So I was thinking . . . why? If you're not moving from life to life, what's the point of the pattern of one person disappearing, one person being found?"
He nodded, sitting down on a crate some distance away. Apparently he really did want to hear the explanation. "Go on."
I was careful to avoid staring directly into his eyes; despite assurances that an alert human could probably break contact fast enough, I wasn't taking any more risks. "Then there was the whole Jerry Mansfield episode. It didn't quite fit with the others. Especially the silver dust bit.
"But it did make sense if I assumed someone got a little panicky. The Wolves certainly did. Mansfield was a quick and dirty attempt to get rid of me; it made it look like someone was out hunting Wolves, in the conventional way. Once I'd clearly weathered that threat—when Karl Weimar left my room with me still alive, in short—it was clear the quick impulse had failed. You knew who I was when I registered, and it flustered you. Here you were, still adjusting to the way this world works—and even with your ability to grab people's knowledge, I'll bet that still takes some getting used to, the changes in the world since you were last out and about—and along comes this guy with a reputation for dealing with Weird Shit. No warning. You knew you'd killed a fairly important guy already, the cops were looking for him, and if they'd gotten a whiff of the weird, well, who would they call? Jason Wood, of course.
"Naturally, you knew who and what everyone in the town was, and Mansfield made a perfect target—almost vital to the town's functioning, but wouldn't die in that all-too-telltale stony way. By the time the Wolves stopped panicking at my presence and the silver evidence, I'd be dead. Maybe. You didn't have that much to lose, since you planned on settling down here to eat anyway."
He hung his head. "I'm sorry about that. Really. But you're right, I just . . . what's your idiom? Freaked, that's it. After uncounted thousands of years, I was finally, finally free, and suddenly there you were."
"The first 'disappearance' was about due to be reported, anyway; Karl Weimar gave you the perfect chance to start confusing the trail," I continued. "Your first victim had been expected to be away for some time, so you'd had latitude. And you'd already gotten it figured out. Everyone knew you couldn't go back to the same form you had already had. And you couldn't take