Had there been a plan when I started this?
Who was I to think I could actually help some of these people? I couldn’t get along without my pack. Maybe James was different.
“I don’t know, James. I don’t know anything about your life. If you want me to sit here and validate you, tell you that yeah, you’re right, you don’t need a pack and everything’s going to be okay, I can’t do that. I don’t have the answers. I can only go by what I hear and think. Look at your life and decide if you’re happy with it. If you can live with it and the people around you can live with it, fine, great, you don’t need a pack. If you’re not happy, decide why that is and do something about it. Maybe a pack would help, maybe not. This is a strange, strange world we’re talking about. It’d be stupid to think that one rule applies to everyone.” I waited a couple of heartbeats. I could hear his breathing over the line. “James, you okay?”
Another heartbeat of a pause. “Yeah.”
“I’m going to the next call now. Keep your chin up and take it one day at a time.”
“Okay, Kitty. Thanks.”
Please, please, please let the next call be an easy one. I hit the phone line.
“You’re on the air.”
“Hi, Kitty. So, I’ve been a lycanthrope for about six years now, and I think I’ve adjusted pretty well. I get along with my pack and all.”
“Good, good.”
“But I don’t know if I can talk to them about this. See, I’ve got this rash—”
I had an office. Not a big office. More like a closet with a desk. But I had my own telephone. I had business cards. Kitty Norville, The Midnight Hour, KNOB. There was a time just a few months ago when I’d assumed I would never have a real job. Now I did. Business cards. Who’d have guessed?
The show aired once a week, but I worked almost every day. Afternoons and evenings, mostly, in keeping with the nocturnal schedule I’d adopted. I spent an unbelievable amount of time dealing with organizational crap: setting up guest interviews, running damage control, doing research. I didn’t mind. It made me feel like a real journalist, like my NPR heroes. I even got calls from the media. The show was fringe, it was wacky, and it was starting to attract attention from people who monitored pop-culture weirdness. A lot of people thought it was a gimmick appealing to the goth crowd. I had developed a set of canned answers for just about every question.
I got asked a lot if I was a vampire/lycanthrope/
witch/whatever; from the skeptics the question was if I thought I was a vampire/lycanthrope/witch/whatever. I always said I was human. Not a lie, exactly. What else could I say?
I liked the research. I had a clipping service that delivered articles from all walks of media about anything pertaining to vampires, lycanthropes, magic, witchcraft, ghosts, psychic research, crop circles, telepathy, divining, lost cities—anything. Lots of grist for the mill.
A producer from Uncharted World called to see if I wanted to be on the show. I said no. I wasn’t ready for television. I was never going to be ready for television. No need to expose myself any more than necessary.
I got fan mail. Well, some of it was fan mail. Some of it was more along the lines of “Die, you satanic bitch from hell.” I had a folder that I kept those in and gave to the police every week. If I ever got assassinated, they’d have a nice, juicy suspect list. Right.
Werewolves really are immune to regular bullets. I’ve seen it.
Six months. I’d done the show once a week for six months. Twenty-four episodes. I was broadcast on sixty-two stations, nationwide. Small potatoes in the world of syndicated talk radio. But I thought it was huge. I thought I would have gotten tired of it by now. But I always seemed to have more to talk about.
One evening, seven or eight o’clock, I was in my office—my office!—reading the local newspaper. The downtown mauling death of a prostitute made it to page three. I hadn’t gotten past the first paragraph when my phone—my phone!—rang.
“Hello, this is Kitty.”
“You’re Kitty Norville?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like to talk to you.”
“Who is this?”
He hesitated a beat before continuing. “These people who call you—the ones who say they’re psychic, or vampires and werewolves—do you believe them? Do you believe it’s real?”
I suddenly felt like I was doing the show, on the phone, confronting the bizarreness that was my life head-on. But it was just me and the guy on the phone. He sounded . . . ordinary.
When I did the show, I had to draw people out. I had to answer them in a way that made them comfortable enough to keep talking. I wanted to draw this guy out.
“Yes, I do.”
“Do they scare you?”
My brow puckered. I couldn’t guess where this was going. “No. They’re people. Vampirism, the rest of it—they’re diseases, not a mark of evil. It’s unfortunate that some people use them as a license to be evil. But you can’t condemn all of them because of that.”
“That’s an unusually rational attitude, Ms. Norville.” The voice took on an edge. Authoritative. Decisive, like he knew where he stood now.
“Who are you?”
“I’m attached to a government agency—”
“Which one?”
“Never mind that. I shouldn’t even be talking to you like this—”
“Oh, give me a break!”
“I’ve wondered for some time now what your motivations are in doing your show.”
“Let me at least take a guess. Are you with the NIH?”
“I’m not sure the idea would have occurred to someone who didn’t have a . . . personal . . . interest.”
A chill made my hair stand on end. This was getting too close.
I said, “So, are you with the CDC?”
A pause, then, “Don’t misunderstand me, I admire the work you’re doing. But you’ve piqued my curiosity. Ms. Norville—what are you?”
Okay, this was just weird. I had to talk fast to fend off panic. “What do you mean, ‘what am I?’”
“I think we can help each other. An exchange of information, perhaps.”
Feeling a bit like the miller’s daughter in Rumpelstiltskin, I took a wild stab. “Are you with the CIA?”
He said, “See what you can find on the Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology.” Then he hung up.
Great, I had my own personal Deep Throat.
Hard to focus on work after that. I kept turning the conversation over in my mind, wondering what I’d missed and what someone like that could accomplish by calling me.
I couldn’t have been brooding for more than five minutes when the phone rang again. I flinched, startled, and tried to get my heart to stop racing before I answered. I was sure the caller would be able to hear it over the phone.
I answered warily. “Hello?”
“Kitty? It’s your mother.” Mom, sounding as cheerful and normal as ever. I closed my eyes and sighed.
“Hi, Mom. What’s up?”
“You never told me if you were going to be able to make it to your cousin Amanda’s wedding. I need to let them know.”
I had completely forgotten. Mostly because I didn’t, under any circumstances, want to go. Weddings meant crowds. I didn’t like crowds. And questions. Like, “So when is it going to be your turn?” Or, “Do you have anyone special?”
I mean, define special.
I tried to be a little more polite. Mom didn’t deserve aimless venting. I pulled out my organizer.
“I don’t know, when is it again?” She gave me the date, I flipped ahead to next month and looked. The day after the full moon. There was no way I’d be in any kind of decent shape to meet the family the day after the full moon. I couldn’t handle being nice to that many people the day after the full moon.
Now if only I could think of an excuse I could tell my mother.
“I’m sorry, I’ve got something else going on. I’ll have to miss it.”
“I think
Amanda would really like you to be there.”
“I know, I know. I’m really sorry. I’ll send her a card.” I even wrote myself a note to send her a card, then and there. To tell the truth, I didn’t think Amanda would miss me all that much. But there were other forces at work here. Mom didn’t want to have to explain to everyone why I was absent, any more than I wanted to tell her why I was going to be absent.
“You know, Kitty, you’ve missed the last few big family get-togethers. If you’re busy I understand, but it would be nice if you could make an appearance once in a while.”
It was her birthday all over again. That subtle, insipid guilt trip that only mothers are capable of delivering. It wasn’t like I was avoiding the family simply for the sake of avoiding them.
“I’ll try next time.” I said that every time.
She wouldn’t let up. “I know you don’t like me worrying about you. But you used to be so outgoing, and now—” I could picture her shrugging in lieu of cohesive thought. “Is everything okay?”
Sometimes I wished I could tell her I was a lesbian or something. “Everything’s fine, Mom. I’m just busy. Don’t worry.”
“Are you sure, because if you ever need to talk—”
I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t imagine what sort of nightmare scenarios she’d developed about what I was doing when I said I was busy. But I couldn’t tell her the truth. She was nice. Normal. She wore pantsuits and sold real estate. Played tennis with my dad. Try explaining werewolves to that.
“Mom, I really need to get back to work. I know you’re worried, I appreciate it, but everything’s fine, I promise.” Lying through my teeth, actually, but what else could I say?
“All right, then.” She didn’t sound convinced. “Call me if you change your mind about the wedding.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to you later.”
The sound of the phone clicking off was like a weight lifting from my shoulders.
A telephone. Business cards. Next, I needed a secretary to screen my calls.
When a knock on my door frame sounded a few minutes later, I just about hit the ceiling. I dropped the newspaper I’d been reading and looked up to see a man standing in the doorway. My office had a door, but I rarely closed it. He’d arrived without my noticing.
He was of average height and build, with dark hair brushing his shoulders and refined features. Unassuming in most respects, except that he smelled like a corpse. A well-preserved corpse, granted. He didn’t smell rotten. But he smelled of cold blood instead of hot blood, and he didn’t have a heartbeat.
Vampires had this way of sneaking around without anyone noticing them. He’d probably walked right past the security guy in the lobby of the building.
I recognized this vampire: Rick.
I’d met him a couple of times when Carl and Arturo got together to resolve squabbles. He was a strange one. He was part of Arturo’s Family, but he didn’t seem much interested in the politics of it; he always lingered at the edges of the Family, never close to Arturo himself. He didn’t cultivate the demeanor of ennui that was ubiquitous among vampires. He could actually laugh at someone else’s jokes. When I asked nicely he told stories about the Old West. The real Old West—he’d been there.
Sighing, my hair and blood prickling with anxiety, I slumped back in my chair. I tried to act casual, as if his presence didn’t bother me.
“Hi, Rick.”
His lips turned in a half-smile. When he spoke, he showed fangs, slender, needle-sharp teeth where canines should have been. “Sorry if I startled you.”
“No you aren’t. You enjoyed it.”
“I’d hate to lose my knack for it.”
“I thought you couldn’t come in here unless I invited you.”
“That doesn’t apply to commercial property.”
“So. What brings you here?” The question came out tense. He could only be here because I hadn’t quit doing the show and Arturo wasn’t happy about it.
His expression didn’t waver. “What do you think I’m here for?”
I glared, in no mood for any more mind games tonight. “Arturo told Carl to make me quit the show. I haven’t quit. I assume His Mighty Undeadness is going to start harassing me directly to try and get me off the air. He sent you to deliver some sort of threat.”
“That’s a little paranoid, isn’t it?”
I pointed. “Not if they’re really out to get me.”
“Arturo didn’t send me.”
I narrowed my gaze, suspicious. “He didn’t?”
“He doesn’t know I’m here.”
Which changed everything. Assuming Rick was telling the truth, but he had no reason not to. If he was seeing me behind Arturo’s back, he must have a good reason.
“Then why are you here?”
“I’m trying to find some information. I wondered if you could help me.” He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket, smoothed it out, and handed it to me. “What do you make of this?”
It was a flyer printed on goldenrod-colored paper. The production value was low. It might even have been typewritten, then photocopied at a supermarket. It read,
Do you need help? Have you been cursed? Vampires, lycanthropes, there is hope for you! There is a cure! The Reverend Elijah Smith and his Church of the Pure Faith want to save you. Pure Faith Will Set You Free.
The bottom of the flyer listed a date a few weeks old. The site was an old ranch thirty miles north of town, near Brighton.
Reading it over again, my brow wrinkled. It sounded laughable. I conjured an image of a stereotypical southern preacher laying hands on, oh, someone like Carl. Banishing the demons, amen and hallelujah. Carl would bite his head off—for real.
“A cure? Through faith healing? Is this a joke?”
“No, unfortunately. One of Arturo’s followers left to join them. We haven’t seen her since. Personally, I smell a rat and I’m worried.”
“Yeah, no kidding. Arturo must be pissed off.”
“Yes. But it’s been next to impossible to learn anything about this Smith and his church. Arturo’s too proud to ask for help. I’m not. You have contacts. I wondered if you’d heard anything.”
“No.” I flipped the page over, as if it would reveal more secrets, but the back was blank. “A cure, huh? Does it work?”
Every hint of a cure I’d ever tracked down had turned out to be myth. Smoke and folklore. I could be forgiven for showing skepticism.
“I don’t know,” he said simply.
“I’ve never heard of a cure actually working.”
“Neither have I.”
“Arturo’s follower thought it was for real. And she never came back. So—it worked?”
“Some might be attracted by such a possibility. Enticing bait, if someone wanted to lure people like us.”
“Lure why?”
He shrugged. “To trap them, kill them. Enslave them. Such things have happened before.”
The possibilities he suggested were downright ominous. They incited a nebulous fear of purposes I couldn’t imagine. Witch hunts, pogroms. Reality TV.
He was only trying to scare me so I’d get righteously indignant enough to do something about this. It worked.
“I’ll see what I can find out.” Grist for the mill. I wondered if Smith would come on the show for an interview.
“Thank you.”
“Thanks for the tip.” I pursed my lips, suppressing a grin. “It’s a good thing the humble subordinates keep running around their leaders’ backs, or nothing would get done around here.”
Rick gazed innocently at the ceiling. “Well, I wouldn’t say anything like that to Arturo’s face. Or Carl’s.”
Things always came back to them, didn’t they? The Master, the alpha. We were hardwired to be followers. I supposed it kept our communities from degenerating into chaos.
More somber, I said, “Do you think Arturo’s going to do anything about the show?”
“That depends on what Carl does.”
As in, if Carl did nothing, Arturo might. I winced. “Right.”
“I should be going.”
“Yeah. Take it easy.”
He nodded, almost a small bow that reminded me that Rick was old. He came from a time when gentlemen bowed to ladies. Then he was gone, as quietly as he’d arrived.
Phone. Business cards. Secretary. Maybe I also needed a receptionist. And a bodyguard.
Chapter 4
Dressed in sweatpants, sports bra, and tank top, I stood on the mat, and at the instructor’s signal, kicked at dust motes. Craig, an impossibly fit and enthusiastic college student who looked like he’d walked straight out of an MTV reality show, shouted “Go!” and the dozen of us in the class—all of us women in our twenties and thirties—kicked.
Rather than teaching a specific martial art, the class took bits and pieces from several disciplines and combined them in a technique designed to incapacitate an assailant long enough for us to run like hell. We didn’t get points for style; we didn’t spend a lot of time in mystical meditation. Instead, we drilled moves over and over again so that in a moment of panic, in the heat of an attack, we could move by instinct and defend ourselves.
It was pretty good exercise as well. Breathing hard, sweating, I could forget about the world outside the gym and let my brain go numb for an hour.
We switched sides and kicked with the other leg a dozen or so times. Then Craig put his hands on his hips.
“All right. Line up so we can do some sparring.”
I hated sparring. We’d started with a punching bag the first few sessions. Where most of the women hit the bag and barely budged it, I set it swinging. I got many admiring compliments regarding my upper-body strength. But it had nothing to do with upper-body strength. Something about werewolves made them more powerful than normal humans. Without any training at all, by just being myself and what I was, I could outfight all my classmates, and probably Craig as well.