Shapeshifted es-3

by Cassie Alexander

  “That’s okay.” It didn’t have a chain attached, and I didn’t even know if it was actually silver, though it was shiny.

  Olympio tsked at me. “Your susto is getting even worse,” he informed me. “If you don’t get a limpieza soon—”

  “I still have that extra sandwich,” I cut him off.

  “Whatever.” He crossed his arms high on his chest and looked away from me.

  Stubborn, and mad at me. I had to respect him. I looked down at the sandwich. It wasn’t attractive anymore. I hadn’t been paying attention to my lunch bag on the train and it’d been squashed thin. I didn’t want to take it home, and I wouldn’t bring it back to eat it tomorrow.

  I stood up, crossed the street, and chucked it into the storm drain. Maybe I’d plugged the hole, because the distant howling stopped.

  The rest of the staff left—Catrina glaring at me—and then, last, Dr. Tovar came out. “How nice of you to wait for me.”

  “Well, you know.” I shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to accidentally get involved in local politics while I was unsupervised.”

  Olympio, who was ignoring us both, chose then to look over his shoulder and roll his eyes at me.

  I had the silver cross in my palm. I doubted Dr. Tovar was a daytimer—a daytimer would never do anything as selfless as work at a downtrodden public health clinic—but there was the blood, and the tattoos, and too much else unexplained. I’d been thinking about it all afternoon, and this was the least-worst idea I’d had so far. I just wished I had had a chain to put the cross on; that’d make hiding what I was about to do easier.

  “Dr. Tovar—” I began, as a warning, and then reached out to grab his nearest hand in both of mine, pressing the cross flush against his warm brown skin.

  He looked down at our touching hands and his eyebrows rose in bemusement. “Are you trying to have your way with me?”

  I studied him for any reaction, any hint of a sign—and got none. I sighed, and let go carelessly, and the silver cross dropped to the ground. He knelt and picked it up for inspection with a frown. “Really. This? Again?”

  “How do you know?” I asked him.

  He held up the cross and twirled it between thumb and forefinger like it was a freshly plucked daisy. “Crosses and silver, everyone knows. I do watch TV.” He shook his head while watching me closely. “You really thought I was a vampire?”

  “No. You’re standing in daylight. I thought you might be working for one.”

  Olympio fully turned back at this, eyes wide, and began watching our conversation, head swiveling like he was following a tennis match.

  “Because of some blood?” Tovar’s expression grew darker, and his voice rose. “You jumped straight to vampires? You’re a nurse, you’re supposed to be scientific, aren’t you? If I’d wanted someone who believed in things like that, I’d just hire Olympio.”

  “Hey!” Olympio protested.

  “You can’t deny that it’s weird,” I went on, taking a step closer. “There’s so many coincidences. The bite tattoos, the cross tattoos, the blood—”

  His hand caught mine, and I stopped talking. “And you can’t deny that you’re obsessed with it,” he said.

  “Maybe,” I admitted, and I didn’t yank my hand away. He pulled my hand up and slapped the cross back into my open palm.

  “I don’t know what you believe, Edie, but we’re not trapped in The X-Files here.” He looked from the cross to me and back again. His eyes softened with pity for me. “Whatever you think you’re seeing, whatever ghosts you’re chasing from your past, you need to forget about them. You need to move on.”

  It’s not as simple as that. If I move on, my mom will die was what I wanted to scream at him with all the breath in my chest. But what came out was a spiteful, “Okay. Fine.”

  He let go of my hand and took a step back, still watching me. “I need to go now. I have some personal business to attend to this evening. But I’m sure Olympio here can take you to the station and see you off safely.”

  My hand was wrapped so tight around the cross in my palm it was poking me. I shoved it in my pocket and took a huge breath of air, like I was surfacing from a deep pond. “Sure. I’m fine.” I don’t need you, or your pity, anyway.

  “Okay then.” He nodded, like we’d decided something together, and turned to go.

  * * *

  Olympio waited until Dr. Tovar had outpaced us for half a block before running ahead of me and turning back. “You really believe in vampires?”

  I sighed and ignored him. Of course it would lead to this. The cross was in my pocket now. If only all of me could fit so neatly into another place, hidden from here.

  “Is the Donkey Lady real?” he asked as a follow-up.

  “Who’s that?”

  “She’s a lady with a donkey head—if you’re under the train station bridge at night, she’ll come out and get you.”

  I concentrated on this instead of my current set of problems. “Why’s she got a donkey head? And where does she find hay to eat?”

  “She doesn’t eat hay—she eats little kids who believe in her. Which is why I don’t. I mean, I didn’t, but—” Realization dawned on him like the sun over a smooth ocean, full and bright. “Should I be? Is she real? Oh, if she’s real—”

  I held my hand up, and Olympio went silent. “Vampires are real. The Donkey Lady is likely not.”

  “Whoa.” He squinted at me. “How do you know?”

  We were almost to the station now, and crowds of people were getting off trains, walking home. The woman’s stall that I’d seen disrupted this morning was replaced by another stall, as if it’d never been there at all. And the pyramid of single rolls of toilet paper was almost gone. “I’m in a rush right now—lunch tomorrow? I’ll explain, okay?”

  He danced back and forth with frustration, but finally nodded. “Okay. Tomorrow. You promised. Don’t forget.”

  “I won’t,” I said, and dove into the exodus of people coming down the stairs so I could get up to catch the next train.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  After a shower and a drive, I was hauling a car full of groceries out at my mom’s. I’d brought her favorite kind of frozen pizza because I wasn’t a good cook.

  I rang on the doorbell and then tried the door and found it unlocked.

  “Honey, I’m home!” I called out as I wedged myself and my groceries inside. I had to go through the living room to get to the kitchen—I began waddling along, after kicking off my shoes, only to stop at the living room. “Oh. It’s you.”

  My brother sat on the couch, beside my mom. He gave a short wave. “Hey, sissy.”

  “Hey,” I said, flat. I’d been so worried about giving my mom MRSA that I’d gone home and showered first. And here was my homeless brother, with whatever germs he’d picked up on the streets, breathing her air with abandon.

  “I should have called to tell you Jake was here,” my mom said. “The meds make me forgetful.”

  She hadn’t called because she’d known that it would be like this between us, although I’d be disappointed if she thought that knowing he was here would make me leave. A dark part of me thought there’d be plenty of time to give him a piece of my mind after my mother died.

  I wanted to take that part of my mind out, stomp it to death, and then throw it through a high window.

  “Well, I brought Hawaiian pizza over. If I’d known he was here, I’d have brought some pepperoni along.”

  “Pineapple, ugh,” my brother said.

  At least I had that to hold over him.

  * * *

  Hating pineapple didn’t stop my brother from pulling it off the pizza and eating most of the slices. There wasn’t much to talk about at the table. No need to ask Jake how he was doing—the answer? Bad—or what was going on with me—same as the last time I’d seen her, when I’d first found things out. No need to tell my mom that I was hot on the vampire trail on her behalf, if me pressing things didn’t get me fired first.

  �
��So what’s up with your boyfriend, Edie?” Jake asked casually.

  I blinked. “Um—”

  “The guy from Christmas? Kevin?” he helpfully provided.

  “Nothing. We broke up.” “Kevin” had been my shapeshifter friend Asher, pretending to be my date so he could be nosy. He’d been a little more than a friend, if I were honest about things—but after the shun went into place, I’d had to leave him behind too.

  My mom reached out to pat my hand, bringing me back to the present. “That’s okay, honey. You’ll find someone who appreciates you someday.”

  I patted her hand back. “Thanks.”

  She gave me a wry smile. “You know I’d make an extra effort to live if I had grandkids on the way.”

  “Mom!” I protested.

  “What?”

  “You can’t say things like that. It’s not fair.”

  “Sorry, sorry, you’re right. I just always assumed I’d live that long. Now—” She didn’t finish her sentence, and she let the thoughts drift.

  I glared across the table at Jake. “I’m not the only one with reproductive organs here.”

  “Hey, remember that time you walked in on me and Debbie and yelled?” Jake said. I groaned, knowing where he was going with this. “I’m just saying, if you hadn’t interrupted us, Mom might have had her chance.”

  “Oh, God, don’t remind me.” I put my hand to my forehead as my mother laughed. Debbie had been my best friend in high school, until I’d found out she had the hots for my brother. “I’m permanently scarred by that, you know.” I turned toward my mother, who was still chuckling. “I thought you wanted us to be all celibate and stuff? You’re supposed to have my back on this.”

  Her expression melted from amused to sick, and her pallor changed from pale pink to yellow. She put a hand to her mouth, and rushed for the downstairs bathroom door.

  “What—look what you did, Edie.” Jake instantly blamed me. Old habits die hard.

  “I didn’t do anything.” I slowly stood. The sounds of my mother hurling in the other room began.

  Jake glanced back toward the bathroom, fearfully. He lived a rough life now, but I’m not sure if anything could prepare him for this. “If you didn’t stress her out so much, she’d have been fine,” he lashed out.

  “Me? Stress her out? The daughter with a real career? Who do you think she stays up at night crying over? Me, or you?” I stood up, ready to take it up with him once and for all. But he looked as scared as I knew I felt about Mom. The anger washed out of me. I was a nurse; when people were throwing up, I knew what to do. I turned and went into the bathroom with my mother and closed the door.

  * * *

  Here I was again, being the good kid, in a bathroom too small for two people at once. I couldn’t even kneel beside her, so I just sat on the patch of countertop by the sink and reached down to stroke the back of her head.

  Being the good kid never brings any rewards. A good life is its own reward, people tell you, and you in turn try to tell yourself that, but when you’re the good kid and someone else is the black sheep, and they get all the extra attention and energy—it’s hard not to be jealous of them.

  I waited until she was done, and we were both quiet. I took a washcloth from the cabinet over the toilet, got it wet with the faucet wedged beside my ass, and wrung it out to hand down to her.

  She took it and ran it across her face. “I hate being like this.”

  “I hate it too. The cancer,” I clarified, after a second’s extra thought. “I could stay in here with you puking all night. Not that I’d look forward to it, or anything.”

  She laughed and coughed, and handed the washcloth back up to me.

  “Isn’t there anything they can do?” My voice was smaller out loud than I thought it’d be, in my mind. Now that we were alone in here, no Peter, no Jake, I wanted my mommy to tell me everything was going to be all right. Even if it wasn’t.

  “I’m sorry to do this to you, Edie.” She gave me a bittersweet smile.

  “It’s not your fault or anything. I just want to be sure—”

  “I’m sure.” She looked around at our bathroom’s close walls. “I’m tired of being like this.”

  “The whole thing is so unfair.” She was supposed to be the one protecting a sick me. This role reversal felt wrong. “In my head, it only happens to grandparents. Not parents, you know?” She gave me a pointed look. “I’m not going to have a kid just because you have cancer, Mom. Sheesh. You’ll get one someday. You just have to survive this is all.”

  She gave me a weak smile. “I’ll try,” she said. For the first time, I realized I was being unfair. Telling people to survive terminal illnesses was kind of a dick move. Like telling addicts to just quit their habits already.

  “You just … do what you have to do,” I said, leaving things open-ended. She would do what she had to do, and I’d keep searching for something that could heal her. Really heal her, all the way.

  She sat on the bathroom floor now, her back against the wall, and reached up to put her hand on my knee. “You don’t even have to have a kid, Edie. Just promise me that you’ll be happy,” she said, and I nodded. I could do that. “And that you’ll try to look out for Jake.”

  That was easier said than done. I didn’t want to make promises I had no interest in keeping. Looking into her face, though, what else could I say? “I’ll try.” The same promise she’d made me. It was the only thing I could say that wouldn’t stick in my throat.

  “Thanks, honey,” my mom said. She opened the door and pulled herself upright by its handle. Leaning back in, she kissed my cheek with her sour stomach-acid breath and then walked out, leaving me alone.

  * * *

  After I’d said good night, I got into my car. First thing, I checked through my purse—which I’d unwisely left in the hallway alone while I’d been taking care of my mother—to make sure all my cash and ID were still there. They were. Maybe even the great and selfish Jake had been humbled into pure living by Mom’s cancer. Or, more likely, he’d already shaken down my mom for money before I’d gotten there, and she’d leniently given in.

  I drove home and got ready for bed. Today had been too long. I’d showered earlier, so all I had to do was brush my teeth and crawl under my sheets.

  I still took an Ambien. My body wasn’t used to switching to days yet, and if you could harness the power of sleep into a convenient pill form, you’d take it too, wouldn’t you? Especially if you didn’t want to lie there and think. None of the things I had to think about were good.

  * * *

  I was woken by a thump outside my door. A glance out the window proved it was still night—the middle of the night even. Full streetlight, no haziness of dawn. I closed my eyes. It was nothing, or a neighbor. Sleep had released me momentarily, but if I waited here quietly, it would retake hold.

  Another thump. And then a third. They weren’t knocks—definitely thumps. I reached for my phone. It was three A.M.

  I still felt bleary from the Ambien. People saw things on Ambien, and drove cars up telephone poles. Was this Ambien, or was it real?

  Another thump. I looked down, and Minnie was at the foot of my bed, standing up, looking into the hallway with concern. The sound was real. She leapt off the bed and dove underneath. That sealed it.

  I got up and went as quietly as I could to the door, which actually wasn’t very quiet as I stumbled along in my hall. Walking on Ambien was like walking on a boat. I didn’t have any windows out to the second-floor landing, just the peephole. I pressed my hands to the door and leaned forward.

  My outside light was on, casting something gray in shadow. The peephole’s refraction made it hard to see what was really there; it kept focusing in on individual parts instead of the whole. Or maybe that was just me, woken against my will, the Ambien refracting my vision. I concentrated, hard.

  Another thump, and I jumped back. Dammit. I still couldn’t see. And I didn’t dare open my door.

  There was a
whuffling sound of disgust, a massive indignant snort, the sort of thing you’d think a T. rex would do. And then one final angry thump, and the sound of something padding down the stairs.

  I assumed it was the last thump. It’d had that sort of pissed-off quality. But really, there was no way of knowing. I waited for a time, and neither the sound nor the creature came back.

  I made a short list of things that would be able to find me, cross-matched with things that looked like what I’d partly seen outside my door, and came up with an answer I didn’t like very much.

  Jorgen.

  Fuck me.

  On my way back to bed, I pulled my decorative silver cross off my wall.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It would have been easy for Jorgen to find me, no matter where I moved. He knew what I smelled like. He was a vampire’s Hound now—it was his job.

  He hadn’t started off as a Hound, though—he’d been a minor werewolf, a human bitten on a full moon night. This past winter he’d been involved in the same confrontation over vampire blood that’d gotten me shunned, and this was his punishment. He wasn’t a free wolf anymore. He couldn’t even go back to being human. Trapped as a Hound, he was enslaved to a particularly frightening vampire named Dren.

  And it was my fault he was a Hound now, if you went back far enough. I’d been the one who’d stopped his pack’s plan and destroyed all the extra supernatural blood. I had no idea what he wanted to see me for, but I couldn’t imagine any reason that was good.

  He was a piece of my old life, the one I was so foolishly, desperately trying to get back to. I pressed the cross to my chest and it chilled me through the fabric of my nightshirt.

  “Goddammit.” The reason I’d moved was so things like this wouldn’t happen to me. At least at this new place, I’d never given any vampires permission to come aboard.

  It was a good thing, though, right? If Jorgen wasn’t shunning me … what did that mean for me? Did it mean I was allowed to talk to vampires and other supernatural creatures now, and they to me? Or was I in trouble for refusing to accept my shunning? Was his visit a punishment, or a warning? If Jorgen was here—could Dren be far behind?