Night Shifters

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  Rafiel threw something warm—a jacket?—over her shoulders. “You’re trembling, Kyrie. You need something warm,” he said.

  “Tom’s jacket,” she said.

  “What about it?”

  “It will be ruined,” she said. “All the blood. He’s going to be very upset.” And then she realized what she’d said was nonsense, but she couldn’t seem to think her way out of that puzzle.

  She felt Rafiel lead her very gently. And then there were lights, and noise, and a siren, and someone was asking her something, and she heard Rafiel’s voice say, “She really can’t talk now. She’s in shock. I’m sorry. Perhaps later. We were walking across the parking lot to see when the restaurant opened, and this giant Komodo dragon came running out of nowhere, and it attacked Tom. I’m not really am not sure of the details. It all happened so fast.”

  Kyrie felt Keith shove her into a car. She didn’t care whose car, nor where she was going.

  CHAPTER

  14

  And then life went on, somehow. It all seemed very odd to Kyrie that life could go on after something like that. She’d seen someone die—no. She’d seen Tom die. She’d seen Tom die so that the rest of them would be allowed to go free.

  It all seemed very strange, and she thought about it very deeply. She thought about it so deeply that the rest of life seemed inconsequential.

  It all seemed a great mystery. One minute Tom had been alive and well and afraid, and making wisecracks and being himself. And the next minute—no, the next second, he was so much flesh, on the ground. No life, no spirit, no breath.

  It was very odd that such a great change could be effected so quickly and that it could never be reversed.

  There should be, she thought, and realized she was in her kitchen, sitting at the table and staring down at the pattern of the table—whirls of fake marble engraved on the Formica—there should be a rewind button on life. So that you could press the button and life would be again as it was before. And the horrible things wouldn’t have happened.

  Someone was knocking at the door. At the kitchen door. Tom. But no. Tom would come no more.

  But someone was knocking on her kitchen door. And she was sitting at her table in her robe and—she looked—yup, a long T-shirt. She was decent. And someone was knocking, so she guessed she’d better let whomever it was in.

  She stood up, opened the door. Keith was there, on the doorstep, wearing his ridiculous backward hat. Only it had to be a new one, because the other one had burned with the castle, had it not? She seemed to remember …

  He had her newspapers under one arm, and was staring at her, in utter dismay. “Kyrie,” he said. “Have you slept? Eaten anything?”

  “I don’t …” She frowned. “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember?” Keith asked. He looked scared. “Kyrie, it’s been two days.”

  Two days? Since Tom had died?

  “I just realized I’m … in my robe. In my home …”

  “We brought you back. Mr. Ormson … Edward put you to bed.”

  He had? For some reason the idea of a strange male—of a strange older male—undressing her didn’t embarrass her. Not even a little. It didn’t matter.

  She became aware that Keith had dumped the papers on the table, and was bustling around, setting a teapot on, opening the fridge, letting out with exclamations of dismay, if at her housekeeping or the lack of food in her fridge, she didn’t know.

  It seemed like all of a sudden, he was putting a cup of tea, a plate of toast with jam, and a peeled boiled egg in front of her.

  “I’m not the best of cooks, Kyrie, I’m sorry,” he said. “This is about all I can cook. But will you eat? A little. For me?”

  He was looking pleadingly at her, and he looked far younger than she thought he was, and she thought if she didn’t eat he might very well cry.

  The toast and the egg tasted like straw to her, but she forced herself to eat them. The tea, at least, was sweet and warm, and she swallowed cup after cup, while Keith poured.

  “Have you talked to Rafiel?” Keith asked.

  Kyrie had to concentrate to remember Rafiel. It all seemed such a long way away and vague. After a while she shook her head.

  “Well, they found journals. Apparently Frank kept journals. He’d managed to keep the beetle under control until just a few years ago and then … biological clock or what not and he went insane and started … laying down pheromones bait, to attract females and victims. He wrote all about it in his diary. He started laying the pheromones over a year ago. As if he were trying to reassure himself he wasn’t crazy. Though most of the killings were the female’s doing. He just helped drag the corpses to the castle, afterward.”

  She nodded, though what Keith was saying only made sense in a very distant and impersonal sort of way, as if he were talking about people who had been dead for centuries and whom nothing could affect.

  “He was intending to make Tom the fall guy for it all, you know. That’s why he hired someone from the homeless shelter with a history of drug abuse. The idea was to make all corpses disappear, except a couple, which would be found near Tom’s apartment, and it would be thought that Tom had killed them all, that he had gone over the edge. The beetle’s hallucinogenic powder would have helped. That’s why they attacked us here. They wanted you to throw him out. They didn’t want anyone to be around him, or to know him that well.”

  Well, and that had worked. And had led by degrees to everything else. But Kyrie felt too numb to even feel guilt. None of it mattered. She put her empty cup forward, and Keith filled it again.

  “Kyrie, can you take a sleeping tablet? I bought some over-the-counter ones. I couldn’t … I couldn’t sleep without having nightmares. I have one. Can you take them? Or will they cause you any problems?”

  “I can take them,” she said, her voice sounding pasty and altogether like a stranger’s.

  He put the small yellow tablet in her hand. She swallowed it with a gulp of tea. Presently she felt as if the world around her were becoming blurry.

  She was only vaguely aware of Keith’s leading her to her bed, and tucking her in. For such a young kid—though he might be her age in chronological years—he had an oddly paternal touch as he tucked the blanket around her.

  “Sleep,” he said. “I’ll take a key. I’ll come check on you.”

  “This too shall pass,” Kyrie said, and startled herself with saying it. Keith had come and checked on her and forced her to eat and sleep for the last two days.

  This morning she’d woken up realizing that she couldn’t go on like this.

  Life would go on, even when there didn’t seem to be any point to it. And it wasn’t as though she could say, “Please just stop my subscription, I don’t want to play anymore.” Nor did it seem to matter. Not that way.

  A wedge of sanity was forcing itself into her shock and grief. She’d liked Tom. She’d liked Tom a lot. Although at least part of the feeling was probably lust. She remembered his sprayed-on clothes, and she could smile, in distant appreciation.

  She got up out of bed. It was eight a.m. Keith had been dropping by every morning at ten, after early classes. She didn’t want him to catch her naked. And she really should stop being a burden to the poor young man. It was time she got herself together.

  A glimpse in the mirror showed her how fully horrible she looked, with her unwashed hair matted and falling in tangles in front of her face. Witch of the Rainbow Hairdo, she thought and smiled, an odd smile, from pale, cracked lips.

  She opened her dresser and got out jeans and a dark T-shirt, and underwear. She lugged everything to the bathroom, where she realized she still had her red feather earring on. She couldn’t remember preserving it through the fight at the castle, but she must have, because she was wearing it.

  She took it off and laid it, reverently, on the vanity. Tom had saved that for her.

  Under the hot, full shower, she washed rapidly. Shampoo. Twice to get rid of all the grease she
’d allowed her hair to accumulate in the last … three? four days? And then conditioner. And then soap her body, slowly, bit by bit, making sure every bit got properly scrubbed.

  She doubted she had washed … since. There was green-red ichor on her legs. And her arms and hands were stained the dark—almost black—red of dried blood. Tom’s blood. She watched it wash down the drain, in the water.

  Damn. It wasn’t only that she’d liked him. It wasn’t only that she lusted after him and she’d never had a chance to do anything about it. It was that she’d only realized what he was made of as he was dying.

  Oh, not just because he stepped up and offered himself in exchange for his father—and safety for all of them—but because he’d done it without complaint. And as a matter of course. Even the creature … the dragon, had told him he had courage.

  Why you’d say that to someone who was about to die was beyond Kyrie. Maybe the dragon believed in an afterlife. Maybe he’d thought it would make things easier …

  She finished showering and dried. Tom’s towel was still there, hanging from the hook at the back of the door. She resisted a wild impulse to smell it, to bury her face in it and see if any of his scent remained on the fibers.

  But no. That way lay madness. That way lay people who kept the rooms of dead people just the way they’d been when the person died. That way lay widows who slept with their husband’s used clothes under their pillows. And it wasn’t as if she had the right, even. He wasn’t her husband. He wasn’t even her boyfriend. Until a few days ago, she would have told people she didn’t like him.

  She dressed herself, combed her hair, carefully, put her earring in.

  The face that looked at her from the mirror was still too pale, and she looked like she’d lost weight too. Her cheekbones poked out too far. But there was really nothing for it, was there? Life went on.

  She’d got to the kitchen and put on the kettle, when someone knocked at the kitchen door. She thought it was Keith. He’d taken a key—what did he think she was going to do? try to kill herself? did he think he’d need the key to get in and save her?—but he still knocked before getting in.

  “Come in,” she said.

  “I can’t,” a muffled voice said. “It’s locked.”

  She reached over and unlocked the door. And … Edward Ormson came in.

  He stood just inside the door, as if uncertain what he was going to do or say, or why he’d come here at all.

  Kyrie turned from the small pan in which she’d just put an egg to boil. Keith must have brought eggs one of these days, because there were two cartons in the fridge. “Do you want an egg?” she asked.

  “No, thank you,” he said. His skin looked ashen. His eyes, so much like Tom’s, were sunken in dark rings. “I’ve … eaten.”

  She got a feeling that what he was really saying was that he never wanted to eat again. Ever.

  “I …” He hesitated. He was wearing cargo pants and a T-shirt and looked ruffled and uncertain and a long way from the smooth lawyer who’d landed in town however many days ago. “I would like to talk to you.”

  “Sit,” Kyrie said. “As long as you don’t mind if I eat while you talk.”

  As a matter of fact, though, she got two cups down from the cupboard, and grabbed the sugar bowl, which she put between them. She poured a cup for Edward and said, “Put sugar in it. Even if you normally don’t. It seems to help. Keith has been making me drink it.”

  “Keith …” Edward said.

  And Kyrie thought that he was going to accuse her of having an affair with Keith right after Tom had died, as if she’d made Tom any promises. And besides, she wasn’t. Having an affair with Keith. She’d barely been aware of him here, to be honest, except for his making her eat and drink. And she thought he’d done the dishes once, because everything was out of place in the cupboard.

  But Edward grimaced, and ran his hand back through his hair, just like Tom used to do. “Yeah, Keith has been coming to my hotel room every morning, too. And making me eat. He wrangled a key from the front desk somehow. I have no idea what the front desk people think is going on, and I’m afraid to ask.” His grimace became an almost smile. “But he’s kept me alive, I think. It didn’t seem … to matter for a while.”

  “I’d have thought you’d be back in New York,” Kyrie said. “With your family.”

  He shrugged. “There is no family. There was Tom. And I couldn’t leave … yet. They’re going to give me back the body tomorrow. I’ll be flying it back with me for burial. Our family has a plot in Connecticut.” He hesitated. “There will be a funeral. Probably closed-casket funeral. I wouldn’t want …” He shook his head. “I thought you might want to come. I … you don’t have to but if you want to I’ll pay your fare. I’ve asked Keith, too. Other than that it will just be me and my business associates. I think … some of Tom’s friends should be there.”

  Kyrie contemplated this. She wasn’t sure. On the one hand it might offer … closure. On the other hand, she just wasn’t sure. After all—she knew he was dead. Did she need to see him buried too?

  And yet, it did seem right that he should have friends there with him, didn’t it? He shouldn’t go into the ground watched only by people who thought he’d gone bad. Poor Edward’s son who’d gone to the wrong.

  “I’ll try,” she said. “Yes. I think I would like to go.”

  “Good,” he said. “And that brings me to what I wanted to talk to you about. You know the Athens is closed. From what I understand it is about to be foreclosed on. Not only had … the owner no living relatives that anyone can find, but he hadn’t paid the mortgage in about three months. Apparently whatever frenzy … well … He wasn’t taking care of business.”

  She nodded, not sure what he meant.

  “I wanted to offer you … I wanted to … I know you’re unemployed now.”

  Kyrie shook her head. “Waiting jobs aren’t hard to come by,” she said. “Particularly late-night ones. People offer them to you for being alive and breathing.”

  “I know,” Edward said. “But I would like …” He took a deep breath, as if steeling himself to brave a dragon in full rampage. “Tom liked you an awful lot.”

  She nodded, then shrugged. It didn’t seem to matter.

  “I’d like to offer you college money,” Edward said. “And however much money you need to live while you’re in college. You can study whatever you want to.” He swallowed, as if something in her expression intimidated him further. “I can’t help you much in most professions, but if you take law, I can see to it that our firm hires you, and if you’re half as smart as you seem to be, I can probably nudge you up to partner before you’re thirty.”

  She heard herself laugh and then, in horror, she heard abuse pouring from her lips. She called him every dirty word she could think of. And some she wasn’t sure existed.

  His eyes widened. “Why … why?”

  “You’re trying to make reparations,” she said, and the sane person at the back of the mind of the raving lunatic she seemed to have become noted that she sounded quite wild. “As if Tom were responsible for my being without a job. Tom isn’t, you know. It was not his fault that the beetles ran wild. It was not his fault—”

  And then the tears came, for the first time since all this had started. Tears chased each other down her cheeks, and there was a great sense of release. As though whatever she’d kept bottled up all this time had finally been allowed to flow.

  She became aware of Edward’s hand, gently, patting her hair. “You have it all wrong,” he said. “I’m not trying to make up for anything Tom did. It’s just that without Tom, I really have no family. And besides, I owe him a debt. Whoever started it—and it can be argued I did—right there in the end, he gave his life to end it, so that I could go free. That’s a debt. I’m trying to look after the people he cared for. Don’t deny me that. I’ve offered the same thing to Keith. Anything I can do to help, in his studies or his career … I’m a fairly useless person. Most of what
I can offer is money. But that’s yours, if you need it.”

  As suddenly as they’d started, the tears stopped. Kyrie wiped at her face, and swallowed and nodded. “I don’t know, yet,” she said. “I just don’t know. I’ll. I’ll come to the funeral. And then we’ll see.”

  “There are jobs with the police force, if you should want them,” Rafiel said.

  He stood by her kitchen door, looking, for the first time since she’d known him, stiff and ill at ease.

  Kyrie sat at her kitchen table. She’d been going through all the newspapers, one by one. The one from after Tom’s death talked about the two horrible tragedies in town—the group of people who seemed to have died in the garden at the castle. And Tom’s death. The headline screamed “A Tragic Night In Goldport.”

  She looked up at Rafiel. “Surely the CSIs could tell that the bodies had been dead a while and buried,” she said.

  Rafiel seemed to take this as encouragement to come further into the house. “Yes and no,” he said. “They could see … sort of, that things weren’t exactly textbook. But the thing is that the fire got really hot there, at the center of the garden, and they couldn’t say much for sure about each of the corpses, except identify them through dental records.”

  “The … beetles …”

  “They must have reverted, in death or in burning, because they found skeletons.” He sat down at the table, across from her. “They identified Frank and the woman who owned the castle. The castle itself survived, by the way. There’s talk of someone buying it to make a school for deaf and blind kids.”

  Kyrie nodded, and flipped through the other papers. There were pictures of all the other dead. Even Frank, with his Neanderthal brow, graced the front pages of all newspapers. All of them smiled from posed photos or looked out from poses obviously clipped from candid snapshots. All except Tom.

  “There are no pictures of Tom,” she said.

  Rafiel shook his head. “No,” he said. “His father’s picture of Tom, in his wallet, is from when Tom was six. We didn’t think it was appropriate. And while his father thinks there are mug shots from his juvenile arrests, he didn’t think those were appropriate either. And no one has tracked them down, possibly because the record is sealed.”