Skin of the Wolf

by Sam Cabot

  “But if that’s so, why are—”

  “There’s another component. You have to be born with the gene, but the Power’s not automatic. You need to learn to use it. To bring about the Shift you have to create a specific, precise emotional state in yourself. A resonance, a pitch, like a tuning fork. It’s almost impossible to do without being taught. It can happen in flashes by accident, especially when you’re young, and it’s a spectacular feeling—like a cocaine high times ten. You’re invincible, tireless, afraid of nothing. You feel the astounding change to your senses in your animal form. Once you’ve felt it, you want it again, and again. But without teaching and practice you can’t sustain it. Some people, the stories say, can never reliably do it, even so. Edward always found it easy. For me it’s much harder.” He waved the brandy snifter to indicate himself, exhausted, blanket-wrapped. “And it always wipes me out.”

  “How is one taught?”

  “There’s a ceremony. An Awakening, it’s called. It’s remarkably similar across tribal cultures, and not much else is. That says to me it can’t vary much or it’s not effective. It involves music, chants, dances, certain objects. Ritual objects. In the past, most tribes had someone who could perform it, or if not, a neighboring tribe did. A medicine elder. Not a Shifter—it’s dangerous for a Shifter to even be there.”

  “Why is that?”

  “A lot of the training goes into learning control. It’s a knife-edge in any case. Like driving too fast. Like downhill skiing. You almost want to lose control. To see how far you can take it. The Ceremony is designed to draw the Power from a Shifter who doesn’t know he’s got it. To hear the chants, see the dances again once you’ve learned—the stories say it can drive a Shifter mad.”

  “I see. And once you’ve been trained?”

  “Once you learn, the Power can be accessed anytime. Edward and I will be able to Shift for the rest of our lives. But traditionally there’s a prohibition against Awakening adults. A life lived without the Shift, suddenly interrupted by it—most people’s minds can’t take it. They never learn to adequately control the Power. Children are different. The world’s magical to children anyway, in the sense that pretty much everything is inexplicable. So why wouldn’t you turn into a wolf, into an eagle?”

  “What is the Awakening process?”

  “Traditionally, women brought each child at five or six. The children were told it was an initiation ceremony. If nothing happened, then that’s all it was. If the Shift occurred, no matter how brief or incomplete, the child was given as much instruction as he or she needed to be able to access the Power, to control it. The instructions were secret, of course. Everyone in the tribe knew about the possibility, but no one except the medicine man and the Shifter ever knew whether it had happened.”

  “Not even the child’s mother?”

  “No. What I said before was true—the identities of Shifters were always protected.”

  Bonnard stopped and wiped his hand down his face. He looked spent. Now that he’d begun, though, he seemed determined to finish.

  “You can see the problem, can’t you? It’s the Ceremony that’s been lost. Few still remember how to perform it, fewer with each generation. It’s not clear why they stopped, unless it’s just that all our ceremonies and feasts are in shreds. Some of the medicine elders can still do it, in some of the tribes, but even so they might not have the objects. Those are all in museums now. And if they know, and have what they need, no one brings the children anymore. Edward and I were among the last.”

  “Who did the Awakening Ceremony for you?”

  “One of our grandfathers. Technically, a great-uncle, though that’s not a term we use. Our Grandma’s brother.”

  “Your parents are Shifters?”

  “Our father wasn’t, according to Grandfather. Our mother may have been. She died when we were born. Grandma raised us.”

  “Ah. Are you the younger?”

  “I know what you’re asking, but no. I was first and my birth was normal. Edward’s was complicated. Unexpectedly. There was no doctor on the rez then. By the time the one from town got up there, there was nothing he could do.”

  Spencer shrugged. “It was too trite a psychological cliché in any case. But can you tell us, why does he hate you so?”

  “If you asked him he’d say it’s because I’ve sold out. He thinks I’m what we call an ‘apple Indian’—red on the outside, white on the inside. Boarding school, college, grad school, postdocs. City living. Everything he despises, everything that destroyed our people.”

  “That’s what he’d say was his reason. Would it be true?”

  “Not entirely, I think. It may be now, but we’ve always fought, from my earliest memories. It’s as though I’m a part of him that he’s been trying to tear out, shake off, leave behind, but what that would mean—killing me—he can’t quite bring himself to do.”

  “He tried to, tonight.”

  “No. He tried to kill you. I was vulnerable before I Shifted. It was his chance, but he didn’t take it. He’s had that chance before.”

  Spencer nodded thoughtfully. “Michael, you say Shifters are very few. Have you met others?”

  Bonnard shook his head. “I’ve heard rumors. If others do exist, they must have also, about Edward and myself. But my brother is the only one I know.”

  19

  Maybe the whole damn Job really was a mistake.

  Staring at the crimson splashes and smears on the shelves, the carpet, the boxes housing their precious objects, Charlotte Hamilton heard her uncle’s voice. “What does it matter that you weren’t born up here? You can still come home. This land is where you belong.” Uncle James popped into her head with a variant of that sentiment whenever she found herself wondering what the hell she was doing on the NYPD.

  In the Academy, when she’d been young and gung ho, the doubts had come only when some no-neck called her “Pocahontas” or let out a war whoop when she walked by. Her response then was to smirk, deck the guy, and dare him to report her to their training officer. After she’d decked half a dozen guys the whoops became scarcer and she questioned the direction of her life less often. But since she’d made detective she’d begun to wonder weekly, and since she’d come into Homicide—and God knows since they’d partnered her with that loony tunes Framingham—it was pretty much daily.

  She shouldn’t even be here. Seriously, to be pulled out of the rotation and handed this one only because the vic was in the Native Art department at Sotheby’s? What did the captain think, that she’d pick up some tribal vibe, sniff the air and follow the perp to his effing tipi?

  “It’s not like that, Hamilton,” Captain Greg Friedman sighed with weary patience. “Everyone’s watching this because Sotheby’s is high-profile. It’s yours because of the motive.”

  “You have motive? So there’s a suspect?”

  “Let me correct that. The possible motive. Come on, the whole thing’s politically sensitive and you know what that means around here.”

  “It means I had to leave a hot date halfway through my first beer. What’s the big political issue, if a low-level public servant can be allowed to know?”

  The captain ignored her tone in a practiced way. “Sotheby’s is about to hold a huge auction of Native American art.”

  “Go ahead, say ‘Indian.’ You know you want to.”

  “Masks, dolls, baskets, stuff like that.” He went on as though she hadn’t interrupted. “Worth a fortune. Not everyone’s happy.”

  “Meaning, my people want their shit back?”

  “Some tribe’s filed a lawsuit. Only covers a few of the pieces, though. They’ve been withdrawn but the rest of the auction’s going ahead.”

  “Oh, don’t tell me. You think some Indian offed this girl to stop the auction? Tell me she was scalped. With a tomahawk.”

  “She wasn’t. And I don’t know
what happened. But if it was some museum up in Harlem I’d send a black cop. That’s the way it is in this city.”

  “Yeah, okay, I know.” It was true. Ethnic politics in New York were so fraught and so Byzantine that when she was in a good mood Charlotte stood back and laughed. All these gate-crashers getting up in each other’s grilles. Really, she didn’t mind catching this case. Her date hadn’t been that hot. He’d actually tried to talk her out of the beer and into a Cosmo. And this killing would be a relief from the domestics and the drug-relateds. Her objection had been pro forma, just making the point. You had to do that in this Department: woman or man, red, white, black, brown, or Chinese. You had to keep everyone on notice that you knew what time it was.

  “You’ll be the lead,” the captain said. “Framingham’s with you. You have Ostrander and Sun. For legwork, canvasses, take who you need from the One-Nine, that’s the precinct up there. It’s high profile so you can have detectives, unies, whatever. But Hamilton? Any Native American suspects, witnesses, any connection at all, you handle it.”

  “Oh, Jeez. Even the bullshit ones?”

  “When the case is cleared it’ll be in your column. But yes, I pulled you in on this because you’re Native—”

  “Say ‘Indian.’”

  “Because you’re Native, and unless you want to file a racial profiling grievance, that’s the angle you’re going to play.”

  “All right,” she said. “I’m going. But Captain? Tell me this: What if it was Martians? Who’d you send then?”

  Friedman smiled wearily. “Framingham, of course.”

  Here, now, in Sotheby’s storeroom, Framingham was drooling over the paranormal possibilities. The savagery of the attack, the silence, the stealthy killer no one had seen come or go: all this pointed to only one thing as far as he was concerned. It was a wonder the wingnut ever cleared any cases, since the perps they dealt with were generally not vampires, werewolves, ghosts, leprechauns, or aliens. Unless you counted Mexicans without papers as aliens. Or, as Charlotte had once pointed out to Framingham, “From my point of view, white people.”

  Snapping on her latex gloves, Charlotte deliberately shut out Framingham’s mutterings and silenced Uncle James, too. Uncle James was wrong. Charlotte had been born in New York City. Her people lived in the center of the state, but the land where she belonged—the land she belonged to—was here.

  And Framingham, he was a damn good detail man, seeing what was really there even if he was perpetually disappointed he couldn’t prove it had been dropped there by black helicopters. His current theory on this one had to do with a botched extraterrestrial dissection. Fine. If that’s what allowed him to spot every paper clip, phone call, and pinprick, go with God.

  Charlotte herself did it differently. She operated on instinct and always had, on the Job and in her life. Her grandmother had been a seer, a healer, in the tribe, and Uncle James always said the same power was in Charlotte, too. She thought that was probably baloney but she couldn’t help admitting she had moments of clarity, of being sure of something she had no way to prove. Her spine and fingertips would tingle, colors would snap to a knife-edge sharpness, and she’d just know.

  Sometimes, not always, it happened on a case, though she had no way to know why or when that feeling would kick in. She’d been leery of letting anyone on the Job know until she discovered instinct, going with the gut, was a respected cop technique. She wasn’t the only cop to work that way and she didn’t have to admit to any Indian woo-woo to explain her high clearance rate—or to be admired for it.

  Charlotte knelt beside the body. Methodically, she started to work. Her doubts quieted and backed away. The answer to her question rose up, as always, and always the same: she was on this Job because what had happened here, the fear and blood and death, wasn’t caused by ectoplasm, aliens, or New York City. Someone—a person, with a reason, with something inside him that told him he had the right—had done this to this woman. That was an everyday situation. Charlotte’s job was to make him pay.

  20

  Livia hadn’t spoken since Michael Bonnard had revealed the meaning of what Spencer saw in the park. She sat enthralled by the possibilities his words conjured.

  Earlier, with Michael and Thomas banished to the kitchen, Livia and Spencer had sat in the parlor as Spencer’s strength returned. They’d discussed what to do if it turned out Spencer hadn’t been delirious and his vision was real. The Noantri had no Law regarding contact with other non-Unchanged humans. That would have been absurd, like Laws regarding behavior during a Martian invasion. It was explicitly written, however, that the Conclave must be informed of anything that could in any way impact the Community as a whole.

  “Shapeshifters, Spencer?” Livia had said. “What could fall more squarely into that?”

  “You’re right, of course,” Spencer had replied. “And yet . . . Livia, our Laws require us to remain hidden. Perhaps the laws of Michael’s people do the same. He showed himself only in a desperate attempt to save my life. To do so may be punishable. If I’d broken a Law for him, I’d hope not to be—what do they say?—thrown under the bus for my act.”

  “Spencer, you’re suggesting we break a Law right now. He saw you start to heal. Instead of vanishing before he knows you’re gone, you want to get him in here and reveal who we are.”

  “Who I am. I shan’t unmask you—there’s no need.”

  “Of course there is. If we do this I’m not going to—as they say—leave you twisting in the wind.”

  “They still say that? How colorful. I believe I first heard that phrase some three hundred years since. Livia, in addition to my fears for Michael among his own people, my worry is that the excited reaction this news will provoke among ours will somehow cause it to spread beyond the Conclave. Noantri eager to Unveil may try to make common cause with those of Michael’s people who hope to do the same, if such exist. Or worse: it’s not impossible that certain Noantri would be only too willing to throw Michael’s people under the bus to prove to the Unchanged what good, human citizens the Noantri can be.”

  Livia sighed. “I think, in this case, the expression you want is ‘throw them to the wolves.’”

  “Possibly, but under the circumstances . . .”

  “I agree. All right. Let’s talk to him. We can always disappear and Cloak, if we have to. He can say he met vampires, as people have from time to time, and he’ll just be thought insane.”

  That had been their conversation. The story they’d just heard from Michael Bonnard was astonishing, but no more so than their own. What, she wondered, was to be done with this knowledge now?

  Michael might be asking himself that, also—how could he not be?—but he slowly began untangling himself from the blanket. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll come back, I promise I will, and we’ll talk, we’ll give all this the attention it deserves. But I’ve got to find Edward. I’m—”

  His words were cut off by the ringing of Livia’s cell phone.

  “Livia, it’s Katherine.” The voice was tight, distraught. “I’m sorry about the hour. Something terrible’s happened.”

  21

  Thomas listened as Livia relayed Katherine Cochran’s news. The story struck him with a horror he saw echoed on Michael Bonnard’s face, and even on Spencer George’s. In addition, Thomas felt a despair that shamed him even as he recognized it. A young woman had died violently. Livia and Katherine had known her, albeit briefly; Katherine’s friend Estelle had been her employer. As a priest it was Thomas’s duty to offer solace. He wouldn’t shirk that duty; he suggested immediately he go with Livia to Sotheby’s, to join Katherine and Estelle. But oh! he was so bad at this. Clumsy, cliché-ridden banalities were all he could seem to muster at times of grief. His own faith ran deep—deeper, he’d discovered in the last few months, than he’d known—but he had no talent for pastoral counseling.

  And that was under normal circumsta
nces. This situation, if Michael Bonnard was correct, was far from normal.

  “Blood was everywhere,” Livia had said. “She didn’t scream—the guard says he’d have heard it, that he was on his way there on his regular rounds and she was still alive when he found her, though just barely. They think it must have been an ex-boyfriend, or a stalker, someone so insane . . .”

  Bonnard spoke. “She was killed in the holding room? Where they keep the pieces for the auctions?” Thomas saw a darkness in his eyes that seemed to go beyond exhaustion and pain.

  “But nothing was taken. At least, Estelle doesn’t think so. The room’s a mess, boxes all over the floor, but they seem to have been knocked down during the struggle. It’s not clear what’s damaged, though there’s blood on some of the pieces. That’s why she asked Katherine to come. Because she was the consultant on these sales so she knows the art. They want to complete an inventory and examine the pieces, get them to conservation as soon as possible if they need that.”

  “The Ohtahyohnee?” Bonnard asked. “It’s still there?”

  “Yes. The box was open, and on the floor. She must have been examining it one more time before the sale.”

  “No,” Bonnard said tightly. “Edward was.”

  “Michael?” Spencer asked. “What are you saying? Your brother did this?”

  “I understand now,” Bonnard said. “His rage. The reason he’d Shifted. The reason he’s in New York at all. And—oh, Jesus!—and the sense I had that he’d already made a kill before he found us in the park.”

  “The mask?” Livia asked. “He killed her for the mask? But if he came for that, why did he leave it?”

  “Because it’s fake.”

  Bonnard seemed to expect this news to come as a surprise, but no eyebrows were raised except Spencer’s. “You were disappointed in it,” Spencer said. “Is that why?”