Secret Shifter

by Louise Cypress

  Jill’s hand touched mine. “Not yet. I came early so we could speak off the record before the interview begins.”

  “Off the record?”

  “Let me see your phone to make sure it’s off.”

  I didn’t relinquish my phone right away. “You didn’t say anything in your reply to my email about speaking off the record.”

  Jill’s eyes bore into mine like she could communicate telepathically. There was a slight smile on her lips that made me wonder if she was laughing at me or just psychotic. “I’ll give you your interview for the paper,” she said. “I promise. But first we need to speak privately.”

  “Okay.” I broke eye contact to look at my phone and swipe it off. “It’s not recording anything.” I showed it to her.

  Sergeant Byrd nodded. Then she looked around the silent office, like she was double-checking that nobody was there. When she finally began talking, she leaned forward and spoke in a voice so quiet, I needed to scoot closer to hear her. “I know who you are, Kate,” she said. “I know what you can do.”

  My eyes widened and my heart stopped. “You mean that I’m a runner? In high school I came in eighteenth place doing the 10K for the state of California.”

  “Nice deflection, but no, that’s not what I mean. I know that you can slay vampires.”

  Sweat beaded around my hairline. “Is this a joke? Did my editor put you up to this?” My heart beat as fast as a prize-winning greyhound.

  “On Monday night you and your friend Cassandra Xander slayed two vampires—the campus police officer and an archivist librarian from the history department. The bodies turned up at the county morgue last night.” Sergeant Byrd raised her eyebrows. “In unusual condition.”

  “You’re nuts.” I closed my computer, even though it wasn’t turned on. “Forget the interview. I won’t talk with a crazy person.”

  “But slaying isn’t all you can do.” Jill grabbed my wrist.

  I yanked my hand way. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Kate, you’re living with dangerous people. People who would kill you if they knew what you were.”

  “Stop talking.” I gritted my teeth. My muscles tensed and I felt the overwhelming urge to shift into something fierce, to protect myself. Sergeant Byrd was cornering me. I hated being cornered.

  “Sorry. I’m going about this all wrong.” Sergeant Byrd sighed, and it was the first flash of vulnerability she’d shown since I’d met her. “Let me try this in another way. Do you like history? I have something to show you.” She put her enormous purse on her lap and pulled out what appeared to be an art history textbook.

  “Sure, I like history. But I already told you. I don’t talk to crazy people.” I stood up to go.

  “Wait.” Jill flipped through the pages until she found an oil portrait of a woman burning at the stake. “Have you heard of Joan of Arc?” Jill tapped at the picture.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of her.” I hovered, half in and half out of my chair.

  “In 1431 the English burned Joan at the stake, and onlookers said that when the flames consumed her, a dove rose up and flew away to freedom. They said it was a miracle that her soul escaped. But, Kate…” Sergeant Byrd reached for my hand again and I jerked away. “It wasn’t a miracle that Joan escaped those flames, was it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I sat down all the way, curiosity getting the better of me.

  “Just like it wasn’t a miracle that your ancestor, Bernard of Montjoux, could trek into snowcapped mountains and rescue lost climbers.”

  The bottom of the world dropped out from under me. It felt like I was freefalling through empty space and there was nothing to catch me as I plunged into the void. I stared at the picture of Joan of Arc one more time. Grandpa’s prayer to Bernard of Montjoux whispered in my mind.

  I looked into the sergeant’s eyes and said her name aloud. “Jill Byrd.” I said it again, putting the emphasis on the last part. “Jill Byrd.” That was how Rolf had been able to smell the vampire last night. He was a bird shifter! Some birds were experts at scenting carrion. No wonder Rolf had said that the vampire had smelled like cadaver. “Oh my goodness.” I put my hand across my forehead.

  “Kate,” said Jill, her tone urgent. “If the slayers find out who you really are, they will kill you. Their whole purpose is to hunt down paranormal creatures like you. Do you know the law?”

  I pulled my hand away and nodded. “The first law is never—”

  “Shh!” Jill held her finger up to her lips. “I’m a Static. You don’t need to reveal anything because I already know.”

  Chapter 26

  Jill Byrd might have been all-knowing, but I had a ton of questions. Like how had she found out about me in the first place? And did she know of any more dog-shifters like me? The list of interview questions I’d worked so hard to craft seemed ridiculous now. Off the record, in this impromptu tête-à-tête, I relied on my innate ability to hound for the truth. Secrecy be damned, I went for it.

  “How did you find out I could slay vampires?” I asked in the first of my lightning-round of questions.

  Jill was as still as a statue. “A little bird told me.”

  “How did you find out about vampires in the first place?”

  “Five years ago, I was the lead investigator in the La Jolla Cove High School Tragedy when fifty students died at prom. The forensics team ruled it to be a gas leak, but that explanation never satisfied me. I’ve been screening the city’s cold case files ever since.”

  “How did you find out about my…” I gulped. “Ancestry?”

  “In 1802 there was a man named Jedediah Canis. My father-in-law collects shifter ancestral charts. If your last name were still Canis, we might have found you sooner, but the spelling must have changed over the past two centuries.”

  “Are there other people like me?” I wiped my sweaty palms on my shorts. “I mean, with the same abilities?”

  Jill pressed her lips into a thin line and her forehead knit together in rows. “Kate, I’m sorry. I should have—” Her phone rang, interrupting her. “Shoot. I have to take this. It’s work.” She held up her phone to one ear and plugged her finger in the other. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. No one touches the body until I arrive. Got that? No one.” Jill stood up in a hurry. “Kate, you and I are going to talk soon and finish this conversation. In the meantime, this is what you can put in your news article, on the record.”

  I scrambled to open up my notebook and click my ballpoint pen. “Ready.”

  “The San Diego Police Department’s homicide unit is investigating a series of unexplained murders on the UCSD campus. We urge all students to exercise extreme caution and avoid walking alone across campus at night. Use the buddy system and stay home unless it’s absolutely necessary to go out. Right now, we are working several leads and this continues to be an ongoing investigation.”

  I scribbled furiously, relying on my own version of shorthand to keep up. “Got it.” I laid down my pen. “Rolf told you who the serial killer is, right?”

  “Yes.” Jill nodded. “About Rolf—” Her phone rang again, and she swore. “I’ve got to go. She charged out of the room and reached for the front door. Before she left, she swung around and faced me. “Don’t go back to that house, Kate. Promise me.”

  “What house? Slayer Academy?”

  “Promise me.” Jill’s voice wavered. “You’re too important to risk losing.” She answered her phone and stalked out of the building.

  I locked the door behind her and flew back to my computer, typing up the article about the string of deaths on campus as quickly as I could. I spellchecked as I went and gave it a cursory read when I finished. Then I emailed it to Mario and raced out the door.

  Rolf. I needed to find Rolf. He held clues to everything, and I would know more once I found him. I cinched up the straps to my backpack and ran at top speed to Frat Row because that was the last place I’d seen him. Rolf had said he was crashing with Jake at his fraternit
y house. By the time I’d crossed campus, my ponytail sagged with sweat. Hopefully, the antimicrobial fabric of my cross-country T-shirt worked, and I didn’t reek of BO.

  Red cups and aluminum cans littered the front yards of the frat houses, along with used vaping cartridges and empty bags of chips. I slowed down to a trot as I ran past the debris, cooling down and calming my heart rate. Before I reached the house where I’d gone to the party last night, I stretched my hamstrings and quadriceps so I wouldn’t get a cramp. I walked up the steps to the front door, cool as a cucumber, and knocked. When nobody answered, I tried the doorknob and found it unlocked.

  “Hello?” I called, pushing my way into the house. The air stank of spilled beer. “Is anyone here?”

  I found a few guys snoring on the couch in the front room, drool dribbling out of the corners of their mouths, but I didn’t see any sign of Rolf or his friend Jake. Dents in the plaster wall and stains in the carpet gave the house a shabby appearance that I hadn’t noticed the night before. I walked into the kitchen and found a woman wearing a baggy T-shirt that barely covered her butt, struggling to use the coffeemaker. The machine gurgled and water spilled all over the counter.

  “How does this thing work?” she whined. “Where do the pods go?”

  “There aren’t any pods.” I hurried over and turned off the machine. “Did you put in a filter?”

  “What’s a filter?” Half of her makeup smeared across her face.

  I opened up the basket and dumped used grounds into the sink. “I’ll make coffee for you if you go find my friend.”

  “Sure.” She rubbed her eyes and globs of mascara swirled around her sockets like she was a raccoon. “What’s his name?”

  “Rolf.”

  “I don’t know anyone named Rolf.”

  “What about Jake?” I found a stack of filters in a nearby cabinet and loaded one into the coffeemaker.

  “I know Jake.” The woman giggled. “I was with him last night.”

  I lost count of the measurements as I dumped coffee into the filter and had to start over. Cassandra sure knew how to pick winners. It was a good thing she had left the party last night when she had because Jake sounded like a douchebag. “Great. Could you go get Jake for me? The coffee will be ready by the time you get back.” I popped the basket into the machine and removed the carafe to fill it with water.

  “Okay.” She pouted. “You’re not his girlfriend, are you? Because Jake told me she went to Santa Clara.”

  “No.” I rolled my eyes. “I already told you, I’m here to find Rolf, not Jake—not that I’m Rolf’s girlfriend, either. I just need to talk to him.”

  She pressed her fingertips against her temples. “I’ve got a splitting headache. You don’t need to torture me with boring details.”

  I held up the carafe. “Go get Jake and then I’ll give you coffee.”

  She stumbled away on bare feet and I wrinkled my nose as I contemplated all the germs that must have been on the floor.

  I scrolled through my phone while I waited for the coffee to brew. Great article, Mario had texted. But you misspelled autopsy. It ends in y, not ie.

  Duh, I texted back. Sorry. I was in a rush.

  No problem, he texted back right away. That’s what editors are for. Since you turned this in early, I’ll put it up online today ahead of tomorrow’s printing. Nice work.

  Thx. At least I could do something right. The rest of my life was in shambles, but I could bang out a front-page story in a rush if I had to.

  Swiping over to my email, I discovered that Joshua was correct. Results from my DNA test were complete and there was a message waiting for me in my inbox. I clicked the link and scanned the chart as quickly as possible.

  30% Italian Ancestry

  70% Swiss Ancestry

  55 Sixth-Tenth Cousins

  0 Third-Fifth Cousins

  0 Second Cousins

  0 First Cousins

  0 Siblings

  0 Parental Matches

  Well, so much for the chances of finding my long-lost dad. The DNA kit didn’t impress me much. I already knew I was Swiss-Italian. I was related to Bernard of of Montjoux, after all.

  “Are you the girl who wants me?” Jake entered the kitchen with bedhead, a stubbly face, and a self-satisfied grin. But when his eyes met mine, he stopped smiling. “Oh. I thought you were Cassandra.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, player.” I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

  “Coffee,” moaned the woman in Jake’s T-shirt as she came back into the kitchen. “You promised coffee.”

  I poured her a cup in the cleanest mug I could find and tried to ignore the layer of grime around the rim. “Where’s Rolf?” I asked. “Can I talk to him?’

  “Rolf?” Jake picked up a plastic cup from next to a keg and drank the floater. “He never came back last night. He went home with this hot chick wearing a short plaid skirt and bright red lipstick.”

  My cheeks flushed. “That was me, you idiot. And Rolf didn’t come home with me. He walked me to my dorm, that’s all.”

  “Oh.” Jake made a sad face. “Poor Rolf. He has the worst luck with women—and with cars. Do you want me to tell him you stopped by?”

  “That’d be great. Thanks.” I rested my hands on the counter as I tried to think of my next move. “Could you give me his number too?”

  “You bet.” Jake scrolled through his contacts and held his phone over so I could see. I memorized the number and tapped it into my phone.

  “Thanks,” I said again.

  “Can I get Cassandra’s number too?” Jake asked hopefully.

  “Cassandra?” The hungover girl slammed down her mug and coffee spilled onto the counter. “Who’s Cassandra?”

  “Don’t call her,” I said. “She’ll call you.” I rushed out of the house, inhaling deeply as soon as I reached the fresh air. Yup. Frat houses were definitely not my scene, although acquiring Rolf’s number had been worth it. I dialed him and held the phone to my ear as I walked away toward Tioga Hall. Maybe I could take a quick shower before refueling at the cafeteria.

  “Hi. You’ve reached Rolf Byrd,” said his voicemail. “If this is the start of a beautiful friendship, please leave a message.”

  I hung up without speaking because as soon as I heard Rolf’s voice, I’d become tongue-tied. Shoot! What was wrong with me? I’d spoken to him last night without any problems. His Instagram account flashed through my mind, especially that shirtless picture of him on the beach. I told myself to cut it out. Rolf was a Byrd. I was a Canus. Rolf’s soulmate lived somewhere here on campus. Probably up in a tree somewhere. He’d told me so last night. A freaking robin had identified her. Didn’t some birds mate for life? I’d read that somewhere. Swans or something. Or maybe it was geese. I couldn’t remember.

  I took a deep breath and tried again. Only this time, when the phone started ringing, I heard it in stereo. Huh? I ended the call and tried again. The phone rang in my ear all right, but I also heard it out in the distance—coming from the bushes.

  Chapter 27

  Rolf’s jeans, T-shirt, shoes, and phone were nestled underneath a juniper bush, along with his boxer shorts. I squatted down in the shrubbery and brought his shirt to my nose, breathing in his scent so I could track him. He smelled like vinyl seats, hair gel, and hamburger grease. My nostrils flared with surprise. It wasn’t a bad scent; it just wasn’t what I’d been expecting. Kind of like walking into the Corvette Diner downtown, where the waitresses wore poodle skirts and threw bubblegum at you. My mom had taken me there for my thirteenth birthday.

  Okay, change of plans. Rolf had shifted—probably in the middle of the night since his clothes were still here. Maybe he was in the air right now keeping tabs on Mr. Sherwood. Knowing Rolf’s scent wouldn’t help me after all, I realized, even if I shifted too. I could only track scents on the ground, not in the clouds.

  I could still text him a message, though, so when he returned, he’d find me. I could also mute his phone for
him so his stuff would be safe.

  This is Kate Canus, I texted. Call me when you get this. We need to talk.

  No sooner had I hit send than I second-guessed myself. Did my message sound rude? I’d been rude enough last night. Rolf probably thought I was royal pain. Maybe I should have added a smiley face or something. But I never used emojis. It seemed weird to start now.

  I crept out of the bushes hoping nobody would see me and stood up straight. I’d feel better after breakfast and a shower. In that order, I decided. My rumbling stomach couldn’t wait. Technically, I still had time to make it to Asian-American Lit, but I was so stressed, I decided to skip it.

  The line at the dining hall was short since it was 8 a.m. on a Friday and most students were either at class or asleep. I loaded up my tray with poached eggs, half a grapefruit, and whole wheat toast. I added a cup of black coffee, relieved to see how clean the mugs were. I found a table by a window and wolfed everything down. The marine layer was rolling back now, and the sun shone through. It promised to be another glorious day in La Jolla—if you were rich, or beautiful, or had a family that loved you, and a place to call home. What did I have? I stared down at my breakfast. I still had a dining account and a bed up on the tenth floor of Tioga Hall with my name on it. I didn’t have to return to Slayer Academy if I didn’t want to. Maybe I should listen to Jill’s advice and not go back. I could text Natalie and say I was sorry, it hadn’t worked out. I didn’t owe anyone an explanation. My old life was waiting for me right here whenever I needed it.

  Except it wasn’t.

  I shoved my spoon into a segment of grapefruit and juice squirted my eye. I blotted the dribble away with my napkin, but it stung.

  What would I do about Barktacular? Could Jill and the other police officers handle Mr. Sherwood on their own? Was I putting people in danger by not dealing with the vampire myself or asking the Xanders for help?

  My heart hurt thinking of the picture Rolf had shown me of his whole family at the beach. The ‘happily-ever-after’ picture, he’d called it. What would happen to their happily-ever-after if Mr. Sherwood infected Jill with vampiritis and it was all my fault?