The Shifters

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  She stalked behind the counter and grabbed for her cell phone, started punching the speed-dial for Fiona…

  Then stopped, and forced herself to breathe.

  They didn’t believe you this morning, so what makes you think they would believe you now?

  She set the phone down, thinking.

  This time I’m going to do it right.

  Then she turned and walked to the front window, turned the Open sign to Closed, and hurried out the door.

  Chapter 3

  Caitlin hurried down the uneven cobblestone sidewalks of Royal. Air-conditioning blasted from the open doors, cooling the sidewalks enough to entice shoppers inside.

  The wind, which had been quiet for most of the day, was picking up again, warm and gusting, swirling flurries of glittering dust up from the streets.

  Bad wind, Caitlin thought again, and then was angry at herself for using the shapeshifter’s words, even though she’d said them first.

  The Eighth District New Orleans Police Department was located in the heart of the Quarter, just four blocks away from the shop, and it and the courthouse took up two square city blocks all on their own. It was, Caitlin thought, probably the most magnificent police station in the country: a massive three-tiered white-and-gray-veined marble wedding cake of a building, with grand old magnolia trees in the yard and tall black wrought-iron fences. Even in such a formal setting, the mysterious beauty of New Orleans carried the day.

  Tourists and locals alike were drawn to take rest on its sweeping marble steps, and could be found day and night, lounging back on their elbows, under the shade of blossoming magnolias, as street musicians and singers played to their captive and willing audience from the sidewalk on the other side of the street.

  Caitlin hurried up the steps, past a group of Goth teenagers watching a couple of the boys on skateboards do whatever they called those flip things on the stairs.

  Across the street, a saxophonist played a sultry version of “Georgia,” the notes enticingly full and sexy. Caitlin turned and glanced at him. The well-muscled Jamaican tipped his head to her as he played.

  She turned and hurried up the stairs.

  And on the sidewalk, concealed in his musician body, Ryder watched her, his lips wrapped around the mouthpiece of the horn.

  This is interesting, he thought, as he lowered the sax, staring at the police station. He’d known back at the shop that the indifference the Keeper had been demonstrating to his story was completely feigned. She might be distrustful of him, but she certainly believed that there was danger in the city; that had come through loud and clear in her thoughts. The focus of her concern had also been clear—her sisters above all else, which was also interesting. Ryder wondered if there had already been some kind of attack, or if she’d sensed some sort of menace, that would make her so instantly jumpy.

  But she hadn’t done the obvious thing, which would have been to run to her sisters, the other Keepers, who were, in Ryder’s experience and at least in other parts of the world, notoriously clannish. He had been counting on taking on some sweet, innocent form to make it easier to eavesdrop. A cat was always good for women—and he wouldn’t have minded curling up in Caitlin MacDonald’s lap, either.

  Instead, here she was, going straight to the police, which was not necessarily in Ryder’s best interests, not by a long shot—but it meant she knew something. And he intended to find out what.

  Beautiful as this Caitlin was—those silver eyes— she was only a means to an end. He would follow where she led only as long as it was useful, and no longer.

  He stepped into the stairwell where he’d left the unconscious street musician while he stole his form and his sax, gently deposited the sax on the step beside him, and let his own face change again.

  Inside the police department, Caitlin passed impatiently through security, gathered the belongings she’d had to send through the X-ray machine—shoes, belt, jewelry—and pulled them back on, then raced down the hall toward the Homicide Division.

  She forced herself to slow down, then stopped, hovering outside in the doorway. Seated at a prime desk in the detectives’ bullpen was her future brother-in-law, homicide detective Jagger DeFarge.

  Jagger looked like a rugged, exceptionally attractive man. In reality he was not a man at all. Caitlin had been horrified when Fiona—who had always been the steady one, the most rational sister, the one who’d fought to keep the family together ever since their parents’ deaths ten years ago—fell in love with the vampire. There was no outright ban against Keepers intermarrying with Others, but separation was part of a long tradition, and to Caitlin the idea would have seemed unnatural even if such an intermarriage hadn’t led to the long and bloody battle that had cost her parents their lives. While Others fought in the streets of New Orleans, ripping each other apart with claw and fang, Liam and Jen MacDonald had summoned all the powers they possessed to cast a circle of peace….

  The effort had killed them both.

  How could Fiona forget that? Our parents died because a few Others couldn’t keep to their own kind.

  And then there was the whole “cemetery murders” disaster. If Caitlin herself hadn’t been enmeshed in a secret and totally disastrous interspecies relationship of her own…

  But I cut it off, Caitlin told herself. And I’m never going there again. Ever.

  She forced her mind back to the problem of Jagger DeFarge.

  Jagger was a good cop, and even, Caitlin had to admit—reluctantly—to all intents and purposes a good man. In fact, he had saved her own life as well as Fiona’s when the “vampire killers” had held them hostage in a crypt.

  But she still didn’t trust him—with anything, much less her sister. Fiona deserved the best.

  Her ace in the hole was that she knew that Jagger knew he had not yet won her over, which meant he would bend over backward to help her in the hope of scoring brownie points. Which made him useful right now.

  Caitlin took a breath and stepped through the doorway. Jagger was behind his desk in the bullpen, writing some report with a scowl of concentration. But at Caitlin’s first step into the room he looked up sharply—that annoying sixth sense of a vampire—then rose to his feet instantly as he saw her with equally annoying grace, an elegance just a little too good to be real. Or human.

  Damn vampires.

  “Caitlin,” he said, and moved around his desk to her side. “Nothing wrong, I hope.” The concern in his voice was genuine; Caitlin knew he was thinking of Fiona, worried that something had happened to her.

  “No, not really,” she said ambiguously, knowing he would bite. So to speak. “I was just wondering if there had been any—” she paused, pretended to search for words “—any unusual activity in the city recently. I don’t know…a spike in crime…murders, maybe…”

  Jagger looked at her so sharply that she knew she had her answer. She felt a prickle of excitement but kept her face carefully neutral.

  “Why would you ask that?” He was all cop now, not a trace of future brother-in-law in sight.

  Caitlin put on her most innocent, spacey, younger sister frown. “I had a very bad Tarot reading this morning.” Well, it was true, wasn’t it? “I came to you because I thought you might know, and if you didn’t, I thought maybe you should know.”

  Jagger studied her, and she knew he was perplexed. That’s fine, be perplexed. But he knew she was a Keeper, and he would not be inclined to dismiss her premonitions and readings; keeping watch on the town was her job, by ancient decree, just as much as it was Fiona’s. Caitlin decided to push just a little bit harder. She let her lip tremble appealingly. “I guess I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.” She turned toward the door to go.

  Behind her, Jagger said, “As a matter of fact, there’s been a string of drug deaths. It looks like a bad batch of meth.”

  Caitlin turned slowly, and this time she studied his face. It was clear that wasn’t the whole story. “But…” she prompted.

  “But…” His
eyes fixed hers intently, and for a moment she felt guilty for manipulating him. “There’s something off about the lab reports, and it’s been bothering me.”

  “Hmm. Drugs. I didn’t see anything about drugs in the cards.” She frowned in concentration, while inside she remembered the Devil card, which had been in the center of the spread. Of all the cards, it was the strongest indicator of addiction, of dangerous substances. But she wasn’t about to say that.

  “I did get the Illusion card,” she pondered aloud. “It was prominent in the spread. Illusion often means addiction. Alcohol. Drugs.” She was improvising for Jagger’s benefit—she’d already gotten all she needed to know.

  “Well…as long as you’re on top of it, I won’t worry too much,” she concluded brightly. “I’ll see you back at the compound, I guess.”

  As she turned to go, Jagger said her name with such quiet force that she had to turn. “Cait.”

  He looked into her face, and she had to stop herself from squirming. “Please keep me informed—if you get any more signs.”

  “Oh, I will,” she assured him sweetly. “You’ll be the first to know.”

  Not, she added silently as she headed for the door.

  In the hall outside, she could barely contain her elation. She had a real clue now with the drug deaths.

  I can do this. I can figure it out on my own. I don’t need anyone at all.

  Because if whatever was going on had anything to do with drugs, she knew exactly where to go to find out.

  Chapter 4

  Bourbon Street.

  New Orleans’ most famous tourist attraction, the sleazy, noisy, rowdy, free-for-all strip that stretched fourteen blocks from Canal Street almost to Esplanade. It was closed to automobile traffic every night of the week so tourists and revelers could walk unimpeded down the rough pavement, taking in the street performers, dodging—or inviting—the bead-throwing partiers on the balconies above, dropping in through the wide-open doors of every music club, strip club, bar, souvenir shop, voodoo shop and sex toy shop along the way. Bourbon was a wild and woolly, nonstop circus of decadence and indulgence.

  Caitlin hated it.

  There were so many pleasures in New Orleans, sensual and otherwise, that were so much more complicated and rewarding than boorish Bourbon…although it did serve the purpose of keeping the more obnoxious visitors to NOLA confined in one easily avoidable part of the city.

  What fewer people knew was that Bourbon was where many of the city’s shapeshifters naturally gravitated. More obviously, it was also the drug capital of the Quarter.

  Before venturing up to Bourbon, Caitlin waited for dark, since the shifters she meant to call on rarely showed their faces before sunset. And that gave her time to go back to the shop and dress for the occasion…in a glamour.

  A glamour was one of Caitlin’s favorite spells. Not everyone could do it, but she was a quick study, and she’d had a good teacher…but she wasn’t going to think about that.

  Standing in front of a full-length mirror by the light of the moon helped but wasn’t mandatory. In a pinch, the light of a candle did nicely. What was mandatory was the relaxation, the becoming conscious of every part of her body…and then focusing particularly on the whole of her skin. She looked into the mirror and breathed slowly, keenly aware of the glow of the candlelight on her…until she began to feel the glow as photons of light, a rain of warmth over her entire body. She began to chant softly:

  “Light pass through me, no one will see me. Light pass through me, no one will see me. Light pass through me, no one will see me…”

  She chanted and stared into the mirror, focusing on the light, until the borders of her silhouette became hazy, insubstantial, until her whole body started wavering, like the warm flickering of a candle flame…until all she could see in the mirror was light.

  And then she could see the cabinet behind her, as if she was no longer there. She felt, not saw, herself smile, and said softly to herself, “Everything seen and those not seen, let me walk now in between. As I say, so mote it be!”

  She turned, invisibly, and walked toward the door.

  On Bourbon, Caitlin strode through the crowds clogging the street with no fear of the prowling pickpockets and the inevitable drunk men who would have been hitting on her, hitting hard, had she not been protected by the cloak of the glamour. She loved the power of walking invisible as the air, through the warring music blasting from the wide-open doors of the clubs: Zydeco; karaoke; slow, sultry jazz…

  The street looked, as always, like a stage set. There was something about the flatness of it, she thought—being able to see for blocks and blocks, and the balconies of revelers up above…there was a Shakespearean flavor to everything that she had to admit was appealing…especially when you were invisible.

  She was entirely unnoticed by the drunk revelers, the break-tap-dancing teenagers…the buskers holding signs advertising Huge Ass Beers To Go and the opposing signs waved by religious crazies: God Punishes All Sinners. Caitlin squeezed quickly by the sign wielders, grimacing…. Then, as she was passing a blind street musician wearing sunglasses à la Ray Charles, he stepped right in her path and bowed, a breathtakingly courtly gesture, and spoke. “Lovely lady.”

  Caitlin froze, as confused as the crowd of tourists around her, who looked around them with comic double-takes, having no idea who or what the musician was talking to, unable to even wrap their minds around the idea that he was seeing anyone at all. It could all just have been part of the show to them.

  No big surprise, Caitlin told herself. There were psychics of all kinds in NOLA—either the city drew them or actually bred them—and it wasn’t much of a stretch that a blind man would have learned to use other senses.

  But she had her own mission, so she quickly side stepped the jazzman and continued on into the crowd.

  Behind her on the sidewalk, Ryder straightened in his Ray Charles body, swept up the hat containing his tips, and followed her at a distance, tapping his cane for show.

  The glamour was a good one, he would give her that. It demonstrated as high a level of skill as unmasking him in the shop earlier that day had done. If this Keeper’s sisters were as good as she was, there was a strong Keeper presence in the city, as strong as he’d seen in any town for a long time…as strong as their parents’ had been rumored to be.

  That didn’t mean he trusted her. She had issues, this one, obviously. But she might be useful, down the line. And she was on a mission tonight—first the vampire detective, now this obvious continuance of her investigation, which, whatever it was, required a glamour. Which made it his business to investigate.

  Besides, invisible as she may have been to the others around them, for him, the view from behind wasn’t bad at all.

  Ryder was enjoying being on Bourbon again. The sights and sounds were intoxicating…neon lights in all colors and the sparkling, feathered costumes of the revelers…the long, sleek legs of the showgirls, the bright, glazed eyes of the tourists, the smells of chocolate and piña coladas….

  His impulse was to follow every impulse.

  Instead he focused and followed Caitlin.

  Caitlin weaved forward through the crowd, her jaw now clenched grimly. It was probably the influence of Halloween coming up, but it was barely nine o’clock and the partiers seemed even more out of control than usual. The drunk guy on the balcony to her right, blatantly taking camera phone shots of his girlfriend’s crotch. The college crowd on the left balcony dangling beads off the railing, shouting “Show me your tits!” and “Give me sumpin’!” to everyone passing by. The stumbling drunk bridal par ties, one group right now passing Caitlin with a sullen bride in the middle wearing a T-shirt reading I’m The Bride, Those Are The Bitches.

  And Caitlin knew it was just beginning. As the night and the bon temps rolled on, more and more people would be holding their friends up as they stumbled from one bar to the next, stopping to partake of every “Huge Ass Beer!” and Hurricane and Hand Grenade and J
ello shot offered to them. I Got Bourbon-Faced On Shit Street T-shirts were popular souvenirs for a reason. So many wasted lives—literally.

  Caitlin put on speed as she saw her goal ahead of her. The music literally rocked her as she approached; Bons Temps was one of the loudest clubs on Bourbon, and that was saying a lot.

  She stepped through the doors and saw that there was a cover band up on stage, and even at this decibel range, the musical talent was obvious; the best musicians flocked to New Orleans just as surely as they did to Nashville and L.A.

  These particular musicians, no surprise, were clearly altered: drunk, stoned, high.

  Wasted.

  The lead singer, Case, had a falsetto to rival Steve Connor and an Iggy Pop tilt to his slim hips; in his bandanna and artfully ripped T-shirt, he was a pirate who expertly twirled the mike in his fingers and charmed the female patrons with a mad and manic gleam in his eyes. The very young keyboard player, Danny, wore a Megadeth T-shirt and looked like an angel with his long, shimmering hair and beatific face…until you noticed his completely empty eyes.

  Caitlin’s stomach heaved, and she had to turn away from the stage.

  The floor was always packed at Bons Temps; no other Bourbon Street club was so crowded, so consistently. Not just because the guys were great musicians; they were, but there was a little something extra. When Case sang Aerosmith, sometimes you could swear you were looking at Steven Tyler. A Police number? It might have been that third Hurricane, but sometimes you would bet your life it was a young Sting up there singing. Eminem, Bono, Flo Rida…it was a subtle thing, but wildly effective with the drunk crowds….

  Because Case and Danny were shapeshifters. The most skilled species: shifters whose expertise was taking on different human forms.