Carrie Vaughn - Kitty's Big Trouble

Joe stepped out of the front passenger seat and barely glanced at us before moving straight to Henry. “When you didn’t come home this morning we just about wrote you off. What happened?”

Henry put his hand on the other vampire’s arm and leaned. “It’s a very long story.”

“Hell, you’re a mess.” Joe propped him up.

Henry nodded in agreement.

Joe turned to me next. “Kitty. Boss was hoping you’d survive so he could talk to you.”

“Yeah, I just bet,” I said.

“So. You coming?” He nodded back to the Cadillac.

I looked at Ben and Cormac, my pack. Neither of them seemed thrilled.

“This wasn’t what I had in mind for a debriefing session,” Ben said.

“I think I have to warn him,” I said, and Ben nodded. “Will there be coffee?” I asked Joe.

“I think we can manage that,” he said.

JOE SAT IN front with Henry and the driver. The three of us sat in back, quiet and dubious. Henry was pale, glassy-eyed; Joe kept a hand on his shoulder. Their mood had the quality of one friend driving another to the hospital for stitches after a minor mishap. Some amusement, which was mostly to mask the palpable concern.

We drove north through Chinatown to the next neighborhood. Abruptly, the signs stopped being in Chinese, the streets widened, and the dim sum restaurants turned into Italian bistros and bar and grills.

The car turned a corner and pulled into a parking alcove hidden behind a low brick building. The front showed the blue and red neon lights of what looked like a popular bar—a line of people waited to get in. We went through a back door and down the stairs to a private club.

The place was nice, kind of retro. Red color scheme, polished wood trim, brass fixtures. A jazz trio played on a tiny stage off to one side. The bar was long, lacquered, and a mirror reflected lights off hundreds of liquor bottles. The clientele seemed well-to-do, dressed up and drinking expensive-looking martinis and wine, and relaxed. Most of them were human. I wondered if any of them knew a vampire ran the place?

Boss occupied a leather booth in the corner. Tonight he wore the complete ensemble: suit and tie, tapping a fedora on the table in front of him. Master of all he surveyed. His two previous companions were with him. The bobbed-hair woman wore a clinging red silk number tonight. Jaw-dropping, really. None of them had drinks. Thank God.

“Have a seat,” Boss said, while Joe guided Henry to an unmarked door in the back.

“Is he going to be okay?” I said, nodding after them.

“Joe’ll fix him up. He’ll be good as new in half an hour.”

Cormac said, “You have voluntary donors or what?”

He must have had some kind of professional need to ask. I wondered where he was hiding that stake and if he planned on doing anything with it.

Boss quirked a grin. “Nobody dies feeding me and mine. We don’t even raid the blood banks like some people.”

Cormac’s expression didn’t change. He studied the trio of them as if he was still considering using that stake.

“Nice place you got here,” I said in a blatant ploy to interrupt whatever standoff was developing.

“Thanks,” Boss said. “The kitchen makes a very nice rare steak. Interested?”

My mouth started watering. I hadn’t eaten anything since Xiwangmu’s rice crackers the night before. A bunch of Power Bars were still piled up in a hidden room in Chinatown’s nonexistent tunnels.

I glanced at Ben, who had such a look of hunger in his eyes it was almost lustful. “I think that’s a yes,” I said, glancing over his shoulder to Boss to accept his invitation.

Fifteen minutes later, we had three rare steaks, two beers for the guys, and a glass of pinot noir for me. All in all, not a terrible way to round out the evening. The three vampires watched, amused.

There was a price for the meal. “So, what happened?” Boss asked. “What happened to Henry?”

I explained, in summary. We went underground, found Roman, lost the Dragon’s Pearl, lost Henry, went after them both, managed to get them both back, and then were trapped. We emerged after sundown, when it was safe for the vampires. I didn’t mention the Chinese gods. I wasn’t sure Boss would believe me.

“Where’s Anastasia?” he asked when I’d finished.

I didn’t feel like that was my story to tell. “Her work here is done,” I said, shrugging. “She rode off into the sunset.”

It was even true. Henry couldn’t contradict me when he told his side of the story.

“What exactly did Roman do to Henry?” Boss asked, concerned.

I shrugged. “Put him temporarily under his control, I think. Nothing else, as far as I could tell. Cormac?”

Cormac had pocketed the original two destroyed talismans, the smashed one from Dodge City and Anastasia’s defaced coin. All that was left of her in this world, I thought, with some sadness. We had to carry on. He brought them out now and gave them to me. I put them on the table, and Boss leaned forward to look.

“Roman uses these to mark and keep track of his followers, his minions. There may be more to them than that, they may have some controlling element to them, I don’t know. Henry was wearing one when we found him, but we got it off. They look like Roman coins, but erasing the markings seems to nullify their power.”

“So I see one of these, I need to destroy it?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” I said. Now Anastasia wasn’t the only one who knew about the coins. Now, everyone would know.

“Where is Roman?” Boss asked finally.

“I don’t know,” I had to answer. “Can I hope that he got caught in daylight and went up in a poof of ash?”

Boss shook his head. “A two-thousand-year-old vampire? Not likely.”

I was afraid of that. The thought dulled the taste of the steak and wine.

We finished our meals, made small talk, and ended the meeting. Boss made me promise to send my regards to Rick, which I assured him Rick would be happy to receive, and sent us back to our hotel in his car. We’d worry about fetching our car in the morning, after some sleep.

Flush, alert, and happy, Henry reappeared in time to accompany us on the drive.

“Are you okay?” I asked him as we piled into the Cadillac.

“Yeah, just fine,” he said, shrugging, but his expression was muted. “I’m not sure I remember everything that happened. I seem to remember … there were a couple more people there, right at the end, weren’t there? The Chinese woman, the guy with the staff. It’s not real clear.”

I smiled. “I know what you mean. It’s like something out of a story.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he said.

On the block where our hotel was, the car pulled over to the curb. Henry looked at us over the backseat.

“Kitty,” he said. “It’s been interesting.”

“In the Chinese curse sense, right?”

He ducked his head and chuckled.

“Hey, Henry. Want your shirt back?” Ben asked, tugging on the Havana shirt that was looking a little the worse for wear.

“Naw, keep it,” he said.

“Damn. The one shirt I can’t seem to get rid of,” he said. I leaned into his shoulder and giggled. The shirt had stopped smelling like Henry and smelled like all Ben, which was fine with me.

Ben, Cormac, and I piled out of the car and waved good-bye.

Finally we could get back to our rooms, I could have a long, hot soak in the tub and work all the knots and cramps out of my injured hip and leg. I didn’t even want to know what color the bruises had turned.

In exhausted silence we rode the elevator up to our floor. We’d have to talk about the last couple of days sometime—debrief from our debriefing. But we all seemed to agree that could wait until after a good scrubbing and a long nap.