“Could be. You got something to trade?”
“You owe me,” I reminded him. “You asked me to find Richard, remember?”
“And did you?”
“Well, no, but that’s hardly the point. You asked; I tried. Got myself into a bit of trouble over it, I might add.” Rolf thought for a moment before nodding.
“Fair enough, I guess. Okay, ask away.” I told him about my encounter with the redheaded practitioner and the beast in Glen Park. “What I can’t figure out is the connection between the two and why he chose the aspect of the murdered boy,” I said. “What do you think?” Rolf looked at me with an expression that was hard to read.
“I think you’ve wasted a question,” he said. “It doesn’t take any special talent or knowledge to answer that one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, think about it a minute. You have a practitioner that’s taken on the aspect of one of the victims, right? Which indicates first of all that he was involved in the murder, and second, that he can alter his appearance. You follow him, and he vanishes. Suddenly, a creature springs out at you. You don’t see the connection?”
“You mean he was able to transform himself into that creature?” Rolf let out an exaggerated sigh.
“You’re not getting it. There was no practitioner. There’s only the creature, the one who killed all those people. It’s a shape-shifter; it took on the persona of its victim, that’s all, and then reverted back to its natural self when it got you alone.”
“Oh.”
“A shape-shifter? How can that be? Does that mean it could imitate anyone?” Sherwood asked. “Even one of us?”
“I don’t know. I know it can take on the aspect of its victim, but I don’t think it can imitate just anyone, at least not as successfully.” He pointed at Richard Cory, who was blithely paying us no attention at all. “I’m sure Richard could tell you. He knows all about such things. But he doesn’t talk to people anymore. Ever since he came back from his time with the Wendigo, as you call it, he barely talks at all, even to me.” He smiled, showing teeth as usual. “And by the way, it isn’t a Wendigo, not a real one. If it had been a real one, you wouldn’t have come back.”
“Yeah? Well, thanks for pointing me in that direction, then.”
“Maybe Richard will talk to me,” said Sherwood. Rolf started to shake his head, then looked at her closely.
“You know, he just might. There’s something different about you. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s there.” I’d been thinking much the same thing myself, ever since her return. “Just remember, he’s not all there these days. And don’t look in his eyes-that can be a disturbing experience.”
Sherwood walked around the fire and squatted down on her heels next to Richard. He ignored her, but then she started talking in a low voice, almost whispering. I instinctively leaned forward to try to hear what she was saying; her voice was oddly compelling, almost like the Wendigo’s. Richard Cory turned his head as if seeing her for the first time and answered in a low, mellifluous tone that rose slightly at the end, clearly asking a question.
Rolf stroked his dreadlocked beard, obviously impressed. “Let’s give them some privacy,” he said, moving off farther under the bridge. Cars rushed past on the bridge access ramp high overhead, sounding like far-off surf. The figure in the shadows followed us, coming closer, soundless and menacing. Rolf turned toward him, his aspect changing in an instant, revealing the gnarled and leathery troll-like persona that was always lurking right below the surface.
“No,” he said, in a thick guttural voice. “Not for you. Nor the other.” The figure drew back, disappointed.
“Who is that?” I asked. “Or maybe ‘what’ is a better question.”
“Vlad,” he said. “He’s almost all the way gone. Soon he’ll be too dangerous to be around, even for me.”
“Vlad? Is he Russian?”
“No.”
We turned and watched Sherwood and Richard Cory, deep in conversation. Several times, Sherwood nodded her head, and once she shook it, definitively. After a while, they stopped talking, and Richard Cory leaned forward, put his hands on either side of her face, and stared intently at her.
“Uh-oh,” Rolf said.
Lou appeared from the other side of the fire, circled around, and started creeping up behind them, moving one paw at a time, slowly, like a stalking cat. Sherwood reached up, gently took Richard’s hands from her face, and held them for a moment. Then she patted him on the shoulder and stood up, motioning to me. Rolf whistled, or he tried to. It sounded more like a horse with asthma.
“That’s quite a woman,” he said.
Rolf walked us to the gate and again made a bow to Sherwood, but this time it was very short and not at all mocking. Sherwood’s expression was grim.
“Did you learn anything?” I asked, as we walked back to the van.
“Quite a bit. More than I wanted to, actually. Richard Cory is an interesting… person.”
“Could you get a read on him?”
“Not really. He’s hardly human anymore, just like you said. There’s just enough left to be able to communicate with him. He’s not an evil person by any means, but he is spooky.”
“How about Rolf? Can he be trusted?”
“Depends on what you mean. He’s basically okay, but he has a different idea of right and wrong than we do, I think.”
“That much I’m aware of,” I said.
“Yes, I would think so.” Sherwood stopped for a moment, thinking. “I think the best way to put it is this: if he thought he could gain some personal advantage by pushing you into a raging river, I don’t think he’d do it. But if you fell in on your own, and that benefited him in some way, I’m not sure he’d try to pull you out, either.” That sounded about right.
“And Richard? What did he have to say?”
“It’s not good. You were right; there was another creature that came from the energy pool. And what it needs to survive is life force-it kills people and devours all their internal organs. Then it’s fine for a while, until it has to feed again.”
“Sounds like a bad horror movie.”
“It gets worse. It’s protean-the creature that attacked you is its natural form, but it can shift and imitate almost anything.”
“It’s got to have a tell,” I said. “I can’t see how anything like that could fool Lou.”
“Yes and no. If it copied someone you know, a friend, it wouldn’t be totally effective. It could fool you for a while, but you’d catch on sooner or later. And it wouldn’t fool Lou for a second. But when it kills someone, I think that’s a different matter. It absorbs their essence, somehow.”
“The brains.”
“The what?”
“The brains. It cracks open the head and sucks out the brain tissue, leaving an empty skull.”
Sherwood shuddered delicately.
“How delightful. But however it does it, it can then replicate its victim right down to the last detail. Appearance, memories, skills-in essence, it can become its victim. I doubt even Lou could see it wasn’t the original person.”
“So if it killed me and took my place, would it be able to play guitar?”
“Apparently. It might lack your creative spark, but it could play.”
“Could it use talent?”
“That he didn’t know, but it’s not unlikely. It is a magical creature itself, after all.”
“And Lou would never know the difference? That I don’t believe.”
“Well, that’s different. Lou’s almost part of you; there’s no way he wouldn’t figure it out the moment he saw you. But if it were me who was being copied? Or Victor or Eli? I’m not sure he could tell there was anything wrong.”
A sharp clatter from right behind us made us both jump and spin around. Talking about this had set our nerves on edge. A metal garbage can lid was lying on the sidewalk, knocked off a can next to a doorway. Lou had scented something he thought might be edible. He poked his head around from the back of the can with a sheepish expression and a slight tail wag that meant, “Oops, sorry.”