Skinwalker (12 page)

I looked at sky. Little night left. I/we were far from new den, from rock she marked to find place. Far from food that did not have to be stalked. Much dead cow in cold place in den.

Refrigerator
, she thought at me.
In the freebie house.

Turning, I padded back down path.

Near dawn I stopped at edge of city, in safe place, full of shadows. Garden near house where family slept. One snored. Jane awoke, clamored to be alpha. If I did not shift, Beast would
be
all day; she would not. But bad in this hunt. I/we slid beneath plant. Crouched. Let her come. I/we shifted. Gray place like half-dark of cave swallowed me. Light and dark, lightning in storm-torn sky. Bones slid, popped. Pain cut through like a thousand knives.

Hissed. Was gone.

I lay, naked and filthy on the ground, panting, trembling like I'd been struck by lightning. A spider crawled across my foot and I shook it off. The gray place of the shift had seemed to last longer than usual this time. I had no idea what really happened when I shifted, though I had seen a digital video of it, taken by Molly not long ago, and I didn't really disappear into some other realm. I just glowed like light and shadow, like lightning in a storm cloud. I figured it might be something like quantum mechanics or physics, my cells actually moving around but not going anywhere. Something like that. It wasn't like I had anyone to ask. When I got my breath, I rolled to all fours and to my feet.

I needed calories, fast, but first I needed clothes. I pulled off the pack and unrolled my clothes. Carrying them so tightly rolled meant they were always horribly wrinkled, but it was better than going naked. I slid into jeans and tee and strapped the pack, now containing only money, cell phone, keys, and weapons—a stake, a cross, and my derringer—to my waist and slipped on the thin-soled shoes. No bra, no undies. But covered. I wrapped my long hair in a knot, out of the way. At least it always shifted back untangled. Squaring my shoulders, I moved into the dawn, out from the eaves of a house. I had no idea where I was on a map, but my cat senses said I needed to head northeast. And I needed food. My stomach growled loudly.

In the early light, I spotted a convenience store and bought a candy bar for the calories, a Coke for the caffeine energy punch, and a new tube of lipstick. I took them to the bathroom, where I cleaned up, washing my face and arms, scrubbing beneath my nails. I'd need to call a cab, and no self-respecting cabbie would stop for someone who looked as if she slept in her clothes under a bridge abutment. As soon as I was more presentable, I went back to the cashier, paid for a second candy bar and put on my best I-partied-all-night, world-weary look.

“Can you tell me where I am?”

He laughed. He was maybe eighteen, pimply chin, greasy hair, and smelled of weed and last night's beer. “You're near Lapalco Boulevard.”

“I just came from woods, a swamp, and a lake that way.” I pointed. “What's there?”

He laughed again, thinking me too much a party girl to remember where and with whom I'd spent the night. Which was what I wanted him to believe. His leer was a pain, but I could live with it. “Jean Lafitte National Historical Park? Maybe Lake Catouatchie? There's several lakes out that-away.”

I held up a five. “This is yours if you call me cab. Someone I can trust to get me back into the Quarter.”

He leaned over the counter, resting his weight on an elbow. “I'm off in a couple hours. I can take you.”

I smiled, looked him over as if interested, and shook my head. “Tempting, but I got to be at work in an hour. I need fast as well as trustworthy.”

He sighed and pulled a cell phone. “You ought to reconsider. Jobs are a dime a dozen. Good fun is a lot harder to come by, and we could have some
fun
.” I shook my head again, this time adding a rueful, regretful smile, and he punched in a number. The person who answered said, “Bluebird Cab,” so I relaxed. I might be a bit paranoid but paranoid sometimes pays off.

He pressed the phone to his ear, cutting off the sound. “It's Nelson. I'm at work, but there's this chick who needs a cab into the Quarter.” He looked at me. “You got cash? It's gonna cost you.”

I held up a ten and a twenty. “After that I'm tapped out till payday,” I lied. Too much cash might make me a mark. I didn't want to start my day having to break someone's arm.

“She's got money. Sure.” He hung up. “Five minutes. My cousin Rinaldo. He's okay. Married with five kids. Works third shift
and
drives a cab to keep 'em all fed. I tried to explain to him about birth control, but he ain't the brightest bulb, you know what I mean?” He was trying to make a joke, and laughed as if he was really funny.

I smiled and nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

He took a card from his pocket and passed it to me. “Call me next time you want to party. I got access to some stuff. You know?”

“Thanks,” I said, pointing to the card. “Put Rinaldo's number on back. Never know when I'll need a cab in the morning.” When he was done, I tucked the card in my pack and walked out the door. Minutes later, Rinaldo pulled up in a yellow cab with a large bluebird painted on the forward doors. He looked me over, waved me closer, and unlocked the doors with an automatic click. I climbed in back and gave him my address. “And I need breakfast. Drive through a fast-food place and I'll treat us both.”

Rinaldo studied me in the rearview and said, “Yo.”

I took that as a yes and lay my head back. I was exhausted.

The Joe was sitting on my front stoop when I got out of the cab. I had made arrangements with Rinaldo to pick me up in the mornings wherever I happened to find myself. Making nice with a cabdriver was always smart. I had learned the hard way that getting home on my own wasn't always easy or even feasible. And the places where I shifted back to human weren't places a cabbie would come unless you were a regular. Thinking I was the party girl my tired face and red lipstick proclaimed, he told me to be careful, call him anytime, and sped off.

I looked at the Joe and sighed. I needed a shower and a pot of tea and my bed. Not this.

“You want to tell me where you were last night?” he demanded.

“No. I don't. Get away from my door.” When he frowned, I crossed my arms and jangled my keys. “You're not my daddy, my lover, or my boss. Where I was is none of your business. I'm not in the mood for this. I'm tired and I need a shower and I'll bust your chops if I have to.
Move
.”

“I got questions.” He eased to the side and I opened the front door. He stepped in after me, fast enough that I couldn't have shut the door on him without shoving him back first.

I sighed again as he followed me to the kitchen where I turned on the kettle. “Fine. But I'm getting a shower first. You can wait.”

I closed my bedroom door and stripped, climbing into the hot shower for a personal grooming session. I didn't have much body hair, courtesy of my Cherokee blood, but what I had came back in every time I shifted, as if I had never shaved. Shifting every night made it a pain.

When I was pretty sure the kettle had been whistling for a long time, I turned off the water, pulled on a ratty T-shirt and shorts and went back to the kitchen, my wet hair soaking through the thin cloth down my back. He was at my kitchen table, sprawled out like he owned the place, his sunglasses near his left hand and his eyes on my legs as I walked to the kettle.

“I took it off the fire and poured it over the leaves,” he said.

Surprised, I lifted the plastic lid of the tea strainer and sniffed. I had left a strong Madagascar Vanilla Sunday Blend in the strainer, sitting in the teapot, waiting. And now it was ready. “Thanks,” I said, and poured it into a twelve-ounce mug, added a dollop of sugar, and stirred. “Want some?”

“I'm good.” He seemed a little less demanding than on the stoop, and after a good wash I was feeling a little more magnanimous. But I had a feeling this conversation was about to get either very physical or very full of lies. I wasn't in the mood for either.

I had eaten six Egg McMuffins and downed three Cokes, so I wasn't hungry this morning. Which was probably a good thing. When humans saw me eat, they tended to get bug-eyed at the quantity. Rinaldo had assumed I had the munchies from drug use. I hadn't told him any different.

I sat across from the Joe and sipped, thinking. I wanted to say I owed him no explanations, but he was a local, with contacts I didn't have. I could humor him. A little. “Okay. You're here. I've had my shower. I have my tea. I'm listening.”

“Where were you last night?” When I shook my head, he said, “How'd you get out of here without me seeing you?” I shook my head again, letting a smile start, and he narrowed his eyes at me. “How did you spot the camera looking into Katie's backyard?”

Oh, yeah. The camera. If he had been hoping to do Katie's security and he missed a camera that I found, that could only make him look bad. “That, I'll tell you.” I let my smile spread and lowered my eyes to the tea. “I'm good.” I sipped.

He huffed, a belligerent laugh, and let the silence grow, his eyes on me like a weight. But, in the game of waiting contests and which predator will blink first, he broke. His hostility melted in a plosive puff of breath and a faint stench of frustration. “Fine. You got ways of doing things I don't. You got the job; I didn't. But a girl was killed last night. By the rogue.”

“I know. I saw him.”

The Joe—Rick, he did have a name—sat up, gathering himself. I put down my mug, freeing my hands, and waited to see what he would do. He was wearing a T-shirt again this morning and, as his biceps bunched, the bottoms of the tats were more visible than yesterday. Definitely claws on the left arm. Something dark and fuzzy on the right arm and shoulder. I wanted to see them, but figured if I asked him to take off his shirt, he might get the wrong idea. I was so tired, I grinned without thinking.

“It isn't funny,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “I knew her.”

I held up a hand, palm out, fingers splayed to show I meant no offence, and shook my head. He settled slightly and I picked up my mug again. “I'm sorry for your loss. If it makes you feel better, I wasn't smiling about the girl.”

“You saw him kill her?”

“No. I was tracking him.” Which was the truth, except Rick would naturally think I was following by sight, not by smell. Here was where our conversation would devolve into lies, partial lies, and total lies, and where I would get tripped up if I made a mistake. “He went around a corner and I paused too long, thinking he might have seen me. He got her before I could react. He's fast. He went up the wall when he spotted me.” I watched Rick's face. He was studying mine. “Straight up. I'd always thought that thing about vamps being able to fly or climb walls was myth.”

Rick shook his head. “Only the old ones can climb like that. The real old ones.”

“And you know that how?”

“I know Katie. I asked.”

And she just answered?
I remembered Beast's first foray into the Quarter. The smell of vamps everywhere. There were a
lot
of real old ones. “I followed from the street as he ran across the rooftops.” Also truth, well, sorta. I finished off the tea and stood to pour another cup, but kept my body at an angle and Rick in my peripheral vision.

“Nobody saw you,” he said. “Cops were on the scene almost instantly.”

It sounded like an accusation again. I shrugged. He was persistent and curious. Persistent and curious people often stick their noses into things they shouldn't, and this guy looked like a prime candidate for that particular trouble. I needed to point his nose into directions useful to me, keep him where I could see him, use him, and distract him away from things I wouldn't share. “I need backup on this and I got a budget. You want the job?”

“Yes. And I want to know how you get out of here without me seeing you.”

I glanced back at him. Time for another lie. “You know the saddlebags on my bike?” I turned back to the tea. “Like that.”

He sat back, amazement crossing his face. “You know a witch who can make an invisibility charm?”

Invisibility charms were legend, not reality, so far as I knew, but enough people claimed they existed to merit the lie being taken for truth. “Not quite. But sorta. She calls it an obfuscation charm.” I added more sugar and stirred, keeping my face turned away. I didn't lie well and I knew it. “You won't see me come or go unless I'm in the mood to let you.”

He stood and came close, leaning on the counter, facing me, a little inside my personal space. “What'll I be doing if I work for you?”

I took a breath to answer and felt it stop, felt my ribs freeze in motion. I inhaled slowly then, drawing in the air. The scent. His scent. I leaned in and pulled the air near Rick through my nostrils, feeling him tense when my face passed close to his neck. I pivoted, standing behind him, leaning in. His hands fisted in shock but I couldn't stop. I opened my mouth and pulled back my lips, pulling in his scent.

It was familiar. One of the smells on the cloth Beast used to track the rogue.
This scent.
A woman's perfume, a woman's body, so faint on the vamp I had hardly noted it. The Joe—Rick—wore the same scent the rogue carried.

They had been with the same woman. With, as in
with
. How could anyone, even a human, bear to be with a sick, rotting rogue? Yet I didn't smell rogue on Rick, only the woman. So why not? Why hadn't she carried rogue stink back and forth between the two men?

I clamped down on my reaction and stepped to the table. When I set the mug on it, my fingers trembled. I made a fist to hide it. I needed privacy to analyze all this. “Today, nothing,” I said, picking up the conversation as if nothing had happened. “Tonight, I'll give you some addresses to track down, owner, renter, property owners nearby, that sorta thing.”