The Shifters

It was hard not to think of himself at that age.



But all of that was a diversion so that he could not, for a moment, think about what Case had just said. Which he knew in his heart to be true.



Ryder tried to center himself, to breathe. “She’s disappeared,” he said as calmly as he could manage. “My guess is she’s gone to find your mutual friend.”



“And?” Case said maddeningly.



Ryder held his temper. “It’s very dangerous for her out there right now. Dangerous for anyone, but especially for her and her sisters.”



“And this has what to do with me?”



“Don’t bullshit me. You care for her. I know you do.” Ryder stared straight into Case’s eyes. “Regardless of how you hurt her, you care.”



“Who’s bullshitting who, shifter?” Case smiled, a crazy cracked watermelon grin that didn’t quite make it to his eyes. “How I hurt her is nothing compared to what damage you’re about to do. At least I never pretended to be anything but what I am. I never promised anything, in word or deed. Can you say the same thing?”



Ryder was struck dumb by the young shifter’s insight.



“Right—tell me you didn’t promise everything, even if you never said a word.” Case waited until he saw that the whole truth had sunk deep into Ryder’s bones, and then he dragged on his cigarette and exhaled, shrugging.



“But don’t feel too bad about it. It’s our nature, after all, isn’t it? And who knows that better than sweet Cait?”



Ryder felt sick with the truth of it.



Case’s face hardened. “Well, maybe she went out there in that crazy little way she has—because she doesn’t care what happens to her. She knows you’ll be gone on the next train, or tradewind. I know Sister Goldenhair. She’ll go out fighting, save everyone she can in the battle—but when her light goes out…”



He removed the cigarette from his mouth and let it fall to the slate flooring to explode in glowing ash, then crushed the butt out.



“So no,” he said softly. “Don’t you be guilt-tripping me. I’m the small sin here, shifter. The lesser of two evils.”



Ryder reached out and grabbed the lapels of Case’s leather jacket, and in that moment, he could have ripped the other man to shreds. But he forced himself to breathe, to steady.



“So we’ve both done her dirt. Are you going to do something about it? Because I am.”



He felt Case’s fury, and suddenly he was holding nothing. The young shifter was standing several feet back from him. He’d folded, very skillfully. From the new distance, he stared at Ryder stonily. “Difference between you and me, Ace, is I don’t pretend to be a hero.”



“Cait doesn’t need a hero. She needs help.”



“Might as well let her go. You’ll only end up hurting her, because you can never settle for just one life—or girl. That’s a shifter’s nature, and you know it just as well as I do. You’re already looking toward the new city, the new body. It’s our nature to shift…shifter.”



Ryder summoned every ounce of control he had. “Play the cynic all you want, but I know the truth about you, too. You may be a shifter and a junkie, but you’re capable of loyalty toward your friends. Cait’s in danger, and your pal Danny, too, and I think you’re coming with me.”



Case stared at him for such a long moment Ryder thought he’d lost, and then the young shifter spoke. “That would imply you knew where to find them, and we both know you don’t.”



Ryder said, “No. But you do.”



Chapter 22



Caitlin stared at Danny-not-Danny through the haze of crack smoke in the warehouse. There was some thing so alien about him that it chilled her—the sinuous way he moved as he slowly circled her, as if there were actually something else inside him using his body in a completely different way, not human, not shifter, but Else.



As if reading her thoughts, the walk-in smiled, and that was an abomination, too. There was the telltale sibilance in its consonants as it spoke. “Yes. I am pleased with this body. Its powers are more subtle than the older one….”



Caitlin thought fleetingly that it must have meant Armand.



“And it knows how to procure its pleasures, this host. I approve.” The creature’s glittering eyes swept over Caitlin’s body, and she suddenly felt naked, exposed. “But time for a new one now, I think.”



Caitlin’s blood froze, and for a moment, as she envisioned a horrible half-supernatural rape, her mind went black with terror. But then, through the choking nausea of the thought, she realized that the creature wanted something far more lethal than an invasion of her body. It wanted full possession of her.



Her mind raced through the scenario. If the walk-in had been able to mimic Armand so that not even his own employees or fellow shifters recognized the possession, then the walk-in would be able to use her own body to gain entry to the compound, to walk right into Fiona’s rooms, into Shauna’s….



She shuddered with fear and rage—and then a cold determination that she would die before letting that happen.



The creature must have felt the change in her, because Danny’s body shifted, rippled, so that for a moment there was something demonic there, skeletal and rotting, that had only the slightest hint of Danny’s humanity. She could even smell it, a stench like a rot ting corpse.



“Yes,” it said sibilantly. “Take the Keepers, then take the city.”



No, she thought violently. I’ll die first.



Danny’s face tightened in rage. “Hold her!” the walk-in screamed. Two of the zombified tourists moved faster than the others, shockingly fast, and seized Caitlin by the arms.



Then one said, low and rough in her ear, “Fight. Keep moving.”



The familiar voice sent a surge of shock and relief through her body. Ryder. She obeyed instantly and began to struggle with her captors with all her might.



“Seize her! Hold her!” the walk-in shrieked.



The men holding her were moving in tandem, shoving her between them, but not with an intent to injure, just to create a moving blur of bodies.



Suddenly Caitlin felt the shimmering, the wave of heat that accompanied a shift, but stronger than she had ever felt it, coming from all sides, enveloping her, and she gasped aloud to see herself in the hands of—herself. Twice. Ryder and Case had taken on her own form. The sight was so startling that she almost forgot Ryder’s directive to keep moving. She had seen herself in mirrors thousands of times, but this was a completely different experience, like meeting herself in a dream, a familiar face and body, but as a stranger. She saw herself fully for the very first time: beautiful, vulnerable, fierce, loving, wanting…things she had never seen in herself before. And powerful. Unbelievably powerful. For a moment she could do nothing but stare.



A split second later she realized the plan. There were three of her now, and the walk-ins wouldn’t know which of her to grab.



The thing that was in Danny was prowling, still shrieking, “Seize her!” But the shuffling creatures around them were swaying in their tracks, muttering, confused.



The three Caitlins ceased their merry-go-round scramble and stood with backs to each other, facing outward.



“What now?” Case as Caitlin whispered harshly.



“We incapacitate the leader,” Ryder as Caitlin whispered back.



“Don’t hurt him,” Caitlin begged, alarmed for Danny.



“We bind the entity. Follow my lead,” Ryder said.



Caitlin felt Ryder link his arm through hers and automatically did the same with Case on her other side. She saw Case joining arms with Ryder, forming a living triangle.



And then Ryder called out in Caitlin’s own voice, “Quod perditum est, invenietur. Te implor, Doamne, nu ignora aceasta rugaminte. Nici mort, nici al fiintei… Lasa orbita sa fie vasul care-i va transporta, sufletul la el. Asa sa fie! Asa sa fie! Acum! Acum!”



Caitlin followed the words in her head.



I command you, unclean spirit, whoever you are, to hear and obey me to the letter, I who am a minister of the light despite my unworthiness. You shall not be emboldened to harm in any way this creature of light, or these bystanders. You are bound by my words.



Caitlin was astonished at the power in Ryder—and by the fact that it was her own self she was seeing, some powerful, unshakable blend of the two of them. His whole body was straining next to hers, taut and filled with the conviction of his words.



“I cast you out, unclean spirit, along with every power of darkness, every spectre from hell, and all your fell companions. Begone and stay far from this creature of light. Hearken, therefore, and tremble in fear, you foe of all living races, you begetter of death, you robber of life, you corrupter of justice, you root of all evil.”



Around the three of them, the mass of zombielike possessed were swaying and muttering incoherently, disturbed and disturbing. The walk-in itself undulated in Danny’s body, a horrible sight, as if a mass of snakes was moving under his skin.



Ryder continued the ritual, relentless.



“You are guilty before the whole human race, and all the races of Others, to whom you proffered by your enticements the poisoned cup of death. Depart, then, transgressor. Depart, seducer, full of lies and cunning, foe of virtue, persecutor of the innocent. Give place, abominable creature, give way, you monster, give way. We cast you forth into the outer dark ness, where everlasting ruin awaits you and your abettors. We cast you forth into outer darkness. We cast you forth into outer darkness.”



The Caitlin who was Ryder glanced to the other two, and Caitlin realized with a jolt what the look meant. She lifted her voice and chanted with Ryder, and heard Case on the other side of her chanting with them.



“We cast you forth into outer darkness. We cast you forth into outer darkness. We cast you forth into outer darkness….”



Danny’s face rippled as the walk-in struggled to maintain control of the body. It whiplashed, snapping back and forth like a green sapling in a hurricane-force wind. And then it forced itself upright, and with a savage cry, it clenched its fists and raised them up in triumph.