The Shifters. Alexandra Sokoloff

at the clock on the wall. “Are you going to be okay here today?” she asked. “I’m buying in Lafayette today, and Fee is meeting with Rosalyn to pick up the new Halloween costumes.”

      Caitlin bristled. “Why wouldn’t I be okay? I can hold the fort. I’m saying you be careful. Both of you. Until we know more.”

      “We will, honey. You just call if you need anything.” Fiona stepped forward and kissed her cheek, and Caitlin burned under her sweetness.

      As they left, Shauna’s look of pity obvious to anyone but the dead or blind, Caitlin paced the shop in a fury. She could hear them talking outside, not literally, but sometimes when the wind was blowing, she could just hear. Low, feminine murmurs now.

       Shauna: Ever since the cemetery murders…

       Fiona: But that’s ridiculous, it wasn’t Cait’s fault…

       Shauna: But you know Cait. If there’s anything to obsess about, she’s gonna obsess.

      With effort, Caitlin turned off her inner ear, seething with resentment. I’ll show them. One way or another. I will.

      The morning flew by, with tourists arriving early for Halloween, coming up in just five days. There was a steady trickle of them, enticed down the short alleyway to the shop. The sugar candles were an irresistible draw, and the attraction spell the sisters had placed on the sidewalks outside didn’t hurt. The least likely people drifting down Rue Royal ended up veering into their alleyway, following the burnt-sugar scent—and something less tangible but even more enticing—into the shop.

      In no time it was midafternoon, and Caitlin’s 3:00 p.m. Tarot reading was due any minute.

      The woman who entered the shop had given her name as Amanda Peters, and she was a beauty: in her late forties, with a life force burning like a flame, lithe, auburn-haired, copper freckles on creamy skin, and a buttery Southern accent that Caitlin placed as Charlestonian.

      She strode in wearing Katharine Hepburn trousers and a silky white shirt, looking like an old-style film goddess, but as soon as Caitlin led her through the velvet curtain and into the inner room and seated her in the reading chair, she dissolved into ugly, heart-rending sobs.

      Love trouble, Caitlin thought wearily. Nothing else could so completely unravel someone as strong as this.

      She braced herself for the inevitable question, choked out between more sobs.

      “He left me. What can I do?”

      Caitlin unwrapped the cards.

      She sensed that Amanda was a Wand, driven by will, so Caitlin pulled the Queen of Wands as the significator, the public mask, to represent her, then placed the cards in front of Amanda to hold and then cut. Caitlin laid out a Love Spread and turned over the first four cards.

      She studied them, frowning. “Your life is in transition. The high presence of swords indicates single-minded pursuit, vengeance..”

      Funny, that wasn’t at all the read she had gotten from the woman herself; the cards were contradictory.

      She turned to the first bar of three cards and touched her finger to the one on the far left. The King of Swords—which could indicate a dangerous, treacherous man, but with clients Caitlin always tried to start with the positive aspects of the cards. “The King of Swords is a highly intellectual, well-educated man, with a razor wit and many facets to his character. He is a natural problem-solver, but often moves on too quickly, from ideas, people and places, to provide any permanence. He can be passionate, charismatic, fascinating, challenging. and completely exhausting.”

      As Caitlin spoke, Amanda leaned forward on her elbows, seemingly transfixed by what Caitlin was saying.

      Caitlin could feel that she was reaching the woman on some profound level; she knew that look well. The other woman was hearing things that were true. “The card also represents a private person, a loner who defends his walls and boundaries fiercely. You may never get to know him no matter how long you’re with him. The card also often indicates someone heavily involved in occult study….” As Caitlin continued, she was more and more aware of something wrong.

      She paused and looked down at the spread again.

      And then it hit her, hard. The card she had been speaking about was not the card representing Amanda’s lover but was in the place of the querent: Amanda herself.

      It made no sense.

      She decided to deal an extra card, silently asking for clarification.

      The Knight of Swords, reversed.

      “This card indicates a deceitful man, treacherous and secretive beneath a surface charm…” Caitlin stopped herself. She had asked about Amanda, but again—the card indicated a deceitful man. And this time even more clearly indicated a manipulator, skilled in the occult, in glamours, in projection.

       Could it be?

      Caitlin bit her lip and then picked up the deck and held it as she asked the cards a quick, silent question: What is going on here?

      She turned over a card.

      Seven of Cups.

       Shapeshifter.

      Caitlin’s head was buzzing as if it was going to explode. Across the table from her, Amanda was suddenly alert, as if sensing Caitlin’s thoughts, and she started to push her chair back to stand, but too late. Caitlin lunged over the table, grabbed Amanda’s wrist and held her fast as she spoke a few low, quick words. “By the powers of earth, fire, wind and sea, I command thee: unmask!”

      She felt a surge of power in the arm she held, Amanda’s whole body swelling with energy, a struggle. And then the woman’s body shimmered—in fact, all the air in the room shimmered, there was no other word for it—and the woman’s body resolved itself into…

      A man.

      And an amazingly handsome man, at that. Tall—very tall—broad-shouldered under a leather jacket, much bigger than she was, powerful through the chest and thighs. Longish jet-black hair curled around his ears, and he was wearing jeans worn so soft they looked like buckskin, all of which gave him a roguish, buccaneering look, decidedly unmodern.

      “Well done,” he commented, looking infuriatingly pleased with her.

      “What are you playing at, Shifter?” Caitlin demanded, while simultaneously scanning the room behind him for a weapon. Being located down a mysterious, romantic alley was a big plus for atmosphere but not such an ideal situation when you found yourself suddenly alone with a rogue shapeshifter. And a human-form shifter, too, the most dangerous and untrustworthy kind.

      “I’m not playing, Keeper. I’m not playing at all.” There was a sensual menace to his voice now, which made her heart plunge in dismay.

      If he meant her harm, she was in deep trouble already. She’d never seen such a complete and unexpected shift. Mentally she raced back through the encounter with the woman, racking her brain for any sign that she’d missed—a ripple, a tic, a shudder. But there had been no psychic leakage, no slipping of the form, nothing that would have signaled the presence of a shifter, much less one in assumed form. It was only the cards that had warned her.

      Caitlin’s mind plunged through her options. Her cell phone was in the outer shop, under the counter. The shifter was blocking the doorway to the outer shop, to the phone, to everything. There was just so much of him. And as a shapeshifter, he would be immune to any weakening spell she could have used on a human intruder; there was no point in such a spell with an Other.

      “Why not just walk in and introduce yourself?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

      “I heard there were Keepers in town. I wanted to see how good you are.” His voice made the words a lazy double entendre.

      “I’m very good,” she said