Night Shift (4 page)

“Do you know where you are?” Manfred said, his voice gentle.

“Why, no, I don’t believe I do.” She looked terrified, even more so after she gave a second glance at Manfred’s glinting silver piercings and spiky platinum hair.

“You’re in Midnight, in a store called The Inquiring Mind,” Fiji said. “You came in to look around, and I think you fainted.”

“But I’ve never done that before,” Ms. Owens protested weakly. “My gosh, I must have scared you to death! You . . . haven’t called the ambulance or anything, have you?”

“We were just going to,” Fiji said. “You’ve only been out for a few seconds. Maybe you’d feel better if you got checked out?”

“Oh, please don’t call,” Ms. Owens said. “The fuss . . . and all over nothing, I’m sure.”

Fiji felt like the lowest form of life possible.

“Really? Because we’d be glad to.”

“I’m absolutely sure. Here, help me sit up. If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course not.” Fiji took one arm, and Manfred the other, and in a jiffy Ms. Owens was sitting up and smiling with relief.

“That’s better. I feel just fine. I’m sure I can get myself home.”

“No, ma’am,” Manfred said firmly. “One of us will drive you in your car, and one of us will follow to take the driver home.”

“Thanks for taking such good care of me,” Ms. Owens said, genuinely surprised. “Though . . .” She looked hard at Fiji. “I feel like we’ve met before. I mean, recently.”

“I felt just the same way when you came in,” Fiji said. “But for the life of me, I can’t recall where. Have a drink.” She handed the glass of water to Ms. Owens, who took a long gulp and handed it back.

“Thanks. If you wouldn’t mind, I know I’d feel even better at home,” she said.

“All right, we’ll get you up then,” said Manfred, and he signaled for Diederik to take Fiji’s place at Ms. Owens’s side. She was up on her feet before she had time to worry about the procedure.

Fiji asked Diederik to help customers if any came in while she was gone, and then she grabbed her keys and purse so she could follow Manfred to Ms. Owens’s house in Davy.

“What am I supposed to do while you’re gone?” Kiki demanded.

For a few pleasant moments, Fiji had forgotten all about her sister’s presence. “I won’t be gone long,” she said. “Unpack. Or fix lunch. That would be nice. And helpful.” And then she started out back to her car, only to spin on her heel.

“And leave the kid alone,” she said.

“Oh, for God’s sake. How old is he?” Kiki was partly angry, partly curious.

“Younger than you think.”

“Too young to drive the woman back to her house?”

“No driver’s license,” Fiji hedged.

“Why?”

“He’s foreign.”

“He sure doesn’t look Mexican.”

“He’s Dutch,” Fiji said. “Now, I’ve got to go.” And she made good her very temporary escape.

M
anfred gave the sister—Kiki?—a nod and a wave as he got into Francine Owens’s car. The sister nodded back, but without enthusiasm. That was okay with Manfred. She wasn’t impressed with him; he surely wasn’t impressed with her, either. And he’d seen the way she looked at Fiji when Fiji’s back was turned.

Manfred couldn’t drum up much conversation with Francine on their short drive to her house. She asked if he’d lived in the area long, seemed relieved that he hadn’t (so presumably he wouldn’t gossip about her fainting in the store), and thanked him several times for helping her, though his appearance clearly made her very uneasy. She had no idea how much he had helped her, but that was okay with Manfred.

Her house was a small ranch in a neighborhood of similar homes. Gardens and basketball goals and barbecue grills and the smell of cut grass, though it was the tail end of mowing season in Texas.

After Francine Owens had thanked them both several more times, and they had reassured her that they’d been glad to help and they hoped she recovered completely, they were all able to part ways with ill-concealed relief.

Manfred climbed into Fiji’s car and leaned back, heaving a sigh. He didn’t feel like talking about Francine Owens again. It was simple to think of another topic of conversation.

“So how come your sister showed up, after all this time?” he asked. “Didn’t you tell me none of your family had come to visit you in Midnight, since you inherited?”

“Truth. Kiki says she’s here now because she’s broken up with her second husband. And also, my dad has Alzheimer’s. So she doesn’t want to stay with Mom and Dad.”

“Two reasons, huh? One wouldn’t do? You don’t have a telephone, she couldn’t call ahead?”

“Yeah, it seems pretty weak to me, too,” Fiji told him. “I can sort of see her not wanting to go to my mom and dad’s if Dad is getting hard to handle. She never has liked to take responsibility for someone else. But the split with her husband—that seems pretty hinky to me.”

“I don’t know what ‘hinky’ means, but the situation does seem kind of suspicious. More explanation called for.”

“Right.”

“Doesn’t she have a job?”

“Good point, Manfred. Yes, last I heard, she was working at a Banana Republic or something. A mall clothing store. And even if she and her husband split up, it seems like she’d need to work. Maybe especially.”

Manfred didn’t know a lot about conventional families, since he’d never known the name of his father and he’d spent a bit of his childhood and almost all his adolescence with his psychic grandmother, Xylda Bernardo, who’d never met a camera she didn’t like. “So are you thinking she’s come here for some other reason entirely? Or that she’s got bad news about your mother, too? Or what?” He glanced over at Fiji, who was clearly mulling over possibilities. “I’ll find out, I’m sure,” Fiji said. “Even if I’d rather not.”

“And your parents picked a theme to name their children?” It was time to lighten the atmosphere.

“Beach people,” Fiji said, with a shrug.

“They actually went to Fiji?”

“On their seventh anniversary. Saved for four years. Mom got pregnant with me while they were there.”

“And Waikiki?”

“Third anniversary.”

He choked back a laugh. “Really?”

She tried not to smile. “Really.”

“I never had a sibling—one I knew of, anyway.” Maybe he had six brothers by his unknown father. Just with other women. “But it’s got to be weird to be obliged to stick by someone you didn’t pick as a friend. Or am I crazy?”

He glanced over to see that Fiji looked taken aback.

“I never thought of it that way,” she said slowly. “You have to stick by family, unless they’ve done something truly terrible to you. I know there are families who are sadistic or neglectful. I suspect Olivia’s was.”

Manfred was careful just to nod, because he didn’t want to interrupt the flow of Fiji’s thoughts.

“There’s a bond when you’ve been brought up in the same household together,” she said finally. “Whether you want there to be or not. There are times, growing up, when you get into trouble together. When it’s kids versus parents. I love Kiki, but that love is tempered with . . . a lot of wariness.”

“Interesting,” was all he could think of to say. After they drove a few more miles, he said, “We have to tell everyone about Francine Owens.”

“Yeah,” she said, without enthusiasm. “Maybe you could take care of that?”

Again, Manfred was surprised, and not in a good way. Keeping everyone in town on the same page was a Fiji thing. Something was going on with his friend, something beyond the unexpected arrival of her sister. Cautiously, he said, “There anything you want to talk about?” He half-hoped she’d say there wasn’t.

“I think having my sister turn up, on top of suicides and a suicide attempt, is enough,” she said, after a pause that was just a little too long.

“Okay,” he said, hoping his relief didn’t show. “But you know where I am if you need me.”

The adrenaline that had fueled his great tackle of the about-to-be suicide had long faded, leaving him dragging and dull. Now that they’d gotten rid of this last body (fortunately, still breathing), Manfred found himself longing for his computer and his telephone and his privacy.

“If your sister stays for any length of time, I’ll take you two out to dinner one night,” Manfred offered as Fiji dropped him at his house. “And not at Home Cookin. All the way to Davy, or even Marthasville. I spare no expense!”

“Thanks, Manfred,” she said, sounding surprised. Fiji threw the surprise back over to his side of the fence by giving him a hug.

Manfred knew his return of the hug was a bit awkward, but it was sincere. He was pleased. Unfortunately, as soon as he touched her, he knew what Fiji’s secret was. She had had a falling-out with Bobo—or rather, with her dream of the possibility of a relationship with Bobo. That made him sad, but he was not about to comment on it.

Fiji let go and leaned back in her seat. “Oh, I just remembered!” she said.

“Remembered what?”

“Where I’d seen Francine Owens before.”

“Where was it?”

“The last time I went to the grocery store in Davy. She was ahead of me in line.”

“How can you possibly remember who was ahead of you in line at the grocery store?” Manfred shook his head disbelievingly.

“You’d remember her, too,” Fiji said, though she wasn’t completely sure about that. In her limited experience, men remembered different things than women did, at least sometimes. “She was one of those shoppers who had a coupon for every item. And she asked the cashier about a dozen questions. Like if the second package of napkins had to be the same style as the first one for the coupon to be good.” She’d also waited until the items had been tallied to begin writing a check, which was one of Fiji’s pet peeves.
If you’re gonna use a debit card, fine. If you’re gonna write a check, by golly, start filling it out.

If Fiji hadn’t been in a hurry (she couldn’t remember why) she would never have recalled the little incident, which had irritated her quite a bit.

She explained all this to Manfred, who said, “So you disliked her, based on that incident.”

“Well, yeah. Of course, today I just felt sorry for her. But she was definitely on my shit list for about five whole minutes.” Fiji smiled to make sure Manfred understood that being on her “shit list” was not a permanent thing.

“That’s interesting.”

“I don’t see why! At least now I can lose that nagging feeling you get when you can’t quite remember something.”

“Fiji,” Manfred said, and stopped dead. He’d been about to explain his tentative theory, but he thought better of it. “Nah, don’t worry about it.” He smiled at her. “I’m glad you remembered, and I’m glad the lady’s okay, and I hope your sister leaves soon.”

“Those all sound like good wishes to me.”

“And whatever else is wrong, I think it’s gonna be okay, too,” Manfred said, and turned to go in his house before she could ask him any questions.

T
hat night, Lemuel was back at his task of puzzling out the translation of the book—the most important one, the one about the origin of magical sites in the United States. The only one in Texas he’d seen mention of so far was the Devil’s Sinkhole, south of Midnight. It would have been more accurate to call it “
a
Devil’s Sinkhole,” according to the author of
The New World and Its Places of Interest
.

Lemuel had seen older books than the one to which he was paying so much attention, but he was sure this was the right book. He’d come across the first pawnshop owner’s notes in his second year of working for Bobo; it was ironic that it had taken him all these years to find the really interesting piece of history that had become his obsession. But the builder of Midnight Pawn, which had originally been a general store, had bought and sold a good many things, both ancient and modern, new and used.

“A consignment of ancient books,” the original owner had written. “Which I now believe to be of the Devil, so I have hidden them. If the owner returns to redeem them, I will kill him.” Lemuel had been intrigued, of course. He’d had trouble discovering what had happened to the original owner, but he’d run across one mention of a terrible accident in an old county newspaper, which had made him even more curious.

Lemuel had not been able to claim ownership of the pawnshop continuously for all those years, because someone would have noticed his odd longevity and his aversion to daylight. Though he was very strong and fast, humans in a group could defeat him. By various subterfuges, he’d remained in the area. But he’d never been able to find the trove of books.

Bobo had discovered them by accident, which was galling. And funny, too.

The cover of the book Lemuel was studying, which had been created from the skin of a werewolf, was still in excellent shape, and the pages, though spotted and yellowed, were quite legible . . . if you could speak the language they’d been written in.

That was what had taken so long—finding someone who could still speak the ancient tongue.

“You taking a break?” Olivia asked. She’d set up a card table behind the counter and was working a jigsaw puzzle. “A thousand pieces,” she’d told him, looking determined.

“Just for a few minutes,” Lemuel said, getting off the stool and stretching.

“I have to go to New Orleans in a couple of weeks. You want me to look up that Quigley, thump him good?”

“I felt lucky to find him at the time,” Lemuel said. “A descendant of the vampire who wrote this book? Hadn’t expected that.”

“It would have been a better discovery if he’d been smart,” Olivia said.

“Yes, indeed. Maybe I should have taken some wooden slivers with me, asked a few more questions. I know Quigley has a child, and he wasn’t the first vampire Arria Auclina created. There’s an older child somewhere, a female.”

“What about Arria Auclina herself?” Olivia was all for going directly to the source.

“She would squash me like a bug,” Lemuel said gently. “Ones that old, they don’t care a thing about a comparatively new one like me, especially since I’m the rare breed.”

“I think being able to take blood from humans
or
sap their energy makes you a lot more diverse,” she said. “I bet they all wish they were like you.”

“Not the purists,” he said, with a slight smile. “Though it was much easier for me when I was only a hundred or so, to go amongst people. It was hard for them to tell what I was. Now, there’s no question.”

“Shall I ask Quigley nicely to give us another source?” She perked up at the prospect of action.

Lemuel looked at Olivia steadily. She was brave and strong and lethal, but she’d never understand that a vampire could snap her spine in a second. Any vampire. “Olivia, please don’t approach him unless I ask you to,” he said, making sure she saw how serious he was.

Lemuel squatted by the card table to pick up little puzzle pieces that had landed on the floor. As he began returning them to the table, he glanced up at Olivia. Her brow was furrowed as she tried to match piece after piece. Though he had never told her—and she had never asked—Lemuel planned to make Olivia a vampire someday. She was bright and wounded and lethal and loyal. Only her mortality kept her from being nearly perfect in his eyes. She was about to speak again; she turned away from the puzzle.

“Listen, I guess there’s no shortcut you could take, or you would have taken it already, right?”

“What shortcut did you have in mind?” Lemuel lay the book down and simply looked at her.

“Like scanning the text for the word that means ‘Midnight,’ or ‘Crossroad.’ Something like that.” Olivia shrugged, to let him know she thought her idea feeble.

Lemuel reached up to put his cold hand on her cheek. “Remember, I told you that whatever happened to make this place so odd and queer must have happened before this crossroad was even called Midnight?”

She nodded.

“I think the town is here because of whatever event took place.”

“You think people have come to this spot because they were drawn to it because of the event,” Olivia said slowly.

“Yes.”

“I knew this wouldn’t be easy,” Olivia said, and her voice was just shaky enough to remind Lemuel to remove his hand before he took too much energy from her.

“If you have any other ideas, I will be glad to hear them,” he said. “Never keep one to yourself.”

“I won’t.” Olivia flashed him a smile, and Lemuel said, “That’s my bold woman.” He spied one more bit of puzzle and leaned beneath the table to retrieve it.

The bell over the door tinkled as a man came in, a rough and hairy man with a coarse brown beard. A gust of cool air came in the door with him.

“Evening,” Olivia called, standing up and moving behind the counter. Lemuel, out of her sight, stiffened.

“I came to redeem my knife,” the man said, his voice deep.

“Got your ticket?” Olivia asked. Lemuel glanced up and nodded to himself. Olivia knew what he was. She had remembered to smile with her teeth covered, as you should around a werewolf.

“I do.” The customer fished around in his jeans pockets and came up with a bit of cardboard, which he put on the counter. He paused and sniffed. “Do I smell a dead . . .
kinsman
?” His own teeth became very apparent, and they seemed longer and sharper than they should have been.

“I have no idea what you smell,” Olivia said. “But I bet you’re getting a whiff of metal, buddy.” She was holding a gun in her hand.

Lemuel thought,
I did not tell her about the bookbinding.
He stood. At the sight of him, the werewolf stepped back a little. “So overcome by the cover of an old book that you couldn’t smell me?” Lemuel asked, his voice rusty and slow. “This shop is under my protection. That includes everyone who works here.”

“I can take him,” Olivia said. She sounded remote, calm.

“I know you can, Olivia. But in this case, I just about owe this man an explanation.”

The werewolf looked surprised. “My name is Theo Barclay,” he said more civilly. “I wait to hear it.”

“See this book, Theo Barclay?” Lemuel held it up. “You can see it is ancient. I had nothing to do with the construction of it. As you smelled, some person used the skin of a were to construct it.”

“It should be buried with respect.”

Lemuel paused before he spoke. “I have to read this book, because magic is brewing here, magic that will do none of us any good. If I can find out what is going to happen, maybe I can prevent it. The answer lies here.” He tapped the book to emphasize his point. “When that danger is passed, I will give the book covering to your packmaster. Until then, I have to keep the book intact, lest something I can’t foresee might happen to it if I simply remove the cover.”

It was Barclay’s turn to think out his response. “That’s a deal,” the werewolf rumbled, finally. “I’ll tell my packmaster. Now, I want to redeem my knife.”

Within minutes, Barclay was out the pawnshop door, his very fine knife in its custom sheath on his belt.

Lemuel could feel Olivia simmer during this whole exchange.

“I could have handled him,” Olivia said, the minute the rumble of Barclay’s motorcycle faded in the distance.

“Woman, I know you can kill,” Lemuel said. “This is not an issue we need to debate. And you are proud. You should be. But this incident had nothing to do with pride. It had only to do with the werewolves’ right to bury their dead, if that was how they want to honor her.”

“It’s a female?” Olivia looked at the book, impressed but also a little disgusted.

“I think it is,” Lemuel said. “I can’t know how she died, or when, but I know it was many, many years ago.”

“So she’s not likely to be Barclay’s literal kin?”

“No.”

“Well, all right.”

Lemuel wasn’t sure what Olivia had resolved within herself as a result of this discussion, but he could tell she was at peace with him now, and that was what he cared about.

That, and reading this damned book.