That was what I'd always thought. I wondered if it would be rude of me to move chairs so I was sitting closer. I didn't want to miss anything Smith had to say.
"I'm not sure I understand you."
Senator Duke turned to his colleague. "He's saying what I've been telling you, these people are cursed, possessed, and they need to be exorcized."
"We're not living in the Dark Ages, Senator Duke." Henderson returned to his witness. "Reverend Smith?"
He said, "I believe that those afflicted may look within to purge themselves of the taint of their… diseases."
"Through prayer," Duke prompted.
"In a manner of speaking, yes."
Prayer, yeah. That was all I had to do, it sounded so simple. I wanted to talk to him, to learn from him, because I'd struggled all this time to find some kind of peace in this life but he made it sound so simple—
"Kitty!"
My brain rattled. I blinked, disoriented. Jeffrey was shaking my arm. He'd hissed into my ear loud enough that the people in front of us looked back.
"What? What's wrong? What happened?"
Ben was staring at me, too. "You looked like a clich there for a minute. I think you were even drooling."
"I was not!"
But both men watched me closely, worriedly. Despite his flippant remark, Ben's brow was furrowed. Had I fainted? Passed out? I'd just been listening to the testimony, to Smith—
That steady, haunting voice filled the room. I could feel it against my heart.
"Oh, my God," I murmured. "Is it just me? You guys don't feel it—"
Jeffrey shook his head. "Not like that, but I can see it. It's like he's on fire. It started when he spoke."
Something about his voice sounded so reasonable, so pure. It hardly mattered what he said, because what I heard was, Here is someone I can trust.
I put my hands against my temples, quelling the headache I suspected I was developing. "This is seriously twisted."
"I think I understand his church a little better," Jeffrey said.
"No doubt." The cure was only the start of his power, it seemed. He could draw vampires and werewolves to him just by speaking. He hardly needed to cure them, if all he wanted was a flock of devoted followers.
If he had that power over me across the room, how was I going to get close enough to learn more about him?
Did I dare bring him onto the show for an interview, and broadcast his voice across the country?
Then we were done for another day. The hearing adjourned.
Smith immediately came down the aisle between the two sets of chairs, his escort trailing him devotedly. I watched him the way a wolf watches a hunter approaching with a rifle: head down, eyes glaring, lips ready to snarl a challenge if the intruder comes too close. If Jeffrey and Ben hadn't been there, I might have followed along after him, as eager and devoted as his pets.
I wasn't anybody's pet.
As he passed by, he caught my gaze. For a half a second, his lips twitched a smile—a cold smile—and his gaze held triumph.
He knew he'd gotten to me.
Some vampires and werewolves liked to say they were top of the food chain. Stronger than mortal humans, able to hunt mortal humans.
But we might have found the thing that could top us. I had to find out what he was. If I didn't risk getting closer to him, I'd never learn.
I scrambled past Jeffrey to get to the aisle. I was too late to intercept him, but maybe I could catch up.
Ben called after me, "Kitty, what are you—"
I'd only taken a couple steps toward Smith when the werewolves turned on me. Their lips pulled back in grimaces, their shoulders tensed, bunching up as if they were preparing to cock their arms for a punch. A couple of werewolves, getting ready to rumble. A shot of panic charged through me; I couldn't take these guys and my Wolf knew it. I had to work to stand there and not look away. Not cringe and cower. Please don't beat me up…
I looked past them to Smith, who had turned to see what the disturbance was.
"Hi, Reverend Smith? I'm Kitty Norville from the talk show The Midnight Hour. I was wondering, could I ask you a few questions? I think my audience would be very interested in learning more about you. Maybe you could come on the show."
He stared at me for a long time, and my heart beat faster and faster, in anticipation of what he might say, and what his words would do to me. Fight or flight. I should run. I should get out of here.
"If you come to me as a supplicant, I will answer all your questions." He smiled a thin, knowing smile.
They were true words; I knew they were. If I came to him, gave myself to him, I would have no more questions—at least, no will to ask them. But I couldn't. I couldn't go to him, I couldn't do it, because I'd lose myself, and I'd fought too hard to claim myself. My own two feet stood on the floor, and I was anchored to them, and I would not let his gaze swallow me.
I looked after him as he walked away, and the retreating bodyguards blocked my view of him.
Something touched my shoulder. I gasped and pulled back.
It was Jeffrey, forehead creased with concern. "That wasn't the smartest thing you could have done."
I'd been accused of a lot of things, but flights of genius wasn't one of them, so I couldn't argue.
We had to clear the room for the next set of hearings, a different committee, a different subject. The wheels of government rolled on, no matter what little paradigm shifts were going on in my head. I lingered outside in the hallway, arms crossed, shoulders hunched in and angry.
"Can we sue him?" I said to Ben. "There's got to be something we can sue him for."
He shrugged. "I don't know. I'll look into it. I'm always game for a frivolous lawsuit."
"It's not frivolous! There's something seriously creepy about that guy. We have to figure out what he's really doing with that church of his, because I know it's just horrible. It has to be."
"If he hasn't broken any laws, then there probably isn't anything we can do."
How could we know if he'd broken any laws if we didn't even know what he was really doing? Really, he was just inviting people to an old-fashioned revival meeting, and if they wanted to stay with him, well, that was their choice, right?
I had to find out what he was. "Jeffrey, if Smith isn't human, what is he?"
"I was hoping you'd have a guess," Jeffrey said.
I humphed. "Believe it or not, you probably have more experience with that kind of stuff than I do. I mean, you can see that he isn't right. If we find out where he's camped, take a look, maybe you'd see… I don't know. Something."
"I'm not sure I'm willing to get close enough to try that. He's dangerous, Kitty. I can see that much about him."
"Ben?"
"Don't look at me. Somebody's got to stay behind to bail your ass out of jail when things go wrong."
That vote of confidence was staggering.
Ben said, "If you're about to do something prosecutable, I don't want to know about it until afterward. I'll see you tomorrow." He started off down the hallway, waving over his shoulder.
Jeffrey watched him go. "He's your lawyer, huh? He's…"
"Brusque?" I said.
"I was going to say honest. He's got a good aura."
Well, that was something I supposed. I apparently had an honest lawyer.
I sighed. "Since I don't know where Smith's caravan is, the whole plan to go looking for him is moot anyway."
I couldn't really see me climbing into a cab, flashing a fifty at the driver, and saying, "Follow that man!" I started to ask Jeffrey if he would do an interview on the show, when Roger Stockton stepped around from behind us, where he'd been lurking, eavesdropping, and who knew what else. He still had the camera, but at least he held it down and not pointed at me.
"I know where Smith is camped," the reporter said. "And I know he isn't human."
"Then what is he?" I said, once I'd regained control of my jaw. "And how do you know?" I'd tried to catch a scent off
him, but his bodyguards stayed close, and I couldn't get past their smells, the overpowering scent of werewolf that set my instincts on edge.
"I'll tell you when we get out there."
"So I just get in your car and let you drive me to God knows where?"
"Look, we all want the same thing here. We all know Smith isn't curing anyone, not for real anyway, and he's got some kind of funky voodoo—I saw what he did to you back there. We all want to expose him, and we all know that he's dangerous. This way none of us has to go it alone and we all get to break the story together."
"Are you sure you're not just after some prime Kitty Norville footage for sweeps week?"
"I wouldn't mind that—"
I turned away with a dismissive sigh.
"He's telling the truth, Kitty. He knows," Jeffrey said. Jeffrey, who claimed to see honesty radiating off a man.
I had a guy with second sight and a reporter from Uncharted World for backup. A girl could do worse, I supposed. I looked around to see if Cormac was lurking somewhere. Now there was backup, assuming he kept his guns pointed in someone else's direction. But wouldn't you know it, the one time I might want him around, he'd disappeared. He hadn't been near the hearings since Duke fired him.
I said to Roger, "We find the caravan, we check it out. Then what?"
"Then, we see. Sound good?"
"No. If you know what he is then you should know what he's doing, and what we should do about him."
"I can't do it alone," Roger said. "Are you in?"
Jeffrey nodded. He seemed eager, even, as if this were just another enlightening experience.
I had to be out of my mind.
Chapter 8
Stockton's smugness at knowing something I didn't was stifling. I was glad Jeffrey had agreed to come along. He sat in the backseat, regarding both of us with an amused smile.
I had no idea what we were going to do when we got there. If anything I'd heard about the caravan was true, shutting it down would take the National Guard.
Maybe between Jeffrey's intuition and Stockton's camera, we could collect enough evidence to bring about some kind of criminal prosecution. It was a modest enough goal.
It was all I could hope for. We weren't exactly the Ghostbusters.
Around sunset, we left tract housing and suburbs and entered countryside, driving along a two-lane state highway. The light was failing, streaking the sky shades of orange and lighting up the clouds. The land seemed dark, shadowy. The fields around us might have been fallow farmland, or rolling pastures. Fences bounded them by the roadside, but beyond that, trees surrounded them.
Trees everywhere, rows of old growth oak or elm, windbreaks planted a hundred or two hundred years ago. The road curved from one valley into the next, making it impossible to see what lay ahead.
I was surprised, then, when we rounded a turn skirting yet another gently rolling hill, and Stockton put on the brakes. The seat belt caught me. He pulled onto the shoulder, to where we could look over the rail fence.
Ahead, occupying the back half of a wide swath of pasture, was what looked like the back lot of a down-on-its-luck traveling circus. Maybe two-dozen old-fashioned campers hitched to beat-up pickup trucks, a few RVs, Airstreams and Winnebagos, converted vans and buses, parked in a rough circle, like pioneer wagons. Another dozen cars were scattered among them. In the center, like the spoke of a wheel, the top of a large canvas tent was visible. Around the perimeter, a few figures, indistinct forms in the twilight, walked around wire fencing that enclosed the settlement. Lights flooded the area inside: lights from the campers, the trucks, floodlights inside the tent. Even a hundred yards away I could hear the generators. The place was an event, a carnival without a town to go with it, a circle of light in an otherwise shadowed world.
A dirt road, little more than two tracks worn into the soil, led from the highway, through an open gate, to Smith's caravan. A couple of other cars were parked near the gate, their motors still running.
Stockton rolled down his window and leaned out, aiming his camera at the encampment.
"How did you find out it was here?" I asked.
"One of the guys at Uncharted World's been following it. Caught up with it in DeKalb, Illinois, a couple weeks ago and tracked it here."
"Then why isn't he out here filming?"
"Because two nights ago a car with no plates forced him off the road and into a dry creek bed. He's in the hospital with four broken ribs and a smashed shoulder."
"Shit." I shook my head. "Do you see anything?" I said to the backseat. "I mean, you know. See anything?"
"At this distance, the floodlights muddy everything up," Jeffrey said. Then he pointed to one of the other cars, that had just turned its headlights off and shut off its engine. "Although that guy's a lycanthrope."
A man—young by his gangly figure and the way he slouched—got out, closed the door softly, and started walking along the dirt track to the caravan site.
Quickly I undid the seat belt and scrambled out of the car.
"Kitty!" Jeffrey called after me, which I ignored.
I trotted after the guy and was about to call out to get him to stop, but he heard me, or smelled me, because he turned and backed away, shoulders tense, like a wolf with hackles.
"Who are you?" he said sharply.
"My name's Kitty." I stayed put, kept my gaze turned down, my shoulders relaxed. He could smell me; he knew what I was. "I'm just curious. Why are you here?"
He let his guard down the barest notch, shrugging. "I've heard there's a guy here who can help."
"Help what?" I said, like I was ignorant or something.
He glared, his eyes narrowing, suspicious. "Help this. Help me be normal again."
"Ah. I'd heard the same thing."
"Then you know why I'm here."
"I've also heard that he's a fraud. That his church is really a cult. That he brainwashes people so they'll stay with him. Nobody knows what goes on in there."
"Yeah, I'd heard that, too." He hugged himself like he'd suddenly become cold.
"And you're still willing to go there?"
"What choice do I have?"
"Is it really so bad? So bad that you'd give up your freedom, your identity? Assuming the rumors are true."
"I haven't been able to hold a job for more than two weeks since it happened. I keep losing my temper. I can't—I'm not very good at controlling it."
"I'm sorry. You don't have a pack, do you?" He shook his head. He hadn't had anyone teach him how to control it.
He looked over my shoulder suddenly. Jeffrey and Roger had come up behind me. The young man took a couple steps back, then turned and ran, through the gate and toward the caravan.
"Wait!" When he didn't stop, I wasn't surprised. "Damn."
"That kid's scared to death," Jeffrey said.
"But not of me."
"Yeah, a little. Also of his own shadow, I think. It's funny to think of a werewolf being scared of anything."
"Oh, you'd be surprised. A lot of us spend most of our time being afraid."
"Let's go," Stockton said, gesturing toward the trees at the edges of the field, around to the side of the caravan, closer to it but still in shadow. "Before his flunkies figure out we're not here for the show."
I tipped my face up, turning my nose to the air, half closing my eyes to keep out distractions. Then I shook my head. "Let's go to the other side. It's downwind."
We walked along the road to a place where we were mostly out of sight of the main entrance to the caravan, then climbed over the fence. Quickly we made our way to the trees, following them along the edge of the pasture down a gentle slope, toward the caravan. As we approached, the floodlights grew brighter, and the area around the encampment grew darker. For all it appeared like a carnival lot, the place was quiet. No talking, no voices, no sounds of life, like pots and pans clanking together while dinner was being prepared. By all accounts, dozens of people were living there, but I couldn't make out any obvious sig
ns of life.
Except for the smell: I sensed a kind of ripe, college dorm-room smell, of too many people living in close proximity, and not enough housekeepers. I wrinkled my nose.
"There." Stockton pointed to a gap in the trailers. Temporary wire fencing still enclosed the area, but here was a place where we might catch a glimpse of something interesting. A spot where a corner of the main tent was staked to the ground was visible.
When a pair of burly-looking men—Smith's bodyguards from earlier today—walked past, we kept very still. They were patrolling, and they didn't stop.
His back against a tree, Stockton settled down to wait, focusing his camera on the gap looking into the caravan. Jeffrey took the next tree over as his prop. I stayed by Stockton, watching what he watched.
The ground was damp, and I was getting damp sitting on it. The air was cold, getting colder. My breath fogged.
Jeffrey hugged his jacket tighter around him. I wondered how long we could possibly sit here. Something had to happen soon. The pilgrims, including that young guy, had gathered at Smith's gate. He wouldn't leave them waiting.
I moved next to Jeffrey and whispered, "Can you contact vampires who have, you know, moved on?" I was thinking of Estelle. I was thinking she might be here and could tell us something.
"I never have. That is—none of them have ever tried to contact me. I hate to ask it, but do they even have souls?"
This came up on the show all the time, and my gut reaction said yes. How could someone like Alette not have a soul? But what was a soul, really? I didn't know.
I didn't answer, and he shook his head. "I'm not sensing anything like that. This whole space feels numb. Asleep, almost."
Stockton sat forward suddenly and raised his camera. "Here he comes. There."
Jeffrey and I crept over to join him. Squinting, I looked through the gap.
Smith walked past it. I only saw him for a second. But Stockton muttered, with some satisfaction, "Ha, I got you. If only I could get that on film, damn you."
I hadn't seen him do anything. He looked just like he had at the hearing, conservatively dressed, his manner calm. He moved across my field of vision, that was all.
Kitty Goes to Washington kn-2 Page 13
