Read Online The Shifters by Alexandra Sokoloff - Free Book Online

body.
    â€œSo that makes pretty much everyone on Bourbon Street a target,” Jagger was saying.
    â€œGive the man—excuse me—give the vampire an ice-cold goblet of blood,” Ryder said. Jagger gave him a lethal look but didn’t rise to the bait as Ryder continued. “Bourbon Street is as enticing to a walk-in as it is to a pickpocket or any other predator. Easy prey. And the…excesses of the arena make it easy for them not to be noticed by anyone around them. Weirdness abounds.”
    Jagger’s ascetic face was deep in thought. “Whatare they doing here? Why New Orleans, suddenly?”
    â€œThey’re riding the trade winds,” Ryder answered. “There’s a whole group of them that are linked up together by now. I’ve been tracking them from Africa. They blew through the Bahamas, caused some pretty bad damage over late summer and early fall. Do some research into drug-related deaths and you’ll see—same pattern, spread out over various islands and jurisdictions.”
    Caitlin could tell from his expression that Jagger would be following up on that immediately.
    Ryder continued. “These are not normally the most conscious of beings, but there’s one in their midst which seems to have taken control of the herd. The others have for—whatever reason—coalesced around that one entity.” Caitlin was watching his face intently and saw that he darkened as he spoke. There was something more personal there than he was admitting to; she could feel it in the weight of his voice as well as see it in his expression. Ryder glanced at her briefly, as if feeling her scrutiny, then looked back to Jagger. “They’re following this one, and I think ‘it’ is specifically targeting New Orleans because the feeding is so good. As you said, if you’re looking for drunk, stoned or humping, Bourbon Street is the place to be. Especially on—” Caitlin felt a chill. “Halloween,” she murmured,finishing his sentence. Halloween in New Orleans was by no means the month-long party that Mardi Gras was, but as revels tended to do, it brought out all of NOLA’s bacchanalian fervor.
    â€œThree days away,” she said, feeling ill.
    â€œAnd every drunk, stoned tourist in town is up on Bourbon Street for the night,” Jagger concluded grimly. The three of them went silent, looking down at the corpse in front of them.
    â€œWe have to move fast,” Ryder summed up.
    â€œWhat is this ‘we,’ Kemosabe?” Jagger asked him, his tone just this side of scathing.
    Caitlin was jolted back to the present, surprised at his sudden vehemence.
    â€œWhat the hell do you care what happens to this city?” Jagger went on.
    Ryder’s face closed like a shutter. “That’s none of your business, vampire.”
    â€œIt is if we’re going to work together, shifter,” Jagger replied, equally cold.
    â€œI have a job to do,” Ryder said evenly. “This city is where it led me. I have no attachment here one way or the other.”
    Caitlin felt as if she’d been stabbed in the heart at his words, and the feeling was frightening. I can’t trust him. He doesn’t care. It’s all a job for him. She scrambled for detachment, to make herself cold. Wehaven’t done anything but kiss. Why should I feel torn apart?
    â€œAnd who hired you for this ‘job’?” Jagger demanded.
    Ryder didn’t budge. “That’s my business.”
    â€œThen we’re done here, aren’t we?” Jagger said. The two of them faced off, stony and implacable.
    Oh, good grief, Caitlin thought. This is why nothing ever gets done in the world. Men.
    Even if neither of the men she was now looking at was a man at all, technically speaking.
    Jagger turned on his heel to go, a move of dismissal. But Ryder had one more trick up his sleeve.
    â€œYou’re not quite done, vampire.”
    There