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An extract from the novel "The Maverick Element", vol.1 of "The Havenguard Chronicles", by Des Nnochiri:
Milledgeville, Georgia. March 1983, 2am.
My room at the Ramada Inn featured a landscape of photocopied sheets, from my afternoon in the newspaper morgue of the county library. A selection of articles from the Atlanta Herald, the Plains Examiner, and the Arcadia Sun-Times cataloguing the exploits of a rape-murderer whose 6 month terror campaign in the Southeast had earned him the nickname "The Mississippi Mangler."
I looked over the piles of paper. Drank some more bourbon. Steeled myself for my trip to the other county morgue.
2:30am at the County Coroner's office.
The file folder in my hand documented the sad fate of case no.4X11698/S, a Jane Doe whose mortal remains had been discovered the previous evening in the vacant lot beside Spanky's House of Ribs off Courthouse Square.
The scene-of-crime photos painted a picture horrific enough in themselves.
The post-mortem configuration of body parts on the metal table in front of me possessed their own chilling poignancy.
I blinked twice, as my vision misted over, and a gloomy resignation settled in.
"Tired and emotional," I whispered. And perhaps a little drunk.
I blinked again as my vision cleared. Once more as my brain adjusted to what my eyes were apparently seeing.
"Jesus fuck."
The body fragments on the table coalesced. That's the only way I can describe it. They ran together, like closely spaced globules of mercury on a glass slide, and reconstituted themselves into the lithe form of an attractive young woman who swung her shapely naked limbs over the side of the slab, and grinned at me.
In fairness to the lad, it might be said of me in later years, he recovered what composure he had, manfully.
"The photographs don't... capture the real you."
'Jane Doe's' smile broadened.
"May I borrow your jacket ? It's a little cold in here."
"Sorry." I was wearing a tan, floor-length overcoat. Don't ask me why. I took it off, and held it open as 'Jane' slipped between its folds.
"Thank you." She looked up at me through thick eyelashes, and wayward blonde bangs.
A silence ensued. I broke it.
"You're not from around here, are you ?"
"How'd you guess ?"
I had to laugh at that.
'Jane' took a step backward, swivelled, and leaned her weight against the morgue slab.
"I could say the same about you," she observed. "None of the men I've met in this town can walk through walls."
I conceded that she had a point.
"What happened to the Mangler ?" I asked quietly.
'She smiled again. Chillingly.
"He won't be bothering anyone else."
"I see." I nodded, having nothing further to add.
"Want to buy me a hamburger ?" 'Jane' beamed. " I'm starving."
"Okay," I said. "Sure."
* * * *
I eventually found out what became of the Mississippi Mangler. To this day though, I remain willfully ignorant of the fates of Malcolm Parsons, the Bedford Strangler, Jake Hayfield, the Wicklow Whirligig, and Milton Grimes, the Soho Gaslight Slayer. But I have my suspicions. Hamburgers exist only at the periphery of Jane Doe's diet.
Jane is a polymorph, or shape-shifter, if you will. Her people, the Weiir, are the present-day survivors of an indigeneous Terran life-form which came about through the mutation of certain primitive cell groupings, back in the Protozoan Era. Small, localised, omnivorous clusters of mass/energy, they could absorb living matter of other species, record and copy its genetic codes, and refashion themselves into passable facsimiles of the same.
During subsequent ages of the planet, the Weiir's precursors grew fruitful and multiplied. Food was plentiful; the slow-moving and even slower thinking dinosaurs were little more than the walking delicatessens of their time. Their huge body mass was not a problem for the shape-shifting predators, who simply increased in size to accomodate the excess.
With the passing on of the big lizards, selective evolution required a change in hunting and feeding practices. True, hulking saurian facsimiles had the advantage over other animals in terms of size and voracious appetite, but the new mammalian species were far superior in speed, agility, and numbers. Moreso than others were the primates which, in addition to their native intellect, were being forcibly evolved by the Sons of Mahnn at an alarming rate.
Natural selection demanded that the fledgling Weirr decrease in both size and numbers. Those that were not hunted and killed by primitive humans and mammals reaped the benefits of giving birth to smaller offspring. Some turned to cannibalism. This, coupled with the trend for smaller young and the absorption of the genetic codes of man and mammals brought about a condensation of body mass into more manageable proportions, and effectively brought the ancient Age of Giants to an end.
In the ages that followed, Man (or Mahnn, if you prefer) and polymorph developed in tandem, each acutely aware of the other's existence. To the Weirr, humans were an interesting source of food and genetic raw material. To the humans, these predators were an unnatural enemy, simultaneously an affront to their native intellect, and fuel to their primitive superstition.
On paper, the shape-shifters were odds-on to become the dominant species. An extremely dense body structure of mass/energy, and a varied and interesting genetic mix meant that all manner of shapes and sizes were available to them. A plethora of dragons, sea serpents, trolls, ogres, titans, and chimeras entered the collective human consciousness.
What the humans lacked in versatility, however, they more than made up for in technical support. The Sons of Mahnn (or Gods of Olympus, or wherever you happened to be at the time)- the extra-terrestrial humanoids who had organised the selective mutation of Earth's higher primates- were not keen to see the genetically engineered fruit of their collective loins wind up as feedstock for a race of shape-shifting upstarts. They therefore armed and assisted their experimental offspring wherever possible. "Magic" swords, runes, impenetrable shields, and various charms and talismans passed into human folklore. A slew of heroic quests ensued, as the polymorphs were routed.
The Weirr, their numbers severely depleted, discovered the virtue of stealth. Assuming human form, they adopted human mannerisms and eating habits, revealing their true nature only occasionally, and thus ensuring safe passage into human legend, and largely out of human memory.
Though hunted into near-extinction, I am optimistic that Jane Doe's tribe will survive to see another age. They are a fascinating people, bearing within each of themselves as they do a genetic history of the planet as a whole.
Understandably, the Weirr traditionally bear no great affection for the human race in general, and for the Sons of the Sons of Mahnn in particular. But, as with all generalisations, there has been room for exception. History records a number of inter-marriages that have been quite successful. And Jane Doe's presence in SID [Special Intelligence Directorate - Author's note] headquarters (and my personal history with her) was proof positive that humans and shape-shifters can work together successfully when we try.
An ironic thing to note at this point is that the Weirr, and not homo sapiens, are the Earth's indigenous life-form. The race that you and I call "human" was in fact derived from extra-terrestrial sources. This has led us at the SID to develop a broader classification of the peoples with whom we come in contact. In addition to Extra-Terrestrials (ET), we have Terrestrial Humans (TH), Non-Human Terrestrials (NHT, like Jane Doe), and Non-Terrestrial Humans (NTH, like V'Liria, or Yours Truly, for that matter).