The Shifters

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  Caitlin understood; it was a distraction. Keep the others busy and engaged while Jagger and the others secured the building.

  “It’s the voice that is most distinctive,” she said, trying to keep her own voice steady. “When it speaks, you know. It sounds hollow, sibilant. It can hold a shape for a while, but when it gets…angry, ex cit ed, it slips, and the entity shows itself. Demonic. Un stable.”

  She raised her voice and continued while Ryder started unobtrusively for the door, following the others.

  Once beyond the tall doors of the banquet hall, Ryder sprinted to catch up with Fiona, Shauna and Jagger. “Go,” he said to Jagger. “Do what you need to do. But they should stay in the hall with the others,” he added, nodding his head toward the sisters.

  Shauna bristled, about to protest, but Fiona held up a hand to tell her to wait as Jagger said, “Yes.” And then, with a look at Fiona, he backed up, then broke into a run that turned into flight. There was a man, and then there was just the rustle of wings.

  “You three sisters need to stay together.” Ryder spoke to Fiona; he had no time for the youngest Keeper’s temper. “Watch Caitlin.”

  “We will,” she assured him, and took Shauna’s arm.

  Ryder nodded, already turning to run.

  He slipped quickly through the maze of corridors and caught up with Jagger at the front door of the restaurant, where the vampire had earlier posted officers, as he had at every door.

  “For all the good that will do,” Ryder said grimly. “St. Pierre can take on any number of forms to get out. An insect, a spider, a mouse…”

  “But you think he—it—is still here,” Jagger said, and it was not a question.

  “This is the second time it’s directly attacked Caitlin. It wants the Keepers,” Ryder said simply.

  Running now, despite their long gowns, Fiona and Shauna burst into the banquet hall. The milling, chattering guests turned to look at them. August Gaudin immediately crossed to meet them. “Where’s Caitlin?” Shauna demanded.

  “She just left to join you,” the were said, frowning.

  The hallway was deathly quiet.

  As Caitlin stood in the silent corridor, she could hear her own ragged breathing…but she could see no one, no movement, in the long, dark space.

  As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, lit only by faint gaslight, she was unnerved to see long gouges in the wallpaper where the demonic walk-in had leaped at her. The grooves were so deep that she suddenly realized she would have been dead if those claws had done more than graze her.

  Caitlin ducked into the arched stairwell and stood with the faint, eerie Gregorian chanting all around her. She focused herself in the candlelight and slipped on a glamour. It felt even easier than usual, possibly because of the heightened adrenaline in her system. Or perhaps she, too, was feeling the effects of Samhain, when any kind of magical work was easier.

  Invisible now, she moved out of the stairwell and walked carefully down the hall, her heart pounding. Even with the glamour, she knew she wasn’t safe. Shape shifters often saw through glamours, Case being a prime example, and this walk-in could even be back in the astral already, discarnate, and watching….

  She approached St. Pierre’s office. The door was partly open, and she halted, very still, listening….

  Not a sound.

  She moved to the doorway but couldn’t see all the way inside, nor could she enter the office without opening the door further, announcing her presence.

  She hesitated…then took a breath and entered.

  She had to stifle a gasp.

  The office was trashed, the furniture in splinters; it must have been the crash Caitlin had heard behind her as she fled the room. Again she marveled that she was even alive. There were more gouges by the door, long, evil-looking gashes from talons so big they could easily have severed her arm, sliced her neck open. Caitlin suppressed a shudder.

  There was a sudden thump to one side of her, and she spun, startled. A candlestick rolled on the floor, near where it had fallen from a broken table.

  Caitlin started to relax, then, behind her, she felt the rush of wind and whipped around….

  No one in the room.

  But there had been a rustling in the corridor; she was sure of it.

  She moved swiftly to the door to look out.

  No one in the hall…but the candles in the wall sconces were wavering, as if someone had passed very quickly by, in a rush of air…or wings….

  She could tell by the wildly fluctuating flames at the far end of the hall which direction the invisible presence had gone. She stepped out into the corridor and ran on silent feet after it.

  She rounded the corner at the end of the hall and realized she was in a vestibule near the private rear entrance of the restaurant. Across the elegant parquet floor was a door she recognized as the costume room, where St. Pierre kept the finery he imposed on guests who were not attired to his satisfaction.

  Caitlin quickly, quietly, crossed the floor and put her ear to the door, listening.

  She heard a rustling again…like wings.

  Her heart was pounding crazily, but quietly, quietly, she eased the door open….

  The room was richly paneled and wallpapered, with a triple mirror on one side and dressing screens in two corners. Racks of period clothing lined the walls in tiers going all the way up to the ceiling.

  Caitlin saw her own self reflected three times in the triple mirror…and a body sprawled on the floor to the side of her.

  She turned quickly toward it—and gasped in shock.

  Crouched over the body was the vampire Banjo Marks. He had been invisible in the mirrors.

  He looked equally startled to see her, and she realized that the illusion of the glamour had vanished when she confronted herself in the mirror.

  To Caitlin’s horror, the gaunt and jittery vampire was brandishing a long, gleaming knife. And the body before him was recognizable by its elegant purple coat: Armand St. Pierre.

  For a moment Caitlin thought the shapeshifter was dead, he was so still and pale. Then she caught the faintest sign of breath, his chest rising weakly.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded of Banjo.

  “It’s St. Pierre. I’ve caught him.” The vampire’s features were coarsening with the onset of blood lust; his fangs were already extended and gleaming white in the dim room.

  Caitlin realized she had to act quickly as he raised the knife.

  “Banjo, no!” she cried out.

  “This creature killed the werewolf. He nearly killed you.” The vampire’s eyes were red with excitement and quite probably something else.

  “That was the walk-in, not Armand. Armand was possessed.”

  She had the strong feeling that the walk-in had left the body; Armand’s crumpled form looked like the mere shell of a human being.

  “I think…the walk-in is gone,” she said carefully.

  “I’m not taking that chance.” The vampire raised the knife again.

  “But it’s Armand!”

  She realized that on one level—on the main level—Banjo didn’t care at all. In fact, the death of the shapeshifter would create a shake-up in the Council, and Banjo had had political aspirations for some time, though they’d so far gone unsatisfied, as no one trusted the unpredictable vampire. Armand St. Pierre’s death would be a boon for Banjo, and that made the situation even more volatile.

  She quickly calculated her options. Shapeshifters’ bodies were not immortal, not in any way. They had no peculiar strengths; they were bound by the limitations of the body type and frame they had been born with. Shifting did not endow them with extra strength or powers, only the illusion of a different shape. If Banjo stabbed Armand or cut his throat, then Armand was dead; there was no mitigating the action.

  Caitlin’s heart was beating wildly, but she kept her voice supremely calm, even nonchalant.

  “Banjo, wouldn’t it be better to let the Council decide?” Quickly appealing to his pol
itical aspirations, she added, “I know it’s tiresome. But you know the Council. All their rules and protocols. You know how they are about anyone from one Community disciplining someone from another.”

  “The interloper must die!” Banjo snarled, fangs bared.

  “Agreed,” Caitlin said, her voice hard. “But I have more jurisdiction than you do here. Let me do it,” she said, now coaxing. “So there will be no…unpleasantness for you in the happy event that you are called to serve.”

  Even through whatever drugged state Banjo was in, he understood her meaning, and she could feel him wavering. She took a chance and advanced slowly, carefully, toward him.

  She raised her hand just as carefully—turned it over, palm up, inviting him to give her the knife.

  Outside in the hall, Ryder hovered, listening, in an agony of indecision. His instinct was to charge the room, disarm the vampire. But he could just see around the door and knew Caitlin was handling Banjo perfectly, that she might actually get the knife from him.

  He had to trust her. So he waited, breath suspended….

  Inside the costume room, Banjo shifted on his feet, muttering darkly, “The Council meddles where it has no business being….”

  “It’s intolerable,” Caitlin agreed. He was just on the verge. She put her fingers lightly on his wrist. “But your time will come….”

  Banjo relaxed his grip on the knife handle, and Caitlin deftly slipped the weapon from his hand.

  Ryder seized the moment and burst into the room. Banjo whirled to face him, fangs elongating.

  Ryder took in Armand’s motionless body on the floor and followed Caitlin’s lead, turning to Banjo with feigned surprise and admiration. “Excellent work—you’ve incapacitated him.”

  He saw Caitlin’s eyes widen, saw that she understood.

  “Banjo was brilliant,” she enthused, her eyes begging Ryder to play along. “I just got here. He already had Armand completely subdued.”

  Hopped up as he was, Banjo was soaking up the praise. But his blood lust was still driving him. “The shifter is here now. Surely between a shifter and the Keeper of the shifters, this enemy can and should be dispatched for the sake of the Community.”

  Ryder knelt quickly by Armand’s side and took the older shapeshifter’s head in his hands, manipulating his head and neck, feigning expertise.

  “It’s my strong opinion that the walk-in has left this host,” he announced.

  Banjo’s red-tinged eyes narrowed. “He could be faking,” the vampire pointed out sullenly.

  “True,” Ryder acknowledged. “But the walk-in has had ample opportunity to overpower—” he hesitated so briefly that only Caitlin was aware that he had paused “—the Keeper, and he has not done so. I believe the entity has departed, and St. Pierre may be in need of medical assistance. We should inform the Council.”

  Caitlin stepped in quickly, with a cold look at Ryder. “It’s Banjo’s right to inform the Council.” Her voice was dismissive. She turned to Banjo with feigned deference. “You were the one who over powered him, after all.”

  Ryder admired her insight—enticing Banjo to leave by offering the potential of political gain.

  Banjo pulled his gaunt frame up arrogantly. “I will inform the Council.” He brushed past Ryder, his movements as dismissive as Caitlin’s tone had been.

  As soon as he was out the door, Caitlin was turning to Ryder, whispering, “Thank you.”

  Ryder looked down at her and also spoke quietly. Vampires were notoriously keen of hearing. “You did it, Caitlin. You handled him brilliantly.”

  Their eyes held…and then Caitlin glanced anxiously toward St. Pierre’s supine body.

  Ryder dropped back onto a knee beside him.

  “Is he all right?” Caitlin knelt, too.

  “His system has had a huge shock.” Ryder used his fingers to lift Armand’s eyelids. “Abnormal eye movement,” he said. “Shallow breathing. And I noticed tremors before.”

  He took Armand’s hand and dug a thumbnail in to the flesh at the base of his palm. Armand didn’t move.

  “No response to pain,” Ryder said grimly. “This looks like coma.”

  “Are you a doctor, too?” Caitlin asked, suddenly curious.

  Ryder smiled slightly. “Hardly. But there’s not always a shifter doctor around when you need one. I’ve picked up some skills. Do you have one?”

  He meant a shifter-doctor, Caitlin knew. She felt herself bristling, indignant and proud. “Of course we do.”

  “Then we should get him. Or her,” Ryder said. “And DeFarge, too. Armand will have to be guarded.” He doubted the walk-in would return to this host, but it couldn’t be ruled out.

  “But Banjo—” Caitlin started, and then realized that if Banjo had actually gone straight to the Council, the room where they now stood would have been mobbed by now, Jagger, Fiona and Shauna most likely leading the pack. But the hall outside sounded empty as a tomb.

  Banjo must have stopped for a little pick-me-up.

  Caitlin instantly reached for her cell phone—not the easiest task, since she had put it, along with a few other essentials like lip gloss, in a garter pouch that Rosalyn had designed for costumed occasions. As she bent to raise her skirt, fumbling through yards and yards of silky gown, Ryder raised an eyebrow provocatively.

  “While I would love to oblige, this hardly seems the time.”

  “Oh, shut up,” Caitlin mumbled, reddening. She unstrapped the garter pouch and shook her skirts down, removed the cell phone and quickly started texting Fiona, Jagger and Shauna, with a 911 code in front.

  Ryder stood and stepped up behind Caitlin, putting his hands on her hips as she texted, bending to put his lips close to her ear. “I would have thought you could just send a psychic message by now.”

  When she felt his breath in her ear, Caitlin’s thumbs on the keypad slowed down as she tried to finish the text.

  “I can teach you,” he added, his lips brushing her earlobe. “If you’re interested…”

  Caitlin sent the text and pulled away from him.

  “Thanks, but I like cell phones.”

  “Caitlin,” Ryder said, and reached for her.

  She evaded him.

  “Stop it. We need a doctor. We have to…tend to Armand,” she said, feeling feverish and defensive.

  “I know, I—look, I’ll behave.”

  She wavered.

  He looked down for a moment at Armand’s body, and, ever mercurial, as was his tribe, there was suddenly nothing light or joking about him. “Caitlin, this isn’t good. Armand is a seasoned, highly skilled shifter. For him to have been possessed like that…not to have been able to fend off the walk-in—it makes the danger so much worse than I had guessed.”

  Caitlin felt her heart plunging at the gravity of his tone, his words.

  “And for this entity to have even attempted to possess a two-century-old Other…much less have been successful at it, and then successful in masking the possession…” He trailed off bleakly. “It speaks of a purpose and a focus and an ability that I don’t even want to think about. It means all your Communities are in peril. Everyone.”

  He met her eyes and held her gaze.

  Mouth dry, she spoke. “Do we tell them?”

  He looked at her gravely. “This is your city. What do you think?”

  She was overcome that he had asked, that he trust ed her, that he was counting on her. And she knew too well from past experience that if they revealed too much, there was a big chance of causing a panic that would worsen the situation, heighten the danger and paranoia and hair-trigger reactions of the different species of Others. She started to pace as she spoke, thinking it out. “Is there any way of…feeling the entity approach? Recognizing the onslaught of possession?”

  Ryder tensed, thinking, and then—as she had been afraid he would—he shook his head slowly. “They come from the astral, so there’s no warning and no physical defense.”

  “What about a psychic defense?”


  “Maybe,” he said, but she could see the doubt in his face. “But if Armand was unable to defend himself, and none of us recognized the entity in him, then it was so perfectly masked that I don’t know if there’s any way to fend it off.”

  Caitlin glanced toward Armand and shivered, but she forced herself to stay focused on the problem. “You said that drugs and alcohol make humans more vulnerable to possession.”

  “And all kinds of psychic attack,” Ryder agreed. “So all the Others need to do what they can to protect themselves psychically.”

  “Then that’s what we need to tell them,” Caitlin said. There were just as many Others who craved a high as there were humans, Case and Danny and Banjo Marks being prime examples. So at least avoiding alcohol and other mind-and-body-altering substances was something that Others could do to avoid attack. And there were also Others who practiced esoteric healing, who prayed to the gods of their choice for protection, who could summon their own spiritual strength to repel evil.

  “I agree,” Ryder said, and she wondered if he’d been reading her thoughts or just knew how her mind worked.

  Before either of them could say anything else, there was a pounding of footsteps in the corridor, and a second later Jagger burst through the door, followed by Fiona, Shauna and the shifter-doctor, Sa mid ha—an Indian with a Scottish-tinged accent, short, slim, butch, and frighteningly good at her job. She took one look at Armand and was instantly crossing to kneel beside him on the floor.

  “The danger is that hundreds of Others will be in habited,” Jagger was saying. “Imagine the whole city overrun by Others who have been possessed. Raging entities with the powers of shifters, vampires and weres…”

  Caitlin’s heart began pounding wildly, charged with adrenaline at the thought of hundreds of creatures like the one that had attacked her, loose on the city.

  “A massacre…” she whispered.

  Chapter 19

  Jagger, Fiona, Caitlin, Shauna and Ryder now stood at the head of the banquet room, in front of the assembled and restive Others. They had left Armand in Samidha’s capable hands.