Second Skin

by Caitlin Kittredge

  I released her and stepped back. “David, if you please?” I pointed at the cameraman.

  “No unauthorized footage inside a police precinct,” said Bryson. “Security risk. Give me the tape.”

  The cameraman attempted to argue, but Bryson closed on him and, I can only presume, stunned him with a whiff of cologne.

  “Don’t think this is the end,” Janet Bledsoe yelled as a uniform ejected her from the precinct. “You can’t silence the truth! Fascists!”

  “I’ve never been called a fascist before,” I muttered as the doors swung shut on her screeching.

  “There’s a first time for everything, miss,” said the Warwolf. “You going to give me a straight answer?”

  “That depends.” I pointed at the rest of the weres. “Who exactly are you people?”

  “I’m Donal Bruce Macleod, Priscilla’s uncle and legal counsel to the Nocturne City Warwolves,” he said.

  The Asian man who’d yelled at Bryson gave me a curt head nod. “Ryushin Takehiko. I am pack leader of the Ookami.”

  I’d never even heard of the Ookami, but Ryushin bore enough resemblance to the dead Asian were that they could have been related.

  “Brother?” I asked. He gave me another single nod, his face tight. His eyes burned, though, and I realized he was a lot younger than he presented himself. The victim was his older brother, then. I was guessing Ryushin’s promotion to pack leader had been sudden and unwanted.

  A silent, black-haired male and female pair so tall and slim they would have made a scarecrow feel fat stood at the back of the group, regarding me with eerily pale eyes. Their irises might have been a really dark shade of snow white, but no deeper.

  “Those are Aivars and Aija Kaviš, of the Viskalcis,” said Donal. “They don’t speak much. English, or at all.”

  The Viskalcis smelled of some manner of were, but I’d never met one face-to-face. Aivars and Aija didn’t look like they saw daylight very often. Maybe it burned.

  “Their pack leader was also murdered in this manner,” said Ryushin. “Now you will tell us what you are doing about it.”

  Have I mentioned I hate being ordered around, especially by men? Comes from another lifetime as a waitress and a girl who always picked out the boyfriend guaranteed to have control-freak tendencies. Not that my track record lately was any better.

  “I can’t discuss the details of an open case,” I said. “I’m truly sorry for your losses . . .”

  Donal laid a hand on my shoulder. It felt like an iron vise. “We don’t expect an Insoli to understand. Or a plain human, for that matter.” He let his eyes drift to Bryson. “But we’ve come here for answers, missy, and answers we are going to have.”

  “Look,” said Bryson. “I am busting my goddamn ass over this case, and it might be a little bit easier to close if you people would give up some information about the vics.”

  The Ookami weres snarled at that, and Aija’s bloodless lips, nearly the same color as her teeth, pulled back. Only Donal stayed calm.

  “Laddie, don’t be pretending like you care about what happens to a bunch of animals. If you walked like you talk, we wouldn’t be here. To you, my niece dying is the same as someone shooting a dog.”

  “It’s not like that.” I spoke up loud and sharp, to pitch myself over the rumble of agreement from the wolves.

  “Then what is it like?” Ryushin said. He glared at me, and I stared him down. If he wanted a dominate, I’d give him one. Insoli can be dominant or submissive as they choose, and I was willing to bank a kid like Ryushin had never had his life depend on how strong-willed he could be.

  “We don’t know who killed your friends, and your family, it’s true,” I said. “But we have leads and suspects. David is doing the best work that he can to solve a crime he doesn’t really understand. We think now that this might be an internal fight between the Loup and an unidentified party.” I was defending Bryson. Somewhere in Hell, Satan was strapping on his ice skates.

  “That sounds like codswallow to me, missy,” said Donal.

  “Well, tough, because it’s my best theory,” I said. “And if anyone wants your case solved, it’s me. I’m an Insoli were and everyone in this city who’s picked up a newspaper in the last year knows my face. Now someone is knocking off weres, and if you think I don’t feel the big target painted on my back, you’re wrong.”

  Donal and Ryushin chewed over my words for a moment, casting glances at the Viskalcis weres. Aivars grunted and then dipped his chin. I got the idea that for him, he was being hideously expressive.

  “Mark my words,” Ryushin said. “The weres and witches of this city are moving, Detective Bryson. We know we are not safe and we are taking measures to protect ourselves. With or without the police.”

  “Do your job,” said Donal, “and we won’t be back. Keep wanking us about, and you’ll wish you’d run when you had the chance.”

  “You don’t have to threaten us,” I said. “We’ll figure out who did this. We’ll lay your pack’s spirits to rest.”

  “Brave words!” Janet Bledsoe shrilled from the doorway. “But can you deliver, Miss Wilder?”

  “Get the Hex out of here!” Bryson yelled. Janet, her cameraman, and his fresh tape fled.

  “Perfect. Five bucks says she runs that verbatim on the six o’clock news,” I said.

  “We’ll be in touch, miss,” said Donal. “Count on that.” He turned and walked out, Ryushin and his posse dogging Donal’s heels. The Viskalcis in their long overcoats glided after them, feet never seeming to touch the ground.

  Bryson slumped against Shelley’s desk. “Shit, man. Shit.”

  “Notice anything?” I asked.

  “I’m fucking dead if I don’t solve this thing fast?”

  I sighed. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, those creepy Goths. Long coats in the summer. Weird.”

  I gave him a crooked eyebrow. “You see the strangest things, David. I’d almost think your too-stupid-to-live act was an elaborate master plan to drive me insane if it wasn’t quite so annoying. What I meant was—” I gestured after the weres disappearing down the steps. “—nowhere in that little group of concerned citizens was anyone from the Loup.”

  Bryson blinked at me. “Well, holy crap. I knew there was a reason to keep you around, Wilder. Other than the obvious, I mean.” He stared pointedly at my chest.

  “Just when I think it’s safe to talk to you,” I said, shaking my head. “Listen, I’ve got somewhere to go. Can you take me over to Battery Beach?”

  He pouted. “I’ve got a case to work! What’s so damn important?”

  I fingered the root in my jacket pocket. “Bertrand Lautrec started all this. Whoever Laurel Hicks is afraid of . . . someone I know out there might be able to tell me who and what it is.”

  “You’re putting in a mileage report for this,” Bryson warned as we walked to the car. “My expenses are over budget as it is.”

  “I told you to stop buying hookers with the department credit card, Bryson.”

  “Hex you, Wilder. I get ’em for free.”

  I sighed. “Just drive. This’ll be worth it.”

  CHAPTER 6

  We drove to Battery Beach, Bryson complaining the entire way, except for when “Keep On Lovin’ You” came on the radio. About halfway there, I noticed a green sedan manned by a grumpy-looking were keeping pace with us, always one or two cars back.

  “Bryson,” I said, looking into my mirror to fix my hair into a braid. Casual as anything, I memorized the plate and the face behind the wheel.

  “Huh?” he grunted.

  “You might be interested to know that somebody’s following us.”

  “Hex me,” he muttered, looking around. I slapped the back of his head.

  “Relax. Nothing we can do about it, and he’s probably just seeing what we’re up to. He’s not making a real effort to stay hidden.” The sedan almost sideswiped an SUV to keep us in view, and the driver shook his fist.

  Bryson
hit the steering wheel. “It’s those damn weres.”

  “Good guess,” I said. Donal must not have as much faith in me as he’d let on. How hurtful.

  I guided Bryson to my grandmother’s cottage, parked on an unfashionable bit of the cliff near the old fort that looked out into the Pacific and gave the beach its name.

  “What is this?” Bryson demanded. “Bridge club and crumpets?”

  “My cousin lives here,” I said. I didn’t add that she lived with my crotchety grandmother, who alternated between Not Speaking and Pure Hatred when it came to me and her.

  “So, what?” Bryson said.

  “She’s a witch. She’ll be able to tell me what the charm is supposed to fend off,” I told him, and then added when his eyes bugged out, “You may want to just wait in the car.”

  “That’s one weird fuckin’ family you got, Wilder,” he said, and then leaned back in the driver’s seat, flicking his sunglasses down over his eyes.

  “No argument from me,” I said, heading for the house. Sunny’s little convertible was parked in the open garage, and I knocked, not too hard.

  She opened the door with a squeal. “Luna!”

  “Hi, Sunny.” I smiled. “Is Rhoda home?”

  “No.” She drew the syllable out. “She’s in Cabo for some kind of brujeria gathering. I didn’t ask. Not really my thing.” She looked past me to the car. “Who’s that? He looks like a Jehovah’s Witness.”

  Bryson belched and adjusted himself. I pressed my fingers to my temples. “It’s David Bryson. I’ll be sure to pass on the compliment.”

  Sunny blinked once, twice. “I’m not even going to ask what you’re doing riding with the man you once described as ‘my smelly, obnoxious kryptonite.’ ”

  “Probably a good plan,” I said. “I have something I need you to look at, Sunny. It’s important.”

  “Well then come in,” she said, her face lighting up. “And I’ll pretend not to notice you only visit me when you need something.”

  “That is patently not true,” I said. “I sat through four hours of Jane Austen movies with you not two weeks ago. This is only a fraction of the payback I’m owed for that experience.”

  “Luna, every woman loves Mr. Darcy.”

  “Mr. Darcy is a construct designed to make women feel bad about the partners that they’re capable of attracting versus the fantasized image he presents.”

  Sunny gave me a look as she shut the door. “You scare me sometimes, Luna.”

  “What? I didn’t spend all of high school sleeping off beach parties.”

  She led me into the kitchen, her preferred environment, and I drew the root out of my pocket. “It’s this charm. I need to know what mojo it’s supposed to work.”

  Sunny put cookies—homemade, of course—on a plate and served me a glass of iced tea with a twist of lemon. Only then did she pick up the charm. She dropped it again immediately. “Gods! It feels like dipping your hand in boiling water. Where did you get this?”

  “From the girlfriend of a murdered man,” I said. “Is it evil?”

  “No,” said Sunny, regarding the twisted thing balefully. “Just strong. Very raw, focused magick. Not a caster witch, or a blood.”

  “Then what? What other kind of magick is there?”

  Sunny went over to my grandmother’s sewing basket, shaped like a puffy pink satin heart, and took out a metal tin of pins. “You’d be surprised where it came from, at the beginning. Hold out your hand.”

  “Why?” I demanded suspiciously.

  She took out a hat pin and grabbed my fist, uncurling my fingers. “Don’t be such a baby.” The point pierced my finger with a fuzzy stab of pain.

  I yelped as a pearl of blood welled up on my fingertip. “Hex me, Sunny!”

  “Hold still!” she demanded, turning my finger and squeezing blood droplets down onto the root.

  Nothing happened for a few long seconds, my blood gleaming against the dark fibers of the charm. Then it began to shriek, thrashing on the table like it was alive.

  Hell, maybe it was alive. What did I know?

  Sunny leapt away from the charm as it lashed out, the pitch rising high enough that my ears gave me nothing but a feedback hiss.

  “Do something!” I yelled. “Make it stop!”

  She dashed into the kitchen, filled a deep iron skillet with cold water from the tap, spilled half of it on her way back to me, and shouted, “Throw it in!”

  I picked up the root, feeling its magick bite into my skin as my body tried to Path it, and flung it into the water. The shrieking stopped immediately, revealing that someone was pounding energetically on the door. “What the fuck is going on in there?” Bryson bellowed.

  “We’re fine!” I hollered back, even though I felt like a particularly sadistic old lady had jammed her knitting needles into my ears.

  “Let me in!” Bryson demanded. “I heard a bunch of screaming!”

  “Sunny, watch that thing. Make sure it doesn’t move again,” I said. She nodded, biting her lip and prodding the charm a few times with her finger.

  I opened the door on Bryson’s sweating face, his tie askew and his cheeks red. “Aw, David. You were afraid I was in peril.”

  He flushed even redder, bordering on maroon. “Was not.”

  “Come on in.” I stepped aside and gestured for him to hurry up. Bryson stepped over the threshold, shoulders hunched as if he expected Sunny to swoop down on a broom, shrieking about him and his little dog, too.

  “Luna?” she called. “I think I figured it out.”

  “Good, because if you stabbed and deafened me for kicks I’d be a little upset.”

  Bryson followed me back to the sitting room, eyes roving warily in every direction. “Stop that,” I hissed.

  “I . . . just . . .” He swallowed and gave Sunny what might have been a smile, on Bryson. “Nice place, er . . . Luna’s cousin.”

  “It’s so nice to see you again, David,” she said, beaming at him. She was full of crap. Bryson grated her nerves into little pieces as much as he did mine, but my cousin is a lot politer about life’s little aggravations than I am. People try to kill her a lot less often, so she might be on to something.

  “Yeah,” David said, looking anywhere but Sunny’s face. “Say, what the Hex are you doin’ to that thing? That’s evidence.”

  “I stole it,” I said. “It’s not evidence of anything.”

  “Well,” Sunny said, giving me the eye at the “stole it” comment. “It’s a charm, a powerful one, but not elegant. Caster witches bespell charms against specific maladies or entities. This is like slamming down a steel grate over your front door and hooking up a shotgun to the latch.”

  “How come it didn’t zap Wilder, then?” Bryson demanded. “She ain’t normal.”

  “Blood witches didn’t make it, either,” Sunny continued as if Bryson hadn’t spoken. “It reacted to blood as if it were a threat, so . . .” She shrugged. “It’s a ward against evil. That’s the plainest way I can say it.”

  “Really? You couldn’t be just a hair more vague?” Bryson threw up his hands. I stepped on his foot, hard.

  “Be polite,” I murmured when he started to complain. “Sunny, that really doesn’t help us much. If we knew what this woman was afraid of . . .”

  “I just told you,” said Sunny. “Evil. This is some sort of tribal magick, using totem spirits or power pulled out of crystals or feathers or animal forms. It predates casting and blood rites. It predates everything. That’s why it packs such a punch, despite being simplistic. Whatever she was afraid of, it was nasty enough to warrant a serious working in a magick that’s pretty much a dead art. I’d be worried, if I were you.”

  “Sunny, always the optimist,” I said. “Um . . . you can keep the screamy charm o’ evil . . . it kind of gives me a headache.”

  “You’re not going to tell me what this is about?” Her forehead crinkled. I always told her what it was about, whether it was strictly legal to or not.

  “
The boyfriend of the woman this belonged to was killed,” I said before Bryson could feed Sunny the party line. She’d helped me enough times to be trusted with case details, at the least. I owed Sunny a lot, more than I could ever repay. “He was killed by an attacker who shot him and then managed to vanish into a fog that just sort of magically appeared out in the forest preserve. We think it was a hit man. Hit thing. Nasty, either way.”

  “How awful,” said Sunny. “I wish I could tell you more, but this type of magick doesn’t require any sort of formal training . . . just a talent, and a willingness to use it. And there are so many sects and subsects of old Romany paths, native religions . . .”

  “I get it,” I said. “We’ll just have to use what we’ve got. Thanks, Sunny.” I hated just using what I had. It gave me the distinct feeling of walking around an unfamiliar room in the dark, banging my shins on the furniture.

  “Luna, may I speak with you for a moment?” she said when we turned to leave. Bryson took a hint for once in his life and went out, and I faced my cousin.

  “What is it?”

  “I thought you transferred to the SWAT team?”

  I shifted back and forth from the balls of my feet to my heels, trying to smile in an innocuous, carefree manner. “I did.”

  “Then why are you working on a homicide with David Bryson, of all people?”

  Crap, I sucked at this.

  “I’m just helping him out because the case involves some dead weres and Bryson is not exactly equipped,” I said, crossing my arms. “Strictly extracurricular stuff.”

  “What does Dmitri have to say about all this?” Sunny asked, picking up the charm and putting it into the freezer. “Ice and iron,” she explained. “Preserves the magick.”

  “Dmitri doesn’t have anything repeatable to say,” I told her shortly. “He’s just all up in arms because I won’t become his Redback Barbie doll.”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t mean that,” Sunny said. “That’s not Dmitri.”

  “Yeah, well, you haven’t lived with him for the past six months,” I muttered. “Things change.”

  Bryson’s car horn sounded from outside, and Sunny ran over to give me a quick, tight hug. “Promise you’ll call me sooner than next decade.”