Shapeshifted (26 page)

“No,” Hector said, looking back at us in the rearview mirror. “Who better to serve the house of Santa Muerte than a dead man? And who better to steal away than the love of a dead girl?”

“I’m not dead,” Luz protested.

“You are. You just don’t get it yet,” Hector said. “Look—whoever they are, they stole Adriana out from underneath you. Edie tells me that probably means Maldonado’s a shapeshifter,” he added, leaving himself out of it.

“That explains a lot,” Ti said, making a fist and cracking the knuckles of his right hand.

“What it means for us, though, is that we shouldn’t touch him. We should try to corner him and disarm him, but not touch him skin-to-skin. And we should stay line-of-sight to one another, so that no one gets lost or left behind.”

Luz groaned. She could be much faster than any of us. It would pain her to be so close, and be slow. I wondered if she’d still give me blood at the end of this; if my participation on this trip was enough to count. She turned back, as if she felt me thinking about her. “I know why she shunned you now.”

I nodded in the dark. People who were islands couldn’t get hurt.

“How do you know where it is?” Ti asked Hector.

“They nailed a flyer to the clinic door this morning with the address. Made it hard to miss.” Hector turned off the headlights and coasted to a stop. “It’s at the end of the block. If I get any closer, they’ll know we’re here.”

“They’re going to know we’re here soon, anyhow.” Luz sat straighter in her seat. “I’ll see you all on the inside,” she said, and she leapt out of the car.

“Reina!” Catrina called after her. I leaned over Ti to look out, but I couldn’t see her; she’d already run away.

“Think we can count on her to take out snipers?” Ti asked aloud.

“They don’t snipe down here. They spray,” Hector yelled, just barely louder than the rain coming down on the car roof. A lightning bolt illuminated him gesturing his hand back and forth, like a running machine gun.

“You two should stay here then,” Ti said, looking at Catrina and me. I wanted to go in with them, but I wasn’t supernatural, or bulletproof. And if I went, there’d be no way to convince Catrina to stay behind.

“Okay.” I looked back and forth between the two of them. It might be the last time I’d see one or both of them alive. “Protect each other, okay?”

Hector nodded and Ti grunted—and as one they went into the rain. There was a distant shout—louder than the rain—and shots were fired.

“Come on.” Catrina huddled behind the driver’s seat, where Dren had been last night, and pulled me down to do the same. “This isn’t the first gunfight I’ve been in,” she explained.

It killed me to wait there, to hear sounds of violence, guns, and not know what was going on. When I peeked up like I shouldn’t, and a lightning bolt shot down, all I could see was a warehouse down the block and gates that were wide.

“Stay down!” Catrina hissed.

“How can you be so calm?”

There were more shots. I tried to convince myself that it was thunder, but I hadn’t seen any lightning bolts to cause it.

I wanted my friends to be all right. I wanted my mother to be all right. I just wanted everything to be right in the world for once, for one soul-shattering moment of calmness when I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone else, or even myself.

Another gunshot, a scattered grouping. I pressed my forehead to the window like I shouldn’t, trying to see anything through the rain.

A bloody hand slapped against the top of the glass. I screamed and jumped back.

The hand slid down, horror-movie style, like a drowning man’s last wave good-bye. The unrelenting rain made the bloody droplets race down.

Ti wasn’t going to bleed, and Luz bleeding was unlikely. “Hector?” I said, my voice cracking in fear.

“Don’t do it!” Catrina warned me.

I ignored her and opened up the car door, glad to find it was someone I didn’t know. With the help of the overhead car light, I could see a young Latino man with three cross tattoos on the visible side of his neck. He was prone on the sidewalk, and the rain was washing his blood away.

“Oh, God.” I reached for my phone. I didn’t know where we were, but Catrina did. I handed my phone to her. “Call nine-one-one. Tell them someone’s been shot.”

Maybe I should have pre-reported our arrival here, seeing as gunfire was almost a given. This kid was technically a bad guy—but we were the ones who’d come in asking for trouble. I couldn’t just watch him die.

Hector was a doctor—he had to have a first-aid kit in his car somewhere. All self-respecting doctors did. I reached and felt under the chairs, found nothing, then hopped into the driver’s seat to pull the lever for the trunk. A spare tire, the tire iron and duct tape from last night, and lastly a paper bag full of medical supplies. I looked inside it as the rain pelted the bag and started soaking the equipment inside.

What good was gauze going to do right now? Not very damn much, in this fucking rain. I took it back to the prone man.

“Where did you get hit?” I asked. He didn’t answer. He was far away from the compound—I assumed he’d run this whole way. Or maybe crawled. I pushed him so he was on his back, and tried to look him over. There was a welt on his arm. I unspooled a roll of gauze, lassoed it around his armpit, and tied it tight. Until I could figure out where he was bleeding, I was going to cut off blood flow to all his extremities on principle.

His shirt was full of holes. The crosses hadn’t protected him from anyone but Luz—and even that was iffy. I started when I thought I’d found a gun—but it was just the outline of a gun, tattooed on his stomach, roughly done. This kid wasn’t much older than Olympio was. Jesus.

“Hey!” I shouted at him, shaking him. He groaned. I could feel a pulse at his neck. “Help is coming, okay? Just hang on.”

I went through his limbs more systematically now, looking for holes in the fabric in addition to blood, and undid one arm and a leg. Then I planted the rest of the gummed-up gauze over a wound on his thigh. I hoped it wasn’t his femoral—I didn’t think I was strong enough to haul him into Hector’s car.

There was another burst of gunfire. “Edie!” Catrina shouted at me.

“Hang on. I’m almost done, okay?” I wasn’t sure whom I was addressing, him or her.

“Edie—Edie?” Catrina made a question of my name, and I turned around. “I think I got shot.”

She was still crouched behind the seats, but she was holding her side. “Oh, God—can you lie down on the backseat? Lie down right now.” I tied down the dressing on the gangbanger’s leg, and took my soggy bag of gauze back into the car. “Shit shit shit—where?”

“Here.” It was the side of her stomach—could be a flesh wound, could be halfway to peritonitis.

“Okay. I want you to lie still.” I opened up as much gauze as I could. “Is there an exit wound?” I slid my hand under her back to feel for any other, potentially worse, openings. Finding none, I shoved all the gauze into the bleeding spot on her stomach. “Shit. Catrina—hold this here, okay?” I fished my phone out of my pocket with bloody hands. Not that now was a great time to text Asher, but he had the fucking car keys and I didn’t know what else to do. Emergency vehicles should already be on their way.
Should.

“How did it happen? I was being careful.” She was gritting her teeth from the pain. I wondered where the bullet had wound up inside her. God-fucking-dammit. If anyone should have gotten hit, it was me, gallivanting around outside.

“What have you done?” Luz was outside, standing in the rain, looking at the bleeding man. Her eyes went wide when she saw Catrina.

“Did you find her?” Catrina reached a red hand out.

“No. She wasn’t there—” Luz looked between the gangbanger and Catrina and made an assumption. She put her foot on his tattooed neck.

“No! He didn’t shoot her!” I yelled into the rain.

“So?” Luz yelled back. “He’s one of them!”

“Tell her he didn’t hurt you, Catrina!” I sank down to her level inside the car. “Tell her!”

Catrina’s eyes narrowed. It was clear she didn’t want to care.

“Catrina—” I begged.

“Reina—don’t,” Catina whispered.

“Bah!” Luz kicked the man and knelt down, holding his eyelids up with her thumbs and looking into his eyes. He woke up then, when he hadn’t before. Seeing her looming over him, he started to talk—I assumed she was using her glamour on him. She reached for the bandage I’d placed on his leg and pulled it aside. “He doesn’t know where she is. He says he’s never seen her. Let him bleed to death like he deserves to.” I reached out and fought her for control of his leg. “Whose side are you on?” she yelled at me, fangs out.

“The side where no one dies!”

Luz rocked back on her heels and laughed at me. “It is too late for that.”

Acid flushed through my stomach. “Where’s Hector and Ti?”

She smiled, showing fang. “Your zombie friend makes a very effective human shield. They’re slower than me, but I think they’re fine.”

“And she wasn’t there?” I asked again.

“No. All this, for nothing. And Catrina shot.” Luz looked into the car where Catrina was. I couldn’t read what was written in her eyes. “I wanted to save one person. That’s it. Just one. The rest of the world can go fuck itself, if I can save this one. And they still keep her from me. There was a pile of bones there—but no girl.”

“I’m sorry, Luz.” I didn’t know what else to say.

Catrina screamed from inside the car. I didn’t know if it was anguish or pain.

“We’ve got to—” I said, looking at Catrina. If I had to pick between her and the man outside, I’d choose her. “Do you have keys?”

“No. The doctor does.” She squinted into the distance. “He’s on the way.”

Hector and Ti arrived just as sirens started down the street, ambulances and police cars fighting through the rain.

“Who is that?” Ti asked.

“Oh, no—Edie—” Hector said, looking at the man and then at Catrina. He leaned into the car and quickly assessed her.

“She needs help—but he might die. He’s going into shock.”

Of course he was; he’d been bleeding out in the cold rain. Hector pulled his keys out and threw them at me. “I’m a local doctor. I can say I heard shots and came out to help.” He shook his hand, and I handed him his emergency bag.

“In the rain?”

“I know the police. They’ll believe me. Take my car—get Catrina to County. You know where to go.”

I didn’t want to leave him behind with this mess. There was no guarantee more Three Crosses members wouldn’t come out. I almost said his real name, and just barely caught myself in time. “As—Hector—be careful, okay?”

Asher nodded, and Ti put his hand out. I handed him the keys. I knew he’d been to County before.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Luz rode in the front seat while I cradled Catrina’s head on my lap and applied pressure to her side in the back. Was it a good thing there was no exit wound? I didn’t know enough trauma medicine to know. I petted Catrina’s hair with my free hand while she moaned.

“Can’t you just—” I asked Luz. She pulled her head back, as if I’d suggested something offensive to her. “Goddammit, Luz, it’s only a little blood.”

“If I give blood to her, I’ll wake up Anna—and if Anna takes me back, who will rescue Adriana then?”

“How do you think Adriana will feel if you kill her sister?”

“Don’t,” Catrina whispered.

“You stay out of it,” I told her. Her blood was seeping up, gluing her shirt to my thigh. “Ti—what happened in there?”

“Nothing good. Maldonado wasn’t there. And the girl we were looking for wasn’t either. They seemed surprised, so it wasn’t a trap, but nothing was gained.”

It was still pouring outside. Inside, the car smelled like humidity and rain, and blood—and rot.

“Did you get hurt?” I asked Ti.

“A few shots. Nothing I can’t heal.” He pulled us onto the highway, and the rain didn’t stop.

*   *   *

We were silent on our way to County. I wondered what was happening with Asher, if they would keep him for questioning, if they’d find other members of Three Crosses, and what they would say. Catrina had been quiet—her eyes were open, but I could tell she was thinking, watching lampposts go by, upside down, outside the window in the night. I watched her breathing, and my free hand held her wrist to feel the strength and speed of her pulse.

We pulled into the emergency roundabout, and Luz got out of the car. “I’ll go in with her. You two go on.”

I looked to Ti. He shrugged, and then I looked back to her. “Are you sure?”

“There’s still half the night to go. I can take her in and answer any questions—or stop them from asking them.” Luz tilted her head to indicate what, as a vampire, she could do with her mind.

“Is that okay with you, Catrina?”

She nodded and I relinquished her to Luz, who picked her up easily, although she gasped and groaned. Once she was in Luz’s arms, she looked up at the other woman. “You’ll search again tomorrow night?”

Luz smiled down sadly at her. “Of course.”

*   *   *

Ti drove me home. I didn’t know what to say, straight up until he put the car into park. I turned toward him. “Do you want to stay here? I’ve got a couch.”

“Sure.” He opened up his door and got out. I trotted up to my apartment and opened the door. Once he was in, I latched all the chain locks again. Ti looked bemused.

“Am I supposed to be keeping an eye on you, or are you supposed to be keeping an eye on me?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure. Both, maybe? I need a shower, and I need to sleep. How about you?”

“Just the one. I don’t think I ever want to sleep again.” He waved the thought away. “No offense to people who need to.”

“All right then. Dibs on the shower, because it’s mine.” And because after a wounded zombie showers, there might be … clots. I got a towel out of my linen closet and threw it down on the couch for him. “Wait here.”

I couldn’t help but think about how in other circumstances, if our lives had been different, the chance to take a shower with Ti might have been sexy. Now—no. That door had closed. I wasn’t sure when it had happened, or how, but when I searched my heart, I knew it was true. Maybe because someone else was there instead. My heart always liked to bet on the darker, more damaged horse. I sighed and looked down—my ankles still had red marks on them that were tender to touch after the snakes. At least Asher wasn’t full of snakes—just other people. I got out of the shower, dried my hair, and threw on clothes. Ti stood up when I entered the room.