Secret Shifter

  Slayer Academy: Secret Shifter

  Louise Cypress

  Copyright 2019 by Louise Cypress

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieved system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review to print in a magazine, newspaper or blog post.

  Cover design by Nicole Conway

  For my mom

  Contents

  Note to Readers:

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Sneak Peek at SHIFTER’S WISH

  Also by Louise Cypress

  About the Author

  Note to Readers:

  My son made me promise to tell you that no dogs die in this book.

  Chapter 1

  I’d never forget the first time I heard about Slayer Academy. It was the day a vampire murdered my mother. I came home from cross-country practice, dripping with sweat, and found our front door busted open. I could smell Mom’s blood before I saw her. The air stank of rust and bodily fluids mixed with the floral fragrance of her perfume.

  “Mom!” I cried. When she didn’t answer, I threaded my fingers through my key chain like a weapon, just like I’d learned in the self-defense class we took at the YMCA. I probably should have run to a neighbor’s house where I’d be safe, but I didn’t.

  Whipping out my phone, I dialed 911. “My name’s Kate Canus. I’m fifteen years old and I live in Carlsbad.” I rattled off my street address and incoherently tried to explain the situation. “Someone broke down my front door,” I said, barely able to speak.

  “Stay on the line,” said the operator. “Help will be there in ten minutes.”

  “That’s not fast enough.” I dropped the phone. Mom couldn’t wait for the authorities. She needed me now—before it was too late.

  I looked at the keys spiked through my fingers. A self-defense trick from a female empowerment workshop wasn’t going to cut it. Tossing the keys next to my backpack, I raced to the hedge behind our fence. My T-shirt stuck to my skin, damp from sweat. Adrenaline pounded through my veins. I peeled away my shirt, kicked off my shoes and socks, and pulled down my shorts. I was practically naked in nothing but my sports bra and panties.

  Filling my lungs with air, I prepared to shift, focusing on the fiercest dog I could become, a Doberman pinscher. I blew air steadily through my nose and dropped to all fours.

  Mom, I barked. I’m coming to help.

  I didn’t hesitate. I charged across the lawn and through the front door with my teeth bared. The scent of blood and intestinal fluids overwhelmed my canine senses, making my eyes water. But still—even in the face of overwhelming olfactory evidence—I held on to the hope that Mom was still alive. She was my best friend. My only relative. Mom was my entire world.

  I reached her lifeless body a few seconds later, slumped on the kitchen floor, wearing her pink nursing scrubs from Randy’s Children’s Hospital. Her face was as pale as marble and there were two holes in her neck. She’d soiled herself, her last moments of life so terrible that she’d lost all control. But I didn’t find one drop of blood.

  Mom! I howled. Mom, wake up!

  It was too late. She was already gone.

  “Blood, blood, blood,” groaned a hoarse voice coming from behind the door to the dining room. “The life force calls.”

  I snarled menacingly. Whoever did this would pay.

  “How to quench this aching thirst?”

  I prowled forward, one paw following the next, fur raised.

  “I’m still thirsty!” moaned the voice.

  I barreled through the swinging door into the dining room and found a pale middle-aged man with glassy eyes. Blood dripped down his mouth and stained the white collar of his shirt.

  You killed my mom! I barked. My powerful hind legs propelled me forward as I leaped through the air. I knocked my prey to the ground and grabbed him by the neck. My teeth sank into chilly flesh and I snapped his spinal cord in one quick bite.

  Bleh! I spit bile onto the carpet and licked my fur to get rid of the taste. Then I double-checked to make sure the bastard was truly dead.

  “Holy shit!” said a deep voice coming from the living room. “Did that dog just slay a vampire?”

  “Careful, Van,” said a woman. “That looks like a Doberman. They can be vicious.”

  Vicious? I barked. There’s nothing I hated more than breedism, but this wasn’t the time or place to argue. I surveyed the intruders, trying to determine if they were friend or foe. A long, brown braid swung behind the woman’s back, and she brandished a knife in each hand. The guy had a square jaw, looked like he was in his late teens, and he wielded a switchblade and chain. Both wore all black.

  “Van, do you have any food in the jeep?” the woman asked. “Maybe we could lure the dog away with a treat.”

  “You want to give a vampire-slaying dog my leftover turkey sandwich?”

  “Well, it sounds ridiculous when you say it that way, but we need that animal to move so we can sanctify the scene with holy water.” The woman pointed at me with her knife. “I hear sirens. We need to work fast. We don’t have time to drop the body off at a church or synagogue, so dousing the vampire with holy water is our only option.”

  Vampire? Holy water? Confusion and heartbreak overwhelmed me.

  “Mom, can dogs get vampiritis?” Van asked.

  “Of course not. It’s a human condition,” said the woman. “You should know that.”

  Van nodded. “Just double-checking.”

  I stepped away from the corpse. If the police arrived soon, I wanted to be with Mom. I trotted back to the kitchen to guard her.

  My mother’s body was ice cold. I snuggled up next to her to warm her up. I couldn’t hear her heartbeat, but maybe she wasn’t dead. Vampires weren’t real. I was imagining this. That’s right. I was hallucinating. When I woke up this would all be a bad dream.

  But it wasn’t a dream. Mom didn’t warm up. She didn’t hop to her feet and ask me how my day was or offer to make me a chocolate protein shake after practice. She didn’t tell me about her latest case in the NICU, swaddling newborns and feeding them bottles. Mom was gone.

  And yet she wasn’t…

  With a sudden lurch, Mom opened her eyelids and looked at me. Only instead of Mom’s warm brown eyes that were so full of love, her gaze was vacant, yet ripe with yearning. “Blood, blood, blood,” she groaned. “The life force calls.” Mom bolted upright, the puncture wounds in her neck healing to the color of her pink scrubs. “Who will quench this aching thirst?”

  “Uh-oh,” said the woman in the dining room. “I hear another one.”

  “On it.” Van kicked the swinging door open and scanned the room.

  “So thirsty,” Mom screeched. As she lumbered toward Van, two humongous fangs sprouted from her mouth.

  No! I barked. Don’t do it!

  But it
was too late. Van lashed out his silver chain and caught Mom around her neck, snapping it in two. He jerked her body forward and stabbed her in the heart with his knife. “Rest in peace,” he said, and Mom slumped to the floor.

  Mom! I howled. I was too shocked to move. When Van pulled his knife out of Mom’s chest, it was bloodless.

  “There were two of them?” Van’s mother came into the kitchen. “Why am I not surprised? This makes the ninth vampire we’ve slain in Carlsbad this week.”

  “It’s a good thing Helsing Incorporated sent us to San Diego.” Van reached into his pocket and took out a vial of water, which he sprinkled on Mom. “There’s definitely a vampire on the loose. Looks like they’re trying to build a new coven.”

  The woman squatted down next to Mom’s body and gently laid my mother’s arms across her chest. “Poor lady. She only turned moments ago. I can still see the faint marks of her puncture wounds. This is why we need a Slayer Academy in America as well as Munich—to protect innocent victims like her.” She blew out a short, aggravated puff of air through her nostrils.

  “I agree.” Van nodded. “The more slayers, the better.”

  Sirens rang in the distance. The two strangers looked at each other and then emptied the remaining contents from their bottles all over the scene, murmuring chants and prayers with every step they took.

  “What should we do about the dog?” Van asked, right as they were about to sneak out through the back door. “It might be handy having a pet who can slay vampires.”

  I’m nobody’s pet, I growled.

  The woman sighed. “You know a slayer’s life doesn’t have space for pets. We move every six months when Helsing gives us a new target. How would a Doberman fit into that scenario?”

  Van shrugged. “I’ve always wanted a dog.”

  The two of them slipped out the back door.

  The next ten minutes flashed by like a horror show. The police arrived, and then the paramedics. The officers on scene eyed me warily, especially when I refused to surrender Mom’s body. But when I heard the words ‘Call Animal Control,’ I gave up hope. There was nothing I could do for Mom now. So I raced out the front door and headed for the beach, which was a few blocks away. I knew I should root around the lost-and-found bin of old clothes next to the public showers, find a clean outfit, and shift into a human again. I was supposed to head back home and hear the detectives tell me that an intruder had murdered my mother. But my heart couldn’t take it.

  I roamed the beaches from Carlsbad to Oceanside for three days, eating garbage and drinking from puddles. I didn’t come home until I saw missing posters with my face on them, blanketing every telephone pole in the city.

  I learned about Shifter Academy on the worst day of my life. But the second time I heard it mentioned, my world changed for the better.

  Chapter 2

  Five years later I was a sophomore at the University of California San Diego, or UCSD for short. It was late October, and I’d just fought with my roommate, Lacey, over her truly intolerable hygiene habits. Seriously, who skips doing laundry for six weeks? I’d spent enough time in crappy foster care homes that I refused to tolerate my dorm room turning into a toxic waste dump.

  To escape drama with Lacey, I went for a run. I wasn’t on the cross-country team anymore, but I still logged thirty miles a week to stay sane and keep in shape. Reaching the path that led up to Geisel Library, I slowed to a walk to cool down and enjoy the view. It was a beautiful evening, except for a faint smell wafting in the breeze that I couldn’t quite place. I looked up the sidewalk and saw a big, beefy guy, with light hair and thick muscles. A willowy girl with white-blond hair walked beside him. Their hands were clasped together, and they gazed at each other with a lovesick puppy look that made me want to hurl. They probably thought their conversation was private, but being downwind from them made it easy to eavesdrop.

  “I’m so glad you had time for a walk,” said the brick. “Now that you’ve started your graduate school program, I hardly ever see you. Soon your name will be Dr. Esma Siban. That’s pretty darn impressive.”

  “Oh, Chase,” Esma cooed. “You know I wouldn’t miss your twenty-second birthday.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to interfere with your success.” Chase kissed her cheek. “Shouldn’t you be writing code or something?”

  “I can take a few hours off.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “I need to visit Dad and my step-mom at some point too. It’s just weird that they live a few houses up the street from Slayer Academy. I wish Helsing Incorporated had chosen a different location.”

  Slayer Academy? Helsing Incorporated? My heart pounded in my chest. During all those years of despair and confusion, moving from one foster home to another, I’d told myself I’d imagined what had happened the day Mom died. There weren’t vampires or slayers. I hadn’t broken her murderer’s neck. It had all been a horrible trick my subconscious had played on me to help me process a tragic situation.

  But no, here were two people right in front of me talking about Slayer Academy like it was a legitimate thing. Esma and Chase looked real to me, albeit in a freaky, extraordinarily good-looking sort of way. Part of me wanted to run up and demand they tell me more, but another side of me knew I had to gather more information more subtly.

  “People on Mt. Soledad Road would flip out if they knew who their neighbors were,” said Chase

  “Right?” Esma laughed. Then suddenly, as if she realized someone was listening, she glanced over her shoulder and looked directly at me. I was grateful for my sunglasses so her eyes couldn’t meet mine. Bending down, I double-knotted my shoe, trying to appear busy.

  Chase wrapped his arms around Esma and hugged her. “Van says he’s in charge of the year-one recruits.”

  “I’ll be glad when Morgan’s fellowship at Oxford is finished.” Esma nestled her head on Chase’s shoulder. “I’m tired of hearing her whine about how much she misses Van.”

  Chase chuckled. “I wonder what the academy students will think about their instructor dating a vampire?”

  “A Puritan vampire.” Esma wagged her finger. “Morgan’s never tasted one drop of blood, and neither have I.”

  My eyes widened and my pulse raced. Had she just said what I thought she’d said? The woman in front of me wearing a sundress and espadrilles was a vampire? Suddenly, I recognized that odor I’d smelled earlier. It was the scent of decay—not as bad as at Mom’s murder scene—but fainter. Images of the horrible creature who’d killed my mother filled my head. The blood-stained collar, the ghoulish expression. That was a vampire, not this gorgeous creature in front of me.

  “Esma,” said Chase, “are you sure you’re happy at UCSD? I still feel guilty that you turned down MIT. I shouldn’t have taken that job working the graveyard shift on the country radio station. Maybe I could have found a job in Boston.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Esma squeezed Chase’s arm. “UCSD is a great school, and I wanted to stay in Southern California not only for you, but also to be close to my dad. Besides, your radio gig is an incredible opportunity. I’ll look for a job here in San Diego, after I earn my doctorate. Maybe I’ll work at Qualcomm.”

  “That would be perfect.” Chase took Esma’s hand in his own, and they wandered away.

  I watched them go, my mind reeling with new information. If there was one thing I was good at, it was piecing together clues. Slayer Academy. Helsing Incorporated. Mt. Soledad Road. Van, Puritans, and vampires—I had everything I needed to work this problem out.

  Mom had once told me that hunting was in my blood, just like dog shifting. She’d said that centuries ago, there had been packs of dog shifters exactly like us, and that powerful people had relied on canines as their bodyguards and trackers. But that had been a long time ago. The only shifters I’d ever met had been Mom and Grandpa, and they were both dead. Now it was just me, Kate Canus, former ward of the state of California, and current student at UCSD. I didn’t have a hunky guy holding my hand and pro
fessing his devotion. I didn’t even have a roommate who could be relied upon to wear clean clothes. What I did have were solid clues and hope. Hope that I could answer the questions that had weighed on me ever since my world had fallen apart when I’d arrived home to a broken front door five years ago.

  Chapter 3

  I ran back to my dorm to grab my computer. My roommate, Lacey, was the rich daughter of a Silicon Valley millionaire, yet here she lay on unwashed sheets surrounded by pork rind crumbs and cheese stick wrappers. She was on some sort of high-protein diet that she wouldn’t shut up about. Lacey glared at me. “You stink.” She pinched her nose. “You need a hygiene intervention.”

  “I ran six miles this afternoon. What did you do? Experiment with new filters on Instagram?”

  “At least I have followers. Nobody would want to look at pictures of you.” Lacey snorted. “You don’t wear makeup, and when was the last time you brushed your hair?”

  My fists clenched and every fiber of my being wanted to fight—but I didn’t. My social worker said I had an ‘anger management’ problem because I could go from zero to sixty in two seconds flat. She wrote in my file: “Katherine Canus is overly aggressive and suffers from a behavior disorder related to childhood trauma.” I know because as soon as I turned eighteen, I requested to see my paperwork.