The Shifters by Alexandra Sokoloff Page A

can’t he just tell me where Danny is, instead of these constant games?
    The bartender set her drink in front of her, and she slid it over to Case.
    â€œThanks for the donation. Still looking for Danny, are we?” he said, reading her. “That hurts my feelings.”
    â€œWhat feelings?” she snapped, before realizing that it was probably not the best way to get him to cooperate.
    But, ever unpredictable, he grinned at her.
    â€œGood point.” He picked up the drink she’d bought him and took a large swallow.
    She sighed. “Come on, Case, I don’t want to play. What do I have to do?”
    He leaned back on his stool. “Depends. What is it you need to know so bad?”
    Caitlin was about to say that she’d told him last night, but stopped herself just in time. Good thing you didn’t say anything just now, because he would have been all over that for sure.
    â€œThose tourists aren’t dropping dead from meth. There’s a band of rogue entities in town—they’re called walk-ins. They’re made up of disembodied energy that craves human form, but once one’s actually in a body, all it does is indulge its senses and wreak havoc, and burn out the body so quickly that the human host dies of stroke or heart attack.”
    â€œParty entities,” Case murmured. “My kind of Other.” His sharp features were thoughtful in the flickering light from the candle on the bar. “What does Danny have to do with any of this?”
    Caitlin was encouraged that at least he hadn’t turned her down flat. Yet.
    â€œThese things are completely formless. They spend all their time in the astral. And you know no one’s better than Danny at reading the astral.”
    Case was silent, sipping his drink. Caitlin forced herself to be still, to wait for whatever he would say.
    Finally he spoke. “How did you come to know all this?”
    Caitlin had a weird wave of déjà vu—it was thesame question Ryder had asked as Case the night before, almost as if he’d seen this conversation in the future.
    Caitlin answered the same way she’d answered Ryder. “There’s a shapeshifter in town who says he’s been hired to track them.”
    Case’s eyes narrowed in the dark. “So that’s Mallory’s excuse for being in town,” Case muttered, and Caitlin felt an electric thrill.
    So he does know Ryder, and he knows he’s here.
    â€œThat’s no one you should be trusting, cher, ” Case added, and it was all Caitlin could do not to roll her eyes.
    How many people do I need to hear that from?
    â€œI don’t,” she said, vehemently enough that Case flinched slightly. “But something’s going on, for sure. That’s why I want to talk to Danny.”
    Case regarded her with shifter eyes, then drained his drink and stood. “All right, then. Let’s go.” Dazed that it was going to be this easy, but not about to argue, Caitlin slipped off her stool and followed.
    Â 
    It was a beautiful night for a walk, the almost-full moon—there was the moon again—stark and white in the sky, and the air was warm, with only the slightest whisper of wind. They walked, of course; there was really nothing in the Quarter that it wasn’t easier to walk to than drive. Case didn’t tell her wherethey were going and Caitlin knew better than to ask; he’d only taunt her and not tell her anyway.
    They headed straight down Chartres— “Charters,” as the locals pronounced it—past shopkeepers lounging on the stoops of their stores, Case smoking and nodding to just about everyone. It was home for him, for her, and when he threw his cigarette away and reached to take her hand, she let him. And why not? She felt comfortable with him, nothing like the confusion she felt with Ryder, who was only in town for a job, after all—he hadn’t been in NOLA for…what? A hundred