Kitty and the Midnight Hour

by Carrie Vaughn

  “You don’t think a werewolf can make it on his own, then?”

  “I didn’t say that. It’s just that in my experience, it would be hard.”

  “Oh.”

  “You said you’re alone, James. How do you handle it?”

  “I—I don’t.” He hung up, the line clicking off. Great. I felt queasy about that one.

  “Right. Thanks for calling, James.”

  Matt was waving through the window, pointing at the door to the booth. Rick was standing there. I hadn’t noticed him come in. He was lounging against the doorjamb like he’d been there for hours. He waved his hand in a blasé greeting.

  I turned back to the mike. “Okay, we’re going to break for station ID. More calls when we get back. This is The Midnight Hour.”

  Matt made the cutting motion that signaled we were off the air. This gave the local stations a few minutes for commercials and promotions. I pulled off my headphones and went to the door.

  “Hey, Rick.” I tried to sound casual. Either he was going to deliver a scathing message from Arturo or he wanted to know what I’d found out about the Church of the Pure Faith. I still hadn’t learned much.

  “Hello. So, this is the famous studio.”

  “Yeah. Not to be rude, but I’m going to have to get back to it in a minute. What can I do for you?”

  “I thought we might trade information. What have you found out about Elijah Smith?”

  There it was. I shrugged. “Not much. Nobody who knows him is talking. A couple of reporters tried to sneak into his caravan once and got thrown out. I’m going to keep at it. I’ve still got a couple of leads to try. I’m sorry I can’t give you more.”

  He pursed his lips, masking disappointment. “Well, maybe your persistence will pay off. In the meantime . . .”

  He offered me a manila envelope. “I heard your show last week. I thought you might be interested in this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Evidence,” he said. “Now you have no reason to go poking around Obsidian by yourself again.”

  I looked up. My throat got tight. “You know about that?”

  He nodded. “So does Arturo. He’s disappointed you didn’t give him a chance to act against you directly.”

  “Yeah. I bet he is.” How stupid could I have been? Of course Arturo had guards posted. Of course they spotted me. Score another point for cowardly self-preservation.

  I took the envelope and scooped inside for the contents. There were a few photos, weirdly lit in black and white, like they had been taken with some kind of night vision camera. There was a forested area. I recognized the slope of hill behind Carl and Meg’s house. A couple of people were running with a couple of wolves. One of the faces was circled. Mine, of course. A couple of photos later in the sequence, I was ripping off my clothes and my body was changing shape. These were copies of the photos that set Cormac on me. I put them back.

  The rest of the envelope held a half-dozen pages of information. Some phone records, a terse written agreement—someone putting a contract on you didn’t mean it was actually a contract. I didn’t think hit men gave out receipts.

  Rick explained. “Those show phone calls between Arturo and his go-between, and the go-between and Cormac. The go-between is a woman with ties to the local militia movement. Cormac has a background with them. She’s been discussing with Arturo the possibility of, ah, signing up, as it were. She’d do anything for him.”

  “What else do you know about Cormac?”

  “He doesn’t work cheap. There are some figures listed.” He showed me the appropriate piece of paper. I blinked.

  “That’s a lot of zeros.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Arturo wants me dead that badly?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. He had backing. There’s a whole conglomerate that’s unhappy with you.”

  “Who else?”

  “That I’m afraid I don’t know. Sorry.”

  “No, don’t apologize. This is great.” In fact, I was choked up. I’d been feeling friendless lately, and here came help from such an unexpected quarter. “Why help me like this? If Arturo finds out you did this—”

  He made a dismissive gesture, as if he’d just loaned me five bucks and not saved my ass.

  “Don’t worry about that. He doesn’t have to know. You may not believe it, but there are some of us who think you’re doing good work.”

  There was always the possibility that Arturo had put him up to this, that this was all part of some nefarious plot to . . . to do something.

  Rick deserved better than that kind of attitude. I sighed, humbled. “Thanks. Could you get a copy of all this to Cormac?”

  “Already done.”

  “Thanks, Rick. I owe you one.”

  He tilted his head, regarding the ceiling for a moment. “You know, I could also be helping you because it would make Arturo crazy.”

  He winked, grinned, and slipped out as quietly as he’d arrived. He melted into the shadows at the other end of the corridor. Like a vampire or something.

  Matt was staring. “Was that . . . was that a . . .” He made a gesture, two fingers pointing down from his mouth like fangs.

  “Yeah. So, Matt, how do you feel about this job now?”

  He shook his head, whistling through his teeth. “Never a dull moment.”

  The next day at work, I had a list of phone numbers sitting on top of the pile of crap spread all over my desk—ratings projections, transcripts, unanswered mail, phone messages, newspapers and magazines that I used as fodder. The headline on Wide World of News this week was “Following Kitty Norville’s Lead, Dozens of Vampire and Werewolf Celebrities Confess!” They had pictures of Quentin Tarantino, David Bowie, Britney Spears (huh?), and . . . Bill Clinton? Yeah, right.

  I’d made it to the cover of Wide World of News. I must have really hit the big time. Or something.

  I crossed off phone numbers as I made calls. Reporters, police departments, people who knew people who’d disappeared into Elijah Smith’s caravan. I’d already talked to the reporters from Uncharted World who’d tried to break into the caravan. One of them had a theory that Smith was actually a front for government researchers who needed vampire and werewolf test subjects. The other one sounded a bit more sane, thinking that some sort of cult of personality had formed around Elijah Smith. Neither one of them believed he was really curing anyone. We couldn’t know, because we couldn’t talk to any of his people.

  No one left him. The caravan was growing. What if it worked?

  I tracked the latest piece of the puzzle to Modesto, California, where the caravan had parked two nights ago. The police there had tried to issue Smith citations for trespassing and causing a disturbance. The two officers who’d been sent to issue the tickets woke up in their patrol car the next morning with no memory of what had happened over the last eight hours. The caravan was gone. I tried to talk to the officers in question, but apparently they were still in the hospital, for observation. I spent two hours on the phone, but no one would tell me what was wrong with them, or where they thought the caravan would appear next.

  As I hung up the phone, one of the KNOB interns brought me a letter. She bopped into the room, handed it to me, and bopped out again. It didn’t have a stamp or return address—it had been hand-delivered. I should have been suspicious. But I had a feeling. It smelled okay. I opened it and drew out a card, blank except for a handwritten line, You were right. I owe you one, and a phone number.

  Chapter 7

  Hello, you’re on The Midnight Hour.”

  “I want to know about the orgies.”

  “The orgies?”

  “Yeah, the vampire orgies. How do I find out where they are? How do I get in on one of them?”

  “Hm . . . let’s see. Are you a vampire?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you usually get invited. Are you part of an organized Family, or are you on your own?”

  “I have a Family.” He sounded indignant, like how
dare I suggest he wasn’t sufficiently pedigreed.

  “Not all Families have orgies. I mean—what kind of orgy are you looking for?”

  “You know . . . orgies. An orgy orgy.” I could almost see the vague hand gestures accompanying his speech. The alarm bells started going off—that little twitching in my mind when I suspected I was being had.

  I said, “Orgy, orgy. Right. How long have you been a vampire?”

  “Uh . . . not too long.”

  “No, really. How long specifically? Because you realize that ‘not long’ has an entirely different scope to some vampires. If you’ve been around since the Roman Empire, ‘not long’ might be a couple of centuries, you know? How long is ‘not long’?”

  “Um . . . a year?” He was fishing for the right answer, the one that would get him on my good side.

  “Okay, what’s your name . . . Dave. Right. You’re not a vampire.”

  “But—”

  “You know why you’re not? Because vampires don’t have orgy orgies. You’re looking for lots of hot sex with nubile vampire babes, and you’re thinking a vampire orgy is the place to get it because you’ve heard all these stories. Right?”

  “But . . . but . . . I mean . . .”

  “But you know what? Sex is different for vampires. When a vampire says sex and a normal human says sex, they’re talking about two different things. Because vampires don’t have sex without sucking blood. Sex is almost synonymous with feeding for them. Are you getting this, Dave? If you feel like being the main course, by all means, go find yourself a vampire orgy, because I can tell you exactly what those nubile vampire babes are going to do to you.”

  “But . . . I mean . . . the stories . . . I’ve heard . . .”

  Gullible and inarticulate. Gotta love it. “Next caller, you’re on the air. Bruce?”

  “Um, hi, yeah. I wanted to know, could I get the phone number for that assassin who was on the show last month?”

  “You mean Cormac? You want Cormac’s phone number?” I couldn’t keep the tone of annoyance out of my voice. “The same Cormac who tried to kill me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “May I ask why you want Cormac’s phone number?”

  “Well, you know. I kind of wanted to ask if he needs an assistant, or an apprentice or something.”

  “So, Bruce, you want to be a werewolf hunter?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s a dangerous line of work. You ever see a werewolf in action?”

  “Um . . . on TV. You know—on Uncharted World and stuff.”

  “Oh, my God, the videos on that show are so doctored. Let me tell you what it really looks like. The average werewolf has four sets of claws as long as your fingers. Two-inch-long canines. Jaw pressure five times that of a human. And werewolves are fast. I’m talking a two-minute mile. Can you run that fast, Bruce?”

  “Uh—”

  “Can you shoot straight?”

  “Uh—”

  “Do you know how long it takes the average werewolf to tear apart a full-grown deer?”

  “No—”

  I smiled sweetly. The expression was lost on the radio, but the tone would carry through my voice. “The last time I did it, it took about five minutes. And I’m just an average werewolf.”

  I swore I heard Bruce gulp over the line.

  “Whoa.”

  “Sorry, Bruce, it’s kind of against my own personal self-interest to do free advertising for werewolf hunters. You know what I mean? Thanks for calling.”

  I did an inward shudder. People would not shut up about Cormac, and it was starting to get on my nerves.

  “Next caller. Betty, you’re on the air. What’s your question?”

  “Hi, Kitty. I just wanted to know, are you going out with that Cormac guy from last month?”

  My jaw dropped. I took a full five seconds to recover and say, “What?”

  “Are you going out with that Cormac guy?”

  “We are talking about the same Cormac who tried to kill me on the air, yes? The guy who hunts werewolves for a living?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And you want to know if I’m dating him? Why on earth do you think that’s a good idea?”

  “Well, I sort of sensed something between you two when he was on the show.”

  “You sensed something. Are you psychic?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Empathic?”

  “No.”

  “Clairvoyant?”

  “No.”

  “Then why the hell do you think we would go out? Of course you sensed something! He hunts werewolves. I’m a werewolf. There’s this whole hunter-prey dynamic that happens. He wanted to kill me. I was ready to defend myself, claws and bullets on the verge of flying everywhere—things were tense. That was what you were sensing.”

  “But he didn’t kill you. You worked it out. He sounded kind of nice. His voice sounded really cute. Was he cute?”

  “Well, yeah, sort of. If you like guys who wear revolvers in hip holsters.”

  “It’s just that you sound kind of anxious whenever anyone brings up Cormac, and I thought there might be unresolved tension there.”

  “He tried to kill me! What other explanation do you need? Moving on to the next call. Hello!”

  “Um, hi, Kitty. I sort of forgot my question. But that last caller’s idea—about you going out with Cormac and stuff. That would be kind of interesting, don’t you think?”

  “No. No, I don’t think it would be interesting at all.”

  “Well, it’s just that you’re always talking about cross-supernatural racial understanding, and that would, you know, make a bridge. It would be diplomatic.”

  Diplomatic. Yeah. I thought real hard about being diplomatic before I answered. “Just a reminder: This is my show. I’m the one who’s supposed to give out lousy advice.”

  I searched the monitor for a call that couldn’t possibly have anything to do with werewolf hunters.

  “Hello, Ingrid from Minneapolis.”

  “Hi, Kitty. I just wanted to tell you that I’m a werewolf, I’ve been one for about ten years now, and I’m married to the most wonderful man in the world. And he’s a wildlife control officer. We get along fine; we’re just careful to keep the lines of communication open.”

  The studio was getting stuffy. I fanned myself with my cue sheet.

  “Wow, Ingrid. That’s really interesting. Can I ask how you two met?”

  “Well, it was a full moon night—”

  I read between the lines of the story and was willing to bet that Mr. Ingrid had a fur fetish. It happened sometimes. But they sounded happy and that was what mattered, right?

  “—so I wouldn’t let your prejudice against bounty hunters interfere with what might turn out to be something wonderful.”

  Keeping my voice as even as possible, I said, “I don’t have a prejudice against bounty hunters. I have a prejudice against people who are trying to kill me.”

  Matt started waving frantically at me through the booth window. “Kitty, you gotta take line two.”

  “What? Why?” I checked the monitor. “There’s no name. Didn’t you screen it?”

  “Just take the call.”

  I punched the line. “Yes? What?”

  “Norville. It’s Cormac. If you don’t change the subject right now, I’m going to have to go over there and have a word with you.”

  Cormac. Geez. I was strangely flattered that he even listened to the show.

  “I’ve been trying to change the subject.” Not that he’d know it from the last fifteen minutes. I wondered what would happen if I called his bluff. “But hey, thanks for calling. So, you did get out of jail.”

  “DA didn’t want to prosecute without your testimony. Got off scot-free.”

  “And have you ever dated a werewolf?”

  There was a pause of a couple of beats. “That is none of your business.”

  He didn’t flat-out deny it. Oh, how interesting.

 
“What if someone you were dating was attacked and infected with lycanthropy and became a werewolf? Would you dump her? Would you feel a deep instinctual desire to kill her?”

  “Change the topic. I mean it.”

  “Cormac, when was the last time you went on a date?”

  One of the challenges of doing a radio show was judging everything by people’s voices. I couldn’t see their faces and expressions. I had to gauge the inflections of their voices to judge their moods and reactions.

  So while I couldn’t see Cormac’s face, I could tell by the lightness in his voice that he was grinning. “Norville, when was the last time you went on a date?”

  The phone line clicked off.

  Bastard.

  “That, my friend, is none of your business,” I said at the microphone. I straightened, donned a smile, and thought happy thoughts. My claws around Cormac’s throat. My hands itched.

  A couple of days later I was still trying to clean up that same pile of crap on my desk when I got a phone call.

  “Hello. How are you, Ms. Norville?”

  It was the CDC guy, Paranatural Biology, whatever flavor of government spook he was. I should have expected him to call again.

  “Hello, Mr. Throat.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Never mind. What can I do for you?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary. I’d just like to talk.”

  “The last time you called to have a chat, you hung up on me.”

  “I have to be careful. I don’t think you quite understand my position—”

  I huffed, exasperated. “Of course not; you haven’t told me what your position is!” At this point, I was betting he was a wacko with delusions of grandeur trying to incorporate me into his paranoid fantasy. Then again, he might have been that and some kind of government spook.

  He made an annoyed sigh. “I wanted to talk to you about your revelation. I’d wondered, of course. About your identity. This is a very brave move you’ve made.”

  “How so?”

  “You’ve exposed yourself. But you’ve also created an opportunity. You might be making my job easier.”

  “You still haven’t told me what your job is.”

  “I think you know more than you’re letting on.”