Shapeshifted

doesn’t hate me, though.” I couldn’t really imagine my mother spending her life indebted to Dren now, could I? God.

“How did he find you?” Hector jerked his chin at the nightmare by our side.

“It’s what he’s cursed to do.” I used a knuckle to push my cheek in to chew on. Could I get Dren to help me? Somehow? Was it worth the risk? Of course it was. It was my mom.

Just as I was talking myself into following Jorgen, even if I already knew I wouldn’t like where he would lead, Hector nodded. Subtly at first, but then grander, as if convincing himself of something. “All right. I’ll take you to her. I’ll show you.”

“To who?”

Hector raised his hands to the sky. “To who else? The Queen of the Night.”

* * *

This was a much better option, inasmuch as any option was better than dealing with Dren, a vampire whom I already knew had a grudge against me. Now a willing guide, Hector took us deeper into the city, with Jorgen following along like the Hound of the Baskervilles come to life. Jorgen whined periodically—it was clear we were not going the way he preferred, from the noises he made, and the way he wove at every corner—but he didn’t put his lips on me again, thank God.

We reached a place where there were women standing on the corners of the streets. Not dressed like hookers, or fiending for dope—normal women, in groups of two or three, talking, standing in place. Watching. When the first group saw us, they smiled at Hector. And one of them whistled out a call that I heard repeated far away. The graffiti on the walls changed—Reina colors for sure. “Are we in their territory now?”

Hector nodded.

“So I was right, there was a connection between the people with the bite mark shirts and the tattoos all along?”

“Presumably. I’ve never seen her myself. I’ve only heard about her.”

“Why did you go in with her lot, then? The blood is for her, isn’t it?”

He nodded again. “Catrina explained it to me.”

“And you believed her? Wait—she knows?”

“She does. Our visit will probably wake her up.”

“She told you she was getting blood for a vampire, and you believed her. Wow.” I at least had Jorgen to prove that I was for real. What had Catrina had?

“Hey, I see things too,” he said.

“But—you’ve never met her,” I tried again.

“No. I don’t have to. I can walk through here and see the changes she’s made. Look around. There’s no trash on these streets. All the businesses here close at the end of the day, and no one ever breaks into them. The kids who live inside her lines get fed. I have no idea how she’s doing it, or what laws she’s breaking, but this is what I want for our entire community.” He looked around the empty street we were walking down, all of the people living in it happily at home, watching TVs that we could hear through open windows. Vampires weren’t typically helpful like that. All the vampires I’d ever met had three plans. What they wanted, what they wanted, and how you could help them get what they wanted.

“Plus,” he went on, “something goes bad—she’s strong enough to fight.”

“Fight who?” I asked, but I realized I already knew. “Maldonado.”

“And his men, if it comes to that. She’s stronger than I am. She’ll live longer, for sure.”

That sounded ominous. “Hector—” I still had to figure out how to save my mom. But we were less than a week away from the seventeenth and whatever badness it meant for Hector and his home. I thought my mom had longer than that. We turned a corner and he drew up short.

“We’re here.”

* * *

The street we turned onto had been truncated halfway down, turning the road into a courtyard. There was a barricade across the entire block, the road cut in half by cars stacked on top of one another, junkyard-style, like Legos made of steel. No mere human had done that.

“Whoa.”

“Almost there,” Hector said. “They’re unlikely to let me inside, but they might let you in if I vouch for you.”

I nodded. “Please, try.” Whoever was inside was legitimate. No plain human could move cars like that without a backhoe. Following Jorgen, presumably to Dren, was my worst-case scenario. If there was any way I could get a seemingly decent vampire to help my mom, one that wasn’t self-centered and insane, I would do it.

We reached the front of the structure, which wasn’t as solid as it had seemed from the shadows at the end of the block. It was a double-walled fortress, and there were tunnels inside where I could see women walking— patrolling—back and forth, between the rows of cars.

Hector and I waited until two women emerged.

“It’s a bit late for la entrega de sangre, el medico.”

“No blood tonight. I’ve brought a friend who needs to see the Queen.” He gently pushed me forward. From my new vantage point, I could see that both of the women were casually wearing submachine guns.

“We don’t allow visitors.” Neither of the women apparently saw Jorgen, standing beside me.

“Please, bring someone with the don out. She’s special, and she needs to see her.”

They talked among themselves, passing the message up the line. I used that time to wonder what exactly the submachine guns were for. Someone inside yelled out, “Hey, medico!” then companionably came around the corner and saw me.

“Oh, not you—” Catrina, from the clinic. Then her eyes found Jorgen and her jaw dropped.

“What the—” She crossed herself.

“Hey, Catrina.” I gave her a low wave.

“Explain that.” She pointed at Jorgen.

“He’s like a pet. To one of them,” I said with particular emphasis, hoping she’d know what kind of creature I meant. “He doesn’t belong to me. I’m trying to return him.” Whatever I needed to say to get inside the door and meet this Queen.

She squinted at me. “You have the don, too?”

“No. I knew his owner in a former life.” I didn’t want to say the word vampire here—despite the blood thing, I didn’t know how much people out here would actually know. If they were daytimers, they would have been able to see Jorgen. Hell, if they were daytimers they probably wouldn’t need submachine guns.

“Perhaps the Queen can rid her of him. El encuentra las cosas. Maybe the Queen could use him herself?” Hector asked.

Catrina grunted. “He’s not coming in here.”

To be honest, I didn’t want to take Jorgen in with me either, but I didn’t want to find out what he’d do if I didn’t eventually go along with his mysterious plan. I gestured at the wall of cars and made an excuse I hoped he’d understand. “I don’t think he could safely fit.”

“All right then. We’ll take her in. You two wait here.” She pointed at Hector and Jorgen.

I looked back at Hector, apologetically.

“Don’t worry.” He looked over his shoulder at Jorgen, who was on all fours now, too long to be normal, drapes of skin and fur hanging down. “I’m sure we’ll both enjoy it.”

* * *

Catrina let me in. The other two let her, and acted like she wasn’t crazy—even though they couldn’t see Jorgen, they accepted that there were strange forces at work in the world, and were prepared to try to handle them with gunfire. I wondered if Catrina had always been able to see the soul-sucking flower in me.

She patted me down more thoroughly than the TSA, and when she was done, she gave me a grudging nod of respect. “I guess you know more than you let on. Welcome to casa de la noche.”

* * *