Kitty's Big Trouble

  “We had word that some rogue wolves were running loose in town,” the Havana shirt guy said. “You must be it.”

  My words caught behind a growl; I couldn’t talk. I wanted to shift and run away with my mate. Ready to rip and tear, claws burned inside my hands, which I clenched.

  “What are we going to do with them, Joe?” Havana shirt guy said to turtleneck guy.

  “Boss says haul ’em in.” His voice was low, calm, businesslike. He had no doubt about his ability to complete the task before him.

  “Are you working for Roman?” I said, despair tightening my voice. I sounded close to tears. “Did he send you?”

  “Roman?” the first vampire said. We blinked at each other. I ducked my gaze quickly, to avoid looking in his vampiric eyes. And because I was confused. He suddenly seemed bored, like this was a chore he could have done without. Which didn’t seem like Roman or one of his minions.

  “So. You going to come quiet or make it hard on yourselves?” he said.

  Ben’s face wrinkled, lips pulled back, showing his teeth in an epic snarl. All his fur stood on end, and he was braced to leap.

  “Ben, no,” I murmured, clinging to his fur.

  He jumped out of my grip and sprang at the vampire in the turtleneck, claws out and open jaw aiming for his throat.

  The vampire was ready. He stepped aside, and Ben overshot his target and went sprawling on the street beyond. His claws scrabbled on the pavement as he worked to recover, change direction, and try again, but the vampire was too fast, too strong. In a stride he was on top of the wolf, digging a knee into his ribs, holding his front legs away with one hand and clamping down on his neck with the other, pinning him to the street. The wolf’s head was tilted up and away, leaving his jaws and teeth useless. No matter how he kicked and thrashed, he couldn’t break free of the vampire’s grip.

  I attacked, because what else could I do?

  Scrambling forward despite my injury, I made to tackle Ben’s captor. The other vampire was there to grab me from behind. I hadn’t even seen him move. He wrenched my arms back and dropped me to my knees. Despite the pain stabbing in my shoulder, I kept lunging forward, futilely trying to break free and reach Ben.

  “We don’t want to hurt you, really,” the vampire holding me said. “Please just come with us.”

  The please did it. I stopped struggling and nodded, because my voice still wasn’t working right. All Wolf wanted to do was growl.

  “I let you go, you stay calm?” he said. “You’ll tell your mate to stand down?”

  I nodded again.

  “Can you even talk anymore?”

  I swallowed, concentrated very hard on human words, and said, “I’m having a really bad night.”

  He let me go. I slumped forward and rolled my shoulders, working the kinks out. “Ben, please. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

  The wolf settled. The other vampire cautiously lifted his hands and backed away. As soon as the pressure was gone, Ben lurched to his feet. He stared at the vampire a moment and seemed to debate about risking another attack. Then he lowered his head and trotted to me, pressing close, twining himself in my arms. I hugged him hard, and he licked my face.

  The first vampire was talking on a cell phone. A moment later, a shiny black Cadillac pulled around the corner and stopped at the curb. I couldn’t see the driver through the tinted windows, but I assumed it was another vampire. And Rick said the Family here was laid back.

  The first vampire, the one in the Havana shirt who still hadn’t given his name, opened the back door and gestured us inside. The other, Joe, opened the front passenger-side door and climbed in.

  I didn’t want to go. Ben stood between me and the car like a wall—he didn’t want to go, either.

  “You’re from the San Francisco Family,” I said, stalling, trying to get my bearings.

  He looked at me and sighed—specifically to demonstrate his frustration, it seemed. “Yes. My name is Henry. Now will you please get in so we can get off the street?”

  I looked at Ben, cupping my hands around his face, smoothing back his fur. “What do you think?”

  He licked my chin. Leaving it up to me. Leaning against him, I pulled myself to my feet and hobbled to the car.

  “You’re hurt,” Henry said.

  “I said I’ve had a bad night.”

  “Broken bone?”

  I glared at him. “I’m fine.”

  He shrugged. When Ben and I were inside, he closed the door after us. He got in the front with Joe, and the car drove smoothly away.

  Chapter 12

  THE DRIVER WAS human. Living, breathing, though tainted with the scent of vampire. A human servant, then. Average size, he had pale skin and wore a designer leather jacket. Both Henry and Joe sat in front, even though it had less room, leaving the back to us. I had to admit I felt safer this way. I had room to breathe—and a possible escape route. Ben found an awkward position, sitting braced across me, still protecting me, and half twisted forward so he could keep the vampires in view. His lip stayed curled, showing sharp teeth. I rested an arm across his back and breathed in the warmth of his fur.

  Henry was tall, meaty—almost stout. He had the build of a retired athlete. Joe had Mediterranean features. His dark hair had curl to it, and I would have called his skin tanned if he hadn’t been a vampire.

  “You two are a long way from home,” Henry said.

  “Not so long,” I answered.

  “What brings you to the city by the bay?”

  “The sights.”

  “Which is why you’re gallivanting around Chinatown at midnight.”

  “Ghost tour. We got separated from the group.”

  Joe craned around. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

  Such a loaded question. I wasn’t sure if my identity would make things better for Ben and me, or worse. Complete toss-up. “That depends. You listen to much radio?”

  The looked of recognition dawned. “You’re Kitty Norville.”

  Henry looked at him. “What? Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. It’s not the voice so much as the sarcasm.”

  I rested my head on Ben’s back. We were so doomed.

  “Why didn’t you say something?” Henry said.

  “Because saying something is just as likely to get me shot in some circles as not,” I said.

  They both chuckled. The driver glanced at me in his rearview mirror, and even he was smiling.

  “Boss is going to love this,” Henry said.

  I hugged Ben.

  We drove for maybe fifteen minutes. I couldn’t see out the tinted side windows, so I tried to watch out the front windshield. We’d entered a neighborhood of Victorian-looking townhouses with bay windows, on pleasant, tree-lined streets.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “The Haight,” Henry said. “We own a few buildings here.”

  “Like, Haight-Ashbury?”

  Henry nodded. At another time—during daylight and with no injuries, for example—I’d have been excited. Site of the Summer of Love, home to icons of psychedelic rock, I’d have loved to just wander, to see if anything was left of that old hippie atmosphere or if it had all been swallowed by twenty-first-century commercial tourism. But right now all I wanted to do was go home.

  Finally we turned down a sloped driveway into an underground garage and stopped.

  “Everybody out,” Henry said.

  I leaned around Ben to open to the door, and he jumped out ahead of me. Again, we stood side by side, to face whatever came next. The garage looked as if it was used for a motor pool of some kind. A couple of other sleek sedans were parked here, along with a zippy red sports car and a big SUV. The place was lit with flickering fluorescents, which made my eyes hurt. The driver waved at the vampires and went into an office. Joe opened one side of a set of double doors and gestured inside. Henry led the way.

  Past the doors, a hallway led to what must have been the building’s basement, which me
ant we were entering a vampire’s lair. Underground meant no windows, and no sunlight. And no exits. Joe closed the door behind us and followed.

  The place reeked of vampires—cold and stale blood, not a hint of fresh life. Keeping one hand on Ben, clinging to his fur, I walked. Ben stayed pressed against my hip. His steps were slow to match mine, and his claws clicked on the linoleum. I kept telling myself that if they’d meant us harm, they wouldn’t be saying please, and they wouldn’t be letting us walk under our own power. They just wanted to talk. Vampires did this kind of thing all the time—they had to be the ones in control, they had to talk on their own turf. I was still nervous, and the muscles on Ben’s shoulders and back were stiff. They might have given us champagne and fresh steaks and we’d still be nervous.

  The hallway opened into a room, the tile gave way to thick, rich carpet, and the fluorescent lighting was replaced by the soft glow of low-wattage, shaded lamps in the corners. The sofas were leather, and there were plush armchairs, polished wood coffee tables, and hidden speakers playing soft music, light and jazzy. All the colors were dark, giving the room a sultry, denlike atmosphere. Someone should have been handing out cocktails. I took a breath, surveyed the room’s smells, and counted four vampires in addition to Henry and Joe. They wouldn’t be drinking any cocktails. One of the four was Anastasia, standing apart, arms crossed, looking annoyed. There was also a mortal human, living and breathing, carrying the distinctive scent of a worn leather coat. I knew that smell. Beside me, Ben whined a long, soft note; he recognized it, too.

  “Kitty!” Cormac called. He was off to the right, next to Anastasia, in front of a trio of vampires lounging on sofas. In a couple of strides he was in front of me, holding my arm.

  I gripped his arm in turn. “Are you okay?”

  “Are you?” he said.

  Ben’s sleek wolf maneuvered between us, leaning against my legs and nudging Cormac’s hip with his muzzle. At the contact, Cormac stepped back, and we broke apart. He watched the wolf warily.

  “He gets a little territorial,” I said, resting a hand on Ben’s head.

  Ben looked back at Cormac, nose tipped up, staring, but not doing anything further to threaten. The hunter pursed his lips, his expression closing down. I didn’t think he’d fully reconciled himself to the idea that Ben was a werewolf, even though he was there when it happened. It was hard to see the animal sitting in front of you and remember the man he usually was. Even when you looked him in the eyes.

  “Come here, let me have a look at you,” said the man on the sofa. The three local vampires arranged on the chairs and sofas studied me with interest. Two were men, one a woman, and like Joe and Henry seemed to be hipsters, unassuming upscale urban types—but from the Jazz Age rather than the current era. They’d set up shop in the 1920s and stayed there. One of the men wore a double-breasted suit with a silk tie. His brown hair was slicked back, his smile was wry. The one on the sofa wore a suit without the jacket—red suspenders stood out against the white starched shirt. His gaze was inquisitive, and I had to work not to meet it. The woman wore a clinging gown, black, beaded, with spaghetti straps, and had her honey-colored hair in a perfect bob. Together, they looked fabulous, like something out of a movie. Exotic, even. Strange and intimidating all at once. I squeezed Ben’s coat for comfort.

  Cormac returned to where he’d been standing. I limped over to join him, Ben stepping carefully at my side. He was watching the limp, along with Anastasia. I itched under their gazes, hating to show so much weakness. I was getting better, I really was. Ben stood tall and proud beside me, matching each of their gazes in turn as if to say, I’m looking out for her, don’t get any ideas. I leaned on him a little more, grateful for the support.

  “What happened?” the hunter asked.

  “I fell,” I said, my voice low, hidden. “I think I broke something.”

  “But it’s healing.”

  “Yeah, slowly.”

  “Are you okay?”

  It was the second time he’d asked in as many minutes. I still didn’t answer. “What happened to you guys? How’d you get out of the tunnels?”

  “We followed Ben. His wolf side didn’t seem to have any trouble.”

  “Why’d he shift?”

  “You were gone.”

  The door had shut, I’d shouted at him from the other side, he’d pounded on it, trying to get to me—and then I’d fallen. Vanished. Maybe they’d even gotten the door open but couldn’t find any sign of me on the other side. Or they’d kept shouting through the door and got no answer. And Ben had lost it. I stroked the thick fur along his back, and he turned his head back to give my hand a quick lick.

  I couldn’t figure out the situation. Anastasia seemed unhappy but not nervous. Cormac was cautious, like he always was. His right hand rested in his pocket—clutching a cross, I’d bet. The stake would be hidden up a sleeve. Had the vampires even searched him for weapons? Joe and Henry stayed behind me, near the door, and seemed amused. I glanced over my shoulder trying to keep them in view. Then there were the three new vampires in front of me. One of them was no doubt the Master of San Francisco. Anastasia’s old ally, or her old nemesis? This felt like a tribunal of some kind, like we were being brought here to face some kind of reckoning. I couldn’t identify which one of them was in charge. All three seemed confident, and none showed deference to any other. I was used to seeing hierarchies among vampires, as much as I did among werewolves. Joe and Henry had talked about a boss—who was it?

  “You’re Kitty Norville?” the one on the sofa, the suspenders-no-jacket guy, said. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, making him seem even more like a Prohibition-era gangster.

  “Hi,” I said, waving my hand. “And you are?”

  He waved the question away. “This is your mate?” He pointed at Ben, who growled.

  I pressed his shoulder, quieting him. “Yeah.”

  “Well. Thanks for joining us.”

  “Did we have a choice?”

  He smiled broadly, and the muscles across my shoulders twitched. “I have to ask, what are you doing in my territory?”

  “Ask her.”

  He glanced at Anastasia, his expression souring before he looked back at me. Maybe checking for confirmation, or fishing for a reaction. “Then you do serve a vampire? The gossip about you says you don’t serve anyone.”

  I straightened, tipping my chin up in a show of pride, hoping to demonstrate that the gossip was right. And there was gossip about me? What gossip? What were people saying about me behind my back anyway?

  “Actually, I’m really pissed off at her right now,” I said.

  Everyone except me looked at her for a reaction; she didn’t oblige them, only spoke calmly in a cold, creamy voice, “She doesn’t serve me. She’s here as a favor. As an ally.”

  “What the hell did you do for her to deserve a favor like this?” he said to her.

  Anastasia and I glanced at each other, trying to egg each other on. For a moment I even thought, what had she done for me? But that wasn’t the issue. Favors weren’t currency you could line up and trade, one for one. At least, not to me. I was here because we both wanted to take down Roman.

  I had to tell her about the figure in the alley, the imperious spy.

  We were at some kind of stalemate. We’d answered questions, but the vampire—I had to assume the one in suspenders was the boss—wasn’t happy with the answers. They didn’t seem likely to let us go, but they were also treating Anastasia with kid gloves. Was this the Master who had taken power in the 1920s? It seemed likely. At any rate, this was Anastasia’s bailiwick, and I didn’t know the rules here. I ought to let her do all the talking. What were the odds?

  When he didn’t get an answer, he shrugged. “Well then. Welcome to San Francisco. It would have been nice if you’d called first. You’re from Denver, right? Who’s running things there now? Rick, isn’t it? You could have asked him, gotten an introduction, made it all official—”

 
“He said you wouldn’t mind it if I just passed through.”

  “Did he? He’s either getting senile in his old age or he has a lot of confidence in you. Which is it?”

  I tilted my head. “How old is old? All of you,” I said, glancing at each of them, even Joe and Henry behind me. “Rick says you’ve been running San Francisco since the twenties, so that’s at least a hundred.”

  The members of the vampire entourage wore crooked, amused smiles. The woman had blood-red lips.

  “It’s rude, asking vampires about their age,” said Boss.

  I shrugged. “Yeah. I keep doing it anyway.” I was getting my groove back. I came as close as I could to staring at him without looking him in his hypnotic eyes. He had a slight hook in his nose. “I have some questions. You’ve been running San Francisco for almost a century, so you were here during the sixties. Summer of Love and all that, right? You ever meet Janis Joplin? Jerry Garcia? Country Joe? Any of those psychedelic guys?”

  “What if I said yes? What do you expect me to say about any of them that hasn’t already been said?”

  “Maybe I just wanted to see if you had any concert bootlegs.”

  Ben bumped my hip with his nose and whined a little. Yeah, maybe I was talking too much. But what if he’d said yes? And what if he’d actually given them to me? It never hurt to ask.

  Boss raised an eyebrow. “You are definitely Kitty Norville.”

  “So that’s a no?”

  “You’ll have to ask Henry, that was more his scene.” Behind me, Henry gave a little wave.

  The thing was, as long as we were all talking, nobody was fighting. If I got Boss to like me, or at least to not think I was a threat, he’d be more likely to let us all go. He might even help us. If he’d known we were all in town, maybe he knew that Roman was in town. Maybe when Henry said he’d been looking for rogue wolves, he’d been looking for Roman’s gang. Maybe they could tell us something.