Kitty Steals the Show

by Carrie Vaughn

  “Kitty,” he said and heaved an exhausted sigh, and I skidded to my knees on the concrete floor. I touched his arm, brushed my hand over his nearly bald head, and let him take in my scent. Anxiety eased out of him, and he leaned into me.

  “They miscalculated the dose,” he said. “I don’t think I was supposed to wake up yet.”

  “Do you know who did this?”

  “Private security, decently trained.” Tyler nodded a greeting to Ben and Cormac. Caleb and Jill fanned through the room, standing watch, covering the doorway we’d come through, looking forward to the next one, leading to yet another room.

  “The ringleaders are in there,” Tyler said, tipping his head to the door.

  “How many?” Cormac asked.

  “Three, I think. Human and vampire. I haven’t seen them since I woke up, and my nose isn’t working too well.”

  Once again, we braced for the inevitable battle that would come swarming through the door any moment. It didn’t happen. It kept not happening. I couldn’t even hear anything in the next room.

  They, whoever had taken Tyler, knew they were busted. They were fleeing, and if we waited, we’d lose them. I walked straight for the door, stalking like Wolf had cornered her prey.

  “Kitty—” Cormac called after me.

  “At least stand back when you open the door,” Ben said, rushing to join me. He got to the door first, gripping the handle ahead of me. “Ready?”

  I stood on the other side of the door frame and nodded. He turned the handle, yanked open the door, and got out of the way.

  We waited for a few breaths, a handful of heartbeats, and I tried to catch a scent of what was waiting for us inside. No gunfire responded, so Ben and I eased around the door frame.

  Dr. Paul Flemming stood against the far wall, looking just like he did four years ago: thin, mousy, bureaucratic, with a well-worn jacket over nondescript shirt and trousers.

  “You,” I hissed, and lunged.

  Ben grabbed my arm, and I nearly wrenched it out of the socket trying to pull away. I didn’t care. Snarling, I charged again, flopping to try and break free from his grip. He used both hands and might have yelled at me to calm down, but I wasn’t listening. My vision, all my senses, had narrowed to a tunnel that focused on Flemming, and my mouth watered at the thought of putting my teeth around his throat. I had him, if my too-cautious mate would just let me go, I’d kill him—

  “Look at that, she’s gone nonverbal. What the bloody hell did you do to her?” The British alpha stood at my other shoulder, and I growled at him, too.

  Flemming had flattened himself against the steel wall and stared at me with white-rimmed eyes. Wasn’t so calculating now, was he? See how he did when I ran claws down his face—

  Ben got in front of me and pressed. “Kitty, you’re not helping. Snap out of it before you lose it.” He put his face in front of mine, catching my gaze and projecting calm. I gave another halfhearted lurch to break out of his grip, but he was a wall. Settling slowly, I tried to unclench my hands. He moved aside, but kept his arm across me—just in case.

  Finally, I looked at Flemming without losing my temper entirely.

  “So,” I said, flatly as I could, to keep from yelling. “What’s your story this time? Got another silver-lined cell all set up? What were you going to do to him?”

  His chin tipped up, an effort to stay calm. “I—I wasn’t going to hurt him.”

  “Like you weren’t going to hurt me?”

  “You weren’t hurt—”

  I growled and lunged again—Ben caught me, like I knew he would. His voice in my ear was calm. “I’m going to call the police,” he said. “He’ll be extradited to the U.S. He’ll get what’s coming, okay?”

  “Don’t,” Caleb said. “Don’t call them just yet. Not ’til we get what we need.” He had a curl to his lip.

  Caleb and Cormac were in the room; Tyler was with Jill, who was helping him to his feet; Warrick stood guard behind us. We were three rooms in, and based on the size of the warehouse we had to be nearly at the other side. The next door should have been the last. It was open, just a crack.

  Flemming eyed the cracked door, as if he thought he could make a run for it. He’d spent half his career studying werewolves; he had to know better than that. We fanned around him, wolves on the hunt. His breathing had become rapid.

  “Where are the rest of the guards?” I asked.

  “I—I don’t know. They’re supposed to be here—”

  “Who’s really behind this, Flemming?” I said. “You didn’t get these resources on your own.”

  The detritus here was different than in the other rooms. Instead of empty cardboard boxes, a couple of plastic crates were stacked in corners. A card table with several chairs around it showed the remains of an Indian takeout meal, wrapped in a plastic bag. I paced, to investigate. Flipping back the lid of one of the crates, I found coils of nylon cord, vials of clear liquid and tranquilizer darts, handcuffs that gleamed silver. Everything you’d need to catch and hold a werewolf. I shook my head at it all.

  A black leather attaché case was shoved under the table. “Yours?” I said to him, kicking it. He’d taken on the aspect of a prisoner of war, his jaw clenched, silent.

  I pulled it into the open and started digging.

  Flemming actually had the nerve to reach. “You can’t—”

  “We can make you disappear, if we like,” Caleb said cheerfully. Flemming slumped back to his place on the wall.

  In the case’s outside pocket I found a bundle of standard-looking documents, forms with boxes to fill in with names, addresses, dates. Customs declarations, shipping manifests. Buried in the bottom of the pocket, I found a bundle of passports. I flipped through them quickly—three, including one for the U.S., were for Flemming alone. A British one had Tyler’s picture in it, but a different name. Probably to help smuggle him out of the country, and get him into another.

  A name appeared over and over again on the paperwork—as a contact person, the owner of goods to be shipped, the authority by which money changed hands. I assumed it was Flemming’s alias. Except …

  “Who is G. White?” I asked Flemming.

  He swallowed hard, moving his lips as if preparing to speak. For all the good it would do him, surrounded by werewolves as he was. We could smell the lies.

  Hand on chin, gaze thoughtful, Ben said, “Cormac … Amelia … check something for me: What’s the Latin word for white?”

  “Albus,” Cormac said.

  Couldn’t possibly be a coincidence … “Albus. Albinus. Gaius Albinus?” I murmured. “G. White, is that who you’re working for?”

  Flemming said, “He’s a foreign investor, heads a private security firm. It’s perfectly normal—”

  I said, “Have you met him? What’s he look like?”

  “I don’t know why you’re asking—”

  “Tell her,” Ben said.

  “He … he’s about my height. Lean. Dark hair, close-cropped. He always wears a long dark coat—”

  “Oh, my God,” Ben murmured.

  It was Roman. I showed Flemming a mix of emotions, from rage to despair. “Do you have any idea who you’re working for?”

  “I told you, a foreign investor—”

  He had no idea.

  “What would Roman want with Tyler?” Ben said.

  “Ready-made werewolf soldier, trained in the American Special Forces. He’d be priceless,” I said. Gravity must have suddenly doubled, I felt so tired, so slow.

  “Who’s Roman?” Tyler said. He’d come to stand in the doorway. “And why would he think I’d work for him?”

  “He’s a vampire, a very old one,” I answered. “He wouldn’t need your cooperation, he’d just need you.” We hadn’t called the police yet. Surely Ben would let me at Flemming now. I said to him, “He conned you into recruiting for him—”

  “He funded my research, that’s all—” Flemming said.

  “And you still think it’s okay
to kidnap werewolves for that research? Have you learned anything?”

  “It’s necessary—”

  “Bah.” I flung a hand at him and turned away. “You’d better call the cops in before I have a go at him.”

  Ben already had his phone in his hand, but Caleb put his hand over it, lowering it from his ear.

  “Give us a chance to get out,” Caleb said. “I don’t want to have to explain our handiwork to them. Not to mention Ned’s.”

  “Ned probably owns the cops,” I muttered.

  “Kitty?” Tyler said. “What’s it mean? What were they planning to do with me?”

  I couldn’t even look at Flemming again, however much I wanted to scrutinize him, to get him to tell Tyler exactly what he’d planned. I’d lose my temper for sure. I said, “Use you, control you, throw you into battle. Make you train others. The same damn thing.”

  “It’s an awful lot of trouble to go through,” Caleb said.

  Maybe. But with Tyler’s training and expertise? He wasn’t just werewolf cannon fodder. In a fight, he was worth ten of the rest of us.

  “Doesn’t matter now,” I said. “He’s in a lot of trouble back home.”

  Flemming quailed, his voice trembling. “You won’t get away with this. I have friends—” The cliché must have come instinctively.

  “Your G. White isn’t going to come save you,” I said. “Whoever your allies were in this, they’ve left you.”

  Caleb went to the crate of equipment and drew out a pair of handcuffs. “I’ll truss him up a bit, so he doesn’t get the idea he can just walk out. Jill, we’ll go back and get Michael and bring the car ’round. Then we can call the cops.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  Along with Ben and Cormac, Tyler and I moved to the door and waited. Cormac opened it wider, looking out. The SUV from the security footage was parked outside. A hundred yards away, lurking like a mountain in the dark, a freight ship was docked on the river. If they’d gotten him on there, Tyler would have just vanished.

  Caleb left Flemming lying against the wall in handcuffs. The scientist seemed relieved, somehow, as if assured that the werewolves weren’t going to tear him apart on principle.

  He caught me looking at him. “Who is Gaius Albinus?”

  How to explain, in a sentence or less, without shouting? How to tell Flemming just how far in over his head he was without realizing it, so that I could savor his reaction? My lips turned in more of a sneer than a smile. “Dux Bellorum. Do you know what that means?”

  “Leader of war. It’s a title for a general,” he said.

  “That’s right. Same guy, and he’s collecting allies. Servants.”

  “That sounds very dramatic,” he said. “But I work with people. Not for them.”

  I laughed bitterly. He’d probably been telling himself that his whole life. In our last encounter, he’d had help catching me. No way he could have pulled that off on his own. He’d made a deal with a vampire, Alette’s lieutenant in Washington, D.C. He caught me, and in return Flemming gave him a security contingent to help him destroy Alette and take over the city. I don’t think there’d been any question in Leo’s mind who came out ahead in that bargain. Too bad it had backfired. Even Flemming saw that in the end. But he hadn’t learned a damn thing since then, and here he was, working with vampires again.

  “You don’t even know how much you don’t know,” I said.

  “The police will let me go,” he said. “I won’t be extradited. I won’t be tried. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Haven’t done anything—only if you believe that werewolves aren’t people.”

  The expression he turned to me was so matter-of-fact, my breath caught. So, that was where we stood.

  Tyler and I went to stare out the door with Cormac and Ben.

  “That’s what you get for baiting the guy,” Ben said, putting his arm around me and pulling me close. I snuggled against his warmth.

  Caleb and the others seemed to take forever with the car. Then I remembered they had Michael’s body to retrieve.

  “This Dux Bellorum,” Tyler said, his voice low, weary. He still smelled ill, the tranquilizer lingering in his system. “Am I going to have to keep worrying about him?”

  “Probably,” I said, leaning my head on Ben’s shoulder. “But knowledge seems to be the best defense. He won’t be able to sneak up on you again.”

  All of us were running on next to no sleep, frayed nerves, and spent adrenaline, and we fell into silence. Even the room behind me had become especially quiet, as if Flemming had fallen asleep.

  But when I looked in on him, he was gone.

  At my shocked gasp, the others turned.

  “Where’d he go?” Ben said.

  Tyler went on the move, pacing this room and into the next, examining it, sheltering behind the doorway before glancing into the third room.

  “He couldn’t have gotten away without making any noise,” the soldier said.

  “Then where is he?” I asked. I took a slow breath, smelling. We should be able to track him, even with the diesel stink of the place. But all I sensed was a horrible, unnatural chill …

  “Kitty,” Cormac said, pointing out to the street.

  Tonight, Mercedes wore green, a lacey camisole that set off her creamy skin and blood-colored hair, and loose silken slacks that fluttered in the breeze coming off the river. She was such a contrast to the surroundings, managing to remain haughty, imperial.

  Standing across the wide street between warehouses, she held Dr. Flemming braced beside her. He was dead weight, seeming to hang on her arm like a sack of potatoes. The effort didn’t strain her at all.

  She waited until she knew we were all looking, then tilted her head to give Flemming one of her charming, winning stage smiles. “You are a miserable failure,” she said, and dropped him. He fell in a heap.

  I would have sworn that she turned and casually strolled away, high heels clicking on the asphalt. But when I ran after her, shouting, she was already gone. She’d turned a corner, transformed into a shadow, or simply vanished.

  The others’ footsteps pounded behind me, catching up. I stopped at Flemming’s body, turned him over on his back.

  He blinked at me and grasped weakly with still-handcuffed hands. His mouth worked, but he had no air left. A ragged, three-inch gash tore into his neck, opening a major artery. Scarlet lipstick smeared the skin around it. She hadn’t drained him completely. But she hadn’t left him enough to survive on. Bastard had finally dug himself in too deep. He had just enough life left to look me in the eyes as he died. He seemed … confused.

  “Kitty.” Ben touched me.

  “I was so angry at him,” I said weakly.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Ben said. “Maybe we can take Caleb up on his offer to go for a run somewhere.”

  Somewhere far away from this concrete pit. Someplace with trees, grass, wide open spaces, wind in my fur.

  The sound of an engine echoed, and Caleb’s car pulled around, headlights off. He left the engine running, got out, and looked around. “Well. This is a mess. Not to mention the pile of unconscious mercenaries we found by the main road—that’s where all the guards went. Ned’s doing, no doubt.” Bemused, he hitched his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the direction.

  I hardly had the energy to be relieved at the news. “We should go looking for her,” I said. We had to stop her. Somehow. I couldn’t seem to find the energy to stand.

  Ben’s hand squeezed on my shoulder, and he pointed behind us, to the corner of the building we’d found Flemming in. A different corner, a different shadow than the one Mercedes had disappeared into. This time, Ned emerged. The chill of his being was almost indistinguishable from the nighttime chill in the air.

  “Look who we found,” Ned said, stepping into the open, illuminated by a streetlight. He seemed to have chosen the spot, as if walking into the circle of a spotlight on stage. Marid and Antony followed him. Between them, gripping his shoulder
s, they dragged Jan. They wouldn’t let him get his feet under him, and he scrabbled ungracefully to keep his balance. Marid had a grip on the captive vampire’s hair and wrenched his head back.

  Ned considered the scene around us. “Oh, you’ve all been busy, haven’t you? Sergeant Tyler, I presume?”

  The soldier, standing nearby, raised his brows in a question.

  “You got him,” I said stupidly, nodding at Jan.

  “Yes, we did.” He beamed.

  “What about Mercedes? She was right here. Did you see her? She killed Flemming.” I pointed at the body, as if they hadn’t seen it.

  Marid shook his head. “Only Jan and his hangers-on. Mercenaries, a handful of lesser vampires. Are you sure it was her?”

  I growled. Ben’s hand closed on my arm, a gentle warning.

  “If it was her, she’s gone now,” Ned said. “And you know what they say about a bird in the hand.” He leered at Jan, who flinched back, but Marid and Antony held him fast and seemed happy to do so.

  “But—” Mercedes was the mastermind. The direct lead to Roman. If he was the general, she was the master sergeant.

  This was exactly how she’d planned it, I realized. Mercedes sacrificed Jan. Like a herd of deer leaving a weaker member behind for the wolves, she’d let him get taken, a distraction, while she made her escape. And the vampires thought they were so much better than us. I could almost feel sorry for the merely decades-old vampires who kept taking metaphorical bullets for these old bastards.

  Grinning, Ned stepped behind Jan with the air of an executioner.

  Jan started yelling. “The bitch is right, it’s Mercedes you want! It’s all her, I’m just … just a foot soldier. She can lead you to Roman!”

  “Even if that’s true, you think I’m going to just let you go? Really?”

  “I can help you!”

  With Marid and Antony bracing his arms, Ned curled his arm around the vampire’s head, a mockery of an embrace, and wrenched until the bone cracked.

  Jan kept arguing, as if the injury hadn’t happened. “You need me! This is a mistake! I have a thousand years of experience at your command! Edward, listen to me!”