Skinwalker

The car ride to the airport is calm; it’s the early hours of the morning and most flights have landed with no departures scheduled for a several hours. Leona and I are escorted into Sky Harbor through an employee entrance; we’re taken through back hallways to bypass the nuances of the airport and are joined by two men at a door with an oversized warning sign posted on it.

The men wear black suits that are accented with scarlet-colored neck ties and pocket squares. Their ties are pinned to white silk button down shirts with white gold tie clips that boasts an insignia that is the letters s and g in swirly cursive, each letter so close together they could be overlapping. Their cuff links match. They’re part of the Scarlet Guard, the Queen’s security guards.

One of them pushes the metal door with the warning sign open and a blast of air exposes the noisy tarmac outside. The guard not holding the door leads us through the doorway and outside toward a private jet parked several yards away. Passing through the doorway, I glance at the stranger holding the door and I’m reminded what it feels like to be surrounded by vampires. Their chests don’t rise and fall, their hearts don’t supply the blood that’s required to color their flesh, and the movements they make are intentional and silent.

The group is ushered, by a stewardess, up the short staircase and onto the jet that’s been pending our arrival. The doorway onto the airplane is like a portal, all of the sudden, I’m back; back to living in the capitol, back to studying and practicing subhuman law, back to working for the Queen, and back to in the life I fled. The last couple of years feel like a daydream. It’s like I never left.

I’m nudged through the doorway by Leona. I’ve backed up the group of people who want on. My mentor looks at me questionably, but I nod my head acknowledging that I know I need to keep moving. Taking a deep breath, I move toward the seat I spent every flight in.

With Each step forward the urge to turn back becomes more overpowering. My heart is racing, and my brain is telling me to flee. I don’t want to be here. I shouldn’t be here. I got away from this with no intention of returning. Taking a deep breath, I remind myself the last two years have been real and soon I’ll be free of this once again.

Leona sits on the aisle seat next to me, Scarlet’s Guard sit in the back, and once the stewardess confirms the passenger count and checks in with the pilots, she pulls the door shut and locks it before straightening her uniform and fluffing her necktie. Her brown eyes meet mine briefly she’s human.

Despite the worlds generalized fear of subhumans, there are pockets of people who aren’t afraid, and among those people are the ones who want to spend their lives surrounded by us. I imagine she’s here as the inflight appetizer. Beneath that neatly tied and perfectly placed necktie, there is probably old evidence of feedings that have damaged her olive flesh.

Spending life as a vampire’s snack is common and people from all different walks of life do it for various reasons. Some people love the rush, others use their blood as payment for a service or protection, and there are those who do it for the promise of someday becoming a vampire, despite that being life threatening and incredibly illegal. If the government learned of a vampire turning a human without explicit, official consent, both parties would be put on trial. More often than not, they’d be made an example of and be executed for their crimes.

It isn’t until we are in the air that Leona sets something on my lap. “If you’re not going to sleep, you can read.”

Unlike the other files, this one is neatly organized in a file folder with pages whole punched, bound, and categorized. The photograph attached to the data sheet is of a woman. Her eyes and hair are both brown and her face is thin with shallow laugh lines. This is my host, the woman who will get me through the front door.

“Why her?” Flipping through the packet I find her name, Brittany Allen.

“She’s one of the two researchers in charge of the hybrids.”

“How did you find her?”

“We have a mute on the inside.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” I ask, concerned for the mutes’ safety.

Leona’s attention is on a file folder that’s much thicker than mine. “She’s a mute. What could they do to her that her genetics already hasn’t?”

Just because she has no abilities, a broken aura, and her children will be human with an inability to pass on subhuman genetics does not mean she’s disposable. Mutes are an asset; they are far more commonly accepted by humans because they’re not threatening, which is exactly why the government has strategically placed them in important positions. Joseph Aldridge, the Subhuman Liaison, is the only person who speaks for Queen Scarlet publicly. Because he’s a mute, he just comes off as another politician.

“She’s risking her life.” I begin placing the items back into the envelope.

Leona glances away from her papers, staring at the chair across from her, thinking about what was said, and then frowns. “I simply mean that if they catch her and cure her, they’re not actually doing anything to her that hasn’t already been done.”

“If she’s lucky,” I say tossing the enveloped onto the seat across from me before reclining and pulling my hood over my head.

I’m permitted complete and utter silence. In the shade of my hood, behind closed eyelids, I think about Levi and the evening that brought me to this point in time. Though the turn of events is troubling, the thoughts in my head mixed with the hum of jet engines, the slight sway of flying through the sky, and the complete exhaustion that follows stressful events all work together to lull me to sleep.

Startled and ready to fight, I’m pulled from sleep and brought back into reality. Tossing my head back, the hood unblocks my view and I see Leona holding my wrists effortlessly, looking as infuriated as she can.

“Are you done?”

She woke me in the middle of a dream, my mind was reliving the invasion of Levi’s apartment. I must have thrown a punch at her in confusion and desperation.

I pull my hands toward my body. “Sorry.”

“You may want to collect yourself before we deboard.”

What does she mean by that?

Leona gently grabs a handful of my hair in a movement that was so sudden, I almost missed it. In between her fingers is a collection of coarse black hair, it takes a moment for my brain to process what she’s showing me but when it does, the strands quickly return to the color of new penny’s. I can feel a tingle wash over my body as I return to Piper.

Frowning, I ask, “Who was I?”

“The little tail you live with.” Leona stands in the aisle, leaving room for me to occupy the space in front of her.

That’s the second time I’ve copied Kendal even though I’ve never used her. Why am I doing that? How am I doing that? Have I lost control of my mutation? I’ve been a skinwalker for almost half of my life. Photocopying people is not what I do. I clone them; I steal their personalities, their memories, and their bodies, right down to the scars that have faded from childhood. I become them, not just a mirror image of them.

Despite it being an hour before sunrise, it’s still humid and because of that, the temperature feels much warmer than it actually is. It’s disgusting. I had forgotten what it felt like to be outside in this state. I’ve been spoiled by the dry Arizona summers and the cool, but short, winters. The dampness isn’t a factor.

One of Scarlet’s Guard leads us through a private door into the employee hallways at the Hellsgate Municipal airport. The paint on the walls are grey and the boring carpet matches. There are no windows, only harsh florescent lightbulbs that show the stains in the carpet too well. The doors are painted to blend into the walls, the numbers are gold, and there’s no other information to tell someone what is beyond them. The only decoration are intermittent motivational posters to inspire their employees.

We exit through a door into the concourse of the municipal airport, I catch curious onlookers watching us as we walk through the area and to the front doors. Every eye I catch is human. This place sure has gained popularity since I left, it is safe to assume this city has become a tourism hot spot since the Reveal. It makes sense. People who were curious about the myths and legends of vampires prior to that day often vacationed in New Orleans. Since we’re only two hours north it makes sense tourists would venture this way to truly submerse themselves with in our existence in our capitol city.

It’s in the black town car with the dark tinted windows, that I realize how much the city has changed. It’s flourishing. Subhumans and humans alike have used the background of this city to draw in customers.

“Hellsgate has changed,” I say more to myself than Leona, who is sitting in the backseat with me.

“You’ll be able to see more of it this evening.”

“I’m not here to play tourist, I’m here to…”

“Queen Scarlets schedule isn’t cleared so easily, you know this.”

“How long am I supposed to waste my time?”

“She will see you tomorrow morning.”

That’s one more day Genetics Incorporated have has Levi “She’s willing to keep Catherine in limbo for another day?”

The car comes to a stop outside one of the capitol buildings.

“You’ve been away, so I will forgive you this time, but don’t forget who you’re here to see, how unforgiving she can be, and what she’s capable of.”

Leona pushes her door open and exits in one fluid movement. Disappearing into the building in the last remaining moment before the sun peaks above the horizon. With much less grace, I climb out of my seat and slam the car door, swearing under my breath.