Faith Hunter - Skinwalker

I had exterminated a skinwalker. Perhaps the last one besides me.

I knew that I should feel grief. Shock. Sorrow. But for now, all I felt was Beast’s triumph. Killed Big Cat, I/we, together! Beast is victor! she screamed into my mind.

Standing over the rogue, in the ruins of the upper hallway of Leo Pellissier’s home, I stared into the face, noting the hair on its scalp had made the change to long black hair so much like my own. Noting the brown skin, slightly deeper brown than my own golden hue.

Beast said, Escape. Now . Details of the next few minutes, the next few hours, raced through my mind. First, stop my bleeding. I needed to apply pressure to my shoulder. Fumbling, I opened a pocket inside my jacket and pulled out my tourniquet. It took a moment to remember how to use it. Evidence of shock. With teeth and my good hand, I opened the loop and applied it above my shoulder joint, pulling it tight, securing the Velcro. The strap caught on the head of my humerus, exposed through the flesh. I nearly gagged with pain.

Beast stared at the blood running down my hand, off my fingers, onto the floor. Shift .

“I can’t,” I muttered. “Not now.” She growled at me. But the tourniquet was working; the blood dripping from my fingers slowed. I glanced at Antoine. Dead. And I’d killed him. I was too numb to feel grief or shame or anything beyond the momentary ecstasy of surviving, a joy already blurring with pain and shock. I knew my charm had killed him just as much as the liver-eater, but I’d have to deal with that later.

I found the woman, also dead, her neck at an impossible angle. She was the woman I had seen, all right, the one in the long skirt, entering the meeting with Anna and Rick. They had indeed been tracking the rogue. And from what I had learned, using Anna to do it.

I had to get out of here. But first, I had to make sure I got paid. I needed proof of death to fulfill my contract. I pulled my camera out and took a dozen photos, then repeated the process with the cell, though these shots would be less clear. I e-mailed the photos to myself, pocketed the cell and camera. I pulled my knives out of the liver-eater’s flesh and wiped them on my jeans. I limped past Antoine, down the stairs, to my bike, hoping to get out of here before Leo arrived and figured out that I’d just killed his son—or what had passed for his son. I didn’t have enough energy or moxie to fight the blood-master of New Orleans.

I managed to get Bitsa back down the steps into the drive. Managed to kick-start the engine, mostly one-handed. There was only one car in the drive as I motored past. Empty. I wondered who had left. And why.

I made it home before I bled to death, grabbed steaks , and dropped them on the grass out back. Stripped and fell in a heap on the cracked boulders in the garden, fractured stone stabbing into me. I needed to shift to heal but there wasn’t time to do it right, using the fetish necklace. Instead, I reached for the coiled form of Beast in my memory and pushed. Gray light and black motes flowed over me. The pain was heat like a branding, like being flayed alive, like being skinned while my heart still beat. I shifted, screaming.

I lay on broken stones. Panting. Rose and stretched, from back paws up spine, to front claws, to killing teeth, in a long, smooth motion. Leaped to ground in a single silky arc. Ate much raw, cold steak. Cold and dead, but full of life. Satisfied, I drank water from vampire fountain.

She asked, Shift? Please? Properly servile. Asking for alpha. I dropped belly to ground and gave her alpha control.

No longer bleeding, with all the visible results of the attack mended, I began to hide proof of my involvement. Just in case I was accused by human law enforcement after the fact in Antoine’s death. Just in case there had been security cameras in Leo’s hallway that I never saw.

I rinsed blood off the bike and the grass with the garden hose, mopped up the mud and blood from the porch and house floor. Carried my clothes to the shower. Standing under the spray, I washed and rinsed my clothes, letting the filth of the liver-eater flow away. The leather coat was ruined, rips in the shoulder where the liver-eater had chewed through to skin. The silk T-shirt was a goner, but the boots and jeans could be saved. If I managed to get off the slop that had dried to gluelike hardness on the way home. I’d take the boots to a shoe repair place in the morning. If I lived through the rest of the night. I washed myself repeatedly with soap and shampoo, rinsing between sudsings until the stench was gone.

I dried off on a fluffy towel, and left all the clothes hanging, plinking water. Most of my wardrobe hung there now. My phone rang. I checked the number and answered while dressing. “I’m alive.”

“You could have called,” Molly said, huffy. But I heard worried tears in her voice. “Call me when you can.” She hung up.

I packed, knowing that I still had a lot of things to do to assure my safety. If I couldn’t get them done in time, before Leo figured out what had happened and came after me in a vamp rage, then I had to be ready to run. I ate a bowl of oatmeal, finishing a big box with the last of the sugar and the milk. The shakes left me then, though I still felt a strange weakness deep inside. Something that could have been grief. I shoved it down deep. Locked it away. If I lived, I’d take time to look at and deal with the emotions later.

When I was pretty certain I could handle myself, I called Bruiser.

“Where are you, Yellowrock?” he asked, in lieu of a hello.

“At my house. You’re at Leo’s place?”

“Yeah. On the upstairs landing standing in a pool of putrefying sludge. What’s Antoine doing dead? And this woman? You kill them? And what’s this thing with him?”

“The thing killed Antoine and I killed the thing. It’s what’s left of the rogue. And Bru—George,” I amended. I hesitated, softening my voice. “Look at the Anglo half of his face. The rogue was masquerading as Immanuel. I’m pretty sure it . . . killed Leo’s son and took his place.”

Bruiser breathed heavily, started to speak , and stopped. He took another breath, processing what I had said. I stayed quiet, letting him think it through. After what felt like a long wait, he said, “Where’s the body?”

Great. Right to the heart of the matter. “I’m guessing the . . .” I couldn’t call it a skinwalker, could I? Not when no one but the dead thing and I seemed to know what we were. “. . . thing ate it. Just like it ate the bodies of the other people it caught. It wasn’t Immanuel.”

“What was it?” No wasted words or questions.

And now I had to find a way around the truth. “It tried to take the shape of a sabertooth cat of some kind. It tried to take Immanuel’s shape. And the shape of a black-haired human. I killed it before it could kill me. I’m guessing Immanuel has been dead for a very long time.” Which was a lot of information, but didn’t answer his question. I hoped he didn’t notice.

“Weeks? Months?” he demanded.

“Years,” I said softly, gently. Knowing I was dumping a lot of bad news on him all at once. “Maybe decades. It was dying, Bruiser.” I tried to find a way of explaining what it was without giving my own dual nature away. “I don’t know how it came to take Immanuel’s place, but I think the melding between vamp genetics and its own wasn’t working, hadn’t been working for a long time. That’s why it needed so much blood and protein. Only massive intakes of blood and tissue kept it looking and smelling like Immanuel.” That’s why it stank so often, I thought.