Night Shift

by Charlaine Harris

  When she woke up, it was dark outside.

  Fiji felt almost normal. She started to get up, but then she realized someone else was in the room. “Lemuel?” she said, almost certain she could smell him.

  “Fiji,” Lemuel said from the shadows. “I’m here to thank you.”

  “I was glad to be able to do something,” she said. She wasn’t quite sure what to say next. “Thanks for being here,” she tried.

  “And yet I wasn’t able to be there early today when you saved Olivia, my wife.”

  “We wished you were awake,” Fiji said. “We were afraid we would lose her.”

  “You protected her with your body, and you killed the man responsible.”

  “Yes,” Fiji said bleakly. “I killed him.”

  “You’re not sorry you saved Olivia?”

  “No, of course not. He was about to shoot again—me or her. I had to do it. But it doesn’t sit real well.”

  “I can remember once I felt that way,” Lemuel said after a moment.

  He came closer, perched on the edge of the bed. He took her hand. His was very cold.

  “Fiji, you are a young woman. You haven’t seen a lot of life. I don’t want this for you, to have to kill. And I wish I could say this is the only time you’ll have to step up to defend this town and its people. But how can I know that?”

  “How did Aunt Mildred handle it?”

  “She was a pip,” Lemuel said unexpectedly. Fiji choked back a laugh.

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “Mildred was one of a kind,” he said. “She was sarcastic and downright, and she said what she thought. People were a little afraid of her, and they respected her.”

  “I liked her a lot,” she said. “Aunt Mildred had a sense of humor.”

  “She kept it well hidden,” Lemuel said dryly. “And she looked forward to seeing you every year, when your family would visit.”

  “I don’t remember meeting you, those summers.”

  “I wasn’t supposed to exist, when you were a child. When you were a teenager, Mildred was afeared meeting a vampire would be so exciting that you’d tell your parents. They wouldn’t have let you return.”

  “You think I’ll get arrested?” she said. It didn’t seem likely to her, but she wanted another opinion.

  “No. The medical examiner will say the old man had a heart attack or stroke or something. The coroner would never say, ‘I think a witch killed him with magic.’ Am I right?”

  She nodded, smiling just a little.

  “I am more worried about what will happen to Olivia. Surely her true name will be known now, and her father will try to make amends to her. She never wanted to see him again.”

  Fiji thought of Teacher charging down the sidewalk with the shotgun. “At least now we know the Reeds weren’t on the side of the gunmen,” she said. “But when I feel a little better, I’m going to have to understand Olivia’s past.”

  “We’ll tell you,” Lemuel said. “Sleep now, friend. I’m going to Olivia.”

  And before too long, Fiji did fall asleep again.

  31

  After a long internal debate, Manfred drove to a little bakery in Davy and bought two croissants and two muffins for Fiji. He did not try to pretend he’d made baked goods for her. He took the box to Fiji’s. The front door still had the CLOSED sign up, so he went around back and knocked quietly, as befitted the house of an invalid.

  “Come in,” Fiji called, and he opened the door to see her sitting at her kitchen table. There were big circles under her eyes and her skin looked as if someone had erased all her color.

  “Feej, you look like something the cat dragged in,” Manfred said, and then cursed himself, especially when he heard a raspy laugh coming from under the table where Mr. Snuggly was sitting.

  “I know,” she said. “I got all drained, Manfred. But I feel better today, and I know I’ll be up to the ceremony on Saturday. I hope I’ll be able to help prepare.”

  “Tomorrow, Quinn and Diederik will go over the circle with salt and hawthorn ash. The Rev got the ash done.”

  “Sounds good.”

  They both looked away, embarrassed. Neither of them wanted to talk about the public sex. What was there to say?

  “Here,” said Manfred, putting the box down in front of her as though that would erase all awkwardness. “You’re always cooking for us. So I went and got you something.” He shrugged. “I thought about making them myself. You’re lucky there’s a bakery!”

  “Please, have a seat,” she said. “Get a cup of coffee, if you want. Or I have tea.” Fiji had recently invested in a Keurig and was happy with its versatility.

  “Thanks,” he said, and happily made himself a cup of tea and Fiji some coffee. He also accepted a croissant after Fiji had said firmly that she absolutely could not eat two croissants and two muffins. Somehow the butter dish appeared between them, with a knife, and two little plates, though Manfred did not notice how that had happened. After a moment, he realized Fiji had set the table, though he’d come over determined she would not have to stir a finger.

  Guiltily, Manfred asked her if he could feed Mr. Snuggly for her. He was relieved when she nodded. He also went out to check her mailbox and to bring in her newspaper, and he put the dishes in the sink. He felt better about himself after that.

  By the time Manfred left, he thought Fiji was looking a little healthier. She told him she was going to shower and dress and open the shop. He remembered to ask her if there was anything else he could help her with before he left, and she thanked him again for the breakfast.

  Manfred left feeling pretty good about himself for helping Fiji, though he didn’t realize he’d left the pastry box in the middle of the table, the dishes undone, and the butter out of the refrigerator.

  * * *

  Fiji found it made her feel more like normal to do some cleaning up, though she was moving slowly. She still felt a bit weak, though not as much as the day before. Moving at a snail’s pace, but steadily, she pulled off her nightgown and got into the shower, which truly felt like heaven. It was crisply chill outdoors, and she turned the hot water on hotter. When she was very clean she turned it off and toweled herself with as much vigor as she could summon.

  Fiji decided not to make any decisions this morning. She pulled on the first pair of jeans her hands encountered in the closet, the first sweater in the drawer. The first pair of sneakers she saw in her closet. The first pair of socks her hand lit on. Fiji was not terribly clothes-conscious, but selecting things at random according to convenience was a new level of carelessness. It was liberating.

  To complete the pattern, she put on the first pair of earrings she touched (eyes shut) in her jewelry box.

  As Fiji turned the sign to read OPEN, she was feeling pretty darn good about herself.

  It would have lasted, too, if her first customer hadn’t been one of the few people Fiji truly disliked, one of the women who sometimes came to her Thursday night class of witch wannabes.

  When she wasn’t behind the counter at the Walgreens in Davy, Willeen Elliott dressed in ensembles she imagined made her look authentically Wiccan and therefore interesting. Today, Willeen was wearing a peasant blouse, a voluminous skirt, and a dramatic shawl that encircled her and was tossed over one shoulder. Since Fiji had cancelled that night’s meeting, Willeen had come to tell Fiji her theory about the suicides.

  “We got to get our little group together,” she said, as if no other conclusion was possible. “We got to stop them by working magic at the crossroad.” It was amazing to Fiji how close to the truth Willeen had gotten for entirely the wrong reasons. Willeen explained her plan at length and scolded Fiji for not stopping the suicides on the spot.

  Amazingly, Willeen hadn’t heard of the shooting the day before, which was an unexpected ray of sunshine. Fiji certainly wasn’t going t
o bring it up.

  “You just don’t have any get-up-and-go,” Willeen said, snorting. “Fiji, you live right here on the spot where all this hellish activity is going on, and you have yet to cast a spell or say an incantation.”

  Fiji didn’t think she had to defend herself. Willeen was hardly entitled to know the whole story of what was happening in Midnight. But at the accusation that she had done nothing, Fiji had to respond.

  “I live here, and I think I do know what’s going on,” she said with some heat. In fact, she stood up behind the counter, her chair almost bouncing with the suddenness of her shift. Willeen took a step back.

  The woman actually bridled. Now Fiji knew exactly what writers meant when they said that. “When are you going to do something about it?” Willeen demanded.

  “You don’t know what I’ve done,” Fiji said, exasperated. “For all you know, I could have a cauldron of wizard lips and bunny tails simmering on the stove.”

  Willeen looked very startled and actually made a move toward the hall door, but Fiji said, “That’s private, Willeen.”

  “Are you really doing something?”

  Fiji nodded.

  “Are you facing the powers of evil?”

  Willeen was incurably dramatic. She had rescripted her life to resemble a daytime drama.

  “Yes,” Fiji said on impulse. “I am.”

  Willeen gaped. “Really? Do you . . . need my help, at all?”

  It was brave of Willeen to ask, really, but Fiji didn’t want to torment the woman. “It’s being taken care of,” she whispered with great significance.

  Willeen was delighted and frightened, all at the same time. “Goddess be praised,” she breathed, though if Fiji was any judge Willeen didn’t have any conception of what goddess she meant.

  Fiji rang up the tarot deck and the mystical greeting cards Willeen had picked out. At least Willeen always purchased something. But she just buys things so she can carry around her purchases in an Inquiring Mind gift bag, so someone will ask her what kind of shop it is, Fiji thought. She gave Willeen a courteous nod as she handed over the bag with the charge slip inside.

  Willeen nodded back very seriously, as if they shared some great and portentous secret. She departed in a flutter of skirt and after a complete redraping of the shawl.

  Fiji collapsed back into the rolling chair behind the counter. She wondered if it would be so very bad if she had two grilled cheese sandwiches with her soup at lunch. If I’m thinking about food, I must be getting over being a killer, she thought.

  Mr. Snuggly gathered himself and jumped up onto the low work area below the counter. “I have been over to see the Rev,” the cat said. “He has prayed for that man’s soul. So don’t worry any more about him.”

  It was just weird how the cat often divined her moods and the subject of her thoughts. Of course, he was supposed to be her familiar, but Mr. Snuggly seemed more familiar with his own wants than with how to help her do witchcraft.

  “How did my aunt get you to actually do some work?” Fiji asked.

  “That is a . . . tactless way to put it,” the cat said stiffly.

  “I was just wondering. I know you were her familiar, but how did that relationship work? That’s a more accurate question, right? Now you’re mine, but I haven’t seen you do anything that was familiar-like.”

  “Mildred picked me out as a kitten,” he said. “I was adorable, of course, and she knew I was special.”

  “Did she?” Fiji was far more interested than she would have been under other circumstances. “Were there any other kittens in your litter that could have been, ah, special cats like you?”

  “I had an excellent mother and five siblings,” Mr. Snuggly said rather stiffly. “They were very striking, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “So when Mildred came to see us—we were born under the church, you know—”

  “I did not know that.”

  “We were! The Rev was most kind. He put food and water out for my mother so she wouldn’t have to leave us for long periods of time, and he found us homes.”

  “Ahhhhhh . . . I don’t suppose any of your siblings could talk?”

  The cat glared at Fiji. “Of course not. Though they were all delightful.”

  “I’m sure they were. Could you always talk? From birth?”

  “No,” Mr. Snuggly said, in a tone best described as “frosty.” “I only discovered this ability when I was several months old and living here.”

  “I wonder if you would have talked if you’d lived with someone other than Aunt Mildred?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. He jumped down and walked away. She could hear his voice trailing away as he went down the hall, and she stood to look after him. “Come to give a little comfort, and she asks about my family. My family! As if they could help being good, honest, plain cats . . .”

  Impulsively, Fiji called, “How come you were under the car?”

  The cat looked at her over his shoulder. “I was there because you needed a focus point. You needed to give him the biggest dose of bad you could, and my proximity helped. And that is what a familiar does.”

  “So how did he die?”

  “You took his air,” Mr. Snuggly said. “You pulled it all out of him. Felt like a tiny storm in there.”

  “I took his air,” she said, trying to really understand it. “I held out my hand at him, and I took his air.”

  The cat nodded. “You did. And more power to you. He was a bad old bugger.”

  32

  The day following the death of Ellery McGuire, the Reeds were afraid to come out of their trailer. “We’re in the open now,” Teacher said. “I went down there with a shotgun when McGuire showed up. They know Melanie’s dad hired me.”

  “Olivia,” Madonna corrected him. “We’ve called her Olivia for two years; we might as well keep on going.”

  “Mama play?” Grady asked, bringing her one of his puzzles.

  “Sure, honey,” Madonna said, sitting on the floor with him. Since this was not her usual answer, Grady was delighted. His broad smile was so happy that Madonna had to smile back. “We may have a lot of time to play, little man,” she told Grady. She dumped the puzzle pieces out between them and said, “You put one in first.”

  The puzzle was big and wooden, and Grady’s little hands fumbled a bit, but he put the boat in the boat-shaped cutout, and Teacher clapped. “You’re smart, Grady,” he said, and bent to kiss the child on the head.

  “We may need Grady to get us out of this mess,” Madonna said. “It’s good that one of us is smart. We got to make a living, and since we weren’t open yesterday . . .”

  There was a knock on the trailer door, which was such a rare occurrence that both the Reeds started. Madonna held out her hand to Teacher, who pulled her up off the floor easily. They faced the door.

  “I have to answer it,” Teacher said finally.

  “All right,” Madonna whispered. She opened a cabinet that was above Grady’s height and pulled out a Sig Sauer P220. “I’m ready.”

  Teacher grabbed up Grady and went to the door. He took a deep breath and opened it from the side, awkwardly. He didn’t want to block Madonna’s line of fire.

  Joe stood on the steps. His face was calm, and his hands were clasped in front of him. Madonna’s gun hand fell to her side without her willing it to do so.

  “We’re cool,” Joe said. He nodded, to show that was his entire message. Then he left.

  “This town,” Madonna said when Joe was out of hearing. “This damn town!”

  “At least we know,” Teacher said, more philosophically. “Couldn’t ask for more straightforward than that.”

  “You’re sure he means it?” Madonna returned the Sig Sauer to its hiding place.

  “Yes,” Teacher said, not even taking a moment to think it ove
r. “That was Joe, and he speaks the truth.”

  “I’ve never lived in a place like this,” Madonna said, shaking her head. She took Grady from Teacher and nuzzled his neck. “Mama loves you, little man.”

  “Mama,” Grady said, and patted her on the cheek. “Play.”

  Mama did play with Grady for twenty minutes, and then she decided to open the diner for dinner, at least. Teacher said he’d help, since she’d told the local boy who bussed for her to take the day off. Madonna was glad she hadn’t given Lenore Whitefield an answer about making the nightly meals for the resident old folks in the hotel, because she would have had to scramble to get anything prepared in time.

  The little Reed family walked over to Home Cookin, and Madonna felt much better when she began food preparations. She was a woman of many talents, but this was the one that made her happy.

  Teacher’s cell phone rang as he was setting the tables. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the caller. “It’s the man,” he called to his wife, and answered the phone in a completely different voice.

  “Yessir.” He listened. Then he spoke. “She’s going to be fine. I bribed an orderly to listen and look. Two more days in the hospital, maybe. Then home.” He listened some more.

  “No, I don’t think you ought to come, Mr. Wicklow,” he said, trying not to sound horrified by the idea. “Her next of kin now is her husband. He might not want you to see her. You’re the boss; you’ll do what you want, of course. But if you wait until she gets out of the hospital . . . all right, then, good-bye.”

  “How’s Wicklow handling the situation?” Madonna said, popping her head out of the kitchen. Her husband was putting his phone away, and he looked relieved.

  “He’s plenty worried about her. But now that McGuire is dead and Olivia’s out of danger, I think he’s scared of actually facing her again. And maybe the old man doesn’t really want to know what Olivia does to make her money.”

  Madonna shrugged. “Girl’s got to keep alive.”

  “I think everybody in Midnight knows Olivia’s business. Everybody but us,” her husband said bitterly. “And that would be a good thing to know. He’d be sure we were on the job. We just can’t get anyone in this town to talk to us.”