Carrie Vaughn - Kitty Goes to Washington

"Look, we all want the same thing here. We all know Smith isn't curing anyone, not for real anyway, and he's got some kind of funky voodoo—I saw what he did to you back there. We all want to expose him, and we all know that he's dangerous. This way none of us has to go it alone and we all get to break the story together."

"Are you sure you're not just after some prime Kitty Norville footage for sweeps week?"

"I wouldn't mind that—"

I turned away with a dismissive sigh.

"He's telling the truth, Kitty. He knows," Jeffrey said. Jeffrey, who claimed to see honesty radiating off a man.

I had a guy with second sight and a reporter from Uncharted World for backup. A girl could do worse, I supposed. I looked around to see if Cormac was lurking somewhere. Now there was backup, assuming he kept his guns pointed in someone else's direction. But wouldn't you know it, the one time I might want him around, he'd disappeared. He hadn't been near the hearings since Duke fired him.

I said to Roger, "We find the caravan, we check it out. Then what?"

"Then, we see. Sound good?"

"No. If you know what he is then you should know what he's doing, and what we should do about him."

"I can't do it alone" Roger said. "Are you in?"

Jeffrey nodded. He seemed eager, even, as if this were just another enlightening experience.

I had to be out of my mind.

Stockton's smugness at knowing something I didn't was stifling. I was glad Jeffrey had agreed to come along. He sat in the backseat, regarding both of us with an amused smile.

I had no idea what we were going to do when we got there. If anything I'd heard about the caravan was true, shutting it down would take the National Guard.

Maybe between Jeffrey's intuition and Stockton's camera, we could collect enough evidence to bring about some kind of criminal prosecution. It was a modest enough goal.

It was all I could hope for. We weren't exactly the Ghostbusters.

Around sunset, we left tract housing and suburbs and entered countryside, driving along a two-lane state highway. The light was failing, streaking the sky shades of orange and lighting up the clouds. The land seemed dark, shadowy. The fields around us might have been fallow farmland, or rolling pastures. Fences bounded them by the roadside, but beyond that, trees surrounded them.

Trees everywhere, rows of old growth oak or elm, windbreaks planted a hundred or two hundred years ago. The road curved from one valley into the next, making it impossible to see what lay ahead.

I was surprised, then, when we rounded a turn skirting yet another gently rolling hill, and Stockton put on the brakes. The seat belt caught me. He pulled onto the shoulder, to where we could look over the rail fence.

Ahead, occupying the back half of a wide swath of pasture, was what looked like the back lot of a down-on-its-luck traveling circus. Maybe two-dozen old-fashioned campers hitched to beat-up pickup trucks, a few RVs, Airstreams and Winnebagos, converted vans and buses, parked in a rough circle, like pioneer wagons. Another dozen cars were scattered among them. In the center, like the spoke of a wheel, the top of a large canvas tent was visible. Around the perimeter, a few figures, indistinct forms in the twilight, walked around wire fencing that enclosed the settlement. Lights flooded the area inside: lights from the campers, the trucks, floodlights inside the tent. Even a hundred yards away I could hear the generators. The place was an event, a carnival without a town to go with it, a circle of light in an otherwise shadowed world.

A dirt road, little more than two tracks worn into the soil, led from the highway, through an open gate, to Smith's caravan. A couple of other cars were parked near the gate, their motors still running.

Stockton rolled down his window and leaned out, aiming his camera at the encampment.

"How did you find out it was here?" I asked.

"One of the guys at Uncharted World's been following it. Caught up with it in DeKalb, Illinois, a couple weeks ago and tracked it here."

"Then why isn't he out here filming?"

"Because two nights ago a car with no plates forced him off the road and into a dry creek bed. He's in the hospital with four broken ribs and a smashed shoulder."

"Shit." I shook my head. "Do you see anything?" I said to the backseat. "I mean, you know. See anything?"

"At this distance, the floodlights muddy everything up," Jeffrey said. Then he pointed to one of the other cars, that had just turned its headlights off and shut off its engine. "Although that guy's a lycanthrope."

A man—young by his gangly figure and the way he slouched—got out, closed the door softly, and started walking along the dirt track to the caravan site.

Quickly I undid the seat belt and scrambled out of the car.

"Kitty!" Jeffrey called after me, which I ignored.

I trotted after the guy and was about to call out to get him to stop, but he heard me, or smelled me, because he turned and backed away, shoulders tense, like a wolf with hackles.

"Who are you?" he said sharply.

"My name's Kitty." I stayed put, kept my gaze turned down, my shoulders relaxed. He could smell me; he knew what I was. "I'm just curious. Why are you here?"

He let his guard down the barest notch, shrugging. "I've heard there's a guy here who can help."

"Help what?" I said, like I was ignorant or something.

He glared, his eyes narrowing, suspicious. "Help this . Help me be normal again."

"Ah. I'd heard the same thing."

"Then you know why I'm here."

"I've also heard that he's a fraud. That his church is really a cult. That he brainwashes people so they'll stay with him. Nobody knows what goes on in there."

"Yeah, I'd heard that, too." He hugged himself like he'd suddenly become cold.

"And you're still willing to go there?"

"What choice do I have?"

"Is it really so bad? So bad that you'd give up your freedom, your identity? Assuming the rumors are true."

"I haven't been able to hold a job for more than two weeks since it happened. I keep losing my temper. I can't—I'm not very good at controlling it."

"I'm sorry. You don't have a pack, do you?" He shook his head. He hadn't had anyone teach him how to control it.

He looked over my shoulder suddenly. Jeffrey and Roger had come up behind me. The young man took a couple steps back, then turned and ran, through the gate and toward the caravan.

"Wait!" When he didn't stop, I wasn't surprised. "Damn."

"That kid's scared to death," Jeffrey said.

"But not of me."

"Yeah, a little. Also of his own shadow, I think. It's funny to think of a werewolf being scared of anything."

"Oh, you'd be surprised. A lot of us spend most of our time being afraid."

"Let's go," Stockton said, gesturing toward the trees at the edges of the field, around to the side of the caravan, closer to it but still in shadow. "Before his flunkies figure out we're not here for the show."

I tipped my face up, turning my nose to the air, half closing my eyes to keep out distractions. Then I shook my head. "Let's go to the other side. It's downwind."

We walked along the road to a place where we were mostly out of sight of the main entrance to the caravan, then climbed over the fence. Quickly we made our way to the trees, following them along the edge of the pasture down a gentle slope, toward the caravan. As we approached, the floodlights grew brighter, and the area around the encampment grew darker. For all it appeared like a carnival lot, the place was quiet. No talking, no voices, no sounds of life, like pots and pans clanking together while dinner was being prepared. By all accounts, dozens of people were living there, but I couldn't make out any obvious signs of life.