Close Enemies

by Marc Daniel

  He jumped out of his truck and started running down the creek towards Helen’s position, the gun on his belt bouncing around with every stride. He was halfway down the length of the creek when his radio chimed to life. “It looks like I found the cat,” he heard Helen saying. Her voice quivered with fear. “Or at least it found me… It’s definitely a tiger.”

  Michael realized he would never reach Helen on time at his current pace. He unclipped his belt and dropped it to the ground along with all the gear it held as he started morphing. His shoes fell off while his pants and shirt tore at the seams. He would have to retrieve his belongings later. There was no time to worry about it now.

  His nose had mostly recovered from the sulfur overdose it’d been subjected to in the hot spring, and he smelled the tiger before seeing it. Following his nose, he found Helen and the beast a minute later. Her back was turned away from Michael, her attention focused on the cat that was slowly approaching her with the cold assurance of a hunter who knew his prey had nowhere to run. Michael couldn’t tell for certain whether the cat was one of those who’d attacked them in the woods.

  Michael’s bear was still a good twenty yards from Helen when the tiger appeared to notice him and picked up the pace, preparing to pounce on the woman.

  The ground trembled under the racing bear and Helen’s head reflexively turned towards Michael. Her expression was a frozen mask of pure terror. Reacting on instinct, she dropped to the ground, her hands covering the back of her neck in a protective stance. The move gave Michael a clear path to his enemy. The two animals pounced at the same instant, colliding in midair.

  The battle only lasted a moment before the wounded cat retreated at a pace Michael’s grizzly couldn’t hope to match. He didn’t think he’d hurt the tiger seriously but in the heat of the battle his claws could have ripped deeper than he’d realized. For his part Michael’s wounds were superficial. He’d loss some blood in the ordeal but not enough to feel any negative effect.

  He checked the area for signs of the second tiger but found none. He then turned towards Helen who was sitting motionless on the ground. She was looking at him with bewildered eyes. This was Michael’s cue to exit.

  He took off, sprinting towards the parking lot and his car. He didn’t slow down the whole way and reached his vehicle completely out of breath. After a circular look around, he morphed back to his human form and changed into the spare uniform he kept in the trunk of his vehicle.

  Helen was still shaking by the time he reached her, fully dressed and even more out of breath, ten minutes later. He’d only slowed down an instant to retrieve his belt and hide his torn clothes behind a tree.

  “Are you OK? Where’s the tiger?”

  “You won’t believe what happened.”

  She told him about the bear’s intervention as they started heading up the trail towards the parking lot. They didn’t get very far, however.

  “Wait,” she said, turning around and walking to the puddle of blood the injured tiger had left behind. “I want to take some samples.”

  He wondered what she could be doing with all those samples, but a sudden thought distracted him before he could ask the question. Where had the second tiger been? He thought of Sheila alone at his cabin. He needed to go back now.

  Chapter 67

  Sheila had spent the morning running background checks on employees who’d only been in the park for a few months. The list was actually quite long due to the number of interns working in Yellowstone every summer, but she’d decided to start with those closest to Michael. Past experience had taught them that the enemy could sometimes hide in plain sight and a lot closer than one would expect.

  Sheila’s short list counted seven names: Kewanee Bates, Raj Gupta, Elodie Planchin, Alexei Sokolov, Helen Fletcher, and Jason Parrish.

  The first five were all interns and worked closely with Olivia. Sheila wondered how Olivia felt about her comrades. The young woman’s opinion could prove valuable. Feelings weren’t hard facts, but they could sometimes put you on the right track. The last two names on the list worked closely with Michael, but Sheila doubted that either one of them fit the bill. Although if she were perfectly honest, she wouldn’t mind having Helen Fletcher out of the picture. Standing next to Helen made Sheila feel like an ugly duckling. And to make matters even worse, she was pretty sure Ranger Hottie had a thing for Michael. Sheila wasn’t too concerned, however. Michael was as likely to notice the woman’s interest in him as he was to go on a diet.

  Sheila had gone out of her way to try and uncover some type of dirt on Helen Fletcher, but to no avail. Her background check was spotless.

  She’d moved on to the interns and had already checked out two of them when a horrible sound made her jump off the bench on which she was sitting at the kitchen table. It took her a second to realize that what she’d heard was the sound of the window exploding in a thousand glass shards. Shards that could now be found sparkling all over the kitchen floor.

  What in heaven had just happened? Had someone thrown a brick through the window? Had a bird crashed into it? But there were neither brick nor bird on the floor beneath the window and Sheila started worrying. She grabbed the shotgun and pumped a shell in the chamber before carefully approaching the window. As she did so, she saw a tiger flying towards her.

  Sheila’s blood froze in her veins at the sight of the beast, but the cat never made it through. Instead, he bumped into an invisible barrier and was sent rolling to the ground. Ezekiel’s spell was holding on.

  Sheila immediately dialed Michael’s number and wasn’t surprised when it went straight to voicemail. Saying that the cell phone coverage was lacking in the park was a euphemism. She then dialed Ezekiel, who answered on the second ring.

  “Yellow,” said the wizard—a greeting that would have brought a smile to Sheila’s lips under different circumstances.

  “Ez, this is Sheila. I’m at Michael’s cabin and the tiger is right outside trying to get to me.”

  Before Ez could answer, the door of the cabin started vibrating under the impacts of the ramming tiger.

  “Don’t worry, young lady. There isn’t a weretiger out there that’ll break through my spell. As long as you remain inside the house, you’ll be safe,” said Ezekiel reassuringly.

  “He’s attacking the door now. I think he’s about to break it. Could you please come and help me?” Sheila could hear the terror in her own voice.

  “Sorry but I’m in New York, sweetie. Some witch thought it would be OK to sell real love potions to high-school girls. The tiger will be gone long before I can reach you. Fear not, he might break the door, but he won’t get in. I’d suggest you keep your distance for now. If he breaks the door down, just go stand one foot outside his reach and stick your tongue out at him. Where’s that no-good boyfriend of yours, anyway?”

  “He’s out patrolling. Probably has no cell signal,” she replied, not reassured the slightest bit by the wizard’s confidence.

  “Typical…”

  The door’s lock gave in under the battering and the door swung open, revealing a humongous tiger on the other side. But as Ez had promised, the beast was unable to step inside the house. Instead, he kept bouncing back against the invisible barrier, emitting increasingly loud roars of frustration.

  “Michael left me a shotgun. Should I shoot the tiger?”

  “By all means, my girl, do shoot the bastard. But remember to save at least one shell for Michael. That will teach him to answer his phone.”

  Chapter 68

  The tiger was long gone by the time Michael made it back to his cabin. Sheila had called him, frantic, a few minutes earlier and explained the situation.

  He found her waiting for him in the kitchen, her face white as a ghost. She put down the shotgun she was still holding protectively and hugged Michael tightly. In the safety of his embrace, her nerves finally let go and she started silently crying. When she finally stopped, Michael asked her to repeat everything she’d told him over the phone
one more time as he boiled water for some strong tea.

  “How many times did you shoot him?”

  “Three times. Almost at point blank too.”

  “And that didn’t kill him?”

  “No, but it got his attention. By the third shot, he wasn’t looking so good anymore. He disappeared around the back corner of the house. He wasn’t walking too fast or too straight either.”

  “I guess he made his exit through the woods behind the house. That’s a tough bastard. I should go after him while the trail is fresh.”

  “But you’re still recovering, Michael. It could be a trap to get to you into the woods.”

  “I doubt it’s a trap. I think they were trying to get to you while I was gone, just to get under my skin. I need to go after him. My sense of smell is almost back to normal and I feel better than I have in weeks.”

  “Please don’t go. Stay with me. I need you here with me right now.”

  He looked her in the eyes, smiling kindly. How could he say no to that?

  He got busy making tea while Sheila related her afternoon’s findings. He was not surprised to hear that Helen and Jason had been deemed above suspicion. Her research on Alexei and Elodie hadn’t returned anything suspicious either. Nobody seemed to have lied on their job applications or not be who they claimed to be.

  “At the same time, I suspect the Fida’I would be fairly decent at creating a credible fake identity.”

  “Probably, but it’s tough nowadays, Michael. The internet makes it very difficult to completely invent an identity. At least if someone knows where to look for the red flags.”

  He placed a mug in front of Sheila and sat opposite her at the table. As she got back to checking databases and other things Michael didn’t even know how to spell, he started reading through the interns’ job applications and résumés. How Sheila could reliably corroborate anything written in there was beyond him, but he trusted her investigative skills.

  “I talked to Samantha Lewis today,” he said after a moment.

  “About Katia Olveda?”

  “Yes. She’s going to check on her and have a look at the penitentiary’s visitor log for anything unusual.”

  “You think she’s implicated, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m really starting to believe this whole business has something to do with the Shadow Pack. Someone wants revenge on me. I’m convinced of this. They’re trying to hurt those I care about simply to get to me. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “And how do you explain the vampires’ involvement?” she asked, unconvinced.

  “I don’t at the moment,” he replied pensively. His mind was absorbed by a particular vampire. What was she doing in the region? Why had she come?

  “What’s on your mind, Michael? You’ve got that look of yours…”

  “Nothing important.”

  He got up and rummaged through one of the drawers before pulling out a large map of the US that he proceeded to unfold on the kitchen table. He then started marking locations mentioned on the résumés with pins. Each intern was assigned its own color. Some of the foreign-born had only been in the US a short while, which significantly reduced the number of pins for them, but there were quite a few pins for the US-born individuals.

  Staring at the pins on the map, he tried to identify some type of pattern. He knew he was grasping at straws, but he needed to do something.

  “I used to live there a few lifetimes ago,” he said, staring at one of the pins on the map.

  “Really? You lived in Michigan?”

  “It wasn’t called Michigan in the 1600s but that town’s definitely close to where my log cabin used to be.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “A little bit of fishing, a little bit of hunting, a little bit of fighting. You know, the usual.”

  Sheila shook her head melodramatically. “Boys…”

  Michael didn’t reply. He was absorbed in a line of thoughts he needed to follow to the end. But his hypothesis made no sense. The two of them couldn’t be the same person. They didn’t look anything alike. Still, he couldn’t chase the idea out of his mind.

  “Do you want to go to Michigan tomorrow?” he asked.

  “What for? Are you feeling nostalgic?”

  “No, there’s something I need to look into.”

  “What’s your boss going to say about you leaving again?”

  “That’s the very least of my worries.”

  “Alright then. I’ll start looking for plane tickets.”

  Chapter 69

  Michael and Sheila parked in front of the address mentioned on Kewanee’s résumé: a large plantation house on the edge of St Joseph, Michigan. They’d driven the nearly two hundred miles from Detroit airport without stopping and Michael was eager to stretch his legs.

  “If they get suspicious, let me handle it, Michael. You can’t lie to save your life.”

  He couldn’t disagree with this statement. Lying had never come naturally to him. Usually he saw no need for it. Although in retrospect, it might have saved him a few headaches over the years.

  They knocked on the door. Michael was mentally rehearsing the story they’d made up on the way when the viewing window located at the center of the front door was opened by a woman in her mid-fifties.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Good afternoon, Madam. We are with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and we wish to speak with Kewanee Bates.”

  “There’s no Kewanee Bates here,” said the woman, already starting to close the viewing window on the bothersome strangers.

  “There may be a mix-up with the name. It wouldn’t be the first time,” intervened Sheila. “This is the young lady we’re looking for,” she added, turning her phone screen towards the woman. She’d asked Olivia to snap a quick picture of Kewanee and text it to her. The picture had clearly been taken without Kewanee realizing it, but it distinctly showed her facial features.

  “I’ve never seen this girl in my life,” answered the woman categorically.

  “Are you certain?” Michael was only half surprised by this turn of events.

  The lady just gave him a blank stare and closed the window for good.

  “What now?” asked Sheila as they got back to their car.

  Fearing the woman would likely call the cops on them if they hung out too long around her house, Michael started driving in search of the closest coffee shop where they could regroup and discuss their next move.

  “Well, now we know for a fact that Kewanee provided a false address on her internship application.”

  “You think she has something to do with the Fida’I? You think she’s one of them?” asked Sheila.

  “All our praeternatural attackers were male so far. So she wasn’t one of them. And she can’t be the chameleon either; she passed Ezekiel’s little test.”

  “She could be the fifth Fida’I.”

  “I suppose she could be, but I didn’t sense any praeternatural nature in her.”

  “Would you be able to tell, with your nose the way it’s been these past few weeks?”

  Michael pondered the question for a moment. Using his nose came so naturally that he’d had to really think about it. But Sheila had a point; it would have been difficult to tell for sure whether someone was a praeternatural or not over the past few weeks. “Probably not. And even now that my nose has mostly recovered, she might be able to hide her nature. The Shadow Pack sure was able to fool me, and my nose worked just fine back then.”

  They found a small coffee shop three streets away and ordered refreshments.

  “I still don’t get how you started suspecting her just based on where she lived. Or actually where she claimed to be living,” said Sheila, sitting down at a table by the window.

  The two of them were the only customers in the coffee shop. Apparently, the good people of St Joseph preferred getting their caffeinated beverages in the big franchise places that seemed to pop up on every street corner no
wadays.

  “It was a gut feeling more than anything else. I got lucky.”

  “You’ll have to do better than this, Michael. We literally just went over how bad a liar you are.”

  Michael couldn’t help but laugh as he carefully considered how much to reveal. This was something he wasn’t proud of. A lot of people had perished. And it was all because of him. Where should he even start?

  “Last week, when we went out for dinner, I saw someone across the street. Someone I hadn’t seen in over two centuries.”

  “And?”

  “I first encountered this person here. Near this city. A lifetime ago. I found the coincidence a bit too strange when I saw that Kewanee came from St Joseph.”

  “But Kewanee doesn’t come from St Joseph,” pointed Sheila.

  “Maybe she’s from the region and simply gave a false street address. At any rate what are the odds that the two events are not connected?”

  “I see your point, though coincidences do happen sometimes. But for the sake of the argument, let’s say you’re right. You think Kewanee and this person work together?”

  “It’s a possibility, yes. Kewanee could have been sent by that person.”

  “Stop beating around the bush, Michael. I assume that person’s a woman and that you had a thing for her in the past. But why would she want to hurt you?”

  Michael brought his mug to his lips and took a sip of his steaming tea, delaying the unavoidable. “She’s a female, but she’s not a woman. She’s a vampire and I can assure you that there was never any romantic involvement there.” The simple thought of it made him want to heave. Such a union would have been unnatural on so many levels. “The last time I saw her she’d just slaughtered an entire family in their home. She’s a monster.”

  Sheila’s questions had revived some painful memories. Michael could still picture the small house located in the French Pyrenees, only a couple miles from his own cabin. It belonged to his closest neighbors. Michael had been chopping wood in his own backyard when the wind had carried the undead stench to his nostrils. He’d realized what it meant right away. He’d changed into his bear and ran through the deep snow all the way to his neighbors’ cabin.