5 - of morphing

Marco left Cassie in the shuttle craft. He asked her to stay where she was, but for some reason did not trust her agreeing nod. Her listlessness had faded when he had informed her that they had arrived at Dr Glas's home, and had been replaced by ferocity. Cassie was not in any condition to take any instructions – so he locked the craft as he left.

She could well sit in there and rave, or sulk, as she wished – as long as she did not endanger Marco or herself, as he feared she would.

Marco morphed a cat and advanced on the house with all the cat's nonchalant cockiness. He had acquired the cat – a tom cat, of all things – during his time as a TV star. Morphing it certainly brought memories. He remembered how he had, during filming, clawed another actor – playing his enemy – so that the man had been forced to stitch his cheek back together. He had apologized for it, of course, but the director had loved it and kept it for the final cut. The actor had not seemed to upset, either – once the stitches healed.

Marco walked around the house, searching for an entrance. An open window would serve him nicely. A nice, plump mouse would not have been completely wrong, either.

He pushed the tom cat's mind away, but before he did so he realised something: the smell of another cat.

He turned and swaggered the other way, heading for the door. If there was a cat, there might be a cat's door. But reaching the door, he realised his mistake. Of course there might be a cat's door – but not out the front. He trotted back around, annoyed with himself, heading for the back door. There he found what he was looking for: the cat's door, and an easy entrance.

Once inside, he sat down on his haunches and sharpened his senses. The cat heard nothing close by. The inhabitant of the house was asleep, snoring rather loudly, on the top floor. The inhabitant's cat seemed to have gone out for the night. Marco's ears and nose detected no signs of anyone else. He demorphed.

On silent feet, he made his way through the house towards the main door. Without any trouble, he disabled the collection of alarms and security systems – easy enough when one had just downloaded a list of the codes from the FBI.

At leaving Cassie, he had promised her he would do nothing more than disable the alarm and go right back to fetch her, and they would face this Dr Glas together – but he had lied. Considering the mental state Cassie was in, he had decided to first explore the house, perhaps even speak to the doctor, and only then bring either information about Tanya back to Cassie in triumph, or bringCassie into the house.

He melted easily into his wolf morph, sat down on his haunches, and started sniffing.

The tom cat had been truthful: the only inhabitants were a middle-aged male human and a cat.

There was no sign of any little girl.

Of course, she was most likely adopted away somewhere. Or hidden in some clinic.

Marco demorphed and made his way upstairs to the house's master bedroom.

His anger made him quiet and careful instead of rash, so he made as little sound as the tom cat would have done when he – after trying a few doors and finding the rooms empty – located the master bedroom.

Dr Glas slept, snoring loudly but peacefully, wearing a large yellow T-shirt with the scrawled text "mY fRiENd sAw tHe HoRK-bAjir, aNd aLL I goT WaS tHIs SillY T-ShiRt". His room was in darkness, but Marco's eyes could make out enough details to tell him that it was a largely plain room, containing a bed, a nightstand, a desk with a wheeled chair, and few decorations. The book shelf was filled with what appeared to be thick text books – as had the book shelves in the home office Marco had found. The alarm clock on the nightstand was set to 7:30 AM, which meant that in another half hour, the doctor would be waking.

Marco closed the door as silently as he had opened it, retreated down the stairs, and went to retrieve Cassie, leaving the front door unlocked. Dr Glas would be in for a nasty surprise when he awoke.

The two Animorphs were sitting in the psychologist's kitchen, on the top floor, when he came there for breakfast. Sleepy-eyed, he first peered at them, without appearing alarmed that he had two uninvited visitors.

"What are you doing in my kitchen, and who are you?" he asked. After peering a moment longer – Marco sat leaned back comfortably in his chair, while Cassie had looked up with the intensity of a hunting dog spotting a rabbit – he figured out who they were. He continued in a voice like concentrated honey. "Cassie, child, why aren't you home?"

Cassie's eyes flashed. She sprang from her chair and threw herself over the table, at the doctor, hands out before her like claws. For a moment, Marco thought she would morph, for her teeth seemed to be diving for Dr Glas's throat, but then she began screeching, "Where is she? Where've you hidden her? Where? Where!?"

She hit the psychologist and they both tumbled to the floor, leaving the kitchen in a scramble, the doctor retreating and Cassie furiously and nimbly following his every attempt.

Marco took his time in rising, striding over, and – with a firm but gentle grip on her shoulders – lifting her off the psychologist. He put her down beside him, and locked an arm about her to keep her in check. She turned towards him, first fighting his grip, but then beginning to sob, and sagged against him, murmuring something about no-one helping her.

Dr Glas, who had curled reflexively into a ball with his arms up to protect his face, slowly uncurled and glanced up. He looked neither surprised nor afraid. He was a middle-aged, balding man, with round features and – at the moment – a day's beard-growth staining the pale skin of his chin and cheeks. He could have been a teacher – he had the look of one; a patient, experienced teacher who for the twentieth year in a row was given a boisterous class but knew exactly how to deal with them.

"Thank you, young man," he said softly to Marco, peering up. He had ended up half-way under his living room table.

"Don't call me 'young man'," Marco replied, his own voice soft and deep and intense, like a large dog's warning growl. "And don't thank me yet. Tell my friend what she wants to know."

"But I don't know," Dr Glas protested, without changing expression, or even blinking.

Cassie tried to tear herself free of Marco's arm, and succeeded. Marco caught her again, though, and led her away, whispering all the while in her ear. "Calm, stay here, I'll take care of this," he finished, setting her on a nearby armchair and kissing her forehead lightly before turning back to the psychologist, who was just climbing awkwardly to his feet. He made sure to do so on the other side of the table.

"I might have been gone five years, but I'm not that far behind," Marco went on. "I've found a few things out, and figured out others. None of which I like."

"Five years?" whispered Dr Glas, frowning.

"I know about Cassie's parents. I know about Ronnie. I know about that so-called hospital, with locked doors, and how you've treated my friend." He went on in a hiss: "I know about Cassie living on meds, isolated from everything. And I know about you stealing her child for your research on morphing. That, especially, annoys me. And I'm not pleasant when I'm annoyed."

Cassie sat rocking back and forth on her armchair, her arms wrapped around her knees.

Dr Glas's frown slowly faded."One moment," he spun around, andbegan to hurryaway.

Marco dove after the psychologist with the reflexes of a large cat. He caught the doctor around the neck with the nook of his arm, and basically shoved him into a wall. "Don't turn your back on me, it's not very smart," he growled, pressing his lower arm against the doctor's throat. "In fact, it's very, very stupid."

"You've misjudged a lot of things," Dr Glas tried, somewhat quickly, his voice croaking. "You've no reason to be angry with me. First of all, I've done nothing wrong, nothing but my job, and I've done it well. Secondly, the Narisburg Clinic has a reason for its locked doors. You see, our patients are –"

Marco was only half listening. The tiara was calling to him, tempted him, its song mighty and soothing. Marco felt like he was a frog in water slowly heated to the boiling point, who stayed there because it was being heated too slowly for him to react to the change. He was reminded of how he had first come in contact with the silver tiara: closed in a locked room with it. It had called him, patiently and continuously, and after enough time, he had answered, and gone to pick it up... and thus been damned.

Now, it was singing that same song – in a very different tune.

The doctor still pinned to the wall, Marco automatically put his free hand into his pocket and pulled out the tiara.

"What's that?" Dr Glas wondered, his voice still croaking but not broken.

"This," Marco growled, realising suddenly what he had in his hand, "is the embodiment of your worst nightmares. If you even think of lying any more to me, this is what you'll be facing. And then you won't be lying anymore. You'll be very truthful. Understood?"

"There's no need for threats –"

"Oh, shut up." Marco stuffed the tiara in his pocket – now that he was aware of it, he was angry enough to be able to ignore its enchanting song, which in an instant went from triumphing and rewarding to patient and coaxing. "What have you done to Cassie's child?"

"Cassie's... child?"

"And what have you done to Cassie? Why can't she morph?"

"I've done nothing –"

Marco tightened his grip on the doctor's throat. "Don't play smart with me. Tell me where Cassie's daughter is, or I'll be reading it in your spilled guts like some voodoo doctor."

The psychologist grew two shades paler – Marco relished seeing even such a small reaction from him. Still, the psychologist remained collected. "You're... the Animorph Marco, aren't you? So you've returned alive."

"What did you expect? Animorphs, you know. Bullets bounce right off us."

Dr Glas turned grave. "You don't know, do you?"

Marco shook his head. "Stop trying to divert me. Where have you hidden Tanya?"

"Tanya?"

"Cassie's daughter."

"Cassie has no daughter. I don't know –"

Dr Glas was interrupted as Marco heaved him up, away from the wall, and tossed him to the floor. "Don't lie to me," Marco spat. "Don't –"

Dr Glas, while hastily scrambling backwards and away from Marco, in his calm and business-like voice continued speaking: "She doesn't have a daughter. She only thinks she does. She's delusional. She's been that way for four years. Since Ronnie died. When they killed him, they tried to kill her too.They shot her first. She was shot, while she was pregnant, did she tell you?"

Marco only stalked ahead, not in any hurry to catch the psychologist again. While he was talking freely, he might let something slip.

"Did she tell you where they shot her? Four shots, to her belly. Four. And one in her lung, probably near her heart."

"So?"

"So how would she have survived that? Not to mention her child?"

Marco scoffed. "She's Animorph. She morphed, of course."

Dr Glas nodded, affirming, his eyes more serious than afraid. "She morphed. And what would have happened to her child when she morphed?"

Marco stopped.

"And then she woke up again... in the hospital, and human again..." Dr Glas went on, "But without the child."