Carrie Vaughn - Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand

Then it’s over. She’s standing in a small room. It isn’t forest and freedom, but it isn’t chains, burning weapons, or blood. It smells richly of human and is filled with human things. She doesn’t recognize the scent, the signature, the individual. Only that she still isn’t where she belongs, and while she might not be in danger, she isn’t home. She remembers the original quest: to search for her mate. Only when she finds him will she be well again.

She sits back and howls, trumpeting to the low, artificial sky. The sound echoes back, too loud and close. She must call louder, he must hear her. Between long, sad cries, she runs against the door, claws at it, digs into the wood. She bounces off it and falls. The door holds. Doesn’t even rattle.

She could do this for hours. Beat herself into exhaustion. She almost does, but something in her stops. The other side, her two-legged voice, tells her, “Stop.” Because she’s panting for breath and her paws are filled with splinters, her body bruised, she does. Curls up by the door and licks the pain from her feet. Too afraid to sleep, but weariness pulls her under.

I woke up groggy and unhappy, without being able to remember exactly why I should feel that way. When I sat up to take my bearings, the last few hours started to come back to me. Mostly because I was lying naked on the floor in a strange room. This wasn’t the first time I’d woken up naked in a strange place. It was never a good thing.

A sofa sat against one wall, a long dressing table against the other. The place smelled of dust, sweat, and stage makeup. Then I recognized the smell, the signature— laundry starch and backstage. It was Odysseus Grant’s dressing room.

He’d saved my life. Him, Evan, Brenda. Other faces I recognized from the bar at the Olympus but hadn’t met. The bounty hunters. This time, the great conspiracy was on my side.

I’d Changed. I remembered starting to shift and losing control. Somehow, I’d survived while the silver bullets were flying, and Grant got me out of there. Without getting hurt, I hoped.

I could almost work out what had happened. I had the images, the smells, the blurred memories from my half-shifted consciousness. I had none of the whys. I’d seen the temple, the Babylonian motifs, remembered Balthasar’s talk about the old gods, the sacrifice, needing someone half human, half animal. It almost made sense. It was a powerful bit of ritual.

Then I’d been... what, rescued at the zero hour? By the bounty hunters and the cagey magician? How—

My hands were rubbed raw, glowing red with a rash and stuck with splinters. Claw marks shredded the bottom half of the door. But it was a sturdy door, and Wolf hadn’t been able to get out. I was surprised I hadn’t really hurt myself in my panic.

I remembered the panic.

I grabbed a blanket from the sofa, wrapped myself, sat on the sofa, and shivered.

When the door opened, I wrapped the blanket tighter around me, tucking my legs up under it.

Grant poked his head in. “Are you all right?”

I breathed out a sigh and nodded. “By the current definition of ‘all right,’ which means ‘not dead.’”

“Usually a good thing.” He gave a tight-lipped smile.

Usually? When was “not dead” not a good thing? I knew better than to ask a question like that, after everything I’d seen. “I don’t remember much. How did you get me out of there? Without me hurting anyone? I assume I didn’t hurt anyone.” My voice took a desperate edge. Shifting in a crowd was one of my worst nightmares. Grant didn’t look like he had any scratches or bite marks.

“You didn’t. I was able to lock you in here. It all worked out.”

“But—this is a mile away. How—”

He raised an eyebrow in a look that seemed to say I was asking a silly question. Well, then.

“Your clothes are on the chair. The shirt’s torn, but I can give you one to replace it,” he said, pointing to the chair by the table and mirrors. “And your phone’s been ringing.”

I stumbled off the sofa and, blanket wrapped around me, raced for the pile of clothes. They’d been neatly folded, like I’d have expected anything else from Odysseus Grant. My phone was in my jeans pocket. The display showed four missed calls from Gladden over the last two hours. I could feel my heart beating behind my ears when I called him back. He answered on the first ring.

“Detective Gladden? It’s Kitty Norville.”

“Finally,” he said. “I figured you’d be waiting by the phone.”

“I was. Then I fell asleep or something. I’ve been really worn out.” And none of that was a lie, exactly.

“I got your message, but I think your lead must have been a bust, because a couple of hours ago we got an anonymous tip and found Faber’s base of operations. He’s definitely been running poker scams out of there, not to mention what looked like a couple of illegal high-stakes private games. Lots of good stuff for the Gaming Commission to get their claws into.”

“What about Ben? Did you find Ben?”

His sigh told me everything I needed to know. “We didn’t. I have to be honest with you, Ms. Norville. It looks like there was a fight of some kind. Some shots were fired, and there’s blood. Forensics is testing it now, and when we get a copy of Mr. O’Farrell’s medical records we’ll look for a match. In the meantime, the police are searching.” For a body, was what he didn’t say.

Gunshots. It didn’t mean anything. Ben was a werewolf, almost invulnerable. Normal bullets would make him bleed a little, yeah, but that was about it. He was okay, he had to be. But where was he?

“Isn’t there anything else you can do?” I said.

“We’re doing everything we can.”

“Ben only wanted to help catch the bad guys.”

Gladden said, “I don’t suppose I have to tell you that if he contacts you, if you hear anything, please let me know?”

“Yeah. Okay.” I switched off the phone. I stared at it for a long time. I even forgot that Grant was still leaning in the doorway.

“If he’s anything like you are, I’m sure he’s fine,” he said.

I chuckled quietly. “He’s better than I am.” And I had no idea where he was. Back to square one.

“I’ll drive you back to your hotel, after you get dressed,” he said, then softly closed the door.

He’d left one of his dress shirts for me to wear in lieu of my shirt that had been shredded. I gave myself a once-over in the mirror. I was a wreck: my hair was a tangled nest, the too-big shirt hung over my jeans and kept slipping off one shoulder, I didn’t have shoes, my face was pale, and my eyes were red. I looked like a woman who’d lost her fiancé in Las Vegas.

And what kind of car did a guy like Odysseus Grant drive? An average car: white four-door, late-model sedan. A car you’d never notice.

The sky was still dark, still night. I hadn’t even reached dawn, though it seemed like a week had passed. For the first time since I’d been in Vegas, the air felt cool. Nice, almost. That would vanish as soon as the sun rose, probably in an hour or so.

During the drive, I tried to figure out how to ask Grant to come with me back to Balthasar’s stage. I wanted to see the place again. Reassure myself that it was real, that I hadn’t imagined it. Try to figure out who the woman was and what had really been going on there. It was all fuzzy.

“Can I ask you something? The lycanthropes, Balthasar’s pack. The woman with the knife, and the altar. They were chanting Tiamat. What does it mean?”

“Tiamat was worshipped in ancient Mesopotamia. In the mythology she was one of the original deities who helped create the world. But as often happens in these stories, the children rose up to destroy the parents. They killed Tiamat, and out of her body they created the earth and heaven. According to the true believers, we are all part of Tiamat, and she must be appeased if we want life to go on as it has. According to the stories, she had a band of demons. The Band of Tiamat, they were called, who defended her in the last battle with Marduk.”