Shapeshifted es-3

by Cassie Alexander

  Had he? Hmmmm. If this vampire was searching for something, maybe we could work out a trade. “My name’s Edie,” I helpfully provided, my name echoing up the stairs.

  There was a sigh from up above. “I was hoping it wouldn’t be you.”

  Black boots appeared on the stairs, then tight jeans, black shirt, and then a face that I knew. She was a real vampire. I’d been there when she’d been marked to be turned. “Luz.”

  “Enfermera,” she said, closing her eyes and shaking her head.

  I’d been her nurse—no, her boyfriend’s nurse—for a stretch when I’d been working on Y4. He’d been gravely injured by a gunshot wound, and she’d been adoring him to the end. Anna, the vampire I was a friend of, had changed him into a daytimer, and Luz into a full vamp, to save both of their lives. Mostly. Seeing as I’d found her as the ruler of a gang, hidden in the basement of an apartment-bunker, I wasn’t sure this was what Anna’d had in mind.

  “Catrina, you can go,” Luz said.

  “But—” she began, reluctant to be dismissed. She looked to me, then back to Luz, and asked, “Any news?”

  “Not tonight. I’ll look again tomorrow.”

  It was clear Catrina didn’t want to leave. Luz reached out and grabbed her shoulder. “I’ll find her. I won’t rest until I do. Don’t lose hope.”

  Catrina nodded softly, and then ran back up the stairs. Luz watched her go with pity, and then looked to me. “I suppose that we can talk. Perhaps I owe you that. Or perhaps you owe me?” Her eyebrows rose, and the gaze that had been so wide and soft with Catrina narrowed to predatory.

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen.” She’d begged Anna for her boyfriend’s life, and this was the payment Anna had required. Changing her into this, here. “I had no idea.”

  “What’s done is done,” Luz said, her lips snaking up into an ironic smile, showing fangs, as she reached into her pocket for a ring of keys.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  After enough locks to successfully win a car on The Price Is Right were opened, Luz pushed open a very squeaky gate. “Rust, my last defense,” she said, closing the gate behind us—and, to my dismay, redoing all the locks. Once finished, she repocketed the keys.

  She flipped on a light and gestured me farther in.

  The basement was small and open, with cement floors and walls. A couch, a coffee table, an unmade bed. A single lamp hung over the bed, a tissue paper heart stapled to its shade, casting a pink shadow down. With the exception of her excellent collection of capless test tubes scattered on the floor, Luz had fewer belongings than me.

  “Luz, this is a pit.”

  “Call me Reina. Everyone else does,” she said as she kicked test tubes aside. Thank God the things were made of plastic, not glass, or this’d be like some sort of torture-porn horror film.

  “Okay, Reina, what—” I watched her sink onto the cement floor, and went to kneel beside her. Her eyes were flat and cold, like a shark about to bite. I scooted back a bit, and she nodded. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Focusing on me, she pushed herself up on one elbow. She stirred the test tubes nearest her until she found one with its contents still intact. “Since this is all your fault, I’ll tell you the truth.”

  I cleared a spot from test tubes on the floor, thanked God that Hector had dressed me in jeans not shorts two nights ago, and carefully sat down.

  “After I was bitten I slept for three nights. When I woke, I was unguarded and hungry. So I went out.” She cracked the cap off the test tube and daubed the contents out with a dainty fingertip. “My first thought was to use all my power to tear apart the gang that’d crippled Javier. I went to see him immediately after I was reborn.

  “He didn’t understand what had happened. No one had explained things to him. He just knew he was well now and that I’d been gone, that was all. No one told him that I was asleep. Dying. Then becoming alive again.” She tilted her head and finished off the blood in the tube like it was the last gulp of beer from a bottle, then she tossed the empty tube away. “I found him at a party.”

  I imagined her, starving, entering a room of humans, the sound of their blood singing in her ears.

  “He said I’d been cheating on him, and went to hit me. I stopped him. For good.”

  I wondered if Javier had realized the mistake he’d made—right before Luz had broken his head off. “The party ended after that. I ate him. It was awful, in retrospect. At the time?” She picked up another test tube and looked at it as though it paled in comparison, then threw it aside. “At the time I was hungry. And then she arrived to claim me. Your friend.”

  I wasn’t sure friend was the best term to describe the bond between Anna and me. I’d saved her life once, and that was a very big deal, but friend was pushing it.

  “I think she wanted me to do what I did. I think she knew I would do it, and she wanted me to, to show me what I was capable of. So that I would believe her. I would know what I’d become, and feel her power over me. But even after that I still fought her.” She looked directly at me. “I don’t like being told what to do. By anyone.”

  I snorted. “I remember that about you.”

  “We made a deal. As long as I don’t out vampires, or create followers—if I don’t bite anyone human or share any of my blood with them—she will leave me be. So far I have been true to my word.”

  I wondered if Anna had given Luz her freedom as a test. And if so, had she ever imagined that Luz would manage to hold out this long? Luz was strong-willed indeed. I looked around at the test tube pit we were in. “How long’d it take you to come up with this workaround?”

  “Longer than I would have liked. There were not many dogs out to feed on in winter.” I imagined Luz, half mad with hunger, wandering the streets at night. Her eyes were distant, probably remembering the same. “The only thing keeping me alive—and not under her sway—was my pride. Pride is not a very filling dish.”

  She began to sink back against the cement floor, her black hair spilling out like the roads on a map. “And then Adriana found me. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. She knew Catrina, and Catrina … helped.”

  If this was helping. The jury was still out on that one.

  “I have been true to my word. And I may kill people, as long as I don’t bleed them. When I realized that—” A sly smiled crossed her face. “I took charge. I punished the gang that had hurt Javier in the first place. Then I started to take their place. Only in different ways. Hopefully better.” Luz finished lowering herself to the floor. “Morning is near. Enfermera, why are you here?” She was fading before my eyes, with the arrival of the sun.

  “I need to talk to Anna.”

  “If she wanted to talk to you, she’d find you. Next.” Her eyes were halfway closed, like a resting cat.

  “My mother has cancer. I want some of your blood.”

  She paused, and then laughed and laughed and laughed. “Please say you’re kidding me. No. You’re too earnest to kid. I remember that about you.” She rolled to her side and closed her eyes, nuzzling into the chill cement floor. “Do you really think that’s wise?”

  “I don’t know what else to do.”

  “I couldn’t help you, even if I wanted to. If I did that, I would break my word. If I give you my blood, I would break my promise to Anna, and that would be the end of my freedom. I have no doubt that she would come herself to take me back.”

  “There has to be something I can trade you. Or something that you want.”

  She snorted. “You? No. There is nothing more for us to discuss.” The sensation of her presence in the room kept fading.

  “Goddammit! Luz!” I crawled over to her on the cement floor, empty test tubes rolling out of my path. I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. It was unwise, but I had finally found a vampire that wasn’t going to kill me and she was turning out to be fucking useless. She didn’t move. I twisted around, looking around her room for anything to grab hold of, leverage to get her
to help me. Her unused bed, bathed in heart-shaped pink, mocked me. I frowned and looked down at her now peaceful face. I shook her again. “Luz! Who else lives down here with you?”

  One eye opened and fixed on me. “Who told you?”

  “No one. Pink hearts aren’t exactly a vampire decorating theme.” I’d gotten a reaction, so I decided to press my luck. “Where is he? Who is it that you’re looking for?”

  She groaned, shaking herself, trying to fight the sun. She pushed herself up on her elbows, and I quickly scooted back. “She,” Luz corrected me. “Where is she. She isn’t here.” She breathed like a dying person, raspy and with long pauses, except in her case she was fighting to stay awake. Luz fixed her eyes on me and panted. “There is no way you can find her if I cannot.”

  “If it’s a deal—if it’s for your blood—I can. Try me.”

  Luz squinted at me, her head beginning to sink down. “Ask Catrina. She can tell you what you need to know.”

  I nodded at her relaxing form. “Okay.” I stood, dusting off my knees, as Luz faded. Lightning-fast, one of her arms snaked out and her hand caught my ankle, fingers tight. It would be nothing for her, even half asleep, to crush my ankle and rip off my foot.

  “Don’t come back unless you’ve found her,” Luz warned.

  “Okay,” I said, my voice pitched higher. She finally went to sleep, and her hand released me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I stared at Luz’s prone form. Could I condemn my mother … to this? I didn’t want her to be a vampire, just a daytimer; I wanted her to get just enough blood to be healed and stay that way. But there were no promises after that, no way I could predict how things would go with 100 percent certainty.

  Catrina was waiting outside on the stairs, on the other side of the locked gate. She called out to me. “Get the keys.”

  I looked down at Luz again, trying to imagine my mother sleeping there instead of her. “Really?”

  “Really.” Catrina crossed her arms.

  I slunk back over to Luz and tapped her. She was well and truly gone now—I didn’t know if she was mostly dead, or dead-dead, or what. It was creepy. I reached into her pockets and yanked out the keys too quickly, shaking her. I jumped back, just in case, and then ran back to the doorway.

  Catrina snapped her fingers on the other side. “Give them here.”

  I imagined her taking them once I did, leaving me locked in here with Luz—there were so many locks, it’d take me hours to free myself on my own. She snapped her fingers again, and I tossed the keys through. From here, I had a good view of the tattoo on her right-hand ring finger’s first knuckle. It looked like a stylized bone.

  She began opening the door. I talked while she worked. “Reina said you would help me. She’s looking for someone—”

  “I know.” Catrina knelt to get at the last locks on the gate.

  “I need something that smells like her, to give to the Hound.” She frowned again at hearing this as I stepped out. I wondered if I would ever see her smile. She closed the door and started relocking the gate.

  It wasn’t too late. I could stop Catrina and run back in there and somehow bleed Luz while she slept. But pledging my mother to a vampire that hated her wouldn’t do any good—it was likely to get her killed.

  “Come on,” Catrina said as she finished locking the door. She threw the keys back inside, where they clattered on the cement floor and landed by Luz’s thigh. “I’ll take you to her room. We’ll find something for your devil there.”

  I took one last look at Luz’s sleeping form. I tried to imagine being in love with a vampire, and drew a blank. Anna and I had done right by each other—but love was not the word. Whatever human had cut out that paper heart for Luz was crazy. And brave. “What was her name, anyhow?”

  “Adriana.” Catrina glowered at me. “And she’s my sister,” she said, before going up the stairs.

  * * *

  Because of Luz, I knew it was already past dawn. I couldn’t see outside, but there were people moving around, the sound of showers being turned on through thin walls, opening and closing bedroom doors. Catrina led me upstairs, and then down a hall.

  “When she wasn’t down there, she was up here.” She opened up a door and we stepped inside. Natural light from a window across from us flooded the room. The walls were cream; one had a red couch, the other a small black TV. A black bookcase didn’t have books on its shelves—it had tiny figurines in bright colors, and gold medallions artfully arranged. A streamer of tissue paper with elaborate designs cut into it swung from shelf to shelf.

  Catrina pushed past me to go into the next room. I didn’t follow. There was no need for me to be too nosy. She came back with a dark blue sweater. “Will that thing be able to find her—even if she’s—” She didn’t want to say the worst out loud.

  “I don’t know. But tonight I’ll ask it if it can.” Her eyebrows rose at my response. “It used to be human. It understands,” I said, and she shook her head.

  “Just when I thought I’d seen everything there was to see.” She looked from the sweater she held to me, and pulled it back. “I’m going with you.”

  “What? No way.”

  Catrina started nodding and wouldn’t stop. “She’s my sister—I have to go. I want to be there when you find her. You don’t know what she looks like—and that thing might eat her—and—”

  “Okay!” I held up both my hands to stop her. “I want to go on record as saying I think it’s a bad idea, but okay.” I didn’t think it mattered how I found Adriana—and besides, Catrina had the don, whatever the hell that was. It might be nice to have someone on my side who could see things I couldn’t, and who could talk.

  “Tonight?” she asked, holding the sweater to her chest.

  “Yeah. Meet me at my place at sundown.”

  “All right.”

  I gave her my address, and she led me out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I trotted down the stairs and out into the car-filtered daylight. Following people who already knew their way through the maze led me out to where Hector was sitting, waiting for me.

  He stood up when he saw me. “How’d it go?”

  “Oddly.” I looked around to make sure no one was listening as we began to walk away. “She is a vampire.” I figured I could tell him that much. “Her floor is littered with a thousand or so test tubes from Divisadero, which I think you knew.” I made a face at him.

  “I’d rather pay her kind of tithes, seeing as she’s doing useful things here. Not making everyone pray to a bony statue and extorting bribes.”

  I looked around. “When’d Jorgen leave?”

  “He disappeared before sunrise. He wasn’t pleasant to look at, and so I didn’t for a while. When I turned back next, near dawn, he was gone.”

  I wondered where he roosted during the day—if he ran back to Dren’s side, literally disappeared, or hid out … underneath the leaves of trees. Like a butterfly in the rain. Not. I snorted at the thought.

  “So will she help you?” he asked. I nodded. “What’s her price?” I gave him a look, and he shrugged. “Nothing is ever for free.”

  Which begged the question why Hector was helping me. Had been helping me, ever since the day he’d seen the black flower on my chest and hired me to keep an eye on it. I really should have asked Catrina about that, dammit. I guess I’d get a chance to, tonight.

  “She said if I can find her friend, she’ll trade me the blood for my mother.”

  Hector made a groaning sound and shook his head.

  “What?”

  “Edie, that’s impossible. Adriana’s been missing for more than a month. Sometimes—rarely—kidnappings work out, but after a month? No way.”

  “Oh, man.” I groaned. Hector had no reason to lie to me that I knew of, and besides, I’d watched enough true crime shows on TV to know he was right. A month was a really long time. Throw one more slim chance of saving my mom onto the pile. “Was it Maldonado?”

&
nbsp; “Who else could it be?” Hector’s lips drew into a grim line. “But he must know what Luz is. That’s why he only comes out during the day and hunkers down at night.”

  I couldn’t imagine Luz not shredding anything that moved to get to Adriana—no. Maybe once she’d been kidnapped, the threat of violence against Adriana had held her hand. She must really not know where Adriana was … and cruelest of all, she still lived in hope.

  “How long does he think that’ll work?”

  “Long enough.”

  “Through the seventeenth?” I pressed. We were nearing a train station.

  Hector drew his hand up himself like he was catching bad thoughts and throwing them away.

  “I don’t understand why you won’t tell me what’s happening on that date. Do you have a cage match scheduled with him then, or what?”

  “My fight with him wasn’t supposed to involve anyone else.” He sighed deeply, started patting his pockets, and retrieved a fistful of change. “Take it. Go home.”

  I didn’t know if he meant home, like to my apartment home, or fired-go-home-forever, home. “What’s that?”

  “Train fare.”

  “You can’t fire me—” I protested.

  “I’m not. The clinic needs you. You’re a good nurse. Just go home.”

  I eyed his palm suspiciously. “Will you tell me everything later?”

  “If I can. Give me one more night.” His eyes searched mine, and I hoped he would find what he was looking for there. “I have to get to work now, Edie. Make my life easier for once, and do what you’re told.”

  I frowned but held out my hand, so he could pour the change in. As I relented, he relaxed, and I realized he must be exhausted. “You have to be as tired as I am—you should take today off.” I bit my tongue before I asked him to come home with me. Not to take advantage of him, but just to take care of him for a bit. Like he’d spent the past two days taking care of me.