Skinwalker (8 page)

Rick met my eyes in the dim mirror, holding up a four-inch-long crawfish as if in demonstration. His face held a hint of laughter and a warmth that claimed he was interested in me, if it was real. It had been some time since I'd seen that particular look in a man's eyes. Maybe since I met Jack when I went into the security business. Not many men wanted to date a girl who could toss them into a corner and stomp them into the dirt. I didn't need protecting and men seemed to sense that. It bothered a lot of them.

And . . . while I hadn't been a nun, I hadn't taken the dating world by storm either. I had friends who juggled several men, in and out of bed, at a time, but I was a one-man kinda woman. So far. And that man had been and gone a long time ago. I decided not to get mad about the reading. Not just yet, anyway.

To get the proper crawfish-eating protocol, I watched Rick as he broke the shell apart across the body, just above the tail, and pulled out the flesh. He ate the mouthful of seafood and then saluted me with the two pieces of mudbug shell. “Suck de head,” he said, like someone else might have said, “Cheers,” and he sucked the head part. I heard a liquid slurping. Rick smacked his lips and took another crawfish. I shrugged and broke apart the shellfish as he had, ate the meat, which turned out to be spicy with hot peppers, garlic, and onion, and beery. Good. Really good. Then I sucked the head as Rick had, and the spices exploded in my mouth.

He laughed at whatever was on my face, and said, “I forgot to tell you. The spices seem to concentrate in the head cavity.”

“No kidding,” I managed, half strangling on the potent stuff. “You forgot.”

Antoine laughed with Rick. “Dis boy been coming here for twenty year. He always done forget.”

You scare the pants offa me

After lunch, my belly distended and my instincts about Antoine squashed beneath gourmand satisfaction, Rick and I walked along the river on a concrete boardwalk. A musician, sweating in the heat, swayed slowly in a patch of shade, playing a baritone saxophone. The jazz notes were low and rolling as the nearby Mississippi, the tune soulful and plaintive. I tossed a five in the open sax case at his feet and we stood to listen. After the melody, we moved on, the musician offering us a nod and starting another tune, the deep notes following us down the walk.

The air was hot and wet and my shirt stuck to my skin like it was glued on, my jeans damp with heat; yet it was an oddly comforting feeling, like a pelt after a swim and a lazy hour in the sun. I wasn't good at social interaction; in fact, I totally sucked at it, but the presence of Rick made the afternoon feel sociable, companionable—a good-looking guy, a good meal . . . But work was work, and I figured it was an appropriate time to see if Rick LaFleur was going to be helpful in my investigation, or just a distraction. I wanted to use his local knowledge and contacts, and that superseded any interest in him in a nonbusiness way. Or so I told myself.

Trying for a light tone, I said, “So, bad boy, blight on the family name. Want to tell me why you came to my house and introduced me to Antoine's delicacies? I'm guessing it wasn't because you saw me on the street and fell head over heels in love at first sight.”

He glanced at me through the dark lenses once, and I could almost feel him thinking things through. When he stuck his thumbs into his jeans pockets, I figured he had come to a conclusion. He slanted a look at me over the tops of his glasses, his head tilted down, eyes tilted up, considering. It was a well-rehearsed gesture and it set off my play dar. The Joe was a player. The realization was surprisingly disappointing.

“I asked you to lunch to see if we could work together.” He pursed his lips, considering his words. “But something about you bothers me.”

I allowed a smile to start, letting him see a hint of derision in it, but not enough to decide if I was deriding him, or myself.

“I got to tell you, lady, you scare the pants offa me and I don't know why. And you scared Antoine. I saw it in his eyes.” He pushed his glasses back in place, hiding his expression. “
Nothing
scares Antoine.”

I kept my light tone. “Your pants are still on. Antoine's still alive. I'm unarmed. I haven't killed and eaten anyone. Around here.” I let my smile twist a bit and added, “Yet.” Rick chuckled. “So why am I scary?” I finished.

“I wish I knew. You witchy?”

“Not a witch,” I said, “no.”

“Didn't think so. You don't ”—he considered and discarded several words—“you don't
feel
like that. But lady, you're not human.” It wasn't a question. It was more in the nature of an accusation. And it hit too close to the truth.

I turned on my heel and headed back downriver. “Thanks for the invitation and for the introduction to Antoine.” I didn't thank him for the lunch because I had paid for my own.

“Hey, hey, hey. Don't run away mad.”

I turned around, walking backward down the concrete boardwalk, and pulled off my glasses so he could see my eyes. “I'm
not
running away. And I'm not mad. I'm just not the kinda gal who likes to play games. You watched my house last night, smoking a cigar, hiding on the stoop across the street.” His brows rose and he pulled off his glasses too. Which was only polite and made me see him in a slightly kinder manner. Only slightly. “You make semiaccusations and dance around questions, but you don't ask, you just prod and poke to see what I'll do. You take me to a friend who just happens to have some kinda witch magic and get him to
read
me”—I let some of the anger I felt about that show—“which just ticks me off. So, you see, I'm not mad. I just got better things to do with my time.”

“And that right there”—he raised an index finger as if making a point—“is what scares me about you.” When I stopped and cocked a brow, hands on my hips, sweating in the heat, he said, “Any other woman would have spent the next ten minutes trying to convince me she wasn't mad. Even if she was. You? You just tell me off. While you walk away. Calm and cool as all get-out. And lady, gals don't usually just walk away from me.”

My smile twisted hard and I started walking again, backward, aware of a couple sitting on a bench in the sweaty heat, close enough to hear us had they not been necking like teenagers. Not that I cared. “Macho pride?” I asked, louder, over the distance.

“Fact.”

I figured that was true. Women likely flocked to him, hovering like hummingbirds. I had noticed the glances he got at Antoine's, even from the lady cop, interested, willing. He was pretty and smooth. But I preferred up-front to a smooth player. Any day.

“I'm not most women,” I said, louder, to cover the distance now separating us.

“I know that. You kill rogue vamps for a living. Took down an entire blood-family, you and a witch and a cop. And the cop died.” I stopped walking backward. The couple looked up at the word “died” and focused on me. Blinked. Went back to business.

Rick started walking toward me, lowering his voice. “You and the witch walked out, you half dead, with that scar on your neck. But back then it was four inches wide, red and ridged, brand-new. I've seen the video. But you didn't have it when you went into the mine. I asked people who knew you.”

Damn Internet. A college kid, camping in the mountains, had spotted Molly and me coming out of the mine, into the dawn light, both blood covered, me carrying Brax, Paul Braxton, over my shoulder. Or what was left of him. A young rogue vamp had killed him.

Rick moved toward me, his steps measured, careful, as if he were approaching a wild animal. I tensed and took another step back before stopping. He slowed. Deliberately, I relaxed my fists, took a calming breath, knowing Beast was awake. She always woke when I faced any kind of threat, and I could feel her staring out through my eyes, intense and tightly gathered, ready for danger. I took a slow breath, not wanting to bring her to a killing alertness. But she had gone deadly quiet. Rick stopped directly in front of me, his eyes steady and calm. Studying me. Beast studied him back.

The camper kid had taken a short video with his digital camera when he saw two blood-saturated females walk out of the mine. He had zoomed in on my face, my peculiar amber-colored eyes seeming to glow, an effect that had been blamed on the golden sunrise. What else could it be, right? But it was Beast. And I knew she was staring through my eyes right now.

When word went out that the rogue vamp's entire blood-family had been taken down at the mine, the videographer had realized he had a moneymaker and posted the footage on YouTube. And Molly and I were famous. Yippee.

His voice a murmured burr, Rick said, “After only six months, that four-inch-wide scar is nearly gone.” His finger lifted and I watched it rise to me, not a threat, not really. Yet I tensed. He traced the scar above my collarbone, thin white lines with thinner crosshatching, evidence of claws and vamp teeth, his finger slow and delicate, as if he traced the wing feathers of a wild bird. “It travels,” he said, stepping so close I could smell the musk of the man, “more than halfway around your neck.”

He smelled wonderful. Sweaty, slightly beery, spicy, and . . . meaty. And very male. Beast was very definitely interested. But suddenly no longer in defensive mode. Heat shivered in my belly, clamping down hard.

“Something tried to rip out your throat,” he said, his fingers feather light on my skin. “Tried to suck you dry. And nearly succeeded. And you healed from it. Fast.”

I stepped back, lifting and setting down each foot, staying centered, balanced. Beast rose in me, gathered. I was on the edge—the edge of what, I wasn't certain—but something in me wanted to nip, growl, and swat the man around. Either wound him or run. So he would chase me. “Molly healed me in the cave,” I said, sticking to our lie. “She performed—”

“Not on the full moon she didn't. Your friend Molly is an okay moon witch, but her gift is as an earth witch, herbs and growing things. And dead things, which is why she went in after the blood-family with you and Paul Braxton. I did my research. She can sense dead things. Like vamps asleep in the day.” He shook his head, still moving slowly, his eyes boring into mine. Holding me still with his gaze.
Dominant behavior. Mating behavior.
Beast liked.

“No,” he said. I felt a spike of shock, as if he had heard my thoughts. But he continued, his words measured and deliberate. “She didn't heal you. Not underground, surrounded by a buncha true-dead vamps.” Yeah, this Joe had done his homework. He was
dangerous
.

I felt the move before I registered the tension in his shoulders, his hand forming a claw. To take my neck in his fist. I blocked. Right arm up. Across my body. Fist moving clockwise. My forearm slammed his arm away. One quick step to his side. My foot behind his right leg. I pushed. As he went down, I finished the move. A hard slam to his solar plexus. Maybe a full second of action. His breath whooshed out with a grunt. Pain blanched him, then flushed him.

I walked away. My heart rate hadn't even sped up.

When I looked back, Rick was rolling to his knees, holding his middle, moving as if he hurt, as if he couldn't yet catch his breath. No. Not Rick. Not a man with a name. The Joe.

He stared after me. And he laughed. The laughter hurt; I could see the pain in his face. But he laughed.
Fun
, Beast thought at me. I curled my lips. “Not really,” I murmured. “Ten bucks says he won't be back.”

Jane can't kill more-than-five bucks. But I can.
Beast shared a memory of feasting on a buck, points of his rack standing within her vision. The buck had been two hundred pounds, eighty pounds bigger than she. His blood was hot, his flesh so full of flavor it made the juices in my mouth run.

“Show-off,” I murmured to Beast. To myself. We both walked on, sharing the only kind of humor Beast and I could. Blood-sport humor.

Rick's bike was gone when I tooled out of the side garden, braids streaming out behind me, beads clicking, my head sweltering in the helmet, motor rumbling with a heavy, powerful purr. My bike is a Bitsa. Bitsa this and bitsa that. Mostly parts from two 1950 Harley-Davidson FL pan/shovel bikes, modified, not restored to showroom perfection. The bike is dark teal with an iridescent, metal-flake, pearl sheen; it has black shadows of mountain lion forelegs along the gas tank, rising from the seat, between my legs, curved claws extended as if reaching to grab the handles and take over. And in certain light, one can see minuscule flecks of ruby blood streaking the claws. It's a custom, one-of-a-kind job: the paint color, the artwork, and the bike itself.

Hunting for transportation after my last, very profitable job, had been much like hunting for food, and Beast, who seldom entered my conscious thoughts except when danger threatened, wakened when I started looking six months ago, and hung around for the entire search. My Beast had very specific opinions about vehicles. She had refused to let me buy a car or truck, and had simply spat when I showed her a minivan suitable for stakeouts. But the first time she saw the bikes, rusting and busted in a junkyard in Charlotte, North Carolina, she had approved.

Jacob, the Harley master mechanic who had worked as an engine/chassis builder in a Charlotte NASCAR shop for ten years, was more a Zen Harley priest than a mechanic. He'd not so much rebuilt Bitsa as resurrected her into the perfection only a master mechanic could envision. She was still a basic pan/shovel on the outside, but with modern updates, like a dependable, low-maintenance, quiet-running Mikuni HSR42 carburetor and hydraulic lifters; she was a dream bike. We'd had only one argument over Bitsa. Jacob had wanted to install an electronic ignition, but keys are for wimps. Bitsa had an old-fashioned kick start and always would.