The Shifters (2 page)

A
rmed with the largest café au lait available from Café Du Monde, Caitlin unlocked the door of A Little Bit of Magic, the mystic shop she and her sisters ran. Inside she locked the door firmly behind her; then, without even opening the wooden shutters of the bay windows, she marched back through the store, past the small coffee and tea bar, and the shelves of herbs and roots in glass jars, past bookcases of divinatory classics, histories of religion and magic traditions past and present, past jewelry cases full of sparkling gemstones set into intricate silver pieces and magical wands, to the doorway hung with its purple velvet curtain embroidered with glittering gold stars. She
brushed through the soft folds into the reading room, a circular windowless space redolent with incense and hung with esoteric tapestries, a round table placed in the center, along with two high-backed chairs set across from each other.

Caitlin crossed to a wooden cupboard with painted symbols, and opened the doors to remove a silk-wrapped rectangle, her Tarot deck.

She breathed in, possibly for the first time since she'd entered the shop, and forced herself to be still, to focus, to release tension, to breathe from her center. When she had quieted her pulse, she stepped more deliberately to a hanging wooden shelf and took a match, which she struck to light the candles on the table, and then the ones in the tall metal candelabrum in the corner.

After that she sat in one of the chairs, facing the back wall, centered the deck before her and unwrapped it. She closed her eyes and mixed the cards, once, twice, three times, spoke aloud the name of the city itself as querent, and laid out a simple spread: Past, Present, Future.

“Where have you been?” she asked aloud, then reached and turned over a card.

The Tower. Destruction. That was Katrina, of course, still a wound, leaving the city vulnerable. It also had overtones of the war between the Other races that had killed her parents, and of the recent
up heaval in the communities because of the cemetery murders.

“What ails you?” she asked, turned over a second card and froze, staring down at The Devil. One of the most feared cards in the deck. A predator.

She forced her mind clear, spoke aloud calmly. “What is the future?” And turned another card.

Death.

Caitlin's heart was pounding now, so loudly that she could barely hear herself think.

Many Tarot readers tried to gloss over the Death card as an indicator of change, but sometimes Death meant exactly that, and in this configuration there was nothing benign about it.

What question now? What?

“What must I watch for?” she asked, breathing deeply, and reached to turn over a new card.

The Seven of Cups. Illusion. The card she associated with shapeshifters.

Something banged behind her, and she nearly jumped out of her chair.

“Damn it.” It was her sister's voice, and it came just as Shauna pushed through the curtain into the reading room and gasped, seeing Caitlin sitting at the table.

“Cait? Mother Mary, what are you doing sitting there in the dark? You just scared the living daylights out of me.”

“I was just reading,” Caitlin said faintly.

Shauna flipped on a light, exasperated. “I saw the shutters closed and the lights off, and I didn't think anyone was here.”

“Sorry…it's…been a weird morning.”

Caitlin rose and slid the cards back into the deck, then folded the deck into the silk and put it away. It was probably past time for their daily meeting.

Shauna had already breezed back into the outer shop, and when Caitlin stepped out through the curtains the shutters were wide-open, letting in the light, and Fiona was coming through the door, her arms full of flowers and a bag of cookies. Customers at A Little Bit of Magic could always count on sweet treats, not to mention champagne on holidays. The shop was a “Best of NOLA” pick every year.

Caitlin looked at her sisters, both of them exuberant, overflowing with life. Shauna was glowing from her run, and Fiona was glowing from…something else. Caitlin felt dark and distressed by comparison.

Get in that early morning tumble before the blood-sucker has to crawl back into his coffin,
she thought darkly, even though technically Jagger DeFarge neither sucked blood nor slept in a coffin. Still, a Keeper being involved with a member of the race she was charged to protect was just…wrong. Cait knew that all too well.

“What's the matter?” Fiona asked her, instantly picking up on her mood.

“Bad wind,” Caitlin muttered, unable to help herself.

“What?” Fiona frowned, her clear blue eyes concerned, and Shauna turned from her cash register prep to look at her.

“Something's off,” Caitlin hedged. “I had a dream…and I was followed in Jackson Square this morning.”

Her sisters were instantly alarmed, their voices overlapping.

“Followed?”

“Who followed you?”

“More like what,” Caitlin said darkly. “Something I couldn't see. Watching me.”

Her sisters didn't bother to hide the skeptical look they exchanged, and Caitlin's defenses went straight up. “And it showed up in the cards just now, too. Death and the Devil
and
the Tower. And Illusion. Shapeshifters.”

Caitlin was the best card reader of all of them, but both her sisters knew enough to know that con figuration was far from good. And yet, Caitlin caught another one of those exchanged glances. Caitlin knew exactly what the looks meant.
Poor Cait. She's over the top these days. Seeing shadows everywhere.

Caitlin felt her temper flare and tried to keep a handle on it.

Fiona made it worse by being gently diplomatic about it. “Tell us what we can do, sweetie.”

Caitlin now felt frustration as well as anger. “Be careful. Just be careful. When I know more, I'll tell you.” She knew she sounded bitter, but how long would she have to do penance? When was she going to be able to redeem herself, set the whole vampire/shifter disaster to rest?

She found herself suddenly wishing for a cataclysm, a challenge so profound that she would be able to save herself, save everyone, and finally feel herself a true Keeper.

Shauna was already looking at the clock on the wall. “Are you going to be okay here today?” she asked. “I'm buying in Lafayette today, and Fee is meeting with Rosalyn to pick up the new Halloween costumes.”

Caitlin bristled. “Why wouldn't I be okay? I can hold the fort. I'm saying
you
be careful. Both of you. Until we know more.”

“We will, honey. You just call if you need anything.” Fiona stepped forward and kissed her cheek, and Caitlin burned under her sweetness.

As they left, Shauna's look of pity obvious to anyone but the dead or blind, Caitlin paced the shop in a fury. She could hear them talking outside, not
literally, but sometimes when the wind was blowing, she could just hear. Low, feminine murmurs now.

Shauna: Ever since the cemetery murders…

Fiona: But that's ridiculous, it wasn't Cait's fault…

Shauna: But you know Cait. If there's anything to obsess about, she's gonna obsess…

With effort, Caitlin turned off her inner ear, seething with resentment.
I'll show them. One way or another. I
will.

 

The morning flew by, with tourists arriving early for Halloween, coming up in just five days. There was a steady trickle of them, enticed down the short alleyway to the shop. The sugar candles were an irresistible draw, and the attraction spell the sisters had placed on the sidewalks outside didn't hurt. The least likely people drifting down Rue Royal ended up veering into their alleyway, following the burnt-sugar scent—and something less tangible but even more enticing—into the shop.

In no time it was midafternoon, and Caitlin's 3:00 p.m. Tarot reading was due any minute.

The woman who entered the shop had given her name as Amanda Peters, and she was a beauty: in her late forties, with a life force burning like a flame, lithe, auburn-haired, copper freckles on creamy skin, and a buttery Southern accent that Caitlin placed as Charlestonian.

She strode in wearing Katharine Hepburn trousers and a silky white shirt, looking like an old-style film goddess, but as soon as Caitlin led her through the velvet curtain and into the inner room and seated her in the reading chair, she dissolved into ugly, heart-rending sobs.

Love trouble,
Caitlin thought wearily.
Nothing else could so completely unravel someone as strong as this.
She braced herself for the inevitable question, choked out between more sobs.

“He left me. What can I do?”

Caitlin unwrapped the cards.

She sensed that Amanda was a Wand, driven by will, so Caitlin pulled the Queen of Wands as the significator, the public mask, to represent her, then placed the cards in front of Amanda to hold and then cut. Caitlin laid out a Love Spread and turned over the first four cards.

She studied them, frowning. “Your life is in transition. The high presence of swords indicates single-minded pursuit, vengeance….”

Funny, that wasn't at all the read she had got ten from the woman herself; the cards were contradictory.

She turned to the first bar of three cards and touched her finger to the one on the far left. The King of Swords—which could indicate a dangerous, treacherous man, but with clients Caitlin always
tried to start with the positive aspects of the cards. “The King of Swords is a highly intellectual, well-educated man, with a razor wit and many facets to his character. He is a natural problem-solver, but of ten moves on too quickly, from ideas, people and places, to provide any permanence. He can be passionate, charismatic, fascinating, challenging…and completely exhausting.”

As Caitlin spoke, Amanda leaned forward on her elbows, seemingly transfixed by what Caitlin was saying. Caitlin could feel that she was reaching the woman on some profound level; she knew that look well. The other woman was hearing things that were true. “The card also represents a private person, a loner who defends his walls and boundaries fiercely. You may never get to know him no matter how long you're with him. The card also often indicates someone heavily involved in occult study….” As Caitlin continued, she was more and more aware of something wrong.

She paused and looked down at the spread again.

And then it hit her, hard. The card she had been speaking about was not the card representing Amanda's lover but was in the place of the querent: Amanda herself.

It made no sense.

She decided to deal an extra card, silently asking for clarification.

The Knight of Swords, reversed.

“This card indicates a deceitful man, treacherous and secretive beneath a surface charm…” Caitlin stopped herself. She had asked about Amanda, but again—the card indicated a deceitful man. And this time even more clearly indicated a manipulator, skilled in the occult, in glamours, in projection.

Could it be?

Caitlin bit her lip and then picked up the deck and held it as she asked the cards a quick, silent question:
What is going on here?

She turned over a card.

Seven of Cups.

Shapeshifter.

Caitlin's head was buzzing as if it was going to explode. Across the table from her, Amanda was suddenly alert, as if sensing Caitlin's thoughts, and she started to push her chair back to stand, but too late. Caitlin lunged over the table, grabbed Amanda's wrist and held her fast as she spoke a few low, quick words. “By the powers of earth, fire, wind and sea, I command thee: unmask!”

She felt a surge of power in the arm she held, Amanda's whole body swelling with energy, a struggle. And then the woman's body shimmered—in fact, all the air in the room shimmered, there was no other
word for it—and the woman's body resolved itself into…

A man.

And an amazingly handsome man, at that. Tall—very tall—broad-shouldered under a leather jack et, much bigger than she was, powerful through the chest and thighs. Longish jet-black hair curled around his ears, and he was wearing jeans worn so soft they looked like buckskin, all of which gave him a roguish, buccaneering look, decidedly unmodern.

“Well done,” he commented, looking infuriatingly pleased with her.

“What are you playing at, Shifter?” Caitlin demanded, while simultaneously scanning the room behind him for a weapon. Being located down a mysterious, romantic alley was a big plus for atmosphere but not such an ideal situation when you found yourself suddenly alone with a rogue shapeshifter. And a human-form shifter, too, the most dangerous and untrustworthy kind.

“I'm not playing, Keeper. I'm not playing at all.” There was a sensual menace to his voice now, which made her heart plunge in dismay.

If he meant her harm, she was in deep trouble al ready. She'd never seen such a complete and unexpected shift. Mentally she raced back through the encounter with the woman, racking her brain for any sign that she'd missed—a ripple, a tic, a shudder. But
there had been no psychic leakage, no slipping of the form, nothing that would have signaled the presence of a shifter, much less one in assumed form. It was only the cards that had warned her.

Caitlin's mind plunged through her options. Her cell phone was in the outer shop, under the counter. The shifter was blocking the doorway to the outer shop, to the phone, to everything. There was just so much of him. And as a shapeshifter, he would be immune to any weakening spell she could have used on a human intruder; there was no point in such a spell with an Other.

“Why not just walk in and introduce yourself?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

“I heard there were Keepers in town. I wanted to see how good you are.” His voice made the words a lazy double entendre.

“I'm very good,” she said sharply, her temper rising even in the circumstances.