“You sure?” she asked.
“Go on home,” I said. “We’ll be fine, honest. This time we’re the ones who have the element of surprise. The shape-shifter has no real power, no talent. It’s nothing more than a dangerous beast, when you come right down to it. And if we need you, you know we’ll call. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Campbell looked at me doubtfully, but she didn’t take much convincing. We had a quick breakfast, and she’d barely left when Victor rang again.
“It’s time,” he said. “And bring the shotgun.”
When I got to Victor’s house, everyone was there- Victor, Eli, Sherwood, and Timothy. Timothy wasn’t going with us, of course, but he often came up with solid ideas, and acted as a reality check when we overlooked the obvious. I was hoping Victor had come up with a clever plan, but no. His idea was simply to go over to Morgan’s house and confront the thing.
“That’s it?” I said. “We go knock on her door? Brilliant. What if she’s not there, or won’t answer?”
“Simple is often best,” Eli said. “These shape-shifters seem to like operating out of a home base. They’re comfortable in their own lair. She knows we think she’s gone; she has no idea we’re onto her, so what better place to hunker down in safety? If she finds you on her doorstep alone and unsuspecting, I’m guessing she’ll see it as another opportunity.”
Victor outlined the simple plan. I was to go up and knock on the door, while the rest of them hung back out of sight. If she answered, I would hold the door while everyone else rushed up to confront her.
“What if there’s no answer?” I said.
“We go in and search the house. It’s a simple tactical operation. We’re hunting a clever and dangerous creature, but it’s not like we’re dealing with another practitioner.”
A half hour later, everyone was in position. I handed off the shotgun to Eli-if I showed up at the front door carrying a large weapon, it would rouse suspicion in even the dullest of minds. And the shape-shifter was not dull-far from it.
I strolled casually up to the front door, Lou acting nonchalant as usual. Except, with him, it’s not an act. I rang the bell, waited, rang again, then finally knocked. No response. I listened for any sounds inside, but it was quiet as the grave, probably literally. The real Morgan was somewhere inside, I was sure.
After a while, I turned and walked back to where the others were waiting and shook my head.
“Okay,” said Victor. “Mason, you and Lou go around to the back in case it bolts. Take the shotgun, but wait here a moment until I take the wards down. The rest of us will go through the front door.”
I wondered how Victor would handle the wards. He was the one who’d put them up, but even so it would take a while to remove them completely. A small opening to squeeze through wasn’t going to do the job. I should have known.
He took a large chunk of clear quartz out of his carrying bag and set it down at the base of the house. He looked carefully at the wall in front, as if looking for something. Finally he gave a little grunt of satisfaction, raised a hand, and spoke one word. The wards collapsed in on themselves and drained into the quartz, like water swirling down a drain. The piece of quartz now glowed a deep and vibrant red, and the house was unprotected.
I know Victor’s good, but this was outstanding, even for him. Eli saw the expression on my face.
“Back door,” he said.
I thought for a moment he was telling me to go to the back of the house, but then realized it was an explanation. Just like programmers will sometimes leave a back door in a program they write, Victor had inserted a back door in the wards so that he could circumvent them at any time. There was no reason for him to do that, but it was just habit, I guess. I had done something similar myself last year, but not nearly as elegant.
Lou and I went round the back and waited. After five minutes, Victor appeared at the back door, Glock in hand, and motioned me inside. The place was trashed, in the familiar fashion, fast food wrappers and garbage strewn over the floor. But Morgan was no slob; I’d been here before. Any doubts I might have had were rapidly disappearing. Whatever had been living here, it wasn’t Morgan.
“Nothing on the ground floor,” he said. “Downstairs next.”
Downstairs was mostly all empty garage, with a small room off to the side that was bare and obviously empty. We climbed back up to the main floor.
“Upstairs,” Victor said.
Only two rooms, the bedroom and the other, were at the top of those stairs. We went in the spare room first, Victor turning left and me turning right. Lou checked under the bed-he’s useful that way. For Victor or me to check, we’d have to get down on our hands and knees and put our heads right next to the floor. Not a great position to be in when you’re looking for something with sharp claws. A quick check of the closet turned up nothing. All clear.
The bedroom was next, and we repeated the drill. Again nothing. I was convinced by now that the shape-shifter wasn’t in the house, but we had to check everything to be sure. Lou checked under the bed again, but this time after looking under it, he turned slowly toward the closet on the back wall. Victor nodded, positioned himself on one side of the closet door, and waved me back as I positioned myself on the other. Of course, if something came bursting out of that closet, it would be between us by the time we reacted. We’d be shooting directly at each other.
I circled back until I was at the end of the bed, directly in front of the closet door, but ten feet away. Not a good position to be in if there was a man with a gun behind the closet door, but not bad at all for intercepting something armed with only teeth and claws. I leveled the shotgun, making sure the safety was off.
Victor held up his right hand and showed three fingers, then clenched his fist. With his left hand, he reached out and grasped the closed door handle. He pumped his right hand three times, shooting out a finger each time, and on the count of three jerked the door open and jumped back.
It was an anticlimax when nothing jumped out. The closet wasn’t that deep, and coats and shirts and blouses on hangers took up every square foot. There wasn’t enough space left to hide a ravenous six-foot-tall monster.
I relaxed and lowered the shotgun, and that was when it burst out of the closet and straight toward me. It was on me before I could raise the gun again, but it wasn’t the Morgan creature. It was the fake Ifrit.
It had been crouched down low, small enough to hide at the base of the closet underneath the hanging clothes. It moved so fast it seemed to be flying through the air as it launched itself toward my unprotected stomach. It didn’t have the huge bearlike claws of the shape-shifter we were hunting, but it was easily capable of disembowel ing me on the spot.
As it leapt off the floor, I heard four flat cracking sounds, and it jerked, seemingly pausing in midair. It gave me just enough time to interpose the shotgun between it and me, like a protective staff. It crashed at my feet and, snarling, tried to rise again, but Victor took three quick steps over to where I stood and carefully put four more shots into it as it lay there. It jerked again, gave one last burbling snarl, and finally lay still.
Eli burst into the room seconds later, Sherwood a step behind. He saw the fake Ifrit lying dead on the floor and stopped in surprise.
“Not what we expected,” I said.
Victor walked over and prodded it with the toe of his shoe.
“Good riddance, though.”
“Yeah. Nice shooting. But did you happen to notice I was directly in the line of fire? A slight miss and I’d have been lying on the floor alongside it.”