Dev muttered, “Not really…”
“Besides, I—” She looked at her dad. “We… Well, it’s just normal for us. But turning into another person—”
“Seems like it would be slightly more complicated,” Tom interjected. “I mean, when we’re animals, we’re still us. We still think like humans, for the most part, though we can’t talk. Did you… I mean, did your mind feel any different? Did you realize you had changed?”
“Only when I saw my reflection. Though, admittedly, Alex and I are roughly the same height and build. If I turned into someone smaller—”
“Turn into Mom!” Aaron said.
“No,” Caleb and Jena said together. It was too weird to even think about. He’d try to cop a feel on… himself. He shuddered.
Caleb saw Devin’s eyes narrow. “Try shifting into me.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
Devin shrugged. “I’m shorter than you, but not too much. I’m about the same build, but a little thicker in the shoulders. We’re close enough that you’d probably feel it, but not too much.”
He glanced at Jena, but she only gave him a confused shrug.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll try. I have no idea whether I can do it again.”
Low asked, “What were you thinking about earlier? When you started to shift before you puked?”
Thanks for the reminder, kid. “I was just remembering Alex’s face. My face when I saw it in the mirror. Just that.”
“Well,” Tom said, “try that.” He stood and took a protective stance in front of the boys and Jena.
Caleb took a deep breath, stared into Devin’s eyes for a few minutes, then closed his own. He let the picture of Devin’s face float in the front of his mind. “Anything?”
“Nope.”
He kept his eyes closed. What would it feel like to be Devin Moon? Why did he hide his intelligence behind a facade? What did he really think about the people he claimed to be protecting? Why did he do that thing with his thumb and his front tooth? He delved into the mind of the man across from him…
“Whoa… Mom, are you seeing—”
“Shhh.”
Devin was Indian. What tribe? The Colorado River Indian Tribes had four or five tribes, if he remembered right. Navajo? No, Caleb would be able to tell. Hopi? Mohave? Was his family traditional? Did he grow up on the reservation?
He’d chosen to be a cop. But not a homicide detective like Caleb. Did working with the dead carry the same cultural taboo for Devin’s people as it did for Caleb’s? Was his family proud of him?
“Mom?”
“Oh my…”
Did his grandmother hate him? Disown him? Turn away from him as if he was dead? The nausea was back.
“Caleb, open your eyes if you can.”
“I can’t,” he rasped. “Not… not yet.” He could feel his body had shifted. His jeans were a little tighter. The t-shirt he’d put on stretched across his shoulders and the muscles in his arms bulged strangely. He knew his body had changed, but the idea of opening his eyes and seeing the evidence in the mirror terrified him.
“Caleb.” Jena was in front of him. But it wasn’t him. “It’s okay. It’s still you.”
“I changed, didn’t I?”
“Uh-huh.” Her voice was low and calm. “You look just like Dev. But you know what?”
“What?” He could barely hear his own voice.
“Your voice is still the same. And the face you’re making right now? It’s totally Caleb. You’re still you.”
“Jena!” He held out his hands, grasping for her. She took them, enfolded them in front of her, and pressed them to her chest.
“I’m still me when I’m a hawk. And you’re still you. You’re just borrowing a different skin for a little while.”
He let his eyes open and locked onto hers. The angle was wrong. They were closer, but they weren’t looking at him in horror or revulsion.
“Okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Gonna puke?”
Caleb heard Tom’s voice from across the room, but he didn’t look. “The nausea must be the same for him as it is for us. Chief, don’t worry about that. We get the nausea too, the first few times. It gets better as you adjust to the sensation of shifting. Nothing to worry about.”
Jena still had her eyes locked on him. “Think you can look?”
“Do I have to?”
“It’s pretty amazing. I’m not gonna lie. Except for the voice, you’re Dev’s twin.”
Caleb finally let his eyes leave Jena’s. He looked up, avoiding the mirror, and looked for Devin Moon. The other man was plastered against the opposite wall, staring at Caleb with a combination of awe and revulsion.
“Witch,” Devin hissed.
Caleb shook his head. “No.”
“Clizyati,” Dev added. “You’re not right.”
He felt the sick twist in his stomach at the old words. “You’re not Navajo. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know enough.”
Jena looked between the two men in confusion. “Dev? What’s going on?”
“How many years did you work with the dead, Caleb?”
Old guilt ate at him. “Shut up.”
“How many taboos did you break? What kind of evil did you let inside?”
His temper spiked and he felt his body shift. He grew taller. Leaner. The familiar clench as his hand curled into a fist.
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Jena said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, either! Will someone explain what’s going on? Dev, are you speaking Navajo? I thought you were Mohave.”
“Does your family know? Or are you dead to them, Skinwalker?”
“Skinwalker?” He could feel Jena try to pull away. “I thought—”
Devin continued. “I may be Mohave, but you think I’m gonna live next to a town of shapeshifters and not do my research? I know what you are, Caleb Gilbert. Tom, get the kids out of here.”
Caleb heard both the boys protest before Jena turned to them. “Out! Now!”
He dropped her hands as if they burned. “You think I’d try to hurt your kids?”
Jena’s eyes swam with remorse and confusion. “I don’t know what’s going on. What’s he talking about?”
“You think I’m evil now?” He didn’t know what he looked like on the outside, but inside, his bruised heart ached. He’d thought that it had been kicked beyond all feeling at that point, but what do you know? He was wrong.
Tom didn’t say a word, just took the protesting boys out through the back door. Taking them away from Caleb. Away from the taboo-breaker. The unclean one. The killer.
Tears came to Jena’s eyes. “I don’t know what to think!”
Devin spoke again as soon as he heard the back door slam. “I know your legends. There’s only one way for a Navajo to wear the skin of another human, and it’s very, very dark magic. Which member of your family did you kill?”
Chapter Fifteen
Jena’s mouth gaped in horror. Caleb stepped back, looking like he’d been punched in the face.
“It’s… it’s not like that. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s not that.” He turned to her. “Jena? You don’t believe…?”
Her mind flew in a thousand different directions. He couldn’t. He didn’t. He was a good man; she knew that. But she’d heard the stories, too.
Caleb stared at her for a few more minutes, then a cold mask slid over his features. He walked to the door, then stopped and turned a little, staring at the ground.
“Mr. Charles Yazzie Singer was killed by gunfire during a raid coordinated by federal and local police who were executing arrest warrants in a coordinated operation in the greater Albuquerque metro area. Mr. Singer was killed while attempting to fire on officers in the East Side Narcotic Team led by Detective Caleb Yazzie Gilbert. Detective Gilbert was commended for his actions during the raid.”
Then h
e opened the door, stepped out, and shut it quietly behind him.
Jena couldn’t breathe. Yazzie. Same middle name. Cousin? Brother? Jena sank onto the couch, tears rolling down her face. Devin was quietly banging his head against the wall.
“Damn, damn, damn, I should have known.” Devin shook his head. “Stupid superstitions. He was the king of the department after that raid. It was all over the news. Even national. He’d been the one to coordinate the local teams with the feds. Hero cop and he takes early retirement. I should have known there was more to the story.”
“I should have known, too.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I feel horrible. He thinks I don’t trust him, Dev. Thinks I thought he’d hurt the boys. I know he wouldn’t. I’d never put his shifting together with the Navajo myths. But then I heard that word, and—”
“Don’t blame yourself. Skinwalkers make for some seriously messed up stories.”
Like Devin, Jena had acquainted herself with most of the local legends from the Native American tribes around them. There were lots of shapeshifter stories, few of them were anything but sinister, especially in Navajo beliefs. Skinwalkers were black magic witches that perverted the natural harmony in Navajo beliefs. They killed and cursed to get power. Broke traditional beliefs in a quest to trick and manipulate the people around them. They were said to be able to shift into any animal they wanted. The most evil among them, by killing a relative, were able to wear the skin of human beings themselves.
For anyone raised Navajo, the practice of shifting into an animal or anything else was considered black magic. Jena didn’t know the specifics, doubted anyone outside the tribe did, but it wasn’t good.
But those were just legends. Weren’t they?
“The dead,” she heard Devin say. “He must have touched the dead so many times…”
Dead bodies were a serious taboo for traditional Navajo.
“He worked in homicide before he went into Narcotics,” Devin said. “His family must have loved that. He told you much about them?”
“No. He doesn’t talk about the past. I think he grew up in Albuquerque. How bad would it have been for him?”
Devin shrugged. “Depends on how traditional his family was, but it could have been bad.”
And yet, he’d stood for those who’d been killed and couldn’t speak. Jena hung her head.
“I wonder if that’s why he switched to narcotics,” Devin said. “To appease his family.”
“And then he had to kill a family member?”
Devin slumped down next to her. “No wonder he wanted to leave New Mexico.”
“Then he comes out here and gets caught up in our craziness. A town full of shapeshifters. A murder. And now the poor guy’s turning into your ugly self.”
“Hey.” He nudged her shoulder, but Jena knew he wasn’t really annoyed. “You need to go talk to him.”
“He probably hates me. And he has every reason to.”
“Did you see his face, Jena? He doesn’t hate anyone but himself.”
Could your heart actually hurt? Jena’s did. “He’s probably sick from shifting, too.”
“You got anything to help that?”
She shrugged. “Ginger tea helps a little when you first shift.”
“Go. Take him some and apologize for doubting him. I’ll go track down your dad and talk to Caleb later. I owe him an apology, too.”
“He’s going to be mad.”
“Then he’ll be mad, Jena. He has a right to be. We still have to apologize.”
She sighed. “You’re right.”
Jena stepped out of the door a half an hour later holding a thermos of ginger tea. Her dad was walking back from Caleb’s trailer.
“Got the AC working again.”
She groaned. “I completely forgot about that.”
“Well, there was a bit of excitement. You’re mom’s gonna have to buckle down and get a new one for that unit. The old one’s shot. The boys are with her, by the way.”
“Okay.”
“You bringing him some tea?”
“Yep.”
“That’ll help.” Tom looked off toward the trailer. “Poor kid. Hell of a thing to stumble into. It’s a lot to deal with.”
“We all manage.”
“Yeah…” Tom was thoughtful. “But we’ve got family and clans and friends we’ve known our whole life here. He doesn’t have any of that. Not really. And he’s not really like any of us, either. I don’t envy the man.”
“Did Dev explain about the skinwalker thing?”
Tom shrugged. “A little. Said the guy had to kill his cousin or something in a police raid.”
“That’s what it sounds like.”
“That’s horrible. As for the rest of the superstitions?” Tom frowned, then looked away. “I don’t figure any legend tells the whole truth about anything, you know? It’s superstition. We’re more than the stories they tell about us, aren’t we, Jena?”
She blinked away tears and nodded. “Yeah, we are.”
Tom slapped his work gloves on his leg a few more times, then started back for the trailer parked on the far side of the property. “We’ll keep the boys for a while. I’ll tell Cathy to figure on fixing them dinner. Go help your friend.”
It was as good as an endorsement as Thomas Crowe was ever going to give to a man who liked his daughter. “Thanks, Dad.”
He nodded and Jena continued toward Caleb’s place. The blinds were all drawn, though she could hear some quiet music coming from inside. She tapped on the door, then stepped back, letting him decide whether he wanted to speak to her again.
After a few minutes, he opened the door. He was in a pair of sweatpants and nothing else.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
“I… uh, I came to apologize.”
He didn’t say anything. She almost wanted to him to yell. It would have been better than his quiet condemnation.
“I would never in a million years hurt a child. Any child. But especially yours.”
She brushed a tear that escaped down her cheek. “I know that. I know that. I was scared. And I didn’t know what to think. I reacted poorly when you were probably just as scared. And then Dev accused you of… you know. And I know there must be an explanation—not that you owe one to me, or anything—but I know there must be one. And it was… it was surprise and shock. And I’m so sorry.” She bit her lip and forced herself to look into his dark eyes. “I’m sorry, Caleb. Not my finest hour.”
His face had transformed from grim condemnation into something that looked almost amused. “That’s okay. When you first told me you turned into a bird, I wanted to ask if you could lay an egg.”
Jena blinked. “A—an egg? Are you asking that just to piss me off?”
“Maybe. Can you?”
She huffed and pushed her way into the trailer. “Oh, for heaven’s sake.”
Caleb was smiling, almost back to his normally affable self. “It’s a reasonable question.”
“That I’m not gonna justify with a response. Drink your tea.” She put the thermos on the counter.
He examined it. “What is it?”
“Ginger tea.” She patted his stomach. Oh holy… abs. Jena cleared her throat and pulled her hand away. “It’ll help with the nausea. My dad’s right. We get the same reaction when we shift back to our human form. At least at first. It’ll pass, but the tea helps.”
“When did you shift the first time?” Despite his deliberately upbeat demeanor, he still looked a bit green around the edges. And tired. Jena was glad her father had gotten the AC fixed.
“Twelve. Pretty average. For shifter kids it tends to come right before puberty.”
“So my voice is going to change again?” he asked. “Thanks for the warning.”
“And don’t forget that strange hair in odd places.”
He took a mug from the cupboard and paused. “That takes on a whole new meaning when you’re talking about werewolves.”
; “Uh…” She shook her head. “Don’t call them werewolves. They hate that. We’re not monsters or half-animals or anything. We look just like regular animals. Birds look like birds. Wolves look like wolves. About half the pack in the Springs is Timberwolves and half Mexican grey in their natural form.”
“Natural form?” He poured some tea into a cup.
“It’s the first animal we shift to. It’s what will always be easiest. For me, it was a hawk. My dad is a raven.”
“Alma?” He watched her reaction carefully.
“A barn owl.” She smiled.
“Beautiful bird.”
“Yep. She was.”
“Big?”
Jena nodded. “Almost two feet tall. She was on the big side for a female. Great flyer. Excellent hunter.”
“Right.” She saw Caleb shake his head. “Right. She was a barn owl when she was attacked. Of course. That’s why the blood pattern…” He blinked and looked at her. “Sorry. This probably isn’t the best time to ask, but does this mean you all are finished lying to me about this murder?”
He was already thinking about that? Jena decided to be relieved. “Yes. It was only ever because you weren’t supposed to know about the shifting. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you.”
“Nice to hear. So, Alma was an animal when she was attacked.” He nodded. “And it must have been another shifter in animal form…”
“Yes. That’s why Ted thinks the wounds are so warped. The claw marks were probably from a bobcat, but they grew bigger when she died.”
“They grew as she did.” Caleb was stretching his hands out, trying to picture it in his mind. “So she turned into a human when she died?” He paused to sip the tea before he sat down across from her in the small banquet. “Does everyone?”
“Turn back to human when we die? Yes. We’re humans first and finally. We only take on animal form when we want to and at the full moon.”
“You have to change during the full moon?” He narrowed his eyes. “Alma was murdered on the full moon. It was so bright that night it woke me up. But you were human when I came to the house. So was Jeremy. Ted? She a shifter, too?”
“Mountain lion.”
“That’s not terribly surprising.”