Skinwalker (18 page)

The air was hot, muggy, and heavy, as if it carried extra weight, as if lightning and tomorrow's rain infused it, waiting. I perspired in a smooth, all-over sheen and my new skirt brushed my legs and thighs with each step, the moist air swirling around me as I walked. The amethyst and chatkalite necklace and my gold nugget lay together around my neck, the stones warm. The voices and people we passed were relaxed and slow. The ambiance was heated, as if dance had already found me, as if I had slid into the rhythms and steps and was already mellow. I breathed in, sorting out the various scents.

The smell of seafood, spices, hot grease, and people filled the air. Food and liquor, exhaust and perfume, vamps and witches, drunks and fear, sex and desperation, and the scent of water. Everywhere, I was surrounded by water, the power of the Mississippi, the nearby lakes, the not-too-distant reek of swamp. The overlay of coffee with chicory, the way they brewed it here. The scent combinations were heady.

The streetlights hid as much as they revealed, like an ageing exotic dancer hiding behind fans or party balloons. Music poured from bars and restaurants, rich with jazz licks and dripping with soul. Together, it brought Beast close to the surface. I could feel her breath in the forefront of my mind, hear her heartbeat. Her pelt moved against my skin as if ready to break through.

There were a few cops on foot, their presence meant to bring a measure of security to the tourists. But the officers were nervous, each with a hand resting on gun butt, faces and eyes hyperalert, radios transmitting information to them in a steady stream. They were all twitchy.

Besides weapons and Kevlar vests, NOPD cops carried GPS tracker devices. Each had a built-in “officer panic alarm,” activated by pressing a button. If a cop pressed it, an alarm went out to dispatch, transmitting the officer's GPS location, calling for all officers to respond. And it made an awful racket, an ear-piercing
whoopwhoopwhoop
.

The devices hadn't helped the cops the rogue had killed. Had they not carried them that night? Or was the rogue so good at mind games that he took them all over before they could press a single button?

Cruising every street were media vans, local affiliates of CBS, NBC, ABC, a FOX News van with a picture of Greta Van Susteren painted on the side, even a local cable van. The reporters were looking for local color and anything they could get on the killer of cops and prostitutes—each hoping for an exclusive they could parlay into bigger ratings and increased personal fame.

Cops and reporters notwithstanding, the streets were less crowded than I expected, far more empty than the first night Beast hunted. The word about the killer vamp had done a number on the crowds. I had never been in the French Quarter on a Saturday night, but I had a feeling the bar and restaurant traffic was down. Not good. I had mental images of armed men taking to the streets in packs, searching for the rogue. Killing any unlucky, handy vamp.

Our walk ended up at the Royal Mojo Blues Company. The smell of fried food and beer and the sound of live music blasted its way into the street, the house band rocking. The RMBC had an outside dining area, a bar, food that smelled hot off the grill, and a dance floor. And the people not on the streets? They were inside. The place was packed. My feet were tapping before I reached the door. After a preliminary sniff to rule out the presence of rogue, I headed to the dance floor, losing Bliss and Rick in the crowd.

A black woman with the voice of an angel blasted a foot-stomping seventies piece by Linda Ronstadt. She was backed up by five other musicians on drums, keyboard, bass, and guitars. A selection of wind instruments rested in a rack.

Conversations merged into a background roar, with Beast picking up a few words here and there: flirting, business complaints, a drug deal taking place sotto voce between two patrons near the bar. No vamp discussions. And the only vamp scent in the joint didn't smell fresh, though it was familiar. Couples and singles were on the floor, so dancing alone wouldn't make me stand out. I flowed onto the floor, into the crowd. Into the heat and swirling smoke and started to move. I opened with a corkscrew and shifted into a
maya
. One of the courses I took between children's home/high school/teenaged misery and the freedom of RL—real life—was a year of belly dance classes. The best thing about belly dancing was the freestyle moves it added to my repertoire. On a dance floor? I smoke.

I attracted the attention of a half dozen women and they joined me on the dance floor, all of us dancing together, making a space for ourselves and crowding out the couples, at least for the moment. Men left the bar and stood in a line, watching, beer bottles in hand. The women with me shouted and hollered. Beast woke up and purred, pumping energy into the dance.

By the third number I was dancing in front of the band, buffeted by the bass speakers, sweating and dancing my heart out. It had been too long. I really love rock and roll, and the band was good, currently sounding more like Sting than Sting himself.

Three bars into a jazzed-up version of “Moon over Bourbon Street,” I caught the eye of the horn player, just joining the band. Dang if it wasn't my Joe. Rick. Holding my gaze, he picked up a sax, made a few adjustments. I'd paid no attention to his clothes when he picked me up at the door, but he was wearing a black tee, the fabric so thin it was almost translucent beneath the stage lights, and jeans so tight they molded to his body like the skin of a lover. Oh, my.

He moved to the front of the stage, a bad-boy smile on his mouth and his black hair falling forward in an Elvis curl. He took the mouthpiece between his lips in a move so sensuous it sent shivers down my spine. He started to play. For me. His fingers danced up the keys, and the mellow sound curled around me like a loving hand. So what could I do but dance for him? I moved into the camel walk—figure-eight hips—and added in a few small belly circles and belly drops. It was a come-hither song so I did a come-hither dance.

The number wasn't the three-minute, fifty-second-plus version of “Moon Over Bourbon Street” once released to radio stations. It was the live version, the male lead's voice so perfect for the lyrics it tore the heart right out of the entire dance floor. The horn added just the right pathos to a song dedicated to the life of a vampire. Empty floor space filled up fast. Sweat trickled down my spine and I undulated to the beat, a catlike move all my own. The lead singer was crooning, “The brim of my hat hides the eye of a beast,” when I heard Bliss's scream.

Muffled. Panicked.

I dropped my arms. Whirled. Tore from the floor. Dove around dancers faster than they could see. Weaving fast. Following the sound as it trailed away. Past the bar. Into the dark.

Ladies' room
. I blasted through the door. Slamming it back on its hinges. Two sets of feet in one booth, one female, one male. Vamp smell.
Blood
.

Time dilated. Slowed. Took on the texture of oiled wood, grained and patterned.

Beast rose. I ripped a stake from my turban with my right hand. Tore the large silver cross from the leather thong around my neck. Yanked the stall door open, breaking the hasp.

The vamp, wearing T-shirt and jeans, whirled. Snarled. Fangs bloodied. Bliss dropped from his arms. A slow-motion fall, like a doll, to the floor. His left hand went down, as if to catch her back to him. Her blood stained his shirt. Stained her clothes. Pumped weakly from her throat. She was pale as death.

Beast screamed in fury. I reversed the stake and lunged. Right-handed, the vamp caught my right wrist.
Not the mad one we hunt,
Beast warned.
Young. Very young.

Very young meant lack of control. Rogue of a different kind. I rammed my left forearm, powered by all my body weight, into the back of his elbow. Into the joint. His arm bent across his body. Bones snapped as the joint broke inward. He roared.

His grip fell away from my right wrist. I continued my forward motion. Slapped the cross onto the side of his neck. He screamed. Skin smoked. His left arm sliced up, vamp nails slashing. I jumped back. The cross ripped away. Blisters wept blood. The vamp reached for his neck. Giving me the opening I needed.

I reversed my right hand. Caught his injured wrist. Pulled him off balance. Toward me. Out of the stall. Away from Bliss. I twisted my body. Pulling. Stepping back. Stuck out a leg. He fell across my thigh. Hit the floor. I shoved the stake against his back. Over his heart. Thrusting deep, into his flesh. He screamed and twisted. Ripped the stake out of his flesh with the motion. Faster than I could follow, he was gone.

Time fell inward, speeding fast. The music and voices and the smell of blood crashed into me. Two bouncers filled the doorway. Still moving Beast fast, I stood straight and palmed the stake back into the turban. The silver cross on its broken thong I was stuck with. I raised both palms in the universal gesture of “I'm weaponless; please don't shoot me.” Letting them see the cross, dangling. They paused at the sight of a girl, surprise in their faces. They were clearly expecting something or someone else. Odd.

I said, “A vamp just attacked a girl. She's in trouble.” I pointed over my shoulder. When they hesitated, I said, “She's bleeding bad,” and slid between them, into the crowd that was gathering. There was nothing I could do for Bliss that the bouncers couldn't. But I could track the vamp.
Young. Very young,
Beast had thought. Young enough that he hadn't learned how to use his voice and seduction to get a meal. Young enough to be attacking girls. And not the vamp scent I had recognized when I entered.

The young vamp should have been under the power of his master, not allowed into public until he had learned control. Which sometimes took long years when they were chained to the basement wall in their master's house. Why was he free if he couldn't be trusted? Either he got away, like a zoo animal over the fence, or he was an accident.

He had to be stopped.

I breathed in, finding the scent of the vamp on the air, Bliss's blood on his clothes, bright as a signpost. He was leaving an easy trail and I had a scent marker on me, in my turban. I dove through the screaming crowd and outside.

Semper fi

I trailed the young vamp while half unwrapping my turban to retrieve Beast's travel pack. I strapped it around my waist with the extra crosses now hanging out, before re-wrapping the turban. The vamp was moving fast through the near-empty streets, showing a familiarity with the alleys and narrow passageways. He was leaving a trail so strong that I didn't need to shift to follow it.

From the travel pack, I pulled my cell phone and speed-dialed number five, the head of the vamp council. Not that I wanted to be talking to Leo Pellissier, but as council head, he had to be informed about the attack of a human by an uncontrolled vamp. The Bruiser answered.

“This is Jane Yellowrock,” I said softly, so my voice didn't carry on the still night air. “Let me speak to Leo. Vamp council business.”

“It'll have to go through me first,” Bruiser said. “Mr. Pellissier's policy. Sorry.” He didn't sound sorry.

I dodged into yet another alley. The scent of the Mississippi was fading, the slightly sour scent of Lake Pontchartrain growing. I had left the Quarter, heading north. I could smell slum close by. “Fine. I'm on the trail of a young, un-mastered vamp who just attacked a female in a bar bathroom. I'm about to finish what I started in the bar and shove a stake in him. This is the obligatory notification of a vamp hunter to the blood-master of the city.”

“Mr. Pellissier and I are on the way. Give me the location,” Bruiser said. I spotted a street sign, its pole bent in two as if a car had hit it and no one had repaired the damage. I had no idea which of the two streets I was on so I just gave Bruiser both names. “When you reach the corner, whichever direction you're coming from, follow the sharp-pointed, two-night moon.”

Bruiser said, “Say what?”

I was speaking Beast-talk. I shook my head to clear it. “Follow the moon.”

Moon different every night. Never same
, Beast thought at me. I ignored her. “I've gone two blocks. I'm getting close to his nest.”

“And how do we know that?” he asked.

I could smell him everywhere now. Couldn't tell Bruiser that. “Gotta go,” I whispered. I hit the END button, the MUTE button to kill any ring, and closed the phone, tucking it back into the travel pack. I melted into a shadow, a vacant house's wall at my back.

Beast's and my skills and strengths are different. Usually, Beast found a lair; I came back by daylight, when vamps' activity level was inhibited, going in human form for the kill. Her tracking skills were better than mine. My fighting skills were better than hers—only because I had hands to grip a stake and cross, as she often assured me.

No vamp had ever considered Beast's spoor a threat, so I didn't mind leaving her scent on vamp territory. But I was leaving human spoor on the vamp's terrain.
He
could hunt
me
now, if he wanted. Follow me home. Unless I killed him, true-dead.

I stopped and shook out my arms, stretched my neck. Wished I was wearing boots. And clothes that covered more skin. Jeans. Leather. My mail collar.
Crap.
I was dressed all wrong. I unstrapped the vamp-killer and its sheath from beneath my skirts, reached between my legs and pulled the back hem of my skirt up and tucked it into my waistband in front, making trousers. The vamp-killer I strapped back over the fabric, on the outside of my thigh, the strap holding the skirt hem in place. Uncontrolled young vamps had one thing on their minds. Dinner. Though some preferred other sites to feed from, this vamp was a neck sucker, so the extra crosses went around my neck in plain sight. I was hoping the crosses would deter him for a single, crucial instant if he attacked me and went to feed.