And who could argue with that? “Ben thinks I should go to the doctor.”
“It certainly couldn’t hurt. It might make you feel better if they can tell you that nothing’s wrong.”
And if something was wrong? What was the local general practitioner going to know about lycanthropy anyway?
“Nothing’s wrong,” I insisted.
“Of course not,” she said. “Nothing’s ever wrong until it is.” Her tone had become serious.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She paused, like she was trying to decide what to say. Then she sighed. “It means it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Mom, is something wrong?” The conversation had gone a bit weird.
“Oh, no, not really. I just think Ben’s right is all.”
I couldn’t win. I was besieged. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”
She changed the subject. “When are we going to meet this Ben character of yours?”
She knew I was living with Ben; I couldn’t keep him a secret. She’d expressed a great deal of worry that, out of the blue, I’d apparently shacked up with my lawyer. I didn’t tell her he’d become a werewolf in the meantime.
“I don’t know, Mom. Maybe Christmas?”
“Kitty. That’s months off. That’s most of the year off.”
“You aren’t even ecstatic that I’m bringing up the possibility of coming home for Christmas this year?”
“I’ll admit, that would be nice.”
“I’ll talk it over with Ben. Maybe we can work something out for this summer.”
She seemed to be happy with the compromise, because she changed the subject, moving on to the topic of family, Dad and my sister and her brood, like our typical calls. The whole thing was comforting. No matter what I did or what happened to me, Mom was always there with her phone calls.
After I’d hung up Ben said, “I’m still not ready to meet your family.”
“You’ll notice I didn’t commit us to anything.”
“I’m just saying.”
I almost argued. I could have said all sorts of things, needled him, picked at that sore spot until it festered: why not, what’s wrong with my family, you just don’t want to admit that we’re in a relationship, and so on. I started to say these things, just to see what his reaction would be.
But I let it go, because I wasn’t ready for that argument any more than Ben was ready to meet my family.
I started bleeding that afternoon. I should have been relieved—my period, that’s all it was. But it was late, there was too much, and something about it wasn’t right. So I went to the doctor on Monday.
The nurse drew blood. The doctor wanted a urine sample. She wanted me to strip and sit on the examination table in a flimsy paper shirt. Then she poked, prodded, all the rest of it. In the five or so years since the last time I’d been in a doctor’s office, I hadn’t missed it, not once, not at all. The place had a weird smell. Everything was disinfected to within an inch of its life, but the antiseptic only covered up an underlying odor of illness telling me that sick people passed through here all day long.
I sat there for an hour, waiting. When the nurse poked her head in and said I could get dressed, I nearly sprang off the table.
“Is Dr. Luce coming back? Did she say anything?”
“She’ll be with you in just a minute.”
The door closed, and I dressed quickly. A knock came a moment later. It cracked open before I said anything, and Dr. Luce, a busy middle-aged woman, short, with graying hair and a fancy multicolored patterned lab coat, hustled in.
“Good, you’re dressed. If you’d take a seat there?”
She took the chair at the desk, I sat in the one right next to it. My stomach was jumping with anxiety. She wasn’t smiling. If nothing was wrong, she’d be smiling. She glanced at my hands, which were kneading the fabric of my jeans, then met my gaze.
“Kitty, did you know you were pregnant?”
I froze, mouth open. That wasn’t what I thought she would say. In retrospect, I should have expected it. All the signs were there: the exhaustion, the nausea, which was how everyone said it started. But that didn’t apply to me, apparently. For some reason I couldn’t process the question. She waited patiently, but my mouth was too dry to speak. I had to swallow a couple of times.
“No. I mean—no. Were? Were pregnant?”
“You’ve had a miscarriage. I’m very sorry.”
“Oh,” was all I could manage.
She launched into the prognosis. “You’re fine. You’re going to be fine, I’ll say that first off. I’m not surprised you didn’t know, you were probably only three or four weeks along based on the hormone levels. You’ll experience cramping for a few more days; I can give you a prescription for that. This is actually fairly common . . . ” And so on. I wished Ben were here. I very much wished Ben were here to hold my hand.
“I recommend waiting several months before trying again.”
“I wasn’t trying this time,” I blurted.
She pursed her lips. “Then I recommend taking extra care with protection for the next few months.”
Protection, hah. Mornings after a full moon, with the Wolf still so close to the surface, filling me, curled up with Ben, protection wasn’t exactly the first thing on my mind. In fact, that was probably when it had happened—last full moon. I was embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know enough about my own cycle, my own plumbing, and the whole process to know if that was when it could have happened.
“Doctor, you saw my record. My . . . ” Um, what should I call it? “My preexisting condition. What impact does that have on any of this?”
“Yes, the lycanthropy. I’m afraid I have no experience with that—it hasn’t made its way to the literature yet. I don’t even know where to go to find out. Do you have any contacts? Anyone you could ask?”
“Yeah, I think I do. Thanks.”
I accepted all her advice and the prescription form in a daze. She kept asking if I had any questions, and I couldn’t think of any. I should have had questions, lots of questions. But the whole world had gone fuzzy, like I was looking at it through a filter.
I made it to my car and found my cell phone.
After two rings I heard, “Hello, Dr. Shumacher.”
Dr. Elizabeth Shumacher was the new head of the Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology, the government research branch that really ought to start sending out bulletins to people like Dr. Luce. But really, how often did any doctor expect to see someone like me show up in their waiting room?
“Hi, Doctor, it’s Kitty Norville.”
“Oh! Hi, Kitty, how are you?” She sounded cheerful and genuinely happy to hear from me—unlike her predecessor, who had always acted like he was starring in a spy drama.
“Okay. I have a question: What do you know about lycanthropes and pregnancy?”
“Not a whole lot. The research hasn’t gotten that far. Everything I have on file is anecdotal.”
“What do the anecdotes say?”
“Well, everyone I’ve talked to, everything I’ve heard or read, says that female lycanthropes don’t get pregnant.”
“No, that can’t—”
“Rather I should say they don’t stay pregnant. They can conceive, but the embryo doesn’t survive shape-shifting. They miscarry every time. My guess is a female lycanthrope may become pregnant many times and never realize it, since she’ll never be more than a couple of weeks along before she has to shift. If the timing is right she might be as much as a month along. But I’m guessing that’s rare.”
Holy shit. I leaned back in the seat, holding my forehead, feeling ill all over again. Feverish, I wanted to throw up. I rolled down the window and let in clear air.
Dr. Shumacher kept talking in the manner of a scientist who’s launched in on a topic she finds utterly fascinating, without much thought about her audience’s reaction. “It makes sense, if you think about it. The mutation has to reproduce via infecti
on because biological reproduction is impossible. This is probably true of vampirism as well. The same mechanism in vampirism that stops aging prevents the cellular growth required for biological reproduction. Formulating a theory along these lines is pretty high on my list . . . ”
She must have known something was wrong when I stayed quiet for so long. She said, “Kitty—why are you asking this? Has something happened?”
“It’s about a friend,” I said blithely, transparently. She’d guess the truth. “I’m asking for a friend.”
Why didn’t I know this? Why had this never come up before? Why hadn’t Meg—the alpha female of my old pack, who’d held my hand when I was new, then driven me out when I wasn’t—told me any of this? Had she known?
Why didn’t any of us talk to each other? Warn each other?
“You’ll call me if you need anything, yes? You’re my primary informant, you know,” she said, concerned. I couldn’t tell her. I didn’t feel like talking about it.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll call. Thanks.” I moved like a robot to put away the phone.
I held my stomach. Why had I never thought of this before? Why had I never considered? I hadn’t wanted kids. I didn’t want to be pregnant. This shouldn’t matter. Then why did I feel gutted? I hadn’t known, so it shouldn’t mean anything. But it did, and the shock of that was one shock too many.
Ben came home from a courtroom appearance late that afternoon. He found me sitting in the kitchen, the lights out, working on my third beer. I hadn’t filled Dr. Luce’s prescription. Alcohol seemed to work just fine; I was starting to feel very, very relaxed.
He set his briefcase on the floor and pulled up the chair across from me. “What happened?”
I took a deep breath. I’d been rehearsing this carefully. My brain was hazy, though, and it came out weird. Obliquely. I spoke too slowly to make sure the words came out right. I must have sounded nuts.
“Have you ever had the experience of not knowing you wanted something until someone told you you couldn’t have it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve always kind of wanted a Porsche. Can I have one?” His attempt at a smile faded.
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “This is different. This is . . . it’s screwing with me and I don’t know what to think.”
“Kitty. Stop talking around it. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Mine. His. It had been both of ours. “The doctor said I had a miscarriage. I called Shumacher at the Center, and she told me lycanthropes always have miscarriages. That shape-shifting and pregnancy . . . it doesn’t survive. I thought—I guess I assumed that if I wanted to have kids someday, it wouldn’t be a problem. I just assumed. I never even asked. But I can’t. And I didn’t think I’d be this upset about it. I’m sorry, I’m not making any sense.” I took a swig of beer and turned away to hide my face.
He didn’t say anything. I couldn’t guess what he was thinking. Wasn’t sure I wanted to know. So I didn’t look at him. I tried to block out the world, so I wouldn’t have to process anything that wasn’t in my own head.
Then he moved. Slipped out of his chair and knelt next to mine. Put his arms around me, held me against him, laid my head on his shoulder, and murmured, “Shh.”
He knew I was crying before I felt it myself. He saw it coming, but I didn’t know it until I was sobbing onto his shoulder and kneading the shirt across his back with stiff fingers.
After I’d cried myself out, we migrated to the sofa, where I lay curled up against him, snuggled in his arms.
“Did you know you were pregnant?”
“No. I should have known. Should I have known? You think I’d know something like that.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“I’m kind of glad I didn’t know. What if I’d known, gotten used to the idea, maybe even gotten excited, and then—” I shook my head. “Does that sound weird?”
“I don’t know. What would sound normal?”
“This happens all the time, people go through this all the time. Why is it so . . . What about you? Do you want kids?” I twisted around so I could see him better.
He waited a long time before he said, “No.”
“Then you’re glad it turned out this way.”
“Kitty, no, it’s not like that.” He blew out a frustrated sigh. “A year ago it never would have occurred to me that it was even a possibility. That I’d be living with someone and that the issue would even come up. I might have changed my mind. I don’t know.”
Neither did I. A common phrase, lately.
I snuggled closer. “I feel like someone’s taken something away from me. It makes me angry.”
We must have stayed there for hours. I was intensely grateful. I didn’t know how I expected him to react. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d run screaming. But I needed to be close to him, and he stayed.
I’d started to fall asleep—it must have been close to midnight—when the doorbell rang. The freaking doorbell.
“Who the hell is it at this hour?” Ben said, grumpy.
“Vampire?” I muttered.
He gave me the smirking you can’t be serious look. Neither one of us moved. We couldn’t be expected to answer the door at midnight.
But the bell rang again, longer, like our visitor was leaning on the button.
Ben groaned. “It’s an emergency. Has to be.”
“Light’s on. Can’t pretend we’re asleep.”
Making a production out of it, he extricated himself from my grip and stood. “You stay, I’ll check on it.”
I didn’t argue.
A full minute later I heard from the front door, “Kitty? It’s for you.”
I had no idea who it could be. I didn’t know anyone in Pueblo besides Ben.
I trudged to the front door. Ben gripped the handle of the open door and looked back at me. And there, on the other side of the threshold, stood Rick. The vampire.
I needed to stop making flippant remarks like that.
“Oh my God. Rick.”
“Hi, Kitty.” His height was average and his features pale, vaguely aristocratic, like a figure from an old painting. That may also have been the way he carried himself—straight-backed, self-possessed. Nothing would ever make him lose his temper. His dark hair was brushed back from his face and just touched his shoulders. He wore dark slacks, a well-pressed shirt, smart shoes—and an overcoat, in summer.
Rick was an odd duck. He was affiliated with Arturo, the Master vampire of Denver, but he also maintained a degree of independence. I wasn’t sure what he did for Arturo, or what he got out of the association. I wasn’t exactly an expert on vampire internal politics. I did know he was at least a couple hundred years old, and he’d been in the region for much of that time. He had some great Old West stories. In the past, we’d done favors for each other, passing along useful information. Neither of us was as territorial as others of our kind.
“What are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story. May I come in?” He gestured at the threshold.
I had to invite him in. He looked at me, waiting, and I stared back, stupefied.
Ben inched closer to me and said to my ear, privately, “He smells dead.”
“Yeah,” I whispered back. “That’s how vampires smell.”
“It’s weird.” He glared sidelong at Rick.
The vampire waited quietly. I couldn’t decide what to do.
“Do you trust him?” Ben said. Ben and Cormac had been vampire hunting together. We’d never really discussed how Ben felt about vampires, but I knew he didn’t think well of them in general.
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important,” Rick said.
Rick had never given me a reason to be suspicious of him. I thought of him as one of the good guys. He’d done me favors. Still, I couldn’t help but feel like I was going to regret this.
“Come on in,” I said with a sigh, and stepped aside. Rick stepped across the threshold, hands stuck in the pockets of his overcoa
t.
I sneaked a glimpse out at the curb. I wanted to see what kind of car a vampire would drive. Fully in character, I spotted a BMW convertible, silver and zippy. No way anyone in this neighborhood drove that car.
I gave a low whistle. “Nice.”
“Thanks,” Rick said.
Turning back inside, I closed the door. “I’d offer you something to drink, but, well—no way. No offense.”
“That’s all right. I had a drink before I came.”
Ben shook his head, scowling. To me he said, “I hate vampires.”
Rick wore an amused smile. “Kitty, it’s been a while. How are you?”
“Now’s not really a good time to ask that. I’m kind of drunk.” And sick. Sick at heart. “Um, this is my friend, Ben. Ben, Rick.”
“Ben O’Farrell, isn’t it?” Rick said.
Ben’s back tightened, his shoulders bunching like hackles rising. A response to danger. He looked hard at Rick. “Have we met?”
“No. But you have an entry in the same file Arturo keeps on that bounty hunter, Cormac. It doesn’t say anything about you being a werewolf.”
I thought for a minute Ben was going to jump him, the way every muscle in his body seemed to quiver. I resisted an urge to grab him and hold him back. But I had to admit, I was also creeped out that Arturo was keeping files on Cormac and God knew who else. Me, most definitely. Couldn’t help but wonder what it looked like.
Trying to exude calm, I touched Ben’s arm.
“You going to take that information back to him?” Ben asked.
“No,” he said.
“Rick—how did you find me?”
“Matt gave me your address.”
Matt, the engineer from KNOB, my old radio station. “Okay, now did he give it to you, or did you, let’s see, how do I put this . . . persuade him to give it to you?”
“He, ah, might have taken a little persuading.” He actually smiled at that.
I rolled my eyes. I was sure Matt was fine. Rick probably hadn’t needed to do more than look him in the eyes and work a little of his vampire mojo on him. If I asked Matt, he wouldn’t remember what had happened.
“Can we sit down somewhere?” Rick said.