Carrie Vaughn - Kitty Steals the Show

Caleb switched off the headlights and stopped. Michael immediately left the car and trotted a ways out, turning between a pair of buildings.

“He’ll meet up with my scouts,” Caleb said.

“How many people do you have here?” Cormac asked.

“Two, plus Michael. Stealth will have to make up for numbers in this fight.”

Cormac made a noise, and I couldn’t tell if he was satisfied or not. Me, I always liked stealth. If we could sneak in, grab Tyler, sneak back out …

I didn’t expect it to be that easy.

The rest of us left the car and moved into the shadow of the nearest building, out of the streetlights. Cormac held an object hidden in his hand, some charm against the dark.

A container ship, a hulking form just visible between buildings, was docked some distance down. Tyler’s captors could load him onto such a ship from here, take him anywhere, and we’d never get him back.

“This isn’t a real good environment for us,” Ben said.

His nose was flaring, wrinkling as he took in the smells in the area—oil, fuel, concrete, steel. Nothing natural intruded. I thought I should have been able to smell the river, the rich waterway of the Thames, but the air in that direction smelled of oil and volatiles, tainted and poisonous. The only scent in the mix that even resembled nature was a trace of rat and pigeon droppings. An industrial lamp sent out a circle of light gone hazy in the mist. Over the course of the evening, the clouds had returned.

“Not our territory, not our habitat. It sucks, ” I said.

“A dead zone to people like us. Another good reason to bring Tyler here. I’m surprised your fairies were able to find him,” Caleb said.

“We asked them to rescue him, but they couldn’t get this close,” I said. “Too much iron.”

We listened, tense and alert, all senses turned outward. I suddenly wished Cormac wasn’t here. If our enemies sent lycanthropes, if any of them bit him …

“All we need now is the zombie apocalypse,” Ben said.

“Zombies don’t exist,” I said. “Not that kind of zombie, anyway.”

“What?”

“The brain-eating zombie—those are movie zombies. They don’t exist. On the other hand, Haitian voodoo zombies totally exist.”

“How do you even figure these things out?” he said.

“Long story.”

“I guess so.”

Caleb raised a hand; I looked to see what had caught his attention. A short-haired woman, small and athletic, young and jumpy, approached. A werewolf, she seemed at ease in a tank top and shorts, even in the chill air.

“We think we found ’im, gov,” she whispered to Caleb. “Spotted their car.”

“Lead on, then,” he said, wearing a proud smile. “Jill has the best nose in the south of England.”

Single file, we followed her, winding a path among the buildings. Ben, I noticed, had moved to put Cormac between us. Maybe an inadequate shield, but a shield nonetheless.

We stepped slowly, carefully, wolves on the prowl, pausing often to survey the air. I couldn’t smell much besides oil, concrete, and our own party. A couple of times, Caleb signaled to his three scouts. Michael returned, paralleling us on a different path—keeping watch on Jill.

When Ben let out a stifled yell, we all dropped into defensive crouches.

“Where the fuck did you come from!” Ben hissed to the figure behind him.

“You ought to keep your voice down,” Ned said in a stage whisper.

He should have been almost an hour behind us. “Wait a minute. How—”

Ned put a finger over his mouth and shook his head.

“Not funny, Ned,” Caleb said, glaring.

The vampire said, “I brought half a dozen of my folk with me, along with Antony and Marid. Ought to help, don’t you think? I thought you’d be pleased.”

“Tell me you didn’t bring Emma,” I said in a sudden panic.

He had the grace to look startled. “Good God no, she’s just a child.”

He hadn’t put her in harm’s way yet, he wouldn’t start. The relief I felt at the news was painful.

“Anyone ever tell you you have a flair for the dramatic?” I said.

“Ha,” he answered flatly.

We moved on, and I wondered how much more of this exacting progress we had to make. Patience … if you waited long enough, still as a pond, the deer would come to you. For the fifth or sixth time, we paused at a corner to scout the lay of the land. The scouts returned to confer with Caleb. Jill said she thought Tyler was being kept in a building at the very end of the street. Ned, who remained like a statue, agreed with her. We still hadn’t met any guards or opposition, which was starting to make us all nervous. It was only a matter of time.

We should have expected it when a shot fired with an echoing crack.

“Aw, Jesus!” Michael stumbled and fell, clutching his shoulder. We pressed the wall.

He moaned around grit teeth. “Caleb, it’s silver, oh God—”

“Michael.” Caleb pulled his lieutenant into shelter with the rest of us. Jill and the second scout, Warrick, huddled together. A second shot fired, but no one cried out, so it must have missed.

“Silver bullets,” Ben hissed, and got in front of me, pushing me into a doorway. And Cormac got in front of him.

Wolf thrashed, beating herself against the bars of her cage, and I had to swallow her back, taking deep breaths to pull her inside. She wanted to run, to flee—it was the only response to such a deadly enemy. Get as far away from the silver as possible.

But we couldn’t do that. I huddled with Ben and tried to hang on to myself.

Michael let out an even more pain-racked groan and curled into a fetal pose. Caleb held tight to him, cradling him. He couldn’t do anything else. A very long time seemed to pass until Michael’s shivering stopped, until he was gone. Caleb, Warrick, and Jill all had hands on him, touching him, for his comfort and theirs, sending him on his way.

Ben found my hand and squeezed tightly. My other hand found Cormac’s arm. He stood before us both, a shield. He had a chance of surviving being shot with a silver bullet.

Only Ned seemed unconcerned, unaffected by the scene. He gazed out, and up. “I believe I see him. If you’ll excuse me.”

And he was gone. Just gone, like shadows vanish when the lights turn off. The scream came a scant moment later. I shivered.

We waited; I caught the touch of chill air the moment before he reappeared.

“There are four more of them watching the small warehouse on the next block. They’re human. Some brand of mercenary I should think. The warehouse is filled with heartbeats.”

Not vampires, then. “Whose mercenaries?” I whispered.

“I didn’t ask,” Ned said. “I thought we were in a hurry.”

“We are,” Caleb said, voice low, gravelly. “I’ll kill them all.”

“Leave them to us,” Ned said and paced away. I saw his retreat this time, or thought I did, until he disappeared into the next set of shadows.

Caleb’s expression was sour. I touched his shoulder, which was tense, hard as steel.

“They can stand up to silver bullets,” I said to Caleb. “Our job is finding Tyler.”

We should have been in forest, with familiar, earthy smells, trees blocking out the sky, the trails of our prey fresh as spring. Caleb said he’d show us where he and his wolves ran on full moon nights. After we got through all this, I’d take him up on the offer. It would feel like a vacation.

Carefully, cautiously, ducking around corners, constantly scanning our surroundings, we moved onward. I kept waiting for the sound of gunfire, knowing it would still startle me when it came, no matter how ready I thought I was to hear it.

“There,” Jill finally said, nodding to the next doorway. The building was low, only one story, made of prefab steel walls with a slanted roof. It might have been offices or storage. It didn’t seem to have windows.