Carrie Vaughn - Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand

“Right, exactly,” said PETA lady, sounding like she’d won a point.

“Okay. So I’m not going to do that. But I’m sure as hell not going to lobby for voting rights for beagles. Here’s the thing: a werewolf isn’t a half-person, half-wolf cousin of the AKC grand champion. I’m a human being with a really whacked-out disease. Apples and oranges. Got it?”

“But—”

I clicked her off. “I always get the last word. Ha.”

During the PETA lady call, one of the doors in the back of the theater opened. That didn’t catch my attention in itself. We didn’t have an intermission, so people had been slipping in and out all evening, usually during the commercial breaks. This time when the door opened, I caught a scent—the smell I’d been missing. Human and animal, merged, inseparable. Lycanthrope.

A man strode down the far left aisle, making his way to the microphone near the stage. Beside him stalked a hip-high leopard. The animal was sleek, muscles sliding under fur and skin. His tail flicked behind him. His head held low, he glared forward with yellow-green eyes. Some human awareness glinted in those eyes—a lycanthrope. A couple of people screamed, in short bursts of shock. Others tried to push away, leaning back in their seats, crowding into the people next to them, an instinctive reaction, trying to get away from this uncaged predator. The cat ignored the ruckus; the man beside the cat smiled.

He was medium height, with rich brown hair, like mahogany, and a wicked, I’ve-got-a-secret expression on his tanned, boyishly gorgeous face. He was a lycanthrope, some variety I hadn’t encountered before. It wasn’t just the smell, it was the stance. He moved like a feline, muscles shifting under his almost-too-tight black T-shirt and just-tight-enough jeans. Graceful, poised, ready to pounce. He had a cat-that-ate-the-canary look about him. Literally.

When the pair reached the microphone, the cat leapt to the stage. This elicited another round of gasps from the audience, and a couple of security guys pounded forward from the wings. I jumped from my chair to intercept the guards.

“No, wait!” I held my arms out, stopping them, and the two burly guys hesitated, straining forward, ready to do their jobs, glancing at me with uncertainty. But the very last thing I wanted was for them to tangle with a were-leopard, possibly getting scratched or bitten in the process.

The leopard stalked along the edge of the stage, tail flicking thoughtfully. Still watching me, he sat primly, a few feet away from his companion. We regarded each other, and I resisted an urge to stare, though my heart was racing and Wolf’s hackles were stiff. I suppressed a growl—find out what this was about first. Then get pissed off at the invasion. I couldn’t believe the nerve, bringing a fully shifted lycanthrope into a crowded room like this. My Wolf would have fled, fighting her way clear if she had to. But I had to admire this one’s control. He stood in front of a crowd and hardly seemed to notice. Maybe they just had a question for the show.

The leopard started licking its paws, like a big old cat, after all. The human half of the pair looked up at me; his stare didn’t quite challenge me, but he was definitely sizing me up. Wanting to see if I’d blink first.

I never blinked first. Mostly. But I kept glancing at this huge cat, perched a couple of yards away from me. He could shove me over in a single leap.

I gave the man a hunter’s smile. “Aren’t there laws against letting wild animals out of their cages?”

“You mean Kay here? He’s perfectly safe,” he said. The leopard blinked at me. He really was a beautiful animal; I wondered about the person inside.

“How do you know I was talking about him?” I said, raising a brow. The guy actually winked at me. Oh, I hoped the cameras were picking this up. Ratings gold. “And what brings you to The Midnight Hour ?”

“I’ve got a secret. Wondered if you’d be interested.” He had a clear male voice to go with his handsome body. He might have fronted a boy band.

“I just bet you do. You sound like someone who’s about to make me an offer.”

He pulled something out of his back pocket and held it up—a pair of tickets. “These are you for you, if you want them.”

“Front-row seats to see Wayne Newton?”

“No, not quite,” he said, turning the smile on full force. It was pouty and sultry.

I moved to the edge of the stage to take his offering, which made the security guys—still lurking behind me, ready to tackle the leopard—twitch, but oh well. I didn’t get any overt aggression from either one of them. Just posturing. I could do posturing.

Close to him, his smell washed over me like strong aftershave. The lycanthropy on him was thick, like his animal was close to the surface, more fur than skin. He spent a lot of time in animal form, I guessed. The leopard was now close enough to take a swipe at me, but I stayed calm. Kept my breathing steady. Worked very hard to pretend like I wasn’t nervous around him.

I wasn’t surprised when I looked on the tickets and saw the name of the show printed.

Smirking, I announced to my audience, both TV and live, “Two tickets to see Balthasar, King of Beasts, at the Hanging Gardens. Trying to make me feel at home, are you?”

“Oh, there aren’t any werewolves in this show.”

“But there are... something else?”

He winked. “It’s a secret.”

“I get it,” I said, playing to him, the audience, the cameras. “It’s a publicity stunt. You’re here with tickets to Vegas’s hottest animal show, acting all mysterious and talking about a secret, so I will naturally want to check it out. And in the meantime you get a free plug.”

I almost said something. I almost pointed to them and called, Lycanthrope! But I was sensitive to revealing the lycanthropic identities of people who didn’t want to be revealed. Until this guy announced the fact himself, I wasn’t going to blow their cover. As far as the audience was concerned, this was a guy and his very well-trained leopard.

“You really should come see for yourself.”

This was sure making me wish I’d been able to get Balthasar on for an interview. “So I see the show. Then what?”

“Then we’ll talk.” He gave me another wink, turned, and walked away, stalking up the aisle like, well, a king of beasts. The leopard sprang off the stage and trotted after him. Most of the people here would assume he was just a trained cat. But didn’t anyone notice that not a single word or hand signal had passed between them?

I stared after him probably a little longer than I should have. Shaking my head, I brought my attention back on task.

“Well, it’s just like getting hung up on, except in person. Story of my life.” A few people in the audience made sad, sympathetic noises on my behalf.

The teleprompter said I had five minutes left. After a moment of panic wondering how I was going to wrap everything up after that bit of excitement, I returned to my chair and got to work.

“It looks like we’re about out of time this evening. Thank you all so very much for joining me in this great experiment.” And everyone cheered. Victory.

I closed the show by thanking everyone, introducing everyone, letting the crew and stage managers have their moment in the spotlight, because I thought it would be fun. I finished downstage, front and center, letting the applause crash over me. A person could get addicted to this sort of thing. Live TV. I’d done it and survived, and it felt good. This was the rush that made all the anxiety worthwhile.

Once the cameras were off, I gave away the rest of the T-shirts and sat on the edge of the stage for half an hour to sign autographs, which was fine, because I had so much nervous energy bubbling in me I wouldn’t have been able to do anything but stand there and shake if I hadn’t had a job to do.