Carrie Vaughn - Kitty Raises Hell

“I sent most of them home. I thought they’d be safer away from here. Mick and Shaun are still here.”

Watching our backs. Memories returned—images, emotions. We’d all been terrified. How far had we run? I didn’t recognize this place. I started shivering and cuddled closer to Ben.

“You’re freezing,” he murmured. But I couldn’t get dressed, because my clothes were back at the old den, miles from here. I looked around, dazed, trying to get my bearings, glancing over my shoulder for something that burned.

Mick and Shaun returned. Fully clothed, they might have been anyone. They’d walked out, studying the area between here and where the attack had come, looking for any evidence of what had happened. They brought our clothing with them. I dressed quickly, trying to get warm.

“What’s out there?” I said.

“Nothing,” Shaun said, shaking his head. “Just that smell.”

The smell of a burned forest. Unseen, a bird called, the sound echoing.

“Shaun—you’re okay?” I remembered an image: Shaun was the wolf who’d been attacked first.

“I’m fine,” he said, but he looked tired and seemed to be favoring a shoulder. All I remembered from the attack on me was shock and anger.

“Could you tell what it was? What do you remember?” I asked.

He shook his head. “It’s blurry. Things are always blurry the morning after—you know. But I could have sworn it had hands. Like it grabbed me and shoved me. It was strong—it must have been huge.”

“But did you see anything?”

“No, nothing. But the smell—”

“Fire,” I said. I could still smell it, and the odor triggered a feeling of fear.

“Something’s hunting us. I don’t like it,” Mick said, scowling and surly. He was short but stout, built like a brick wall and just as tough. Dark hair in a buzz cut, black eyes looking out. Still gleaming with a little wolf. He and Shaun were some of the first to back my takeover of the pack. I couldn’t have a better pair looking out for me. I might have been the alpha, but I couldn’t do it without them helping me. I didn’t rule by force, but by friendships.

“Let’s get back,” I said, urgent now, hurrying. I wouldn’t let go of Ben’s hand. My mind was coming back to me, and the pieces of my body clicked back together after shifting. “I need to make some phone calls.”

The four of us went back to the cars.

“You think this is connected to the Tiamat cult?” Ben said. “That this is the attack we’ve been waiting for?”

“The burned door, the smell of fire here—what else could it be? It was waiting. All this time it was waiting for the full moon.”

“Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe it’s random,” Ben said. Even he didn’t sound convinced.

“That would be worse, don’t you think?” I said.

Because then I wouldn’t know where to start with trying to figure this out.

First, I called Odysseus Grant.

We’d kept in frequent touch since the message appeared on New Moon’s door. He’d been keeping an eye on the Band of Tiamat on their home turf. He didn’t believe any of them had left Vegas, which meant the group of lycanthropes that had kidnapped me, and the vampire priestess that had tried to sacrifice me to her goddess, had sent someone—or something—else to leave that note at New Moon. And, I believed, whatever had come after us last night. I told him the latest news.

“The full moon was the trigger,” Grant said, after I told him what happened. “I can’t say that I’m surprised.”

“We should have expected it, is what you’re saying.” I paced the living room, holding my phone to my ear with one hand, scratching my greasy hair with the other. I was still feeling stiff and cranky, off-balance, Wolf’s shadows lurking in my mind. The bars of the cage she lived in most of the time hadn’t quite closed yet. I didn’t feel quite human, and I didn’t want to be talking on the phone. I hadn’t even showered yet. This seemed more important.

“Maybe. But there’s more to this. You said no one was hurt but that this thing was powerful. You could have been hurt.”

“It sure seemed like it. It came out of nowhere. We outran it.”

“Anything else you remember? Any detail at all?”

“Fire. The smell of burning coals. And a shape, something with hands that could fight. I don’t know. It’s not very clear. It’s all in wolf senses. Makes it hard to remember.”

“I understand. They’ve sent something after you, that much is obvious. I’ll learn what I can. If we can identify it, we can get rid of it.”

I already felt better. Right up until he said, “Whatever it is will strike again. Now that it’s exposed itself, it won’t go back to hiding.”

“What does it want? To scare us? Or to kill us?”

He paused before admitting, “I don’t know.”

This was my fault. I’d brought this thing here. “I don’t suppose you know of any cool charms that might work against something like this. Holy water, old Indian arrowheads, that sort of thing.”

“Can’t hurt to try,” he said, as close to encouraging as he ever got. “I’ll call you when I learn something.”

“Okay. Thanks. I’ll talk to you soon.” Sooner rather than later, I hoped.

That evening, I called to tell Rick about the new development. We agreed to meet at New Moon to discuss.

The first time Rick came to New Moon, I had to invite him in.

I shouldn’t have had to. The legend about having to invite vampires in applied only to private residences. Public places, where people were free to come and go at will, were open to vampires. But Rick had come to New Moon and stopped at the threshold.

He’d looked at me through the glass doorway, only mildly perplexed, like this wasn’t the biggest problem he’d faced all day. “This is awkward,” he’d said.

“What? What’s the matter?” I’d said through the glass.

“There’s something odd about this place.”

I’d gotten a big grin on my face. Crossed my arms, regarded him smugly, and seriously considered not inviting him in.

“That’s because it’s not yours,” I said. Then I opened the door and invited him in, because when all was said and done, he wasn’t just the Master vampire of Denver. He was my friend.

“Arturo never would have let you get away with this,” he’d said.

Arturo was the previous vampire running Denver, and this was a place within his city where lycanthropes had power.

“Well. Thanks for not being Arturo.”

This night, we sat in the back, at what had become my usual table. Rick leaned back, looking over the thinning late crowd. We were down to barflies and a birthday party in the far corner.

I was distracted, tapping my fingers, waiting for the building to burn down. “You ready for me to tell you what happened last night?”

He made a palm-up gesture, giving me the floor. I told the story again, and it seemed even more vague and less likely than when I told it to Grant. The whole thing was turning into a dream. Rick listened thoughtfully, attentively, brow slightly furrowed. In a lot of ways, of all the vampires I’d ever met, Rick had stayed the most human. He could still engage in the problems and concerns of mere mortals. At least, he could make it look like he did, finger tapping his chin, his dark eyes thoughtful.

I finished, and he sat back in his chair.

“You didn’t get a good look at it? You don’t know what it was?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember seeing anything, only what it felt like. Maybe it wasn’t a thing, but a force. You’ve been around for five centuries. Does stuff like this happen a lot? Have you ever heard of a monster that likes to attack werewolf packs on full-moon nights?”