The Shifter

Throughout the streets of Boston, things remained peaceful among the humans. The day was overcast, but not of foul weather. It was just the right temperature to be going about one’s day in a light jacket, and that’s just what Carahya was going to do. She trotted down the steps of her apartment complex and threw the jacket on. The style she bore today was similar to what she wore on most days; a pair of khaki-colored, sturdy cargo pants framed her black combat boots, and a fitted black tee shirt hung loosely about her lithe frame. Her eyes shone an unearthly blue, and her short, pixy-cut hair was blue and purple this week.

After buttoning her broken-in leather jacket and strapping on her helmet, she slung her leg over her beloved bike. She had bought it used for a cool $2,500, which was a deal for a 2011 Kawasaki Ninja 250R in such good condition. The bike was a metallic royal blue that would have complemented her hair well, had it not been hidden completely beneath the full-face helmet. Not that she cared much about her hair color, really. She’d change it again soon enough.

Carahya donned a pair of leather gloves and took off on her Ninja. The way she drove, there’d be no problem getting to her destination within minutes. The apartment she was going to was more in the downtown area, but she knew all the best back routes and alleyways so that she could make the trip without much fuss from local law enforcement. As she traveled, she noticed that a crowd had been gathering around the bank a few blocks down from her boyfriend’s apartment. She thought nothing of the wreckage that surrounded it. She shrugged it off as a demolition (she really had no care about the bank or about demolitions in general) and continued, bike whirring, to the apartment.

After parking her bike in the building’s garage and stowing her helmet, she jogged up to the second floor. With an exasperated sigh she pulled out her key to the family’s apartment. Putting it in the door, she listened for sounds that would tell her that her boyfriend was, in fact, at home. Hearing nothing, she knocked on the door and called out.

“Hey! It’s Cara. Is Justin home?” Again, there was no response, which was strange. The family’s car was outside as it always was when they were at home, sitting contentedly in its usual spot in the parking garage. “Justin? I’m coming in!” she told the door, and whoever might have been listening from the other side. She twisted the doorknob and peered within. “Hey, Lucy, you there? Morgan? Derek? Hello?” Carahya walked through the doorway and closed the door behind her. There was no way that the family was out; something was wrong here. All the shades were drawn, all the lights were off, and only small slivers of light were able to break into the room. Her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, and she quickly scanned the room for signs of the apartment’s inhabitants. A large black tome, oddly out of place in the urban-style apartment, sat lonely on the kitchen area counter. Its pages were old and fragile, and almost flaked apart when she so much as touched a finger to them. The title was written in shining silver script, in some language Carahya didn't understand. She gently flipped it open, and found the bookmark hidden between two pages heavy-laden with images of demons. She shuddered, closed her eyes, and slammed the book shut, hoping that she would not find one of them still in the apartment. She cast her eyes downward and made a sweep of the rest of the living area. As soon as her eyes made contact with the stained, carpeted floor, she knew exactly what had happened.

There, sprawled at awkward, unnatural angles in pools of dark crimson blood, were the bodies of the Fortier family. The lines of salt scattered about them and the tome on the counter top told Carahya instantly that there had been a demon summoned. Her mind denied the facts that she saw and Carahya had to move closer to inspect the bodies. Three of them had animalistic wounds, while Mrs. Morgan Fortier had only a single clean cut across her neck. She had crumpled almost in a fetal position, knees still to the ground as they were just before she died. Her torso rested awkwardly on her knees. Her head, the sight of it was almost too much for Carahya to look at. The slice to Mrs. Fortier’s neck was deep enough to cut straight through skin, veins, and muscle, leaving her head lolling about at her back, only partially still attached.

Mr. Derek Fortier was almost unrecognizable from his wounds. Claw-like slashes ripped through his face to hit the bone of his skull. A gun lay just a few feet from his hand, which bore five broken, bloody fingers. His leg was broken as well; they were twisted beneath his torso in a way that implied that it had also been dislocated. The leg was adorned with several scarlet stripes of blood, claw marks that grazed the victim as the leg was yanked from its socket. Blood spatters covered his shirt, and the floor around him was puddled with his blood. Something had trailed through the puddle and made its way over to where the other two bodies were.

Justin, nineteen years old, and his sister Lucy, a mere seven, lay completely sprawled on the floor. The beast had obviously torn into them both the same way. What was left of their organs was spilling out over their ripped-open torsos. Their faces were covered in blood, and the red stains had caked into Lucy’s light blonde hair. Their arms and legs were bruised from where the beast grasped them, and small half-moon incisions from the demon’s claws were left impressed into their skin near the bruises. This proof of the demon’s tight-clasped grip showed Carahya that there was no chance for them to have escaped it alive. After all, they were only human.

The sight of them shocked her, and she scanned the room again to be sure there was nothing that she had missed. Sure enough, suspended in the wallpaper, was a large, black rune. It shone with darkness, if that was even possible. Yet, there it was, brilliantly black and symbolic of nothing that Carahya knew about. Intrigued, she approached it and slowly reached out a finger to trace the shape. It did not give any response. So, Carahya followed the demon’s bloody footprints and let herself onto the balcony to think. She spied a small feather on the balcony, and picked it up, just to have something in her hands to fiddle with while she processed what she was feeling. The feather was soft and downy, fluffy and…purple. A purple feather? Carahya thought to herself. First I find my boyfriend and his family mutilated in their apartment, now I find a purple feather on the balcony? This makes no sense…

She flicked the feather from her hand and watched it drop to the ground below. She glanced around quickly to make sure nobody was looking directly at her, and she shifted. Her bones screamed within her, but they bent and reformed to her will. Her skin tone changed, becoming less pale than usual. Her hair rapidly grew from her head, burning the pores of her scalp with a sizzling tingle. The color shifted from blue to mousy brown, and the length stayed at her shoulder. Her eyes became hazel, stinging briefly, and her lithe form became the plumper, curvier form of Mrs. Morgan Fortier. She still wore her leather jacket, black t-shirt, cargo pants, and combat boots, and they still managed to fit the new body remotely well. Carahya sighed. She had to get used to the pain of shifting one of these days. If nothing else, she’d be screwing with the human forensics specialists and their witnesses and timelines with this form. She smirked, hiding her grief, when she thought about the demon that had killed the family. She didn’t think that the same being that killed Derek, Justin, and Lucy also killed Morgan. Her death was too neat to have been performed by a demon, it was certain. She picked up Mr. Fortier's gun, tucked it into a pocket within her jacket, and decided to leave the building to find something else to do with her day. The Fortier household was just too much for her right now.