knew that Jagger knew he had not yet won her over, which meant he would bend over backward to help her in the hope of scoring brownie points. Which made him useful right now.
Caitlin took a breath and stepped through the doorway. Jagger was behind his desk in the bullpen, writing some report with a scowl of concentration. But at Caitlin’s first step into the room he looked up sharply—that annoying sixth sense of a vampire—then rose to his feet instantly as he saw her with equally annoying grace, an elegance just a little too good to be real. Or human.
Damn vampires.
“Caitlin,” he said, and moved around his desk to her side. “Nothing wrong, I hope.” The concern in his voice was genuine; Caitlin knew he was thinking of Fiona, worried that something had happened to her.
“No, not really,” she said ambiguously, knowing he would bite. So to speak. “I was just wondering if there had been any—” she paused, pretended to search for words “—any unusual activity in the city recently. I don’t know…a spike in crime…murders, maybe…”
Jagger looked at her so sharply that she knew she had her answer. She felt a prickle of excitement but kept her face carefully neutral.
“Why would you ask that?” He was all cop now, not a trace of future brother-in-law in sight.
Caitlin put on her most innocent, spacey, younger sister frown. “I had a very bad Tarot reading this morning.” Well, it was true, wasn’t it? “I came to you because I thought you might know, and if you didn’t, I thought maybe you should know.”
Jagger studied her, and she knew he was perplexed. That’s fine, be perplexed. But he knew she was a Keeper, and he would not be inclined to dismiss her premonitions and readings; keeping watch on the town was her job, by ancient decree, just as much as it was Fiona’s. Caitlin decided to push just a little bit harder. She let her lip tremble appealingly. “I guess I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.” She turned toward the door to go.
Behind her, Jagger said, “As a matter of fact, there’s been a string of drug deaths. It looks like a bad batch of meth.”
Caitlin turned slowly, and this time she studied his face. It was clear that wasn’t the whole story. “But…” she prompted.
“But.” His eyes fixed hers intently, and for a moment she felt guilty for manipulating him. “There’s something off about the lab reports, and it’s been bothering me.”
“Hmm. Drugs. I didn’t see anything about drugs in the cards.” She frowned in concentration, while inside she remembered the Devil card, which had been in the center of the spread. Of all the cards, it was the strongest indicator of addiction, of dangerous substances. But she wasn’t about to say that.
“I did get the Illusion card,” she pondered aloud. “It was prominent in the spread. Illusion often means addiction. Alcohol. Drugs.” She was improvising for Jagger’s benefit—she’d already gotten all she needed to know.
“Well…as long as you’re on top of it, I won’t worry too much,” she concluded brightly. “I’ll see you back at the compound, I guess.”
As she turned to go, Jagger said her name with such quiet force that she had to turn. “Cait.”
He looked into her face, and she had to stop herself from squirming. “Please keep me informed—if you get any more signs.”
“Oh, I will,” she assured him sweetly. “You’ll be the first to know.”
Not, she added silently as she headed for the door.
In the hall outside, she could barely contain her elation. She had a real clue now with the drug deaths.
I can do this. I can figure it out on my own. I don’t need anyone at all.
Because if whatever was going on had anything to do with drugs, she knew exactly where to go to find out.
Chapter 4
Bourbon Street.
New Orleans’ most famous tourist attraction, the sleazy, noisy, rowdy, free-for-all strip that stretched fourteen blocks from Canal Street almost to Esplanade. It was closed to automobile traffic every night of the week so tourists and revelers could walk unimpeded down the rough pavement, taking in the street performers, dodging—or inviting—the bead-throwing partiers on the balconies above, dropping in through the wide-open doors of every music club, strip club, bar, souvenir shop, voodoo shop and sex toy shop along the way. Bourbon was a wild and woolly, nonstop circus of decadence and indulgence.
Caitlin hated it.
There were so many pleasures in New Orleans, sensual and otherwise, that were so much more complicated and rewarding than boorish Bourbon…although it did serve the purpose of keeping the more obnoxious visitors to NOLA confined in one easily avoidable part of the city.
What fewer people knew was that Bourbon was where many of the city’s shapeshifters naturally gravitated. More obviously, it was also the drug capital of the Quarter.
Before venturing up to Bourbon, Caitlin waited for dark, since the shifters she meant to call on rarely showed their faces before sunset. And that gave her time to go back to the shop and dress for the occasion…in a glamour.
A glamour was one of Caitlin’s favorite spells. Not everyone could do it, but she was a quick study, and she’d had a good teacher…but she wasn’t going to think about that.
Standing in front of a full-length mirror by the light of the moon helped but wasn’t mandatory. In a pinch, the light of a candle did nicely. What was mandatory was the relaxation, the becoming conscious of every part of her body…and then focusing particularly on the whole of her skin. She looked into the mirror and breathed slowly, keenly aware of the glow of the candlelight on her…until she began to feel the glow as photons of light, a rain of warmth over her entire body. She began to chant softly:
“Light pass through me, no one will see me. Light pass through me, no one will see me. Light pass through me, no one will see me…”
She chanted and stared into the mirror, focusing on the light, until the borders of her silhouette became hazy, insubstantial, until her whole body started wavering, like the warm flickering of a candle flame…until all she could see in the mirror was light.
And then she could see the cabinet behind her, as if she was no longer there. She felt, not saw, herself smile, and said softly to herself, “Everything seen and those not seen, let me walk now in between. As I say, so mote it be!”
She turned, invisibly, and walked toward the door.
On Bourbon, Caitlin strode through the crowds clogging the street with no fear of the prowling pickpockets and the inevitable drunk men who would have been hitting on her, hitting hard, had she not been protected by the cloak of the glamour. She loved the power of walking invisible as the air, through the warring music blasting from the wide-open doors of the clubs: Zydeco; karaoke; slow, sultry jazz.
The street looked, as always, like a stage set. There was something about the flatness of it, she thought—being able to see for blocks and blocks, and the balconies of revelers up above…there was a
