The Shifters

That had been just before a series of nightgown-clad blondes started turning up in New Orleans cemeteries, bodies drained of blood.

If Caitlin’s brain hadn’t been so scrambled, she surely would have seen the killer for what it really was. Instead, because of her confusion, her inattention, both she and Fiona had almost been killed….

And Caitlin had been living with that guilt, ever since.

But I’m going to do it right, this time, she vowed.

She straightened, squaring her shoulders, and moved down the crowded street, slipping like water around the drunken revelers—frat boys, businessmen, pimps.

The noise of the street was overwhelming, distracting, and she turned down a side street, heading for quieter Rue Royal so she could hear herself think. She was past the Rainbow line, St. Ann Street, where hetero clubs turned gay and the side streets turned seedier, but she had on the glamour and Royal was just one long block down.

Even so, she instinctively walked a little more quickly as she brooded over the clearest clue she had gotten from Case: these were tourists dropping dead, not junkies. Tourists doing meth? No wonder Jagger was perturbed. And despite his nonchalance, she could tell even Case thought it was strange.

Caitlin was so deep in thought that she didn’t notice the footsteps until they were right up on her—heavy, pounding, manic—and before she could even turn, a heavy, live, stinking weight had tackled her, hurling her to the ground.

She hit the pavement so hard that her breath was knocked out of her and she heard as well as felt her head crack against the curb, and the pain was blinding; through the haze, she knew for the first time what it was like to see stars. Through her confusion she thought, How can he see me? Who is this?

Despite overwhelming pain, Caitlin heaved herself up and called on a weakening spell, something quick and forceful to stun her attacker.

She gathered energy in her mind and shoved….

The assailant—she had just enough time to register a Bourbon-Faced T-shirt and a man’s face so distorted with rage it barely looked human—growled like a bear and tackled her again.

Not human, Caitlin realized. He’s Other. And then she hit the sidewalk again, was crushed into the cobblestones.

Whoever was on top of her was so heavy she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, and the smell was strange. Under the familiar sick-sweetness of too many Hurricanes was not the reek of human sweat, but something like ammonia, and then there were hands around her neck, squeezing, squeezing, and through the pain and descending blackness she realized she was being killed….

Panicked thoughts flooded her brain. She would never see her sisters again, never meet the love of her life….

So this is how it ends….

And then suddenly she felt the pressure lift and gulped in air….

Ryder seized the man in the Bourbon Street T-shirt in a full-out fury and hauled him off Caitlin. The attacker snarled and spun on Ryder, hulking and wired with superhuman strength. He was dressed like a tourist, but the face was a mask of inhuman rage, and beneath the innocuous jeans and T-shirt he was completely out of control, like someone on PCP and steroids at the same time, some drug-crazed, murderous, rapacious zombie.

Ryder seized the tourist by the scruff of his “Bourbon-Faced” T-shirt and slammed him against the side of the voodoo shop beside them. The tourist’s head hit the wall with a sickening thud. But the man merely roared and barreled forward again. Ryder side stepped, grabbed the man’s arm and used his own momentum against him to snap the bone.

On the pavement behind them, Caitlin flinched as she heard the crack of her attacker’s arm breaking. The limb dropped against his side at an unnatural angle, but even with blood streaming from his head and the useless, dangling arm, he seemed to be feeling no pain at all. He roared again and scuttled off, listing to one side.

Ryder sprinted back to where Caitlin was crumpled on the street, stooped and picked her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing, and strode across the sidewalk to set her carefully up against the wall of the nearest shop. He knelt in front of her and took her face in his hands, looked into her eyes. She could feel the heat of him, the adrenaline of the fight—and more—a molten anger, which she realized, startled, was rage that she’d been attacked. “Are you hurt?” he demanded.

She swallowed, overwhelmed.

“Caitlin,” he said roughly. “Do you know who I am?”

“Who?” she answered weakly. It was a joke, but he seemed to take it seriously.

“Do you know where you are?” he asked more urgently.

“St. Ann Street,” she answered meekly.

“What day is it?”

“Thursday. I’m fine,” she protested and started to struggle to her feet. Ryder took her firmly by the waist and sat her down again, and she gasped, not from pain, but from the electrically sexual feeling of his hands on her. Heat suddenly pulsed through her entire body.

It’s adrenaline, that’s all. You just almost died, of course you’ve got a rush, she told herself.

He took her face in his hands and leaned over her, and she went light-headed, sure he was going to kiss her. But he only turned her head gently to one side, then the other, examining her throat. She felt limp in his hands, overwhelmed with the chemistry of their contact.

Suddenly he was still, no longer examining her but just looking into her eyes. His were green as the sea.

“Keeper,” he said, and his voice was hoarse. His eyes looked into her, through her, and this time his thumbs brushed her lips, sending another electric current through her…. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest, and she knew that whatever she was feeling, he was feeling it, too….

Abruptly he pulled back, looked down the street. “I don’t have much time. That guy will be dead in minutes. I have to get to him first.” He gripped her arms once again. “I’ll be back for you.”

Before she could speak, he was on his feet and sprinting down the street in the direction the tourist had gone.

Caitlin slammed her palms on the sidewalk and pushed herself up. “The hell with that,” she muttered aloud.

She staggered, dizzy, and had to hold herself up on the wall…then tore off down the street after him.

The next block was empty and dark. Down the street Caitlin could see Ryder barreling after the tourist, who was moving fast but stumbling like a drunk zombie.

Ryder put on a burst of speed, long, hard-muscled legs pumping, but before he could tackle the tourist, the man did a sudden spin—and then his body jackknifed backward, his spine arching until his head nearly touched his ass. Caitlin stopped in her tracks with a gasp of horror. Then the tourist jerked again, his chest bulging as if his heart was about to break free.

He was making choking noises, foaming at the mouth, as his body bowed backward and forward in horrific contortions.

Either this is a massive heart attack or an alien is about to burst out through his ribs, Caitlin thought wildly.

And then there was the sound of a siren approaching, followed by feet pounding, and she was seized around the waist as Ryder grabbed her and hauled her back into a storefront, holding her against his side.

A patrol car skidded around the corner, past the doorway where they were hiding. Uniformed cops were jumping out even before the vehicle came to a complete stop.

The cops ran for the tourist, who did one final, impossible jackknife and collapsed in the middle of the street.

The cops surrounded him with weapons drawn.

“Hands behind your head!” one shouted. The tourist didn’t move.

“Put your hands behind your head!” the officer repeated grimly.

The body lay still. The uniforms advanced cautiously, weapons at the ready.

At Ryder’s side, Caitlin strained to see around the corner of the doorway. In death, a shapeshifter’s body returned to its original form, and she wanted to see what that original form was.

The tourist’s head had dropped to the side, and his face was angled straight toward the doorway where she and Ryder stood. The streetlamps provided a perfectly lit view. Cait held her breath, waiting for the change….

The tourist’s eyes were wide and staring. Definitely dead.

But his features remained the same, as did the proportions of his body. Caitlin shook her head, not understanding. “But…”

Ryder said quietly beside her, “He wasn’t a shapeshifter.”

Chapter 6

Caitlin grabbed Ryder’s arm with a ferocity that she could tell startled him. “Then what was he? I want to know now,” she demanded—then stopped dead as he put his fingers on her mouth and she felt a tingle in her lips, again that raw, aching electricity.

“Shh,” he said against her face. “We need to get out of here first. That vampire friend of yours will be here any second.”

“He’s not my—”

Before she could finish, he was taking her arm and moving her back into the narrow alley between the shops, away from the gathering crowd of police.

The iron gate to the courtyard was padlocked, but Ryder did something with some kind of tool he pulled from an inside pocket of his leather coat, and the lock clicked open. Once they were through, he reached back through the bars and snapped the lock shut before taking her arm again to move into the darkness of the inner courtyard. This time Caitlin pulled her arm away and grabbed for the tool in his hand.

He let her take it, amused, and watched her as she examined it greedily. He could still feel the softness of her lips on his fingertips and entertained the thought of kissing that mouth, of forcing those lush lips open and plunging his tongue into her, hearing her moan and soften under him as he pulled her hips against his….

She looked up from the device, frowning. It was a skeleton key, nothing more than that. “Is it en chanted?”

“Just a little.”

Her eyes narrowed, and he could tell she wanted it. He pressed his advantage. “You can have it—if we can talk.”

She clenched her jaw, but he could tell he had her. “If you talk first,” she agreed sullenly.