Skinwalker (36 page)

“Crap.” With ill grace, I opened the front door. “It better be freaking damn important.”

He was wearing jeans, boots, and a cowboy hat that he pushed back by the brim, raising it enough to take me in from head to bare toes. A slow perusal that went from inventory to sensual in a heartbeat. His scent changed from business to sex.

A grin spread across his face. “Please tell me you're alone and lonely.” When I glared, he raised a hand and reached toward me, moving slowly, as if he thought he might get slapped. Or taken down in the street and left bruised. He brushed a strand of hair back from my face, behind my ear.

Beast woke with a sudden lurch. And purred. She drew a breath and fought me for control. It was payback time for becoming
Bubo bubo
. I felt her claws in my belly. In the old wound across my chest, tightening. Rick's fingers trailed along my neck to the collar of my robe, a slow caress across my collarbone and down.

Mastering Beast, I caught his wrist before he got too friendly. “What do you want?” I snarled, holding his hand away from me. I was tickled pink that my voice showed only annoyance, not desire. But I had started to sweat behind my knees and along my spine. Beast wanted him. Badly.

“I came to see if you wanted to ride.”

“Do what?” Images poured into my mind of big cats mating, snarling and drawing blood.

His grin stretched with a kind of sexual teasing I had never mastered. “Horses,” he said, drawing out the word as if I were an imbecile and he could see the images in my mind. “You didn't come to the club last night, so I came to see if you wanted to go horseback riding.” I dropped his wrist. He let it fall, grin in place.

“I didn't sleep last night,” I said. “What time is it?”

“It's four p.m., time to rise and shine, especially in the city that parties till dawn.” He pushed his way inside and I let him, which had to be really dumb. Beast wanted to reach out and slide a hand across his butt as he entered, but I resisted. No freaking way. Her usual payback was less sexual, more in the nature of refusing to shift back when it was time. I think I preferred her stubborn streak to her sensual one.

Beast tightened her claws on me, tearing. It hurt and I gasped in pain. “Put on the kettle,” I said. Spinning on one heel, I went to my room and shut the door. Firmly. Maybe a little more than firmly, but it made my point. I was not happy with Rick LaFleur. But he knew Anna, who had slept with the rogue—no, the liver-eater—when he smelled unstinky. And he had something going on with Antoine, which pricked my curiosity. I wanted to know what Rick knew, which meant I had to spend time with him, get to know him better, pick his brain, always assuming he had one. I needed to go check out the house the liver-eater-rogue had entered. But first—I needed food. A lot of food. I was unexpectedly ravenous.

I brushed my hair, braiding it halfway down my back, tying it off with some yarn I'd seen in a drawer. I dressed in jeans and a spaghetti-strap top. When I looked in the mirror I expected to see dark circles under my eyes, hollowed cheeks, pallid skin. But I looked pretty good, if a lot skinnier than yesterday. The oatmeal and steak for breakfast had helped, but my stomach was growling, and I knew I wasn't going anywhere until I had protein.

Still barefoot, I padded back to the kitchen and took a steak out of the fridge. Four left. I had to go shopping. But manners pounded into me in the children's home took precedence over my possible starvation, and I said, “Want a steak?”

“Sure. If you're having one. Rare. Still kicking.”

Deep inside me, Beast rumbled approval. I flushed a bit at her reaction and wished she'd go back to sleep and find another way to torture me.

Rick sprawled in the chair Bruiser liked, long legs spread, taking up a lot of space. Aware of his body language, of the way his eyes lingered on me, I took out a second steak, colas, and a package of baby spinach put there by Troll. “Hey,” he said, “I got that info you wanted on the property owners out near Lake Catouatchie and the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park.”

I nodded, and when I could speak casually, asked, “Did you hear anything about a murder over near Westwego? Out that way?”

“Nope. Why?” When I shook my head, he didn't press. “So. We going riding?”

“I'll think about it after lunch,” I said, and lit the broiler.

I wasn't able to turn the conversation around to Anna. How did you ask a guy if he was sleeping with the mayor's wife, especially when you can't explain why you have an inkling that he is? So, after a steak, microwaved potato, spinach salad with bacon dressing, and some idle conversation, I said, “Much as I like the idea of horseback riding, I need to bike out to Westwego. Rain check?”

Rick was again sprawled in his chair, one arm draped over his middle, the other resting over the back of the chair nearest, a Coke can dangling in his fingers. He shrugged. “I got nothing to do. I'll ride out that way with you and we can stop and get supper on the way back. Make a date of it.” His eyes sparkled. “I know me a good diner, serves the best oyster po'boys in the state. Fried up crackling crisp. It's not too far from Westwego.”

I shouldn't take him with me, not when there might be a house full of dead bodies at the end of the ride. But instead of telling him no, I said, “Sure. Sounds like fun.” And could have slapped myself. But pragmatism reared its head. If I did find dead bodies, I'd need to call the cops, and I'd need a good story. I could practice on Rick.

It was after five when we headed out of town, the sun still far above the horizon and glaring, the air hot and muggy, burning where it hit bare skin, making us sweat beneath the riding clothes. I would heal from road rash if I took a tumble, but rapid healing was not something I wanted to explain. So I wore jeans, boots, and leather jacket despite the heat. Rush hour traffic was snarled everywhere, but having bikes meant we could weave through stopped traffic. Not exactly legal, but no one had ever stopped me, and Rick didn't seem like the kind to wait patiently on hot asphalt, breathing exhaust fumes. He followed when I motored between stopped vehicles on 90 and across the bridge.

The traffic opened out on the other side of the Mississippi and I gunned the motor, Rick at my side. The world looked different from the road, and it took me a while to orient myself, but I eventually found my way to the exit that led through secondary and tertiary roads, and lastly to the crushed-shell drive of the vamp graveyard.

The drive was blocked by two hinged metal arms on solid stanchions, the arms connected by a chain and secured with a good lock. I slowed to make the transit around the stanchion on the left and gave the bike enough gas to coast along the curving drive, pulling off my helmet and looking the place over. It looked different from nighttime and twenty feet up. I didn't know what he was waiting for but Rick eventually followed me. I was walking between crypts, the sun broiling down on my bare head when he caught up, his Frye boots crunching shells as he jogged.

“You did see the No Trespassing signs, didn't you?” he said.

“Yeah.” I spotted the Pellissier mausoleum and checked the locks on the barred door. They were top quality and still secure, which meant that Katie was safe, or as safe as an undead drowned in the mixed blood of a hundred vamps and buried in a casket in a vault can be. I swiveled, spotting the St. Martin crypt, and strode that way, peeling out of my leather jacket as I walked. Sweat was dribbling down my spine, under my arms, and pooling in my waistband as I circled the small building. The St. Martin crypt was made of white, dry-stacked marble blocks. Its door was centered on the front between elegant pillars; two windows were close together on the back, windows matching the pointed, arched style of the chapel's. The crypt had been badly damaged. A section of marble was missing from a corner, broken, as if it had been attacked with a mallet; I knew better. Stone shards were scattered around from the rogue's mass change.

Rick swore softly. “Damn kids.” When I glanced at him, he said, “Graveyard vandalism is rampant in this part of the state.” I didn't bother to enlighten him.

The building was fourteen by twelve feet, with a stone statue on the peaked roof—a six-foot-tall winged soldier with a bronze sword and shield. Except for the weapons and wings folded to his sides, he was naked. And exceptionally well endowed. I shook my head, not smiling, but wanting to. A sculptor's vision of St. Martin? Or St. Martin's vision of an angel?

Rick caught up with me again. “You do know this place belongs to the vampires, don't you?” He sounded half amused, half speculative, as if he wondered how I found this place and why I was here, but didn't really want to ask.

“Yeah.” I checked the locks and the vault's barred door. The locks were old and broken. The bars were freshly bent, with shiny metal showing along stress lines. “So?” I opened the barred gate door and pushed on the wooden one behind it. It opened with a soft groan.

“So, the gate had electronic sensors,” he said. “They'll send someone to check on us.”

I looked inside. “Good. They can clean this up.”

“This” was the destruction of five of the six coffins. They had once rested in stacked stone biers, three high, and each individual bier had a small marble door at the foot end. The marble doors were busted and the coffins inside had been pulled out and slammed against the back wall, if the scars there were a clue. The casket contents were scattered everywhere. Contrary to pulp fiction, vamps don't blow away in ashes when they die unless they're burned, so the floor was littered with bones, scraps of ancient dress, boots, a few grinning skulls—one with black hair attached—some gold coins, glittering jewelry, and rotting casket stuffing.

I gestured inside. Rick bent around the side of the door and looked in. “Crap almighty. Who—shit! Who did this? What's that smell?” He backed quickly away, a hand over his mouth and nose.

I was already upwind. “Partly the dead and partly the rogue. I think he spent the day here yesterday.” I calculated the distance from the edge of the woods. It was farther than it looked from the air. “I think he knew the vamps would put Katie to earth, and he hoped to get at the blood in her coffin.”

“Blood in her coffin?”

I considered his expression and decided that I wasn't the only one who hadn't known what the ceremony last night involved. I wondered if any human knew. I also decided it was smarter not to know the answers to his question and smarter not to share the information I had discovered. “Katie's blood,” I lied. “He didn't finish draining her.” Which was the truth.

“Uh-huh.”

I had to work on my lying. To keep from having to respond to his skepticism, I walked to the chapel. On the way, I passed the other crypt damaged by the rogue, stealing mass. It belonged to Clan Mearkanis, and the damage was greater, two square feet of stone blasted away.

I reached the chapel. The cross was still lying on the small porch, but no longer glowing or burning. I leaned over it, pulling off my sunglasses to get a better view. The wood was untouched, unscorched by the fire I had seen, and no fresh scent of smoke clung to it. It wasn't made from carved or cut wood; the crosspieces looked like large splinters ripped from a timber.

The cross looked old, blackened by time and usage. The four ends were smoothed, as if they had been slightly rounded off by sandpaper and oiled. Or slowly shaped from the repeated caresses of human hands. The two pieces were held together by twisted metal, the finish a green verdigris that had bled into the wood it touched.
Old
, I thought.
Old, old,
old.

Rick took the narrow steps and bent to pick up the cross. I reacted without thinking. Grabbed the waistband of his jeans. And yanked. He flew past me. Made a soft
oof
when he landed, tumbling, expelling air. I stood, blocking the porch, waiting for him to catch his breath. He groaned and cursed. “Why the hell did you do that?” he grunted. “What did I do this time?”

“You were about to touch the cross,” I said. “It belongs to a vamp. She'd have smelled your scent on it. Not smart.”

“Vamps don't own crosses,” he said. He pushed his elbows under him and half sat, legs splayed, feet digging into the shells, making little troughs that ended in mounds at his heels. “Besides, a simple ‘Hey you, stop' would have worked just fine. Anybody ever tell you that you tend to overreact?”

“Yeah. A few people. Some of them are dead,” I said, letting my grin out. “I'm not.”

Rick blew out a sound of disgust and rolled to his knees. “What do you press, anyway? You got arms like a gorilla.” He made it to his feet and stood looking at me.

Press. As in bench press.
I didn't like his expression. I had received similar looks when I did something a normal human couldn't, and I usually just made light of it. That worked, mostly because humans didn't want to recognize otherness, difference, or oddity. They would rather stuff the unusual into an acceptable niche, someplace comfortable, tucking a square peg into a round hole. It was easier for them and a lot less scary.

I had a feeling Rick LaFleur wouldn't accept my usual misdirection. There was a certain look in his eyes, harder and more speculative than I expected; not an average-Joe expression, but something else entirely. I couldn't come up with a single response, so I shrugged and walked to the dead tree. What you can't fight or explain away, you can sometimes ignore.

The tree was a dead sycamore, thin bark curling, exposing silvery wood beneath. The branch where I had sat was scored by raptor talons. A small feather rested on the ground, one of mine, and it felt really weird to see it. Had I lost part of me when I lost the feather? If I lost more of me, say if a leg were amputated while in animal form, what would I be missing when I shifted back? How much could I lose and still be me? I tucked the feather in my pocket.