Shapeshifted (5 page)

“Pray for me, Grandmother,” he begged the elderly woman sitting behind us, the only waiting room occupant left inside.

The grandmother snorted, loudly. “I would sooner die than pray for you!”

I heard the back room door slam open behind me. “Goddammit, I told you all to call ahead. You all have our number.” Dr. Tovar was at my side. He looked at me. “You go home. Now.”

This wasn’t my fight, my place, or my people. But I was here, and my hands were covered in an injured man’s blood.

“I mean it! Go home!” Dr. Tovar yelled at me.

“I’m not some dog you can shoo away!” I yelled back. He closed his mouth and glared, but then he turned to our patient rather than continuing our fight.

The door to the outside world opened up again. I turned around to see. Two men stood in the doorway, sunlight pouring through from behind, casting them in deep shadow. They both held up guns. The man holding his friend dropped him to hold his gun up too.

“Not in here!” Dr. Tovar yelled. The standoff continued over our heads. I looked back at the floor, not wanting to gawk at the men holding guns. “We’re off limits!” Dr. Tovar yelled again.

None of the men moved.

I closed my eyes and winced, waiting to hear a round, not knowing who or what it’d strike. The grandmother prayed louder,
“Santa Muerte, escucha la or ación de su hijo pobre.”

I opened my eyes in surprise and turned to look at her. The gunmen were closer now. I could make out their faces and see the beginnings of strange tattoos high on their necks.

“I said my clinic is off limits!” Tovar yelled.

“Your clinic, and your people. For now,” the nearer of the gunmen said. “But Maldonado has unfinished business with him.” He twitched his gun at the man bleeding on the floor.

I instinctively leaned in over the bleeding man to protect him—and found Dr. Tovar was already there. Our shoulders touched. If they were going to shoot the man, they’d have to be content with a leg shot—or shooting through one of us. The tweed of his coat rasped against my upper arm where my sleeve ended.

“The seventeenth is coming, Doctor. Did you tithe yet?” the gunman asked of Dr. Tovar, jerking his chin up slightly.

“You can’t have him,” Dr. Tovar stated again.

“That’s not an answer.”

“Your answer is tell Maldonado to go fuck himself,” Dr. Tovar said, his voice frighteningly calm.

The first gunman started forward, and the second swatted out a hand to hold him back. Their faces were as cold-blooded as any vampire as they contemplated shooting Dr. Tovar and me.

The second one released the first. “Come on. He’ll come out eventually,” he said.

“We’ll shoot you in the street, like a dog,” the first threatened, staring at Dr. Tovar, lowering his gun.

And then they retreated, the door closing behind them, taking the sunlight and shadows with them.

The grandmother went on a tirade.
“¡Rezo y rezo y sigue siendo lo mismo!”
Then she stood up and left the waiting room, clearly disgusted with all of us equally.

I wanted to run after her and ask her who she was talking about, how she knew anything about Santa Muerte—I didn’t get to ask many questions back in December when I was being shunned out the door.

But I was helping Dr. Tovar. I looked over to him, and he nodded at me. “Let’s get him up and into the back room.”

We did so, with the help of the man he’d come in with. One of the receptionists held open the door.

CHAPTER FIVE

I tried to make eye contact with Dr. Tovar while we were involved in the process of cleaning up our patient.

When the man’s shirt came off, I could see that he was covered in grim prison-looking tattoos. He talked angrily to his friend, but mostly in Spanish, so it wasn’t illuminating. And Tovar ignored any pointed looks I gave him.

What I was trying to say with my eyeballs was,
Are you going to report this?
I knew we were supposed to report all gunshot wounds that anyone received to the police. And keep the bullets too. But now wasn’t the time, not in front of the patient, and this was not my place.

“Why don’t you go to my office, Miss Spence,” Tovar said when he was almost done. I inhaled to argue, and then remembered the wisdom of not doing so for once. I took off my gloves, washed my hands, and went outside.

I figured it was going to take him a while to clean up, and I owed it to myself to see if the elderly woman had come back. I went up to the hallway door, looked around at the waiting room through the thin pane of wire glass, and didn’t see anyone out there but a janitor scrubbing at the bloodstain on the floor.

I tried the handle and stepped out, keeping the door open with my foot. I looked around the room until I was confident I’d seen it all and gave the janitor a shy wave for interrupting him.

The old woman was gone. Damn.

Was Santa Muerte an actual saint to that woman? Or a personal friend? A concept—or an entity? I wished she was still around to ask, or that the Shadows’ request had been more specific. They could have at least given me a Wheel of Fortune clue. If finding Santa Muerte—the person, place, or thing—would make them heal my mom, then somehow I would. I quietly walked back down the hall to Dr. Tovar’s office to wait for him.

*   *   *

It took an hour for him to finish up, which I used to confirm that the medical books on the shelves were actually old. Not spirits and humours old, but close. I hoped they weren’t using them for modern medical advice.

I touched the skin on my shoulder where his coat had scratched against it. Hard to believe that the man who’d been dismissing me so analytically this morning was that passionate about saving his patients. And yet— There was a cough from the hallway outside that let me know I’d been caught snooping.

“Sorry. I’m naturally curious.” I stepped back around the desk as Dr. Tovar came in. “What was all that about?” I asked, making guns with my thumbs and forefingers, and shooting them at the wall.

“Turf wars.” He looked like he didn’t know how to explain it to me. He was angry still, but holding it in. I could almost see it surge underneath his skin. If he’d been a were, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him change. He sat down, exterior calm, and I did the same. “It’s an election year. The current mayor’s cracking down on crime at the edges of our side of town. Less space, more pressure. It’s like putting the lid on a boiling pot.”

“Do people come here like that often?” I turned one of my imaginary handguns to shoot my own shoulder.

“Often enough.”

“And you don’t call for outside help?” Might as well be fearless about questions; I’d already been unhired for the day.

“There’s a reason they don’t call nine-one-one, you know.” The anger in his face relaxed to make his dark eyes look weary instead.

“What if that’d been worse?”

“Then I’d call. We’re a clinic, not an emergency department. I wouldn’t let him die over his or my pride.” He shrugged. “Do you bring gloves everywhere you go?”

I nodded. “Hand sanitizer too. The world’s a disgusting place.”

He agreed with a snort, and appeared to be studying the top of his desk, thinking hard.

“Who is Maldonado?” I asked him.

The question made him glance up at me. He began shaking his head, frowning deeply. “You saw things you shouldn’t have today, Nurse Spence.”

While I might not have heard that particular line before, boy, had I heard others just like it. I held my breath.

“I suppose you think I have to hire you now. Or you’ll tell people how I run things down here.”

While I might not have been above blackmail for a good reason, getting a job was not one of them. “No. I don’t think that at all. I’m not judging you in the least.” His eyes narrowed as I went on. “I’ve had to work at some … interesting places before. Ones I couldn’t really put on my résumé.”

His eyebrows rose. “Being a witness to attempted murder doesn’t put you off?”

If he only
knew
the kinds of secrets I’d had to keep. “Without going into details—trust me. I’ve seen worse.”

He tilted his head forward. “That’s funny. You look like the kind of person who goes talking to police.”

“I’m confused—do you want me to be incredibly honorable and report you to authorities and not get hired? Or do you want me to be useful, morally hazy, and gainfully employed? Because personally I like the one where I wind up with a job.”

At my protest, his face had the smallest flicker of a smile. “You do seem to understand some of our natural expediencies, and actually have basic nursing skills. Those things might be more valuable to me than you speaking Spanish, the way our summer’s going so far.”

I squinted at him. “Are you offering to hire me?”

“Yes. If you want it, against my better judgment, the job’s yours.”

This was what I’d wanted, right? But now—like so many other times before—it wasn’t how I’d wanted it. Still, this place was my only link to Santa Muerte, whoever or whatever she may be.

“Oh, so now you’re wise enough to be scared?” he asked, sounding smug.

How could I even answer that? “I want the job.”

“See you tomorrow then. At eight
A.M.
,” he said, and pointed toward the door.

I nodded. I was halfway down the hall when I realized he’d never given me an answer about Maldonado.

*   *   *

The waiting room was still empty when I reached it, although the janitor was done. Maybe that woman would be back tomorrow. She’d called out to Santa Muerte like she knew her personally—in prayer, no less. Rosary and all.

Praying while using a rosary smacked of comfortable familiarity. If even one person knew of a Santa Muerte, no matter who or what that was, there were bound to be others. I’d just have to find them.

The same early-teens kid from before blocked my path. “Oh, lady, you still need a
limpieza
. Bad. I have the
don,
I can tell.”

“How can I need that if I don’t even know what that is?” There was drying blood on the ground outside too, slightly darker than the rest of the surrounding stains on the cement. I wondered if the janitor had even tried to clean it up out here.

“My grandfather, Don Pedrito, he can heal you.” He patted his chest with authority.

“Look.” He was thin, rail-thin, with wrists that my hands could wrap around, the fingers meeting and then some. “I don’t have any money. But tomorrow I’ll be here. I’ll bring you a sandwich.”

He pulled his head back as though he’d been hit. “I don’t need your charity!”

“And I don’t need your limp-pizza. Whatever the hell that is.” I stepped around the blood on the ground.

“You’ll need it eventually. You have a curse on you. You’ll see.”

“Maybe tomorrow. But not tonight.”

He heaved a sigh and glared at me. I shrugged and walked around him, and then walked the two blocks back to the train station in the daylight. I wasn’t scared in the crowd anymore. I felt alive.

And when I got home I called up the sleep clinic to officially quit.

CHAPTER SIX

I felt substantially less alive at six thirty the next morning. I’d gone to sleep easily enough, thanks again to Ambien. But six thirty was early enough to make me feel frail. I got out of bed like the floor might roll away from me, then stumbled up to make coffee, take a shower, and head out the door. I remembered to make a sandwich for myself before I left, and an extra sandwich for that kid too. I could eat it later if I didn’t see him again.

I was tempted to call my mom from the train, to make plans to see her tonight, but I didn’t know what her sleep schedule was like. I made a mental note to call her later.

The ride felt different today. The train shook back and forth on the rails, the early-morning light strobing through the windows, looking like the beginning of an old-time film reel. I reached the right station at seven forty-five
A.M.
and descended the stairs.

“This phone’s mine, move your damn blanket over!” This morning I noticed a row of pay phones, long since missing their earpieces, and surely free of dimes. They now provided the backbone for a cardboard shelter where two homeless people were arguing over the edges of their blankets.

There were more people milling, getting on and off the train. It was windy today, thank goodness, creating a rare breeze. It sent pieces of trash scudding around on the ground, weaving in between people’s feet, looking like they too were queuing up for the train.

I moved to the periphery and struck out for Divisadero. I walked past shit by the side of the road that looked, to my clinical eye, too big to be from a dog. I’d have to be more careful where I stepped today.

I looked behind me and wondered if the man I’d helped treat was somewhere in the crowd—or if those who’d come to get him were. I didn’t think I saw anyone I recognized, but I did walk a little faster at the thought.

The same bloodstain was there on the stoop when I reached the clinic doors. Blood’s really hard to get out of a lot of things, especially cement. I was pondering this when I heard a small moan from behind me.

I jumped and turned around. It didn’t sound human, really, more like wind stroking past the end of an open glass bottle. I heard it again. I stood there on the sidewalk for a second, overly conscious of my attempts to avoid stepping on the stain from yesterday’s altercation, trying to locate the source of the sound with my ears.

“Hey, lady.”

The kid from yesterday walked up the block. “Hey,” I said back.

“You still need a
limpieza.
I can tell.”

“Yeah, that’s still not gonna happen. I gotta get to work. First day on the job.” I pointed with my thumb to the clinic behind me. He wagged his head in exaggerated disapproval at my playing for the other team. “I’m Edie. Who’re you?”

“I’m Olympio.”

“What do you do all day, Olympio?” It was summer now, otherwise I’d have asked him why he wasn’t off at school.

He grinned, showing uneven teeth. “Try to stop people from going in there. You all can’t do half the things my grandfather can.”