Night Shifters (36 page)
Authors: Sarah A. Hoyt
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Contemporary, #Urban
He wasn’t sure if he was ready to forgive his father, yet, but he was sure that his feet would thank him.
He went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Water poured out in torrents. Oh. He might have to take more than a few minutes.
Much to Kyrie’s surprise, the museum did have information on its insect collection online. It wasn’t complete. All they had was pictures of the insects and their names.
“Is it this one, Kyrie?” Keith asked. And because the three men remaining—while judging from the sounds from the bathroom Tom was doing his best to deplete Colorado’s natural water reserves today rather than in the next fifty years—had all crowded together around the computer, behind Keith who was sitting at the desk, they had to part now, to allow her near enough to see.
The picture was very small, and clicking on it didn’t make it bigger. But Kyrie was fairly sure it was the same creature. “Yes. I’m almost positive,” she said.
“
Cryptosarcodermestus halucigens
,” Keith read. “Now a quick Google search.”
The sounds from the bathroom had become positively strange. Kyrie had known Tom for six months. She would have sworn he was the last person to ever sing in the shower. And if he had ever sang in the shower, she was sure—absolutely sure—it wouldn’t be “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Although—and she grinned—there was always the possibility that he was trying to tweak Rafiel. And tweaking was definitely in Tom’s personality.
She wasn’t so stupid that she didn’t realize that though the men seemed to get along with each other—fighting triad dragons must have done it—they seemed to have a rivalry going over her. Right now it was composed of mostly stupid things—like how she reacted to something each of them said.
Kyrie wasn’t sure she could deal with any of it. She was sure she didn’t wish Rafiel to kiss her again. Well, maybe a little. But not if it was going to hurt Tom.
“Aha,” Keith said, from the computer. He’d brought up a colorful screen, surmounted by a picture of the beetle.
“Yes, it’s that one,” Kyrie said. “It definitely is.”
“Well, it’s our old friend
Sarcodermestus
,” Keith said. “And listen to this, guys . . .” He stopped, as they heard the door to the bathroom open and close. “Might as well wait for Tom,” he said, under his breath.
Tom, Kyrie thought, as he came toward them, barefoot, walking silently across the carpeted floor, was definitely worth waiting for. At least the man cleaned up well. He’d shaved and tied his hair back. The new clothes, jeans and a white T-shirt, seemed to have been spray painted on his body. They underlined his broad shoulders, defined his musculature, and made quite a fetching display of his just-rounded-enough-but-clearly-muscular behind. He looked far more indecently naked than he’d been when she’d found him with the corpse in the parking lot. And, as he pressed in close, he smelled of vanilla. Vanilla soap and vanilla shampoo, probably some designer brand used by the Spurs and Lace.
Kyrie swallowed. She wasn’t drooling either. And besides, if she were, it would be because it was vanilla. She was almost positive.
He pushed in close, between her and Rafiel—he would—and said, “Listen to what? What have you found, Keith?”
“On the beetles,” Keith said. “They rub their wings together to produce clouds of hallucinogenic powder to disable their victims. And the male puts down some sort of hormonal scent. It attracts the victim as well as the prey they need to reproduce.”
“Prey?” Kyrie said. It was very hard to think next to a vanilla factory. Up till today, she’d always have said she was a chocolate type of girl. But apparently vanilla would to the trick. Provided it was good vanilla.
“They lay eggs in the bodies of freshly killed victims, which have to be of a certain species of beetle. By the time the victims have reached a certain point in the decomposition, the eggs are ready to emerge as larvae.” Keith said. “They bury the corpses in shallow graves, so that the larvae can crawl out on their own.”
“So, if I were a beetle, which I am not,” Tom said, “where would I hide the corpses with the eggs in them?”
“Somewhere safe,” Kyrie said.
“The parking lot of the Athens?” Tom said.
“Impossible,” Kyrie said, aware of the fact that she might sound more antagonistic than she meant to. “Impossible. After all, it’s asphalt. And besides . . .”
“It’s public,” Rafiel said from Tom’s side.
“So, the male lays down a scent to attract the female, does he?” Tom said.
Definitely,
Kyrie thought.
And it’s vanilla.
Then stopped her thought forcefully.
“Why lay a scent at the Athens?” Tom asked.
“Easy,” Rafiel said. “It’s a diner. This means they get not only tourists passing through and the workers and students from around there, but also a large transient population. If it’s true that shifters aren’t all that usual, then it increases their odds of getting shifters—supposing, of course, shifters are the intended population.”
“Well, since all the shifters here seem to have some form of the warm fuzzies toward the Athens, I must ask the non-shifters. Keith? Mr. Ormson?”
“It’s a dive,” Keith said.
“It . . . I only went there because Tom worked there,” Edward said. “I wouldn’t . . . I don’t see any reason to go again.”
“So,” Rafiel said. “There is a good chance whatever the substance—if there is one—that the male slathered around the Athens attracts shifters only. Which would mean the eggs would need to be laid in shifters. Where around the Athens can one bury freshly killed bodies in shallow graves and not be immediately discovered? It’s all parking lots and warehouses around there.”
Kyrie had something—some thought making its way up from the back of her subconscious. At least she hoped it was thought, because otherwise it would mean that stories of corpses and weird shifters who lay eggs in corpses turned her on.
“This means that the male has to be a regular at the Athens,” Rafiel said. “Or an employee.”
“Don’t look at me,” Tom said. “I already turn into a dragon. Turning into a weird beetle too, that would require overtime. When would I sleep?”
“No,” Rafiel said. “I don’t think that we can turn into more than one thing. At least I can’t and none of the legends mention it. No. But you know, it might be someone on day shift. In fact,” he said, warming up to his theory, “someone on day shift or who only works nights very occasionally, would fit the bill. Because then when he’s not serving, he could be tripping the light fantastic with his lady . . . er . . . beetle.”
Whatever thought had been forming in Kyrie’s mind disappeared, replaced with the image of Anthony turning into a beetle but retaining his frilly shirt, his vest. “Anthony,” she said. “Perhaps he dresses that way to attract the beetle in human form.”
Tom grinned at what he thought was a joke. “He’s a member of a bolero group. They meet every night,” he said. “He only works nights when Frank twists his arm, poor Anthony.”
Okay, so maybe it was a joke, but still . . . “Are we sure he really does dance with this bolero group?” she asked.
Tom grinned wider. “Quite. He gave me tickets once. You wouldn’t believe our Anthony was the star of the show, would you? But he was.”
“So . . . what can we do?” Rafiel asked. “I can go in and make a note of all the regulars. Or you can point out to me the ones you thought started coming around about a year ago.”
“Hard to say,” Kyrie said. “I mean, I can easily eliminate those who haven’t been there that long. But I can’t really tell you if they’ve been coming for longer than a year, since I’ve only been there a year.”
“It’s a start,” Rafiel said. “I’ll come in tonight. You can point them out to me, and then I can run quick background checks on the computer. Mind you, we don’t get the stuff the
CSI
shows get. I keep thinking that they’re going to claim to know when the person was conceived. But we get where they live and such.”
“There’s the poet,” Kyrie said.
Tom nodded, then explained to the other’s blank looks. “Guy who comes and scribbles on a journal most of the night, every night. Maybe he’s writing down ‘Plump and tasty. Looks soft enough for grubs.’”
“Or ‘perfectly salvageable with some marinade,’” Rafiel said, looking over Kyrie’s head at Tom.
Without looking, Kyrie was sure that the guys had exchanged grins that were part friendly and part simian warning of another male off his territory.
“So, I go into work as normal,” Kyrie said.
“And me too,” Tom put in. “Well, yeah, I know Frank should have fired me, but I don’t think he will. I know how hard it is for him to find help at night.”
“Yeah,” Kyrie said. “Particularly since he’s been weirdly absent-minded.” She didn’t want to explain about Frank’s romance heating up in front of everyone. It was funny, yes, but it was a joke employees could share. Bringing it out in front of strangers just seemed like gratuitous meanness. “Poor Anthony ended up having to cook for most of the night yesterday.”
“Which means you were alone at the tables?” Tom said. “I’m sorry.”
And this was the type of moment that made Kyrie want to think of things she hated about Tom. Because when he looked at her like this, all soft and nice, it was very hard to resist, unless she could think of something bad he had done. Which, right now, was failing her, because the only bad thing she could think of was stealing the Pearl of Heaven. And he was ready to give it back, wasn’t he? “Yeah, well,” she said, lamely. “For some reason I’m sure you’d rather be attending to tables than being held prisoner by a triad of dragon shifters. So you’re forgiven.”
“Thank you,” Tom said, and smiled. “So I’ll come in tonight, with you, at the normal hour, and I’ll . . . we’ll watch and see if anyone looks suspicious.” The smile became impish and the dimple appeared. “Besides, really, Anthony will thank me. His fiancé is in the bolero group too and by now she probably thinks he’s found another one.”
“So, that’s what we do about the beetles,” Keith said. “But what do we do about the triad dragons and the Pearl of Heaven?”
“I’m very glad we made Keith an honorary shifter,” Rafiel said. “This guy has a talent for keeping us on target.”
“Honorary shifter?” Kyrie asked.
“He wanted to help us. He’s jealous of our abilities. So he said we could make him an honorary shifter,” Tom said. “I don’t think he told us what specifically he would shift into though. I say a bunny.”
“A blood-sucking bunny with big sharp teeth,” Keith said. “Seriously, how are you going to get the Pearl, Tom, and shouldn’t we at least have a tentative plan in place for how to return it?”
“I need to find a container large enough for it,” Tom said, showing the approximate size with his hands. It looked to Kyrie like about six inches circumference. “A plastic bucket, maybe. With a lid. Then I can put it in there, in water and carry it without its giving me away. A backpack to carry it in would be good. Not this backpack.” He nodded to the thing he’d carried and which he’d let drop in a corner of the room. “Because if I go in with a kid’s backpack, Frank will notice and ask questions.”
“Right,” Rafiel said. “I have a couple of backpacks from army surplus that I use when I’m hiking. I’ll go grab one of them before you go in to work.”
“Well, this just brings up one question,” Keith said, turning his chair around to face them. “And that’s how are we going to sleep. Because we all need to be fresh for tonight. Unlikely as it is, we might be able to pinpoint someone and follow them and find the bodies, but we don’t want to be stumbling into walls.”
“You can stay here,” Tom’s father said. “There’s a few extra pillows and blankets in the closet and I’m sure the bed fits five.”
But Tom’s father should have known better, Kyrie thought a few minutes later. With Tom and Rafiel in full-blown competition for her attention, chivalry was thick enough in the air that one needed a knife to spread it.
So, despite her heated protests, it ended up with her on the bed, Tom—universally believed to have had the roughest few hours—stretched out on the love seat by the window, Keith curled up on the floor in a corner and Rafiel and Mr. Ormson staking out the floor on either side of the bed. Rafiel lay down between her and the love seat, of course—probably trying to prevent Tom from attempting a stealth move.
Kyrie would have liked to fall asleep immediately, and she thought she was tired enough for it. But she wasn’t used to sharing a house—much less a room—with anyone.
She lay there, with her eyes closed, in the semi-dark caused by closing the curtains almost all the way—leaving only enough light so that they could each maneuver to the bathroom without tripping on other sleepers.
Tom’s dad showered. She heard that and the rustle of the paper bag as he fished for clothes. She grinned at the way the older man had neatly outflanked Tom’s stubbornness.
Tom was still suspicious of his father, and perhaps he had reason, but Kyrie heard the man lie down on the floor, next to the bed and seconds later, she heard his breath become regular and deep.
She was the only one still awake. She turned and opened her eyes a little. Tom was in the love seat, directly facing the bed. In the half-light, with his eyes closed and something very much resembling a smile on his lips, the sleeping Tom looked ten years younger and very innocent.
A tumble of dark hair had come loose from whatever he’d tied it with, and fell across his forehead. His leg was slightly bent at the knee, and he’d flung his arm above his head, looking like he was about to invoke some superpower and take off flying.
It was all Kyrie could do not to get up and pull the hair off from in front of his face. Forget special hormones laid down by male beetles to attract the females. The way some human males looked while sleeping was the most effective trap nature had ever devised.
CHAPTER
11
Kyrie woke up with a hand on her shoulder. This was rare enough that just that light touch, over her T-shirt, brought her fully bolt upright. She blinked, to see Tom smiling at her and holding a finger to his lips.
He appeared indecently well-rested and, unless it was an effect of the dim light, the scar on his forehead had almost disappeared. He pointed her toward the desk and asked in her ear, breath tickling her, “Do you like steak?”
She looked her confusion and he smiled. “I ordered dinner,” he said. “From room service. My father said to do it, since we have to go in before the others.”
“Your father?” Kyrie said.
“Don’t go there,” Tom said, giving her a hand to help her up. “Really, don’t.”
“No. He was awake?”
“I woke him to tell him I was going to wake you and we’d leave for work. They don’t need to be there when we go to work.”
Kyrie got up and stepped over the sleeping bodies in the room, to the bathroom. She washed herself, halfheartedly because she didn’t have clean clothes to put on. By the sink there were now five little “if you forgot your toiletries” kits—she would love to hear how Edward had explained that to the hotel staff—and half a dozen black combs. Also, a brush.
“I thought you could use the brush,” Tom said, putting his head around the doorway. “I got it from downstairs.”
She thanked him, pulled the earring from her pocket, where she’d put it for sleeping, and slipped it back on.
The meal was a hurried and odd affair, eating in the dark. But more disturbing than any of it, was looking up from taking a bite and finding Tom watching her.
What did he want her to do? Swoon with the attention? Fall madly in love with him? What would they do together? Both worked entry-level jobs, which was no way to start a family. And if they did start a family, what would it be? Snaky cats?
She glared at him and to excuse the glare said, “Eat. Stop staring. We don’t have that much time.” And he shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t smile like that. There was nothing funny.
But she didn’t say anything. They finished the trays, left them by the door, and hurried out. “Are you worried about what Frank will say?” Kyrie asked Tom as they got in the car.
Tom still had the goofy smile affixed on his lips, but he nodded. “A little,” he said. “Just a little. Frank can be profoundly unpleasant.”
“Yeah, and he’s been in a mood,” Kyrie said.
Tom didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried that all Frank said was “I thought you’d disappeared.”
“No,” Tom said. “Wasn’t feeling well for a while and my dad came to town to look after stuff, so I was with him. I’m sorry I forgot to call.”
For some reason, this seemed to alarm Frank. “Your dad? You have— You’re in touch with him?”
Tom shrugged. “He heard I wasn’t okay and he came to check on me. It’s not that rare, parents caring about their kids,” he said. Of course, he had no previous experience of this, and he wasn’t absolutely sure he trusted his father’s newly conciliatory mood. But he’d enjoy it while it was there and not expect it to stay, so he wouldn’t be wounded when it disappeared.
Frank looked upset with that. “Well, get on with it. You have tables to attend to.”
To Tom it was like returning home. He realized, as he was tying on the apron—“And we’ll dock the extra $10 from your paycheck. I can’t figure out what you people do with your aprons. Eat them?”—that he’d missed all of this.
The air-conditioner was pumping away ineffectively, too far away from the tables to make any practical difference, which meant that the patrons had opened the windows again, allowing the hot dry air of Fairfax Avenue, perfumed with car exhaust and the slight scent of hot asphalt, to pour in and mingle with the hot muggy air inside the Athens, perfumed with clam chowder, burgers, and a touch of homemade fries.
It was almost shocking to realize, but he really loved the place. His mind went over the panorama of seasons and imagined the Athens in winter, when it was snowy out and cozy inside and customers would linger for hours at the corner tables—near the heat vents—drinking coffee after coffee. He’d enjoyed coming in from the freezing cold outside and encountering the Athens as though it were a haven of dryness and warmth. He felt happy here. He wondered if it was just whatever pheromones the beetles had laid down around this place talking.
And speaking of pheromones, he got to work, greeting now this customer, now the other, taking orders, refilling coffees. To his surprise people remembered and had missed him.
“Hello, Tom,” one of the women who came by before going to work at the warehouses said. “Were you sick?”
“Yeah,” Tom said, and smiled at her. She was spectacularly homely—with a square face and grey hair clipped short. But she seemed to treat him with almost maternal warmth, and she always tipped him indecently well. “Touch of something going around.”
“You guys should be more careful,” she said. “Just because it’s warm, doesn’t mean that you can’t get sick. Working nights, and you probably don’t sleep as much as you should. I abused my body like that when I was young too. Trust me, it does send you a bill, though it might come twenty years down the road.”
“Well, I’m all right now. What will you have?” He leaned toward her, smiling. And felt a hand pat his bottom lightly.
He believed in being friendly to customers but this was ridiculous. He turned around ready to blast whoever it might be, and saw Kyrie, leaning against him to talk to the customer. “Is this big ape bothering you, ma’am? Should I remove him?”
The customer grinned. “My, you’re in a good mood. I guess your boss’s hot romance makes things easier, right? He’s not on your case so much?”
“Hot romance?” Tom asked.
“Oh, you don’t know?” the customer said. “He’s been sitting there all the time holding hands with that woman who bought the castle. The one he’s been seeing off and on. Now she’s here all the time.”
“I meant to tell you,” Kyrie said. “But I didn’t want to talk in front of people. They spent yesterday necking over the counter. It was . . . weird. Poor Anthony had cook all the meals. Slowed us down to a crawl.”
“Well, Anthony is a nice boy,” the woman said. “But not like Tom.”
“Ah, so you wouldn’t want our big ape removal services,” Kyrie said, and smiled at the woman, then at Tom, and flitted away to go take the order of the next table.
She left Tom quite stunned. Had Kyrie smiled at him? And had Kyrie really patted his bottom? Forget pheromones. What were they pumping out of those air-conditioners?
“Well, have you asked her out?” the woman said.
“I’m sorry?”
“Oh, don’t play stupid. Have you asked Kyrie out?” the woman asked, smiling at him with a definite maternal expression.
He felt his damn all-too-easy blush come on and heat his cheeks. “Oh, I wouldn’t have a chance.”
The woman pressed her lips together. “Don’t be stupid. She might have talked to me, but that entire little display was for your benefit. You do have a chance.”
Tom hesitated. He could feel his mouth opening and closing, as he failed to find something appropriate to say, and he was sure, absolutely sure, he looked like a landed guppy. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not anyone’s prize catch.”
“So?” the woman shrugged. “No one is. You don’t make babies start screaming when they see you. You’ll do.”
He had to get hold of this conversation. And his own unruly emotions. He and Kyrie had things to do. Far more important things. The Pearl had to be returned. They had to stop whatever scary beetles were trying to kill them both. This was no time to go all googly-eyed at the girl. “Yeah, well . . . anyway, what will you be having?”
“The usual. See if you have apple pie. I don’t know if Frank baked yesterday, he seemed so distracted with his girlfriend. Apple for preference, but cherry would do. And a coffee, with creamer and sugar on the side.”
“Sure,” Tom said and beat a hasty retreat around the edge of the booths and back to the counter. There was apple pie in the fridge. He knew the customer enough to put the pie in the microwave for a few seconds’ zap to chase the chill away. He got the coffee and the little bowls with cream and sugar and put it all on a tray.
And turned around to see Frank and his girlfriend—and he almost dropped the tray.
There was something odd about Frank and his girlfriend, both, and Tom couldn’t quite say what it was.
He’d seen them before together, but usually when she picked Frank up or dropped him off. Now, they were holding hands over the counter, quite lost in each other’s eyes. They weren’t talking. Only their hands, moving infinitesimally against each other seemed to be communicating interest or affection or something.
With such an intense gaze, you expected . . . talk. And you really didn’t expect people their age to be that smitten.
He realized he was staring fixedly at them, but they didn’t even seem to have noticed. They continued looking at each other’s eyes.
There was other crazy stuff happening there, Tom thought. Because while the woman didn’t look like a prize—she looked like she’d been run through the wringer a couple dozen times, and perhaps hit with a mallet for good measure—she dressed well, and she looked like she could do better.
And if she was really the new owner to the castle, she couldn’t be all that poor. The property, dilapidated and in need of work as it was, was yet worth at least half a mil, just on location. Where would someone like her meet someone like Frank? And what would attract her to him?
He set the pie and the coffee in front of the customer, who said, “I see you’ve noticed the lovebirds.”
“Yes,” Tom said, distracted. “I wonder how they met.”
“I don’t know,” the woman said. “It was at least a month ago. In fact, when I saw them first, a month ago, they were already holding hands like that, so it might have been longer.”
A month ago. The cluster of missing people had started a month ago. How would those two facts correlate? Tom wondered. He smiled at the customer and said something, he wasn’t sure what, then backtracked to get the carafe to give warm-ups to his tables.
Was he being churlish? After all, he also didn’t compare to Kyrie. If he should—by a miracle, and possibly through sudden loss of her mind—manage to convince Kyrie to go out with him, wouldn’t people look at them funny like that too, and say that they couldn’t believe she would date someone like him?
But he looked at Frank, still holding the woman’s hands. And Kyrie had said that the day before he’d been so out of it that he’d let Anthony work the grill. Frank, normally, would not let any of them touch the grill. He said that quality control was his responsibility.
Tom looked at Frank and the woman. He could swear they hadn’t moved in half an hour. That just wasn’t normal.
He tracked Kyrie through the diner, till he could arrange to meet her—as he went out, his tray laden with salad and soda, to attend to a table, and she was coming back, her tray loaded with dishes—in the middle of the aisle, in the extension where a whole wall of windows separated them from Frank and made it less likely Frank would overhear them.
“Kyrie, those two, that isn’t normal.”
To his surprise, Kyrie smiled. “Oh, it’s cute in a gag-me sort of way.”
“No, no. I mean it isn’t normal, Kyrie. Normal people don’t sit like that perfectly quiet, fluttering fingers at each other.”
Kyrie flung around to watch him, eye to eye. “What are you saying?”
“That we’re looking for a weird insect-like romance. And I think that’s it. The pie-and-coffee lady says that they first met a month ago, at least. I didn’t pay any attention when it started, just sort of realized it was going on. I guess the idea of Frank getting some and maybe leaving descendants was so scary I kind of shied away from it. But the pie lady thinks it was already going on a month ago. Though even she says it’s getting more intense.”
“I haven’t given it much attention, either,” Kyrie said. “A month at least, or a month?”
“At least a month, I don’t know anymore.”
Kyrie looked suitably worried. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. I’ll make enquiries.”
Kyrie turned on her rounds, to stop by the poet, and give him a warm-up on his coffee. “We always wonder what you write,” she said and smiled. All these months, she’d never actually attempted to talk to the poet, but she figured someone had to. And he was there every night the same hours.