WolfsbaneandMistletoe

  The Night Things Changed

  Dana Cameron

  A professional archaeologist specializing in colonial New England, Dana Cameron is also the author of the Emma Fielding archaeology mysteries. The sixth book, Ashes and Bones, won the 2007 Anthony for Best Paperback Original. Her short story “The Lords of Misrule,” featuring eighteenth-century London sleuth Margaret Chase, was also nominated for an Anthony for Best Short Story. Having once upon a time lived in Salem, Massachusetts (the setting of this story), she now lives in nearby Beverly with her husband and a demanding cat. You can learn more about Dana’s work at her website, www.danacameron.com.

  I pounded up the stairs to the roof and slammed open the door; the wintry air lashed my face. My sister the vampire was stretched out on her stomach, nearly naked, under the pale December sun.

  She wasn’t moving. I knew from her phone call the news was bad, but . . .

  “Claudia?” I swallowed; my mouth was dry. “Claud?”

  She stirred and opened her eyes blearily. Her face was drawn, she moved stiffly. Claudia relaxed when she saw it was me, fastened the bikini top behind her neck, then sat up.

  I turned away, blushing. “Aw, jeez, Claud. Do you have to?”

  “What? I’m covered. Gerry, take a pill. No one can see me up here. We picked the place for that very reason.”

  She was right; evergreen shrubs and dead, leafy vines—a forest of green in the summer—sheltered her place from every side, leaving the roof open to the sky. Despite the crust of snow on the ground, she wasn’t even shivering.

  It was such a small bikini, though. I kept quiet: she’d think I was being a prude.

  “I don’t even need to wear a bathing suit when I’m alone,” she said, reading my face.

  “Yeah, you do, as long as I’m your brother.” I am a prude; sue me. No guy likes to think about his sister being ogled, especially not when she looked good enough to model that bikini. And I wished she’d cut her long dark hair. It was just too dangerous in a fight.

  I changed the topic. “I got your message. I was worried.”

  She nodded; her shoulders sagging. “A bad one, this morning. It means work for us.”

  Things had been so quiet lately, it had to happen. “Tell me.”

  “It was in the emergency room.” Claudia “happens” to go through the emergency room a lot, trolling for trouble. “This guy was in for sutures, a cut on his arm he said he got slipping on ice. He was giving Eileen a hard time, and I got a whiff of him. I asked her to send him to me for ‘post-trauma assessment.’”

  Claudia glanced at me; there were dark smudges under her eyes. She looked beat. “He barged into my office, got angry when I told him he had to wait his turn. Very aggressive, all id, defensive as Hell. Maybe there’s a hurt little kid somewhere under all that armor, but he’s being led by a really thuggish protector-self.”

  I hate when she talks like a shrink, but it’s how she gets things straight in her own head. “Was he big?”

  She nodded. “And he uses it. He doesn’t mind threatening people, liked the idea he was scaring me. And then . . . when I stood up to him, he took a swing at me.”

  I nodded, bristling. She was obviously okay, but I hated hearing this kind of stuff. It was part of our job, and I knew Claudia could take care of herself, but it still chafed. Call me overprotective. “And?”

  “He missed. That made him crazy. He tried again.” She shrugged. “And then I bit him.”

  I nodded again; it didn’t make me feel much better. If biting had cured the guy, she wouldn’t have called me, just saved it for the next time we got together for dinner. “Anyone see you?”

  “The door was shut. He knocked me down, then ran out of the office.” She paused. “He’s a really bad one—”

  “We’ll get him. We always get the bad guys,” I said, confident.

  She shook her head. “There was something weirdly, profoundly, wrong about him.”

  “You’re just tired. We always—”

  “No, Gerry!” Her sharp tone startled me. “This is different. His reaction . . . I can’t get the taste out of my mouth. It’s like . . . I could work on him for a year, and still not get anywhere.”

  Her eyes filled up, and I knew that she’d been thrown for a loop. Professionally and personally, Claudia is a proud person.

  “Scootch over,” I said. I didn’t say any more, just sat down on the lounge and put my arm around her. I resisted the urge to take off my jacket and put it over her shoulders, because the sun was the best thing for a vampire in need of healing, even the weak sun of a Massachusetts midwinter. And besides, I needed my coat myself. I always seem to feel the cold.

  Prudish. Overprotective. Chilly. In a lot of ways, we werewolves are just big pussies.

  After getting Claudia’s promise that she’d take it easy, I took the copy of the file she had and visited the address of “J. Smith.”

  J. Smith? Proof once again that evil is not creative.

  I didn’t need to get out of the pickup, but I did. As I figured, the place—a double-decker—was abandoned, my footprints the first breaking the new fall of snow surrounding it. As I nosed around, I picked up lots of strong residual scents, most of them unhappy: drugs and sex, pain and fear. There was something in the background, an ugly smell that made my skin crawl; I didn’t know if our guy had been there, but the recognizable odor of Evil called me to Change . . .

  Not here, not now. Save it for tonight, when you might be able to do something about it . . .

  I reluctantly followed my tracks back to my truck and decided to pick up the trail at the hospital. Construction and early holiday mall shoppers had turned Route 128 into a slushy parking lot, but the F150 handled well with her new snow tires. I tuned the radio to the Leftover Lunch on WFNX and crept toward Union Hospital in Lynn.

  I like being a werewolf for the same reasons I liked being a cop. Sure, it’s a lonely job and I see life’s tragedies, but then I fix them. I help people, I make the world a better place, and I’m good at it. I like being one of the good guys. I get a sense of satisfaction I bet your average CPA never gets. Or maybe they do; what do I know? I’m just Gerry Steuben, regular guy, North Shore born and bred, with a CJ degree from Salem State, recently early-retired from the Salem PD. My tax forms say I’m a PI now, but I don’t do domestics, insurance fraud, or repo. I’ll go to the end of the earth to find lost kids, though, and never charge a cent. But I mostly stick to the family business, which is eradicating evil from the world.

  Sounds like I’m full of myself, doesn’t it? Not if you know the truth about my type. Our type. The Fangborn, Pandora’s Orphans, the ones the ancients called “Hope,” supposedly trapped at the bottom of the box. But according to our legends, the First Fangborn got out, and it’s a good thing they did, too, for when evil was released into the world, so was the means of destroying it. Vampires and werewolves, the first to clean the blood and ease the pain, the second to remove irredeemable evil when we find it. Our instincts are infallible, our senses attuned to evil. True evil—not the idiot who cuts you off in traffic or steals your newspaper—exists, and we’re here to fight it. We’re the ones evil can’t touch, the superheroes you never see, if we do our jobs right. I believe that to the core of my soul, and it’s the best feeling in the world.

  Imagine the world today if we didn’t put the brakes on evil. Funny, since the Fangborn have always been depicted as the most depraved killers in every mythology. My kind aren’t the most fertile in the world—there are less than one thousand of us in the United States—and when you normals turned from hunting to agriculture, you started popping out kids like it was going out of style. But we’re the children of Hope, so we do what we can, and every bit helps.

  As for those myths: It’s not the turn of the moon but the call of evil that makes us Change, though I can manage it if I’m pissed off enough. I don’t have hair on the palms of my hands, though for a while when I turned thirteen, I was afraid of that happening for other reasons. Claudia says I obsess about anyone touching my stuff, but can you name one guy who isn’t territorial? When we order pizza, Claudia always asks for roasted garlic. She relies on the mirror by her front door to remind her to dress like other people when it’s cold. She also claims she’s allergic to silver, but that’s because she thinks it looks tacky against her skin.

  In reality, we’re big on family and secrecy. Me and Claud live in Salem because eastern Massachusetts was where our family was needed, back in the day. Grandpa had a sense of humor about it: “Ven ve move from de old country, I tink, ‘Here, dey like tings dat go bump in de night, so ve vill giff dem bumps in de night!’” he’d cackle. I miss the old guy like crazy, but our presence has nothing to do with the witchcraft trials; it was just easier to hide a bunch of Germans with funny habits among the Polish and Russian immigrants in nineteenth-century Salem. Protective coloring is all-important. Around here, not only do you have tales of witchcraft, but there are rumors of a sea monster (a nineteenth-century gimmick concocted by ferry owners and innkeepers), pirate treasures, and haunted houses. What’s the occasional sighting of a big dog by moonlight against all that?

  The traffic finally nudged its way to my exit and I pulled into the hospital parking lot. Many Fangborn are nurses, doctors, shrinks, cops, even clergy. Any job that gets us close to the public, the people who need protection, is a good job for us.

  I didn’t even have to roll down the window. The stench hit me from outside the cab of the truck. It was all I could do to keep my hand
s from turning to claws on the wheel and my human brain focused on parking. I killed the engine as soon as I could, clutching the Saint Christopher medal that’s been on my neck since my first Communion. I don’t care whether he’s a saint; I’m not that religious. My mother gave it to me, and it helps to have something to focus on when resisting the Change. Claudia was right: this guy was a bad one. Smith had escaped her—which was saying something—and then left a trail that a normal could follow, if he’d understood why he was suddenly feeling queasy and irritable. There wasn’t a sound of bird or beast anywhere nearby, not even a seagull.

  True evil has the smell of rotting meat, sewer filth, sickrooms. Add the feeling you get when you realize something life-alteringly bad is happening, something you can’t do anything about, and you’ll get close to what I felt. But my senses are a hundred times sharper than yours.

  The good thing is that smell brings on the Change and that brings power.

  I opened the door cautiously. The wind shifted and I found I could manage without going furry, so I visited the ER. The nurses told me the doc who’d treated “J. Smith” was gone.

  I thanked them, then tried Claudia’s office. The scent was stronger here, possibly because of his attack on Claudia, but there was something else I couldn’t place: it set my teeth on edge. The assistant Claudia shared with the other shrinks told me I’d just missed my sister, that she’d been really shook up by a patient. I feigned surprise—Claudia could get into a lot of trouble for talking about the case with me, much less giving me the file—and said I’d check on her.

  I tracked the scent back to the parking lot, where the guys at the valet stand said that a guy had caught a cab dropping someone off, a local company.

  Just then Eileen came out, a tart little nurse who’d always had a cup of coffee and a kind word for me when I’d been on the force. Claudia’d said she was the nurse handling Smith’s case. We exchanged hellos.

  “You heard about Claudia?”

  “Yeah.” I exhaled, whistling.

  “She’s okay. Guy was a bruiser. Came in to get stitched up, said it was a slip, but I know a bottle-slash when I see one. Street fight, probably.”

  I nodded.

  “Claudia gave me the high sign, so I sent him along to her. A post-trauma chat, I told him. Oh!” Eileen said, remembering. “It gets better. Weems brought him in. Said he found him in the middle of the street, and hauled him in to get him patched up. Too bad you missed him, you guys could have caught up on old times.” She grinned a mean grin; everyone knew Weems and I hated each other.

  “My bad luck,” I said. I stuck my hands in my pockets. “Apart from this guy, you been busy?”

  She shook her head. “Not the past two days. Not even a bumsicle.” She glanced at the steely sky. “That’ll change. Snow tonight.”

  I nodded; I could smell that, too. We both knew that between the cold, the holidays, and the law of averages, soon enough there’d be accidents, drunk drivers, domestic disputes, and the homeless who’d freeze to death. The usual.

  “Well, the kids will like it.” She zipped herself up. “They’re out of school after today. Jumping out of their little skins already, the little monsters.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “Kids should be excited about Christmas.” I like Christmas. I like the effort people make. I like presents. I like the hope. Like I said, we Fangborn are all about Hope.

  “Yeah, I guess.” Eileen looked uneasy, though. “I’ve got this feeling, Gerry. Everyone’s on edge. Maybe it’s the low pressure or the full moon, but there’s something up. Watch yourself out there.”

  The ER was always hopping during the full moon. My people aren’t the only ones who feel its power.

  “I will, thanks. And you take care. Keep up with the patch.”

  Eileen was startled. “How did you—?”

  I grinned. “You’ve been out here for five minutes and didn’t light up.” I didn’t tell her I could smell the difference in her clothing, see the slight weight gain, feel her nerves humming with the strain of not reaching for that crumpled box of relief . . .

  We wished each other Merry Christmas and I left. The trail from the taxi was blasted by the mall traffic and the nearby landfill, so I headed to Ziggy’s Donuts in Salem, where the cabbies hung out. It didn’t hurt that Annie worked there, a girl I’d been kinda hung up on for a while.

  I ordered a jelly-filled because Annie was on the counter. I had been trying to get up my nerve to ask her out on a date. It was one of my New Year’s resolutions—from this year. But we chatted while she got my donut, and I didn’t say anything dumb, so I counted it a success. Maybe even a sign. I found a seat before I did something impetuous and stupid. I’d have to soon: time was almost running out on my resolution, and I keep my promises.

  It’s hard, when you’re a guy, to ask out a cute girl. I’m okay, I’m not hideous, though personally I think I look better as a wolf. I built my own house when our folks died, I have a decent income and a boat that’s paid for, and my place is spotless because I don’t like surprises.

  But it’s even harder, when you’re Fangborn, to ask a normal out. The two species can mate, though most of us Fangborn prefer to keep to our own kind. A mixed mating has a lower chance of producing a were or vamp than two Fangborn, but that’s pretty low odds, too; how my parents lucked out and got two, one of each, I don’t know. As far as I understand, it’s all about recessive genes, but it doesn’t make the initial discussion any easier. “Hey, sweetie? When I said my family was strange, I didn’t mean regular, dysfunctional-strange . . .”

  My cabbie came in then, sweating profusely, probably thinking he was coming down with the flu; I could smell Smith on him, even though they’d probably only brushed fingers when Smith paid. I waited until the cabbie ordered his coffee—even Annie’s smile didn’t help him—and then I approached him. He wasn’t supposed to tell me where he took his fare, but I slid a twenty across the table and got the address of a no-tell motel on the edge of town. Then I asked to check his cab, to see whether Smith had dropped anything, I said.

  “Help yourself,” he said, shivering around his coffee cup. “It’s open.”

  I was feeling pleased with myself when Weems pulled up alongside me in the parking lot. As he locked up the cruiser, he didn’t speak, but gave me a nod along with the hairy eyeball. I nodded back, and kept moving.

  We had never liked each other, and now he harbors the deep suspicion most cops have for PIs. He’s always made my hackles rise. I couldn’t put my finger on the reason, so I did the best I could to avoid him.

  Annie knew him, too. Well enough to know that she could look forward to a full six-percent tip.

  I waited until Weems was tearing into his bear claw, then opened the door to the cab—

  . . . the screech of brakes before a crash . . . a phone ringing at 3:30 in the morning . . . the gush of blood from a wound that is deeper than you thought . . .

  I could barely keep myself standing. I slammed the door, and stumbled back to my truck, not even waiting to calm myself before I fled into the traffic and away from that cab.

  “What’s next?” Claudia said, when I returned to her condo two hours later. She looked a little better and was now dressed in shorts and a T-shirt that said, I ❤ SPIKE. She was barefoot, making us coffee. I still felt sick and I was freezing just looking at her. Her place is all white wood and glass and bare surfaces, which she calls “clean lines.” The Christmas tree and lights looked out of place there, but I was glad of them.

  I tried to get myself together. “After I left Ziggy’s, I checked the motel. He paid cash, left no forwarding address. No luck at the other fleabags, either. I cast around for a while, but he wasn’t doing any walking and I couldn’t get anything from car tracks.” I didn’t tell her I’d driven halfway to New Hampshire before I’d gotten hold of myself, and used my work to keep from spinning into another panic. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to feel less hollow, trying not to puke watching the cream swirl around the top of the coffee.

  She saw me hesitate. “Gerry, what’s wrong? You look like seven kinds of Hell.”

  I pushed the coffee away from me. “Every time I’ve caught a noseful of Smith, it’s almost knocked me off my feet. You were right, he’s bad.”