“I want to be there when you talk to him—”
I hung up on him. Ben looked at me. “That’ll piss him off.”
“I’ll deal with him later. Rick can deal with him later.”
Ben started the car. “Then you know where we’re going?”
“Yeah. St. Cajetan’s.”
“I knew it.” The car pulled away from the curb. “What about those protective spells?”
“I just want to talk, we’re not going to provoke anyone. We should be fine.” Famous last words.
“You sure you don’t want to go home first?”
“Let’s get this over with.”
The drive took almost half an hour. I could have waited, but I called Cheryl instead.
“Hey,” I said when she answered.
“Kitty! Oh my God, where are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Ben found me. Cheryl, I’m sorry I ran off on you.” There, I said it. I felt relieved.
“What the hell happened?”
“I lost my temper.”
“Oh, is that all,” she said, with a thick layer of sarcasm.
“Can it, Cheryl,” I said, my exhaustion plain.
“Seriously, Kitty—are you okay?” She actually sounded concerned. Not demanding, not frustrated. She was across town, but I could feel her hugging me.
“I will be,” I said, with unexpected honesty. I wasn’t okay, obviously. Not completely. “I’ve just had a lot going on this week. I’m a little on edge.”
“And I tipped you over?”
I smiled. “Maybe just a little.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.”
“Kitty—thanks for calling. You should get some rest, you sound thrashed.”
Yeah, I probably did. Too bad I had a couple of chores first. “I’ll come pick up my car later.”
“Don’t worry about it. If we have to move it we will. You dropped your keys.”
Of course I did. Just another thing to worry about. “I love you, Cheryl.”
“I love you, too.”
As I hung up the phone, Ben glanced over. He was smiling. “See? You didn’t traumatize her too badly.”
“I almost shifted in her kitchen.”
“But you didn’t. Think positive here.”
Yeah, right. “Full moon was just a few days ago. This is supposed to be the easiest time of the month to keep from shifting. But I totally lost it.”
“We’ll just have to be careful, at least until things let up a little.”
I liked that he put the “we” in there. But I didn’t like the feeling that I needed to be looked after. Taken care of. Babysat.
By the time we arrived downtown, streetlights were blazing and the sky was full dark. Ben crawled along the street near our destination, looking for a parking spot. Some of the surrounding offices and classroom buildings showed a few lights in the windows, but the church was dark. It loomed like a fortress over its parklike surroundings.
Ben found a spot in the driveway near the church. Between a couple of NO PARKING signs even. I raised a brow at him. “We’re not going to be here long, right? Nobody’ll know.”
The lawyer was saying this?
In the dead of night, with the engine still, the neighborhood’s silence pressed in. The streetlights seemed muted, and the air seemed hazy. It gave the place a haunted look. At least, my imagination thought so.
“It’s really tough looking for a vampire who doesn’t want to be found,” I said, stepping out of the car. Ben followed.
“Cormac would say wait until daylight and flush ‘em out.”
“Cormac says a lot of things.”
Craning my neck, I regarded the building, a hulking shadow in the city’s nighttime haze. How did I convince Rick that he wanted to be found? I walked around to the front of the church and climbed the wide steps to the front door, to try the only thing I could—the direct approach. This late, I probably wouldn’t be disturbing a lecture.
“What are you going to do, knock?” Ben asked, trailing behind.
Glancing at him over my shoulder, I gave a thin smile and knocked on one of the church’s wooden front doors.
No one answered. I tried again; the hollow thumping seemed to get swallowed up by the darkness, and by the tall bell towers looming over me. Those towers looked like they might be home to bats; on the other hand, the pale stucco of the church’s exterior, still visible even at night, didn’t do much for the gothic vampire atmosphere.
I rattled the door latch. Tonight, this late, the thing was locked. The place didn’t exactly have a window I could crawl through. Behind me, Ben crossed his arms and frowned. Visions of misdemeanor trespassing passing before his eyes, no doubt.
I trotted down the stairs and walked around the building and the rectory next door, looking for a lit window or a door that wasn’t bolted tight, but didn’t find anything and ended up back by the front steps. I knew Columban and Rick were here, I just knew it. The markings that laid out the protective circle were still here. They may even have been touched up since Cormac’s last escapade. This place was still being defended.
Halfway up the front steps, I put my hands around my mouth and called, “Rick! Rick, I need to talk to you! Rick!” I shouted up at those bell towers; their shadowed interiors stared down at me like eyes.
If he was here, he’d heard me. If he didn’t come out, he was ignoring me, just like he’d ignored my phone calls, and Angelo’s, and everything else. And I couldn’t change that.
Ben was at the foot of the steps, not watching me, but the sidewalks around the church. Keeping a look out for me. I worried that I took him for granted. I got in trouble and dragged him with me over and over. It wasn’t a good pattern.
Nothing happened.
I descended, my steps landing heavy. What else could I do but call again, leave yet another message? But I could do it from someplace warm and well lit, after a shower and change of clothes. But it felt like giving up.
When I reached the bottom, Ben put his arm around my shoulders, and together we walked back around the building to the car.
“Maybe he just doesn’t want to talk,” Ben said.
I scowled. “Maybe he’s really not here.”
“But if he’s not here, and he’s not at Obsidian, and the other vampires haven’t seen him…”
“Maybe he’s not here, in Denver.”
Rick had spent most of his life being nomadic. If he decided to leave, I couldn’t assume that he’d tell me first. I’d been alive for a bare fraction of his years—would only live for a fraction of them. Why should he care about what I thought? I wanted to believe our friendship had meant more than that. Him just leaving—that would mean he didn’t consider me a friend at all.
That was still better than thinking he’d been killed, which was an alternative I hadn’t voiced. Rick had lived for five hundred years, he couldn’t just die.
Ben slowed, his arm tugging me to a stop beside him. He nodded toward a back corner of the chapel, where a figure moved, stepping out of shadows from behind a clump of shrubbery. I didn’t recognize him at first—he was wearing a T-shirt and trousers, and his dark hair was mussed, flopped around his ears instead of combed back from his face. Without his trench coat, his shape was different.
“Rick?” I said, walking toward him.
He waited for me, lingering by the doorway he’d come out of, as if wanting to stay near shelter. “Kitty.”
“Are you okay?”
“Of course. But are you? You look like you’ve had a rough night of it.”
With the overcoat covering them, I’d forgotten my clothes were ripped enough to fall off in a slight breeze. I hugged the coat tighter around me. When I didn’t say anything, Rick looked at Ben.
“She lost it,” he said. The vampire raised an eyebrow.
“I lost my temper and shifted in the middle of Highlands Ranch.”
“She ate somebody’s cat,” Ben added. I was never going to live that
down, was I?
Rick seemed taken aback. “Really? That isn’t like you. What’s wrong?”
Everything, I almost said. “I’m a little stressed out. And this isn’t supposed to be about me, this is about you.”
“I’m fine, Kitty. What are you even doing here?”
“Angelo called me. He’s worried.”
“There’s nothing to be worried about,” Rick said curtly. “That is, as long as your bounty hunter keeps his distance.”
I didn’t want to talk about Cormac right now. The protective spell was obviously doing its job; Cormac wasn’t a threat. “The Buenos Aires vampires are going to be here in a couple of days, they’re bugging Angelo about procedure, and we haven’t talked at all about what to say to them.”
“I’m sure you can handle it,” he said. “There’s nothing I can say to them that you can’t say perfectly well on your own.”
“Besides the fact that I’m a werewolf and they probably won’t want to talk to me at all?”
“You’ll just have to convince them otherwise.”
He was dumping this all on me, all of it. The weight of the world, settling on my shoulders. Even Wolf curled up and whined at the thought.
“What’s so important that you can’t come out and deal with this?” I said. I pointed at the wall of the church. “What are you and Columban doing in there?”
“I’m…” He clenched his hands, as if reaching for pockets that weren’t there. “I can’t discuss it. But yes, it is important. Columban is taking on this battle just as much as we are. I think I can help him.”
“But I know you can help me.”
He started to say one thing, but shook his head. He turned back to the building, changed his mind, and looked back. “Kitty. Ben. I appreciate your concern. But you should go home. Get cleaned up, get some rest. You obviously have enough problems of your own, you don’t need to be worried about me.” He spoke with such confidence, in such a decisive, commanding tone, how could I argue? I still felt uneasy.
“Ricardo?” an accented voice called from within the shadows, from an open doorway in the back of the church.
Ricardo, not Rick. I could see the shape of the vampire priest’s cassock, but not his features. I wanted to grab him, shake him, demand to know what spell he’d put on Rick. But I didn’t.
“I have to go,” the vampire said. I might have imagined him pressing his lips in an apology as he turned away and disappeared back through the doorway.
“We’ve lost him,” I said, my voice bleak.
Ben put his arm around me, turned me to the street. He had to push, urging me, before I could get my feet to move.
Chapter 14
I CALLED ANGELO to tell him Rick wasn’t going to be available for the meeting with the Buenos Aires vampires.
“You talked to him?” he said, astonished.
“Briefly. He wasn’t really interested in talking.”
“What did he say?”
“I think he’s gone sort of Buddhist monk. Can vampires be Buddhist monks?”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t know. Kitty—the envoy will be here tonight. He wants to talk to Rick. Not you.”
“Well,” I said, feeling hollow. “He’s got me. Why don’t you send him to New Moon after the show?”
His voice turned arch with disgust. “I can’t send him there.”
“Yes, you can. And make sure he eats something first—somewhere else,” I said and hung up the phone. Either the guy would be there after the show, or he wouldn’t.
Friday night again, already. Couldn’t be possible, but it was. Ozzie called me around lunchtime, because I hadn’t been into work since Thursday morning, and he wanted to know when I was coming in to prep for the show. If there was ever a time I wanted to call in sick, this was it.
Ben insisted on driving me to the station—and coming inside with me, and staying through the show.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said for the ninth time, as we entered the lobby. The receptionist waved hello, and I made a halfhearted motion in response on our way to the elevator.
“Yes, I do,” Ben said. “After your breakdown yesterday? I’m not letting you out of my sight. You might need someone to peel you off the ceiling.”
He was worried about me. It was kind of sweet, and I teared up a little even as I argued. “I wouldn’t call it a breakdown.”
“Then what would you call it?”
Shape-shifting in the middle of the suburbs because of stress? Um, right. I grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Thanks for looking out for me.” He smiled back.
We stopped off at my office to pick up materials for the show and were still hand in hand when we walked into the studio. Matt, in position in the booth by the soundboard, waved at me. And Ozzie was sitting in his seat in the corner. Of all the weeks he could pick to play supervisor. I managed not to groan.
Ben leaned in and murmured, “Someone else been keeping an eye on you, I take it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Have a seat and be good, okay?”
He kissed my forehead and did as I asked. I turned a bright, fake smile on my boss. “Hi, Ozzie.”
“Kitty. You haven’t been around much this week. I’ve been worried.” He was a good guy, but his worry usually translated as smothering. Made me bristle.
“Yeah, I know. Family stuff came up.” In a manner of speaking …
“You got something good for tonight?”
“Do I ever. In fact, I’m glad you’re here. You’ll love it.” In fact, I was starting to get an idea …
Some weeks, I was on top of things: planning, organizing, recording interviews ahead of time, writing up my rants and speeches to make sure they sounded intelligent and insightful. Other weeks, not so much. I’d tell myself I’d do it tomorrow, for sure. Then I’d wake up, and it’d be Friday, and I’d have a show to do that day. This week in particular, Friday seemed to have sneaked up on me. Good thing I always had something to talk about. I kept a folder full of articles, links to online rants requiring responses, and notes of random thoughts. The world never failed to provide shocking, interesting, head-scratching topics for me to discuss.
This week, I literally pulled my topic off the shelf and hit the ground running.
I watched Matt through the booth window, waited for him to cue up my intro with the theme song I’d used since the start: CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising.” As relevant now as it ever was. The music made the rest of the world disappear, so that nothing existed but me, my microphone, and the show. It felt like flying.
“Good evening, and here we are again. This is Kitty Norville and you’re listening to The Midnight Hour, where we spend a couple of hours talking about all the things that no one else will. And probably shouldn’t. It’s a good life, isn’t it? I have something very special on deck tonight. Christmas or winter solstice–associated holiday of your choice came to the studio early this year, and I got a present. I don’t know who exactly to thank for this, but let me take a moment to express my appreciation to my mysterious benefactor. Thank you, sir or madam. I love it. Now, what is it? Dear listeners, I’ve been sent a vampire crystal skull.”
A month or so ago, I’d received a package in the mail. I got a lot of mail, most of it junk, but this one had intrigued me. The brown paper wrapped box didn’t have a return address; the postmark said Texas. Since the package didn’t smell like a bomb or vat full of anthrax, I went ahead and opened it, and there it lay, nestled in a cloud of Styrofoam peanuts. A crystal skull, milky white, a little larger than a grapefruit, rounded and stylized, with deep-set eye sockets and distinctive, sharpened fangs where its eyeteeth should have been. It had been living on a shelf in my office ever since, waiting for the perfect opportunity. Like this one.
I set the skull on the table in the studio right next to my monitor and studied it as I talked. It stared back at me with hollow eyes that reflected and scattered the dim lights in the studio. Was it winking at me? “Is it a gift? A curse? Am I supposed t
o investigate it? Debunk it? Is it a kitsch object from a Mexican flea market? Or are the stories true, and crystal skulls aren’t just the plot device in a couple of unfortunate movies? Are these artifacts the source of some great ancient power possessed by the Mayans, the awesome gift of travelers from the stars, the key to the lost city of Atlantis? Or someone’s idea of a joke? Before I tell you what I think, I’m going to open the line up for calls. You’ve been sent not just any crystal skull, but one with sharpened canines. What do you do?” The lines lit up. Likely, people had called in before I’d even started talking in an effort to get into the queue and didn’t have a thing to say about crystal skulls, vampire or otherwise. But someone with an opinion would get through. I checked the monitor, found a likely victim, and pounced. “Hello, you’re on the air.”
A confused-sounding woman said, “So wait, does that mean that vampires have crystal skeletons?”
I winced. “That’s a good one, I hadn’t actually thought of that. But no, I don’t think so. I think vampires have bones like the rest of us. Just really old bones. Next call, please.” I hit the line.
“It’s got to be a fake,” the male caller said.
Well, yeah, I figured that pretty much went without saying. In the course of my research I’d found crystal skulls for sale in a rock art catalog. But that wasn’t the way to keep a show going.
“Why do you say that?” I said, trying to sound genuinely curious.
“Because vampires weren’t even in North America until a couple of hundred years ago, so a real Mayan crystal skull couldn’t possibly have anything to do with vampires, since the Mayan empire was in decline before then.”
“Five hundred, but yes,” I said.
“What?”
“European vampires arrived in North America about five hundred years ago, but I see your point.”
“How do you even know that?”
“How do you?” My tone was cheerful, which probably confused him.
Flustered now, he said, “I just know it, okay? So it has to be a fake.”