The Shifters (15 page)

Her heart was pounding crazily, but quietly, quietly, she eased the door open….

The room was richly paneled and wallpapered, with a triple mirror on one side and dressing screens in two corners. Racks of period clothing lined the walls in tiers going all the way up to the ceiling.

Caitlin saw her own self reflected three times in the triple mirror…and a body sprawled on the floor to the side of her.

She turned quickly toward it—and gasped in shock.

Crouched over the body was the vampire Banjo Marks. He had been invisible in the mirrors.

He looked equally startled to see her, and she realized that the illusion of the glamour had vanished when she confronted herself in the mirror.

To Caitlin's horror, the gaunt and jittery vampire was brandishing a long, gleaming knife. And the body before him was recognizable by its elegant purple coat: Armand St. Pierre.

For a moment Caitlin thought the shapeshifter was dead, he was so still and pale. Then she caught the faintest sign of breath, his chest rising weakly.

“What are you doing?” she demanded of Banjo.

“It's St. Pierre. I've caught him.” The vampire's features were coarsening with the onset of blood lust; his fangs were already extended and gleaming white in the dim room.

Caitlin realized she had to act quickly as he raised the knife.

“Banjo, no!” she cried out.

“This creature killed the werewolf. He nearly killed you.” The vampire's eyes were red with excitement and quite probably something else.

“That was the walk-in, not Armand. Armand was possessed.”

She had the strong feeling that the walk-in had left the body; Armand's crumpled form looked like the mere shell of a human being.

“I think…the walk-in is gone,” she said carefully.

“I'm not taking that chance.” The vampire raised the knife again.

“But it's Armand!”

She realized that on one level—on the main level—Banjo didn't care at all. In fact, the death of the shapeshifter would create a shake-up in the Council, and Banjo had had political aspirations for some time, though they'd so far gone unsatisfied, as no one trusted the unpredictable vampire. Armand St. Pierre's death would be a boon for Banjo, and that made the situation even more volatile.

She quickly calculated her options. Shapeshifters' bodies were not immortal, not in any way. They had no peculiar strengths; they were bound by the limitations of the body type and frame they had been born with. Shifting did not endow them with extra strength or powers, only the illusion of a different shape. If Banjo stabbed Armand or cut his throat, then Armand was dead; there was no mitigating the action.

Caitlin's heart was beating wildly, but she kept her voice supremely calm, even nonchalant.

“Banjo, wouldn't it be better to let the Council decide?” Quickly appealing to his political aspirations, she added, “I know it's tiresome. But you know the Council. All their rules and protocols. You know how they are about anyone from one Community disciplining someone from another.”

“The interloper must die!” Banjo snarled, fangs bared.

“Agreed,” Caitlin said, her voice hard. “But I have more jurisdiction than you do here. Let me do it,” she said, now coaxing. “So there will be no…unpleasantness for you in the happy event that you are called to serve.”

Even through whatever drugged state Banjo was in, he understood her meaning, and she could feel him wavering. She took a chance and advanced slowly, carefully, toward him.

She raised her hand just as carefully—turned it over, palm up, inviting him to give her the knife.

 

Outside in the hall, Ryder hovered, listening, in an agony of indecision. His instinct was to charge the room, disarm the vampire. But he could just see around the door and knew Caitlin was handling Banjo perfectly, that she might actually get the knife from him.

He had to trust her. So he waited, breath suspended….

Inside the costume room, Banjo shifted on his feet, muttering darkly, “The Council meddles where it has no business being….”

“It's intolerable,” Caitlin agreed. He was just on the verge. She put her fingers lightly on his wrist. “But your time will come….”

Banjo relaxed his grip on the knife handle, and Caitlin deftly slipped the weapon from his hand.

Ryder seized the moment and burst into the room. Banjo whirled to face him, fangs elongating.

Ryder took in Armand's motionless body on the floor and followed Caitlin's lead, turning to Banjo with feigned surprise and admiration. “Excellent work—you've incapacitated him.”

He saw Caitlin's eyes widen, saw that she understood.

“Banjo was brilliant,” she enthused, her eyes begging Ryder to play along. “I just got here. He already had Armand completely subdued.”

Hopped up as he was, Banjo was soaking up the praise. But his blood lust was still driving him. “The shifter is here now. Surely between a shifter and the Keeper of the shifters, this enemy can and should be dispatched for the sake of the Community.”

Ryder knelt quickly by Armand's side and took the older shapeshifter's head in his hands, manipulating his head and neck, feigning expertise.

“It's my strong opinion that the walk-in has left this host,” he announced.

Banjo's red-tinged eyes narrowed. “He could be faking,” the vampire pointed out sullenly.

“True,” Ryder acknowledged. “But the walk-in has had ample opportunity to overpower—” he hesitated so briefly that only Caitlin was aware that he had
paused “—the Keeper, and he has not done so. I believe the entity has departed, and St. Pierre may be in need of medical assistance. We should inform the Council.”

Caitlin stepped in quickly, with a cold look at Ryder. “It's Banjo's right to inform the Council.” Her voice was dismissive. She turned to Banjo with feigned deference. “You were the one who over powered him, after all.”

Ryder admired her insight—enticing Banjo to leave by offering the potential of political gain.

Banjo pulled his gaunt frame up arrogantly. “I will inform the Council.” He brushed past Ryder, his movements as dismissive as Caitlin's tone had been.

As soon as he was out the door, Caitlin was turning to Ryder, whispering, “Thank you.”

Ryder looked down at her and also spoke quietly. Vampires were notoriously keen of hearing. “
You
did it, Caitlin. You handled him brilliantly.”

Their eyes held…and then Caitlin glanced anxiously toward St. Pierre's supine body.

Ryder dropped back onto a knee beside him.

“Is he all right?” Caitlin knelt, too.

“His system has had a huge shock.” Ryder used his fingers to lift Armand's eyelids. “Abnormal eye movement,” he said. “Shallow breathing. And I noticed tremors before.”

He took Armand's hand and dug a thumbnail in to the flesh at the base of his palm. Armand didn't move.

“No response to pain,” Ryder said grimly. “This looks like coma.”

“Are you a doctor, too?” Caitlin asked, suddenly curious.

Ryder smiled slightly. “Hardly. But there's not always a shifter doctor around when you need one. I've picked up some skills. Do you have one?”

He meant a shifter-doctor, Caitlin knew. She felt herself bristling, indignant and proud. “Of course we do.”

“Then we should get him. Or her,” Ryder said. “And DeFarge, too. Armand will have to be guarded.” He doubted the walk-in would return to this host, but it couldn't be ruled out.

“But Banjo—” Caitlin started, and then realized that if Banjo had actually gone straight to the Council, the room where they now stood would have been mobbed by now, Jagger, Fiona and Shauna most likely leading the pack. But the hall outside sounded empty as a tomb.

Banjo must have stopped for a little pick-me-up.

Caitlin instantly reached for her cell phone—not the easiest task, since she had put it, along with a few other essentials like lip gloss, in a garter pouch that Rosalyn had designed for costumed occasions. As
she bent to raise her skirt, fumbling through yards and yards of silky gown, Ryder raised an eyebrow provocatively.

“While I would love to oblige, this hardly seems the time.”

“Oh, shut up,” Caitlin mumbled, reddening. She unstrapped the garter pouch and shook her skirts down, removed the cell phone and quickly started texting Fiona, Jagger and Shauna, with a 911 code in front.

Ryder stood and stepped up behind Caitlin, putting his hands on her hips as she texted, bending to put his lips close to her ear. “I would have thought you could just send a psychic message by now.”

When she felt his breath in her ear, Caitlin's thumbs on the keypad slowed down as she tried to finish the text.

“I can teach you,” he added, his lips brushing her earlobe. “If you're interested…”

Caitlin sent the text and pulled away from him.

“Thanks, but I
like
cell phones.”

“Caitlin,” Ryder said, and reached for her.

She evaded him.

“Stop it. We need a doctor. We have to…tend to Armand,” she said, feeling feverish and defensive.

“I know, I—look, I'll behave.”

She wavered.

He looked down for a moment at Armand's body,
and, ever mercurial, as was his tribe, there was suddenly nothing light or joking about him. “Caitlin, this isn't good. Armand is a seasoned, highly skilled shifter. For him to have been possessed like that…not to have been able to fend off the walk-in—it makes the danger so much worse than I had guessed.”

Caitlin felt her heart plunging at the gravity of his tone, his words.

“And for this entity to have even attempted to possess a two-century-old Other…much less have been successful at it, and then successful in
masking
the possession…” He trailed off bleakly. “It speaks of a purpose and a focus and an ability that I don't even want to think about. It means all your Communities are in peril. Everyone.”

He met her eyes and held her gaze.

Mouth dry, she spoke. “Do we tell them?”

He looked at her gravely. “This is your city. What do you think?”

She was overcome that he had asked, that he trust ed her, that he was counting on her. And she knew too well from past experience that if they revealed too much, there was a big chance of causing a panic that would worsen the situation, heighten the danger and paranoia and hair-trigger reactions of the different species of Others. She started to pace as she spoke, thinking it out. “Is there any way of…feeling
the entity approach? Recognizing the onslaught of possession?”

Ryder tensed, thinking, and then—as she had been afraid he would—he shook his head slowly. “They come from the astral, so there's no warning and no physical defense.”

“What about a psychic defense?”

“Maybe,” he said, but she could see the doubt in his face. “But if Armand was unable to defend himself, and none of us recognized the entity in him, then it was so perfectly masked that I don't know if there's any way to fend it off.”

Caitlin glanced toward Armand and shivered, but she forced herself to stay focused on the problem. “You said that drugs and alcohol make humans more vulnerable to possession.”

“And all kinds of psychic attack,” Ryder agreed. “So all the Others need to do what they can to protect themselves psychically.”

“Then that's what we need to tell them,” Caitlin said. There were just as many Others who craved a high as there were humans, Case and Danny and Banjo Marks being prime examples. So at least avoiding alcohol and other mind-and-body-altering substances was something that Others could do to avoid attack. And there were also Others who practiced esoteric healing, who prayed to the gods of their
choice for protection, who could summon their own spiritual strength to repel evil.

“I agree,” Ryder said, and she wondered if he'd been reading her thoughts or just knew how her mind worked.

Before either of them could say anything else, there was a pounding of footsteps in the corridor, and a second later Jagger burst through the door, followed by Fiona, Shauna and the shifter-doctor, Sa mid ha—an Indian with a Scottish-tinged accent, short, slim, butch, and frighteningly good at her job. She took one look at Armand and was instantly crossing to kneel beside him on the floor.

“The danger is that hundreds of Others will be in habited,” Jagger was saying. “Imagine the whole city overrun by Others who have been possessed. Raging entities with the powers of shifters, vampires and weres…”

Caitlin's heart began pounding wildly, charged with adrenaline at the thought of hundreds of creatures like the one that had attacked her, loose on the city.

“A massacre…” she whispered.

J
agger, Fiona, Caitlin, Shauna and Ryder now stood at the head of the banquet room, in front of the assembled and restive Others. They had left Armand in Samidha's capable hands.

“It appears to be a coma,” Caitlin told the Council. “Armand is alive, but his body was ravaged by the possession.”

Murmurs spread throughout the crowd.

She held up a hand, and was surprised to see there was still blood on her arm from the attack of the cat demon. She pulled her eyes away from the red streaks and looked out over the crowd. “So with the death of Louis Grenville yesterday and the possession
of Armand this evening, it's clear these entities, the walk-ins, are not only attacking humans but Others.”

“But not vampires,” Mateas Grenard said, and there was a murmur from the vampire contingent.

Jagger stepped forward sharply. “Do you know that for sure? I don't.”

Grenard shifted sullenly from foot to foot. “So what are you suggesting we do?”

Now Fiona spoke. “All the Communities should be on full alert. You must spread the word to your constituencies of the danger of potentially hazardous behavior, such as drug and alcohol abuse….”

“And use your own traditions of protection to repel possession,” Shauna added. “Charms, candles, rituals—use the ancient wisdom.”

“It's simple. Stay off the streets and let the entities take humans instead,” Mateas Grenard said loudly.

Jagger stepped forward to take control. “First things first. Tonight we go home and inform our Communities of the danger as quickly as possible. Everyone needs to know about the threat, and we need to urge our own to report any suspicious behavior, illnesses, deaths or disappearances in the last week. Then we meet again tomorrow morning, early, to share what we've learned and make a plan for tomorrow night. At Underworld,” he finished, naming a jazz club owned by the vampire David Du
Lac. “At 9:00 a.m.” Jagger shot a glance at David to confirm, and David nodded.

“Go, then. Go quickly,” Jagger said. “And take care.”

 

The wind snaked through the magnolia trees in the MacDonald sisters' garden, rustling the waxy leaves, casting pointillist shadows on the bricks of the courtyard below.

Inside the great room, Jagger DeFarge stood in front of the fireplace.

“You three are not going anywhere. Period,” he said to the sisters.

Ryder stood against the opposite wall, radiating silent and infuriatingly male solidarity.

Jagger was immediately besieged by three angry Keepers. Fiona set the coffeepot she was holding down on the table with a crash. Shauna whirled from her restless pacing before the picture window. Caitlin jumped up from the high-backed chair where Fiona had insisted she plant herself after she'd cleaned out the scratch wounds on Caitlin's back and arms with antiseptic, antibiotic and a supercharged energetic healing powder.

And all three sisters' voices overlapped in protest.

“You can't tell us what to do, Jag, this is our
job.”

“I think we're perfectly capable of making what
ever decisions we have to make for the sake of our own Communities.”

“Are you seriously trying to keep us out of this?
Seriously?
”

“Fiona,” Jagger said, and to Caitlin's fury, just that was enough for Fiona to stop midsentence and hesitate, waiting. “We can't risk you. The
city
can't risk you,” he said, including the other two sisters in his gaze. “Think of everything your parents worked for—died for. We can't jeopardize that.”

“What makes you think
you
can handle it?” Caitlin stormed.

“Caitlin…” Fiona said.

“This is a metaphysical problem,” Ryder said. “What ever happens out there, whatever we can do on the street, that's putting a Band-Aid on the problem. What we need is a metaphysical solution. And that's your job.”

“Yes,” Fiona said slowly. “You're right.”

Shauna frowned but said nothing.

Caitlin felt herself blazing. “You're just trying to
protect
us. We don't need protecting.”

“But the city does,” Jagger said.

Ryder nodded terse agreement. “We need to find the lead entity. If we cut off the head of this beast, the others will have nothing to coalesce around. But the rest of the entities will still have to be banished and
kept out
of the city, or they'll remain and continue
to feed. They're mindless and will take whatever's in front of them.”

“You're talking about casting a circle,” Shauna said, realization in her eyes.

“A circle big enough to surround the city,” Fiona finished. There was excitement in her voice—and doubt, as well.

Caitlin understood what her sisters were saying. A circle of protection could be cast around a person, a house or a building. What Ryder was suggesting was a circle to protect the entire city. It was an immense undertaking.

“The whole city…” Shauna frowned, clearly having the same misgivings as Caitlin.

“If all the Communities work together…” Fiona answered, thinking.

“It's not going to help until we get the leader,” Caitlin's voice was hard. “And if it's so interested in me, then I'm the one who should be out there drawing it out.”

“
No
.” The other four all spoke at once.

Fiona and Jagger exchanged glances that said as clearly as if they had spoken aloud, “
I'll handle her,
” and “
Thank you
.”

“Caitlin, we can't do a circle without your help. It makes more sense for you to stay and work with us on that,” Fiona said patiently.

“August will be here shortly, and I've already
posted several alphas at various points of the compound,” Jagger said. “The sooner there's a plan for a circle or whatever form of protection you three can devise, the better.”

“We'll be checking in regularly,” Ryder said, and without another word, the men turned and walked out into the garden.

Caitlin turned on Fiona. “Don't you see what they're trying to do, keeping us here? It's
our
city. We're the Keepers. We can't just stay here, and you can't make that decision for all of us.”

She ran for the door, wincing at the sharp pain from the scratches in her back as she twisted the door knob and ignoring Fiona's sharp, “Cait, no!”

The garden was windy and shadowed in the moonlight, magnolia leaves trembling, the breeze misting water from the fountain, as Caitlin burst out the door and followed the men across the bricks of the garden, livid. “You can't just leave us here.”

“Watch,” Ryder said, without looking back at her.

Jagger was more placating. “Caitlin, the entity has attacked you. You've dreamed it's after you. It told you flat out through your friend that it wants you, and it's just as likely your sisters are in equal danger. I'm not risking that. No one else is, either.”

They had reached the front gate, and Jagger
opened it. Caitlin kept walking, fully intending to leave with them.
Just try to stop me.

Ryder stopped in the gateway, towering over her, blocking her with his considerable frame. Caitlin dodged left, trying to get around him. He picked her up by the waist and, as she struggled in his hands, walked forward and set her down beside the fountain. With his hands still firmly around her waist, he pulled her hips forward into his and bent to kiss her, hot, slow, carnivorous. He straightened slowly, and she opened her eyes, heart racing….

And then he was gone and on the other side of the gate, a folding trick she had only seen once in her en tire life.

Caitlin was momentarily stunned; then she charged the gate, but Ryder slammed it shut, whipped a key from his pocket and touched it to the lock. One of those charmed skeleton keys. Caitlin threw herself at the gate and pulled at it, but it was locked solid.

She turned and ran for the fountain, where she scrabbled along the bottom of the rim to find the hidden spare key. She hurried back to the gate and tried the key, but it wouldn't turn for anything, and the gate was as immoveable as if it had been soldered shut.

She kicked the gate, pounded on the bars…but Jagger and Ryder were long gone.

“Damn you both!” She finally leaned against the
bars of the gate, breathing hard, spent. She could feel the scratches in her back burning, blood seeping again.

How dare they?
The bars of the gate only added to the feeling that she—they—were under house arrest.
Metaphysical problem my ass
.

She wasn't just furious but humiliated. It wasn't entirely true anymore that this was her responsibility, that she was the Keeper by right and duty who must oversee the repelling of this attack. All the Communities were involved now, even the vampires.

But still…

It was more her purview and charge than anyone else's, being that Ryder, their main source of in formation, was a shifter, the most recent victim was a shifter, and it was Danny, another shifter, through whom they had contacted the lead walk-in.

That makes it a shapeshifter case, and that makes it mine.

She felt the sudden sense of a presence, then heard a step behind her, and whirled around…to see one of the were guards who'd accompanied them home from the restaurant.

“Ms. MacDonald, let me take you inside,” the young buck said, politely enough for a wolf, but there was no mistaking that this was not a request.

Caitlin narrowed her eyes.
All right, fine. I'll play along.

She turned to the were, shrugged and smiled. “Yes, let's go.”

 

Inside her own wing, Caitlin locked the door and breathed in deeply. She'd begged an hour for a shower and a nap, pleading exhaustion from her wounds, and although she could see Fiona's deep suspicion of her sudden compliance, she wasn't entirely faking; she
had
lost some blood, and the adrenaline crash from the attack and its aftermath was making her shaky.

Although food was the last thing on her mind, she knew some protein wouldn't hurt. After all, she had a long night ahead of her. She started for her private kitchen, then stopped.

The light-headedness she was experiencing would make an invisibility glamour that much easier to conjure. A glamour worked better on an empty stomach. And invisibility was her ticket out.

The MacDonald family had owned the compound for three generations, and over more than a century, various secret passageways had been added to the property, in case of attack. Unfortunately for Caitlin, Fiona had shared all the family secrets with Jagger, and as she slipped through the compound, masked by the glamour, she encountered a werewolf or vampire sentry at every potential escape point. If the
guards had been human, Caitlin would have risked slipping by one of them, but vampires and weres had heightened senses, not to mention that extra sixth sense, that could detect her, and she didn't want to risk apprehension. She only had one shot.

Seething with frustration, she stopped in the dark courtyard to consider her options, as the wind skittered leaves across the bricks and the water whispered in the fountain.

One of the cats padded across the mossy garden stones and stopped in front of Caitlin, meowing up at her as if she could see her.

Not now, Chloe,
Caitlin whispered in her head.

And then she stopped, thinking….

 

The young were stood dutifully but restlessly at his post in front of the garden gate. Sentry duty was an honor, but standing still was agony for a werewolf, any werewolf, much less one barely out of his teens, with all his animal hormones raging.

Then suddenly his head snapped up as he caught the soft padding of steps hurrying across the stones behind the fountain, quick and quiet, barely audible to a human but perfectly discernible to lupine ears.

The young were leaped toward the sound, loping around the fountain, snout lengthening and teeth starting to emerge in anticipation….

The were rounded the corner and stopped in his tracks.

Three pale shapes looked up at him from the garden stones—three cats.

The were looked them over in puzzlement. Was that the sound he'd heard?

 

While he contemplated the cats, Caitlin moved silently and invisibly past the fountain and touched her skeleton key to the gate.

The lock clicked open, the gate swung out…and she was gone.