Carrie Vaughn - Kitty and the Silver Bullet

I sat on the ground and lay the flowers on the spot.

"Hi, T.J."

It hadn't even been a year since he died, but sometimes it felt like forever. He felt like a distant memory. Then, suddenly, I'd feel a stab through my heart all over again. I'd hear a sad song, drink bad coffee in an all-night diner like T. J. and I used to do after I got off my shift at KNOB, and all over again I'd be so angry that he wasn't still here.

It was a beautiful summer evening, the sky darkening to a deep shade of blue, a cool wind washing away the day's heat. The scent of the hills swept over me.

I kept talking. Explaining. "Well. We got them for you. Revenge and all that. I feel bad because I didn't mean to. I didn't want to shoot her, I—"

I stopped, swallowed, shut my eyes. I'd killed her. And those two vampires, couldn't forget them, however easy it would be to call them monsters, inhuman, inconsequential. They'd been people, too. This wasn't the first time I'd killed someone, but the first time it had been Wolf who did it, out of instinct and self-defense, and he'd been a wolf and deranged to boot. It had seemed like a dream. And Arturo's two vampires had been to save myself and Hardin. It had happened so fast, it hardly seemed real. But Meg had been all me, wide awake, pulling the trigger. As much as I hated her, it still left a hollow spot inside me. I'd done something a normal, civilized person wasn't supposed to be able to do. I could still see the look on her face.

I wondered if I was ever going to have to do this again. The thought left me drained.

I tried again. I had to talk to T. J. "I didn't come back here wanting revenge. But maybe I should have. Maybe I should have been trying to get back at them all along, and—" I wiped my eyes. I'd never stop crying, would I? "So here I am. Back where I started. I just wish you were here, too. I don't think I can do this. Even with Ben, I'm just not sure."

Then, the wind stopped for a moment, and the world became very still. Quiet, like the pause before a sigh. A while back, a medium—a channeler, the real deal, not a fraud—told me that T. J. was looking out for me. That some part of him was watching—not a ghost, not an angel, nothing like that. Just…a presence. A voice. It sounded like my own conscience reminding me. Straightening out my path a little. I heard it now.

I'm proud of you, Kitty. You'll do fine.

Or maybe I imagined it. Not that it mattered. It sounded like what he'd have said, if he'd been here.

I smiled. "Thanks."

I returned to the street, to my car, and drove away.

Detective Hardin took me out to lunch. Nothing fancy, just a hamburger place near the police station. But it made me nervous. I wondered what she wanted.

After we ordered and the server moved out of earshot, she pulled a manila folder out of her attachй case. I knew it. Please, no bodies, no blood, no mauling, no death. I didn't want to help on any more cases.

"There's been another robbery," she said.

I needed a minute to think about that. I was expecting death and mayhem and she was talking a robbery? Oh, yeah—last month, the case she was working on before all the other crap happened.

"Any new leads?"

"Oh, I think so." She handed me the folder.

I opened it and found a couple of photos. They had the familiar, low-res, black and white appearance of security footage. The setting was your average, soda and cigarettes stuffed convenience store. The site of Hardin's robberies maybe? Instead of a blur at the counter this time, a very clear, very familiar figure stood collecting the goods. Male, dark hair, sunglasses. His partner, a woman with a big ponytail, looked straight at the camera and waved. Charlie and Violet.

I couldn't help it. I covered my mouth to stifle a laugh. All a trick of the light.

Hardin jabbed her finger at the picture. "I knew I recognized them. We never got a clear shot before, but I just knew. I'm gonna get those two. Do you know I'm about to write a memo recommending that twenty-four-hour convenience stores put garlic and crosses in their doorways? I can't believe I'm going to do that."

"If it makes you feel better, robbery is beneath most vampires. I think those two do it because it's fun. For them," I quickly added. Actually, the more I thought about it, the funnier the whole thing got. Vampire crooks? Perfect. Just perfect.

"I'm still going to get them." She put away the folder. "I don't know how, but I'm going to do it."

That was next on her list—she'd gotten werewolves into custody. Now she had to figure out vampires. And if anyone could do it…

That made me wonder. "Last full moon. What happened with those werewolves you arrested?"

She blew out a sigh. "I commandeered a whole row of cells at county. Put silver paint in them, put each one in a separate cell. Got all my people out and watched the whole thing on closed circuit TV. Never seen anything like it." She shook her head, and her gaze turned vague, sliding to a different place, like she was recalling a nightmare. I supposed she was. "One of them kept throwing himself against the bars. I thought he was going to kill himself. In the morning he had welts all over his body—from the silver, not from bruising. The others snarled at each other for twenty minutes, then paced back and forth all night. We had our own zoo. But it worked. I think we can hold them as long as we need to."

"Give them something to eat next time. Raw meat. It might settle them down."

"Okay. Thanks."

I was curious. "What did you think of Dack?"

"I had to look in an encyclopedia to figure out what he even was. African wild dog? Where do they come up with this shit?"

I shrugged. Who knew? It only demonstrated that just when you thought you'd come to the end of what could possibly surprise you, something did.

"I'm in over my head," Hardin said. "I keep wondering which one of these things is going to get me. I keep going like this, something is going to get me."

I couldn't argue. She was like me. When this happened to me, I'd started reading. Delving. And that only touched the surface of what might be out there.

"Do you remember Cormac?" I said.

"The assassin? The one that went after you? Yeah."

"You should talk to him. He's in Canon City, in prison—"

She snorted, interrupting. "About time. That guy's a menace."

Yeah, well…"His family's been doing this sort of thing for generations. He knows things that aren't in the books. He can help you. Give you some advice, maybe."

"So, I go talk to him, pick up some pointers, maybe get a few months shaved off his sentence for helping out?"

I perked up. "Can you do that?"

Now she sounded frustrated. "I'll consider it."

Which was something. For once, I felt better after a meeting with Hardin, rather than worse.

And this seemed as good a time as any to ask the big question. "Do you want to come on the show? I'd love to interview you. One of the first paranatural cops in the country—"

"No," she said, glaring and stabbing into her newly arrived plate of french fries with her fork.

Ah well. I couldn't have it all.

Mercedes Cook resumed her concert tour. The fallout from the public announcement of her vampirism was mixed. She was taken off the cast of the Anything Goes revival. The producers were fairly blunt about not wanting to be a party to the potential irony of having a vampire play the role of evangelizing chanteuse Reno Sweeney.

But her concerts sold out for the remainder of her tour. She added another dozen shows, and those sold out. She was in demand.

I had a feeling the whole performance gig was a sideline for her, and she didn't much care about getting kicked off the musical, or that her concert popularity was skyrocketing. For her, it was all a means to an end.