Skinwalker. Part 12

"Correen?" The voice sounded weak. Scared. Dominique, the blonde who had commanded me to call on her, tottered from a bedroom, a white nightgown fluttering around her feet. Metal bracelets clinked as she moved. The cross in my hand flared with vicious light. Dominique cringed, hissed, her fangs falling forward. I ran toward her. She wrenched back, her feet landing wrong. Falling, she hit the floor, her wrist catching her weight with a loud snap. Her face twisted into a grimace and she turned her eyes from the cross, holding up a protective hand. "No," she said. "Put it away. Please."

"Not yet. Where is he? Where is the rogue?"

She cradled her broken wrist, the hand sticking out at an odd angle. "No. I can't."

"You don't have much choice," I said, breathing in. "I can smell him. He's been here. The vamp council gave me authority to kill you without reprisal for harboring him." Beast rose higher, snarling.

"Harboring him?" She laughed, a wretched gurgling sound, hysterical and despondent all at once. Full of . . . despair? Vamps can feel despair? Dominique turned her face up to me. She was crying b.l.o.o.d.y, watery tears, trailing down a face so pale that her skin looked transparent. "I haven't been harboring him. None of us have. We're his prisoners," she spat. "You should have come when I asked."

She held up a foot, displaying a shackle around her ankle. The flesh beneath it was red and swollen, blistered with pustules, torn skin seeping watery blood that made little ssssing sounds as it cauterized against the silver metal. The clinking I had thought was bracelets was a silver anklet, binding Dominique.

I knelt and examined her. She was pale and bloodless. Her skin was faintly yellow, like brittle parchment, and her eyes were hollowed with purple smudges. Her neck showed repeated vamp bites, the skin torn and ridged with scar tissue. She had been bled, often and without recourse to enough blood to restore her. Worse . . . I hadn't known vamps could break bones. "The silver," I guessed. "It's poisoning you."

"Yes. Me. Three others of my clan held prisoner here."

I pivoted on one knee and looked back into the hallway. At each doorway stood a vamp wearing nightclothes, looking haggard. I inserted the silver cross inside my leather jacket. Dominique sighed with relief and dropped her head to the floral carpet. "Your human servants aren't feeding you?" I asked. "Where are the twins? Why don't they just let you go?"

"Our young blood-servants were bled and taken away. I don't know if any survive. The ones remaining are old, their parents, or even great-grandparents, unable to fight, unable to help us for fear that their loved ones yet live and will be killed. And we cannot feed while exposed to silver. The poison taints the feeding." She tilted her head to see the man across the hall from her. "He's taking so much. There isn't . . ." She turned back to me, her head moving slowly on the stalk of her neck. An emptiness spread across her features, and I recognized a despondency so heavy it looked like death. A deep, daunting desolation. "There isn't enough blood in the world for him. Not even Mithran blood. And if he takes more from us, we fear we will rise rogue, that the old tales will be borne out in our flesh." Her eyes closed and she whispered, "Already each of us takes far too long to find our own sanity at sunset."

I reached for her shackle. "I can take care of-" Her eyes shot from my face to my neck; my skin went sweat slick. The magic charms instantly grew hot against my stomach, burning in the presence of the danger presented by a hungry vamp. I fought the urge to move away in fear. "If I free you, can you control yourself enough not to drain me dry?"

The man across the hall chuckled. "If you set her free, she will rip out your throat in joy. We all would." He sniffed the air, raising his head, licking his lips. "I remember your scent from the Pellissier party. Not quite human. Tasty."

"So much for being kind," I said. I stood and stepped away from Dominique. "You'll just have to wait until I kill your blood-master."

"No!" Dominique said. "Why would you kill Gregoire?"

The vamp across the hall laughed, derision in the tone. "You are a fool, you little 'not-quite-human.' Gregoire is not rogue. No! He is prisoner, and has been for these two months and more. He is shackled, as we, with silver. He still lives, though he grows weak. I feel his heartbeat, slow and weak."

"You should have come when I asked," Dominique said. "You should have come."

Understanding slid into place with an almost audible click. The rogue was bleeding Gregoire, which was why Dominique had commanded me to visit, back at Leo's party. And if she hadn't felt safe telling me at the party, then the rogue had been there, close by, listening. Could I be any more stupid? I pulled the cross from my shirt. "Where is the rogue keeping your blood-master? And why is he keeping you shackled-other than a blood meal? And most important, who is the rogue?"

The man across the hall laughed. Dominique wept. The vamps in the other two doorways rattled their chains. And Correen moved up the stairs, a butcher knife in her hand.

"Though it surely means the death of my human family, I called Clan Pellissier," she said to Dominique, as tears rained down her wrinkled face. "The blood-servant of the blood-master of New Orleans is on the way." Outside, lights drew up in front of the house. An engine died. Doors closed. They must have been close by. I saw my payment for bringing in the rogue's head flitting away. Correen screamed and raced toward me.

I threw Dominique to the floor of her room, stepped in after her, and slammed the door. Out in the hall, Correen banged the blade into the door, screaming, "Dominique! Dominique!"

I dropped to one knee, so close I was bathed in the sick breath of the vamp. I shoved the cross at her face, blazing a cold, bright light. "Where is the rogue keeping your blood-master? Why is he keeping you shackled? And most important, who is the rogue?"

When she answered, all the breath went out of my body.

By the time the footsteps made the top of the stairs, I was standing in an open window overlooking the back garden. Gathering Beast to me like a cloak, I jumped, hit ground, rolled into a crouch, and took off across the lawn. In a single leap, I took the six-foot-tall back fence and raced to my bike, still hidden in the shadows, three blocks away.

CHAPTER 25.

Witchy power.

I gunned the engine, crouching over the handlebars. Beast crouched with me, face to the wind, my/our mouth open for scents. I was heading out of town, along the Mississippi River. And I was about to do great damage to the entire vamp council in general, and to Clan Pellissier in particular. When I was done, I figured someone would kill me.

Lightning cracked overhead, throwing the world into jagged edges of light. Rain sliced down, beating me as I rode through the storm. I was soaking wet by the time I found the old house and turned down the drive between the rows of oaks, in the wake of two cars, moving slowly through the rain. I pa.s.sed both, the people inside obscured by the night. Security guards? Not like it mattered. They'd never have time to react.

Lightning shattered overhead. I smelled the rogue's human scent, fresh on the wind. I gunned the engine and bent over the bike. I took the stairs to the porch with a grinding of wheels on wood and hit the front door, still moving fast. The door wrenched open and kicked back against the wall, the impact slamming through my bones. I rode the bike into the foyer, spun out on the slick family crest, and killed the engine. Gla.s.s tinkled as something broke.

An alarm wound up, the single tone starting low and climbing, getting ready to wail. I was moving so fast that the engine was still whirring with power and the alarm was only a hope of urgency. I kicked the stand into place while tossing the helmet, checked the M4 for firing readiness. Pulled the strap over my head so I wouldn't drop it. Rested the weapon on my chest. I wasn't going to use the gun unless I had to. I could smell humans in the house. I saw one at the kitchen, her mouth wide.

With one hand, I reached under my jacket and pulled my T-shirt free of the jeans. One of Molly's little charms landed in my damp glove, the tingling of its harnessed power hot even through the gloves. I had worn them close to my body, reactivating the protection portion of the spell they carried. Now, like the Benelli, they were locked and loaded. The bike fell silent. I retucked the shirt and rotated my head on my neck to loosen muscles tight from the ride.

I raced up the curving staircase on the right, my booted feet almost silent on the deep carpet, my motion throwing rainwater in spirals. The vamp scent of the rogue was strong. The alarm wailed.

Immanuel, Leo's son, raced into a hallway at the top of the steps, swathed in silvery light, already shifting. I had a single instant to see dress pants, bare feet, shirt hanging open, revealing his bare chest. I reached the landing. Pulled a stake. The alarm reached its pinnacle, wailing.

A paw swiped out, claws raking the air-so fast. I dodged, ducked. Chose my spot on his chest. Slid up under his guard. Stabbed him with the stake. Hard, up under his ribs.

He staggered back. I pulled the cross and advanced. There was only a pale glow. Immanuel fell against a tall stand. A statue tottered, started to fall. A marble statue. On a stone stand. He roared. Stone cracked. The statue exploded before it hit the floor. Marble dust and rock shards shot over me, shrapnel, cutting deep. Immanuel was drawing ma.s.s. I'd hit his heart. He should be dead, if he was a skinwalker turned by a vampire. . . .

Not a vampire, Beast said. Skinwalker. Liver-eater. Took Immanuel's place.

In an instant I understood what I should have comprehended earlier. Way earlier. The usual methods of vamp killing wouldn't work because this thing wasn't a vamp and never had been. A vamp hadn't turned a skinwalker and brought it in to a blood-family. If Immanuel had done that, Leo would have recognized my blood scent. Instead, a skinwalker had eaten the liver of a vamp and taken his place, subsuming his native scent; he had eaten Immanuel, Leo's son, and taken his place. The reek of rot filled the hallway.

Statue dust rained down. The marble pedestal exploded. The rogue/skinwalker was drawing more ma.s.s. I back-tracked through a storm of stone projectiles. Immanuel lashed out. One ma.s.sive paw. Claws fully extended. They ripped through my leather jacket. Sliced flesh beneath deeply. I sucked in a scream.

"Stop!" The word echoed with power. Witchy power. The walls rippled at the purpose and intent of the single syllable. Power bombarded me, hot p.r.i.c.kles of pain, stealing my breath. Off balance, I fell to the floor and bounced, muscles frozen, stopped.

Immanuel, on one knee, at the apex of his swipe, stopped. I realized it hadn't been Immanuel's command. The alarm died. Lights flickered. A human I hadn't seen stood at the end of the hallway, immobile, panicked. Footsteps trod up the stairs, soft in the carpet. I remembered the cars I pa.s.sed, people inside. c.r.a.p. The cavalry had nearly been here when I arrived-witches. "Stop," the voice said again, softer, closer, strengthening the spell. Beast raged in me. I held her down, resisted her need to move. To fight.

My hands sizzled with heat and electric agony. I'd been hit with a spell before, and I understood that to resist was to make it stronger. I ceased fighting against the compulsion and released my grips. My hands fell open. My body relaxed. The Benelli thumped softly to the carpet; the charm lay exposed in my palm.

"Stop! " Power flowed from the word like silvered light.

The rogue/skinwalker began to slowly sink to the floor, fighting the compulsion, his body moving a fraction of an inch at a time as his own kinetic energies were used to bind him. I looked around, able to move only my eyes. I couldn't even breathe beyond a shallow intake of air, not nearly what I needed in the interrupted aftermath of fighting. But at least the rogue was similarly trapped. Neither of us could move with conscious choice. The footsteps grew closer. I heard others behind them. One, perhaps two more witches.

"Stop," several said together.

The command was much more than a set of letters arranged into a single syllable. It was an intricate spell, a general, all-purpose, spoken word-a wyrd-wrapped around a spell, intended to stop all kinetic energy, except the speaker's own, within a predetermined radius. And it did. I lay on the floor, trying to relax, trying not to fight for the breath I so desperately needed. Everything around me took on a shimmering hue, bright and sharp, amplified by the spell's power. It was brightest around the rogue, where the silvery energies began to tighten and constrict as he fought the forces bearing down on him.

The witch moved into view. Antoine. Behind him was the woman I had seen in the Royal Mojo Blues Club in the secret meeting. They walked up the last three steps, moving easily, human slow. The woman stopped at the landing, her long skirt swaying. Antoine stood before her, his locks tied back, curiosity on his face. He was wearing sneakers, a b.u.t.ton-down shirt open at the collar, and threadbare jeans. A half dozen or so wicked-sharp blades were strapped at his belt, blades with steel and green stone handles. His cooking knives. I wanted to giggle but I didn't have the breath. My sight was growing darker at the edges, a sign of oxygen deprivation. I needed to breathe. Soon. A glance at the liver-eater showed his face ashen. His eyes livid.

Antoine pulled a knife as he advanced on the rogue, who still wore the beautiful face of Leo's son. But, like the walls that had rippled at Antoine's wyrd, and the air that held too much power in check, his flesh rippled slightly. The rogue was tiring, his exhaustion draining his control; he was losing his focus. The rot stench intensified. His skull bones took on an odd fusion of features, part human, part lion, while his skin slipped from hue to hue, a coppery, olive, pale, tawny pelt patchwork underlain with sickly, yellowed skin and pustules. His hair slid from blond to ashy brown to black with sc.r.a.ps of pelt. His flesh-the snake in his bones-wanted to return to its Cherokee form, seeking the original pattern, while his intent and fear pushed his body toward other forms.

His skin darkened, lightened; his hair flowed black and long. His eyes went from a tint so dark they looked black, to a softer tone, yellowish, like mine. From above me, kneeling, he turned those eyes, those so-familiar eyes, to me. Recognition again flared there. He saw Beast within me, close to the surface, barely harnessed. He hissed in a breath so hoa.r.s.e it sounded as if he breathed in through glue.

Antoine moved through the kinetic energies trembling in the air. He knelt beside Immanuel, one knee on the carpet, close to my face. I could see the frayed seam in the denim, and the two men just beyond.

In an instant I put it together. The rogue was trying to take over Leo's position of power, using Gregoire's form and monies to buy land for his new clan. In a perfect position to carry out his plan, he was the one creating instability in vamp politics. Like I said before, could I be any more stupid?

"We thought it might be you," Antoine said. Immanuel's eyes flitted to him. "But when Clan Arceneau was buying up all the land, we thought it was the woman Mithran, little Dominique, seeking control of her clan, or seeking to begin a new clan-family and expanded hunting ground."

Antoine shifted, blocking my view, his back to me, his body standing within the outstretched claws of the rogue. "Or, we think perhaps it was Blood-master Arceneau, eh? You lead us to think that, yes? The 'traveling in Europe' was ruse? You have him, Arceneau, bound in silver, stash him somewhere?" He chuckled at whatever he saw in Immanuel's expression. "And then Anna join us. Tell us something about you become strange. . . ."

The rogue, the liver-eater, twitched a claw. Only a fraction. At the movement, the charm lying in my palm grew hot, burning. Oh c.r.a.p. The charms. They were reacting to my fear and Antoine's spell. They were intended to protect me. Clearly at least one of them had identified a threat to me and was trying to react. The burning increased, gathering, intensifying in the center of my hand. I wanted to scream. As my skin blistered I managed a gasp, soft, almost silent.

Neither of the two looked my way. Antoine reached out and touched the rogue's paw, one finger on the tip of a claw. "I don' know what you are, mon, but you not Immanuel. Not Immanuel, long time pa.s.s. Decades, maybe. You steal Immanuel shape, yes? And this sabertooth shape. How you do that? You kill a witch and take her power? Yes? No? No matter. Your time here done. I no miss de heart, like dis pet.i.te chat."

With a quick flick of his wrist he jerked the stake out of Immanuel's chest. Blood flew. Splattering me. A droplet landed on the charm. The crimson drop bubbled and spat, releasing the heating stench of rotten meat. It mixed with the reek of my burned flesh as the charm bristled with power. I gagged on the pain. Tears blurred my eyes. I wasn't supposed to hold it once it was activated. I was supposed to throw it at the danger. It was supposed to detonate, but only on the cause of the danger, not on me. Holding the charm was having an unexpected effect on the incantation embedded in it. My hand is burning.

Antoine flipped his knife, lowered it to Immanuel's neck. The blade pressed in. More blood spurted. I managed a strangled scream as the charm fully activated. Burning a hole into my palm. My fingers spasmed closed. Increasing the pain tenfold.

The charm detonated. Taking with it Antoine's kinetic spell. Everything happened fast, in overlapping images. The concussion of energies was a backwash of agony as I sucked in a breath, filling my air-starved lungs.

The liver-eater's outstretched arms ripped inward, closing on Antoine's body. The liver-eater slashed through Antoine's thin shirt. Tearing deep into the witch's back at waist and neck. A deadly embrace. With a violent jerk, Antoine's spine gave way with two distinct popping sounds. I grunted out a choked warning. Too late. The liver-eater fell forward onto four legs. Shimmering. Shifting. Fangs and pelt and ma.s.sive musculature ripped through his clothes.

The female witch, half forgotten, screamed and rushed forward. The liver-eater slashed at her with one ma.s.sive paw. Took off half her face, throwing her away, out of sight.

I gripped and raised the Benelli in my uninjured hand. Pulled an arm under me and levered my body up. Gathered my legs beneath me.

He roared. Leaped at me. The half man, half sabertooth landed over me, the weight a jolt I felt through the floor. Moves and fights like a human, Beast thought at me. Not like Beast.

I had no time to react. Except. My finger squeezed the trigger. Shots boomed.

Silver-shot impacted the beast's chest, neck, and face. The flechettes tore through him with brutal efficiency. Blood and gore back-splattered over me. The liver-eater jerked to the side. I stopped firing, watching as he fell, slowly. He hit the carpet, his body encased in silver energies, black motes of dark power dancing, red flames of heat whirling and gusting.

Belatedly, I threw the other charm at him. It hit him in the center of his chest. The explosion rocked me, rolling me, shoving me against the wall. Fire erupted out of the beast's chest. Witchy fire. He roared.

Statues along the hallway exploded. He shifted fully into the sabertooth cat. Striped tawny coat, with short, powerful legs, a stubby tail, and six-inch upper canines. His lower canines were shorter, only a couple of inches, if the word "only" ever applied to a sabertooth. Round, human-looking pupils stared at me, glinting with vengeance. He stood a good five hundred pounds of cat-fury, and . . . he was drawing in power from my charm, pulling it inside him. Using it. The fire of the spell went out. The charm plinked to the carpet, smoking, its energies used up. The sabertooth attacked.

Fights like human! Beast is better! Beast roared into my head, into my eyes. But there wasn't time to shift. No time to draw ma.s.s so we could fight on equal terms. The sabertooth leaped. I rolled against the wall. Gripped two vamp-killers. The sabertooth landed, jarring the house. Beast rolled me onto my back. Exposing my belly.

The sabertooth took the bait. Claws outstretched, it rose up and dropped down. Landed on my chest. Driving the breath from me with a woof of air and pain. A sharp crack of broken ribs. Stabbing me. The huge cat rose up again. Dropped. Batted me over. Straddled my body and dropped his head. To tear out my throat.

Now! Beast screamed. I thrust up with the knives, deep into his chest. The blades slid along his ribs, one catching and grinding to a stop. But the other slipped deeply, under ribs, slicing cartilage, cutting lungs. Finding heart. I felt it when the blade slid into the heart cavity, a slight give in the resistance.

The lion roared. I rolled as he bit. He caught my shoulder. His teeth punctured, cutting through leather into flesh. With my good hand, I shoved the hilt of the knife with all my might. Swiveling the hilt against and into his body. He shook his head. Rending and tearing. My entire body quaked and snapped. I thought my shoulder would rip free.

He slowed. Shuddered. Gasped, his nostrils fluttering. His eyes met mine, shock and understanding in the depths. His paws swept me up, claws piercing through my jacket, into my skin. Silver light blazed over him, the energies buzzing like sound waves, like the pressure of fast-moving water, over me. The black motes of power shocked where they touched me.

He was trying to throw off ma.s.s. He was trying to shift. He was trying to steal my form. Once again, Beast did . . . something. Deep inside my mind I felt her-saw her-an image of Beast twisting in midair, tail rotating, claws outstretched as if to grab prey.

Liquid gushed out of Immanuel's mouth, out of his nose, out of the holes in his chest, thick and viscous. Smelling like rotten meat, like old death, rancid and fetid as an open grave.

He backed up, dropping me. I landed hard, knocking my head, unaware that he had lifted me so high. I managed to take in a breath. Pulled the last of the vamp-killer blades. And the last of Molly's charms.

I rose to my knees in the slimy mess pooling beneath the sabertooth. Got one foot beneath me. And shoved with it, hard, shifting my weight, the power of my whole body, into the motion. Turned the blade point out as I moved. And pierced through his eye, into his brain.

He made no sound, just dropped to his belly, his legs gathered beneath him. But a back leg splayed free, sliding. He was losing control.

With my burned hand, I flipped Molly's charm at him. It hit his damaged chest. I hadn't wasted any of the spell's energies this time by burning my own flesh. None of its power had dissipated into the air in reaction to a spoken wyrd spell. And the creature was too injured to take the power for himself. It was all there, ready and contained.

It exploded inward, into the lion. It took apart every organ, the shaped concussion shredding and bursting every blood vessel, tearing his chest cavity apart. A magic hand grenade. Flesh and bone blasted away. Fluid flooded out of him, foul and choking. His remaining bone and muscle shifted, grinding into a different configuration. His skin split and re-formed, the pelt shimmering away.

I scuttled back, cradling my injured arm, unable to take my eyes from him. The silver energies darkened, forcing a change on him, compelling the shift. They seemed to shudder; the black motes blinked away for an instant. The rogue fell to the carpet, his head in the foul mess that had come from within him. The silver light bathed him in a soft fog.

And then, even that wisped away.

On the carpet was a half-naked man. Or mostly a man. His scalp was still partly cat, his hands still paws. But his torso and limbs appeared mostly human, though the joints were oddly turned, his knees bent the wrong way for a primate. He was a huge man. Larger than he had been as a human, still carrying the ma.s.s of the unfinished shift. Three hundred pounds of pure muscle. One side of his face was Cherokee. The other half was Immanuel. Both halves had long killing teeth in upper and lower jaws.

I toed him with my foot. He wasn't breathing. No pulse beat in his throat. There was no heart left to beat in the ruined chest. The liver-eater was dead.

I had exterminated a skinwalker. Perhaps the last one besides me.

I knew that I should feel grief. Shock. Sorrow. But for now, all I felt was Beast's triumph. Killed Big Cat, I/we, together! Beast is victor! she screamed into my mind.

Standing over the rogue, in the ruins of the upper hallway of Leo Pellissier's home, I stared into the face, noting the hair on its scalp had made the change to long black hair so much like my own. Noting the brown skin, slightly deeper brown than my own golden hue.

Beast said, Escape. Now. Details of the next few minutes, the next few hours, raced through my mind. First, stop my bleeding. I needed to apply pressure to my shoulder. Fumbling, I opened a pocket inside my jacket and pulled out my tourniquet. It took a moment to remember how to use it. Evidence of shock. With teeth and my good hand, I opened the loop and applied it above my shoulder joint, pulling it tight, securing the Velcro. The strap caught on the head of my humerus, exposed through the flesh. I nearly gagged with pain.

Beast stared at the blood running down my hand, off my fingers, onto the floor. Shift.

"I can't," I muttered. "Not now." She growled at me. But the tourniquet was working; the blood dripping from my fingers slowed. I glanced at Antoine. Dead. And I'd killed him. I was too numb to feel grief or shame or anything beyond the momentary ecstasy of surviving, a joy already blurring with pain and shock. I knew my charm had killed him just as much as the liver-eater, but I'd have to deal with that later.

I found the woman, also dead, her neck at an impossible angle. She was the woman I had seen, all right, the one in the long skirt, entering the meeting with Anna and Rick. They had indeed been tracking the rogue. And from what I had learned, using Anna to do it.

I had to get out of here. But first, I had to make sure I got paid. I needed proof of death to fulfill my contract. I pulled my camera out and took a dozen photos, then repeated the process with the cell, though these shots would be less clear. I e-mailed the photos to myself, pocketed the cell and camera. I pulled my knives out of the liver-eater's flesh and wiped them on my jeans. I limped past Antoine, down the stairs, to my bike, hoping to get out of here before Leo arrived and figured out that I'd just killed his son-or what had pa.s.sed for his son. I didn't have enough energy or moxie to fight the blood-master of New Orleans.

I managed to get Bitsa back down the steps into the drive. Managed to kick-start the engine, mostly one-handed. There was only one car in the drive as I motored past. Empty. I wondered who had left. And why.

Demo version limitation.

EPILOGUE.

I kicked high, hitting the padded glove, but holding back on the strength and speed gifted to me by Beast. Landed and twisted all in one move. Kicked the other glove. Punched hard, not putting my body behind it, but searching for and finding the perfect form. Again. Again.

"Enough." Instantly, I stopped. Backed away. Put my hands to my thighs. Bowed. The padded man beside me bowed as well. "You should compete," he said. I raised my body and c.o.c.ked a brow at the sensei. He was trying to be funny. Everyone who trained with him knew he never competed. He thought compet.i.tion was for sissies.