Kitty Saves the World

by Carrie Vaughn

  “Assuming Tina was right,” Ben said.

  “Tina’s got a good track record,” Cormac answered.

  “You two seemed to get along pretty well,” I said, obviously leading and not even caring.

  Cormac glanced at the rearview mirror. “I’m pretty sure she gets along with everybody,” he said, deliberately dodging.

  “Well, yeah, but. You know,” I said, because it was vague.

  “She’s too smart for that,” he answered.

  I was about to ask if that meant he liked her or not, when Ben leaned in, interrupting. “We have to find the pack.” He’d gone stiff, sullen. Tapping a hand on his knee, shoulders bunched up. We had to do something, get out and bleed off this anxiety. Find Shaun and the others.

  “You can do that better than I can,” Cormac said. “I’ll go after the demon.”

  “You can’t take her down by yourself,” Ben said. “You’ve tried it, what, twice now?”

  “Yeah, but she won’t surprise me next time.” His lips curled in his wicked hunter’s grin. “Third time’s the charm.”

  What did that mean, when you were playing host to the soul of a wizard?

  Chapter 9

  DENVER SEEMED suddenly dark. A layer of clouds hung low, bringing a chill and threatening a spring snowstorm. No storm was coming; the world just felt heavy. Even the traffic on the freeway seemed muted.

  We went home. The house was fine, and part of the weight that had settled on me lifted. Our enemy hadn’t touched every part of our lives, only the most visible. With the new shape of our world a little more firmly established, we could move on.

  Tina was comfortably asleep in the guest room. The temptation to crawl into my own bed was huge, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep until we figured out what happened with the pack. We stopped long enough to change clothes and get some food—heated up leftovers, devoured standing in the kitchen. A second wind, fueled by calories and anxiety, kicked in.

  Our house was at the southwestern edge of town, backed up on open space—quick, if limited, access to the wilderness of the foothills. Late afternoon, the sun ought to be lowering toward the mountains, backlighting the pine forest. But clouds obscured the tops of the hills. The sky would just keep getting darker until night fell.

  Ben and I went outside and walked slowly, skirting the edge of our yard to the tangled scrub oak we hadn’t made time to tend at the end of the property, and through a narrow gap that gave access to the meadowland beyond. The air was clear, dry despite the clouds. If anything had happened back here in the last few days, we’d smell it.

  The yard smelled like us and our territory. We’d claimed it, marked it, and our scent was strong and indisputable. Any being with a good sense of smell would know this place belonged to us.

  “Anything weird?” Ben asked¸ calling across the yard. I shook my head. Edging past the shrubbery, I continued searching. Our territory, our markings, extended out, all the way to the mountains. Nothing had disturbed that. This place still belonged to the pack, and the scent markers I sensed were generic, lingering. I didn’t smell the individual wolves. Shaun and the others hadn’t been out here, at least not in the last few days.

  The whole pack didn’t often come out here. We had places in the mountains and east on the prairie where we went on full-moon nights. Together, we walked for twenty minutes, half an hour, a mile or so from the house. Still nothing. I looked into the hills as if I could see through them to find a message written in stone. When we didn’t find any sign of our pack at its human center, we needed to check the places the wolves called home.

  “Ready for a drive?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said, already heading back to the house. “Let’s get some coffee first.”

  * * *

  FIRST WE checked Shaun’s apartment—no one was home. His scent was rich around the doors, in the stretch of parkland behind the building. But I couldn’t tell how recently he’d been here. We checked a couple of other pack members’ places in nearby neighborhoods. It was part of our job as pack alphas to know where everyone lived, to make sure everyone was okay.

  I didn’t know if they were okay. I just knew that they weren’t here. So we had to search for them.

  We took I-70 west, into the mountains. We had a patch of national forest land we called ours. At least, we used it a whole lot. Our den in the wild, the place our wolf sides would feel most at home. We were taxpayers, we had as much right to use the land as anyone, right?

  Our usual spot was at the end of a winding dirt track beyond even the service roads. Ben pulled over; we didn’t see any other cars.

  “They’re not here,” I said softly. “There’d be cars.”

  “That just means they didn’t drive.”

  That was a lawyer answer. He was right—they might have shifted somewhere else and traveled here after. In wolf form, we could run fast and far.

  I got out of the car and started walking. Spring had started to seep into the mountains. Patches of snow still marked the ground, distant peaks were still snowcapped. But shoots were coming up from the ground, and birdsong was plentiful and purposeful. The air had a touch of warmth instead of the undertone of chill it had in winter. We’d still see a few more snowfalls, but they’d melt quickly, and on the other side of them the world would be green and growing.

  This place was as familiar as New Moon. For our wolf sides, this was home. Close enough to Denver to be convenient to where most of the pack lived, but far enough away to not attract attention or bother anyone. Here, the forest opened out to high-country meadows, and a bare, rocky outcrop on the hillside offered shelter. We could leave our cars parked unobtrusively at various trailheads and turnouts and gather in peace.

  Usually I felt better here. This place smelled like home, the scent of the pack thick and welcoming. I knew the area so well, had been coming here almost every month for years. But now it felt unfamiliar, like returning to the apartment you lived in ten years ago. I recognized it, but felt detached.

  “They haven’t been here,” I said. The last time anyone had been here was the last full moon, a couple of weeks ago.

  Ben had come up behind me. I felt him, smelled his scent on the air. “Would they come here if there was a problem? Or would they go somewhere less obvious?”

  “If there’s a problem, why hasn’t anyone called us?”

  “There’s a logical explanation. Look at it this way—the place doesn’t smell wrong, does it?”

  I took a few more steps out, nose up, smelling. No, nothing smelled wrong. No fear, danger, anxiety, adrenaline, or blood. It smelled exactly the way it should have smelled. Normal.

  “We should go east next,” I said.

  Ben nodded. Our eastern den, the spot on the plains we went to when the mountains were snowbound, would take three hours to drive to. I’d be at this all night if I didn’t watch the time. That’d be okay.

  Dusk would come soon, and I could finally track down Angelo.

  “Let’s get going,” Ben said.

  East, we drove past farmland, some newly plowed fields, and some still covered with the stubble of last year’s harvest. Prairie, gullies filled with cottonwoods, and flatness that was in contrast to the mountains. Dusk fell, but that didn’t matter. We needed our noses, not our eyes. Our den out here was a dry creek bed lined with cottonwoods, grasslands surrounded by ranches but remote enough to be relatively safe.

  We didn’t come out here often, but the place still smelled like us. We caught a few other trails, cattle passing through, a few pronghorn antelope, some coyote, but they didn’t stay long. They knew this was our spot.

  Still no sign of Shaun and the pack. Ben came up next to me and put his arms around me. I leaned hard into his warmth, and he kissed the top of my head.

  “I was supposed to keep them safe,” I said.

  “Don’t bring on the guilt yet. We still have a lot of looking to do.”

  We headed back into town.

  * * *

 
NIGHT FELL on our way back to the city, and we drove straight to Psalm 23.

  I was a mess, sleep deprived, and in need of a shower. Somehow the change of clothes hadn’t gotten rid of the smoky, ashy smell that seemed to live inside my lungs now. I’d never forget the smell of my destroyed building.

  Angelo still wasn’t answering his phone. His minions weren’t, either. Maybe he was in the same trouble the pack had gotten into. On the other hand, maybe he knew what had happened to them.

  I hadn’t showered, and after a day—no, two days—of running around, I wasn’t really fit to go out. When I found him, Angelo would wrinkle his nose at me, but he’d do that anyway.

  Ben found a parking spot a couple of blocks away from the nightclub, which even on a weeknight was pretty good luck.

  “Let me do the talking,” I said as we walked to the entrance.

  “When have I ever not let you do the talking?”

  “Courtroom appearances. Senate hearings.”

  “Well, yeah,” he said. “Is this a courtroom appearance?”

  “It kind of feels like it.”

  We turned the corner, and the club’s low-key printed sign, dimly lit, came into view. Ben said, “Everything here looks normal, at least.”

  Psalm 23 was the kind of place with bouncers and velvet ropes and a long line of young, well-groomed people in slinky cocktail dresses and silk shirts and tailored slacks waiting outside, not quite able to hide their desperation to be cool. You could go your whole life and not realize that Denver had this kind of nightlife. One of the reasons this particular club had lasted so long, with relatively few changes in identity: the vampires owned it. It was their hunting ground. Because why go looking for food when you can set bait and lure it in? Vampires didn’t need to kill their prey—a few swallows of blood kept them alive and kept the streets clean of bodies that raised too many questions. If they could make the experience alluring, enjoyable, and terribly hip—why, they’d never run out of willing victims.

  And that was why vampires hung out at trendy nightclubs.

  When Rick was Master, I could often find him here, tucked away in the back, quietly surveying his realm.

  Ben and I had both rounded the corner from scruffy into disheveled. He had a pretty good start on a beard. We walked past the line of pretty young people, ignoring their stares. The bouncer was one of the Family’s younger vampires—younger meaning decades old rather than centuries old. A tough-looking black guy, Braun wore a suit and glowered professionally. We stopped, Ben looking over my shoulder at him.

  “Hi,” I said. “I need to talk to Angelo, is he here?”

  Braun didn’t say anything. Usually, the bouncers here, particularly the vampire ones who didn’t seem to like werewolves—or maybe it was just me—on principle, argued for a minute as a matter of form, then stepped aside to let me in.

  “Well?” I said, crossing my arms and glaring without meeting his vampiric gaze.

  Still nothing. The guy was a brick wall, blocking my way.

  My hackles went up; my lip curled, showing teeth. Well, if he wasn’t going to argue with us he at least seemed like he wasn’t going to stop us, either. I glanced at Ben and we started to go around him to the front door.

  Braun put out a hand and clapped it on my shoulder. Snarling, I batted at him and swerved out of reach, fingers curled into claws. Also snarling, Ben jumped in between us, lunging forward, daring the vampire to strike again. Someone in the line of people screamed.

  Wolf rose up under my rib cage, pressing out, ready to fight. When I tried to dodge around Braun again, he went to grab me, but Ben shoved. The vampire backhanded him, and he hit the sidewalk with a rush of breath. Braun came after me, yanking me back so hard my shoulder hurt. He moved too fast for me to get out of the way, too fast for me to see. Even for his size, he was shockingly strong.

  I kicked, and he lifted me, my toes just scraping on the sidewalk, to the level of his face. I bared my teeth, and Wolf growled in my throat. I could let her go, I could tear out his throat—

  “Put her down,” Ben growled, crouched, ready to pounce.

  Braun looked at him sidelong. “You really want to start something here in front of all these people?” he said, his voice a low purr.

  Deep breath. Stay calm. Keep it together. “I need to talk to Angelo,” I said, with some growl at the edges.

  “You can’t,” he enunciated and dropped me. Didn’t even bother to give an extra shove or smack, just dropped me to the pavement. Ben came to my side, and we faced the vampire together. We could be calm, we weren’t going to lose it.

  “Well. You mind passing on a message?” Braun didn’t say anything, which could have been a yes or a no. Might as well interpret it as a yes. “Tell Angelo I need to talk to him. It’s important. Please.” Because I could be polite, even if I did bite off the word with a clack of teeth.

  The beautiful clubbers in line were staring. They couldn’t possibly have any idea what was really going on.

  “Come on,” Ben said, pressing my back to steer me away. We stalked off without another glance.

  “I still have to talk to Angelo,” I muttered.

  “Of course you do,” Ben said. “That’s why I’m going to run interference while you sneak in the back.”

  We owned a bar. Or, we used to own a bar. Never mind. I knew how these buildings worked. Every one of them had a back entrance, a delivery bay, an emergency exit, all of the above. This would teach me to try the front door ever again.

  Braun or one of his buddies might be tracking us, making sure we stayed away. Just in case, we circled around a couple of blocks, cut over, and came at the club from behind. I moved fast, trotting easily, channeling Wolf. Ben was at my side.

  Psalm 23 wasn’t a restaurant proper. Except for the vampires, of course. It didn’t have a kitchen with a back door standing open to the alley while bussers carried loads to the Dumpster. But it did have a stockroom, and that door was propped open. A couple of staff—a bartender in a smart shirt and creased trousers, a cocktail waitress in a short dress—were leaning on the wall, talking and smoking over their break. They weren’t vampires; they might not even know they were working for vampires. This was just a job at a nightclub.

  Ben trotted forward without telling me the plan first. He just expected me to play along, which gave me something of a warm fuzzy feeling that he trusted me. We were a team. We could do this. I stood back, waiting.

  “Hey!” he called to the two staffers. “I’m really sorry to bother you, my car died in the intersection. I just need some help pushing it to the curb, do you guys mind?” He gestured over his shoulder and gave them an earnest expression.

  It worked. The two stubbed out their cigarettes and followed him around the corner. Coast clear, door open and waiting.

  I went inside and took a breath of air—no one was hanging out in the stockroom—good. Slipping in, I found a dark corner, a shadowed space behind a shelf full of boxes of what looked like napkins and other paper products. No one was back here. No one had seen me. The music, standard thumpy Euro-electronic dance music, sounded muted.

  Once I got to the main part of the club, I wasn’t going to be able to blend in, not in my grubby clothes. The trick in that kind of situation was always to brazen it out and act like you belonged, no matter what. I pushed through the door, down a hallway past restrooms, and emerged into open space. The place was all shadows, blues and chrome, little tables with lights on them, a dance floor tucked away, a couple of bars with lights shining under the bottles. All very chic and sci-fi. This late, the place was pretty crowded.

  I couldn’t use my nose to find Angelo. The whole place smelled like vampires. I spotted a couple of vampires I recognized, very elegant women with pinned-up hair and complicated makeup, leaning up against a column on a raised section near the dance floor. They scanned the crowd, almost as if they were standing guard rather than looking for a snack. I’d be staying out of their way. I started my circuit going the other d
irection, cutting through a group of drunk frat boy types and skirting past the front door just in case Braun happened to glance in and see me.

  Rick used to hold court at a little bistro table in a back corner, alongside the more sedate of the club’s bars. The space of quiet was all his own; he could keep an eye on things and not be in the way. Unobtrusive, understated. Tonight, that table—his table, I thought of it—was empty. Whenever I came to see him here he’d offer me a drink. I’d usually take him up on it, and we’d sit and talk. I didn’t recognize the bartender tonight. Made me sad all over again.

  I finally found Angelo—he was here, and holding court in his own distinctive fashion. A little obvious, really. I should have known. He was on one of the raised sections near the dance floor and DJ booth, the first place all gazes would go to when they came in through the front door. A semicircular black leather booth with a chrome table loomed over everything like a throne, and Angelo sat in the middle, babes in skintight dresses and too much hair on either side of him, cuddling. He was sipping from a crystal goblet that I was absolutely sure was filled with blood, because of course it was.

  I didn’t know if he actually enjoyed being ostentatious like this, or if he did it because he thought this was what vampires were supposed to do. This was what people expected from vampires. Why be subtle?

  Even better, the place was arranged in a series of platforms and hidden staircases so there was no easy way to get to him. He’d have plenty of time to watch me coming. Well, that was okay. I marched straight across the floor, sending dancers stumbling in my wake, jumped a railing, hopped up a set of stairs, and stopped in front of his table. I crossed my arms and waited. The women were human. The glass did indeed contain human blood. He probably kept it there to impress and intimidate people. It made me want to pour it over his head.

  His smile was stiff, fake. His grip on the stem of the goblet was rigid. He stared right back at me, didn’t say a word.