Pandemonium
Sharon Shinn
It was mere chance that I happened to be human when the bullets started flying.
Just that morning, after several months roving the countryside in the shape of a yellow setter, I’d felt that restless tug at my brain that reminded me there was an alternate existence awaiting me, and I needed to check back into it for a while. I’d swung by the barn on the abandoned farm off of a remote Missouri road where I kept my emergency stash. As always, when I checked the box hidden in the hayloft, I was surprised to find everything still in place. A shirt, a pair of jeans, athletic shoes, a hundred bucks in cash, and a cell phone. No surprise, the cell phone was completely dead. I’d remembered to include a charger the last time I dropped off supplies, but the barn wasn’t wired with electricity.
I suited up in what I thought of as my human armor and paused at the hand pump to wash off the worst of the grime, silently thanking whatever utility company had never bothered to shut off the water. Then I hiked to the nearest outpost of civilization so I could call my brother Dante.
Three businesses fronted the intersection of two dusty, endless, two-lane highways, and they were about as desolate as the empty farm. One was a pawn and bait shop, closed for the day, though it was only midafternoon. One was a bar. The last was a gas station/convenience store that doubled as an internet café, though it boasted only one ancient MacBook and a spotty Wi-Fi connection. The laptop was set on a tall table with no corresponding stool in sight, so interested customers had to stand in front of it while they conducted their Google searches and composed their emails.
Since Ann had died two years ago, this place had been my primary point of contact with the outside world.
Choko nodded when I walked through the front door, which announced me with a merry jingle. He was a tall, skinny black guy with an impressive head of hair and an air of anxious alertness. As far as I could tell, he never left the shop, since every time I had ever dropped by, at any hour of the night or day, it was open and he was behind the counter.
I peeled off a five-dollar bill and laid it on the counter. He nodded again and jerked his thumb toward the little alcove formed by a tall Doritos display and the hallway to the bathroom. That’s where the computer lived, I can only assume because Choko’s usual clientele valued their privacy and no one, as far as I knew, had ever set foot in the bathroom. So no one was likely to see whatever information the customers had called up on the screen.
I was slouching against the wall, waiting for the Mac to power up, when the door crashed open so hard the tinkly little bell went into a frenzy. But the jangle was instantly swallowed by the sound of hasty footsteps and raised voices.
“Leave me alone, you lying prick!” a woman shouted, sounding angry rather than afraid. I couldn’t see clearly around the bags of snack food, but I could catch snatches of color and motion. My guess was that she had given a hard shove to the person who had followed her into the store.
“Me? Me? You’re the liar, you little bitch!” snarled a man’s voice in return. There was another sound, like maybe he had shoved her back. Or hit her. “You tell me where the money is or I swear I’ll slit your throat.”
“Then you’ll never know where it is, will you, Mickey? You bring me Berto, and then we’ll talk.”
“Berto stays with me.”
“Then the money stays with me.”
There was another sound—a quick series of metallic clicks—and I realized that someone had pulled a gun. Pulled it, cocked it, aimed it.
“You tell me where it is,” Mickey said in a low and deadly voice, “or I swear I’ll kill you where you stand.”
Choko spoke up. “Hey—hey. No need for any of that,” he said. It was clear he was trying to take a placating tone, but his voice was high and nervous. “We don’t want guns here.”
“Shut up,” Mickey said, “or I’ll shoot you, too.”
I wondered briefly if Choko’s service counter was outfitted with a hidden panic button that he could push to call the police. I had no idea where the nearest law enforcement offices might be located or how long it might take them to respond to a call.
I dropped into a crouch, trying to figure out what to do next. As far as I knew, there was no back exit. I might be able to break for the front door while the others were arguing, but that seemed chancy in the extreme. Maybe it was best just to stay put. Only Choko knew I was here, and no one else could see me.
The woman’s voice came again, derisive and sharp. I thought I detected a trace of a Spanish accent. “Oh, yeah. Shoot up the whole place. That’ll get you what you want.”
“What I want is for you to shut up—”
There was a sudden quick report, followed by the rattling of metal shelves and the woman’s muffled scream. For a second, I thought Mickey had shot her, and then I realized that Choko had pulled his own weapon. “Out. Both of you. Out,” Choko commanded, trying to make his shaking voice sound fierce.
“You fucker!” Mickey shouted and fired back.
The woman screamed, louder this time. Through the grill of the display stand, I saw her fling herself to the floor. The bulky shadow that I took to be Mickey dropped behind an ancient freezer and took aim at the front counter. More shots, more yells, more sounds of bullets ricocheting off of walls and display racks.
Choko returned fire, the staccato sound terrifyingly loud in the enclosed space. Mickey yelped and flattened himself on the floor, scrabbling backward, getting off the occasional shot as he slithered around shelving units and display stands.
He was heading straight toward the relative safety of the bathroom hallway. Right at me.
He achieved the shelter of the Doritos stand, rose to his knees to fire at Choko, then lunged around the corner.
I slammed him in the face with the edge of the laptop. He gurgled and tumbled over backward, dropping his gun. I kicked it away as Choko leapt over the counter and skidded our way. He sank to the floor and began beating Mickey’s head with what looked like a can of beans.
“Hey—hey—don’t kill him,” I exclaimed when Mickey’s face was a bloody mess and he had completely stopped moving. “That seems like more trouble than you want.”
Choko stopped raining down blows and peered at Mickey as if trying to assess his damage. His hand was still lifted, ready to mete out more punishment, but it seemed clear Mickey was subdued for the moment.
The woman had risen to her feet and slowly crept closer. “Is he dead?” she asked. I couldn’t tell if she sounded hopeful or afraid.
“Don’t think so,” Choko said.
She let out a long gusty breath, then her eyes fixed on me. “Who are you?”
“Just a customer,” I said.
She appraised me a moment, and I stared right back. She was a little shorter than average, with curly dark hair halfway down her back, brown eyes, olive skin. Maybe in her mid-twenties. Despite the delicate cast of her pretty features and the soulfulness of her dark eyes, I sensed a hardness and purposefulness at her core. I’d seen enough people with that same look to know she was a survivor. She was prepared to do whatever she had to do, no matter how drastic, to stay alive.
I would have been surprised if she didn’t read the same message on my face.
Choko stood up and nudged Mickey with his toe. “What are we gonna do with this guy?”
“Don’t call the police,” the woman said.
“No, no, never,” Choko hastily assented.
They both looked at me. “No cops on my account,” I said.
I took a moment to wonder which of the four of us was less interested in summoning the law. I was fairly certain Choko dealt in illegal substances when a certain clientele came through the door, and he probably had quite a cornucopia behind the front counter. Mickey had “criminal element” written all over him. Harder to guess the young woman’s situation, but I thought it possible that she was an undocumented immigrant.
As for me, I was a ghost. No driver’s license, no Social Security number, no home address, no work history. Officially, I didn’t exist. I had no desire to answer questions for the police.
The woman stared down at Mickey’s battered face. “He’s going to be so mad.”
Choko nudged the body with his foot again. “We gotta get him out of here. How are we gonna do that?”
The woman gave a sharp nod, as if coming to a decision. “We’ll take him a few miles out and leave him in his car in a field somewhere. I’ll drive my car, you can follow in his, and I’ll bring you back here.”
Choko almost whined. “I can’t leave the shop.”
I had the strange, fanciful notion that Choko was some kind of ensorcelled spirit bound to this patch of ground, unable to step past its boundaries for all eternity. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing I’d ever learned about someone.
The woman looked at me. “Then you’ll have to do it.”
I was going to refuse, because why should I get mixed up in whatever her trouble was? But Choko looked so relieved that I didn’t see that I had a choice. I kind of needed Choko to guard my portal between animal and human worlds. I shrugged, which was my version of an assent.
The woman turned toward the door. “You two carry the body.”
* * *
Five minutes later I was in the driver’s seat of an old Honda that smelled like whiskey and weed, following an even older Buick down the highway. Mickey was quiescent in the back, though now and then he sighed or groaned, so I wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be out.
I drove carefully, clutching the steering wheel with both hands, concentrating on every movement of my foot from the accelerator to the brake. My brother and sister and I had all learned how to drive when we were teenagers, back when we were still human more often than animal and living at what might be considered the outside boundary of a normal life. Dante still drove on a regular basis—he was married, he was raising a kid—but I was almost never in a car. The last thing I needed to complete this adventure was to end up in a ditch.
We drove about five miles from the shop before the woman pulled over to the side of the road. The land spread out all around us, flat and empty except for a mown field on one side and a sprinkling of cows on the other. I supposed we were on somebody’s property, since wire fencing stretched for miles in either direction on both sides of the road, but there wasn’t a barn or farmhouse anywhere in sight. I cut the engine, tossed the keys into the back seat with Mickey, and got out of the car.
The woman made a sweeping U-turn, then paused long enough for me to climb into the Buick. She kept to a decorous pace as we headed back toward Choko’s. There was scarcely another car on the road, but she obviously didn’t want to risk speeding if one of those cars happened to hold a state trooper.
We’d traveled about ten minutes in silence when she said, “I’m Carolina, by the way.”
“William.”
I was wondering if it was too late to try to get in touch with Dante tonight. He spent more than half his life in animal shape, so he might not even be available to come get me, and his wife might have other plans. Maybe I should sleep in the barn tonight and try my luck at Choko’s in the morning.
I caught Carolina’s sideways look in my direction. “You don’t say much, do you?”
“Sorry. I always forget I’m supposed to be talking.”
She made a small huffing sound of surprise or amusement. “Well, that’s a weird thing to say.”
“Yeah.”
“I keep thinking you’re going to ask me what my story is, but now I’m thinking I should ask what yours is.”
I made a face. “Not much to tell. I just kind of—wander around. Keep to myself, mostly.”
“You got any people?”
“Yeah. A brother and his wife. They’re raising my niece. I was about to email them when—” I glanced at her. “Things happened.”
“They going to be worried about you?”
I shook my head. “Not for a few more days at least.”
She nodded. And then, surprising me, she said, “Want to get something to eat?”
* * *
She took me to a burger stand in a little crossroads town called Hoffberg, which was about a mile past Choko’s shop. The restaurant had ten outdoor tables set up on a cracked asphalt lot. Only one other table was occupied, but the walk-up window was doing a brisk takeout business. The smells of cooked meat, fried potatoes, onions, and beer were sublime. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten something that wasn’t fresh-killed or dug out of three-day-old garbage.
We sat down at the table at the far edge of the lot. Night was just coming on, and the limitless blue sky of the midwestern prairie was slowly filling up with inky black. The neon of the burger stand, and the scattered streetlamps of Hoffberg, seemed as cheerful as Christmas lights. I guessed it was about six at night and maybe seventy degrees. On the edge of autumn. Maybe. I’d kind of lost track.
I was halfway through my meal when Carolina picked up the conversation where we’d left off. “So. You got anybody besides your brother? A wife?” She considered me, seeming to appraise my long hair and my lean build. “Maybe a husband?”
I grinned briefly and shook my head. “There was a girl. We talked about getting married. But she died a couple years ago.”
“What happened to her?”
I tried to think of the appropriate response. Cancer, I could say. Or a disease of the blood, which wasn’t really a lie. I hesitated long enough that her face showed alarm; she leaned back a little, away from me.
“You didn’t kill her, did you?”
I took a swig of my beer. I was going to limit myself to one, because I was never human long enough to build up a tolerance for alcohol. “Indirectly, maybe,” I said. “I think the lifestyle is what did her in.”
She tilted her head. “Drugs and booze?”
I shook my head. “Rootlessness. Not enough sleep. Not enough of the right food.” I shrugged. “No doctor when she should have seen one.”
The truth was, Ann died from the stresses of being a shape-shifter. All of us find that the life wears our bodies out; Ann’s body just wore out faster than most. Most of us only lived about half as long as we would have if we’d been fully human.
“She could have left you, right? Settled down somewhere?”
I nodded. “She could have. She didn’t want to. She loved the life.”
“Well, that’s all right, then.”
I watched her a moment. She had a slim build, but I read strength in every sinew of her body. She could have been a rock climber or a gymnast. Able to cling to sheer stone with her fingernails or balance unmoving on a narrow rail. “Did you really think I might have killed her?”
She nibbled at a french fry. “You have a look about you. Like you’ve battled a few demons. And expect to battle more.”
It was as accurate as anything anyone had ever said to me. “I’ve got a few monsters inside,” I admitted.
Now she focused on me with an eerie intensity. “We all do,” she said. “Some of us just try not to feed them.”
I supposed I should ask about the beasts that lurked inside her own heart, but instead I just finished my burger.
“There’s a word I learned once,” she said. “Pandemonium.”
“Everybody knows that word.”
“Maybe, but do you know what it means? Demons everywhere. Demons all around.” She waved a hand. “Outside and inside.”
I wasn’t sure exactly how to answer that, so I just said, “Huh.”
She swirled her last french fry through a mound of ketchup and said, “So maybe you’d do me a favor.”
I just looked at her. “A minute ago, you thought I might have killed my girlfriend. You have no idea if you can trust me.”
“That guy back at the convenience store. He trusts you.”
“Choko? He hardly knows me. And you don’t know Choko.”
She lifted her chin. “Well, then, maybe I don’t have anyone else to ask.”
“Still not a good reason.”
“I’ll pay you.”
“I don’t need money.” This was true. I had a few investment accounts that Dante took care of for me, and they generated plenty of income for my unconventional life.
Her face took on a sardonic expression. “You sure look like you need money.”
I laughed. “Just tell me what you want.”
“Soon as Mickey wakes up, he’s going to come looking for me. I have to go to my house and get my things before he trashes the place. I’d feel safer if you’d come with me.”
“You really think he’s going to be up walking around after Choko bashed his head in like that?”
She made a scoffing sound. “He’s been beat up so many times he hardly even notices it any more. Man’s got a skull like a cannonball. Nothing dents it.”
I found it doubtful—but I could also understand why she wouldn’t want to risk it. Mickey didn’t seem like a man of much subtlety or restraint. If he knew where she could be found, he’d probably come after her. I wasn’t that interested in playing bodyguard to someone I’d just met, but I also didn’t have anything else I needed to do. And she’d bought me dinner.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Carolina’s place wasn’t too far from Hoffberg, though by the time she made three turns out of the burger joint’s parking lot, we were back on dark, empty stretches of limitless road. The lights of the neighboring homes weren’t even visible when she eased onto a long gravel driveway.
Her headlights picked out a small house set well back from the road. I could make out the white clapboard of the exterior, a dilapidated porch, and an overgrown flagstone path that stretched from the driveway to the house. There was the barest scrap of a front yard hedged about with typical Missouri foliage, the oaks and maples all roped together by skinny bushes and plump ivy. I couldn’t tell if any of the leaves had started changing color already because it was almost full dark by the time we arrived.
“Cozy,” I said.
She got out of the car. “It’s a rental.”
I followed her inside just in case Mickey was hiding behind a curtain, but the place was empty. The furnishings were sparse—a couch and TV in the main room, a wooden table and a couple of chairs in the kitchen, which was separated from the main room by a half wall that doubled as a counter. In the bedroom there was only a twin bed and a crib. That last item was what caught my attention.
“Who sleeps there?” I asked.
“Roberto. My son.”
I remembered the screaming back at Choko’s place. You bring me Berto and then we’ll talk, she had yelled. “Mickey has your kid?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, hell. Why didn’t we go get him the minute we left Mickey at the side of the road?”
Her face was so expressionless it took me a moment to realize how much energy she was expending to keep her emotions in check. “I don’t know where Mickey’s keeping him,” she said in an even voice. “I don’t know where he’s been staying.”
“We could have tied him up, told him we wouldn’t let him go until he told us where Berto was—”
“That wouldn’t work. You don’t know Mickey,” she said tersely, and brushed by me without another word.
She started rifling through the closet, pulling out hangers draped with shirts and dresses. My guess was that she didn’t have many possessions, but it would still take her a little time to pack, so I wandered back outside to wait. I’m never all that comfortable inside a strange house. Inside any house, really.
The night air was cooling down and felt good on my skin. I lifted my face toward the starlight and tried to remember the last time I’d been shaped like a man. Two months ago? Three? I rarely stayed in human form longer than a few days, and I was already feeling the primal pull of my animal instincts whispering for me to change back. I needed to get to Dante’s tomorrow or I might miss this window altogether.
My body reminded me that it wasn’t used to processing beer, so I stepped into the wooded area to take a leak. Carolina probably would have let me use the bathroom, but it seemed like too much trouble to go back inside when the trees were right there.
I was just zipping up when I heard noises from the front of the house. There was the sound of Carolina clumsily hauling big items through the door, banging them against the frame and softly cursing. There was the sound of the door slamming shut behind her.
Then there was the sound of her muted shriek and Mickey’s voice hissing, “Bitch.”
Instead of rushing out to defend her, I crept slowly from the trees. He wouldn’t have any reason to suspect I was nearby; stealth would give me an advantage. And I could move like a predator, almost noiseless in the shadows.
I got close enough to assess the situation by the light spilling from the front windows. Carolina was standing in a pile of dropped suitcases, her hands flung out before her as if to ward off an attack. Mickey was a few yards away, a gun in his outstretched hand. He looked remarkably steady on his feet for someone who’d probably gotten a concussion a couple hours ago. My guess was that he had left his car some distance up the road so he could arrive on foot and surprise her.
“Where’s the money?” he demanded.
“Where’s Berto?”
“I’ll put a bullet in his head if you don’t give me the cash.”
Carolina thrust her hands in her jacket pockets and glared at him. Her expression was defiant, but it was easy for me—and surely for Mickey—to see she was terrified. I wondered if she thought I’d abandoned her. I had a pretty good idea of how this was about to go, so I silently unbuttoned my shirt, slipped off my jeans, stepped out of my shoes. I crouched on the ground and edged slowly closer.
“All right,” she said. “But I have to go get it. I’ll bring it tomorrow and swap you the cash for Berto.”
He used the gun to gesture at the luggage strewn around her feet. “You think I can’t tell you’re about to run? We’ll get it tonight.”
Her expression turned mulish. “Can’t. It’s locked in a building that won’t open till morning. Meet me here at noon and I’ll give it to you then.”
He came a step closer. “You trying to trick me?”
“All I want is my boy back.”
Mickey lifted his weapon and took careful aim. “I ought to shoot you. In the shoulder maybe. So you know not to mess with me.”
“I thought by now you’d know better than to mess with me,” she said. Yanking her hands out of her pockets, she heaved a cylindrical object at his head—a roll of quarters, maybe, or an ice cream scooper, something she’d just picked up out of a kitchen drawer. Whatever it was, it skittered off his ear as he yelled and ducked, and a second later, a shot rang out.
I leapt forward, changing shape in midair. I was a wolf, all fur and teeth and muscle, when I landed against his shoulder and knocked him onto his back. He shrieked, flailing all his limbs, trying desperately to escape my raking claws and snapping mouth. He struck at my face and I caught his wrist in my jaws, clamping down hard enough to make him scream. I could taste his blood on my tongue.
He bucked under me, briefly shaking me off. I gathered my whole body in a pounce that landed squarely on his chest. The breath oofed out of him and he wheezed with pain, craning his head back as if gulping for air. I could see the muscles working in his exposed throat. Snarling, I closed my teeth around his neck, just hard enough to break the skin. I felt him shudder beneath me and grow still.
For a moment, there was no sound except Mickey’s faint, labored breathing and the distant call of an owl. I hadn’t checked to see if Mickey’s bullet had found its target, so I didn’t even know if Carolina was alive or dead, but if she was alive, she was staying absolutely motionless. I was sure I could feel Mickey’s fevered heartbeat pulsing against my mouth.
With another snarl, I loosened my grip, lifted my head, and backed away. Mickey whimpered and scrambled to his feet, looking around wildly for his weapon.
“Don’t bother,” came Carolina’s voice. “I’ve got it.”
Mickey and I both swung our heads in her direction, to find her with her arm outstretched and the gun leveled at Mickey’s chest.
“Shoot the goddamn wolf!” he shouted. “Shoot it!”
“It’s never done anything to me,” she said coolly. “You get out of here before I decide to use this gun on you. And you come back tomorrow with my boy.”
He stared at her a moment, his whole body clenched with rage. He actually doubled his fists and took a hasty step toward her, but I growled and made a feint in his direction. Swallowing something like a sob, he spun around and blundered down the gravel road, his gait shambling and unsteady. I supposed a man who’d survived a shoot-out, a concussion, and a wolf attack all in one day couldn’t be expected to run with grace.
Carolina kept the gun trained on him until he was out of sight. We both waited, straining to hear, until we caught the sound of an engine roaring to life and a car peeling away from the roadside.
Then she lowered her hand and looked at me. I couldn’t see her expression in the unreliable light, but I could tell that her dark eyes were fixed on my face.
“Well,” she said, “I guess that’s your story.”
* * *
Neither of us could think of anywhere else to go, so we headed back to the old barn where I kept my emergency stash. I’d changed back into human shape to help her stow her stuff in the car. Since I’d discarded my clothes before I transmogrified, I had to hope Carolina wasn’t embarrassed by my brief moments of nudity before I could get dressed. Then again, I figured that was probably the least unnerving part of the whole experience for her.
We didn’t speak during the short journey except for when I gave her directions. The barn didn’t have any amenities, so we lugged in a few blankets and pillows to make a couple of beds, and a pitcher and some glasses so we could fetch water from the pump. I wouldn’t have minded sitting in total darkness, each of us wrapped in our own thoughts, but Carolina lit a pair of pillar candles and placed them between us.
“So,” she said. “Tell me about it.”
I took a sip of water to buy time because I wasn’t sure what to say. It’s axiomatic among shape-shifters that you don’t reveal yourself to ordinary human beings unless you have absolutely no choice. Unless otherwise you’ll die. Or another shape-shifter will die. Or unless you have a long, reliable history with these particular individuals and you are absolutely certain you can trust them with your secret. Our lives are so fraught with danger as it is that we can’t risk being hunted by humans who fear us for our strange magic and our terrifying abilities.
But I’d clearly already broken that cardinal rule with Carolina. “I’m a shape-shifter,” I said.
“Well, duh.”
“Why aren’t you completely freaked out?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ve just seen too much weird shit lately. Maybe I’m just too tired to react. My whole world is a mess right now, and none of it makes sense, so why shouldn’t a man be able to turn himself into a wild beast? But, wow. So tell me about it.”
I shrugged. “I was born like this. My mother was a shape-shifter. And my brother and my sister. It’s always been a little different for each of us. I can go back and forth between human and animal whenever I want. My brother is kind of at the mercy of his body—it changes when it wants to change.”
“And you just—” She waved a hand. “Wander around like a wolf all the time? Until you feel like being human?”
“Or a dog. Pretty much.”
“Do you like it?”
I narrowed my eyes, thinking it over. Dante hated it, I knew. Ann had loved the life. My sister—well. It had taken her in a hard direction. “It just is,” I said. “I wouldn’t know any other way to live.”
She reached into a paper bag she’d set on the floor and pulled out a four-pack of little margarita bottles. I shook my head when she offered me the carton, but she took a bottle for herself, twisting off the top. “Back there,” she said. “At my place. You could have killed him.”
I nodded wordlessly. I’ve brought down all kinds of game, even a deer or two when Ann and I were hunting together. It wouldn’t be that much different to kill a man. At least, the mechanics wouldn’t be.
She took a swallow of the margarita and eyed me meditatively. “Why didn’t you?” she asked.
“He seems like a class-A jerk, but I don’t know him well enough to want him dead,” I said, almost humorously. Then I used her own words against her. “He’s never done anything to me.”
She sipped at her margarita again and nodded. “Is that really why?”
I dropped my eyes and picked idly at the blanket. I hadn’t had a reason to think it through before, and it was mildly annoying that a total stranger was forcing me to think it through now, so it took me a few minutes to put my thoughts into words. Carolina waited in silence.
“It would be easy to do,” I said at last. “I’m just barely human as it is. I don’t have all those principles and moral teachings that regular people have. I don’t feel like I’m part of some great human consciousness.” I was saying it badly. It was too hard to explain. “I don’t know if it would even bother me to kill a man.”
“But?” she prodded. “Have you ever?”
“No.”
“So why?”
I held out my hand and she passed over one of the margaritas. I really didn’t need any more alcohol tonight, and I didn’t even like the taste of tequila. “I’m barely human,” I said again. “But I’ve still got family, and they’re trying to live in the world. I don’t want to hurt them by becoming something too savage to recognize.”
This would be the time to tell her about my sister. But I just took a swallow of the booze. “So now it’s your turn,” I said. “What’s your story?”
She shook her head. “Nowhere near as good as yours.”
I just looked at her.
She sighed. “Fine. I got mixed up with Mickey a couple years ago. I’d already done some stuff and he— Anyway, he seemed like a good way out. We roamed around Arizona for a while, went to Colorado. He said he had a job waiting for him in Missouri, so we moved to Kansas City. But it wasn’t really a job job, if you know what I mean. He works for this guy—runs errands, collects money, I don’t know what. None of it legal, of course.”
“What’s this money he keeps saying you owe him?”
“He came home late one night a couple months ago. He thought I was sleeping, but I wasn’t. I saw him take out a bag of cash and start counting it. Bills and bills and bills. He looked so happy, but in this mean and terrible way. I just thought, ‘I don’t know what he did to get that money, but I know it was awful.’ And I thought, ‘I can’t be with this man one more day.’”
Carolina finished off her margarita and shrugged. “He’s got this safe in the basement that he thinks I don’t know how to open, but I do. When he was gone the next day, I went and looked for the money. There was a lot. I took about ten thousand dollars and left the rest. Grabbed Berto and headed out.”
“Why’d you end up here?”
“I was just driving around, taking the back roads, trying to figure out what to do. When I stopped for lunch one day in Hoffberg, I saw a sign in a shop window, looking to hire a sales clerk. I applied, and the woman asked how I felt about being paid in cash.” Carolina shrugged again. “I said it worked for me. So I took the job. Rented the house. Started to think that maybe I could really just build my own life.”
“What’d you do with Mickey’s money?”
“Hid it. There’s a basement under the shop where they store the inventory. The stairs are bad and the old lady who owns the place doesn’t like to go down there. So I shoved the money in a box and stuck it behind a bunch of other boxes way back on a shelf where nobody ever looks.”
“How did Mickey find you?”
Carolina shook her head. “I think he must have tracked my phone. I was stupid and didn’t get a new one.”
“And how did he get hold of Berto?”
Now her face showed fury. “He came to the house three days ago. Broke in the front door while I was having dinner. We started screaming at each other, he kept saying he was going to kill me. And then he just—he just grabbed Berto and ran out the door. I went running after them—but I—and he got in the car and he drove off. I was howling. I’m still so mad I can’t see straight.” The blanket shifted around her shoulders as she wrapped her arms tightly around her body. “I’m so scared I can’t think.”
“How old is Berto?”
“Six months.”
“Would Mickey really kill him?”
She was silent a moment, and then she slowly nodded.
“Is it his kid?”
She was silent even longer before she blew out her breath in a sigh. “Well, Mickey thinks so.”
Another complication in a messy life. My own perilous existence was beginning to seem breezily carefree. I thought about asking if her son’s father could help her out, but decided that she already would have turned to him if he was an option. “So. Any idea what you’re going to do if you get Berto back?”
“Yeah. I’ll head to Austin where my sister lives. And try to start over there.”
“So all you have to do is get the money, trade it for Berto, and drive off.”
She looked at me over the wavering candlelight. “Will you come with me? When I give him the money back?”
I thought about it. If they did the exchange at noon, I’d still have plenty of time to get to Dante’s before sundown. Losing more than a day to this unplanned enterprise was seriously cutting into the time I was willing to spend in human shape. But I realized my curiosity was hooked, or maybe my compassion. I wanted to see the end of this story.
“Sure, I’ll come.”
She sighed again, this time in relief, and dropped down to stretch out on the floor. “Thank you,” she said, resting her head on her arm. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a hell of a day. I need to sleep.”
I nodded and rose to my feet, my pillow and blanket in hand. “I’m going to sleep in the hayloft. Blow out the candles or we’ll burn this place down.”
“You want to take one with you so you can see what you’re doing?”
I laughed. “I can see in the dark.”
* * *
The morning was chilly, so washing up with the frigid water from the pump was not a pleasant experience. Breakfast consisted of cereal and apples that Carolina had rescued from her pantry the night before. Neither of us had much to say, so we passed the morning in silence.
We drove to Hoffberg so Carolina could retrieve the cash she’d hidden in the shop where she worked, which turned out to sell craft supplies. I waited in the car for the ten minutes it took her to fabricate some story for the owner and emerge with her precious box.
“Mickey will probably get there early,” she said as she climbed back into the driver’s seat. “So we may as well go over now.”
It was close to ten when we arrived back at the small, cheerless house. Mickey’s car was nowhere in sight, but that didn’t mean anything, so we prowled through the whole place to make sure he wasn’t hiding somewhere. But the place was deserted.
Now all we had to do was wait. I’m pretty good at just sitting and being, but clearly Carolina was not. I plugged in my cell phone so I could finally recharge it, then found a place to settle. But Carolina drifted from room to room, looking for anything she might have left behind and carrying a few items out to the car. She probably checked the kitchen cabinets four times.
It was about an hour before we heard Mickey’s car rattling up the gravel drive. We exchanged quick glances and then, as we had discussed, I slipped inside the empty hall closet. Why should Mickey know I was here? I left the door open just enough so that I could see a wide slice of the living room without being visible myself.
Minutes later, Mickey burst through the door with such violence he might have kicked it open. He had a gun in one hand and, incongruously, a baby carrier in the other. Carolina was waiting coolly in the middle of the room, but I saw her face show a changing set of emotions as soon as she laid eyes on the child sleeping in a nest of rumpled blankets. First profound relief, then rising anger.
“Where’s my money?” Mickey demanded, brandishing his gun. This was the third weapon I’d seen him with in the short time that I had known him. My guess was that his supply was unlimited.
“You let me look at my boy first. Put him down.”
Mickey set the carrier none too gently on the floor. Carolina dropped to her knees, patting Berto on his face and crooning his name. Suddenly she glanced up at Mickey, her expression now layered with fear.
“What’s wrong with him? He won’t wake up.”
“Just a little Benadryl,” Mickey said impatiently. “I needed him quiet. Where’s my money?”
She rose to her feet and stepped in front of the carrier, using her body to protect her son. “In the box under the window.”
“It better all be there.”
“Count it if you want.”
He crossed the room to paw through the box. From my vantage point directly across from him, I could catch glimpses of tens and twenties as he raked through the bills. It seemed unlikely that he was actually counting.
“Well, good,” he grunted. Then he swung around so his profile was toward me, and he pointed the gun at her face. “I don’t need you anymore.”
I spoke from the closet. “You shoot her, I shoot you.”
Mickey jerked in my direction. “The fuck? Who are you?”
“Friend of Carolina’s. You’ve got your money. Now go.”
“Come out here where I can see you.”
He couldn’t possibly have expected me to comply. I wondered if he would just start shooting toward my voice, figuring the closet door wouldn’t be much protection. But I kept talking while Carolina snatched up the baby carrier and darted behind the half wall of the kitchen. “I kept your gun from yesterday,” I said. “You got what you wanted from Carolina. Now just leave her in peace.”
Unexpectedly, he laughed. “What kind of fairy tale did she spin for you? Helpless little girl, mixed up with a bad crowd? She knew what she was doing when she hooked up with me.” He gestured toward the box. “Where do you think that money came from? She was pointing a pistol at the old man the whole time I was clearing out his safe.”
Almost on the words, there was a sudden loud report, and Mickey howled, falling to the floor and clutching his leg. I’d lied, of course; Carolina had kept his gun. Mickey rolled to his back and got off a shot in Carolina’s direction, but she’d already ducked behind the counter again. He yelled something else in wordless anger, fired at the cabinets above her head, and struggled to his feet.
I charged out of the closet and knocked him back to the floor. Pain had weakened him, and I was used to bringing down prey. I wrenched the weapon from his hand and smashed it across his temple a couple of times. He groaned and stopped fighting, curling into a ball with his hands to his head. I waited a moment to make sure he wasn’t faking, then came to my feet, breathing heavily.
Carolina was standing on the other side of the counter, the gun aimed directly at Mickey’s heart. Her set face showed no emotion at all. She looked at me and I half expected her to lift her arm and shoot me instead. We stood there for a long time, just watching each other. Mickey continued to lie there, moaning softly.
Carolina dropped her arm. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”
* * *
She dropped me off at an ice cream parlor in Hoffberg. I’d called Dante from the car, and he’d said he could be there in an hour. Carolina and I had made the short drive in complete silence, except for the occasional chortling noise coming from Berto, who was safely strapped into the back seat and starting to shake off the Benadryl.
She didn’t turn off the motor when she pulled up at the curb, but she did put the car in park and turn to face me. “It’s true,” she said quietly. “I was there. I helped rob that old guy. Mickey had already threatened Berto and I was afraid, but I—well. It’s not the first time I did something I wasn’t proud of.”
“You don’t have to justify yourself to me,” I said.
“I could have killed him back there,” she said. “You know that, right?”
I nodded.
“And you want to know why I didn’t?”
“You didn’t want to feed the monsters inside.”
She leaned forward a little, her expression intense. “His daddy’s a murderer. I don’t mean Mickey, I mean his real daddy. And I don’t want Berto to have two parents who are murderers. I want to be able to give him that much.”
I nodded again. What could I say to that? “Good luck”? “I’m sure you’ll do great”? How could I possibly know?
When it became clear I wasn’t going to reply, she jerked her chin at me. “So what about you? Why didn’t you change back there? It might have been harder for him to kill a wolf than a man.”
“Yeah,” I said. I’d considered it, but I’d made a conscious choice against assuming my alternate identity. And it wasn’t just because I didn’t want one more person to realize there were shape-shifters in this world. “If I’d taken animal shape back then, I wouldn’t have changed back to this form any time soon. I’d just have headed off into the countryside. And if I go too long without checking in with my family, I’m afraid—” I shook my head. “I’m afraid I’ll forget I have a family to go back to. I’ll slip away altogether.”
She nodded, like that make perfect sense. “Keep fighting,” she said. To my surprise, she leaned forward and kissed me briefly on the mouth. “You’re not as different from everybody else as you think you are.”
I looked at her a moment in silence, nodded, and climbed out of the car. She honked the horn once, then pulled away without looking back. I watched her till she was out of sight, then headed into the ice cream parlor.
The kid behind the counter might have been seventeen and was covered with tats and piercings. Unlike a lot of the people who get their first glimpse of me, he didn’t startle back at my ragged appearance and indefinable air of otherness. Some of the ink on his left wrist featured a rose with a spiked stem that wrapped around a long, vertical scar. Here was someone who had battled his own demons.
“What’ll you have?” he asked. “Special today is an ice cream cone with two scoops for the price of one.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “Make it chocolate.” I tipped him six bucks on the four-dollar item and went outside to wait for Dante.
All of us have monsters inside. Maybe that’s what makes us human.