Second Skin Part 32

"This was mine to deal with," I said. "And you made your feelings pretty clear."

He sighed and rubbed his chin. "Luna, you of all people should know I don't always mean what I say."

"I do," I said. "But this was mine to do, and I didn't want to put you in that position . . . that night." I pushed a hand through my hair. "You scared me. I had to go deal with this on my own, and I'm always going to deal with my problems on my own, as long as this daemon blood is in you, because I never want to see you like that again."

Dmitri finally reached out and took my hand. "Okay."

I blinked at him. "Okay what?"

"Okay. I won't try to force you anymore. You're Insoli. You and I, we've got our problems. But you're mine." He looked at me, and all I could think about was Lucas, back there in the hospital. How cool his skin was to my touch. How he'd made me feel safe before.

I felt something like a stone in my chest, made of my feelings for Dmitri.

"I know this won't be easy," Dmitri said. "But I want to give it another shot. I think it could work out, Luna. We can make make it work." it work."

I smiled at Dmitri, sadly, before I dropped his hand. "I think you're right. It could work out. I could learn to let you in and you could learn to stop being an alpha and maybe we'd have a few good years before the daemon blood made you forget." I inhaled, breathed out, and felt the next words crawl out of me like little pieces of flesh. He'd come back to me, even with everything that had happened. I couldn't let him do it again.

I grasped responsibility like a handful of broken gla.s.s. "But I won't do it, Dmitri. We'll never be able to sit still with each other. I know I take too many chances and I have a horrible temper and those are my poisons to purge."

I swallowed and took a step back, onto the curb. "This isn't about me, Dmitri. You're changing. One day, this thing inside is going to take you over and as long as you're with me, you won't try to help yourself. You'll just try to protect me."

Feeling like my bones weighed a thousand pounds each, I met Dmitri's eyes. "When those days come, the daemon bite will finally take you over and I won't have Dmitri, anymore. You'll get hurt, or killed, trying to be the person you were. And that will be the saddest day of my life and I just . . . I can't. I can't and won't be responsible for you dying. I'm sorry."

Dmitri sagged in the seat of his bike, his eyes flickering from green to black in the s.p.a.ce of half a heartbeat. For the first time, I wasn't afraid to see the daemon in him.

"Are you telling me this is it?" he demanded roughly.

I kept smiling, because it was either that or cry. "No, Dmitri. I'm telling you good-bye."

EPILOGUE.

It was a month before all of my investigations and inquiries were through. By the time I went to the Seaview Gardens, the new cemetery by the cliffs on Highway 21, the scar from Lucas's knife wound had faded away to nothing but a pale white starburst.

I put the charm, devoid of magick now, on the flat stone that was carved LAUREL LYNN HICKS, BELOVED DAUGHTER.

"Not doing this for forgiveness," I told her. "Just putting things back where they belong." I doubted I'd ever be able to forget seeing Laurel on her floor, and the twist inside of knowing it was my fault. But I could make it right, for her spirit at least.

"Be seeing you," I said, noticing that someone had left daisies in the flower holder next to the stone. Laurel, at least, wasn't alone.

I drove my rental car downtown, and didn't hesitate on the steps of the Twenty-fourth before going in. I nodded to Rick at the front desk, and slipped past Morgan's office to knock on Mac's door.

"C'min," he muttered around a mouthful of something. I smelled turkey and rye bread, and even though my stomach was fluttering my mouth watered.

"Spare a minute for the prodigal daughter?" I asked, sticking my head around the frame. Mac set his sandwich down in the deli wrapper and brushed his hands off, motioning me in.

"You look good for someone who's been through h.e.l.l, Wilder. Pale, though. You eating?" He offered me the unchewed half of his sandwich.

"Not overmuch," I said, thinking of my silent, still cottage and my bed, which was just plain empty. I waved the sandwich away.

"What's on your mind?" Mac said. "You've got to be close to going back on active duty with SWAT, yeah?"

I let out a little laugh, dry. "Yeah. You would get right to the point, Mac."

He stared hard at me. "Wilder, what is it?"

There is no easy way to say the hard things in life. You just have to get it out fast, like tearing off surgical tape.

"I'm quitting, Mac."

McAllister didn't choke on his sandwich, but only because he'd stopped chewing. He swallowed fast. "What? The Hex are you going on about, Wilder?"

I looked at my feet. "The Kennuka case proved that I can't do this anymore, Mac. I lost my edge. I went over over the edge and it's been real d.a.m.n hard to come back." the edge and it's been real d.a.m.n hard to come back."

The time alone, especially at night, had at least given me the s.p.a.ce to see that I'd let Lucas wrap himself around my heart and brain like thorns strangle a tree. I was no kind of cop, and not even that great of a person.

"I can't do this again," I told Mac. "I'm going to quit."

Mac started to laugh, a hand over his mouth and his eyes crinkling up. "Oh, Luna. You truly are the queen of dramatic bad timing."

I'd expected Mac to shout at me, maybe swear or even fling some furniture, but the quiet chuckles were downright creepy.

"What exactly is that supposed to mean, Mac?"

Mac reached into his desk drawer, underneath his pack of cigarettes, and pulled out a black leather case. He tossed it across the desk and I caught it reflexively. "This came through today. I was going to call you in the morning when I got off shift and offer it to you, but h.e.l.l, in person is much more theatrical."

I flipped open the case, a little larger than a deck of cards. A silver-and-bronze badge gleamed there, with my number and my name underneath the crescent moon rising that was the seal of the city. Beneath my name, the rank spelled out LIEUTENANT.

"Things change, Wilder," Mac said, rolling his wrapper into a ball and launching it at the wastebasket in the corner. A dozen crumples of paper attested to previous attempts. "n.o.body can ignore people like you and Kennuka any longer. The commissioner handed down the directive right after you transferred to SWAT. It's a new task force, with a new lieutenant. You were the only one I recommended."

I smiled at Mac, and handed the badge back. "I'm not the woman for the job, Mac."

"You're the only were on the force that I know of, and even if there were ten of you, you're the only one I'd want. I'm the departmental liaison for this thing. It'll look good when my pension rolls around. Help me out here, huh?"

Standing up, I touched my stab scar. "This won't end the way you and the commissioner think it will, Mac," I said. "People hate us, and the weres in this city hate me even more, especially now that the six most powerful are dead and everyone else is chewing on throats to fill their shoes. You'd have a bloodbath on your hands."

"As opposed to when you run off half-c.o.c.ked and light stuff on fire?" Mac said.

"I won't do it," I said. "I can't look out for every were and caster witch in the city." I put my hand on the doork.n.o.b. "I can't even look out for myself."

"Luna," said Mac. "You can walk out that door, and for a while you'll be okay with whatever you chose to do after this. But eventually you'll come back. You have it in your blood, just like the were. This city will eventually rip itself apart, unless we have some people like you out there. So go ahead." He put the badge away and pulled a stack of files close to him. "You'll be back."

I walked out of Mac's office, thinking about how I always managed to be in the thick of trouble even when I tried to live a life that took me nowhere near it. I let Lucas get to me because I was angry and restless and didn't trust my instincts. I was ruled by the were now, with a grasp more subtle and fine than when it had taken my body and killed, but I was ruled all the same.

There was no way I could be the head of a unit that saw people like Lucas and things like Wiskachee every day. No way in any of the seven h.e.l.ls.

A minute later, I walked back into Mac's office. He didn't even look up from his paper when I took the badge from his desk.

At least he didn't say I told you so I told you so.

The press conference didn't get much coverage in the wider media, although Janet Bledsoe showed up, no doubt hoping I'd start another riot and burn the city down so she could be the headliner on the evening news.

Even though it was after Labor Day, I fidgeted inside the pantsuit and wine-red silk shirt Sunny had insisted I wear. The heat was abating, slowly, like it always did at the end of a long summer, crawling away from the pavement and my skin, leaving sweat in its wake.

"Will you stop twiddling at your b.u.t.tons!" she demanded. "You look fine."

"I look like I belong in the Hexed circus," I muttered. "How does Mac do this?"

"This? I leave c.r.a.p like this to Captain Morgan," Mac said. "You'd better get out there before they eat all the free pastries and start turning on each other, Wilder."

"Words of support just when I need them most," I said. I was hiding everything behind a sharp remark these days. When Dmitri had come to get his things, I had suggested flippantly we hold a garage sale with the proceeds going to my retail therapy.

Dmitri had been gone for a month. My wit was doing a p.i.s.s-poor job of keeping me company.

The blue curtain smelled like dust and cigarettes, and the podium in the Nocturne City PD press room was supported on one side by a stack of bricks. The microphone squealed when I got too close, and the chatter in the room lulled.

I looked out into the sea of lights and faces, ranging from disinterested to hostile.

"Good morning," I said, my voice reverberating through the tiny room in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Justice Plaza. None of the reporters reacted, even to raise a pen. Their eyes were as unblinking as Lucas's eyes, just before Wiskachee consumed him.

I inhaled, closed my eyes, and then looked back at Sunny, and Mac. Sunny smiled at me and Mac made a move along move along gesture. gesture.

They were behind me. I turned back to the reporters and their cameras. "Good morning," I said. "I'm the lieutenant heading up Nocturne City's newest police task force, officially designated the Supernatural Crimes Squadron."

A few cameras snapped and I let my words sink in, meeting each pair of human eyes with mine. I blinked slowly, and let them blaze gold. "My name is Luna Wilder, and I'm a werewolf."

Read on for an excerpt from Caitlin Kittredge's next book WITCH CRAFT.

Coming soon from St. Martin's Paperbacks Chaos crept up on me like someone had tossed a stone into a pond. I was sitting in a window booth at the Devere Diner, shoving a double bacon cheeseburger into my mouth while across the expanse of red formica table, Detective David Bryson did the same with a grilled chicken club.

"Cholesterol," he explained around a mouthful of lettuce and dead bird. "Doc said I'm going to keel over if I don't cut back on the carbs or calories or what have you. Put me on one that whatchacallit-Long Beach Diet."

"South Beach," I corrected him, taking a pull at my diet soda. Just because I have a werewolf metabolism doesn't mean I need to abuse it.

"However you call it," Bryson said. "All I know is that in a week, I get to maybe eat a burger once in a while." He regarded his sandwich the way most people regard a dead pigeon on the sidewalk.

"My sympathies," I said, and signaled the waitress for a slice of pie. Bryson glared at me. The waitress finished writing an order for two uniformed cops at the counter and sashayed over. Bryson checked her out. She checked him out.

I cleared my throat. "I'd like a slice of key lime, when you two are done."

"Krystal," said Bryson, reading the nametag. "You ever get down to my part of the city, cutie?"

"Depends what part we're talking about, honey," she said, batting her heavy fake eyelashes at him.

I kicked Bryson on the ankle. "Pie. Key lime. Essential to my continued good health and temperament."

A fire engine roared down Devere, sirens going full blast, and drowned me out. The waitress cupped her hear. "Huh?"

"Key lime!"

A pair of patrol cars followed, their lights revolving heartbeat-quick, tires laying black rubber streaks as they took the turn onto Hillside Avenue at top speed.

"Say that one more time, honey." The waitress was still smiling at Bryson. She was bra.s.sy-skinned from a spray-on tan and had a red bouffant piled on top of her head. She and Bryson, who was a bull-necked man with powerful arms, a greasy pompadour, and small bright blue eyes, would make a cute couple. You know, if you were into that sort of thing.

"Key lime," I said, rubbing the back of my neck. I could still hear the sirens, even though they were long gone into the crisp October air. Were hearing is sensitive. I could hear Bryson's heartbeat too, how it quickened when Krystal looked at him.

It was five days before Halloween. The leaves were falling, and paper pumpkins and ghosts were everywhere. Halloween made everything seem benign. You could almost forget that the real monsters might be sharing a subway car or a cubicle with you.

The patrolmen at the counter jumped as their radios crackled. The dispatcher burbled their call numbers and then squawked out "eleven-seventy-one in progress at one-oh-seven Hillside Avenue. Fire and rescue en route. All units respond."

To give the cops credit, they were a well-oiled machine. One dug out a twenty and threw it on the counter while the other grabbed his car keys off the counter and ran out the door to start their prowl car. "Dispatch, Ten-ninety-seven is en route," the second cop bit off into his clip mic, before he followed his partner.

The ripples spread out from the stone fall, and a beat after the door slammed shut behind the two uniformed cops, my BlackBerry went off. Bryson's pager followed it a moment later.

I tore it off my belt and looked at the text message. 107 Hillside. ASAP. 107 Hillside. ASAP. That had to be Annemarie. Only she would dare That had to be Annemarie. Only she would dare ASAP ASAP the boss. Bryson looked at me, blinked once. "One-oh-seven Hillside?" he asked. I nodded. the boss. Bryson looked at me, blinked once. "One-oh-seven Hillside?" he asked. I nodded.

Bryson snapped his fingers at the waitress. "Krystal, doll? We're gonna need that pie to go."

I smelled the smoke before I saw it-my nose is my best feature, and I'm not just talking about it complementing my pretty face. Weres can smell a lot, which normally is a mixed blessing. Do you have any idea how a hobo smells to a werewolf? You're better off not knowing.

A black cloud stained the faded-denim blue of the sky, boiling up from the crest of the hill. I pushed my foot down on the accelerator of the Ford LTD that I'd gotten from the motor pool a few months previously, and was rewarded with a groan from the transmission and no discernable increase in speed.

I hit the steering wheel. "Piece of c.r.a.p car." My previous ride, a 1969 Ford Fairlane, had blown up when I drove it into an open chasm with a p.i.s.sed-off Wendigo spirit clinging to the hood. Both the spirit and the car were crispy now, and I was back to driving the Cop Standard model, stale upholstery, dubious brakes, and all.

"Jesus Christ, that's a big fire," said Bryson. "Somebody's McMansion is McToasted, for sure."

We were in the exclusive section of the Cedar Hill neighborhood now, Victorian stately homes sitting shoulder to shoulder with large modern monstrosities shoved wherever the developers could find a spare greenbelt. They were uniformly hideous. "How much you wanna bet me it's the f.u.c.king ELF or PETA or one of those f.u.c.king hippie groups that sets their armpit hair on fire to save the whales?" Bryson said.

"I think we wouldn't have gotten paged," I murmured as I rolled up on the scene. Three ladder trucks were hosing down a blaze that was giving off enough heat to break a sweat down my spine and curl my hair, even from twenty yards away. A token ambulance and a phalanx of patrol cars had the street blocked off, and neighbors were staring.

We crossed the street to the cordon and I found the fire chief on scene, a barrel-chested man named Egan. "I'm Lieutenant Wilder," I said, flashing my badge. It was still new enough that the shine hadn't come off the bronze crescent-moon seal.

Egan grunted. "So?"