Werehunter (anthology)

Diana Tregarde sobered instantly, the laughter fleeing her eyes. “I’m afraid you picked the right word this time, Andre. It is a horror. The trouble is, I don’t know what kind.”

“Say on. I wait in breathless anticipation.” His expression was mocking as he leaned against the lamp-post, and he feigned a yawn.

Diana scowled at him and her eyes darkened with anger. He raised an eyebrow of his own. “If this weren’t so serious,” she threatened, “I’d be tempted to pop you one—Andre, people are dying out there. There’s a ‘Ripper’ loose in New York.”

He shrugged, and shifted restlessly from one foot to the other. “So? This is new? Tell me when there is not! That sort of criminal is as common to the city as a rat. Let your police earn their salaries and capture him.”

Her expression hardened. She folded her arms tightly across the thin nylon of her windbreaker; her lips tightened a little. “Use your head, Andre! If this was an ordinary slasher-killer, would I be involved?”

He examined his fingernails with care. “And what is it that makes it extraordinaire, eh?”

“The victims had no souls.”

“I was not aware,” he replied wryly, “that the dead possessed such things anymore.”

She growled under her breath, and tossed her head impatiently, and the wind caught her hair and whipped it around her throat. “You are deliberately being difficult! I have half a mind—”

It finally seemed to penetrate the young man’s mind that she was truly angry—and truly frightened, though she was doing her best to conceal the fact; his expression became contrite. “Forgive me, cherie. I am being recalcitrant.”

“You’re being a pain in the ass,” she replied acidly. “Would I have come to you if I wasn’t already out of my depth?”

“Well—” he admitted. “No. But—this business of souls, cherie, how can you determine such a thing? I find it most difficult to believe.”

She shivered, and her eyes went brooding. “So did I. Trust me, my friend, I know what I’m talking about. There isn’t a shred of doubt in my mind. There are at least six victims who no longer exist in any fashion anymore.”

The young man finally evidenced alarm. “But—how?” he said, bewildered. “How is such a thing possible?”

She shook her head violently, clenching her hands on the arms of her jacket as if by doing so she could protect herself from an unseen—but not unfelt—danger. “I don’t know, I don’t know! It seems incredible even now—I keep thinking it’s a nightmare, but—Andre, it’s real, it’s not my imagination—” Her voice rose a little with each word, and Andre’s sharp eyes rested for a moment on her trembling hands.

“Eh bien,” he sighed, “I believe you. So there is something about that devours souls—and mutilates bodies as well, since you mentioned a ‘Ripper’ persona?”

She nodded.

“Was the devouring before or after the mutilation?”

“Before, I think—it’s not easy to judge.” She shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the cold.

“And you came into this how?”

“Whatever it is, it took the friend of a friend; I—happened to be there to see the body afterwards, and I knew immediately there was something wrong. When I unshielded and used the Sight—”

“Bad.” He made it a statement.

“Worse. I—I can’t describe what it felt like. There were still residual emotions, things left behind when—” Her jaw clenched. “Then when I started checking further I found out about the other five victims—that what I had discovered was no fluke. Andre, whatever it is, it has to be stopped.” She laughed again, but this time there was no humor in it. “After all, you could say stopping it is in my job description.”

He nodded soberly. “And so you become involved. Well enough, if you must hunt this thing, so must I.” He became all business. “Tell me of the history. When, and where, and who does it take?”