Skinwalker

When hunger was sated enough for me to think, I twisted my hair out of the way, into a knot and long, wet ponytail, and walked through the house, scenting. Bruiser had entered from the side porch. Another interloper to deal with. Just how many keys to my freebie house and garden were there? Had Katie given them out like candy?

 

Bruiser had made his way through the house slowly, pausing at each of the places where I had discovered cameras. I knelt and sniffed at each; he hadn’t touched anything. Even in human form I was pretty sure his scent wasn’t on the wires or the cables. He just paused in each spot, as if studying the destruction. In the bath, he had touched the clothes hanging in the shower, still damp at the time, his scent on them stronger, as if he had inspected them for bloodstains.

 

His MO changed in my bedroom. He stayed by each camera longer, maybe looking around, studying, taking it in. His scent was on the handles. He had opened each drawer, looked in the closet. Touched my clothes, squeezing pockets and hems with a thoroughness that wasn’t carnal—it was a professional search. I got a chair and checked the box on the top shelf. I placed a finger on it, feeling the faint buzzing that indicated the obfuscation spell was still activated. He hadn’t touched it. But I couldn’t say the same thing about my weapons. They had been handled.

 

I carried the Benelli M4 Super 90 shotgun to the bed and checked it for tampering. This model M4 had been designated by the military as a Joint Service Combat Shotgun. Its steel components had a matte black, phosphated, corrosion-resistant finish; the aluminum parts were matte and hard anodized; the finish reduced the weapon’s visibility during night operations. The shotgun is considered by many experts to be nearly idiotproof. It requires little or no maintenance, operates in all climates and weather conditions, can be dumped in a lake or pond and left there for a long time and not corrode. It can fire twenty-five thousand rounds of standard ammunition without needing to have any major parts replaced. I had studied long and hard before investing in the weapon.

 

The Benelli, a smoothbore, magazine-fed, semiauto shotgun, is designed around the autoregulating gas-operated—ARGO—firing system, with dual gas cylinders, gas pistons, and action rods for increased reliability. Locking the barrel is achieved by a rotating bolt with two lugs. It can fire 2.75-and 3-inch shells of differing power levels without any operator adjustments and in any combination, and can be adjusted or fieldstripped without tools. It’s perfect for close-in fighting in low-light operations. It’s a totally cool weapon. Mostly, though, I just liked the fact that it was idiotproof.

 

The weapon was loaded for vamp with hand-packed silver-fléchette rounds made by a pal in the mountains. Fléchettes were like tiny knives, which, when fired, spread out in a widening, circular pattern, entering the target with lacerating, deadly force. The fact that each fléchette was composed of sterling silver decreased their penetrating power but made them poisonous to vamps, even without a direct hit.There was no way a vamp could cut all of them out of his body before he bled out or the silver spread through his system. I opened the cock, inspected each round with eye and nose. Bruiser hadn’t messed with the weapon except to see what I carried.

 

Other than camera hunting, I hadn’t been to the second story. Still naked, I followed Bruiser up there, from room to room, all four of the antique-decorated bedrooms, closets, and both baths. He was faster here. A lot faster, as if he knew I was seldom upstairs. Which was a little odd. He might guess I stayed downstairs, but how could he know?

 

Back downstairs, he spent a lot of time in the kitchen, especially looking in the refrigerator. Most of the original beef was gone, leaving only a few good quality sirloin steaks.

 

It took me some time to work through the emotional pheromones in the traces he left, but I finally settled on two. Disgust and curiosity were in his scent in equal parts. Now, why did the henchman of the head of the vamp council need to know about disabled cameras in my house? And look in my closet and drawers? My refrigerator? Had Leo sent him? If so, why?

 

The memory of the cave dream returned, bright and shocking in its intensity. For a moment, I was in the cave, breathing herbed smoke, shadow figures dancing on the walls. I jerked back to the now, putting out a hand for balance.

 

Exhausted, feeling violated at the intrusion into my home and garden, I walked from door to door, checking the locks—what little good that would do me with all the keys floating around. After that, with dawn graying the sky, I crawled into bed and was asleep instantly.

 

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