“Judy Lerma, the Herald. How much are you seeking in damages in your lawsuit against Duke and the others?”
I hadn’t even thought of that. “I don’t think it’s been decided. I’ll leave that to my attorney.”
“Ms. Norville, how and when did you become a werewolf?”
I was going to have to tell that story over and over again, wasn’t I? “It was about four years ago. I was a junior in college, and ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was attacked and survived.”
“Does that sort of thing happen often?”
“I think you’re more likely to get mugged in a small town in Kansas than get attacked by a werewolf.”
Then someone asked, “I hear that one of the networks has offered you your own TV show. Will you take the offer?”
I blinked. I looked at Ben. He wasn’t so gauche as to shrug in front of the cameras, but his expression was noncommittal enough. He hadn’t heard either. “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” I said.
“Would you do a TV show? As the next step from radio?”
Good question. The little giddy show business side of me was jumping up and down. But another part of me still wanted that hole to hide in. Wolf was still scared, and so far she was doing a great job of keeping that fear locked down. But I had to get out of here soon, or we’d both blow up.
I offered a brave smile. “I don’t know. I thought I might take a little time off to consider my options.”
Ben stepped up and took hold of my arm. “That’s all the time we have for questions today. Thank you.”
Finally, we left, sneaking out a back door held open by a police officer. At last, I could breathe again.
Epilogue
I stayed in D.C. long enough to talk to Emma.
The third night, two days after the broadcast, I visited Alette’s town house just after dusk. Tom answered the door. He looked grim and harried—he hadn’t shaved, and his hair was tousled. The iron reserve of the Man In Black had slipped.
“How is everything?” I asked as he let me inside.
“A mess. We’re all torn up over Bradley, Emma hasn’t said a word. But Alette’s holding everyone together. She’s an anchor. I don’t know how she does it.”
“Tom? Is she here?” Striding briskly, Alette followed her voice in from the parlor. She wore a silk dress suit, and her hair was tied in a bun. I’d never have guessed the trauma her household had been through. “Kitty, I’m so glad you came.”
Tom stepped out of the way, heading to the back of the house for some business of his own.
“How is she?” I said immediately, without even saying hello.
Alette smiled thinly. “I think she’ll be all right. Eventually.”
She led me to the parlor.
The rug had been replaced. This one had more blues than reds in it. Emma sat on an armchair, gripping a thick gray blanket tightly around herself. She stared, blank-eyed, at the curtains, which had been put back over the window. Her skin was sickly pale, and her hair limp. She smelled dead but not rotten—cold, static, unchanging, unliving. She smelled like a vampire.
Alette waited by the doorway while I pulled a chair closer to Emma. I put myself between her and the window, hoping she’d look at me.
“Hi,” I said. Her gaze flickered. “How are you feeling?” Which was a stupid thing to ask. But what else could I say? I wanted to apologize.
“I’m cold,” she said in a whisper. The words wavered, like she might start crying, but her expression remained blank. Numb. She pulled the blanket higher over her shoulders.
“Is there anything I can do?” I remembered what it was like, waking up and realizing that the world smelled different, that your body had become strange, as if your heart had shifted inside your chest.
She closed her eyes. “Should I do it? Should I open the curtains when morning comes?” And let the sun in. And kill herself. “Alette doesn’t want me to. But she said she wouldn’t stop me.”
“I don’t want you to either,” I said, a bit shrilly. “You had this done to you, you didn’t want it, and it’s terrible. But it’s not the end of the world. You’re still you. You have to hold on to that.”
She looked at me, her eyes glittering, fierce and exhausted at the same time, like she was on the edge of losing her self-control. “I feel different, like there’s an empty place in me. Like my heart’s gone, but there’s something else there—and it feels like being drunk, a little. If I open myself to that—” She laughed, a tight, desperate sound, and covered her mouth. “I’m afraid of it.”
“That’s good,” I said. “If you’re afraid of it you won’t let it swallow you up.”
“I just keep thinking of all the things I can’t do now,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t see the sun ever again. I can’t get a tan. I can’t finish my degree—”
“There’s always night school,” I said.
“But what would be the point?”
“You tell me.”
Her gaze was becoming more focused. I felt like she actually saw me now. Alette was right—she was going to be okay. She didn’t really want to open the curtains.
“I’m still me,” she said. I nodded. She held the blanket in a death grip—probably for more comfort than from the cold.
I stood, getting ready to leave her alone. She was curled up, staring at the arm of the chair, looking like she needed to be left alone.
“Kitty?” she said, glancing up suddenly. “Can I call you? Your show, I mean. If I need to talk.”
I smiled. “I’ll give you the private number.”
Alette brought me to the kitchen for tea. She already had a pot made up. The kitchen seemed too bright, after the shadows of the parlor. It seemed too real, too normal.
She talked as she poured. Only one cup—she didn’t drink tea. I wondered if she missed it.
“She didn’t say it, but she’s also upset about Bradley. We all are. I’m so glad Tom had that night off. I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d lost them both. All three of them, in some ways. Emma will never be the same. She was so full of life, and to see her like this—”
“But you still have her, and Leo doesn’t, for which I’m very grateful.” I couldn’t imagine what he’d have done with her, what she’d have done with him lording himself over her. Actually, I could imagine it, that was the problem.
“Yes,” Alette said wryly.
“Something’s been nagging me,” I said, after taking a sip of tea. “Leo was a lackey. He couldn’t move against you without help. He said something about this plot going beyond Flemming. That Flemming only thought he was in control. I’ve been wondering—who was Leo really taking orders from? The DOD?”
Alette frowned, her lips tightening. “Flemming was the military’s contact, not Leo. Leo needed Flemming to get his military support. If Leo had ulterior motives, they served another purpose entirely. I wish I knew for certain. I wish I could give you a name. But the answers lie in shadow. There are stories that vampires tell each other, late at night, just before dawn, to frighten each other. To frighten ourselves. If vampires are truly immortal, there could be some very, very old beings in this world. They may be so old, their motives are alien to us. Some say that even the Master vampires have their Masters, and you would not want to meet them, even in bright daylight. I have kept quiet, kept myself and mine away from those who would seek such power.”
People scared themselves with vampire stories. So what scared the vampires? A thing I hoped I never met. A thing that this brief mention of would haunt my mind. My hand held the teacup frozen, midway to my mouth.
“Are these beings like Elijah Smith?” I said.
Like I was afraid she would, she shook her head. “Creatures like Smith, the sidhe, come from another world entirely that rarely crosses paths with ours. They are isolated dangers. This has always lurked in the shadows of our world.”
“What? What’s always lurked?”
“Evil.”
That sounded too dam
n simple. And yet, it opened a range of sinister possibilities in my imagination. I wasn’t sure I’d ever met evil: madness, illness, ambition, confusion, arrogance, rage, yes. But evil?
“Just when I thought I was starting to figure things out,” I muttered.
Alette straightened and brightened her tone. “I am confident that with Leo’s failure, and Flemming’s failure, we will not need to concern ourselves with such possibilities. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I whispered. That left one more question. I continued awkwardly. “I know this is a personal question, and if you don’t want to say anything that’s okay. But how did this happen? You becoming a vampire—is it something you wanted?”
She smiled and lowered her gaze, giving a hint of amusement. “I’ll tell you the short version. I was desperate. I was poor, I had two children, and lived in a world where no one blinked at poverty. An opportunity presented itself, and I took it. I vowed that I would never leave my children, like their father did. Not even death would take me from them.”
After a pause I said, “I suppose it worked.”
“I have never regretted it.”
Alette had very much proven herself adaptable to circumstance. The centuries would stretch on and she would still be here with her parlor, her pictures, and her children.
I fidgeted with the cup and saucer. “I should get going. I sort of have a date.”
“With that jaguar fellow, I presume?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Wait just a moment.” She left me to fidget with my tea. When she returned, she held a small jewelry box. She offered it to me. “I’d like you to have this.”
I opened it and found the diamond teardrop pendant on its gold chain. “Oh, Alette, you shouldn’t—”
“It’s something to remember me by. Do come and visit sometime.”
She clasped my hand, kissed my cheek, and we said goodbye.
Earlier that afternoon, I’d had one last room-service lunch with Ben. Cormac had already left town, without even saying goodbye. I was simultaneously offended and relieved.
As usual, Ben ate while he worked, shuffling through papers, turning away just long enough to open the door. He’d ordered a steak for me. Rare.
I sat at the table and nodded at the current folder. “What’s this?”
“The FCC wants to investigate you for indecency.”
“What?”
“Apparently, somewhere between fully clothed human and fur-covered wolf, you flashed breast on national broadcast television. They’ve gotten about a dozen complaints.”
“You have got to be kidding me.” Flashing the TV audience had been the last thing on my mind.
“Nope. I rewatched the video, and sure enough, it’s there. You have to be pretty fast with the pause button to catch it.”
I loved the idea of all the prudish reactionaries who must have taped the show, then sat there with their thumbs poised over the scan and pause buttons, searching for something to complain to the FCC about. And they’re charging me with indecency?
“I’ll tell you what—forward the complaint to Stockton. No, better—forward it to Duke.”
“Already done. I think it’ll be pretty easy to argue the complaint and prove you had no responsibility for the broadcast.”
Damn straight. “I got a message from Stockton.” He’d left it on my cell phone during the hearings, like he’d called specifically at a time he knew I’d have my phone turned off so he could leave a message without having to talk to me. He’d sounded downright obsequious: “Kitty. It’s Roger. Look, I’m probably the last guy you want to hear from. You’ll probably never speak to me again. But I really wish you’d call me back. I’ve been asked about a follow-up show. I see us laying down a commentary track on the coverage from last night, you know? It could be a big move for both of us, career-wise. I really think you have a future in television. I want to do right by you. Thanks.”
That maniac. If I ever decided to make a go at television, it would be without his help. “You think you can sue him a lot?”
“Oh, yeah, about our good Mr. Stockton. Cormac did some digging on our behalf. Have a look at this.” Ben handed me a manila folder out of his stack.
I opened it and started reading. There were a half-dozen pages of official-looking forms, spaces with names and dates filled in, and a few mug shots of the same person, a skinny kid with a doped-out gaze and wild hair.
It was Roger Stockton. A younger, crazier Roger Stockton.
“These are arrest reports,” I said, awestruck.
“Mr. Stockton put himself through college by dealing hallucinogenic drugs. Not the usual weed, but exotic stuff: opium, peyote, frog-licking, that sort of thing. It seems he was into experimentation, looking for a higher power, saying it was all part of some religious ceremony that he and his friends were conducting. You know how it goes. The charges never stuck. He never served time. But it still makes for fascinating reading, don’t you think?”
If this information was leaked, Stockton might be able to talk his way out of it and salvage his career. But until he did, his life would become very interesting.
“Revenge or blackmail?” I said.
“Blackmail? That’s illegal. Persuasion, on the other hand—I’m betting Stockton would sure hate to see this stuff come out in a civil trial. He’ll settle out of court, or his network will.”
Politics. Playing each other to get what we wanted. Was there any way to avoid it? Couldn’t we all just get along?
“This is never going to be over, is it?”
“I think your place in American pop culture is assured. You’re going to end up as a question on a game show, you realize.”
I might have groaned. Ben chuckled.
“Sure, go ahead and laugh. It just means job security for you.”
He sat back in his chair, abandoning the paperwork for a moment. He wore a vague, amused grin. “I know what Cormac sees in you.”
“What, a target?”
“Not at all. He’s downright smitten.”
“Huh?” Constantly making veiled threats constituted smitten? To an eight-year-old, maybe. And how many times had he come to my rescue now? Urgh . . .
“It’s true. I’ve known him since we were kids.”
“Kids? Really? How?”
“We’re cousins. I probably shouldn’t even be saying this—”
Cousins? Had to keep him talking. “No, please. Say this. What does Cormac see in me?”
“You’re tough. Tough and whiny at the same time. It’s kind of cute.”
I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me or not. Time to change the subject.
“So you’ve always known Cormac. Was he always like that?”
“Like what?”
“Hard-nosed. Humorless.”
“No, I suppose not. But you have to go back a long way to see him any different. He lost both his parents pretty young. I figure he deserves to be as humorless as he wants.”
Even saying “I’m sorry” sounded lame at that point.
“You told me once that Cormac likes seeing how close to the edge he can get without falling off. What about you? Why do you hunt vampires?”
He shrugged. “I don’t hunt anything, really. I just look out for my friends. That’s all.”
Which made him a good person to have at your back—all anyone could ask for, really. That, and an honest lawyer, all wrapped into one.
“When are you going back to Denver?”
“After I file suit in court. Though it may not come to that. I’ve gotten word from both Duke’s office and the NIH that they’re willing to settle. Duke won’t want to settle, but if the Senate Ethics Committee gets involved, he may come around. There are still criminal charges pending, but this might not drag on so long.”
“Thanks for doing all this. I don’t even care about the money, you know. I just want a little old-fashioned revenge.”
“That’s the best part,” he said, grinning his hawk’s grin, the one
that made me glad he was on my side.
Luis had tickets to a symphony concert at the Kennedy Center that night. It seemed a great way to spend my last night in town. We met up at the Crescent.
I wore a smoky gray skirt and jacket with a white camisole. Understated, until I put on the diamond Alette had given me. Then, it looked awfully mature. Sophisticated, even. Like something Alette might wear. I didn’t feel like myself.
Ahmed met me at the door. He didn’t say a word at first, just closed me in a big monstrous hug until I thought I might suffocate. I didn’t have much hope of hugging back, so I leaned in and took a deep breath, of smoke and wine and wild. It smelled a little like a pack.
“Come back to visit, yes?” he said, gripping my shoulders. I nodded firmly. Looked like I was coming back to D.C. at some point. Jack waved at me from the bar.
I sensed Luis come in through the door behind me. I didn’t even have to turn around. He stalked like a cat and his warmth reached out for me.
He touched my shoulders and kissed the back of my neck. Fire, warmth, happiness, I felt all that in his touch. Finally, Wolf’s fear uncurled. Some light came into her burrow. I felt like running—from joy this time, not fear.
“Ready?”
I almost asked if we could blow off the symphony. But I nodded.
I was glad I went, glad I didn’t miss seeing the Kennedy Center. The place was so beautiful, so momentous, walking into the four-story-high Hall of States with the marble walls, red carpeting, state flags hanging from the ceiling. I wanted to cry. Felt like I should have been wearing a sweeping ball gown and not a suit.
People stared at me. At us. The people who had tickets for the seat next to me in the concert hall moved. Everyone watched the news, I supposed. I wilted. I would have stuck my tail between my legs if I’d had it. I would have left, if Luis had let me. Bless him, he didn’t flinch once. He walked past them all, holding my arm tucked in his, his back straight and chin up. Like a jaguar stalking through his jungle.
Staring at his shoulder, I leaned in and asked him, “How can you stand it? The way they look at us?”
He said, “I know that I could rip out their guts, and I choose not to.”