By the time Jacklyn and the unknown white dog were back outside Pantzer's sausage shop it was dark. The street was void of people. A steady stream of cars drove by, desperate commuters trying to find a secret passage ramp on to Bay Bridge that wasn't jammed.
Lights were out in the shop. An old fashioned closed sign hung in the door.
All the right signs for coming back in the morning.
Jacklyn could almost feel a solid wall of white witchcraft materialize behind her, ruling that option out.
Get Toby. Get out.
She tried the door.
It wasn't locked.
Jacklyn peered at the bright screen in her palm.
The stupid red dot was still there, somewhere way too inexact inside the building.
She looked up. Five floors of mostly dark offices with no connection to either Pantzer the nazi or his artisan sausage shop.
She took a deep breath and entered.
Jacklyn called out. No answer.
The little white dog beside her made a noise. When she looked at it, the big brown eyes seemed to say that she was crazy coming in here.
The scent of smoked meat was still overpowering. Rows of meat rods still hung over her head.
Toby must be somewhere in the back. Or in a sausage, microchip included. Maybe that was what the replacement dog was trying to tell her.
Jacklyn scrapped the last thought.
No way they would've had time to stuff a sausage with Toby and smoke him, too.
But her horsey sense wouldn't leave it alone. Something bad had happened here.
Worse, something bad was present.
She called Petra's name, almost hoping the woman would show up with her monobrow in tow.
"Fine, have it your way," she muttered. "Toby? Where are you, little guy?
If anything the shop was even more quiet now.
The red dot still did its solo disco thing on the phone's screen.
Jacklyn opened the back door Petra had used earlier.
Behind it was a staircase leading down into the darkness.
Great.
Jacklyn shuddered.
"Stay here," she told the dog.
She walked down the concrete steps, making as much noise as she could. At the bottom of the stairs, she patted an uneven brick wall searching for a light switch. Her hand found a round smooth something mounted on the wall. A switch. She flicked it.
She blinked, shielding her eyes from a row of bare bright light bulbs in the ceiling of a long cramped corridor.
The light switch must be a hundred years old. It was porcelain. Something had splattered on the brick wall a few steps further. It looked like rust.
YOU ARE READING
Shifting Life
Paranormal[COMPLETE] Magic is all about the rules. You mess up, you fix it. Or pay the price. Not that Jacklyn Morse has a choice. She's a new shape shifter paying the price for saving a notorious thief who is as hot as the supernatural loot he's stolen. To J...
