Nightshifted (Edie Spence 1)

“At least it’s not a month. ” A fake name meant he had a name, at least. Was Ti his real name? I hoped so.

“Anyhow,” she continued, “not much else I can do for you. Half his chart’s made-up data, anyhow. Meaty’s going easy on you. You’re going to have a slow night. ”

A slow night of sitting outside his room with far too long to think. My choices were obsess over a mostly unknown patient, obsess over my upcoming tribunal, or obsess over how I was going to get Anna to finally come talk to me at my house. None of those choices felt very appealing.

“Do you need any help?” I asked.

“I’ve got a blood draw I could use an extra hand on. ”

The corners of my lips drew up into almost a vampiric grin. “Then I’m your girl. ”

* * *

I used one wrong tube on purpose, in addition to the right tubes, and pocketed it instead of putting it into the room’s biohazard bin. Gina’s patient had been a nice elderly gentleman. I had a strange feeling that, once transformed, he’d make a very charming wolf.

I waited up that morning after getting home. The vial was in the parking lot between my car and my apartment. It’d still be dark for an hour, it was worth a shot. What else could I do to gain Anna’s trust? Maybe I should have asked Gina for some tips on taming feral things …

Dawn neared. As I thought about getting my blood samples to reuse at dusk, a white figure emerged. Anna again. I sat very, very still.

She was beautiful in a wild way, like a caged cat at the zoo. Now that she was nearer, I knew she was something I only wanted to appreciate with a moat and a safety fence between us.

She found the plastic vial in the snow, cracked its lid off with her teeth, and poured its contents out onto her tongue like a rare elixir. Then she spat in the snow with her lips curled high.

“Were-blood!”

“So you can talk—” I said quietly, knowing that at this distance her vampire ears would hear me just fine.

She turned and threw the vial at my window. I flinched as it came through the metal burglar bars and bounced off the window screen into the snow.

“I’m sorry. I was trying to help. ”

“By poisoning me?” she asked. She had an accent—Russian for sure. She licked her tongue across the back of one arm, as if to clean it. Then she swiveled her head to stare at me, more animal than child. I blinked, and one second later, she was at my bars, her hands curling around them, peering in.

My heart pounded. The vampires and daytimers at Y4 had a thin veneer of humanity—the worst of it, yes, but some. Anna was entirely other and frightening.

“You can’t come in unless I invite you,” I said.

“Blood is like an invitation,” she said with her accent. She pressed her forehead against the bars, and reached forward to scratch a fingernail against the flimsy screen. The sound resonated through my room.

“I need your help,” I said.

“Really?” Her eyes lit up, and she laughed aloud. “Why should I help you?”

“You came here even before the blood,” I said, playing my biggest—perhaps only—card. “I saw your footprints in the snow. I know you want something from me—we can trade. ”

Her eyes narrowed in cunning I knew no true nine-year-old possessed.

“Invite me in, then we will talk. ”

I tried to remember exactly what Paul’d told me about vampires and their promises. “Swear not to hurt me or my cat in any way, shape, or form. And don’t compel me either. ”

Half of her upper lip curled in amused disgust. “I swear not to hurt you or your cat. ”

I nodded. “Meet you at the door,” I said, and she practically disappeared.

I got up to close my bedroom window first and noticed that my wrought-iron burglar bars now had ripples in them where her hands had held them. I shivered, tried to tell myself it was just because of the cold, and turned my thermostat up as I went down the hall.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

She was so short I couldn’t see her through the peephole. Steeling myself, I opened the door.

“Invite me,” she said. With her dingy shift still on, she looked like something the wind had blown into my alcove, a sun-bleached trash bag, or a flurry of dirty snow. She had a faintly sour scent, like barely off milk.

“Please come in. ”

She tilted her head graciously. “Thank you. ” She stepped over my threshold with physical effort, like there was a trip wire she had to be careful not to set off. And then she was in my front hall, looking at my family pictures on the wall—which now I wished I’d had the foresight to remove—and she moved past me into my dining/living area as I followed. I had a couch, a wireless modem for my ancient laptop, a TV that only got three stations, and an end table with Grandfather’s CD player on it. It hadn’t talked again since I had brought it home but I couldn’t bear to throw it away.

“You don’t have many things. ”