Her hands were cuffed to a steel loop in the shiny steel table, and she had an itch between her shoulder blades that was driving her nuts. That was all Chris could think about. She was locked in an interview room at Central accused of false imprisonment, torture, and Lady knew what else. She had been caught red handed—or clawed—at the scene of the crimes in question by her ex-partner, and all she could think about were ways to scratch the itch.
Think about something else. Think about Ryder.
“I’m not talking to you. You let him get away.”
The cuffs hurt. A standard bit of kit, rune cuffs were silver plated to prevent shifters changing. The runes warded against spells. She had used cuffs like them lots of times while interviewing shifters, some in this very room. A burn encircled her wrists where the skin came in contact with the hated metal, but mere pain could be borne. After all, the change hurt way more than a burn that looked more like a rash. It was the itch that was torture. She could probably snap the cuff’s chain and reach the itch before anyone realised she had, but that would only make them mad. Best not.
Before you let me out, you told me to prove I could be trusted.
“I remember.”
I tried to do what you would have done. Should I have left Jason to die and followed Ryder?
She stared at her reflection, wondering who was behind the mirror in the observation room. Ken might be, probably was, but would all the others come and view the freak? Baxter would, but not Jimmy. She doubted Cappy would be in at this time of night, but if he had been, he would have sat with her. He wasn’t the kind to get his jollies second-hand through a bulletproof mirror.
Well?
“I’m thinking. Don’t rush me.”
Ken and Baxter joined her after about an hour of sitting alone contemplating her reflection. Ken entered first with a folder in one hand, and Baxter brought up the rear carrying a box of blank discs. She smiled at the sight. How many times had she seen things like this over the years? Thousands, but she had never seen it from this side of the table. Things were different now. She was the bad guy, and the role was an uncomfortable fit.
I try to do what you want, but it’s hard when you keep changing what that is.
I want Ryder dead, that most of all.
I know, but not at all cost… or am I wrong again? Should I have left the boy to die? I need to know what I did wrong.
Why, so you won’t do it again?
Yes. I want you to be happy.
She sighed. You did the right thing.
Really? Smoke said, sounding hopeful.
I said so, didn’t I?
Thank you.
Chris watched Baxter struggling to open the carton of discs and grinned. Cellophane wrappers could be a bitch sometimes. “Good to see you, Dave. How’s it going?”
Baxter grunted noncommittally. His eyes flicked nervously toward the mirror and skittered away. He busied himself with inserting a disk into the comp in the tabletop. Ken seated himself opposite Chris, and read through his notes. He wouldn’t look her in the eyes.
The one called Baxter is nervous.
Chris nodded; she knew that from his scent and his actions. What she couldn’t figure out was why. Baxter was an old hand at this sort of thing. He had almost as much experience as she did; more than Ken did in fact. What was there to be nervous about a routine interview?
“The sweats they gave me itch like crazy. You couldn’t scratch my back for me, could you?” Ken frowned in annoyance but said nothing. “I’d do it myself, but…” she pulled sharply on the handcuffs, making the chain snap taut on the steel loop. “Pretty please? I’ll be your slave forever.”
Baxter grinned and shook his head. “Only you, Chris, only you.” He came over and vigorously rubbed her back.
She groaned. “A little higher… oh goddess that’s good.” She shivered with pleasure. “I can’t tell you how good that feels. It was driving me crazy.”
Ken glared. “Are you done entertaining our audience, Detective?”
Baxter went back to his work.
She wondered who the audience was. Could be anybody, but Baxter’s nervousness meant it was someone high up. Higher than Cappy, or he wouldn’t care.
“Congratulations on the promotion, Ken,” she said, trying to make him look at her. “I heard one of the guys call you Lieutenant. How the hell did that happen anyway?”
Baxter grinned. “That’s what I’d like to know.”
Ken gave Baxter a cold look that wiped the grin off his face. “We’re not here to talk about me. Are you ready to record?”
Baxter nodded and pressed a button.
Ken had changed, and not for the better. Where had her friend and partner gone? Baxter used to be the serious one, the one without a sense of humour, not Ken. It was as if they had switched bodies. This wasn’t the Ken she knew. This was a… a pod-person or something!
Ken shuffled his papers into order. “Interview with Miss Chris Humber in regard to case number three-niner-zero slash three-six-one. Primary investigating officer: Lieutenant Kenneth Hart; also in attendance: Detective David Baxter. Acknowledge for the recording, please.”
“Detective Baxter present.”
“Chris Humber present, but I’m not happy about it.”
Ken didn’t smile. “And I’m Lieutenant Hart. Miss Humber, you have the right to an attorney, and the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed on preferred credit terms. Should you so wish, you may delegate a guild representative to advise you. Do you understand these rights?”
She leaned back in her seat as far as her cuffs would let her. “Such as they are.”
“Yes or no please.”
“Yes.”
“It is my understanding that you earlier waved your right to an attorney. Is that correct?”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
“Fine,” Ken said, and settled back in his chair as if preparing for a long night. “Then we can get started. Where is Ryder?”
She shrugged again.
“You claimed earlier that you saw him.”
“I did see him.”
“Okay, why don’t you tell me about that?”
Chris copied his posture. She knew the game even better than he did, but she heartily wished she didn’t have to play it. She was tired and hungry. Her change and the fight with Ryder had taken it out of her. Baxter had taken the other chair on Ken’s side of the table, careful to leave a gap between them. He didn’t want to obstruct the view of whoever was watching from the observation room.
She smiled at whoever was watching. “How’s Flint these days? Did you ever get up enough nerve to ask her out?”
Baxter covered his amusement with a cough.
Ken began tapping his pen on the table. A sure sign he was irritated. “Agent Flint is not what we are here to discuss. She is no longer a part of my investigation.”
Want to bet?
Smoke agreed. Flint wants Ryder almost as badly as we do. She won’t give up easily.
Chris wouldn’t have been surprised to find Flint on the other side of that mirror at that very moment. Ken wasn’t lying when he said Flint was no longer part of his investigation, so she must be working solo, or with Barrows if he hadn’t gone back to Quantico or wherever.
Ken tried another tack. “If you knew where Ryder was, why didn’t you tell the police?”
“My source—”
“What source?” Baxter asked. “I’d like to talk to him.”
“My personal source mentioned the possibility of Ryder being at the planetarium. It was only a possibility, so I thought I’d go look.”
“You thought you would look,” Ken said, sotto voiced. His pen drummed the table harder than ever.
“I didn’t want to give you bogus info.”
The drumming stopped, and Ken wrote something down. “Bogus.”
She smiled, listening to the new rhythm Ken started. “I wanted to check it out f
irst.”
“Checking out things like this is my job. You’re not a cop anymore.”
Her smile vanished. “I noticed.”
“Who is your source?”
“Do you remember a conversation we had when we first met Flint in Cappy’s office?”
Ken frowned. “I’m not sure.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. When we came out, I had to give Dave access to my files and I was worried about it. You said: ‘You won’t let them down, Chris, they know that.’ You were right. I might have changed, but that hasn’t. I’ll never give up my sources, not even to you, Ken.”
Ken stared into her eyes. “Do you know where Ryder is?”
“No, I don’t.”
“You’re lying. You always blink when you lie.”
“No I don’t,” she protested. “I don’t know where he is. If I did, I would tell you.”
Ken turned to Baxter. “She’s lying.”
Baxter nodded. “She’s lying.”
She gritted her teeth to stop herself from snapping at them. “I’m not. I want Ryder dead.”
“That’s the first true thing you’ve said.” Ken sighed. “The thing is, Chris, I’m not in the business of killing people. I want him caught and put away. You might have forgotten what it is to be a cop, but I haven’t.”
She sprang to her feet, outraged. If she hadn’t been cuffed to the table, she might well have gone over it with her hands around his neck. Anger pulsed through her head in time with her heartbeat, like a pressure headache. Throb-throb-throb. She suddenly felt hot, as waves of anger flooded her thoughts, but it had nothing to do with Smoke. This anger was all hers. She was panting, and her eyes had changed without her willing it. Everything in the room looked cold and harsh in shades of grey. Ken was leaning way back, almost enough to tip his chair over. There was no fear on Baxter’s face, only pity. That was like a cold bucket of water thrown over her. What right did he have to pity her? She slumped back into her seat, still breathing heavily. How could Ken throw that of all things in her face? He knew how devastated she had been by her forced retirement. What right did either of them have to treat her like a criminal?
She thumped the table, and closed her eyes to hide them. They were treating her like what she was, a shifter. Worse, a shifter found at a crime scene.
“I don’t need your pity, Dave.” She opened her eyes and frowned at the dent in the table beneath her fist. “What I need is a cup of coffee and a good night’s rest. I don’t need to sit here in handcuffs and be called a liar.”
“Coffee I can do something about,” Ken said and nodded to Baxter. “But the rest is up to you, Chris.”
Baxter stood and left to get the coffee.
“Detective Baxter leaves the room. Interview suspended at,” Ken checked the time. “Three fifteen a.m.” He hit the stop button on Baxter’s consol. “Where did you go after the press conference?”
She snorted. “That wasn’t a press conference. I just wanted Ped… a certain person to know I wasn’t at home.”
Ken’s eyes narrowed at the slip. “Who, and why?”
“Personal business. Nothing to do with Ryder.” Ken didn’t look convinced. Chris pointed at her eyelids. “Look, no blinking.”
Ken didn’t laugh. “Tell me where you went.”
She couldn’t see what harm it would do to tell him about Lost Souls, but that did not mean harm wouldn’t be done. Ken might assume that Stephen was her source and try to question him. She couldn’t imagine Stephen and Marie responding well to that.
“I want these cuffs off. They hurt.”
“You know better than that. We worked well together for years, why won’t you trust me now?”
She leaned forward abruptly, and Ken flinched. “That’s why.”
“It’s you that’s changed, Chris, not me.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’ve almost forgotten what it was like to be Human.”
Well that’s good.
Shut up you, I’m trying to explain something here.
“It’s not just external stuff like my eyes. I’m a shifter on the inside as well as on the outside. You know the way we used to explain a shifter’s actions by saying he was crazy?”
Ken nodded.
“We were right. Shifters really do a have a split personality.”
“I don’t believe you’re crazy. You’re just being stubborn. You always did like going it alone.”
She shook her head. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. When I went up on the observatory roof tonight, I learned something about myself. That place is a death trap. The rain was falling so heavily, I could barely breathe… well you know, you were there. I had to cross by balancing on the roof beams, but the wind came up and blew me off. I hung there swinging by one hand, looking at my death far below. Do you know what I did then?”
Ken shook his head.
“I laughed. I was scared shitless, Ken. I was going to die any moment, and I just laughed. Now don’t say I’m suicidal. That’s not what I am. I’m just a shifter, and we’re different, that’s all.”
Ken sat back and the silence stretched out.
She could tell he didn’t understand what she was trying to say. She wanted him to understand, she really did. Despite her new abilities, he thought that, inside, she was still the woman he knew. She wasn’t. Janine’s death, and the fight in the alley, had proved it to her more than anything else could have. The old Chris would never have done what she had. She was a killer now, and that was okay. Really, it was okay, but she wished Ken hadn’t seen her in the planetarium. In his mind, the image of her as some distorted monstrosity would eventually eat at him until it replaced his memories of the old Chris Humber. And that was sad. It would almost be like dying again.
“Oh, to the hells with it,” she said, feeling maudlin. She was getting soft. She had never been one to get all mushy. That hadn’t changed; she wouldn’t let all of the old Chris go. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
I do not diminish you. If you would accept me fully, you would realise you are greater than your old self, not less.
I don’t need your recruitment speech. I’m already in the club, remember?
Smoke growled irritably. Not fully. You fight me at every turn, and weaken us when we need to be strong.
Baxter returned then with the coffees in paper cups, and Chris savoured her first hot drink in hours. It lit a fiery trail down to her stomach, and she felt better for it.
Baxter sighed contentedly and put his cup down. “I needed that. Our guests went home. They want a report when we’re done here. I told them you would pass it on through Cappy. Okay?”
Ken nodded silently, and pointed to the consol. Baxter pressed the record button. “Interview recommences at three twenty-five a.m. Those in attendance, as previously stated.”
Chris finished her coffee and crumpled the cup into a ball. “Do you still want to know where I went after that press conference?”
Ken nodded again. “I want to know everything.”
“I went to stay with some new friends.”
Ken picked up his pen. “Names and addresses, please.”
She shook her head slowly.
“Shifter friends?”
“Vampire friends.” Ken looked disgusted. “I didn’t let them bite me, for the Lady’s sake! They’re just people when you get to know them.”
Yes, just people that drink blood, can read minds, can make you do things you don’t want to do. They never age, they live forever, and they can break the strongest of us in half! Oh, and they stink.
Well yes, but they’re still people.
“Just people… will you listen to yourself? They’re not even Human! Worse, they’re evil!” He slammed his hand down on the folder. “Damn you for doing this to me. Damn you for going off on your own that night!”
Baxter switched off the recorder, and erased Ken’s outburst from the disk. He reached for Ken’s arm. “Are you all right?”
Ken kn
ocked Baxter’s hand away from his shoulder. “No, I’m not all right! I want every stinking shifter in the city dead, and every monster in the country put down!”
Chris gasped. “I’m one of those shifters.”
Ken waved that away. “You’re different.”
“No, Ken, I’m not different. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
Ken wasn’t listening. He stood abruptly and left the room.
She stared after him. Ken was teetering on the edge, and if he didn’t get help, he was going over it. She wondered if the psych department knew what Ken was going through. Surely, someone must have noticed how tightly wound he was. She glanced at Baxter, but he was giving nothing away. She was sure Ken hadn’t meant what he said. He would never actually try to kill shifters. He hated the AML fanatics, and had always called them terrorists. He would never become like them.
“He didn’t mean it,” she whispered, trying to sound convinced.
Baxter sipped his lukewarm coffee. “Yes he did.”
“Who was behind the mirror, Dave?”
“Commander Watson and that know-it-all Barrows.”
“What about Flint?”
“Nah, she’s more of an action type of girl.”
She grinned. He didn’t know the half of it, and she wasn’t going to tell him. The thought of Flint had a sobering effect on her. If Ken ever found out that Flint was a shifter… the way he was now, it would destroy him. He must never know.
“Any chance you can tell Flint I want to see her?”
Baxter looked uncertain. “If Ken finds out you’re doing an end-run around him, he’ll go nuts.”
“What I have to say has nothing to do with Ryder, I swear. Just girl talk.”
“Girl talk, huh? Okay, if I see her I’ll let her know you want to chat.”
“Great, thanks.”
When Ken came back, his eyes were bloodshot, as if he had been crying. She didn’t think he had though. She couldn’t pick up the scent of tears. His was the scent of an angry and determined man. His face was very pale, but his expression was as hard as stone.
“I’ve just had word from the hospital,” Ken said.
Shifter Legacies Special Edition: Books 1-2 Page 78