Black Beast Read online

  Karen didn't sound surprised or pleased to hear from him but readily agreed to meet. He wondered at her distance, whether she'd taken up with another lover.

  But no, she had too much to lose, too little to gain.

  Also, she wouldn't dare.

  Karen's domicile was above a small hobby shop called Mystique. Filled with power beads, healing crystals, and aromatherapy candles, it was all completely useless and all meticulously overpriced.

  Finn shoved past the beaded curtains that sectioned off the back room and ascended the staircase.

  Clever of her, to hide in plain sight like this.

  But then, he had expected nothing less.

  His thoughts then returned to the missing parts of the Pierces' file, and he frowned. Few had access to the records, and of the archivists he was the most well-known. The thought that somebody might be trying to frame him for criminal negligence had not escaped him.

  The scent of candles dissipated, replaced by the electric, hazy smell of ozone. Finn couldn't smell it—at least, not as well as a shape-shifter could—but he could see the glowing particles. Swirls of shimmering mist wrapped around his wrist as he rapped sharply upon the paneled wooden surface.

  The door swung open with a heavy groan, and a dark-haired woman with pale blue eyes regarded him intently before she allowed her fierce expression to relax into a close-lipped smile.

  “Councilman.”

  Her voice was demure—and insincere. Their relationship was not one of affection. Finn pushed past her, ignoring the mocking lightness in her tone. He was not in the mood for being ironic.

  Aloud, he said, “Spare me your pleasantries.”

  Karen's smile disappeared.

  Satisfied for the moment, Finn scanned the room with a proprietary air. There was no furniture. The floor was covered by thick, expensive carpet, with a handful of pillows tossed about haphazardly.

  He decided to remain standing since it accorded him greater dignity. Upon finishing his cursory inspection, he turned to her and demanded, “What do you know?”

  A gray-winged moth circled the naked bulb overhead in drunken, lazy circles, before alighting on Karen's shoulder. She didn't appear to notice.

  “Hello to you, too, my love,” she said dryly.

  “Don't toy with me,” he said. “I'm not in the mood.”

  “Are you ever?” Before he could respond, she said, “It's as you suspected. The Slayers are moving into the suburbs. Inner cities are getting too competitive. The cost outweighs the gain, so they are taking their business elsewhere.”

  Finn cursed. “Why? Why now?”

  “Our eccentricities stick out more in small towns.”

  Finn took a step towards the window, keeping Karen in his line of sight. Dots of light pinpointed the thousands of human homes in Barton. They were clustered densely in the pit of the valley, and thinned out as they passed nearer to the hazy blue hills.

  “You have one particular eccentric in mind.”

  “Your shape-shifter. Catherine Pierce.” Karen spoke dispassionately but that couldn't quite mask her disdain. “She is in my biology class.”

  Even this concession made her bristle; he knew the signs, and it amused him, to see her debase herself.

  “Oh?”

  “She comes from one of their so-called distinguished families. European and Moorish ancestry. One of the first shifter families to come out of Europe. A mongrel.”

  Shape-shifters. Once they had been powerful—a race of fierce warriors with superhuman strengths and senses—but they had lost that edge, and become tame. Or mad.

  Intermingling with humans had dulled their senses, made them less formidable, weak. There were few pure families left anymore. It was just one of the many consequences of the desegregation movement. They had become a race of half-breeds. Only the large predators had remained pure, for no other reason than that they would tear apart any human foolish enough to get too close. Their instincts were too strong.

  “They have never caused problems for us before,” he mused, fishing for details. “They are not part of the insurgency. At least, not to my knowledge.”

  “You don't know their daughter. She is reckless, wild. Liable to do anything.”

  Finn felt the magic surrounding him stir in surprise, like a beast awakening. Anything? “I'll look into it.”

  “Will you, Phineas?” She gave him a sharp little smile. One that said she had seen his reaction, and registered at least some of the implicit meaning behind it. “Should I be concerned?”

  “Just the thrill of the hunt, darling,” he said. “Why? Jealous of a little savage?”

  “Are you a vermin-lover?” She asked him, flat-out.

  “I'm engaged to you, aren't I?” he retorted, with a cool smile. Revealing nothing. Revealing everything.

  She unbuttoned her blouse and let it fall to the floor.

  “Shut up and fuck me, Councilman.”

  He was only too happy to oblige.

  •◌•◌•◌•◌•

  As Catherine rounded the corner she could make out the signature perfume of her human friend, Sharon. Too strong to be trace effects. Catching the scent helped abate some of the surprise when she pounced on Catherine the moment she walked through the door.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  Sharon was a curvy girl with brown skin and hair that wasn't meant to be blonde, although it hadn't stopped her from trying. The cloying smell of bleach put her off, which was good, because beneath the chemical odors of hair dye and cheap perfume, Sharon smelled like raw meat. All humans did. And while she held her impulses rigidly in check, Catherine was grateful to her friend for rendering herself so extremely unpalatable.

  Even so, shape-shifters were highly territorial and guarded their boundaries jealously. Violation of personal space could be construed as a challenge for dominance if the conditions were right.

  This behavior was present in humans as well, but to a much lesser extent. Shape-shifters did not engage in nearly as much physical contact as their human counterparts, at least not naturally, and adjusting to that was an integral part of socialization.

  Both Predator and Prey were bristling from the sudden assault. That brush with magic on the walk over had left her beasts feeling restless, agitated.

  “What the hell?” Catherine shoved the other girl off her. Not too hard. Just enough to move her. “Boundaries, much?”

  Rather than taking offense, the other girl laughed. “Fuck boundaries,” she said. “I had to listen to the Myrna Bird channel Horace Alger for the last half-hour because of your lateness, thank you very much.”

  “Horatio. It's Horatio Alger.”

  Sharon put her thumbs together and made a W with her index fingers. “Whatever.”

  Catherine gave her the finger in return. These human rituals, filled with mock aggression wrapped in affection, were difficult for her to accept, and she never really felt she got them down right.

  She grabbed the lanyard with her name tag from the closet and clipped it to her shirtfront. The cord was too much like a collar, and the cheap material chafed her sensitive skin. “I was late because I had to walk, bitch.”

  “Your mom wouldn't lend you the car?”

  “Not while I'm failing fucking biology, no.”

  Her eyes landed on the toppling mountain of books beside the register and she groaned.

  “You couldn't have started without me?”

  “What are you talking about? I totally did.”

  “Could you be more lazy?”

  “Hey, don't go there,” said Sharon. “That's racist.”

  Catherine allowed her gaze to say what she thought of that. And if a little bit of Predator happened to slip through the barriers she couldn't be faulted.

  The Predator in question was a mountain lion. The intensity of its gaze could be a bit much, especially when the subliminal message was, “I could eat you.”

  “You know I can't listen and work at the same time.”r />
  “Uh-huh.”

  “She's so distracting.”

  “So's a cell phone,” Catherine shot back.

  She would have bet all of this week's gas money that Sharon had spent the duration of the lecture texting beneath the desk instead of pricing the books.

  The little used bookstore where they worked was situated next to the library and entirely nonprofit, kept running on the donations of the town. All the proceeds went to maintaining the library and paying its employees.

  But not nearly enough to put up with this bullshit.

  Catherine sat in the chair with a growl and picked up the nearest book. Dotted it—chartreuse, for December—placed it on the top of the pile. Book. Dot. Book. Dot. Book. Dot.

  Sharon, meanwhile, continued to play with her phone, dotting new releases only when Catherine stopped to glare in her direction.

  Three hours a day, Monday through Friday.

  Gas was expensive, though, and Mrs. Pierce had decreed that if Catherine wanted to drive the family car, she would have to get a job. Thinking her daughter's spendthrift ways would deter her from driving. She had even smirked a little as she said it, so sure of her victory.

  Being indentured to the humans was almost worth her mother's expression when she had announced her joining of the human workforce. Almost.

  It was a petty fight for dominance, but still, Catherine reveled in it. Family politics were excellent practice for dealing with real-world pragmatics. Like the fact that you're a shape-shifter and need a car to get around?

  Catherine let out her breath, and heard Sharon stiffen in her seat in the resulting pause. Beneath the noxious smell of her perfume, Catherine could smell revulsion.

  “Is that Chase Hill outside? Ugh. Tell me it's not. Tell me that loser is not fucking outside.”

  Catherine emptied out another sack of books.

  “Um, hello? Catherine? Did you hear me?”

  “You told me not to tell you.”

  Sharon cursed.

  “Well, what do you want me to do if it is, huh? Forbid him from going outside? It's a free country.”

  “I sure as shit don't want him coming in here.”

  “Too bad about anti-discrimination and all that.”

  “Don't even talk to me about discrimination, white girl. You don't know shit.” She snapped her fingers. “I know. I'll tell you what we should do. I think we should put up the CLOSED sign and take an early lunch break.”

  “That would be a great idea. Except, since he's a person with feelings—you know, those things you don't have, I'm pretty sure he'd notice. And complain.”

  “God, you are such a bitch sometimes.”

  “I'm not a bitch,” said Catherine. “You're the bitch. I'm just practical.”

  She had to be.

  Her parents had seen the aftereffects of the War firsthand. They had seen humans being preyed upon by the shifters, and shifters being preyed upon by the witches. They had heard of shifters being collared in silver to rob them of their powers, and forced to do backbreaking labor. Or worse, sold to the vampires as blood slaves for the witches' own profit.

  Not that the witches hadn't been victims, either, her parents had grudgingly admitted. A shifter who was wily enough could betray a witch to the Slayers, who hunted them for their blood. Witches weren't as good at hiding their nature as shifters; they were too arrogant to let themselves pass for humans, whom they saw as mundane and common. Pride was their downfall.

  Catherine was very careful about her alliances. She did not make any in vain. Certainly, not for spite.

  She was aware of Sharon watching her, curiously, and said, “No breaks—get back to work.”

  Sharon muttered an insult under her breath that a human wouldn't have heard. Catherine, who did hear it, merely rolled her eyes and looked out the window.

  She froze.

  Chase was out there, just as Sharon had said. But he wasn't alone.

  Shades were the ghosts of the departed. Ordinary humans couldn't see them, except only sometimes from the corner of their eye, but they were quick to dismiss the phenomenon as a trick of the light. Sharon wouldn't be able to see them.

  Most shades were relatively benign, floating around, draining what little magic they could from the air. Magic gave them power. Others were more dangerous, more predatory, and these were more powerful than all the rest, because they lacked the scruples left over from their mortal lives. The ones that said, thou shalt not kill.

  All the hairs on her body were prickling in alarm. There's so many—fuck, what are they doing here?

  Shades usually only occupied places like cemeteries or battlefields, or any other dark, dank location otherwise linked to death. Libraries—and their adjacent nonprofit bookstores—didn't really fit the bill.

  As Chase approached, Catherine counted no fewer than seven shades swarming around him. Magic gleamed in the depths of their bodies like stars that had been swallowed up by the shadows.

  Magic. Stolen magic. Enough to render them semi-tangible.

  Why are they following Chase?

  The last time she had seen him had been—what, last Friday. He had been acting out of character that day, cornering her at the self-serve counter of the lunch line and pelting her with so many questions she wanted to dig her nails into his arms and tell him to shut up.

  The shades hadn't been there, though. She would have remembered that.

  Which means something happened between then and now.

  She stared at the nerdy boy with the oily skin and the greasy hair, and found only dread.

  Something has changed.

  A finger poked sharply into her side and she yelped.

  “Paging Catherine Pierce, report to home planet.”

  “Don't do that.”

  “Whoa, lay off the steroids, girlfriend. Okay? You've been staring at that door like a psychopath for the last thirty seconds. It's fucking creepy as hell.”

  “Just remembering something Chase said to me.”

  “Gross,” Sharon said. “And what words of wisdom did he impart to you, O Chosen One?”

  He'd asked her what she thought her superpower would be. Not that he cared what she thought. No, his sole purpose in asking her had been to tell her more about himself, and his desire to manipulate people's emotions psychically. She had laughed it off, torn between feeling sorry for him and wanting to run away, because the smell oozing from his pores made her feel slightly sick. She was still waiting on the grumpy chef to refill the hot pan of meatloaf, though, so feeling sorry for him won out and she said, grudgingly, “Not mind control specifically, then?”

  Chase had shaken his head at her. As if she were the one in need of pity. Which had pissed her the fuck off, at least at first, but her rage had been lost in the face of what he'd said next.

  “People need freewill—or, uh, they need to be under the illusion they have freewill. People who are scared act so stupid, they don't have freewill. Not anymore. It's amazing how many rights people give up of their own volition just to feel safe. How far they go to rationalize it. Mr. Bordello told me, uh—”

  She waited, but Chase had stopped talking. Just run down, like clockwork or a piece of old machinery.

  Catherine told Sharon the story. Sharon sighed and tossed her head. “You do know he has the saddest crush on you, right?”

  “You're not hearing me out.”

  “Of course I am. Look. Chase has heard about your reputation. We all have. The teachers don't exactly make their hatred of you a secret. So he probably figured the tough-guy act would impress your big, bad self. Obviously he failed. Miserably. Big fat surprise.”

  “Yeah, but who talks like that? He sounds like—”

  She wished she could better voice her doubts. But she couldn't. Not without violating the Third Rule.

  Predator? Prey supplied helpfully.

  Yes. Yes, Chase had sounded like a Predator.

  But Sharon wouldn't understand that. She'd just give her a heaping dose of
the stank-eye and ask if she was feeling all right. Catherine fumbled for an analogy her human friend would be able to relate to.

  “—he sounded like a dictator,” she said at last.

  “A dictator? Please. He couldn't dictate a speech. Have you heard him talk?” She screwed up her face and intoned in a nasally stammer that really did sound like him, “Hi, uh, my name's, uh, Chase. I guess Ill, uh, be taking over your country now. Is that, uh, okay?”