The other person I had to talk to was Ben. My husband. We’d been married for a year. And we hadn’t killed each other yet, which I was pretty proud about. Not that we would literally do that, but we were both werewolves, and we could—if we didn’t depend on each other so much.
Ben was a lawyer with his own practice. He worked from home, which meant he was already in the living room watching evening news on TV when I came in, wincing and looking guilty, sure he’d suspect something was going on.
But he hardly noticed. “Good, you’re home,” he said. “I have some news.”
He seemed positively bubbling. I blinked at him. Wow—my conversation was already derailed and it hadn’t even started yet.
“So do I,” I jumped in. “I need some advice, actually. I just need to talk this over with someone a little more objective than I am.”
“You first,” he said. “Let’s get yours out of the way so we can get to the exciting part. ’Cause mine’s better.”
Now I was intrigued. I almost argued, but I wanted to have this talk before I chickened out. I slid next to him on the sofa.
“I’ve got an invitation to appear on a reality TV show—” I held up my hand to stop him because he’d already opened his mouth to argue. “They’re inviting a bunch of supernatural celebrities. Remember Tina McCannon from Paradox PI? She’s signed up, and so has Jeffrey Miles, and I don’t know who else they’ve got. But it looks like they’re trying to do this with a little credibility. It’ll tape over two weeks in Montana. They’ve got this hunting lodge or something, and they say they want it to be educational. Consciousness-raising. You know?” I realized I was trying to make it sound good. I wanted him to think it was a good idea.
He sat back, brows raised, looking at me like I was a little bit crazy. I’d thought he was long past being surprised by anything I got mixed up in.
“It sounds like the setup for a horror movie to me,” he said.
“God, please don’t say that. I’m already anticipating nightmares over this.”
“Then why are you even thinking about it?”
“Publicity,” I said, and I could feel the wild gleam in my eye.
“You show-business people are weird,” Ben said.
I liked to pretend I wasn’t exactly part of show business. Sure, I was in the business of entertaining people, but I was on radio. On the fringe. And I was even on the fringe as far as radio was concerned. It wasn’t like I was in the thick of the Hollywood madness of real show business, right? At least, not yet.
But you know? He was right. Show business was weird.
“It pays pretty well. And. Well. What I’m really worried about is being away from you for two weeks.”
Ben and I were a pack. Even if we hadn’t been the alpha werewolves leading the Denver pack, the two of us were a pair. A matched set. The idea that wolves mate for life isn’t accurate—in the wild, wolves will find a new mate if one of their pair dies, and an alpha male will mate with several females if the pack is prosperous. But Ben and I were pretty solid, and since we’d hooked up we hadn’t been apart for more than a couple of days. That was the worst part of this whole deal. I’d gotten used to having him in my life, and I didn’t like the prospect of being without. Of not having my guy watching my back.
I saw some of my own thoughts reflected back at me: hesitation, uncertainty. The conflict between human and wolf.
“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging. “If we were a normal couple and you really needed to do this for your career, it wouldn’t even be a question, would it?”
We tried to be normal. We tried not to let our wolf sides overrule us. It was a dominance thing, just like being part of a wolf pack. Every time the wolf side won an argument, we felt a little less human.
“I think I’d still miss you.” I leaned my head on his shoulder.
“Thanks.” He kissed the top of my head, and I could have stopped talking about anything and just cuddled for the next hour or so. “But you still want to know if I think it’s a good idea or a bad idea.”
“Yeah.”
“It sounds… interesting.”
“That is such a loaded word,” I said.
“And you said Tina’s agreed to it? She’s cool.”
“Yeah, and Jeffrey Miles—you remember him, from the hearings in D.C.? He’s cool, too.”
He pulled back just enough to look at me. “Do you know what I think? I think it’ll be good for you to get away for a little while. Since I came along and you took over the pack, you haven’t had a chance to do your own thing. You should go. Think of it as a vacation.”
I hadn’t looked at it that way. “Most men would get suspicious if their wives wanted to go on vacation alone for a couple of weeks. Come to think of it, most women would get suspicious if their husbands suggested they go on vacation alone.”
“Honey, I can’t hide anything from you. You’d smell it on me.”
“Hmm, true.” I turned my face to his neck and took in his scent, distinctively his, soap and sweat, spice and wolf.
He kissed me—a quick peck on my forehead. “I still have my news.”
“Is it really better than mine?”
He picked up a letter from the coffee table, marked with some kind of state government seal at the top. Ben was a lawyer; he had dozens of official-looking papers fanned out on the table.
Then he said, “Cormac has a parole hearing.”
Chapter 2
Moving on to the next call, now. Hello, Audra,” I said into the mike.
“Hi, Kitty, yeah, so I’m like a really big fan. I love your show, really.”
“Great, thanks very much.”
“So, like, I totally need your help. I have this friend who thinks she’s a werewolf. But she’s totally not. I even went out with her on the last full moon. And I’m like pointing at the sky, pointing at the moon, going, ‘Look, you haven’t turned into a wolf—you’re not a werewolf!’ And she’s all like, ‘But I am on the inside. I have the soul of a wolf.’”
These potpourri shows were great for when I didn’t have anything else planned. Just let people call in with all the problems that have been brewing over the last few weeks. Great—in theory. But it meant I couldn’t complain about what calls I did get.
I had so much going on in my personal life right now I had a hard time focusing on the call. Cormac’s parole hearing was scheduled at the same time I was supposed to be in Montana taping what SuperByte Entertainment was now calling Supernatural Insider. I wouldn’t be here to give him or Ben moral support. That pissed me off. But I was also so darned excited over the prospect of Cormac getting out of prison. Apparently, he’d been a good boy, and that shaved enough time off that now, with almost half of his four-year sentence completed, he was eligible for parole, and Ben said it was all but a done deal. Cormac had friends and family in the area, a place to live, and a plan to look for a job. By all appearances he was completely reformed and repentant. At least, he’d convinced the prison psychologist of it. And what I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall during those sessions…
So in as little as a month from now, he could be out. A free man. I was excited—and more than a little anxious.
I didn’t know what to think about Cormac anymore. The first time I met him, he’d tried to kill me, but I talked him out of it. The next time I met him, we traded information, because we were both after the same bad guy. The third time, we’d almost fallen into bed together. We didn’t, because he had a thing against werewolves. After that—we were friends. We acted like it, mostly. We’d come to each other’s rescue often enough.
I met Cormac before I met Ben. Cormac referred me to Ben—his cousin—when I needed a lawyer. Then Cormac brought Ben to me right after Ben had been bitten and infected with lycanthropy. I took care of Ben, and Ben and I—well, we bonded, and Cormac was left out in the cold. Then he came to our rescue, shot and killed a very bad person on our behalf—and was convicted of manslaughter for it. And each of us thought
it was our own fault. We had a bumper crop of guilt between us. Not to mention the sparks still lingering between me and Cormac, though I’d gone and gotten married to his cousin and best friend in the meantime. And in the middle of all that I had this sensationalist TV show to deal with.
I needed a radio advice show I could call in to.
Audra was still talking. “… and I know she listens to your show, too, and I just want you to tell her that she’s so full of it.”
I leaned in and turned on my snotty voice. “And why should I tell her that?”
“Because she’s totally deluding herself. She’s not fooling anyone.”
“Maybe she isn’t trying to fool anyone. Maybe she really honestly feels this way, and if it helps her feel better about herself, and she isn’t hurting anything, who are we to argue? As her friend you ought to be a little more supportive, don’t you think? She’s not actually hurting anyone, is she?”
“Well, no. But it’s just so stupid!”
“I think you’re being a little judgmental.”
“But you’re a real werewolf—why are you standing up for her?”
“Because I think, based on what you’ve told me, that she’s right and you’re wrong.”
Audra made an offended grunt. “That’s so not fair!”
Lots of people called in to the show. Lots of people claimed to be fans. Yet they always seemed surprised when I gave them the same smackdown I gave ninety percent of my callers.
“Let me ask you a question, Audra. Why are you so threatened by this? Why does it bother you so much that she calls herself a werewolf when she physically isn’t one?”
“Because she’s wrong. And she’s just such a snob about it. Like she’s all better than me because she’s a werewolf when what she really is is crazy.”
I straightened. “Why does this girl even hang out with you when you’re so mean to her?”
“I’m not mean to her! I’m trying to get her to wake up to reality!”
“To which you’ve applied a narrow definition.”
“And she can’t face up to the fact that I’m a vampire.”
“Huh?”
“The only reason she keeps going on about being a werewolf is because I’m a vampire, and she’s jealous.”
I blinked, my brow furrowed in confusion. My lack of a poker face was another reason I was better off on radio than TV. Which was something else that was going to make Supernatural Insider interesting.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re a vampire? Really?” ’Cause right then I would have laid money that she wasn’t.
“Well…” she said. “I have the soul of a vampire.”
I didn’t know what it was that made people bare their souls and tell me the truth when I had no way of knowing whether they were vampires, lycanthropes, or the Queen of Sheba. Maybe it was that radio was simultaneously so personal and anonymous. They could speak, I could hear them, hear the tears in their voices. But they could stay alone, no one had to see them crying, and as soon as they hung up the phone the confession might never have happened. But I was happy for the confessions, because they made for great entertainment.
“Audra, Audra, Audra,” I said. “You know some people believe that vampires don’t even have souls?”
“But I do, I understand, I have the innate sense of style and superiority! I feel the music of the night!”
Oh no. One of those. “Audra, do you collect dried red roses in your bedroom? In fact, your whole bedroom is done up in black and red, isn’t it? You dress in black and wear a lot of eye makeup? And you listen to a lot of Sarah Brightman?”
“Yes,” she said, tentative.
“Okay. Here’s what I think. I think you’re a bit of a whiner.”
“But you’re not being fair! You’re not even listening to me!”
Well… “I’d like you to try something. I want you to count to ten and exhale slowly. It’s a calming exercise. It works for me every time. Can you try it now? Deep breath, and one, two, three—”
“But I am calm!”
“Just keep up that counting, Audra, and I bet if you tell your friend that you’ll stop making fun of her if she stops making fun of you, you guys’ll get along just great.” Gratefully, I hit the cutoff. “Next call, what have you got?”
“Hi, Kitty. Thanks for taking my call. I want to talk about bounty hunters. Those guys who go out hunting supernatural monsters.”
This night was definitely not going my way. I didn’t want to talk about bounty hunters, but who was I to deny my audience? I knew I wasn’t going to like where this went. I sighed. “What about them?”
“You’ve met a lot of these bounty hunters, right? Why don’t we hear more about them in the news and stuff? I’d have thought they’d want publicity, that they’d want to get some credit for the work they do.”
Looking back on it, I was kind of shocked at how many supernatural bounty hunters I had met. Not by intention, of course. Self-preservation dictated I stay as far away from professional assassins as possible.
“If they started working in public,” I said, “then they’d have to be held accountable for what they do. Right now, when they’re underground, they don’t have to put on a good face for anyone. And when the people they’re hunting are also underground, so that no one misses them when they disappear, there’s no accountability, no due process, and sometimes no justice.”
Except in rare cases, like Cormac’s, when he’d been justified in making the kill—and had been convicted for it anyway. The no-win situation. I wasn’t going to bring that up if I could help it, which was part of why this topic was making me nervous. It was hitting too close to home. Never mind having to talk to listeners who clearly wanted people like me dead. Weren’t they supposed to be fans?
This guy wasn’t buying it. “Let’s face it, people like that have been around for centuries, right? And the freaks haven’t taken over yet, so it must be working. What’s wrong with letting them do their jobs?”
Sometimes I thought my listeners were the smartest people around. Sometimes I despaired for the human race.
I said, “I think the question at hand isn’t whether or not these hunters should go public, but whether they should be regulated by the government. Licensed, trained, paid regular salaries. Made an extension of existing law enforcement. Hell, train existing law enforcement and let them do the same job for supernatural citizens that they do for everyone else. It’s already happening—the police department right here in Denver has a paranatural unit now.”
The guy’s mocking tone was clear. “Oh yeah, that’ll bring a whole lot of protection and justice to the system.”
“Come on, people, have a little faith. You have to start somewhere or you end up with anarchy. You end up with guys claiming to be vampire hunters running around staking whoever they please in a self-proclaimed war against evil. Next call, please. Kansas City, you’re on the air.”
“I’m one of those bounty hunters you’re talking about. And let me tell you, you have no idea what’s out there.” The voice was female, with an edge. She sounded like someone who was under a lot of stress. Someone who was used to fighting—all the time. She went on. “Vampires and werewolves aren’t even the half of it. Demons, incubi, zombies, warlocks—there’s a battle for good and evil out there, and the only thing standing between nice people like your listeners and total chaos are people like me who are willing to sacrifice everything to keep the rest of you safe. And what thanks do we get? Scars and trauma, and not a whole lot else. Naive do-gooders trying to shut us down when you all ought to be on your knees thanking us.”
I stared at the mike, because I could think of only one thing to say, and I knew it was the wrong thing. But I couldn’t help it; I said it anyway.
“I’m sensing a lot of anger here.”
A beat. Then, “Excuse me?”
“Anger. You know: ire, hostility, rage, fury. You have some.”
“Oh, you have no idea. I’m angry about a lot o
f things.”
I leaned in, getting ready for a nice long chat. I had a wedge with this one, and she seemed willing to talk. We were going to do some digging. Hell, if she didn’t like it, she could always hang up. But I didn’t think she would, because she was the one who’d called me, and if she hung up now, then I’d just keep talking about her without her input. I loved this gig.
“Why is that?”
“This is a war,” she said. “I’m one of the few people out there who are doing something about it. Of course I’m angry!”
“A war? Isn’t that a little melodramatic? Most people will go through their whole lives and never encounter anything remotely supernatural. Or at least not recognize it. In my experience, most of this stuff prefers to stay out of sight.”
“It stays underground because it’s afraid of people like me. Not that anybody knows it.”
My own problems were temporarily forgotten, because this was interesting. Brain wheels were turning, giving me an idea. My caller wouldn’t like it. “Let me try something out on you. You’re not really angry about this so-called war you’re talking about. You’re angry because you don’t get any appreciation. Because you’re not getting enough love. Am I right?”
“What?” she spat. “That doesn’t have anything to do with it. I don’t expect anyone to hand me a medal.”
Oh, but I was just getting started. “See, I don’t think you’re as tough as you think you are. Or as tough as you work so hard to make other people think you are. I think you use violence to cover up a lot of insecurities. You have to be the biggest, baddest beast on the block. But that gets kind of lonely, doesn’t it? You don’t have a lot of friends, do you?”
“You think in this line of work I can trust anyone? You’re more naive than I thought.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“As a matter of fact, I have several.” She sounded smug, bragging.
“Really? How is that working out for you?”
She actually sighed, the barest sign she’d let her guard down. “Not very well.”
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