Guardian Bears: Karl

A
lison shuddered
in the corner of the restroom, staring at the shattered glass between her and the door. All of the mirrors were smashed, their treacherous reflective surfaces scattered everywhere along with no small amount of blood.

She looked at her hands. They were already healing.

This can’t be happening,
she thought.
Not again.

Whatever had brought her here, to this place, she wasn’t going to let it ruin her life. She wasn’t.

Okay, take stock. Let’s think this through. What do I know?

First, I’m naked in a public restroom.

Second, someone broke all the mirrors.

Third, I’m bleeding.

That is not a helpful list
.

She thought that she knew the restroom. The Blackrock Bar? It could be. She didn’t go there very often. But if she was right, then it was a busy place most nights. She didn’t know how she’d gotten in there, or where her clothes were, but she did know she had to get out.

Not through the bar, no way I’m going out there naked.
That just left the window. It was wide enough for someone to squeeze through, though mostly that was a complaint Rick, the bar’s owner, made about people ducking out on a tab. He’d been talking about barring the window, but clearly hadn’t gotten around to that yet.

Alison had never been that skinny, though. Just because some people could make it, didn’t mean that she could.

The noise of a commotion carried from the bar. Raised voices, scared and angry, coming towards the restroom.

Either I chance it now or I
definitely
get caught
, she thought, hurrying to the window. It was high, small, narrow. Normally she wouldn’t have tried to get through a space that small. But it was a choice between that and getting caught naked – and that gave her the strength to try.

Her bare feet scrabbled at the tiles as she pulled herself up, and the narrow window frame scraped her body as she pushed herself through it.
Ow
, she thought.
Never thought I’d be jealous of those stick insect models because they don’t get themselves caught on the window sneaking out of a bar.

“Hello in there?” Someone called from outside. Rick, she thought, and he sounded angry and frightened. She didn’t answer, squirming frantically. If there was one thing that would be worse than getting caught in the restroom naked, it would be being caught hanging half out the window naked!

“I’m going to count to three, then I’m coming in. And I’m armed!”

Armed? What the hell?!
Why would Rick need to be armed to go into the restroom? Okay, some of the ladies who visited were pretty rough, but that was overkill surely?

Still, his threat to burst in on her lent Alison strength, and she pushed frantically with her feet as she tried to pull herself out. The latch was digging into her stomach, and outside, the only place to land was hard pavement.

“One,” Rick called.

Okay, come on hips, don’t get stuck.
She was nearly there, but jammed. Legs inside, body outside, probably the most embarrassing position to be caught in.

“Two.”

Frantic wriggling only seemed to wedge her tighter. Alison realized that she wouldn’t be able to go back any easier than she could go forward, even if she wanted to.
I can’t get caught like this, I just can’t! Come on, one last try!

Her hands managed to grip a pipe running along the outside wall, and she heaved with all her strength. For a second she thought the pipe would give way.

“Three!” As the door burst open behind her, Alison managed one last tug and her hips popped free. She was sure she’d left scrapes of skin on the window and the impact on the ground drove the breath from her body, but she was out. Hopefully before anyone had seen her!

* * *

“
I
regret
to say that I have a little problem, Karl,” Harper said. He didn’t sound sorry. He never sounded sorry.

But Karl couldn’t argue – he owed the wolf shifter a big favor for helping out with Lucas’s problem the month before. If he wanted to call in his favor, that was only fair.

“How can I help?” he asked, sitting back in his chair and sipping his drink. Iced tea – it was already getting hot in the office, and summer was hardly started. The Guardian Bears office in Coldwood wasn’t too bad if he was honest, but Karl was built for the winter and the snow.

Across from him, Harper sat back in his own chair. The wolf shifter wore an elegant if old fashioned suit, and it matched his manners perfectly. Gray hairs in his neatly trimmed beard only added to the aura of an elder, though Karl knew his position in the wolf community wasn’t nearly as solid as he liked to pretend it was.

“It’s a werewolf,” Harper said after taking a sip of his own drink. “A little embarrassing, but there have been a number of attacks, and I would like it handled quickly and quietly. No need for this to attract anyone’s attention, you understand.”

Karl groaned. Werewolves were always trouble – shifters needed guidance to understand their gifts and use them properly, and someone who didn’t have a teacher could go wild. That was never a good thing, but somehow rogue wolf shifters were always the worst. They’d always end up attacking someone, and usually left a trail of bodies in their wake.

“Why don’t you handle it yourself? Or get some other wolves to do it?”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible this time.” Harper’s voice was finicky and precise. “The werewolf is a problem, yes, but it’s appeared in a town which is off limits to us wolves.”

Karl drew a breath to interrupt, but Harper shook his head. “Don’t ask. It’s not a pleasant story, and the details are a little personal. Suffice it to say that no wolf shifters may go there. Of course, this is a special case and something could be arranged… if I wasn’t already busy, hip deep in cleaning up the problems with the Compact that our
last
phone call led to. Hence, I’ve come to make this request of you.”

‘Request’ was putting it a little mildly for Karl’s taste. It felt more like an order, and he’d had enough of those in the Army. But he did owe the wolf shifter a favor.

“So what do you have in mind? I go down there and what?”

“Do whatever you have to, my friend,” Harper replied, sounding a touch relieved at the implicit agreement to go. “The priority here is the Compact between Wolves and Men. As long as the werewolf attacks stop, you won’t have any complaints from me about your methods.”

Which was a polite way of asking him to kill the werewolf, Karl reflected with a sigh. He didn’t like being thought of as a mercenary for hire, but it would be by far the easiest way to get this done. Once an untrained shifter had gone rogue it was too late for them to learn to control the gift, and keeping them restrained and locked away somewhere was out of the question if the wolves weren’t going to take responsibility for them. The Guardian Bears certainly didn’t have the facilities to keep a werewolf locked up the long-term.

“Tell me the details,” he told the wolf, resigning himself to his fate. “I’ll deal with it.”

“
M
orning
, Allison!” Kirby shouted in greeting as she arrived at work. Allison started guiltily, then forced a smile onto her face.

He’s just being friendly,
she told herself, waving to him. Deputy Kirby Allen was always there with a grin, a joke, a compliment. Sometimes it could even be pleasant, even if it was over-familiar coming from a married man. This morning, though, she’d had hardly any sleep and she still hurt from her escape the night before. And she had no clue what she’d been escaping
from
.

It left her in a pretty bad mood in the morning, and part of her wished she’d called in sick.
On the other hand, if I’m here, I’m a lot more likely to hear what happened last night
. There were advantages to working in the sheriff’s office, after all, even if she was only a receptionist and there were all of three other people working there. Mayfair was not a big town, after all.

“Morning, Kirby,” she replied, sliding behind her desk and powering on the ancient computer that passed for the sheriff department IT facility. “How was the night shift?”

“A bit lonely,” he replied, winking. “Wish you’d been here to keep me company.”

Allison groaned and went to pour herself a cup of coffee while the computer wheezed to life. “Maybe you should ask Jane to join you next time, then.”

“Maybe, but I think she’d be bored out of her mind here,” he said, chuckling at the mention of his wife. Allison was never sure if he was actually flirting with her, or if it was just a joke to him. He seemed just a touch too serious about it, and it would have made her uncomfortable even if he hadn’t been married. Even if he’d been single, there wasn’t a hope that she’d be interested in him – not when he was ten years too old for her, balding and fat. She felt sorry for his wife, but Jane must see something in him.

“So, nothing interesting, all night?” She wasn’t sure what she was looking for from him. Perhaps there wasn’t anything, maybe no one had mentioned the incident in the Blackrock Bar. That would be a relief, but on the other hand, she wanted to know what had happened.

“There was one odd call,” he told her, grinning. “Another sighting of our ‘monster’. Rick at the Blackrock called in some kind of attack.”

“Oh no!” Allison’s heart pounded guiltily, despite being sure he didn’t know it was connected to her. There’d been a few monster sightings around town over the last weeks. At first it had been a joke, but when one of old Janice’s dogs had turned up mauled, some people started taking it more seriously. Others, like Kirby, thought it was some pranksters with a bad sense of humor. Or had so far – if someone had been attacked, that would probably change. “What happened? Was anyone hurt?”

“Yeah, but not too badly. That’s the weird thing,” Kirby said, scratching his chin and shaking his chin. “One of the weird things, anyway. You know Jeremy Marks, right?”

Do I ever!
Jeremy had been a constant thorn in her side since they’d both been kids. He’d tormented her, teased her, bullied her even. He’d backed off when she got work at the sheriff’s office, and she’d be lying if she said that hadn’t been part of the reason she’d applied for the job.

If he was the only one hurt, she wouldn’t shed any tears. Not that she was going to say as much to Kirby, so she just nodded and waved for him to continue.

“Well, he was leaving the bar when something attacked him. He says it was the monster, and I don’t know about that, but whatever it was tore his arm up pretty good. He’ll be in the county hospital a couple of days at least.”

Allison blinked. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but that wasn’t it. “Did anyone see what happened?”

Kirby shook his head. “Nah. Rick wasn’t watching the door, and it all seems to have happened pretty fast. And Jeremy, he was pretty drunk, so I’m not sure I trust what he says too much. But something cut him up, and then ran and hid in the ladies’ restroom of all places. Must have gotten out through the windows, and it made a hell of a mess on its way through!”

Allison felt sick, trying to understand what had happened.
Did I do that? Was I attacked too?
She had no memory of how she’d come to be there, or where the blood had come from.

If Kirby noticed her discomfort, he didn’t show it. He carried on with his story, picking up from when he’d gotten Rick’s call and gone out to look at the scene. Allison tuned him out as he started to go into the gory details of finding a bloody trail into the restroom and out through the window. She didn’t need to hear about that.

Sipping hot coffee did little to calm her nerves, but she needed the caffeine to stay awake and alert. For a moment, she considered telling Kirby she’d been there.
What good will that do?
she asked herself.
He might want to help, but if I did it – if it was me that attacked Jeremy – he’ll have to arrest me. Or whatever happens to monsters, when they get caught
.

“Did anyone say what the monster looked like?” she asked, the question breaking into the flow of Kirby’s story. He frowned, not liking the interruption, and took a moment to think.

“Not really. Rick only saw a blur of motion,” he told her. “And Jeremy, well, between the shock and the drink, he wasn’t very coherent. Said it was huge, with claws and teeth and whatnot. I don’t think he’s remembering it straight, though. Me, I think we might have a rampaging bigfoot out there.”

“A
bigfoot
?” Allison stared at him, blinking. The ludicrous suggestion was enough to make her forget her panicked line of thought. “Seriously?”

“Sure, why not?” Kirby grinned, winking. “Jeremy is enough of a dick to piss anyone off, you know. And if it’s bigfoot, we’ll have something for them out of town monster hunters to find. I’m looking forward to slapping cuffs on bigfoot when they find him. That’ll be a hell of a thing on my resume, won’t it? First man to arrest a marauding bigfoot…”

He struck a heroic pose, fists on his hips, chin raised, chest out. Despite herself, Allison laughed. “Okay, that would be a hell of a thing. But don’t bigfeet live in the forest? Not much of that around here!”

“Don’t ruin my dramatic story, woman,” Kirby said, keeping the pose for a second longer before relaxing and shaking his head, laughing. “Sure,
some
folks will say that there’s a more likely explanation – some big dog or something, and a drunk guy who didn’t see what hit him. But why settle for the boring explanation?”

“Because you’re meant to investigate crimes seriously?” Allison felt the laughter drain out of her as quickly as it had arrived. The last thing she wanted was for someone to have a serious look at whatever had happened to Jeremy. Not when she couldn’t begin to explain why she’d been there, without any memory of what had happened.

* * *

T
he heat haze rising
from the road made everything shimmer. Karl had to admit the arid terrain he was driving through was pretty in its own way, but even in the air-conditioned interior of his rented car he felt too warm. Just looking at the baked earth passing by made him sweat, and he hoped he could get this over with quickly.

The town of Mayfair was well off the main roads, and small enough that it hardly appeared on any maps. Karl had tried to find out more about it before setting out, but there just wasn’t much to learn. An old mining town in the middle of nowhere, slowly fading out as it’s industry failed. The only feature of interest to anyone was the strange geology of the rocks in the area, and even that only excited a few scientists and rock hounds. The black stone of the low mountains rising behind the town was a striking break from the desert around them. If he’d had any interest in rocks, maybe he’d have wanted to have a look.

There was something about them that drew his bear’s interest too. Like a scent in the air that he could smell even in the car, faint but intoxicating. Karl tried to get a fix on it, but couldn’t quite focus on it.
Maybe when I’m closer,
he thought.

Driving out to Mayfair had taken most of the morning, and now that the sun was overhead he hoped that this was as hot as the day would get. This summer was set to be a nightmare for him, so far south.

But if this was where the werewolf was, then this was where he belonged, heat or no heat.

The ramshackle motel was on the edge of town. Not that the place looked big enough to have much more to it than an edge; it was a wonder that there was a place to stay here at all. According to the guides he’d skimmed before he set out, the town did see some tourists, up to see the mountains and do some hiking or some hunting. Maybe there were better places to do all that, but he supposed there was an advantage to being so far from everywhere that you’d not see another soul.

To his surprise, though, he wasn’t going to be alone. The lot in front of the small motel had a couple of cars and a van parked in it, new cars which didn’t look like they belonged in Mayfair any more than his rented SUV did.
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe the locals love to spend their money on cars
, he thought as he pulled in beside them. He didn’t believe that for a second. He wasn’t the only out of towner here.

The look the old man at the desk gave him confirmed it. He looked positively giddy at the amount of business he was suddenly doing.

“You with the other folks?” he asked as Karl strode through his door. Karl shook his head.

“Not me, I’m traveling alone,” he answered, mopping his brow. Even the short walk from car to building had been too hot for him, and he was glad to get out of the sun and into the shade. “Wanted to see a bit of the country, the stuff no one else sees.”

The man grinned at that, nodding. It made him look almost youthful. “Well, looks like you messed that up this time! You’d asked me last week, I’d have said this is about the least visited spot in the States, but now seems we might be on TV.”

That’s not good
, Karl thought, keeping his concern from showing on his face. It didn’t matter why they were here; a TV crew could get in the way of his job pretty fast. And given how quiet Mayfair looked to be, it seemed unlikely that them turning up just ahead of him was a coincidence.

“Good news for you, I guess,” he said aloud, smiling. “Must be a nice boost. It’ll be even better if it’s a show that gets more people out this way, I guess – any idea what they’re shooting?”

“Hah, you never know,” the old man said. “Not sure who all watches these kinds of shows, anyway. See, these guys are some kind of monster hunters.”

Karl kept his smile only by virtue of long practice.
That couldn’t be much worse, could it?

“Oh, kooky types?” It was an effort to sound mildly curious, but this man seemed all too happy to talk to his guests. “I can see how that could be a pain in the ass. What are they, students hunting chupacabras or something?”

The old man laughed, shaking his head. “No, it’s not like that. There’ve been a few weird things happened around here the last couple of months, and someone heard about it. Some folks figure it’s an animal, or more than one, but things are happening where that don’t make much sense. Me, I figure it’s probably some kids getting themselves into trouble – Lord knows there ain’t much to do for fun around here, and sometimes someone’s going to go a little crazy from that. Course if it is that, well, they’ve gone too far this time.”

His tone darkened at the end, and he looked pensive. Then he shook it off. “Anyway, that’s what these fellows heard about and came down to investigate. They say they’re going to make a documentary about it, get it on TV, and I don’t care if they catch an animal, a bunch of teenagers, or a bug-eyed monster. It’ll get some tourists into town, you bet, and I could use the business!”

“I hope they find something exciting then,” Karl lied, taking the other man’s hand and shaking it carefully. “And I hope they haven’t taken all of the rooms? The name’s Karl, by the way.”

“And I’m Marty – pleased to meet you. Sure, still got plenty of space. Come on, let me show you a great spot.”

Marty was as good as his word, taking him through to a room with a magnificent view of the mountains behind the motel. It was the only good thing about the room – it wasn’t big enough for him to stretch out it, and the air conditioning wasn’t working. Marty regretfully told him that it was out in the entire building. They were, he said, waiting on a repairman to come out.

Hopefully I won’t be around long, anyway,
he told himself as he dumped his case on the bed, resigning himself to an uncomfortable stay.
I’ll want to get things sorted out before those cameramen catch sight of a werewolf and plaster it all over the news.

In the meantime, he’d just have to try and deal with the heat. It wouldn’t be easy, but it was no worse than some places he’d served in the Army – and they’d never had air conditioning out on patrol, after all.

Inside, he could feel his bear grumble about the heat. It had never gotten used to high temperatures, and probably never would. He wished that he could wait until the sun went down and took some of this heat with it, but no. With competition in town, he had to start his hunt right away.