Digital Knight

by Ryk E. Spoor

  Baker wasn't exaggerating; while I'm no doctor, I know how to read ME reports, and this one was clearly frustrated. Jerry Mansfield, twenty-nine, had apparently been a health nut. He was in perfect shape—not too fat, not too thin, prior medical records showed wonderful cholesterol and blood pressure measurements, and so on and so forth. The coroner really truly had no idea why this man had been dead. There weren't any marks on his body anywhere, no foreign substances on his skin aside from a bit of dirt and silver dust. The latter had been found on his clothes, most heavily concentrated on the hands, head/neck area, and . . .

  Wait one minute. I thought back to last night. No, there had been the regular sea breeze, but there was no way a significant amount of that would have been getting into the high-fenced yard, and even if it had, the direction was wrong. What the hell . . .

  I flipped back to another section of the report, looking for something. It wasn't there.

  "Sheriff . . ." I called.

  Baker stuck his head back in. "Found something?"

  "Can you have the coroner check for something specific?"

  "Sure. What do you need?"

  I looked back down at the report. "I want to know if Jerry Mansfield had any silver dust in his lungs. Your ME may be doing an autopsy on a former werewolf."

  "That's ridiculous!" Baker burst out. "Jerry couldn't possibly have been a werewolf!"

  I raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Oh?"

  Baker looked nonplussed for a moment. "Well . . . look, he shopped with everyone else, didn't he? Everyone's got those things you designed—hell, there's one right over my door here. Stands to reason the man couldn't've been anything other than one of us."

  I had to admit there was something to that. Unless a Wolf had replaced Jerry Mansfield very, very recently, it was hard to imagine how he could maintain the masquerade in a place like this one, which as a tourist area had apparently made it quite a point to have everything covered from the Wolf perspective. "Well, have him check it, anyway."

  Baker shrugged. "I asked ya to look, I suppose I oughtta go along with it. You got any particular reason for this here idea?"

  I pointed at the photos of the body and the description. "There was silver dust all over the area in front of Mansfield, but if you look at the way it's distributed, it wasn't Mansfield doing the throwing; someone threw silver dust at Mansfield. He's got it on his hands where it would be if he tried to shield himself, but mostly on his head and other areas where it would have been if someone tried to throw it at him. Now, I don't know about you, but the only good reason I can think of to throw a hundred bucks worth of silver dust over someone is if you think they're a werewolf."

  Baker looked at the photos and swore mildly. "God-damn. Now that y' point it out, it's plain as day."

  "The clincher, of course," I finished, "is that Mansfield didn't have silver dust on him. No pouch or dispenser or anything like it. So it had to be the other person or persons who did."

  While Baker went to call the ME, I continued studying the report. Footprints and track results were very disappointing. While they could, with difficulty, make out my prints and some of Jerry Mansfield's, there were hardly any readable tracks elsewhere; one investigator said it appeared that something had been swept heavily across the area leading from the body to the other gate, which opened up into a well-paved side street which would take no tracks. If that was the case, it obviously was a murder of some kind—someone had erased the tracks. I studied the pictures for a few moments more, then put them back.

  Baker hung up. "Okay, he'll take a look an' get back to me soon. I hope you're wrong, to be honest. I mean, Jerry was a friend. Not real close, but enough that it'd kinda shake me to find out he wasn't anything like he seemed."

  "Not to mention the can of other worms it'd open if it did turn out he was one."

  "Noticed that, did ya?" Baker grimaced again. "Oh, yeah. What do I do if he was a damn Wolf? Ain't no laws dealing with this. The man paid his taxes an' didn't cause no trouble, so on that account I oughtta treat it like any murder, but if he was really one o' these shapeshiftin' killers . . . no thanks, there's a headache I just don't need."

  "Well, Sheriff, I did what I could. Sorry if it causes you more trouble."

  He waved it off. "Nah, believe me, I'd rather have the answer than not. I'll let you know what the coroner says."

  "Thanks. I'm afraid that aside from that one offbeat suggestion, I can't see anything else to give you. If I think if anything, I'll call." We shook hands.

  55

  A few minutes later I was letting myself back into the hotel room. Syl came out of the bathroom, gave me a hug and kiss which took a few moments in itself, and then asked, "How'd it go?"

  "The sheriff was actually more interested in getting my professional advice than in raking me over the coals." I answered. "Handed me the ME report, which did tell me one interesting thing; the silver dust wasn't Mansfield's. It belonged to whoever or whatever presumably killed him."

  Sylvie stared. "You know that doesn't make any sense."

  "Unless Mansfield was a Wolf, and as the Sheriff pointed out, that'd be hard to manage in a town that's as Wolf-wired as this one is. Or unless . . ." I trailed off. "Doesn't quite work, dammit."

  "What?"

  "Well, obviously whoever threw silver dust at Mansfield at least thought he was a Wolf. And it struck me that we do know one supernatural type of creature that kills Werewolves whenever it can get away with it."

  Syl's face showed enlightenment. "Vampires, of course! Verne told us about that secret war they had."

  I nodded. "Problem is that there weren't even puncture marks on this guy. Werewolves can kill without touching people, according to Verne, but he never said vampires could." I turned to the phone. "I'll call Morgan and see if this kind of thing rings a bell for him."

  As I reached for the handset, there was a knock at the door. "Who the heck . . . ?"

  I went to the door and looked through the peephole. A well-dressed man of about my own age, black-haired and brown-eyed, stood there, waiting expectantly. "Yes? Who is it?" I called through the door.

  "Sorry to disturb you—but you are Jason Wood, correct?" he answered in a tenor voice. "My name's Karl Weimar, sir. I know it's rather irregular, but I know something about Jerry Mansfield that you might like to know—but I'm not sure I want to go to the cops just now."

  I closed my eyes for a moment, sighed. No rest for the suckers. "Oh, all right, hold on." I unbolted the door and slid the chain off, turning as I did so.

  Syl's eyes were wide, mirroring an inner vision of disaster.

  I dove away from the door, drawing the 10mm as I did so. At the same moment the door slammed open so hard it almost tore from its hinges, and the dapper young man lunged through, shapeshifting into an all-too-familiar towering mass of black-brown fur, glittering claws, diamond teeth, and glowing soulless eyes.

  But Syl's unspoken warning had been enough. I had moved and was not where "Karl Weimar" expected me. It skidded to a halt, talons ripping great gouges in the carpet, and turned on me, to find itself staring down the barrel of my gun.

  "Believe you me, this thing's loaded with silver. And if it weren't for two things, I'd blow you straight to hell right now."

  It snarled. "And those two are . . . ?" it asked in the unearthly deep timbre of its kind.

  As I glanced at Sylvie, I amended my comment. "Three things, actually. The first one being that I'm curious about what brought you here to kill me. The second being that, from what Virigar told me, not one of you would dare touch me or Sylvie, since he'd marked us for his own—and you sure as hell are not the King. The third being that my wife thinks I shouldn't shoot you right now, for some reason of her own." I had no idea what the reason was, but Syl had communicated that I was doing the right thing in talking, so I wasn't about to argue.

  For the first time I saw an expression other than savage hunger or fury on a werewolf's face. It looked positively taken aback. "You think that
even the King's ban would hold on one who'd already broken it and begun hunting His people?"

  "What?" I must've looked even more confused. "Hunting you? Sure, I'd expect that you guys would defend yourselves if I was going around shooting, and I'd presume even Virigar himself wouldn't argue about that. But I haven't been hunting any of you. Do I look crazy? Do you furballs think I like having clawed monsters chasing me around?"

  "You killed Mansfield, thinking he was one of us," it retorted sullenly.

  "I killed . . . ? Do you Wolves smoke some of the same stuff we do, or what? I just found the goddamn body! If he wasn't a Wolf, and thus dead from sucking silver, I haven't a goddamn idea what the hell killed him. You think I can kill people—Wolf or otherwise—by waving my f . . . friggin' hand?"

  It stared at me a moment, eyes flickering like evil lamps, then abruptly reverted to its human form. "Well, scheiss," said Karl Weimar. "Now I'm just as confused as you are."

  "I doubt that." I said.

  He reached into his pocket, pulled out several bills (in the back of my mind, I noted that the fact that in Wolf mode he had no clothes, let alone a wallet, raised interesting questions as to the authenticity of the cash), and dropped them on the table. "For the damage. My apologies." Weimar turned and walked towards the door.

  "Hey, you bastard, you can't just pop in, scare the crap out of people, and pop out without a little explanation!" I shouted after him, ignoring the obvious fact that he was doing just that.

  I closed the door, which scraped a bit from being loosened, and collapsed into an armchair. "Jesus that was close."

  Syl nodded and came to me, and we hugged and got over an attack of serious shakes.

  Suddenly I stood up, almost dumping Syl on the floor. "Jason, what . . . ?"

  "The peephole!" I answered, digging into my larger travel bag for my kit.

  "What about . . . oh, my God."

  "Exactly." I said grimly. "If my CryWolf gadgets don't work, it means they've figured out a way to hide from them . . . and all the people buying them are no safer than the poor bastards who bought shark repellent and thought it would keep sharks away."

  But when I started checking on the door, the results were even more disquieting.

  The external shell was a CryWolf sensor, or a good replica of the usual enclosure, complete with the logo . . . but the interior was nothing but an ordinary peephole lens. There wasn't even a power lead going to it.

  "That son of a bitch," I heard myself growl.

  "Who? That Wolf, Karl?"

  "No," I said, standing up and wrenching open the door, "Our 'cheerful host,' Vic. He's ripping off everyone in the hotel—putting fake sensors on the doors to make 'em feel comfortable, but not spending the money for the sensors themselves. Well, he's about to get a little talking-to."

  Vic was at the desk; the lobby was deserted, this being a nice afternoon—too early for evening check-ins, everyone at the beach, and the season being slow. He looked up, started to smile a greeting, then stopped at the look on my face. "What's wrong, Mr. Wood?"

  "I was attacked in my room just now. By a werewolf."

  Vic looked horrified. "But . . ."

  I tossed the dummy sensor on the desk. "And don't even try to tell me it's impossible. Give me one good reason I shouldn't call about a dozen lawyers down on your ass right now."

  Vic's gaze barely flickered to the sensor; the fact of my being attacked seemed to have overwhelmed him. "But they couldn't have gotten in here . . . ?" he said, looking pathetically frightened.

  Then I remembered my prior brush with death at Verne's house and how Verne had nearly died. Vic probably didn't install his own stuff any more than Verne did. "Then you got screwed by your contractors, Vic. If the one in my room's a dummy, I'll bet all of them are."

  His expression went from shocked disbelief to fury. "All of them? Jesus H. Christ, sir, I'll be looking into this, you can bet on it." He frowned. "What can I do in the meantime . . . Please, don't mention this to the other guests . . . ?" he made the request a question.

  I nodded. "Okay. I don't want to ruin your business, but get it fixed fast. Don't worry about my room—I have my own CryWolf gadgets, of course."

  "But you don't have to . . ." he began, then realized that of course I had to do this myself, since at this point I couldn't trust his sources. "Yes, of course you do, sir. Well, I'd better get on the phone and start kicking some."

  "I suppose. And get a ruglayer into my room; the Wolf tore it up something fierce."

  "Yes sir."

  I didn't feel like going back to the room right now, and by her expression neither did Syl. "Want to take a walk, then maybe go for dinner?"

  "As long as you'll be on the lookout. I don't know what that Wolf was up to, but he may not be the only one with that idea."

  "Damn straight," I said, putting on my special glasses. They were a trial version of the CryWolf technology, using some of the more advanced circuitry currently available to make a detector which would, in theory, be just as good as my original clumsy goggle-mounts, but looked just like one of those "light-adjusting" sets of sunglasses. I glanced back at Vic to offer him a stopgap solution in the form of one of the other gadgets I'd brought, but he was in the office behind the desk now, and I heard his Southern voice starting to rise, with the words lawyer and sue being audible.

  We spent a couple hours wandering around on the beach, avoiding people in general. While the town was a pretty place, recent events and our forced residency were unfortunately starting to rob it of its charm. As dusk began to fall, we made our way back towards one of the restaurants. Remembering the layout of the town better now, we turned into a smaller alleyway that would take us to the next road.

  In the growing shadows, I thought I saw someone coming down the alley ahead of us, and slowed to let him go around. Then I realized he or she was just standing there. "Hello?" I said to warn them someone was approaching, in case they had their back to us.

  The figure didn't move or respond. As I got closer, I saw that it was all the same grayish color—a statue of some kind?

  Sylvie gave a sudden gasp and stepped back; my reaction was to step forward, staring incredulously.

  Gazing back at us, face frozen in an expression of terror, was Karl Weimar.

  56

  I poked at the thing several times. It was stone, all right, solid stone of a generally grayish cast—in the current light I couldn't do much to identify it. But the detail I could see was amazing. I glanced at Syl.

  "It's not a statue," she said, confirming my gut intuition.

  "Right," I said. Realizing I hadn't brought my cell phone with me, I headed up the alley to the nearest open store, which happened to be Marie's, the jewelry store we'd visited . . . was it only about a day ago?

  "Hi," I said, walking towards the proprietor, "I was wondering if you . . ."

  I'm not sure how I controlled voice or expression in the next few moments; perhaps a part of me already knew and was prepared. Because as I neared Marie, her image began to shimmer, glittering with a network of lines and sparks . . .

  Without more than a slight pause I heard myself say " . . . would show us that lovely necklace in the third cabinet again?"

  Marie smiled and headed for the cabinet in question. Syl stared at me for a split second, obviously wondering what the hell had gotten into me, but she knew I must have a reason, and followed Marie over. As she reached the third cabinet, Marie entered the effective range of the CryWolf camera over the door, and I turned and studied the image on the display behind her counter. I had to crane my neck to do it.

  She and Syl both showed as perfectly normal on the monitor.

  In that second the oddities I'd noticed all made sense, and I think it is a great accomplishment that I did not, in fact, scream out in horror. Instead, I turned and walked to the counter next to Syl. As Marie turned with the necklace in her hands, I said casually, "So . . . is the Sheriff one of you, too?"

  She blinked. "I don
't quite . . ."

  I tapped the glasses. "These are CryWolf—experimental model."

  Syl, realizing what I was saying, stepped back and slid her hand into her purse for her gun.

  Marie stood, face utterly expressionless, for a moment, then closed her eyes and sighed. "How did you guess? You weren't wearing those last time."

  "Since then one of your people tried to kill me, apparently thinking I was out hunting Wolves."

  "Who would possibly be insane enough to . . . oh, I know. Must have been either Kheveriast or Mokildar." She shook her head. "Children are always fools."

  The full implications finally seemed to have made their way to Sylvie's consciousness. "By the Earth, you can't mean . . . Jason, the whole town can't be Wolves!"

  "Not every single family, no," I said, "but all the key people and a bunch more residents, is my guess. Right?"

  Marie nodded.

  "And you make sure it looks like everything's covered with CryWolf sensors, so no one ever gets an idea to start checking around otherwise. What I don't quite get is why."

  Sheriff Baker's tired baritone spoke from behind us. "You don't get why? Mr. Genius Wood? You are the reason why."

  "How . . . ?" I asked, then looked at Marie. "Ah. You can communicate with each other over some distance."

  He glared at me, hands on his hips, and continued as though I hadn't spoken. "Ten thousand years, Wood. For ten thousand years I have walked the face of this planet, along with all my people, and never did we have anything really to fear from you. Oh, yes, if one of us was blatant, stupid, clumsy, and unfortunate, a silver weapon could end it for him or her, but all in all, that was just as well; if you have no respect for the potential danger of the cattle, you become fat and lazy, unworthy of being one of the great ones.

  "And then you come along and invent a little toy." His hand lashed out, snatched the glasses from my face and pulverized them, "A toy that gets more of us killed off in three months than in my entire lifetime. That gets our race publicized so that we actually have to deal with people knowing—not guessing, but knowing—what walks among them."