Shapeshifted

“?Medico!” the standing one shouted, pulling the bleeding man another step into the room. The elderly woman with the rosary beads began to pray aloud.

I stepped through and let the door close quickly behind me to protect the staff. I could see into the plastic- windowed wall to my right where the receptionists had scurried off like rabbits. Hopefully to tell someone in charge there was a bleeding man out here.

“They tried to kidnap me!” The standing man pointed what I belatedly realized was a gun at me. Instantly I held up my hands. “?Quien eres?” he asked me.

I didn’t know what he was asking precisely, but the gun helped make it clear. “La enfermera,” I said, at least knowing the Spanish word for “nurse.” I opened up my purse slowly and pulled a pair of gloves out. “Let me see your friend.”

As an actual clinic employee had yet to be seen, the gunman grunted assent. I moved closer to the bleeding man. He was shot in his upper arm. Behind us, with the men distracted and the gun pointed at me, the other patients filtered out, stepping over the wounded man’s trail of blood.

“That’s gotta hurt. Let’s get you sitting down. How long ago was this? How much blood did he lose?” I kept asking questions, trying to distract them both from the mass exodus happening at the door. I inspected the rest of him visually and with both gloved hands—he’d slimed blood all over himself in getting dragged here. There could be a second, worse gunshot wound hidden somewhere else on him, easy. When I didn’t find anything else, I tested a finger near his wound, and he yelped.

“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 acion 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