No Trust

"Blew yourself up?" Chandler looked pretty tired, I didn't know at this point there had been four other murders in town, the shifters were hungry.

"You have to try it at least once, though to be fair this isn't my first time, first time that I've woken up in a hospital though." His look said he didn't believe me, no one ever does, but again when you've lived the life I have you have to screw with people from time to time. And by time to time, I mean all the time. I was still leery of telling Chandler anything, I also didn't see Xanthi there which scared me a little.

"My boys picked over your office found residue of some kind of creature, but since we've had four more dead, I can only assume I have more than one problem in my city."

"I want to tell you what it is, but I can't trust you." I saw him rub his eyes in that way that speak to annoyance.

"You can't tell me what I hired you to tell me?"

"Look I can't be sure you're you, I can't be sure anyone here is who they say they are." He sighed.

"So the blast did more than break your hip, it broke your brain." Now I sighed, Chandler left me after cursing because everyone acts like I'm unreasonable when I'm being completely reasonable within reason! Not going to lie though when I first tried to get up and I felt the pain of my hip shoot through me I was really considering wandering the hallways looking for someone in pretty bad shape and "helping" them into the next world. I didn't of course, but when you have the power to heal yourself at the cost of someone elses meaningless life its really really tempting!

I was a bit worried when Xanthi never showed up while I was in the hosptial, but apparently it smelled too much like death to her and so she avoided it. I couldn't blame her, it smelled like death to me and I don't even have the same sense of smell she does. All told I was in the hospital for three weeks, a nerve wracking time as the shifters continued their reign of terror in the outside world. They killed fourteen by the time I was out on crutches (which didn't do a whole lot with a busted hip, but it was the best the hospital could come by).

I hobbled my way to my burned out office, which had mostly survived the explosion (even all my books thank the gods), my desk was pretty much a lost cause and my big heavy wooden desk would not recover, but it wasn't a total loss. I could see some of the tape the police in the area use to cordon things off on the door way. I was about to enter when I felt a chill behind me.

"Isn't breaking a hip an old person's illness?" It was Hanlon I hadn't seen him since I'd been back and I'd kind of liked the time away.

"Most don't do it blowing up a shape shifter in their office." He smiled it was as creepy as ever.

"Well Trezlan that is a shocking thing to say, I must admit we simply have to talk about all the places and things you've done and this minor shape shifty problem you're dealing with." I didn't want to, but its not like I had a lot of things to do that day other than hobble around and be in pain, and so I followed Hanlon to his lavish car and went with him to lunch. Yeah I know the shifters were out there, but I was hungry and its not like they would take the form of Hanlon, no one wanted to be that evil.