He blinked and looked confused. “Why are we looking for you? Don’t you remember going there?”
I grinned. “Yes. But something the receptionist said to me before she died —”
“You were in there when the place exploded?” Stane interrupted, his voice incredulous. “Are you insane?”
“That is a much debated point,” Azriel commented dryly.
The peanut gallery can keep those sort of remarks to themselves, I said, amused.
I will restrain the urge to say that comment makes no sense.
Grin growing, I said to Stane, “I was. Someone had to check whether the explosion had destroyed that locker we were interested in.”
“Which it did.” He took a sip of coffee. “So what did the receptionist say that tweaked your radar?”
“Not much, just ‘You changed again.’”
“As you said, not much.”
“No. But when she saw me the first time, I’d face-changed. So why would she say something like that when it was actually the first time she’d seen the real me?”
“It could have been shock,” Stane mused. “Or maybe the person who blew up the place was a vampire. They’ve been known to play hard and fast with other people’s memories when it suits their purposes.”
“True, but what interest would a vampire have in blowing up that place? And why make the receptionist think it was me going in there?”
“It could have been someone from the council,” Azriel said. “Perhaps Hunter wanted to know firsthand what we were doing in there.”
“She has the Cazadors following me around twenty-four seven. Any one of them could have checked astrally rather than physically, and no one would have been the wiser.”
“But Hunter also has enemies on the council,” Azriel noted. “Perhaps Stanford has a desire to discover what lay in that storage unit for himself.”
“Why would he have someone use my image, though?”
“That I cannot tell you.”
“Whoever this person impersonating you is,” Stane commented, “they don’t necessarily have to be a face shifter. Actors have been changing the shape of their faces and bodies for years with makeup, padding, and stuff.”
“True, but in this case, unlikely.”
“But two sorcerers and two face shifters?” Stane said. “That’s pushing the coincidences, don’t you think?”
Probably. I took a sip of coffee as I watched the images scroll across the screen. Hoddle Street was awash with cars, but there wasn’t a lot of foot traffic. Which was good, I guess – it would make spotting the fake me easier. If there was a fake me, and I wasn’t just grabbing at straws.
“If it is a coincidence, then yes,” Azriel commented. “But Lucian’s plans were centuries in the making. It is entirely possible he brought both sorcerers into this quest not only because they were powerful, but because their abilities would make it difficult for anyone to track them down.”
“There is one other possibility,” Stane said, as he bent to put his now empty plate on the floor under his desk.
I raised an eyebrow. “And that is?”
“That you’re dealing with shifters capable of full-body shifts,” he said. “Hell, there might only be one shifter, not two, and he or she is able to take on both male and female form.”
I wrinkled my nose. “We did think of that, but full-body shifters are extremely rare. And I’ve never heard of any shifter being able to change their sex.”
“Hermaphrodites are rare, but they can and do exist. What if we were dealing with one of those?”
If we were dealing with a hermaphrodite capable of full shifting, then heaven help us, because they’d be next to impossible to find.
“It could explain why Nadler listed Harry Bulter, Jim O’Reilly, and Genevieve Sands in his will,” Stane continued. “He was hedging his bets and relying on the fact that most people think shifters are human-to-animal capable, not human-to-human.”