Chapter 2: Feeding

The next day, Claire walked into the containment room pushing a cart full of some sort of equipment. "Good morning to you," she said cheerfully.

"You'll pardon me if I don't get up," Gruthsorik grumbled from the bunk.

"No, that's fine, in fact it would be helpful if you laid still for this," Claire said. She pushed the cart up to the cell wall opposite the bunk, unfolded some of the devices, and aimed them at him.

Gruthsorik turned his head to the side to watch. "Dare I ask what all of that is?" he asked.

"It's a medical scanner. It was developed by the group that reverse engineers salvaged extraterrestrial technology. Those guys love us here in the Institute because we're among the few that has enough security clearance to even know they exist, but also provide the opportunity to field test their gizmos in practical applications. It'll be decades before they can leak the stuff inside this thing even to DARPA. They tell me the original that it's based on is less than half the size, but it sure beats the huge machines in hospitals that you have to put a patient inside to get any information." It's also a decent stand-in for dissection, which is helpful when your only specimen is still alive.

She activated the scanner, and it hummed as it probed the insides of the demon. "You might feel a light tingling," Claire said. "Let me know if it gets uncomfortable." She perused the data as it streamed to her tablet computer. "No bullet fragments, that's good. Assuming they weren't all clean in and out shots, your body must have expelled them while it was healing itself. You have highly developed sensory organs, on the level of predatory species. Which I suppose you are, after a fashion. Let me guess, you have exemplary hearing, can see clearly even in near total darkness, and can distinguish individual people by scent?"

"Very good, doctor, I'm impressed," said Gruthsorik. "It's especially useful for sniffing out and tracking down girls who are by themselves." Claire hoped he was speaking generally and not making reference to her. Though if lone women is what got his hunting instincts going, she definitely qualified. She was always glad to have the cell wall between her and the captured cryptids, but this time doubly so. She forced herself to focus back on the scanner readings.

"The circulatory system looks about normal for something your size. A four-chambered heart, as befits an advanced species. Blood composition is fairly standard, with iron-based hemoglobin. Respiratory system looks good, lungs resemble the mammalian design. Digestive system ... you seem to have no stomach at all. There's some kind of small structure below the esophageal sphincter, it's filled with what looks a lot like intestinal villi, but it dead ends." She looked up and addressed her subject, "I didn't entirely believe you before about subsisting on the emotions and such of the girls you attack, but you really don't eat solid food, do you?"

"That's correct," he said. "I tried once, just to see what would happen, but I couldn't keep it down. I do get thirsty and need to drink water every now and then, though."

"Those nasty looking teeth of yours must be an evolutionary holdover of some sort," Claire said, back to thinking aloud. "Hmm. Below there I can see what looks like intestines right where they should be. In fact they fill the entire space that would be your digestive system. Another unneeded vestigial organ perhaps? They're very highly muscled, too. Oh!" She exclaimed in surprise as the objects she was examining on her screen began to move rapidly. She looked up and watched as five penises emerged from Gruthsorik's crotch. Uncircumcised, of course, though the foreskin pulled back almost right away, revealing the glans. They all looked like normal human penises in general shape and size, other than the length of course, as they didn't stop until they were several feet long. "Of course. How silly of me." The beast smiled, greatly amused.

Claire skipped the humor, however, as she went deep into analysis. "Fascinating, so they don't just form from the surface of your body, the main structure is stored internally. How far can you reach with them?" One of the tentacles turned and extended horizontally until it was about twelve feet long. She watched the densely packed muscle tissue expand and multiply on the scanner screen and shuddered as she remembered what the demon did with these things. "That looks like it's amazingly strong, yet agile."

"Of course. They have to be," Gruthsorik responded as he drew them back in. Claire watched as they pulled all the way into his crotch, and the skin melded shut where they had been, leaving no hole or seam. A simple trick for shape-shifter flesh.

"Well, thank you for that ... demonstration," Claire said hesitantly, then returned her attention to the scanner data, trying to put the sight of the tentacles from her mind. "Now what's next, how about the nervous system. Brain and spinal cord design resembles that of the typical large, intelligent primate. Skeletal structure, very much what you'd expect it to be. Urinary system is nonexistent, though I suppose that's a given since you have no digestive system either. Reproductive system, aside from the obvious, there are what appear to be internal gonads and ... an extremely large prostate and seminal vesicles." The glands that produce semen. Claire felt suddenly uncomfortable again. Good thing she was finished.

"And that's it for the gross anatomy. The fine details of this scan should keep me busy for months, though." As she packed up the scanner, a chime sounded on the computer. "Hmm? What's that?" Claire asked as she picked it up to see. "Oh good, what excellent timing. The DNA sequencer has finished the analysis of your sample. Let's see what it's found out." Gruthsorik watched silently as she opened the file and began reading. "I was starting to suspect as much. You're half human."

Gruthsorik pondered this before saying, "I can't decide whether or not you're trying to insult me."

"No, I'm serious," Claire said. "We've pretty well established that the cryptid shape-shifting gene, despite the things it can do that should be completely impossible, like rapid reshaping of skin, hair, muscle, and solid bone, and even ignoring a primary tenant of physics by violating conservation of mass, it's limited to genetic material available to it within the organism. Several creatures we've studied have it in their genome but only get the rapid healing factor from it because only their own DNA is present. Any creature with wide shape-shifting abilities in our experience is actually faking it with telepathically transmitted illusions. Speaking of which, you have something resembling known telepathy genes right here, no doubt something to do with how your 'feeding' works, while your shape-shifting gene is right ... here." She jabbed her finger at the screen for emphasis, even though Gruthsorik couldn't see it nor make sense of it if he could. Deep into her element, Claire was on a roll.

"All 23 human chromosomes are accounted for, including the X chromosome. Mitochondrial DNA also appears human, indicating the human parent was the mother. Though, I suppose that much should be obvious. The nonhuman DNA contains something very close to the human Y chromosome, resulting in the male gender expression. There are several known genetic markers here that indicate common linage with previously cataloged ancient-myth type cryptids, especially those with unexplainable abilities." Claire looked up from the screen and continued, "And that's just a cursory review. I can't wait to go over this in detail. This is all quite marvelous, you know. Human-demon hybrids are popular in myth and fiction but we never expected to have proof they actually exist!"

"So glad I could be of use to you," Gruthsorik said sarcastically. "One thing puzzles me, though."

"Oh? What's that?" Claire asked.

"You keep saying 'us' and 'we', but other than some men who left just after I arrived, you're the only one I've seen or smelled here so far."

"Ah. Yes. That's true. I am the only one here, actually. I like to refer to the Institute as plural though out of respect for those who came before me," Claire explained as she returned to packing up the scanner cart. "This place started with a whole team of scientists, six men assembled by the government from among the top military surgeons and civilian medical researchers to study the extraterrestrial bodies from the Roswell crash. At first everyone thought it would be a one-time thing. Then a few years later an FBI team raided what they thought was a devil-worshiping cult practicing human sacrifice. It turned out it was actually a group of vampires. Only one agent survived, but he managed to capture one of them. The government, now aware of the reality of supernatural creatures and the threat they could pose to the public, decided to become proactive about hunting them down. The Roswell autopsy team was recalled, given funding to create the Institute, and charged with learning as much as they could from captured creatures, whether they were brought in alive or not.