Shapeshifted es-3

by Cassie Alexander

  I could feel him nod against me. “Me too. Soon.”

  Anna and Santa Muerte’s conversation ended. Santa Muerte proffered her skeletal hand, and Anna sank to kneel and kiss it, her cloak flowing out around her in the waters. I wondered what agreement they had reached. Standing again, together, they rejoined our small group. At an unseen signal, Anna’s people started flowing away.

  “But what about Three Crosses?” I shouted out. I needed to hear that the clinic would be safe.

  Santa Muerte turned and fixed her dead sockets on me. Olympio translated as her mandible moved. “Do not worry. I have some business yet to do with them.”

  And then she walked past us. Walking wasn’t the right word—she moved through the runoff without actually moving, her robes concealing any motion of her body below. She rose up the wall of the ditch, taking her light with her, and disappeared.

  Anna watched her go, then looked over to me. “Are you okay, Edie?”

  “It’s been a long night,” I answered honestly.

  She came over to me, shaking her head like a disappointed auntie. “This is not what I had in mind when I started your shun.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Luz really was whole. She let me hold her hand, which let me feel her wrist. Her bones had been reknit, and she had a pulse. Adriana wouldn’t let go of her—we three were all crammed into the leather backseat of one of the black cars the vampires drove. Vampires always traveled in style. Olympio was in the front seat, playing with the radio dial. Asher had asked to take a separate car home. I wished I’d gone with him, but he’d seemed worried and weird, and I wanted to make sure Olympio got home in one piece—

  Adriana said something in Spanish. I hadn’t realized she was talking to me until Luz elbowed me. “You knew him from before?”

  “Who?”

  “Hector.”

  “Yeah. I knew both of them before, actually.” My hair was drying out in the car’s lovely heat.

  Adriana went on, and Luz smiled before translating to me. “When you find someone you love, you should never give up hope.”

  I gave them a halfhearted smile, but mentally amended, Unless your name is Edie.

  We went into Reina territory first, and our grim vampire driver parked right at the edge of the junkyard maze. The guards with submachine guns held them meaningfully, waiting for the first signs of aggression as Luz and Adriana stepped out. Then there were shouts of joy carried up the line—and people swarmed out of the Reina apartments to see them, to touch them with their own hands. Witnessing their joyful reunion with their friends made me want to cry. Olympio was plastered to the window, watching them until he couldn’t as we drove away.

  “She really was a vampire?” he asked me.

  No point in lying; he’d already seen much worse. “Yeah.”

  “Wow. And the Donkey Lady?”

  “I don’t think he’s coming back anytime soon.” It would probably take wild-undead-horses to drag Dren back to town after what Maldonado had put him through.

  “Good.”

  “So what’d you pray for?” I asked him.

  “When?”

  “You know. Earlier,” I said. I assumed when she said we’d all gotten a prayer answered, she’d meant him too. Unless he was too busy being almost dead to hear her.

  His face furrowed into a frown. “You mean when I wrote my name on her mural?”

  “Sure,” I agreed, because it was easier than explaining anything else to him.

  “I asked to be the greatest curandero of all time.”

  I snorted. “How do you feel about that now?”

  He pondered it for a moment, then held up his hand. He reached into the backseat and tapped me on my chest. “You tell me.”

  There was no ticker-tape parade awaiting Olympio’s return when we parked outside his building. He hopped out of the car and held the door open. “You’d better come back and visit me.”

  “I will. I might bring my mom.” Who knew what semi-magical Olympio could do versus unmagical irrational cancer, but I should take the chance.

  He made a curious face, then nodded with a grin. “Okay!”

  I shut the car door. Had I made the right choice? I could have healed her tonight, for real. But what other choice could there be? I waved at Olympio through the window, and he waved back at me. My vampire chauffeur hit the gas and turned the radio off.

  * * *

  I forgot that my car was down by Tecato Town, and remembered that fact as the driver dropped me off at my apartment. It was too late now—what was done was done. I’d go pick it up tomorrow. When I got inside my place Minnie was happy to see me. There weren’t any disturbing texts or messages on my phone. I started a shower, because God knew what I’d been drenched in in the storm drain tonight—probably toxic waste. I snorted, got myself good and clean, then dried off. I didn’t notice when I poured Minnie a double helping of food because I was thinking too hard.

  What now? Was everything worth it? Ti was gone. My mother wasn’t guaranteed saved. I’d gone from normal to strange again in less than two weeks. What had I done? What had I become?

  I paced around my bedroom, putting on clothing, trying to figure things out. I realized I’d gotten dressed again instead of putting on clothes for bed.

  Hopefully the only other person who could help me answer things would be awake too.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  I walked out and took the earliest train uptown. I didn’t remember directions precisely—I’d only been to Asher’s house twice before, in the winter and in a car. But I got off at what I thought would be the nearest stop and walked in a direction that felt right to me. The morning was cool—last night’s rain had washed away all the clouds in the sky, and as I walked I could see the beginnings of dawn.

  It took me a while, several side streets and dead ends, second-guessing myself after I’d walked entire residential blocks. But eventually I found a house that I thought I recognized even without the snow. I went up to it and knocked on the front door.

  After a long wait, a man I didn’t know opened it, and I was scared I had the wrong address.

  “Edie?” He pulled the door wider, and unfamiliar lips gave me a tentative grin. “Come in.”

  I smiled nervously and nodded, and then painted the air in front of his face. “I’m not used to—”

  “Me either,” he agreed.

  “Is it … permanent?”

  “I don’t know. I just asked her to save me was all. I didn’t get an instruction manual. It didn’t feel right to press.” He shrugged. “I’ll try it … in a few days.”

  “That makes sense.” No reason to risk dying again so soon. He closed the door behind me and gestured me farther in. The interior of his house remained the same as the last time I’d seen it. We were in his living room, which was mostly a library; there was a fireplace but currently no fire. I walked over to the mantel and stroked a finger down it. “You’ve got a lot of dusting to do.”

  Asher snorted. “When I left this place behind six months ago…”

  “What’ll happen to your new place?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is Hector … coming back?”

  “I don’t know.” He circled his couch and sat down, facing me and the fireplace. “It’s only been a few hours. I haven’t figured much out yet.” Asher touched his own chest and pointed at me. “The thing haunting you—it’s gone. I’ve still got some powers. I can still see.”

  I looked down at my own chest. “I think I can thank Olympio for that.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “Yeah. He didn’t die. And he didn’t know anyone that did. He thinks we won.”

  Asher’s eyes narrowed, and his gaze focused on me. “Did we?”

  “As much as we ever do,” I said, and then I walked over to him. “I’m not used to your hair.” I stepped up to him and reached out for his hair, pulling down shaggy brown-blond bangs. They almost reached his eyes—he could be an emo guitarist if
he tried, or with a little gel clean up to be a youthful accountant. He had the kind of face that would look better with glasses. He was still taller than me, but not very much more so, not too much to be comfortable to reach up and hold.

  “What were we doing out there?” I asked the man who didn’t look anything like my friend.

  “We were doing what was right. What we thought was right at the time.”

  “But Ti’s dead—and I didn’t save my mom. Unless it turns out that Olympio can magic away cancer.” I rolled my eyes.

  Asher ducked his head, and his hair slipped through my fingers. “I should have asked to save her. I know you chose Olympio.”

  Save her—instead of himself? “That’s absurd, Asher—you’re a man, not a saint.”

  His eyes wouldn’t meet mine. I took a step closer, took his chin, and pulled it gently up. It was the first time I’d touched him since the events earlier this evening—and instead of the brown I was used to, his eyes were now blue. What must it feel like to always see the world through different eyes?

  I stared at him wondering for so long, he gave me a questioning look. “I’m sorry, I’m just not used to this,” I apologized.

  “Neither am I.” He pulled away from me, and stood and shrugged with one shoulder. “Did you walk? Do you want a ride home?” He started walking for his door, and I followed him out.

  I waited outside while he opened his garage and backed out a silver truck. He rolled down his window. “Get in.”

  He left his window down as he drove, and I rolled mine down too. It was summer outside and dawn air was rushing in. He didn’t merge with the highway but went a side route in the same direction as my place, and I didn’t complain. Anything I said would be pushed away by the wind, anyhow. Pieces of half-dry hair whipped my face; I held them back with one hand. I propped my feet up on his dashboard, and he took an unexpected right-hand turn.

  “Hey—” I protested.

  “You’ll see,” I saw him mouth as he shifted gears.

  It was strange to sit beside him in the car when I wasn’t used to this version of him yet. I stared out the window and concentrated on the wind. We wove down roads I didn’t know until we were in the middle of nowhere, a dirt track overgrown with trees. He pulled in and put the car in park.

  “Out.”

  “Where are we?”

  He took his keys from the ignition. “Out.”

  I hopped out of the truck and walked around to wait for him. “Is this where I find out that you’re also a serial killer?”

  He frowned at me. “Do you really think that?”

  “No.” I squirmed, feeling awkward. Nothing out here but trees and his stare. “I just have a smart-ass mouth. Why’re we here?”

  “Follow me.” He walked past me and into the tree line. The trees thickened and then thinned out again, exposing a wide pasture with a small wooden building in the middle of it, not much bigger than a shack. “This is where I was born. Shapeshifters live far away from everyone else when they can. To protect them as long as possible from what they are.”

  “To stop them … from touching people?” I guessed.

  “Precisely.”

  No one had lived in the building for a very long time. Ivy had grown up the walls, and the chimney’d started to break; there was a small pile of brick rubble beside it on the roof. Too many rough winters, and no one here to care.

  “This place is special to me.” He stared at the lone shack, lost in his memories. “Last night, I thought I was never going to see it again.”

  I smiled at him. “I’m glad you were wrong.”

  “Do you know how long it’s been since anyone’s tried to protect me?” he asked. I shook my head. “When I met you in my office without your badge, I touched your skin. I could see through you then. Your entire life. Everything.”

  I suddenly felt very naked and alone. “So?”

  “I saw someone who always thinks other people’s lives are worth more than hers.” He took a step toward me. “You’re wrong.”

  I made a face and rolled my eyes.

  “I’m not kidding, Edie. Your brother, your mom. You’re so busy saving the world that you forget to ask who is saving you.”

  I inhaled to protest, but I wasn’t sure how to fight back.

  “And then you there, last night,” he went on. “I knew what you were thinking, Edie. Every time you touched me. Every time I touched you. Last night—last night, I held on to you like a rope. Thinking about you, thinking like you, they were the only things that kept me from going insane. I was so close, I was on the edge—but I still knew you.”

  I held myself and crossed my arms. “It’s not fair that you know everything about me when I don’t know anything real about you.”

  “That’s why I brought you here. This is real. I’m real. And you do know me.” His eyes were intense, and he was breathing deeply. “No matter what I look like. You will always know me.”

  Emotions fought inside me. I was confused. I didn’t know what I wanted, or what he wanted from me, but this was almost too much. “I think you should take me home.”

  He waited a long moment, then deflated and inhaled. “All right.”

  * * *

  I followed him back through the trees to his truck. He opened up my door for me, and I slid in while he walked around to the driver side. The wind and light through the trees overhead gave everything below moving dark spots, roaming pieces of shadow. He opened up the driver door and sat down, reaching out with his keys. If we drove away now—all this would be lost, in our past. I realized I didn’t want to lose anything else right now.

  “Asher, stop.”

  Holding the keys still, he slowly turned to look at me, with hope in his eyes.

  “Edie, let me in. I won’t go,” he told me.

  I nodded, so slight that he might not even have seen it.

  He slid the short distance of the seat over to me and kissed me, pressing me up against the half-raised window glass. I was surprised by his intensity—I didn’t know his lips or his chin, or the feel of his stubble grazing me, but I knew him. I closed my eyes and let myself feel back.

  Skin, warm and lean. I kissed him as hard as he kissed me, pushing my hands up underneath his shirt, touching him. He ran his hands over me like he’d never get enough of my skin. When he came up for air he grabbed me and pressed me to him bodily, my face into his neck. I could breathe in the smell of his hair, and he wasn’t vetiver-scented anymore; just shampoo and sweat and skin.

  It was hard to breathe smashed against him. “You know I’m not going anywhere, right?” I told his shoulder, and he pulled back, shaking his head, eyes worried.

  “I can’t read you anymore. Not since last night.”

  I didn’t want to think about what that meant for him just yet, if he was a stunted shapeshifter or a full human—right now I was glad for a little privacy. I let my head fall back onto the seat behind me and smiled at him. “That would explain why your pants are still on.”

  He smiled down at me and touched his forehead to mine. “Not for long.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  There wasn’t much room on his truck’s seat. He pulled me down to lay on the seat and we wrestled with jeans until we were out of them, him between my legs, my right knee wedged against his steering wheel. After six months of nothing but my fingers I was tight. He concentrated, pushing himself into me, and when my body relented, suddenly taking him in, we both gasped.

  “Did I—”

  “No. Don’t stop.” I moved beneath him. This was what it was like, to be with someone I’d been with before. It had been so long. He moved with me and we found a rhythm together. There was no way for him not to be on at least some of my hair, and the morning sun plus our friction was turning the truck into an oven, making him drip with sweat. But he was real, and this was real, for as long as he was in me. His face over me was earnest, watching me like I was the magical one, breathing in time with his thrusts. I reached up and my h
and slid over his sweaty back, feeling the muscles of his shoulders working to hold him up. I ran the backs of my nails up his scalp, and held my hands there, framing his head, watching him back. I put one hand back to push against the door so I could press harder against him. Every time I arched he groaned, and the more I arched the harder he rubbed against all of me. I gasped again and he moved with more intent, and faster. I pulled his head down toward me so that our foreheads touched, and we were breathing the same air. It felt like we were one, me beginning where he ended, him beginning at the end of me. His whole body moved over mine, stomach-to-stomach, chest-to-chest, and when I began to cry aloud and let go he thrust harder until he came with me, finishing with a hoarse breath, calling my name.

  He collapsed against me, and it was hard to breathe, but I didn’t mind. Asher carefully pushed himself up, half on, half off me, and slid an arm through my hair to hold my head. I nestled against him, watching the dappled light play off his shoulder and chest.

  “You want to tell me your real name now?” I asked him, pushing a damp lock of hair off his face. Even though we were through he was still watching me carefully, as if at any moment I might change my mind and leave. “I mean, what if I want to say it next time?” I reasoned aloud.

  “I don’t want to be that person anymore. I only want to be Asher with you.” Something tentative sparked in his eyes. “Next time?”

  And suddenly, despite the fact that I already was naked, I felt even more so now. And trapped. “I mean—”

  “No. That’s what I want too,” he interrupted before I could take it back.

  My first instinct was to ask, Really? but before I did I realized I wasn’t that insecure. So instead I said, “Good.” He beamed down at me.

  The real world crept in slowly, like eventually it always does. Now that we weren’t moving I wasn’t very comfortable, and I didn’t think his truck had a towel, but there was no way I was pulling away from him. Not this time.