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form to match other people’s fantasies, and they were often excellent psychics, because they passed through the astral, a parallel dimension of spirits and entities, easily used for transportation between planes of reality, every time they shifted. And in the astral, all kinds of things could be gleaned: past, present and future.
    The rowdy lead singer, Case, was the charismatic. But Danny…Danny was the psychic. One of New Orleans’ best, which was saying a hell of a lot—that is, when he was straight enough to concentrate, which was almost never, these days.
    Wasted, Caitlin thought again. Such a waste.
    She pulled her eyes away from Danny and concentrated on Case: skinny as Keith Richards, for the same reasons, in pencil-leg black jeans, sporting alligator boots with outrageously long toes. He was leaning into the crowd with Danny now, threatening to topple off the stage into the throng, and shouting, “Somebody freakin’ scream!”
    And then, as he straightened, his eyes fell on the corner where Caitlin stood…and he stopped for an instant, staring. Then his smile curved. Caitlin thought, He’s good. He saw her. Of course he did; he always could. She let the glamour slip away from her like a cloak, and he gazed full into her face. Then he lifted the mike again and shouted, “Somebody make some noise!”
    As the crowd went wild on the floor beneath him, he turned the mike over to the guitarist for a solo and dropped off the stage, landing hard on those ridiculous boots and swaggering out into the crowd, stopping to let some drunk sorority girl kiss him, openmouthed and sloppy.
    Caitlin turned away and walked out the back door, into the small inner courtyard, away from the noise. The courtyard was mostly used for storage. Cases of booze were stacked to the eaves against the inner wall, but there was a small outdoor bar, framed by white strings of Christmas lights, tonight unmanned and deserted.
    Case pushed out through the double doors and intothe dark. He was already flicking a Zippo, lighting a cigarette, dragging hard, and Caitlin wondered wearily what it would be laced with tonight.
    As if hearing her thoughts, he extended the cigarette toward her mockingly. She stared at him, ignoring his outstretched hand, and history vibrated between them like an electric pulse.
    Finally he smiled. “Ah, the little Keeper. Sister Goldenhair Surprise. Nice glamour, by the way. You’re getting good at that. We’ll have you full-tilt shifting any day now.”
    Her anger flared, and she answered without thinking. “Not in this lifetime.”
    He gave her a “We’ll see” smile and dragged on his cigarette. “Well, Keeper, has someone been bad?” He asked the question slyly, and she jolted. So he does know something, she thought, trying to conceal her excitement.
    â€œWhy would you say that?” she answered, unconsciously echoing Jagger DeFarge.
    â€œSomeone must have been pretty bad, to bring you up to our little den of iniquity. Or is that din? ” he corrected himself, reaching to his ears and pulling out earplugs, the only thing that had kept him from going deaf for all these years.
    â€œI need…” She hesitated.
    â€œMy help?” His eyes gleamed at her.
    â€œSome information,” she said coldly.
    â€œYou’re in luck. I’m running a special tonight.” He sat back on a bar stool, legs spread casually—nothing to do with the conversation, of course.
    Caitlin’s heart turned over with the old, familiar pain, then she answered back, sharp and hard. “Good thing I’ve got credit running into the next century, then.”
    To her surprise, he laughed aloud, and she realized with relief that with that comeback she had scored—enough to keep him playing along, at least for a while. “There are people dying of some kind of bad batch,” she said quickly, while he was still smiling. “Meth,