We didn't waste any time waiting for Marcus to arrive. As soon as we got home, Dawn took a couple of minutes to freshen up whilst I got pots of tea and coffee on the go, as well as a few choice slices of cake. Carrot, Red Velvet and Lemon Drizzle in case you were wondering. We then spent the next hour or so going over any Shapeshifter or Were that we could think of who might be capable of such a thing.

'For fuck's sake, this is a bloody waste of time,' Dawn said, throwing her pen down. 'No-one that we know could have done this. If they could have, we'd have already taken them down!'

'You've got a point. We know a lot of scummy people, all of whom I'd love to see removed permanently. But we still need to make the list.'

'Why don't we just use the bloody Register?' Her bottom lip jutted out. It was damned cute.

'Don't pout love. It's pretty, but not helpful. The Register will only give us the names of all the Were and Shapeshifters in the county. It's our knowledge of those names which will help us narrow the search down. God knows that everyone on the Register, including me, is going to have to account for their whereabouts. And even if we can prove where we were at the time of the murder, we're still going to be tarnished with the same brush. People don't like Shapeshifters and Were. We're not fully human.'

Dawn opened her mouth, then rapidly closed it as the doorbell rang. 'I'll get it,' she said, standing and then leaving the room. There were some muffled voices, and then she and Marcus entered the room.

'Ah, boss. Cup of tea and a slice?'

'Oh, you know me, never one to turn such an offer!' Once, he had been one to turn down such an offer, but tea and a slice were such an intrinsic part of what we were, that he soon succumbed. And once he had, we'd had trouble keeping up. The man could enter any eating competition and win it with ease.

Once he'd properly settled in, helping himself to the biggest slice available, he got down to business. 'The Merlins are rattled. This is far too public for their liking, and since this was initially reported as an animal attack, the police dispatched to the scene were regular coppers. Their panicked call had our coppers heading there, but so did every unit available. There was no way our people could contain this.'

'What does that mean for us?' I asked.

'Put simply, we're going to be assisting the police with their enquiries from a purely zoological basis. We'll identify the creature which did this and then, on the face of things, allow them to hunt down the killer and their pet.'

Nodding, I helped myself to the last slice on the plate, a split second before Dawn. I smiled triumphantly as I cut a piece with my cake fork and placed it in my mouth with an overly zealous amount of pleasure.

Bitch, she mouthed before asking if anyone wanted more cake and leaving to fetch some when both Marcus and I said yes.

'And once we've identified the animal type doing this, we'll be able to narrow down the list of suspects,' I said.

'Yes. The doorknockers are already out in force, and I have to say that Shapeshifters and Were alike are damned pissed off. They're scared as well. The Pogroms.'

I shuddered. The Pogroms had happened centuries ago but were still fresh in the minds of anyone with the ability to Shapeshift or Were. Gorm the Red, a Werebear, the strongest and most powerful in recorded history had gathered the Were into an army to challenge the rule of the Merlins. The war that had followed had been both short, intense, and full of cruelty on both sides.

Shapeshifters had fought on the side of the Merlins as our ability to Shift was magical, something we could do at will. A key difference was that overall, we retain a lot more of our humanity once shifted. Whereas with Weres, the spirit of the animal that they change into can become dominant, pushing their humanity to the back of their mind.

A Were's ability to Change was part of their DNA. They were truly part-human, part-animal, able to change shape at will, but also forced to change shape every full moon.

Weres can be from any type of creature, including fish. This is obviously somewhat of a disappointment for those whose forms are catfish, or the like. And it’s particularly vexing for them during the full moon if they can’t get close to water. Imagine suffocating to death, then reviving, and then having it happen again. For an entire night. For some, it can be too much, and they end their lives once back in their human forms.

Another aspect of Weres was that their bites can cause anyone with a recessive Were-gene to turn into a Were creature themselves. It didn’t help that Were had the ability to spot those with the gene and turn them whether they wanted to be or not. A Compact, an honour-based agreement, was agreed amongst Were that this would be “very much frowned upon”, but since humans will be humans, there were still some Were who would turn all they found.

As such, Shapeshifters thought of themselves as more human than Were. A mindset that is definitely not a good thing nowadays. It was the start of a never-ending hatred. No excuse for it now, but centuries of hate are hard to overcome, no matter how hard one tries. Following the war, the Merlins did their best to ensure that the Were would never rise again, slaughtering them in their thousands. Unfortunately, due to humans being humans, a lot of Shapeshifters were swept up in the Pogrom.

To say that the Pogrom left a psychological scar across the Magical and Mundane communities is an understatement along the lines of ‘lava is really hot and can burn you'. Whole communities disappeared in the metaphorical blink of an eye, and it went down in history books as the Black Plague. Bet you thought I was going to say the Inquisition, didn’t you.

The hatred still prevailed. Ever since, the Merlins and the Magical Community as a whole, have viewed people such as me and the Were with suspicion and sometimes even outright hostility. Usually though it was subtler than that. Queue jumping, not getting jobs you'd interviewed well for, not meeting your eyes when speaking to you. Subtle, but ever present. And ever so bloody tiresome. Normally however, it didn't really affect me personally. People had plenty of other things to go after me for, not least the fact that I was a part-Indian lesbian living with a younger black woman who hunted Magical criminals down for a bounty. I ticked off every box on bigot bingo.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

'Well, Dawn's my alibi. We were binge-watching Castle, and Murder in Paradise.' I cringed inwardly as I said that. We were hardly living the rock and roll lifestyle. I

'Noted,' said Marcus. 'However, we need to ...' he didn't get to finish his next sentence as all our phones suddenly bleeped.

Mine was next to me on my armchair. Whilst the others scrabbled around in their pockets, I picked my phone up, swiped up on the message to open it properly, and swore softly.

'What's occurring?' asked Dawn. She even used the Welsh accent.

'There's been another bloody killing. Emphasis on the bloody it seems. Challacombe's heading over there. There's a body found in Newton St. Cyres,' I said.

'What the hell is it about sleepy villages and murders?' asked Dawn. 'I feel like we're part of some cozy murder mystery.'

'I think cozy might be overstating it,' said Marcus drily, 'Miss Marple's victims tend to be poisoned, shot or bludgeoned. Not pulled apart, partially eaten and then spread all over the damned place.'

'Still, murders in villages. Local bobbies unable to work out what's happening. A shadowy figure that no-one has seen.'

I held up my hand, sometimes my lovely apprentice's mouth seemed to have a life of its own, without any input from her brain, 'Babes. Shush. Challacombe's asking how soon we can get to Newton St Cyres. I've told him 15 minutes. I reckon we can get there in under 10.'

*

Newton St Cyres was a chocolate-box Devonshire village. On the approach from Crediton, visitors drove up a slight incline and then found themselves driving between the walls of a large private house on the left, and a cliff on the right, before being greeted with the village common, thatched cottages and pub as they crested the hill.

We'd spotted the police presence straight away. Vehicles were parked all over the common and in the Belluno – a very good Italian restaurant - car park whilst police stood guard by the tape that had been erected to block access to Well Street. I'd made it in less than 7 minutes; including the donning of leathers. Many Mundane laws were broken, but it was a very short distance to the village, so no harm no foul.

The money I'd laid out on the bikes was more than worth it. Marcus made it in just over 8 minutes, his TVR not up to the task of keeping up. No matter how hard he tried to hide it, I could tell that it rankled. Which was fine with me as I found thumbing my nose at authority satisfying. Petty? Most certainly.

'Shit, I hope they don't piss off Old Tommy,' said Dawn after we'd parked up.

'There'd be more screaming and people running around if they had,' I said as I squinted over at Well Street and the bridge that ran alongside it over the small stream that ran through it, and which the road forded. It was a tiny bridge, no more than three odd feet in height and covered in flower baskets.

Old Tommy was a Troll who had lived there for as long as anyone could remember. Well Street was a mostly Magical community street, inhabited by crotchety old people who looked upon Tommy as some sort of wart-covered, people-eating mascot. He was, as far as Trolls are concerned, quite sweet. His Clan had been on the losing side of a Troll War, and he was the last of his line, living out his years in solitude.

As a result, he was more likely to bore people to death by speaking to them than eating them. That didn't mean that a swarm of police officers appearing on his bridge-step wouldn't piss him off, however.

'Ah, nothing to worry about. One of our liaison officers is stood by the bridge. He's probably lobbed him some nice fresh fish as payment.' And no doubt Cast some Charms and Wards to make sure there aren't any unfortunate accidents, I thought.

The liaison officer noticed I was looking over and quickly touched the brim of his cap in acknowledgement. I nodded back.

'Right, well, come on. I can see Challacombe hopping about. Probably impatient to share the latest scene,' said Marcus, blipping his car locked.

*

'I never want to visit a murder scene again,' said Dawn as we sat in the Belluno nursing our drinks. It was doing a storming business as police wandered in and out to get hot and cold drinks as well as plates of pasta and copious amounts of fresh pizza. The smell was amazing.

Reaching over, I squeezed her hand. The murder scene had been similar to the first one. The victim had suffered a grisly death, and their remains had been arranged in a shape. This time they'd been arranged in a pentagram. Everything else was the same, however.

'Any idea who the first victim is, Challacombe?' asked Marcus.

'No, not a clue. We haven't had anyone come forward yet to lodge a missing person's case. We're currently processing the fingerprints we were able to get, as well as their DNA, and we've checked the missing persons list to see if there's anyone that roughly matches the remains.'

'What about their dental records?' asked Dawn.

'Umm, no. No dental records. All of their teeth were pulled.'

'Dear God,' said Marcus. 'Presumably so that the victim can’t be identified?'

'Indeed. I knew what to look for this time. Same thing. Sex and age are also indeterminate,' Challacombe took a deep swallow from his drink - lemonade, no ice - 'the Chief Constable and Police Commissioner are applying as much pressure as they can. It's bloody awful. I'm under orders to update them every damned hour.'

'Have you had time to process the first victim?' asked Marcus.

'Not fully no. I've picked out some photos and was in the process of tidying them up to send to you when I got called about this one.'

'Well, the claw marks appear to be similar, even if the way the victim was laid out is different,' said Marcus. 'Which means that it's the same killer and his ... pet.'

'Great. Serial killer confirmed,’ said Challacombe. ‘But good grief they're moving quickly. Normally they carry out one killing, then wait some time before the next. Sometimes it's weeks, months, even years. They like to savour the memories. Other times they're arrested for some other crime which prevents them from continuing until they’re released. It's clear that the first killing was their first. They might have been planning it for a long time, but it's clear from the way the scene was arranged that they're not used to doing it. I won't go into the theory; I'll just send you some links to books worth reading on the matter.'

'When can we expect the next kill?' I asked, mouth dry at the thought of a Were or Shapeshifter being a serial killer.

'God knows. This one is playing havoc with established patterns. It's not even as though it's a full moon either ... what?' asked Challacombe, glancing around at the three of us as we froze in position.

'Why would the full moon make a difference?' asked Marcus, leaning forward slightly as he asked the question. You could have cut the tension with a knife. Challacombe wasn't a liaison, so wasn't - or shouldn't be - aware of all things Magical. If he was alluding to something he shouldn't know, he'd either have to be brought in, made aware of the world as it really was, or have his memory Charmed so that all knowledge was gone.

'Oh, no reason, but you'd be surprised at how people love to tie certain events into the horrendous acts carried out by serial killers. There's no truth to it, but I still have officers swear by the fact that the moon makes people do crazy things.'

My breath exploded from me in relief. I hadn't realised I was holding it until that point. I covered it with a laugh. 'What a silly notion!'

'Yes, indeed. Still, I can understand as it helps them deal with the reality before them. That someone is carrying out acts of pure evil,' said Challacombe. 'Anyway, I better get back. I'll send through the photos from both crime scenes.' Chucking the rest of his drink down, he swiftly departed.

'Jesus, my heart practically stopped!' gasped Dawn, giggling.

'Sometimes, living a double-life is bloody difficult,' said Marcus, 'especially when you're on the fringes of both societies. Still, thank God we don't have to Charm him.'

We spent the next five minutes going over the evidence we'd seen at this scene, which wasn't much. It was clear what the killer was, just not who, and there was no way we were going to be able to guess our way to a solution. In the end, Marcus knocked things on the head, saying we should call it a night.