Chapter 17

Ch. 17: Dane

"You're sure you've got a positive ID?" I ask, angling my flashlight down into the well-like depths. Far below, the beam glances off pale, bloated flesh and a shock of gray hair.

"I'm sure," Halloran says, wiping sweat from his brow and leaving a smear of mud. "I got a good look when we collected his body from the scene, and I've been staring at photos of the man for the last several days. It's him."

"How is that possible?" Julian breathes, leaning over the edge of the chasm for a better look. "I thought he was cremated."

"Somebody was," I say, hooking my fingers through the back of his belt in case he leans too far.

"Someone switched the bodies?" Ingrid asks, her voice still a little shaky after her shock.

"I don't think so," Halloran says. "I think this body has been here all along."

"Wait a minute." Julian shakes his head. "You just said you got a good look at Lagrange's body, and that this is Lagrange." He points into the pit. "So, which is it?"

"If I'm right, both," Halloran replies.

Footsteps draw my attention to the corridor, and I turn as Ian, Sam, and Chloe appear.

"What happened?" Ian asks. "We heard a scream."

Julian and Sam wear matching scowls as Ian's eyes fix on Julian first.

"Everyone's fine," Julian says. "Ingrid found a dead guy."

Ian gawks. "A what?"

In a few excited sentences, Grace and Ingrid tell the others what we've found. Ian's expression grows grim; but to my surprise, his confusion clears while the rest of us remain perplexed.

"Shit," he says. "Sounds like a skin-changer."

"Skin-changer?" Grace repeats nervously. "Is that like... like a skinwalker?"

"No, not really," Ian says. "Skinwalkers are human witches who use magic to take an animal form. Skin-changers are..."

He trails off and looks at Halloran.

"Fae monsters," says he. "A cross between the vampire and the doppelganger, you might say. They feed on the life force of a victim and thereby assume the victim's shape. Such, it seems, was the fate of the unfortunate Mr. Lagrange."

"Then the body in the shop..." Ingrid trails off.

"Was the skin-changer."

"That explains why Lagrange's name wasn't in the database," Grace says, "and why nobody knew he was a Shifter. He wasn't."

"Now, the question is, who was?" Chloe adds. "Who was the skin-changer, really?"

Halloran shakes his head. "We may never know. They don't really have their own identities. But it explains why Rhiannon spent so much time tracking her target: she knew he'd taken one of the shop-owners, but not which one."

"Something's not adding up," I say, tugging Julian back from the ledge. "If Lagrange's body was down here, and Rhiannon was down here, how did she not know the skin-changer had taken Lagrange? Wouldn't the body have made it obvious?"

Halloran shrugs. "I doubt the skin-changer left the body lying around. It was probably well hidden. Perhaps finding it is what finally led her to her target."

"It wasn't here before, anyway," Julian adds. "We'd have noticed a dead body. Maybe Rhiannon left it here for us to find."

"What, like a cat leaving a dead bird on the front step?" Ingrid asks.

"It may have been submerged," I point out. "Bodies actually sink at first. Takes a few days — longer in cold water — before they float back up. However..." I peer over the edge again. It's hard to pick up details from this distance, but I can see enough. "You're right. He'd have been past that point already."

"Okay, okay," Ingrid says, unclipping herself from the climbing harness. "So 'Grangey got done by the skin-changer, and the skin-changer takes his place. How's his wife not notice that?"

"Skin-changers absorb their victim's personality and memories along with their appearance," Halloran says. "The poor woman probably had no idea."

"Or she's not herself either," Ian says slowly. "Skin-changers work in pairs, I thought."

Halloran shoots him a sharp glance. "Aye, they do."

"Wait, so there's another one?" Julian asks.

"That's not the worst part, either," Ian continues, rubbing the back of his head and glancing apologetically at me, as if the bad news is somehow his fault. "They, uh... Well, it takes a while to, you know... absorb everything. They drain their victims a little at a time. It can take from a few weeks to over a month."

Julian looks ill. "You mean... all the time the skin-changer was passing itself off as Lagrange, the real Lagrange was...?"

"Still alive," Ian confirms. "After the last victim dies, the changer has about a week before it has to take another victim. I'd guess your gran got him just in time."

"But if there's another..." Grace says slowly, her dark eyes widening with dawning horror.

"Yeah," Ian says. "If there's another, there's another victim somewhere. Maybe still alive. Either way, if someone else disappears, we'll know who was the changer, but not who they've become, unless we find the victim first."

"Fuck," Julian swears, gazing down into the pit again. "And what do we do with him? We can't just leave him here... Can we?"

"No," I say. "On a purely practical note, we've no idea where this water comes out. It could be a health hazard. We'll have to report it."

Halloran sighs. "Yes, of course. I suppose it will sort itself out, one way or another."

"In the meantime, can we, like, get the fuck out of here?" Ingrid asks. "'Cause I just about had enough of this place."

***

Ingrid, Grace, and Chloe depart first, the latter promising to sort and search through all the photos we'd taken, as well as match our makeshift map of the tunnels to the streets above.

Ian and Sam hang around a few minutes more.

"Let us know what else we can do to help," Ian says, hands in the pockets of his jeans and shoulders hunched awkwardly. "Especially if you get a lead on that other skin-changer."

"Thanks, Ian. Turns out you got a pretty good memory after all," Julian says with a smile.

Ian's face reddens slightly, and Sam scowls at Julian.

"I don't suppose there's an easy way to tell if someone's a skin-changer, is there?" I ask.

Ian shrugs. "Not while they're alive. After they die, they'll keep the shape of their last victim for a while, but then they'll revert to their original shape."

"Which is?" I ask.

"Not pleasant, I fear," Halloran supplies. "Skin-changers, in being like vampires, are effectively immortal. However, if they fail to feed, or once they die, they regain their original form. The older the skin-changer, the less attractive that is. The faster one burns the body, the better."

"Guess that explains the posthaste cremation," Julian says. "The question is, who arranged it?"

"Indeed," Halloran agrees. "And if we find the answer, I think we will find our second changer as well."

***

Halloran waits until Ian and Sam have left before calling in our gruesome find.

Soon, police and other emergency personnel swarm over the scene, and Halloran joins the fray.

Julian and I retreat to a safe distance, buy ourselves a couple of coffees at the nearby café, and find an out-of-the-way spot to observe.

A great deal of time is spent ensuring the tunnels are safe to enter before anyone enters them, and I smile as I remember I'm no longer bound by red tape. Eventually, someone declares the tunnels safe, and a team of police and paramedics enter. Sometime later, the paramedics emerge carrying a long, lumpy shape in a body bag.

Chief Coleridge arrives in the meantime and, after speaking with Halloran, joins Julian and I where we wait at the borders of the scene.

"Alright, Hunter. How do you explain this one?" she asks, one gray, hawklike brow lifting at a sharp angle. "Man is cremated; man's body found."

"I dunno, Chief," I say, which is true enough. "Maybe his body never made it to the crematorium; maybe his widow buried a bag of wood ash instead."

"Purly and Sons is a reputable funeral home," Coleridge says. In a softer voice, she adds, "I know first-hand. They took care of my mom's service some years ago."

I chew my lip, unsure what to say. Coleridge would never have revealed something so personal when we worked together. I don't want to seem insensitive, and yet she must know that a single, personal anecdote does not a valid alibi make.

Before I can arrange my thoughts into a coherent sentence, Julian beats me to the punch.

"You're still gonna question them, though, right?" he asks. "And Mrs. Lagrange?"

Coleridge gives him a sharp-edged smile. "What exactly am I paying you for, Mr. Hart?" she asks. "Not to hang around crime scenes drinking coffee, I think."

Julian sips his latte before answering. "Well, this case might be a little more hazardous than we initially thought," he says, casually drawing attention to his cast.

Coleridge glances over her shoulder at Halloran, who stands in the midst of things. His arm in a sling now, though his shoulder hadn't seemed to bother him in the caves.

"So I see," she says. "Alright. Double your rate, if you want. I'll get it approved. Just don't let me down."

She wanders off to speak with Halloran, and Julian shoots me a wink. "See?" he says. "I always knew we'd make a good team."

I try and fail to muster a smile, and his levity fades.

"You think there's really a second 'skin-changer?'" he asks quietly.

"We should assume there is," I say. "And 'changer' or not, someone got a body out of the morgue and destroyed it before anyone noticed something amiss."

He sighs. "Yeah. But from what Ian said, it could be anyone, and we wouldn't know."

"Not anyone," I correct. "It's got to be someone with the proper credentials: someone who could fix paperwork and get a body released. That narrows the field considerably."

He scans the busy scene before us and lifts his brows. Any one of the dozen or so people here could enter a morgue without raising suspicion, and suddenly all of them seem newly suspicious.

After a moment, Julian tugs at my arm. "Come on. Let's get out of here." He turns away and heads for the car, and after a moment's hesitation, I follow.

He's unusually quiet on the ride home. I fight the urge to ask if he's okay, but as I pull up and park before our home, I can't hold back any longer.

"Everything all right?"

Rather than his usual quick reply or casual brush off, he doesn't answer and stares out the window in silence for so long I'm not sure he heard me.

"Julian?"

He sighs and turns to look at me. "I don't know what the hell is going on, Dane. One day, I'm just a dude with a werewolf boyfriend; then I'm Fae. Now I'm 'Fae royalty,' or whatever, and descended from a Wolfslayer."

"You're not your ancestors," I say, though my dad might disagree. "You're you."

He shakes his head. "I just keep thinking about the Wolves that lived here, before. Who were they? How would they feel about us, about me, forming a Pack here with you?"

I consider how to answer him, but he speaks again before I can get my words in order.

"I keep thinking about the skin-changer, too — the one that might still be out there — and whoever its victim might be. You're right, Dane: we can't change what happened in the past, but we can do our best in the present. And whatever 'gift' this land has to offer, I think you need to take it — take the Alpha here, and be the strongest Wolf you can be. We need to find that 'changer,' figure out how it's all connected to Rhiannon, and stop stuff like this from happening here again."

I digest his words for a moment before answering.

"We still need to wait for the full moon," I say, "but there's plenty we can do in the meantime. Interview the shop-owners and Lagrange's family. The funeral home people, too. I'll also need a second Wolf here, besides Ingrid."

"Who?" he asks.

I think for a moment. There's my mom and dad and six other siblings to choose from, but I know who I want at my side for this — someone who can help us with the case, too.

"I have just the Wolf in mind," I say.