Chapter 3

I drive off and leave the scene to the sounds of sirens and the sights of flashing lights in my review mirror. I don't want to go back to my office. The old force is probably waiting for me to show up there. They might be corrupt. They might be incompetent. But they don't overlook people fleeing two different murder scenes on the same day. Dead as I might be, I'd prefer to avoid a scuffle in the office, might break my last glass.

The cheap motel on the outskirts of town makes a good place to lie low and get my thoughts into order. There's a girl working the curb as I slide my Mercury into a spot outside the front office. I check into a random room on an hourly basis and the guy behind the desk gives me a knowing smile. Too bad he doesn't know anything.

Leaving my car where it is, I walk down to the room the clerk gave me. The hooker follows me down there and propositions me outside the room. If I'd been alive, I might have been game even though she's not my type. I'm dead though, and so's my wife. I'm not buying.

There's something off about her though. My head's too scrambled, too confused to make sense of what I don't like about her. I take her by the arm and pull her into the room with me.

Like the Joe at the front desk, she's got the wrong idea. She lays down on the bed and starts naming her prices. I open up the mini bar and take several of the small bottles of booze. I sit on the one remaining, dilapidated chair and pour the contents of one bottle down my throat. The liquid soaks into the seat under me.

The hooch has no flavor. I don't think anything ever will again, not after the kiss my ex gave me. That'd overpower anything. Just to make sure, I down another bottle. The chair's already reached its saturation point and the liquid flows to the edge and Niagaras over.

That's right. Nothing had flavor.

I shake my head. I need to get things straight. I'm dead. My wife's dead. What's the point of going on? Because I'd already given up once. Because I owed it to her to go on. Because I'd already failed her three times and couldn't bear to make it four.

An annoying buzz fills my ears, like I'd stuck my head in a swarm of gnats doing battle with a beehive and a bunch of mosquitoes come in for a surprise attack. Oh yeah, the tramp. She's making all kinds of noises, trying to get my attention.

"Hey, mister? We gonna fuck or what?"

I put my finger to my lips to silence her and then hold it up, gesturing wait a second, and nod. She gets it and lays down.

Slimy was telling the truth about all the garbage about shifters, seers and slimers. Why lie to a man you're about to off? But he was wrong. I can change people.

There are clues in everything he said. I was walking an associate of the collector and I'm just now realizing it. I put my head in my left hand and rub my eyebrows between my thumb and forefinger. It helps me think.

Why did he hire Harry to find me? Wouldn't the collector know where I was? Slimy told me that the collector wanted me alive, even though both the collector and I know I'm very dead. But if he wants me far away and alive, that means the collector is scared of me for some reason.

If what Slimy told me was true about the collector using me to take out the salesman, nothing made sense. After seeing the perfection that the collector made of my ex, I can understand the hatred he'd have for the slapshod work of the salesman.

I have the sense that I have enough to put it all together, but I can't. The walker is getting antsy again.

"What, yous just gonna dump booze on the seat for an hour? Even if yous ain't do nothing with me, I'm gonna charge yous like yous did."

Needing to think and sort through the confusion, bringing this whore in here was as helpful as using a jackhammer to open walnuts. I look up and shoot her down with scorn from my eyes. That's when I finally see the chain wrapped around her. I'd been so wrapped up in my problems that I'd blinded myself to hers.

Until now, I'd only seen the work of two shifters and one was the disciple of the other. Even the salesman would have been abhorred by the low quality work done to the girl. His lines were complete. The holes were left in the product, the connection itself was sound.

This girl shakes in her chains. She fights and struggles for her freedom. The shifter is too sloppy to even be able to close his connection to her. It means he's nearby. I grab her bonds and they're hot to my touch. He can feel me holding them. I can feel his shock.

I see the poor girl stopping to check in. She's just passing through on her way to bigger and better things when he snares her. This joint doesn't get enough business to stay running, so the clerk uses his powers to rope girls like this one into turning tricks for him. He's so bad he can't transform them. He can't change their past, only their present.

The girl feels me now, too. Sitting on the bed, she pleads at me with her eyes. She raises her hands as if they're cuffed together. Were I to break them, she'd be free. She'd revert to her old self, emotionally dead and physically scarred by a year of prostitution.

The clerk isn't strong enough to change her, but I am. I follow his link down into her and fix her. I remove the blemishes and stretching. I steal the painful shock and memories of rapes and beatings. She deserves more than just being sent back to square one. So I use the access point I have to her mind and find out about her.

I shape her into her ideal woman, filling her lanky frame out. Her now lushly padded body curves in subtle ways that would please any man. I fill in the missing year of her life with memories of living in a health spa, working herself into a regimen that first produced and now maintains her new body.

She'd dreamed of being a doctor. I remove her fears of pain and wooziness at the sight of blood. I clear the clouds from her mind, allowing her access to her full intelligence. The only thing stopping her now is the lack of financing. I know how to fix that as well. I plant one more thought in her mind.

Done with the connection, I break it off. It fades and falls. Since I'd used her dreams and desires to change her, not even I can find the telltale sign that she'd been changed. She was born this way.

I look at my first reclamation project not associated with the collector. Even he would be proud of my work. She's not outlandishly proportioned, those caricature are the product of men's dreams. Her breasts are on the large size, but rather than imitating two volleyballs crudely stuffed on a woman, they approach two softballs that appear to have grown in naturally. They sit proudly on her chest. Her dress squishes them together to create twin globes that any astronomer would be content to study for the rest of his life.

Her poodle skirt stops mid thigh and flares out around two legs so smooth, long and curved that small children could amuse themselves on for hours by sliding down them and climbing back up for more. The line of kids would be doubled by their fathers waiting in line with them, wanting their turn as well.

Intelligence sparkles in her eyes. No memory of her days of prostitution remain, only the ambition and desire to fulfill her dreams remain in her head.

Leading her out of the room, we head to the front office. The clerk is on his way out with a suitcase filled with cash. I push him back into the office and he drops the bag. Stumbling back, he trips over his feet. He falls and lands slumped against the front desk.

The young med student picks up what I told her to believe was her suitcase and waits for me to toss her the clerk's car keys. She thanks me for helping her check out and leaves to begin her new life.

That leaves me alone with the clerk. He's on his feet now and his face is white with panic. Hurt and being incompetent, he lashes out with a clumsy attempt to shift me. I'm caught off guard, his chain hits me, but there's already a connection there. A much stronger connection. His miserable attempt slides off me and he's even more confused.

My wife's words come back to me. Find my line. Why hadn't I looked earlier? It's right there. I'm connected to something, someone. Distracted, I don't notice the clerk muster his next attack.

He puts his full strength and soul into it. It's massive and it will suffocate me. There is no dodging. There is no blocking. There's only one thing. I draw my gun and fire.

The bullet shatters his chains. They splinter and crumble. There's nothing for me to grab a hold of and try to save him. A large ball of smoke escapes from his lifeless mouth and he falls to the ground.

Shifters. I'd outdone myself with their name. Changing reality around them to fit their whims. A bunch of shiftless lowlifes, the lot of them.

I check him for a pulse. Nothing. I hadn't shot him. I finger the hole my bullet made in the corrugated plywood desk. I hadn't come close to hitting him. But he's still dead all the same.

Another murder scene. It's my third in one day. I think it's starting to become a habit, and unlike my boozing and woman habits, it's not a good one. I know it's only going to get worse before the day ends. I've found my lead. Hopping in my Mercury, I make tail out of there. I drive out into the countryside, away from the noise, away from the people.

Almost too scared to look, like it might have vanished in the time it took me to check again, I search for the thread coming out of me. It's still there. Gingerly, I hold it in my hands. I'm not ready to know what it will tell me yet. But I have to.