I glanced at Stane, who had a somewhat bemused expression on his face. But then, while he was familiar with our key search, he had no idea what we were talking about when it came to the magic-twisted half shifters. And I didn’t bother enlightening him. “Do you still have access to the security cam records of that storage place in Clifton Hill?”
“Yes, but didn’t that place blow up?”
I nodded. “I want to have a look at the hours between you first contacting me about Genevieve Sands entering the building and the building blowing up.”
“Sure thing.” He grinned. “But you can make me a coffee and something to eat while I hunt them down again.”
“Deal.” I pushed to my feet and made us both a toasted Vegemite and cheese sandwich – he didn’t have much else in his fridge – and by the time I’d deposited both that and a mug of coffee in front of Stane, he’d found the records and had relayed them to another screen.
I pulled up a chair and watched as I munched on my meal.
“What are we looking for?” Stane said, as he scooted his chair next to mine.
“Me.”
He blinked and looked confused. “Why are we looking for you? Don’t you remember going there?”
I grinned. “Yes. But something the receptionist said to me before she died —”
“You were in there when the place exploded?” Stane interrupted, his voice incredulous. “Are you insane?”
“That is a much debated point,” Azriel commented dryly.
The peanut gallery can keep those sort of remarks to themselves, I said, amused.
I will restrain the urge to say that comment makes no sense.
Grin growing, I said to Stane, “I was. Someone had to check whether the explosion had destroyed that locker we were interested in.”
“Which it did.” He took a sip of coffee. “So what did the receptionist say that tweaked your radar?”
“Not much, just ‘You changed again.’”
“As you said, not much.”
“No. But when she saw me the first time, I’d face-changed. So why would she say something like that when it was actually the first time she’d seen the real me?”
“It could have been shock,” Stane mused. “Or maybe the person who blew up the place was a vampire. They’ve been known to play hard and fast with other people’s memories when it suits their purposes.”
“True, but what interest would a vampire have in blowing up that place? And why make the receptionist think it was me going in there?”
“It could have been someone from the council,” Azriel said. “Perhaps Hunter wanted to know firsthand what we were doing in there.”
“She has the Cazadors following me around twenty-four seven. Any one of them could have checked astrally rather than physically, and no one would have been the wiser.”
“But Hunter also has enemies on the council,” Azriel noted. “Perhaps Stanford has a desire to discover what lay in that storage unit for himself.”
“Why would he have someone use my image, though?”
“That I cannot tell you.”
“Whoever this person impersonating you is,” Stane commented, “they don’t necessarily have to be a face shifter. Actors have been changing the shape of their faces and bodies for years with makeup, padding, and stuff.”
“True, but in this case, unlikely.”
“But two sorcerers and two face shifters?” Stane said. “That’s pushing the coincidences, don’t you think?”
Probably. I took a sip of coffee as I watched the images scroll across the screen. Hoddle Street was awash with cars, but there wasn’t a lot of foot traffic. Which was good, I guess – it would make spotting the fake me easier. If there was a fake me, and I wasn’t just grabbing at straws.
“If it is a coincidence, then yes,” Azriel commented. “But Lucian’s plans were centuries in the making. It is entirely possible he brought both sorcerers into this quest not only because they were powerful, but because their abilities would make it difficult for anyone to track them down.”
“There is one other possibility,” Stane said, as he bent to put his now empty plate on the floor under his desk.
I raised an eyebrow. “And that is?”
“That you’re dealing with shifters capable of full-body shifts,” he said. “Hell, there might only be one shifter, not two, and he or she is able to take on both male and female form.”
I wrinkled my nose. “We did think of that, but full-body shifters are extremely rare. And I’ve never heard of any shifter being able to change their sex.”
“Hermaphrodites are rare, but they can and do exist. What if we were dealing with one of those?”
If we were dealing with a hermaphrodite capable of full shifting, then heaven help us, because they’d be next to impossible to find.
“It could explain why Nadler listed Harry Bulter, Jim O’Reilly, and Genevieve Sands in his will,” Stane continued. “He was hedging his bets and relying on the fact that most people think shifters are human-to-animal capable, not human-to-human.”
Nadler was the man behind the company who’d purchased most of the properties surrounding the ley-line intersection. In fact, only Stane’s shop and the pub down the road remained independent. He was also, more than likely, one of the sorcerers.
I glanced at Stane briefly. “So have you found either Bulter or O’Reilly?”
Stane shook his head. “No. And I’ve been keeping an eye on the solicitors handling his estate – they haven’t tracked them down, either.”
“Well, they have to have existed at some point, because Nadler couldn’t just appear out of nowhere as one of them and expect to be handed everything on a platter.”
“Totally,” Stane said. “Which is why I’ve been searching overseas databases. Not having much luck, though.”
That seemed to be the story of this whole damn quest. I sighed and continued watching the images scroll across the screen as the time in the left-hand corner of the screen counted down toward the explosion at the storage place. At the twenty-minutes-before mark, my double strolled into view.
“Well,” Stane said. “You were right.”
Yes. And it was somewhat disturbing to look at the woman on the screen, knowing the face and body were the image of mine but someone else was inside the shell. Hell, she was even dressed like I was most of the time these days, in blue jeans and a tank top. My gaze skimmed down to her feet.
“Holy shit, the shoes.”
I leaned forward so abruptly that coffee splashed over the rim of my mug and splattered onto my legs. I swore and jumped up, spilling yet more coffee. Azriel plucked the mug from my hand – thereby preventing more damage to either me or Stane’s floor – while I quickly pulled the soaked dress away from my skin to prevent further burning.
“You okay?” Stane asked. “Do you want a cloth or something?”
“I’m fine,” I said, flapping the dress a little to cool it down. “Just freeze the screen and enlarge her feet.”
He did so. “I don’t see anything special about the shoes, aside from the fact they’re kinda ugly.”
“What’s special about them,” I said, “is the fact I not only saw those same shoes on Genevieve Sands when we were talking to her outside the storage place earlier in the day, but in one of the boxes those shifters were moving out of Lauren Macintyre’s wardrobe.”
“Thereby confirming she is indeed our face shifter,” Azriel murmured.
“I wouldn’t call a pair of shoes a defining piece of evidence,” Stane said. “It’s not like a thousand other women couldn’t have had the same bad taste.”
“Agreed, but I just can’t buy the coincidence factor in this particular case.”
“But you’d think someone canny enough to be involved in the planning of this gate-creation and key-stealing venture would be smart enough to remember to change a pair of shoes when she was changing identity.”
“Not if the decision to impersonate Risa and blow up the storage unit was a decision made in haste after we’d confronted her outside that building,” Azriel commented.
“I still wouldn’t bank my fortune on the evidence of one pair of shoes,” Stane said.
“Perhaps she just didn’t think anyone would notice them.” After all, from what Aunt Riley had said over the years, witnesses often had trouble agreeing on what suspects looked like, let alone the smaller details of what they were wearing, like shoes.
Stane studied the image frozen onto the screen for a moment. “Suspecting this shifter is both Sands and Macintyre doesn’t actually leave us any closer to finding any of them.”
“No.” I stood up and began to pace. “How the hell are we going to find someone who can change their features at will?”
“Your only real hope is to chase the paper trail,” Stane said. “Both Macintyre and Sands own properties. Perhaps our best bet is to track both purchases, and see if there’s a common link. Maybe a company they both went through or something.”
I nodded. It was probably a long shot, but it was better than doing nothing. “While you’re doing that, check for a bloke named Michael Greenfield or a company called Pénombre Manufacturing. They own an empty warehouse in Maribyrnong that just happens to be sitting on another ley line. Jak” – I hesitated as tears stung my eyes again; I blinked them away and cleared my throat before continuing – “wasn’t able to find much about them.”
“Will do.”
I glanced at Azriel. “In the meantime, we should go search Genevieve Sands’s place. Maybe she hasn’t had the chance to clear it out yet.”
“Unlikely,” Azriel said, his expression grim. “She blew up the storage unit hours after we talked to her, remember. It is doubtful she’d risk remaining in Prahan, given she undoubtedly knows about Stane and his computer skills, thanks to her association with the Aedh.”