The Night Shifters (12 page)

She had signed with
a particularly artful flourish.

I folded the letter
and tucked it into the bib of my apron. I really wished I hadn’t
read it. All of the wind had gone out of my sails. The City of
Night still glittered attractively, but Serena had managed to cast
doubt on my continued tolerance there. I almost turned around and
went back into the Lover’s garden, but I didn’t want everyone to
think I was a coward. I couldn’t just skulk into the shadows and
hope no one would notice me.

So I started down
the steps. The decent was steep, almost dizzying, but I kept
moving, determined to look like I knew what I was doing. One false
step would have been the end of me, yet I couldn’t make myself go
slower. This was my choice, I had something to prove. Down and down
I went, as if I had begun my descent from the stars, and would not
end it until I reached the Underworld.

A narrow lane
swallowed me at the bottom. Walls loomed high over my head,
impossible to scale, their windows out of reach, their smooth,
thick surfaces mortared seamlessly together – trapping me. I walked
down the middle of the cobbled street, really more of an alley, and
wondered if I had already made a mistake. If I were welcome here,
shouldn’t I see a door? Any door?

And then I did. It
waited at the very end.

Knock on the first door you find
.

But I didn’t like
the looks of that door. It was dirty and water-stained; the thin
veneer was peeling off the plywood at the bottom. If Serena hadn’t
advised me to knock on it, I would have passed it by.

If you belong in
the City of Night, it will accommodate you...

But how would it do
that? By inviting me in through this wretched door? Sir John had
asked me if I could change a dream if it wasn’t to my liking, and I
said that I never could. But the City of Night wasn’t a dream, and
I was supposed to be a Wild Card. Maybe I could have an effect if I
really wanted to. I could knock on the door, and maybe something
good would happen.

But I didn’t like
it.

Every time you
follow your heart you end up in trouble.

Looking back,
I don’t know why I didn’t immediately turn around and walk away,
except that the whole situation with Serena’s letters must have
inadvertently jogged something loose from my memory – a comic strip
I used to read called
Peanuts
, which
featured this kid named Charlie Brown who really wanted to kick a
football, and this girl named Lucy who would promise to hold it so
he could kick it right into orbit. She would wait until just before
his kick was going to connect, then pull the football out of his
reach , so he ended up falling flat on his back with a resounding
WHAM.

This happened
every time Lucy promised to hold the ball – Charlie Brown knew
that, but he couldn’t help hoping that
this
time it would be different,
this
time she was telling the truth. Each time she had to find
some new way to rationalize the idea so he would go for it again.
Each time, Charlie Brown would fly at that football, aiming to kick
it as far as anyone ever kicked a football. And he always ended up
flat on his back, stars dancing around his head, wondering,
Why does she do this to
me?

I was beginning to
understand how Charlie Brown felt. But unlike him, I liked to think
I had learned the lesson of the Falsely Dangled Football. I
couldn’t make myself knock on that door.

And somehow I
thought I wouldn’t be in danger unless I did.

Something sizzled
on the pavement, barely an inch from my naked toes. I looked down
in time to see another drop splash, sizzling briefly until it
evaporated. I looked up at the top of the building, about fifteen
feet over my head, and spied the rim of something round tipping
over the edge of the roof.

Instinct moved me
out of the way before my brain did. I back-peddled as fast and as
far as I could, just in time to get out of the way of a thick
stream of boiling oil.

Yes, that
was
boiling
oil,
just like the stuff
defenders of medieval castles used to rain down on would-be
invaders. Someone tipped a whole vat over. If I hadn’t seen the
warning drops, it would have rained down on my head. I looked up
again, just as someone wrestled the empty vat back from the edge of
the roof, but I couldn’t see who it was. And I couldn’t hang around
to investigate, because I heard another scary sound, a whirring and
clicking as panels opened in the walls around me. I turned and
dashed back up the alley, hearing
thwip-thwip-thwip
as things were launched at me from the openings
and
whack-whack-whack
as
they missed me and hit the opposite walls.

I didn’t pause to
see what they were, I just ran for my life. I had to leap over a
pit that opened in the ground under my feet and dodge under spiked,
metal bars that swung at me like baseball bats. I aimed myself out
of there like a bullet, but I couldn’t see the steps up the hill
anymore. Now I had to turn and twist, jumping around corners just
before projectiles would have pierced my back, until I saw an
ornate gate up ahead, standing wide open, offering safety if I
could just jump over the broken glass and roll under the bursts of
flames. I jumped, and rolled, and finally sprinted right through
that gate, out into the clean air of an empty street.

I kept running for
quite some time, until I left the ugly alley far behind and I was
fairly sure the danger had passed. Then I ran some more, until all
the fear had drained out of me. By the time I had slowed to a walk,
all that was left was anger. Around me, strange houses loomed, and
they all had locked front gates. So I couldn’t knock on any of
those doors either, I couldn’t go in anywhere and get something to
eat, or something to drink, or rest my feet – and even if I could,
my crystal heart would poke me and make me miserable. Serena was no
friend of mine, but she was right about that. And I was sick of it,
sick of the whole thing.

The street
climbed another hill. From there I had a panoramic view of the
entire weird city. I turned slowly, 360 degrees, staring defiantly
at the City of Night and feeling it stare back at me, silent and
watchful. But it looked beautiful again, strange and quirky, full
of unexpected twists and turns –
not
the kind
of place where you would find wretched doors, booby traps, or vats
of boiling oil. It had turned back into the sort of place I would
love to live.

If I could
only figure out
how
.

“I’ve had enough!”
I screamed. “Enough! I’m sick of all of you! Especially you Serena!
And what about you, Sir John? Got any more advice for me? Well,
thanks for nothing! You too, Masked Man! And the rest of you can
just go to hell! I’m not going to take it any more!”

No one answered, of
course – but I felt better with every curse. I stalked back and
forth with my hands on my hips, like a panther prowling a cage,
jabbing my finger at watchful windows.

“All of you guys
who keep doing favors for Serena – what do you get in return? A
smile? A kiss? Is it worth it? When you do favors for her, does she
even pay you back, or are you the ones who have to pay?”

The doors stayed
shut, no light appeared in the windows, no one stepped into the
street, no one called an answer. But I could have sworn someone
heard me and pondered what I had said, for better or for worse. And
that got me wondering, did some dwellers in this Night agree with
me? If I yelled long enough, could I provoke them into answering
me?

“Hey, Sir John,” I
shrieked. “You said the Night likes me, huh? Well prove it! Prove
it, Night! Let’s see what you’ve got! Come on, Night!”

A wind lifted my
hair. I felt encouraged.

“Come on, damn
you!” I was really getting into it now, not caring when my throat
started to hurt. “Let’s see what you’ve got! Everyone says I’m a
Wild Card – show me what that really means! If I’m a Wild Card,
then who’s the poker player who dealt me?”

I felt a ripple in
the darkness, as if something had swum past me. Then another
ripple. Then a wave, flowing past and over me. My crystal heart
began to pound with fear and excitement as the current took my body
and turned me around to face what I had demanded to see.

At first it seemed
only an impossible swirling of black matter and stars. But then its
huge bulk dropped from the sky, touching the ground with a sound
like a thousand trains.

The Night was a
black tornado, and it was looking right at me.

Yet it swirled
miles away and years away, like a distant star. I realized I had
been hearing it all along, but had just then become aware of it,
the beyond-the-range-of-human-hearing sound of something huge and
relentless – and wonderfully, beautifully chaotic. It made the
Night, pulling it down from the stars that tangled in the upper
whirlpool of its influence, and poured it into my world. It was the
birth of Possibility.

“Is that you?” I
asked in a much more respectful tone of voice.

Its tendrils swept
past me in the wind. I breathed it in. Did it flow in my blood,
through my crystal heart? Was that why it calmed my fears and made
me feel as if I had come home?

“I couldn’t stay in
school. I couldn’t hold a job. I can’t remember any men in my life
at all. All I ever had was my dreams! Is that why you like me?
Because I need you?”

In the city below,
lights began to blossom in windows, some pale and cold, others warm
and golden – but none of them electric. The moon peeked its silvery
head up over the horizon, casting muted shadows at my feet.

“There are lots of
people like me here, aren’t there? I can feel them in the city,
waiting. So what’s the trick? How do I find my home here?”

The tornado drew
stellar clouds about itself and disappeared. I was sorry to see it
go, but I knew it continued to rage, somewhere. I could feel its
pulse as easily as the pulse of my own crystal heart.

The moon climbed
the sky. The city waited expectantly.

“All right,” I
said. “I’m open to suggestions.”

An engine purred
far down the road, coming closer. I climbed hastily up a nearby
gate and perched on the top of a wall. “Can you leave your cars,
Drivers?” I asked aloud. “I’ll bet you can’t. I’ll bet you have to
be touching them at all times!”

But the car that
wound its way up the hill wasn’t what I expected. It gleamed a sort
of golden-brown color. It pulled up to the curb and a man climbed
out of the back. He wore a good but perfectly ordinary suit. He
seemed middle-aged, and had a Mediterranean look about him. He
regarded me for a moment and then lit a cigarette.

“Hazel?” he asked
in a polite but disinterested tone.

“Yes?”

“I’ve come to
collect you, if you’re willing. It’s time you and the Masked Man
had a serious talk.”

•

Finally – the
Masked Man wanted to talk to me. He was the only one, other than
Sir John, I really wanted to see. So I climbed down from my perch.
The man waited courteously by his car, he offered no threats or
imprecations. My crystal heart did not object when I approached
him.

I was almost there
when a pink envelope blew past on the wind and landed at my
feet.

I kicked it aside
and kept walking. Another envelope flew over and slapped me in the
face. I brushed it away.

“Persistent, isn’t
she?” The Mediterranean man opened a rear car door and held it for
me, as more envelopes flew past on the wind.

“Let’s get out of
here.” I climbed into the car, where an envelope waited for me on
the back seat. I threw it out the window.

The Mediterranean
man walked around the car and climbed in on the other side. As the
car pulled away from the curb, he reached under the front seat and
pulled out a box. “I have a gift for you.” He handed it to me.
“From the Masked Man.”

Inside nestled a
pair of two-toned shoes, black and dark brown. They looked almost
like ballet shoes, but were made from harder leather. They were
lined with a soft material that soothed my bare feet. And of course
they fit perfectly.

“You might as well
take off that apron, too,” he said.

“I don’t know if I
want to.”

“Don’t be so
modest. Adoni and I don’t care about such things.” He motioned to
the driver, whose slender shoulders and short, curling hair matched
the kohled eyes and carefully plucked eyebrows that regarded me
from the rearview mirror.

“How come the
Masked Man didn’t send one of his Wild guys to get me?” I removed
the apron.

He took a delicate
drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke out the car window. “The
Masked Man didn’t want to send anyone who might be attracted to
you. And I owed him a favor, so here I am. You can call me Med, for
short. I’ve had many names, but right now I like that one.”

We wound down that
hill and then up another one, climbing past odd, exotic houses on
tree-lined streets. I wondered if one of those trees might belong
to Camilla, but quickly put the thought out of my mind and
concentrated instead on the golden-brown leather of the car’s
interior. And on my destination. I intended to speak to the Masked
Man about some things, and no one was going to stop me.

“Isn’t there
anything you’d like to ask me?” Med said after we had ridden in
silence for a time. “I was very impressed with your speech back
there.”

“My speech?”

“Your confrontation
with the Night. I’ve never seen anyone do that before. I’m sure
it’s always been possible, but no one thought of it before you. You
won’t be attacked with any more pots of boiling oil, you’ve won a
serious battle. And now you’ve met someone who’s willing to answer
questions. So – ?”