Page 21

Neith

T here is someone leaning over the top of a body on the floor and feeding. It’s not feeding like any supernatural that I know of. It’s at the neck, which would suggest a vamp, but unlike the human stories, vamps don’t tear out throats, and they don’t leave any trace of their presence behind. If they feed on a human, which they are supposed to get very clear and definite permission for, they can also wipe the human’s memories or even replace them with memories of a good one-night stand.

“Oh, that’s not right,” Ransom grimaces.

The creature sits up, and we get a good view. Its face is red with blood as it digs into the stomach with its clawed hands and starts to eat.

I push my disgust out of my mind and move closer to the screen.

“Looks like a vamp?” I say, my words coming out as a question because I am really unsure.

“It does,” Reed says, “but it’s not behaving like any vamp that I have known.”

“Just wait,” Niamh says.

We do as she has asked as we carry on watching. My eyebrows rise with surprise as the creature on the screen suddenly seems to contort, unwillingly. It doubles in size, its mouth stretching into a snout but its eyes still that of the vampire. Huge, pointed ears replace the human looking ones, and it starts to sprout fur, but the fur doesn’t cover it completely. The transition looks painful, and he’s not shifting into a wolf. This is a creature that shouldn’t exist.

“Shit, the hybrids have made it over here,” Raiden curses.

“Hybrid?” Niamh says, frowning heavily.

I nod, “Yeah, someone is trying to create hybrids, but they never last very long, and they are really fucked up. They die shortly after we are made aware of them, or they get killed by us for being out of control.”

“It’s against the natural order,” she says. “If hybrids were supposed to exist, then they would.”

“Exactly,” Griff says in agreement.

“Fortunately, it’s a case that we are already working on,” Evander tells her.

All of the guys seem to be back to normal now, with color back in their cheeks.

“Good,” she replies, “this is way out of my comfort zone, and people are starting to get a bit twitchy.”

I frown as I remember what she said on the phone, “Did you say that several people have gone missing?”

She nods, “Two actually, the one being,” she pauses and changes what she was going to say, “the one on the floor is the second guy that went missing, and the other one is the first one.” She glances at me, “I wouldn’t normally call you for missing people, but then I saw this video and well . . .”

She trails off, and I nod, “You did the right thing; we’ll take care of it.”

“So do we assume that the one on the floor was taken by whoever is creating these hybrids as well then?” Doc says.

“It would stand to reason,” Reed replies, “How long was he missing before this footage was shot?”

Niamh thinks about it for a moment, “He was missing for a few days. That other one has been missing for a week, and that is the first sighting of him.”

“I wonder if they fought or something?” I ask.

“I have no idea,” she replies.

“That shift looked a hell of a lot more painful than it should have been, or rather than it is for a typical shifter,” Doc says thoughtfully.

“It didn’t look voluntary either,” River adds.

“I think it’s safe to assume that very little of what they do once they have become hybrids is voluntary. They seem to be running on pure instinct,” Raiden replies.

“Agreed,” Griff says with a heavy frown.

“Where’s the body?” Griff asks.

Niamh frowns, “Well, that’s where it gets even weirder. Libby, the barmaid that filmed it, stuck around because she was in shock. She said that the body just vanished. She didn’t see anyone and there was nothing left, it just disappeared.”

My eyebrows rise, “We need to talk to Libby.”

“Is that possible?” Raiden asks.

Niamh nods, “Yeah. I’ll give her a call now. She’s really shaken up.”

“That’s understandable,” Evander replies. “Don’t worry though, we’re trained to handle this sort of thing.”

Niamh nods and then walks off to make a call.

As soon as she is out of the room, Griff pulls out his phone, “I need to call this in to Ty, and put him on standby just in case we need some back up out here.”

“Good idea,” Doc replies. He frowns as Griff moves off to the side to talk to Ty, “I wish we had that body so that I could get some more information. It’s behaving primitively. Neither vampires nor shifters feed like that, and they never have. It’s like they are reduced to their baser instincts.”

“Play it again,” Ransom suggests. “We need to see if we can pick up anything else from the video.”

I nod and lean over the laptop so I can press the play button.

This time, when I watch the video, I focus on everything around the hybrid and not the hybrid itself. Just to see if there’s something in the background that could give us more of a clue about how this sick fuck works and also how he disappeared the body afterward.

“Nothing,” Van says, sounding as frustrated as I feel. “This is just useless. Whenever we get a lead, it always turns out to be nothing.”

“We’re going to get him,” Reed says.

Niamh walking back in interrupts the conversation, “She said that it was fine and that you can go over now.”

“Great,” River replies. He frowns and looks at me, “Where are we staying? We can’t exactly take all of our bags with us.”

“We’ll leave the bags here,” I reply. “We can pick them up before we go to the house later.”

“The house?” Griff asks.

“Neith’s house,” Niamh says with a smirk.

I shake my head, “It’s not my house. I don’t own it. It’s just somewhere that I stay when I’m here.”

“And that no one else can stay in or even wants to stay in,” she retorts.

“What?” Doc asks.

I shake my head, “You’ll see soon enough. It’s kind of difficult to explain. Right now, we need to go and talk to a witness.”

“You can leave your stuff here and pick it up later,” Niamh says. “You need to get to Libby’s place, and if you go to the house, you’re probably going to end up stuck there for a bit. It’s been a while since you visited.”

I wince, “Yeah, shit, I hadn’t thought of that. We’ll do that then and grab it before we go back. We’ll be able to fill you in then on what we find out.”

“Alright. Off you go then,” she says, handing me a set of keys. She smirks, “I only have one vehicle that’s big enough to fit you all in and even then, I’m not entirely sure you will, you’re not exactly small men.”

“Thanks. We appreciate your help,” Evander smiles.

She nods and then heads out of the room. We quickly drop our bags and anything that we don’t need and then follow her out of the room. Making our way through the empty pub, we weave through tables and out into the lot in the back.

“Okay, so which one is ours?” Reed asks.

I shrug, “I have no idea. To be honest, nothing here looks quite big enough for all of us.”

“Press the unlock button, that should tell us which one it is,” Griff suggests.

“Good idea,” I reply, as I press the button, but nothing lights up.

“I think it’s around here,” River says as he walks around the corner, “I heard the click of doors unlocking.”

When we round the corner, we find a van. It’s smaller than our one but should be able to fit us all in it at a push.

“Are we sure that’s even going to start?” Raiden asks with a slight grimace.

“She wouldn’t have given the keys to us otherwise,” I reply, although, to be honest, it does look questionable.

We all pile in, and I jump in the driving seat since I have a vague idea where we are going, and I’m used to driving around here.

“How far away is Libby’s place?” Ransom asks.

“About ten minutes, if that,” I reply.

“We need to tread really carefully with her. She’s witnessed something really horrific,” Reed adds with a concerned frown.

I nod, “Yeah. I’m surprised that she’s willing to talk after seeing something like that.”

“Me too,” Doc says.

It’s not long until we’re pulling into a small street. The houses are all reasonably close together, and I find a space just up the road from her house. We all pile out. It’s not until we’re nearly at the door that it occurs to me that it might have been less imposing if only a couple of us had gone to talk to her. It’s too late to do anything about it now. I just hope it doesn’t freak her out more.

Evander knocks on the door, and the rest of us stay further back on the path so that we aren’t crowding around her door.

The door slowly opens and a small woman, a few years younger than us, with bright purple hair, that I have a suspicion might be natural, and tear-stained cheeks, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, answers the door.

Her eyes widen, and Evander immediately lifts up his badge, “Sorry to bother you, we’re SID and we’re looking into what you witnessed.”

She still seems a bit tense, so I add, “Niamh sent us. I’m Neith.”

She relaxes a small smile, lifting her lips before it falls again, “She talks about you a lot.” She adds with a frown, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know much more than what was in the video.”

“That’s okay,” Van says, taking over again. “Would you be able to tell us where it happened so we can go and have a look?”

“I’m not going back there,” she replies, sounding panicked and starting to shut the door.

Van shakes his head quickly, “No, no. We wouldn’t ask you to go back there, don’t worry. But would you be able to tell us where it was?”

This time he emphasises the word tell, so that she knows for certain that we aren’t asking her to go there again.

She relaxes and nods, “Yeah, I can do that. Hang on.”

She moves back inside, closing the door, and I must admit that I wonder whether she’s going to come back out again. Fortunately, she does and hands us a piece of paper with another address on it.

“It was at the back of the car park, where the trees start,” she explains, “you should be able to recognize it from the video.”

“Thank you,” Evander smiles.

We all start to head back down the path when she speaks again, stopping us and making us face her again.

“I knew him, he was a friend,” she says, her voice tight with emotion, and her eyes fill with tears, “he was so gentle, he would never hurt anyone. I just can’t believe that he’s done this.”

I move forward, “It wasn’t him. Something is very wrong with him. It’s not him anymore. Your friend wouldn’t do that.”

She nods but doesn’t say anything, and I’m not sure that my words offered her the comfort that I intended them to.

“I’m sorry, one more question and then we will go,” Ransom says this time. She nods again and Ransom asks, “Do you know anywhere that he would go to feel safe?”

“There’s his flat in town,” she replies.

Ransom shakes his head, “It’s unlikely that he would go there. Could you give us the address just in case?”

She nods and disappears again, coming back quicker and with the pad and pen this time.

“There is one place he may go,” she says with a frown as she hands the address of the apartment or flat as they call it here to Ransom.

“Anything would help,” Evander says.

She sighs, “His parents own some land on the edge of the moors about a twenty-minute drive from here. They had a hut or something up there, it wasn’t a house, but it was tiny and made from stone. He hasn’t been up there since his parents died when he was a kid. It’s isolated and probably somewhere I would go if I was on the run.” She starts writing on the pad, “Here, this is the address. I can’t remember it exactly, but I do know it’s the only stone building out there, and it’s surrounded on all sides by nothing. There used to be a dirt track that led to it, but I doubt that’s there anymore.”

Van nods, “Thank you so much. You’ve been a great help.”

She nods and then closes the door.

We all quickly head back to the van and the guys hand me the addresses.

“Where do you want to go first?” I ask them.

“Well, Ransom is right. It’s very unlikely that he has gone back to his apartment, especially if it’s in the middle of town, but I think we should probably check it out anyway just to make sure,” Evander suggests.

I nod, “Okay, well, that’s back the way we came. We can head to where she said it happened after that.”

The guys all agree, and we head back the way that we came into town, and to where the apartment is. We end up having to park around the corner since there is no parking outside. It’s cold, wet, and windy, so there aren’t too many people about, but I’m still pleased when it turns out his place is above one of the stores, but the entrance to his apartment is down a tiny side street, with no shops and no one passing by. It’s not like we have a key, and although we’ve got our badges, I imagine that showing them is not only going to have people asking lots of questions but also possibly make people start to worry about what’s going on, and this is a small town. Really fucking small. So, the rumor mill will go absolutely mad at the first sign of something happening.

“How many apartments are up here?” Raiden asks.

“Probably just his,” I reply. “The building doesn’t look big enough to have more than one.”

“Well at least there’s that, we don’t have to worry about running into anyone else,” River says.

Reed knocks on the door, and when it’s clear that no one is going to answer, Ransom’s magic flares and the door pops open.

“Well, that’s a lot easier than picking a lock,” I mutter as we head up the narrow staircase that opens up into his apartment.

The place is small, the room we come up the stairs into, is small and consists of a living room and a kitchen in one, but it’s nicely decorated and it’s clean. There are two doors leading off of this space and Griff heads into one room while Doc goes into the other.

Doc comes back out first, “It’s just a bathroom, there’s nothing of any note in it.”

“Same. This is his bedroom, but it doesn’t look like anything has been disturbed, and there isn’t anyone here,” Griff adds.

“Alright, well we may as well get out of here,” River says, “it’s a dead end just like we thought.”

“Yeah, come on, let’s go and check out the place where it happened,” Doc agrees.

Once we’re all back in the car I say, “I didn’t sense much magic off of Libby, so there’s a chance that she may not have been able to pick up on it if something was there.”

“Hopefully that’s the case. We need something more than just dead ends and dead bodies,” Doc agrees.

“We’re nearly there,” I say as we pull down a small lane.

“What was she doing out here?” River suddenly asks. “There doesn’t seem to be much down here.

“If I remember correctly, the fae have a meet in the woods here once a month. I would imagine that was what she was attending but we can check,” I say, and nod to my phone, “Can you call Niamh for me?”

“Sure,” Reed replies, and soon the sound of ringing fills the van.

“Hello?” Niamh answers almost immediately, “Is Libby okay?”

“Yeah,” I reply and then correct myself as we pull into the parking lot, “well, she’s as good as can be expected. We’ve just arrived at the location where the man was killed. We were just wondering if you knew what Libby was doing here?”

“The fae gathering was last night,” she replies. “I asked her the same thing. She said that the weather got really bad, so everyone went home, but her car wouldn’t start. She heard a noise and then some disturbing sounds, and she checked it out.”

“Sounds like me, running toward the danger instead of away from it,” I mutter.

Niamh laughs, “Yeah, she’s the first one to jump into a bar fight when they kick off.”

“Thanks for clearing that up for us,” I reply.

“No problem, let me know if you find anything,” she replies and then promptly hangs up.

“Well, at least that was easy to clear up,” Griff says as we climb out of the van and pull our jackets tight around us.

“Does anyone have an idea of where it happened?” Ransom asks.

Raiden scans the treeline at the edge of the lot, “I think it’s over there.”

Doc nods, “Yeah, that matches. Let’s go and have a look.”