Kitty's House of Horrors

by Carrie Vaughn

  A long moment passed. This wasn’t going to work. Provost was in communication with Cabe, who might or might not have seen whether he actually shot me. I wanted to yell to Jeffrey to get back inside.

  From the trees, Provost yelled, “The werewolf bitch is really dead?”

  Jeffrey hesitated, but it didn’t sound like a man about to lie. It sounded like fear, grief, helplessness. All things we were feeling anyway. “Death by silver bullet isn’t pretty. But I’m sure you know that.”

  Provost’s answer was filled with mirth, with victory. “You’re a dead man, Jeffrey Miles. You’re all dead.”

  Provost appeared, moving out from behind the shelter of a pine tree. Like Valenti, he had transformed himself from the slick Hollywood guy. He wore black fatigues, a belt holster—gun in place, I noted—a knife at his belt, combat boots.

  In seconds I’d have a shot. I was lining him up. Jeffrey said over his shoulder, “Don’t shoot him. He’s not holding a weapon. I want to see where this goes.”

  He had better be right about this.

  “Just tell me why,” Jeffrey said. “I keep trying to understand this.”

  When Provost smiled, it was a slanted, wicked expression. “There’s nothing to understand. None of you is human. You, the psychic bitch, the magician, the atheist. You’re still monsters. The things you do? Makes you all witches. And you ought to be burned!”

  Atheist? I had to assume he was talking about Conrad, who didn’t have a magical cell in his body. I glanced at Conrad and muttered, “Since when does being an atheist make someone a monster?”

  “It does to the kind of people who threaten to burn witches,” he said. “Trust me, I’ve heard this line before.”

  Provost was still ranting. “We wanted to see if we could kill monsters. Turns out we can, and we’re going to show the world how to do it,” he said. He walked toward the lodge now, casually, step by step. Carelessly, almost. He had to know we had the weapons we’d taken from Valenti. Maybe he really thought Jeffrey didn’t have it in him to shoot anyone. But Jeffrey didn’t have to.

  “Ron Valenti doesn’t agree with you,” Jeffrey said, and Provost stopped walking. “In fact, he’s pretty upset.”

  Provost said, “You haven’t really talked to him.”

  Jeffrey shrugged. “You might as well burn this place to the ground, because it’s going to be very haunted when this is all over. Then again, all that negative energy doesn’t need a place to anchor to. It’s hanging over you, Joey.”

  Provost was frowning now. “This isn’t about Valenti. It’s about who gets out of here alive.”

  “You’re right. I’m just telling you—free consultation—that this isn’t going to end here. But you might get yourself a few points to balance that out if you let us go. I know you believe all that—some kind of balance, some kind of life after death—or Tina and I wouldn’t be here. I’m making the offer: let us go. Because if you kill us, you’re never getting rid of us.”

  It didn’t work quite so simply. Jeffrey had said as much. But maybe Provost didn’t know that, and maybe he was just keyed up enough to believe it. The men looked at each other across the clearing. Jeffrey faced Provost with all the courage in the universe. Arms at his sides, calm, nonthreatening. Treating Provost like he was an approaching predator.

  Provost shot him. A quick draw, he’d grabbed his gun from his holster, aimed and fired in a heartbeat, before any of us could react. Jeffrey fell back, boneless.

  I stood, leveled my gun out the door, and fired at Provost.

  I didn’t practice much and wasn’t very good at the gun thing, but I hit him. He staggered, his right arm flung back, the gun flying from his grip.

  Which was good, because I lost it. I flung my own gun aside and ran at Provost.

  From the stress of the last few days, the rage at losing friends and good people for no reason at all, I lost control. Wolf had been battering at me, at the mental bars of the cage that kept her calm, since all this started. I’d shot Provost, but she—we—wanted more. Wanted his blood in our mouth, his flesh in our teeth.

  I was Changing without even feeling it.

  The fury in me felt molten. Like I had turned into fire, liquid iron. The Change had never come so smoothly, so painlessly. I had always fought it, but this time, Wolf was simply there when I wished it. My limbs melted. I stretched my fingers and they were claws. I hunched my back, bared my teeth. My clothing tore away.

  I run fast, with Wolf’s speed and strength. He doesn’t have time to reach for his fallen weapon. I shove into him, and my claws are into him. I can’t see through the anger, I only feel. Hear his scream. He doesn’t think I have it in me to tear his throat out. No one ever thinks I have it in me.

  For a moment we look into each other’s eyes. I can’t imagine what he sees in mine, what amber fire is blazing in them. But I see that he is frightened—eyes ringed with white, terrified. I dig—

  On the ground now, her weight has toppled him. Teeth around his neck, not letting go, shaking her head to rip the skin. Blood fills her mouth, a taste of ecstasy. Flesh gives way. He shrieks in her ear, hits her with fists. Only makes her more angry. Not dead yet, but he already smells rotten. Snarling, clawing, ripping, she mauls.

  A distant memory recognizes a voice that calls, “Kitty! Get back, get inside!” One of the two-legged ones, but familiar, and the voice within her, her other half, urges her: listen. Go. Too dangerous in the open.

  She raises her head to look, sees the male who called her running toward her and sees another male in the trees. Her nose flares, takes this one’s scent, and the wrongness of it shocks her. He is weapons, steel, fire. Her other half knows this means terrible danger. Only one option: run to safety. But she has no den here, no pack, no safety—except the house, which smells lived-in, denlike. Closest safety she’ll find.

  She runs for the door she burst from only a moment ago. Leaps past chaos, a male and female dragging two others. An explosion, a hot streak ripping through air. Part of her expects to feel an impact, expects that this is her death. She doesn’t stop running, even after she passes through the door.

  She’s felt nothing, no pain. The weapon of smoke and fire missed.

  Another explosion sounds, very close—the female stands at the door, holding another weapon straight. It fires, bursts of heat and thunder, again and again, until the man slams shut the door and they both collapse, along with two bodies that smell richly of blood.

  She licks her snout, which is covered with blood. She is standing by the far wall, tail rigid, hackles raised, a low warning growl breathing out each time she exhales. Waiting for the next attack.

  “Oh God, oh God. Odysseus, Tina—what do we do about her?” Another man is sitting up, staring. He smells like old blood. Injured. Easy prey. He’s staring right at her, and this makes her angry. She directs her growls at him, and he cringes.

  “Conrad, don’t look at her. Look away. Conrad! Look at me!”

  The injured one looks away. She was almost ready to pounce to show him which of them was stronger.

  “Tina, can you see outside? What’s he doing?”

  “He’s staying there—he hasn’t left the trees. Jeffrey, how’s Jeffrey, oh, my God—”

  The room has filled with blood. Makes her hungry. The two-legged ones are trembling like a frightened herd.

  “Kitty—she wouldn’t really,” the female says. “She’s in there somewhere, right? She wouldn’t really attack us.”

  “Tina, stop looking at her.” This is the strong male, the one who called her inside. “Walk very calmly along the wall to the kitchen. Find the pantry—there should be some canned food left. Open a can of chicken or tuna.”

  Movement. The female is edging along the wall. She’s strong—the only person here who doesn’t smell injured. Let her go.

  The male is speaking, his voice like soft fur. He’s looking at the floor near her. “Shh, Kitty. It’s all right. Danger’s over for now. It’s all right.”
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br />   The calming voice helps. The fury ebbs. But she’s still standing with her back to a wall and the smell of an enemy in the room. Where is her pack? Her mate? The growl turns into a whine.

  The female puts something on the floor and quickly edges away—a new scent. Meat, but not fresh. Not fresh, but available, a few paces away. Hunger has become more important than the rest. She pads to the scent, finds several mouthfuls. She eats warily, keeping a watch on the group of two-legged people. Finishes the carrion quickly, but it settles her.

  She does not mean to sleep, but weariness pulls her under.

  I had blood and skin under my fingernails. I picked at it.

  Either I didn’t remember what had happened, or I didn’t want to. I could guess. The last thing I remembered was Provost’s face, white with fear. Yeah, I could guess what had happened. I hadn’t even felt the Change come. I’d just snapped. That had never happened before.

  If I stayed numb, I wouldn’t have to think about the implications.

  Someone had put a blanket over me. I lay against the far wall, nearest the kitchen. My muscles were stiff, as if I’d slept curled in a tight ball. Looking across the room, I was having trouble recognizing what I was seeing. My mind was still filled with wolfish vision and the taste of blood. I could smell death.

  A body lay against the wall, covered with a sheet, dead. I made a wish, took a breath, and let out a moan, because I smelled Jeffrey. Provost had been so close, Jeffrey couldn’t have survived the shot. Still, I couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t. I just wouldn’t deal with that right now.

  There was another person lying on the floor, breathing fast, painfully, in the way of the seriously injured. I recognized his scent, too.

  Joey Provost was alive.

  chapter 21

  I wrapped the blanket around my naked self and stood in the middle of the living room, assessing. I clamped my mouth shut because I was afraid I might throw up. If ever I had a right to spontaneously vomit, this was it.

  I didn’t want to have to take care of Provost. I’d rather shoot him.

  Conrad was asleep on the sofa. Grant sat on a chair in the middle of the living room, like he could hold us together with his presence. He sat nearest the injured Provost but didn’t seem to be looking at him. Tina sat on the floor, near the window but not looking out. At first I thought she was asleep, the way she held her head propped on her hand. Her other hand rested on a Ouija board sitting next to her. She looked at me. She’d been crying.

  I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t open my mouth or I would scream. I wished I had stayed Wolf. The world was simpler when I was Wolf.

  “Kitty?” Grant said.

  Now I was looking at Provost. He lay on a blanket, covered by another blanket. His shirt had been stripped. He panted, tossed in a delirium, his arms clenched, hands clawing.

  I stepped to him, knelt beside him.

  “There’s something wrong with him,” Grant said softly.

  Besides being infected with lycanthropy? The words stalled in my throat. If I opened my mouth I’d throw up, so I kept my mouth shut.

  I put my hand on Provost’s forehead—he was burning with fever. Normal, for a recent victim of a werewolf bite. He’d thrash in a haze for a few days while his wounds healed and while his body transformed itself from the inside out. He smelled ill, injured. Under all that, though, I caught a new scent, musky, animal. Wolfish. Fur, just under the skin. I’d promised myself I would never do this to anyone, I never wanted to, he should be dead—

  “Kitty,” Grant said. I shook my head, bringing myself back. Rubbed sleep and tears from my eyes. I needed clothes. I pulled the blanket tighter around myself.

  I saw what Grant was talking about, about there being something wrong. He had enough arcane lore, he must have had some idea what a bite from a werewolf did. Provost’s wounds, shredded flesh across his neck and shoulder, were healing: scabs had formed, blood seeped from surface wounds. That was normal. However, where the bullet I fired had hit him, a chunk of flesh taken out of his bicep, wasn’t healing. Here, the wound was black, oozing pus along with blood.

  I swallowed and managed to scratch out, “Did the bullet go all the way through?”

  “Yes,” Grant said. “It’s a flesh wound.”

  Then I laughed. I sounded ridiculous, hysterical. I curled up, hugged my knees, and laughed. This was so fucked up, I ought to be taking notes.

  Patiently, Grant waited for me.

  I got myself back under control. “Silver allergy. The silver bullet went through him before he was infected. But there must be a trace of it that’s reacting to the lycanthropy. Not enough to kill him. If the bullet had stayed in him, though, he’d have the full-blown allergy. He’d be dead. I wish he were dead.” I laughed again, then covered my face to try to stop the tears. Copious, hysterical tears.

  Tina had moved closer to us, studying Provost along with us. She reached out to me, but I leaned away from her. “Don’t touch me,” I whispered. I wanted to Change again. I wanted to get out of here, to bite someone.

  “Kitty—” Grant said.

  “Any sign of Cabe?”

  “No. Maybe he’ll cut his losses and leave us alone.”

  “Not likely,” I said. Before he could respond, I stood, tightening the blanket yet again. “I need some clothes.”

  I went upstairs.

  The face in the bedroom mirror was the face of a monster. I studied it, the crazy blond hair that hadn’t been brushed in two days, the bloodshot eyes, the ragged frown. I wanted to see my friends, my pack, my mate. I wanted to go home.

  “Tell me, Cormac. What am I supposed to do now?” I muttered.

  You just keep going. He’d say, you just keep on keeping on until you’re dead. But don’t make it easy on the bastards by rolling over for them.

  I wasn’t dead yet. We still had a lodge full of people who weren’t dead yet, and the bad guys were down to one man standing.

  When I came downstairs, I was dressed in fresh clothes, hair brushed and pinned up, face washed. Still on the edge of hysterical, but at least I was upright. Two legs for the rest of the day, I promised myself.

  Tina was sitting at the dining room table now, a blank sheet of paper in front of her, holding a pen over it. This was an old mediumistic talent—automatic writing. Some people believed spirits could communicate by causing the hand of a psychic to write out messages. Most of it was fake, but it really worked for Tina. She expected to receive a message. It wasn’t happening.

  I sat next to her. Didn’t have to say a word. Our hearts—our grief—showed all over our faces. She fell into my arms, sobbing. I hugged her as tight as I could. Didn’t say a word, because there was nothing I could say. I held her until she pulled away, scrubbing her eyes, lips tight with a sad smile.

  She glanced at the pad of paper. “I don’t know why I think he’ll talk to me. He has no reason to—”

  “Maybe he needs time. Maybe you need time.”

  She nodded, almost frantically. “Yeah, maybe that’s it.”

  Grant joined us, standing on the other side of the table, looking down on us. He also had a scruffy beard started. His gaze was as alert and stony as ever.

  “Kitty. Provost is waking up,” he said.

  I didn’t want that to have anything to do with me, but I went over to where the hunter lay. We had words to exchange, him and me.

  Provost was rubbing his face, trying to sit up, and falling back, weakened. He groaned and seemed uncertain, looking around in confusion. When he saw me, he let out a scream and tried to scramble away. A chair and his own weakness stopped him.

  “Hi there,” I said, frowning.

  His face showed blank terror. He knew what was happening to him. He groaned, and his words came out slurred. “Why—why did you do this to me?”

  “Not my fault. You were supposed to die.”

  His wounds were looking better, the scabs more established, ringed with healing pink flesh. Even the silver-tainted one looked better.
It had stopped oozing. It would heal, but it might leave a scar. Moaning in denial, Provost writhed, like he could burrow through the floor to get away from me. “Damn you, damn you, damn you…”

  “Now let me ask you a question,” I said. “Why did you think you could get away with this?”

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  “Aw, isn’t that sweet? The thing is, Joey, you’re one of us now. You’re one of me. A bloodthirsty monster. And that wasn’t part of the plan at all, was it? Did you really think you were going to get out of this in one piece?” I was feeling vicious. All of my sympathy was for myself, having to deal with this guy.

  Provost shook his head. He squeezed his eyes shut, like he could block out the world. “You were a bunch of dumb celebrities. Suckered in. It’d be like fish in a barrel.”

  “Well,” I said flatly. “That’s nice.”

  “Monsters like you—you’re not that tough. We’ll get you in the end.”

  Us and them. It always came down to us and them. But it wasn’t so black and white. Us and them broke down into interlacing Venn diagrams; sometimes someone in an “us” column became “them,” depending on how you changed the categories and definitions. You could always find something in common. Provost regarded me with so much hate and contempt, I couldn’t fathom it. Nonetheless, I was probably turning at least that much hate and contempt back on him. I liked to think there was a difference between us: he’d earned my contempt through his actions. He’d killed my friends.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” I said. “You’re going to be sick for a few more days, but your wounds will heal, and you’ll come out of this good as new. Better than new. The next full moon, you’ll Change. And I’ll tell you right now, it’s fucking hell. You’ll either learn to live with it, or you won’t. Either way, you’re going to learn to live with it or not in a silver-lined prison cell. Got it?”

  “Cabe’s still out there. He’ll finish you. He’ll still finish you!”

  “Then he’ll finish you,” I said. “Because like I said, you’re one of us now.”