The Shifters. Alexandra Sokoloff

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СКАЧАТЬ standing on the dance floor in front of the stage. He suddenly crouched down, dropping out of sight. Caitlin stopped, craning to see what was going on. He was on his haunches talking very seriously to a blonde little girl of maybe five, sporting a rakish, sequined hat. As the little girl watched, enthralled, Case twirled a drumstick between his fingers and then extended the drumstick toward her.

      She took it and without hesitation twirled the stick in imitation. As Case laughed, his whole face transformed.

      Caitlin blinked back tears and fled the club.

       Chapter 5

      Once out in the kaleidoscopic cacophony of the street, Caitlin realized she was so shaky she could barely hold the glamour in place. She always felt that way, seeing Case. And Danny, too. Her feelings for them were so complex…. Longing, despair, anger, protectiveness…

      And failure. As shifters, they were her charges, and not only had she been manipulated and controlled by the very people she was supposed to have charge of, she hadn’t helped them. Not a bit.

      She took long breaths, forcing the spell to stabilize.

      Part of the trouble was that she had known Case forever, it seemed, since she was just a teenager. As the middle MacDonald child, she’d had a rebellious streak. Fiona was so good, so perfect, and Shauna so outgoing and loved, and their parents had been such pillars of the community, all the communities. Caitlin never felt she could live up to any of them. So she found relief by sneaking out of the house, out of the compound, up to big bad Bourbon Street, to listen to music, drink the Hurricanes that older guys would buy her..

      Case had saved her from a bad situation one night, when a drunker than usual frat boy thought that buying Caitlin a drink meant anything went, including date rape. Of course, that turned out to be the proverbial “out of the frying pan, into the fire” scenario in the end, but at first Case had been so charming, as rebellious as Caitlin herself, but also a naturally talented shifter as well as singer, and very willing to teach her. She had spent many hours after-hours in clubs, listening to Case and Danny jamming with their band of the moment, and learning the shortcuts of shapeshifting.

      Then came the War, and her parents’ deaths had devastated Caitlin and her sisters. Caitlin, in particular, had been consumed by guilt. She’d taken her parents for granted, had gone behind their backs, and now she could never make up for any of it. In her zeal to reform she had become completely devoted to her sisters, obedient to Fiona and fiercely protective of Shauna.

      Caitlin had kept her distance from Case as well as she could, as the three MacDonald sisters had thrown themselves into the grueling task of building the trust and connection with the communities of Others that their parents had had.

      But in recent years she had been increasingly disturbed by rumors of his drug use—Danny’s, too. Rumors that they had fallen prey to the drugs and disillusion that claimed so many shifters. Caitlin had tried to intervene, in her official capacity as a Keeper. But old feelings proved overwhelming. She’d slipped and reconnected with Case, wanting to believe his stories of being clean, of reforming…only to be horrified to discover the extent of his new addictions. She had pressured and badgered and ranted, and then sunk into despair, all the time hiding it from her sisters, until, ironically, it was Case who dumped her, unable to take her condemnation.

      That had been just before a series of nightgown-clad blondes started turning up in New Orleans cemeteries, bodies drained of blood.

      If Caitlin’s brain hadn’t been so scrambled, she surely would have seen the killer for what it really was. Instead, because of her confusion, her inattention, both she and Fiona had almost been killed….

      And Caitlin had been living with that guilt, ever since.

      But I’m going to do it right, this time, she vowed.

      She straightened, squaring her shoulders, and moved down the crowded street, slipping like water around the drunken revelers—frat boys, businessmen, pimps.

      The noise of the street was overwhelming, distracting, and she turned down a side street, heading for quieter Rue Royal so she could hear herself think. She was past the Rainbow line, St. Ann Street, where hetero clubs turned gay and the side streets turned seedier, but she had on the glamour and Royal was just one long block down.

      Even so, she instinctively walked a little more quickly as she brooded over the clearest clue she had gotten from Case: these were tourists dropping dead, not junkies. Tourists doing meth? No wonder Jagger was perturbed. And despite his nonchalance, she could tell even Case thought it was strange.

      Caitlin was so deep in thought that she didn’t notice the footsteps until they were right up on her—heavy, pounding, manic—and before she could even turn, a heavy, live, stinking weight had tackled her, hurling her to the ground.

      She hit the pavement so hard that her breath was knocked out of her and she heard as well as felt her head crack against the curb, and the pain was blinding; through the haze, she knew for the first time what it was like to see stars. Through her confusion she thought, How can he see me? Who is this?

      Despite overwhelming pain, Caitlin heaved herself up and called on a weakening spell, something quick and forceful to stun her attacker.

      She gathered energy in her mind and shoved…

      The assailant—she had just enough time to register a Bourbon-Faced T-shirt and a man’s face so distorted with rage it barely looked human—growled like a bear and tackled her again.

      Not human, Caitlin realized. He’s Other. And then she hit the sidewalk again, was crushed into the cobblestones.

      Whoever was on top of her was so heavy she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, and the smell was strange. Under the familiar sick-sweetness of too many Hurricanes was not the reek of human sweat, but something like ammonia, and then there were hands around her neck, squeezing, squeezing, and through the pain and descending blackness she realized she was being killed….

      Panicked thoughts flooded her brain. She would never see her sisters again, never meet the love of her life….

       So this is how it ends….

      And then suddenly she felt the pressure lift and gulped in air….

      Ryder seized the man in the Bourbon Street T-shirt in a full-out fury and hauled him off Caitlin. The attacker snarled and spun on Ryder, hulking and wired with superhuman strength. He was dressed like a tourist, but the face was a mask of inhuman rage, and beneath the innocuous jeans and T-shirt he was completely out of control, like someone on PCP and steroids at the same time, some drug-crazed, murderous, rapacious zombie.

      Ryder seized the tourist by the scruff of his “Bourbon-Faced” T-shirt and slammed him against the side of the voodoo shop beside them. The tourist’s head hit the wall with a sickening thud. But the man merely roared and barreled forward again. Ryder sidestepped, grabbed the man’s arm and used his own momentum against him to snap the bone.

      On the pavement behind them, Caitlin flinched as she heard the crack of her attacker’s arm breaking. The limb dropped against his side at an unnatural angle, but even with blood streaming from his head and the useless, dangling arm, he seemed to be feeling no pain at all. He roared again and scuttled off, listing to one side.

      Ryder sprinted back to СКАЧАТЬ