Skinwalker (33 page)

I called the twins, Brian and Brandon, asking about anything they might have heard, which turned out to be nothing. The five vamps had just vanished from their secret lairs. They did invite me over anytime, sounding quite interested in seeing me, which did a lot for my ego, and they tendered an invitation to a party for the city's security-specialist blood-servants, to take place at a shooting range that served beer and pizza. Networking in the city of vamps.

Online, I discovered where land deeds and real estate records were kept, and that New Orleans records were not all in one centralized place. They were in lots of different places and in various states of integrity. I could have called Rick, but there were some hands-on security tasks I couldn't delegate, especially to a guy who seemed to have his own agenda. Before leaving the house, I looked up criminal records of the missing vamps. Nada. Zilch. Their financial records were no better and no worse than the ordinary human's. Some lived on savings and investments, and some lived on credit; some had been wealthy, and some hadn't. They still had nothing in common.

Tia came over in the middle of my search with the address and map to the vamp cemetery. She was sleepy and looked drugged, but it was vamp I smelled on her, not chemicals.

I cranked up Bitsa and rode to the Orleans Parish Civil District Court, and then to the Notarial Archive Office on Poydras Street to check records and look for recent land purchases, building permits, and similar activities that involved vamps. The Notarial Archive Office had been recently painted but smelled like mold and stagnant water to my sensitive nose—maybe remnants of Hurricane Katrina. There were a lot of records to go through, all the way back to the early eighteen hundreds, and what I found didn't seem to have anything to do with my hunt.

Clan St. Martin had published a book on Mithrans, due to be released in twelve months. They had used the proceeds from the sale of a horse farm near Springhill to finance it.

Clan Arceneau was cashing in city and parish public works bonds and investing in land.

The mayor's wife, Anna, had recently purchased fourteen parcels of swampland south and west of New Orleans.

Clan Bouvier was hurting for cash, if the recent sales of
their
land was any indication.

Nothing jumped out at me and said, “Here's where the bodies are buried, who the rogue is, and where he hides.” More wasted time.

I did stumble upon the original deed to Clan Pellissier land, made to one Leonard Eugène Zacharie Pellissier, Marquis. I also discovered a deed to a graveyard that changed hands; it was the same cemetery I needed to visit tonight, privately held land, unlike human cemeteries in the area that were owned by churches or by the city. The deed to the vamp graveyard had been signed over in 1902, by Leo, to one Sabina Delgado y Aguilera. Not a vamp name I recognized, and not something I really needed to know. Altogether, a total waste of time.

I was on my way out of the building, late afternoon sunlight hitting me hard, when I ran—almost literally—into Rick LaFleur, on his way inside.

If he was surprised to see me he didn't show it, and dang if he didn't look good in jeans, T-shirt, and the same old sandals he'd worn once before. He stopped two steps below me, one knee bent, and pushed his sunglasses back on his head. “The vampire hunter,” he said, a wry tone in his voice that I couldn't interpret.

“The Joe,” I said, in the same tone. “You got that info I was looking for on land deeds?”

“Most of it. I'll bring it by. You had lunch?”

I squinted up at the sun, which was nearing the western horizon, and let a trace of amusement into my voice. “Several hours past.”

He shrugged. “Hours of a musician. Come to the club tonight. I have a solo set.” His lips turned up and his black eyes flashed in frank sexual interest. “You can dance for me again.”

I felt my blood warm at the possibilities in his gaze. “I'll think about it,” I said, walking past him to where Bitsa sat patiently in the shade. Feeling the heat of his gaze on my butt as I walked, my face warmed. “But I'm not much for being a notch on a guy's bedpost,” I said over my shoulder. “I think a player like you has enough of those.” I straddled my bike and helmeted up. “Let me know about the info.” I cranked up Bitsa and motored off, Rick visible in the rearview until I was out of sight.

I had studied the map, committing it to memory, and by sundown, I was naked, in the back garden. And Beast was ticked. Skinwalkers have the magic of sinking into the genetic structure of animals, sinking deep and changing form, from human to another, to match, exactly, the body of the other animal from the genetic structure up, copied from genetic material stored in bones, teeth, and skin of the dead.

I had been making shifts for eleven years and Beast had always hated it when I chose any shape but hers. Now, since the dream/memory of the making of Beast, I too was suddenly unhappy with the process. Itchy-uncomfortable. Okay, maybe guilty. The dream of the thievery had proved how Beast came to reside inside me, a theory I had never investigated, which made me a coward. To save my own life, I had stolen the body and soul of a living being. I knew, deep down, it was black magic—accidental, but no less dark for the lack of intent.

We—Beast and I—had learned to live together, to share her form and mine, but I was pretty sure she never forgave me for my sin of stealing her. The alliance was never easy, and when I chose another form to shift into, another animal, my fractured, doubled soul didn't survive the transition intact. Beast was buried so deeply I couldn't find her then, which meant I walked alone. When I shifted back to human, Beast always made me pay the price.

The price was even higher when I took a form that required a change of mass into something smaller or larger than Beast, because mass has to go, or come from, somewhere. The law of conservation of mass/matter held true, especially in skinwalker magic, so there was always the fear that I'd permanently lose all or part of myself or Beast when I shifted into a smaller body with a smaller brain, leaving so much behind. She hated it and always found a way to punish me.

As the sun cast golden spears across the sky, I sat on the topmost stone. It was warm, the heat comforting on my bare bottom, soothing. I opened the zipper bag containing my animal fetishes and pulled out a necklace. I set one of feathers and talons around my neck, and placed the gold nugget necklace on the boulder. It was too large for the form I chose.

I touched a talon. Closed my eyes. Relaxed. Listened to the wind, the pull of the moon, larger than a sickle, growing toward fullness, on the horizon. I listened to the beat of my heart.

I slowed the functions of my body, letting my heart rate fall, my blood pressure drop, my muscles relax, as if I were going to sleep. Knees folded, arms at my sides in the humid air, I sat on the boulders. Nothing biological would work to steal mass from—even wood had its own RNA—but stone was clean, which was why I required it. Easy to steal mass from. Easy to deposit mass. When I was forced to risk it.

Mind slowing, I sank into the feathers and talons and beak strung on the necklace. Deep inside. My consciousness fell away, all but the location of this hunt. That I set into the lining of my skin, into the deepest parts of my brain, so I wouldn't lose it when I
shifted
, when I
changed
. I dropped lower. Deeper. Into the bottomless gray world within me. And began to chant, silently,
Mass to mass, stone to stone . . . mass to mass, stone to stone . . .

The drums of memory beat a slow cadence. The smell of herbed woodsmoke came on the air. The night wind of The People's land brushed across my flesh. I sought the double helix of DNA, the inner snake lying inside the talons and feathers of the necklace. It was there, as always, deep in the cells, in the remains of soft tissue. I slipped into it, into the snake that rests in the depths of all beasts, the snake of DNA. I dropped within, like water flowing in a stream. Like snow falling, rolling down a mountainside. The gray place swarmed over me.

My breathing changed, heart rate sped. My last thought was of the animal I was to become. The Eurasian eagle owl,
Bubo bubo
. My bones slid, skin rippled. Mass shifted down, to the stone. To the rock beneath me with loud, cracking reports. Black motes of power danced along me, burning and pricking like arrows piercing deep.
Mass to mass, stone to stone.

Pain like a knife slid between muscle and bone along my spine. Wings slid out along my shoulders, metamorphosing from arms. Golden feathers, tawny, brown, sprouted. My nostrils narrowed, drawing deep, filling smaller lungs. My heart raced, a heart meant to power flight. My talons clawed across the stone.

The night came alive—everything new, intense. My ears were bombarded by sounds from everywhere. The mouse on the ground. Unaware of danger. The movement of tree leaves a hundred yards away. Chicks cheeping. Bird nest.
Food
. The house settling.

Eyes meant for the night took in everything, seeing as clearly as if the sun still shone. Light and shadow stung my vision, bright, acute. Ugly human light. I gathered myself, spread my wings, and leaped from the boulder, out over the garden. Beating the air with a five-foot wingspan, the wings of an animal that had never lived on this continent. It had been long since I flew, but the memory was stored in the snake of the bird. I wobbled, stretched into flight, caught a rising thermal, let it carry me up with less effort than beating wings alone.

I looked down, reaching into the night, finding the gold nugget on the boulder, its place in the world. Identifying it amid the grid of streets in my owl memory. My human consciousness merged with the owl's, dispersed into the cells of the
Bubo bubo
.

Hunger ripped my belly. Below, a form moved, silent in the night, four paws padding, gray striped with white. I folded my wings tight, and dove. Talons reaching, I slammed into the prey. My forward-curving talons gripped, held. My beak tore into the back of its neck, through the vertebrae. I took down the feral cat. Sitting in the shadows, I ate, ripping bloody flesh with talons and beak until my belly was full. It was always like this after the change.
Hunger
. There was little left of the cat when I was done. Feet, bones, skull.

The memory of myself, buried under my skin, began to stir.
I like cats. . . .
My human self grieved. Then memory moved. A map.
Ahhh. The hunt. For one of
them
.
I drew in the night, sounds of shouting and gunfire in the distance, foul human smells and sounds and filth of their world. Motors and engines. Cat blood. I leaped into the air. Thermals were confusing in the city, rising and falling over buildings, stirred by unexpected drafts from the river.
The river
.

I banked and found it, sparkling and whitecapped in a rising breeze.
Rain soon.
The knowledge of weather was part of a raptor's native genetic snake. I rose on the leftover heat of day, soaring high. Below me, I found the highway, a ribbon laced with moving lights crossing the river. I followed it, away from the city, along the map stored beneath my skin and in the human part of me. To the place where vampires lay their true-dead and find their healing.

We still search for absolution

From a thousand feet up, the moon silvering the night, stars shining like a million lights, the ecstasy of flight filled me. My heart beat powerfully. My wings spread wide, soaring. Air currents ruffled my flight feathers as I cruised, my belly full, joy singing in my veins.

My attention was caught by a large rat emerging from a swampy place far below. Good eating if I was hungry—good for feeding chicks. Near the wet ground, I spotted a small, whitewashed building at the end of a crushed-shell street. Curious, I half folded my wings and dropped six hundred feet. Spread them again, to circle.

Distant memories stirred. I was searching for this place. The building had no cross, but its walls were tall, its roof was vaulted, and a spiked steeple speared the sky.
Katie. Vampires.
Remembering, I dropped lower.

Narrow, arched windows were pointed at the apex—chapel windows of stained glass. But unlit. Dark. Vampire dark. The white building was made of ancient cement mixed with shells, and it glowed with the light of the moon though no lights lit the windows or the grounds.

The earth all around the chapel-that-was-not was studded with white marble crypts, family-sized mausoleums, shining in the moonlight. They studded the ground, little houses for the true-dead or the living undead. I circled down, seeing car lights drawing in from every direction. Yet here, in this ancient building, no lights burned.

I inspected it all with eyes built for the night and with hearing that missed nothing. As I dropped lower, soaring on the breeze, candlelight bloomed inside the nonchapel and brightened, shining, flickering through the arched windows, throwing muted hues of color onto the white shell walkway. The stained-glass windows were all in shades of blood—ruby, wine, burgundy, the pink of watered blood—bloody light spilling onto the ground.

A vampire stepped from the doorway, smoothing her dress. She was
old
. Her skin was the white of the full moon, her face grooved. She was dressed all in white, the toes of her shoes, her long dress, the nunlike wimple on her head, hiding her hair; her hands were pocketed beneath an apron like a vampire mother superior. A distant car purred. She stopped moving, the stillness of stone, a carved statue, fit for a graveyard. The sight of her brought me to myself.

She squared her shoulders and raised her chin as if she were going into battle, and I saw that she had black brows and a beaked nose. Mediterranean ethnicity, perhaps Greek. Not beautiful, but imposing and serene, as if she had made peace with herself and her world.