by Alex Ziebart
A good time to try.
As the echoing sound of boots moved in her direction once more, she crouched and leapt. Although she felt like a rocket as she shot into the air, it wasn’t enough. She reached out and only just managed to get a handhold on the middle shelf. She hoisted herself up onto the shelf, jumping the instant her toes touched steel. In seconds, she stood atop the highest shelf, hand braced against the corrugated ceiling for balance.
Kristen was pretty sure stacking boxes that close to the ceiling was some sort of fire hazard.
She watched the commotion below for a long moment, a smug smile cresting her lips. They didn’t have a clue where she’d gone. The changelings walked the aisles in their riot gear, rifles shouldered, scanning the floor. A pair of them crawled in the gap she’d made to crush their ally. Even in their unknown language, she could hear their hushed surprise. She took a count: six she could see, four on one side of her, two on the other. The four made the mistake of forming rank, shoulder-to-shoulder.
Kristen stepped off of the shelf. She crushed the first creature beneath her closed fists, and he simply broke beneath her, spine bent the wrong way. Another moved to seize her while the rest shuffled back to open fire. She grabbed the closest in both hands, lifted him up, and hurled him into his friends. The flying body bowled them over, knocking them to the concrete. She leapt atop the pile, picking them apart one by one, snapping armor and bone alike with bare fists. The two from the next aisle rushed back through the gap in the crates. Her hand darted out like a spear, piercing the metal of a nearby crate. She used a handful of steel as a handle and dragged the box into the aisle, placing it between her and the gunmen. She set her shoulder to the crate and pushed, driving it down the aisle like a bulldozer, shoving broken bodies along with it. As she picked up speed, she heard the boots of backpedaling gunmen trying to get clear. She released the crate just before pushing it out into the open and ducked behind it.
A moment of silence descended as the gunmen waited for her to make her appearance. A pair of thundering CRACKS sounded from outside, punctuated immediately by shattering glass. Kristen’s eyes widened, back tensing. What was that? She waited again, counting to three, and then peered around the crate. The gunmen lay dead on the ground, blood flowing from holes in their helmets.
She listened. Were there more of them? She tried to recall how many she’d seen: six or seven? Did Jane tell her how many to expect? Her heart thundered against her ribs, and she laid a hand on her chest to try and calm it, taking deep breaths.
Kristen glanced down the aisle at the scattered guns, chunks of armor, and streaks of slick blood. She licked suddenly dry lips. Were they inhuman? Kristen shivered. What if Jane had made it all up to make it easier? Heroes smashed aliens all the time in the comic books. Sure, she’d beat up the people in Temple Financial, but that had been completely different. Here, she’d felt bones breaking, skulls cracking under her heel. And if they were inhuman, did that really make a difference? Did that mean they deserved to die? She wasn’t like other humans herself. Did she deserve that fate?
Kristen heaved herself to her feet. With cautious steps, she walked toward a body—the only one in the aisle that hadn’t been scraped away by her makeshift bulldozer. She took it by the shoulder and flipped it onto its back with ease. A few thundering heartbeats passed as she waited for the body to move. It didn’t. She opened the clasp on its helmet and pulled it away. Beneath, the bloodied face of a Caucasian man stared at her with dead eyes. Bile rose in her throat.
The dead man’s hand grabbed her by the neck.
His arms suddenly swelled with muscle, armor snapping off from the shoulders down, the cloth beneath tearing to pieces. She tried to scream, but her throat was squeezed too tightly. The man howled, baring teeth that lengthened to sharp knives too large for the man’s mouth. He straightened his arm, lifting her high above him as he sat up, then stood. She dug her fingers into his thick wrists, trying to pry his hands loose—to no avail. The rest of his body rippled with ropey muscle, thick fur covering the skin the riot gear had protected moments earlier. He squeezed her neck, harder. Her ears rang and she felt a pressure behind her eyes; memories of flicking the tops off of dandelions as girl flooded her mind. She thrashed, kicking out with her legs. The creature’s arms had grown so long that she connected with nothing but air. Kristen tried to cough, but it caught in her closed throat. Her tongue felt thick. She tried working on the creature’s hands instead of wrists, trying to pry away individual fingers. Her arms shook with the exertion—every ounce of superhuman strength only managed to pull away one finger at a time.
Without warning—and seemingly without reason—the creature stumbled forward. Its grip on Kristen loosened for only a second, but it was enough. She tore its hands away and fell to the concrete in a heap, gasping for air. Her senses seemed to flood back in. She shook her head, gathered her wits, and threw herself out of arm’s length of the creature who’d held her. A figure silhouetted by starlight stood in a shooting stance atop the bulldozer-crate. A series of cracks and flashes issued from the silhouette, each round striking the creature with a splash of black. Blood?
Whatever damage the bullets caused, the creature didn’t seem to mind. It threw its head back, now sporting an elongated muzzle, and howled.
Is that a werewolf? Kristen wondered. Did I almost get choked out by a fucking werewolf? That’s not even fair. There isn’t even a moon tonight.
The creature got down on all fours and charged the distant silhouette. The shooter seemed to anticipate the action, using the creature’s rising head and height to vault over as it leapt at her. Jane landed behind the creature in a roll. She came up on her feet and ran straight for Kristen. “Help!”
“Help?” Kristen croaked. Her throat hadn’t yet recovered from the creature’s grip. “How?”
Jane ran past her. “Punch it in the face!”
“What!”
Jane disappeared around a corner. “That’s what I’m paying you for!”
The beast turned on Kristen and charged her.
Punch it in the face.
Kristen shrugged and held her ground. “Yeah, sure. Why not?”
The changeling bore down on her, its shoulders nearly scraping the shelves on either side. It howled and threw itself forward, arms outspread.
She ducked its grabbing hands and surged straight up the moment they passed, using her weight and upward motion to drive her fist into its jaw. The combination of her blow and its momentum carried it over her shoulder and sent it spinning head over tail through the air. The creature slammed into the far wall behind her and fell to the ground in a twisted heap.
Kirsten watched it fall in awe. Jane reappeared just as the body hit the concrete and delivered two rounds to its already mangled head. She shuffled back from the creature, watching it in cautious silence, pistol still leveled.
“Is it dead?” Kristen called.
“I think so. It’s hard to tell sometimes.”
“Did you get the thing you wanted?”
“Not yet.”
Kristen opened her mouth, but Jane silenced her with a finger. Jane reached inside her flak jacket—Kristen noticed the body armor for the first time and wondered why she didn’t have any—and retrieved a cell phone. She held it to her ear and paced. Eventually, Jane began speaking. “Hey, Michael. Yeah, I know it’s late. I’m sorry. It’s kind of important. We need a cleanup crew on the Howell job. When? Like right now. One of the changelings went hairy on me. No, I’m not going to make her carry it out of here. There’s at least six other dead guys. Look, even if we did it ourselves, we need to keep the cops out of here until we’re done, so you might as well send us a clean-team. I already said I know it’s late. That’s what happens when we have night jobs. You’re the only one with authority to do this kind of thing. Do you want me to burn the warehouse down? Because that’s the only way we can handle this ourselves.”
There was a pause.
“Michael, that was
a joke. I’m not burning down the warehouse.”
Another pause.
“Finally. Thank you.”
Jane hung up.
Kristen’s brow wrinkled. “What was that all about?”
“We don’t have to deal with the bodies and we have plenty of time to find what we’re looking for. You think you’re up for it if another one of these guys decides to get up?”
Kristen bounced on the balls of her feet, suddenly energetic. “Oh, hell yeah. I could go for round two. Punching that thing in the face was awesome.”
Jane pursed her lips. She began taking a step away, then reconsidered and turned back. “I have to ask you a question. Don’t take it the wrong way.”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Where do you buy your sports bras?”
Kristen landed on the flats of her feet, deflated. She rolled her eyes. “Way to ruin the moment, asshole.”
“No, I’m serious.” Jane made the sign of a cross over her heart. “I promise. There’s a gal I work with that’s about half your size and could seriously use the help.”
Kristen narrowed her eyes. “You’re not bullshitting?”
“Promise. Double promise.”
She sighed. “I buy them online. I’ll show you later.”
“Cool. Thanks. Help me find a box with a serial number that ends in one-seven-seven.”
With two of them scanning the crates, it didn’t take long to find it. “Here!” Kristen called out.
Jane jogged over from the far end of the warehouse to look at it. “Get it down for me?”
Kristen tilted her head back, staring up at the crate on the top shelf. She chewed her lip, considering it for a moment. “Oh yeah, I can do that, can’t I?”
She jumped to the middle shelf, then jumped again, hoisting herself to the top. Setting her feet, she worked her fingers beneath the crate, this one only half the size of her makeshift bulldozer. She lifted its edge, got her shoulder beneath it, and dropped down with the monster on her back. “Where do you want it?”
Jane stammered, eyes wide at the spectacle. “Uh…anywhere. Just, just set it down. Right there is fine.”
Kristen obliged, dropping the crate to crack the concrete. She couldn’t claim to have a delicate touch. “Now that I got it down for you, can you tell me what’s in it?”
“Open it for me, and I might consider it.”
Kristen walked a circle around the crate, finding a padlocked latch on one side. She wasted no time taking hold of the padlock and wrenching it free with a flick of her wrist. She lifted the latch, a reinforcing bar groaning with the sound of metal on metal within the box until it popped free, the crate’s door swinging open on hinges badly in need of oil. Past the door, she tore through myriad layers of packing material, each at least six inches thick. Jane moved behind her and shone a flashlight into the box. Kristen had expected something massive in a crate of that size. It struck her that it hadn’t felt heavy enough for that, but her strength—the extent of which she didn’t yet know—made accurate estimates impossible.
Finally, Jane’s flashlight illuminated a small, wooden box at the center of the foam. A gold latch glimmered in light. Kristen turned back, face screwed up in confusion. “A jewelry box?”
Jane pushed past her without a word and snatched the box, a sudden hunger in her eyes. She tucked the flashlight under her arm, flipped the latch, and lifted the lid. Hot anger rose in Kristen’s chest. Instinct told her to push back, grab the box, and go. Who was this woman, asking for all this help and snatching the prize?
“Damn it!” Jane snarled, spiking the box like a football. The pieces bounced, splinters skittering across the concrete. She walked to the shelf nearby, slamming her forearm against another crate. She leaned her head against it. Her posture sagged, all energy gone in an instant.
Kristen looked between her and the shattered remnants of the box. “Empty?”
Jane’s head banged against metal. Her voice went flat. “Yep.”
As if on eggshells, Kristen tiptoed to gather the pieces of the box. Moving with caution seemed right just then, though she wasn’t sure why. She turned the pieces over in her hand. They seemed…mundane. She remembered picking through her grandmother’s jewelry box as a little girl, and it’d clearly been crafted with more care than this one. Her lips pursed. She couldn’t help but feel disappointed. For all of the effort and secrecy, their prize was little better than a box a kid might make for Mother’s Day.
She noticed writing on the piece that had once been the bottom. Too slow, Jane.
Kristen glanced at the woman. “It wasn’t even here?”
Jane pushed off of the crate and turned, rubbing her face. “It was. I know it was. I tracked it here myself; I had my own people watching the building.”
“You might have been wrong. Or maybe they didn’t see it get moved. I mean…it’s a big warehouse and you didn’t have anyone inside, right? If I were hiding something super important, I wouldn’t keep it in the box it’d been traveling around in.” Kristen swept a hand in a vague gesture across the warehouse. “At the very least, I’d have put it in a different crate.”
Jane paced nearly at a jog, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Look, you don’t know me very well, so I’m not going to be offended. But I know what I’m doing, okay? This isn’t my first rodeo. This couldn’t have been the changelings. It isn’t their style. They only hunker down until they can move something again; if it wasn’t here, they wouldn’t be here.”
Kristen eyed Jane warily. “Like I said, maybe it’s in another crate. If your people—whoever they are—bought us time, then why don’t we look for it?”
Above all else, she wanted to know what it was.
“The Sea People don’t play games. They don’t leave messages. They show up, they take what they want, they leave. That’s it. If they were here, they thought it would be here. Obviously, it isn’t. Someone’s screwing with me.”
Kristen blew out a harsh sigh. “At least tell me what was supposed to be in the box. You can do that, right? It isn’t here. I don’t have it. Telling me what it was can’t hurt anything.”
“It was a ring.”
“A ring?” Kristen’s brow knit. “You made me do all of this for a ring? What, was Temple repo-ing someone’s wedding ring?”
Jane looked her in the eyes. “Knowing what you are—and seeing what you have tonight—you really think this was about someone’s wedding ring?”
Kristen shrugged. “Probably not, but I haven’t figured this out yet. And you haven’t helped. I don’t get it. You work for a bank. How the hell does a bank fit into this? Banks are just… money. I’m not convinced I’m not helping you make a stack of cash somehow. For all I know, these guys are just rich werewolves or some bullshit.”
“They’re changelings, Kris. Not werewolves. Their blood can assimilate the blood of other living things. When that happens, they can take the form of anything they’ve assimilated.”
“So…” Kristen rubbed her neck. “Werewolves are a thing?”
Jane’s lips twitched the start of a response, but she hesitated and started over. “That wasn’t a werewolf, okay?”
“But they’re a thing?”
Jane pinched the bridge of her nose again. “Look, you are a thing, okay? Just consider that. That’s going to answer pretty much every question like the one you just asked me.”
Kristen looked at the pieces of jewelry box in her hand. She tossed them over her shoulder. “I still don’t get this. Why do you want this ring? And if it isn’t about money, then I want to know who you actually work for. Before you refuse to answer my questions again, remember: I’m a thing.”
“Was that a threat?”
“You’re the one blackmailing me.”
Jane rolled her eyes. “I’m not blackmailing you.”
“No, I guess it’s pretty normal for a stranger to show up at someone’s house uninvited with their fucking medical records. It’s definitely not blackmail when you
wave my identity in my face and show up in the company car to make me kill werewolves or whatever.”
“I’m sorry, okay? There’s no good way to make introductions when it comes to these things. People in your position treasure their secrets. No matter what I do to earn trust in these situations, people react—” Jane stopped, looking down. She pointed her flashlight at the ground to illuminate spots of blood. Her light followed the trail until it settled on Kristen’s stomach. Kristen twisted her body and held back her chest to see it.
Jane cursed. “Holy shit. Why didn’t you say something?”
Kristen touched her stomach and held up her hand. Blood. “Is this mine?”
“Judging by the holes…” Jane’s voice trembled. “Yeah. Pretty sure.”
As if her body had been waiting for the confirmation, a flood of sensations hit Kristen like a wave on a breakwater. Pain. Wet blood. Exhaustion. Panic. Her hands trembled. Her legs failed, dropping her to her knees. She felt warmth drain from her face like an emptying funnel. “I don’t—” A wave of dizziness made her sway, and she fought for balance. “What’s going on?”
Jane ran to her, tucking away her flashlight. She laid Kristen back, putting pressure on her wounds with one hand, the other snatching a radio from her belt. She held it to her mouth and the words raced from her lips. “Gabby, I need you in here ASAP. Just learned Muscles can’t deflect bullets. It’s bad.”
Chapter 3
Kristen bolted upright. Her eyes fought to take stock of her surroundings: a bedroom with puke-yellow walls and furnished with items that seemed too small, like miniature versions of the real things or those meant for a child. Against the far wall sat a little writing desk with a matching chair. Next to it, a squat cabinet made of dark wood. Along another wall stood a low chest of drawers that matched the rest of the furniture. Every piece looked beat to hell with nicks and notches that testified to long life. The wooden blinds on the window—the old-fashioned type made of swinging wooden slats—carried the same sense of age.