The Shifters Read Online Free PDF Page B

mean he trusted her. She had issues, this one, obviously. But she might be useful, down the line. And she was on a mission tonight—first the vampire detective, now this obvious continuance of her investigation, which, whatever it was, required a glamour. Which made it his business to investigate.
    Besides, invisible as she may have been to the others around them, for him, the view from behind wasn’t bad at all.
    Ryder was enjoying being on Bourbon again. The sights and sounds were intoxicating…neon lights in all colors and the sparkling, feathered costumes of the revelers…the long, sleek legs of the showgirls,the bright, glazed eyes of the tourists, the smells of chocolate and piña coladas….
    His impulse was to follow every impulse.
    Instead he focused and followed Caitlin.
    Â 
    Caitlin weaved forward through the crowd, her jaw now clenched grimly. It was probably the influence of Halloween coming up, but it was barely nine o’clock and the partiers seemed even more out of control than usual. The drunk guy on the balcony to her right, blatantly taking camera phone shots of his girlfriend’s crotch. The college crowd on the left balcony dangling beads off the railing, shouting “Show me your tits!” and “Give me sumpin’!” to everyone passing by. The stumbling drunk bridal par ties, one group right now passing Caitlin with a sullen bride in the middle wearing a T-shirt reading I’m The Bride, Those Are The Bitches.
    And Caitlin knew it was just beginning. As the night and the bon temps rolled on, more and more people would be holding their friends up as they stumbled from one bar to the next, stopping to partake of every “Huge Ass Beer!” and Hurricane and Hand Grenade and Jello shot offered to them. I Got Bourbon-Faced On Shit Street T-shirts were popular souvenirs for a reason. So many wasted lives—literally.
    Caitlin put on speed as she saw her goal ahead of her. The music literally rocked her as she approached;Bons Temps was one of the loudest clubs on Bourbon, and that was saying a lot.
    She stepped through the doors and saw that there was a cover band up on stage, and even at this decibel range, the musical talent was obvious; the best musicians flocked to New Orleans just as surely as they did to Nashville and L.A.
    These particular musicians, no surprise, were clearly altered: drunk, stoned, high.
    Wasted.
    The lead singer, Case, had a falsetto to rival Steve Connor and an Iggy Pop tilt to his slim hips; in his bandanna and artfully ripped T-shirt, he was a pirate who expertly twirled the mike in his fingers and charmed the female patrons with a mad and manic gleam in his eyes. The very young keyboard player, Danny, wore a Megadeth T-shirt and looked like an angel with his long, shimmering hair and beatific face…until you noticed his completely empty eyes.
    Caitlin’s stomach heaved, and she had to turn away from the stage.
    The floor was always packed at Bons Temps; no other Bourbon Street club was so crowded, so consistently. Not just because the guys were great musicians; they were, but there was a little something extra. When Case sang Aerosmith, sometimes you could swear you were looking at Steven Tyler. A Police number? It might have been that third Hurricane,but sometimes you would bet your life it was a young Sting up there singing. Eminem, Bono, Flo Rida…it was a subtle thing, but wildly effective with the drunk crowds….
    Because Case and Danny were shapeshifters. The most skilled species: shifters whose expertise was taking on different human forms.
    And Caitlin had a long and ambiguous acquaintance with these two shifters.
    Shapeshifters were rarely productive members of society; their sense of self was too amorphous, and because of that inconstancy and lack of center, they tended toward indulgences of all kinds. But they were also wildly charismatic, in no small part because they could subtly alter their physical