Carrie Vaughn: Kitty's Greatest Hits

They hesitated at the base of a trio of steps leading to the front door. Their breaths, coming fast after the effort of running, steamed in the chill air. David glanced at her.

“What do we do?” he whispered.

“We knock on the front door,” she said, shrugging. “If nothing’s wrong, we can sing ‘Jingle Bells.’”

He actually chuckled. The boy was coming around.

She mounted the steps first, raised a fist to knock on the door—and saw that it already stood open a crack. Shit.

Then she thought, What the hell, and pushed open the door all the way.

Her nose flared with the scent of blood at the same time she saw the spray across the linoleum floor of the entryway before her.

Wolf’s senses sprang to the fore, the instinct to Change and defend herself ripping through her gut. She swallowed back bile and forced that feeling down, told herself to keep it together, stay human, keep that beast locked away. Her gut clenched, but she didn’t shift.

Still, she looked over the scene with a hunter’s gaze, and a growl burred in her throat.

Standing over his prey, the man glanced at Kitty with surprise. He was tall and thin—unnaturally thin, like he hadn’t eaten well in some time. His clothes hung oddly on him. He wore a green canvas jacket, white T-shirt, threadbare jeans. All shone wet with blood. He was covered with red, presumably from his previous two stops. She could smell violence on him, illness, like an animal that had gone out of control, that no longer worked by instinct, but by madness, striking out at everything. His pale eyes gleamed with it. His ear-length hair was matted, uncombed, and an uneven beard grew around his slack mouth. His whole body was rigid.

He loomed over two people, a middle-aged man and woman, husband and wife probably, who lay in the middle of what passed for a living room—a plush sofa shoved up against one wall and a large TV in the opposite corner. They were both a little worn out and overweight, both wearing jeans and T-shirts—they matched the trailer, Kitty thought absently. They were trussed up like a holiday meal. That was the only way Kitty could think of it. Each had wrists and ankles bound fast in front of them with thin twine. Both were gagged with strips of cloth, so tightly their teeth were bared, their lips stretched back in grotesque smiles. Their eyes glared large and white with fear. Bloody marks shone on their heads, as if the killer had subdued them by hitting them with something. But they were alive, trembling, pressing themselves away from the killer even while bound.

He’d started with her, slashing her arms, spilling blood everywhere. He held an eight-inch-long serrated knife, dull-looking, something that might rip like the teeth of an animal. It dripped blood onto the floor.

The killer regarded Kitty and David.

Wolf, the voice of wild instinct, spoke to Kitty: Can’t show fear, can’t show terror, then he’ll know he’s stronger and he’ll attack, he’ll kill. We must be stronger, we must dominate, we are alpha here.

Wolf was right. Kitty wanted to scream, but she didn’t. Instead, she looked him in the eye. Glared. Bared her teeth a little. He was in the wrong here. He must be made to relent—to show his belly. Cow him before they had to fight it out.

Beside her, David was doing the same. His fingers were curled, stiff, as if showing claws. For a moment, she worried. Much more of this, and he’d shift. Hell, they both might. And maybe that wouldn’t be so bad—no way could this guy escape from a couple of werewolves with full-on claws and teeth.

The killer took a step back. He sensed something, obviously. The aggression, the challenge. The fact that these were a couple of monsters standing in front of him, no matter how harmless they might look. But he didn’t know how to read the signs. He didn’t know how to respond. A wolf would either return the challenge or back down—slumped shoulders, lowered gaze. Make himself small and helpless before them, to show that they were stronger.

This guy twitched, feet shifting in place. His grip tightened and retightened around the handle of the knife. His gaze shifted between them, the door, his captives, the knife in his hand, and back. He didn’t know where to look, where to go, what to do. His eyes were wide, shocky, and his lips trembled.

Then he asked a strange question.

“What are you?”

I’m your worst nightmare, Kitty wanted to mutter in a bad accent. But she didn’t. She wondered what he saw in them, though—two people with wolves staring out of their eyes, tense and glaring like they were ready to rip his throat out. The guy ought to be scared.

She had to swallow a couple of times before she could speak instead of growl.

“You’re not going to do this anymore. You’re not going to get away with what you’ve already done.”

After staring at her for a moment, he bit his lip and made a noise that almost sounded like a giggle.

What had she thought he would do, put the knife down and his hands up and wait for the cops to get here?

He stepped toward her, and Kitty braced to defend herself—kicking and scratching his eyes out if she had to. She wasn’t worried about the knife. It was stainless steel, not silver. He’d have to just about cut her head off before it would do real damage.

Not that it wouldn’t hurt a whole lot in the meantime.

David moved to intercept him. His shoulders were bunched up, like hackles raised, and his glare seemed to bore through the killer. In response, the man stumbled back, clutching the knife with both hands and pointing it defensively. The knife was shaking, just a little.

Hell. Maybe she could just talk him out of it.

“You’re going to put the knife down now,” Kitty said, her voice low, rough. “You’re not going to kill anyone else. We won’t let you.”

Then, unbelievably, he started crying. Didn’t make a sound, but tears spilled from his eyes. Kitty thought, Something drove him to this. Something pushed him over the edge and he couldn’t cope, and he was psychotic enough to begin with that he did this. This was something else that could happen when you didn’t have a place to go home to at Christmas.

Wolf didn’t have an ounce of sympathy for a predator who slaughtered for no reason, who didn’t recognize territory, who didn’t obey the rules. Wolf could spot the signs and see what was happening right before the killer tensed and raised his knife to attack. Shouting, he made a mad plunge for the door, ready to slash his way past her and David.

She’d have let him go. They could call in an anonymous tip, let the cops go after him. They’d saved these people—wasn’t that enough?

But David stopped him.

She thought he was shifting, that he’d lost it and his predator had burst forth to meet this human predator in challenge. The killer lunged forward, ready to stab down and cut his way through to the door.

David ducked and tackled him. Planted his shoulder under the guy’s ribs and shoved. Werewolves were stronger than people. David threw more power into the move than appeared possible. The killer swung sideways and banged into the flimsy plywood wall dividing the living room from the kitchen.

David didn’t shape-shift. His wolf hadn’t taken over. He had used the wolf’s power and managed to stay in control, though he was breathing hard, and his teeth were bared.

He didn’t let the killer recover. Pouncing, he pinned the guy to the floor, tossed the knife away, and leaned a rigid hand on his neck, pressing down with all his weight. The killer sputtered, gasping for air, thrashing, but he couldn’t escape David’s strength.

So maybe he wasn’t entirely in control of himself.

“David,” Kitty said. David flinched, startled, and glared at her, something amber and animal lurking in his eyes. He was barely under control. “Keep it together. You don’t have to kill. Just keep it together.”