Carrie Vaughn - Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand

In the midst of the post-show chaos and winding down, Erica handed me a cordless phone. Through it, Ozzie’s voice greeted me. “It was fabulous. I told you this was a good idea. You’re a natural. How did it feel?”

“Like I’d fallen from twenty thousand feet and was building my parachute on the way down,” I said. As in airless and desperate. Yet exhilarating. He just laughed.

We wrapped up a short debriefing. Finally, the only people left were crew breaking down equipment and cleaning up, Dom the vampire with some of his hangers-on, my parents, and Ben. I sat on the edge of the stage to talk to them.

Dom came to shake my hand and offer congratulations. “Thanks for inviting me, Kitty. That was a lot of fun.”

“Glad you liked it. Hey—do you know who that guy was with the tickets to Balthasar’s show?”

“One of the people from the act, I assume,” he said, shrugging. “I don’t keep up with them all.”

“Really? Every other vampire Master I’ve met has kept files on the local lycanthropes. Total spy crap.”

“But this is Las Vegas. They leave me alone, I leave them alone. Better that way, don’t you think?” He winked at me before sauntering off with his entourage. The vampires looked like any other night owls crawling around Vegas.

“Oh, Kitty, we’re so proud of you!” Mom and Dad joined me next, leaving their front-row seats. Big hugs all around.

“Did you like it? Did you have fun?”

They said yes, and I had to admit that no matter how old I got, I would still be happy at my parents’ approval. So much for being a rebel.

Dad nodded at the door Dom had just left through. “Who was that guy?”

“That was a real live vampire. A real undead vampire, I mean. Friend of a friend.”

He donned a thoughtful “well, isn’t that something” expression. “Hmm. How about that?”

Sometimes I thought my parents really hadn’t registered the fact that their daughter was a werewolf and made a living delving into the realm of supernatural horror movies made real. They seemed to regard it all as a rather strange hobby that I’d taken up—they didn’t understand it, but they’d be supportive. That was okay, because I didn’t want them to have to understand it any more than necessary. I wanted them to stay safe. As safe as possible. The world didn’t need supernatural badness to be a scary place. It already had things like cancer.

Ben joined me, sitting next to me on the edge of the stage.

“Hello, Ben, how are you?” Mom said, beaming at her soon-to-be son-in-law.

“Fine, thanks.”

“You two all ready for tomorrow?”

The getting-married thing. I kept forgetting. Not really forgetting, but I’d been so focused on the show, it had faded to the background. No, I’m not, I wanted to say. That was post-show nerves talking. “I guess I ought to get some sleep or something. I think I need a drink.”

Mom took Dad’s hand. “It’s past our bedtime, so we’ll leave you two to it.”

I said, “This is Las Vegas. You can’t have a bedtime in Vegas.”

Mom just gave me a look. “Good night, dear.”

Oh. Right. Bedtime. I didn’t want to know.

I hugged them each one more time. Then it was just me and Ben.

We sat for a long time. I took a deep breath through my nose. The familiar scent of him steadied me. He smelled like pack, like home. Safety. I shifted closer, took his arm, and leaned my head on his shoulder.

“What was that all about?” he said.

“I think my mom and dad are having too much fun.”

“Not that. That guy. The were-whatever. And I can only assume that the leopard is from the Balthasar, King of Beasts Show.”

Ah, yes. I’d have to look at the recording of the show to even guess what that must have looked like from Ben’s point of view.

“I think he might be a tiger.”

“So is he cute? Good-looking, I mean? Because I can’t really tell with guys, and it looked like you two might have hit it off.”

I grinned at him. “Jealous?”

He grinned right back. “That’s a trick question. If I say yes you’ll accuse me of being paranoid and unreasonable, and if I say no you’ll make some defensive crack about how I don’t think you’re worth getting jealous over.”

This was what I got for hooking up with a lawyer.

“They were here to get my attention,” I said. “They want me to go check out their show and ask questions.”

“Maybe they want to go public.”

“Then they should have called me earlier,” I grumbled. “I don’t see how I even have time to go talk to them. We’re going to be in the middle of a lot of celebrating tomorrow.”

He raised his brows and clearly didn’t believe me. “But you’re curious. You want to know what a troupe of performing lycanthropes is really like.”

“What I really want to know is if they’re there because they want to be, or if something funky is going on. To be part of his act, they’d have to shape-shift every night. That’s not normal, it’s not right.”

“I’m still having a little trouble finding a baseline normal with this whole situation,” he said.

He hadn’t been a werewolf for even a year yet. We’d grown so comfortable, I forgot that. At least, I’d grown comfortable. I almost took him for granted. Almost.

“There’s something weird about the whole thing.”

He put his arm around me and kissed the top of my head. “You always manage to find the weird stuff, don’t you?”

I whined. It wasn’t like I went out looking for weird. Much. It just found me.

“Now, what about that drink you mentioned?” he said.

When Ben steered me toward the Olympus Hotel’s main bar—right across from the gun show—my feet started dragging. “This wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”

“This is where all your fans congregated. Think how popular you’ll be.”

The place was also filled with people from the gun show who looked like Boris.

“My fans or your fans?” I muttered.

In fact, we’d only just found places at the bar when someone called, “Ben! Hell, it really is you!”

A guy with Asian features, short dark hair, a long face and hard gaze, wearing a leather jacket—not a biker leather jacket, but a designer jacket in brown leather with lean, slimming lines—came over from one of the tables. In his thirties, he had polished good looks and the confident stance of someone who was successful in his line of work and proud of it.

Unlike the meeting with Boris, they engaged in a burly old-pal handshake. “Evan, how you doing?” Ben said.

“Not bad,” said the suave and smiling Evan. “Yourself?”

Ben gave a noncommittal shrug. “You here for the exhibition?”

“You know how it is, it’s a good place to meet up with people. Catch up on all the gossip.”

“Hear anything good?”

“I heard about Cormac. That must have been a rough scene.”

“It could have been worse.”

Wives who went to their husbands’ business conferences must feel like this. I didn’t even have a drink to hide behind yet. I sat there smiling. In five seconds, I was going to jump in and introduce myself.

I must have been vibrating or something, because they both looked at me. Ben might have been about to introduce me, but Evan beat him to it.

“And you’re Kitty Norville. Good to finally meet you,” he said, and we shook hands. He focused his gaze on me like he was taking aim. My shoulders tensed up. Then it clicked.

I glared. “You were at the show. I saw you! Left-hand side, third row back—you were spying on me!”

He didn’t try to deny it, and he didn’t seem bothered by it. His laid-back, amiable expression didn’t change. “I wanted to see what a performing werewolf looked like.”