Nightshifted

An eyebrow crept higher on his head, pulling a lopsided smile behind. I kept going in spite of myself. “It was fun, don’t get me wrong, and we had chemistry, sure, but—”

I stared at him and lost my train of thought. There was a gravitational pull between us, yes. But if I were the Earth, then he was a cool and distant moon. Light, but not heat—and I liked to be warm. “You’re a doctor, I’m a nurse, it’s just not a good idea.”

The train shuddered to a halt.

“I believe this is your stop,” he said. He stood and made no move toward the door.

“It is. See you.” I stood and walked out into the station and made it halfway up the stairs.

“I’m not really a doctor, you know,” said Asher’s accented voice. I turned and saw his suit, incongruous with the station’s milky white walls. I quickly blinked an eye and found him glowing, bright.

I inhaled. “Then … what are you?” I asked, slowly.

“I can be a doctor. I can be a lot of things. I prefer, however, to be myself.” He crossed the short distance between us. “Look at me, Edie.”

I did. It was daylight outside, just six stairs away. He couldn’t be a vampire. I reached between my breasts and pressed my badge hard against my skin.

Asher’s face slowly became the face of someone I didn’t recognize. His dark eyes were pierced with blue, until the blue overtook all the brown, like the sky after a heavy storm. His skin tone lightened from olive to become Nordic white, and the set of his jaw tilted, from angled high to low and square.

“I think I met your cousin last night,” I said.

“Now will you tell me where you work?” he asked.

“Y4.”

“It figures,” he said. He shifted back to the Asher I knew in the blink of an eye.

“Does that mean that when you feel like it, you can be me now?” I asked. I thought of Gina, on the floor with gauzed eyes full of blood.

“No, actually. I did try, though, at the club, and several times thereafter. When I found out I couldn’t, I was shocked, then intrigued. Then when I learned you were merely being protected by the proximity of your badge…”

“So you weren’t really into me for me is what you’re saying?”

“You were a novelty.”

And isn’t that what every girl wants to hear? “Fan-fucking-tastic. Good night, Asher, or good morning, or whatever the fuck it is for you now. I’m too tired for this.” I started walking the final stairs away from him.

“That’s not what I meant, Edie,” he called after me. “You have to imagine my surprise that night. I thought you were a rare beast, something that for shapeshifters is like a unicorn—someone whose spirit can’t be tamed. When I realized you worked at a hospital, and probably the hospital, and that was the reason I couldn’t shift into you, well … you can only imagine my disappointment.”

I whirled on him. “How about you imagine my disappointment? When some guy like you is interested in me, we have great sex, and then all of a sudden I’m not good enough anymore?”

He looked up at me like a baffled dog, and he clearly did not understand. And I didn’t want to explain it to him, how girls like me never got guys like him, how I was a Wednesday-night girl, but not a Friday-night girl. I decided it wasn’t worth the energy. I’m not sure what played on my face right then, but at least he seemed thoughtful.

“You’ve got a really confused relative at Y4 right now. You should go check him out.”

Asher held up his hands. “Edie, I’m sorry.”

I inhaled to tell him to shove it, and then shrugged instead. “Yeah. I know.” I hitched up my purse, and walked straight ahead.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

I slung my purse across my chest for the short walk home from the station. I had set out across the commuter parking lot when I heard a car honk its horn. I ignored it, and it honked again. I turned, to make sure I wasn’t about to be run over, and saw my own car, with Jake sitting inside. I changed my course, picking up steam as I crossed the lot.

“How did you—” I sputtered, then realized I should be glad he wasn’t on the way to trade it in.

“I went by your place last night. I saw the car out front, and knocked and knocked, then I realized you weren’t home. So I let myself in with my spare, and decided I’d come pick you up this morning for breakfast.”

I inhaled to be angry at him—I hadn’t told him he could make a spare key for my place, but him having one was the least of my concerns. “Well—thanks.”

“Well, you’re welcome.” He pulled us out of the lot. He looked clean, physically and bloodstreamily. Maybe he’d taken a shower at my place. His hands on the wheel were solid, competent. “What happened to you?” he asked, glancing over at me. I used the rearview mirror to check out my lip. It was as swollen as it felt.

“Last night was long.” I tilted the mirror back toward him.

“Uh-huh. When’d you start taking German?”

“What?”

“That broken CD player. I tried to get the disc out, but it wouldn’t open for me.”

“Heh.”

“I figured you’d learn Spanish for work. Or French—you’ve always been a mushy romantic. But German? Odd choice.”

I crossed my arms, unaccustomed to being a passenger in my own car. He was lucky Grandfather hadn’t exploded, or shot out laser beams, or done anything else that angry German ghosts tended to do. “It was the right price at the store. Where are we going?”

“Molly’s.”

“Nice.” I knew the place; it was close to my house. They made a mean chicken-fried steak and eggs. “How’ve you been?”

“Pretty good.”

“Where’ve you been?” I pressed.

“Around.” He glanced over at me, briefly, then continued to drive. Did I even really want to know the honest answers to those questions? Probably not. We sank into the easy silence of people who love one another—or at least one person who loved the other, and the junkie who loved her back as long as it was expedient—and who really have nothing left to talk about anymore.

* * *

Our silence lasted until after we ordered breakfast. He had coffee, I stuck to iced tea, keeping the ice cubes against my lip with my tongue, and we pretended to catch up on things.

“So really, Jake—how’ve you been?” I wanted to reach over and roll up his sleeves to see for myself. Then again, right now, he looked so clean-cut—at least clean-shaven—that I was ill-inclined to break the illusion. I was the one who looked beaten down—hell, I had the busted lip to prove it. If everything was going to go to shit in my life, I could at least pretend that my brother was back together in his. But the nurse in me wouldn’t let me not ask. “Are you still … experimenting?”

He stared off into the distance, through the plate-glass window, frosted with a mural of fake Christmastime snow. It was a thousand-yard stare, but at least his pupils constricted. “I did for a while.” He inhaled and exhaled. “But I’m broke now.”

He seemed so sad and forlorn. “Do I have a couch left at home?” I asked in an overly teasing tone, to break the mood.

“Not broke as in out of money—well, yeah, that too.” He looked ruefully at me. “I mean I’m broken on the inside.”

“How so?”

“I dunno. The synapses in my head. Edie, I can’t even get all the way drunk anymore. How sad is that?” he asked me, in all seriousness.

“Not very.” Pretty soon he’d have to get a job to lose himself in, maybe a girlfriend. Soon he’d be normal. If only the spell would last.

The waitress brought our food. Molly’s chicken-fried steak and eggs slathered with gravy was as good as I remembered. “Can I tell you something? And you not think I’m crazy?” he asked.

What could be as crazy as death by vampire trial? “Sure, Jake,” I said around a mouthful.

“I think,” he said, looking around, then leaning over. “I think I’m part of some test.”

I almost choked on my eggs. I forced the bolus down, and took a long swig of tea. “Really?”

He studied my face. “You think I’m crazy.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I opted to cover my tracks. “Well, you have done a lot of drugs, Jakey.”

“Seriously, Sissy—you and I both know that this is weird, right? I mean, not even booze.” He sighed, staring into his unadulterated coffee. “Not even booze.”

“Maybe it’s a chance for you to start over?” I suggested. “I mean, now that you’re clean, you can get a fresh start.”

“I’m twenty-eight, Sissy.”

“So? It’s never too late to start over.” I tried to sound like I meant it.

“Have you been reading church signs lately or what?”

If I had, they would have all been of an apocalyptic bent. They were right—the end was fucking nigh. I swirled a piece of steak in the gravy on my plate to buy myself time to think. “I just want to see you happy, Jake.”

“On the drugs, I was happy. I never had a bad minute while I was up on heroin. Some people see things, crazy shit, and talk to God. On heroin I was God. That’s hard to beat.”

“Heh.” I studied his face, around the downturned eyes, and the full yet frowning lips. Handsome, but deeply sad. For a moment I was mad—I’d bought him this second chance, maybe at the cost of my very soul, and for what?—but I could never be mad at Jake for long. He was my brother.

“Who do you think would be experimenting on you?” I asked him, as neutrally as I could.

“What do you care?” he said, and shrugged. I waited for the waitress to refill his mug before I tsked at him.

“I’m your sister. Of course I care.”

He stared into his cup before answering. “I don’t know who. But I think I know where. The Armory.”