He smiled. “No. You were miles away. I said your outfit is very becoming.”
Before she could stop it, she felt heat rise up her cheeks. “Thank you,” she said. “But I would like to know why you asked me to come here.”
He grinned at her. “I would like to have breakfast with you and to discuss … some cases the Goldport police force has encountered recently.”
Her expression must have became frozen with worry, because he shook his head. “I do not in any way suspect you, do you understand? I just think you could—literally—help me with my enquiries. And I thought it was best done over a nice meal.”
Kyrie nodded and picked up her menu, then put it down again, as the prices dismayed her.
“Ms. Smith—I’m hoping for your help with this. I’ll pay for your meal.” He smiled, showing very even teeth. “This is a business brunch.”
She hesitated. She was aware that whatever he said, breaking bread with someone was an expression of friendship, an expression of familiarity. After all, throughout human history, enemies had refused to dine together.
“Look.” He stared at her, across the table, and, for the first time since last night, didn’t smile. “I’m sorry I mentioned the bathroom, which I meant to make you think of the paper towels. It was unworthy of me. And stupid. In fact, I … got rid of them, okay? I risked my position. But I’m sure … Just, I’m sorry I mentioned them. I didn’t know any other way to make you help me, and we must talk. About … dragons and what’s going on.”
His voice was low, though Kyrie very much doubted anyone overhearing them would have any idea at all what they were talking about. But his expression was intense and serious.
She nodded, once. Not only was she starving, but she had left Tom in charge of the kitchen, with bacon and eggs at his disposal. Considering how many times he’d shifted the night before and how tired he’d looked, she was sure that he would have eaten all of it and possibly her lunch meat besides, before he could think straight.
Besides, what did Trall mean, dragons? He’d mentioned crimes. More than one? What had Tom done? Before she threw her luck in with his, she had to know, didn’t she?
“Very well, Officer Trall,” she said. “I’ll have brunch with you.”
He smiled effusively. At that moment, the server reappeared and he informed her they would be having the buffet. He also ordered black coffee, which Kyrie seconded.
The buffet spread was the most sumptuous that Kyrie had ever seen. It stretched over several counters and ranged from steamed crab legs, through prime rib, to desserts of various unlikely colors and shapes.
Kyrie was interested only in the meat. Preferably red and rare. She piled a plate with prime rib, conscious of the shocked glares of a couple of other guests. She didn’t care. And at any rate, back at the table, she was glad to notice that Rafiel Trall’s plate was even more full—though he’d gone for variety by adding ham and bacon.
They ate for a while in silence, and Rafiel got refills—how long had he been shifted the night before? Could a lion have killed the man?—before he leaned back and looked appraisingly at her. “How long have you known your friend? The … dragon?”
Kyrie, busy with a mouthful, swallowed hastily. “About six months,” she said. “Frank hired him from the homeless shelter downtown for the night hours. He told me he was hiring him from the homeless shelter and that he thought Tom had a drug problem, so I’m guessing that Frank thought he was doing the world a favor, or was trying to garner a treasure in heaven, or whatever.”
Rafiel was frowning. “Six months ago?”
Kyrie’s turn to nod. “No, wait. A little more, because it was before Christmas when we were really crunched with all the late shoppers and people going to shows. And the other girl on the night hours had just left town with her boyfriend, so we were in the lurch. Frank got a couple of the day people to fill in, but they don’t like it. Most of them are girls who think this part of town is unsavory and don’t like being out in it at night. So he said he was doing something for community service, and he went and hired Tom.”
Rafiel was still frowning. “And is he? On drugs?”
Kyrie shrugged. She thought of Tom, so defenseless last night, she thought of Tom, looking … admiring and confused this morning. And she felt like a weasel, betraying him to this stranger.
But she didn’t seem quite able to help herself. Something was making her talk. His smell, masculine, feline, pervasive, seemed to make her want to please him. So she shrugged again. “Not on work time, that I’ve noticed,” she said. She didn’t find she needed to mention the track marks. To be honest, they might be scars. She hadn’t looked up close. It seemed more indecent than staring at his privates. Which she hadn’t done, either. Well, maybe she’d seen them by accident yesterday, but no more than to note he had nothing to be ashamed of.
“His name is Thomas Ormson?” Rafiel asked. “Thomas Edward Ormson?”
Kyrie shrugged again. “I’ve never known his middle name. I know he’s Ormson because he introduced himself as Tom Ormson.”
Rafiel made a sound at the back of his throat, as though this proved something. “If you excuse me,” he said, standing up.
She ate the rest of her roast beef in silence, wondering if, by confirming Tom’s name, she had given something essential away and if Tom would now be arrested. But Rafiel simply came back with yet another plate of meat. “How long have you known he was … a shifter?” Rafiel asked, cutting a bite of his ham.
“Not … not until last night. He was late. I heard a scream and I went to look. And he was … shifted.” Why couldn’t she stop herself talking? Why would she trust this stranger?
“And there was a dead person?” Rafiel asked.
Kyrie nodded.
Rafiel frowned. “Has he been late other nights?”
“No,” Kyrie said.
“Are you sure? Not last Thursday? Does he work on Thursdays?”
Kyrie frowned. “He works on Thursdays, and he wasn’t late.”
“And he’s been in town for more than six months?”
She nodded.
Rafiel Trall ate for a while in silence. Kyrie was dying to know what this was all about.
“Why do you ask?” she said. “You said there had been crimes, not one crime.”
Rafiel nodded. “What I’m going to tell you is not known much outside the police department. There have been a couple of reported cases, but no one has put two and two together.”
Alone in the house, Tom showered. He felt guilty about it, because it was Kyrie’s shower. Her water. Her soap. Her shampoo. But at this point he owed her a bunch of money, and he just added to it mentally.
Most of his time on his own, he’d found shelters for runaway kids and, then, when he was older, homeless shelters. He hadn’t been homeless as such. He’d just moved from shelter to shelter in between bouts of getting in trouble and running away. He’d only slept outside when the moon was full. Shortly after leaving his father’s house—even now his mind flitted away from the circumstances of that leaving—he’d thought it best to abandon New York City altogether. There were too many opportunities, there, for a rampaging dragon to do serious damage. And far too many people who might see him do it.
He’d drifted vaguely south and westward, moving when he thought someone had caught a glimpse of him in shifted form and, once, when a picture of him, as a dragon, in full flight, was published on the front page of the local rag. It had been syndicated to the National Enquirer, too. If his father caught a glimpse of it, on a supermarket line, would he have— But Tom shook his head. If he’d not actually given up on his father, he should have. Long ago.
But running or settled for a while in a town, he’d never had an apartment until these last five months. And all showers at these institutions had been rationed and far from private. All the soap had smelled of disinfectant, too.
The last five months, the showers had been heaven. And he’d bought the best soap he could find. His o
ne luxury. But now he was homeless again, adrift. And, with the triad pressing down, he might have to leave.
He only hadn’t left already because Kyrie had insisted he stay. And Kyrie was … the only one of his kind he’d ever got close to. Oh, he might also have quite a huge crush on her. But that didn’t count. He’d had crushes before. He’d moved on. But Kyrie … He bit his lower lip, standing in her tiny bathroom and turning on the water.
Kyrie was something he didn’t know what to do about. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to lose the only kindred feeling and fellowship he’d ever known. But with the triad chasing him, what else could he do?
He showered, enjoying the water, then dried his hair and put the jogging suit Kyrie had lent him back on. He didn’t own anything else. He didn’t even own this. Nothing but his own skin.
A look outside, through the kitchen window, showed him a paper in the driveway. He wondered if Kyrie would mind if the neighbors saw him. But considering she hadn’t told him anything about it, he’d assume she didn’t.
He walked out to get the paper. It was noon, or close to it. The earliest he’d wakened in a long time. The air, though already suffocatingly hot, felt clear and clean, and he smelled Kyrie’s roses, and the neighbor’s profusion of flowers that spilled over the lawn and around the mailbox, in an array of pastel colors.
The neighbor, an elderly lady, sat on the porch with a tall glass of something, her white hair in curlers. She smiled pointedly at Tom and waved at him. Tom waved back and found himself grinning ridiculously. Bending to pick up the paper, he felt as if he were living something out of a movie. A domestic morning. And he wished madly that he could live that life and have that kind of morning. That kind of life. Just be a normal person with a normal life.
But, who was he kidding? Judging from all the trouble he’d got into before he’d started transforming into a dragon, his life wouldn’t have been any different had he been perfectly normal. He’d probably still be running from town, a drifter. He probably still would have used. He probably …
He put the paper on the table, while he nuked himself a profusion of bacon and fried some eggs in a frying pan on the gas stove. He left half the eggs and bacon in the fridge. He could have eaten them all, easily enough, but he didn’t want to do that to Kyrie. Yeah, she’d probably get lunch bought for her today, but what if she shifted again tonight and needed breakfast tomorrow?
Tom knew how much food cost. Over the last five months one of his delights had been learning to cook. He’d bought cookbooks at the same thrift stores at which he shopped for clothes and furniture. Since on a diner waiter’s salary it was a challenge to cover everything and put money aside—as he felt he had to—he’d reveled in trying to create quasi-gourmet dishes from meats on special and discounted produce. And he’d eaten a lot of tofu.
Now he cooked quickly, peppering his eggs from a shaker by the stove. His stomach growled at the smell of the utilitarian fare. He knew, from other shifts, that the craving for protein was almost impossible to deny, the morning after a shift. Kyrie clearly knew it too.
Kyrie again. Sitting down to eat, he opened the paper. And choked.
Right there, on the front page, the headline above the fold screamed “Murder at Local Diner!” The picture of the Athens in black-and-white made the huge parking lot with the tiny diner beside it look like something out of a film noir.
The story was all too familiar to Tom. They’d found a body in the parking lot—of course anyone reading only the headline would think that they’d found it in the diner proper. Which meant that Frank was probably sizzling. If he was awake. Since he preferred to work nights, perhaps his day manager hadn’t found it necessary to wake him and tell him about the paper. Then again, sometimes Tom thought Frank worked around the clock. He always seemed to be at the diner.
Frank’s mood might matter or not. Tom hadn’t decided yet what he was going to do about work. He needed the job. Wanted it. He’d enjoyed working at the diner more than he cared to think about. It had been his first long-term employment. A real, normal job.
Before this he’d just signed up with the day laborer places. But he’d enjoyed the routine, the regulars, and getting them served quickly, and getting their tips. Smiling just enough at the college girls to get a good tip without their thinking he was coming on to them. The minor feuds with the day staff, the camaraderie with Kyrie and … well, he wouldn’t call it camaraderie with Frank, but Frank’s gruff ways.
He had felt almost … human. And now it would all vanish. It all would go as if it meant nothing. Like, having a family. Like school. Like a normal adolescence.
He finished eating and cleaned his plate with bread from the red bread box over the fridge, before carefully washing the dishes and putting them away.
Normally he compensated after nights of shifting by grabbing some fried chicken on the way to work the next evening. Or by eating a couple of boiled eggs. Most of what he cooked at home was near vegetarian. So this might be the most protein he’d eaten at one sitting in years.
Oh, he could afford bacon and eggs, but he’d been saving money. He had some idea that he would go to a community college and get a degree. He’d dreamed of settling down.
Now, of course, as soon as he could swing by an ATM, he would have to empty the five hundred in his account to pay Kyrie for the car repairs and the groceries. And at that he’d probably still owe her money. But he would send her money from … somewhere.
And on this he stopped, because he hadn’t told himself he was going to run. Not yet. But, after all, with the apartment in ruins, and the police investigating a crime around his place of employment, what else could he do? He had to run. Just as soon as he could retrieve … it from the Athens.
The doorbell rang. Tom thought it would be the police, come to arrest him. But how could they know he was here? Of course, Kyrie might have spoken, but …
He tiptoed to the door, trying to keep quiet, and looked through the peephole. Keith Vorpal stood on the doorstep, baseball cap rakishly turned backward and an expression of intense concern on his good-natured face. Since Vorpal didn’t usually feel much concern for something not involving shapely females, Tom was surprised and curious. Also curious about how Vorpal had found him.
He opened the door on the chain and looked out.
“Man,” Keith said as soon as he saw Tom. “Good to see you’re alive. They think someone broke into your place and destroyed it, then tried to set fire to the pieces of furniture. It’s all everyone talks about. Did you see anything weird when you were there?” He looked up at the space over the door, probably where the house number was. “I guess you spent the night here?”
Tom opened the door. “Come in,” he said.
Keith came in, looking around the room with the curiosity of someone visiting a strange place.
“How did you find me?”
Keith shrugged. “Your boss, at that dive you work in. He said you were staying with the girl, Kyrie? And he gave me the address.”
How did Frank know? Perhaps Kyrie had told him. She must have called in sometime after they got back to her place.
“Come on,” Tom said. “I’ll get you some coffee.”
Moments later, they were in the kitchen and Tom had managed to get cups and coffee, and locate the sugar and milk.
“I guess you’ve been here a lot?” Keith asked.
Tom shrugged, neither willing to lie full-out, nor to destroy this impression of himself as a man in a relationship that Keith seemed to envy.
He wondered why Keith had come over. He seemed to be worried about Tom. But Tom wasn’t used to anyone being worried about him. Did this mean the human race wanted him back?
CHAPTER
4
“There have been,” Rafiel Trall said, leaning over the table and keeping his voice low, “a series of deaths in town. Well, at least they’re classified as deaths, not murders. Bodies have been found … bitten in two.”
“Bitten?” Kyr
ie asked, while her thoughts raced. Only one kind of thing could bite a person in two. Well, maybe many kinds of things, but in the middle of a city like Goldport, almost for sure all of those things would be shapeshifters. People like her. Tom had said that there weren’t that many out there. But there were three of them and the triad. Were there more? And if so, what was calling them to Goldport?
“Bitten,” Rafiel said, and his teeth clashed as he closed his mouth, as though the words had been distasteful for him to say. And he held his teeth clenched too, visible through his slightly parted lips. “Our forensics have found proteins in the bites that they say are reptilian but not … not of any known reptile.”
He sat up straight and was silent a moment. “The theories range wildly,” he said. “From pet Komodo dragons that escaped and grew to huge proportions, to an alligator, somewhere, to …” He shrugged. “An extinct reptile that survived somewhere in the wilderness of Colorado and has just now found its way into town. Though that theory is on the fringes. It’s not like we’ve called a paleontologist in to look at the bite marks yet. But …” He took a deep breath, and it trembled a little as he let it out. “But the teeth size and the marks are definitely … They’re very large teeth, of a reptile type. I …” He shook his head. “You must realize in what position this puts me. Everyone at the police is talking escaped animals and Jurassic revivals. They’ve stopped just short of positing UFO aliens, but I’m very much afraid that’s coming up next.”
“And meanwhile none of them guesses the truth,” Kyrie said, leaning back.
He nodded. “Or at least what might be the truth,” he said. “You see in what kind of a position this puts me… .”
She looked at him across the table, and could well imagine that sort of divided loyalty, that confusion of identities. There were many things she wanted to ask. How many other shifters he’d met. Why he suspected Tom specifically. Instead, she heard herself say, “How did you become a police officer?”
He grinned. “Oh, that was easy. Granddad was one. Dad is one.” Suddenly the grin expanded, becoming the easy smile of the night before. His hand toyed with his silverware on the side of his plate. “If I hadn’t become a police officer, they would think there was something wrong with me. The shifting, they can forgive even if they can’t understand. Not being a policeman? Never.”
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