The Shifters (10 page)

“So it's maintaining one host?” Ryder demanded.

“That's what I said,” Danny said.

“Who?”

“I didn't see,” Danny answered obliquely. “The entity moves. It leaves its host in suspended animation while it wanders at will.” Danny paused, drank more water—this time without gagging. “But it intends to stay. The feeding is so, so good. Irresistible.”

It was basically the same thing Ryder had said
earlier, but the sly way Danny spoke made the words chilling. Caitlin shuddered.

Ryder paced, glanced at Case. “The door is opening,” he muttered. Caitlin recognized the phrase; it was what the entity had said.

“I heard it.” Case spoke up from where he stood in a corner of the room, and Caitlin realized that as antagonistic as his tone sounded, the two of them were communicating. “And yes, it's started.”

“What's started?” Caitlin demanded.

“Samhain. The door is opening,” Danny said, and the three shapeshifters looked at each other in silent agreement.

Caitlin scrambled to comprehend. Samhain was the pagan word for Halloween, one of the holiest of holidays in the pagan calendar.

Case looked at her, and for a moment it felt as it had when he was teaching her shapeshifting ways. “At Samhain the veil between the spirit world and the ordinary world is the thinnest….” Caitlin knew that, had known that for quite a while. But she was still struggling to understand what the other three apparently already knew.

Ryder told her, “You can feel the change happening, days before. It's already started. The veil lifts. The door opens. It's the easiest time of year to shift.”

Case stared at Ryder. “That's why the urgency. Halloween. Massive party. People will be even
drunker than usual, and no one's gonna notice if people are out of control. And then the door opens… It's Bourbon Street squared.”

Ryder nodded acknowledgment at him. “We're looking at the possibility of a horde of virtual zombies on Halloween.”

All four of them were silent in the dark room, con tem plating the scenario.

Then Case's face closed and he shrugged. “No skin off my ass, dude. Just a bunch of tourists anyway. Who gives a shit if a few more of them drop dead?”

In the candlelight Caitlin saw anger on Ryder's face, quickly neutralized. “No, not your problem. On the other hand, you've got a pretty cushy deal in this city. No one looks too hard at anomalies like people turning into other people and things they're not. Anything out of bounds, you've got that vampire in the police department and the Keepers here—” he glanced at Caitlin “—keeping on top of things, solving problems under the radar.”

Caitlin felt warm from the praise and the fact that he'd actually noticed.

Ryder turned from her back to Case, and his features hardened. “But if dozens or hundreds of people drop dead over Halloween? You're talking nationwide—worldwide—attention. You really want
to see the Quarter end up a massive crime scene on national television?”

Caitlin knew exactly what he was getting at. After Katrina, the Others had had to lie low for over a year, some even leaving town, because of the massive influx of law enforcement and journalists.

Case's face was dark, no doubt as he envisioned the same scenario. “It would suck,” he acknowledged belligerently. “I'm still not seeing how it's my problem.”

Ryder shrugged. “It's not your problem. But if you're looking to save yourself some inconvenience, you and your friend there…” He glanced at Danny, who had fallen asleep like Alice's dormouse. “You might want to be on the lookout for where these things might be. If Sleeping Beauty gets any more hits, you could let me know.”

“And me,” Caitlin said quickly.

Ryder glanced at her, then back to Case. “They're going to be after the Keepers, you know. There's already been an attack on Caitlin.”

Something flickered on Case's features. Caitlin knew him too well to think it was concern, but it was still…something. He turned to her. “Told you you shouldn't be wandering around in the dark, little sister. Never know what's gonna reach out and grab you.”

He said the last while deliberately eyeing Ryder.

“I'm fine,” Caitlin muttered.

“You can brush it off if you want to, but your sisters are in danger, too,” Ryder said to her, and even as the adrenaline spiked her pulse, she admired the fact that he knew exactly what buttons to push to make
her
react, too.

Now he turned to Case again. “And the whole city's up a creek if the Keepers get taken out.”

Case shrugged, the picture of nonchalance. “We can keep an eye out—why not? No skin off my ass. Now, if you don't mind, Danny should rest.”

Ryder stepped forward and handed him a business card that seemed to have materialized from nowhere. Case took it, and the two men eyed each other.

Then Ryder turned and opened the door for Caitlin, waiting for her.

She looked toward Case. He made a courtly, mocking gesture. “Thanks for stopping by, little sister. Hope you got what you were looking for.” Again he slid a knowing look at Ryder, which made Caitlin's face burn.

Ryder was still waiting by the door. She hesitated…then stalked out.

R
yder followed Caitlin out through the dark corridor, past the bookshelves of the pagan shop. The sleepy-or-stoned clerk barely turned his head as they walked by.

Outside on the sidewalk, in the balmy night air, Ryder reached for Caitlin's arm. “I'll take you home.”

“I'll be fi—” she started.

“There's an entire swarm of malevolent entities out here looking for you, and you think you'll be fine,” he said, shaking his head. “There's an outer limit to independence, and you're it.”

She opened her mouth again, and he put his fingers
on her lips. Just that mere touch flooded her with fire, and she was as speechless as if he'd bewitched her.

“This isn't a discussion,” he said. “I'm taking you home.”

Slowly he withdrew his hand, and she turned numbly to start walking down to Royal.

He fell into step beside her, but thankfully didn't touch her; her heart was already racing. The cobblestone walks were lit by electric lamplight, and their footsteps echoed against the walls of the shops.

Ryder spoke quietly. “You should call your sisters, let them know you're all right.”

She looked at him, startled; it was the last thing she would have expected him to say. She was about to protest, but he cut her off.

“If you don't, I will. I had a hell of a time persuading Fiona to let me go after you alone, and I owe her that.”

She narrowed her eyes, then stopped under one of the electric lamps and pulled out her cell phone. She wasn't about to talk to anyone, though; instead she texted Fiona, using a code phrase the sisters had set up to let Fiona know it really was her texting, and left a message that she was all right and headed home. She clicked off the phone irritably.

“Satisfied?” Then she realized that was entirely the wrong word to use.

His smile curved, slow and sensual. He said noth
ing, but he didn't have to—the look he gave her was pure, slow, searing heat.

She started walking again, shakily, but her heart was pounding now, and other parts of her were throbbing, too. And of course the Quarter wasn't helping. It was a sublimely perfect night, warm as bathwater, and perfumed, too, lilac and lavender and sugar candles and gardenia, the soft colored lights from the closed shops, music floating down from Bourbon Street, and a soft, enticing wind.

They walked for a while in silence, passing a drunk couple dreamily entwined, a group of laughing young men crossing the street in every direction but straight. But when she started to turn on Royal, she felt Ryder touch her waist, which sent another shock wave of sensation through her.

“This way,” Ryder said beside her. He nodded his head down Dumaine Street, toward the river. Caitlin hesitated.

“I just want to take a look…feel the wind,” he said.

It could have been a ploy, but Caitlin knew what he meant. It was in the wind that she could always feel things, too. She fell into step beside him, and they started toward Jackson Square, the looming shadows of trees behind the iron bars.

“That was an unbelievably stupid thing you did, you know that,” he said without looking at her.

Caitlin knew what he was talking about, and who, and why, but she stayed stubbornly silent.

“Those two will drag you down into the dark so fast you won't know what hit you.”

“No one has to tell me,” she retorted. “They're shifters, aren't they?”

He flinched, and she was meanly glad to see the dig had hit its mark.

They crossed Poydras Street toward Café Du Monde, lit up like an Edward Hopper painting against the dark backdrop of the embankment. A saxophonist was playing outside the café patio, and Ryder dropped money in his instrument case as they passed. Then they walked up the stairs to the Moonwalk.

As soon as they reached the top of the barricade and she could see the broad, meandering curve of water, Caitlin relaxed, letting the fear and threat and strangeness of the evening recede. There was something about the river that always calmed her, settled her, made her feel at peace. Beside her, she felt the live tension in Ryder uncoiling, as well.

They walked without speaking to the railing and stopped, looking out over the water. The river lapped at the shore, and the city lights shimmered on the waves under the moon. The air was soft and warm and alive, moist like breath.

Caitlin could feel that Ryder was struggling with
something. Finally he spoke. “Why does he call you ‘little sister'?”

That wasn't what she'd been expecting him to say at all. Caitlin shook her head. “He calls me all kinds of things. It doesn't mean anything. We're not related, if that's what you're asking.”

“No, that I got,” Ryder said ironically, and Caitlin blushed, realizing he'd figured out their relationship, or ex-relationship.

“I was young,” she said defensively. “It's easy to get caught up when someone can shift and—” She stopped, mortified at what she'd just revealed.

He grinned at her. “And become anyone you want them to be?” he teased. And then he became serious. “You've got to watch the ones who don't know who they are at the core, that's all, Cait. And that's true of all men, not just shifters. You need to trust yourself to know what's right. You
can
trust yourself, you know.”

Caitlin was unbelievably uncomfortable with the conversation, not knowing what to think. “I'm supposed to trust what a shifter says about shifters?”

“You should trust yourself,” he said again, seriously. “Ask your heart.”

That's all very well coming from someone who has no heart,
she thought, but this time she didn't speak.
She didn't need him to be serious or compassionate or whatever he was being. She needed…

It was better not to think about what she was needing right now.

Suddenly she found herself being honest. “Case is a lost cause. Anyone can see that.”

“And you're the patron saint of lost causes.”

“I work with shifters, it's an occupational hazard.”

He laughed, a deep, warm, real laugh. “Fair enough.”

“But Danny…” She found herself dangerously close to tears and willed them away. “He's gifted,” she finished shortly.

“Most shifters are.” Something stole over Ryder's face, something so subtle it might just have been a shadow. But Caitlin felt a difference, something significant. His voice took on an edge. “But they can't hold the center. It's intoxicating to shift, the feel of weightlessness, the rush of being in the astral, being pure energy, completely light, more and less than human. And the power of manipulating human beings, of becoming whatever they desire, and seeing them helpless to resist you…”

His voice was far away. Caitlin felt a chill at his words, but she knew the chill was at least half excitement.

“It becomes an addiction, that power, the sensation,
all of it. And one addiction leads to another….” He trailed off, and his face hardened. “And a shifter who's opened himself too many times becomes open to all kinds of things. Including entities.”

The agony in his voice was unmistakable, and Caitlin realized that he must be talking about someone he knew, someone close. She stared into the dark water beneath her, grappled with a dozen mental questions, finally asked carefully, “Is this really a job for you? Or was there something else?” She hesitated. “Some
one
else?”

He looked at her in the dark, seeming for a moment startled…and then not. “My sister,” he said heavily. “I left home when I was just a teenager. She was much younger, and I rarely saw her. I could never stay in one place.”

His mouth quirked bitterly. “I won't lie. I haven't been a saint. I had the same demons as any shifter, and I've used all my skills in every way they can be used. I've been a terror—for women, for humans in general.”

Caitlin stared out at the reflected lights, silent, her thoughts racing. It was nothing she hadn't known about him—all the things that made him dangerous, that made her want to run from him. Still, she was shocked that he was being so open, so forthcoming. More than that, she could feel his pain, feel what was yet to come in the story.

“Little sister,” she murmured.

“Yes, my little sister.” There was such emotion on his face that his features seemed insubstantial, on the verge of shift. “While I was out raising hell all over the world, my little sister found
friends
like yours back there, and they got her started down a path that took over her life—and soul.” His voice was bitter. “I didn't know, and if I had known, I'm not sure I would have cared. I had my own poisons.”

He gripped the railing in front of them, and Caitlin was silent, letting him gather himself to continue again.

“I was lucky. A shifter who had been through the same journey that I had found me. He said I could do better with my gifts. He hired me and trained me for the work I do now—tracking, containing, casting out. And then one night I heard her…in the astral.”

His face was so haunted that Caitlin had to keep herself from reaching out, touching him…. She grasped the railing and was silent.

“I heard my sister crying…and I knew it was her, and I knew I had to go to her.” And now there were tears in his eyes, grief in his voice. “And then I heard the raging of that…thing.” The loathing seethed through his entire body. Caitlin remembered how he had leaped out of his chair when that alien voice had come through Danny, the fury on his face, the killing rage….

“I was too late. She was young, by shapeshifter terms, and her body was weak from the drugs she'd been doing. That…
entity
got into her and burned through her like wildfire. She was dead before I could get there.”

Caitlin felt a sharp stab of pain. She knew too well how it felt just to have a sister threatened. To lose one…to miss the chance of saving Fiona or Shauna… She shivered, her heart aching for him. “I'm so sorry,” she murmured. Her hands stirred on the rail, wanting to reach for him, but she kept them still.

Ryder nodded but didn't look at her. He was a mil lion miles away, staring out over the black and rippling water. So Caitlin kept her hands where they were and said nothing.