Page 27 of Midlife Shifter Unexpected

“Me neither.”

I walked up next to the sheriff, who was standing there, looking grimly at the scene in front of him. “We need to get photographs of all this. I need you to get me some specialists asap.”

I thought I was going to hurl.

“They are supernatural beings,” Jane whispered, as I moved by her placing tape around the crime scene.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I can sense it. Also, they wear necklaces that hide their true form. Whoever killed them wanted us to know that they were dead but didn’t want anyone else to know what they were.”

“They are harpies,” Matheus said quietly coming up behind us, his face etched with grim lines.

“Harpies?” I wasn’t sure what shocked me more. The fact they were supernatural beasts or that Matheus knew this information. If he knew…what was he?

“They live down by the seaside.” Matheus moved over to the sheriff. “You should go out there and have a talk to some of the colonies of people that live out in the trailer parks. That’s where these people are from.”

“How do you know?” Ted looked suspiciously at Matheus.

“I work at the Waldorf,” Matheus cocked an eyebrow at the sheriff.

“Do you recognize these people specifically?”

Matheus frowned, looking around the bloody scene. “I see a lot of people at the bar, Sheriff.”

“Is there any way this could be an animal attack?” I asked as I reviewed the position of the torn limbs, clothes still on the bodies.

“Look at this.” The sheriff pointed to the forehead of one of the decapitated heads. “There are symbols carved in the flesh of both of these bodies.”

I watched for hours as crime scene specialists from the nearby town photographed the scene, took measurements, fingerprints, and look for microscopic evidence.

Time passed slowly and throughout it, the sickening stench of blood and slowly rotting corpses filled the air. I had heard a story about how harpies were the Watchers at the cemetery. I didn’t have any idea why someone would kill one, though. Much less, two.

Jane, for her part, walked all around the area, but she didn’t provide me with anymore insight.

“It’s all very dark, as if there is a smudge in the memory of the space. Normally there’s an imprint of what happened in a space, but in this case, it’s like nothing happened here. It’s all black and then all of a sudden they’re dead and strewn around the glen.”

I looked closely at the symbol on the chests and foreheads for a long time, but it wasn’t until the coroner was just about to zip up the body bags that I suddenly realized I had seen the symbols before, imprinted in the dirt on the ground near where I’d been the day before in the cemetery.

I had to go back in the cemetery and make sure, but just as I was letting Ted know that I was going to have to go, Matheus moved next to me.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, putting an arm around my shoulder.

“Yeah,” I lied, so grateful for his strong arms around me, holding me up. To be honest, it felt like everything was crumbling down around me. On top of being a werewolf and on top of liking a guy who was much too young for me, now there were dead bodies. My body shook against his as he rubbed my shoulders.

“It’s going to be alright.”

“You don’t know.” I breathed in his scent of pine needles and wildflowers. Being near him drew wild spirals in my head and made me want to lose myself in him. “It’s just something people say.”

“No, that’s not the energy to have around us,” he said. “Let it go a bit. Here, I’m going to do something for you.”

He turned to Jane.

“Can you stay and help her with the doggie daycare?” he asked.

“You can’t ask her to help me.” I made to push him away, but his hands were firmly holding my waist.

“It would be my pleasure.” Jane said. “In fact, I’m going to move into the loft above the warehouse for my stay here if that is alright with you?” The lovely Creole nodded towards me.

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