Night Shifters (50 page)

She’d made him think even if what he was thinking was that they were both in great trouble. The red dragon had come back to seek vengeance. And, being a triad member and therefore an outlaw, he would stop at nothing. Tom’s life, Kyrie’s life, their friends, the diner—all of it would be in danger. And behind Red Dragon stood the powerful, mysterious figure of the Great Sky Dragon, who had taken Tom’s life only to give it back again, and whom Tom didn’t even pretend to understand. But Tom stopped and thought long enough to realize that if he were to shift now he would, probably, as Kyrie had said, lose consciousness. And that would not solve anything. Even if Red Dragon didn’t take advantage of his weakness to behead him, an unconscious dragon in the parking lot becoming hypothermic would only add to Kyrie’s troubles.

Through clenched teeth he asked Red Dragon, “What do you want?” But Red Dragon only glared and bobbed his neck up and down, waving his head like some deranged bobble-toy, his mismatched limbs rearing, his wings flaring.

“Go inside,” Kyrie answered, looking at Red Dragon, but speaking to Tom, impatiently. “Go inside, Tom. We can’t have you here. Not weakened. I’ll find out what this . . . what he wants.”

“But—” Tom said, and stopped as he realized he was about to say “I’m the man. I’m supposed to protect you.” He could not say that. Man or not, he was in no state to protect anyone.

Feeling his cheeks heat in shame, he retreated. He retreated step by step, while staring at Kyrie. He walked backwards, through the blowing snow, till Kyrie and the red dragon were no more than outlines of themselves, patterns of shadow drawn on the surrounding whiteness. He felt his heart beat, hard in his chest. He was sure it was beating hard enough that if he looked down he’d see it pound even through the shirt and his black leather jacket. His mouth was dry and tasted vaguely of blood as though the hoarse cough that normally heralded his transformation had stripped it of its lining. He cleared his throat, more because he wanted to remind Red Dragon and Kyrie that he was still there—more because he felt like a coward and a fool, backing away from confrontation and leaving his girlfriend to face evil alone. But he didn’t know if the sound carried that far, and besides, what good was it to remind them he was there, when he could do nothing to defend the woman he loved?

Oh, sure, Kyrie was a were panther. Oh, surely, she could defend herself. She had fought these creatures before but . . .

But if he’d not helped Kyrie then, she would have died. And now he was going to leave her alone with one of these—a creature that was bigger than her feline form, a creature that could burn her to cinders. Everything that was Tom—normal and human and responsible—wanted to stay and protect Kyrie. But he knew better, he knew how sensible Kyrie was. And he knew his body would not stand another shift.

He wished there was someone he could call to, but all the shifters he knew for a fact were shifters were a homeless man and Rafiel—who might or might not be inside. Was Rafiel inside? He’d called Tom. Had he had time to get here, yet?

Tom must check. He stepped back faster and faster. He couldn’t see so clearly through the snow anymore, but Kyrie seemed to be circling the dragon, or the dragon seemed to be circling Kyrie. It couldn’t be good, but at least he saw no flame. That at least was better than it could be.

He stepped back. As he walked into the purple glow of the sign at the back door he felt the warmth of the diner behind him. Even through the glass door at the back, enough heat escaped that, without looking, he could tell where the door was.

Stepping back towards the warmth, he heard the key in the lock, and then the door opened, right behind him.

He turned. “Anthony!” he said, or rather gasped in surprise, turning back to look and see if Anthony—who had no idea shapeshifters or dragons existed—would see the dragon through the snow before the door closed. But there was nothing out there, just the briefest of shadows, and did he hear Kyrie’s car trunk open? What was she doing? Stashing the defeated body of her opponent? Well, it could be worse. If she was opening a car, then she had to be alive. Probably.

“Tom?” Anthony asked. He was slim and Italian or perhaps Greek or maybe some flavor of South American. Or maybe he had all those in his ancestry somewhere. Olive skinned, with curly dark hair, and a Roman nose, Anthony was a local boy, grown up in this neighborhood. He was Kyrie’s and Tom’s guide to local stores and events. And every small business owner seemed to know Anthony, whose approval counted for more with them than their better-business-bureau rating. He was also the leader of a bolero dancing troupe and newly married. And the one person they trusted enough to let him manage the daytime shift unsupervised.

“Yeah.”

“You guys came in.”

“You’re open.”

“I was going to close, but then people started trickling in and kept coming in. Cold, you know. Or just wanting to see people.” He shrugged. “And there’s freaky stuff around here, and . . .”

But Tom was listening, wildly, for the sound of the car door, for the sound of Kyrie, for what might be happening out there, in the howling snow.

Kyrie knew this was crazy, but it would be crazier to do nothing. She circled around the red dragon, looking up at the creature, as it circled in turn, to keep her in sight. She could feel her other form itching to take over, but she didn’t think that would be the best of ideas. Because the dragon wasn’t attacking her. Why wasn’t the dragon attacking her?

Truth be told, from what she remembered, Red Dragon had been the least effectual of the triad members. Why would he be the one sent? Unless—she took a look at his shrunken arm—he was trying to avenge himself all on his own.

He opened his mouth and she tensed, ready to hit the snow and roll away from his breath. Instead he made a pitiful sound, low and mournful in his throat.

“What?” she said, as if she expected the creature to speak. Instead, it made the sound again, and then it coughed. The cough was just like Tom’s when he was about to change. Or when he was about to flame, of course. She tensed and circled, watching. It moaned and circled in turn. Suddenly, it spasmed. Contorted.

It was changing. Kyrie, who’d thrown herself to the snow-covered ground, looked up to see the creature bend and fold in unnatural ways, seeming to collapse in on itself.

It was shifting. It was becoming human.

But why is he shifting? Wouldn’t his dragon form give him the advantage? What could he gain by becoming human?

What he couldn’t gain, clearly, was warmth, because in the next moment he stood there, looking like an instant popsicle in the shape of a young Asian male, skinny and very, very naked in the howling storm. He covered his privates with one hand—the other arm being rather too short to allow him to reach that far, and he looked at her with pitiful eyes, even as his skin turned a shade of dusky violet.

“What do you want?” she asked, using all her will power to keep her teeth from chattering. “What do you want? What do you wish from me?”

He shook his head slowly, his eyes very wide. She wondered if he looked like that out of fear of her, and realized it was more likely that it was the cold. “I . . . Must speak. I was sent to speak. To you. I must protect . . . Him.”

“Protect the Great Sky Dragon?” Kyrie asked.

Red Dragon shook his head. He had a crest of hair in the front—rumpled—probably a natural cowlick, and in human form, his eyes looked small and dark and confused. “No, not him. He sent me.”

He did not speak with an accent so much as with the shadow of an accent—as if he felt obligated to sound Asian, even though he didn’t. It made his words seem stilted. He talked while shivering and the words emerged through short panting breaths. “He sent me to redeem myself. The Great Sky Dragon. Sent me.”

“To redeem yourself?” Kyrie yelled as the snow blew into her mouth. She looked at the snow-covered ground for a stone or something with which to hit the enemy. Nothing was visible under the snow, but she must find something. Because she now knew he had come to kill Tom.

And then Red Dragon wrapped his arms around himself, a curiously defenseless gesture. “He send me to protect the young dragon. He says I must prove I’m worthy before I’m trusted, and this is where he wants me to prove myself. I am to defend the young dragon from the Ancient Ones.”

“Defend?” Kyrie asked, her voice a mere, surprised whisper as her mind arrested on the word she could not have anticipated. “Defend? Defend Tom?”

“Tom,” Anthony’s voice said from behind Tom, as Tom tried to see beyond the light of the diner’s back window, beyond where it seemed a dazzle upon a confusion of snow. Beyond all that, he was sure now, there were two human figures. And that must mean . . . Both of them were alive, which he supposed was good.

“Tom,” Anthony’s voice again. “Look, I don’t suppose you and Kyrie are going to stay?”

“We have to,” Tom said, still intent on the two people out there in the snow. Why weren’t they walking any nearer? He had no doubts that Kyrie could more than hold her own in a fight with Red Dragon, provided they were both in human shape, but all the same, he wished that they would come closer—that he could hear what they must be saying. “We need a bathroom.”

It was only as the silence lengthened that Tom thought his remark might be cryptic and he was trying to figure out how to describe what had happened in their bathroom, without giving away that he shifted shapes. A daunting task. “The pipes burst,” he said at last, which, of course, was true. He stared into the snow. Were they now, finally, walking towards the diner?

“Oh,” Anthony said. “So you two are staying? Because, you know, my wife is alone, and we don’t have groceries and if we end up not being able to . . . I mean . . . If we’re snowed in for a week or . . . I know I’m supposed to work, but, you see, my wife is not used to Colorado weather, and she’s nervous at all the emergency announcements on the radio and—”

Tom looked over his shoulder at Anthony’s anxious face, and understood what Anthony hadn’t quite said. “You want to go home,” he said. “Sure. Go.”

“I hate to leave you guys in the lurch, but all the prep stuff is done, and there’s a pot of clam chowder and I left a large bowl of rice pudding in the freezer and—”

“Go,” Tom said. He was now sure that Kyrie and Red Dragon—in human form—were coming towards him, but they were walking very slowly, and he could not figure out why. Unless Red Dragon was still naked, but Tom knew Kyrie kept a bunch of spare clothes in her car. Had she been caught short for once?

“There’s . . . look, Tom, you’re going to think I’m crazy, but . . .”

He had to turn around, no matter how much he wanted to keep an eye on Kyrie. And then he realized all of a sudden perhaps Kyrie was delaying coming inside because she could see Anthony there behind Tom and there was something she didn’t want Anthony to notice. Like the fact that she was naked. Or the fact that she could change shapes. It was a strange part of their secretive life to know a person they trusted absolutely with their business and their local connections could not be trusted to know what they truly were. But neither Tom nor Kyrie were willing to risk the reaction.

So Tom turned, away from the door, away from the parking lot, and towards Anthony, who, looking relieved to have Tom’s attention at last, held the door open, stepped aside and gestured Tom towards the inside of the diner as he said, “Tom, look. It’s . . . oh, this is going to sound stupid, but . . . You see, you might have to call animal control.”

“Animal control?” Tom asked, as they walked the long, slightly curving hallway that led from the back door to the diner proper. They passed the door to the two bathrooms on the left, the doors to the freezer room and the two storage rooms on the right, and then found themselves at the back of the diner, looking at the newly re-covered brown vinyl booths, the five remaining green vinyl booths that Tom planned to upgrade as soon as possible, and tables newly covered in fake-marble formica. Out of habit Tom counted: five tables occupied here and, from the noise, another five or six occupied in the annex—a sort of large enclosed patio attached to the diner, which had larger tables and which was preferred by college students who arrived in huge, noisy bands.