Carrie Vaughn - Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand

Following the producer’s instructions, I found an unlocked emergency door that led to the theater. Inside, a trio of people were working onstage. A couple of men were moving a table and equipment—radio broadcast gear—directed by a woman holding a clipboard. She seemed to be going over a checklist. I went straight to her. The clipboard: universal symbol of someone in charge.

“Hi, you must be Erica Decker? I’m Kitty Norville.”

She beamed at me as I climbed the stairs to reach the stage. She was a slim black woman with curly hair in a thick ponytail. She had the intense, manic attitude of most everyone in show business I’d ever met: everything was important, and everything had to get done right now. Strangely enough, that manner inspired confidence. She worked for one of the local network affiliates putting together half-hour news specials, and Ozzie knew her from his previous job in Los Angeles, where he’d been an assistant station manager and she’d been an intern.

“Great, you found the place,” she said. “What do you think?”

I’d hardly even looked at the theater. Small and intimate by Vegas standards, it usually hosted stand-up comedy or lounge acts. It was clean, functional, modern, with blue plush seats, walls painted dark blue, and unobtrusive lighting. Before I arrived we’d discussed putting a table onstage to hold my call monitor, supplying a couple of chairs for guests, and filling the seats with an audience. I hoped I had enough fans to fill the seats, or this was going to be embarrassing. According to Erica, advance ticket sales were doing well, but we hadn’t sold out yet. I was still thinking worst-case scenario—an empty house. Everyone would bail on my show to go see Mamma Mia! instead. Really, the place was great. But that didn’t change the fact that we were sharing the hotel with a ballroomful of guns.

I gave my evilest smile. People probably thought it was cute. “It’s nice. Can you tell me why you thought it was a good idea to schedule this in the same hotel as a gun show?”

She shrugged. “It shouldn’t be a big deal. The convention has the ballroom and a floor of conference rooms. The theater and everything around it is ours.”

“It’s just”—how could I explain this, without sounding like a loon?—“it makes me nervous. Some people who go to... things like that have what you might call a prejudice against people like me.”

Erica—the black woman—gave me a seriously ironic look, and I felt like a heel. I glanced at the ceiling for a moment and tried to sound more coherent. “Let’s just say that whole silver-bullet thing is for real, and I’m willing to bet someone in that ballroom is selling silver bullets.”

The ironic look didn’t go away, and I had to wonder if she was one of those people who, despite the evidence, couldn’t let go of a lifetime of believing this stuff was nothing more than campfire tales. This was the strange thing about being a werewolf in modern America. I’d been outed. The whole supernatural world—vampires, lycanthropes, more unbelievable things—had been acknowledged as existing by the government. I’d been filmed transforming into a wolf on live television. And some people still didn’t believe. Or didn’t want to believe. They still looked at me like I was crazy when I talked about it. Though to be honest, it was probably either that or run screaming.

But Erica wasn’t one of those. Better yet, she wasn’t freaked out. She just thought it was funny. “You’re a werewolf—how are you afraid of anything?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” I said, wearing a thin smile.

“We’ll have security on the job,” she said. “We’ll get extra security if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Thanks,” I said, but I didn’t feel any better. I’d just have to muddle through. I’d been in way scarier situations than this, right? Surely this was one of those times when my paranoia was running away with me. Besides, I had a show to put on.

Erica walked across the stage, gesturing as she explained how the setup would work. “We’ve got everything in place but the phones. Ozzie put me through to your sound guy, what’s his name, Matt? He says you’ve done remote work before and can walk us through getting the calls transferred. Not to mention coaching the screener. But you know, I’ve listened to your show: do you actually have screeners?”

“Believe it or not.”

“You have a backup plan if something goes wrong with the phones?”

“I usually have a rant or two I can pull out. And some interviews with guests. I can probably squeeze in one or two more if I find someone good.”

“Who do you have so far?” she said.

“I found this Elvis impersonator who was born the same day Presley died—within the hour—and he claims to be the King reincarnated. Wild, huh?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard of that guy. He tried to sell the network the tape of his session with a past-life-regression therapist. We weren’t buying. You can do better than that.”

That was exactly what I was hoping she’d say. Always ask the locals about the good stories. I tried to look skeptical. “Oh yeah? Like what?”

“Where to start. You know the good stuff never gets the publicity, right?”

“And why is that?”

“Who’d believe it?”

“Oh. I’d believe it.”

She crouched down by the edge of the stage and started counting off on her fingers. “First off, this town is filled with vampires. Absolutely crawling with them. This place is perfect for them—nothing ever shuts down, right?”

“How do you know they’re vampires?”

“Even before the NIH outed all you guys, I called those creeps vampires. They hang around in bars looking for all the depressed and beaten-down people who’ve lost all their money. Easy pickings. There’s nothing else to explain why people that sexy would hit on such losers.”

“I’m intrigued. I’ll check it out.” And maybe they could help me get Rick’s message to Dom.

“Second, you know anything about the history of Vegas? How it got to be the way it is?”

“A little. All about the Mob and Frank Sinatra, right?”

“Bugsy Siegel built the Flamingo, one of the first big casinos. The latest version of it is still right here on the Strip. But he was also up to his neck in the Mob, and he pissed off the wrong guys. So bang, they kill him. And the story is he’s still here, haunting the garden at the Flamingo.” She raised a suggestive brow.

“That’s so cool,” I said. Spooky, even. I could imagine a slick gangster in a fedora lingering under the palm trees. “You ever see him yourself?”

“No. But I have a friend who’s a dealer over there, and she’s got a couple of stories.”

“I might have to get her number from you.”

“Then there’s this magic act over at the Diablo. Really straightforward, the usual stuff. Card tricks, people vanishing, that sort of thing.”

The hair on my neck started to stand up, because my instincts had already guessed what she was going to say. “And?” I prompted.

“Some people say when he does those tricks, it’s real. Not sleight of hand—the things actually happen.”

Once upon a time, I would have laughed. I’d have written off a story like that as sensationalist bunk. This magician started these rumors about himself as a way to attract publicity. Then five years ago, I was attacked by a werewolf and infected with lycanthropy. I’d had to acknowledge a lot of unlikely realities: vampires, werewolves, psychics. And magic. Exploring these topics had become the bread and butter of my show.

“You’ve seen his act?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said in a way that made it clear that she was one of those people who might actually believe.