Night Shifters (29 page)

“It’s worse than that. The green powder? I think it has hallucinogenic properties, that it’s supposed to make the victim unable to fight. I think that’s why I managed to fight them back. I tied a towel over my mouth.”

“Ingenious,” he said. “I could go back to the Athens tonight in . . . lion form and try to follow the trail of the blood. It’s probably fresh enough and because there was no body, I wasn’t forced to call out the rest of the force, so the scent won’t be diluted.” He paused for a moment. “I would have done it then, but I was afraid it would bring too much attention.”

He nodded, as if satisfying himself of something. “Then as we were heading for the station, there was the report of a panther. Fortunately it turned out to be a sort of mass hallucination.” He cleared his throat. “As you know, these are quite common. Seeing black panthers, I mean. There’s whole counties in England afflicted by it.”

He looked at her, and reached for her hand, where it rested on the table. “How did you escape them?”

For a moment, for just a moment, Kyrie had a feeling of misgiving. Was it that Rafiel wanted to know how she’d escaped so that he could warn the beetles? But no. The beetles already knew how she had escaped. He wanted to know. It made sense.

“I stabbed one with my umbrella.” She nodded toward the umbrella resting a few feet away against the wall in the hallway. “Between the head and back carapaces. And it was immobilized. Which allowed me to jump over it and escape.”

“So, the shift to panther was . . .”

“I thought its mate would chase me.”

“It probably would have, except for its being daylight and a busy area.” He sighed. “I don’t like to think creatures like that have such control. They are shifters, they must be. But what kind of insane nature or magic or evolution could have caused such a thing as shifter beetles?”

Kyrie shrugged. “Whatever it was, it created dragons. Which brings me to Tom.”

“Ormson? Must you?” Rafiel looked pained and vaguely put out, as if she were insisting on speaking about a distasteful subject.

“Tom Ormson,” she said. “I have reason to believe I did him an injustice. If that powder from the beetles causes hallucinations, I think that might have been all he was high on. On top of that, there is his father.”

“Ormson has a father?” Rafiel asked.

“Till this moment you assumed he reproduced by fission?”

“No, I mean he has a father around here, a father who is in some way involved in his life?”

Kyrie shrugged. “I don’t think he is. Involved in Tom’s life, I mean. I think he came from New York on purpose to find Tom. I think at the request of the triad.”

Rafiel’s eyebrows rose.

“I think he’s a lawyer of some sort,” she said. “I . . . vaguely remember Tom telling me that. And I think he is involved with the triads in some way. Well, with the shifter dragon triad, most of all.”

“This family just keeps getting better and better,” Rafiel said. “I suppose I’ll look up the elder Mr. Ormson’s background. And his name is?”

“His given name? Edward.”

Rafiel nodded. “I’ll check him out.”

“Wait,” Kyrie said. She didn’t know she was going to say it, till it came flying out of her mouth. “Wait. I need to ask you a favor. Please. Would you . . . Would you check on Tom?”

“Check on . . .?”

“I think he’s staying with his friend, Keith, who lives in the same building, third floor. Because he left with Keith. Keith would at least know where he was going.”

“But why do you want me to check on him? Isn’t he a grown-up and able to look after himself?”

Kyrie frowned. She had a sense of deep uneasiness and was quite well aware that a lot of it might be due to her guilt in having misjudged him over the drug stuff. “I . . .” She waved at her house and the destruction. “Until today I would have said I was able to look after myself, too, but it is not that easy, as you see. And then he had the triad looking for him too. And apparently his father, working for them.” She took a deep breath. “Last night he missed work completely. I’d like to know he’s okay.”

She stood up. She had some vague idea that the gesture would encourage Rafiel to go. She didn’t want to be so rude as to ask him to leave, not when she was asking him for a favor. But the handyman should be here any minute. And as soon as she had locking doors—with a few extra locks—she was going to have to shower and go work. On virtually no sleep.

Rafiel got up too and she was optimistic that he would leave now. But he was still holding the hand he covered with his own when they sat at the table. And now he leaned forward and said, “You don’t need to go it alone.”

And before she knew what he was doing, he’d covered her lips with his and was pulling her to him.

She’d never been kissed, not even in high school. Any boy smart enough to be interested in her was, presumably, smart enough to realize this was not exactly a safe course of action. Having her lips covered by his, his hands moving to her shoulders was novel enough to stop her from reacting immediately.

His hands were warm on her shoulders, and his body felt warm and firm next to hers. And his tongue was trying to push between her lips.

She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not . . . I’m not prepared. I don’t think . . . Let us get through this first, and figure out what it’s all about?”

He started to open his mouth, as if to answer, but at that moment a white-haired man, in impeccable work pants and T-shirt showed at the kitchen door. “Miss Smith? I’m Harold Keener. Ready to start work.”

“Well,” Rafiel said, looking perfectly composed as if just seconds before he hadn’t been attempting to shove his tongue into her mouth. “I’ll be going then, and check on Ormson.”

Was it Kyrie’s imagination, or had he pronounced Tom’s family name with particular venom?

And what had Rafiel thought he was doing, she wondered, as she walked the handyman back to the porch to discuss the double-glazed versus single-glazed options and costs. Was he so used to any girl he came onto melting with pleasure that he didn’t even bother to check for some signs of interest before jumping the gun? Or had she been giving signs of interest? She doubted that very much, as she wasn’t even sure what the signs were.

On the other hand perhaps he just thought with both of them shifting to feline forms, they were perfect for each other? Was this all about creating a litter of kittens? Or was he trying to distract her from something in the conversation? Had he said anything he didn’t want her to remember?

Edward Ormson had left the Three Luck Dragon feeling less assured of himself than he was used to feeling. Something in the conversation—perhaps the way these strangers spoke casually of holding Tom prisoner, of interrogating Tom, made Edward feel inadequate and ashamed of himself.

These were not feelings he normally entertained about himself, and he didn’t feel right about entertaining them now.

He told himself that Tom had been a difficult child, a delinquent adolescent. But the words of Lung echoed in his mind, telling him that people who shifted into dragons had problems of that sort. That the beast often overruled the human. And if Tom had been born that way, if it was blind genetic accident, then it wouldn’t be his fault, would it? He’d been difficult, but then he couldn’t have been otherwise. Would parents who were more interested in him and less interested in—what? his career, himself, Tom’s mother’s devotion to medicine? all of those?—have done better for him? Could anything have prevented getting to this point where a criminal organization composed of shapeshifters was intending to eliminate Edward’s son? And Edward could do nothing about it? Except perhaps help them?

The wrongness of it, the wrongness of his having worked for the group that was intending to kill his son, made bitter bile rise to his throat. But why should he care? Where did all this anguish come from? Hadn’t he washed his hands of the boy five years ago?

Five years ago. Damn, the boy had only been sixteen. And Edward had ordered him out of the house. At gunpoint.

Edward had been walking along the road leading toward town. Not a pretty road—a place of warehouses and dilapidated motels—and it seemed to be making him think things he’d never thought before. This was all wrong, these unexpected feelings, the sudden guilt over Tom. It was all very wrong. He’d been fine with this for five years. Why should it torment him now?

He was tired. That was all. He was very tired. He hadn’t slept at all the night before, and now it was afternoon. He’d hail the first cab that came by. He would ask to be taken to the best hotel in town. He would go to sleep. When he woke up, he would feel much better about this. He would realize that Tom had made his own bed and now should damn well lie in it.

His briefcase was heavy, pulling down on his arm. And no cab came by. Heck, no car came by. He walked on, into the Colorado night.

He should have rented a car, only he didn’t think it would take him this long to . . . To what? Make Tom give back whatever he had stolen, like a naughty boy caught with another kid’s lunch box?

What did he know of Tom now, really? He would be twenty-one. How he had lived the last five years was beyond his father’s knowledge and probably beyond his father’s understanding. Who was he, this creature he’d seen growing up till the age of sixteen, and then let go and not seen again?

Tom worked nights in a diner, he could shift shapes into a dragon. And he had the affection—or at least the interest—of that exotic beauty who did not look like the type to be easily rolled by some patter. And Ormson should know that, he thought, with a rueful grin.
I tried
.

He’d walked a few blocks and was near an intersection when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught the yellow glimmer of a taxi.

Waving frantically, he got the cabby’s attention, and moments later was sitting on the backseat of an air-conditioned taxi heading downtown.

“Downtown?” he said. “Really.”

“Oh, yes,” the cabby said. “Spurs and Lace is the best hotel in town.”

Edward leaned back against the cool upholstery and hoped they had room. He just needed to sleep. Just . . . sleep. And then all would be well.

“Kyrie,” Tom called, and the sound of her name woke him from a nightmare of half-defined shapes and half-formed thoughts in which he’d been, seemingly stumbling without direction.

He didn’t know what they had given him. He suspected it was supposed to be some form of truth serum. At least they had expected him to answer questions while under.

He suspected he hadn’t. Part of it was because he had the feeling that he’d been touring random recesses of his mind, which, for some reason, featured not only an up-close and personal view of Kyrie’s bared breast, but also repeated reruns of Keith’s conversation about his problems at college.

And part of it was because, as he became aware of who he was, where he was, and what was happening around him, he heard the three . . . Oh, he must not call them the three stooges, not even mentally. The way he was feeling, it might come flying out of his mouth next thing, and, who knew, they might actually understand the reference. No. He heard the three geniuses arguing loudly in what he presumed was their native tongue. It didn’t sound like an argument about which one would go for the Pearl and which one would wait until the order came to cut Tom’s throat . . . or however they intended to dispatch him.

With a final scream, Red Dragon ran out the door. The other two shrugged, went to the corner, and came back with sandwiches and drinks.

The smell of food made Tom hungrier than ever. If it weren’t for the fact that he was using all his concentration to keep himself from turning into a dragon, he might very well have broken down and told them where to find the Pearl.

The room was acceptable, though it was close to downtown and, from his fifth-floor window, Edward had a view of the area where Tom worked.

Standing there, looking out the window, he wondered if Tom had lived on one of those rectilinear streets that radiated from Fairfax Avenue and which were lined with tiny houses and apartment buildings. Probably, since Edward very much doubted that waiting at tables at night in a diner was a job that paid enough for a car. And then he realized he’d thought of Tom in the past tense.

Angry with himself, he took a shower, put his underwear back on, and got in bed. He was asleep before his head touched the pillow.

And he was fully awake, staring at the ceiling a few minutes later, while thoughts that shouldn’t be in his head insisted on running through it. Thoughts such as—shouldn’t Tom’s father do something to save him? no matter how unworthy the boy was—and really, what had he ever done while living in his father’s house that wasn’t done by kids of his age and set? He’d gone joyriding. He’d been caught with pot, once. And he’d committed minor acts of vandalism. He’d been naked in public twice, both in his last week at home—after he’d started shifting. Nothing that other kids he ran with didn’t do. Kids who were now, for the most part, at Yale and Harvard.

But Edward had kicked Tom out of the house. And never even stirred himself to find out what exactly the boy was doing. Or even if he was alive.

“He was a shapeshifter,” he said to the cool air of the room. “He was a dragon.”

But the empty room seemed to sneer disdainfully at this excuse, and he sat up in bed, furious at himself. The truth was that since his marriage had broken apart, Tom had been more of a burden than anything else. A hindrance to just living the life of an unattached adult, with a job and a few casual dates and no significant obligations. Because, if Edward hadn’t been around for a while, then Tom took it upon himself to get parental attention by getting himself arrested or by—and suddenly Edward smiled remembering exactly what that had looked like—shaving half of his head and dying the rest of his hair bright orange. Why was it that at a distance of eight years that memory seemed funny and endearing?

Fully awake, he dug into his briefcase and brought out his cell phone. He called information in Palmetto, Florida. And then he called Sylvia.

A kid answered the phone, speaking in the endearing lisp of a child whose front teeth are missing and when Edward asked for Sylvia, screamed at the top of his lungs, “Mom.”