Skinwalker
Chapter 08

The data sheets have spent the last few days hidden away. I had hoped if they were out of sight they would also be out of mind. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. While they’ve been tucked away, I’ve still been thinking about their contents as well as my willingness to use my ability. That part of me has been hidden since The Reveal. I haven’t used it because I haven’t wanted to, not even on accident.

If I make the decision to help these people, I have a lot to figure out. Learning how to skinwalk wasn’t easy; it was a long process and I’m not even sure I’ve truly mastered it. Especially after this hiatus. Using it after this long could pose a series of significant challenges. While forgetting how to use ones’ own ability is a ridiculous thought, the concern for losing control over one’s ability can be a very real side effect of what I’ve done. Limiting or ceasing the use of a mutation can result in very dangerous outcomes. It can also result in extremely clumsy errors like losing the color of a hosts hair color.

The fact of the matter is, I need to know what I’m capable of before I volunteer myself to this task. At least with the use of a previous host, the risk of losing myself to her is far less likely. It’s when I replace myself a new one that things could become dicey and I’m certain the queen has precured a brand-new host specifically for this situation.

Kendal isn’t home today and I’m not expecting any distractions. This free time can be used to answer the questions I have about my ability. Fortunately, I have plenty of stored hosts at my disposal.

I close the bathroom door behind me for a little extra privacy and set the data packets on the counter in front of me before looking in the mirror at my reflection. Since I was given all this information, I’ve spent most of my free time reminiscing over memories involving Catherine and staring at the photograph of Tala sitting on the shelf in the living room. What I’ve failed to do is consider myself and who I am.

I’ve mulled over the pros and cons, I’ve weighed many factors, and I’ve deliberated in silence. However, the first rule to skinwalking is knowing yourself. Who I am, what I’ve done in my life, and what I look like is all just as important to this process as knowing who my host is. If I’m not mindful, I could lose myself in someone else’s life; an error that occurred when I was first learning how to control my ability.

The host was a woman who was a vampire junkie, addicted to being bitten and fed from. She had a business arrangement with a man who promised he would change her. When the government learned of the arrangement she was brought in for questioning; turning a human into a vampire without the consent of the government is illegal. The woman was basically a blood prostitute, and I was the source for getting that information truthfully from her.

What I wasn’t prepared for was how that addiction would translate to me when she became my host. I can’t recall ever wanting something so badly. The rush of the fear and then the drastic side effects of low blood pressure. The danger of it all triggering the dopamine release in my brain that makes my whole body feel good. Thankfully, Piper was still a part of me when this happened and the fear, I held was strong enough to alert me to the danger I put myself into.

I wasn’t a human. I was a subhuman, and a hybrid at that. Our blood triggers vampires: it causes them to be more vicious and less controlled. That one mistake could have cost me my life.

In the bathroom, I look in the mirror above the sink, focusing on the task at hand. It’s been so long since I’ve simply stared at my reflection, I almost don’t recognize myself despite seeing this reflection every single day.

Each morning I shape these eyebrows, use concealer to cover the freckles, shadow my eyelids and coat my light eyelashes with black mascara. I curl my thick hair that’s more copper than carrot and stain my lips red with lipsticks that make my teeth seem whiter. These things are habits I formed as a teenager that have never left me and on days I work, this entire process is touched up before I clock in.

The forest green aura hugging my hazel iris reflects the lights over the mirror, they glisten more noticeably today than I can recall in recent memory. The mutation that’s been forced to remain only in my genetic code is waiting to be used. It twists my stomach, warms my core, and pricks at my flesh reminding me of its existence. Indulging in the intoxicating sensation that’s rolling over my entire body, I close my eyes, and consider the last host I’d had.

Margaret Lowell was a woman in her late thirties who appeared to be much older. For years she had been worn ragged from her ability. Once in her life she had cinnamon colored hair, but it turned wiry and varied in shades of grey. Her eyes became as dull and damaged as her hair, with heavy lids and puffy bags that sagged under them. Deep lines carved across her face like canyons. She was thin and malnourished. Short and weak. More than anything, she was a woman who needed help and wanted to die but just couldn’t.

When I look in the mirror again, the only thing that remains of Piper is my aura. It’s the only thing that never hides. I haven’t seen Margaret in over two years, yet there she is, exactly as I remember her, staring back at me. Last time I saw her, she was still alive. Since then, I’ve learned of her death.

At the time when I met her, she had been on trial for crimes against humans. It was in the time when the subhuman government was being forced into The Reveal. Laws were changing and overtly dramatic examples were being made of those who wouldn’t, or couldn’t, uphold them.

The pins and needles pricking across my skin begins to waver. In the mirror, parts of Piper begin to show in the reflection. I close my eyes to focus more intently on hosting this woman. It’s hardly been a minute since I transformed into her, it’s too soon to lose her. It takes a moment, but the feeling of a tingling limb covers every inch of my body once again. After a short period of time the sensation begins to feel warm and easy to ignore. I have a hold on her for the moment.

Margaret was a medium who could communicate with, and animate, the dead; for years she’s lived with the pain of the deceased and as a young adult, their agony broke her delicate mind. She lost the control she once had and began animating the corpses of souls seeking revenge, vigilante justice for wrongful deaths. To her dilapidated mind there was no other choice.

Over time her mind had been warped with despair that caused crippling distress in her everyday life. The only relief she was ever given came from giving into the desires of the dead. Margaret had been born with a mutation that was too strong for her and succumbing to the desires of the deceased was simpler.

While she was responsible for her choices, she was also a victim; the people who had been wronged in life sought her out for their revenge, wronging her in their deaths. These were souls who could never be punished for their crimes. Souls who took advantage of a woman who lost the capacity to protect herself.

When her verdict came, some people probably construed it as a blessing; death would quiet her calling indefinitely. It was a verdict that was designed to spread throughout the subhuman world as a warning. It was a verdict I helped reach. Of all the subhumans in the world with telepathic abilities, I was the one who was readily available to the queen. While my ability has nothing to do with reading minds, it has everything to do with becoming my host. I had her memories and that was good enough for a conviction. Use Margaret as my host, deliver factual memories, secure a verdict.

Hosting the medium not only meant I could become her whenever I wanted, not only did it mean I had her memories to carry for the rest of my life, it also meant that inside of me there was now the ability to be a medium. That day I learned how dangerous a skinwalker could be. Absorbing hosts for exactly who they are and being able to manipulate their abilities while I inhabit their bodies is too much power for one person. When Queen Scarlet asked me to use it, the trust I had for her was lost; I couldn’t forgive her for the show she made of the medium, nor could I ignore her violation of my ability. That was the last time I saw Margaret and Queen Scarlet.

I can feel the fragility of her mind creeping to the front of mine like a storm cloud. Unexplained anxiety comes first, speeding up my respirations and making my heart pick up the tempo. Opening my eyes, I feel trapped in the small space I confined myself in; the walls are too close, there aren’t any windows, and I can’t catch my breath.

That’s not true, I remind myself subconsciously. You’re perfectly safe. I force my eyes closed once again, I take in a deep breath for eight seconds, hold it for that long, and release is slowly in the same increment. Margaret’s memories calm and when I open my eyes, wet tears roll down her thin cheek.

Just before you die, they say your whole life flashes before your eyes. If that’s true, the memories of my host appear in the same manner. Each moment is there for a fraction of a second, hundreds filling the space of one, one thousand. Being born, experiencing the first bite of mashed baby food, walking, speaking, running, telling a joke for the first time, experiencing friendship, being in trouble, hating, loving, and everything in between. These are the things that define every human experience.

It changes in puberty for subhumans, every life experience is suddenly different. At first there was sickness, the type of sick we all go through while our mutation takes life. It’s a sickness that expands across days, it aches, it twists your stomach, burns up your insides, and chills your skin with buckets of sweat. It’s miserable.

Then, for Margaret, there was the first soul she ever saw. It was waiting for her when she woke up, sitting on the living room floor, hiding behind the brand-new mediums’ mother. The woman who slaved over her daughter while she was unconscious and sick, nursing her back into health.

There are feelings of fondness for this soul as memories continue to flicker by like images on a film reel. The two had been close for some period of time before the soul chose to move on. Time passed and Margaret’s mother taught her how to communicate with others and animate the dead. She desperately attempted to teach Margaret control. She tried to warn her of how damned the dead can be. Much sooner than anticipated the first soul who would prove Margaret’s mother was right appeared.

This was a soul so filled with leftover hate from life and delight in death that it had found a medium to manipulate. It used coercion against her, badgering her for months until she bent to its will. Eventually there were more, not just a few more, but dozens of them. All of them guilting her into being their path to justice. Sometimes there was only one, sometimes there were groups. Occasionally she could put the weaker ones to rest but it wasn’t her forte.

When her memories no longer make sense, when there is no more consistency in time, there is me. It’s the last memory Margaret made before I stole her life. She was too confused to be afraid and too far away from her own mind to be concerned for her wellbeing. Just before I let go of her, there was peace. Not because she had been rid of anything, because she hadn’t, skinwalking doesn’t work like that. Margaret retained everything I learned, but she also gained something. There was finally someone who knew and could understand exactly what her life had been. She was comforted in knowing she was no longer alone.

Looking in the mirror at the poor woman’s reflection I whisper, “I’m sorry.”

My attention is pulled away from the mirror when something moves in my peripheral. I throw myself onto the counter with a shriek. A chill pulsates through my body and as quickly as the soul had presented itself in the bathtub, it’s gone.

“Jesus!” I shout into the bathroom feeling my pulse pound in my head.

With shaking hands, I pull my legs toward my core and steal a glance of myself from the medicine cabinet mirror. It’s a paler, more anxious version of me than I last saw. I lost Margaret and the dead visitor. Luckily, her ability to see the dead is lost when she is.

I rest the back of my head against the mirror and close my eyes. One surprise and I lost my host. While it felt like I was in her mind for hours, the truth is, I probably only maintained my host for a handful of minutes.

I need to know what I’m capable of, which means I’m going to have to do this again. The best idea would be to use someone else. I don’t need the dead interrupting me again.