Skin Deep (3 page)

His fingers crept to my neck as he began to close the distance between his mouth and mine. My time was very limited. The Wraith's kiss—the worst possible death. My heart thundered as he inched closer. Once his mouth locked onto mine, he would suck the breath and life out of my body. Before long, he would absorb every bit of moisture from my flesh until I became a dried-out husk. The process was excruciatingly slow and agonizing. I'd rather dispense with French-kissing soul-sucking monsters. I had better things to
do with my time.

At last, I felt the lever click and counted the milliseconds as the cylinder retracted and the spring coiled tight. In the next moment the barbed arrow exploded from the chamber and smashed into the wall behind the Wraith. A shower of tiny splinters spewed onto the floor.

Damn it. Slick. Real slick.

There went my only option. My weapon was crushed against my ribcage, pressed uselessly between our bodies, and I lay cheek to cheek with death, helpless.

No. Not if I can help it.

I still had my feline strength. I wriggled my hands upward from where they'd grasped the bow and its trigger. The black metal dug deeper into my ribs. Good. Pain proved I still lived. I snaked my hands around the Wraith's neck and squeezed. I tried to concentrate and pull some latent feline power from within me, but nothing feline came to my aid.

It was something stranger than all the anomalies of my life so far. My hands glowed as I squeezed the demon’s neck. Glimmered the palest gold. The elegance of the color looked misplaced on the body of the Wraith. What other powers did these creatures possess that I was not aware of? My hands still glowed, growing warmer. Warm and bearable. Was it the Wraith emanating this golden glow or was me?

The Wraith struggled within my chokehold, gasping. Bent on freeing himself, he let go with one hand and I could’ve tossed him off me and ran. But I stayed. Had to finish it.

I watched the swirling blackness as it began to fade from the creature's human eyes. The Wraith screamed and my skin crawled with the sound as it rippled across the fine hair on my body. I still held him in my golden death grip.

The Wraith exerted all his final energy in digging his thumb in my throat. The lights dimmed and
as the Wraith died I slipped into a gray unconsciousness.

I wasn't sure how long I'd been out, but a rapid, semi-violent shaking brought me swiftly back. Todd, in his desperation to awaken me, entirely missed the fact he'd succeeded. He continued to shake my arm, saying my name over and over again, a desperate mantra. My turn to shake him. He stopped speaking and stared at me, the dark eyeliner smudged in streaks on his eyelids and cheeks, his hair mussed and no longer neatly spiked.

"Thought you were a goner for sure," he whispered, as if he were afraid someone bad would hear his words and seek him out.

"Are you okay?" My eyes raked his skinny frame, checking for obvious injuries. He could have undetectable internal injuries. "What did he do to you?"

"Tried to throttle me." As he spoke, bitterness flooded his eyes. "Bastard."

How to proceed? I'd never had to discuss the business of Wraiths with a victim before. Never had my fights with those soul-sucking leeches been witnessed before. My worried gaze flicked to the remains of the Wraith, but it seemed Todd, in spite of his youth, understood my dilemma.

"Don't stress. He wasn't my Dad. Not for a very long time, anyway."

"When did you realize?" Taken aback at his calm, I was curious.

"When Sam told me you didn't unmake the gayness inside you. That's when I knew something was way wrong with my dad. He'd been acting funny this last couple of months. Weird and mean and real nasty. Knocked me out a couple of times too."

I waited for him to continue. These were the most words the boy had strung together since we met.

"He...he became something else." Todd looked at the remains of the Wraith and shook his head. "
That
is not my father."

"So what do you figure he became?" I tread carefully.

"Dunno. Maybe he went a little crazy? Multiple personality or something like that?" He didn't believe those words. Not for a minute. Mere psychological justifications for what he knew to be something far stranger. His face darkened. "To be honest it was more like he was possessed by something. Something evil. And strong."

He brushed his hair away from his face. I caught sight of a huge purple bruise on his forearm. Grabbing his arm in a light hold, I looked straight at him, eye to eye. "Did he do this to you?"

"Yeah. He hurt me all the time. Broke my hands and legs all the time." He stopped talking and sat there, watching me, mulling over something. His arms were streaked a violent purple with yellow highlights. He'd admitted to having had his limbs broken recently. But no physical signs indicated he was hurt apart from the shocking bruise.

"You heal?" My matter-of-fact acceptance of the ability to heal gave the poor fellow some confidence to own up.

He nodded and the look of relief flooding his eyes brought tears to my own. I understood what he felt. "What's wrong with me?"

I shook my head. "There's nothing wrong with you, Todd. You're just a special kid." I ruffled his hair and he didn't resist.

"But why am I this way?" I understood his need to know. At least I came from a family of Walkers. No matter how dysfunctional, I'd at least known what made me different from the start.

"I don't know." I kept an eye on the body. On the door. We had to get moving.

"You can see them, can't you?" Todd seemed to accept the possibility that something evil had possessed his father's body.

I struggled with a response to his question.

"It's a little more complicated than that. I can see their residue. They leave it on whatever they touch. I saw it on you."

Todd rose to his feet and approached the corpse that was once his father.

"What happens when they take you, like they took my dad?"

"They're a parasitic entity. They kill their host, slowly enough for them to fill the place left by the soul of the mortal. You father would’ve died a few days after being possessed by the Wraith. And it’s why we can't detect them on their host. I can only track them through the people they hurt along the way."

Todd nodded in silent understanding. "This thing was walking around in my father's dead flesh. Nobody would ever have been able to give my dad the peace he deserved. Thank you." He looked at me, an earnest honesty on his face. "My father was a good man. Not a great man. But a good man—in his heart." The boy tapped his chest.

"Do you have somewhere to go? Somewhere safe?"

"I can stay here." He refused to meet my eyes, clearly not wanting me to see his need.

"It's better you don't. In case his friends come looking for him."

"Do they have like...social networks or something?" Todd scrunched up his forehead in distaste, obviously disliking the thought the soul-sucking killers who had taken his father from him would dare to be social creatures with friends and families like normal people.

"I don't really know. I've only ever seen one of them at a time. And I never stopped to chat about the sociology of Wraiths." I failed to educate him on the fact my association with Wraiths was wholly based on method of dispatch. "I think it would be safer for you to be far away from this place for a while."

"Wraiths?" Todd let the word tumble over his tongue, testing it as he would the taste of a chocolate. "What are they?"

"They are the darker branch of the Ethereals." My response was automatic, as if it was expected he'd know what an Ethereal was. In a split second I realized how vastly different our worlds were. But in this moment, those two worlds collided and now, however indirectly, I had the blood of his father on my hands. And I had to be the one to break it to him that the world he lived in was a second reality, and he'd just had about the worst introduction into this world.

I had to give the kid some credit, though, he was no mouse. The strength of the man he would someday be flashed through his eyes. "Ethereals?" His eyebrows rose, curiosity peaked.

"Creatures with the power to control the air and atmosphere. The Wraiths are Dark Ethereals. Beings who live in the blackness and the shadows, and feed off the evil energies they collect. They used to never need to come out into the open before."

"So what changed?" He stared at me with eyes as black as the Wraiths, only they sparkled with life and courage. At the moment, they swam with bitterness as he spoke. "What made them take my dad? He never did anything to anyone."

"Look, Todd, I can't answer that question right now without speculating. And the last thing I want to do is give you the wrong answer. You deserve more than a half-baked guess."

I rose, skirted the body and tiptoed to the window.

"Grab some things and let's get going. I have a place I can take you. You'll be safe there." I looked over my shoulder at the boy standing forlorn at the bottom of the stairs, one hand on the banister and gratitude on his face. The only person I knew who could help was Storm. He'd already taken a whole group of Walkers and Humans under his wing- a multi-species clan he called City Deep. I was pretty confident he'd know how to help Todd.

I shooed him away, tapping my watch to remind him to be quick. Turning back to the window, I opened the drapes a tad, keeping an eye out in case the Wraith had been expecting company.

Soon we made a hasty departure from the dark and lonely house
on that dark and lonely street.

***

With Todd safe at Storm's place
, I headed back to the Rehab Center.

Blood had always stirred the Panther, which lived beneath my skin, inside the very flesh and bones of my body. My Wraith kills, though, had never affected me this way before. Perhaps it's because I got so close. Perhaps my Panther knew I'd killed with my bare hands.

And the fact that it was dark didn't make it any better.

Unlike the Wolf-Walkers, who remained at the complete and utter mercy of the full moon, feline Walkers were night-called; the darkness a tempting place to break free of the fetters of the human body.

Most of the time the burning need to Change was easily tamped. But when the call of darkness was combined with the call of blood, things became a little harder to control.

And now the Change was coming. Any minute now. The adrenalin of the kill pulled my Panther to the surface with a strength that shocked me to the core. Pushed for time, I moved into Walker speed and sped through the streets while white heat sluiced through my bones, the muscles of my arms, and the flesh of my back. My spine and thighs rippled, shifted. Changing.

Damn. Too fast.

I spared a rueful glance at my new leather pants. And ran faster.

Had to make it to the Center. Only a few blocks away. I ran, my speed super-human, my need super-charged, covering ground fast enough to make it to safety before my Panther took over.

I took the corner of the street behind the Center at breakneck speed, intending to head for the nearest of the gaping holes pock-marking the rusted fence.

The wind changed before I stepped off the curb. My ears peaked and I skidded to a halt, panting slightly, my backpack thumping against my side. The scream of tires on blacktop echoed on the night air, shattering the silence as it grew ever louder.

Closer.

Followed in tandem by the whining wail of sirens. A battered sedan scorched down the street, suspended by only two wheels on the turn. The angry whip of charred rubber spiked the air. Horizontal again, the car jumped the curb and skidded sideways, avoiding a collision with the fence by mere inches.

I shrank into the shadows at my back, expelling a long, stale breath. My Panther—still reined-in within my body—bucked and jerked, craving release.

I let her surface.

A little.

For now, super-sight would be welcome. Adrenalin surged, different again from the calm fervor of my wraith hunts. I blinked. Heat nipped at my corneas as I released my Panther sight.

Sight, which sliced deep into the black nothing hugging the sidewalk, transformed my eyes into a solid Panther emerald. For the moment, plain old Kailin Odel was back to being Kailin of the Clan Panthera.

My cat sight adjusted, focused. The blackness surrounding the darkened vehicle changed depth and color, became lighter, clearer.

Someone shoved the rear door open, and I cringed as it creaked and complained. The occupants remained shrouded in the shadows of the vehicle's interior. Something large, long and heavy hit the ground with a dull thunk. Then the sedan revved as unseen sirens drew closer, louder. The vehicle spun around and skidded off the curb.

The battered car roared away, a police cruiser close on its tail with sirens screaming blue murder. It didn't take a genius to figure out the parcel had to be awfully incriminating for them to chuck it into the garden in such a flaming hurry.

My nostrils twitched at the stench of exhaust smoke, and my heart thumped as I waited to cross the street. I flicked a furtive glance at the dull red glow of taillights disappearing into the darkness. A breeze skimmed the sidewalk, ruffling my hair, and I hurried across the street as the sounds of sirens faded in the distance. I paused a few
feet from the bundle, released my Panther's nose and sniffed. Whatever I'd expected to scent on the air, it wasn't the tang of copper drifting toward me—strong, rich and intoxicating.