Shapeshifted (17 page)

Dren was a vampire; finding him would solve my problem, right? Maybe. “I’d rather find a vampire that doesn’t hate me, though.” I couldn’t really imagine my mother spending her life indebted to Dren now, could I? God.

“How did he find you?” Hector jerked his chin at the nightmare by our side.

“It’s what he’s cursed to do.” I used a knuckle to push my cheek in to chew on. Could I get Dren to help me? Somehow? Was it worth the risk? Of course it was. It was my mom.

Just as I was talking myself into following Jorgen, even if I already knew I wouldn’t like where he would lead, Hector nodded. Subtly at first, but then grander, as if convincing himself of something. “All right. I’ll take you to her. I’ll show you.”

“To who?”

Hector raised his hands to the sky. “To who else? The Queen of the Night.”

*   *   *

This was a much better option, inasmuch as any option was better than dealing with Dren, a vampire whom I already knew had a grudge against me. Now a willing guide, Hector took us deeper into the city, with Jorgen following along like the Hound of the Baskervilles come to life. Jorgen whined periodically—it was clear we were not going the way he preferred, from the noises he made, and the way he wove at every corner—but he didn’t put his lips on me again, thank God.

We reached a place where there were women standing on the corners of the streets. Not dressed like hookers, or fiending for dope—normal women, in groups of two or three, talking, standing in place. Watching. When the first group saw us, they smiled at Hector. And one of them whistled out a call that I heard repeated far away. The graffiti on the walls changed—Reina colors for sure. “Are we in their territory now?”

Hector nodded.

“So I was right, there was a connection between the people with the bite mark shirts and the tattoos all along?”

“Presumably. I’ve never seen her myself. I’ve only heard about her.”

“Why did you go in with her lot, then? The blood is for her, isn’t it?”

He nodded again. “Catrina explained it to me.”

“And you believed her? Wait—she knows?”

“She does. Our visit will probably wake her up.”

“She told you she was getting blood for a vampire, and you believed her. Wow.” I at least had Jorgen to prove that I was for real. What had Catrina had?

“Hey, I see things too,” he said.

“But—you’ve never
met
her,” I tried again.

“No. I don’t have to. I can walk through here and see the changes she’s made. Look around. There’s no trash on these streets. All the businesses here close at the end of the day, and no one ever breaks into them. The kids who live inside her lines get fed. I have no idea how she’s doing it, or what laws she’s breaking, but this is what I want for our entire community.” He looked around the empty street we were walking down, all of the people living in it happily at home, watching TVs that we could hear through open windows. Vampires weren’t typically helpful like that. All the vampires I’d ever met had three plans. What they wanted, what they wanted, and how you could help them get what they wanted.

“Plus,” he went on, “something goes bad—she’s strong enough to fight.”

“Fight who?” I asked, but I realized I already knew. “Maldonado.”

“And his men, if it comes to that. She’s stronger than I am. She’ll live longer, for sure.”

That sounded ominous. “Hector—” I still had to figure out how to save my mom. But we were less than a week away from the seventeenth and whatever badness it meant for Hector and his home. I thought my mom had longer than that. We turned a corner and he drew up short.

“We’re here.”

*   *   *

The street we turned onto had been truncated halfway down, turning the road into a courtyard. There was a barricade across the entire block, the road cut in half by cars stacked on top of one another, junkyard-style, like Legos made of steel. No mere human had done that.

“Whoa.”

“Almost there,” Hector said. “They’re unlikely to let me inside, but they might let you in if I vouch for you.”

I nodded. “Please, try.” Whoever was inside was legitimate. No plain human could move cars like that without a backhoe. Following Jorgen, presumably to Dren, was my worst-case scenario. If there was any way I could get a seemingly decent vampire to help my mom, one that wasn’t self-centered and insane, I would do it.

We reached the front of the structure, which wasn’t as solid as it had seemed from the shadows at the end of the block. It was a double-walled fortress, and there were tunnels inside where I could see women walking—patrolling—back and forth, between the rows of cars.

Hector and I waited until two women emerged.

“It’s a bit late for
la entrega de sangre, el médico
.”

“No blood tonight. I’ve brought a friend who needs to see the Queen.” He gently pushed me forward. From my new vantage point, I could see that both of the women were casually wearing submachine guns.

“We don’t allow visitors.” Neither of the women apparently saw Jorgen, standing beside me.

“Please, bring someone with the
don
out. She’s special, and she needs to see her.”

They talked among themselves, passing the message up the line. I used that time to wonder what exactly the submachine guns were for. Someone inside yelled out, “Hey,
médico
!” then companionably came around the corner and saw me.

“Oh, not you—” Catrina, from the clinic. Then her eyes found Jorgen and her jaw dropped.

“What the—” She crossed herself.

“Hey, Catrina.” I gave her a low wave.

“Explain that.” She pointed at Jorgen.

“He’s like a pet. To one of
them,
” I said with particular emphasis, hoping she’d know what kind of creature I meant. “He doesn’t belong to me. I’m trying to return him.” Whatever I needed to say to get inside the door and meet this Queen.

She squinted at me. “You have the
don,
too?”

“No. I knew his owner in a former life.” I didn’t want to say the word
vampire
here—despite the blood thing, I didn’t know how much people out here would actually know. If they were daytimers, they would have been able to see Jorgen. Hell, if they were daytimers they probably wouldn’t need submachine guns.

“Perhaps the Queen can rid her of him.
Él encuentra las cosas.
Maybe the Queen could use him herself?” Hector asked.

Catrina grunted. “He’s not coming in here.”

To be honest, I didn’t want to take Jorgen in with me either, but I didn’t want to find out what he’d do if I didn’t eventually go along with his mysterious plan. I gestured at the wall of cars and made an excuse I hoped he’d understand. “I don’t think he could safely fit.”

“All right then. We’ll take her in. You two wait here.” She pointed at Hector and Jorgen.

I looked back at Hector, apologetically.

“Don’t worry.” He looked over his shoulder at Jorgen, who was on all fours now, too long to be normal, drapes of skin and fur hanging down. “I’m sure we’ll both enjoy it.”

*   *   *

Catrina let me in. The other two let her, and acted like she wasn’t crazy—even though they couldn’t see Jorgen, they accepted that there were strange forces at work in the world, and were prepared to try to handle them with gunfire. I wondered if Catrina had always been able to see the soul-sucking flower in me.

She patted me down more thoroughly than the TSA, and when she was done, she gave me a grudging nod of respect. “I guess you know more than you let on. Welcome to
casa de la noche
.”

*   *   *

Word traveled ahead of us. First we moved through the precariously balanced maze of junkers. I looked overhead and realized we were walking under deadfalls, created by non-engineers. I took a few deep breaths, tried to chase away my claustrophobia, and kept my eyes on Catrina’s back.

It got darker as we went in—and then we reached simple Christmas lights, sparkling like stars, netted overhead. It gave the tunnel we were traveling through a dream-like quality, and took away the edge of a thousand pounds of rusting junk.

Then we reached the building everything was attached to. I felt better once I was under solid brick. The main doors were guarded, and Catrina had to do a call and response in Spanish before she was let back in. Inside was quiet, as befit a place without drugs or hooliganism to keep it awake. A few people getting up for early jobs—they were wearing uniforms, and I could smell the coffee on their breath as they walked the way we’d come down the hall. They looked at me but didn’t ask any questions.

We passed one person as she was closing her door. I could see into her rooms—they looked normal, tight but tidy—with the exception of a bricked-up window on the far wall.

“Bricks?” I asked Catrina.

“No open windows on the bottom two levels. It’s not safe.”

If you were allergic to light. Or maybe were expecting smoke grenades from rival gangs. I kept my mouth shut as I followed her farther in.

*   *   *

We reached the end of the hallway, and there were stairs going down. To the basement. There was a gate across the hallway, bolted into the cement. A series of locks of all different types ran down it, circled with padlocked chains through the bottom rungs.

“We’ll have to wait here. I don’t have the key.” She sat down on the stairs.

“Is she normally out late?”

“Until almost dawn. You have an hour.”

“You could—” I gestured back up the stairs. No need for both of us to kill time here.

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to ditch me?”

I shook my head. “No—not at all. It’s just that it’s late. Not everyone’s as used to staying up at night as I am.”

She reached behind her neck and unclasped a necklace I hadn’t noticed there. A small cross swung out of her shirt, and she patted me with it.

“Wouldn’t it have been smarter to do that up above?” I asked when she was done. She reclasped her necklace, satisfied.

“You’re right—I should always check.” She looked away, lips tight, like she’d missed something she ought not to have in recent past. “Even Reina doesn’t mind me checking.”

So. The plot thickened. If I’d known I might meet a real vampire, I’d have brought something useful. Like a syringe, or an IV start kit. I snorted at myself and rubbed sweaty hands against my jeans.

Catrina was quiet. Any questions I wanted to ask would give away information on my part. I didn’t want to tell her anything else about myself or my situation until I found out who I’d be dealing with tonight.

Waiting here I could feel the moments ticking away. I hoped that Jorgen hadn’t eaten Hector, that Olympio wasn’t cowering under his bed worrying about the Donkey Lady, that I hadn’t left Olympio’s grandfather with the impression that I was a bitch, and last but not least, that Peter had woken up my mother just enough to explain to her that I was all right. Let’s add the hope that my mother might not die at the end of all this to my laundry list too. That maybe I could get some fucking answers here from a fucking real vampire, one that just happened to be nice enough to hand over a small amount of blood.

There were footsteps on the stair above us. “Catrina, who is there?” a voice called down.

Of course the vampire could smell me. She could probably hear me breathing.

“She’s a nurse, she works at the clinic with me. Hector brought her. She says she needs to see you, to help her get rid of the thing outside. Hector says it may help you in your search.”

Had he? Hmmmm. If this vampire was searching for something, maybe we could work out a trade. “My name’s Edie,” I helpfully provided, my name echoing up the stairs.

There was a sigh from up above. “I was hoping it wouldn’t be you.”

Black boots appeared on the stairs, then tight jeans, black shirt, and then a face that I knew. She was a real vampire. I’d been there when she’d been marked to be turned. “Luz.”

“Enfermera,”
she said, closing her eyes and shaking her head.

I’d been her nurse—no, her boyfriend’s nurse—for a stretch when I’d been working on Y4. He’d been gravely injured by a gunshot wound, and she’d been adoring him to the end. Anna, the vampire I was a friend of, had changed him into a daytimer, and Luz into a full vamp, to save both of their lives. Mostly. Seeing as I’d found her as the ruler of a gang, hidden in the basement of an apartment-bunker, I wasn’t sure this was what Anna’d had in mind.

“Catrina, you can go,” Luz said.

“But—” she began, reluctant to be dismissed. She looked to me, then back to Luz, and asked, “Any news?”

“Not tonight. I’ll look again tomorrow.”

It was clear Catrina didn’t want to leave. Luz reached out and grabbed her shoulder. “I’ll find her. I won’t rest until I do. Don’t lose hope.”

Catrina nodded softly, and then ran back up the stairs. Luz watched her go with pity, and then looked to me. “I suppose that we can talk. Perhaps I owe you that. Or perhaps you owe me?” Her eyebrows rose, and the gaze that had been so wide and soft with Catrina narrowed to predatory.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen.” She’d begged Anna for her boyfriend’s life, and this was the payment Anna had required. Changing her into this, here. “I had no idea.”

“What’s done is done,” Luz said, her lips snaking up into an ironic smile, showing fangs, as she reached into her pocket for a ring of keys.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

After enough locks to successfully win a car on
The Price Is Right
were opened, Luz pushed open a very squeaky gate. “Rust, my last defense,” she said, closing the gate behind us—and, to my dismay, redoing all the locks. Once finished, she repocketed the keys.

She flipped on a light and gestured me farther in.

The basement was small and open, with cement floors and walls. A couch, a coffee table, an unmade bed. A single lamp hung over the bed, a tissue paper heart stapled to its shade, casting a pink shadow down. With the exception of her excellent collection of capless test tubes scattered on the floor, Luz had fewer belongings than me.

“Luz, this is a pit.”