Shifters

Chapter 1

Walking around the back he strained to hear any sound, strained to smell anything.  

Nothing.

Why the hell couldn’t he hear them? The tracks clearly lead them to this building near the center of this village.  Backtracking he looked around at the snow.  Nothing else looked disturbed, no other tracks indicating any kind of struggle or that they had ran into any kind of trouble. The tracks looked like they just walked right up to this cabin and went in. 

His fur stood on end, those god damn tracks didn’t smell either.

Looking at the door to the cabin, he struggled to think of a way to get it open in his animal form. Bursting through as a dog the size of a bear with fur as black as night may take whoever is inside by surprise quite nicely.  Although it could, just as easily, kill his entire team.

He could just change to human form and do it but then he was slightly exposed to the elements without the thick fur protecting him. Although in his human form walking in completely naked may also cause a nice distraction to whomever was in there. 

Thinking to brave the cold for just a few short seconds he switched effortlessly to his human form.  Flowing from one to the other was like breathing for him now.  No pain, no discomfort just a few popping sounds of bones reforming quickly and it was done.  God damn snow was cold on his bare feet thou. Shit.

Gripping the handle he prepared to push when he heard a small scraping sound and some voices that he did not recognize.  Shifting back into wolf form he quickly hid to the side of the small cabin he was just in front of.  Whoever or whatever it was did not smell like anything he had smelled before.  They just didn’t smell at all.  

Cautiously peering around the side, he cursed and thought that he should have hid where he could see easier. Watching the door open he heard the strange talking stop. They knew he was there. He wasn’t sure how but he knew they did.  The men started talking again and stepped out into the snow.  But then, he realized they weren’t really standing in the snow, but on top of it.

He saw the two men looking around. They were tall and lanky looking, pale skin, and no facial hair. And no smell. At all. Nothing. Nor could he hear any kind of internal sound. No heart pumping blood, no breathing. Nothing.

What the hell is going on here? 

His muscles bunched in anticipation, ready to leap, to fight if needed. But something told him to wait. He wasn’t sure why but he had learned a LONG time ago to trust his instincts.  He was hearing the two men talk again but this time the words started to make sense.

“I think eet eez nothing but a dirty animal,” the one with straight black hair said.

“Yes but it doesn’t smell like just a dirty animal, smells like something …..more,” the lighter haired man said.

What the hell are these things? Humanoid in looks obviously.  But no internal functions, no smell.  If I didn’t know any better I’d say they were vampires, but vampires have a distinct smell and sound. No not any kind of internal sound, but more like an airy type of sound. The way they move made it sound like that. There was the death and decay smell, and sometimes the lingering metallic smell of blood. But these had neither. 

“Its da snow and dis damn cold air, makes tings smell veird, I hate eet,” the black haired one said. He had a slight Russian sounding accent making some of his words come out sounding odd.

“Maybe but I don’t like it, I don’t like it at all Vlas,” the light haired one remarked.

“Yes but do jou vant to tell HER dat ve vere late because jou didn’t like de smell of one of de dogs running around here?” Vlas sneered, “Let’s go.”

The two men, thankfully, walked in the other direction towards one of the smaller cabins near the west side of the village.

“Hmm they can smell me, this could be a problem,” Jared thought, “and I can’t hear or smell them. “

He silently walked around to the front of the cabin and looked down. No foot prints, if they had looked down as well they’d have seen the massive paw prints in the snow. But they hadn’t and something inside urged him to hurry.

 Pushing on the door with his snout he popped the latch and walked inside cautiously. Swinging his large head he pushed the door closed behind him.

He looked around the inside of the small one room shack.  There was no furniture, no living supplies, nothing to show anyone or anything was in here. But he had heard scraping, something moved in this room to have made a sound and logically it had to be something under him. He looked around at the floor boards.

Any ordinary person wouldn’t have seen the miniscule lines forming a small hatch in the floor. An ordinary person wouldn’t have seen the disturbance in the dust around those fine lines. But obviously he wasn’t an ordinary person, or animal, he smirked.  Now, he thought, how to get that open. No lever, no handle, nothing like a chair or a book shelf to push or move to open it. 

That sense of urgency pushed at him again, he had to find a way in and quick. Looking around he saw nothing.  No coat hangers, no little levers, smelling around the cabin he did detect a faint odor. His signal smell.  It was here, but faint. So faint he almost missed it, how could that be? But the smell was there. Concentrating on his sight he tried to see any kind of glow, or hue that looked different.

And there was.

He saw it, the greenish hue, near the hatch on the floor.  A small circle to the right of the hatch, just about the size of one of his claws… or at least the tip of one of his claws.  He leaned down and looked harder. Yup, it was a small circle with a faint greenish hue to it. The men had been here and probably were down there. That signal smell, one of them must have released it. It must have clung to one of those things.  He carefully used his right front paw and slid his claw into the small circle.

CLICK.

The hatch slid open.