Kitty Goes to War

by Carrie Vaughn

  “Let’s back up a minute,” I said. “You guys are in serious trouble. Unless you start pulling yourselves together, you’re going to be locked up for a very long time. Shumacher and Stafford are the ones who get to decide whether you’re safe enough to be let out of here. I may be the only one who thinks there’s a chance you might ever be safe enough to go free. You need to start talking to me.”

  For a long time, none of them spoke. I kept my gaze on Vanderman—the dangerous one—but could see the others in the corners of my vision. They watched Vanderman as well—looking for cues, waiting to see what he would do before they reacted. Maybe I should have talked to them separately.

  “What is there to talk about?” Vanderman said finally. And off to the side, Tyler relaxed. He wanted Vanderman to talk.

  “Yarrow. Crane. Estevan,” I said. “What happened?”

  Vanderman grimaced. “They wouldn’t listen to me. They put us all in danger.”

  “You lost control,” I said.

  “I’m the alpha, they had to listen—”

  “The alpha is supposed to keep his pack safe,” I said.

  “I’m trying,” he said, voice low, snarling.

  And I believed him. He really did think he was leading, being the alpha, by smacking down the lesser wolves who dared to challenge him. He was doing what his wolf told him to, and his wolf was angry and afraid.

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t want to hurt them,” he said.

  “You’re going to keep hurting people until you can learn to control your wolf. Before you can take care of anyone else, you have to get yourself under control. So let’s talk about you for a minute. What do you want? What do you want to do next?”

  “I want to go back. Finish the job.”

  “Back—to Afghanistan?” The answer baffled me. Why would anyone want to go back there? But Vanderman nodded, and I saw the determination in him. It was the first time he hadn’t looked murderous. He was focused on his job. “Then you have to get this thing under control. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Who are you to tell me that? What do you know about it, you bitch, you fucking bitch—” He threw himself against the glass. I would have flinched if I hadn’t seen it coming, in his bared teeth and bloodshot eyes. He really did seem more animal than human. He must have known he couldn’t hurt me, but he kept driving at me, trying to scare me.

  And okay, I was scared. For him as much as of him. But I was the one in control here, which made me the alpha, which was a little gratifying. He hadn’t figured that out yet. He thought beating people up made him the alpha.

  I turned away, showing him that he wasn’t worth my time, and studied Tyler and Walters.

  “What about you guys?” I said to the other two. “What do you want?”

  Vanderman moved in between them and me. “We’re a pack. We have to stick together.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything here,” I said. “You’re human beings with free will. I want to hear them talk.”

  Walters looked back and forth between Vanderman and me, shivering almost, trying to decide whom he was more terrified of. I wanted to yell at him to straighten up, to grow a spine, to stop cowering. But he was scared. Screaming at him wouldn’t change that.

  “I want to go home,” Tyler said, frowning, sad. “I want to be normal.”

  “Sergeant, what the fuck are you doing?” Vanderman said around gritted teeth.

  “Van, we can’t keep going like this,” Tyler said. “They’re going to keep us locked up here forever if we don’t figure something out.”

  “Shut up!”

  “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. Gordon wouldn’t even recognize us with how messed up we are.”

  “Shut the fuck up!”

  “Van—”

  Vanderman sprang, bowling into Tyler, driving him across the room and shoving him against the far wall. Tyler clawed at him, digging his hands into the skin of the man’s back looking for purchase. Twisting his body, he wrenched out of the sergeant’s grip. They fought, grappling at each other, locking arms around shoulders and trying to get the other to show belly. I was glad to be on this side of the glass.

  I hoped Shumacher was taking notes, because from a behavior standpoint, this was fascinating. When Tyler answered my question, he essentially transferred authority to me—he decided he was going to listen to and obey me rather than Vanderman. And boy, did that piss Vanderman off. But it felt like progress. Sort of.

  “Stop it!” I said. Of course they didn’t listen. So maybe I didn’t have all that much authority. “Vanderman, Tyler! Back off! Back down!” This was how the other men had died. Any minute now, they’d shift and start tearing each other to bits.

  A keening, high-pitched electric siren blared through the room, rattling the concrete walls, vibrating up through my feet. I doubled over, hands to my ears to block the noise. Not that it worked, because the noise streaked along the inside of my skull and made my nerve endings shrivel up.

  In a couple of seconds, it was over. Though it had seemed to drag on and linger in the way my teeth suddenly felt like Jell-O, it had probably only been a short blast. And it had been effective. When I looked in the cell, Tyler and Vanderman had separated, and were slowly unfolding themselves from protective crouches, hands over their ears, much as I was.

  Huh. Dog whistle. Werewolf siren. Whatever.

  The room’s door opened behind me and Shumacher entered.

  “That totally sucked ass,” I said. My voice was kind of shaky. I tried to glare aggressively, not sure if I pulled it off.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t think there was a choice.”

  “What was that?” I demanded, trying to regain my composure—steadying my breathing and putting my heart back into my chest.

  “It’s the fastest way to get their attention,” she said, nodding into the cage where the wolves had, in fact, calmed down. At least they weren’t fighting anymore. Vanderman started pacing again, a half dozen steps back and forth along the glass. Walters retreated to a corner where he sat, hunched in on himself, and Tyler settled into a crouch and glared out at us.

  We were right back where we started.

  “Kitty?” Shumacher said softly, indicating that I should come back outside with her.

  In silence, we went back to the conference room from my first visit. Colonel Stafford had arrived in the meantime, and I was betting he’d witnessed the whole exchange between me and the others via video monitor. So much for convincing them I could be successful.

  “That’s what we’re dealing with,” Stafford said. “Any bright ideas?”

  Frowning, I sat next to Shumacher. What could I say? “Vanderman’s setting the tone. A really negative tone. You might try separating them, dealing with them one-on-one to get away from the pack mentality.”

  “Or I could just court-martial them all on murder charges,” Stafford said.

  That probably seemed logical to him. But it hardly seemed fair, at least not for Tyler and Walters.

  “They’ll plead insanity because of the lycanthropy,” Shumacher said, as though they’d had this conversation before.

  “They’d still be locked up. That may be as good as they’re going to get.”

  In Vanderman’s case, it was maybe even the right thing to do. I remembered the look in his eyes, his single-mindedness. He was a fighter and he couldn’t shut it off.

  “But the others?” I said. “Is there any evidence that they directly participated in the murders? Tyler and Walters may not have had anything to do with it. The pack dynamics mean they’re submissive to Vanderman, deferring to him.”

  “Evidence says it was all Vanderman. I’m willing to consider that the others were coerced. But as much as I’d love to put Tyler and Walters back in the field, if you can’t help them, they’ll have to stay where they are.”

  “There has to be a way,” I said, but of course it wasn’t that easy. “They’ve never seen functional werewolves living in society. The
y’re like those wild children living on their own in the woods—”

  “Raised by wolves?” Shumacher said wryly.

  Except wolves were more civilized than they were. “If we could show them, give them an example to follow . . .” They needed to be taught. I wondered if it was as simple as that. If they could be taught, if they would just listen . . .

  Shumacher leaned forward. “Could you arrange that? If we moved them to Denver? Exposed them to your pack, acclimated them.”

  I wanted a moment to consider the implications. I didn’t particularly want to bring my people into this any more than I already had. They weren’t therapists or guinea pigs. But then neither was I.

  “Kitty?” Shumacher prompted.

  “Tyler and Walters, maybe,” I said finally. “Tyler is listening to me, and Walters is submissive. He’ll follow my lead if we get him away from Vanderman.” Vanderman was the killer. He was the one we had to worry about. If we got the others away from him, maybe we could influence them.

  “Colonel?” Shumacher asked.

  He thought a moment, tapping fingers on the table-top. The easy thing to do would be for him to throw away the key. But maybe he would take a chance.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s try it.”

  Shumacher sighed, relieved. “Then it’s settled. I’ll find facilities for them and we can get started as soon as we can.”

  “And Vanderman?” I said.

  “I think Vanderman’s finished,” Stafford said.

  So they were giving up on him. And I couldn’t honestly say I was sorry to hear it.

  Chapter 7

  I CALLED BEN to let him know I was on the way home, and an hour or so later stumbled through the door around suppertime. I felt mostly numb—zombieish, even. Like someone else was guiding my body via remote control. What exactly had I agreed to again?

  Ben was in the kitchen, making something that smelled like food. My nerves started to melt, which was both a good and a bad thing. I wasn’t sure I was ready for self-reflection quite yet.

  “You look terrible,” he said. Not the best greeting ever, but it was nice that he noticed.

  “I had a rough afternoon.” I wandered over, wanting to investigate the scents my nose was taking in. Fresh meat. He was doing something with steak and red wine. I wanted to tear into it.

  “How’s the werewolf Dirty Dozen? Quarter dozen, I suppose.” he said, meeting me halfway and gathering me into his arms. I leaned against him, pressing my face to his shoulder, wrapping myself in his embrace—the good, solid, protective weight of his arms across my back. I turned my nose to his hairline and took in his scent, mildly sweaty, musky, the hint of fur, of his wolf under the skin.

  I was definitely home. I took his face in my hands and kissed him to seal the deal. Ben enthusiastically reciprocated, which helped banish lingering tension. I was eager to continue the trend. My hands crawled down his sides, tugging at the hem of his shirt until they found access, then slipped up his back, pressing against his warm skin. He made a sound and pulled me closer, so that I had to hitch a leg around his. His heart was pounding against my chest. We fit together snugly.

  Then he said, murmuring into my cheek, “Um. I have to go check the steaks.”

  “Not really.”

  “’Fraid so. Unless you want them overdone.”

  We both liked our steaks rare. Reluctantly, I let him go. Flushed and smiling, I stayed in the kitchen, leaning against the wall and watching him work.

  “What’s going to happen to them?” he asked.

  “They’re giving up on Vanderman. Court-martial and locked up for life, probably.”

  “Rough.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know what else to do. He isn’t stable. He’d barely talk to me. And he is guilty of murder.”

  “It’s not like you to give up on anyone.”

  “I’m going to try to help Tyler and Walters. They’ll be transferred to a VA hospital up here and I’m going to help . . . socialize them, I guess.”

  “You think it’ll work?”

  “I know Cormac would say it’s too late. But I guess I want to prove someone can come back from that.” My same old line: I wanted to believe our human sides were stronger. Or at least just as strong.

  Ben turned a wry smile. “It’s not your job, you know. You don’t have to try to save everyone.”

  I frowned and looked away. I couldn’t save everyone; I’d had that demonstrated to me all too clearly. But if you didn’t try, you might end up not saving anyone. I had to try.

  “Who else is going to do it?” I said. “Besides, I don’t think of it as a job so much as a . . . a vocation.”

  “Sometimes you can’t fix everything. You can argue your best case in front of the most sympathetic judge and jury in the world—and sometimes you still won’t win.”

  “I’m not sure this is about winning,” I said. “It’s about proving that we’re human. That we deserve a chance.”

  “The life you save may be your own?” he said.

  I gave him a grim smile.

  THE NEXT day at work, I waited for Dr. Shumacher’s call. I wanted to hear that Tyler and Walters had arrived safely and happily in Denver, and that they were eager to embark on bright, happy, well-adjusted lives. I was afraid I would find out there’d been another breakout, and that the trio was again rampaging across the countryside. I was afraid Shumacher would tell me that Colonel Stafford had decided a few silver bullets were the only solution after all.

  My phone kept ringing, as usual, but none of the calls came from Dr. Shumacher. It was making me cranky.

  I answered yet another call from my desk phone to hear Lisa at reception say, “Hi . . . um, Kitty?”

  “What?” I just about snarled that time.

  Lisa sounded a little shaky. “There’s someone here to see you. He doesn’t have an appointment, says his name is Harold Franklin.

  Harold Franklin, president of Speedy Mart. Here? “Really?”

  “He says he wants to talk to you. Should I send him up?”

  “No, that’s okay, I’ll meet him downstairs,” I said, scrambling to gather my thoughts. Why would he be here? He ought to be talking to me through our lawyers. That was the whole point of having lawyers, so you didn’t have to talk to people you were officially mad at. My paranoia got the better of me and I decided I wanted to meet him in the open, with people watching, in case he’d decided on more direct and nefarious action.

  I was supposed to be a big, scary monster, so why did I spend so much time worrying about people killing me?

  I ran down the stairs and emerged into the KNOB lobby.

  He was alone, standing near the reception desk and gazing around the lobby with the abstract interest of someone killing time. He was tall, older—in his early sixties, maybe—his short cropped hair gone to white. He wore a gray suit and overcoat that were probably expensive, and held himself with a lifetime’s worth of confidence and authority. Here was a man used to running empires—corporate empires. The only kind that mattered these days.

  “Ah, Ms. Norville,” he said, turning his attention to me.

  And why did he make me think of vampires? He wasn’t one. He had a living, beating heart, not to mention it was full daylight outside. It was probably the “I could own you all” attitude.

  “Mr. Franklin,” I said, and approached him with my hand politely offered for shaking, which he did in standard corporate fashion. Nothing suspicious here. “Would it be a cliché to say that this is a surprise?”

  He chuckled politely. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  There was really no nice way to make the next conversational gambit. “Um . . . why exactly are you here?” Here in Denver, here in my building, talking to me . . .

  “Is there someplace we can talk privately?” he said, glancing around to indicate the public nature of the lobby, including Lisa, who was failing to pretend to ignore us.

  I winced in false apology. “Actually, you know what? I
think we’d better talk right here.”

  He smiled as if he’d scored a point. Like he’d proven that I was too insecure to talk in private, that I was actually worried, or something. Oh yeah? Well, I scored a point by not caring about that. He shouldn’t even be here while he was suing me. Not without our lawyers. I wanted witnesses.

  “All right, then,” he said. “I want to make you an offer.”

  “Maybe you should have made me an offer before filing a lawsuit.”

  “You might not have taken me seriously, then.”

  We’d expected some kind of offer—but certainly not delivered in person. I almost pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and called Ben right there. This guy was playing a game that I didn’t have a copy of the rules for.

  “You want to make me an offer, why not call my lawyer? Aren’t you jeopardizing your suit just by being here?” I asked the question knowing he’d have a rehearsed answer, that he probably had an answer for everything.

  “Lawyers have their place, but I like to take the measure of my opponents in person. Look them in the eye.”

  This smacked of corporate backroom dealing. So not my milieu. Maybe I should have taken him to KNOB’s college-chic conference room to throw him off his game. Not that anything would throw this guy off his game.

  His left hand hung at his side, closed in a fist, as if he was holding something. A cell phone maybe. Whatever it was was hidden, and my gaze kept dropping to his hand, hoping for a glimpse. I had to mentally shake myself, bringing my focus back to him.

  I crossed my arms and stared him down. “All right. I may regret this, but what’s your offer?”

  “I’ll drop the case. All I need is a public apology during your show.”

  I was almost surprised that the offer wasn’t more . . . surprising. “Oh, is that all?”

  “It’s reasonable. Neither of us shells out for a court case, neither of us wastes the time, and no harm’s done.”

  Except maybe to my reputation. I couldn’t remember—had I ever apologized to anyone on my show, ever?

  “But for me to apologize—that would assume I was wrong. So. Am I wrong?”