I shrugged. “Well, Carl. You’re free to stand by her. Just as long as you know what she really is.”
I was ready for him when he sprang at me.
Chapter 12
Carl jumped at me, hands out, fingers spread, ready to grab me around the neck. I ducked and rolled. Technically, I’d learned all these fancy moves that would topple a charging opponent, use the momentum of a larger assailant against him, allow me to swing him headfirst into the ground at my feet. Those moves worked a lot better in the gymnasium with floor mats and time to practice.
As it was, I only managed to roll out of the reach of his arms. I grabbed for him, snagging the cuffs of his jeans. He stumbled, but didn’t fall. Scrambling on all fours, I put distance between us, turned and faced him, crouching, waiting.
Carl didn’t seem to be in a hurry. Pulling his shirt off, baring his sculpted, powerful chest, he circled me, making a rumbling noise in his throat.
I would do a lot better as a wolf, with claws and teeth and fewer inhibitions. But if I took the time to shape-shift, he’d attack.
Maybe I didn’t have to shift all the way. I could let a little bit of Wolf bleed over, gain enough advantage to hold my own. My growl started. I’d attack Carl first, then Meg.
Tensing, I acted like I was going to leap. I jerked forward and got a reaction from him. He rushed me like he thought we were going to crash together. He’d have won a head-on collision between us. But I ducked, again avoiding the force of his attack. He passed close by. I felt the heat of his blood, smelled the sweat beading on his body.
When I reached out to touch him, my claws were sprouting. I arched my fingers and brought my arm down hard, slashing him. I caught flesh and saw a splash of red.
He snarled, a sound like wood ripping, and writhed away from sudden pain. He wheeled, gained some distance, and clutched his side. I’d slashed the skin on his left side, under his rib cage. No telling how deep I’d cut. He looked more angry than hurt, his face grimacing in a snarl, his eyes blazing.
Then something grabbed my neck and hauled backward. Meg.
She held me in a headlock, her left arm pulling back on her right arm, which was braced across my neck. I gagged, choking while she crushed my throat. She dragged me until I was flat on my back, lying almost on top of her. She used all her strength to strangle me.
I slashed at her arms, reached back and tried to cut her face. In a panic now, I was having trouble keeping my shape. Fear made me want to melt, because Wolf could run away faster than I could. I struggled, both against her and myself, to break free of her, and to keep anchored to my body.
Her sugarcoated voice spoke by my ear. “I think we’re done now. Would you like to finish her off, or should I?” She looked up at Carl.
Carl’s arms thickened, his claws growing. He came toward me. I had time to think about how stupid I’d been to not watch my back. To think I could face them both. That was what I got for winning a fight. Made me think I was some kind of fucking Caesar.
I kept clawing Meg’s arms. Blood covered my hands; I was ripping her to shreds. But she didn’t let go. She was going to hold me for as long as it took Carl to finish me off. I whined, however much I wanted not to.
My legs were still free. I’d kick him. I’d fight for as long as I could.
Then Carl froze, his head tipped back. A shadow had appeared, broken away from the growing darkness to stand at his side.
T.J. held Carl’s neck. His nails—too thick to be nails, they were almost claws—dug into the larger man’s neck. All T.J. had to do was squeeze, pull, and he’d rip out Carl’s throat. He was naked, like he’d shifted back from wolf recently. He said he was going to the hills. He must not have gotten too far. He’d come back.
He said, “Let her go, Meg. Or we both lose.”
She let up some of the pressure on my neck. Not enough for me to escape. But I could breathe a little easier.
“On the other hand,” she said. “This could be an opportunity for both of us. We both finish our rivals here, and the pack is ours.”
Did she really hate Carl so much? What did he see in her, that would make him defend her? I knew the answer to that. I remembered: The first time I saw her, she was this wild goddess whose presence flared around her in an aura of strength. She was beautiful.
T.J. chuckled, lips turning in a half-grin. “You’re not my type.” Then he looked at Carl, and the smile disappeared. “You’re not a very good pack alpha, Carl. Bullying only gets you so far. Maybe I can do something about that.”
“This isn’t a fair fight,” Carl said, his voice stifled.
“Neither is that.” T.J. nodded at me and Meg.
“If you really wanted to kill me, you’d have done it already.”
For a minute, I thought T.J. was going to tear his neck out right there. He waited for several agonizing heartbeats before he said, “You’re right. I want a deal. Let Kitty and me go. We’ll get out. We’ll leave this territory for good and you’ll never have to worry about us again. You can have your little show here and run it however you want.”
On one hand, that sounded like a great plan. Save my skin, not have to fight anymore. Didn’t want to think beyond getting to safety. But I still had issues with Meg’s being a traitorous bitch. And I had a life here. KNOB, the show, friends even. The pack. The pack that had gone to hell somewhere along the line. But I didn’t want to leave. I shouldn’t have had to.
I deferred to T.J. He’d earned alpha status. Above everyone else I knew in the world, I trusted him to protect me.
Carl was breathing heavily, but T.J.’s hand never let up its grip. Finally, he said, “All right. Let her go, Meg.”
Glaring at T.J., she did. As soon as the pressure left my neck, I squirmed out of her grip and scrambled away. I stood and backed up, getting ready to run. My arms and claws shifted back to human, the Wolf fading. As soon as T.J. was with me, we’d run and never look back.
T.J. let go of Carl. They each took a step back, putting space between them.
Then Carl attacked him. He was, in the end, cut from the same cloth as Meg. They were made for each other.
Carl pivoted on one foot and drove up with his hand, a massive undercutting punch, claws outstretched. T.J. backed away, but not quickly enough. Carl didn’t gut him as the move had intended, but he caught T.J.’s chin, whipping his head back, throwing him backward. Blood sprayed from rows of cuts on his face.
I screamed, which came out almost like a howl.
When I started for T.J., to help him against Carl, Meg ran toward me. Looked like I was going to get my catfight after all. In a manner of speaking.
I bent and charged, tackling her in the middle, catching her before she had anticipated reaching me. I drove with brute strength I didn’t know I had, lifting her off her feet for a split second, long enough to knock her off balance and slam her to the ground. I got on top of her, pinning her.
No teasing, no playing, no mercy. I laid my forearm across her neck and leaned with all my weight. She choked, her breath wheezing, whining. I brought my face to within a couple of inches of hers. She snapped, snarling, a wolf’s actions showing through her human body.
I slapped her. Claws raked her face, ripping open her cheek. My claws had come back; I hadn’t even felt them. A noise, not quite a growl, of pain, anger, hopelessness welled up in my chest. I hated her. I hated this.
A keening squeal, part human cry, part wolf in pain, distracted me. I looked to the scrub-filled yard beyond the patio. Shadows, I saw only black shapes against the darkening sky. I lifted my nose to a breeze that had started licking through the trees. I smelled trees, rain, pack, territory, wolves, and blood. The tang of blood crawled down my throat. A lot of blood, and the stench of waste along with it.
Two figures huddled on the ground. One of them stood, rolled back his broad shoulders, turned his bearded face toward us. Carl. The other figure lay facedown, unmoving. I bit my lip and whined.
I’d never moved so fast. I
forgot Meg and ran to T.J. Carl, his right arm bloody to the elbow, reached for me but I dodged, skirting around him and sliding to the ground near T.J.’s prone form. He lay half-curled, one arm crooked under him as if he’d tried to get back up, the other arm cradling his gut, which had been ripped open. He was holding in glistening mounds, strange lumps of tissue—organs—which were straining through the gashes cutting upward through his abdomen, to his rib cage, under his rib cage. His heart’s blood poured out of the wound.
We healed quickly only if we survived the wounds in the first place.
Crying, gritting my teeth to keep from making noise, I lay on the ground beside him. I touched his face. “T.J., T.J.,” I kept saying. I brought my face close to his, our foreheads touching. I wanted him to know I was here. “T.J.”
He made a sound, a grunt ending in a sigh. His eyes were closed. His lips moved, and I leaned in close. If he tried to speak, I never heard what he wanted to say. I kept listening for the next sigh, the next breath, and it never came. I said his name, hoping he heard me. Hoping it gave him a little comfort. I tangled my fingers in his hair, holding him.
I kept . . . hoping.
Then Carl was there, looming over us. I wasn’t scared; I wasn’t even angry. I was hopeless. Despair had made my face flush with tears.
I looked up at him, and my voice ripped out of me. “He was your friend!”
Carl was shaking; it showed as a trembling in his arms. “He shouldn’t have challenged me.”
“He didn’t challenge you! He was going to walk away!” I bared my teeth, a grimace of contempt. “He’s worth a hundred of you. Killing him doesn’t change that.”
Glaring down at us, Meg joined Carl. She was a mess, her face and arms dripping blood. She wouldn’t last in a fight. But standing behind Carl, she acted like it.
Almost spitting the words, she said, “Finish her. Leave her with him.”
I met Carl’s gaze. Held it for a long time. He looked hopeless as well. It was like we both wondered how it could have been different. That all of this should have been different. Starting with the night that I never should have been made one of them.
He shook his head slowly. “No. She won’t fight now.” When Meg looked like she was going to argue, he took hold of the back of her neck, and she stilled. To me he said, “You have a day to leave town. I want you out of my territory.”
He could have his territory.
Before standing, I buried my nose in T.J.’s hair and took a deep breath, to remember the smell of him. The oil and grease of his bike, the heat of his kitchen. His soap, his jacket, a faint touch of cigarette, a stronger scent of pine. His wolf, sweaty and wild. He smelled like wind at the edge of the city.
I straightened, looking away. Never look back.
His tone hateful and biting, Carl said, “T.J. paid for your life. Remember that.”
I swallowed a sob and ran.
EPILOGUE
Okay, we’re back with The Midnight Hour. We have time to take a couple more calls for my guest this evening, Senator Joseph Duke, Republican from Missouri. Evan from San Diego, you’re on the air.”
“Yeah, hi,” Evan said. “Senator Duke, first off I want to thank you for being one of the few members of our government willing to stand up for his beliefs—”
Inwardly, I groaned. Calls that started this way always ended with Bible thumping.
Duke said, “Why, thank you, Evan. Of course it’s my God-given duty to stand for the place of moral rectitude in the United States Congress.”
“Uh, yeah. And for my question, what I really want to know: In your knowledgeable opinion, what is the best method for punishing the minions of Satan—burning at the stake or drowning in holy water? If the federal government were to institute a code of mandatory punishment, which would you advocate?”
Why did people like this even listen to my show? Probably to collect quotes they could take out of context. The answers I gave to vampire orgy questions always came back to haunt me later.
The senator had the good grace to look discomfited. He shifted in his seat and pursed his lips. “Well, Evan, I’m afraid I’m not the expert on punishing the unrighteous you think I am. In this day and age, I believe the current penal system addresses any crimes for which the minions of Satan might be convicted, and the just punishments for those crimes. And if they come up with new crimes, well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, won’t we?”
That was what made guys like Duke so scary. They were so articulate in making the weirdest statements.
Senator Joseph Duke, a fifty-something nondescript picture of Middle America, like the guy in the American Gothic painting but twenty pounds heavier, sat at the other end of the table, as far away from me as he possibly could and still reach the microphone. He had two suited bodyguards with him. One of them had his gun drawn, propped in the crook of his crossed arms. The senator refused to be in the same room with me without the bodyguards. I asked about the gun—silver bullets? Of course.
After all the people declaring that the show and my identity had to be hoaxes, part of some elaborate ratings scheme, or a sick joke played on my gullible fans, Duke’s unquestioning belief in my nature was almost refreshing. He almost refused to come on the show at all—originally he’d been scheduled to appear the week after Cormac invaded. We’d had to postpone. I’d had to agree to the bodyguards.
“Next caller, please. Lucy, hello.”
“Hello, Kitty. Senator, I want to know how after all your talk about smiting heathens and ridding the country of the nefarious influences of the unrighteous, which you have openly stated include werewolves, can you sit there in the same room with Kitty like nothing’s wrong?” I couldn’t judge Lucy’s tone. It might have been the height of sarcasm, her trying to get a rise out of him; or she might have been in earnest.
“Lucy, the Lord Jesus taught us not to abandon the unrighteous. That even the gravest sinner might be saved if they only let the light of Christ into their hearts. I see my time on this show as the ultimate chance to reach out to the unrighteous.”
In my experience, becoming a werewolf had more to do with bad luck than with being a sinner. I couldn’t mock his belief, or his sentiment, though. He wasn’t advocating mass werewolf slayings, which made him better than some people. My folder of death threats had gotten thick over the months.
Lucy said, “So, Kitty, has he reached out to you?”
A couple of impolite responses occurred to me, and for once I kept them on the inside. “Well, as I’ve said before, while I may not be the most righteous bitch on the airwaves, I certainly don’t feel particularly unrighteous. But I’m probably using the word differently than the senator. Let’s just say I’m listening attentively, as usual.”
The sound engineer gestured through the window to the booth, giving me a count of time left. Not Matt. I was in Albuquerque this week, at a public radio station that carried the show. It wasn’t my booth, or my microphone, and the chair was too new, not as squishy as my chair back at KNOB. I missed that chair. I missed Matt.
“All right, faithful listeners—and mind you, I’m probably using the word ‘faithful’ differently than Senator Duke would use it. We’ve got just a couple of minutes left for closing words. Senator, I have one more question for you, if you don’t mind.”
“Go right ahead.”
“Earlier in the show we discussed the little-publicized report released by a branch of the NIH, a government-sponsored study that made an empirical examination of supernatural beings such as werewolves and vampires. I’d like to ask you, if I may: If the U.S. government is on the verge of labeling lycanthropy and vampirism as diseases—by that I mean identifiable physiological conditions—how does that reconcile with the stance taken by many religious doctrines that these conditions are marks of sin?”
“Well, Ms. Norville, like you, I’ve read that report. And rather than contradicting my stance on these conditions as you call them, I believe it supports me.”
&
nbsp; “How?”
“I said before that I want to reach out to people suffering from these terrible afflictions—just as we as a society must reach out to anyone suffering from illness. We must help them find their way to the righteous path of light.”
And what did the vampires think of being led to the path of light?
“How would you do this, Senator?” I said, a tad more diplomatically.
He straightened, launching on a speech like he’d been waiting for this moment, for this exact question. “Many diseases, such as lycanthropy and vampirism in particular, are highly contagious. Folklore has taught us this for centuries, and now modern science confirms it.”
“I’d argue with the highly, but go on.”
“As with any contagious disease, the first step should be to isolate the victims. Prevent the spread of the disease. By taking firm steps, I believe we could wipe out these conditions forever, in just a few years.”
A vague, squishy feeling settled on my stomach. “So you would . . . and please, correct me if I’ve misinterpreted . . . you would round up all the werewolves you could and force them into, what? Hospitals, housing projects—” Dare I say it? Oh, sure. “—ghettos?”
Duke missed the jab entirely. “I think hospitals in this case would be most appropriate. I’m confident that given the time and resources, science will find a way to eradicate the mark of the beast that has settled on these blighted souls.”
If it wasn’t so sad, I’d laugh. Trouble was, I’d talked to people like this enough to know I’d never argue them out of their beliefs. “Right. I think I and my blighted soul need a drink. That must mean we’re near the end of our time. Once again, Senator Duke, thank you so much for being on the show.”
“Thank you for having me. And I want you to know that I am praying for you. You can be saved.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” The other thing about people like this was how they completely lacked the ability to identify sarcasm. “Right, I think we have a whole lot of food for thought after that. And just so everyone out there is clear about how I stand on the issue, and because I’ve never been shy about expressing my opinion: I think we need to look to the lessons of history when we discuss how the government should handle these issues. I for one don’t want people with black armbands coming for me in the middle of the night.” This was my show. I always got the last word.