Carrie Vaughn: Kitty's House of Horrors

He stood and came toward me, hand outstretched for shaking. Another attack, Wolf growled. We were never going to appreciate aggressive human friendliness, were we? I gritted my teeth, smiled, and shook his hand.

“Hi! Welcome, all of you!” He shook each of our hands in turn. His smile was ferociously pleasant.

“Thanks,” I said, glancing around, taking it in. I smelled old soot and the smoke of many fires from the immense fireplace; dinnertime cooking smells from the kitchen, red wine in glasses, and people. Different kinds of people—not entirely human people. My nose was working overtime, trying to take it all in.

“Why don’t we come in and make some introductions?” That smile never dimmed, and I sensed an edge of anxiety to it. I didn’t envy Provost his job here; he wasn’t just going to be producing a TV show, he was going to be playing mediator and camp counselor.

Provost gestured to a large, aggressively muscled black man with a hooded glare sitting on a chair, a little ways from the others.

“Jerome Macy,” Provost said.

“Yeah, we’ve met,” I said while the others nodded greetings.

The pro wrestler nodded at me. I nodded back, and we didn’t meet gazes—wolf body language that said, Hey, we’re cool, nothing wrong here. He was another werewolf and understood how weird this all was. I might spend the next couple of weeks being more comfortable around him than anyone else.

“Finally, we get some eye candy,” said a guy I didn’t know, scoping out Tina, Ariel, and me with a definite leer. I had to admit, we did sort of look like Charlie’s Angels standing together.

He smelled weird. Definitely not human, but a flavor of not-human I hadn’t encountered before—and I was racking up quite the scent catalog. Not a vampire, not a werewolf, were-tiger, or were-jaguar. I’d even met a were–African wild dog, but this wasn’t any of those. He had a human and something-else smell, like all lycanthropes had. But the something else was kind of… fishy. Salty. Wild without the fur. Weird.

“Lee Ponatac,” he said in response to my inquiring glare. He had dark hair, and his features were square, young, his eyes brown and shining. He had the scruffy appearance of someone who spent a lot of time outside and didn’t care much about polish. It was a nice look, and he pulled it off well. My inquiring glare didn’t go away, and he just kept his charismatic smile. “Were-seal. Children of Sedna, we call them back home,” he said finally.

My eyes widened. “Really?”

Provost said, “Lee is a state legislator in Alaska. He may be the first publicly acknowledged lycanthrope elected to office in the country. I’m a little surprised we discovered him before you did.”

“Yeah. But hey, happy to meet you now. Were-seal? Really? And you don’t think this gig will come back to haunt you if you ever decide to run for president?”

He smirked. “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”

I didn’t think there’d ever come a time when I couldn’t be surprised, and he seemed pleased at my astonishment. Oh, this was going to be a fun couple of weeks.

The other man, a guy in his thirties, a little overweight and a little balding but not more than average, sat back in an armchair, arms crossed, frowning slightly as he regarded us all. He smelled human. But so did more than half the people in the room.

“And you are?” I asked.

“Conrad Garrett,” he said.

“The author?” I said. I’d heard of Garrett, who’d made a profession of writing books debunking the existence of the supernatural, claiming government conspiracy about the NIH’s Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology, calling foul on every shred of evidence proving the existence of things like, oh, werewolves. The public recognition of all this was still too new—of course skeptics came forward. “So why don’t you return any of my calls?”

“Because acknowledging you only validates your claims,” he said, straightforward, like he’d practiced the line.

I huffed. “If you don’t believe any of us are real, what are you even doing here?”

“That’s putting it a bit existentially,” he said. “I just don’t believe any of you are what you claim you are.”

“Wow. Extreme state of denial,” Ariel said.

I stared. “Seriously? Really? After everything that’s happened? After Congress held hearings and all the stuff on TV?”

“Video footage can be faked,” he said. “As for Congress—they’re being manipulated by lobbyists. I think it’s pharmaceutical companies inventing new ‘diseases’”—he actually did the finger quotes—“in order to get research funding that they have no intention of using for research.”

I couldn’t help it; I giggled. “Shit, you’re going to make me shape-shift right here in front of you, aren’t you?”

“I look forward to it,” he said calmly.

Provost raised a hand to point at the cameras. “Kitty, if you could watch the language? And please—no shape-shifting. Not just yet.”

Lee crossed his arms. “ That’s the setup for the show. We’re supposed to spend the next two weeks convincing him that all this is real. Then watch him freak out when he can’t deny it anymore.”

“No, seriously,” I said, still stifling giggles. “It’ll only take five minutes. I’ll shift right now, take a little run—that’s some great wolf territory out there. Then we can all go home.”

“Kitty,” Provost said with forced patience. I had a feeling I was going to be hearing that tone of voice a lot. “We’d like this to be a gradual revelation. If we do it right you won’t have to shape-shift at all.”

“And we won’t break his little mind quite so badly, right?” Tina added.

“Whatever,” I said, still giggling. “Is there any of that wine left? I think I could use a drink.”

Provost introduced us to the rest of the crew—Ron Valenti and another co-producer named Eli Cabe would be doing most of the technical work on the show. They’d also brought along a trio of production assistants—Skip, Amy, and Gordon—to help. They were eager twenty-somethings, who seemed giddy to be working on a real show—any show. This was their foot in the door. They looked the part, dressed in casual jeans and funky T-shirts, with headsets permanently attached to their ears and clipboards in their hands. Skip had long, dark hair in a ponytail; Amy was petite and energetic, and she tended to shout across rooms; and Gordon was a bit heavyset and always seemed to be smiling about something. They’d also take care of the catering—the kitchen was fully stocked and we’d have three hot meals a day. This might even turn out to feel like a real vacation.

The lodge had a back room, off the living room, normally set up as a library or reading room. The production crew had taken it over and converted it to a studio, where they parked all their cameras, monitors, and editing equipment. Here, they’d review their footage as it came in and start making the “magic.” It was off-limits to participants, of course. I was already thinking of how I could sneak a look in.

The show hadn’t officially started taping yet; we were still missing people. The scheduled “activities”—and didn’t that sound ominous—would start tomorrow. For now, the cameras were getting footage for some kind of introductory montage, and in the meantime we could all get to know each other. Happily, the lodge had a liberally stocked wine cabinet. It would help to take the edge off whenever I had to talk to Conrad. I had a feeling it was going to be all too easy to bait this guy.

I started in right away, of course. “Conrad, tell me something: you do believe that astronauts have walked on the moon, right?”