Shapeshifted

by Cassie Alexander

Page 39

  “You didn’t miss anything else last night. I just wanted to check on you was all. Do you need me to tell your family that you’re here?”

  Her dilated eyes slowly fixed on me. “Family? What family? Adriana’s all I have. ”

  “I’m sorry. ” I glanced up at the clock. I probably had an hour, provided I wouldn’t get in the way here. I pulled up a chair. “I can’t believe you got shot. ”

  Her lips pulled into a low grin. “Me either. Should have been you. ” I’d found the small hole in Hector’s door on my way out to my own car. The bullet had gone through the door, through the passenger-side chair, and straight into Catrina.

  “Yeah, I know. ” I looked around the room—it’d been a while since I’d floated to medical ICU, and a while since I was last here, period. “They treating you right?”

  “I don’t hurt much, as long as I don’t move. ” She stared off into space. I wondered how long I should stay, if she was tired. Her eyes closed, and I made to stand. The sound of the chair scraping back startled her awake again. “I keep fading off. Sorry. ”

  “It’s okay. I’ll go now. I’ll come back tomorrow and let you know. ”

  She didn’t respond, but her eyes closed again. Chances were she wouldn’t even remember my being here. I turned around and took a step toward the door.

  “Edie?”

  I turned around knowing she might not say another word. People on good drugs were sometimes like that. “Yeah?”

  She fought to open her eyes again. “She left me there last night, Edie. She didn’t stay. ”

  “What?” I turned around and crossed the room to stand at her bedside. She was too wasted to lie.

  “Reina set me on a chair in the waiting room, bleeding. She left the second after you did. ”

  “Are you sure?” Bleeding could cause unconsciousness. And unconsciousness felt a lot like time travel when it was happening. “She had to leave before the dawn. ”

  “No. I could see the windows—it was dark outside. She just left me behind. ”

  “That’s not like her. ”

  “I know. ” Catrina’s dark gaze wandered around the room, until it finally landed on me. “I just needed to tell someone. It wasn’t … kind of her. ”

  I took Catrina’s hand into both my own. “You’re right. ”

  Information shared, she relaxed again, and soon she began to snore. I stopped by the nurses’ station on the way out and gave them my phone number just in case, and told them I was a family friend. And in the elevator on my way out, despite the fact there were other passengers in it, I knocked on the wall with one hand.

  “Hey—Shadows. You’ve got to protect her. Make sure she’s okay. ”

  They didn’t respond, and as we reached the first floor, all the other passengers avoided looking at me.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  In my car again, with hours left to kill before sundown, I wasn’t sure what to do or where to go. It wasn’t too late for me to drop in on my mother, but … no. If I went there, she might sense something was wrong and start to worry. Surely the story of last night and tonight was written on my face. Without thinking, I followed the train on street roads, heading farther downtown.

  While it wasn’t raining now, last night and this morning had filled in the potholes with water, making their depth hard to judge. My little Chevy swayed from side to side as cement rubble caught alternating tires. The market was closed, due to the weather, I assumed, and I drove down to the Divisadero clinic proper.

  Maldonado’s blue sign had been ripped off the door, and a new one put in its place: CLOSED.

  Of course the clinic was closed. With Hector barely himself, and Catrina gone, there’d be no one left to run the ship. The real question was, would it open again? I drove on.

  The distances were shorter, now that I wasn’t on foot, and landmarks were easier to find during the day. The rain seemed to have washed everyone away with it—that, or the gunfight last night, made everyone else but me wise enough not to go out.

  I canvassed streets until I found the one we’d been on the night before. I recognized the fence Hector had parked his car next to. The rain had washed away all of that boy’s blood. I should have looked at County for him too.

  I slowly cruised up the street to where the new Three Crosses church had been. In the day, without the rain, it was much less menacing than the lightning-freeze-frame picture I’d had of it last night. The gates were torn off their hinges—that was all Luz there—and had been reconstructed using woven locked chains. Police tape fluttered, torn down from the places it had been tied, and a lone janitor was shoving water around with a street broom inside.

  I stopped the car. The janitor looked up at me nervously; then, seeing only a girl inside the car, shook his head and got back to shoving water around. I eased off the brake and stepped on the gas—and there was a thump from the front of my car. I hit the brakes again and leapt out to see what I’d hit.

  The elderly woman I’d saved from the storm drain was huddled in front of my car. “What the—I cannot believe you!”

  “¡No te creo!”

  “Did I hit you? Are you okay?” She was still wearing County Hospital gowns, soaked to the bone.

  “¿Estás tan ciego qué no puedes ver?” she complained.

  “Lady, I still can’t understand you. What the hell are you doing out here?”

  The woman put her hands on her hips, and I took her meaning.

  “Okay. Maybe if I can’t understand you, I shouldn’t keep asking you questions. But sheesh. ” I looked around. “Where did you come from? I’d swear to God you weren’t here just a second ago. ”

  She squatted back down and played her hands in the water streaming down the gutter from higher ground.

  “No no no, you can’t do that. You’ll catch a cold. ”

  She angrily hit the water, and splashed it at me.

  “Hey! Come on—that’s not right. ”

  She shoved her hands back into the water—there was another storm drain down the street. Some of the water the janitor was brooming out of the Three Crosses compound had made it up to here, a waterfall over the sidewalk’s edge. Looking like some sort of creepy elderly otter, she fished out a handful of rubble and showed it to me.

  “Look—” I began. She shook her hand again, spattering me with cold drops. “That’s disgusting! Stop it!” I walked away from her and opened up the driver-side door of my car. I was done with trying to save her by force. Either she’d get in willingly, or I’d just drive away. I didn’t have to save everyone right now—in fact, my saving-people dance card was fucking full. I pointed from her to my car with an intention that could be understood across tongues. “Get in. ”

  She shook her hand again, playing her opposite forefinger against the stones in her palm, as if she were panning for gold.

  “Get in,” I repeated. Surely she knew how door handles worked. I got in my car, and she hit my car hood with one hand.

  “Are you coming?” I asked her. She tottered back and opened up the door. When she sat down she threw the wet stones she held across my dashboard. Trails of thin mud poured down from them. “Hey!”

  She dusted her hands off on her wet gowns, and crossed her arms. “Gah. ” Clearly, the Reinas hadn’t been able to keep her safe somewhere—and before that, neither had County. That left just one place we could go.

  * * *

  I went back toward the clinic, slowly, the only car on the road, searching for the path Olympio had taken Ti and me on yesterday. I made a few wrong turns but eventually wound up in front of Olympio’s tenement and parked my car.

  “Look,” I tried to explain to the old woman. “You just need to be safe for a night. No one should be on the streets tonight. Bad things are going down. ” The only thing I saw on her face was frustration, likely with me. “I’m sorry. I wish I could explain. ” I ran through what little Spanish I did know and
went for broke. “Noche muy malo, mucho dolor. Stay indoors!”

  She lunged forward, grabbed up one of the rocks that hadn’t rattled off my dash, and shoved it at me.

  I took it. At least it was dry now. And it didn’t look much like a stone to me.

  “That’s not a stone. Is it?” I held it up to the fading light outside. “It’s a finger bone. ”

  Not a lot like the tattoo Catrina and Adriana shared—it was long and slender, gracefully curved. It’d been stained gray by mud, but there was no denying what it was.

  I picked up another stone from where it’d fallen on my floor. It was just a rock. All the rest of them were. But not this one.

  “Okay—we’re going up to the boy’s house. And then you can talk, all right?”

  Wherever she’d gotten the bone from, I’d get Olympio to make her tell me.

  * * *

  It took time and effort to herd her up the stairs toward the curandero’s door. I knocked three times, and Olympio peeked out. “I knew I saw you outside!” he exclaimed. “You never told me you had a car!”

  “You never asked,” I said, and stepped back so he could see the woman I’d brought with me.

  “Ugh, her again?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. Can she stay here?”

  Olympio released a huffing sigh of protest. “I’ll just add it to everything else you owe my grandfather. Don’t forget, you owe him for last night. ”

  “I’ll write him a check. Honest. Just this one more thing. ”

  “Fine. ” Olympio pulled back and opened the door all the way, so that we could step in.

  He went off to get the old woman a towel, and we stood in the same room I’d been in yesterday, only there was no tinfoil cross, and no snakes. The curandero sat on his chair in the corner, surrounded by candles and statuary. When Olympio returned, he looked me over. “Are you okay?”