Rick's POV 

I was ready. It was always the same. Once I had an assignment, an enemy I had to fight, it was like something else took over. Call it killer instinct. Call it my inner wolf. Call it whatever you like, it was hungry and needed to be fed. I had my dagger at the ready, my gun loaded, and my game face on. And we were…

At the library. 

"Why are we hanging out with the elderly instead of going out and killing this thing?" I asked Alexis, frustrated by her apparent inability to see the absurdity of the situation. "Do you think this demon has some overdue books or something? What's the plan, threaten him with a fine?" Several silver-haired patrons glared at me, and I glared right back. I never liked libraries. Too quiet. Too many rules. Too few opportunities to fight. 

Fighting was my talent, always had been. Some people are born to compose symphonies. Others to build bridges, or perhaps teach aggravating teenagers to spell. I recognized that all of those things had their place, just not for me. I was put on this earth to kill things that needed killing. Bad people, bad creatures, whatever the job entailed. And I was d*mn good at it, if I did say so myself. 

"We are here to research the history of that dorm," Alexis replied, adjusting her glasses to get a better look at the computer screen. She looked sexy as hell in her black sweater dress and thigh-high-heeled boots. I had a brief flash of what she might look like in just those boots. Very nice. 

"In these types of cases, usually something bad happened in a place to make it attractive to creepy-crawlies. I need to know what that something is so we can be better prepared to kill it." Alexis seemed at home here among the aged and annoying. The librarians all smiled at her, the computer did what she told it to do. No one gave her the dirty looks I was garnering. Yet another way in which we differed dramatically.

It was a fact that my body completely disregarded, reacting unbidden to her delicious vanilla cake scent. Was it perfume, or just her? Whatever it was, it was driving me crazy. I felt my mouth water and shook my head in an attempt to clear it. I needed to focus on something, anything else other than how much I desperately wanted to find out what she tasted like.  

"Ok, fine, what can I do to speed up this process?" The sooner we found it, the sooner we got the hell out of this place. Libraries made me itchy. Dusty books and card catalogs brought back memories of being scolded endlessly to be quiet when I was a kid. 

I was seldom quiet as a kid. 

"No need, this is what we're looking for," she replied smugly, handing me an article from the now defunct college newspaper, ‘The Sentinel’. It was dated twenty years ago and detailed a murder that had taken place on campus. There was speculation that the killing had ties to a satanic cult, but little proof. The victim was a pretty eighteen-year-old girl named Summer Stevens. She'd been stabbed to death with what appeared to be a ceremonial knife. There were no suspects at the time of the printing. What we did have was confirmation of the murder location: Our client's dorm room. 

"A ritualistic killing like that can open up a portal," Alexis explained, biting her luscious, berry-stained lips in concentration. "And once it's opened, all sorts of nasty creatures can find their way to the outside. We need to kill that thing and seal the portal so that nothing else breaks through. That's why we are hanging out here, as you say." 

I looked at the victim's photo and rage coursed through my veins. This pretty blonde in her cheerleading outfit couldn't have weighed more than one hundred pounds at the time this photo was taken. She was innocent, with her whole life ahead of her until she met with evil. The idea of someone killing this defenseless person, no matter how long ago it might have been, made me sick. 

"What do you think?" Alexis asked me, her violet eyes filled with concern. "Do you think we'll be able to do it?" Of course we would be able to do it. Killing that thing would be easy. That wasn't the reason for my silence. 

The fact that someone had gotten away with ending that young woman's life was infuriating to me. It gave me an idea.

"Alexis, when you corner these creatures, can you get them to answer questions?" My idea was probably a long shot, but didn't someone once say that you miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take? 

"Sometimes, you can be lucky, and they can say a word or two," she replied. "What did you have in mind?"

"Maybe we can get that creature to tell us who summoned it," I replied grimly. "Whoever summoned it, did so by killing that girl. If we can get it to tell us who that was, then maybe we can notify the authorities and help bring that a*shole to justice." 

*** 

Alexis's POV 

Dan had cleared out of his dorm room for the night at our request. All the action tended to begin around midnight, so Rick and I probably had a few hours before our date with Evil. I brought the materials for a spell to cleanse the room and seal the portal. Rick brought his sword, his dagger, and his gun. Not to mention his old, smarmy attitude. 

"Alexis, how can we best draw this thing out?" he asked me, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. "Maybe if we make out on the bed, it will help speed things along?" 

"If you can find someone willing, we can give it a shot," I told him. "But since this is a boys' school these days, unless there's something you're not telling me, you may be out of luck." I was nervous, and not in the mood for games. I'd glimpsed another version of my partner, however briefly, so I knew there was more to him than his sophomoric sense of humor.

I wondered which Rick would be assisting me tonight. If I was going to make out with someone, not that I was saying I was, but if it ever happened, it would be with Rick the soldier not whoever was sitting across from me at present. No matter how attractive he might be in his tight jeans and leather jacket. 

Not to mention the fact that Dan's dorm room lacked ambiance. I cast a glance around at the posters of half-naked women, post-its stuck on the wall detailing assignment due dates, and the twin bed with a lone, smashed pillow. I wondered if his girlfriend ever visited this place, and thought that if she did, it could only be to study. Or perhaps talk. I had difficulty imagining anyone having sex in this space. 

"I don't swing that way. But in any case, this place needs some f*ck shui," Rick commented, which made me smile. "I mean, I know it's a dorm room, but still. Dan could put a little more effort into making the space more comfortable. If you ask me, the ghouls are the least of his worries." 

I was about to agree when I noticed a thin line of what looked like blood coming from the cinder block wall next to Rick. It began as a thin trickle, and then quickly spread to the entire south wall of the room. Within five minutes, the place resembled an abattoir. The red liquid was pooling everywhere. 

"Is that really blood?" I asked Rick, examining the red liquid. "Because it sure looks like..."

"Get out!" a booming voice commanded us in a menacing tone. We looked at each other and then scanned the room for the owner of the voice. 

There was no one in the room but us. 

Then a creature emerged from under the bed. It was darker than the dark, with red glowing eyes, a hole for a mouth, and claws on the end of what I assumed were its hands. Rick pulled his sword from its sheath and stabbed it in the middle. If that thing were a person, it would have been dead. 

Unfortunately, that thing wasn't a person, and it headed straight for Rick, apparently angered by the attack. Before I could warn him, Rick did what I had heard described but never actually seen. 

He shifted into a huge, terrifying black wolf. 

One minute he was a man, and the next, he was an enormous, ferocious predator with emerald eyes, charging at the demon. He immediately locked his jaws around the creature's neck, and his sharp-pointed teeth drew blood. Or at least, I think it was blood. The creature's puncture wounds leaked a green goo that splattered all over the cheap linoleum floor. Rick shook the creature like a dog with a chew toy until it stopped moving. Then he dropped the body and, still in his wolf form, gave me a smile that reminded me of Neumann when he had just finished a particularly tasty treat. 

"Wait, stop!" I yelled. I needed to ask who had summoned it by killing that poor teenage girl. I needed to do it before it died. 

"Who summoned you?" I asked the pitiful monster as it lay on the floor, gasping for air. "Who killed that girl? You have to tell me the truth, it's the rules." A little-known fact about shadow stalkers: When they are dying, they have to be honest. Nobody knows why. Some witches speculate that it's because they are so close to the other side that they have no choice. In any case, I intended to use it to my advantage.

"Donovan Steele," it hissed and then stopped moving altogether. 

"Thanks!" I told the creature brusquely. Even though it couldn't hear me anymore, good manners never hurt. I took out my spell-casting equipment and turned to Rick. "Great job! I'm going to seal the portal now before its friends join us."

Rick nodded while remaining in his wolf form. He was clearly guarding the body to make sure it was dead. That worked for me. I began sprinkling sea salt in a circle around the bed and chanted a spell to seal the portal. Within minutes a puff of purple smoke wafted from under the bed, the signal that the ritual was complete. 

"What do we do with this thing?" Rick asked with a wolfish grin, having changed back into his human form while I was casting my spell. He was talking about the body, but he didn't need to worry. It was evaporating into a thin cloud of black mist as we spoke. In my experience, there would be nothing left of it to deal with in about an hour. 

"That will disappear, along with the green goo and the blood," I assured him, wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead with tissue. Spellcasting could be hard work, especially when there are demons involved. "All we need to do now is let Dan know that his dorm room is clear, and we can go home." 

***

We decided to head to my favorite diner, Rinaldo's, after calling Dan to give him the good news. I was starving. Casting spells of that magnitude always revved up my appetite. I was taking classes in becoming a Supreme Witch, and my Demonology instructor had mentioned that was a common side effect. It had something to do with the amount of energy expended in a brief period of time. All I knew was that Rinaldo's fries had never tasted so good.

I still needed to call Detective Rogers, my contact at the Supernatural PD, and give him the name of the potential murder suspect in the ritual killing. I resolved to do that later when I wasn't so hungry that I couldn't even think. 

"That was incredible!" Rick exclaimed in between huge bites of his double cheeseburger. "Absolutely incredible! I've never seen a witch cast a spell before! That was seriously bad a*s!" 

"You were pretty amazing yourself," I told him, dipping a fry into ketchup. "I've never seen anyone shift until today. How did you know that would be the best way to kill it?" 

Rick had been unstoppable in his wolf form. I had no idea that shifters could shift so quickly, or that they could be so powerful when they did. That demon hadn't stood a chance. 

It was a huge turn-on. That display of sheer power and danger. Not that I would ever admit it. 

"I didn't, actually," Rick admitted with a roguish grin. "I think my wolf knew instinctively how to deal with it. I don't even remember shifting. One minute I was stabbing that thing, and the next thing I knew I had it locked in my jaws. Weird, huh?" 

I couldn't tell what was weird anymore. It was all relative at that point. The one thing I was certain about was that there was a whole lot more to Rick than met the eye. And although I was loath to admit it, even to myself, I found myself wanting to know more about him.