The Shifters

She could feel, rather than see, the creature behind her whipping its body around, serpentlike. And in a flash she remembered Ryder’s charmed skeleton key, the one she’d been keeping in her gris-gris bag since he gave it to her that night off Bourbon Street.



She pulled the charm bag from her bodice and touched it to the knob, which clicked open instantly in her hand.



Caitlin ducked out of the door, feeling the claws of the creature ripping at her back as she fled.



In the dark corridor, she ran at full tilt toward the banquet hall, her breath coming in shaky gasps, her mind racing a mile a minute. I can’t lead it into the banquet hall. It could kill everyone. She had felt the power emanating from the beast, not just the considerable power of the elder shapeshifter, but the raw demonic energy of the walk-in. It was a terrifying combination.



But those thoughts were eradicated by her primal need. Ryder. I need Ryder.



In the banquet hall, Shauna had gotten some control over the werewolves. She stood in the center of a shifting circle of weres, all of them much taller than she was at the moment, as their heightened emotions set off the transmutation.



“This killer is not someone from any of our communities,” she reassured the weres loudly. “That’s why we’re here tonight.”



Caitlin burst into the hall just as Ryder reached the door, grasping her arms before she came to a halt.



“Are you all right?” he demanded. “What happened?”



“Armand,” she gasped. “Possessed. The walk-in…”



“He attacked you?” Ryder’s voice was a low growl.



He took in her appearance in shock. Her dress was hanging from her shoulders, and he could feel the wetness of blood under his hand, see smears of red on her neck. He turned her slightly away, and his adrenaline spiked to see the ugly scratches on her pale skin, the bloodstains on the back of her gown. Luckily the scratches were just that…shallow, only oozing blood. Even so, his own blood boiled.



“It…” she said. “It was horrible, and…it’s here….”



They were surrounded now by Others, Fiona, Shauna, Jagger DeFarge.



Ryder turned to Jagger. “Bolt the doors to the outside. Don’t let anyone out.”



Jagger nodded and turned on his heel. Fiona and Shauna followed him, breaking into a run out of the room.



Keeping a protective arm around Caitlin, Ryder turned to the massing and muttering crowd. “Armand St. Pierre has been possessed by a walk-in. He’s loose in the building.”



“What does it look like?” August Gaudin demanded. “Armand or—”



“It was a creature. Huge. A cat-demon…” Caitlin struggled for words to describe it. “Part snake and bird—”



“It doesn’t matter what it looked like,” Ryder interrupted her gruffly.



Caitlin and the others turned to him, frowning—and Gaudin inhaled sharply, tense, understanding.



Ryder nodded toward them. “It’s in the body of a shifter. It can look like anything now.”



The assembled crowd fell silent, each looking at the others. The wave of suspicion was palpable.



Surrounded now by familiar faces, with Ryder’s protective arm around her, Caitlin managed to calm her own wild thoughts.



Beyond the immediate danger, she saw a second one: the fragile trust between the communities had only recently been restored. This new development could crumble every bridge they’d worked so hard to build.



We can’t let that happen, her mind cried out. And then she felt Ryder catching her, holding her up, as her legs gave out. He lowered her to a chair.



Adrenaline crash, she realized. Ryder was on one knee in front of her, stroking her hair, and all she want ed to do was lean forward into his arms. But every one was watching, everyone, and she forced herself to sit up straight, and say, “I’m fine.”



“Cait, we need to know,” Ryder said. He kept his voice so low that no one around them could hear. “Were there any signs St. Pierre was inhabited? Anything we can look for—anything that could be a tip-off?”



His voice was gentle, but Caitlin could feel the urgency under it, and she realized why. The entity was loose in the building, and it could look like anyone it wanted to.



She mentally kicked herself for not having noticed earlier that something was terribly, horribly wrong. What kind of Keeper are you, that you never pick up on danger?



“Stop it,” Ryder said roughly, and Caitlin realized he had read—or understood—her thought. “None of us picked up on it. He threw this whole party, conducted this meeting, and nobody noticed a thing. It wasn’t just you.”



Caitlin realized with a shock that he was right. And for a moment she felt relief…and then cold fear. How will we know?



“Don’t let on,” he said softly, and stood, looking out over the crowd. His height and sense of purpose instantly caught the attention of the crowd.



“No one leaves. We split up in groups of our own kind and search the building,” he announced loudly. “The Keeper will tell us what we’re looking for.”



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.