Shapeshifted es-3

by Cassie Alexander

  I tossed and turned until dawn.

  * * *

  My alarm went off at six thirty and I woke up and showered without much enthusiasm. At least today was Friday. It was easy to forget about Jorgen in the daylight—if I hadn’t woken up with the cross beside me and Minnie still under the bed, I might have brushed the whole thing off as a bad dream.

  I rode the train in and walked down the stairs, half expecting Dr. Tovar, my recalcitrant chaperone, to be waiting for me at the bottom. He wasn’t there, though. I waited a minute, and then prepared to make the walk in myself.

  Yesterday’s shirt stall was still gone, but another clothing store had taken its place. Pink scrubs with a purple trim hung flat, straight as day, without any wind. They looked familiar …

  I started walking quickly to the clinic.

  The front of the building was covered in graffiti, looping swirls of complex writing that I couldn’t decipher. The front door was open. I went inside and found it empty.

  “Hello?” I looked around and realized all the chairs in the waiting room were gone, and the walls were painted with huge multicolored crosses. The room reeked of fresh paint. “Is everyone okay?”

  Hell, was anyone but me even inside? The door to the back had been busted through. “We’re not seeing patients today!” came a yell from beyond. Dr. Tovar followed it, his coat finally off. He was wearing a white T-shirt with his normal dark slacks. When he came out his hands were tight in rage, which made the muscles of his arms stand out. When he saw me he relaxed a little. Without his coat he looked surprisingly human, and more frail.

  “What happened here?”

  “We were looted last night. We’re lucky they didn’t burn the place.”

  Suddenly my urge to help that woman yesterday—this attack put it into focus. My mouth went dry. “Did I—”

  “No. This is about them, and me.”

  “The Three Crosses?” I guessed.

  “It’s not like they tried to hide it,” he said, pointing to the walls. “They took all the chairs, and anything left out in the break room. They broke into all the lockers. And they cut up an exam room table, autopsy-style.”

  “Should I call the police?”

  “Already called. I have to report this, for insurance’s sake.”

  I pointed back outside. “I saw Catrina’s scrubs at the station. Should I go get them, and report who the seller is?” Maybe there were other chairs there for sale.

  “No. I doubt Catrina would want them back. They took things to trash them. That person probably just picked them up out of the trash. That’s where the receptionists and MAs are, looking for the waiting room chairs.”

  “Ugh.” I would sit down, only there was no place to sit. I spun, looking from wall to wall—and the front wall, the one visible from reception, had looping numbers written on top of the crosses. It took a moment for my mind to resolve them into a date. Seven-seventeen. Like I’d seen on the mural on my computer map, that first day on the phone. “Why the date?”

  He flushed darker. “No reason.”

  I pressed my lips together. I didn’t want to refute him, but they hadn’t written a huge date on the wall for their own health. Today was Friday, the eleventh of July. The seventeenth was next Thursday. What would happen then?

  He started stalking back and forth, and finally answered my silent question. “They want me to make a tithe. To openly join their cause—to take their side.”

  “What side is that?” I couldn’t see Dr. Tovar under some gang leader’s thumb. “They don’t want you to help anyone but their people? Or work for free?”

  “It’s more complicated than that.” He stopped and got a pensive look. “They didn’t go in back this time. Or burn us down. This was just a warning.”

  “And the seveneenth?” I tried again.

  “It’s meant for me.” He walked over to the wall painted with the numbers and planted his hand against them. He rubbed against it and the top layer of wet paint smeared. He sighed and rubbed his hand against his pants.

  “But why you?” I had my suspicions. Perhaps they wanted him to stop giving blood to vampires. “The crosses, and the blood,” I slowly began. I’d seen Jorgen last night—I knew there were vampires around. I was sure of it.

  He cut me off with a shuddering sigh. “Stop it.”

  He looked so exhausted and angry—exhausted by being angry—that I had to. It was my turn to take pity on him. I walked around the room. The two flanking crosses were ornate multicolored affairs, part Celtic, part Greek Orthodox, elaborately colored and twisting. The center cross was stick-straight and stark gray. I wondered if they hadn’t gotten a chance to finish it, but its lines were crisp and the edges were shaded. Maybe its simpleness offsetting the others was the point?

  I opened my mouth and inhaled to ask him a question, but he cut me off with a gesture. “Please. Go.” He waved me out of the waiting room, and went in back.

  * * *

  I sat down on the front stairs, not sure where else to go. If I went out very far I’d only get lost, and I didn’t have any paint to begin covering the crosses up.

  I felt bad for him, even if he was a doctor. This clinic was his baby, and Three Crosses had gone and ruined it—not just for him, but for everyone. That’s why they’d hurt him here and not at his home, wherever it may be. Violence done to him personally, he’d just shrug off or take silently—he was that kind of man.

  But violence done here, to his place and his people? It was the lowest kind of blow.

  I’d never once seen him do the wrong thing, not where his people or patients were concerned. And it dawned on me that I was among their number, another wayward chick tucked under his wing. He’d hired me to protect me. And he’d been walking back and forth to the station with me. Normally that sort of thing would chafe, but I was having a hard time minding. It was nice to feel like someone else gave a damn. It made me feel safe.

  What if this was the page of the Choose Your Own Adventure novelization of my life where I just picked to forget everything that came before and take everything at face value, as it was told to me? And not pry and just let sleeping dogs lie and not feel bad for realizing my boss sort of seemed interested in me, and also was hot? Apart from the part where my mom died, it sounded nice.

  Eduardo returned holding a waiting room chair. “Chair delivery,” he announced, and I scooted over to let him in, saving me from any more strange thoughts.

  * * *

  One by one, chairs filtered in throughout the rest of the morning. They’d been left in odd spots: on roofs of buildings, in deserted lots. My co-workers had put the word out, asking anyone who found a chair to bring it in.

  The insurance adjustor came surprisingly quickly to take pictures of the place. After that, I spent the rest of the day laying drop cloths on the floor—reams of the paper we used to keep exam room tables clean—and putting coat after coat of white paint on the walls.

  We were deep into the afternoon when a man appeared in our door. While he didn’t have tattoos on his neck, the men who came in to flank him did.

  He had close-cropped black hair, and held himself like he was used to being listened to. He had on a black button-down shirt, black jeans, and black cowboy boots. A gold chain hung outside his shirt, with a large pendant whose shape I couldn’t make out. Catrina ran back to get Dr. Tovar as soon as she saw him, and afterward she stayed in the back. The others stayed but stilled. People put their paintbrushes down.

  “I came as soon as I heard there’d been damage here,” he said, once the doctor entered the room.

  “I appreciate your concern, Father Maldonado,” Dr. Tovar said flatly.

  “Pastor Maldonado,” the man corrected, looking around the room. “Clearly the crosses are meant to implicate us, when we were not responsible.” He held his hand to his chest, as if gravely injured by the vandal’s artistic implications. Once there, his hand stroked the pendant as if it gave him permission or powers. If I squinted and used my i
magination, I could see the figurine holding a scythe.

  “Clearly,” Dr. Tovar repeated, with sarcasm.

  The man looked around at the destruction of the room, his eyes lingering on the sad wall half covered in white. “I could offer to have my men paint a mural here, you know. Testifying to Santa Muerte’s greatness.” He lifted up his pendant to kiss it before carefully setting it back down.

  Dr. Tovar grunted. “If she’s so great, why didn’t she stop them from doing this last night?”

  “Perhaps she was not aware she had your patronage,” the man said in a conciliatory tone. But that was the only thing regretful about him. His eyes looked around the room, as proud as if the art here were created by his own child. “You have yet to tithe to us. The seventeenth approaches. We can’t finish our new church without the support of every member of the community. How will she know we love her, if our new church isn’t grand?”

  “You and I both know this has nothing to do with that.”

  At that moment, Eduardo returned with another liberated chair. The pendant-wearing man, whom I guessed was the leader of the Three Crosses, but also some sort of Santa Muerte priest, smiled at seeing him awkwardly lugging it in.

  “In the words of Jesus himself—if you’re not with us, you’re against us.” He smiled, revealing teeth as gold as the necklace he wore.

  I sighed aloud, and started vigorously painting. I wanted to flick white paint all over his black clothes, but if this is how they retaliated—well, my walk back and forth to the station was a long one. But I’d fought with vampires before and won. I had the scars to prove it. Evil wins when good steps down—and I was tired of stepping down.

  I dropped my paintbrush, loudly. “Are you proud of yourself? What you did here?”

  “Me?” he said, turning to look as if seeing me for the first time. “I did nothing.”

  “How many people who need medical attention won’t get it today, because of you? Kids who need vaccines, and their moms who took time off work to bring them in—are you going to pay them those days back?” I inhaled and exhaled deeply, seething with anger. “People here have it hard enough without incidents like this.”

  The man smirked, focusing his attention over my shoulder at Dr. Tovar. “And yet, they could have it harder.”

  At some unseen signal, the men behind him retreated, and he followed them out.

  From behind me, Dr. Tovar said, “That was stupid of you.”

  I was still breathing heavy. “I know.” I turned around to face him. “Sometimes I can’t help myself.”

  He looked bemused. “I think you need someone with you at all times, to stop you.” He exhaled and shook his head, but he was actually smiling now, warm and true. That and the T-shirt and the paint splatters on his slacks made him finally look his age. Too young to face a lifetime of this.

  “I don’t know why you put up with that. I mean, I know why—but it sucks.” His amusement faded into a sad half smile, and I thought maybe I’d hurt him. If I had, it made me feel bad. This wasn’t his fault. I inhaled and tried to extricate myself. “I’m sorry, Dr. Tovar. I’ll just be over here, finishing my wall.”

  He shook his head at me. “You can call me Hector. When we’re not in front of patients, that is.”

  I picked my paintbrush up from where it’d landed on the floor, and kept my smile to myself. “Thanks.”

  * * *

  We both worked as the other medical assistants brought back chairs—people from the community brought them in too, once they’d heard what’d happened. By the end of the day, we were only down five.

  We were both covered in splatters of paint. My scrubs were ruined. Luckily, scrubs were pretty cheap. I looked down at them—they were some of the green kind I’d snuck home in from Y4. It felt like a very long time ago.

  Hector made us all leave when it turned five. “Anyone who wants to come back tomorrow can.”

  A few people nodded, then he looked at me.

  I wanted to sleep in some first, on my first day-shift weekend. “Nine?”

  Hector smiled at me. “I’ll meet you at the station.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I hadn’t learned anything new today—not where vampires were concerned. Maybe Maldonado was a daytimer? He had the self-possession of one. It would explain why he didn’t have the tattoos his followers did. Plus, he was an asshole, which fit the mold. Hmmmm.

  I got off at my station, walked to my car, and drove to a hardware supply place, where I picked up a cordless drill and some extra chain locks.

  * * *

  I didn’t go to sleep that night. No Ambien for me. Instead I lay in bed and waited. If Jorgen had found me once, he’d find me again, and I bet Dren would be with him this time. If I had to pick the person from my past most likely to break the shun and return to make trouble for me, Dren would win. He was a Husker, a type of vampire that specialized in finding people and, if paid to do so or sheerly for the pleasure of it, husking out their souls. I didn’t understand what he did with them afterward; it was some sort of vampire numbers game.

  Minnie hopped up on the bed, and I stroked her soft belly. Dren had tried to husk my soul out once, and it’d cost him one of his hands. I’d like to think that if we went back in time, knowing the consequences of his actions would have stopped him, but I doubted it—Dren wasn’t the kind of vampire who learned. He’d just have tried crueler, harder.

  One evening cup of coffee easily kept me awake until three. My body was thrilled to be staying up past ten o’clock, and my night-shift nature came rushing back. But by four, I was crashing again, and by four thirty I was doubting my will to live, wondering why the hell I’d said I’d go back to the clinic tomorrow. Oh, I know—Hector had asked me. I pulled the covers up over my head to hide from myself.

  And then I heard it. A solid thump.

  I sat up, and all foolishness left me as Minnie skittered off the bed. I picked up the cross I’d set beside myself at sundown and rushed to my front door.

  “Who’s there?”

  No answer from the other side of the door. I looked through the peephole. My outside light was on, triggered by motion, and Jorgen’s head, malformed by his transformation into a Hound, angled outside, looking back at me with first one black eye and then the other. His head was huge, like a horse’s in size, only it looked like a wolf’s.

  “I’m going to open my door,” I announced. “You know you can’t hurt me, right? I’m being shunned,” I added, just in case.

  I’d installed five extra chain locks that evening, for all the good it would do now. I unlocked the main bolt and pulled the door open the width of the chains. I knew as a vampire Dren couldn’t come inside, but I wasn’t sure if the rules that applied to vampires also worked for their familiars, or whatever it was that Jorgen technically was now, as Dren’s Hound.

  “What do you want? Who’s there?” I could only see Jorgen in four-inch-wide pieces as he moved outside. His fur was gray and scabrous—he walked on all fours, and his skin hung down around him so loosely it looked like he could turn around inside it. He was like a half-leper, half-wolf Shar-Pei.

  More pacing. No response.

  “Jorgen?”

  The beast outside came closer and sat down. In the blink of an eye, it shoved a paw inside the gap of the door.

  “Gah!”

  I made to slam the door on his fingers, and barely stopped myself in time. They weren’t fingers, and weren’t paws either—it was like he was trapped between the two polar opposites of his transformation, between wolf and man, with all the disgusting qualities of both.

  He dug at the door frame, taking away splinters, like a big bad dog.

  “Go away!” I wasn’t getting any answers from him. It was possible he’d tracked me down just because he could, to torment me. No matter that it was his fault he’d been trying to steal supernatural blood this past winter—the fight that’d gotten me shunned, and him punished and bound—I knew he’d feel I’d done this to him.
I wondered which was worse, knowing he could never again be fully wolf or human, or knowing he was stuck permanently subservient to Dren.

  I didn’t want to hurt him, but I didn’t want this—I only wanted to save my mom. I had a wild thought. “Jorgen—where’s Dren?”

  The scrabbling stopped, and the paw pulled back. Now it was a nose, dog-wet but pink like a human’s, that shoved at my door. He took two long sniffs of the air inside my room, smelling my things, smelling me, and then retreated to look over his own shoulder. He looked again at me, his eyes human, and then exaggeratedly behind himself.

  “Is Dren trapped in a well?” I asked, then shook my head. I didn’t want to know why Jorgen was here—there was no possible reason that was good.

  But Dren was a vampire. And my mom still needed blood to heal.

  “Is Dren out there?”

  Jorgen growled in frustration at me, a frightening low noise.

  I highly doubted Jorgen was here with people who could drive. Surely they’d have sent a person who had hands to come and knock on my door; besides, there was no way he could fit himself into a car.

  “Make him come up here to talk to me. I’m not going down there.” I wasn’t sure how protective my shun actually was. If there was a vampire in the parking lot, I’d rather meet him from inside the safety of my house, where no-entry rules applied.

  Jorgen’s paws reappeared, pushing against my door. He rattled it inside the frame, and the chain locks groaned under the strain. He reared back then slammed forward again, and one of the freshly installed locks popped.

  “Jorgen!” I reprimanded him, for all the good it would do. I swooped up the cross and swiped it across his claw-tips. He howled and jumped away from the door.

  “What’s going on?” My neighbor opened up his door. He was a family man, with two kids and a wife, living tightly packed inside a one-bedroom like mine. At this, Jorgen ran away, snaking down the stairs and running off into the night. My neighbor looked at me through my jungle of lock chains. “Are you okay?”