Second Skin

by Caitlin Kittredge

  “I won’t tell if you won’t,” I said. “And you have my personal word nothing will happen while you’re with me. Just a few hours. Please?”

  Lucas sighed and rubbed his hands over his cheeks. A few spots still gleamed when he took them away. “All right. I’ll come get the body taken care of but that’s all. I can’t help you anymore. I have to see to my own people. They need me.”

  I nodded silently. “I can find my own way back to the highway. Thank you, Lucas. I’m sorry.”

  “He was my brother . . . ,” he murmured as I got into the Fairlane and gunned the engine. “I can’t believe it . . .”

  I watched Lucas in the rearview mirror as I pulled away. He was angry, yes, and grieving, but he had not been surprised. He faked it well enough, but he’d known something before I opened my mouth. All the blinking and gasping is show—people who get slammed in the gut with death usually just shut down. That “unemotional” facade that juries hate so much. It’s the only way to hold together, sometimes.

  But Lucas had no need of it.

  He was probably afraid, I reasoned, if his brother had indeed been palling around with the Wendigo who had made those things in the morgue. The “why” still eluded me, but I could taste it now, a solution. The wild Wendigo would give it to me.

  Lucas was a good actor, but something else was going on during his impassioned speech about his people and how they needed him. Something that he thought I didn’t need to know.

  You spend enough time talking to liars, and you learn to recognize the bad ones, too.

  CHAPTER 15

  At home I found leftovers in the refrigerator and Sunny gone. Dmitri was sprawled on top of the covers in the bedroom, snoring softly, wearing boxers with flying toasters printed on them. I leaned down and kissed his forehead. “I’m home.”

  “Hey,” he murmured, pulling me down next to him. “You’re all right.”

  “Of course I am,” I said, turning on my elbow. “What, did you think they’d drag me off and make me into jerky strips?”

  “You never know with the gods-damn Wendigo,” Dmitri muttered. “They hate weres.”

  “Not all weres,” I said. “They were perfectly polite to me.” Once they got through holding a shotgun to my head.

  “You stink of them,” said Dmitri. “Like rusty metal.”

  Figuring that was as close to an endearment as I was going to get, I kicked off my boots and headed toward the bathroom, shedding clothes. “I’ll take a shower.”

  Dmitri got up and padded after me, leaning against the wall while I started an arthritic jet of water into the old tub. “Thought I fixed that thing.”

  “No,” I said. “You talked about fixing it, before we had that huge fight.”

  “I should do it,” Dmitri mused. I stepped into the water and let it beat down on me. I knew better than to pop my head out, bright-eyed, and chirp So does this mean you’re sticking around? Were men were even more skittish than plain human men, and plus it would probably just come out bitchy in my current state.

  I changed the subject instead. “Tell me about the treaty between the Wendigo and the were packs.”

  Dmitri snorted in surprise. “Who told you about that?”

  “Lucas.”

  “That figures.”

  “He seemed pretty pissed over the treaty. What’s the deal?”

  “Let me guess,” said Dmitri. “He gave you the speech about his ‘men’ and his ‘clan’ and batted those pretty-boy eyelashes at you.”

  I peered around the curtain at Dmitri. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

  “Hey, I met the guy once. Didn’t say I knew him.”

  “Look,” I said, squirting shampoo into my palms, “are you going to tell me about the treaty or not? Is it some big pack mystery? Will you lose your secret decoder ring if you tell the gutterwolf?”

  He shot a glare at me before I ducked back under the water. “You’re taking this way too personally. I can’t tell you much because I don’t know much. The treaty was laid down by the five founding packs of Nocturne City, and all weres who want to live within the limits abide by it.”

  “What does it say?” I asked. “What are the particulars?”

  “That Wendigo are not to trespass within the city limits without some hoodoo bullshit going down, and weres stay the hell off the Wendigo’s land, and everyone holds hands and fucking sings ‘Kum Ba Yah,’ ” said Dmitri. “That’s it. That’s all the old pack leader ever told me when I took over.”

  “Towel?” I said, turning off the water. Dmitri held one out and then snatched it away playfully.

  “Oh come on,” I said. “I’m wet and naked over here.”

  His mouth lifted at the corners. “So I see.”

  “Dmitri . . .” I warned. “Better give me that towel.”

  “Or what?” he said, backing toward the bedroom.

  “Or I’ll come get it from you and get you all wet!” I threatened, jumping on him and using his Fram T-shirt to dry myself off.

  “Quit it!” Dmitri yelped. “I had a bath today!”

  “Shouldn’t have taken my towel away, sucker!”

  He pinned me down on the braided rug just inside the bedroom, both of us giggling like schoolkids on helium. He tickled me, and I shrieked, wriggling under him. “I give!” I finally cried. “Knock it off!”

  Dmitri dropped his head to my neck and gently lapped the skin, making me wriggle in a new and different way. “I’m glad you don’t smell like them anymore.”

  “Mm-hm,” I said, undoing his belt. He put his hands on my hip bones.

  “I’m glad you got out of there okay. It kills me that I couldn’t be there to protect you.”

  “Please, for once, don’t start with that and just be happy I’m here,” I said, not unkindly, pressing myself into him. The wet fabric cooled and caused gooseflesh to blossom on my skin. “And be happy that I’m ready for my night to get very enjoyable.”

  “Luna,” Dmitri whispered, and kissed me. His hands slid up to my shoulders, holding me fast to him, and for the first time in weeks I let myself relax and remember that this was how it should be.

  “Luna,” Dmitri said in my ear. “I don’t want to lose you . . .”

  I looked, and saw the tiniest hint of black ripple across his eyes. I tamped my unease down. It was fine. He was in the throes of it and I was, too, the phase curling under my skin. It always made for the best sex I’d ever had. I didn’t fight it. “You haven’t lost me,” I said. “I’m here.”

  Dmitri kissed over to my ear, behind it, over my neck, his teeth fanging out and raking down the curve to my shoulder, his tongue on my bite scars.

  His teeth pricked me, and I smelled my own blood. “Luna . . .”

  Dmitri landed halfway across my bedroom before he had a chance to blink. He looked up at me, eyes black, from a pile of my clean laundry.

  “What the fuck,” I snarled, “was that?”

  “I . . .” Dmitri passed a hand over his eyes and they went green again. “I’m . . . I’m sorry.”

  “You tried to give me the bite!” I had bypassed indignation and gone straight to yelling. “I don’t believe this! You sneaky Hexed bastard!”

  I grabbed a nightshirt and jerked it on, covering myself from Dmitri’s eyes as he stared up at me.

  “I couldn’t help it . . . ,” he said almost plaintively as I got into bed, throwing his pillows onto the floor with vicious plops. “I just thought about you being with the Wendigo, and not coming back to me, and you smelled so . . .”

  “Do me and your nuts a favor,” I said, “and don’t make this about me.” I spitefully pulled the covers up to my chin.

  Dmitri followed after a time, but he didn’t say anything and I didn’t try to make him. He curled up facing me, but I turned my back and turned out the light so I wouldn’t have to feel his eyes on me as we lay silent.

  “This isn’t working, is it?” he said finally. “We want it to, but it isn’t.” I tried to ignore how cr
estfallen he sounded, but I rolled over and looked at him, finally. He was subdued and hollow-cheeked in the slim moonlight coming through my windows.

  “It sucks,” I said, crushing the pillow in my fist. “What were you thinking?”

  Dmitri got up and put on his jeans. “I was thinking about you, being my mate. My real mate. I can’t stay here.”

  Little bits and pieces of me wanted to yell at him, and beg him not to leave, but mostly I just felt a grim sense of anticlimax. It was a whimper, rather than a bang, that was for damn sure.

  And I wouldn’t admit that I was also relieved Dmitri had been the one to break it off. The black mark was in his column. “Where are you going?”

  “None of your business at this point,” Dmitri said. “I’ll call. If you want me to. Later.”

  He’s doing this, I whispered to myself. You’re not responsible. You’re not the cause. It was a cold little sliver of comfort as I listened to Dmitri leave.

  I got up and out of the house before sunrise, and made the trip downtown in under an hour, which was a miracle with all the roadblocks and closures from the quake. I was waiting at Bryson’s desk when he stumbled into the Twenty-fourth at 7:17 AM. “You’re late,” I said.

  “Lord, what have I ever done to you?” Bryson asked the ceiling. “I pay alimony. I don’t cheat on my taxes since the audit. I visit my Aunt Louise in the home even though she thinks I’m her brother Rupert who died in 1971. And yet, you curse me with my own personal harpy, who dogs my dreams.”

  “You dream about me, Bryson? That’s sweet,” I said. “Here, have a donut. Cops love donuts.” He eyed the jelly-filled on the paper plate that I offered him.

  “Is it a Sam’s donut?”

  “As if I’d ply you with anything less.”

  Bryson gulped the pastry down in two bites, frosting crumbs spilling down his shirt and tie. “Whaddaya want, Wilder?”

  “I need you to look something up for me,” I said. “I went out to the . . . Paiute reservation last night, and I found a lead on your killer. Perhaps even The killer. Can’t be sure yet.”

  “Hot damn, are you serious?” Bryson demanded, turning on his computer. “You got no idea how happy you just made me, Wilder.”

  “Well, don’t go giving me a gold star,” I said. “You’re never gonna be able to prove it in court.”

  Bryson licked jelly from the corners of his mouth. “Why the hell not?”

  “He’s a Wendigo,” I said. “Look up a suicide for me . . . a John Doe that happened last week.” It seemed like a lot more time had passed since Jason Kennuka took his plunge, but time can expand and compress easily as breathing when you work a case hard. Dmitri was the first boyfriend I’d had who didn’t care about the odd hours and the long absences.

  Thinking about him made me snarl a little, under my breath. Bryson cocked his eyebrow at me, and I pretended to be clearing my throat. “Allergies.”

  “Whatever. What the fuck is a Wendigo?”

  “A shapeshifting creature who stalks prey and drinks blood to survive,” I said.

  “Great. Fucking perfect,” Bryson muttered. “Because I can absolutely stand up in front of a grand jury and say ‘Yes, Your Honor, these four victims were shot in the head to conceal the fact that they were actually killed by a mythical creature that has a funny name and drinks blood.’ ” He banged on the keyboard. “You’re killing me, Wilder.”

  “There’s more to it,” I assured him. “The vics were targeted for a reason beyond feeding, and the Wendigo I spoke to are hiding something. Things are in motion.”

  “Ain’t that helpful,” Bryson snorted. “ ‘Things.’You’re a brilliant Hexed detective, Wilder, let me just say.”

  “Listen,” I snapped, “I’m doing the best I can to save your ass here, so why don’t you try shutting your trap and being grateful for once?”

  Jason Kennuka’s face flickered up on the screen along with the coroner’s report on his death. “You want to do something useful?” I said. “That’s the brother of the guy I talked to. He killed himself, and he was in deep with the group that made those walking were-dead things. You want to find the killer and try to get him in human form, there’s your lead. Go fetch, Sherlock.”

  Bryson grunted. “Sorry. It’s early. I ain’t had my coffee.”

  “That and you’re sort of an asshole,” I muttered.

  “You’re no prize yourself, Wilder,” Bryson said. “So, we going?”

  I blinked. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m not walking into the home of some freakydeaky blood drinker on my own,” said Bryson. “Something wanted this guy taken out, so you say, and if it’s still around . . . better you than me.”

  “Gee, David,” I said, “I’m almost touched.” My blood beat faster at the thought of going out to a scene, and the were scented the air for prey. “Yeah, I’ll come,” I said out loud.

  Jason Kennuka’s apartment in the Garden Vista building was about as cheerful as the execution chamber at Los Altos. An army cot, the covers crumpled to one side, sat in a corner of the studio space, which had a high ceiling clothed in rusted stamped tin, a flickering light fixture, and fingers of mold creeping out of the crevices. To one side an ancient gas stove and a dripping sink took up most of the space. The only other furniture in the room was a dresser.

  Bryson kicked a mildewed Persian carpet. “Smells like dead grandmothers in here. Lots of ’em.”

  I stood in the center of the room and surveyed the detritus of Jason Kennuka’s last days. The man hadn’t had much, and what there was, was on the floor. I narrowed my eyes at the mess, which included the rug crumpled in a corner and rifle marks on the one locked drawer in the dresser. It was so filthy anyway that it was hard to believe, but there was broken glass around the sink, and a suspicious lack of personal objects anywhere.

  “Bryson, this place has already been tossed.”

  “Shit,” he muttered. “Who even cares about some freak-job suicide?”

  “Whoever wants the weres dead,” I said. A pot sat next to the stove, a rucksack overflowing with dirty clothes and books, and a squat black manual camera with a long lens.

  “That seems sort of pricey for a guy living in this craphole,” I said, pointing.

  Bryson nodded and slipped on gloves, picking the camera up. “Pawnshop sticker. No film. What’d he even need this thing for?”

  “Beats me,” I murmured. “Glove?” Not that we’d find anything in the wake of the Wendigo.

  Bryson flipped one at me like a rubber bullet. I snatched it out of the air with a snap. “Don’t throw things at the woman with animal reflexes,” I said when he grunted.

  “Wilder, I been thinking,” he said as we started searching the mess.

  “Oh no.”

  He stopped and crossed his arms. “I know you got some high horse you’re ridin’ on about me and my deductive skills . . .”

  “Or lack thereof,” I muttered.

  “. . . but even Your Highness has to admit this case is thin. What are we into here, some kind of werewolf/ blood slurper vendetta match?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “People get shot for their cell phones and stabbed for their rims every day in this city, Bryson. Maybe revenge is all the Wendigo are after.”

  “Okay,” said Bryson. “But why now? Things have been quiet for a damn long time if this is the first I’m hearing of some big blood feud.”

  “When you start making sense, I start worrying that maybe it’s time to check into Cedar Hill Psych for a few days,” I muttered. Bryson had a point. If revenge was the motive, I didn’t fit as a victim. I had never wronged them. The only thing I had in common was blood, reaching back tenuously to a treaty that no one even obeyed any longer.

  Thin, like Bryson said.

  He began to rattle the locked dresser drawer, cursing when it wouldn’t give. “Oh, move,” I said, sighing. I wedged my fingers into the gap and popped the lock with a small exertion, sending it shooting across the room.

&nbs
p; “You’d be real handy in a rugby match,” said Bryson. “Anyone ever tell you that?”

  justThe shorts are unflattering,” I said. A manila envelope caught my eye, one edge raised over the lip of the drawer like a tiny sail.

  The envelope was shiny with dirt and use, and crumpled at the corners. It was stuffed full of prints, a street map of Nocturne City scrawled over with notations in some kind of private shorthand, and a few newspaper articles from the previous month, neatly clipped out and shoved to the bottom of the stack.

  “Bryson,” I said, turning over the first print. “You need to look at this.”

  He came to my shoulder and whistled when I showed him the photo of Priscilla Macleod, the grainy long-lensed framing marking it as a clandestine shot. “Well, Hex me. What is he, some sort of shapeshifting perv?”

  “They’re all here,” I said. “All four victims plus Carla.” And me, caught as I unlocked my car outside the Justice Plaza, as I ate at the Devere Diner . . . I pushed down a shudder and unfolded the map. Now that the photos were arrayed next to the map, the shorthand contextualized. P.M. for Priscilla, along with a green spider track of ink around a neighborhood in downtown that I recognized as Warwolf territory. J. T. for Jin Takehiko, crawling among the pricey avenues of the Mainline district.

  “Was he . . .” Bryson cocked his head and crouched to examine the map. “Was this motherfucker stalking them?”

  “Hunting,” I said softly. “This is way beyond a thrill. Jason was a pro.” Everything in the apartment spun around my already formed thoughts like debris in the tracks of a tornado. Jason was involved. Did Lucas know? Was that the lie?

  “Well, this is motive,” said Bryson. “Far as I’m concerned, my number one suspect is now pancake boy. That would explain why no one’s made a move on Carla yet.”

  “Why?” I muttered. I wasn’t speaking to Bryson but to Jason, and by extension Lucas. “No reason to kill them . . .” I stood up and paced to the window, looking into the rows of tombstone teeth in the cemetery across the street. “This doesn’t make sense, David.”