Skinwalker.

The table went silent. No one moved. Every eye was on me.This sort of thing had happened occasionally when I was in the home, when I said something that came out weird. I looked at the little witch, her white skin and jet-black hair contrasting in the candlelight. This girl had touched me on some level the first time I saw her. I had felt a subtle connection, which had to be a mistake, didn"t it? But it was there, nonetheless, and my voice was softer when I said, "Bliss, right? What did Leo say when he . . ." The correct word eluded me.

"You have trouble with this, don"t you," she said. It wasn"t mocking. The tone was gentle, almost pitying. "With what we do, I mean."

I almost said, "You could be with a coven learning how to do witch stuff," but I caught myself. Just in case she didn"t know what she was. "Where are you from?"

Bliss lifted a shoulder, and I realized she was wearing a silky gauze top that laced across the front like an old-timey corset if it had been put on backward. Her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s were pushed up and fully visible through the cloth, a necklace dangling between them. Suddenly I felt like a voyeur. "I was raised in foster care, so that means I"m from everywhere and nowhere."

So that meant she might not know she was a witch. Katie knew, didn"t she? Couldn"t vamps smell witch? I"d have to ask. "I have trouble with it, yeah." I looked around the table, making eye contact. We had finished our salads, and I didn"t have to be told that the meal was more silent than usual. Without even volunteering that I"m a predator, I make people wary.

"Any of you have an idea who the rogue vamp is? Maybe someone"s been acting different? Maybe something weird about one of Katie"s vamp customers? She has vamp customers, right?" They all nodded, and from the force of it, I gathered that Katie had a lot of vamp customers. "A vamp acting weirder than usual? Even someone who smells different?"

"They all smell weird," Bliss said.

"No, they don"t," a dark-skinned woman said. "But you"d have to define weird in totally different ways to cover some of Katie"s clients." I was pretty sure her name was Najla.

"How do they smell?" I asked.

The other girls looked at Bliss. She said, "Like old leaves. Sometimes mold. If they haven"t bathed in a while they can smell like old blood. You know. Like a woman in her period. I have a really good sense of smell," she insisted.

I"ll bet you do. I could tell this had been a sore point with the others. "Do any of them smell sick? Infected?"

"No." Bliss glanced around the table. "I know you think I"m crazy, but they all smell."

Before any of them could reply, I said, "Najla, right?" to the dark-skinned girl. She had an on-again, off-again accent that I couldn"t place, but then accents weren"t my strength. Like Bliss, I was better at scents. "Let"s talk weird. First, where are you from? Wait," I said as the girls laughed and Najla narrowed her eyes at me. "That didn"t come out right. What I meant was, I want to hear about weird and vamps, but first, I"d like to know where you"re from."

"None "a your business," she said.

"Katie says it is," Miz A said as she shuffled back into the room. She was pushing a cart that smelled of spices, charcoal, and meat. Beast rumbled appreciatively. "Anything she wants to know, you tell her."

Najla tossed her head. "My parents and I emigrated here from Mozambique when I was four." I rotated my fingers, giving her a little tell-me-more gesture, and she said, "From a place called Namaponda. You might find it on a map. If the map was big enough."

"And your parents?"

"Dead." When I waited, she grudgingly said, "Car crash when I was fifteen. Katie took me in. Don"t look at me like that. I was turning tricks on the street to buy food. She brought me in, made me finish high school before she would let me work. Tried to send me to college. But I was good at making men happy." Whatever she saw on my face made her bristle. "I want to retire before I"m forty. What other job can you name where a girl fresh out of high school can pull down two hundred K a year and retire in less than twenty years? Name me one."

"Modeling. Acting. Music business." Grudgingly I added, "If you"re lucky."

Najla nodded emphatically. "I never had a lucky day in my life except the day Katie found me. I got close onto a mil in stocks and bonds and gold. I"ll have two mil, easy, in five more years, with compounding interest and dividends, a.s.suming the market goes where I think it will."

I was shocked. Two million for turning tricks? Najla laughed. "I can see it now. You think a girl should work hard and retire at sixty-five. That"s bulls.h.i.t."

Miz A slapped Najla on the shoulder as she set a plate in front of her. "Miss Katie don" allow dirty talk at the table."

Najla rubbed her shoulder. "Sorry," she mumbled. Miz A put a plate in front of me. The steak hung off at ten o"clock and four o"clock and leaked b.l.o.o.d.y juices into the trough of the china and onto a larger plate beneath. The potato was stuffed with all sorts of goodies, including bacon and sour cream. I smiled, my mouth watering. "Thank you. This looks wonderful."

"Nearly two pound of Black Angus, yeah. Tom say you like meat."

"Tom is my hero. So are you. So is the cook."

Miz A chuckled and finished serving the girls. I had enough etiquette training to know I had to wait until we were all served before I dug in. And enough self-restraint to resist Beast, who woke up at the scent and wanted me to eat the meat with my hands. "You may eat," Miz A said. I watched and picked up the proper fork and the serrated knife. And cut into the steak.

When I put the first bite into my mouth I groaned. The girls all looked at me. "Sorry," I said as I chewed. "This is the best piece of meat I ever put in my mouth." Which made the girls break up and dig into their own meals, laughter reflecting off the walls like tinkling silver.

Inadvertently, I might have just made friends. Bordello humor. Who"d a thunk it?

CHAPTER 9.

I really love rock and roll.

I learned little that was useful over dinner, at least not about the rogue. If I ever needed to tie up a lover and whip him, however, I had plenty of info. I think the girls just liked to see me blush.

Katie hadn"t arrived by the time I finished my meal, so I left without seeing her. However, on the way out, I took a circuitous route, openly scoping out the place, and found Troll in her office. He was leaning over that ancient desk, bent over papers, his laptop turned so I couldn"t see the screen. That seemed significant, so I pulled on Beast"s stalking attributes and stepped into the room, silent as the predator Katie had called me.

Troll turned as I approached, which gave credence to the old legend that when a vamp willingly shares blood, some of its speed and extra-keen senses get pa.s.sed along. Faster than I could focus, Troll hit a key and the screen went blank, but the man himself smiled, a welcoming expression that surprised me.

I said, "I see you removed the camera from the back fence. Any reason why Leo Pellissier would spy on Katie?"

He frowned. "Leo didn"t put up that camera. He couldn"t. Spying is against the Vampira Carta."

I laughed, a sharp cough of sound. "The what?"

"The Vampira Carta." He lounged back and I spotted the .45 on his other side, within reach. Troll was antsy or scared or something worse. I guessed that getting one"s body drained of blood could do that to a guy. "What do you know of vampire history?" he asked.

"Frankly, except for finding new ways to kill them, vamps don"t interest me much."

The easy humor left his face. "In Katie"s presence you use the term "vampire" or the more proper term, "Mithrans." "Vamp" is insulting."

I sat on the arm of a chair, a position that allowed me to see the doorway in my peripheral vision and Troll full on. It also gave me leverage to launch myself in any direction without a change of balance. Troll grinned at my choice as if he"d had a mental bet on it. Considering that I hadn"t seen this chair before, and that I suddenly scented Katie on the air, maybe the bet was more than mental. I wondered if she was in the foyer watching on the security screens. I said, "Mithrans. As in the mystery of Mithras in ancient Roman lore?" Troll looked impressed until I said, "The whole thing is on Wikipedia, you know. Anyone can look it up. Not that the vamps and the Mithrans have been linked absolutely. Unless you just did. I might have to update the site." I was joking, but Troll didn"t seem to catch that.

He glanced at his laptop in irritation and I grinned. The real world was catching up with the vamps. Mithrans. Whatever. They couldn"t like it. However, more than half of what was available about vamps in books and online was bogus, fiction, or wishful thinking, sometimes a mixture of all three. And nowhere was there an explanation of why vamps were affected by Christian symbols. It was my personal quest to find out about that, not that I"d had any luck.

"Leo"s muscle planted the camera," I said. "Bet on it."

Troll sat back in his chair, bemused but not disagreeing, obviously wanting to ask how I knew with such certainty. I changed the topic to see what happened. "I"m going dancing tonight," I said. "Where in the Quarter do you recommend?"

"Dancing?" He couldn"t quite keep the startled tone out of his voice.

"Great way for a gal to smell out any problems in the city." Literally. "The rogue chased down and ate a working girl last night. I"m up for seeing if it comes after me."

"You couldn"t pa.s.s for a working girl in your dreams."

I grinned. "I clean up good. I"ll drop by on my way out. Maybe you"ll think of a place."

Back at the freebie house, I streaked on dark red lipstick and wrapped my braided hair up in a turban with Beast"s travel pack in the folds. I strapped three crosses around my waist so they dangled inside my skirt, hung one around my neck in plain sight, and strapped a short-bladed vamp-killer to my inner thigh, not where a dancing partner would find it unless we were doing the tango and got real friendly. I put two full-sized stakes into my turban and two handmade, silver-tipped, collapsible travel stakes into specially sewn pockets in my undies. The purple and teal skirt rode low on my hip bones and the peasant top rode low on my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the tie open, a skin-toned jog bra beneath. s.e.xy, but showing nothing. The skirt whispered around my calves with each step.

I swished on a little bronzer to brighten my natural skin tone, drew on some sparkly gold eyeliner, and slipped into the new dancing shoes. In the mirror, I tested the movement of my skirt in a little maya hip move that looked like s.e.x. Satisfied, I snapped off the bath light, made sure the house was secure, and closed down the laptop, standing in the dark house, thinking.

I had spent an hour in an online search into the mythos of the American Indian skinwalker, coming away with a confusing battery of images and legends. There was nothing that sounded like me, not exactly. Certainly nothing sane or free from evil.

The doorbell rang, interrupting. The house was dark and I moved through it by memory and the illumination of outside streetlights through the windows to the front door. I smelled the cigar before I saw him. The Joe. Rick. I threw the locks and opened the door, swished my skirts forward, saying, "Well. Looky what the cat dragged in." I couldn"t resist the taunt. Rick"s eyes bulged at the sight of me. I was afraid I"d have to catch them and stuff them back in the sockets. I chuckled and said, "Thanks for the compliment. Lemme guess. Troll sent you over."

"And me," a soft voice said from the street.

I looked over the speechless Rick"s shoulder and spotted his companion. She wore a short flared skirt and T-shirt, dancing shoes, flashy jewelry, and lots of makeup. "Bliss?"

"Miss Katie sent me. She said I could help?" She looked uncertain. "She gave me a week"s wages to miss work." She started to say something else and stopped. The scent of fear was faintly bitter on her skin. I had no idea why Katie had sent her to me but I didn"t like it.

"It should be safe enough tonight, Bliss," I said. "All I"m looking for is a really stinky vamp. He should smell sorta . . . decomposing."

"A rotting vamp?" She put a hand on her hip, rings flashing and bangles clanging. "You"re kidding me, right?"

"Nope. And Bliss. I"m not prying, but what do you know about your birth parents?"

"Nothing. Why?"

"It doesn"t matter." Bliss was more than a rogue vamp lure and vamp sniffer-outer. She was also Katie"s eyes.

Before we left, I wrote down the address of the Cherokee elder for Rick and asked him to track down the owners of all property within three miles in any direction. It was a lot of land, and the research would keep him occupied and out of my hair, doing stuff I hated. Then I locked my door and left with the two, Rick"s cigar leaving a trail on the air even a human could follow.

Three abreast, we walked through the Quarter, taking our time in the heat, heading for Bourbon Street. We were pa.s.sed by tuxedo-clad waiters on the way to work, couples out for a romantic night, small groups of men looking for a good time in strip joints, and a few vamps out trolling for an early dinner or maybe just a snack to hold them over till later.

I spotted a group of young witches glamoured to look like older women, and I wondered what they were doing and why they needed a disguise. Bliss watched the group, her face tight with concentration, and I wondered what she saw. I wondered a lot of things and I had very few answers. She and Rick chatted as we walked, and I felt their eyes settle on me often, their curiosity like a blanket held around me. But I had nothing to say, and let my silence build.

The air was hot, muggy, and heavy, as if it carried extra weight, as if lightning and tomorrow"s rain infused it, waiting. I perspired in a smooth, all-over sheen and my new skirt brushed my legs and thighs with each step, the moist air swirling around me as I walked. The amethyst and chatkalite necklace and my gold nugget lay together around my neck, the stones warm. The voices and people we pa.s.sed were relaxed and slow. The ambiance was heated, as if dance had already found me, as if I had slid into the rhythms and steps and was already mellow. I breathed in, sorting out the various scents.

The smell of seafood, spices, hot grease, and people filled the air. Food and liquor, exhaust and perfume, vamps and witches, drunks and fear, s.e.x and desperation, and the scent of water. Everywhere, I was surrounded by water, the power of the Mississippi, the nearby lakes, the not-too-distant reek of swamp. The overlay of coffee with chicory, the way they brewed it here. The scent combinations were heady.

The streetlights hid as much as they revealed, like an ageing exotic dancer hiding behind fans or party balloons. Music poured from bars and restaurants, rich with jazz licks and dripping with soul. Together, it brought Beast close to the surface. I could feel her breath in the forefront of my mind, hear her heartbeat. Her pelt moved against my skin as if ready to break through.

There were a few cops on foot, their presence meant to bring a measure of security to the tourists. But the officers were nervous, each with a hand resting on gun b.u.t.t, faces and eyes hyperalert, radios transmitting information to them in a steady stream. They were all twitchy.

Besides weapons and Kevlar vests, NOPD cops carried GPS tracker devices. Each had a built-in "officer panic alarm," activated by pressing a b.u.t.ton. If a cop pressed it, an alarm went out to dispatch, transmitting the officer"s GPS location, calling for all officers to respond. And it made an awful racket, an ear-piercing whoopwhoopwhoop.

The devices hadn"t helped the cops the rogue had killed. Had they not carried them that night? Or was the rogue so good at mind games that he took them all over before they could press a single b.u.t.ton?

Cruising every street were media vans, local affiliates of CBS, NBC, ABC, a FOX News van with a picture of Greta Van Susteren painted on the side, even a local cable van. The reporters were looking for local color and anything they could get on the killer of cops and prost.i.tutes-each hoping for an exclusive they could parlay into bigger ratings and increased personal fame.

Cops and reporters notwithstanding, the streets were less crowded than I expected, far more empty than the first night Beast hunted. The word about the killer vamp had done a number on the crowds. I had never been in the French Quarter on a Sat.u.r.day night, but I had a feeling the bar and restaurant traffic was down. Not good. I had mental images of armed men taking to the streets in packs, searching for the rogue. Killing any unlucky, handy vamp.

Our walk ended up at the Royal Mojo Blues Company. The smell of fried food and beer and the sound of live music blasted its way into the street, the house band rocking. The RMBC had an outside dining area, a bar, food that smelled hot off the grill, and a dance floor. And the people not on the streets? They were inside. The place was packed. My feet were tapping before I reached the door. After a preliminary sniff to rule out the presence of rogue, I headed to the dance floor, losing Bliss and Rick in the crowd.

A black woman with the voice of an angel blasted a foot-stomping seventies piece by Linda Ronstadt. She was backed up by five other musicians on drums, keyboard, ba.s.s, and guitars. A selection of wind instruments rested in a rack.

Conversations merged into a background roar, with Beast picking up a few words here and there: flirting, business complaints, a drug deal taking place sotto voce between two patrons near the bar. No vamp discussions. And the only vamp scent in the joint didn"t smell fresh, though it was familiar. Couples and singles were on the floor, so dancing alone wouldn"t make me stand out. I flowed onto the floor, into the crowd. Into the heat and swirling smoke and started to move. I opened with a corkscrew and shifted into a maya. One of the courses I took between children"s home/high school/teenaged misery and the freedom of RL-real life-was a year of belly dance cla.s.ses. The best thing about belly dancing was the freestyle moves it added to my repertoire. On a dance floor? I smoke.

I attracted the attention of a half dozen women and they joined me on the dance floor, all of us dancing together, making a s.p.a.ce for ourselves and crowding out the couples, at least for the moment. Men left the bar and stood in a line, watching, beer bottles in hand. The women with me shouted and hollered. Beast woke up and purred, pumping energy into the dance.

By the third number I was dancing in front of the band, buffeted by the ba.s.s speakers, sweating and dancing my heart out. It had been too long. I really love rock and roll, and the band was good, currently sounding more like Sting than Sting himself.

Three bars into a jazzed-up version of "Moon over Bourbon Street," I caught the eye of the horn player, just joining the band. Dang if it wasn"t my Joe. Rick. Holding my gaze, he picked up a sax, made a few adjustments. I"d paid no attention to his clothes when he picked me up at the door, but he was wearing a black tee, the fabric so thin it was almost translucent beneath the stage lights, and jeans so tight they molded to his body like the skin of a lover. Oh, my.

He moved to the front of the stage, a bad-boy smile on his mouth and his black hair falling forward in an Elvis curl. He took the mouthpiece between his lips in a move so sensuous it sent shivers down my spine. He started to play. For me. His fingers danced up the keys, and the mellow sound curled around me like a loving hand. So what could I do but dance for him? I moved into the camel walk-figure-eight hips-and added in a few small belly circles and belly drops. It was a come-hither song so I did a come-hither dance.

The number wasn"t the three-minute, fifty-second-plus version of "Moon Over Bourbon Street" once released to radio stations. It was the live version, the male lead"s voice so perfect for the lyrics it tore the heart right out of the entire dance floor. The horn added just the right pathos to a song dedicated to the life of a vampire. Empty floor s.p.a.ce filled up fast. Sweat trickled down my spine and I undulated to the beat, a catlike move all my own. The lead singer was crooning, "The brim of my hat hides the eye of a beast," when I heard Bliss"s scream.

m.u.f.fled. Panicked.

I dropped my arms. Whirled. Tore from the floor. Dove around dancers faster than they could see. Weaving fast. Following the sound as it trailed away. Past the bar. Into the dark.

Ladies" room. I blasted through the door. Slamming it back on its hinges. Two sets of feet in one booth, one female, one male. Vamp smell. Blood.

Time dilated. Slowed. Took on the texture of oiled wood, grained and patterned.

Beast rose. I ripped a stake from my turban with my right hand. Tore the large silver cross from the leather thong around my neck. Yanked the stall door open, breaking the hasp.

The vamp, wearing T-shirt and jeans, whirled. Snarled. Fangs bloodied. Bliss dropped from his arms. A slow-motion fall, like a doll, to the floor. His left hand went down, as if to catch her back to him. Her blood stained his shirt. Stained her clothes. Pumped weakly from her throat. She was pale as death.

Beast screamed in fury. I reversed the stake and lunged. Right-handed, the vamp caught my right wrist. Not the mad one we hunt, Beast warned. Young. Very young.

Very young meant lack of control. Rogue of a different kind. I rammed my left forearm, powered by all my body weight, into the back of his elbow. Into the joint. His arm bent across his body. Bones snapped as the joint broke inward. He roared.

His grip fell away from my right wrist. I continued my forward motion. Slapped the cross onto the side of his neck. He screamed. Skin smoked. His left arm sliced up, vamp nails slashing. I jumped back. The cross ripped away. Blisters wept blood. The vamp reached for his neck. Giving me the opening I needed.

I reversed my right hand. Caught his injured wrist. Pulled him off balance. Toward me. Out of the stall. Away from Bliss. I twisted my body. Pulling. Stepping back. Stuck out a leg. He fell across my thigh. Hit the floor. I shoved the stake against his back. Over his heart. Thrusting deep, into his flesh. He screamed and twisted. Ripped the stake out of his flesh with the motion. Faster than I could follow, he was gone.

Time fell inward, speeding fast. The music and voices and the smell of blood crashed into me. Two bouncers filled the doorway. Still moving Beast fast, I stood straight and palmed the stake back into the turban. The silver cross on its broken thong I was stuck with. I raised both palms in the universal gesture of "I"m weaponless; please don"t shoot me." Letting them see the cross, dangling. They paused at the sight of a girl, surprise in their faces. They were clearly expecting something or someone else. Odd.

I said, "A vamp just attacked a girl. She"s in trouble." I pointed over my shoulder. When they hesitated, I said, "She"s bleeding bad," and slid between them, into the crowd that was gathering. There was nothing I could do for Bliss that the bouncers couldn"t. But I could track the vamp. Young. Very young, Beast had thought. Young enough that he hadn"t learned how to use his voice and seduction to get a meal. Young enough to be attacking girls. And not the vamp scent I had recognized when I entered.

The young vamp should have been under the power of his master, not allowed into public until he had learned control. Which sometimes took long years when they were chained to the bas.e.m.e.nt wall in their master"s house. Why was he free if he couldn"t be trusted? Either he got away, like a zoo animal over the fence, or he was an accident.

He had to be stopped.

I breathed in, finding the scent of the vamp on the air, Bliss"s blood on his clothes, bright as a signpost. He was leaving an easy trail and I had a scent marker on me, in my turban. I dove through the screaming crowd and outside.

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