Carrie Vaughn - Kitty in the Underworld

He stretched his crooked hands and his lips pulled back to show yellowed fangs. He seemed so broken, but ropy muscles flexed under the leathery skin. He was still a vampire, and I couldn’t underestimate his strength. I wondered how hard I’d have to push him before he got physical.

“No one knows Gaius Albinus better than I do.”

I believed him. He’d been around for most of that history. Roman was a bogeyman among vampires, a Machiavellian figure manipulating them and their Families around the world in order to bind them under his own power. The few facts: he was two thousand years old, had been a Roman soldier in Palestine, had traveled across Europe and Asia over the centuries. His followers wore the bronze coins, which had some magic that connected them. Defacing the coins broke the spell. I had spent the last several years trying to identify Roman’s followers, and to find others who knew about him and opposed him. I had my own band of allies. But none of them knew about Kumarbis. What did Kumarbis know that we didn’t?

“What can you tell me about him?” I asked.

“Only that we must stop him. Nothing else is important.”

It was like pulling teeth. Sharp, pointy teeth. I said, “Do you know Marid? Ned Alleyn? Alette, Rick—Ricardo? Do you know they’re trying to stop Roman, too? If no one knows him better than you, they could really use your help. That’s the whole point, we’re supposed to be working together.”

He shook his head. “What they think they know doesn’t matter. I am the only one who can stop Gaius Albinus.”

We had a saying around the radio station: the minute you thought no one else could do your job, it was time to give up that job. “You can’t do it alone,” I said. “You need help.”

“I have everything I need here, now that you are with us.”

“You know so much about Dux Bellorum—even what can stop him—why not just tell me?” I paced, just to be moving. I had to burn the anxious energy somehow, either through moving or through howling. The howling might come in a minute.

“You’ll learn what I know—when you are initiated into our mysteries.”

“I don’t want to be initiated into any mysteries. Sorority rush was bad enough.”

He put his hand on his heart—his dead, still heart—in a strange gesture of calm. Like a saint in a medieval painting. Closing his eyes, he said, “Be comforted, wolf. Regina Luporum. You’ll understand everything, in time.” He turned to tap on the door. One of the others must have been on the other side, to unlock it.

“Wait!” I reached for him as the door cracked open.

He turned back to me, waited as I had asked. But I didn’t know what to say that I hadn’t already said.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, after a pause. “Of course you are. I will have Sakhmet bring you food.”

Then he left, and the door shut behind him.

Maybe it was time to figure out a plan C.

I DIDN’T know any stories about Regina Luporum. About the wolf who adopted and cared for Romulus and Remus. Only that she was there, like any number of nameless mother wolves in any number of stories. Although the mother wolf who adopts Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is named Raksha. She gets a name. She is the overlooked power, the unnoticed linchpin. The unspoken prologue to every story. I had to give credit to Kumarbis and the others for acknowledging her and giving her some power. But I didn’t have to trust the stories he told about her.

Mythology was filled with queens. A queen of the wolves would only be one in a long line of them. Like Inanna, Queen of Heaven, goddess of sex and war, who was pictured flanked by lions. There’s a story about Inanna traveling to the land of the dead, the underworld, just like most epic heroes seem to do at one time or another. At each of seven gates she is forced to give up an item of clothing, a jewel from her collection. And she arrives at her destination naked, stripped of all wealth and identity at the darkest part of her journey.

She spent three days underground, then she escaped. She was reborn. She reclaimed all that she’d lost. Like all good heroes do.

TIME PASSED strangely. My eyes were getting tired, even my Wolf’s supernatural night vision straining in the dim lamplight for so long. I paced, just to have something to do, just to keep my blood flowing through tired muscles, so when the chance to run came, I’d be ready. Even though pacing made Wolf anxious. She was so close to the surface all the time now, ready to spring forth, to burst free. To defend us, when the time comes.

I was circling the antechamber for what felt like the hundredth time, trying to think. Sakhmet was my best chance for escape. All she had to do was leave the door unlocked the next time she brought me water. I could get her to convince Enkidu to leave the door unlocked. Escape in a way that wouldn’t implicate them. Make it look like I broke out. They already knew it was the right thing to do, I was sure. I didn’t think they were afraid of Kumarbis. So what was stopping them from doing the right thing?

They believed Kumarbis and Zora, believed they could really do what they claimed. And they would keep trying to convince me of the same.

On the other hand, I could beg and threaten. My pack and mate would come looking for me. A dozen raging werewolves, along with the vampires from the Denver Family, would swarm the place, seeking revenge in their effort to rescue me. My allies were ruthless and implacable, and Kumarbis and his cult didn’t have a chance, no matter how powerful they were. Maybe that would convince them to let me go.

I’d try that. Plan C.

The sound of the door scraping on stone was familiar enough that it shouldn’t have made me jump, but it did. Every noise, even a familiar one, meant something was happening, something I couldn’t predict. What amazing new fun interaction did the gang have planned for me this time? The mind boggled.

I was tired of jumping at noises.

I stepped carefully toward the door, watchful and hesitant. The smell of blood and meat filled the air, the sound of wet flesh slurped against the floor, and the door scraped shut again.

He’d promised me food. Right. And here I thought he might actually have meant something my human side would consider food. I crouched to study what Enkidu—this smelled like him—had brought me. Fresh kill, only an hour or so old based on the stickiness of the blood. Large, with a tawny hide: the entire hind leg of a deer, ripped off the rest of the carcass.

Oddly, my next thought was Wolf’s: Enkidu and Sakhmet are good hunters, to be able to bring down deer. I shook that away. Tried to clear my mind. But my mouth was watering. As far as Wolf was concerned, Kumarbis had made good on his word to feed us.

My human side was human enough that I didn’t think I could eat the raw flank of deer in front of me. Not with my flat molars and my modern sensibilities that had grown up on macaroni and cheese out of a box, along with other technological wonders. A rare steak looked appetizing … this was ambiguous. You are weak. Yes, in some ways. In others, no. Hungry, need to eat. I couldn’t argue. Wolf would have no problem eating the flank.

Even if I ate the meat raw with my human mouth, I’d still be feeding Wolf, who was perfectly fine with the idea. Ecstatic, even. At least I hadn’t shifted at the first smell of blood, the first glimpse of the bloody carcass. I still had some control. Should have made me feel better. But they’d known I wouldn’t be able to eat this as a human. If I wanted to eat, I’d have to choose to shift. This was part of the plan.

They didn’t want me, they wanted Wolf.