Kitty Goes to Washington kn-2

by Carrie Vaughn

He shrugged, noncommittal. "Yes, in a way. But not how you think. You see, Daniel saved himself. He spoke to the lions and asked them to spare him. He knew their language because he was one of them—were-lion."

  My eyes widened. "The Bible doesn't say anything about that."

  "Of course not—not explicitly. But it's there, if you look. This was thousands of years ago, remember. Humankind and animal kind were closer then—our years in the Garden together were not so long ago. And our kind, the lycanthropes, we were the bridge between the two. Daniel was very wise, and what he learned was his purpose. That there was a reason for him to be part lion, that God had a reason to make him that way. This is what we learn from Daniel. That we have purpose for being who we are, and what we are, though we may not always know it. Daniel is a saint to us. It's one of our greatest stories."

  "I've never heard it that way before."

  Ahmed sighed. "It saddens me that the tribes in this country do not tell the old tales to one another. If we gathered to tell stories and drink more, there would not be so much fighting, yes?"

  "Hear hear." I raised my near-empty glass in a toast, drained it, and said, "Tell another one."

  I lost track of time, lounging there on satin cushions, in Luis's arms, while Ahmed spoke of stories I knew, but had never heard like this, through the filter of my own experience: a werewolf who looked at the world through two sets of eyes, human and animal, and constantly had to bridge the gap between them. Enkidu, from the Epic of Gilgamesh, was a wild man who lived like a beast until he was tamed by a woman's touch. And what if he didn't just live like a beast, but was one, and yet found a reason to embrace civilization? There were tales that sounded like Aesop's Fables, about the kindnesses shown between humans and animals, thorns plucked from the paws of lions and the like, and Greek and Roman myths about gods and goddesses who could change form at will.

  The way Ahmed told it, this wasn't a curse or a disease I'd been suffering with for the last four years. It was a gift that made me part of a long tradition of saints and heroes who slipped easily between one shape and another and made it a strength.

  I wasn't ready to go so far as to feel grateful about what had happened to me. It had been an accident, a violent, bloody accident, and I didn't feel blessed. Except if I wasn't a werewolf, I wouldn't have my show and all the success it had brought me.

  I was confused.

  "Wait, Marian, you can't leave without saying goodbye!" Ahmed called to the dancer, who had just reached the door. "Excuse me," he said to us, then leapt to his feet and rushed over to sweep her up in a bear hug. Wolf hug. Whatever.

  Luis took the opportunity to move his hand to my hip, where he settled it in an unmistakable invitation. When I tipped my face up to look at him, he was right there, looking back at me. I could feel his breath on my cheek. I craned my neck, leaned forward just a little—his lips pressed mine lightly, then drew away.

  I must have flushed from scalp to toe, the way a sudden heat rose around me.

  "My apartment is nearby," he said, whispering in my ear.

  I felt his body stretched out behind me, the solidity of it, his warm scent, and I wanted it. I wanted him.

  I pressed his hand and smiled.

  We met Ahmed by the door to say goodbye, though I was self-conscious because I felt like I was glowing. Luis stood very close to me.

  "Thanks for the stories," I said. "For everything." I meant the place, this shelter, the company.

  "Kitty, it's a pleasure. The doors here are never locked. You're welcome anytime."

  The air outside was cool; Luis and I walked arm in arm.

  He had a sexy studio apartment with hardwood floors and exposed brick walls, sparse furniture and floor-length drapes. The kitchen had an island counter and looked well stocked, against expectation of the usual bachelor pad. As if he wasn't attractive enough already, he probably knew how to cook as well.

  Not that I had that good a look at the place, because just like in a movie we were kissing before the door closed. He pushed me against the wall, and I wrapped one leg around his, pulling myself close to him. We couldn't get into each other fast enough. My skin was tingling, inside and out.

  I suddenly realized, it wasn't enough to think back to the last time I had sex, which was long enough ago. But when was the last time I had good sex? That was a pathetically long time ago.

  As his hand was climbing up my thigh, under my skirt, I stopped its progress, pressed it against me. I made him slow down, tasting his lips, drawing the weight and solidity of him closer. He smelled spicy, excited, simmering with sweat and hormones. I pressed my face against his neck and took a deep breath of him. He pulled the strap of my dress off my shoulder, bent his head over my bare skin, and did the same, breathing in my scent. I giggled, because I wasn't even supporting myself anymore; I was leaning into him, he was holding me, and we were breathing together.

  I was going to enjoy this.

  Much later, we rested together in bed, naked and glowing.

  I dozed in a happy, languid haze when I noticed the mattress was vibrating with a soft, rumbling noise. I didn't think Luis was snoring; the sound was constant. It felt like one of those coin-operated massage beds in a cheap hotel. I looked up, glanced around, befuddled. The sound was coming from behind me. Right behind me.

  I rolled over without displacing Luis's arm draped over my hip.

  "Luis? Are you purring?"

  The rumbling stopped and he sleepily mumbled, "Hmm?"

  Chapter 4

  "Don't move. I'll get it."

  Luis was already out of bed before I realized someone was knocking on the front door. The noise had a steady rhythm and was getting louder. Luis put on a robe and went to the door. "Yes?"

  The answer was muffled by the barrier, but perfectly comprehensible.

  "It's time for Kitty to leave now. She's had enough fun for one night."

  Leo. He must have tracked me down.

  It had to be getting close to dawn. Maybe I'd thought I could wait him out. As it was, he had just enough time to drag me back.

  Luis looked at me. I didn't want to say anything. Leo rattled the doorknob.

  "You don't have to go," Luis said. "He can't come in. I'm not going to invite him."

  Ah, the home turf advantage. If we could stand another hour of Leo nagging at us through the door, we'd be fine.

  A click and drag rattled the door—the sound of a dead bolt sliding back. Luis moved back in time to avoid being hit as the door swung in.

  Bradley stood in the doorway, holding a device that was most likely a lockpick.

  Leo leaned on the wall outside, safely beyond the threshold, regarding us with an expression verging on laughter. "Fortunately, the mortal humans in Alette's employ aren't bound by that annoying little restriction."

  "You're trespassing," Luis said.

  "Hello, Luis. How is your band of miscreants at the Crescent these days?"

  Luis stood with his hands clenched and back braced, giving the impression that he was about to pounce. Was he going to defend me in some gloriously violent manner? How romantic. It scared the daylights out of me.

  "Luis, it's okay. I should probably get going."

  "Why should you go with them?" He spoke over his shoulder, without shifting his gaze from the vampire.

  "They're holding my car hostage," I said. Luis didn't look convinced, but he didn't say anything else. I was still in bed, holding the sheets over my chest. I glared at Leo and Bradley. "Could you close the door so I can get dressed?"

  "No," Leo said. "I don't trust you. I'm not taking my eyes off you this time."

  Luis started to close the door anyway, but Bradley put out his arm to block it. Bradley tried hard to brace it, leaning forward and putting his weight into it, but Luis was stronger, and slowly pushed him back. Bradley put his other hand against the door. They'd break it before Luis got it closed. They glared at each other.

  "Never mind," I said. I didn't want to start a fight. Not that I d
idn't think Luis couldn't handle himself. But I hated to think that I was the one who dragged him into it.

  I climbed out of bed and made a point of not shrinking under Leo's gaze. Bradley was polite enough to look away, and Luis was still guarding his territory. But Leo watched me walk naked across the room to where I'd abandoned my dress on the floor. He was trying to aggravate me, which made it a little easier to ignore him. I'd run with a wolf pack; they'd seen me naked. I turned my back to him to pull the dress over my head. I found my shoes and handbag and met Luis by the door.

  "Very nice," Leo said.

  I said to Luis, "I had a good time. Thanks."

  "Be careful with them."

  "I'll watch my back." I leaned forward for a kiss and he gave it to me, gently, warmly. I closed my eyes and sighed wistfully.

  "I'll see you later," he said. A statement, not a question.

  I smiled. "Yeah." I lingered, thinking he might kiss me again—hoping he would.

  "Finished?" Leo said. Scowling, I stepped out and Luis closed the door.

  Leo and Bradley flanked me on the way out, my own personal Secret Service.

  The vampire sat in the front seat of the sedan while Bradley drove.

  "You're a fucking loose cannon," Leo said cheerfully over his shoulder. He crossed his arms and smirked. The sky was graying; he was cutting it close. I couldn't tell if he was anxious about it. His blase attitude might have been an act to cover up how annoyed he really was, for all I knew.

  "Thanks," I said. He rolled his eyes.

  If I'd felt like a teenager on the way to her prom on the way out, Alette waiting up for me when we arrived back at her place completed the image. Bradley and Leo guided me to the parlor, where she was waiting, seated regally in her wingback armchair. At a gesture from her, they left.

  Frowning, she rose. "I begin to understand why you're a wolf without a pack. Have you always been this contrary?"

  "No. It took me years to develop a backbone."

  "Your last pack kicked you out, did it?"

  "I left."

  "Leo tells me you found your way to the Crescent. What did you think of it?"

  The question put me off balance. I was all ready for her to chew me out, and I was all ready to be, well, catty about it.

  "I really liked it," I said. "It's been a long time since I felt like I was with friends."

  "I've tried to give you that here."

  Then why did I feel like a teenager being dressed down by her mother? "Leo made it difficult."

  "He must find you easy to provoke."

  I wasn't going to start this argument.

  "Before I forget." I reached back and undid the clasp on the necklace. I hadn't taken it off all night, lest I end up a pathetic character in a de Maupassant story. I gave it back to her. "Thanks. I think it was what made Luis finally hit on me."

  She narrowed her gaze. "Do I even want to know?"

  "Probably not."

  "We'll have to continue this tomorrow evening. I trust you can find your way to your room? Everyone else is asleep."

  I had a feeling that was a very subtle, guilt-inducing dig. "Um, yeah."

  "Good morning, Kitty." She swept past me, down the corridor and away.

  Morning. Sleep. Yeah. What a night.

  I was bleary-eyed when I met Ben in front of the Dirksen Senate Office Building at noon.

  "What the hell happened to you?" he said by way of greeting.

  I peered at him through slitted, sleep-encrusted eyelids and smiled self-indulgently.

  "I went out last night."

  He shook his head and took a sip of coffee out of a paper cup. "I don't want to know."

  I blinked, trying to focus and feeling like I was only now waking up. I knew this was Ben standing in front of me. The figure certainly looked like Ben, and sounded like Ben. But his suit was pressed. His shirt was buttoned. He wore a tie, and his hair lay neatly combed back from his face.

  I should have known it would take the U.S. Senate to polish him up.

  "What are you staring at?" he said. I could only grin sheepishly.

  We went inside and managed to find the room the hearing was being held in with only a couple of wrong turns. We sat in the back of the room, which was nicer than I was expecting: blue carpet, wood-paneled walls, the desks and tables in the front made of an expensive-looking wood. The place had a formal, legal air. The chairs for the audience were padded, which was nice.

  The space for observers wasn't huge, but it was filled. A lot of the people looked like reporters. They held tape recorders or notepads. A couple of TV cameras stood off to the side.

  No one noticed us. I considered it one of the perks of radio that I could be well known and completely unrecognizable at the same time. The reporters focused all their attention on the front of the room: the row of senators, eight of them, each with an identifying nameplate, and Dr. Paul Flemming, sitting at a long table facing them.

  Ben leaned over. "You met him. What's he like?"

  "I don't know. He's kind of cagey. Nervous. Territorial."

  "He looks kind of mousy."

  "Yeah, that too."

  C-SPAN live wasn't any more exciting than C-SPAN on TV. I paid attention anyway, waiting for McCarthy to burst out of some unassuming senator's skin and ravage the hearings with Cold War paranoia. No such luck. The proceedings were downright sedate, very Robert's Rules of Order.

  Senator Duke opened the hearings after laying down the rules of how long each senator could speak and when. As Chair, he got to decide such matters.

  "Because of the highly irregular nature of the subject which we have convened to discuss, and the secrecy under which the research on this subject has been conducted, the committee has opted to reserve the first two sessions for questioning the gentleman who supervised the research. Dr. Paul Flemming, welcome. You have a statement for us?"

  Each witness could enter a prepared statement into the record. They tended to be dry and academic. I expected Flemming's to be doubly so.

  "Five years ago, I received a grant of funds from the National Institutes of Health to conduct research into a number of previously neglected diseases. These are diseases which have for centuries been shrouded in superstition and misunderstanding—"

  And so on. He might as well have been talking about cancer or eczema.

  The senators' questions, when they finally started, were benign: what is the Center, where is it located, who authorized funding, from which department was funding derived, what are the goals of the Center. Flemming's answers were equally benign, repetitions of his opening statement, phrases like the ones he'd given me: the Center strives to further the boundaries of knowledge in theoretical biological research. He never even used the words vampire or lycanthrope. I squirmed, wondering when someone was going to mention the elephant in the room.

  Senator Duke granted my wish.

  "Dr. Flemming, I want to hear about your vampires."

  Dead silence answered him. Not a pen scratched in the entire room. I leaned forward, waiting to hear what he'd say.

  Finally, Flemming said, very straightforward, as if delivering a paper at a medical conference, "These are patients exhibiting certain physiological characteristics such as an amplified immune system, pronounced canines, a propensity for hemophagia, severe solar urticaria—"

  "Doctor," Duke interrupted. "What are those? Hemophagia? What?"

  "Consuming blood, Senator. Solar urticaria is an allergy to sunlight."

  He made it sound so clinical, so mundane. But what kind of allergy caused someone to burn into a cinder?

  "And what have you discovered about these so-called patients of yours, Doctor?"

  Flemming hesitated a moment, then leaned closer to the microphone set before him. "I'm not sure I understand your question, Senator."

  "Vampires. In your opinion, what are they?"

  Flemming cleared his throat, nervousness slipping into the calm, and said cautiously, "I believe I explained previously,
that vampirism is characterized by a set of physical characteristics—"

  "Cut the bull, Doctor. We've all seen Dracula, we know the 'physical characteristics.' I want to hear about the moral characteristics, and I want to hear about why they exist."

  I leaned forward, scooting to the edge of my seat, not because I would hear any better. The microphones worked great. I was waiting for the fight to break out.

  "My studies don't involve the scope of your question, Senator."

  "Why not?"

  "Those points are irrelevant."

  "With all due respect I disagree with you. Strongly."

  "Senator, I'm not qualified to comment on the moral characteristics of my patients."

  "Your test subjects, your patients—how do you feed them, Doctor? Whose blood do they suck out? How many of them turn into vampires?"

  "Despite all the stories to the contrary, the condition is not transmitted by direct fluid contact—"

  "And the blood?"

  "Blood bank, Senator. We use pints of the most common types that the existing blood supply can spare."

  "Thank you, Doctor." He said it like he'd gained some kind of victory.

  "Doctor, I have some questions over the budgeting of your research—" One of the other senators on the committee, a woman named Mary Dreschler, quickly steered the discussion back to more mundane matters. A Democrat from a Midwestern state, Dreschler had run for the seat held by her late husband, who'd died suddenly in the middle of a reelection campaign. She was on her third term.

  After two hours of this, the day's session was over. It was just as well it wasn't an all-day thing. If people in Congress did this sort of thing a lot, I was going to have to respect them a little more. Here I was, thinking the job was all glamour and state dinners. When Duke called the session into recess for the day, a sense of relief passed through the room, and the group sigh of exhaustion changed the air pressure.

  Ben, leaning back in his chair, smirked in amusement. "If this is the tone the whole hearings are going to take, we're in for a roller coaster. I can't wait to see what Duke does with you."

  "I thought you were supposed to be on my side."

  "I am. It's still going to be fun to watch." I could hear it now: Eaten any babies lately, Ms. Norville?