Deputy Sheriff Jim
Even though the Sheriff said 10AM and I slept really late last night, I was too amped up to just chill in my trailer. I changed and grabbed a quick breakfast from Macy’s diner before heading to the station. I managed to get to the station by 9:30 to find that the Sheriff’s car was already there along with another car that I didn’t recognize. I walked up to the reception to see Darla arranging some papers.
“Good morning Darla,” I said.
“Morning Jim” she replied with a smile. Darla was a middle aged woman with a pretty face that had been a fixture in this station long before I joined.
“Where’s the Sheriff?” I asked.
“He’s in his office with the FBI agents,” she replied.
“FBI agents?”
“Yeah, Agents Smith and Brown, they got here today morning,” she said.
“Ah, okay”, I found myself deflating a little. I was kinda hoping that the sheriff had found some new lead or had a new direction for the investigation. The FBI were called here a few months ago as well. They hadn’t managed to accomplish much of anything other than pissing off most of the people in the station by pretending they were better than us.
“The sheriff wanted you to go into his office as soon as you arrived,” Darla said.
I nodded as I started moving towards the sheriff’s office. There was a pit in my stomach as I made my way over there. I fully expected it to be a repeat performance of last time. Couple of guys picking apart the work that I’d done and criticising me while doing jack all to contribute to the case themselves.
I could hear muffled sounds coming from the office as I knocked on the door.
“Come in”, I heard the Sheriff’s voice say. I was glad to hear the energy that was apparent in his voice. I knew he wouldn’t just lie down and succumb to grief.
As I entered, I was prepared to be greeted with the famously condescending eyes that the federal agents reserved for the staties. What I was definitely not prepared for was to look into the face of the most beautiful girl I’d ever met and be graced with a smile. I think I was stuck in the doorway for a few moments, taking in the beauty of the goddess in pantsuit, before the sound of the Sheriff’s voice calling out my name repeatedly brought me back to reality.
“This is deputy Jim, he is the primary investigator on this case. Jim, this is agent Smith and agent Brown” the Sheriff introduced me as I stood there with an awkward smile.
‘Way to go dumbass. You’ve managed to make her think that you’re an idiot without even opening your mouth’ I thought to myself.
“Hi there” I said as I told myself to act more professional. They said hi back as I slowly processed the scene in front of me. The goddess in the pantsuit was agent Peyton Smith and the well built tall guy with her was agent Jay Brown. A glance at her hand revealed that she was not married or engaged and I really hoped that she didn’t have a boyfriend or was opposed to dating small town cops. I felt really intimidated by agent Jay even though he seemed nice.
Our conversation over the next hour only served to impress me even more. She had none of that dickish attitude I’d come to associate with FBI agents as she questioned me about the steps taken for the investigation over the last 3 days and the last month overall. Almost all the questions were asked by Peyton while agent Brown stayed mostly silent, interjecting only once or twice during our conversation. They never criticised me or asked me accusatory questions any time during the interview and seemed genuinely pleased with the work that I’d done.
“Would you mind showing us the site where Mary’s car was found?” She asked in that musical voice of hers.
“Of course, yes” I replied, a little more enthusiastically than I meant to do.
“Could you guys wait by the car for a moment? I need to have a word with deputy Jim” the Sheriff said.
“Sure,” She replied with a nod.
Both the agents exited the room as I braced myself for a lecture from John about conducting myself in a professional manner.
“Jim, show them around and give them the information that they need. But if they ask you to leave them alone, you be sure to oblige them without complaint. They have their own way of investigation that they’re comfortable with. Your job is to assist them and that’s all. You understand?” he asked.
“You think I’ll get in their way?” I asked, feeling a bit offended. I’d expected this from the FBI agents, not from my own mentor.
“I’m not saying that Jim. I know you’re a good cop. I trained you myself. I’m just saying that they prefer investigating in private and anyone from this station, including myself, should give them space when they ask” he said.
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It was a bit puzzling, but I could understand not wanting to work with someone looking over your shoulder, so I nodded in agreement before rising to leave the office.
“Oh Jim, make sure you don’t get tangled up with them. Once the investigation is done, they’ll be leaving this town and we’re unlikely to hear from them again. So, don’t go putting yourself in any situation where you’ll get hurt” he said.
I nodded a bit curtly as I stepped out of his office. If this were any other day, I would’ve said something back to him. But, the man was going through enough and I didn’t want to be the one piling things on him. It still hurt me a bit that he didn’t think of me as sensible enough as I made my way to the parking lot.
Peyton
“Deputy Jim seems sweet on you Peyton” was what Jay said as soon as we reached the parking lot.
“No, he’s not. He just met me” I said, defending deputy Jim’s honour, even though I noticed that he had been staring at me a lot.
“I guess it was love at first sight,” Jay said with a smile.
“You.. just..shush” I said, feeling exasperated.
“Oh my, what a witty comeback. I gotta remember that one” Jay said while laughing.
I decided to take the high road and chose not to reply to any of his childish taunts. I settled for just sticking my tongue out at him and turning my back on him while he continued laughing.
Jim joined us a little while later and led us to the site where Mary and Daphne went missing. The spot was an unremarkable stretch of the highway. Either side of the road was covered in woods that stretched to a valley at one end and a hill on the other. We needed to do some exploring in the woods, the kind we needed to do alone using Mary’s scent sample.
“Thank you deputy Jim. I think we can take it from here” I said. He nodded towards both of us, wished us a good day and left. I guessed that the Sheriff had already warned him to leave us to our own devices. Once the deputy was out of sight, I turned to Jay.
“Shall we?” I asked.
Jay nodded as I grabbed the smell sample containing Mary’s scent that was given to us by the Sheriff before we left his home. The packet contained a few articles of intimate clothing worn by Mary that was in her laundry basket.
“Do you think this’ll really work? The dogs have already been through this place the day they disappeared” I asked, feeling a bit sceptical.
“I don’t know if it’ll work, Peyton, but our noses in wolf form are better than any dog breed out there. If there’s anything that they missed, we’ll be able to pick it up.” Jay said confidently as we stepped into the woods. I saw Jay tapping on his chest as his clothes receded into the pack mark and his transformation initiated.
I took in a gulp as my hand hovered over my pack mark on the left side of my stomach. It had simply appeared a week ago like a tattoo. All that was needed to place the mark was for the alpha to will it to appear. I tapped my pack mark and felt my clothes disappearing from my body as I focused on my connection to the alpha. It was like a string that connected me to Luke even though we were miles apart. It was something that left a sour taste in my mouth every time I did it, but it was absolutely essential to effect the transformation.
A moment later I was staring up at Jay’s nine foot form while I grew to a height of 7 feet. I flexed my hands as a feeling of power coursed through me. My senses felt sharper and more refined, hearing more clearly and seeing more vividly than any human ever would. I could understand why the werewolves felt so detached from humanity. You could very well get lost in this feeling of power if you weren’t careful.
Jay and I were soon on our way having sniffed through Mary’s undergarments. We could trace Mary’s faint scent at the place where her car was discovered. But it disappeared soon after. Her scent was only present around a 20 foot radius of where the car was found and then it suddenly vanished. Jay and I decided to split up with him scouting the valley and me heading towards the hills. I kept my nose closer to the ground and walked on all fours trying to find any trace of her. I moved slowly, valuing precision over speed as I slowly swept my way up to the hill.
It was more than 2 hours later that I noticed something. I was close to the summit when I noticed a faint trace of an aura. It was so miniscule that it was practically non-existent, but I could instinctively tell that it didn’t belong to a werewolf. I stood up and let out a signalling howl to alert Jay to come to my location. The howl was well below 20Hz in frequency and thus couldn’t be heard by humans. It had a range of about 30 miles, so I was confident that Jay could hear me.
Jay was at my side within 10 minutes. He sniffed the area around me and turned to me with a quizzical expression on his wolf face.
“You don’t sense that aura?” I asked in my low and gravelly wolf voice.
He checked once more before shaking his head.
“There’s something here. It’s faint, but it’s definitely there” I said.
“It could be some ambient aura left behind by some supernatural being that was here long ago. Come to think of it, the area around this place would be an ideal habitat for a mountain goblin tribe.” Jay said reasonably
“But mountain goblins almost never attack humans right?” I asked, remembering information about their species from my studies
“That’s right. Unless they’re attacked by humans first, there’s no record of them ever having gone on the offensive. Besides, they’re a little too simple minded as a species to pull off something like an abduction without leaving any trace that we can find.” Jay said.
We searched the area around the summit for another hour before giving up and continuing our way to search the valley. We continued our search for another 3 hours in the area around Mary’s school before we finally called it a day and got back to our car.
I was feeling pretty down as we made our way back to the motel that we were staying at. Our first day of investigation had failed to yield any tangible results and it was looking more and more like we wouldn’t find any evidence of supernatural beings. The aura that I sensed atop the hill still kept bugging me though. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I felt that there was something malevolent about the faint aura that I sensed back there.