Carrie Vaughn - Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand

He nuzzled my neck and rested his head on my shoulder. “I think I turned into a workaholic because I didn’t have this to come home to.”

My phone rang. Ben groaned. “Ignore it,” he said.

Probably should have, but since Mom got sick I tended to get jumpy about the phone ringing. Shifting Ben aside, I grabbed the phone off the coffee table.

Caller ID showed Shaun on his personal phone.

I answered. “Yeah?”

“Hey, Kitty.” I sensed tension in his voice, confusion maybe. I could hear street sounds in the background, cars driving by. It sounded like the intersection where New Moon was.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m at New Moon,” he said. “I was about to open up for the afternoon, but... well. I think maybe you should come down here.”

“What is it?”

“Just... can you get over here and take a look?” There was a note of pleading. Like this wasn’t just a bar manager calling the owner about a little problem. Something of the wolf pack had entered into the conversation—he was asking his alpha for help. That meant weirdness, and it meant danger. The hair on the back of my neck tingled.

“Yeah, yeah. Okay. I’ll be right over.” I hung up.

“What is it?” Ben asked, straightening.

“Shaun. Something’s up at New Moon.”

We both got into my car and drove downtown. Fifteen minutes later we pulled into the parking lot of the boxy brick building, where a big sign in blue and silver announced the bar. Shaun was pacing out front, arms crossed, shoulders hunched over, like stiffened hackles, for all the world like a nervous wolf. When he saw us, he seemed relieved.

“What is it?” I asked. Nothing seemed obviously wrong. I had braced myself to expect smoke and fire pouring out of the roof, or a roving militant biker gang camped in the parking lot.

“Does this mean anything to you?”

He drew me to the front door.

Burned into the wood, as if with a blow torch, a single word:

Tiamat.

Carrie Vaughn had a happy and relatively uneventful childhood, which means she had to turn to science fiction and fantasy for material to write about. An Air Force brat, she grew up all over the U.S. and managed to put down roots in Colorado, though she still has ambitions of being a world traveler. Learn more about Carrie’s novels, her short stories, her dog Lily, and her fascination with costumes and stick figure cartoons at www.carrievaughn.com.