Nightshifted es-1

by Cassie Alexander

  “Howdy,” he responded, and then reached up to thump the yellow IV “banana bag” hanging over the head of his bed. “I don’t suppose this is beer?”

  “Vitamins, not Thunderbird. Sorry, Mr. Galeman.” I took the stethoscope off its hanger. “I’m going to listen to your lungs now—”

  “Please.” He flipped the sheets off his bed, revealing a barrel torso with scrawny legs beneath. I saw a plastic comb tucked into his sock, and bit my lip. He’d either been in prison or homeless. Maybe both. Only time spent without notable possessions or reliable pockets led to sock-carrying items. But he was too tan to have done time recently anywhere in our frigid state.

  “Where do you live, Mr. Galeman?”

  “Everyone calls me Gale,” he said, closing his eyes and leaning back into his bed as I pressed the stethoscope to his chest. I listened to him breathe, raspy and wet, the sound of years of smoking mixed with inclement weather.

  “Where do they call you that?” I asked when I was through.

  “At the Armory.”

  I knew about the Armory. It was Jake’s home away from home. “Did someone tell you what happened to you?”

  “Yeah. A rabid cat got me.” He shook his head in disbelief.

  I feigned astonishment. “Really? Did you see it?”

  “Well, it looked like a little girl. A cold little girl.”

  I bit my lip to keep from showing any expression, and he continued, his voice slightly slurred. “But I drink a lot, sometimes. I hit Wally over the head one night, I thought he was a demon, and when I woke up, he weren’t one. So it must have been a cat that looked like a little girl.” He shrugged, as if this sort of thing happened often. Even without the Shadows interfering, as I was sure they’d do if we released him, he’d eventually think it was a cat. It would be just another example of the enormously bad luck (though it’d have nothing to do with the booze, of course not, not that, just like for Jake his fall never had anything, ever, to do with his heroin) he’d had his entire life that’d brought him to this state.

  He’d never believe it was a nearly hundred-year-old, but nine-year-old-looking, vampire.

  I finished my assessment with polite detachment, feeling for pulses, inspecting IV sites for signs of infiltration. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he wiped it away with one hand before shivering.

  “Want some warm blankets?” I asked, not wanting to get into the classic signs of alcohol withdrawal with him. He was already getting sixty milligrams of Valium every six hours. Nothing else I could do.

  “Sounds good,” he said, and nodded.

  I retrieved a stack of warm blankets and returned. “You ain’t got nothing to drink here?” he asked as I unfurled them. “Nothing at all?”

  I shook my head. If they’d given him a choice between death due to blood loss on the street versus being here with no booze … I could guess which one he’d have actually picked. Or at least which choice he’d be picking two days from now. “Not a drop, Mr. Galeman, not a drop.”

  “Hmph.” His left and IV-less hand found the pressure dressing at his neck. “Sure was a pretty cat, though.”

  I kept a compassionate smile pasted firmly on my face. “I’m sure it was.”

  * * *

  I backed out of the room and waved at Meaty. “Bathroom break!”

  Meaty nodded, and I made my escape from the floor to the locker room, hauling my phone out from my purse and dialing Jake as soon as the locker door closed behind me.

  “Pick up, pick up, pick up…” Sure, Y4 could protect my brother from the ravages of heroin. But what if he was bleeding out in a gutter somewhere?

  The dial tone stuttered, and I expected a disconnect—cell phone signals wherever Y4 was was spotty—then heard “Yahlo?” from a sleep-filled voice.

  “Jake?” I blurted. “You okay?”

  “Sissy? Sissy—Jesus, Sissy, yes, I’m fine.”

  “Really?” I asked. What else could I ask him? Check yourself for puncture marks, you sure no one’s bitten you lately? Seen any rabid cats?

  “Sissy—what time is it?—of course I’m fine.” I could hear him waking up as he spoke, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Everyone else’s turned in for the night. You know they close the doors at eight P.M.”

  I knew he’d be one of the many men in a cot-lined room. Had Mr. Galeman been in the Armory when he’d been bitten? Or outside of it, only to come in later and collapse from the cold?

  What did it matter, anyhow, now that Anna’d been kidnapped?

  “I just wanted to make sure you were safe, Jake, was all. It’s going to be cold tonight.”

  “It’s always cold at night in the winter,” he retorted. “Lemme guess, you’re treating some junkie right now, nearly OD’d, and you’ve got a case of the conscience?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, I’m fine, Sissy. I appreciate you checking up on me, but it’s not necessary, really.” His voice dropped even lower. “I’m still superman.”

  I sat down on the changing bench in Y4’s small locker room. “Yeah.”

  “K. I gotta sleep some. Eight A.M. comes up fast, you know?”

  “Yeah.” I’d be in front of a vampire lawyer by eight A.M. It did seem to be coming on quickly. “Love you, Jake.”

  “You too, Sissy,” he said, and hung up.

  * * *

  I went into the bathroom and flushed the toilet once for pretense, and then I looked at the sink with its faucet. I turned both hot and cold on.

  Where are you, Anna? I thought. I concentrated on the water, the sound of it, watching it swirl down, trying to do whatever it was I’d done before that’d mesmerized myself last time. Come on, Anna, come on.

  Someone tried the locked door behind me, and I heard a muffled, “Sorry!”

  Dammit. “It’s okay,” I said, even though it wasn’t. I dried my hands off and went back to the floor.

  Chapter Thirty

  “So what’ll they do for Mr. Galeman?” I asked Meaty when I returned.

  “Paul will get him to sign some paperwork in the morning. He’ll make some calls—we have to report the bite to the Thrones, after all. Either they’ve got someone in from out of town who doesn’t know the rules, or they’ve got someone on their team who isn’t playing by them.”

  I’d figured those parts out already. “But what’ll really happen to him?”

  “He’ll be a registered donor, once we find out who to register him to. Or we’ll keep him here till he heals up, and the Shadows’ll fix him before he leaves.” Meaty indicated this fixing by rubbing fingers and thumbs together industriously, then squinted at me. “He’s not in thrall to the vampire, if that’s what you mean.”

  “No, I was just curious. Thanks.” I didn’t envy anyone a Shadow “fixing.” I looked down at the floor, at the narrow shadow cast by the nursing station’s ledge, and thought that I could see them there, dark and swirling, just waiting for a chance to be set free. I shivered, much as Mr. Galeman had, then I gathered myself and my thoughts. I still had one patient left.

  I remembered to knock before opening Ti’s door for once.

  “Come in,” Ti said. He was out of bed, wearing normal clothing, wandering around the room with a patient-belongings bag in his hand. He wore jeans and a T-shirt—Y4 was temperature controlled—and I couldn’t help noticing how snugly his shirt fit against his muscular arms. I shook my head at myself—patients should never be out of gowns. It made it hard to remember what team they were on.

  “Packing?”

  “I’m getting out tomorrow.”

  I turned from side to side to look at the confines of his small room. He’d already taken the pictures of his firefighting crew off the wall. “Getting out? What, this is prison?”

  He paused and grinned at me. “After a month? It feels a little similar.”

  “The County-approved term is ‘being discharged,’” I said, making air quotes around the word.

  “Then I’m ‘being discharged’ t
omorrow, oh ‘difficult nurse,’” he said, making my gesture twice back at me. “You’re in a good mood. Someone feed you?” he asked, glancing at me out of the corner of one eye.

  Well, that was a random question. “Um. I had a turkey sandwich on my way in, and I’ve got another for late dinner—”

  He stopped picking things up entirely and stared at me for a second. And then he laughed out loud, a melodious sound.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips.

  “I—I thought you were a vampire the other night. I just assumed. You didn’t act like one really, but maybe you were new—”

  “Heh!” My current life might be easier if I were, but Mr. Galeman didn’t look that edible to me. “No, I’m human. Totally, fallibly human.”

  “I thought so at first. Then I thought my teller wasn’t telling so good,” he said, tapping his healing forehead. “So who was the vial of blood for, then?”

  I considered telling him. It’d be nice to get everything off my chest. But—it wasn’t my place to share, or his place to have to listen. I inhaled and shook my head before exhaling. “You’re a patient. I try to make a practice of not sharing personal stuff with patients.”

  Ti looked pointedly at the clock above the door. “I’m only a patient for a few more hours.” He walked around me, pulled out his visitor chair, and then went back to sit on his bed. “I’ve got some time to kill. And I’m already dead.”

  I snorted at his bad joke, and then looked at him. He was serious. Maybe if I said it all at once, it’d sound less crazy. I looked over my shoulder to the open door behind me, and reached one hand back to shut it closed.

  “It was for a friend. Who is a vampire,” I began. I looked past him, into the shadows his monitor cast on the wall, and wondered if the Shadows were listening in—though it wasn’t like they’d help me or Anna if they were.

  “And your friend—is he in trouble?”

  “She’s in trouble,” I corrected. “And I can’t find her.”

  “Want to tell me the story?”

  “Nurse-patient privilege. I can’t.”

  His amber eyes scanned over me. “Miss Spence, if a vampire wants to find you, they will. It’s a talent they have.”

  “Not if they’ve been kidnapped.” I looked up at him and found him staring straight at me. His golden eyes were thoughtful, set against his rippling dark-pool skin. I quickly looked down again, and then thought, What if he thinks I’m not looking at him because of the scars?—when I knew that wasn’t true. I tried to bring my gaze up, but he was still looking at me, and even though I knew it had nothing to do with the scars, and everything to do with the awkwardness of feeling someone else’s focused attention, I tried not to look away. I inhaled and pressed on. “I have to find her.”

  “Why?”

  I grimaced. Because if I don’t, I’ll be dead? I ignored his question and tried a different tack.

  “Is being a zombie better than being dead?”

  Ti pondered this and then answered, “I doubt it.”

  “Ah, well,” I said, then I stood up. “Anyhow—you’ve got things to pack—”

  He leaned forward to stand, I thought to see me out. But instead he seemed to come to a decision, like a light switch flicked on inside of him. “I know someone who might be able to help find your friend. Do you have something that smells like her?”

  I nodded. I hadn’t even begun to think about how I was going to get her tears off my good coat. And I still had Yuri’s shirt, the one she’d cried on. “Who—and how?”

  “Firefighter-friend privilege,” he said with a grin. “How can I get in touch with you?”

  “Why would you want to get involved?”

  “It’s what I do. I’m Bruce Banner, remember?”

  “No one’s just good for goodness’ sake. I don’t believe in Santa and neither do you.” I crossed my arms.

  Ti grinned. “Maybe because I’d like to take you to a movie sometime. It’d be harder to do if you were dead. Not impossible, but probably less fun.”

  I stared at him. I’d never had a sober patient ask me out before. Much less someone whose name and health history I already knew. Mind you, he was a scarred-up zombie … but at least he wasn’t a doctor.

  “You promise not to throw flowers at my car?” I asked.

  “I swear,” he said, solemnly crossing his chest without asking why. He looked serious. He seemed serious. And I always had a pen in my breast pocket at work. I wrote my phone number on a piece of paper and handed it over to him.

  “All right. Help me out and it’s a deal.”

  * * *

  I ignored Ti’s room for the rest of the night—anything else I could say would seem anticlimactic. But Mr. Galeman kept me busy—his crit wasn’t low anymore, but all his other electrolytes were out of whack, booze not being the most nutritious diet. I replaced his potassium and phosphates all night long.

  Gina rolled by while I was drawing up a syringe of magnesium, and ribbed me some about “Mr. Smith,” but I ignored it.

  “Everything all right, Spence?” Meaty asked when I came back to the main station at the end of the night to finish up my notes.

  I was deeply tired of Meaty asking me that. But as I looked up to glare, I realized that Meaty really meant it. Our charge nurse didn’t have many social graces, and asking “Everything all right, Spence?” was a way of saying “Hi, how are you?” or “What’s going on today?” and not meant to be overbearing or always checking in. At least not all of the time.

  “I’m meeting with my lawyer when this shift ends, in an exceedingly nice area of town.” My little Chevy would definitely be out of place there.

  “And what’s his plan?”

  “Don’t know yet. I’ll know more tomorrow night, though.”

  “You need some time off?”

  I thought of Jake and shook my head. “Not yet.”

  Meaty’s heavy eyelids lowered in disbelief. “All right. But let me know if that changes, okay?”

  “Will do.” I dove back into my charts and wrote exceptionally thorough notes until Meaty turned away.

  * * *

  I thought about stepping into Ti’s room to say good-bye before I left, then thought better of it. If he’d call, he’d call. If not, I was better off not embarrassing myself. In the locker room I switched into clean scrubs, said good-bye to Gina and Charles, then stepped into the elevator alone.

  I hate our elevator. It’s not just that it always smells like pee. It “takes off” and “lands” like an elevator should, but it doesn’t feel like it’s moving at all in between. I’ve timed it before; it takes forty seconds once the doors have closed for them to open again. That’s a long time for an elevator—especially when there are no numbers for any intervening floors. It feels like a prop from The Twilight Zone, which, considering where it’s taking me from and to, might not be far off.

  This morning I stepped into it, the doors closed, and—time passed. A lot of time. Longer than forty seconds, by the time I started counting again, and longer than twenty seconds after that. The lights went off, and my badge began to glow. Not this again. Anxiety rose in me like a startled bird and I dropped my coat. My heart sped up, so loud in my chest I could feel it in my throat, and I couldn’t count seconds anymore, only heartbeats, faster and faster. I put a hand out and felt where the metal puckered at the seam of the doors and I wasn’t sure if I wanted them to burst open and free me, or stay closed and keep me protected from whatever was—

  The elevator dinged. I jumped backward and crouched in one corner. The interior lights came on, blinding me, casting whatever was outside the doors in black.

  “Come out, human,” said a voice. “We will not harm you.”

  The voice was fractured and disjointed, like an approximation of human voices, gathered up piece by piece and rudely taped together for a TV serial killer’s type of prank.

  “Who’s we?” I shouted from inside.

  “You know who we
are,” it said.

  I was afraid they were right.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I leaned forward and hit the “door close” button repeatedly.

  “Come out,” the voice repeated more sternly.

  I cast one arm up over my eyes to let them adjust. Outside looked like a cave, with an arched ceiling, and a velvety black floor. When I stepped out, the elevator’s doors began to shut behind me. I whirled, and shoved my hand between them, where the motion sensor ought to be, but they were determined to close. I yanked back just in time. The elevator sat there, out of place at the bottom of a shaft of rock.

  “Where are you?” I called out and took a step forward. The carpet beneath my feet rippled and deformed. Oh, God, it was water. Or worse. “Shadows?” I yelled, my voice rising.

  As my eyes got used to the dimmer light, illumination blossomed up from the ground, faint and delicate, crazy jagged lines and solitary winking lights. They came into resolution in the same way that sometimes you can’t see the stars till you’re out of the city, and then you wonder how you missed so many of them before. Farther out, in what I guessed was the middle of the cavern, was a solid mass of glowing light, a little flat sun. It pulsed.

  “You brought me here—why?” I asked aloud.

  “This is our home,” the voice said. I heard the sound of liquid pouring next to me and I turned to my right. Twenty feet away stood a creature made of the dark liquid, still streaked with luminescent stars. It looked like the Blob, and it extended a pseudopod toward me.

  I stepped backward, holding out my glowing badge. “Send me back to the lobby, now.” The memory of them crawling over me, touching me, made my skin shiver. I didn’t want to go back to wherever they’d sent me inside myself. Helpless, lost, unwhole.

  I didn’t want a Shadow touching me. Not ever, ever again.