Kitty Takes a Holiday

by Carrie Vaughn

  “Maybe you were just following directions,” Tony said.

  Again, that blank look while he organized his defense. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  I said, “Sheriff, you don’t like me. You’ve made no secret of that. You don’t like what I am, you don’t like that I’m in your town. Maybe you’re not the only one. And maybe you didn’t do it, but I’m betting you backed whoever did.”

  The three of us—Tony, Ben, and me—surrounded him, pinning him against his car almost. If Marks had reached for his gun, I wouldn’t have been surprised. To his credit, he didn’t. He appeared stricken, though. Frozen almost, like he expected us to pounce.

  I said, “I haven’t hurt anyone. I didn’t kill those cattle. I don’t deserve what’s been done to me, and I just want it to stop. That’s all.”

  His lips pursed, his expression hardening. We weren’t going to get anything out of him. In his mind, he’d drawn some kind of line in the dirt. I stood on one side, he stood on the other, and because of that we’d never come to an understanding. I might as well pack my bags and leave.

  Tony reached out to him. He moved quickly. Marks and I held each other’s gazes so strongly I didn’t even notice it until Tony held Marks’s collar. Marks only had time to flinch before Tony had pulled out a pendant on a hemp cord that had been tucked under the sheriff’s shirt.

  Tony held the pendant flat in his hand, displaying it: a flint arrowhead of gray stone, tied to the cord.

  “Zuni charm,” Tony said. “Defense against werewolves. He knows all about this magic.”

  Was that why I wanted to growl at Marks every time I saw him?

  Marks snatched the arrowhead away from Tony, closing his hand around it. He took a step back, bumping against the hood of his car. His armor had slipped; now, he seemed uncertain.

  “It wasn’t my idea,” he said finally.

  The air seemed to lighten around us. At last, he’d said something that sounded like truth.

  “Whose was it? I’m not out for revenge, Marks. I just want to know why.”

  “We wanted you to leave. We’re a quiet community. We didn’t want any trouble.”

  “I wasn’t going to bring any trouble! I just wanted to be left alone.”

  “But you brought trouble. That’s trouble.” He pointed out to the backhoe across the pasture.

  I shouted. I didn’t mean to. It just came out. “You pinned rabbits to my porch before any of those cows died! You assumed I’d do something before anything even happened! You heard what he said about a curse coming back to smack you—you brought this on yourself! And then you had the gall to pretend to investigate, when you knew all along who was doing it—”

  “Kitty, maybe a little more calm,” Ben said softly. I must have been really worked up if Ben was having to settle me down. My whole back and shoulders felt tight as springs.

  When Marks spoke, his voice had changed. He sounded suddenly tired, defeated. “We—we knew it wasn’t working right. You should have just left. Quietly, without a word.

  We wanted it to be quiet.”

  “Well, you screwed up big time, didn’t you?” I said.

  “Can you blame us for trying?” he said roughly.

  “Uh, yeah. Hello, I am blaming you.”

  “We all know what you are! A—a monster! We don’t want that in our town! Nobody would!”

  “You know, I don’t think I’m the monster here, really.”

  Thankfully, Tony interceded. “Sheriff, I think I can help clean this all up. We can remove the curse, and remove the consequences of it.” He pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the site of the slaughter. “But the person who planned it, who worked the spell, needs to agree to it.”

  He nodded. “All right. Okay. It’s Alice. She planned it.”

  “Alice?” My jaw dropped, truly astonished. “But she’s always been so nice to me. Why—”

  “Because she’s nice to everybody, at least in person,” Marks said. “I don’t think she could be mean to somebody to their face if you held a gun to her head.”

  Tony looked at me. “Should we go talk to Alice, then?”

  I still couldn’t believe it. Sweet, friendly Alice. Alice who kept healing crystals on her cash register and hung good luck charms on her front door.

  Then again, maybe she did know something about planting curses.

  “Right, then. Off we go.” To Marks I said, “You want to come along? Back us up?”

  “To break this thing right, everyone involved should be there,” Tony said. He had an authority about him, from the gentle way he spoke to the way he’d grabbed Marks’s arrowhead charm. Marks had let it go; it lay on top of his uniform shirt now, exposed.

  The sheriff hesitated, then said, curtly, “I’ll meet you there.” He turned to yank open his car door. He revved the engine when he started it, and barely gave us time to get out of the way before he lurched the car into reverse, then spun in a U-turn, kicking up gravel all the way.

  “I don’t believe it,” I said, on general principle.

  “She didn’t really seem the type,” Ben said.

  Tony said, “Those are the ones you really have to watch out for. The real mean brujas? Always the little old lady down the street. The one who feeds cats off her back porch.”

  “Every neighborhood has one of those,” I said.

  “Makes you wonder, don’t it?” Tony grinned.

  Sighing, I marched to the driver’s side of my car. “Let’s go and get this over with.”

  Marks was already at the convenience store when we pulled into the parking lot. That meant he’d had time to warn her, to prep and get their stories straight. That made me mad. The whole town was against me, and the worst part was I shouldn’t have been surprised. I was the monster, they carried the torches and pitchforks, and nothing would change that. Human nature being what it was.

  At least I had backup this time.

  I didn’t wait for Ben and Tony, though. I wanted to break up their little witches’ coven, and I wanted to do it now. While they were still getting out of the car, I stalked to the door of the store. Slammed it open. Sure enough, Marks and Alice were in conference, leaning over the counter by the cash register. They looked at me, shocked, though they should have expected me. Joe, standing behind Alice, quickly ducked for his rifle. I should have kept my distance, but I wasn’t thinking too straight.

  I went right toward them, closing the gap in a few long strides, and I must have had murder in my eyes because they both flinched back. That inspired me; let them think I wanted to rip their throats out.

  I slammed my hand on the counter, making them jump, at the moment Joe cocked and leveled his rifle, mere inches from my skull. I could smell it, cold and oily.

  The bell on the door rang as it opened again. “Kitty!” Ben called, at the same time Tony said, “No, wait.” I imagined Tony held him back from rushing to my rescue. I couldn’t look away. I only had eyes for Alice.

  “So,” I said, filled with fake cheerfulness. “Did you really give those crosses to Jake to melt them down, or did you keep them so you could dump them back around my place?”

  Bug-eyed and stricken, she stared back at me. Almost, she trembled, and a scent of fear-laden sweat broke out on her skin. She looked like prey. Like a rabbit caught in Wolf’s sight.

  What a great feeling. I had the power; I was the badass. If I so much as raised a finger, she’d probably scream.

  Then, she knelt. Slowly, she disappeared behind the counter, and when she stood again, she held the bag of crosses I’d given her. They chimed when she set them on the counter.

  This was one of those times when I hated being right.

  “Goddamn it, Alice. I liked you! Why’d you have to turn out to be such a bitch?”

  The overly polite woman, the one who couldn’t be mean to anyone’s face, took command. “You don’t have to be so angry,” she said, with a righteous tilt to her chin.

  I wasn’t finished. “If you hate me eno
ugh to kill small animals over it, don’t turn around and pretend to be nice to me. Honestly, I prefer Joe here with his gun pointed at me. At least I know where I stand with him!”

  Joe blinked at me over the stock of his rifle, like he was unable to process the rather backhanded compliment.

  Marks said, “Joe, why don’t you put that thing away.” Joe obeyed and slowly lowered the weapon.

  “I don’t hate you,” Alice said softly. “I just don’t want you to live here.” Her thin-lipped grimace was almost apologetic.

  I didn’t even know where to start. Maybe she wanted me to sympathize. Maybe she wanted me to feel sorry for her. Instead, the rage flared even higher. I had to pause a moment, take a breath, and think happy vegetarian thoughts before I growled for real. What had I told Ben about holding it in taking practice? I was getting a lot of practice right now.

  Finally, I said, “Guess what? You don’t get to tell me where to live.”

  She looked away.

  Tony stepped up then, sweeping away the tension with his presence. “You know what you did wrong, don’t you?” He addressed Alice.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Tony. You know what you did wrong?”

  She shook her head, hesitant, still full of that befuddled rabbit look.

  “The cross on the doorway,” Tony said, gesturing back to where Alice had hung a cross above the door. “The barrier of crosses. They’re supposed to prevent evil from crossing, yes? Keep evil contained, keep it from intruding.” He waited for her to nod, to acknowledge what he said. “Kitty’s not evil. I’ve only known her half a day and I know that.”

  He said “evil” and I almost heard “dangerous.” As in, “She’s not dangerous. She’s harmless.” I had an inexplicable urge to argue, but Tony kept talking.

  “She may have danger and darkness in her nature, but so do we all. That isn’t evil. Evil is seeking out the darkness, seeking out the pain of others.”

  I glanced back at Ben, to make sure he’d heard. That was what I’d been trying to tell him. He looked at me, gave a tiny smile. Yes, he’d heard.

  “Is it true what Sheriff Marks said, that our spell caused what’s been happening to the cattle?”

  “Your spell called out to evil. You may have drawn it here, yes.”

  She rubbed her face—wiping away sudden tears, springing from reddening eyes. “I’m so sorry. I thought I knew what I was doing, I was sure I knew—I have to fix it. How do I fix it?”

  “Apologizing is always a good start,” Tony said.

  Alice looked at me, and for a moment I did feel sorry for her. She obviously felt so badly, and so tortured when the true consequences of what she’d done sunk in, I didn’t want to be angry at her anymore. The words—Oh, it’s all right, just as long as she never does it again—were on the tip of my tongue.

  But the Wolf in me shifted testily. And you know, she was right. Alice wasn’t going to get off that easily. I waited for the apology.

  “I’m sorry, Kitty,” she said. “I’m sorry for all the trouble.”

  You’d better be… “Thank you,” I said instead.

  “I think I can help clean all this up,” Tony said. “There’s a ritual I know, it’ll clear away the curse. Heal some of the bad feelings. Will you all help?”

  He looked at each of us, and we all nodded. Even Joe.

  “Good,” he said. “Be at Kitty’s cabin at twilight, about five o’clock. We’ll get this taken care of. Oh—and I’ll take those. Thanks.” Smiling amiably, he grabbed the bag of crosses off the counter.

  We left the store, Tony bringing up the rear, almost like he was herding us. Or keeping me from lingering and doing something stupid. Within minutes, we were in the car and back on the road.

  “Cormac wanted me to have those melted down,” I said, nodding at the bag of crosses in his lap.

  “That’d work, but I was just going to hold them under running water.”

  “You mean that’s all we had to do?” I shook my head. The more I learned…

  He said, “I’m curious where Alice learned her magic. If she was raised in some kind of tradition—healer or witchcraft or something—or if she got those spells out of a book somewhere. That’s the trouble with you white people, you read something out of a book, you think you understand it. This kind of magic, though—you really have to live with it to know it.”

  That reminded me of learning a language, how really learning it requires living it, speaking with native speakers, growing up with it—total immersion. Repeating vocabulary words in high school wasn’t going to cut it.

  I said, “I can assure you, everything I know about the supernatural I’ve lived with personally.” That didn’t mean I understood any of it.

  Tony laughed. “I believe you.”

  From the backseat, Ben said, “You really think what they did caused what happened to the cattle? What about what we saw in New Mexico?”

  “Maybe what Alice and them did drew it here,” Tony said.

  “Or did it follow Cormac?” I said.

  That left us with an ominous silence. Because it made sense. There’d been two of them. Cormac killed one, and the other followed him, seeking revenge. Only Cormac wasn’t here anymore. So it went wild, killing, like it had before.

  If that was the case, Tony’s cleansing spell wouldn’t help. We needed Cormac back. If for no other reason than to warn him.

  chapter 12

  Twilight settled over the forest, clear and stark. The sky turned the beautiful deep blue of prize sapphires. The first star shone like a diamond against it. That clean, organic pine forest smell permeated everything.

  Ben and I sat on the front porch and waited, watching Tony make preparations. He’d parked his truck at a national forest trailhead a few miles up the road, and moved it to my driveway during the afternoon. He pulled a box of supplies out of the back and got to work. First, he leaned a broom against the porch railing, then placed unlit white votive candles along the porch and around the clearing. Moving around the clearing to the four quarters of the compass, he drew something out of the leather pouch he carried and threw it into the air. A fine powder left his hands, and the smell of home cooking in a well-kept kitchen hit me. Dried herbs. Sage, oregano. I felt better.

  “You think this’ll work?” Ben said.

  “I’ve learned to keep an open mind. I’ve seen something like this work before. So, yeah. I think it will.”

  “You look better already.”

  I felt a smile light my face. “What can I say? The man inspires confidence.”

  “Do you know in some regions it’s traditional to pay a curandero in silver?”

  I blinked, then frowned, suddenly worried. Would the ironies of my life never end? “Well, that’s unfortunate. He knows I don’t let silver get within miles of me if I can help it, right?”

  Grinning, Ben leaned back against the wall. “Maybe he’ll take a check.”

  I reveled in the moment of peace. Ben was getting his sense of humor back.

  The sound of a driving car hummed up the road, then crunched onto the driveway that led to the clearing. Marks’s patrol car, a pale ghost in the twilight, moved into sight, then pulled in behind Tony’s pickup.

  Wary, I stood. Ben stood with me. I felt that same sense of foreboding and invasion I had every time Marks had come here. I understood it, now: the spite he brought with him, his part in the curse that had been cast. Now, though, I felt something else: like a wall stood between us, a defensive barrier. This time, I had protection.

  Sheriff Marks, Alice, and Joe got out of the car, and Tony walked out to meet them. They all shook hands, like they’d come for some kind of dinner party.

  “Sheriff, Joe, I’m going to have to ask you to leave your guns in the car,” Tony said.

  “Like hell,” Marks said, as expected.

  “This is supposed to be a peacemaking. Kind of misses the point if you bring guns.”

  It was asking a lot, telling men lik
e that they couldn’t bring their guns. The whole thing might have come to a screeching halt right there.

  Alice said, “Please. I really want this to work. I want to make this right.”

  They listened to her, and Tony led them into the clearing.

  “Everyone ready to get started?” he said. No one gave a particularly enthusiastic affirmation, but no one said no, either. Tony went around and started lighting candles. Golden circles of light flared from them, warm spots in the night. They wrecked my night vision; I couldn’t see anything past the clearing now.

  “Gather in a circle. Blood has been spilled here, in malice. There must be atonement for that.”

  The others did so, then looked to me. I hesitated—they needed atonement, and as the wronged party here I had the power to forgive, or not. In Tony’s ritual, as I saw it taking shape, that gave me control.

  But it wouldn’t do any of us any good if I withheld that forgiveness out of spite. This ritual seemed to be less about magic than it was a mechanism for reconciliation. Get us all in one place, make us willing to talk it out. The actions themselves were as important as the result.

  I stepped off the porch and into the clearing. Ben followed me.

  Nervously, we looked at one another, because nobody but Tony knew what would happen next. Alice seemed sad but resigned, her face pulled into a deep frown, her eyes staring. Marks’s frown was different, suspicious. He kept looking over his shoulder. Joe simply stood, stoic as ever.

  Tony snuck up behind me. I flinched, startled, because I hadn’t heard him. I’d been too distracted by the strange mood settling over the area—a kind of suspended, timeless feeling, like the air itself had frozen.

  “Sorry,” he said, smiling, and handed me something. A tightly bound bundle of some kind of dried plant. Sage, it smelled like, about as long as my hand and as thick as my thumb. He went to each of us in the circle, until everyone had a bundle.

  I assumed he’d tell us what to do with it. I tried not to feel too silly just holding it. Alice clutched hers in both hands, held it to her chest, near to her heart, and closed her eyes.