Changeling Hunter

by Frank Hurt

  Ember blinked. Her head pounded with the impact of his words. “You mean…you’re telling me someone changed the Creed?”

  “Do you see why you’ve felt so deeply compelled to pursue justice for the changelings—for the Druwish people—over the Law as defined by the Council?” Barnaby’s anger diminished, though the grittiness of his voice still sunk into her skull as he spoke. “You are an Inquisitor, Ember Wright, and a considerable one at that. Your instinct is urging you toward this natural path, as forged by your ancestors and mine, millennia ago. You feel it in your gut and in your head. You know the correct path, even if others try to convince you otherwise.”

  “This is all too much.” Ember breathed in the cool, humid evening air. “You’re trying to tell me that all this time, I’ve made a pledge to something false? That, what, I’m supposed to trust my own instinct, even if it contradicts what the Council mandates?”

  Barnaby’s sandpaper voice emerged as a subdued growl. “Given what you are telling me of this perverse variation of the Druw High Council, I might be inclined to suggest you are to trust your instinct especially when it contradicts the Council’s mandates.”

  “That can’t be. If it were, then all Investigators would be making up their own rules as they go. It would be pure anarchy.”

  “Who is talking about Investigators? I am speaking of Inquisitors.” Barnaby held a hand horizontally at knee level. “Investigators—very competent Investigators—may be sensitive to injustice, may be motivated to fight for what is right. What they experience is here, at this level.” He wiggled his fingers.

  Barnaby brought his hand up to his midsection. “Inquisitors and Grand Inquisitors are obsessive in their pursuit of justice. They do not rest, cannot rest until they make things right.”

  Ember muttered, “that sounds familiar.”

  “A true Supreme Inquisitor, however,” Barnaby continued,” she will sacrifice not just herself, but everyone and everything she loves in order to make justice happen for all Druws. This is in part why I tell you that Inquisitors lead lonely, solo existences.”

  Her whole body shivered. “I’m not sure why anyone would ever want to be a Supreme Inquisitor. Sacrificing their friends. That isn’t desirable.”

  “Nobody sane ever would want the role, Ember Wright. People who desire such power are never fit to wield it, and it will never be theirs. Those who become Supreme Inquisitors, they are born into it. It is their fate.” His words became little more than a whisper in her head. “Supreme Inquisitors never seek the position. They become it because the universe needs them to.”

  30

  An Isolated Place You’ve Got Here

  He had never hosted a surprise party before, but Marcus imagined that activity must feel a lot like what he was doing. Getting the facility set up, worrying about details, trying to make sure everything was just so. That anxious energy as the hours counted down to when the guests would arrive. It was the sort of thing an Analytic was born to do. If it wasn’t for the fact that people would eventually be involved, he probably would have made a fine event planner.

  As much as he enjoyed preparing for his new project, it wasn’t as though he did all this work just for the sheer pleasure of it. He wasn’t selfish. Rather, Marcus knew while his work as Deputy Director of the Department of Information was important, this side project was an order of magnitude more vital for the mage community. He was doing important work here. So what if he happened to enjoy the process? There was no harm in that.

  Malverns were expected to suppress their abilities to hide from Mundanes—and that was unjust by itself—but he and his kind were also obligated to sacrifice for the subspecies within the Druwish population. Those sub-humans who deluded themselves into thinking they were semi-equal to Malverns. changelings contributed so little to society, bringing Druws down overall.

  Marcus checked the length of logging chain for the tenth time. He double-checked that he had both handcuffs in his jacket pocket, along with the heavy-duty padlocks. He hadn’t time to build a proper cage at this location. He figured that if he wrapped his new projects in chain around the support posts in the garage, that would be sufficient for keeping them in place, even when they shifted. It would be tedious to wrap the heavy chain around them, but he needed to be sure his projects stayed put.

  In the corner of this old garage was a scattering of old car parts covered in dust. He dropped the chain into a heap on the floor and extracted a short, stainless steel tube from the pile of parts. He dusted it off and was reminded of something that happened when he was 17.

  It was 1972 and he was a Senior at Minot High. As prom approached, he still hadn’t asked any girls to go with him to the dance. Marcus wasn’t as confident then as he is now, so he couldn’t have known why he intimidated the teenage girls. They would shy away from him, huddle as girls were wont to do, not making eye contact with him, even pretending not to hear him. They were herd animals. He knew now what he couldn’t have known then: that his masculinity was a quantity which girls that age just couldn’t comprehend.

  The key when hunting a herd animal was to get one of them alone, he eventually realized. Separated from the herd, she would have no choice but to face the full charm of Marcus Shaw. He cornered Sarah Stredwick in just such manner between classes in the hallway between the girl’s restrooms and her locker. She was a Mundane, but then so was almost everyone at school. She looked good in her tight sweater, and that was good enough for Teen Marcus. With nowhere to run and none of her herd members to huddle around her, Sarah was overwhelmed by his charm and agreed to go to the prom with him.

  When the day for the 1972 prom arrived, he gelled his hair, donned his powder blue tuxedo, and went to pick Sarah up from her house. He had idled his ‘64 Plymouth Belvedere into her parent’s driveway, just in time to see Johnny Weiss leading Sarah out by the arm. His date, claimed by—big surprise—a changeling. Johnny was one of the few changelings in school and the bastard had to go and steal his date.

  Marcus had confronted them, and Sarah claimed that she never agreed to a date with him. She said she was just trying to get to the bathroom and couldn’t get past Marcus until she told him what he wanted to hear. The lying bitch.

  Johnny was bigger than Marcus, and of course, he had to put on a grand show for Sarah. The brute had puffed out his chest like the beast that he was. Marcus could have taken him in a fair fight, but he didn’t want to risk messing up his tux, so he backed down. He had watched them get into Johnny’s Ford Fairlane and drive away.

  Later that evening, Marcus found Johnny’s Fairlane in the parking lot at the dance. Back then, nobody locked their cars, so it was no effort to pop the hood. He had propped the dry cell flashlight at an angle so that he could find the Ford’s brake line. It was made of stainless steel, much like the curved tube he held now in his hands. It would take too long to try cutting through the steel, Marcus remembered thinking, so he found a wrench in his toolbox and broke the bubble flare nut loose from the master cylinder. Amber brake fluid dribbled from the reservoir—just slow enough that it wouldn’t be obvious right away to the driver. The poorly-lit parking lot would conceal the pool beneath the car. Gravity would handle the rest.

  The Fairlane was practically carved out of a single block of steel, but the unrestrained human occupants were little more than crash test dummies, and Minot’s North Hill was notoriously steep. They had become nothing more than another senseless tragedy of reckless youth.

  Marcus smiled and tossed the dusty steel tube onto the heap in the corner of the garage. Johnny Weiss had been his first project, he realized. Sarah Stredwick was collateral damage, but he couldn’t say he felt any remorse for her, not after how she had treated him.

  An approaching vehicle interrupted his walk down memory lane. “They’re early,” he murmured.

  The welding truck was coated in dried mud, but for the logo on the door that had been wiped clean. The words “Schmitt Brothers Welding Service” were arranged in an oval, wi
th the first two words arched above an illustration of a welder’s helmet and an old-style arc welder.

  The man who got out of the passenger side was consuming the final bites of a glazed cinnamon roll. He introduced himself as Arnie, and the driver as his brother, Rik. They were big guys, rugged and reeking of burnt electrodes and charred iron.

  “Kind of an isolated place you’ve got here,” Arnie said. “Where do you keep your pigs?”

  “They’re going to be in the garage,” Marcus feigned a smile.

  “Oh. I thought you said you had pigs already, that they were without water?” Arnie glanced at his brother. “We took this as an emergency situation.”

  Marcus shook his head. “You must’ve misunderstood me. I’m getting set up for a small hog operation. I need to get the water lined up before I buy the bacon, you know?”

  Arnie and Rik exchanged a look. Rik shrugged and said, “so you’ve got a brass water tank you needed patching?”

  “I do. Right this way.” Marcus led the two men around the backside of the garage. An elm tree had grown over the old well hydrant and pigweeds shrouded the water tank.

  “That’s not brass, I’ll tell you that right away.” Rik was smug in his announcement. “Brass isn’t silver.”

  Marcus grit his teeth but kept his tone cool. “That’s why you’re the welder, and I’m just a wannabe hog farmer.”

  Rik touched the side of the old tank. “It’s aluminum. You said it’s got a leak?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t remember where. It’s been years since I’ve lined up water for this.”

  Rik shook his head. “I gotta be honest with you, man. It’s going to be a hell of a lot cheaper to just buy one of those poly water tanks from Runnings or Tractor Supply. By the time we find the cracks in this old tank and braze them all closed for you, it’s going to cost way more than a brand new plastic tank would.” He looked around and found the rusty hydrant. “We’d need to fill it with water to verify I got all the cracks, too. Does that well even produce?”

  “I’m not worried about the cost,” Marcus admitted. His lips turned upward into a smile. “It’s got sentimental value, you might say.”

  Arnie and Rik glanced at one another again. Arnie shrugged and said, “I’ll drag out the torch lines while you troubleshoot?”

  Rik squatted by the tank and pulled out a piece of welder’s soapstone from his pocket. “Are you sure you want to spend the money? It’s gonna be a couple grand by the time we get done with all this, man. Maybe more, if we don’t find all the cracks right away. You could get a brand new, bigger poly tank for half the price.”

  “I’ll pay you whatever it takes. This was my Gramps’ setup, and I want to carry on the tradition.” The part about Marcus’s grandfather was true, even if the rest of it wasn’t.

  “Alright.” Rik scratched his stubbled chin. “Yeah, get the torch and brazing rods, Arnie. And the wire brush I’ve got marked as ‘ALUMINUM ONLY.’ It’ll be easier for me to find the cracks if I climb inside the top hatch and find where daylight’s sneaking in. I’ll clean it up and patch over with some aluminum strips from the inside.”

  Oh, this is going to be too easy. He had intended on waiting for the men to perform the repair work, and only then capture them. Seeing how the two brothers interacted—how they seemed to communicate with mere glances—Marcus began to realize that patience might not be the right route. These two dimwits decided to separate themselves, and the older one offered to confine himself. When opportunity knocked, he had to answer.

  “I’ll go help your brother,” Marcus said. Rik had already climbed to the top of the tank and was peering into the open hatch. “You alright by yourself here?”

  Rik chuckled, “as long as you don’t lock me in here, I’m fine.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Marcus, you really are one clever bastard. He had to admit, his original plan wouldn’t have worked nearly as well as his improvisation did. The younger brother was distracted, his head buried in a side compartment on the other side of the welding truck. It was easy for Marcus to swing the hatch closed over Rik and slip the padlock through the ring.

  When the trapped changeling began yelling and beating against the inside of the tank, Marcus ducked into the garage and grabbed his AR-15. He popped out of the side door just in time to surprise Arnie as he crashed through the tall weeds in the direction of his brother’s voice. The cur stopped short and his eyes grew wide. Staring down the barrel of a rifle will have that effect.

  Even though he was armed only with a wire brush against a superior being with a carbine, Arnie surprised Marcus by lunging at him. They were both surprised when the shot rang out, and Arnie dropped to the ground.

  “Fuck!” Marcus spat. “Why’d you make me do that, you mongrel? You’d better not die on me.”

  The banging on the aluminum tank ceased. A muffled, echoing voice called out. “What’s going on? Arnie? Arnie, are you alright?”

  “Arnie’s fine,” Marcus yelled out the lie. “I’ll come get you out of there, but you need to stay calm.”

  “You fucking asshole! When I get outta here, I’m gonna crack your skull.” A fist landed against the inside of the old water tank. The noise inside the tank must have been deafening.

  “Typical changeling beast,” Marcus called out as he began dragging Arnie into the garage. “You think that threatening a superior being when you’re in a disadvantaged position will somehow benefit you? You really are a stupid cur, aren’t you?”

  Arnie groaned in pain as he was dragged by his feet. He had been shot in the gut and was bleeding out from somewhere beneath his flame-retardant jacket. Marcus propped him up against one of the support columns in the garage and wrapped chain around it and the man’s torso. Arnie struggled, which earned him a kick to the head.

  The chain in place and padlocks secure, Marcus returned to the water tank. The trapped mongrel was hammering against the old tank so hard, the walls were dented outward on one side.

  Marcus kicked the tank with his boot. “Listen up, cur. This is what’s going to happen: I’m going to unlock the hatch and you’re going to stick one hand out. Anything more than one hand, and I shoot it off. I’m going to latch a handcuff around one wrist, and then you’re going to give me your other hand for the cuff. Then, you’ll climb out, nice and easy, and join your brother in the garage. If you do anything other than what I instruct, I’ll put a bullet through Arnie’s head. Capiche?”

  A single punch to the tank was his response.

  “Use your words, mongrel. Pretend you’re a civilized human for a moment.”

  The echoing voice growled, “okay. I understand.”

  Marcus reached for the padlock and turned a key in it. When the lock clicked open, he put the key away and swung his rifle around from its tactical strap around his shoulder. With one hand on the grip, he kept the muzzle pointed at the hatch as his left hand pulled the lock off.

  No sooner had he done so, did the hatch slam open. Two muscled forearms shot out of the narrow opening, crossing one another as his hands scrambled to find purchase on the top of the tank. Two more seconds and Rik would be pulling himself out.

  The first shot was pure reaction and went high, but Marcus steadied his rifle and aimed the second time. The 5.56 round punched a hole through the man’s forearm, tearing flesh. Hot blood erupted from the gaping wound, painting the top of the aluminum tank crimson.

  Rik howled and pulled both arms back inside. A chain of expletives followed.

  Marcus smirked. He lectured his quarry as though he were scolding to a retarded child. “What did we just talk about? We agreed that anything more than one hand would get shot off. Remember?”

  More curses echoed within the tank.

  “We also agreed that if you don’t do exactly as I say, I’ll have no choice but to put a bullet through your brother’s head. So I guess you know what you just made me do next—”

  “No! No, I’ll cooperate!”

  �
��Oh, it’s too late for that, Rikky. You had your chance. You fucked up.”

  “No, goddammit! I’m sorry! Fuck, whatever you want. See? See?” A single, bloody hand appeared through the opening at the top of the tank.

  “If I give you a second chance, do you promise you’ll be a good little dog and do exactly as I say?” Marcus’s voice had a sing-song mirth to it.

  The voice in the tank echoed. “Yes! Fuck, yes, whatever you want.”

  “Exactly as I want?” Marcus smiled. “Then I want you to beg. Beg me to give you a second chance.”

  “Please! Fuck, please!”

  “That’s not very convincing.”

  “Goddammit, please, I beg you to give me a second chance.” The hand gripped the lip of the hatch.

  “Well, alright then. But there will be no third chance, Capiche? Let me hear you say it.”

  Rik hissed through clenched teeth. “Capiche.”

  “Good dog.” Marcus chuckled.

  The changeling’s hands and forearms were bloody, but Marcus was able to get the cuffs latched tightly—as tight as he could—around both wrists.

  The gunshot wound was shallow, cutting through muscle but apparently missing Rik’s radius and ulna. He winced and grunted through clenched teeth as he pulled himself out and then slid down the aluminum tank as instructed. The tank shined with smeared blood. Marcus kept the carbine aimed at the man’s head, making him walk in front.

  “Fuck! What did you do to him?” Rik yelled when he saw his brother.

  “I’m…I’m sorry, Rik,” the younger brother blubbered. His abdomen and lap were saturated, appearing nearly black in the poorly-lit garage.

  “Uh-uh. Behave. No outbursts from either of you.” Marcus tapped the muzzle of his carbine against the man’s shoulder blade. “Rikky, you’re going to go sit on the ground against that other post. Face your brother, so you can see one another.”

  Marcus kept his aim on Rik as he did as he was told. The man slid his back down the post, wincing as the wound rubbed against the old, splintered wood.