Skinwalker

CHAPTER 17 Stick a dollar in your garter?

I motored the bike across the bridge, taking the toll road back to Katie’s. Mud dried on my jeans to a crusty stiffness. My hair uncoiled from its knot and ponytail, and strands whipped in the hot wind. My stomach growled in hunger the whole way.

Outside Katie’s Ladies, the EMTs and ambulances were gone, but law enforcement types were still out in full force, blocking the street with cruisers, talking in small groups of uniformed men and a few women. Yellow crime-scene tape was stretched everywhere. I stopped the bike halfway down the block. I was carrying a perfectly legal weapon, out in public, not concealed. But the Benelli wasn’t just a gun. It was a kick-ass gun. And a violent crime had just taken place. Cops would be itchy.

Bruiser was standing apart with a uniformed cop, Jim Herbert, and a woman in plain clothes—Jodi Richoux, Katie’s contact at the New Orleans police department. Maybe Katie’s friend, though I doubted it. She looked harried. Jimmy looked ticked off. No surprise.

But Bruiser. Bruiser’s hands were on his hips, low-rise jeans tight across his butt, boot cut over brown hiking boots. T-shirt tucked in. No butt-dragging, sloppy look for this guy. Buff, muscles bulging, short brown hair. Remembering the twins, I wondered how old Bruiser was. My interest stirred, and I shoved away curiosity; it killed the cat. Feeling an interest in Leo’s favorite wasn’t smart, especially if the blood bond between them included sex.

I lifted a hand to catch his attention. He looked from me to the cops and raised his brow in question. I shook my head in a “No, I have no desire to talk to cops” gesture. I pointed to the back of Katie’s, hopped my hand up and down, as if hopping a fence and dropping down at my house. He almost grinned and nodded fractionally. I wheeled the bike around and took the long way to avoid the cops. I figured Bruiser could find his own way. It wasn’t like this was the first time he’d been there. Or the second, I thought sourly. I’d have to deal with the invasion of my home and privacy at some point. Maybe now. Beast half woke from sleepy purring. Fun . . .

I motored up to the house to find Bruiser at the front door, leaning against an iron support that held up the three-foot-deep balcony overhead. He held himself with the easy balance and readiness of the experienced martial artist, though as I pulled up, he crossed his arms and his muscles bulged. Very nice.

I pointed to the side gate, gave the bike a little gas, rolled over, and let myself in. Bruiser came after and I locked it. Should have asked him to lock it, I thought. I eased the bike into the garden and turned it off, removed the helmet, and shook out my hair. I hadn’t taken the time to braid it before I left hunting, and I watched Bruiser’s eyes follow as it fell. His scent changed, a minuscule shift. Bruiser liked long hair. A lot. “Want tea?” I asked.

“Coffee would be better,” he said, returning his gaze to my face.

“I have tea.”

He lifted one corner of his mouth and shrugged. “Tea it is then.”

He followed me to the door and I paused. No time like the present. “Let yourself in. Like you did last time”—I stepped back, giving him access to the door and lock—“when you came to snoop at the cameras.” He slanted a sharp look at me. I shrugged and added, to make sure he understood what I was saying, “And the time you came with your bloodsucking boss to wait for me in my dark house, hoping to pull some vamp crap and scare me.”

He thought about that for a moment, as the day grew even hotter and brighter and the flowers in the garden began to wilt and droop. “You angry about that?” he asked, sounding honestly curious. When I didn’t reply, he explained, “It’s part of the job as Leo’s security. You should understand that.”

“And if he told you to kill a little old lady, would you do that too?”

He thought about that, amusement lurking at the corners of his mouth. He shrugged by tilting his head to the side. “If she needed killing.”

He was serious. Ice shot through my veins. Beast crept forward. “And if she didn’t?”

“Then Leo wouldn’t want her killed.”

I snorted. It was a Beast sound, originating at the back of my throat, full of nostril movement and derision. When that was all I did, Bruiser turned and pulled a ring of keys from a pocket, chose one, and opened my door. I thought about ripping them out of his hand and feeding them to him, but why bother? His bloodsucking boss would just get more. I liked that term. Bloodsucking boss. Bet Leo would hate it when I used it on him.

Inside, I unstrapped and lay the Benelli and my helmet on the kitchen table. Followed them with gloves, neck collar, and various weapons. The crosses. As I removed steel and stakes, mud crusted off my jeans and pattered to the floor in little shushes. I could smell my sweat.

Bruiser set one hip on the table and watched as I divested myself of weapons. His eyes were hooded, but that small smile still played over his lips. He said, “Am I supposed to stick a dollar in your garter when you’re done?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. And Bruiser grinned. I set the kettle on to heat, then spooned Nilgiri Tiger Hill leaves into the strainer and set it inside the open mouth of the yellow ceramic pot. The tea was robust enough to maybe suit a coffee drinker. And it wasn’t so expensive that I’d care if I had to throw his out. I placed the teapot in the kitchen sink.

He took a chair, resting his forearms on the table. I noted that he instinctively took the seat to the side, so that window and front and side doors were within line of sight and the sun didn’t blind him. I got out mugs, a plate, spoons, and sugar, and sat at the foot of the table to his right. Second-best seating from a security standpoint.

“You want to tell me what happened this morning?” he asked.

I started to say that I heard screaming, it woke me up, and I rushed over. But I doubted that a human could have heard the screaming. I said, “I keep weird hours. I was awake, in the back garden, when I heard screaming. I grabbed a few weapons and raced over.”

“Naked.”

“What?”

“The girls said you were naked when you came through the door. Shotgun in hand. Crosses. Stakes.” A slow grin started. “Which had to be something to see.” His brow went up a notch. “Half an hour before sunrise, you were in the backyard.” Disbelief tainted the words, but so did something else. He added, softer, his smile widening, “Naked.”

“Meditating,” I said, fighting the blush that wanted to rise at the way he said “naked.” Like it was something wonderful, and he was sorry he had missed it. “On the rocks Katie got for me.”

“I heard about the rocks.”

“Did you inspect them too, while you were roaming around my house?”

“Not your house.”

My den, Beast growled, but I kept it inside. “For the moment it is. What were you looking for? Or do you just have an unnatural affection for broken cameras?” The kettle started that low hiss it does before it whistles.

He looked mildly surprised at the camera comments. Or maybe he was just surprised at me in general. “Boss wanted to know the hunter hired by the council.”

I scented the lie. It stank from his pores. And since we both knew that Leo, as head of the vamp council, had known exactly who I was before I was hired, the lie hid a secondary purpose. If I could figure it out. Silent, I considered his words. Remembering little things that had been said. Others that had not been said, but left hanging, unspoken.

I understood. Son of a gun. Leo was getting the feed from Katie’s security system. Probably everything, not just the cameras in this house. So why hadn’t he seen the rogue attack Katie this morning?

The whistle started low and rose in volume. While I thought, I stood and lifted the kettle off the flame, splashed boiling water over the teapot and into the strainer in its top, equalizing the temperature inside and out before filling the pot. I set it on the table, wrapping it in a tea cozy to keep it warm while it steeped. Bruiser’s eyebrows went up at the domestic motions. “Do you cook too?” he asked, the tone teasing. “ ’Cause any woman who does a weapon striptease, handles a Benelli like she knows how to use it, and can cook, pushes all my buttons.”

“I don’t cook,” I said, smiling when Beast showed me a stack of raw steaks. Bruiser smiled back, thinking I was flirting. Casually, while he was relaxed, I said, “Does Katie know Leo has access to her entire security system?” Bruiser went still. Gotcha. I smiled and twisted the knife a bit deeper. “Leo put a camera in Katie’s backyard. Makes sense for him to have access to all her security cameras, too.” Making a mental leap, I added, “I bet he has video from the security of all the vamps in the city. Maybe audio, too.” Bruiser’s face went hard. I unfolded the tea cozy and slipped the strainer full of leaves from the pot, setting it on the plate. Carefully, I poured tea into both mugs. “Sugar? Milk?” I asked sweetly.

After a moment he said, “Sugar,” the word clipped.

I put a heaping spoonful into each of our mugs and stirred both, the spoon making dull tinking sounds. Pushing his mug to him, I sat back with mine, letting the steam warm my face, the mug heat my fingers. “I’m not interested in vamp politics,” I murmured, watching him through slit lids, “except where it impacts my life and pocketbook. But I have a job to do, so I want answers. With cameras in place, why didn’t Leo know about the rogue vamp attack this morning until I called? And the attack on the Mearkanis master in her lair. Ming. Why didn’t he know and stop it? Unless he hopes to gain something from the deaths.” I took a chance and added, “Like worsening the schism developing in vamp politics. Like Leo’s little pals in the hood, armed to the teeth to hunt vamps.” Bruiser didn’t twitch or anything, but I could have sworn the skin tightened around his eyes. “Is Leo mounting his own rogue hunt? And if so, why?”

After a moment, Bruiser raised the mug and sipped, a delaying tactic while he thought. He was annoyed at my questions, but his expression mutated into a that-wasn’t-so-bad look at the taste of the tea. Finally, “I’ll tell you that, if you tell me how you found the cameras so fast. You didn’t even sweep for them,” he said, meaning an electronic sweep. “You just went right to them. I know. I checked the digital footage when the system told us they had gone out.”

I actually considered it, half wanting to see what he’d say when I told him I sniffed them out. But I had figured something out when he mentioned digital surveillance and a system sophisticated enough to send out notification when there were problems. I said, “No deal.”

This was Leo’s city, Leo’s people. He treated them like a feudal lord would serfs, so I wasn’t surprised he spied on them. And cameras in all the houses and lairs meant a huge system, one he checked only when there was a problem, trend, or power play. Probably not many vamps discovered the surveillance, unless they hired outside people—young outside people, independent security experts, not hundred-year-old human blood-servants—to look into safety measures. I had expected vamps to be mostly like Katie, lost in changing technology, but Leo seemed okay with modern devices, relying on them, which I figured was odd for an elder.

Then something hit me and left me feeling really stupid. “If Leo has video footage of Ming and Katie being attacked, then he knows who the rogue is. I want to see the footage.”

Bruiser shook his head. “Not in Ming’s lair. He didn’t know where she slept. That’s why it wasn’t discovered until evening, when her human servant went to check on her.” He sipped his tea, his eyes considering me over the rim. He set the mug on the table, turned it slightly in the fingers of both hands, as if making sure the handle was pointed just so. “Of the five vampires attacked, all were taken in their lairs. No footage. Katie was the only one taken in her place of business, and the rogue disabled her system before we got any footage.”

Five vamps attacked? Crap. They didn’t tell me that. “No video or pictures of him at all?” Bruiser shook his head, his eyes on me. “I saw him . . . when he attacked Katie.”

Bruiser went still, much like a vamp did. Must be the long association.

“He’s five-eleven in shoes. Long, straight black hair. Dark skin for a vamp.” I could see Bruiser cataloguing the vamps he knew, his eyes moving from one of my eyes to the other, back and forth, as I spoke. “Hawkish nose. No facial hair. Coppery skin makes him South Asian or American Indian. I’m betting AmIn. When he’s feeding, he has upper and lower fangs.” Bruiser’s eyes widened at the dual fang comment. “How many local vamps fit the description?” I asked. “And how many local vamps have disappeared in the last year or so? Beginning, say, a month before the first human victims turned up dead or disappeared?”

“Four vampires fit the description. Five if you count Ma-rio Esposito. He’s Italian, and shorter, but he’s dark skinned. None of them went missing that I know of, no vampires except the five, and of the five known dead, two were fair-haired, one was Negro, and the others were of European background, with brown hair. But I’ll ask around.”

“I’d like the security dossiers on them all.”

Bruiser smiled into his mug, a that’ll-never-happen expression. He sipped once more, put the mug down, and stood, moving with grace suited to the dance floor or a du eling ring. I edged his age up from the fifty or sixty I had given him. “Thanks for the tea. It wasn’t bad.”

“You’re welcome. The security dossiers?”

“I’ll see what I can do.” His tone said he wouldn’t put much energy into it.

“Where’d you get the key? More of Leo’s security precautions?”

“Yeah.” He stuck his hands in his pockets, pursed his lips, and looked around, as if about to say something. Instead he moved to the front door. “Lock me out.” And he was gone.

“That accomplished jack,” I said to the empty house.

I swept up the dried mud, showered, and hit the sack. I was exhausted.

A ringing phone woke me. I fumbled until I found Beast’s travel pack and unzipped it. The cell’s battery was low, emitting a warning beep even as I answered. “Yeah?”

“They’re sending Katie to ground tonight. You need to be in the cemetery before midnight.”

“I need to what?” I stretched my lids, sleep-sand cracking at the corners. It was still daylight, and I heard laughter outside, tourists chatting. “Troll?” I said to the cell.

“Katie survived the attack,” he said, his voice weary. “But Leo says she needs to go to ground. It’s a healing ceremony. I don’t know much about it. But all the Mithrans congregate at the cemetery and they . . .” His words trailed off. “They bury her.”

“And getting buried heals her?” I said, striving for sarcasm, and having to settle for disgust. Vamps creep me out. “And I have to be there why . . . ?”

“They’ve been summoned to a gathering. The older vampires will be there, all in one place.” I heard him lick his lips. Softer, he said, “Humans aren’t allowed to attend, so you have to get there early and find a place to hide.”

So I can do surveillance. Right. I checked the time on the cell and rolled to my feet. “My cell’s dying. Send one of the girls with directions.”

“Will do. And Jane? Get this guy.” His voice broke, and I realized he was grieving for his bloodsucking boss. I had a quick memory, snapshot sharp, of Troll held against the wall by the rogue’s will. “Take him out,” he said.

“Sure,” I said, uncomfortable with his emotion. How did you grieve for a piece of meat? “I’ll get him.” I plugged in the cell to charge it up and took a look at my hair. The snarl would not do for a funeral. And how was I supposed to hide from a big group of vamps who could scent-search as well as Beast? Big question and no answer. Not yet.

I spent the next few hours doing the scut work of the security and investigating business—records search and paperwork. I started out studying the boilerplate of contracts with blood-servants and the security dossiers of the five missing vamps that came by scooter messenger. Leo was willing to let me have access after all, not that there was much in them. The files had been well scoured of anything interesting beyond name, date and country of birth, and vamp bloodlines back to an original vamp sire. It was interesting to see the interconnected and twisted relationships all the way back to AD 700 in one case, but little was really useful. So far as I could tell, there was nothing linking the five missing vamps. I was wasting time.

I called the twins, Brian and Brandon, asking about anything they might have heard, which turned out to be nothing. The five vamps had just vanished from their secret lairs. They did invite me over anytime, sounding quite interested in seeing me, which did a lot for my ego, and they tendered an invitation to a party for the city’s security-specialist blood-servants, to take place at a shooting range that served beer and pizza. Networking in the city of vamps.

Online, I discovered where land deeds and real estate records were kept, and that New Orleans records were not all in one centralized place. They were in lots of different places and in various states of integrity. I could have called Rick, but there were some hands-on security tasks I couldn’t delegate, especially to a guy who seemed to have his own agenda. Before leaving the house, I looked up criminal records of the missing vamps. Nada. Zilch. Their financial records were no better and no worse than the ordinary human’s. Some lived on savings and investments, and some lived on credit; some had been wealthy, and some hadn’t. They still had nothing in common.

Tia came over in the middle of my search with the address and map to the vamp cemetery. She was sleepy and looked drugged, but it was vamp I smelled on her, not chemicals.

I cranked up Bitsa and rode to the Orleans Parish Civil District Court, and then to the Notarial Archive Office on Poydras Street to check records and look for recent land purchases, building permits, and similar activities that involved vamps. The Notarial Archive Office had been recently painted but smelled like mold and stagnant water to my sensitive nose—maybe remnants of Hurricane Katrina. There were a lot of records to go through, all the way back to the early eighteen hundreds, and what I found didn’t seem to have anything to do with my hunt.

Clan St. Martin had published a book on Mithrans, due to be released in twelve months. They had used the proceeds from the sale of a horse farm near Springhill to finance it.

Clan Arceneau was cashing in city and parish public works bonds and investing in land.

The mayor’s wife, Anna, had recently purchased fourteen parcels of swampland south and west of New Orleans.

Clan Bouvier was hurting for cash, if the recent sales of their land was any indication.

Nothing jumped out at me and said, “Here’s where the bodies are buried, who the rogue is, and where he hides.” More wasted time.

I did stumble upon the original deed to Clan Pellissier land, made to one Leonard Eugène Zacharie Pellissier, Marquis. I also discovered a deed to a graveyard that changed hands; it was the same cemetery I needed to visit tonight, privately held land, unlike human cemeteries in the area that were owned by churches or by the city. The deed to the vamp graveyard had been signed over in 1902, by Leo, to one Sabina Delgado y Aguilera. Not a vamp name I recognized, and not something I really needed to know. Altogether, a total waste of time.

I was on my way out of the building, late afternoon sunlight hitting me hard, when I ran—almost literally—into Rick LaFleur, on his way inside.

If he was surprised to see me he didn’t show it, and dang if he didn’t look good in jeans, T-shirt, and the same old sandals he’d worn once before. He stopped two steps below me, one knee bent, and pushed his sunglasses back on his head. “The vampire hunter,” he said, a wry tone in his voice that I couldn’t interpret.

“The Joe,” I said, in the same tone. “You got that info I was looking for on land deeds?”

“Most of it. I’ll bring it by. You had lunch?”

I squinted up at the sun, which was nearing the western horizon, and let a trace of amusement into my voice. “Several hours past.”

He shrugged. “Hours of a musician. Come to the club tonight. I have a solo set.” His lips turned up and his black eyes flashed in frank sexual interest. “You can dance for me again.”

I felt my blood warm at the possibilities in his gaze. “I’ll think about it,” I said, walking past him to where Bitsa sat patiently in the shade. Feeling the heat of his gaze on my butt as I walked, my face warmed. “But I’m not much for being a notch on a guy’s bedpost,” I said over my shoulder. “I think a player like you has enough of those.” I straddled my bike and helmeted up. “Let me know about the info.” I cranked up Bitsa and motored off, Rick visible in the rearview until I was out of sight.

I had studied the map, committing it to memory, and by sundown, I was naked, in the back garden. And Beast was ticked. Skinwalkers have the magic of sinking into the genetic structure of animals, sinking deep and changing form, from human to another, to match, exactly, the body of the other animal from the genetic structure up, copied from genetic material stored in bones, teeth, and skin of the dead.

I had been making shifts for eleven years and Beast had always hated it when I chose any shape but hers. Now, since the dream/memory of the making of Beast, I too was suddenly unhappy with the process. Itchy-uncomfortable. Okay, maybe guilty. The dream of the thievery had proved how Beast came to reside inside me, a theory I had never investigated, which made me a coward. To save my own life, I had stolen the body and soul of a living being. I knew, deep down, it was black magic—accidental, but no less dark for the lack of intent.

We—Beast and I—had learned to live together, to share her form and mine, but I was pretty sure she never forgave me for my sin of stealing her. The alliance was never easy, and when I chose another form to shift into, another animal, my fractured, doubled soul didn’t survive the transition intact. Beast was buried so deeply I couldn’t find her then, which meant I walked alone. When I shifted back to human, Beast always made me pay the price.

The price was even higher when I took a form that required a change of mass into something smaller or larger than Beast, because mass has to go, or come from, somewhere. The law of conservation of mass/matter held true, especially in skinwalker magic, so there was always the fear that I’d permanently lose all or part of myself or Beast when I shifted into a smaller body with a smaller brain, leaving so much behind. She hated it and always found a way to punish me.

As the sun cast golden spears across the sky, I sat on the topmost stone. It was warm, the heat comforting on my bare bottom, soothing. I opened the zipper bag containing my animal fetishes and pulled out a necklace. I set one of feathers and talons around my neck, and placed the gold nugget necklace on the boulder. It was too large for the form I chose.

I touched a talon. Closed my eyes. Relaxed. Listened to the wind, the pull of the moon, larger than a sickle, growing toward fullness, on the horizon. I listened to the beat of my heart.

I slowed the functions of my body, letting my heart rate fall, my blood pressure drop, my muscles relax, as if I were going to sleep. Knees folded, arms at my sides in the humid air, I sat on the boulders. Nothing biological would work to steal mass from—even wood had its own RNA—but stone was clean, which was why I required it. Easy to steal mass from. Easy to deposit mass. When I was forced to risk it.

Mind slowing, I sank into the feathers and talons and beak strung on the necklace. Deep inside. My consciousness fell away, all but the location of this hunt. That I set into the lining of my skin, into the deepest parts of my brain, so I wouldn’t lose it when I shifted, when I changed. I dropped lower. Deeper. Into the bottomless gray world within me. And began to chant, silently, Mass to mass, stone to stone . . . mass to mass, stone to stone . . .

The drums of memory beat a slow cadence. The smell of herbed woodsmoke came on the air. The night wind of The People’s land brushed across my flesh. I sought the double helix of DNA, the inner snake lying inside the talons and feathers of the necklace. It was there, as always, deep in the cells, in the remains of soft tissue. I slipped into it, into the snake that rests in the depths of all beasts, the snake of DNA. I dropped within, like water flowing in a stream. Like snow falling, rolling down a mountainside. The gray place swarmed over me.

My breathing changed, heart rate sped. My last thought was of the animal I was to become. The Eurasian eagle owl, Bubo bubo. My bones slid, skin rippled. Mass shifted down, to the stone. To the rock beneath me with loud, cracking reports. Black motes of power danced along me, burning and pricking like arrows piercing deep. Mass to mass, stone to stone.

Pain like a knife slid between muscle and bone along my spine. Wings slid out along my shoulders, metamorphos ing from arms. Golden feathers, tawny, brown, sprouted. My nostrils narrowed, drawing deep, filling smaller lungs. My heart raced, a heart meant to power flight. My talons clawed across the stone.

The night came alive—everything new, intense. My ears were bombarded by sounds from everywhere. The mouse on the ground. Unaware of danger. The movement of tree leaves a hundred yards away. Chicks cheeping. Bird nest. Food. The house settling.

Eyes meant for the night took in everything, seeing as clearly as if the sun still shone. Light and shadow stung my vision, bright, acute. Ugly human light. I gathered myself, spread my wings, and leaped from the boulder, out over the garden. Beating the air with a five-foot wingspan, the wings of an animal that had never lived on this continent. It had been long since I flew, but the memory was stored in the snake of the bird. I wobbled, stretched into flight, caught a rising thermal, let it carry me up with less effort than beating wings alone.

I looked down, reaching into the night, finding the gold nugget on the boulder, its place in the world. Identifying it amid the grid of streets in my owl memory. My human consciousness merged with the owl’s, dispersed into the cells of the Bubo bubo.

Hunger ripped my belly. Below, a form moved, silent in the night, four paws padding, gray striped with white. I folded my wings tight, and dove. Talons reaching, I slammed into the prey. My forward-curving talons gripped, held. My beak tore into the back of its neck, through the vertebrae. I took down the feral cat. Sitting in the shadows, I ate, ripping bloody flesh with talons and beak until my belly was full. It was always like this after the change. Hunger. There was little left of the cat when I was done. Feet, bones, skull.

The memory of myself, buried under my skin, began to stir. I like cats. . . . My human self grieved. Then memory moved. A map. Ahhh. The hunt. For one of them. I drew in the night, sounds of shouting and gunfire in the distance, foul human smells and sounds and filth of their world. Motors and engines. Cat blood. I leaped into the air. Thermals were confusing in the city, rising and falling over buildings, stirred by unexpected drafts from the river. The river.

I banked and found it, sparkling and whitecapped in a rising breeze. Rain soon. The knowledge of weather was part of a raptor’s native genetic snake. I rose on the leftover heat of day, soaring high. Below me, I found the highway, a ribbon laced with moving lights crossing the river. I followed it, away from the city, along the map stored beneath my skin and in the human part of me. To the place where vampires lay their true-dead and find their healing.