Skinwalker

What do you do as a cop when you’re forced to partner with your prime suspect to solve a string of brutal murders? And what should you do when you find out your new partner is really an immortal, shapeshifting creature who’s killed scores himself?

Here’s an excerpt…

Liz grabbed her phone out and hit the speed-dial for Speyside while keeping her eyes darting in all directions. 

He answered on the first ring this time, “Miss me already? What’s-”

Her whisper was hoarse, “Spey! Get over here. Arliss is dead and I’m pretty certain whoever did it is still around.”

He didn’t miss a beat, “I’m on my way. Where are you?”

“On Arliss’ roof, standing next to him. I’ve never seen anything like this. His brain’s been scooped out or something.”

“Get the hell out of there.”

“It’s a crime scene. I can’t-”

“Fuck that! Get to the street. I’ll be there in…ten minutes or less. I’m calling Riverside for backup.”

She sputtered, “Spey, if-”

“If you’re on the roof and our psycho is around, you’ve got nowhere to run. Get to the street, Liz!” 

“Alright, fine. I’m going.”

“Ten minutes. Don’t do anything fucking stupid, Liz.”

“I-” she stopped when he clicked off. “wasn’t going to,” she said to the dead phone.

Immediately forgetting his advice, she pocketed the phone and, keeping her weapon up, continued to examine the grisly scene. Aside from the enormous pool of dark blood, which looked black now in the fading light, there was nothing, no prints and no obvious blood spatter beyond the pool.

And no signs of a struggle, she noted. Carefully avoiding the pool of drying blood, she squatted and examined the old man’s arms and hands, Not a mark on them; no sign he tried to defend himself against…her eyes traveled up to the ragged, dark holes in the face, against whatever – or whoever did that to him. Did he just sit there through it? Or was he already dead?

She hoped that was the case. There was very little blood on the man’s face, which could mean he was already dead when the eyes were taken, but even so, how the hell did he sit through the back of his head being taken off? Maybe he was struck from behind and rendered unconscious? That would make sense.

Reluctantly, she moved around to the back of the body again, leaning in to examine the huge wound in the skull. 

The hole was the size of a large grapefruit, running from the crown of the head down behind both ears to the top of the neck. Hating having to do it, she activated the light on her smartphone and shone it on the wound. Arliss’s hair was thin, so it was easy to see the edges, which appeared rough and…she peered closer, her own ears moving back as she realized what she was looking at.

It didn’t look like any sort of trauma from a bladed or blunt instrument. The edges all around were jagged, like a large-toothed saw or some other tool had hacked through the tissue and bone.

Or…teeth?

Her mind instinctively went to the image of large teeth leaving those kinds of edges.

She pulled back, keeping her eyes on the hole.  From several feet away it looked for all the world like the kind of divot left when someone took a big bite of an apple.

What the hell? Her mind rebelled at the idea but that’s exactly what it looked like to her. Like some…creature had come up behind the old man and just chomped through the back of his head, sucking out his brain? What the hell could do that, a bear? There were no bears in the city outside of the zoo and she was certain she’d have heard if one had escaped.

It was bizarre; stupid and bizarre. There were obviously any number of things that could cause a wound like that.

She just couldn’t think of any right now.

Speyside’s advice to get off the roof rang in her mind again. She felt cold all over, even though the wind was warm. Suddenly, she didn’t want to be up here anymore.

She turned toward the stair access. As she did so, a flicker of movement caught her eye. She stopped and looked east across the rooftops. The sky was darker there and heavy with clouds but framed clearly in the various grays of the clouds was a black figure.

Someone was watching her from the next roof.

It was apparently a man and she could tell he was quite tall. The entire figure was black – so black it looked like a man-shaped hole cut into the backdrop of clouds. A long coat of some kind was fluttering in the wind and that’s what had caught her eye.

She froze, a chill running down her back from her crown to her heels, nailing her to the spot for a few seconds.

Then she found her voice and yelled hoarsely, “You there! Stay where you are! Police!”

She ran toward that side of the roof, noting that the figure didn’t move at all as she did so. She skidded up to the edge and saw that the roof next door – the one with the figure – was only about eight feet away. Close enough to jump.

Without giving herself time to think about it, she backed up a few steps and dashed forward, keeping her eyes locked on the parapet edge. She held her breath and launched herself up and out, not daring to look into the chasm below and locking her gaze on the opposite ledge. 

She had a brief glimpse of the figure still standing in the middle of the roof before she landed, expecting to skid but feeling her feet catch and her momentum hurl her forward. This roof was rubberized sealant and her soles stuck to it like Velcro.

She tumbled forward, her fighting training taking over and turning it into a shoulder-roll. She came up on two feet none the worse for wear and drew her gun, aiming it at…

Nothing.

The figure was gone.

She spun in a circle, gun held at arm’s-length, and covered the entire roof. Aside from the hut containing the stairs, there was nothing on the roof high enough to hide behind.

She trained her gun on the hut and moved toward it, circling to one side to stay about ten feet out from it. She walked all the way around it, expecting to see someone at every corner, but saw no one. 

Son of a bitch, where did he go?

She tried the door and it was locked. Likely an auto-lock, which meant that the figure probably couldn’t have opened it either, unless he was a resident. That left…

She ran to the nearest edge of the roof and looked down five stories. The space between the buildings on that side was narrow and already dark, but she could still see enough to tell there was nothing there and no way to get down. She looked across the gulf between the buildings, but didn’t see anything on the neighboring roof.

She ran left to the adjoining side. A quick check down showed her a dead-end alley with a square open area about twenty feet on a side off to the left between the buildings.

And the figure standing in the middle of it, a black slash like a rip in the ground, apparently looking up at her.

What? How the hell did he…? “Stay there!” she yelled and dashed over to the third side. There was the latticework of a fire escape leading down. She leapt onto it and headed down as fast as she could, taking the clattery metal stairs two and three at a time. It took her a solid thirty seconds to get down and she still found herself ten feet off the ground at the bottom. The ladder down from there didn’t even move when she pushed on it, rusted in place.

A glance back at the open spot between the buildings still showed the figure standing immobile, like he was waiting for her, watching her progress.

She didn’t hesitate; she vaulted over the rail and dropped to the narrow alley. She landed heavily and had to put her hands out to stop herself from going completely face down. Her gun scraped across the concrete under her palm, but she held onto it.

Immediately, there was a crushing pressure on the back of her neck, like someone had grabbed her, but the force was incredible. Points of pressure on either side of the nape of her neck dug in and she gasped, all strength suddenly leaving her arms and legs. Her whole neck seemed as if it was encased in ice and the nerves of both arms tingled.

She felt herself being pressed slowly to the ground, inexorably, smoothly, as if under a machine of some kind. Lights began to dance in front of her eyes in time with the pinpricks in her arms. She was going to pass out.

Dimly, out of the cold and pressure, came hot breath on her cheek and a low voice grated, “You are very persistent, Detective, but you will waste your time if you pursue me. I did not kill that man on the roof, and I do not know who did. Like you, I am…an observer.”

Liz sucked in a breath around the razor-sharp pain in her neck and tried to push herself up, “You-”

The weight pressed her back down and the voice came even closer, “Again I say, I did not commit that atrocity, but like you, I would very much like to meet the person who did.”

Liz ground her teeth and tried to resist the weight again, but her strength was waning quickly. She was seconds from blacking out.

Just at the point she felt her neck would snap, the pressure eased slightly but the voice continued, “I leave you now. Be clever, stay away from me. If you persist, you will learn things that might break you.” The words seemed to fill her narrowing universe.

Suddenly, as quickly as it came, the pressure was gone and she collapsed to the concrete. Sound and clarity rushed back in. She sucked in a rattling breath and rolled over onto her back, bringing her gun up.

She saw only the dark sides of the buildings reaching up into the narrow cleft of purple sky. Both arms were tingling painfully, like they’d been asleep, but she pushed herself up and aimed the gun ahead of her, seeing it tremble in her hands.

The entire alley was clear. The concrete square was empty.

She rolled over onto her front, to her hand and knees, panting through the pain. That way was clear too. She could see the street at the front of the building and cars going by, their lights flashing almost in time with the thundering pulse in her head.

She held her breath for a few seconds, listening for any noise, any sign of someone running, but heard only the sounds of the traffic on the street and the buzzing murmur of a television somewhere above from an open window.

She brought her feet under her and painfully got up, holding onto the brick wall for support. Her head felt like it was going to explode and she shrugged slowly, making sure nothing was broken. It felt like a sumo wrestler had wrung her neck.

As she rubbed her neck, she tried to make sense of what her attacker had said. Stay away? How could she stay away from someone she didn’t know about and hadn’t even seen?

She took another deep breath, surprised that her throat still functioned.  One thing’s for sure buddy; whoever you are, you’re sure as shit on my radar now.

She replaced her gun, disgusted with herself. One of her possible witnesses was dead and she’d allowed a suspect to get the drop on her and then just evaporate.

Spey is going to shit himself over this.

I hope you enjoyed this excerpt. Skinwalker is soon to be released. In the meantime, you can find all of my books on Amazon by entering their titles and my name, or at my author page:

amazon.com/author/jaygould