I agreed. "They were chasing somebody."
"This may connect with our murder." Nagit started toward the gate, reconsidered the battered ground. "Sure made a mess."
A mess. Bane of the military mind. "Maybe they were playing with their prey."
"What kind of people would?... "
"Tinnie and I saw a band of centaurs when we were coming out here." I described the circumstances. No point being secretive. I'd told North English already and suspected he might have said a word to Mr. Nagit.
"Centaurs? Hmm."
Meanwhile Tinnie tried to shush the Goddamn Parrot. That clown rooster was having a mild fit. I asked, "Do birds behave strangely around here, Mr. Nagit?"
"Not that I've noticed."
"That buzzard's had two seizures this morning. I thought he might've picked up something."
"Not here."
We soldiered on. Toward, it developed, the cluster of evergreens just inside the gate.
I observed, "These people shouldn't be tracking all over the murder scene."
"I understand that. I told everyone to stay out of the trees."
"The body in there?"
"See for yourself."
82
I saw for myself.
Mr. Nagit bullied the freecorps thugs into moving back. I did admire their discipline.
There wasn't much smell yet but the flies were plentiful. They're always the first to know. I heard them before I saw anything.
The first dead thing wasn't human. It used to be a wild dog. Before something left nothing but a head and some feet and fur and odd bits of bone scattered amongst the well-tossed pine needles.
I heard a little "Tee-hee." I looked over my shoulder and wasn't surprised to see my one-eyed, lizard-loving buddy Venable checking another savaged remnant of wild Rover.
"Did your babies do this?"
He tittered. "Killed the wild dogs and ate them, they did, yes. And never laid a claw on Stucker. He was dead already. They won't touch carrion unless they're absolutely starving. Even then, sometimes, the strong males will eat the weak ones before they touch cold meat. Hee."
The dining preferences of his pets didn't interest me. Mr. Nagit was less intrigued than I. I asked, "What's this about Stucker? He looked pretty healthy when I saw him a few minutes ago."
Venable looked baffled.
Soon I saw why.
Stucker's corpse was naked. It was dirty and far from fresh. The wild dogs had been at him during the night, long before my glimpse of him in the house a while ago.
There was no doubt he'd been dead half a day before the dogs found him. I muttered, "But he was at supper with us last night."
The pine needles were well stirred. Here and there, in the soft soil beneath, were clear hoofprints.
"Why didn't they bury him?" I wondered aloud.
"They did. Over there," Venable told me. "Just not deep enough. The dogs dug him up. We pulled him over here and brushed him off before we sent for the lieutenant."
I wanted to scream and give Venable a good throttling. But that would do no good now.
I reminded Mr. Nagit that, "We saw centaurs on the road just north of here yesterday. And nobody was on the gate when we got here. We were talking about that when Stucker came out of here still pulling up his pants. I figured he'd gone off to take a dump. But... "
Mr. Nagit looked puzzled.
"The boss will understand. It's a matter of shapeshifters. Killer shapeshifters."
The light dawned. "He told us how he handled a couple of those at the Weider masque. I thought they'd all been captured."
"Some were. And used their abilities to get away. There seem to be an awful lot of them around. They keep turning up."
"We'd better grab the Stucker back at the house."
"Good idea. Only I'll bet we don't find him."
"Why not?"
"If you were him up there and saw this mob down here, what would you think?"
"That we found the body." Mr. Nagit showed me his comradely smile.
It wasn't that endearing. Venable's pets smiled that way while they waited for your friendly status to evaporate.
"Exactly. What else strange has happened the past few weeks? Any assaults? Unexplained deaths? Mysterious thefts? People supposedly seen two places at the same time?" The shifters seemed to have the solution to that difficulty worked out, though.
"No." Mr. Nagit barked at the freecorps fighters gradually pushing into the grove, wanting to sneak a peek at disaster. He finger-pointed half a dozen. "You men go up to the house. Grab Stucker."
"But—"
"If you see Stucker it won't be Stucker. Stucker's right there. Already starting to ferment. Get moving."
I observed, "That'll teach those guys to get so close an officer notices them."
Nagit smiled again. This had to be a record day. "I suppose it will." He glared around like he was thinking of something else that had to be done. Men backed away.
There was a lot of soldier in those guys still.
"Settle down!" I snapped at the Goddamn Parrot. Having decided he didn't love Tinnie anymore, he had jumped to my shoulder where he was practicing some weird tribal fertility dance.
Lieutenant Nagit said, "Looks like he's trying to see the body but you keep moving."
He was taking up for the bird? "Maybe he's hungry. He's a vulture in disguise. Venable. Think he could play with your pets?"
No?
That wonder buzzard is so damned useless I can't even turn him into lizard bait.
83
There was no sign of pseudo-Stucker. Surprise, surprise. The shifter was somebody else now.
So I was not surprised when I spied one Carter Stockwell, known shapechanger, drifting behind the crowd, moving toward the front gate. Evidently it never occurred to anyone else to wonder why an unfamiliar fellow would be wearing the same clothes Stucker had had on for the past two days.
"There's our man," I told Nagit. "Right there. That face is the one he wears whenever he's not replacing someone."
Nagit looked at me narrowly, briefly—then gestured several men closer. "How do you know that, Mr. Garrett?"
"I've run into this shifter before. He always collapses into this shape." Did that make sense?
It did to me.
The creatures really did have to be psychic when it came to threats. Carter looked at me suddenly, as though responding to my interest. He lengthened his stride immediately.
"He knows I've made him, Mr. Nagit."
The lieutenant gave orders quickly, softly. Everyone hurried to execute them. These freecorps boys took their military stuff seriously.
The mob took off after Stockwell, determined little turtles vainly coursing a hare. Stockwell changed as we watched, his legs lengthening until a foot of calf showed below each cuff. He bounded away, gaining ground fast. He circled the tent city and disappeared into the woods beyond.
"Wow," Mr. Nagit said. "That's what I call putting on a burst of speed." He kept a straight face.
Stockwell dwindled into the distance. What was his connection with the centaurs?
There had to be one. Tinnie and I had run into centaurs just up the road. Minutes later the Stucker look-alike, still buttoning his trousers, comes out of the very copse where later we find what's left of the real Stucker. Just downhill from a lot of ruined pasture. "The torn-up turf. The way it was torn up. Those centaurs helped catch the real Stucker for the changer." Which meant that there must be a common mission between the centaurs and shapeshifters. Which I thought the Dead Man, with his special interest in things and personalities out of the Cantard, would find very intriguing indeed. I might even tell him about it. Someday.
The Goddamn Parrot took flight. That little traitor would give the news away first chance he got. For free. Apparently out of practice flying, he had trouble staying straight and level getting across to Tinnie.