Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand

by Carrie Vaughn

  I narrowed my gaze. “But that kind of magic exists?”

  “What do you think?”

  I thought that over the last few years I’d seen a lot of things that the rational mind said were impossible. A lot of magic. My whole life had become a mission to chronicle the impossible. It was how I kept myself anchored to some kind of reality, in a world where werewolves were real and I was one of them.

  “I think there’s a whole lot of this world I still don’t understand,” I said.

  He regarded me, a faint smile touching his lips, which gave him the most genuine—even warm—expression I’d ever seen on him. “You surprise me. Your kind tends to chaos. But not you.”

  Kitty Norville, a force for order? Wild. I felt like I’d passed some kind of test with him.

  “I like to pretend that everything’s going to be all right. That everything’s normal.”

  “How is that working out for you?”

  “Some days are better than others.”

  Suddenly, he pulled himself from the wall, looking toward the theater door in the back of the house. Unconsciously, his hands straightened and re-straightened the deck of cards. He held them like I’d seen some people hold weapons. He looked like nothing so much as an animal who’d spotted danger.

  I looked where he did, in the direction of the supposed danger, and didn’t see what he did, or what he sensed with whatever senses he had. But a moment later, I smelled it, the wild skin and musk of a lycanthrope.

  Nick came sauntering in, hands in the pockets of his oh-so-tight jeans. A fitted T-shirt showed off his muscles. I tensed, wondering what he wanted. He barely glanced at me, just long enough to acknowledge me with a wink, before he stopped about halfway down the theater to regard Grant. The magician glared back with an icy gaze, his lips pressed in a line, hands tensed around his deck of cards.

  “I see how it is,” Nick said, behind a laugh. “You have to lure us here because you don’t have the guts to come after us.”

  Grant’s jaw tightened, like he had to keep anger in check. Then he smiled faintly, but it was cold, challenging. “A dozen of you against one of me? I’m not foolish.”

  “Sure, right,” Nick said. “And what are you doing with her? Think you can use her to cut some kind of deal?”

  “Nobody uses me for anything,” I said, though I was clearly out of my depth. This was a long-running argument, a rivalry that went deeper than I could see from my vantage. But if I stuck around, maybe I’d learn something.

  “We were just having a conversation. Like reasonable people do,” Grant said.

  “This is stupid,” Nick said. He’d begun pacing, fists clenched at his side, going a few steps up and down the aisle, like a tiger. “We could bring you down. If we went public, people would know we were monsters—and celebrate us for it. While you’d still be a two-bit magician.” He jabbed a finger at Grant, who didn’t flinch.

  “You only think that,” Grant said, ever calm. “If you went public, you’d be nothing more than a freakshow. You’d lose every advantage you have. Balthasar knows that.”

  I said, “Ah, do either of you want to explain to me what’s going on here?”

  “Not your concern,” Grant said. “I’m sorry you had to see this much of it.”

  “There’s some kind of feud between you and Balthasar’s troupe. I can see that much.”

  “Feud?” Nick said, laughing. “It’s a war.”

  “Over what?” I said.

  Grant hadn’t taken his gaze off the lycanthrope. He said, “The nature of the universe.”

  Now I laughed. “You’re joking.”

  But neither of them reacted, locked in some epic stare-down. Odysseus Grant tapped the deck he was holding twice, then turned up the first card: ace of spades. Nick flinched but immediately straightened again and didn’t give ground.

  “You really ought to leave,” Grant said.

  “I will. I just came to deliver a message. To her.” He moved toward the stage, toward me, pulling something out of his pocket.

  Grant moved to intercept us—to shield me from him. Frankly, though, I didn’t know who to be more worried about.

  “Give this to her,” Nick said, tossing the thing from his pocket up to Grant. Still watching Nick, Grant handed it back to me.

  It was a plastic bag holding a scrap of cloth, part of the collar of a white T-shirt. I opened it. The smell of Ben hit me, filled me. The plastic had preserved the scent.

  My stomach turned to ice. “Where is he?”

  Nick shrugged. “Balthasar said that would get your attention.”

  Shit. My second thought was, not again. How many times could a guy need rescuing? Assuming there was something left to rescue.

  “Why?” I said, my voice taut. “What does Balthasar want with him?”

  “I guess you’ll have to go find out.”

  I started running.

  “Kitty!” Grant called, finally turning from Nick to reach after me. I stopped to listen. “It’s a trap. You know that.”

  “So? Give me an alternative.”

  He didn’t. Couldn’t. Nick wore an amused smile, like he was enjoying himself way too much. I ran past him, out of the theater. Nick might have followed me. I didn’t wait around to see.

  Boris and Sylvia were still out there, which was one thing too many to worry about. If I moved fast enough, they wouldn’t spot me. So I just had to move faster.

  But times like this, panic made time move way too slowly.

  Chapter 17

  I caught a cab, thinking that would give me some protection from the bounty hunters. From their point of view, I’d have just disappeared, I hoped. I left Nick behind. Saw him run out the doors, then stop, looking after me—he was smiling. Because I was walking into the trap, but what choice did I have? I made phone calls to Evan and Brenda. That they didn’t answer meant they were in a situation where they couldn’t have their phones on. Or they were ignoring me. I left messages telling them about Boris and Sylvia at the Diablo, and about Balthasar’s troupe at the Hanging Gardens. I didn’t have time to wait for them. I also left a message with Detective Gladden. I didn’t know what he would make of all this. I had no idea what my voice must have sounded like, if my messages would even be comprehensible.

  Worry about that later.

  I sat in the back seat, glancing out all the windows, looking over my shoulder, afraid of what I’d find following me. The car didn’t go fast enough, of course, and I was having trouble catching my breath.

  The driver glanced at me in his rearview mirror. “You look like you’re late for your wedding or something,” he said.

  That was hilarious. I covered my mouth and giggled.

  Finally, we arrived at the Hanging Gardens. I paid the driver too much and left the door open in my hurry to rush into the hotel. People stared as I ran past. But hey, surely panicked people ran through the lobbies of Vegas hotels all the time. How many little tragedies happened in this town every day? I bet someone got jilted at the altar all the time. I wasn’t anything special.

  I reprimanded myself. I hadn’t been jilted at the altar. No need to go inventing tragedies for myself. There were enough real ones in the making at the moment.

  I didn’t know what time it was. Late. Really late, or really early, depending on your point of view. The crowds had actually thinned out. A few people wandered. A group of young drunks, bellowing laughter, leaned on each other as they walked. A few people sat in front of slot machines, staring like zombies, pressing the button over and over and over again. A janitor was wiping down a railing around the casino area. This was like the tail end of a party that a few lonely people refused to let end. It was tiring to see, and sad.

  I stalled out where the lobby branched off to various sections of the hotel: casino, elevators, restaurants, theater. Where did I find Balthasar? In his suite? Where had he taken Ben? I couldn’t scent anything; this whole place smelled like Balthasar and his troupe. Searching for a single lycanthrope he
re would be like trying to find a single piece of chocolate in a candy store.

  And any minute now, Boris, Sylvia, or Nick would walk through the door, intent on catching me. I had to find Ben first.

  I headed to the theater.

  I searched for an unlocked backstage door and found it around the corner from the box office, an emergency exit tucked away from the main thoroughfare. I shoved through it to a darkened corridor and kept going. I didn’t have time to get my bearings, to catch the scent of anything but generic backstage smells, compounded by the reek of lycanthropes in the heart of their territory. My vision was going fuzzy, with the Wolf’s way of seeing in light and shadow that was much better suited for prairie and forest than a Vegas hotel.

  Then I stopped. This was ridiculous. I couldn’t take on a pack of lycanthropes by myself. And did I seriously think they would listen to me while I gave them a reasoned argument about why they should let Ben go? That wasn’t going to work. This wasn’t the way to go about doing this. I hadn’t heard back yet from any of my contacts. But that didn’t mean I was on my own. I pulled out my phone and called information to get to the Hanging Gardens casino switchboard, then get a hold of casino security. Much more practical than me charging in there and getting myself killed. This was their job, after all.

  But it was already too late. I heard footsteps down the corridor, heavy and barefoot, skin against concrete. The door where I’d come from opened again, and two men came through—members of Balthasar’s pack. Our gazes met, and I could see the hunt in their eyes.

  They were behind me. Another one, bare-chested, corded muscles bunching along his chest and arms, appeared in front of me. Inside me, Wolf snarled.

  Wasn’t much of a chase. I had nowhere to run. In a heartbeat, one of the lycanthropes was on top of me. The other one closed me in a bear hug, lifting me off the floor, and the third locked my legs together and held tight. I only had a chance to scream once before one of them clamped down on my face, shutting my mouth.

  Running almost, they carried me away. I couldn’t see anything but wall passing by.

  I had a tough choice. I writhed, kicked, fought as much as I could. But not too much. Wolf was howling, clawing at the inside of my skin, crazy to get out, break free, get us away from here. I hadn’t done such a great job keeping us safe, now it was her turn.

  But I couldn’t let that happen, I couldn’t shift. I tried to stay calm, keeping my thoughts in order, keeping my body in its current shape. Keep it together, keep it together. Instinct was one thing, but I wanted to see where they were taking me and if Ben was okay. There’d still be time to break out of here.

  Fight. Flee.

  Soon. Please, keep still.

  My throat rattled with her growl.

  We stopped. I kicked, arched my back, trying to get a look, but the men who held me were quick and powerful. Their hands pulled and wrenched me until I gasped. Metal closed over my wrists and I thought, Not silver, please, no—but the bindings didn’t itch or burn. Normal steel manacles secured my wrists now, bound to chains bolted to a cinderblock wall.

  Normal? Oh yeah, right.

  They didn’t just lock me in the chains, oh no. They pressed close. They took advantage of their proximity to me and pawed, rubbed, smelled. Their breaths blew through my shirt, caressed my rib cage, teased along my throat. A tongue ran along the edge of my ear; I shook away from it, and someone chuckled. Three sets of hands moved along my body, from throat to breast, across my belly, from thigh to crotch. I swallowed a scream.

  “Enough,” said a theatrical voice, echoing.

  The bodies of my captors moved away from me, and I could finally look around. I shook my hair out of my face so I could see.

  I was in a small, bare room, my feet on a concrete floor, my arms stretched to each side and chained to the wall. It might have been a storage room at one time, but it had been cleared out. Now the place smelled of sweat, sex, and blood. I had a feeling I wasn’t the first person to be brought here and chained to the wall. Arrayed before me were Balthasar and most of his troupe. No Nick. Avi, the young one, stood off to one side, huddled near the wall, arms crossed, looking hungrily at me. I bared my teeth at him and was gratified when he looked away.

  Balthasar stood in the middle of it all, only a few feet away from me. Too bad I could move only a few inches—no chance to pull away. And no chance to pounce at him in an attack. He gazed at me, satisfied, like a hunter who had trapped elusive prey. He was relaxed, arms at his sides, a faint smile touching his lips. He didn’t see a person, he didn’t see me.

  My vision wavered, Wolf swimming behind my eyes. She was glaring out at them all. I clenched my hands until my nails dug into my palms.

  Keep it together.

  “You’re all sick fucks, you know that?” I said.

  “Oh, shh, now,” Balthasar said to me. “I know this is hard.”

  I felt like the jackals were circling. “Where’s Ben?”

  Unconcerned, he said, “I don’t know. We don’t have him, but his disappearance seemed like a good way to lure you back here after you ran off. I got his shirt out of your hotel room.”

  It’s a trap, Grant had said, and of course he’d been right. I’d known all along. And been stupid enough to think I could outwit it.

  The alpha lycanthrope continued. “We’ll get to him soon enough, if we use you as bait.”

  Now? Change now? Wolf growled.

  No. I wasn’t sure we could break out of the chains, even as a wolf. Wait. Just wait. Balthasar wanted something from me, or I wouldn’t be here. I wanted to find out what.

  I faked a laugh. “You really don’t like werewolves, do you?”

  “That’s not true,” he said, stepping forward, close enough to reach out and brush his hand on my cheek. I pulled away, as much as I could, which wasn’t much. “I love werewolves.”

  I bared my teeth and choked on my own growl. “What do you want?” I said.

  “I want to test a theory,” he said, that damned smile touching his lips again. He was used to women falling all over him. Why’d he have to chain me to a wall?

  “Theory?” I said, sputtering.

  He stood in front of me, his gaze searching mine. I resisted an urge to look away. It was hard. He was stronger than me, I suspected. If I didn’t challenge him, I might get out of this. Wolf logic talking. I didn’t know what was going to get me out of this.

  Balthasar said, “Tell me about your pack.”

  This wasn’t the time to discuss werewolf social dynamics. I had an irrational fear—he’d go after them next. Go all the way to Denver to take out my people. I didn’t want to say anything. But he kept staring at me.

  “I have a very nice pack,” I said, and it was true. “My own little family.”

  “And who did you kill to get to be the alpha of your nice little family?”

  “How do you know I did?”

  “Because that’s how it works. You didn’t start out on top. In fact, if I had to make a guess, I’d say a pretty little thing like you started out damned near the bottom and had to fight her way up.”

  I didn’t confirm or deny it. I may not have started out on top, but that didn’t mean I had to admit I’d started out on the bottom of the pecking order. And this was way too much innuendo.

  “In fact,” he said, inching closer. I could feel his breath on me now. I couldn’t wriggle away from it. “I think you miss it a little.”

  “Miss what?”

  “Being the submissive. Letting someone else make the decisions. Not having any responsibility. You just have to lie back and take it. I think you miss showing your throat and belly to a big bad wolf.”

  I remembered those days. Not so long ago, really. My alpha said jump, and I jumped, every time, and adored him for it. Abuse was still attention. We all competed for his attention, and sometimes the best way to get it was by showing your belly faster than anyone else. It was all tied up in sex, ego, and control, and when I was first brought into the p
ack, I was a sheltered suburban kid who’d never been exposed to that kind of world. I didn’t know what else to do but what I was told. I was older now. I’d seen a lot more. I knew a lot more. I didn’t have to lie back and take it if I didn’t want to.

  Inside me, Wolf whined. Just a little bit. “That’s awfully presumptuous of you.”

  “You don’t deny it.”

  “And what do you expect me to do now, show you my throat and beg for it?”

  He didn’t wait for me to show it to him. He took it, pitching forward, bracing one arm behind my back, and putting his mouth over my neck while his other hand held my breast. He kissed, sucked, nibbled, while pulling me close to him, like he could swallow me with his body. Pointed canine teeth—thick, like fangs—pressed into my skin. I flushed, heat and anger spreading from my gut through my whole body.

  Then I thought: great. He wanted to rape me right here, in front of all his followers, and maybe he’d give them all a go at me. It settled me a little bit. Settled me enough. Because if that was all he did, all they did to me, I’d survive it. I knew I could survive it and get over it. It wouldn’t be the worst that could happen.

  Didn’t mean I had to sit back and take it, either. There was a time when I would have. I laughed a little, at how far I had traveled since those days. It wasn’t nice, happy laughter. It was mocking. That made him pause; he must not have understood how I could possibly resist his ministrations. How I could not simply fall back into the role of the submissive, chained to the wall like so much meat, begging for more more more.

  I may have been chained up, but when he pulled away, I knew I had a little bit of control. A tiny little bit. I could work with that. He looked at me, studying me, as if he could see what I was thinking. His eyes had turned an inhuman shade of green, glowing almost, slitted, smug like a cat’s.

  I smiled. “Actually, I don’t miss it. My alpha always managed to ignore my safe word.”

  Then I kicked. Braced against the chains and swung up, as hard as I could, realizing I probably couldn’t do much damage—especially since his followers were arrayed behind him, watching and waiting. The shackles cut into my wrists.