Night Shifters

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  If he could find his clothes, he would know what had happened, but right now he only had a memory of fear—of fleeing. And then nothing at all until he’d come to himself in that parking lot, with Kyrie staring at him and the bloodied corpse at his feet.

  They’d reached the landing on the third floor and he lurched to Keith’s door on the left, and pushed the doorbell. Despite his having called, he didn’t expect a fast response and didn’t get it. From inside came Keith’s voice and a higher, clearly female voice, and then the sound of footsteps, something falling, more footsteps.

  Tom smiled despite himself, guessing that Keith had still been explaining to his visitor why the doorbell had rung from downstairs, when it rang again up here.

  When the door opened, Keith looked disheveled and sleepy. He was a young kid—although to be honest he might be older than Tom. Tom just perceived him as much younger than himself—perhaps because Keith didn’t shift. Keith was blond and generally good-looking. Right then, he was blinking, his blue eyes displaying the curiously naked look of the eyes of people who normally wore glasses and suddenly found themselves without.

  His hair was a mess and he looked confused, but he was grinning as he handed Tom a set of keys. Though the student held the door almost closed, Tom glimpsed a redheaded girl behind Keith. He felt a little envious. It had been years since he’d even dreamed of sharing his bed with anyone. He could never guarantee he wouldn’t shift and scare a date halfway to death. Or worse.

  Then he realized Keith was looking enviously at him. Tom followed the direction of Keith’s gaze, and saw Kyrie standing just behind him, hands on hips, as though daring Keith to make a comment. And Tom felt at the same time ridiculously pleased that Keith thought he could be involved with someone like Kyrie and a little jealous of Keith’s admiration for her. Keith didn’t even know her. He didn’t even know who she was. He didn’t know that she shifted as well.

  “Thanks,” Tom said, a little more dryly than he should. He snatched the key from Keith’s hand and started up the stairs at a faster clip than he should, considering how he felt.

  Keith grinned. “No problem. But I have to go back. This girl is something else. She swears she saw a dragon flying over the building. A dragon.” He shook his head.

  A dragon. Tom managed a noncommittal sound of empathy. Probably Tom. But Tom didn’t dare ask questions about what he’d been doing or what direction he’d been flying. Instead, he turned and started up the stairs. Up and up and up, to his fifth-floor landing, Kyrie’s steady gait keeping pace with his.

  His door was … locked. He let out a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding in. After all, he did not know how or when he’d shifted and all he had was the memory of fear, of running away. It was possible they had found him in his apartment. It was possible … If they’d figured out his name, and they must have by now, it would have been easy.

  But the door was locked, his doormat looked untouched. Everything was as it should be. No light came under his door. Everything was normal at least to human senses and he didn’t want to use his dragon senses. He didn’t want to reach for that other self, for fear it would bring them. And for fear of what he might do. He swallowed hard, thinking of the corpse.

  There could be nothing odd in his apartment. The only reason his hand trembled was because of his being so tired. And the corpse and everything.

  He slid the key in and turned it.

  In the moment before Tom opened the door Kyrie had a wild surge of panic. She wanted to tell him to wait, but she couldn’t speak. And she didn’t know why he should wait. She just had a feeling—added up from rustling, from sounds she could not possibly have heard, from an odd smell, from a weird tingle up her spine—that something was wrong, very wrong.

  Perhaps Tom was going to drag her into his apartment and— And what? Imagination failed her. She had seen him in that bathroom, so slow and confused he didn’t even seem to know how to wipe away blood from himself. She had seen him standing there, helpless. She could hardly believe he would now turn around and rape her.

  On the other hand, didn’t they sacrifice virgins to dragons in the Middle Ages? She almost smiled at the thought of Tom as virgin-despoiler. The way he looked, he’d have trouble beating away the ones who threw themselves at him. Kyrie managed to calm herself completely, when Tom reached in and turned on the light.

  The light revealed an unprepossessing living room, with the type of dark brown carpet that landlords slapped down when they didn’t expect to rent to the upper echelons of society. But the rest …

  The furniture, what there was of it—splinters of bookcase, remnants of couches with ugly brown polyester covering—seemed to have been piled up in the middle of the room as if someone had been getting ready to light a bonfire. And the window—the huge picture window opposite—was broken. A thousand splinters littered the carpet. Books and pieces of books fluttered all over.

  Tom made a sound of distress and stepped into the room, and Kyrie stepped in behind him. He knelt by a pile of something on the carpet, and Kyrie focused on it, noticing shreds of denim, and what might or might once have been a white T-shirt. And over it all, a torn purple rag, with the Athens logo. The Athens sent the aprons home with the employees to get laundered at employee expense.

  That meant that Tom had been ready to go to work when … The tingle in her spine grew stronger and the feeling that something was wrong, very wrong overwhelmed her. It was like a scream both soundless and so loud that it took over her whole thought, overcame her whole mind, reverberated from her whole being.

  “Tom,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Tom, we’d best—”

  She never had time to finish. Someone or something, moving soundlessly behind them, had closed the door.

  Kyrie heard the bolt slide home and turned, skin prickling, hair standing on end, to stare openmouthed at three men who stood between them and the door.

  Men was dignifying them with a name they didn’t quite deserve. They were boys, maybe nineteen or twenty, just at the edge of manhood.Asian, dressed all in black, they clearly had watched one too many ninja movies. The middle one wore exquisitely groomed, slightly too long hair, the bangs arranged so they fell to perfection and didn’t move. He must have spent a fortune on product.

  The ones on either side were not so stylishly groomed, but one sported a tattoo of a Chinese letter in the middle of his forehead, while the other had a tattoo of a red dragon on the back of each hand—clearly visible as he was clenching his fists and holding them up in a gesture more reminiscent of boxing than karate.

  The far one shouted something, and Kyrie grabbed hold of Tom’s arm, and shoved him behind her. He was acting like a wooden puppet again.

  The pretty boy in the middle laughed and said something—Kyrie presumed in Chinese—to his friend. Then added in English, “He only speaks English.” But when he turned to Tom all traces of laughter had vanished from his expression, as he said, “You know what we want. You foiled the first fool who came looking, but, you see, we returned for you. Now give it to us, and we might not kill you or your pretty girlfriend.”

  Pretty girlfriend? Kyrie registered as if from a long way away that they were talking about her. Truth was, very few people ever had called her pretty. She was too … striking, and proud to be called that. Also at some level people must always have sensed what she was, because since she’d turned fifteen and the panther had made its first appearance, few men had made taunting comments in her presence. Hell, few men even addressed her in any way.

  But if there was an instinct for self-protection, this trio was lacking it. The little one with the two dragons on the backs of his hands started laughing.

  At least, he threw his head back and Kyrie thought he was laughing, a high-pitched, hysterical laughter. And then she realized what the laughter really was as his outlines blurred and he started to shift. Wings, and curving neck. All of it in lovely tones of red and gold, like all those Chinese paintings. But the feature
s—which in paintings had always made Kyrie think of a naughty cat—looked malevolent. He hissed, between lips wholly unprepared for speech, “Give us the pearl.”

  Pearl? A pearl seemed like a very odd thing for Tom to steal. Was it some form of drug? Kyrie glanced behind her, to see Tom shaking his head violently. The fact that he was the approximate color of curdled milk, his normally pale skin looking downright unhealthy and grey, did not reassure her that by his shaking his head he meant he’d never heard of such a thing as a pearl.

  “Tom?” she said.

  He only shook his head again.

  “Right,” the middle one said. “You want to play rough, rough it is.”

  And suddenly a golden dragon took up most of the small brown room. And there were claws reaching for Kyrie. No. Talons. And someone’s fangs were close to her face, a smell like a thousand long-forgotten sushi dinners invading her nostrils. A forked tongue licked her ear and through the lips not fashioned for speech, through the accent that he showed even in English, she nonetheless understood the young man’s words as he said, “We’re going to have so much fun.”

  She’d never shifted when she was scared. The few times she’d shifted it had been just the moon and usually summer calling to her, the feeling of jungle in her mind, at the back of her brain.

  But as her fear closed upon her throat, making breathing almost impossible, as her heart pounded seemingly in her ears, as her blood seemed to race away from her leaving her cold as ice, she felt something …

  She wasn’t sure what was happening until she heard the growl erupt from her throat. A full growl, fashioned from melodies of the jungle.

  Lizards. Uppity lizards, at that. They dared challenge her? Try to grab her?

  Turning around, she swiped a giant paw across the tender underflesh of a clawed foot holding her. And then she leapt for the throat of the giant beast who was trying to claw her down.

  It was—the part of her that remained human, deep in the mists of consciousness thought—like the armada and the English ships. The Spanish armada’s huge, slow ships might be stronger and better armored. But they had no hope against the small English ships that could sail around them, landing shots where they wished till the giant ship was crippled.

  Kyrie grabbed the beast by the throat, hanging on, till she tasted blood—and what blood. It was like drinking the finest champagne straight from the bottle.

  The beast yelled and reached for her with its claws. It managed to scrape her flank, in a bright slash of pain. But she jumped out of the way before the creature could grab her, and she was on top of his head, as both his friends converged, trying to grab her. And she leapt at the soft underbelly of the red one—Red Dragon, the human Kyrie thought—in a mad dance of claws sinking into soft, unarmored flesh.

  And then up again, and leaping at the eye of the next dragon.

  That there were three of them was not an advantage. After all, three large, slower-moving beings only helped each other get hopelessly entangled while Kyrie danced upon them like a deadly firefly, in a frenzy of wounding, a joy of blood.

  She was vaguely aware that she too was bleeding, that there were punctures on her hide and that, somehow, one of them had managed to sink his fangs into her front leg—her right arm. But she didn’t care. Right then, allowed the madness she’d long denied, she jumped at the dragon’s eyes, swiping her claws across them and relishing the dragon’s shriek of pain, the bright blood jumping from the right eye. She jumped and leapt, possessed of fierce anger, of maddened, repressed rage.

  But while the beast exulted in the carnage, while the feline gyrated in mayhem, a small trickling feeling formed at the back of Kyrie’s mind. It was like the first melting tip of an icicle, dropping cold reason on her hot madness. The feeling, at first, was no more than that—just a trickling cold, protesting, demanding—she wasn’t sure what. The beast, in its frenzy, ignored it.

  Until slowly, slowly, the feeling became words and the words became panic in Kyrie’s mind. She was fighting all three dragons. She was keeping all three dragons at bay—just. But there were three of them, there was one of her, and the beast’s muscles were starting to hurt and … How could she get out of here?

  There was no way of reaching the door. All the dragons were between her and the door and none of her sorties had brought her close to escaping.

  Blood in her nostrils, mad fury in the beast’s brain, what remained of the human Kyrie tried to think and came up with nothing but an insistent, white surge of panic. And she couldn’t let it slow her down. She couldn’t. If she did, all would be lost. But she couldn’t fight forever.

  In a twirl, claws sinking into the nearest dragon’s hide, she thought of Tom. But the corner into which he’d shrunk when she’d shifted was vacant.

  The coward had run out the door behind her back, hadn’t he?

  She felt a horrible sense of betrayal, a letdown at this, and her extended paw faltered, and the dragon above her reared.

  It was the center dragon—who in human form had artificially smooth and immovable hair. In dragon form he had a tall crest, red and gold. Well, it had been red and gold, it was now much darker red in spots, thanks to Kyrie’s claws. And blood ran down its cheek from one of its eyes. But the other eye was unblinking fixed hatred as it opened its jaws wide, wide, fangs glistening.

  Kyrie needed to jump. She needed to. But her muscles felt powerless, spent. Stretched elastic that would not spring again.

  So this is how it ends …

  The big head descended to devour her, teeth ready to break her neck. And a taloned paw grabbed her roughly around the middle, swept her back.

  She turned. She turned with her remnant of strength, her very last drop of fury, to snarl at the dragon behind her.

  She snarled at him, Tom thought—amazed he could think clearly in dragon form. He’d willed himself into being a dragon. Willed himself into it.

  He desired it and pushed. He knew she was going to have problems leaving. He knew she couldn’t fly.

  And he knew she was an idiot for even fighting. They had no chance. But then, neither could he leave her to die alone. She had taken care of him, when she’d found him in suspicious circumstances. She’d shown him more kindness than his own father had. And she was a shifter like him. They were family: bonded deeper than any shared genes, any joint upbringing.

  He shifted suddenly, unexpectedly, leaping in the air, and out of his corner so quickly the other dragons didn’t seem to register it. He had only the time to see that she was cowering, that the dragon above her would finish her. And then he was reaching for her, grabbing her, jumping out the open window, even as she turned to snarl at him.

  But the snarl—lip pulled back from vicious fangs—faltered as she recognized him.

  He held her as gently and firmly as he could. He mustn’t drop her. But neither must he hurt her. He could smell blood from her. He could smell fear.

  He unfurled his wings—huge parachutes. Above him, the other dragons hadn’t appeared yet. Perhaps she’d done more damage than he’d thought. Perhaps they had a few minutes. A very few minutes.

  Down in the parking lot, her car was a small abandoned toy. Her keys would be in his apartment, he thought, and shook his huge head, amazed at the clarity of the human thought in beast form. Normally he didn’t even remember what he’d done as a dragon. Perhaps because he was responsible for another? He’d never been responsible for anyone but himself.

  But they must run. They must get out of here very fast. And as beasts, he could not explain to her what danger they were in. He couldn’t even think, clearly think, of where to run.

  The dragon wished to crawl under a rock, preferably by a river, and hide.

  But Goldport was not so big on rivers. There was Panner’s Creek, which in the summer became a mere trickle winding amid sun-parched boulders.

  He flew her down to the parking lot, slowly, landed by the car, and wished to shift. He didn’t dare reach for the strength of the talisman t
o allow himself to shift. No. The dragons would sense that.

  Instead, setting Kyrie down carefully, he willed himself to shift. He thought himself human, and shivered, as his body spasmed in painful change.

  He was naked. Naked, sitting on the warm asphalt of the parking lot, next to Kyrie’s car and a panther. No. Next to Kyrie. In the next minute, she also shifted, and appeared as a naked, bloodied young woman, lying on the pavement next to him.

  “The car,” he rasped at her, his voice hesitant, difficult, like a long-neglected instrument. “We must leave. Soon. They will pursue.”

  She looked at him with confused, tired eyes. Her chin was scratched, and there was too much blood on her everywhere. He wondered how much of it was hers. Did they need to go to the hospital? They healed very quickly. At least Tom did. But what if these wounds were too serious? How could they go to the hospital? How could they explain anything?

  “I don’t have keys,” she said, and patted her hips as though looking for keys in pockets that were no longer there.

  Tom nodded. He got up, feeling about a hundred years old after two shifts in such a short time. His legs hurt, as did his arms, and his whole body felt as though someone had belabored him with sticks.

  But he was human now and he could think. He remembered.

  One eye on the window of his apartment, wondering how long he had, he said, “I’m sorry. I’ll pay.” Then he grabbed one of the stones on the flower bed nearby—a stone-bed, to tell the truth, since he’d never seen flowers there. He smashed the window with the stone, reached in, unlocked the door.

  Sweeping the crumbs of glass from the seat, he smashed the key holder, reached down to the floor, and grabbed a screwdriver he’d noticed there while Kyrie was driving him. “Remembered you had this here,” he said, turning to see her bewildered expression as her car started. And then, “Get in. I’ll pay for the damage. Just get in.”