WereWoman

  “Look, Molly, Bear was murdered. You were close to him, as I was. We need to clear you of any complicity.”

  “I wasn’t even here. But of course I could have sneaked in, killed him, and sneaked back out. So yes, check me. I don’t want anyone ever to think that I could hurt Bear. I was going to attend the Prom with him, way back when.”

  “Before you got the flu,” I agreed. “So Mena took your place.”

  “Weren’t those the days!”

  “What you need to do is start your Change, in my presence. I’ll read your Name and nature, and know. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Except that my Name and nature are more intimate than my body. I’d much rather have you see me naked than read my mind. But for you I’ll do it.”

  I understood how she felt, but it was necessary. “Thank you.”

  We were in the office. Syd locked the door and drew the shutters. Then Molly stepped out of her dress. She wore no underwear. I knew that wasn’t intended to be seductive; it was that Weres didn’t like to be hampered when they Changed, so they dressed simply. Did I say she had filled out? She was a buxom beauty!

  Then she started her Change. I tuned in on her mind—and was nearly blown away. Not only was she innocent, she still loved me, with a deep emotional and sexual passion. She had been away for years, but the flame never faded. That was why she had returned.

  “I have it,” I said. “You’re clean. Change back.”

  She reversed the fur that had been forming on that perfect body, and firmed back into a woman. She donned her dress. “How much did you read?”

  “Too much,” I admitted. “It was inadvertent. Oh, Molly, I truly didn’t know you cared! Not like that, after all this time. I am unworthy.”

  “Well, I didn’t mean to tell you. I hoped that you would not pick up on that aspect.”

  “It was like stepping into a tornado. I couldn’t miss it.”

  “The love of Witches generally doesn’t last long,” Syd said. “Now Phil knows where he can go when the Witch fades.”

  “I do indeed,” I said. Already I could see a future with Molly. “Meanwhile, I have to solve this murder.”

  “I know. Bear was a great guy. My roommate Queue knew him too.”

  “Roommate?”

  “I needed a place to stay, and she had room. Weres look out for Weres.”

  “She knew Bear? I never heard of her.”

  “She told me she met him about six months ago in Oto’s dojo. They worked out together. They were casual friends. That was all there was to it. He wasn’t one to make moves on girls.”

  I sighed. “I had better check Queue, just to be sure. Can you ask her to come see me?”

  “You can check her now. She’s waiting for me in her car.”

  That was how she had gotten here so quickly. “Okay. Bring her in.”

  Queue turned out to be a tall, buxom, black-haired black-eyed woman, pretty and self-possessed. Her midnight tresses contrasted with Molly’s curly brown hair, being luxuriously waist length.

  We shook hands. “I’m Phil Were, investigating a murder.”

  “Queue Were. Molly said I might be a suspect.”

  “It’s a technical thing. We are checking out all of Bear’s closer acquaintances.”

  “We weren’t close. Oh, I suppose we could have been, as he was a good man, but he was locked in.” She glanced briefly at Syd, signaling that she knew the lock.

  “I need to see you Change.”

  “The hell! I’m not exposing my body to a stranger.”

  “It’s that my secondary is to read a person when he invokes his Name. I can tell guilt or innocence. You could start your Change in clothing, and reverse it soon.”

  “I reversed mine,” Molly said.

  Queue surveyed me speculatively. “Like a lie detector. You tune in on the Name because that’s the very essence of a person’s magic.”

  “Something like that,” I agreed.

  “I’ve got reason to keep my clothing on. I’m unusual. I’m a WereMan.”

  I thought I had misheard. “A what?”

  “A WereMan. I Change into a man, complete with genitalia. It can freak folk out.”

  “I’m a WereWoman!” I said.

  “You’re like me! Only reversed.”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me: when you Change, are you male or female inside?”

  “I’m a man in a woman’s body. So I don’t do it often; it’s not comfortable.”

  “And I’m a woman in a man’s body. Same situation. I don’t sexually hunger for women in either form.”

  I nodded, understanding perfectly.

  “She’s a better match for you than I am,” Molly said sadly.

  “You assume I want him,” Queue said. “I’m not looking for romance with anyone. Not since my boyfriend dumped me three months ago.”

  “You’re still hurting,” Syd said wisely.

  “Yes. These things take time.”

  “Now about the verification,” I said.

  “Ah, yes. That. I’ll make you this deal: I’ll strip and Change if you do too. So if it’s awkward, we’ll both be similarly embarrassed. Is that a fair compromise?”

  Was she really a WereMan? I wanted to verify that too. In fact I was overwhelmingly curious about this aspect, so similar to my own. “Deal,” I agreed.

  The two of us faced each other and stripped, while Syd and Molly sat watching. Queue was a luscious creature, generous in breast and buttock. I did start to get an erection, but quickly progressed with my Change so that there was nothing to erect. Meanwhile she shifted, her breasts flattening into chest and upper arm muscle, her bottom condensing, her groin growing a fair sized phallus. She was definitely a man in form.

  The point of this was almost lost along the way, but I did accomplish it in the moment she invoked her Name: she was innocent. Good enough.

  Our transformation complete, we stood and looked at each other. The figure before me was now taller and more muscular, but had similar long dark hair. Hair was difficult, because it wasn’t exactly alive and changed reluctantly; I wore mine long but bound back so it looked short, so that Mena could have it, unbound. Pubic hair wasn’t a problem because it didn’t need to change.

  I had no interest in bedding him, and knew that he had a similar aversion to bedding me. I remained male, the other female, in outlook, despite our bodies. We understood each other in that respect in a way that perhaps no others would.

  “I am Quent,” he said. “Short for Quentin, close as I could get to Queue.”

  “I am Mena, short for Philomena, similarly.”

  “Now that we’ve shared our secrets, let’s Change back.”

  “Let’s.”

  We invoked our reversed Names and Changed. I reverified her innocence of murder, not that I needed to. She was at heart a nice person, not capable of any such violence.

  In due course we were back to our original forms, and clothed. “This has been interesting,” Queue said. “Let’s not do it again.”

  “Agreed.”

  Queue and Molly departed, leaving Syd and me to unwind. “I never saw the like,” Syd said. “Man to woman, woman to man, together. You may be the only two Weres like that.”

  “We may be,” I agreed. “I’m glad she checked out, not that I ever thought she was guilty.”

  “We seem to have eliminated all the suspects in Bear’s murder.”

  “Just as Nonce and I eliminated them in the Warlock’s murder,” I agreed. “So far, as an investigator, my score stands at zero.”

  “I don’t think so. Eliminating false leads is just as important as locating the right one.”

  Nonce arrived. “I thought you’d be needing me about this time,” she said.

  “Yes. I eliminated two more suspects, finishing the Were contingent. Now I think it’s time for the Vamps.”

  “I will take you there. Meanwhile you can tell me about those suspects. I take it neither would apply to the Warlock
.”

  “Neither would,” I said, and told her about Molly and Queue as we drove.

  “Your former girlfriend! And a Were who is the mirror of you. Now I won’t need to be concerned about where you’ll go when my Witchly passion expires and you’ll be cast emotionally adrift.”

  “Don’t be in too much of a hurry to expire. I’m way short of being ready to drift.”

  “Of course. As long as you know that we Witches burn too fiercely emotionally to endure for long. We’re great passing company, but not good marriage material.”

  So I was coming to understand. Another Were, however, might be excellent material.

  We arrived at a fenced estate resembling an overgrown mountain with solar collectors on it. There was a little shack near the gate. It wasn’t very impressive. But I knew better than to judge by appearances. Vampires had suffered more than Weres or Goblins, and were more careful about showing their nature. There was a worn sign saying, perhaps facetiously, PARADISE MOUNTAIN.

  There was an old man snoozing in a chair by the iron gate. That too was deceptive; I smelled his Supe nature. And he wasn’t asleep; he was alertly watching us. In fact he wasn’t old, either. It was all an act to fool mundanes.

  We halted before him. “Hello, Vamp,” Nonce said. “We are Nonce Witch and Phil Were, here on business. We have clearance from Vachelle.”

  The man abandoned his act. “She said you were coming. Go on in.”

  “Thank you.” She leaned down and kissed him. Nonce kissed folk freely, and it was apparent that they liked it; it seemed to be part of the Witchly protocol.

  We entered the gate and discovered a wooden cellar-type door at the base of the mountain. We opened it and descended into a gloomy storage room that smelled of decaying potatoes. Still not impressive. No one would be looking in here for anything. We turned a dark corner, found another rickety wooden door, opened that, and entered a dank tunnel. It curved, then opened out into an amazing brightly-lighted subterranean cave. We were on a ledge looking down into its central valley.

  The heart of the mountain was evidently hollow, and this was the inner sanctum. It was an amazing garden with all manner of exotic plants and trees, and a lake in the center. Animals abounded, with squirrels in the trees, deer grazing in the glades, birds in the air, and fish leaping in the water.

  “This is paradise,” I murmured, awed.

  “So it is labeled,” Nonce agreed. “The solar lenses direct the sunlight down here to make a very nice greenhouse.”

  “But to what purpose, since there’s no indication that this is a tourist attraction? In fact this is perfectly hidden.”

  A Vampire lass approached us, as lithe and lovely as they all seemed to be. “I am Veera, caretaker of the day. How may I help you, honored visitors?”

  “We are Phil Were and Nonce Witch, here to interview suspects in the recent murder of Vulcan Vamp,” I said. “We admit to being impressed by the setting.”

  “We do enjoy it,” Veera said. “Perhaps before you meet the suspects, I should acquaint you with the nature of this retreat.”

  “Please do. I had no idea that such a garden existed, and I am quite curious as to its purpose.”

  “As you surely do know, we Vamps can assume the form of human-sized bats,” Veera said, shifting briefly to exactly that. “But we would be unable to fly, because of the square-cube law. That is, our mass is much greater than our wings can lift, at this size; only much smaller birds and real-life bats can fly naturally. So we require magic to increase our strength and decrease our weight, to make flight feasible. To gain that magic we must drink fresh blood.” She smiled. “Don’t worry; I am not going to bite you. We don’t prey on Supes. Or on normal humans, for that matter; it’s too dangerous. Instead we raise blood-rich animals, harvesting their blood carefully so as not to damage them. They are used to it, and really don’t mind; our bites are anesthetic and we give them treats. This is our hunting ground.”

  “Amazing,” I said. “But couldn’t you do it more efficiently with caged animals, the way commercial interests farm for eggs and meat?”

  “We would never do that,” Veera said, making a brief expression of horror. “It is important that our animals be happy. It affects the taste and vigor of the blood.”

  “Or a preserve in some isolated region,” I said. “That would surely be much cheaper to maintain, with happy animals.”

  “Not necessarily, because we would not control the environment and would not get maximum growth. There could be poachers, too. Also, we would not be free to fly by day.”

  “You don’t fly by day?”

  “Our bat forms are quite sensitive to direct sunlight; in fact it is rapidly lethal. It’s a side effect of the magic. So at times we turn off the sunlight here, and fly in the gloom. It’s highly refreshing. And that is how Vulcan was killed. There was a glitch in the timing of the cycle, and he was caught in the sunlight while flying over the lake. He died within minutes.” Veera shuddered. “It was horrible.”

  “He was flying in the gloom, and suddenly the light came on?” Nonce asked, getting it straight.

  “Exactly. That should never have happened. We discovered that someone had modified the computer program to make it malfunction, and he was the one caught.”

  “Don’t you have technicians keeping an eye on things?” I asked.

  “We do, and these are your suspects. Any of them could have introduced that error, and perhaps one of them did. We hope you can discover who; we do not want to blame anyone unfairly.”

  “Would any of them have reason to kill him?”

  “No. Vulcan was popular with the ladies.”

  “Jealousy?”

  Veera laughed. “I gather you are not familiar with our subculture. We are not romantically possessive. There can be individual liaisons or group liaisons, no jealousy. The only negative is forced attention. Vulcan was smart and handsome; no lady refused him. All hoped he would consent to give them a baby.”

  “All?” I asked. “Including you?”

  She blushed. “Including me. I was horrified when the light came on out of turn, but I could not help him; I had to get under cover myself.”

  “Then you will not mind if I verify your sincerity.”

  “Not at all.”

  “All you need to do is change form for a moment.”

  Veera didn’t hesitate. She unwrapped her light robe to stand splendidly nude, sprouted wings and fangs, then reverted to human and re-wrapped her robe.

  That was enough. She was innocent. Had she deliberately flashed me? Probably. Did it matter? Probably not. As she said, they had a different romantic culture, and I was a handsome male. Casual trysts were where you found them. Had I not been with Nonce I might have been quite interested. Would such a liaison take? It was possible. All Supes were really subspecies of humans, and though interbreeding was not common (in contrast to sex, which was common), it happened on occasion. But the children were always mundane.

  “We will need to check the other suspects similarly,” Nonce said.

  We checked them. All were innocent, and broken up about the loss of Vulcan. As far as I could tell, he had not been slain by a Vamp. Someone else must have done it.

  But who had pied the light program? It did not seem to be a Vamp, but who else was there? That was the mystery.

  “Stay a little longer, and you can watch us disport ourselves in the night cycle,” Veera said.

  I glanced at Nonce. “That interests me, for purely shallow masculine reasons.”

  “By all means,” she said. “I think male Vamps will be flying too. I hear they can be well hung.”

  Soon the light dimmed to comfortable gloom. The Vampires did come out, getting bare, changing, and launching into the air over the lake. They were all fine figures of nudes, female and male; doubtless it was because they had to be trim and healthy to facilitate flying, regardless of the magic boost provided by the blood.

  A human bat swooped down, landed before me, an
d opened her arms to me. It was Veera, in full bat mode, but also delightfully human. I embraced her, and she was as much fun to touch as to look at. “If you are ever in need of company…” she murmured in my ear.”

  “I will keep you in mind,” I agreed. “And dream of you between-times.”

  She smiled, kissed me without drawing blood, and took off again.

  A male Vamp addressed Nonce similarly. “Not today,” she murmured, openly admiring his equipment. “But not far in the future, either.”

  It was indeed a pleasant interlude.

  “We have three murders and no remaining suspects,” I told Nonce glumly on the way back to the office.

  “I feared it would be so.”

  “It does seem to be a crime of random opportunity. That’s the hardest kind to solve.”

  “And we do have to solve it.”

  Of course we did. But so far I was spinning my wheels. This was not my notion of a successful PI business.

  Chapter 7:

  Demon

  There was news at the office. “I didn’t call you because it could have queered your investigation,” Syd said. “There’s been another murder.”

  “Just in time,” I said wryly. “We were running out of suspects.”

  “This one’s a Demon. The Demon Chief knows you’re on the case, and figures this could be part of it. Here’s the address.”

  “You want to come along?” I asked Nonce.

  “You bet. I’ll take you. I know the Demons.”

  I was sure she did. She had probably had an affair with their Chief. It was probably expedient not to mention that.

  We came to an amusement park, HELL’S HEAVEN. I had heard of it as being fabulous but expensive, so my limited budget had kept me away. The front sign said RANDOM BARGAIN DAY: ALL VISITORS ADMITTED FREE IF ACCOMPANIED BY GUIDES.

  “Oh, one of those,” Nonce said. “It’ll be jammed.”

  “Free admittance?” I asked. “How often do they do that?”

  “About once a week. Visitors watch for it, and flock in when the announcement is made. Other days are charged, and admittance isn’t cheap.”

  “And individual guides are provided, also free?”