“Did you two come out here to tag-team me or what?” I said.
Shaun looked away at that, because I was right. Mick didn’t. He said, “Well? How about it?”
“I thought of going back to Vegas. Did you consider that they may want us to do exactly that? That it’s a trap? This is a cult that sacrifices werewolves. I don’t want any of us going within a hundred miles of there.”
Mick started in with more confidence, still staring at me like this was a challenge. “Then we hire someone to go there for us. Or we call the police.”
“And prove to the cops what’s happening, how?”
“I don’t know—you think of something, you know so much.”
“What, you don’t like my icky blood spell?” I dipped my finger into the mixture and pointed it at him. Maybe I could obnoxious him into submission.
“I’m worried, Kitty. I’m worried that you can’t handle this,” Mick said.
“You think someone else could handle it better?”
“I think if it wasn’t for you, this wouldn’t be happening.”
Ben, who had been standing behind my shoulder the whole time, studying the pair of them, sprang. Surprised the hell out of me. Out of all of us. Ben grabbed Mick’s T-shirt at the shoulders, wrapped it in his fists, spun him around, and shoved him to the brick wall of the building. Held them there. It was over before I could blink.
Ben’s teeth were bared. Mick’s eyes were wide, his feet working to try and scramble away. All his bravado vanished. Now he was scared. Ben was close enough—and seemed angry enough—to take a bite out of him.
I stared. “Wow. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Neither did I,” Ben said, his voice hoarse. His expression was taut, his whole body tense, and his wolf glared out of his eyes. He gave Mick one last shove, then stepped away, rolling his shoulders back, shivering almost. His breathing slowed. Mick backed away to stand next to Shaun.
I moved to Ben and squeezed his hand. Come back to me, I thought at him. I wanted him to be human, not wolf, right now. I wanted to work this out as human beings.
“I was really hoping we could have a pack where this sort of thing wouldn’t happen,” I said, sighing. New Moon was supposed to be the symbol of that. Peaceful cooperation. It was damaged, and look what happened.
“I’m sorry,” Mick said, not meeting my gaze, only glancing warily at Ben. “I didn’t mean for this to look like a challenge. But I’m worried.”
“Yeah,” I admitted, my voice soft. “But we’re working on it. We’ll figure this out. Tell everyone we’ll figure this out.”
Again, they glanced at each other. My hunch had been correct. They’d been talking to everyone in the pack. They, the toughest nonalpha males, had been appointed spokeswolves. And now they were backing down. Maybe I could do this job.
Shaun said, “How did you know we’ve been talking?”
“Female intuition,” I said. “I have to go meet with some paranormal investigators about this whole brouhaha. Will you guys be okay if I leave you alone?”
“Paranormal investigators?” Shaun said. Finally, he was smiling, at least a little. “So you really are working on this.”
“Yeah, I am.”
“We’ll be fine,” Ben said. I was confident he was right.
Ben walked me to my car.
“You okay?” I asked. I didn’t know how close we’d come to a fight back there. I didn’t really want to know. Ben was still tense.
“Yeah. It just came out of nowhere. I just couldn’t let them talk anymore. Or the wolf side couldn’t. Hard to explain.”
“Well, thanks,” I said. “I’m sure they’ll go back and tell everyone you’re way tougher than you look. They’ll be absolutely cringing around you from now on.”
“Funny. I’ve come to rely on your fast-talking us out of these situations. Talk faster next time, okay?”
I grinned. “Sure.”
We exchanged a kiss—a warm, comfortable, all’s-well-with-the-world kiss—before I zoomed off to my next appointment.
As I was getting in my car, the grumble of a motorcycle engine revving caught my attention. The bike was at the end of the block. The rider looked around quickly, then set off with enough speed that his tires squealed. He took the corner at a steep angle and was gone. I caught only a glimpse; the rider wore a helmet, but I recognized the canvas army jacket.
Peter Gurney was tracking me.
After a moment of thought, I decided that didn’t bother me. Maybe this was something he had to do, to feel he was learning as much about T.J. as he could. He could learn from me—I didn’t have anything to hide. He was quite a ways down on the list of things I was worried about at the moment.
I called the Paradox crew to tell them I’d be late. Arriving at last, I found Jules and Tina waiting for me in the hospital cafeteria, sparsely populated after the lunchtime rush. They sat around a table, slumped forward, gazes vacant—still looking shell-shocked. Tina had a smoky cough. We’d been so worried about Gary, the rest of us had only sat still for cursory examinations by the paramedics. Smoke inhalation, minor burns. Get some rest was what we were told.
I felt fine, but I was a werewolf with super healing. I ought to tell them to get to bed to rest and heal. But I kept thinking, what if this happened again, and again? And now I’d dragged them into it.
“How’s everyone this morning?” I greeted them, and they all grumbled. “How’s Gary?”
When they didn’t answer right away, I assumed the worst. I was all ready to run up to his room and check on him myself—assuming he was still there, but Tina said, “He’s awake. He’s okay. He’s still a little groggy, but he’ll be okay.”
Relieved, I sank into a free chair and blew out a sigh. “That’s really good to hear. Have you told him about your, um, talent yet?” I kind of wanted to be there for that conversation.
“Uh, no,” Tina said. “I figured I’d wait until he was back on his feet.”
I was going to say something about whether they’d be interested in doing the big reveal on my show, but Tina wrinkled her nose and peered hard at me. “What’s wrong?” I said, wary.
“Are you okay? You’ve got something weird going on. This smell.”
I wondered . . . I was carrying a jar of the blood-and-ruin potion in my bag, for the Paradox crew to use.
“Er,” I said, chagrined. “I didn’t think nonlycanthropes could smell it.”
“Smell what?” Jules said.
“You can’t smell that?” Tina said. “Oh, God, don’t tell me—”
Tina didn’t really smell it—she sensed it. Which gave me hope, because that meant there was something weird and magical about it. Maybe it would work.
I revealed the jar, half filled with viscous black goo. They twisted their faces up in expressions of disgust. “It’s supposed to be a protection spell.”
“What is it?” Jules said, already repulsed, though I hadn’t even told him.
“Blood mixed with dust from a ruin.”
They both went Eww.
“Got that out of a book, didn’t you?” Jules said, cutting. “Something by Crowley, maybe?”
“As a matter of fact, no,” I said. “I happen to have a consultant on the case. Like you guys. Have your contacts been able to turn up anything? Any ideas what we do next to track this thing down?”
Again, they answered with a long, hard silence. I blinked at them. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s really hard saying this, Kitty,” Jules said.
“Because you’re a coward,” Tina muttered. Jules glared at him.
“What?” I said. “What’s hard?”
They exchanged glances, frowning, slouching. If anything, they looked even more glum than they had when I arrived.
“We’re leaving Denver,” Jules said finally. “The producers yanked the plug when they found out what happened. What you’ve uncovered here, it’s simply too dangerous.”
“I think we should stay,” Ti
na said, angry. This argument might have been going on all morning. “Gary wants to stay.”
“Gary’s in no state to be making these decisions,” Jules said. “Besides, it’s the producers’ call, and they want out. It’s back to ordinary haunted houses for us.”
Looked like the werewolf pack wasn’t the only group facing mutiny today.
Tina glared. “I’d rather listen to concussed Gary than the producers.”
“Tina, it’s too much. Voices in the attic are one thing. But this—we can’t handle it.”
The thing was, I couldn’t blame them. Not even a little bit. This was my problem, not theirs. One of their people had been hurt, tens of thousands of dollars of equipment destroyed. Getting the hell out of town was the smartest thing to do.
I nodded, understanding. But I couldn’t let them off that easy. “I thought you were investigators. I thought you wanted to study this sort of thing. Now you’re telling me if it’s not clean and pretty enough for TV you don’t want anything to do with it?”
“Kitty, that’s not fair,” Jules said.
“No,” I said. “It really isn’t. None of this is. But you”—I nodded at Tina—“contacted this thing. You came closer to it than I ever could. And you”—at Jules this time—“have skills and knowledge to learn what it really is. You told me you got into this field because you were curious. Because you had to know. But I guess you don’t have to know that badly.”
They looked at me, and it was making me nervous. I wasn’t going to change their minds by spouting platitudes at them, so I stood. Before I left, I put a jar of protection goo in the middle of the table.
“Just in case,” I said and turned to stalk out. Maybe I hoped that they’d have a change of heart and call me back. They didn’t.
Chapter 9
My last stop had to wait until after nightfall, when I went to see Rick.
Rick occupied his predecessor’s lair, which masqueraded as a high-end art and antique gallery called Obsidian. I’d never seen the place actually open for business, and no hours were posted in the window.
I didn’t go in by the front door but passed right by the glass-fronted, stylish facade and went around back, where a concrete stairway led down to a utility door in the basement—the real vampire lair. I felt like an idiot knocking on the door. I should have had Girl Scout cookies or something.
I wasn’t sure anyone would even answer; usually, we called each other and met someplace. Then the door opened in. A youngish-looking, annoyed guy stood there glaring at me—vampire, of course. He didn’t look any different than anyone else, but the smell gave him away: cold. No warm blood moved under his skin. Rick had vampire minions, about the same number as I had wolves in my pack, some of whom had been Arturo’s followers. I didn’t know how smoothly the transition to the new leadership was going. Maybe I’d find out.
“Hi!” I said, and suppressed the “Avon calling” joke on the tip of my tongue. We have some blush that would really do wonders for your pale complexion . . . “Is Rick in?”
“Why are you here?” he said.
“I need to see Rick.” My voice went lower, almost into a growl. My shoulders tightened. Wolf felt challenged, and I glared. But didn’t meet his vampiric gaze.
His lip curled, like I’d said something funny. “You don’t have the authority to beg an audience of the Master.”
Oh, great. An old-school freak. I didn’t have any patience for this bullshit.
“If you expect me to stand here and give you some line about how I do have the authority, as the alpha female of the werewolves beseeching his most exaltedness for a bare second of his infinite amount of time, yadda yadda and so on—no. Just no. You tell Rick I need to talk to him, and if he tells me to go away, fine, but I’m not going to argue about it with some flunky who has an inflated sense of his own importance. Being a vampire doesn’t make you God or anything. Which leaves me baffled as to why you all feel the need to act like it.”
His vampire hauteur slipped as he stared at me. Now he just seemed like a guy watching a car wreck.
“You have issues, don’t you?” he said.
“You have no idea.” As soon as I found a therapist who could even begin to deal with those issues, I might do something about it.
“I’m still not going to let you in to see Rick.”
I took a deep breath for another round of arguing.
“Angelo.” Rick appeared behind the gatekeeper, a shoulder to the wall, arms crossed, regarding the scene with amusement. Angelo started as much as I did; neither of us had sensed him approach.
On seeing him, Angelo ducked his head, cowering almost. He lowered his gaze and stepped back. The submissive gesture was almost wolfish.
“Let her through,” Rick said. “I’ll talk to her.”
Without another word, Angelo stepped aside. He glared fiercely at me as I passed by him.
Side by side, Rick and I walked down the nondescript corridor to the inner sanctum.
“What’s his problem?” I said.
“He was one of Arturo’s, and he’s decided he needs to work very hard to prove his loyalty to me. He doesn’t seem to understand that I don’t want to run things quite like Arturo did.”
I was really glad that none of the wolves expected me to run the pack the way the old alphas did, which usually involved beating people up.
Inside the door to the back room, I had to stop and look around. I hadn’t seen the place since Rick moved in. Mostly, it looked like a comfortable living room, or a library reading room. A couple of sofas and armchairs were grouped around a plain wood coffee table. Shelves on the wall were filled with books and boxes, almost cluttered. The walls were wood paneling, and area rugs softened the scuffed hardwood floor. A few lamps gave the whole room a warm glow.
“I like what you’ve done to the place.”
“Thanks,” he said.
Arturo, who’d acted like the king of his own little world, had made the room a baroque fantasy, with tapestries on the walls, Persian rugs, and big red velvet and gilt chairs. Rick’s decoration, practical and welcoming, almost made the place look like home. I might actually start to like spending time here.
On the far end, where Arturo had had what was essentially a throne on a dais, Rick had kept the dais but put a desk and big leather chair on it, turning it into an office. On top of the desk was a computer.
“Ooh!” I said, admiring it. “So vampires aren’t allergic to technology.”
He slid into the chair behind the desk and leaned back—very much like Arturo used to do in his plush and gilt monstrosity—and gave me a look.
I continued, “Now, what does a vampire do with a computer? Keep track of investments? Send e-mail to other vampires as you all plot to take over the world?”
“I spend a lot of time on Wikipedia making corrections to the entries of historical figures I’ve known.”
I blinked at him. “Really?”
“No, Kitty. That was a joke.”
“Oh. Because, you know, maybe you should.”
“What’s wrong? You wouldn’t have come here to talk to me unless something’s happened.”
I pulled out yet another jar of Odysseus Grant’s potion and set it on his desk.
He wrinkled his nose in disgust at it, even as he leaned forward for a closer look.
“What in the world is that?”
I shrugged. I was putting a lot of faith in this. “Ancient Egyptian protection spell. My attacker’s been active the last couple of days.”
“Yes. I heard about New Moon. Is everything going to be all right?”
“I think so. But I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. I don’t want to take any chances, so—here. If you want it.”
He didn’t seem any more enthusiastic about it, staring at the jar, vaguely repulsed. “We’re resorting to witchcraft now?”
“You say it like you don’t believe it’ll work.”
“It won’t, against a vampire.” Spoken with true vampi
re smugness.
I was starting to lose patience with him—it was like he wasn’t listening to me. “I know you think this is part of some vampire plot. But it wasn’t a vampire that tipped that van over or tried to burn down New Moon. This is something else entirely, and I could really use your help.”
“Kitty, I promise, I’m doing everything I can.”
“Like what? What are you doing? Pulling the Batman stunt on the tops of skyscrapers waiting for someone to walk along wearing a sign that says ‘I’m the bad guy’? Do you have minions scouring the far corners of the globe for information? What are you doing?”
He studied me, calm and unflustered. Very little flustered Rick. When it did, he didn’t panic. He just got angry. Calmly and pointedly angry.
“Here’s what I know: This thing is invisible. It displays sentience and motivation. It’s chosen the moments of its attacks carefully. The attacks are elemental, tied to fire. That makes it an old kind of magic—the kind of magic a vampire might use.”
I tried to be calm like Rick. Calm like a vampire. “You’re hunting for vampires. But what if this has nothing to do with vampire politics? This isn’t about vampires, it’s about revenge against me.”
“A group led by a vampire is making attacks in my territory. This may not have begun with vampire politics, but I find it hard to ignore the implications. Magic like this doesn’t come cheap. Is all this really a simple revenge plot?”
I had assumed it was pure revenge. We’d killed their head lycanthrope and several members of their cult and ruined their ritual. Revenge seemed like a good enough reason. “Now who’s being paranoid?”
“When vampires are involved, the web is more tangled than you think,” he said.
He had a point. Damn stupid vampires and their stupid sense of stupid superiority—
Rick turned aside to answer his cell phone. I hadn’t even heard it ring.
“Yes?” A few moments of listening. I couldn’t hear a thing, and I tried. “I’ll be there in a minute. Stay out of sight.”