The Night Shifters (23 page)

What an adorable body
,
Camilla had said to me so long ago.
Wherever did you find it?

At the time I
thought it was a joke, but what if she meant it? What if
Nostradamus really had appropriated Bernard’s body? What a rotten
thing to do! Bernard had been a world-class jerk, but he didn’t
deserve a fate like that.

Camilla thought I
was Serena when she said that. Could Serena have talked Nostradamus
into stealing Bernard’s body? Just so she could fool me? Why else
would Nostradamus want Bernard’s body? If he could take someone
else’s body, why not steal a movie star? Or an athlete?

But Two said
Bernard’s body was actually an improvement on Nostradamus’ old one.
If he picked someone athletic, maybe his true nature would shift
the body back to a less buff shell. So if he and Bernard had a lot
in common – and it kind of looked like they did – maybe this really
was the best he could do.

Either way, he
seemed to be satisfied with it. It was the neighborhood he hated –
and as he marched through it, the humble little tract houses began
to change to reflect his displeasure. At first this seemed like a
good thing; they got bigger and cleaner. Probably he thought they
got classier too, and maybe a lot of people would have agreed with
him. But to me they looked like baroque monstrosities, quantity
trying to masquerade as quality. The lawns stretched into neat,
dense carpets of green, and the gardens were so closely clipped,
not a leaf dared to grow out of place. The Ceilings of the houses
grew extra stories, piled up behind massive garages and fortress
doors. Nostradamus steamed past these like a man on a mission, and
I had to struggle to keep up.

Soon we were
laboring up a hill, past houses that began to take on a little
character. The garages got smaller or disappeared completely;
windows and doors no longer stayed in obedient, square ranks, and
walls seemed more willing to allow outdoors and indoors to flow
naturally into each other.

I almost stopped to
look at these, wondering if I hadn’t misjudged Nostradamus. Maybe
the other houses had been dull and ponderous because he hadn’t had
much time to perk them out of Wretched mode. After all, that was
some pretty poisonous mojo Blue had worked on them.

You worked in a book store, you lived in a cheap little tract
house...
She seemed to know
a lot more about me than she ought to. But how? We met for the
first time in Nostradamus’s back yard, right? On the other hand,
maybe anyone could see the baggage I was carrying
around.

Your longing for the strange and the marvelous and all
that...
the Car King had
called it. I longed for those things because I dreamed about them,
and my life had been sad and disappointing in comparison to those
dreams. Mom had been the only thing anchoring me to that old world,
and when she was gone...

When she was gone I
didn’t fly away like a bird, I stayed where I was. I grieved for
her, and I bought a new lock for the front door, but nothing else
in my life changed. So how did I end up in the City of Night? Did I
really belong? Would the Night get sick of me and eject me like my
own dreams always did?

I fretted as I
chased Nostradamus up the hill, toward a glittering pinnacle that
seemed to promise a rendezvous with the very stars. Following him
was beginning to look like a pretty good idea – but this time I
hoped I wouldn’t have to actually catch up with him. If he was
anything like Bernard, he would have great big sweat stains under
both arms by now. I always used to smell him before I saw him.
Either Bernard didn’t believe in deodorant, or he never wore enough
of it. Or he slathered it on, but it didn’t do any good. Was he
headed for his new house in Paradise Valley? Or did the fabled
Motorola wait at the top of the hill, like Camelot waiting for King
Arthur?

When we had
climbed for some time, I heard a distant car horn, the sound of
engines purring. Something was going on at the top of the hill. Yet
I hadn’t seen one Driver on this winding street, though it really
seemed like their sort of habitat. Maybe they were all at a party.
In fact, from the sound of things up there, maybe
everybody
was going to the party, some fancy
affair for the upper-class residents of the City of Night. The
Masked Man and the Car King would be there; and Camilla, Sir John,
One & Two, Med and his Jaded Boy; and the dwellers of all of
the marvelous houses I had seen, the ones with the locked front
gates. If I could get into the party, maybe I would finally be
accepted, finally be an official resident, even if I wasn’t exactly
a Night Shifter.

The street was so
steep now, the sidewalk had become a concrete staircase.
Nostradamus flung himself up the stairs, and I scrambled after him.
The distance between us had narrowed to less than twenty feet. He
disappeared over a landing, and I ran up the last ten steps. I got
to the top just in time to see dozens of expensive cars prowling a
cobbled square. Elegantly dressed people waited at curbs until car
doors swung open to admit them. I thought I saw Sir John ducking
into the back of a Bentley on the far side of the square. I started
to run toward him, but a silver Mercedes cut me off. The Car King
sat in the back of that one. He looked out his open window as he
zoomed past, but his eyes didn’t light on me.

All over the
square, I caught glimpses of familiar and semi-familiar figures
getting into cars, and each of them drove off down the same road. I
could see their lights as they caravanned up yet another hill,
toward some marvelous house that looked like it had been built by
Titans on Mount Olympus. Nostradamus stuffed himself into a grey
limo, where a beautifully gowned and coiffed Camilla was already
waiting. She glanced out her window at me.

“What a charming
little ragamuffin!” she cried. Then her window rolled up and the
limo pulled away from the curb, leaving me in the dust.

She didn’t
recognize me! I glanced down at myself, saw how dirty my catsuit
had become. More importantly, I had forgotten I was still in kid
mode,
none
of the Night Shifters recognized
me. I watched their cars climbing toward that distant, dazzling
house, and wondered if I should chase after them. It hurt to watch
them driving away, almost as much as it had hurt when the popular
girl had turned her back on me and scorned my house.

But on the other
hand, I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to any of them, after all. Not
until I found a way to grow up again. If I couldn’t do that, I
would have to remember something more about Charles Dickens’s
books, study the various ragamuffins in his stories who triumphed
despite humble circumstances and extreme youth. Assuming there was
even one character who did that in a Charles Dickens book. I wasn’t
sure, because I had never actually plowed all the way through
one.

Don’t get me wrong
– Charles Dickens was a great writer, but he was also a
nineteenth-century writer, and if we’re going to be totally honest
here, you can tell the guy got paid by the line.

So maybe my
ragamuffin appearance was fair punishment for my wretched attitudes
and my cheezy taste in entertainment. Whether or not I deserved it,
I seemed to be stuck with it. I walked to the far side of the
square, to the corner of the street down which everyone had driven.
It dipped into the city before it climbed again.

“What now?” I asked
the Night. “I tried to follow Bernard, but that’s proving to be a
lot harder than I thought it would be.”

I waited for a
sign, a clue, a glimmer. None came. But at least the view was
interesting. I liked the new shape the City of Night had taken –
and I wondered why it still looked so good, now that all the movers
and shakers had run off to the party. Memory Lane had been so
dismal, and Bernard’s revisions hadn’t impressed me much. But once
other Night Shifters entered the scene, the place got a lot more
interesting.

Your house looks shabby because it’s a reflection of
you...

Maybe. But I had to
wonder if Med’s explanation about alliances wasn’t closer to the
truth. Nostradamus thought big houses were beautiful; he had plenty
of raw power to make them grow the way he wanted them. But when he
teamed up with Camilla, she tweaked them into something more
interesting.

So what affect
could I have? The Car King said I was as responsible as anyone else
for the quirky charms of the City of Night. I might not get along
with him a lot of the time, but I respected his opinion. I felt way
more inclined to follow his advice than Serena’s. If the Car King
wrote me a letter, I would probably read it.

I wondered
what color the envelope would be. Black? Silver? Black
and
silver?

But no envelopes of
any color drifted by on the wind, so I started down the road. I
wasn’t sure whether I was looking for a home, or if I was looking
for myself (or the grown-up version of same). Maybe the two things
were intertwined. Whatever the case, I felt somewhat optimistic
about my chances of finding one or the other, if not both. I kept
my eyes on the distant, twinkling lights of the house on the
hilltop. I didn’t intend to crash the party – quite the opposite.
It was the house itself that I hoped might be the beacon that would
lead me out of the doldrums.

I had never seen a
dwelling so wonderful, and I doubted I could possibly have
contributed one bit to its character and appearance. Its design was
far too sophisticated; no building on Earth could compare with it.
Yet somehow, it represented what the mortal imagination could
achieve, if truly given free reign. You wouldn’t just live there,
you would work there, talk to God there, divine the secrets of the
cosmos. Looking at it inspired me – even if I could never reach it,
I might feel satisfied that I managed to see it; I might be happy
just to remember it.

But I would have to
pass through dangerous territory if I wanted to get closer to it.
The street descended into darkness so murky, I had to stop and poke
my toe into the shadows as if they were water. My shoe stayed dry,
but the temperature was palpably cooler down there. As I began my
descent, I glanced again at my beacon and realized I would lose
sight of it if I continued on my current course. But if I could run
through the darkness without tripping or being eaten by sea
monsters, I would be able to catch sight of the house on the hill
within a minute or two.

“Come on, Night,” I
prayed. “Give me a break here, will you?” And taking a deep breath,
I ran straight down.

The chill air
enveloped me. But it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. After chasing
Nostradamus all that way, it felt kind of good to cool off. And it
wasn’t completely dark down there – or maybe I was developing my
Night vision. I could see outlines of buildings that looked like
they might have escaped from Dr. Seuss’
Sleep Book
(another one of my favorites). In fact, I might have
explored those mysterious dwellings in the Sea of Shadows, if I
hadn’t felt so sure I had to hurry. Down I ran, to the bottom of
the incline; then up again, out of darkness, onto a nice, wide
stretch of sidewalk with an unhindered view of...

An ordinary
neighborhood. The hills had vanished; no beacon waited for me at
the top of anything. Behind me, the street had raised itself level,
and tract houses lined the rows. They weren’t as ugly as the ones
Blue had jinxed, but even I had to admit they were poor-looking,
uninspired and uninspiring. And familiar, though not as familiar as
I had been with my own neighborhood. I suspected I passed these
streets when I walked to and from school, but had rarely turned
onto them, unless I had to change my route to avoid bullies or
something.

I looked down at my
smudgy catsuit again, wondering if my ragamuffin-at-large condition
had brought me back where I really belonged. I didn’t deserve the
magnificent house, I couldn’t even remember it clearly now. Maybe I
should find my ruined house and settle there, after all.

I walked along the
cracked sidewalk, musing over my decline and fall. I had felt so
optimistic when the Night had begun. Puzzled too, and more than a
little paranoid, but – things had just seemed so – possible! And
now?

This is all that will ever be...

Another flash of
memory filled my head with the image of the inside of a big,
concrete pipe. Outside, I could see my school’s playground, scrubby
grass and wild clover. It was raining. The segment of pipe was our
school’s idea of play equipment, something kids could crawl on and
sit in. We had several of them. I was hiding inside one; the rain
slanted past the opening, and I had really wanted to be found, and
now I realized...

The memory
faded.

This is all,
I had
thought when I realized I wouldn’t be found.

It couldn’t
be all. My dreams had haunted me all my life, and now that I had
made it to the City of Night they had been
this close
! Why would they wiggle out of my grasp like that?
Why did I keep ending up in dreary jobs, on dreary streets, wearing
my little black dress to junior college art shows when there was no
one I cared about impressing?

“
At least
give me my boobs back!” I begged the Night. “I can handle living in
a rotten neighborhood, I can even get another crappy job, if that’s
what it takes. But it took me twice as long to grow those knockers
as it takes most people. I was
really
fond
of them.”

My chest remained
flat, my pleas were for naught. I poked along the semi-familiar
streets, looking at the seedy houses, and memory toyed with me. I
had friends who lived around here somewhere, girls to play
Kick-The-Can and Red-Light-Green-Light with when we were very
young. When we got older we just walked around trying to look
nonchalant, trying to catch glimpses of boys we liked and then
pretending to ignore them. I played along with all that, but I was
living a double life. At night, my dreams took me to fabulous
places. During the day, my mind kept drifting back to those places,
and I often got in trouble for daydreaming.