Kitty Goes to War

by Carrie Vaughn

“No,” I said. “That will definitely not be necessary. We’ve got it under control.”

  Not that siccing a couple of Green Beret werewolves on Franklin wouldn’t be fun to watch . . .

  Ben returned to the table, folding my phone and handing it back to me.

  “Well?” I said.

  “Later,” he said.

  “You two lead interesting lives, don’t you?” Tyler said.

  I shrugged. “For certain values of interesting.”

  We finished the meal. The sodas were drunk, the skewers lay empty and bloody. I was feeling quite pleased with myself.

  “Thanks,” Tyler said. “Been awhile since I’ve eaten that well.” Walters made a sound of agreement. Was he actually smiling?

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “Think about that next step, okay? I’ll see if I can’t arrange a field trip.” I tried to sound encouraging.

  Tyler’s responding smile was grim, but it was a smile. Walters looked up, then away. But tension in the room was less than it had been when we entered.

  Ben and I left shoulder to shoulder, and Shumacher led us back to her office for the debriefing. She kept looking at Ben—who had, of course, blown his cover by coming here and talking werewolf with the soldiers. Ben looked back at her, unconcerned and amused. We’d discussed this—and if he hadn’t been okay with her knowing, he wouldn’t have come.

  “I assumed you’d guessed when I didn’t mind getting Kitty’s blood all over me,” he said finally.

  She blushed and ducked her gaze. “I didn’t spot it. I thought I was getting good at identifying werewolves on sight. But you hide it well.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you kept it quiet,” Ben said. “I’m not the publicity hound Kitty is.”

  “Publicity hound? Is that a joke?” I said, and he kissed my cheek in response.

  “Of course,” Shumacher said. “Of course.” She was nervous around us—her body tense, her gaze darting, her smell sharp. I’d have thought she’d gotten used to being around werewolves by now. Maybe she didn’t like being outnumbered. “Are you sure taking them outside is a good idea?” She set her clipboard on her desk.

  Ben and I took chairs across from her.

  I shrugged. “They’ll be supervised. We have to start somewhere.”

  “I’m not sure they’re ready,” Shumacher said.

  “Have you even talked to them? Found out what they want?”

  “I’m not sure they’re in a position to be making those kinds of decisions, after what they’ve been through.”

  “They’re not children,” I said. “Sure, they need help. But they deserve to have a say in what happens to them. The only way they’re going to get better is if they have a reason to get better. It’s the carrot approach.” I sat back and tried not to frown.

  “Is she always so optimistic?” Shumacher said to Ben.

  “Yes. I usually just stand out of her way and let her go. It’s easier than arguing,” Ben said.

  Shumacher studied her clipboard a moment. It held what looked like a stack of charts, computer printouts of some kind. I couldn’t tell what information she derived from them.

  “They did well today, didn’t they?” she said finally.

  “I think so,” I said. “They’re listening to me. I think they’ll listen to me if we go outside.”

  “Maybe I can allow a short trip. An hour or two.”

  “That’s all I’m asking for,” I said. “Baby steps.”

  “I’ll need to get authorization from Colonel Stafford,” she said.

  Which was touch and go at best, but I couldn’t complain.

  We said our farewells, left the building, and emerged into an increasingly overcast winter afternoon. The air smelled wet.

  “That went well,” Ben said as we crossed the parking lot, and he didn’t even sound sarcastic.

  “Really?” I said hopefully.

  “Yeah. Those guys deserve a break. I hope we can help them.”

  I wrapped my arm around his middle and hugged him. “So what’s up with Cormac?” I said.

  “Oh, you’ll like this.” Ben wore a shit-eating grin. It was his courtroom attorney “I will bury you” expression.

  “What? What does he want?”

  He just kept grinning, stringing me along.

  “Come on. Just tell me.”

  We reached our car before he said anything.

  “We’re going on a stakeout.”

  Chapter 10

  “JESUS, THIS is just like old times,” Ben muttered.

  He leaned back in the driver’s seat and tapped the top of the steering wheel.

  “Old times” meant the days when Cormac loaded his Jeep with rifles and silver bullets and called Ben for backup when things got rough. I remembered Ben saying something about how he mostly drove the car on those treks. Kind of like he was doing now.

  That thought didn’t soothe my nerves. I sat on the passenger side, watching through the windshield, ready for anything. We were parked in downtown Denver, waiting for Cormac’s phone call. He was on foot, staking out the Brown Palace Hotel, where Franklin was staying. The Brown Palace was the posh, fancy local hotel, and had been for the last hundred years or so. It was the stylish place to stay, and that he had a room there told us that Franklin cared about appearances.

  Cormac wouldn’t tell us anything more of what he’d learned about Franklin. Just that my crazy caller, Charles, might have been on to something. But we needed evidence that it wasn’t all a big coincidence. Hence the stakeout.

  “Has Cormac ever done this before?” I asked.

  “Sure, he’s tailed lots of guys before.”

  “No, I mean has he ever been so . . . vague? Tossing off Latin phrases, buying into conspiracy theories. Ever since he got out of prison he’s just seemed a little out of it.”

  “You don’t think just getting out of prison might have something to do with that?”

  “I suppose. But sometimes, he doesn’t even smell right.”

  After a few silent moments, Ben said, “Yeah, I noticed that.”

  “What’s happening to him?”

  “I don’t know. As long as he keeps his nose clean and stays away from his guns, I’m not sure it matters.”

  My phone rang—Cormac’s tone. I jumped and rushed to answer. “Yeah?”

  “He’s on the move. I’m at the corner of Seventeenth and Glenarm.”

  I relayed the info to Ben, who started the car and pulled into the street. We turned to the next block and found Cormac, who opened the back passenger side door before the car slowed completely to a stop, and Ben had pulled away from the curb before the door was finished closing. Real getaway pros, they were.

  “He’s heading south on Broadway,” Cormac said.

  “Got it. What are we looking for?”

  “Black Hummer, you can’t miss it,” Cormac said.

  “That’s excessive,” Ben said with a huff. “Help me keep an eye out, Kitty. And don’t be so obvious.”

  I had started craning forward and twisting in my seat to look at the lanes of traffic on either side of us.

  “I’m not very good at this cloak-and-dagger thing, you know.”

  “You’re fine,” Cormac said from the backseat, sounding amused.

  I glanced back. He’d put on his sunglasses, and I couldn’t tell where he was looking—out the windshield, I assumed, searching for Franklin’s black car. He seemed relaxed, and smelled like clean, cotton T-shirt and skin. He’d donned his familiar leather jacket, like a piece of armor.

  “What exactly are we doing?” I said.

  “We’re going to see where he goes and what he does when he gets there,” Cormac said.

  “What if he’s just going to the liquor store for a six-pack?”

  “Guys like Franklin have people to do that for them. No, he’s up to something.” He was wearing his sardonic smile. The one that suggested he was outside the world and just watching it go by.

  “I’m so not cut out for this
,” I grumbled. “I shouldn’t even be here.”

  “This is to save your ass, remember,” Ben said.

  “Not my ass so much as my bacon,” I said.

  “What does that even mean?” Cormac scooted up so he was looking between the front seats.

  “Bacon,” Ben said. “As in bringing home the.”

  “Ah.” Cormac still looked like he was secretly laughing at me.

  “I’m glad you’re so amused,” I said, turning to sit straight, looking for the Hummer, which surely had gotten away from us by now. A Hummer shouldn’t be able to hide.

  “Just happy to be alive,” Cormac said.

  I was about to twist around to look at him again and ask him what he was talking about when Ben said, “Is that our guy?”

  “That’s him,” Cormac said.

  Ben had nodded to the urban tank, three cars ahead of us and to the right, looking like a black hole in the middle of traffic. Ben cruised along like nothing was different, but we all got quiet.

  Broadway was one of the main drags through Denver. The Hummer—not exactly subtle—could continue for a long time without turning. We followed, never closer than three or four cars, often as much as two blocks away from it. Those moments, my heart would start pounding faster, I’d start tapping the armrest, sure that Franklin was getting away from us. Ben and Cormac never even twitched. I wondered how many times they’d done this sort of thing.

  We went on like this for miles, into the suburb of Englewood.

  “There,” Cormac said, without urgency. “Is he turning?”

  And he was. The Hummer signaled, slid over a lane, kept signaling, and turned into the parking lot of a Speedy Mart.

  “Maybe he’s just here to check on the local branches,” Ben said. We rolled on past the Speedy Mart and turned at the next block.

  “Fair enough,” Cormac said.

  “We’re still going back, right?” I said.

  Ben turned again, and again, bringing us back to the block with the Speedy Mart. He pulled the car over and shut down the engine.

  From here, we could see part of the store’s front parking lot and most of the back. The Hummer parked at the side, and Franklin, looking spiffy in his suit, was putting something into a box out back. It looked like a breaker box, attached to the brick wall of the building, painted gunmetal gray, but no cables or pipes or anything led into it. It was just a box stuck to the wall. Franklin opened the door, and whatever he set inside was no bigger than his hand. At this point I totally knew what the plan was: wait for Franklin to drive away, then check out what he’d put into the mysterious box. Maybe it was nothing more nefarious than money. Maybe he was being blackmailed and this was the drop. Maybe he had some weird smuggling scheme going. The possibilities were endless even without considering the supernatural. Maybe it was just a four-leaf clover to bring luck. Maybe that was the secret to the chain’s success.

  Franklin started back to his car, but paused, and looked at us. We’d been quiet, sneaky, but maybe the pressure of three gazes made him look over and see the car. We weren’t even parked all that conspicuously—several other cars were parked on both sides of the street around us. But he looked, saw us staring back at him, and he certainly recognized me.

  The man raised his hand, like he was saying hello. I started to slide down the seat, though it was too late to hide. Then I passed out.

  The world seemed to vanish for a moment—pure blackout. Missing time. I was staring wide-eyed at Franklin, then I was slumped to the side, my face pressed against the window, my mind awash in vertigo, wondering where my memory went. Inside me, Wolf howled.

  “Whoa, shit, what was that?” Ben had one hand on the dash, pushing himself away from the steering wheel, where he’d apparently slumped over. He blinked and shook his head. “What happened?”

  I had a headache pounding in the middle of my skull. I couldn’t seem to focus. By instinct, I reached and put my hand on Ben’s arm, hoping to steady myself and my speeding heart. His hand went to mine, squeezing. His skin was clammy.

  “You blacked out, too?” I said, my voice sounding tinny. I squeezed my eyes shut, and they came a little more into focus when I opened them again.

  Franklin and the black Hummer were gone. Figured.

  I opened the door to get some fresh air and clear my head.

  Cormac was already outside, standing by the open passenger door of the car, his right hand raised as if preparing to throw something at the spot where Franklin had been standing. I just stared at him dumbly.

  Ben got out and called across the roof of the car. “Cormac?”

  He didn’t respond.

  The object he held in his hand was small, metallic—wire twisted into a knot-work pattern. An amulet, maybe. The expression on his face was set, determined, as if he was sure of himself, the situation, and what to do about it. A soldier preparing for battle. But he had a gleam in his eyes as well, an eagerness that I’d never seen before. I’d always thought of him as a cold killer, who would shoot his target—kill another human being—without emotion, without reflection, treating it like a job, like taking out the trash. It was what made him scary. But now he seemed excited about a coming battle. He even smelled different—adrenaline and endorphins. The scent of a chase. For half a heartbeat, I almost didn’t recognize him.

  Then it was gone. I might have imagined it all.

  “Cormac!” Ben shouted it this time.

  Cormac blinked and took a deep, recovering breath. The set expression faded into a frown, and his gaze turned studious, distant. He lowered his arm. The metallic charm went into his jeans pocket.

  The bounty hunter looked at Ben and me and seemed to need a moment to collect himself to speak. When he did, his voice was way too calm. “You two okay?”

  “What was that?” Ben demanded.

  “Bastard’s a wizard,” he said.

  That wasn’t even the wackiest thing I’d ever heard. I’d met a wizard before. And he was one of the strangest, scariest guys I knew—so what did that make Franklin?

  “Okay, but what’s he up to?” I asked.

  “You took that a lot better than I would have expected.”

  “You tell me he’s a wizard, okay, I believe you. Me bitching isn’t going to change that.”

  Cormac started walking toward the lockbox on the wall.

  Ben called after him, “As the lawyer present I’d like to point out that actually interfering puts us on shaky legal ground.”

  “We can’t even look?” I said.

  “Legally, we just need proof that he’s up to something; we don’t have to know what,” Ben said.

  “You aren’t curious?” I said.

  “That’s got nothing to do with it. Cormac? Anything even remotely resembling trespassing or breaking and entering is going to look bad to a parole officer.”

  Cormac stopped, then turned and sauntered back to the car. “I hate that.”

  I thought a minute—I wasn’t on parole. I started for the box.

  “Kitty,” Ben said, admonishing. I waved a hand.

  “Don’t touch anything you find,” Cormac said as we passed each other.

  The box seemed to be bolted to the brick wall, and it didn’t seem to be locked, which was odd. I looked all around it, searching for wires, arcane symbols, anything. Holding my breath, bracing for the inevitable lightning strike, I opened the door.

  At the floor of the box lay an amulet, a couple of inches long, made of pewter or tarnished silver and shaped like a fat, stylized “T.” The top part of it was curved inward—like the whole thing was a miniature, double-headed ax.

  I didn’t touch it, but closed the door and backed away slowly. Back at the car, Ben and Cormac were standing, leaning on their respective doors, watching. They must have seen the quizzical look on my face.

  “Well?” Ben said.

  “There’s some kind of amulet or charm. Looks like a silver double-headed ax.”

  “Can you draw it?” Cormac asked.
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  “Yeah,” I said, looking around for some paper. The nearest thing at hand was the dust on the outside of Ben’s car, so I used that. Cormac studied it, rubbing his chin, then looked up. I followed his gaze to the big Speedy Mart sign on its post out front: the words of the store spelled out in a leaning, speedy font, on a red backdrop shaped like an oval with bites taken out of the top and bottom—like a double-headed ax.

  “Huh,” Ben said.

  “So what’s it mean?” I asked.

  Cormac was shaking his head. “That’s what I want to figure out.”

  AFTER OUR little episode playing Mission Impossible, I was sure I’d get another visit from Franklin. At the very least he’d serve me with a restraining order. I wouldn’t even be able to blame him for it. But nothing happened that day, or the next. Nobody got struck by lightning. The lawsuit was proceeding apace; KNOB’s lawyer was working on an argument to get the case thrown out on the basis that no one actually took my show seriously. I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about that.

  Cormac said he was going to work on figuring out what Franklin was doing with the amulets and symbols. I called the next day for an update, and his phone rolled to voice mail. He hadn’t bothered putting on a personal message; it was just an automated voice reading back his number. I had to wait for more information, but it was hard not to sit by the phone hoping for someone—Cormac, lawyers, Franklin, anyone—to call and tell me my fate.

  Fortunately, I had distractions. I was determined to get Tyler and Walters to New Moon.

  First, I called the members of the pack who frequented the bar, both to warn them and to recruit help. Shaun would be at New Moon. A few others who I considered heavy hitters in the pack would be there. I’d asked Becky to be there, which might have been flirting with disaster. But I wanted to see what would happen, if Walters would remember her and what he’d done to her. I promised her she could walk out the door the second she wanted to. She said she definitely would—after she looked Walters in the eye as a human being and saw how he reacted.

  If worst came to worst and Walters flipped out, we’d lock the doors and keep the army guys there until Shumacher and her tranquilizer guns came to the rescue.

  Shumacher really wanted to come along. She wanted to be right there with her clipboard, taking notes, observing. We talked about it on the phone.