The group of four arrives at the mine, fitted with weapons and charms. Early in the action, Evan gets wounded, but Molly uses a healing amulet and they get him outside where an ambulance is called. The trio finds Carmen and the two girls, moving them out of the room they are being held in and to the outside. Vamps attack both Jane and Brax, and despite Molly’s attempt to save Brax with one of the charms, he dies anyway. Jane is able to heal after shifting to Beast. Despite their sad loss of Brax, all of the vampires are destroyed.
Skinwalker, Book One
I Travel Light: Jane Yellowrock, vamp killer, recently recovering from a job that almost killed her, arrives in New Orleans to meet with Katie Fonteneau, a vampire who has lived in the area for many years. It seems there is a rogue vamp on the loose in New Orleans, and Katie wants to hire Jane to track it down and kill it—legally, of course. On her way down the street toward Katie’s, on her new motorcycle, Jane notices a guy in a doorway watching her, but he does not seem threatening.
Never having met a “civilized” vamp before, Jane is not sure what to expect. She gets greeted at the door by a big man she nicknames Troll, who takes her proffered card and abruptly closes the door in her face. While waiting for his return, the intriguing guy she knew was watching her earlier pulls his bike up beside hers, and then comes up to wait near her. When Troll returns, Jane goes inside with him, giving up most of her weapons (other than a few she keeps well hidden).
Troll escorts Jane to meet Katie, and all seems to be going well until Katie does not recognize Jane’s scent—other than identifying her as a fellow predator—and vamps out, leaping at Jane, who pulls out her weapons and takes a defensive stance. Jane tells Katie that she isn’t human, but unless Katie plans to tell Jane where her own daytime lair is, Jane will not tell Katie what exactly she is. The two agree to keep their own secrets. Jane and Katie discuss terms, and Jane learns that Katie has provided her with a house that meets all of her requirements (including the large boulders she requested). Jane will receive a twenty percent bonus if she completes her job in ten days, and Katie gives her the folder of crime scene photos and cloths with blood traces.
Okay, I Was Paranoid: Troll and Jane test each other when they leave the room—him wanting to know where she hid her guns, her not telling him—but their interchange ends peacefully, with Troll giving Jane an envelope containing money, her contract, and keys. Feeling pleased that she had successfully stood up to Katie as she walks toward her bike, Jane scents the same guy that she had seen before going inside. Jane realizes that the man had tried to open the locks on her saddlebags, which, unluckily for him, were spelled. After a brief exchange, during which the guy (who Jane thinks of as the Joe, as in an ordinary Joe) says he had hoped he’d get the job Katie was hiring for, Jane rides around the block to look at her new temporary home, which backs up against Katie’s Ladies. Judging the house to be at least two hundred years old, Jane evaluates the security and finds cameras, indoors and in the garden, which she destroys. Next up, a call to her friend, Molly, an earth witch, and a short chat with Angelina, Molly’s very powerful six-year-old witch daughter.
Jane decides to let Beast take over in order to hunt the rogue from the scents on the cloths given to her by Katie. Beast is the consciousness that resides within Jane, the one Jane allows to take precedence when she shifts into animal form. After going through the process of the change out in the garden, Beast eats the meat Jane left for her, and then takes in the scents on the cloth. Beast follows the trail, with Jane’s consciousness keeping her on track as to her goal, and discovers where the attacks took place. Beast believes she smells a “liver-eater,” but Jane has no idea what that means. After being fed a hamburger by a homeless man, Beast heads back to Jane’s house, to the garden, and shifts back into human form.
I’m a Tea Snob: Jane awakens into her own body out in the garden, musing over her history with Beast. She doesn’t know how she trapped Beast within her, but the cat knows and likes to sometimes make her suffer just a little for it. She does remember shifting back and forth between human and panther a few times over the years before she was discovered wandering in the woods at the approximate age of twelve. Given the scars on her body, Jane believes she shifted into human form at that time to heal herself from being shot, just as shifting into Beast form can heal injuries sustained while human. Making her way inside the house, Jane fixes some tea and oatmeal—foods she enjoys after her shift back.
After a phone call to Molly, Jane heads to bed for some much-needed sleep. She awakens at two p.m. to knocking on the door, and sees the guy she thinks of as the Joe standing outside. She opens the door, and after the guy states that she wasn’t home last night, he asks her to go eat lunch with him, also telling her she can call Troll (whose real name is Tom) to find out more about him. After learning that his name is Rick LaFleur, Jane closes the door, calls Tom, and finds out that Rick is his nephew, and recently he has been doing security jobs for the local vampire community. Beast likes Rick; she is impatient for Jane to take a mate.
Rick takes Jane to a restaurant and bar with delicious food and an unusual bartender/cook: Antoine, whose handshake crackles with a searching power up Jane’s arm. Unsure of what she is feeling, Jane is put on her guard, though the man is not threatening.
You Scare the Pants Offa Me: After they leave the restaurant/bar with full stomachs, Jane decides it’s time to see how useful Rick may prove for local information—her interest is only professional, of course. Rick tells Jane that she scares him, as he knows she’s not human, but has no idea what she may be, and he knows an awful lot about her recent activities, thanks to an Internet video that caught Jane and Molly coming out of the mine after killing the family of rogue vamps a few months earlier. Since he knows more about Jane than she feels comfortable with, and he then tries to put his hand on her neck, Jane takes Rick down and plants her elbow in his gut for good measure. Despite his laughter, Jane feels pretty sure Rick will lose interest in her after that.
Jane gets on her bike, Bitsa (so named because she is a combination of bits and pieces), heading out to meet with the butcher and to acquire some clothes more appropriate for the sweltering New Orleans weather. After success on both fronts, Jane returns to her house to get ready for dinner at Katie’s. She then examines closely the paperwork she received from Tom/Troll the night before, which includes her contract and some information on the seven vampire clans of New Orleans. Signing the contract, Jane heads over to Katie’s, and is greeted by Tom at the front door. They briefly discuss Rick, and Tom says he will check with Katie to see if it is okay for Rick to get paid for helping her with her job.
It Was Wicked Sharp: Jane finds herself surprised at Katie’s employees—they do not fit the picture of hookers that she carries in her head. As they are sitting down to dinner, a scream comes from another part of the house. Jane and the girls follow the sound and run to the room where they see Katie vamped out. Tom tells them all to go back to dinner. Partway through the meal, Katie appears, asking Jane to come with her. In Katie’s office, Jane sees Tom with blood on his neck, and Katie, bewildered, says she somehow took too much blood from him. She knows Jane has medical training as an EMT, and wants her to perform a blood transfusion using one of the girls. Jane refuses, but does give Tom an IV for fluids and calls the doctor Katie uses. Jane knows something is off with Katie’s behavior, and the vampire tells her she had a call from Leo Pellissier, Master of the City, about another vampire taken from her lair, and that Leo is on his way over.