Carrie Vaughn - Kitty Steals the Show

Grinning, Ned stepped behind Jan with the air of an executioner.

Jan started yelling. “The bitch is right, it’s Mercedes you want! It’s all her, I’m just … just a foot soldier. She can lead you to Roman!”

“Even if that’s true, you think I’m going to just let you go? Really? ”

“I can help you!”

With Marid and Antony bracing his arms, Ned curled his arm around the vampire’s head, a mockery of an embrace, and wrenched until the bone cracked.

Jan kept arguing, as if the injury hadn’t happened. “You need me! This is a mistake! I have a thousand years of experience at your command! Edward, listen to me!”

“I never have before, why should I start now? Because you ask ?”

Ned was still wrenching, twisting Jan’s head, until the vampire’s face looked along his shoulder, then over it. Vertebrae crunched again. His voice finally strangled to gasping silence as his windpipe kinked shut. His head faced backward now, and Ned kept on, as if muscling open a water main. The skin furrowed, stretched, tore. Ned dug in his fingernails to help it along. The tendons on his hands stood out. Impossibly, Jan still twitched, struggling.

I looked away before the head came off, but I heard it, tendons popping, wet tissue slurping apart. The thud as the body dropped. When I found the stomach to lift my gaze, Ned tossed a melon-sized bundle toward the warehouse wall. The body lay at his feet. The stringy, ragged gash where his head should have been didn’t bleed at all.

We all stared, silent as snowfall.

“I thought you were joking,” I murmured.

Evenly, Ned said, “Mr. Bennett, I’m sure you have a stake on your person I might borrow?”

Cormac was already holding the sharpened rod of wood, in an overhand grip, ready to use. He seemed to consider exactly how he ought to give it to Ned. I tried to develop instant telepathy— don’t argue, he just ripped a guy’s head off!

Cormac tossed it, and Ned caught it.

Vampire bodies disintegrated when the vampire was destroyed. The decay of the grave caught up with them at last. Jan’s body … the flesh of his hands was pale, but creamy, with the faintest rosy flush, evidence of his last meal.

My throat closed, choking on bile. Jan was still alive, in some form.

Ned drove the stake through Jan’s chest, and that finished him. Only a smear of ash remained of the vampire. The three of them, Antony, Marid, and Ned, were congratulating themselves, laughing and telling some hundred-year-old inside joke. Celebrating like they’d already won the war. And these were my allies?

Ben was right. We needed to get out of here. Too many bodies, too much of a mess. But I was curious. I crept forward to study the stain on the asphalt that used to be Jan. Even his clothes were gone. Sure enough, though, a leather cord had fallen off his neck when Ned did the deed. The nickel-sized Roman coin tied on the cord was old, dark with tarnish. I only found it because I was looking for it.

“Ned?” I said, picking up the cord, watching the coin dangle. “We need to smash this.”

His smell fell, the jubilation quelled. He studied it, fascinated. So did the others.

“I’ve never seen one of these,” Antony said.

“Probably for the best,” Ned murmured.

Caleb had a hammer in the trunk of his car. I used it to smash the coin against the concrete, erasing the design and turning it into a mangled lump of old bronze. When I got home, I’d put it with the others we’d found and destroyed.

“You notice?” Cormac said, gazing around, squinting into the damp air and streetlights.

“Notice what?”

“They didn’t bring any werewolves with them.”

We’d only faced vampires and human mercenaries. Caleb’s pack and mine had been the only lycanthropes here. Jan at least should have been able to call on an army, like he had at Hyde Park.

“Maybe they didn’t think they’d need them,” I said.

“Or maybe your plan worked.” His smile was thin, amused.

“You mean I actually might have incited a werewolf rebellion? What’re the odds?” I wanted to laugh.

He just shook his head, walking away, toward Caleb’s car.

It was all over but the shouting, as they say. Caleb and Ned argued about cleanup—they both had ideas of what should be done with the bodies, any CCTV footage that had recorded us, and how we should otherwise make the scene look like we’d never been here. Ben kept wanting to call the cops because he assumed they’d show up eventually. Then Ned announced that he’d already called the cops—and told them to stay away. Because apparently he could just do that.

This wasn’t my territory. I left the mess to them.

Caleb drove us back into town. Jill and Warrick were in another car, with Michael’s body.

“I’m sorry. About Michael,” I said. “It was a high price to pay.”

After a moment, Caleb said, “Thanks.”

Cormac had the front passenger seat. Hunched over, tense and quiet, Tyler was in the back with Ben and me. He was still recovering from post-traumatic stress from his time in Afghanistan. I couldn’t tell if he was about to relapse, and if we needed to get him someplace safe.

He turned to me. “Can I use your phone to call the States?”

“Yeah, of course.” I handed it over.

He dialed and pulled at his lip waiting for an answer. When it came—a woman’s straightforward hello—Tyler transformed. His expression brightened, the tension left his shoulders. If he’d had his tail, it would have been wagging.

“Hey. Susan. I didn’t wake you up, did I? I don’t even know what time it is there. No … no, I’m okay. I just wanted to hear your voice.” The woman’s response sounded pleased, and she chatted happily at him. Tyler was in bliss.

That … that was awesome.

WE CALLED Shumacher to let her know everything was all right and delivered Tyler safely to the hotel for a hot shower and sleep. Then Caleb dropped us off at Ned’s for showers and sleep of our own. When I really looked at the grizzled werewolf, he seemed the most tired of any of us. His face sagged, and his shoulders were rigid with the effort of keeping them straight.

“Get some sleep,” I told him before shutting the car door.

“You giving me orders now?” he grumbled, and I smiled and let him go.

Emma waited in the parlor for us, even had hot tea and food ready. She didn’t ask what had happened—Ned had probably called her already.

The tea felt amazing. Like a warm blanket on the inside. Emma watched us, wringing her hands.

“You know that Flemming’s dead?” I said. She was another of his victims, albeit indirectly.

“Alette will be glad to hear that,” she said, flattening her hands to smooth out her skirt. “It feels like the end of an era.”

“Maybe just the end of a chapter,” I said. “There always seem to be more jerks to take the place of people like that.” Not to mention Mercedes and Roman were still on the loose. This seemed a strangely muted victory.

I STILL had that speech. That I hadn’t written. My worry about it seemed so petty. How many people had died in the battles we’d fought over the last two days? How many more would die?

What had I really thought this conference would accomplish?

Ben waited with me at the front of the auditorium, clinging to the side wall, looking over the crowd that filled the seats. Full house. And everyone was staring at me, which made Wolf want to growl. I had tried to dress nicely without being too formal. I wanted my outfit to say “hip talk-radio host.” I don’t know if my jeans, gray jacket, and red silk T-shirt managed it. I mostly felt like I was trying too hard. I’d scratched some notes and held the sheets of paper in front of me, for all the good it would do.