Chapter 60: A New Form

For a shape-shifter, consequences are something to be ignored. After all, what do they matter, when you can change how you look on a whim? Yet, for one shape-shifter, things are not so simple…

I stand before ruin. My entire life, all 20 years spent in this shell. All the climbing of the fortune ladder, all the alliances, all the backstabbing. To be wasted.

More than one shape-shifter would just change their shell, at this point. Walk away, take only a bottomless bag, with some money, and leave a bloody mess in the kitchen. Accompanied by an almost illegible note, of course.

"Simon?" My wife, Deborah, snaps me out of my musings. "We will do this, together."

She is an angel, my Deborah. Doesn't know a thing about how my business makes money. I married her when she was in her forties. Now, at 60, she looks no less beautiful, than the day I met her.

"I know, love," I give her wrinkled hand a soft squeeze. I, too, look to be about 60. A mortal shell, to hide behind. If I let my age progress, or for someone to deal me a mortal blow, I will die.

This life is a product from many before it. I finally got a lucky break.

Just the thought that I must abandon Deborah, make my guts twist. I can't do it. To leave her behind, means to leave my heart behind.

"They don't have proof, that you delivered that troll thumb look alike to the nursing home," they do, but I don't tell her this.

"Well, a bit hard to have proof, when I wasn't even there," oh, how could my mask slip so? Just when did the people realize that I am a shape-shifter?

"See? I told you, we will be fine," she brings my hand to her lips, and then places a kiss on my palm. I hug her, feeling like crap. Not only that, but I had enough money, and yet, I blew the one life, I wanted to keep.

I hear a knock on the door. Then, seconds later, another one. Much more impatient than the first.

I pat Deborah's hand, and then stand up. Her hip has been acting up. I don't want her to move too much.

As I open the door, I see two guards, with a chain in their hands. I bow my head, and offer my hands.

"Simon, who is it?" Deborah asks, and I try to reassure her, really. But the words don't come to me.

"The guards, ma'am," one of the guards says, as he fastens the chains around my wrists. He foregoes with the neck ring. I am grateful for that. "We would like for you to come with us as well. A truth test is in order."

"A truth test?" I yell, indignant. "She is 60!"

  "Sir, control yourself. Resisting arrest will see you in the isolator," the guard doesn't appear without any pity in him because he shakes his head, when his fellow takes out another set of chains. "They are just two elderly people, Paul. It is enough that we chained him up. Now, go back down, and get the stretcher."

As the second guard leaves, I look the one who seems to be the leader in the eyes.

"Why is Deborah questioned? Wasn't it enough, that she took a drug test? The results of which…"

"Just why would you throw your life away?" Just why, the words echoed in my head. Just why? "You have a lovely wife, a cozy home. Just why would you bring such a drug to a nursing home? People died, Simon O'Conner!"

"That wasn't my fault," how was I to know that the boy would sell me something that came out of a cauldron? An alchemist's take on the classic troll's thumb? Something, that didn't have any seconds. And that was all it took, for the people whom I used to call friends, to die screaming.

"Why keep up with the charade. We know what you are. Just admit to your crime, sir. And your lovely Deborah would not need to go through a truth test. Do you know what the side effects are, for people her age?" I do. I look back at her.

Deborah has pulled her chair to face the door. She is looking at me with blue, watery eyes. The side effects…

Do I love her?

"You killed your friends, people who were clean for years, before you gave them that drug," the guard continues, his tone soothing. As if I am some skittish animal, who will jump to the side. Not that the heavy chains will let me. "And now, your wife will have to take a truth test for something, she probably knows nothing about."

"Then why even call her in?" I snap, and that makes my chains rattle. Deborah lets out a sob. My heart breaks.

"If…" the guard tries to say, but I just step out of the door.

"Fine," I finally say, when I see the other guard come up the stairs with the stretcher. "I will take her place. I will go through the truth test myself."

"Do you know the side effects that such tests have on shifters?" The leader asks me, not mincing his words.

"I know. Just keep the love of my life out of this," for some reason, I feel a weight get off my shoulders.

I killed them. My friends, former lawyers all of them, left to rot in a nursing home. Most of them, not even remembering their names. But, when I spill the beans, Deborah won't be questioned anymore.

And what is a broken mind, in the grant scheme of things? It is not like they will let me live for long, after I forget who I am.

The case of one Simon O'Conner met public outcry. The new drug he introduced to the public, troll's demise, was banned. After his truth test, the alchemist Alexei was brought to face justice.

But Simon never got to see that. After his brain was wiped clean by the truth test, he was accepted into the same nursing home, his friends were in. With a little old grannie following him soon after.

Deborah knew why he did what he did. Why he wanted to kickstart the brains of his former friends, for a final conversation. She wished; she could do the same for him.