Shapeshifted

by Cassie Alexander

Page 44

  Ti reached out and seized me. “This is not your fault, Edie. ”

  “Oh, no, Ti—” I whispered in a squeak.

  He held me tight, forced me to look at him. “This is what I’ve wanted for so long. I’m okay. ”

  “Ti—” I was racked with guilt. I should have never shut him out. My whole body was numb from the freezing water—every part of it except for my heart, which was cracking in two.

  “This was what I wanted. She did it. She just knew. ” His expression was beatific. Soft. “You remember. I explained this to you. I meant it. ”

  “If you don’t go to heaven now, I’m going to go up there myself and kick someone. ”

  Ti laughed aloud, until it ended in a cough. I reached forward and held him, and he held me back until he couldn’t anymore. When I let go of him, he would be gone. I would never get to see him again. It was one thing knowing he was just gone, away from me, and another to know this was final, that he was dead. We sank into the water together, and I let his greater weight pin me down until it covered me entirely, baptized by my sorrow, anchored by what I’d lost.

  Hands reached down from above and pulled me up. “Let me go—” I fought them as I resurfaced. “I belong with him. ”

  “No you don’t. ” It was the man I’d never seen before again. I knew it was Asher, but I didn’t know how many more changes I could take tonight.

  “Are you … still you?” I asked him.

  He nodded and pulled me to him. “And I need you to stay here with me. ”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  I wrapped my arms around Asher and sobbed as he held me close. I heard his voice rumble in his chest as he addressed Santa Muerte. “Explain yourself. ”

  I pulled back, still crying, to see.

  Grandmother pointed at Olympio and began speaking. He translated instantly.

  “You shall be my voice, young one. And I owe no one explanations, nor apologies. ” Olympio translated her words, but there was no mistaking her tone. The hospital gowns were gone now, covered instead by a translucent flowing light, but her hands and skull were visible, all bones. “I was trapped by the creatures below the ground, and the bruja sought to conquer me. ”

  There was nothing left of Maldonado but a charred mark against the cement. Everything that had been him had been burned away and floated off, into the drains. She continued, looking at each of us.

  “I have answered the prayers of those who have called to me—one prayer for each of you. I have been kinder to you than you could ever hope for me to be. ”

  I realized that’s what had happened to us. Ti—he’d always wanted to be human again, to get the chance to really die. I’d chosen to save Olympio, and Asher had chosen to save himself. I looked back to Luz and Adriana—Adriana was standing on her own now, without any of the bone tattoos. And Luz didn’t seem as frightening as she once had. I wondered what Olympio had wished for.

  There was a commotion from above us, in Tecato Town. A squad of people jumped over the side to land in the ditch upriver from us. The way they leapt and landed—vampires, for sure.

  A cloaked woman was at the head of their number, hood high. But I saw her white skin, and one blond curl pressed out. Anna had arrived.

  “Why are you no longer mine?” She pointed at Luz.

  Luz pushed Adriana behind her—if there were to be punishments, they would be hers. “I wished to make her whole. And she wished to make me human again. ”

  Anna took in our ragtag group, looking like drowned rats except for Santa Muerte, and her face softened. “I understand. ” She pushed down her hood. “I came as soon as I could, when I knew you’d broken your promise and tasted blood. House Grey attacked us as soon as we left. ” She stared at Santa Muerte. “I can only presume they wanted to control you. ”

  And suddenly the reasons why people wanted to control Santa Muerte became clear. If she could turn a vampire human again—and a zombie—she could bring the dead back to life, as befit her name.

  “What will you do now?” Anna pressed.

  Santa Muerte spoke. “I do not owe you answers either,” Olympio said for her as soon as she was done.

  “Your people need you here—” Anna said.

  Santa Muerte turned toward her, and her skull-mouth opened up and laughed, jawbone flapping up and down. “Do not presume to know me, undead one. I could control you too. Those creatures of the dark held me for too long, centuries, sucking away my power. ”

  “Who will protect the Reinas from the rest of the Three Crosses then?” I interrupted while I was still brave enough to ask. Whatever had just transpired here, it hadn’t magically ruined everyone else’s guns. People like Maldonado had plenty of followers eager to take their place. Without Luz to be the Reina and instill fear, her people wouldn’t stand a chance. I looked over to Luz and I could see the same thoughts cross her face.

  Anna looked at me as though she was just registering my presence. “I should have known it would be you—”

  I wasn’t about to get shunned off now. “You can’t abandon all those people, Anna. You don’t know what it’s like down here. ”

  Santa Muerte clapped her bony hands, and another lightning bolt struck nearby. “Don’t tell me what it is like to be abandoned. And don’t dare tell me what here is like. ” Again, Olympio translated. Santa Muerte pointed at Anna. “My people no longer need your kind. ”

  Anna took two steps forward. “You owe us. ”

  Only Anna would try to call in debts from a saint.

  “I’ve already paid them,” Santa Muerte said, indicating us. “What do you think I should pay you?”

  “We were attacked on the way here. I lost three servants to House Grey tonight. ” Anna looked unsure. She never looked unsure. “If—if they are not in a better place—I demand their return. ”

  “You admit vampires fear the afterlife?” Olympio translated, his tone as arch as hers.

  Anna spread her hands to include the area that surrounded us. “I admit that here may already be hell. ”

  Santa Muerte cackled at this. “Oh, I have seen hells, mi amor, mi querida. I have seen hells. ” Then she cocked her head and focused eyes that were just empty sockets on Anna. “Pero ha hecho lo mismo usted,” Olympio said. “But so have you. ”

  Anna had been tortured for a century not long before. Maybe not as long as Santa Muerte, but—the older spirit nodded, as if to herself, making her robes flow. “Perhaps we may come to an arrangement. ”

  Anna nodded. “I would like that very much. ”

  The two women moved aside. I had no doubt that the flock of vampires that had followed Anna here could hear them speak in whispers, but I was too tired to try. I sagged, and Asher gathered me up. If I didn’t look at his face, then I knew that it was him—I felt it in the way his arms held me, strong and close.

  “Are you okay?” he whispered in my ear. He sounded like Asher. Some.

  “Yeah,” I whispered back, a lie. I looked around for Ti’s body and couldn’t find it. He’d already been swallowed by the drain. “I want to get away from here. ”

  I could feel him nod against me. “Me too. Soon. ”

  Anna and Santa Muerte’s conversation ended. Santa Muerte proffered her skeletal hand, and Anna sank to kneel and kiss it, her cloak flowing out around her in the waters. I wondered what agreement they had reached. Standing again, together, they rejoined our small group. At an unseen signal, Anna’s people started flowing away.

  “But what about Three Crosses?” I shouted out. I needed to hear that the clinic would be safe.

  Santa Muerte turned and fixed her dead sockets on me. Olympio translated as her mandible moved. “Do not worry. I have some business yet to do with them. ”

  And then she walked past us. Walking wasn’t the right word—she moved through the runoff without actually moving, her robes concealing any motion of her body below. She rose up the wall of the ditch, t
aking her light with her, and disappeared.

  Anna watched her go, then looked over to me. “Are you okay, Edie?”

  “It’s been a long night,” I answered honestly.

  She came over to me, shaking her head like a disappointed auntie. “This is not what I had in mind when I started your shun. ”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Luz really was whole. She let me hold her hand, which let me feel her wrist. Her bones had been reknit, and she had a pulse. Adriana wouldn’t let go of her—we three were all crammed into the leather backseat of one of the black cars the vampires drove. Vampires always traveled in style. Olympio was in the front seat, playing with the radio dial. Asher had asked to take a separate car home. I wished I’d gone with him, but he’d seemed worried and weird, and I wanted to make sure Olympio got home in one piece—

  Adriana said something in Spanish. I hadn’t realized she was talking to me until Luz elbowed me. “You knew him from before?”

  “Who?”

  “Hector. ”

  “Yeah. I knew both of them before, actually. ” My hair was drying out in the car’s lovely heat.

  Adriana went on, and Luz smiled before translating to me. “When you find someone you love, you should never give up hope. ”

  I gave them a halfhearted smile, but mentally amended, Unless your name is Edie.

  We went into Reina territory first, and our grim vampire driver parked right at the edge of the junkyard maze. The guards with submachine guns held them meaningfully, waiting for the first signs of aggression as Luz and Adriana stepped out. Then there were shouts of joy carried up the line—and people swarmed out of the Reina apartments to see them, to touch them with their own hands. Witnessing their joyful reunion with their friends made me want to cry. Olympio was plastered to the window, watching them until he couldn’t as we drove away.

  “She really was a vampire?” he asked me.

  No point in lying; he’d already seen much worse. “Yeah. ”