“That won’t work,” Shade said at last, and her voice surprised Cruz. It was low and not at all angry. It was, to Cruz’s amazement, a sad, defeated voice. “She was looking for me, calling me. I didn’t answer because I wanted to watch. It was exciting. I’d never imagined anything like it, so I didn’t answer and she was looking for me.”
Cruz immediately switched directions. “Sweetie, you were a kid acting like a kid. You can’t blame yourself for her death.”
“Sure I can,” Shade said flatly. She turned toward her mother’s grave. “Not a hundred percent, maybe not even fifty percent, but some percent. Some percent greater than zero. I never lie to myself, Cruz. I don’t mind lying to other people, but I don’t lie to myself. I know why I’m doing this. I know it’s guilt and revenge. But it’s also curiosity, same as it was then. I want to know, Cruz. I want to know what it’s like to have power. Real power. So you can stop trying to psychoanalyze me.”
“I’m not psychoanalyzing you,” Cruz said. “I’m . . . I’m kind of writing about you, I guess, at least in my head. So I’m trying to understand.”
Shade turned to her, head tilted skeptically, almost mocking. “I’m not hard to figure out. You’re hard to figure out. You haven’t figured yourself out yet, Cruz.”
Cruz took Shade’s hand, and to her surprise, Shade squeezed her hand back.
“Hello, ladies.”
The voice sent adrenaline flooding into Cruz’s veins. Shade and Cruz turned and saw two guys. Two guys who were clearly not there for innocent reasons. Cruz’s hand drifted to her phone. Could she call 911 before the guys started in? Or would an attempt at a phone call just be the signal to start the beating Cruz knew must be coming?
Shade, too, felt the rush of adrenaline, but her mind was crystal clear. She saw two white men in their late teens or early twenties. Neither was in a uniform, therefore they were not cops. They were also not random street people: no overloaded shopping carts or dirty overcoats.
The one on the right had a club of some sort stuck in the back of his pants, but the one on the left was dominant—their stances revealed this—so if the one on the right had a club, the dominant one likely had something worse. Maybe a gun.
The balance of power was impossible: two strong, young, likely armed men versus Cruz and Shade.
Not a winning formula. At least not to Cruz, whose heart sank into her stomach. But a quick glance at Shade revealed a small, tight smile.
“Good evening,” Shade said.
“Good evening to you, milady,” the one on the left said. He had sunglasses perched atop his head, despite it being night, so they were not a mere possession, they were either a fashion statement or perhaps booty from some earlier robbery. “Kind of late for a lovely lady and a big old homo to be hanging around a graveyard.”
“We came to visit a grave,” Shade said calmly.
“Yeah? This grave?” Sunglasses pointed to the nearest headstone with his toe.
The headstone read, “Joseph Crouch, beloved husband.” And below that, the date: “July 18, 1902.”
“Yes,” Shade said. Her chin was thrust forward, defiant. Cruz, however, was measuring distances, wondering how fast she could run and whether Shade could—or would—keep up.
Sunglasses raised one booted foot, rested it against the headstone, and pushed. It did not fall over. “Jenks, give me that crowbar.”
So the club they could not see earlier was a crowbar. To Cruz, this meant that they were indeed thieves, maybe even grave robbers. Her fear deepened: she had been beaten before, and she knew the damage cold steel could do. Her fear was visceral, very real, and it chilled her to the marrow.
“I got it!” Jenks said, digging the sharper end of the steel bar into the grass at the base of the headstone.
“Yo
u boys must be new to the whole vandalism thing,” Shade said.
Cruz gasped, mouth open in astonishment. Cool and calm was great, but now Shade was provoking them.
Sunglasses dropped the phony smile and his face became a mask of malevolence. “Now give me the damn crowbar, Jenks.” With the steel in his hand he said, “I’ll tell you what I can vandalize pretty well.”
“Man with weapon versus unarmed girl,” Shade taunted. “That’s about what a guy like you is capable of. Let me guess—no job, no girlfriend, no clue, no plan, so you’re down to: beat on people.”
“Well, I’ll start with a beating and we’ll see where it goes.” He stepped in and swung the crowbar sideways into Shade’s arm. It should have broken the bone. It should have evoked a cry of pain. Instead, the steel bar bounced back, as if it had been struck against a spring.
Cruz frowned at Shade’s arm. Then her gaze was drawn to Shade’s face. Shade Darby’s head was changing shape, narrowing, like her features were being squeezed into an invisible mold. Her eyes grew within a narrower visage, large, glittering, slanted, focused. Her lips thinned and her mouth was smaller. Her hair—the hair Cruz had so admired—was wrong, all wrong, not hair at all, really. It was drawn back into something like a series of spikes, drawn back sharply, as if lacquered, like some fantastic punk style, forming points and edges so sharp they might cut flesh.
Shade blinked and Cruz practically screamed, because for a moment a translucent membrane had come down over Shade’s eyes. Snake’s eyes.
There came a low grinding sound, a wet fleshy squishing, and Cruz stared in mounting horror as Shade’s legs extended, grew, lengthened, until what stuck out from the cuff of her jeans was nothing even remotely human. The legs were long and brown and seemed to be made of rusted steel, and they ended in feet like no foot Cruz had ever seen.