Shift happens, p.2
Shift Happens, page 2
"You know you don't have to ask, right?"
Angela took a full breath, lungs aching, and let it out slowly. Vicky was more comfortable blurring the line between work and friendship than she was. ”My mother always taught me to be polite."
Vicky shook her head slightly and they started walking back toward the glass doors. "I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything about charging you for that polite kick to the testicles."
Angela stopped halfway through pulling on her sweatshirt and dragged it back off, using one sleeve to fan her face.
Vicky pulled open the door and waited for her. "Did the doctor give you anything for the hot flashes?"
Angela shook her head as she walked into the building. "She said I should eat less sugar and drink less caffeine."
Vicky's laughter rang through the atrium. "Call me when you need help burying her body. And try not to get arrested at the funeral."
Two years of weekly yoga hadn't done much for Angela's flexibility, but it had really improved her ability to access her other sight while in a variety of poses. Kneeling on the mat with her knees apart, she lowered her torso down to the ground, the spare tire around her middle the first thing to make contact. She really needed to stop eating so many snacks before bedtime.
"Very nice, everyone." The instructor's voice carried easily to the back corner. "Now hold this pose and repeat after me: 'My body is worthy of my love.'"
Easy for the instructor to say, Angela thought. Her stomach curved inward and there weren't rolls when she contorted herself into a pretzel. Still, the instructor probably couldn't catch a porcupine in mid-flight. Angela deserved the chai latte she'd promised herself after class.
Following instructions, she rolled to her bare feet and sank into the chair pose, arms up in the air. "My body is fierce and fabulous," she mumbled along with everyone else. Possibly more flabby than fierce, technically, but the pepper spray she carried at work made up for that. She blinked and took a look at the other members of the class, since checking their stability was the reason all of them were there. Diana flickered a little, but no more than usual. Grace's inner light was in turmoil, which probably meant she and the boyfriend were off again, but she seemed to be handling it well. Just in case, Angela would offer to bolster her a bit when class ended. It would just be a matter of helping her balance her magic out, not spelling her magic into a different configuration altogether.
Other MPD employees might employ more forceful solutions, but that was why her coworkers had to keep a cache of power stores to recharge their magic. Angela always felt nauseated and itchy when she had to use one, so she avoided them. Besides, anything that gave up its stored magic more readily than obsidian was also obscenely expensive. She preferred to enjoy her weekends instead of clocking up overtime to pay for magical objects.
Surely if there was something destabilizing the city enough to create new shifters she'd see it reflected in this room, but nothing caught her attention. Not everyone in the yoga class was a shifter, of course. It wasn't advertised as such, and anyone who wanted to come was welcome, but enough of Angela's clients had chosen to make this a part of their routine that there was a pleasant hum of magic in the air for those who were sensitive to it.
She crouched down and turned into a floating chair twist. "My body is strong and stable." Next to her, Travis put out a hand to keep from tipping over. After a rough start he was doing much better this month, and she'd only needed to help him calm his magic once.
And Lily, fierce tiny Lily whose imagination was boundless and whose form was some sort of strange reptile Angela couldn't define… Angela blinked and looked again. Unless she was mistaken, Lily was pregnant.
Lily was fifteen.
Well, that was going to add an interesting twist to the evening.
Back into a kneeling lunge, one leg forward, arms stretched up and behind her. "My body is full of wisdom." Angela hoped her body started sharing some of that wisdom with her mind, because she was going to need it soon. One or both of Lily's parents picked her up after class every week, and from the few conversations she'd had with Lily without her parents present, Angela understood that they guarded their daughter carefully.
The drama they'd started when Lily had first shifted three years ago had been bad enough. By the time Angela had arrived at their beautifully maintained ranch house, Lily's mother had been crying and yelling at Lily's father, and her father had been drinking scotch and blaming his wife because they'd never had any shifters on his side of the family. Angela had slipped off her shoes and added them to the pile by the door, walked through the living room with its grand piano, passing two younger siblings sitting at the table pretending to do their homework, and back the hall to Lily's room where she opened the door to find something that looked like T. rex imagined by a girl who liked everything blue and sparkly. Lily's lizard form had been sitting quietly on her bed, splinters of a wrecked string instrument on the floor. "I don't like to play violin," she'd said when Angela had introduced herself.
Once her parents had realized that Lily going to one of the group classes meant no magical probation officer would ever come by their house again, they had agreed to let her go. Lily had started with knitting, tried a few weeks with the hiking group, and finally settled on yoga. As far as Angela knew, shifting into a magical lizard was the one act of rebellion Lily had ever performed.
And now they were standing, lifting one leg into a tree pose. "My body is balanced and beautiful." Excrement might be about to hit the proverbial fan, but that mantra could have been chosen specifically for Lily and her magic. She'd always been steady and in control, but now she was positively glowing with good health. The baby's magic was more than a little wobbly, though, spinning as if it were a lopsided lump in her womb. Angela had seen a few other shifters early in pregnancy, but she'd never seen a fetus so intense or off-balance.
By the end of the hour Angela's legs were burning, her pink "my other car is a broomstick" t-shirt clung to her back, and she was still no closer to figuring out what she was going to say to Lily. The only thing she knew for certain was that they needed to first talk without her parents, or the entire conversation would be derailed. But of course Lily's mother was waiting on the other side of the door.
Angela held up a finger to Grace to ask her to wait a moment, and crossed over to the front of the room where Lily was rolling up her mat. "Lily! How are you doing?"
The girl looked up in surprise, her straight black hair swinging in a perfect layer. "Oh, hi Ms. Jones. I'm fine, how are you?" Then she frowned. "At least… I think I'm doing fine." She dropped her voice even though the non-shifters had already left. "I haven't had any problems. Is something wrong?"
Angela paused. Did the girl not know she was pregnant? If that was true this certainly wasn't the time or place to tell her. But the fetus needed to be stabilized. "It's probably nothing. Do you mind if I give you a little bump of protection?" A bump for the bump, she thought.
Lily held her hands out. "Sure."
Angela quickly wove a net and cast it around the tiny glow in Lily's abdomen. "There. How's that feel?"
Lily gave her an uncertain smile, looking her age. "I didn't feel anything. Is there something wrong?"
One of the first things Angela had learned in her job was that confidence helped shifters maintain control over their magic more than any other thing, and conversely, self-doubt could ruin that control quickly. She smiled and waved a hand as if nothing were important. "I think you're just growing out of some of the old techniques. No big deal. Is there a time when we can spend half an hour going over some things? Maybe we could meet for coffee or tea after school?"
Lily frowned. "I have activities —" she said the word as if it were profanity " — after school every day this week. But I have third period free tomorrow."
They set up a time to meet at the McDonald's next to Lily's school in the morning, and Angela drove home wondering how the baby of a sparkling magical dinosaur would look.
3
The funeral was low-key, just a few people from work plus the captain's sister who had flown in to settle his affairs. The captain had been a mid-level magic user, and from the second row Angela could just barely feel the buzz of power from the bones in the casket when she concentrated. In another week even that would be gone. At least they wouldn't need to worry about someone digging up his grave to power some artifact.
The chief gave the eulogy, nobody even pretended to shed a tear, and Angela found the whole thing thoroughly depressing. Caleb and Matt had worn nearly identical dark grey suits with purple ties. When their frowns as they saw each other showed it hadn't been planned, Angela did a quick search on her phone and found the answer — Shift Enforcers, season two, episode eleven, when Guy Barron had attended the wake for his first partner who'd been bitten by a cobra.
As the chief shuffled through his notes after ten minutes spent describing the captain's unexceptional rise through the ranks, Angela texted Vicky. When I die I want a wake. With a live band.
Her phone buzzed with Vicky's reply halfway through a story about the captain when he had been the technical advisor on Shift Enforcers. By the time something kills you half the city will be on fire. We'll call it a Viking funeral and be done.
Ducking her head to hide her smile Angela replied. Fair enough. But make sure there is alcohol.
Noted. Got to go. My triple latte is almost ready.
Are you ever going to ask her out?
Hitting on people at their job is tacky. And possibly harassment.
Coward.
I know you are but what am I?
When the service concluded, Angela introduced herself to the captain's sister and offered her condolences, hoping the woman hadn't heard about Angela's contribution to the captain's massive coronary, then headed for the door, noting Matt making a beeline for the chief. That didn't surprise her — he'd be sure to drop a casual reference to something the chief said into his conversations for the next week. Angela supposed it would be a good idea to remind the chief who she was, but the thought of trying to make small talk with the man at a funeral was too painful to contemplate. Also, he might have heard about her assault on a police officer.
She saw Caleb in the parking lot and lengthened her stride to catch up with him before he got to his car. "Caleb, wait up a second." Caleb dropped his keys on the asphalt, giving Angela time to reach him. "You have a lot of clients downtown, don't you? Have you felt anything off lately?"
"Off?" Caleb straightened up with his keys in his hand. "Don't you think I would have said something if I had?"
"Of course." She held up a hand, palm outward to soothe him. "But have you had any problems with clients being more unstable than they usually are?"
Caleb smoothed down his tie but didn't meet her eyes. "I haven't had any clients shift lately. Maybe it's just you." He gestured to the car door she was blocking. "Do you mind? I have work to do."
Angela moved out of the way and watched him drive off. Caleb was always touchy, but apparently funerals cranked up the dial.
She'd been hopeful when Caleb had first started at the department. He had a reputation for brute-forcing his way through magical complications instead of taking the time to untangle the problem, but he'd been near the top of his academy class and his magic level was respectable. Unfortunately, any time something went wrong, instead of learning from his mistakes, he spent his energy taking someone down with him. So he never ended up at the bottom of the pile, but as a side effect, nobody trusted him. For all the extra training he did, and all the reports he carefully massaged to make his performance look better, he remained stuck in place, with none of the promotions and awards he thought he deserved. Angela wasn't looking forward to Caleb blaming her for everything when a new boss arrived.
Still, he'd have no reason to ignore a stray magic source in the city. His clients would be just as affected as hers. Maybe she'd be able to convince their new boss to run a sweep downtown.
By the time she'd reached the front of the line inside McDonald's, Angela's plan to just order a cup of coffee had changed into a sugary iced coffee, hash browns, and an apple pie. When Lily slid into the booth a few moments later, Angela pushed the tray towards her. "Do you want some of this?" A quick glance with her other sight showed the baby twirling about, stable and content.
The girl broke off a corner from the fried potatoes and regarded her. "What's going on? Why are you all dressed up?"
Angela glanced down at her clothes. "My boss's funeral was this morning. I haven't had a chance to change yet."
Lily's face fell. "That's sad. Does that mean you're going to get his job?" A hint of anxiety crossed her features. "Am I going to get a new probation officer?"
"What? No, nothing like that," Angela said, although it suddenly hit her why Matt had gone to talk to the chief this morning. She shoved that image down to worry over later. Matt was bad enough as a co-worker. He'd be disastrous as her boss. "I wanted to make sure everything was going okay with you."
Now Lily just looked confused. "Why wouldn't it be?"
Angela regarded the girl for a moment and then decided she'd just have to be blunt. "You're pregnant."
Lily's mouth opened, displaying impressively straight teeth. “What? No I'm not."
Angela raised her eyebrows, doing her best to appear both motherly and nonjudgmental. "Lily, I can see the fetus. I put a stabilizer on her or him last night."
"But…" Lily's eyes were wide. "I've never even…" Her voice dropped down to a whisper. "…had sex." Her cheeks reddened.
Angela took a breath. Teenagers were masters of denial, but they could also be victims of misinformation. There was no way around it. The conversation was going to get uncomfortable. With the state of sexual education in the schools, she needed to figure out where to start. "You know how pregnancy happens, right?"
Lily's blush deepened. "I know that. It's from sex," she said, reproach heavy in her voice.
Angela dredged up memories of her own high school days and the lies that had floated around then. "And you know that it can happen the very first time, right? Uh, even if you're standing up?"
Lily kept her eyes on the table. "I've never done anything with a boy. So I can't be pregnant."
Angela sat back. In all the time she'd been looking after Lily, she'd never known her to lie, which meant either Lily was blocking out what had happened… Or she wasn't really pregnant. Angela took another long look at Lily with her other sight. It certainly looked like a fetus to her, but only a couple of her clients had been pregnant while she'd been overseeing them. Maybe this was something else — a parasite or even some form of cancer. "I think we need to get your parents to take you to a doctor."
"But I'm not—" Lily looked like she was going to cry.
Angela smiled at her again. "I believe you. But there's something going on inside you, and if it's not a baby we need to find out what it is." She glanced at her phone to see what time it was. Lily would need to get back to class soon. "If you want, I can call your parents or come by this evening and talk to them in person."
"Can you take me?" Lily blurted it out, then dashed away a tear with one hand. "If it's something bad, they'll be impossible to talk to and they'll start blaming each other. And besides, maybe this is something wrong with my magic and you're the expert in that."
Angela wondered how old Lily had been when she'd had to take responsibility for everything. "Your parents will have to set up the appointment," she warned the girl. "You're still a minor and I'm not your guardian. But I'll certainly go with you if they'll let me." Perhaps if she started with the magical aspect, Lily's parents would ask her to accompany their daughter. Angela had never seen parents so determined to ignore one part of their child.
Lily dredged up a weak smile, thanked her, and ran off to her next class, leaving Angela staring at a mound of food and dreading the upcoming conversation.
Driving back to the office Angela left a vague voicemail for Lily's mother, not surprised when the woman didn't answer the call. Either she just didn't answer calls from anyone, or Angela was being screened out deliberately. She suspected the latter. In any case, there wasn't anything she could do about it now, so she parked in the back corner of the parking lot and picked up the bag with her laptop and a more comfortable set of clothes and went into the building. After changing in the locker room she made her way to her desk, surprised to see the door to the captain's office open. Even more surprising was finding Matt sitting behind the desk, looking for all the world as if he had moved in there permanently. He’d even transferred his books, with Smith’s Power Creatures Through the Ages proudly displayed next to Ettinger’s The Source of Magic: Essays on Power Creatures and Other Shifter Anomalies, as if he needed them near to hand in case a salamander suddenly appeared for the first time in hundreds of years.
Candace, the daytime dispatcher, an improbably blond woman wearing the black dress she'd had on at the funeral, caught her eye, and then got up and headed toward the restroom. Angela put down her things and followed her.
"We haven't even had a chance to get the carpets cleaned," Candace growled the second the door swung closed behind them. "He just went in there and started piling all of Ron's things in a box and told me to get him coffee."
The only thing that really surprised Angela was the speed at which Matt had moved. "Does the chief know?"
Candace nodded. "He came by after the funeral and said that Matt was the acting captain until the position is filled." She flipped the water on, then off. "I asked why you weren't in charge since you had more seniority."
