“By the powers of earth, fire, wind, and sea, I command thee: unmask!”

She felt a surge of power in the arm she held. And then the woman’s body shimmered—there was no other word for it—and the body resolved itself into…

A man.

And an amazingly handsome man, at that. Tall—very tall—broad-shouldered under a leather jacket, much bigger than she was, powerful through the chest and thighs. Longish hair curled around his ears, and he was wearing jeans worn so soft they looked like buckskin, all of which gave him a roguish, buccaneering look.

“Well done,” he commented, looking infuriatingly pleased with her.

“What are you playing at, shifter?” Cait demanded, while simultaneously scanning the room behind him for a weapon. Being located down a mysterious, romantic alley was a big plus for atmosphere. It was not such an ideal situation when you found yourself suddenly alone with a rogue shapeshifter.

“I’m not playing, Keeper. I’m not playing at all.”

ALEXANDRA

SOKOLOFF

THE SHIFTERS

www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author

ALEXANDRA SOKOLOFF is a California native and the daughter of scientist and educator parents, which drove her into musical theater at an early age.

At UC Berkeley (a paranormal experience all on its own) she majored in theater, and wrote, directed and acted in productions from Shakespeare to street theater, trained in modern dance, directed and choreographed four full-scale musicals, spent a summer singing in a Montana bar, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

After college Alex moved to Los Angeles, where she has made an interesting living writing novel adaptations, and original suspense and horror scripts, for numerous Hollywood studios.

The Harrowing, her debut ghost story, was nominated for both a Bram Stoker Award (horror) and an Anthony Award (mystery) as Best First Novel. The book is based on a real poltergeist experience from her high school years.

Alex is also the author of Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, a workbook based on her internationally acclaimed blog and writing workshops.

Dear Reader,

I’m very excited to introduce my—well, my sixth book, actually, but my first-ever Nocturne. I was thrilled when the lovely and stupendously talented Heather Graham asked me to co-write a trilogy set in New Orleans, that fabulous like-no-other city that I’ve shared such fantastic times in with Heather and our third co-writer, Deborah LeBlanc. Our mutual love of New Orleans and shared fascination with all things paranormal—and criminal—made brainstorming the series a dream: we got to use all our favorite places and “what-ifs,” and even some spooky experiences (the New Orleans cemeteries at night, the vampire and ghost walks, a séance at a magic shop, the sense of the city at three a.m…)

I’ve written ghosts, witches, poltergeists, and even a character who may just be the devil, but this book was my first time out with vampires, werewolves and shapeshifters. There is so much history in New Orleans, it was a lark to create a species of beings who had been around for some of the…stranger stuff, and who live on the fringes of the fringe of this very fringe-y city. And it was no huge stretch to write about three powerful sisters when I was working with such powerful sister-writers.

And I have to admit, I had a lot of fun with the sex. Scenes, I mean.

I hope you enjoy reading The Shifters as much as I did writing it.

Alexandra Sokoloff

For Heather Graham and all the Pozzessore clan,

who have made New Orleans (and so many other places!)

a true and beloved home away from home.

Chapter 1

The wind breathes over the Mississippi River, rippling the water, caressing the crescent of the New Orleans shore. It slips through the black iron gates of Jackson Square, stirring the colorful paintings by local artists carefully hung on the bars, and sweeps through the cobblestone Quarter, an old lover, knowing, familiar.

But this morning something rides the wind, something not gentle at all, knowing, but insidious, invisible and malevolent. The white cats sleeping on the shop steps shrink away from it, fur bristling in their slumber, and the magnolia trees shiver at its touch.

Evil.

Caitlin MacDonald shuddered awake in the predawn, her heart racing.

Far above her a ceiling fan thrummed, and the stir of air on her flesh made her shiver again as the remnants of her dream rustled in her head insubstantially, like leaves in the wind.

Bad wind, she thought. Something bad.

She sat up in bed, pushing away a silky comforter, and reaching for a silver and black kimono that went with her riot of blond hair and silvery eyes.

The feeling of unease was worse as she stood, and her first jolted thoughts were of her sisters.

Fiona. Shauna. Are they all right?

She crossed her bedroom quickly, bare feet slipping across the gleaming old oak floors, and pulled open the French doors to step out onto the balcony.

In the soft humidity of the morning, she looked out over the compound, the enclosed stone-paved garden sheltered by the house, built in three wings around the square. Caitlin’s every sense was on alert. The wind was strong, insistent, rustling the magnolia leaves and rippling through the hibiscus vines, splashing water from the center fountain onto the mossy paving stones. She froze as she glimpsed movement beside the brick wall, with its concealed gate out to the city street.

A sleek figure in black…sweatshirt hood shadowing its face…

The figure put its foot up on the rim of the fountain and bent over a leg, stretching. The hood dropped back, revealing a reddish-blond ponytail.

Caitlin slowly relaxed, recognizing her younger sister Shauna, warming up for her morning run. Caitlin leaned over the balcony railing, and Shauna, with her ever-present animal awareness, looked sharply up. Caitlin waved, and Shauna tossed her ponytail back. “Be careful!” Caitlin called down.

Shauna grinned and flipped a hand, dismissing the warning. Then she yanked open the gate, breaking into a run as soon as she’d shut and locked the iron door.

Caitlin breathed out, irked at Shauna’s nonchalance, but somewhat reassured at such a normal reaction. Then a pale shape leapt into her peripheral vision, and she started back in shock….

Fur brushed against her hand, and Caitlin shook her head at her own jumpiness. “Chloe! You scared me,” she scolded, reaching out to stroke the cat parading in front of her on the railing of the balcony—one of the cream and gold cats that roamed the compound, sisters upon sisters, as possessive of their space as if they’d been the ones who’d lived there for five generations. Which indeed they had, just as had the human MacDonald sisters.

Caitlin picked up the cat and cuddled it to her chest as she felt the wind stir again below them, saw the invisible force gather the branches of the trees into a swirling mass. She frowned again.

Fiona.

Caitlin looked across the garden to the wing of the house directly across from her own, her elder sister’s apartments. The balcony was unmistakably Fiona’s, overflowing with flowers, which seemed to burst into life when Fiona simply looked at them. The French doors were open a tad, and the sight made Caitlin’s heart start beating faster again.

What if someone got in? What if I’m too late? What if this time she really does die because of me?

The wind billowed the filmy curtains that hung behind the French doors, and Caitlin’s heart wrenched in sick anxiety.

Then the curtains were brushed aside and Fiona herself stepped out, oversize coffee cup in hand. Caitlin breathed a massive sigh of relief. Fiona stood at the railing for a moment, slender, gorgeous…the sunlight turning her long pure blond hair luminous as she looked out on the garden and then spotted Caitlin. Her lovely smile widened, and she raised her coffee cup.

Then the curtains moved behind her, and out stepped a tall, superbly muscled, dark-haired man, wearing tight jeans and nothing else.

He didn’t see Caitlin; his eyes were only on Fiona as he drew her into a kiss, openmouthed, hungry, and Caitlin watched in turmoil as her sister melted against him. The man raised his head and pulled Fiona back through the French doors with obvious intent.

Caitlin backed up and slipped through her own French doors, her heart pounding again, but this time in anger.

Damned vampire. How could Fiona be such a fool? Thinking she’s in love with that—that Other.

Caitlin slammed the French doors behind her. All kinds of bad omens this morning. She didn’t like it. Not at all.

Now dressed in a purple, green and gold peasant dress and comfortable beaded sandals—the Quarter’s cobblestone sidewalks were hell on a girl’s shoes—Caitlin moved out through the gate of the compound and into the soft light of day. She felt her unease begin to slip away.

She loved the Vieux Carre, the “old street,” in the morning. New Orleans was a city of night owls, so Caitlin had the Quarter practically to herself in the early hours. Her daily ritual was to walk down to Café Du Monde, the famous coffee-and-beignets shop, for a tall cup of the smoothest, most fragrant, chicory-laced coffee on the planet, and then out to the Riverwalk to check on her city, test its perimeters, feel for any trouble.

She breathed in as she passed the shops with their treasures behind sparkling plate glass: the gilded clocks, antique mirrors and elegant furniture from another time, the intricate jewelry and the splashy colorful paintings, the enticing clothing; and the smells—fish and sweet liquor and sugar candles, Cajun cooking and coffee..

There was hardly a thing that was normal or modern about it, Caitlin mused as she turned down Pirates’ Alley, walking past rustic storefronts on one side, the high iron bars that surrounded the gardens of St. Louis Cathedral on the other. New Orleans was a city out of time, existing in its own parallel universe.

And that made it a perfect settlement for Others.

For centuries, the Wild West, anything-goes atmosphere of New Orleans had made the city a natural draw for supernatural beings. Besides New Orleans’ more famous contingent of ghosts and voodoo practitioners, there also existed secret societies of Others: vampires, werewolves and shapeshifters, who had migrated from all over the world to make their home here, living totally under the radar.

The migration had started in the late 1600s and early 1700s, when the new American colonies became an attractive means of escape for Others fleeing the ongoing witch persecutions in Europe. Official church doctrine had made it clear that all shapeshifters, werewolves, vampires and otherworldly beings were to be classified as witches, and subject to the same laws of torture and execution.

So the New World meant a new start for thousands of Others. And as America expanded Westward, and new cities sprang up with their own distinct characters, the Others naturally gravitated toward the unique port city of New Orleans, where French law was lax, the supernatural—in the form of voodoo—was an underlying thread of the culture, and open-mindedness and indulgence were a cherished part of daily life.

Where better to hide in plain sight than in a city where masks and costumes were the rule rather than the exception, where eccentricity not only thrived but was expected, and the constant influx of tourists made change a constant and too many questions about anyone’s past…well, just plain rude.

It had been so for hundreds of years. And for hundreds of years the MacDonald clan had served as Keepers of the city, Keepers of the balance between the human and supernatural worlds. While the Others were perfectly aware of their human counterparts, and some lived fairly integrated lives, holding down human jobs and even owning businesses, few humans knew just how many Others there were—if they had any conception of the Others at all. It was how the Others wanted it; every sane Other was mortally aware of humankind’s propensity to hunt down and kill all that it did not understand. Not exactly witches, but far more than ordinarily human, it was the Keepers who made sure, to the best of their abilities, that didn’t happen. It was also their job to make sure that any supernatural shenanigans that encroached on human life were handled with utmost discretion, without exposing the existence of the communities. Fiona served as the liaison with the vampires, Caitlin, the shapeshifters, and Shauna, the were-packs. Each sister was marked from birth with the sign of the beings she Kept, and each had developed certain skills to help her manage her special charges. Since their parents’ untimely deaths, the three sisters had been in sole charge of Keeping the city.

So it was in her official capacity as a Keeper that Caitlin brooded that morning, brooded as she walked the narrow street, with its closed shop fronts and unique wood-shuttered windows set flush to the sidewalk. Relieved though she was that her sisters were fine, she was still keyed-up from her dream. Caitlin’s dreams were often precognitive, or at least hypersensitive. This one had felt like more than a dream; it had felt like danger. And she couldn’t afford to screw up again. She had been asleep at the wheel the last time the city had been threatened by a rogue Other, but being in a fog of her own concoction was no excuse.

And her inattention had put Fiona in danger, had nearly killed her. Had nearly killed both of them.

It had been just three months since a series of homicides apparently committed by a rogue vampire had threatened the city, and Fiona, along with homicide detective and vampire Jagger DeFarge, had taken on the brunt of the investigation, the vampire community being Fiona’s special purview.

It turned out the killer hadn’t been a vampire at all, but a shapeshifter, who had taken on vampire abilities after years of concentrated shifting into vampire form. A pair of such shifters, actually. And shapeshifters were Caitlin’s responsibility. Only she had been so—distracted…

She shut her mind down then.

No. I’m not going to think about it. It’s never going to happen again.

But even as she thought it, she felt the touch of the wind brushing against her bare legs, slipping through her clothes…

The wind.

Her heart contracted again.

The wind…soft and enticing, the warm breath of the Quarter.

But something was off this morning, like the dream. The wind was not comforting and caressing, that familiar invisible lover. Today there was an edge to it.

Bad wind, Caitlin thought again.

She stopped in front of the paintings hanging on the bars of the fencing around Jackson Square, looking around her. As her eyes swept over them, she recognized paintings from her dream.

And suddenly she had the distinct and unnerving sensation that she was being watched.

From the comfortable invisibility of the alley, he watched the Keeper.

She had been walking for blocks with no awareness of him. A bad sign—for her, anyway. For her—and for the city.

She was lovely, though, that rippling hair, blonde as moonlight, that ripe body, all that coiled strength and sweetness, pale and voluptuous curves. He felt it stir him, the thought of how it would feel to be inside that lusciousness….

Caitlin felt an intent, as clear as touch on her skin. She whirled and stared across the square at the intersection of streets.

There. A shadow, slipping quickly into Pirates’ Alley.

She froze on the cobblestone walkway, her heart in her throat..

Then, without thinking, she ran back toward the alley.

He hovered in the alley, aware of her sudden awareness, aroused by it.

Unmask now?

Too easy. There was a time, and he would wait for it.

The Keeper whirled toward him and broke into a run, straight for the alley.

He slipped back, insubstantial as shadow.

Caitlin put on a burst of speed and tore around the corner of the Absinthe Bar, into the narrow alley.

There was no one. The flat stones of the street were empty. She whirled from side to side, staring, her breath coming harsh in her throat as she scanned the doorways of the closed shops. The wind whispered in the corners, swung the antique shop signs on their chains….

No one…but a feeling of presence and intent. Overwhelming, ominous. Gooseflesh rose on Caitlin’s arm, crawled up her nape….

She backed away and ran.

Chapter 2

Armed with the largest café au lait available from Café Du Monde, Caitlin unlocked the door of A Little Bit of Magic, the mystic shop she and her sisters ran. Inside she locked the door firmly behind her; then, without even opening the wooden shutters of the bay windows, she marched back through the store, past the small coffee and tea bar, and the shelves of herbs and roots in glass jars, past bookcases of divinatory classics, histories of religion and magic traditions past and present, past jewelry cases full of sparkling gemstones set into intricate silver pieces and magical wands, to the doorway hung with its purple velvet curtain embroidered with glittering gold stars. She brushed through the soft folds into the reading room, a circular windowless space redolent with incense and hung with esoteric tapestries, a round table placed in the center, along with two high-backed chairs set across from each other.

Caitlin crossed to a wooden cupboard with painted symbols, and opened the doors to remove a silk-wrapped rectangle, her Tarot deck.

She breathed in, possibly for the first time since she’d entered the shop, and forced herself to be still, to focus, to release tension, to breathe from her center. When she had quieted her pulse, she stepped more deliberately to a hanging wooden shelf and took a match, which she struck to light the candles on the table, and then the ones in the tall metal candelabrum in the corner.

After that she sat in one of the chairs, facing the back wall, centered the deck before her and unwrapped it. She closed her eyes and mixed the cards, once, twice, three times, spoke aloud the name of the city itself as querent, and laid out a simple spread: Past, Present, Future.

“Where have you been?” she asked aloud, then reached and turned over a card.

The Tower. Destruction. That was Katrina, of course, still a wound, leaving the city vulnerable. It also had overtones of the war between the Other races that had killed her parents, and of the recent upheaval in the communities because of the cemetery murders.

“What ails you?” she asked, turned over a second card and froze, staring down at The Devil. One of the most feared cards in the deck. A predator.

She forced her mind clear, spoke aloud calmly. “What is the future?” And turned another card.

Death.

Caitlin’s heart was pounding now, so loudly that she could barely hear herself think.

Many Tarot readers tried to gloss over the Death card as an indicator of change, but sometimes Death meant exactly that, and in this configuration there was nothing benign about it.

What question now? What?

“What must I watch for?” she asked, breathing deeply, and reached to turn over a new card.

The Seven of Cups. Illusion. The card she associated with shapeshifters.

Something banged behind her, and she nearly jumped out of her chair.

“Damn it.” It was her sister’s voice, and it came just as Shauna pushed through the curtain into the reading room and gasped, seeing Caitlin sitting at the table.

“Cait? Mother Mary, what are you doing sitting there in the dark? You just scared the living daylights out of me.”

“I was just reading,” Caitlin said faintly.

Shauna flipped on a light, exasperated. “I saw the shutters closed and the lights off, and I didn’t think anyone was here.”

“Sorry…it’s…been a weird morning.”

Caitlin rose and slid the cards back into the deck, then folded the deck into the silk and put it away. It was probably past time for their daily meeting.

Shauna had already breezed back into the outer shop, and when Caitlin stepped out through the curtains the shutters were wide-open, letting in the light, and Fiona was coming through the door, her arms full of flowers and a bag of cookies. Customers at A Little Bit of Magic could always count on sweet treats, not to mention champagne on holidays. The shop was a “Best of NOLA” pick every year.

Caitlin looked at her sisters, both of them exuberant, overflowing with life. Shauna was glowing from her run, and Fiona was glowing from…something else. Caitlin felt dark and distressed by comparison.

Get in that early morning tumble before the bloodsucker has to crawl back into his coffin, she thought darkly, even though technically Jagger DeFarge neither sucked blood nor slept in a coffin. Still, a Keeper being involved with a member of the race she was charged to protect was just…wrong. Cait knew that all too well.

“What’s the matter?” Fiona asked her, instantly picking up on her mood.

“Bad wind,” Caitlin muttered, unable to help herself.

“What?” Fiona frowned, her clear blue eyes concerned, and Shauna turned from her cash register prep to look at her.

“Something’s off,” Caitlin hedged. “I had a dream…and I was followed in Jackson Square this morning.”

Her sisters were instantly alarmed, their voices overlapping.

“Followed?”

“Who followed you?”

“More like what,” Caitlin said darkly. “Something I couldn’t see. Watching me.”

Her sisters didn’t bother to hide the skeptical look they exchanged, and Caitlin’s defenses went straight up. “And it showed up in the cards just now, too. Death and the Devil and the Tower. And Illusion. Shapeshifters.”

Caitlin was the best card reader of all of them, but both her sisters knew enough to know that configuration was far from good. And yet, Caitlin caught another one of those exchanged glances. Caitlin knew exactly what the looks meant. Poor Cait. She’s over the top these days. Seeing shadows everywhere.

Caitlin felt her temper flare and tried to keep a handle on it.

Fiona made it worse by being gently diplomatic about it. “Tell us what we can do, sweetie.”

Caitlin now felt frustration as well as anger. “Be careful. Just be careful. When I know more, I’ll tell you.”

She knew she sounded bitter, but how long would she have to do penance? When was she going to be able to redeem herself, set the whole vampire/shifter disaster to rest?

She found herself suddenly wishing for a cataclysm, a challenge so profound that she would be able to save herself, save everyone, and finally feel herself a true Keeper.

Shauna was already looking at the clock on the wall. “Are you going to be okay here today?” she asked. “I’m buying in Lafayette today, and Fee is meeting with Rosalyn to pick up the new Halloween costumes.”

Caitlin bristled. “Why wouldn’t I be okay? I can hold the fort. I’m saying you be careful. Both of you. Until we know more.”

“We will, honey. You just call if you need anything.” Fiona stepped forward and kissed her cheek, and Caitlin burned under her sweetness.

As they left, Shauna’s look of pity obvious to anyone but the dead or blind, Caitlin paced the shop in a fury. She could hear them talking outside, not literally, but sometimes when the wind was blowing, she could just hear. Low, feminine murmurs now.

Shauna: Ever since the cemetery murders…

Fiona: But that’s ridiculous, it wasn’t Cait’s fault…

Shauna: But you know Cait. If there’s anything to obsess about, she’s gonna obsess.

With effort, Caitlin turned off her inner ear, seething with resentment. I’ll show them. One way or another. I will.

The morning flew by, with tourists arriving early for Halloween, coming up in just five days. There was a steady trickle of them, enticed down the short alleyway to the shop. The sugar candles were an irresistible draw, and the attraction spell the sisters had placed on the sidewalks outside didn’t hurt. The least likely people drifting down Rue Royal ended up veering into their alleyway, following the burnt-sugar scent—and something less tangible but even more enticing—into the shop.

In no time it was midafternoon, and Caitlin’s 3:00 p.m. Tarot reading was due any minute.

The woman who entered the shop had given her name as Amanda Peters, and she was a beauty: in her late forties, with a life force burning like a flame, lithe, auburn-haired, copper freckles on creamy skin, and a buttery Southern accent that Caitlin placed as Charlestonian.

She strode in wearing Katharine Hepburn trousers and a silky white shirt, looking like an old-style film goddess, but as soon as Caitlin led her through the velvet curtain and into the inner room and seated her in the reading chair, she dissolved into ugly, heart-rending sobs.

Love trouble, Caitlin thought wearily. Nothing else could so completely unravel someone as strong as this.

She braced herself for the inevitable question, choked out between more sobs.

“He left me. What can I do?”

Caitlin unwrapped the cards.

She sensed that Amanda was a Wand, driven by will, so Caitlin pulled the Queen of Wands as the significator, the public mask, to represent her, then placed the cards in front of Amanda to hold and then cut. Caitlin laid out a Love Spread and turned over the first four cards.

She studied them, frowning. “Your life is in transition. The high presence of swords indicates single-minded pursuit, vengeance..”

Funny, that wasn’t at all the read she had gotten from the woman herself; the cards were contradictory.

She turned to the first bar of three cards and touched her finger to the one on the far left. The King of Swords—which could indicate a dangerous, treacherous man, but with clients Caitlin always tried to start with the positive aspects of the cards. “The King of Swords is a highly intellectual, well-educated man, with a razor wit and many facets to his character. He is a natural problem-solver, but often moves on too quickly, from ideas, people and places, to provide any permanence. He can be passionate, charismatic, fascinating, challenging. and completely exhausting.”

As Caitlin spoke, Amanda leaned forward on her elbows, seemingly transfixed by what Caitlin was saying.

Caitlin could feel that she was reaching the woman on some profound level; she knew that look well. The other woman was hearing things that were true. “The card also represents a private person, a loner who defends his walls and boundaries fiercely. You may never get to know him no matter how long you’re with him. The card also often indicates someone heavily involved in occult study….” As Caitlin continued, she was more and more aware of something wrong.

She paused and looked down at the spread again.

And then it hit her, hard. The card she had been speaking about was not the card representing Amanda’s lover but was in the place of the querent: Amanda herself.

It made no sense.

She decided to deal an extra card, silently asking for clarification.

The Knight of Swords, reversed.

“This card indicates a deceitful man, treacherous and secretive beneath a surface charm…” Caitlin stopped herself. She had asked about Amanda, but again—the card indicated a deceitful man. And this time even more clearly indicated a manipulator, skilled in the occult, in glamours, in projection.

Could it be?

Caitlin bit her lip and then picked up the deck and held it as she asked the cards a quick, silent question: What is going on here?

She turned over a card.

Seven of Cups.

Shapeshifter.

Caitlin’s head was buzzing as if it was going to explode. Across the table from her, Amanda was suddenly alert, as if sensing Caitlin’s thoughts, and she started to push her chair back to stand, but too late. Caitlin lunged over the table, grabbed Amanda’s wrist and held her fast as she spoke a few low, quick words. “By the powers of earth, fire, wind and sea, I command thee: unmask!”

She felt a surge of power in the arm she held, Amanda’s whole body swelling with energy, a struggle. And then the woman’s body shimmered—in fact, all the air in the room shimmered, there was no other word for it—and the woman’s body resolved itself into…

A man.

And an amazingly handsome man, at that. Tall—very tall—broad-shouldered under a leather jacket, much bigger than she was, powerful through the chest and thighs. Longish jet-black hair curled around his ears, and he was wearing jeans worn so soft they looked like buckskin, all of which gave him a roguish, buccaneering look, decidedly unmodern.

“Well done,” he commented, looking infuriatingly pleased with her.

“What are you playing at, Shifter?” Caitlin demanded, while simultaneously scanning the room behind him for a weapon. Being located down a mysterious, romantic alley was a big plus for atmosphere but not such an ideal situation when you found yourself suddenly alone with a rogue shapeshifter. And a human-form shifter, too, the most dangerous and untrustworthy kind.

“I’m not playing, Keeper. I’m not playing at all.” There was a sensual menace to his voice now, which made her heart plunge in dismay.

If he meant her harm, she was in deep trouble already. She’d never seen such a complete and unexpected shift. Mentally she raced back through the encounter with the woman, racking her brain for any sign that she’d missed—a ripple, a tic, a shudder. But there had been no psychic leakage, no slipping of the form, nothing that would have signaled the presence of a shifter, much less one in assumed form. It was only the cards that had warned her.

Caitlin’s mind plunged through her options. Her cell phone was in the outer shop, under the counter. The shifter was blocking the doorway to the outer shop, to the phone, to everything. There was just so much of him. And as a shapeshifter, he would be immune to any weakening spell she could have used on a human intruder; there was no point in such a spell with an Other.

“Why not just walk in and introduce yourself?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

“I heard there were Keepers in town. I wanted to see how good you are.” His voice made the words a lazy double entendre.

“I’m very good,” she said sharply, her temper rising even in the circumstances.

“Nice to know,” he said, and the laziness was gone. “You better be. There’s a bad wind coming.”

Now Caitlin felt a chill that had nothing to do with the man in front of her. Bad wind. My dream. This morning. Her own feeling, her own words.

“That’s a little vague, isn’t it?” she retorted. “If you’ve got something to say, say it.”

He suddenly smiled at her, which made her even more suspicious. “I’ll be glad to. I’m Ryder Mallory.” He leaned forward and extended a huge hand across the table.

She looked at him frostily. Oh, you are, are you? As if I’m going to believe anything a shifter says. Shapeshifters changed names as often as they changed forms.

“And?” she demanded, keeping her hands to herself.

He left his hand extended, now daring her. She felt a reluctance to take it, but what better way to sense someone out, after all? She reached across the table and touched his palm, felt her hand engulfed in his, and an electric charge…which he was no doubt aware of, because he smiled slowly and tightened his grip on her hand, not hurting her, but not letting go, either, just letting her feel the strength and heat of him.

Flustered, she pulled back, trying to extricate herself… and after another moment he let her go, but not until she was completely aware that it was only by his choice that she was free.

“Now, what do you want?” she snapped, not realizing until after she spoke that it wasn’t exactly the question she’d wanted to ask.

He smiled knowingly at her. “We’ll get to that. But at the moment, we have bigger fish to fry.” His expression changed. “I’m a bounty hunter. I’m tracking.”

“Tracking what?”

His eyes turned serious, and Caitlin felt a chill in the candlelit darkness. “There’s a band of…entities on their way here. Extremely rogue. Extremely dangerous. I’ve been tracking them from Africa. I lost them in Antibes, but I’m guessing they’re coming here next. They ride the wind.”

The wind. Her bad feeling intensified, but she kept her tone skeptical. “What makes them so dangerous?”

“They weren’t born into bodies of their own, so they feel no obligation to anyone human.”

“No obligation to anyone? Sounds like shifters to me.”

Ryder Mallory assumed a mock-injured look. “That’s harsh. There are all kinds of us, you know.”

“And yet, there’s that one key element that distinguishes you all.”

“And that would be…?”

“Your inconstancy.”

He looked at her piercingly, and Caitlin suddenly felt naked, wanting to run. “Ah,” he said. “You’ve been hurt.”

“Isn’t that your nature?” she whipped back at him.

“Tell me who it is and I’ll take care of him,” he said, and he sounded completely serious.

“Why assume it’s a him?“ Her temper flared.

He fixed her with a look that set her insides on fire. “Some things are obvious without the cards, Keeper.”

“Who hired you?” she demanded, trying to get back on track.

His face suddenly closed off. “That’s confidential.”

“And why should I believe anything a shifter says?”

“That’s your job, isn’t it? To determine these things? You said you were good.” He held her gaze, and it was intimate in the small room, more intimate than she wanted it to be, enough to make her breath short.

She forced herself to focus, to keep her voice steady. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll be sure to look out for… entities. Do you have a number where I can reach you?”

“I’m at the Marie Claire.” It was a small, older hotel, just a few blocks away.

“And you know where to find me, obviously,” she said.

“I do.” There was a sensual promise in his voice that she didn’t want to acknowledge, so she just stared coldly.

“Then I think we’re done, here,” she said, and hoped it would be enough of a hint to get him out.

“It’s been a pleasure.” He rose to leave, and was about to exit through the velvet curtain, when he turned. “Good reading, by the way—in case I didn’t say.” He paused, with a slight smile. “Did I tell you I read cards, too?”

He reached for the deck still facedown on the table, fanned out the cards, and his hand hovered briefly before he reached casually and turned one over.

Caitlin stared down at it. The Lovers.

Ryder Mallory smiled into her eyes, a slow, infuriating smile.

“I’ll be in touch—Keeper.”

He brushed out through the purple curtain, and Caitlin stood, frozen, not breathing, until she heard the outer door open and close.

Then she jerked forward and swept the cards up into their silk wrapper, slammed the cupboard door on them and pushed out through the curtain.

The daylight of the shop was nearly blinding after the candlelit cocoon of the reading room, and Caitlin blinked to adjust. Her brain was roiling with confusion and anger.

She stalked behind the counter and grabbed for her cell phone, started punching the speed-dial for Fiona.

Then stopped, and forced herself to breathe. They didn’t believe you this morning, so what makes you think they would believe you now? She set the phone down, thinking. This time I’m going to do it right. Then she turned and walked to the front window, turned the Open sign to Closed, and hurried out the door.

Chapter 3

Caitlin hurried down the uneven cobblestone sidewalks of Royal. Air-conditioning blasted from the open doors, cooling the sidewalks enough to entice shoppers inside.

The wind, which had been quiet for most of the day, was picking up again, warm and gusting, swirling flurries of glittering dust up from the streets.

Bad wind, Caitlin thought again, and then was angry at herself for using the shapeshifter’s words, even though she’d said them first.

The Eighth District New Orleans Police Department was located in the heart of the Quarter, just four blocks away from the shop, and it and the courthouse took up two square city blocks all on their own. It was, Caitlin thought, probably the most magnificent police station in the country: a massive three-tiered white-and-gray-veined marble wedding cake of a building, with grand old magnolia trees in the yard and tall black wrought-iron fences. Even in such a formal setting, the mysterious beauty of New Orleans carried the day.

Tourists and locals alike were drawn to take rest on its sweeping marble steps, and could be found day and night, lounging back on their elbows, under the shade of blossoming magnolias, as street musicians and singers played to their captive and willing audience from the sidewalk on the other side of the street.

Caitlin hurried up the steps, past a group of Goth teenagers watching a couple of the boys on skateboards do whatever they called those flip things on the stairs.

Across the street, a saxophonist played a sultry version of “Georgia,” the notes enticingly full and sexy. Caitlin turned and glanced at him. The well-muscled Jamaican tipped his head to her as he played.

She turned and hurried up the stairs.

And on the sidewalk, concealed in his musician body, Ryder watched her, his lips wrapped around the mouthpiece of the horn.

This is interesting, he thought, as he lowered the sax, staring at the police station. He’d known back at the shop that the indifference the Keeper had been demonstrating to his story was completely feigned. She might be distrustful of him, but she certainly believed that there was danger in the city; that had come through loud and clear in her thoughts. The focus of her concern had also been clear—her sisters above all else, which was also interesting. Ryder wondered if there had already been some kind of attack, or if she’d sensed some sort of menace, that would make her so instantly jumpy.

But she hadn’t done the obvious thing, which would have been to run to her sisters, the other Keepers, who were, in Ryder’s experience and at least in other parts of the world, notoriously clannish. He had been counting on taking on some sweet, innocent form to make it easier to eavesdrop. A cat was always good for women—and he wouldn’t have minded curling up in Caitlin MacDonald’s lap, either.

Instead, here she was, going straight to the police, which was not necessarily in Ryder’s best interests, not by a long shot—but it meant she knew something. And he intended to find out what.

Beautiful as this Caitlin was—those silver eyes—she was only a means to an end. He would follow where she led only as long as it was useful, and no longer.

He stepped into the stairwell where he’d left the unconscious street musician while he stole his form and his sax, gently deposited the sax on the step beside him, and let his own face change again.

Inside the police department, Caitlin passed impatiently through security, gathered the belongings she’d had to send through the X-ray machine—shoes, belt, jewelry—and pulled them back on, then raced down the hall toward the Homicide Division.

She forced herself to slow down, then stopped, hovering outside in the doorway. Seated at a prime desk in the detectives’ bullpen was her future brother-in-law, homicide detective Jagger DeFarge.

Jagger looked like a rugged, exceptionally attractive man. In reality he was not a man at all. Caitlin had been horrified when Fiona—who had always been the steady one, the most rational sister, the one who’d fought to keep the family together ever since their parents’ deaths ten years ago—fell in love with the vampire. There was no outright ban against Keepers intermarrying with Others, but separation was part of a long tradition, and to Caitlin the idea would have seemed unnatural even if such an intermarriage hadn’t led to the long and bloody battle that had cost her parents their lives. While Others fought in the streets of New Orleans, ripping each other apart with claw and fang, Liam and Jen MacDonald had summoned all the powers they possessed to cast a circle of peace..

The effort had killed them both.

How could Fiona forget that? Our parents died because a few Others couldn’t keep to their own kind.

And then there was the whole “cemetery murders” disaster. If Caitlin herself hadn’t been enmeshed in a secret and totally disastrous interspecies relationship of her own.

But I cut it off, Caitlin told herself. And I’m never going there again. Ever.

She forced her mind back to the problem of Jagger DeFarge.

Jagger was a good cop, and even, Caitlin had to admit—reluctantly—to all intents and purposes a good man. In fact, he had saved her own life as well as Fiona’s when the “vampire killers” had held them hostage in a crypt.

But she still didn’t trust him—with anything, much less her sister. Fiona deserved the best.

Her ace in the hole was that she knew that Jagger knew he had not yet won her over, which meant he would bend over backward to help her in the hope of scoring brownie points. Which made him useful right now.

Caitlin took a breath and stepped through the doorway. Jagger was behind his desk in the bullpen, writing some report with a scowl of concentration. But at Caitlin’s first step into the room he looked up sharply—that annoying sixth sense of a vampire—then rose to his feet instantly as he saw her with equally annoying grace, an elegance just a little too good to be real. Or human.

Damn vampires.

“Caitlin,” he said, and moved around his desk to her side. “Nothing wrong, I hope.” The concern in his voice was genuine; Caitlin knew he was thinking of Fiona, worried that something had happened to her.

“No, not really,” she said ambiguously, knowing he would bite. So to speak. “I was just wondering if there had been any—” she paused, pretended to search for words “—any unusual activity in the city recently. I don’t know…a spike in crime…murders, maybe…”

Jagger looked at her so sharply that she knew she had her answer. She felt a prickle of excitement but kept her face carefully neutral.

“Why would you ask that?” He was all cop now, not a trace of future brother-in-law in sight.

Caitlin put on her most innocent, spacey, younger sister frown. “I had a very bad Tarot reading this morning.” Well, it was true, wasn’t it? “I came to you because I thought you might know, and if you didn’t, I thought maybe you should know.”

Jagger studied her, and she knew he was perplexed. That’s fine, be perplexed. But he knew she was a Keeper, and he would not be inclined to dismiss her premonitions and readings; keeping watch on the town was her job, by ancient decree, just as much as it was Fiona’s. Caitlin decided to push just a little bit harder. She let her lip tremble appealingly. “I guess I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.” She turned toward the door to go.

Behind her, Jagger said, “As a matter of fact, there’s been a string of drug deaths. It looks like a bad batch of meth.”

Caitlin turned slowly, and this time she studied his face. It was clear that wasn’t the whole story. “But…” she prompted.

“But.” His eyes fixed hers intently, and for a moment she felt guilty for manipulating him. “There’s something off about the lab reports, and it’s been bothering me.”

“Hmm. Drugs. I didn’t see anything about drugs in the cards.” She frowned in concentration, while inside she remembered the Devil card, which had been in the center of the spread. Of all the cards, it was the strongest indicator of addiction, of dangerous substances. But she wasn’t about to say that.

“I did get the Illusion card,” she pondered aloud. “It was prominent in the spread. Illusion often means addiction. Alcohol. Drugs.” She was improvising for Jagger’s benefit—she’d already gotten all she needed to know.

“Well…as long as you’re on top of it, I won’t worry too much,” she concluded brightly. “I’ll see you back at the compound, I guess.”

As she turned to go, Jagger said her name with such quiet force that she had to turn. “Cait.”

He looked into her face, and she had to stop herself from squirming. “Please keep me informed—if you get any more signs.”

“Oh, I will,” she assured him sweetly. “You’ll be the first to know.”

Not, she added silently as she headed for the door.

In the hall outside, she could barely contain her elation. She had a real clue now with the drug deaths.

I can do this. I can figure it out on my own. I don’t need anyone at all.

Because if whatever was going on had anything to do with drugs, she knew exactly where to go to find out.

Chapter 4

Bourbon Street.

New Orleans’ most famous tourist attraction, the sleazy, noisy, rowdy, free-for-all strip that stretched fourteen blocks from Canal Street almost to Esplanade. It was closed to automobile traffic every night of the week so tourists and revelers could walk unimpeded down the rough pavement, taking in the street performers, dodging—or inviting—the bead-throwing partiers on the balconies above, dropping in through the wide-open doors of every music club, strip club, bar, souvenir shop, voodoo shop and sex toy shop along the way. Bourbon was a wild and woolly, nonstop circus of decadence and indulgence.

Caitlin hated it.

There were so many pleasures in New Orleans, sensual and otherwise, that were so much more complicated and rewarding than boorish Bourbon…although it did serve the purpose of keeping the more obnoxious visitors to NOLA confined in one easily avoidable part of the city.

What fewer people knew was that Bourbon was where many of the city’s shapeshifters naturally gravitated. More obviously, it was also the drug capital of the Quarter.

Before venturing up to Bourbon, Caitlin waited for dark, since the shifters she meant to call on rarely showed their faces before sunset. And that gave her time to go back to the shop and dress for the occasion…in a glamour.

A glamour was one of Caitlin’s favorite spells. Not everyone could do it, but she was a quick study, and she’d had a good teacher…but she wasn’t going to think about that.

Standing in front of a full-length mirror by the light of the moon helped but wasn’t mandatory. In a pinch, the light of a candle did nicely. What was mandatory was the relaxation, the becoming conscious of every part of her body…and then focusing particularly on the whole of her skin. She looked into the mirror and breathed slowly, keenly aware of the glow of the candlelight on her…until she began to feel the glow as photons of light, a rain of warmth over her entire body. She began to chant softly:

“Light pass through me, no one will see me. Light pass through me, no one will see me. Light pass through me, no one will see me…”

She chanted and stared into the mirror, focusing on the light, until the borders of her silhouette became hazy, insubstantial, until her whole body started wavering, like the warm flickering of a candle flame…until all she could see in the mirror was light.

And then she could see the cabinet behind her, as if she was no longer there. She felt, not saw, herself smile, and said softly to herself, “Everything seen and those not seen, let me walk now in between. As I say, so mote it be!”

She turned, invisibly, and walked toward the door.

On Bourbon, Caitlin strode through the crowds clogging the street with no fear of the prowling pickpockets and the inevitable drunk men who would have been hitting on her, hitting hard, had she not been protected by the cloak of the glamour. She loved the power of walking invisible as the air, through the warring music blasting from the wide-open doors of the clubs: Zydeco; karaoke; slow, sultry jazz.

The street looked, as always, like a stage set. There was something about the flatness of it, she thought—being able to see for blocks and blocks, and the balconies of revelers up above…there was a Shakespearean flavor to everything that she had to admit was appealing. especially when you were invisible.

She was entirely unnoticed by the drunk revelers, the break-tap-dancing teenagers…the buskers holding signs advertising Huge Ass Beers To Go and the opposing signs waved by religious crazies: God Punishes All Sinners. Caitlin squeezed quickly by the sign wielders, grimacing…. Then, as she was passing a blind street musician wearing sunglasses à la Ray Charles, he stepped right in her path and bowed, a breathtakingly courtly gesture, and spoke. “Lovely lady.”

Caitlin froze, as confused as the crowd of tourists around her, who looked around them with comic doubletakes, having no idea who or what the musician was talking to, unable to even wrap their minds around the idea that he was seeing anyone at all. It could all just have been part of the show to them.

No big surprise, Caitlin told herself. There were psychics of all kinds in NOLA—either the city drew them or actually bred them—and it wasn’t much of a stretch that a blind man would have learned to use other senses.

But she had her own mission, so she quickly sidestepped the jazzman and continued on into the crowd.

Behind her on the sidewalk, Ryder straightened in his Ray Charles body, swept up the hat containing his tips, and followed her at a distance, tapping his cane for show.

The glamour was a good one, he would give her that. It demonstrated as high a level of skill as unmasking him in the shop earlier that day had done. If this Keeper’s sisters were as good as she was, there was a strong Keeper presence in the city, as strong as he’d seen in any town for a long time…as strong as their parents’ had been rumored to be.

That didn’t mean he trusted her. She had issues, this one, obviously. But she might be useful, down the line. And she was on a mission tonight—first the vampire detective, now this obvious continuance of her investigation, which, whatever it was, required a glamour. Which made it his business to investigate.

Besides, invisible as she may have been to the others around them, for him, the view from behind wasn’t bad at all.

Ryder was enjoying being on Bourbon again. The sights and sounds were intoxicating…neon lights in all colors and the sparkling, feathered costumes of the revelers…the long, sleek legs of the showgirls, the bright, glazed eyes of the tourists, the smells of chocolate and piña coladas….

His impulse was to follow every impulse.

Instead he focused and followed Caitlin.

Caitlin weaved forward through the crowd, her jaw now clenched grimly. It was probably the influence of Halloween coming up, but it was barely nine o’clock and the partiers seemed even more out of control than usual. The drunk guy on the balcony to her right, blatantly taking camera phone shots of his girlfriend’s crotch. The college crowd on the left balcony dangling beads off the railing, shouting “Show me your tits!” and “Give me sumpin'!” to everyone passing by. The stumbling drunk bridal parties, one group right now passing Caitlin with a sullen bride in the middle wearing a T-shirt reading I’m The Bride, Those Are The Bitches.

And Caitlin knew it was just beginning. As the night and the bon temps rolled on, more and more people would be holding their friends up as they stumbled from one bar to the next, stopping to partake of every “Huge Ass Beer!” and Hurricane and Hand Grenade and Jello shot offered to them. I Got Bourbon-Faced On Shit Street T-shirts were popular souvenirs for a reason. So many wasted lives—literally.

Caitlin put on speed as she saw her goal ahead of her. The music literally rocked her as she approached; Bons Temps was one of the loudest clubs on Bourbon, and that was saying a lot.

She stepped through the doors and saw that there was a cover band up on stage, and even at this decibel range, the musical talent was obvious; the best musicians flocked to New Orleans just as surely as they did to Nashville and L.A.

These particular musicians, no surprise, were clearly altered: drunk, stoned, high.

Wasted.

The lead singer, Case, had a falsetto to rival Steve Connor and an Iggy Pop tilt to his slim hips; in his bandanna and artfully ripped T-shirt, he was a pirate who expertly twirled the mike in his fingers and charmed the female patrons with a mad and manic gleam in his eyes. The very young keyboard player, Danny, wore a Megadeth T-shirt and looked like an angel with his long, shimmering hair and beatific face…until you noticed his completely empty eyes.

Caitlin’s stomach heaved, and she had to turn away from the stage.

The floor was always packed at Bons Temps; no other Bourbon Street club was so crowded, so consistently. Not just because the guys were great musicians; they were, but there was a little something extra. When Case sang Aerosmith, sometimes you could swear you were looking at Steven Tyler. A Police number? It might have been that third Hurricane, but sometimes you would bet your life it was a young Sting up there singing. Eminem, Bono, Flo Rida…it was a subtle thing, but wildly effective with the drunk crowds….

Because Case and Danny were shapeshifters. The most skilled species: shifters whose expertise was taking on different human forms.

And Caitlin had a long and ambiguous acquaintance with these two shifters.

Shapeshifters were rarely productive members of society; their sense of self was too amorphous, and because of that inconstancy and lack of center, they tended toward indulgences of all kinds. But they were also wildly charismatic, in no small part because they could subtly alter their physical form to match other people’s fantasies, and they were often excellent psychics, because they passed through the astral, a parallel dimension of spirits and entities, easily used for transportation between planes of reality, every time they shifted. And in the astral, all kinds of things could be gleaned: past, present and future.

The rowdy lead singer, Case, was the charismatic. But Danny…Danny was the psychic. One of New Orleans’ best, which was saying a hell of a lot—that is, when he was straight enough to concentrate, which was almost never, these days.

Wasted, Caitlin thought again. Such a waste.

She pulled her eyes away from Danny and concentrated on Case: skinny as Keith Richards, for the same reasons, in pencil-leg black jeans, sporting alligator boots with outrageously long toes. He was leaning into the crowd with Danny now, threatening to topple off the stage into the throng, and shouting, “Somebody freakin’ scream!”

And then, as he straightened, his eyes fell on the corner where Caitlin stood…and he stopped for an instant, staring. Then his smile curved.

Caitlin thought, He’s good. He saw her. Of course he did; he always could. She let the glamour slip away from her like a cloak, and he gazed full into her face. Then he lifted the mike again and shouted, “Somebody make some noise!”

As the crowd went wild on the floor beneath him, he turned the mike over to the guitarist for a solo and dropped off the stage, landing hard on those ridiculous boots and swaggering out into the crowd, stopping to let some drunk sorority girl kiss him, openmouthed and sloppy.

Caitlin turned away and walked out the back door, into the small inner courtyard, away from the noise. The courtyard was mostly used for storage. Cases of booze were stacked to the eaves against the inner wall, but there was a small outdoor bar, framed by white strings of Christmas lights, tonight unmanned and deserted.

Case pushed out through the double doors and into the dark. He was already flicking a Zippo, lighting a cigarette, dragging hard, and Caitlin wondered wearily what it would be laced with tonight.

As if hearing her thoughts, he extended the cigarette toward her mockingly. She stared at him, ignoring his outstretched hand, and history vibrated between them like an electric pulse.

Finally he smiled. “Ah, the little Keeper. Sister Goldenhair Surprise. Nice glamour, by the way. You’re getting good at that. We’ll have you full-tilt shifting any day now.”

Her anger flared, and she answered without thinking. “Not in this lifetime.”

He gave her a “We’ll see” smile and dragged on his cigarette. “Well, Keeper, has someone been bad?” He asked the question slyly, and she jolted. So he does know something, she thought, trying to conceal her excitement.

“Why would you say that?” she answered, unconsciously echoing Jagger DeFarge.

“Someone must have been pretty bad, to bring you up to our little den of iniquity. Or is that din?” he corrected himself, reaching to his ears and pulling out earplugs, the only thing that had kept him from going deaf for all these years.

“I need…” She hesitated.

“My help?” His eyes gleamed at her.

“Some information,” she said coldly.

“You’re in luck. I’m running a special tonight.” He sat back on a bar stool, legs spread casually—nothing to do with the conversation, of course.

Caitlin’s heart turned over with the old, familiar pain, then she answered back, sharp and hard. “Good thing I’ve got credit running into the next century, then.”

To her surprise, he laughed aloud, and she realized with relief that with that comeback she had scored—enough to keep him playing along, at least for a while. “There are people dying of some kind of bad batch,” she said quickly, while he was still smiling. “Meth, the police think.”

His eyes widened innocently. “'Just Say No.’”

She ignored that. “I want to know if you know anything about it.”

Caitlin suddenly noticed there was a bartender behind the bar now, a young kid, college age, with good enough instincts not to hover; he was quietly restocking the shelves. Case snapped at him, “Jack and Cokes over here,” and waited until the kid turned away to answer Caitlin.

“What about drugs don’t I know?” he quipped. “But it’s only tourists who are dying, sugar. NHI.”

NHI was a cop insult referring to the lowest of low-lifes: No Humans Involved. Of course, in New Orleans that could get confusing..

“Just tourists,” Caitlin echoed, pondering.

“Drug virgins,” Case elaborated helpfully. “Couldn’t handle the high.”

But why? Caitlin wondered. Tourists doing meth? It didn’t make sense.

The young bartender set drinks in front of them. Caitlin ignored hers, while Case drained his in one pull.

Behind the bar, cloaked as the college kid, Ryder bided his time. It was taking everything he had to conceal his disgust for Case, for the scene playing out before him. Classic Shifter, this one, taking full advantage of his glamours, which wouldn’t work on an Other, obviously, but humans fell for them every time. And Keepers, too, it looked like. Even with her specialized knowledge, Caitlin had been ensnared, at least at one time. And by what? This pathetic excuse for an Other, so enamored of his powers that he’s lost all sense of who he ever was—the center cannot hold. And a drunk and an addict on top of that, clearly.

“Do you know a shifter named Ryder Mallory?” Caitlin asked suddenly, and Ryder was jarred out of his thoughts. Did she sense him?

He moved casually down the bar to get out of her range, crouched as if to reach under the sink.

Case stared at Caitlin, lifted an eyebrow. “Can’t say that I do.” He reached in front of her for her drink, lifted and drained it.

Lying, Caitlin thought. Not even bothering to cover.

He smiled at her, as if reading her thoughts. “Can’t keep track of everyone, cher.”

“Well, if anything comes to you, you’ll tell me, I’m sure,” she said.

“I’d rather come to you, cher. In you, with you, in every which way,” Case said softly, and leaned over to lift a strand of hair from her cheek, curling it around his finger, tugging her forward..

Behind the bar, Ryder abruptly stood, anger flaring, and in that moment Case turned sharply and stared toward him. Ryder adjusted his body, struggled to hold the cloak of illusion in place…and once again he was just a college kid, merely spacing out in Case’s direction.

After a long moment Case turned back to Caitlin, but Ryder could see that the younger shapeshifter was jumpy now, and figured he’d better get while the getting was good. He couldn’t afford to be caught, at least until he knew more. He picked up a case of Turbodog and headed for the kitchen door.

Caitlin didn’t know what had just gone on, but Case was suddenly edgy and hyper.

“Got to get back,” he said, jerking his head in the general direction of the stage. “My public awaits.”

“I want to talk to Danny,” she said abruptly.

She saw Case stiffen subtly, but he covered it well, smiled at her. “Why would that be, Keeper?”

There was no point in lying to him; he always knew. “I want a sitting. To see what he’s seen out there.” She knew Case would know she didn’t mean on the streets but in the astral.

Case shook his head mockingly. “Danny’s not home tonight.”

Meaning Danny was high, as if she didn’t know. Her anger burned. “How do you live with yourself?” she asked, not bothering to hide her contempt.

“Same way Danny does, cher. One hit at a time.”

Too angry to speak, she turned and stalked for the door.

His voice came from the dark behind her, mocking. “Rough night out there. Don’t forget your glamour.”

She faced him stoically. He was right, of course.

He stared across the dark courtyard, into her eyes. “And don’t forget—I taught you that, little sister.”

“Yes,” she heard herself saying bitterly. “You taught me a lot.”

She turned again and was gone.

Inside the club, she leaned against the wall in the narrow hallway and breathed deeply until she could focus enough to pull the glamour back on.

The music was blasting, but strangely, the rhythm made the glamour easier to conjure. When she straightened away from the wall, the drunk bridesmaids who tumbled by her en route to the bathroom didn’t even give her a glance.

Caitlin weaved her way across the crowded floor. On stage, Danny was at the piano, hair shimmering like dark water over his shoulders, beautiful and empty-eyed. Caitlin turned away, disturbed…and caught a glimpse of Case standing on the dance floor in front of the stage. He suddenly crouched down, dropping out of sight. Caitlin stopped, craning to see what was going on. He was on his haunches talking very seriously to a blonde little girl of maybe five, sporting a rakish, sequined hat. As the little girl watched, enthralled, Case twirled a drumstick between his fingers and then extended the drumstick toward her.

She took it and without hesitation twirled the stick in imitation. As Case laughed, his whole face transformed.

Caitlin blinked back tears and fled the club.

Chapter 5

Once out in the kaleidoscopic cacophony of the street, Caitlin realized she was so shaky she could barely hold the glamour in place. She always felt that way, seeing Case. And Danny, too. Her feelings for them were so complex…. Longing, despair, anger, protectiveness…

And failure. As shifters, they were her charges, and not only had she been manipulated and controlled by the very people she was supposed to have charge of, she hadn’t helped them. Not a bit.

She took long breaths, forcing the spell to stabilize.

Part of the trouble was that she had known Case forever, it seemed, since she was just a teenager. As the middle MacDonald child, she’d had a rebellious streak. Fiona was so good, so perfect, and Shauna so outgoing and loved, and their parents had been such pillars of the community, all the communities. Caitlin never felt she could live up to any of them. So she found relief by sneaking out of the house, out of the compound, up to big bad Bourbon Street, to listen to music, drink the Hurricanes that older guys would buy her..

Case had saved her from a bad situation one night, when a drunker than usual frat boy thought that buying Caitlin a drink meant anything went, including date rape. Of course, that turned out to be the proverbial “out of the frying pan, into the fire” scenario in the end, but at first Case had been so charming, as rebellious as Caitlin herself, but also a naturally talented shifter as well as singer, and very willing to teach her. She had spent many hours after-hours in clubs, listening to Case and Danny jamming with their band of the moment, and learning the shortcuts of shapeshifting.

Then came the War, and her parents’ deaths had devastated Caitlin and her sisters. Caitlin, in particular, had been consumed by guilt. She’d taken her parents for granted, had gone behind their backs, and now she could never make up for any of it. In her zeal to reform she had become completely devoted to her sisters, obedient to Fiona and fiercely protective of Shauna.

Caitlin had kept her distance from Case as well as she could, as the three MacDonald sisters had thrown themselves into the grueling task of building the trust and connection with the communities of Others that their parents had had.

But in recent years she had been increasingly disturbed by rumors of his drug use—Danny’s, too. Rumors that they had fallen prey to the drugs and disillusion that claimed so many shifters. Caitlin had tried to intervene, in her official capacity as a Keeper. But old feelings proved overwhelming. She’d slipped and reconnected with Case, wanting to believe his stories of being clean, of reforming…only to be horrified to discover the extent of his new addictions. She had pressured and badgered and ranted, and then sunk into despair, all the time hiding it from her sisters, until, ironically, it was Case who dumped her, unable to take her condemnation.

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 sidestepped, 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…”

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