Paranormal Police-Book 1 - Foundations

Smirn Household, Kambah, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

You gotta fight for your right to party Beastie Boys, Fight for Your Right, 1986

Alexa hugged her mum and dad, “Thanks Mum, thanks Dad! I appreciate your help with this barbie and welcoming my new work mates.”

“Do we need to get the twins back in their skin?”

“Nah, Mum. I know for a fact that they would have seen the pair roughhousing before they pulled that stealth drone off us. It’ll be interesting if they say something.”

“You’re getting more and more like your father.”

Alexa hugged her dad with a big grin on her face and said, “I know.”

She stood with an arm around each of her parents as the three of them turned their heads towards the approaching cars. It was really difficult to sneak up on shifters.

The first group of visitors were just turning into their farm, passing the large sign, welcoming them to ‘Smirn Poultry and Eggs’.

Her dad looked like a farmer. Just over 2 metres tall, dirty blond hair, tied in a ponytail, peeked out from his outback style hat, as did his blue eyes. Dressed in a denim, short sleeve shirt, blue jeans, and work boots, he looked competent and relaxed.

Her mum was in a pair of moleskins with a matching western-style shirt and kangaroo-leather boots. Just under 1.5 metres tall, brown eyes, brown hair and a petite frame, Daria stood next to her daughter, comfortable in her own skin. She had a European look to her face and was wearing a green with flower print gardening hat.

Between the pair was Alexa, their daughter. Standing 1.6 metres tall, with her mum’s hair and eyes, she was still obviously her dad’s daughter. Her face shared much of its structure with her dad, and their smiles were the same. Boots were like her mums, as was the moleskin pants, but her top was a t-shirt with an image of a dragon eating a knight. The caption read 'Needs Ketchup'. A baseball cap finished off her outfit, with ‘Chicken Farmers Egg you on” written across the front.

Over the next five minutes, the rest of their guests turned up. Alexa introduced them to both of her parents.

Joey was mid-twenties, fairly fit, 1.7 metres tall and quite tanned on his arms and head. The rest of his body was white and unaccustomed to seeing the light of day. He had brown hair and eyes. Jeans and a plain, grey t-shirt matched with the blue and grey runners.

“Mum, Dad, this is my immediate boss, Joey. Joey, this is Sam and Daria. Now, Joey, from an Occupational Health and Safety viewpoint, headwear isn’t optional. Have a hat.”

She pulled out a baseball cap from a pile next to her and put it on his head. She kept a straight face as he walked away, not realising what was printed on the hat, ‘Egg Farmers watch Chick Flicks’.

Mary was in her late thirties, 1.8 metres tall, blond hair and hazel eyes. Lean and fit, she exuded an air of control. Her olive skin hinted at her Greek ancestry. A sun dress, sporting a tropical flower and bird print, was matched with deep blue sandals and matching sunhat.

“Mum, Dad, this is Joey’s boss, Mary. Mary, this is Sam and Daria.”

Fancy was in her late twenties, 1.7 metres tall, auburn hair, freckles, and one blue and one brown eye. She seemed to ooze femininity and a sense of compassion and empathy. She was wearing a white sundress, with a large, magnolia print. Pink sandals and a pink beach bag completed the outfit.

“Mum, Dad, this is one of the other investigators, Fancy. Fancy, this is Sam and Daria. Fancy, from an Occupational Health and Safety viewpoint, headwear isn’t optional. Have a hat.”

She pulled out another baseball cap and put it on her head. This one read ‘Chicken Farmers wing it’.

Adam Trinidad was next, with the three new members of the team in tow. He was 1.9 metres tall, solid build, black hair and brown eyes. He showed his Filipino ancestry with his skin and face. He was wearing tan slacks and a dark brown shirt, with a traditional pattern down one side. Brown loafers completed the outfit.

“Mum, Dad, this is Adam Trinidad. Adam, this is Sam and Daria, my parents. Adam, from an Occupational Health and Safety viewpoint, headwear isn’t optional. Have a hat.”

She pulled out another baseball cap and put it on his head. This one read ‘Chicken Crossing Supervisor’.

The three newbies stood as a group while Adam introduced them.

“Tory Anderson, Martha Thakuri, Cai Rogers, this is Alexa Smirn and her parents.

'Welcome. Now, Cai and Martha, from an Occupational Health and Safety viewpoint, headwear isn’t optional. Have a hat.”

Cai got ‘Chicken Farmers are a breed apart’, while Martha ended up with ‘Egg Farmers are always hatching something’.

As they all walked away, Sam said to Alexa, "So, when are you going to tell them that the baseball caps are a joke?"

Fluttering her eyelids, Alexa said, "But Dad, sun safety in Australia is no joke. It's important to wear a hat and apply sunscreen. I've left out bottles of the stuff at strategic locations."

"The stuff labelled 'Chook Poop Sunscreen'?"

"Fluttering her eyelids again, she said, "Yep!"

He pulled her in for a hug, gave her a kiss on the forehead and said, "I love you, and I'm so proud of you."

---***---

Following the great Aussie tradition, the males gathered together, surrounding the BBQ, stopping any of the meat from escaping, while the girls helped pull out the last of the food from the kitchen to cover one of the outside tables. A fly net was draped over the top to keep uninvited guests off the food until everyone was ready.

Fancy stayed with beer, but the rest of the girls were getting stuck into a couple of large jugs of sangria.

Mary said, “So, I’m hearing a bit of an accent, Daria. Somewhere in Eastern Europe, but sorry, can’t get any closer than that.”

Sam’s voice reached out across the courtyard they were in, “Transylvania, I was bewitched by a foxy girl from Transylvania! Here I was, an average Aussie bloke, then I was kidnapped by this Transylvanian Gypsy and the next thing I know, I was bewitched!”

Daria had nonchalantly grabbed a bread roll and lobbed it at her husband. The meaty thunk showed it had hit it’s intended target, right on the nose.

Sam grabbed it before it hit the ground and said, “Thanks, Darl!”

Mary looked Daria’s eyes and saw the twinkle. She thought, ‘I would believe that she’s a sly fox.’

“Transylvania?”

“Technically, yes. Modern day Romania.”

“He was a…a non-shifter?”

“Here I was, just arrived in Australia with my family. We’d emigrated after the fall of Communism. I’m struggling with a new school, culture and language, and I’m pestered by this big, beefy, bogan. In the end I let him take me out and as I start to fall for him, I realise that another difference is that unlike the town I moved from, nearly everyone around me isn’t a shifter, or at least doesn’t know about them. So, I’m panicking over doing the big reveal, saying to Sam, ‘Before we get too attached, there’s something I have to tell you about me. You know I’m from Romania, well the area inside Romania I’m from use to be known as Transylvania.’”

Sam interjected, “Meanwhile I’m freaking out. This conversation is getting way deeper than I’m comfortable with, so naturally I make a joke. ‘I love you, but I’m drawing a line at you sucking blood out of me!’. Well, she gives me those huge puppy dog eyes she can - honestly, they need to be registered as a deadly weapon - and I am really freaking out. Is she a freakin’ vampire?”

“I let him sweat for a moment, then smile and say, ’No, I’m not a vampire. But I am supernatural.”

“I say ‘Yeh!!!’ and I swear she blushes. That was the first time I’d ever seen her vulnerable. Made me feel the complete heel, so I say, ‘Sorry. You’re trying to be serious here. I don’t know what I can promise you until you tell me, but I will try to be calm about it.' “

“So, I tell him I’m a fox shifter and start to strip.”

“She had my full attention at that moment.”

A number of laughs came from the audience.

“Dad, really?”

Daria patted Alexa on the hand. “It’s a good strategy, reduce the flow of blood to their head and they’ll take everything else a lot more calmly.”

Fancy guffawed.

“I’m looking at an incredibly beautiful, naked woman one moment and then the next there’s a red fox there instead. The shock did help me get a bit more under control, and then she turns back to human and starts to dress. I realise she’s made herself vulnerable for me and is silently panicking. I let her finish dressing - that was the hardest decision of my life - then gather her in my arms. I tell her how brave she was sharing that with me, how privileged I felt that she would trust me with her secret, how utterly gorgeous she was as a fox and not to get me started about her peerless beauty as a woman. Then I proposed. She gave me the full reveal and to think about whether I wanted to be changed so that our lifespans would be similar.

“I then meet her father and he shifted. At this point let me tell you if you ever decide to get close up to a full-on Eurasian wolf, bring spare undies. He weighed something like 80 kilos in wolf form. I was officially intimidated.

Daria took back the narrative, “So, we get married, and I arranged for a shifter elder to meet with us while we were honeymooning at Noosa.”

“Yeh, I was introduced to this old, First Nation elder. We went into the bush, he changed into an Emu, of all things, and pecked me, spitting into the wound. He changed back and while he started a fire, Daria had changed into a fox and did some hunting, returning with a brace of rabbits. Daria and the old man quickly field dressed them and put them over the fire. Meanwhile the wound had stopped weeping and had started to close.

“We had freshly roasted rabbit with some tubers he’d dug up and tossed into the coals of the fire. After the meal, the pair of them stood over me and chanted and I changed. I then learn three important lessons. Firstly, that while the rabbit smelt nice before, as an animal it was so much better. Secondly, even better than that smell, was how nice Daria smelt. Lastly, I learned that when near a fire as an animal, you have to keep close watch of where your tail goes.”

They all laughed, and Joey asked, “So what's your were-animal?”

“The Tiger Quoll!”

Alexa chimed in saying, “Otherwise known as the spotted-tail quoll or spotted-tailed native cat.”

After a minute, Fancy asked, “Is it much different raising shifters than…I don’t know what you call us? Normals? Mundanes?”

“God, no. That’s all as offensive to us as to you. Telling your kids that they are not normal? Pass. Telling someone else’s kids their mundane? Pass as well. We usually use ‘human’ for all and ‘shifter’ and ‘non-shifter’ to separate. So, raising shifter kids is pretty much the same as anyone else. There’s a higher chance they will be home schooled at least till the end of Primary School, but that’s so they don’t ask their new friends at school what animal their parents change into. Gets a bit embarrassing. By High School, they’re old enough to know there are some secrets that have to be kept.”

“When do they start to shift?”

“Usually somewhere near the start of puberty.”

“Have your youngest shifted yet?”

“OK, I can tell you’re not lying, but you all know, don’t you? That drone thingy would have got some footage of them by now, wouldn’t it?”

“Drone thingy?” Fancy looked at Mary.

Looking a little embarrassed, Mary said, “At the start of the surveillance of Alexa, we deployed those new, super stealth drones to sort-of try them out.”

“I suppose it was a bit harder to hear than the normal ones. What do you think, Alexa?”

“You know your hearing’s better than mine. I did pick up some sound off it every now and then, but it was the movement that my eyes automatically tracked on. Whenever I saw any of them, I kept wanting to shift and go hunt it.”

Mary gave an exasperated look towards both of them and said, “Shifters!”.

Daria patted Mary on the shoulder and said, “We’ll desensitise you to the paranormals in the end.”

They all had a laugh.

Mary said, “We kept the information to as small a group as possible. Only myself and Adam had much to do with the surveillance tapes.”

Alexa shouted over to her father, “Dad, should I call the twins back?”

Sam looked down at the meat on the barbeque and said, “Yeh, you’d better. They’re going to have to change.”

Alexa took on an expression of intense concentration, sort of like she was constipated, and just her head changed to an Eagle’s head. She raised her head to the sky and gave out a loud musical screech. Shaking her head, she changed back.

Daria looked at Alexa and said, “So how long have you been able to do a partial shift, darling?”

“I’ve been working on it for the last week or so, Mum. It doesn’t feel natural yet, but it’s stopped aching afterwards.”

All the non-shifters were looking a little wild-eyed. Daria zeroed her head towards the north and said, “They’re coming”. Alexa cocked her head to the side and after a minute said, “Yep”.

Fancy looked puzzled and then said, “Why can I feel a vibration?”

Daria had been concentrating on her husband and relaxed once she heard him warn the rest of the men not to overreact.

“Because one of my children is a Tasmanian Devil, while the other twin is a dinosaur.”

Mary patted Fancy on the arm to quiet her down.

Daria said, “Just a note for future reference, Mary. Don’t try that with shifters.”

“What, you dislike being patted on the arm?”

“No, our hearing is good enough to be able to tell your heart rate. You may look outwardly calm, but the idea of meeting a 500 kilo dinosaur’s got your heart beating itself out of your chest.”

Laughter broke some of the tension that had formed.

The twins came around the side of the house.

Maxwell, still shifted as a Tasmanian Devil, was riding on a sort of saddle on Aurora’s back. She was still shifted as a six-and-a-half-metre-long dinosaur.

Fancy stood up and Alexa was watching her like an eagle, but the expression on her face was wonder, not fear.

Meanwhile, Sam had put a restraining hand on Adam’s shoulder. Alexa heard her father say, “These are not monsters, they’re my children.”

Fancy said, “They’re beautiful.”

Max let out a loud screech.

Daria laughed and said, “Well, the Australovenator is beautiful, but the Tassie Devil is handsome.”

Max let out a placated growl.

Fancy continued, “Could I touch them?”

“As they’re pre-teens, I’m not sure I should call them sentient, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. You’ll need to ask them. But do remember that they are pre-teens so you’ll want to wash your hands afterwards.”

Fancy nodded her head, agreeing but not really having listened, and carefully approached the pair.

Aurora dropped her jaw, exposing a fearful array of teeth.

Alexa laughed, “Aurora must have practiced that! Mum, have you found any mirrors left outside recently?”

“Yes, yes, I have. The little imp.”

Fancy visibly swallowed and said, “May I touch you both?”

They both nodded their heads and Fancy started by running her hand down the feathers of Aurora’s neck. “These feel a bit like the feathers on an emu.”

Moving down her back, Fancy ran her hand down the back of Maxwell. “You, my hansom friend, have fur like a wombat, stiff and rough. Thank you both.”

Daria said, “Go on, you two, go change, lunch is nearly ready.”

Joey said, “And here I was worried that I’d be the fanboy.”

Fancy gave him the look that promised pain in his future.

Adam took a deep breath and fell back on another one of the groups popular sayings, “Wow, more that I can’t wait to not tell people about.”

Sam turned the tables and said, “So Adam, what’s it like being in the AFP?”

“A ridiculous mix of boring paperwork and exciting police work, mixed in with boring police work.”

“So, sort of like most jobs, but with more paperwork?”

That got a laugh from most of the AFP people at the two tables, who all said, “Yes!”

“Sometimes I wonder if someone will come to the office one day and find it completely buried in red tape. All of us turned into mummies, groaning, with arms outstretched, haunting the corridors, groaning "Paperwork, Paperwork".”

“How long have you been with the AFP?”

“Four years, now.”

Sam noticed his two youngest children coming out of the house, so called “Lunch!” and transferred the meat to platters. Someone grabbed the fly net off the table, and everyone grabbed plates and started filling them.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with the AFP people spinning slightly exaggerated stories from the cases they had dealt with.