Kitty and the Midnight Hour

  “Didn’t the TV say anything?”

  “They just said, and I quote, ‘Well-known radio personality Kitty Norville is involved with the investigation.’ That doesn’t sound too great. You didn’t—I mean, you’re not really involved, are you?”

  “Geez, Ozzie, you really think I could do something like that?”

  “I know you wouldn’t. But there’s that whole werewolf thing . . .”

  I sighed. I couldn’t win. “I’m an unofficial consultant. That’s it.”

  “So there are werewolves involved.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He grumbled like he wanted to keep arguing. Then he said, “You couldn’t have worked in a little free publicity for the show?”

  “Good-bye, Ozzie.” I hung up.

  The phone blinked at me that there was a message waiting. Someone had called while I was talking to Ozzie. I checked.

  It was Mom. “Hi, Kitty, this is Mom. We just saw you on the news, and I wanted to make sure everything is okay. Do you need a lawyer? We have a friend who’s a lawyer, so please call—”

  Again, I hung up.

  Yet again, full moon night. My thirty-seventh. How many more would there be? For the rest of my life, full moon nights were planned and predetermined. How much longer could I keep this up? Some nights, the light of it, the wind in the trees, the rush of my blood made me shout with joy, a howl lurking at the back of my throat.

  Some nights, I thought surely this time my body would burst and break, my skin split apart and not be able to come back together again.

  I waited outside the house until the pack spilled out the back door and into the scrub-filled backyard, and the trees and hills beyond. Like a hiking club going for a midnight stroll. Some of them started Changing as soon as their feet hit the dirt. They trotted, then ran to the trees, melting into their other forms. Where people had gone, wolves circled back, urging their friends to hurry.

  I stayed at the corner of the house, hugging myself, hearing their call. T.J., naked, silvery in the moonlight, looked back, saw me, and smiled. I didn’t smile back, but I pulled myself from the wall and moved forward, toward him. Like my Wolf was dragging me by her leash.

  Someone grabbed me from behind.

  Meg squeezed my arm and came close, speaking into my ear.

  “You’ve gotten too big for your skin. You’re arrogant. And you’re in danger of splitting this pack apart. I won’t let that happen. You think you’re pretty hot right now, but I’ll remind you where your place really is.” Her hand pinched my arm. A growl was starting in my chest. I swallowed it back.

  She didn’t want to be the one to start the fight. She was alpha, and she wasn’t going to stoop. She could chastise, dominate, threaten, but she wouldn’t start the knock-down, drag-out stuff. I had to be stupid enough to challenge her. She talked like she thought I’d be stupid enough to challenge her. Like she wanted me to, so she’d have a chance to take me down.

  I looked away, wondering how I could get away from her. Wolf was ready to fight to get away. Once, Meg’s fingers digging into me would have had me cowering.

  “I’m not trying to split up the pack. I just—I just need space.” Like I was some kind of rebellious teenager.

  “I know what you want. I know how this works, a young thing like you moving up in the world. And if you think you can have Carl, if you think you can have the pack, you have to talk to me about it. I’m still tougher than you.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to fight you. I won’t.”

  And I held it together. I didn’t move. I kept still. Just let me run. I’d leave her alone if she’d let me. Almost unconsciously, I leaned away, toward the pack, the wolves, my family, where I could Change and be anonymous.

  Her hands were shifting, claws growing. She didn’t loosen her grip, so the claws broke my skin, blood trickling down my arm. I looked at her, but still I didn’t move. Our gazes met again. I held my breath so I wouldn’t growl.

  A few of the others, wolves now, watched us, ears pricked forward, aware that something was happening. They trotted over, free-flowing animals burst loose from their prisons for this one night. We had an audience.

  I caught the scent of my own blood. Wolf kicked and writhed; the smell made her crazy. But if I didn’t react, Meg would leave me alone.

  She let go of my arm. Halfway through my not-very-well-suppressed sigh, she slapped me across the face—openhanded, claws extended. My cheek lit with pain, so much pain I couldn’t feel the individual cuts. Three, I thought, based on how she’d been holding her hand. A quick swipe. Probably felt worse than it was. Blood gathered in a rivulet trickling down my jaw.

  I didn’t fight. But I also didn’t cower.

  Finally, she turned away.

  My body was fire. My skin was burning away, my breath coming in quiet sobs.

  The wolves surrounded us. The whole pack had joined us. Wolves nudged us, bumping our hips with their shoulders. Pale, cream, slate, silver, and black fur moved in a sea around us. My vision went white and helpless.

  I let Wolf rip out of me with a howl.

  Like shaking off dead fur, shedding out last year’s coat, she convulses, then runs free.

  She follows his scent. Him, the One. Running, she can reach him at the head of the pack. He is pale, coppery, wondrous in the moonlight. She runs into him, knocking him. She bows, playing; yips, trying to get him to chase her. She licks his face and cowers before him, tail low to show him he is stronger, he can do what he likes with her. In the other life she can’t say these things to him, but here she can, here she knows the language.

  That other part of her is too proud. But Wolf knows better.

  The One’s mate snaps at her—not playful but angry. Keeps her away from the One—and the One doesn’t protect her. He growls, snarls, dives at her. Whining, she runs away, tail tight between her legs. Then he leaves her. Trots away like she is nothing. She is left alone. The others snap and tease her for this rejection, but she doesn’t feel like playing anymore.

  That other part of her knows the heartbreak for what it is.

  By the time I shifted back to human the next morning, the wounds had healed. At least, the cuts Meg gave me had healed.

  Nights passed.

  I didn’t know where to find Rick. He’d always come to me. I knew where I might start looking, and if he wasn’t there I could probably find someone who did know where he was. Assuming I didn’t get beaten up first.

  The nightclub Psalm 23 was a favorite vampire hunting ground. Despite what a lot of the legends said, vampires didn’t have to kill their prey when they fed. They usually didn’t, because littering the surroundings with bodies attracted too much attention. They could seduce a young thing with nice fresh blood, drink enough to sustain them but not enough to kill, let the victim go, and the poor kid might not have any idea what had happened. Supernatural Rohypnol. The process didn’t turn the victim into a vampire.

  In the right subculture, a vampire could find willing-enough volunteers to play blue-plate special. Psalm 23 was dark, stylish, played edgy music, and Arturo was a silent partner.

  I had to dress up; they’d have turned me away at the door if I’d shown up in jeans. I wore black slacks, a black vest, and a choker. Understated. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.

  Outside, I could hear the music, something retro and easy to slink to. The doorman let me in without a problem, but I hadn’t gotten three feet inside when an incredibly svelte woman with skin so pale her diamond pendant looked colorful fell into step behind me.

  I stopped. So did she, close enough that her breath brushed my neck when she spoke.

  “I know you,” she said. “You’re not welcome here.”

  “Then you should have stopped me at the door,” I said without turning around. “I already paid my cover.”

  “You’re here without invitation. You’re trespassing.”

  I stopped myself before saying something stupid. Li
ke fuck territory. Any territory marking that was done was done by Carl, and I was on the outs with him right now. I didn’t want to go so far as to say that.

  I turned. “Look, I’m not interested in facing off with anybody. I need to find Rick; is he here?”

  Her gaze narrowed; her lips parted, showing the tips of fangs. “I might ask for an additional cover charge from you.” She ran her tongue along her teeth, between the fangs.

  “You won’t get it.” Werewolf blood was apparently some kind of delicacy among vampires. Like thirty-year-old scotch or something.

  “You’re in our territory now. If you want to stay, you will follow our rules.”

  I backed away, bracing to run. I didn’t want to fight. Maybe it had been a mistake coming here. Maybe I thought I could handle it on my own, and maybe I was wrong. I kept testing those boundaries and I kept falling on my ass, didn’t I?

  I’d never meant to cause trouble with any of this.

  Someone stepped beside me, interposing himself between me and the woman. It was Rick. “Stella, Ms. Norville is my guest this evening and is under my protection.”

  She stepped back from him, gaping like a fish. “When Arturo finds out she was here—”

  “I’ll tell him myself and take responsibility for the consequences. I’ll also make sure she doesn’t cause trouble. Like start a fight with an aggressive hostess.” He touched my arm and gestured me to a quiet section of the bar. The woman, Stella, stalked off with a huff. I let out the breath I’d been holding.

  “Thanks for the save,” I said as we took seats.

  “You’re welcome. Drink?” he said as the bartender drifted over.

  Tequila, straight up? “Club soda. Thanks.”

  “The question remains—what are you doing here? It’s not exactly safe for you.”

  “I wanted to let you know, I got a tip that Elijah Smith is coming back to this area in a week or so, probably out toward Limon. I found that on the Web so take it with a grain of salt. But it’s the best I’ve got right now.”

  “It’s more than I have. Thanks.”

  “I’ll tell you when I get more. Maybe you could leave me a phone number for next time?”

  He had the gall to laugh.

  “I take it you don’t like phones,” I said.

  “Why don’t I come see you at your office in a week instead?”

  “Damned inconvenient,” I muttered. It would have been nice to have someone agree with my suggestion for once.

  He looked thoughtfully at me. “No one gets that put out over not getting a phone number.”

  A seething pit of frustrated intentions, that was me. I frowned. “Could you give me some advice?”

  He blinked, surprised. “Well. I thought you had all the answers.”

  I ignored that, glancing back at where the monochrome Stella had gone to harass someone else. “You must be in pretty tight with Arturo, to toss around his name like that.”

  “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m nearly as old as he is. Nearly as powerful. The only difference is I don’t want to be Master of a Family. I don’t want that kind of . . . responsibility. He knows this, knows I’m not a rival. We have an understanding about other things.”

  “Ah. Why are you even here at all? Why even follow him?” This was touching on what I wanted to talk to him about. He’d been around for a long time—he’d just admitted as much. He had answers I didn’t.

  He sat back, smiling like he knew what I was really asking and why I was asking. “Being part of a Family has its advantages. Finding sustenance is easier. There’s protection. A guarded place to sleep out the days. These things are harder to find alone.”

  Dejected, I propped an elbow on the bar. Those were all the things I needed Carl for. What was I supposed to do if I couldn’t stand him anymore?

  Rick continued. “I spent about fifty years on my own, around the end of the nineteenth century. I . . . angered a few dangerous elements, so I set up a place in one of the Nevada boomtowns during the Comstock Lode silver rush. You wouldn’t believe how well the mining operations in a place like Virginia City kept away a certain kind of riffraff.”

  I grinned, drawn into the story in spite of myself. “You pissed off a pack of werewolves.”

  “You didn’t come to hear stories. You mentioned advice. Though this seems a strange place to find it.”

  “I’m running out of friends.”

  “Nonsense. You have half a million listeners who adore you.”

  I shot him a glare. “Someone asked me recently who I went to when I needed advice. And I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know.”

  “You still haven’t told me what you need advice about.”

  I asked him because he was old and presumably experienced. And, ironically, he’d never given me a reason to be afraid of him.

  “I don’t understand what’s happening. I don’t know why Carl and Meg are acting the way they are. I don’t know why I can’t make them understand why I feel the way I do. I wish—I wish they’d leave me alone, but then I’m not sure I want them to. Especially Carl.” There, I thought I’d gotten it all out.

  “You’re not looking for advice. You’re looking for affirmation.”

  And I wasn’t getting it from the people I most wanted it from. God, he made it sound so obvious. If someone had called in with this problem, I’d have been able to rattle off that answer.

  I rubbed my face. I felt like I was five years old again. See, Daddy, look at the pretty picture I made, and what is that kid supposed to do when Daddy tears it to shreds? I didn’t want to think about Carl as a father figure. More like . . . the tyrant in his harem. Or something.

  Rick turned a wry smile. “It’s growing pains. I’ve seen it before. It happens in a werewolf pack any time a formerly submissive member starts to assert herself. You’re coming into your own, and Carl doesn’t know what to do with you anymore.”

  “How do I make everything okay again?”

  He leaned back. “If life were that easy, you’d be out of a job.”

  Right. Time to change the subject. I wanted to hear about the silver rush and Virginia City during the frontier days. I couldn’t picture Rick in a cowboy hat.

  “So, you want to be a guest on the show and tell some stories about the Old West?”

  He smirked. “Arturo would kill me.”

  The trouble with this crowd was, you didn’t know when that was a joke.

  About a week later I came home from work and found Cormac leaning against the outside wall of my apartment building. It was well after dark. He had his arms crossed and stood at the edge of the glow cast by the light over the door. I stared for a good minute before I could say anything.

  “You know where I live.”

  “Wasn’t hard to find out,” he said.

  “Am I going to have to move now?”

  He shrugged. “The place is kind of a dump. I thought you’d be making better money than this.”

  He didn’t have to know about Carl’s payoff. “Maybe I like it here. What do you want?”

  My neck was tingling. I needed to get the hell out of here. But he wasn’t armed tonight. At least not that I could see. Without all the guns he looked less like a hit man and more like a good-guy biker.

  “You remember that cop? Hardin? She got in touch with me about those murders.”

  Just like that, the anxiety went away. The big picture took over. Being pissed off that someone was going behind my back took over. “Really? She told me she didn’t trust you enough to talk to you about it.”

  “She seems to have the idea that you’re too loyal to your ‘kind’ to be any help.”

  “Just because I wouldn’t name names.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “No. Geez, it’s like thinking that because someone’s—I don’t know, an auto mechanic—that they know every other auto mechanic in town.”

  “Werewolves are a little less common than mechanics.”

  I changed the subject. “Why
are you helping her? Last time I talked to her, she wanted to prosecute you for stalking and attempted murder.”

  “She offered to keep off my back if I helped catch this guy.”

  Hardin knew how to be everyone’s friend. “Convenient.”

  “I thought so.” He paced a couple of steps toward me. “Listen. You have information about this killer that I can’t get—the scent. Is there something you’re not telling the cops?”

  I huffed. “I didn’t recognize the scent. It’s not one of ours. At least, I don’t think it is.”

  “Okay. I’m not the cops. I’m not territorial about information. We can get closer to catching this guy if we pool what we know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “How to kill werewolves.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “No.”

  Defeated, I let out a sigh. “What do you want me to do?”

  “If you see this guy, give me a call. You go places I don’t, meet people I can’t. You have contacts.”

  “You don’t agree with Hardin? You don’t think I’ll protect him just because he’s a werewolf?”

  “I think you’ll do the right thing. You have my number.” He turned to walk away.

  “Who owes who a favor now?”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’m keeping track.”

  Matt leaned against the doorjamb between the sound booth and studio. “Kitty? There’s a live one on line three. Might be a crank, but she sounds like she’s really in trouble. You want it?”

  I could say no. This was my show, after all. It would be a lot easier and better for everyone if I transferred her to a hotline. Too bad there wasn’t a hotline for troubled vampires and werewolves.

  I nodded, listening to my current caller’s ornate commentary about miscegenation and purity of the species. Standard canned reactionary rhetoric.

  “Uh-huh, thank you,” I said. “Have you considered a career as a speechwriter for the Klan? Next caller, please.”

  “Oh, thank you! Thank you!” The woman was sobbing, her words unintelligible around the hysterics.

  “Whoa, slow down there. Take a breath. Slow breaths. That’s a girl. Estelle? Is this Estelle?”