Black Beast (3 page)

•◌•◌•◌•◌•

His first move in Barton was to see Karen. He didn't particularly wish to, but he knew the move was expected of him, and it would placate her and her powerful family.

Karen didn't sound surprised or pleased to hear from him but readily agreed to meet. He wondered at her distance, whether she'd taken up with another lover.

But no, she had too much to lose, too little to gain.

Also, she wouldn't dare.

Karen's domicile was above a small hobby shop called
Mystique.
Filled with power beads, healing crystals, and aromatherapy candles, it was all completely useless and all meticulously overpriced.

Finn shoved past the beaded curtains that sectioned off the back room and ascended the staircase.

Clever of her, to hide in plain sight like this.

But then, he had expected nothing less.

His thoughts then returned to the missing parts of the Pierces' file, and he frowned. Few had access to the records, and of the archivists he was the most well-known. The thought that somebody might be trying to frame him for criminal negligence had not escaped him.

The scent of candles dissipated, replaced by the electric, hazy smell of ozone. Finn couldn't smell it—at least, not as well as a shape-shifter could—but he could see the glowing particles. Swirls of shimmering mist wrapped around his wrist as he rapped sharply upon the paneled wooden surface.

The door swung open with a heavy groan, and a dark-haired woman with pale blue eyes regarded him intently before she allowed her fierce expression to relax into a close-lipped smile.

“Councilman.”

Her voice was demure—and insincere. Their relationship was not one of affection. Finn pushed past her, ignoring the mocking lightness in her tone. He was not in the mood for being ironic.

Aloud, he said, “Spare me your pleasantries.”

Karen's smile disappeared.

Satisfied for the moment, Finn scanned the room with a proprietary air. There was no furniture. The floor was covered by thick, expensive carpet, with a handful of pillows tossed about haphazardly.

He decided to remain standing since it accorded him greater dignity. Upon finishing his cursory inspection, he turned to her and demanded, “What do you know?”

A gray-winged moth circled the naked bulb overhead in drunken, lazy circles, before alighting on Karen's shoulder. She didn't appear to notice.

“Hello to you, too, my love,” she said dryly.

“Don't toy with me,” he said. “I'm not in the mood.”

“Are you ever?” Before he could respond, she said, “It's as you suspected. The Slayers are moving into the suburbs. Inner cities are getting too competitive. The cost outweighs the gain, so they are taking their business elsewhere.”

Finn cursed. “Why? Why now?”

“Our eccentricities stick out more in small towns.”

Finn took a step towards the window, keeping Karen in his line of sight. Dots of light pinpointed the thousands of human homes in Barton. They were clustered densely in the pit of the valley, and thinned out as they passed nearer to the hazy blue hills.

“You have one particular eccentric in mind.”

“Your shape-shifter. Catherine Pierce.” Karen spoke dispassionately but that couldn't quite mask her disdain. “She is in my biology class.”

Even this concession made her bristle; he knew the signs, and it amused him, to see her debase herself.

“Oh?”

“She comes from one of their so-called distinguished families. European and Moorish ancestry. One of the first shifter families to come out of Europe. A mongrel.”

Shape-shifters. Once they had been powerful—a race of fierce warriors with superhuman strengths and senses—but they had lost that edge, and become tame. Or mad.

Intermingling with humans had dulled their senses, made them less formidable, weak. There were few pure families left anymore. It was just one of the many consequences of the desegregation movement. They had become a race of half-breeds. Only the large predators had remained pure, for no other reason than that they would tear apart any human foolish enough to get too close. Their instincts were too strong.

“They have never caused problems for us before,” he mused, fishing for details. “They are not part of the insurgency. At least, not to my knowledge.”

“You don't know their daughter. She is reckless, wild. Liable to do anything.”

Finn felt the magic surrounding him stir in surprise, like a beast awakening.
Anything?
“I'll look into it.”

“Will you, Phineas?” She gave him a sharp little smile. One that said she had seen his reaction, and registered at least some of the implicit meaning behind it. “Should I be concerned?”

“Just the thrill of the hunt, darling,” he said. “Why? Jealous of a little savage?”

“Are you a vermin-lover?” She asked him, flat-out.

“I'm engaged to you, aren't I?” he retorted, with a cool smile. Revealing nothing. Revealing everything.

She unbuttoned her blouse and let it fall to the floor.

“Shut up and fuck me, Councilman.”

He was only too happy to oblige.

•◌•◌•◌•◌•

As Catherine rounded the corner she could make out the signature perfume of her human friend, Sharon. Too strong to be trace effects. Catching the scent helped abate some of the surprise when she pounced on Catherine the moment she walked through the door.

“Where the
hell
have you been?”

Sharon was a curvy girl with brown skin and hair that wasn't meant to be blonde, although it hadn't stopped her from trying. The cloying smell of bleach put her off, which was good, because beneath the chemical odors of hair dye and cheap perfume, Sharon smelled like raw meat. All humans did. And while she held her impulses rigidly in check, Catherine was grateful to her friend for rendering herself so extremely unpalatable.

Even so, shape-shifters were highly territorial and guarded their boundaries jealously. Violation of personal space could be construed as a challenge for dominance if the conditions were right.

This behavior was present in humans as well, but to a much lesser extent. Shape-shifters did not engage in nearly as much physical contact as their human counterparts, at least not naturally, and adjusting to that was an integral part of socialization.

Both Predator and Prey were bristling from the sudden assault. That brush with magic on the walk over had left her beasts feeling restless, agitated.

“What the hell?” Catherine shoved the other girl off her. Not too hard. Just enough to move her. “Boundaries, much?”

Rather than taking offense, the other girl laughed. “Fuck boundaries,” she said. “I had to listen to the Myrna Bird channel Horace Alger for the last half-hour because of your lateness, thank you very much.”

“Horatio. It's
Horatio
Alger.”

Sharon put her thumbs together and made a W with her index fingers. “Whatever.”

Catherine gave her the finger in return. These human rituals, filled with mock aggression wrapped in affection, were difficult for her to accept, and she never really felt she got them down right.

She grabbed the lanyard with her name tag from the closet and clipped it to her shirtfront. The cord was too much like a collar, and the cheap material chafed her sensitive skin. “I was late because I had to
walk
, bitch.”

“Your mom wouldn't lend you the car?”

“Not while I'm failing fucking biology, no.”

Her eyes landed on the toppling mountain of books beside the register and she groaned.

“You couldn't have started without me?”

“What are you talking about? I totally did.”

“Could you
be
more lazy?”

“Hey, don't go there,” said Sharon. “That's racist.”

Catherine allowed her gaze to say what she thought of that. And if a little bit of Predator happened to slip through the barriers she couldn't be faulted.

The Predator in question was a mountain lion. The intensity of its gaze could be a bit much, especially when the subliminal message was, “I could eat you.”

“You know I can't listen and work at the same time.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She's so distracting.”

“So's a cell phone,” Catherine shot back.

She would have bet all of this week's gas money that Sharon had spent the duration of the lecture texting beneath the desk instead of pricing the books.

The little used bookstore where they worked was situated next to the library and entirely nonprofit, kept running on the donations of the town. All the proceeds went to maintaining the library and paying its employees.