Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand

by Carrie Vaughn

  “Yeah, well, that’s what you get for being top of the food chain. The rest of us have to have some kind of fighting chance.”

  “Why’d you come here, Kitty?”

  “You’re not the oldest vampire in town. Who is that woman from Balthasar’s show, that priestess chick?”

  “Set her sights on you, did she? I had a feeling.”

  “And you didn’t warn me? You didn’t do anything about it?”

  “Sorry. I thought you could take care of yourself. But if she decided she wanted you, there wasn’t much I could do about it.”

  I swallowed back the growl stuck in my throat. But my claws were pressing against the inside of my skin. Ben put a hand on my shoulder. The touch steadied me.

  “How’d you escape?” he said, continuing. “She doesn’t usually let anyone get away.”

  “I had help,” I said, fuming. But I couldn’t vent. Couldn’t lose control. I didn’t have the power here. “But I guess that means you haven’t heard about what happened over there tonight? The police are still bringing out the bodies.”

  He shrugged, unconcerned. “I know what I need to.”

  “And where is she now? What happens to her now?”

  “If she’s really as old as you think she is, what makes you think anything happens to her? What do you possibly think you, or any of us, can do?”

  “Is this your city or not? Are you the Master here or not?”

  He took a few steps, turned to gaze out the city. He wore an indecipherable smile, like he was laughing at me. I didn’t get the joke.

  That was it, that was the thing about him: he got all the perks without any of the responsibility. He got to look like he was in control, with the glitzy casino, the penthouse suite, the beautiful women swooning on his sofa. He was all image. And he didn’t care.

  “Does Rick know?” I said. “Do any of the other vampires know?”

  His mouth turned, half smile, half sneer. “And what are you going to tell them? You tell them any of this, you think they’ll believe you?”

  I opened my mouth, starting to say something about truth and justice, but he cut me off with a glance.

  “This whole town’s a show, Kitty. Haven’t you figured that out? You’re not supposed to see the props and rigging backstage. Now why don’t you clap nicely at the spectacle and then go home, like everyone else.”

  I stared. “So that’s it. Nothing happens.”

  “Kitty, come on,” Ben said at my ear, then kissed my cheek. I hardly felt it. Hand on my arm, he urged me back toward the foyer.

  Holding back a moment, I nodded to the woman on the sofa. “Is she going to be okay?”

  “I take care of my people, Kitty. She’ll be fine.”

  Oddly, I believed him. That was how vampires went unnoticed, how they’d existed for centuries as little more than legend and rumors. Like he’d said, bodies were bad for tourism. Hand in hand, my mate and I left.

  At the elevator door, Sven held out his hand. I didn’t even have to ask what he wanted; I put the key card in it.

  On the ride down, I wrapped my arms around Ben and hugged him tightly. I’d need another shower to get the smell of Dom’s place out of my nose. The smell of this whole town out of my nose.

  Ben held me, tucked his chin over my head, and said, “You can’t have expected that to go any different than it did.”

  I sighed. “I don’t know what I expected. I keep expecting people to be decent. Sometimes people are actually decent.” I thought about Evan, Brenda, and Odysseus Grant blazing to my rescue. And realized I still wasn’t sure I could trust any of them, that I couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t turn on me to serve their own purposes. “Does that make me really naive?”

  “I think it makes you a good person.”

  “Well, bully for me,” I grumbled.

  Ben rumpled my hair, and I thought, well, at least we were both in one piece. We walked very quickly away from the Napoli, never looking back.

  We managed to sleep for a few hours, and when we awoke, the sun blazed through the window, edging the curtains in light. I wanted to bask in that sunlight—I almost hadn’t made it to morning. I sat in bed, amid rumpled sheets, pleased that I was actually feeling better. Ben was still sleeping. We were together, and all was well.

  Except the phone rang. Of course it did. The first time was Detective Gladden, informing me that they still hadn’t found Ben.

  “Er,” I started, chagrined. In all the excitement, I hadn’t thought to call him back. “Detective? He’s right here.”

  Gladden hesitated a moment. “What?”

  “He’s right here. He showed up at the hotel late last night. He got away from Faber’s place during the ruckus. Slipped right out.” I didn’t have to mention him getting shot.

  The detective paused again. I couldn’t imagine the look on his face. Finally, he said, “May I speak to him?”

  Our blissful morning peace couldn’t last forever, I supposed. I nudged Ben awake and handed him the phone. The conversation was short, and Ben didn’t do much talking. Mostly made vague agreeing noises. Almost guilty. Gladden was probably chewing him out for not going to them first. Personally, I was glad he’d come to me.

  Ben said, “Okay. I can do that. Thanks, Detective.”

  Sighing, he handed the phone back to me. “He wants me to come in this afternoon for a debriefing. They want to know what happened. I don’t know how I’m going to explain it.” He ran a hand through his already-mussed hair. It didn’t help smooth it out at all.

  “I wouldn’t mind hearing about that, too. Can I sit in?”

  My phone beeped, indicating a message waiting—from my parents. Oh, yeah—I probably ought to call them.

  Mom answered in the middle of the first ring. “Kitty! What’s happened? Have the police found him yet? Where are you, are you all right?”

  I definitely wasn’t going to explain to them what I’d been doing all night. The important thing, the only thing they needed to know: “Ben’s right here, Mom. He’s fine. Everything’s fine.” And didn’t that feel wonderful to say?

  “Oh, that’s great! Thank goodness!” she gushed. “So when are you getting married?”

  I looked at Ben. He looked at me. I sighed. “I don’t know, Mom. I’ll give you a call when I find out what’s going on with that.”

  “All right. Kitty, I’m glad Ben’s safe.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.” I shut off the phone. “She wants to know when we’re getting married.”

  “That turned out to be a little more complicated than we expected, didn’t it?” he said.

  Frowning, I looked away. “It does seem like the universe is conspiring against us.”

  He regarded me a moment, holding my left hand, rubbing a finger over the engagement ring, pondering. Then he smiled.

  “I have a plan. Meet me out front in, oh, let’s say an hour.”

  “You think I’m going to let you out of my sight after everything that’s happened?”

  “I know. But I’ll be careful. I have an idea.” He smiled and looked at me with the gaze of a predator.

  “An idea?”

  “It’s a good idea.” He dressed, slipping on boxers, jeans, shirt, and socks, and running fingers through his hair in lieu of a comb.

  “What idea?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  We’d already had this discussion, and the answer wasn’t any different now. I nodded.

  “Just meet me outside in an hour.”

  He kissed me, deeply and fiercely, then walked out.

  Rather than sitting around waiting, I got dressed and took a walk. I was curious, so I went back to the Hanging Gardens.

  The police cars were all gone, though I suspected yellow crime-scene tape still wrapped the theater and stage. A couple of TV news vans had replaced the squad cars, but I didn’t see any reporters. I wasn’t going to go near them to find out what was happening.

  I only went as far as the lobby, where the poster for Balthasar
’s show had changed.

  The photo was the same, showing the big cats perched in their Babylonian temple setting, and the name of the show was the same: “Balthasar, King of Beasts,” blazoned across the top. Another sign, attached to the side, announced a new opening date set for sometime next week. But a picture of Nick had replaced Balthasar in the center of the poster. There he stood, hands on his hips, smiling haughtily, brown hair swept back, looking like the cover of a romance novel. His eyes seemed to follow me as I moved around the lobby.

  Nothing had changed.

  Outside the hotel, even the Las Vegas desert heat couldn’t dispel the chill in my spine.

  But I had a date, so precisely one hour after Ben left, I arrived on the sidewalk in front of the Olympus. A minute later, a huge white Cadillac convertible pulled into the drive. All it needed was a longhorn hood ornament. Ben—in the driver’s seat, his shirtsleeves rolled up, one hand on the steering wheel, the other elbow resting on the door—looked out at me over his sunglasses.

  “Hey,” he drawled.

  The rest of the weekend receded to a pinpoint of distant memory. This was all about here and now, Ben’s crazy plan, and all the reasons I never wanted to be without him.

  I almost cackled. “Oh my God. It’s perfect.”

  “Get in,” he said, a glint in his eye and curl to his lip.

  Squealing like a teenage groupie, I clambered into the front seat. Fortunately, the bellhop had opened the door first. I was all ready to just leap into the boat of a car.

  “Where did you get this?” I asked as he pulled out of the drive.

  “You know you can rent anything in this town?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Just you wait.”

  The front seat was big enough for a whole family. I slid all the way over, squishing right up next to Ben. He smiled indulgently, and I couldn’t stop grinning. I didn’t care what the plan was, tooling around Vegas in this monstrosity seemed the perfect way to spend the afternoon.

  Five minutes later, I discovered the rest of Ben’s plan. All my questions were answered as we turned the corner and pulled into the lane of a drive-through wedding chapel.

  My eyes got real big. I just kind of stared up at the sign, suddenly weepy.

  Seventies Elvis, complete with shining pompadour and white spangled jumpsuit, leaned out of the window, looking bored.

  Ben said to him, “Can we hurry up and do this before a meteor drops on us?”

  “Sure thing, bro,” the Elvis drawled.

  It was perfect.

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” I said, digging for my phone. “My mom’s going to kill me. I mean really kill me this time. I have to tell her.”

  “Kitty, we can’t wait,” Ben said. “We’ll block traffic.”

  Exactly how many people got married at the drive-through every day? I’m not sure I wanted to know the answer to that.

  I’d already dialed my mother. “Kitty?” she said when she answered. “Where are you? We’re about to go out for brunch, and if you and Ben want to—”

  I turned on the speaker phone. “Hi, Mom? I’m sorry we couldn’t give you more warning. But things got crazy.” Uh, yeah, you think? “Just listen.”

  “Kitty!” she argued.

  Paperwork was handed back and forth. Souvenir photo snapped. I held up the phone while Elvis officiated.

  “Do you, Benjamin O’Farrell, take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?”

  “I do.” He clasped my hand, squeezing tight.

  “And do you, Katherine Norville, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?”

  “I do.”

  “Then I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride. Thankyouverymuch.”

  I totally jumped Ben, right there in the car. Well, not totally. But I did throw myself at him, wrap my arms around him, and kiss him with all the enthusiasm I could muster. He hugged me back, his hands kneading me, his returning kiss equaling—or bettering—my own enthusiasm. Like we were challenging each other to top ourselves. I could have done this for the rest of the day.

  I could hear Mom say, “Kitty! What’s going on? Is this what I think it is?” over the speaker. Ben took the phone out of my hand and folded it shut.

  “Hey,” said Elvis. “You cats are going to have to pull on through. Get a room.”

  I looked up at him, my grin wild and my gaze feral. “We’re not cats. We’re wolves.”

  Ben stole one last, lingering kiss on my mouth before extricating himself from my grip to drive the car. “Come on, let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

  Tires squealed as he gunned the car out of the driveway. We slipped into gridlocked traffic on the Strip. Just sat there, arm in arm, gazing at the sunlight blazing off the towering signs and buildings around us.

  “Where to now?” Ben said. “I have the car for five more hours.”

  “I figure we need to find a sunset to drive off into.”

  “Amen to that.”

  He turned the first corner we came to and revved the engine. Then we drove away. Away from the city and the chaos, and into the desert, heading west.

  Epilogue

  Mom eventually forgave me for getting married without her. In fact, she took what might be called revenge. She called me a few days after we all got home.

  After the usual pleasantries, she announced, “I hope you’ll indulge me, but I’m putting together a little gathering. Just a little celebration. I want to show you and Ben off to my friends.”

  “What kind of gathering?” I said warily. A wolf confronting a bear.

  “Oh, just a luncheon over at the country club.”

  I agreed, knowing full well I was trapped.

  The woman managed to put together a full-on wedding reception with two weeks’ planning. I didn’t want to know how many favors she called in for that. We even had champagne and dancing. It made Mom happy; who was I to complain?

  Even if I did have to deal with some of Mom’s clueless friends, like one of her old PTA buddies who gushed at me, “Are you going to start having children right away?”

  I’d been warned that this question would happen. A lot. I had a polite answer prepared, and another one designed to inflict loads of guilt. This was the one I used on Mrs. Anderson.

  I donned a very sad look, my thin smile noble and long-suffering. “I’m afraid I’m not able to have children.” Shape-shifting and pregnancy were incompatible. I tried not to be too put out about it.

  She was supposed to look stricken and apologize profusely. Instead, she gushed some more. “Oh, well, then you can adopt! Like Brad and Angelina!”

  There was not enough champagne in the world.

  At Mom’s reception I finally met Ben’s mother, his counterpart to my own avatar of hyperactive suburban bliss. Ellen O’Farrell had been a rancher’s wife until her husband was convicted of various weapons and conspiracy charges and sent to prison. Now she was a divorced waitress in Longmont, a midsized town north of Boulder. Her brother—Cormac’s father—had been the one to teach Cormac the lycanthrope-hunting trade. Ellen came from a family of werewolf hunters. And that was why we hadn’t met yet. Ben wasn’t sure how she’d take her only son sleeping with the enemy. He also hadn’t told her he’d become the enemy. That, we decided, could wait.

  I was on my very best behavior when Ben introduced me to the thin, quiet woman. She was close to sixty, her face soft and lined, her graying brown hair tied in a braid. She seemed tired, but her hazel eyes shone.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I said, trying to be eager and human, shaking her hand.

  “Likewise.” She wrapped my hand with both of hers, beaming at me, and Ben.

  And I could tell: She was proud of him. Happy for him. He shouldn’t have been worried. Before the party was over, we had an invitation to come to her place for dinner.

  In the end, being married didn’t feel a whole lot different than not being married. Not in this day and age, where people like us liv
ed with each other and thoroughly tried each other out before the big day. And for us, it felt doubly so, because our wolf halves were thinking, Well, duh. We were mates for life, and we didn’t need some Elvis impersonator in Vegas telling us so.

  Rather quickly, life got back to normal.

  A couple of weeks later, the door to the condo slammed open late in the afternoon. I looked up from the sofa, where I’d been reading a book of H. P. Lovecraft stories. Ben walked in, looking more disheveled than not. His jacket and tie were missing, his sleeves were rolled up. Briefcase in hand, he spread his arms in a gesture of victory.

  “I fired a client,” he said. He grinned, the satisfaction and relief clear on his face.

  I raised a brow and set my book aside. Knowing some of Ben’s clients, I wondered what one would finally have to do to for Ben to walk out on the case. “Which one?” I asked as he kicked the door closed.

  “Remember the guy who got arrested for DUI on a suspended license?”

  That’s right, my honey sure knew how to pick ’em. “Yeah?”

  “Remember how I told him the only hope he had of staying out of jail was to smile nicely at the judge, agree to rehab, pay the fine without complaining, and say thank you very much?”

  “Let me guess: he didn’t.”

  “He showed up at court drunk.”

  I winced. “Ouch. What did you do?”

  He slumped onto the sofa next to me. “Let the bailiff throw him in the drunk tank, waited for him to sober up, and told him to get a different lawyer. I think they threw the book at him.”

  “Don’t you sometimes wish they could just try people for stupidity?”

  “Then I’d never run out of work.” He leaned toward me, and I put my arms around him as he zeroed in for a kiss. And another, and more kissing. This was the best part.

  He nuzzled my neck and rested his head on my shoulder. “I think I turned into a workaholic because I didn’t have this to come home to.”

  My phone rang. Ben groaned. “Ignore it,” he said.

  Probably should have, but since Mom got sick I tended to get jumpy about the phone ringing. Shifting Ben aside, I grabbed the phone off the coffee table.

  Caller ID showed Shaun on his personal phone.