Carrie Vaughn - Kitty and the Silver Bullet

"Who is she really?"

"The Master vampires have always known she's a vampire. She's moved as an envoy between the cities for decades. As a performer, she travels freely, and by tradition vampires like her have immunity, even outside the protection of the Families. In a sense, she's a member of all the Families. And none of them. The system helps keep the peace. But it's also started wars. If I were smart I'd walk away. Leave town and find someplace else, like I've always done before."

"Why don't you?"

"Because sooner or later, I'm going to have to make a stand. I like it here. I like the people." He looked squarely at me. "Seems as good a place and time as any."

We'd reached the lobby by that time, and stopped near the front doors, shifting out of the doorman's hearing.

"What does 'sooner or later' really mean to a vampire?"

He said, "It means not thinking about the future. It means there is no future. There's only now, and what you can protect now. Sooner or later is always now."

"Protect. From what?"

"Predators," he said. "She's sizing us up. She'll take the news to the other Families. It isn't like it was a hundred years ago, when Arturo settled here. There are no new cities to build. A vampire who wants to be a Master has to become one by force. Or guile. If word gets out that Denver is unstable, others will come. Scavengers. If I wanted to be really sinister, I'd say that someone sent Mercedes here to stir things up. To make the situation unstable. More unstable, that is."

"How long has she been doing this? How old is she?"

"God knows. I should get back to it." He turned back to the elevators. Ben took my arm and drew me away, out the hotel's front doors.

"Well, that was fun," he said with false brightness.

"You see what we're dealing with?" I marched along the sidewalk, quickly putting distance between me and that place. We'd parked in a lot a couple of blocks up the street. I couldn't get there fast enough.

"Sure. There were a lot of really insecure people in that room."

I almost laughed, except I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up. Spent adrenaline. "Yeah. Did you have to provoke him like that?" I said. I could still see the look on Carl's face.

"He's a bully. I love bullies. They have such big, shiny red buttons to push."

He was such a lawyer.

"Didn't he make you at all nervous? The wolf side, I mean. Didn't he make you want to either grovel or crawl out of your skin?"

"Yeah, but you were with me so I felt okay. I feel okay when you're around."

I could have hugged him for that. But it was too much responsibility. I didn't want to be alpha, not even of a pack of two. "That's flattering. Most of the time I feel like I'm falling apart."

"But you haven't actually fallen." His smile was tight, anxious. Using humor to combat the fear.

"You're insufferable, you know that?" I held his arm, both gaining and giving comfort with the touch.

It didn't entirely help.

"Oh, my God. I'm fucked. I am so fucked." I started shivering when the cool evening air got to my sweaty skin. Or it could have been the churning in my gut. I walked faster, as if I could flee my own reaction.

Ben kept up, stayed alongside me, watching me. "I've never seen you like this. It's kind of freaking me out."

I stopped and doubled over, clutching my stomach.

Run. We can run. Get away, out of his territory, far away —

"Kitty." Ben put his hand on my back, a comforting pressure. "Keep it together."

Anyone passing by would have probably tsked at the scene, maybe smiled in amusement—some chick drank too much at the bars, and her attentive boyfriend was looking after her. How cute. My Wolf was right on the surface, though, fighting. Carl brought her out and I couldn't put her back.

"Kitty."

I concentrated on Ben's voice, his touch, human skin against human skin. His palm slid across my shirt. Focusing on my spine, I straightened—stay upright, vertical backbone, not horizontal, not like Wolf. I took deep, careful breaths.

Ben took off his suit jacket and put it over my shoulders. I clung to it tightly, snuggling into its warmth. His arm across my back, we walked on, close together, our bodies touching. Our pack of two.

"If he finds you alone, he'll kill you, won't he?" he said.

"I think so."

We'd traveled another block before he said, "Right. Just as long as I know where we all stand."

Then, finally, I did laugh.

I felt betrayed, and I couldn't even say by whom. Not by Rick—he'd seemed as much a victim of the evening as anyone. Then again, some of it was him; he must have talked about me to Mercedes. Gave away pieces of my history that put me in danger. I wanted to be angry at Arturo, but he'd probably saved my hide back there. Carl and Meg—of course, I'd felt betrayed by them a long time ago.

Mercedes Cook. Now, there was a character. She was up to something. She'd set that little game in motion. Put the pieces into play to see what would happen.

Really, I had no one to blame but myself for walking into the trap.

"Kitty, can you come here a minute?" Ben called to me from the kitchen, leaning over the counter that overlooked the living room. I left the desk and computer to sit on the bar stool, where he indicated.

We stayed like that for a long minute, looking across the counter at one another. Now what? What had I done wrong?

I was about to say something when he put a gun on the counter between us. It made a clunking noise, a sound of finality. It was chillingly black.

I stared at it. Guns were Cormac's thing. Having the gun here, without Cormac, was just…wrong.

"What's this?" My voice seemed small.

"Nine-millimeter Glock semiautomatic, weapon of choice of law enforcement officers everywhere. Compact, light, has some kick because of that, but it's worth the trade. It can still do a fair bit of damage."

Dread fell like a weight over me.

He continued. "We're not strong enough to take on Carl and Meg hand-to-hand. We need other advantages."

Like hell. "Ben, no, I've never touched a gun in my life—"

"That's why I'm taking you to a range where you can practice."

"No. No no no. It's cheating. We're supposed to use claws and teeth. Survival of the fittest—"

"Law of the jungle crap?" he said. "You don't think they'd cheat given half a chance?"

As a matter of fact, they had cheated. T. J. had agreed to walk away when Carl killed him. I just didn't want to have to use a gun.

"Do it for me," he said. "It'll make me feel better. If you run into that guy alone, I want to know that you can drop him where he stands."

I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it had come to this.

When I got my voice back I said, "Is this one of Cormac's?" For a minute it felt like the bounty hunter was with us in spirit.

Ben shook his head. "Did you think he was the only one with a concealed weapons permit?" His smile turned sly.

Well. You learn something new every day. Even about the guy you're sleeping with.

The shooting range was in a low concrete building north of town, in the suburbs. It might have been any business, and I'd have probably overlooked the unobtrusive sign, black print on white, announcing guns, ammo, range. SEVEN DAYS A WEEK.

Inside, the place smelled like Cormac. Rather, Cormac smelled like a gun shop, if I had ever known what a gun shop smelled like. Gun oil, metal, burned powder. That said something about Cormac.

Ben picked up a couple boxes of bullets, headsets for ear protection, and safety glasses from the guy at the counter. Boy, there were a lot of guns locked up behind the glass case under that counter. They all looked dark and angry.

At the back of the shop, past the double metal doors, came the sound of gunfire. Two guns, I thought, firing slightly out of synch. One was faster than the other.