Audrey did get to leave the station twice on calls; one was a false arm the other a routine assault. Otherwise, her prediction of a boring day of paperwork was almost correct, at least until she returned to the station after the second call with half an hour left on her shift, only to be fgged down by the desk sergeant. “Detective Ross?”
“Yes, Neil?” She replied, recognizing Neil Rothman, a rookie still in his training period, a man with shaggy brown hair that always looked unkempt when not under his uniform cap, and alert brown eyes that seemed to never miss anything.
“Detective Ross, were you a witness to an MVA st night?”
“Yes, we were driving back from a sort of a party and saw a car bottom out on a pothole.”
“Apparently the driver was involved in something big. There is a guy who cims to be a Fed but fshed his badge too fast for me to see which alphabet agency it is - or even if it is real - here and he says he needs to talk to you about it. I left him in interrogation three.”
“Thanks Neil,” she said and smiled at him, then headed off to Interrogation Three.
The man waiting there was rge, definitely well over two hundred and fifty pounds and over six feet tall. He had eyes so dark they seemed bck, but hair almost as red as hers. His full beard showed hints of a lighter color, and his hair was tied back in a ponytail. A faint smell like animal musk clung to him. He rose as she entered, and she realized that if he did not slouch so heavily, he might actually top seven feet; he clearly towered over her slight five-foot six-inch frame.
“Detective Ross? Special Agent Simon Vittorio, Homend Security,” he said, fshing a badge very quickly.
“I am sorry, but may I see that badge again?”
He sighed and handed it to her. It looked legitimate, but she had an odd feeling that if she put it under a scanner, it would be missing the microdot coding on all Federal IDs. Still, it did look good, so she handed it back. “What can I do for you Officer Vittorio?”
“Special Agent Vittorio,” he corrected, and she thought “either he is very good, legit, or watches a lot of TV crime shows,” but he was still talking: “Last night, at about six minutes to midnight you were involved in an incident with one Johnathan Daniels?”
“I believe that was the name on his ID, yes,” she said, taking a seat at the table. The rger man followed suit directly across from her.
“We have reason to believe he was in possession of a very unusual knife, a distinctive switchbde. Did you observe anything like that during the altercation?”
She took a deep breath, let it out, and then answered: “I believed it was a simple case of road rage and a possible DUI, so did not want to make things worse for him if I could help it but, yes, he did pull out a switchbde, though I do not recall anything unusual about it.”
“Do you have possession of this weapon?”
“No, I knocked it out of his hand and did not see where it went,” she was happy to be able to make a statement that was completely factual, even if missing a few details. “I suspect it slid under our vehicle and may still…”
Vittorio interrupted her “we have already examined the scene, talked to the two responding local LEOs, and searched his residence of record. Unless one of your companions picked it up or someone is lying to us, a key piece of evidence in an ongoing investigation may be lost.”
“I can call my friends and see if they remember anything?” She began.
“We will need to talk to them ourselves,” he said, taking out his phone and opening up a notebook app. After scanning it for a few seconds he said: “I believe their names are Carol Bishop and Malcolm Eisenstein?”
“That is correct. I could have them come down here if you would like?”
“No, that will not be necessary. We will contact them directly. That st name sounds familiar; was he also involved in an open murder investigation?”
“He discovered a body and reported it."
“And his roommate,” Vittorio said, “is listed as a Person of Interest, a David M. West?”
“As near as we can tell, his roommate left town at almost the exact same time the murders occurred, so yes, he is listed as a Person of Interest.”
“Fascinating. Have you been able to get hold of him?”
“Only via messaging. We expect him back maybe next week, why?”
“Sorry, I am just a very inquisitive man by nature,” he replied. “If you hear anything about this switchbde, please get in touch with this number, immediately,” he said, handing her a very official-looking business card. “And if you are withholding evidence in a federal investigation…” he added ominously.
She took the card, pulled out one of her own. “In case you need to get in touch with me, here. And I am well aware of the penalties for impeding a Federal Investigation.”
“You will be hearing from myself or another soon. Hopefully to inform you that the case is closed, but we may have additional questions. And if you see this knife or learn anything about it, inform us immediately. Do not touch if you do not have to and be sure to have a set of elimination prints on hand if you do have to.”
Curiosity struck and Audrey asked: “How did Mister Daniels get hold of it in the first pce?”
“I am sorry, Detective, but I am not at liberty to divulge that information at present.” He rose to his feet and extended his right hand. She stood and shook the offered hand. Hers was lost inside of it. She looked up and saw something fsh in his eyes, something that made her feel very uneasy.
“Have a good day, Detective,” he said as he released his grip.
“You too, and good luck, Special Agent,” she answered.
And with that he was gone.
She stood there for a few seconds, then picked up her phone to check with Malcolm and Carol, only to have it ring, showing Malcolm’s name. “Hey, I was just about to call you,” she began.
He interrupted: “Just had the weirdest visit from a guy ciming to be with Homend. If you ever wondered what humans would look like if they evolved from ferrets instead of primates, Special Agent Ernest Burton is the answer.”
“Mine had an Italian name and looked more like a bear than a ferret. Asked about st night?”
Malcol replied: “Only about that stupid knife. I know I kicked it somewhere but did not see it after that. Did not even tell him that much, though, just that you disarmed and threw him.”
“Good man. You want to call Carol and see if she has a visit too and I will swing by and pick you up?”
“Sounds like a great pn, see you in ten or so, depending on traffic.” He replied and hung up.
She found Malcolm pacing on the corner near his workpce. She barely had time to slow the car before he opened the passenger’s door and jumped in.
Without preamble, while fastening his seatbelt, he announced: “She said she had not seen anybody at work and was about to head home but then her battery died. Any chance you can use a siren to get to her pce faster?”
“I am worried too, but I could get in a lot of trouble for that. She should have a charger in her…”
She was interrupted by a call to Malcolm’s phone: “Carol! Hi. What? Yeah, hang back and wait for us. Maybe fifteen minutes?”
Audrey nodded and began driving as fast as the rush hour traffic would permit, as he hung up and briefed her: Carol was three blocks from her house when her phone finally got enough of a charge to make a call, and she saw a rge bck vehicle parked in front of her house, so she just rode past. There was a huge man with red hair walking up to her door at the time.
They met up in the lot of a convenience store down the street and returned to Carol’s house together.
Special Agent Vittorio was standing on the porch, arguing with Liz - it looked like an elephant arguing with an ant. A thin, nervous looking man with a shock of white hair stood on the ground just off the porch, with one hand inside his jacket, the other fidgeting with something small and shiny.
“Ah, there is Carol. You can go talk to her, or come back with a warrant, or just go away,” they heard Liz say.
As they got out of the car, Audrey leaned over to Malcolm “if that is the guy you met, he does look like a ferret!”
“It is. And he was pying with some creepy fidget spinner the whole time. It looked like silver skulls on a red triangle”
As Carol opened the door to her car, Special Agent Burton suddenly stood at full attention. “Simon, I smell it!” he announced.
The man on the porch turned away from Liz and toward his apparent partner: “Where?”
Burton sniffed the air and pointed in Carol’s direction: “in her vehicle,” he said; it sounded more like a snarl at the end than words, and he began bounding towards her position with speed and agility that bordered on superhuman.
“Stop right there,’ Audrey announced, freeing her firearm from its holster.
The rger agent had been heading down from the porch slowly but stopped on the stairs. “You do not want to do that,” he rumbled.
She had her gun out and was training it on SA Burton. “Expin why not, without ciming to be Federal officers,” she demanded. “And you might want to use your real names since Special Agent Simon Vittorio was found dead in his hotel room less than an hour ago.”
Meanwhile, Special Agent Burton had ignored her warnings and charged at Carol - who fell back into her car and smmed the door in his long-nosed face.
“Thimon!” It bellowed, sounding on the verge of tears, “They boke by nodthe!”
Carol swung the door open, into him, bowled him over and then smmed it shut again and locked it.
He seemed dazed and blood was flowing freely from his nose.
“That knife is dangerous to your kind,” the person that called itself Special Agent Vittorio said. “Give it to us and we will dispose of it safely.”
He stepped off the porch with his hands in the air, nodding at the creature trying to get to Carol as he spoke: “His credentials are real. I neither knew nor cared where he got mine. I am only here to retrieve that weapon.”
Malcolm hissed quietly: “look at his teeth!”
Audrey had been watching his hands; she turned her attention to his face. His nose was more pig-like than she remembered and two of the teeth on his lower jaw were jutting up over his upper lip by several inches.
“What the Hell?” Audrey said back to him.
“I think he’s a wereboar,” Malcolm said.
“How do you stop one of them?”
“With something bigger than your gun,” he replied sadly.
“Stay where you are, whatever your name is,” she ordered.
“Name is Simon. That is why Ernie killed his partner. Did not think I could remember a different first and st name.” His voice became deeper, more guttural as he spoke, and the teeth were looking more tusk like.
“Do you have any silver?” Malcolm quietly asked Audrey. “All I have is this,” he showed her a Star of David that had been attached to a neck chain he usually wore.
“No. Oh except my earrings but that seems futile.”
His voice no longer polite, but a demanding growl, Simon said: “let me have the knife and I will leave. Keep the weasel. I do not care.”
“I used to be pretty good with a slingshot,” Malcolm mused aloud. “Would be great to find one right about now.”
Something caught Audrey’s eye, and she looked away from the bestial man for a moment. Her eyes went wide, and she said: “like that?”
Malcolm followed her gaze and saw an old Wrist Rocket caught in a sewer grate. “Exactly like that,” he said, and then “watch out!"
Simon had dropped to all fours and now was charging across the yard towards them. Audrey fired off a shot from her pistol and the impact of the bullet spun him around without doing any real damage. Malcolm took that momentary distraction to dive for the Wrist Rocket and slip it onto his arm. The wereboar moved extremely fast and reached Audrey’s position as he loaded his sole silver item into the cup and pulled back the rubber band. “Jehovah guide my aim,” he prayed and let loose.
Just as the Star of David fshed through the air, Audrey tried to dive out of the monster’s way - she almost succeeded, but one of Simon’s tusks caught the sleeve of her jacket, tore it off, shredded the shirt beneath and left a gash on her arm. Then the beast-man smmed into her car, denting the passenger side door, howled loudly and fell over, dead. The Star of David had struck it in the eye, and when the creature smmed into the car, the silver item was pushed into Simon’s brain, killing him instantly. The body shimmered for a moment and then was just a huge boar somehow wearing tattered human clothing.
Malcolm had wanted to rush to Audrey’s side but heard the other creature, the one called Ernest Burton, trying to force open the doors to Carol’s car and knew that was more important at the moment.
Liz had come out on the porch and was yelling for him to get away from the car. Malcolm saw she was holding a handgun he never knew the dies owned. Ernest turned to gre at her - his face was a nightmarish mix of human and rodent with a mouth full of tiny, sharp teeth. His eyes were a red that glowed ominously in the fading light of the day.
“That will not work, you need silver!” Malcolm shouted. The hideous face turned to look at him, then back to Liz and finally returned to the car Carol had been barricaded in - except she had slid out of the passenger’s side while the monster was distracted.
Ernest leapt on top of the car, hissing angrily. Two bullets, one fired by Audrey the other by Liz, smmed into his body, sending him flying, as Carol managed to run to the porch carrying what looked like a small cooler.
Ernest spun around to stand on his feet, crouched low, and then sprung upward - his leap would have cleared the car except another shot from Audrey’s pistol caught him mid-leap and sent him flying back once more. He then tried to race around the car only to be knocked off his feet by a shot from Liz’s pistol. He roared to his feet one more time and charged the porch, just as Carol came out and hurled a drawer full of silverware at the creature.
He was startled but unharmed, until he stepped on one of the forks that happened to be actually made of silver. He howled in pain and rage but then crouched down for another leap just as Malcolm reached where he was, scooped up several items off of the ground and tried to stab the monster with them. One knife and two forks bit into the monster's hide and another knife dealt a gncing blow. It backhanded Malcolm, sending him sprawling, resulting in several minor cuts from the tableware in the wn.
Carol had not let this time go to waste though - she noted which items hurt the beast and managed to grab a few just as it swung a hand with massive cws at her. She swung up and plunged a fork and two knives into the monster's arm.
Liz called out “what the devil is this thing? A were-weasel?”
Trying to stand without cutting himself too badly, Malcolm replied “I have no idea; it is not in any of the books I’ve read!” Then his eyes lit upon a very rge knife that looked silver and very sharp. He snatched it up and swung it at Ernest, plunging it into his left leg.
Ernest swatted the knife out of his leg, but the distraction gave Carol the opening she needed, and she shoved a different knife right into the monster’s throat!
Ernest turned and stared at her, then fell over backwards and colpsed into a festering pile of decaying matter. Carol and Malcolm both staggered away, fighting nausea.
Liz then said: “Okay everyone, get inside now. I will go upstairs and get some disinfectant, call work and tell them I'll be about an hour te, and then you will expin to me exactly what the Hell just happened.”
“You might be two hours te with that st one,” Malcolm said while trying to gather ftware from the yard. Liz gave him a dirty look but then turned on her heels and went inside.
Roughly fifteen minutes ter, Carol was binding the gash on Audrey's arm, Liz was coming down from upstairs carrying basic medical supplies just as the silver outline of David West appeared in the kitchen.
“Liz would do a better job at this of course … David!” He heard a familiar voice behind him.
“Hey David,” Malcolm greeted him. “Guess you figured out we're at Carol’s tonight?”
David looked around and realized that they were, indeed, in Carol Bishop’s dining room. Carol was behind where he had appeared, wrapping a bandage on the arm of Detective Ross, who seemed to be missing a sleeve from her top.
“Looks like you guys had a day at least as, uh, interesting as mine,” he said.
“If by ‘interesting’ you mean in the context of the old Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times’ I believe you are correct, old buddy,’ Malcolm responded.
Liz walked into the room as he said this, said “Hi David,” then froze, looked at him again, made an exasperated sound and said: “Yet another thing to add to the list of stuff I need expined.”
Detective Ross suddenly stood up from where Carol was tending her injured arm. “David, when we, ah, met two nights ago there was a kind of silver cord stretching behind you into … nothing I guess?”
“Ah yes, the Astral Cord that connects my projection to my physical body. What about it?”
“Tonight, you are standing on a silver path, of what looks like cobblestones.”
David looked down but did not see what she meant
Sensing his confusion, she moved closer and bent down, and then she gnced up for a moment and her green eyes met his: “you can't see it? Right here,” she said, pointing at the cobblestones she saw David realized something.
As David cried out “Detective, your eyes…” she touched the path that apparently only she saw…
There was a fsh of emerald radiance in the kitchen. When it passed, all trace of David West and Detective Audrey Ross, except for what remained of her shredded beige jacket, was gone from the room.
