In Western American Indian tradition, primarily Hopi and Navajo, the skinwalker practiced the art of the curse, lured into the murky study of dark arts to control and destroy. The skinwalker practitioner may have begun his studies with the intent to do good, but always gave in to the desire to take the skin of a human, perhaps to obtain a younger body. He became a murderer and went mad. That walker was depicted as a black witch.
In Southeastern Indian lore, primarily Cherokee, the skinwalker had originated as a protector of The People. But in more modern stories, maybe after the white man came, the skinwalker myths changed, and the skinwalker became the liver-eater, the evil version of the skinwalker, sort of like Luke Skywalker going over to the dark side. But the thing I had seen in the alley had smelled vampy, a vampire underneath the odor of rot. Not skinwalker.
And as for me . . . I am a skinwalker. I had lived for a long time, decades longer than the normal panther’s or the normal human’s life span. I had shifted into cat shape as a child, at some point in my life, probably a point of great danger, and had not gone back except to find the human shape and regenerate. That’s what skinwalkers did. We regenerated back to our remembered age each time we shifted, giving ourselves a longer life span. Leo had given me back much memory of the forgotten times.
The shadow of a bush outside the window moved on the far wall as a wet wind blew. In the distance, I heard the fall of raindrops growing harder, faster as they approached, pushed by storm winds. Limbs swept window screens with a scritch, scritch sound. Thunder rumbled.
Under the covers, I opened and tightened my fist again. Released it. A drowsy thought came to me on the edge of sleep. Why did Leo refer to the men tonight as “his,” as in “cost me the temporary use of one good man . . .”? With the rain falling in torrents, pelting the street and roof and windows with furious force, I fell asleep.
I woke to a blue sky and rain-wet streets, bells tolling in the distance. Half asleep, I rolled from bed. It occurred to me that I had killed a young rogue vamp and given away the bounty. I was nuts.
While a kettle sizzled on the stove top, I dressed in jeans and my best T-shirt, pulled on my boots, and rolled the unused skirt up in Beast’s travel pack, hoping it didn’t wrinkle too badly. I drank down a pot of tea and ate oatmeal as I read the paper, the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Weird name for a paper anywhere but here. Here it was perfect.
The headlines proclaimed that a local politician had been caught leaving a hotel with a transvestite. The mayor and his wife posed for pictures with the governor and his wife. The Obamas were being featured at an event in France. New Orleans musicians were raising money for rebuilding more Katrina-ruined houses. The weather for the next few days was going to be hot, hotter, and hottest. And wet. Big surprise there—not. The vamp deaths hadn’t made the news. Sad commentary when nothing that happens in the hood makes the news. Or maybe Leo had quashed the story. Who knew.
At ten thirty I helmeted up, left the house, and kick-started the bike for an early morning ride through the city. I wasn’t Catholic, so I wouldn’t be attending services in the Quarter’s big cathedral. I had never fit in with a big, fancy church. But the little storefront church next to the dress shop had looked promising.
I parked the bike in the shade of a flowering tree, its branches arching over and down to provide shade. I stuffed my leather jacket in a saddlebag, pulled the skirt over my jeans, and shimmied them off. Rolling them up, I stuffed them in beside the jacket and removed my worn Bible, which hadn’t come out since I got to New Orleans. Guilt pricked at me but I squashed it.
Though the boots looked a bit odd with the skirt in the reflection of the storefront windows, the skirt hadn’t wrinkled, and it was better than jeans. Some churches were picky about their congregation’s wardrobe. I had no intention of offending, even if I didn’t like the service well enough to return.
The congregation was singing when I slipped in, late, and took a seat on the back row. There were no musical instruments, which was weird, but the congregation sang hymns I knew in four-part harmony, and with the exception of two loud, off-key voices, it was pretty. Before the sermon, they served the Lord’s Supper, which I hadn’t had in a while.
I was letting the cracker soften in my mouth, when something seemed to heat in the back of my mind, and I saw a glimpse of Leo Pellissier’s face in my memory. But the thought, whatever it was, was gone faster than I could grab it.