson is an investigator with the District Attorney’s office.”
Scott pounded on the door, and I jerked. One of the girls on the bed also twitched. I hoped that was a good sign that whatever drugs had been used were wearing off.
“District Attorney’s Investigator,” he barked. “Open up.” He waited about ten seconds, and then he turned the knob, pushed the door open, and followed his gun in.
I assumed that Scott had called backup, but just in case, I pulled my phone out and dialed 911. It was better than jittering.
From my seat on the bed I couldn’t see anything but the blue oxford-cloth shirt that covered his back. There was a little movement, and I heard the shower curtain rings scrape across their pole. Not long after, Scott came out of the bathroom.