Carrie Vaughn - Kitty Steals the Show

We caught a cab back to Ned’s house in Mayfair.

IF I managed a couple of hours of sleep, it was because I curled up with Ben. Lying with his warmth around me and his scent in my nose made me feel like I was home and safe. The feeling didn’t last, and I woke up with a start, remembering what we’d done during the dawn, and wondering how it would turn out.

First thing, I pulled out my phone and called Tyler. “Hey—are you okay?”

When he answered, his voice held laughter. “Even my mom isn’t this worried about me.”

“Yeah, well, your mom isn’t here dealing with vampire and werewolf politics. Some of these guys have their eye on you.”

“Yeah, I’ve spotted them lurking around. I get to feeling like I’m in a spy movie.”

“Tell me about it. But they haven’t approached you—haven’t tried to draw you in?”

“No—just the straight-up human government people have been doing that.”

“Good. Okay.”

“I’ll be careful, Kitty. I promise,” he said, and we signed off.

If anybody could take care of himself, it was Tyler.

I still had to deliver my keynote address at the conference tomorrow. I had a million things I could say—that was part of the problem. I wasn’t sure it mattered anymore. On the other hand, part of me wanted to run straight to the conference, get on a PA system, and tell everyone to stay in their rooms and lock their doors. That might have been an overreaction. Then again … I felt like I had to warn people. We fought a battle last night, I spent the morning sowing chaos …

I returned to the conference at noon, after an argument with Ben and Cormac. I was too visible, they said. I shouldn’t go because the conference made me too much of a target. I argued back, that going would prove that we hadn’t been scared off. When that didn’t work, I said if I went to the conference—on my own, even—we could use me as bait to draw out our enemies. That suggestion didn’t go over so well.

Then one of the werewolves from last night—one of Solomon’s, not the one who spoke but the one who’d kept to the shadows—showed up at Ned’s gate asking for help. We called Caleb, Ben waited with him, and Cormac and I went back to the conference because I wondered how many werewolves—who didn’t know where we were staying, for example—might show up there hoping to find me. Not because they wanted to hurt me, but because they needed help.

We let Andy drive us this time, for speed. The protestors were still out front, loud as ever, their voices like the crashing of waves. Andy dropped us off at the side entrance to avoid them. I didn’t even want to look at them.

Side by side, Cormac and I marched to the lobby. My nerves felt like they trembled; I wanted to growl.

“You should have stayed back at Ned’s,” I said. “All these lycanthropes, and you don’t have any way to defend yourself—you’d be safer.”

“Didn’t know you cared,” he said.

I stopped. “I care.”

He wouldn’t look at me, and I didn’t know what to say after that. I sighed. “I know you hate it when we get all overprotective, but—”

“No.” He shook his head, gaze downturned. “It’s just I’m used to being the one taking care of everyone else. I—sometimes I think I’d be better off if I moved away. Different city, different state. If I wasn’t around anymore and you didn’t have to worry. But … that would be worse, wouldn’t it? We’d all still worry but we wouldn’t be there to check up on each other.”

“Yeah,” I said.

He gave a curt nod and continued down the hallway. I hurried to follow.

The first person I saw in the lobby was Luis. As nice as he was on the eyes, I didn’t want to deal with his flirting right now. I had to get the first word in, warn him what was happening—and convince him to take it seriously—before he could start batting his eyes and kissing my hand.

“Luis, I need to talk to you—”

“Kitty! I need your help,” he said. He wasn’t smiling.

“What is it?”

“It’s Essi—Esperanza. She’s in the middle of it, and I can’t get her to let it be. The protestors—they know who she is because of her work with the conference. If she gets stuck—I don’t know if she has a way out. She won’t listen to her crabby little brother but maybe she’ll listen to you.”

That wasn’t even the disaster I was expecting. “Let’s go,” I said, taking his arm to push him forward, leading the way.

We couldn’t see a way out of the lobby’s front doors—a crowd of people was blocking them. The local fire marshal was going to get involved if this kept up. We’d have a hard time even getting to the front doors—the crowd was getting larger.

“Back around,” I said, and took off in a run, back for the side entrance.

“Kitty!” Cormac called.

The two of us outran him. Instinct took over; I didn’t even think about it.

Hundreds of people gathered, running down the street as if drawn by the noise, the sheer energy of it. A police siren sounded nearby. Once outside, we stayed close to the building and eased toward the street in front, pressing past people, working along the wall. We rounded the corner.

Wolf bristled, snarling behind the bars of her cage, and I had to stop to catch my breath, to quell the instinct to simply turn and run away. Too many people, all pushing together, shouting. And Esperanza was in the middle of it? What must she be feeling?

Ahead of me, Luis looked back. “You okay?”

“I hate this, but yeah,” I grumbled.

Frowning, he’d hunched, his shoulders tense, grimly pressing forward into the crowd. I grabbed his elbow in an effort to keep close to him, to be sure we weren’t separated. He clamped his arm to his side to keep me there.

The crowd surged like a live thing. We were making progress until something happened in front, and a wave of flesh and angry attitude pressed back. We had nowhere to go because people had closed in behind us. Luis shouted for his sister. I was just barely tall enough to see to the tops of people’s heads, but no farther, even standing on my toes. But we kept moving forward, Luis pushing on, a cat on the hunt. I kept my gaze on his back, ignoring the hordes pressing on every side. I was trapped. I wanted to howl.

The people around us were all ages, male and female, shapes, sizes, and builds. The words they shouted came out muddled, blurring into one another, and I couldn’t read any signs—most of them were up front, where it was easier to hoist them. I couldn’t tell which side of the debate we’d ended up on. Somebody, or several somebodies, reeked of garlic, like they’d bathed in it. Maybe they had. No one recognized me at least.

Ahead, a space opened, a place on the street where the crowd ended. Striped police barricades kept people corralled. I heard a voice shouted through a bullhorn—authoritative, a police officer maybe. Cars with flashing lights parked on the other side of the street, also keeping the crowd corralled. Luis called Esperanza’s name again, and we were close enough to the front of the protest to hear words.

Luis elbowed past people and pulled me the final step to the barricade.

Esperanza was on the other side of it, shouting, hands in fists at her sides, teeth bared. “You don’t have that power! If someone stands here and tells you they’re a human being, a person, you don’t have the power to argue with that!”

“You are not a person, you are not a human being! You’re not like us !” He was a young man in jeans and a T-shirt. Sweat matted his hair, and his muscles stood out. He brandished a sign on a stick, waving it above his head as if it added to his voice: ANIMALS ARE NOT PEOPLE.