The Shifters

She heard a rustling again…like wings.

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.”