Night Shifters (44 page)
Authors: Sarah A. Hoyt
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Contemporary, #Urban
“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.”
Kyrie felt bereft. She couldn’t explain it to herself, but she felt like she needed to see Tom’s face, just once more. She was afraid of forgetting him. She was afraid his features would slip from her mind, irrecoverable.
While she’d come to accept that she’d live on past this, that she might very well live on to find someone and marry, maybe, sometime—her shifter handicap being accounted for—she couldn’t bear the thought of forgetting Tom. “It’s just . . . I would very much like to remember his face,” she said.
Rafiel looked at her, intently. He was wiggling his leg again, this time side to side, very fast. “About what I said about Tom, the day . . . I was an ass, Kyrie. I could tell you were interested in him, and I was afraid. You . . . are very special to me, Kyrie.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, and just looked at him, with what she was sure was a vacant look.
He laughed, a short laugh, more like a bark. “And I’m being an ass again, aren’t I? I can’t give you a picture of him. Unless you want the one from when he was six and I don’t suppose . . .” He sighed. “Would you like to come to the morgue? To see him? He’s being given back to his father tonight, so if you want to see him, it has to be now.”
Kyrie thought of Tom’s face contorted in pain, as she’d last seen it. She wasn’t sure that was the memory she wanted.
“He doesn’t look like he did, you know. In death . . . His face has relaxed. They . . . the coroner closed him up. He doesn’t look gross at all. More like he’s sleeping.”
“You were there?” Kyrie asked. “For the autopsy?” She thought of what she’d seen done to the corpse in the parking lot—the body opened, the brain sawed out of its cavity.
“There was no autopsy. It didn’t seem needed. We supposedly saw death, you know, attack by wild animal. They found a couple of scales on his body. They’re not exactly Komodo dragon scales.” He frowned. “To be honest, they were in his boots and were probably . . . his . . . but they analyzed as reptile scales and the paper is printing something about the danger of exotic pets. They love to preach. And his father didn’t want him autopsied, so he wasn’t. He really looks . . . very natural.”
Kyrie wasn’t sure. The morgue had scared her. But perhaps seeing Tom without that expression of agony on his face was all she needed.
She nodded. In the bathroom, she caught herself putting on lip gloss and combing her hair. As if Tom could see her.
Feeling very silly, she headed out the door with Rafiel.
The morgue was . . . as it had been before. The guy at the desk didn’t even make much fuss over Kyrie coming back. Just tipped his hat at her, as if she were a known person here.
Rafiel led her down the cool, faintly smelly corridors, to a door at the end. He opened the door and turned on a very bright fluorescent light, which glared off tiled walls. In this room, the tiles were white, and it made the whole thing look like an antiseptic cell. Or the inside of an ice cube.
It wasn’t an autopsy room. Just a small room, with a collapsible metal table set up against one wall. On the table was something—no, someone—covered with a sheet. The room was just this side of freezing.
“We don’t have drawers,” Rafiel said. “Just ten of these rooms. If needed we can cram three people per room, but I don’t think we’ve ever needed to. The closest we came were the bones, from the castle, and those we just put all together in one room, while we sorted out who was who and identified victims by dental records and DNA.”
She nodded. She didn’t remember walking up to the table, but she was standing right next to it, now. She couldn’t quite bring herself to reach out her hand and pull the sheet back.
Rafiel reached past her, and pulled the sheet back. Just enough to reveal Tom’s face and neck.
He was right, Tom didn’t look as he had at the time of his death. He also didn’t look as other dead people that Kyrie had seen. She expected wax-dummy pallor. She expected the feeling she’d had when she’d seen other dead people—even when she’d seen Tom dead, in the parking lot. That feeling that all that mattered had fled the body and the only thing left there was . . . meat.
But there wasn’t that sense. Instead, there was as much color as she’d seen on Tom when he was pale. Not the paper-white pallor of his anger, and not the sickly pale of the parking lot, when they’d discovered the corpse. Just, even, ivory white. His lips even had a faint color—pale pink. And his eyelids were closed, his quite indecently long eyelashes—how come she never had noticed?—resting against the white of his skin and giving the impression that at any minute his eyes would flutter open and he’d wake up.
She looked up to ask Rafiel if embalmers had worked on Tom, but Rafiel had left. Very decent of him. Giving her time alone with Tom.
She ran a hand down Tom’s cheek. It felt . . . warm to the touch. She didn’t know embalmers could do that. She caught at a bit of his hair. It felt silky soft in her hand. Clearly, they’d cleaned the body of blood.
Bending over him, she caught herself and thought this was insane. She couldn’t, seriously, be meaning to kiss a dead man? But he didn’t look dead. He didn’t
feel
dead, and it wasn’t as though she meant to French him. Just a quick peck on the lips. A good-bye.
She bent down all the way, and set her lips on him for a quick peck.
His lips were warm—warmer than she would expect, even from someone alive who was lying down in a refrigerated room—and she would swear they moved under hers.
And then she heard him draw a breath. She felt breath against her own lips. His eyes flew open. He looked very shocked. Then he smiled, under her lips. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders. He pulled her down onto him.
And he kissed her very thoroughly.
It should have been scary, but it was not. It was just . . . Tom. And his mouth tasted, a little, of blood, but it wasn’t unpleasant. As soon as he allowed her to pull up, she said, “You’re alive.”
He frowned. “It would seem so. Shouldn’t I be?”
She shook her head. “We’re at the morgue.”
He raised his eyebrows, but the mild curiosity didn’t stop him from pulling her face down toward him, and kissing her again.
“Oh, hell,” a voice said, startling them both; sending Kyrie flying back from Tom; and making Tom sit up and the sheet that covered him fall.
He pulled it back up, to make himself decent, but left his chest exposed, and Kyrie blinked, because where she was sure there had been a torso-long rip that exposed his insides, there was now only a very faint scar, as though he had only had a superficial cut.
They turned to the person who’d said, “Oh, hell.”
It was Rafiel, and he was leaning against the wall, by the door, looking at them with wide-open eyes. “Shit,” he said very softly. “It’s nice to see you well, Tom, but how the hell do I explain to the coroner that his corpse with massive trauma is going to walk out of here?”
“Tell him reports of my death were greatly exaggerated?” Tom asked, raising an eyebrow and smiling.
“But we need to get him out of here soon,” Kyrie said. “And get him some clothes. He’s going to catch his death of cold.”
“I doubt it,” Rafiel said. “I very much doubt it. Unless cold is a silver bullet.”
CHAPTER
15
And life went on even when the best that could possibly happen had happened. The day that Tom was let out of the morgue—though the coroner had insisted he go to the hospital for X-rays and a full checkup before admitting that Tom might, just possibly, be alive—they’d bought a daybed and a dresser for the back room.
They’d been quite prepared to use the rest of Tom’s money and get it from the Salvation Army, but Edward had insisted, and so Tom had a matching daybed and dresser in Southwestern style, as well as a bookcase and a bunch of books his father had bought him to replace the ones that had been destroyed in his apartment.
The back room was now his, and for the use of it, the kitchen and the other common areas, he would pay half of Kyrie’s rent, and half the utilities. Kyrie’s bathroom had acquired a bottle of something called Mane and Tail, which she’d told Tom seemed more appropriate for Rafiel, and shouldn’t Tom’s shampoo be Wing and Scale?
But they weren’t living together. Not exactly. They were roommates, not lovers. They hadn’t slept together, didn’t know if it would ever happen.
For now there were kisses, now and then, and the occasional holding of hands. Tom had explained what he wanted with disarming frankness. “I’d like to date,” he’d told her the night he’d got out of the morgue—was it only two weeks ago?—over dinner. “I’ve never dated, you know? Not even high school dating. I groped a few girls in school.” He’d grinned. “They all complained. And I think I suck at relationships. Of any sort. I need practice. I’d like to date. Well . . . go together, as if we were kids. And then work up to the rest, if it works out.”
The decision to share a house seemed odd in light of that, but it wasn’t. Between two shifters, one of them should be able to watch out for the other. And also, they’d both realized that they’d been awfully lonely. And whether they were ever anything else again, they were friends.
They were also partners. Not in a romantic sense, but in a business sense.
Kyrie remembered a whole afternoon of shouting between Tom and his father. Both men assured her they’d never raised their voices, but she remembered sitting on the sofa in her living room while they glowered at each other and shouted, both of their expressions very much alike, and both far more intense than the argument warranted.
The gist of it was that Edward wanted to give Tom the moon, the stars, and happiness on a plate—or at least the only form of it Edward could give him. He wanted Tom to go back to school. He wanted to pay Tom’s expenses while he did. He still wanted to pay Kyrie’s too. Both studies and expenses.
Tom . . . wanted something completely different. He wanted the Athens. He would accept enough money to go to cooking school. Not chef’s school. Far too fancy. Tom wanted to learn enough to be the cook for the Athens. And he wanted Kyrie to have part ownership of it.
Which brought them to this evening, two weeks later, standing outside what used to be the Athens. There was a new sign, up front, and Keith, perched up on a ladder, was finishing painting it. It said, in fancy old-English script “The George” and, in case someone missed the reference, there was a cartoonish drawing of Saint George, spearing a flaming dragon.
It was all very baffling to Kyrie, but Tom had insisted. And when Keith came down from his ladder, to much applause from the four of them—Kyrie, Tom, Rafiel, and Edward—and took a bow at his artistry, and Tom led them inside, the bafflement continued.
Tom had found somewhere, in the bowels of the Salvation Army—while he was trying to find replacements for some of his personal effects behind his father’s back—an old, possibly antique, and definitely disgusting painting. It showed Saint George on a horse putting a lance through the chest of a dragon, who fountained quantities of blood. He now proceeded to hang it over the big booth at the back, the only one that could sit ten people.
“I hope you realize it’s in extremely poor taste,” Kyrie said.
“Yeah,” Rafiel said. “That would kill you. That was the difference between you and the other corpses. The Great Sky Dragon didn’t get your heart.”
“I wonder if it was on purpose,” Keith said.
“I’m sure it was,” Tom said, finishing nailing his picture and jumping down from the vinyl seat, and backing up to admire the effect. “I suspect he considered it the equivalent of turning me over his knee.”
“Has the coroner recovered yet?” Kyrie asked. “From having one of his corpses walk out?”
“Well—” Rafiel said. “He’s now talking about how Tom was in comatose shock from the injury. In another five days he’ll have convinced himself that he never pronounced Tom dead. I mean, if he told the truth, people would wonder if he’d been drinking his own formaldehyde.
He
’s probably wondering if he’s been drinking his own formaldehyde. People hate doubting their own sanity. He’ll make . . . adjustments.”
“But could the Great Sky Dragon know that?” Keith asked. “Wouldn’t he have feared Tom’s coming back would hit the papers and blow the whole shifter thing sky-high?”
“I doubt it,” Tom said. He turned around, a frown making a vertical wrinkle between his eyebrows. “I very much doubt it. He’s been around a lot. He knows people.”
“What I want to know,” Rafiel said softly, “is if the great triad presence in town was because of the Pearl of Heaven and if they’ll now thin out, or if we’re stuck with them for good. We don’t have the police force to deal with an international criminal organization . . .”
“I wonder if they’ll leave us alone,” Kyrie said. “They strike me as people with notoriously little sense of humor—whatever the Great Sky Dragon has. And they’re bound to be a little . . . miffed at us.” She looked out the corner of her eye at Edward, who had already declared his intention to leave the firm that worked so much for the triads. He’d start again on his own. He’d made some noises about maybe moving to Denver. She wondered if any of these intentions would survive once he got back to New York.
But Edward didn’t notice her look. He was still staring at the picture of Saint George, wide-eyed. “Good Lord, Tom,” he said. “It will put customers off their food.”
“I very much doubt it,” Kyrie said. “Tom has been hiding talents. He can actually cook.”
“And college students will eat anything,” Keith said.
“There is that,” Kyrie admitted. Then she looked at Tom, who was looking at her with a little smile. When he looked like that, it was very hard not to kiss him, and she’d been trying very hard not to kiss him in public. It only gave people ideas. Besides, they were at The George. They were supposed to behave as business partners. “So, what’s the symbolism, Tom?”
“Can’t you tell?” he asked softly. “I thought you’d get it.” Smiling, he looked around at the still empty tables. The door was closed, the Closed sign firmly in place. In a minute, Keith—who wanted to work for them part-time, at night, even while going to college—was going to go out and hang the “Grand Opening” and “Under New Management” signs out there. But for now everything was quiet.
“The pheromones that Frank laid down will take years to wear out,” Tom said. “Rafiel,” he looked at the policeman, “has had them analyzed, and they are very potent. It’s not unusual for little beetles to lay down chemical signs that attract mates and prey from miles away. These ones might very well act on the whole country. And they’re specific for shifters. We’ll have shifters coming out of our ears for years to come. Chances are,” he said, looking at Rafiel, “that we’ll have to keep order in our own little strange community. So many occasions for people to go over the edge. And we can’t afford for the more out-of-control of us to expose us all to danger. So . . .” He waved expansively toward the picture on the wall. “We get to be both the beast, and the dragon slayer. It’s perfect.”
“If you say so,” Kyrie said.
“There’s people milling around out there,” Keith said.
“Those aren’t people, darling,” Kyrie said, turning around, and surely surprising poor Keith with the playful appellation. “That’s the poet and pie lady. They just want to come and loiter all night, eating too little food.” She grinned at him. “Go open the door.”
“And I suppose I’d better eat something,” Edward said. “I’m taking the last flight to New York.” He looked at the menu. New menus, freshly laminated. “Good Lord,” he said. “What are these?”
“It’s old diner lingo. Tom insisted. There’s a translation in front of each item.”
“You really have to learn to start saying no to that boy,” Edward said, smiling. “He has entirely too many crazy ideas for his own good.”
“Oh, trust me,” Kyrie said. “I say no enough.” And had Tom’s father blushed?
He looked away from her and backed, to sit at a table facing the counter. Keith was opening the door. Behind the counter, Tom had put his—blue, emblazoned in gold—apron on. Yesterday he’d spent the whole day scrubbing the counter and kitchen area till it glimmered. And they’d interviewed and hired the staff. Anthony. And a couple of the day girls. And Keith, and half a dozen other new faces.
They, themselves, would have to work twelve hours or more a day, everyday. It didn’t matter. That it was their place made all the difference.
Keith was writing stuff on the glass window. Most of it incomprehensible to the normal—or even abnormal—mind because it was taken from Tom’s research of old diner lingo. There was for instance “Moo with Haystacks,” which she thought was supposed to be burger and fries, for $5. She was going to have a talk with Keith and get him to write stuff everyone understood.
But for now, it was the first night, and she didn’t mind if only the regulars came in.
Edward looked up from his menu. “I think I’ll try the hash,” he said.
“Really?” Kyrie asked.
“Really. I haven’t had it in years, and since my own son is cooking, the chances are low he’ll poison me. They’re there, but low.”
“All right,” Kyrie said, and glanced in the menu to see the fancy name that Tom wanted hash called. Getting back to the counter, she looked over it at Tom.
He’d tied his hair back and tied a scarf over it, pirate style, to keep hair from the grill. Which just meant that he wasn’t in the spirit of cooking in a diner yet. And he smiled at her, which made all thoughts flee her mind for a while.
It took her a few seconds to remember Edward’s order, and to relay it in the new-menu-speak. “Gentleman will take a chance,” she told Tom.
His features crinkled up in a smile. “Oh, yes. I am quite sure he will.”