Eli
“Hey Lizzie girl.”Eli grinned into the warm fall sunlight, cell at his ear. She hated being called Lizzie, and ‘Lizzie girl’ made her grind her teeth, but for once she didn’t react.
“Check your texts,” she ordered. “I just sent you some pics. And for reference, my hand from wrist line to the tip of my middle finger is six and a half inches.”
Eli laughed softly, her words taking his mind into a direction he hoped she intended.
“Mind out of the gutter, Captain America,” she said. He could hear the smile in her voice. Lizzie Girl knew him well. “That particular Marvel superhero does not have sex. The photos are because I might have a job for you and Brute. And/or maybe PsyLED and Rick LaFleur if it comes to it.”
The mention of PsyLED grabbed his attention and took it off more pleasant images. He was Jane’s number one, and sometimes that meant keeping the peace between local paras. “Hang on.” He slid images around and found Lizzie’s photos. They were not what he had been hoping to see. The pic of her hand in the footprint suggested a creature with a fourteen-inch-long foot, sixteen counting the claws. And the scene at the chicken coop was bad enough that he would have expected a stronger emotional reaction from her. Her tone was unfazed and it shouldn’t have been so calm. This thing, whatever it was, was dangerous. And big. Lizzie was calm as if she was at a garden party. She was always a surprise. “Okay,” he said, paging through. “I see them. Use words. Start with, are you currently tracking this thing?”
Lizzie ignored his question and told him about the tracks first. “The one prefect print wasn’t made by a guy in a chicken suit or fake monster shoes. The weight wasn’t concentrated in the back half or the front half, and the distribution wasn’t flat like a mold pressed into the earth. This showed weight transfer like a human foot but on a bigger scale.”
Eli’s eyebrows went up. Lizzie knew tracker stuff. Guy stuff. He approved. “Agreed.”
“If you widen the pic, you’ll see a strange place on the biggest knuckle of the little toe, like a large callus; one also visible on the ball of the foot. This looks like a real print, though the monster fakers are getting better with their tech and silicon molds, so I could be wrong. The chickens weren’t all killed by teeth and claws. At least a few had their necks broken, like the way my Gramma used to kill a chicken. She’d pick it up by the head and whip it around, breaking its neck.
“It was fast. The family house is within forty feet and they slept through it. They have midsize yapper dogs inside and the dogs didn’t react either, so the chickens didn’t have time to make a ruckus before they were gathered up and killed. The creature didn’t take its dinner with it, just killed, ate, made a mess, and took off. Clients want me to track and, preferably, kill the predator, but have been made aware that I don’t kill sentients, so if I only have the option to capture it, I still get paid. It’s in the contract, which is signed.”
“And you want me to help you chase a chicken killer.” He let a little humor into his words, because honest-to-god how else could he react to this? “Into the woods. At night. Like a camping trip, again. You remember what we went through the last time we went camping.”
“Yes I do. And I want you to bring Brute, if he’s willing to come. Tell him it could be a Dwayyo, and read the specs to him. I may have a smear of its blood on a cloth, and— Aw damn it. I got its blood on my new jeans. Tell Brute he can get a scent. I’ll be at the Inn in forty minutes. Damn it. I really liked these jeans.” She ended the call.
“Dwayyo?” Eli did a quick search on four different spellings before he called his brother and asked for intel on a mythical creature.
“Got it, bro,” Alex said. “Think of sasquatch meets werewolf on meth and anabolic steroids, with claws and fangs, a bad hair day, and a sucky attitude. And it likes the taste of meat, any meat, but with a preference for dog, cattle, and pig.”
“No pics?”
“Not a one. An artist’s rendering from the early nineteen hundreds. Sending you a pic of that.”
Eli stared at the sketch. “Fur. Fangs. Claws. Snout of a wolf. But it’s wearing pants.”
“With a tail sticking out a rip.”
“Shapeshifter? Werewolf?”
“According to witnesses, it’s nine feet tall and muscular. So take Jane in half form, give her three feet in height and add a couple hundred pounds. Then take away her humanity. Even when she’s fully Beast, she doesn’t kill just to kill. This thing does.”
“So, if it’s a human-based shapeshifter, and if he can’t take on mass from elsewhere like Janie does, then when he’s in human shape, he’s tall, and close to three hundred and fifty pounds. Linebacker? Sumo wrestler?”
“Yup. But you’re assuming gender based on this drawing. You wanna tell me what’s going on, bro?”
“Affirmative,” Eli said. He briefed his brother and hung up the phone. He had a woman to meet and an op to plan. And he wanted steak. Quickly, he arranged to pick up a meal, calculated the time and distance back to the Inn—the Winter Court of the Dark Queen—and began a mental list of supplies they might need. This time, he wouldn’t be caught on the wrong side of ahedge of thornsworking. He’d have his weapons on him, and some would be magical in origin.
Brute
The stench whirledthrough the house the moment the front door opened.
The growl started in his ass and vibrated out his snarling snout. The rumble reverberated like a generator. His ruff stood on end, his shoulders hunched high, his body crouched.
His predatory reaction was all reflex, shit he was used to, having been stuck in wolf form for the last few years, but Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, this one was bad. The, “I’m fucked,” reaction started in his instinctive hind brain and came snarling out his mouth. And he couldn’t stop it.
Footsteps headed his way. Eli. Liz Everhart. And the scent of a “thing that must die.”
Alex swiveled in his chair. Carefully, the Kid said, “Brute? You okay?”
Brute shook his head left to right once. He was salivating, drool dropping from his lips. It splattered against the wall.
