The Shifters

But even as she thought it, she felt the touch of the wind brushing against her bare legs, slipping through her clothes….

The wind.

Her heart contracted again.

The wind…soft and enticing, the warm breath of the Quarter.

But something was off this morning, like the dream. The wind was not comforting and caressing, that familiar invisible lover. Today there was an edge to it.

Bad wind, Caitlin thought again.

She stopped in front of the paintings hanging on the bars of the fencing around Jackson Square, looking around her. As her eyes swept over them, she recognized paintings from her dream.

And suddenly she had the distinct and unnerving sensation that she was being watched.

From the comfortable invisibility of the alley, he watched the Keeper.

She had been walking for blocks with no awareness of him. A bad sign—for her, anyway. For her—and for the city.

She was lovely, though, that rippling hair, blonde as moonlight, that ripe body, all that coiled strength and sweetness, pale and voluptuous curves. He felt it stir him, the thought of how it would feel to be inside that lusciousness….

Caitlin felt an intent, as clear as touch on her skin. She whirled and stared across the square at the intersection of streets.

There. A shadow, slipping quickly into Pirates’ Alley.

She froze on the cobblestone walkway, her heart in her throat….

Then, without thinking, she ran back toward the alley.

He hovered in the alley, aware of her sudden awareness, aroused by it.

Unmask now?

Too easy. There was a time, and he would wait for it.

The Keeper whirled toward him and broke into a run, straight for the alley.

He slipped back, insubstantial as shadow.

Caitlin put on a burst of speed and tore around the corner of the Absinthe Bar, into the narrow alley.

There was no one. The flat stones of the street were empty. She whirled from side to side, staring, her breath coming harsh in her throat as she scanned the door ways of the closed shops. The wind whispered in the corners, swung the antique shop signs on their chains….

No one…but a feeling of presence and intent. Overwhelming, ominous. Gooseflesh rose on Caitlin’s arm, crawled up her nape….

She backed away and ran.

Chapter 2

Armed 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.