Kitty Goes to War Read online

  Praise for Carrie Vaughn

  Kitty and the Midnight Hour

  “Do you like werewolves? Vampires? Talk radio? Reading? Sex? If the answer to any of those is yes, you’re in for a wonderful ride.”

  —Gene Wolfe

  “You’ll love this! At last, a most entertaining werewolf novel. This is vintage Anita Blake meets The Howling. Worth reading twice.”

  —Barb and J. C. Hendee, authors of Dhamphir

  “This is a thriller and a page-turner. An exciting read—you’ll love this.”

  —Alice Borchardt, author of Raven Warrior

  “A light touch, conversational tone, and entertaining premise . . . very appealing.”

  —VOYA

  “Fun, fast-paced adventure.”

  —Locus

  “Entertaining . . . a surprisingly human tale.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Kitty Goes to Washington

  “Vaughn delivers an effortless, fast-paced narrative, with just enough emotional depth to satisfy.”

  —VOYA

  Kitty Takes a Holiday

  “Strong on characterization, Vaughn creates characters worth visiting time after time in this compelling world where vampires and werewolves have their own radio call-in show.”

  —Booklist

  “Vaughn’s universe is convincing and imaginative, providing enough series mythology to satisfy without slowing down the narrative.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “As with the previous books, this installment is entertaining and fast-paced, and it nicely advances the overall series narrative, particularly as it pertains to Kitty’s relationships with Cormac and Ben. . . . The Kitty books continue to be a natural choice for older YA readers.”

  —VOYA

  “Light romance with elements of adventure and dark witchery. If this is the sort of light entertainment you’re looking for, then Kitty Takes a Holiday will deliver the goods.”

  —SF Site

  Kitty and the Silver Bullet

  “Not quite paranormal romance, not quite contemporary fantasy. Whatever label you care to apply, it’s a pretty good romp.”

  —Don D’Ammassa, Critical Mass

  Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand

  “Another smashing addition to her popular Kitty Norville series. Vaughn has started blending in elements of early mythologies, setting the stage for the upcoming Kitty Raises Hell in what promises to be a rock ’em, sock ’em showdown. Fast-paced and inventive, this expands upon the alpha pair’s relationship to each other and Kitty’s parents, adding a humanizing touch to this outstanding paranormal series.”

  —Monsters and Critics

  Kitty Raises Hell

  “Fans of the previous Kitty entries won’t be disappointed, and the novel features a great séance sequence and one hell of a haunted house.”

  —Total Sci-Fi Online

  “Carrie Vaughn is like Laurell K. Hamilton, only better. . . . Nothing about her universe feels stale or worked over; if I didn’t know better, I could easily assume she was alone in her field. . . . A gripping read.”

  —The Accidental Bard

  Kitty’s House of Horrors

  “Leave it to Kitty Norville to take reality TV to a whole new gruesome level! Survival is the name of the game in Vaughn’s fast-paced thriller, and the claustrophobic feel of this story is enhanced by Kitty’s first-person viewpoint. It’s nail-biting in the extreme.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  Kitty

  Goes to War

  CARRIE VAUGHN

  A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

  NEW YORK

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  The Playlist

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  KITTY GOES TO WAR

  Copyright © 2010 by Carrie Vaughn, LLC

  All rights reserved.

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  ISBN 978-0-7653-6561-3

  First Edition: July 2010

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To the men and women

  of the U.S. armed forces,

  who have some of the toughest

  jobs in the world.

  Acknowledgments

  A big thank-you to Kevin McLean, who read the first draft for me and gave me suggestions for which I’m grateful. Thank you also to the usual suspects—family and friends and writing cohorts—for listening to me complain a lot, getting me out of the house, feeding me, and taking me on vacation. Thank you also to the people who helped make this a book, rather than just a bunch of notes on my hard drive: Ashley and Carolyn Grayson, Stacy Hague-Hill, David Hartwell, Jaime Levine, and Kim Hoffman. And thanks to Craig White for the iconic artwork. I’m the luckiest kid in the world.

  The Playlist

  JOHNNY NASH, “I Can See Clearly Now”

  DEACON BLUE, “Fergus Sings the Blues”

  TOO MUCH JOY, “Magic”

  DRESSY BESSY, “Shoot, I Love You”

  SAM THE SHAM AND THE PHARAOHS, “Li’l Red Riding Hood”

  NEW ORDER, “Love Vigilantes”

  OINGO BOINGO, “Stay”

  BIG BROTHER AND THE HOLDING COMPANY, “Roadblock”

  LED ZEPPELIN, “When the Levee Breaks”

  DEPECHE MODE, “Peace”

  PINK MARTINI, “Autrefois”

  FAIRPORT CONVENTION, “Farewell, Farewell”

  PAUL SIMON, “Late in the Evening”

  Chapter 1

  I SAT AT my desk, my monitor and microphone in front of me, maps and notebook paper spread over the whole surface. I was writing down addresses and marking points on the map as people called in.

  “So you’re saying it burned down and nobody could find out why?” I asked Pam from Lexington.

  “That’s right,” she said. “My friend Stacy who’s kind of a witch said it’s because it was on a crossroads, and something demonic must have happened there, one of those deal-with-the-devil-type things, and the energy overflowed and incinerated it. Could she be right?”

  “I don’t know, Pam,” I said. “That’s why I’m discussing the topic, to find out if these events are all coincidence or if something spooky really is going on here. Thanks for the data point. Okay, faithful listeners, that gives me about a dozen independently verifiable stories about supernatural happenings at Speedy Mart convenience stores all over the country. This is already more th
an I thought we’d get, so keep them coming.”

  After the third person suggested that something weird was going on at Speedy Mart, I started paying attention. And wondering. And remembering a couple more stories I’d heard about intersections between the chain of stores and weirdness. Then I decided to devote an episode of my call-in radio show to the subject. It turned out that maybe something strange was going on here. That didn’t explain why the Speedy Mart chain would have anything supernatural associated with it.

  “My next caller is Al from San Jose. Hello, Al.”

  “Hi, Kitty. I’m such a big fan, thanks for taking my call.”

  “Well, thank you, Al. What’s your story?”

  “It’s more of a question: is it true that Speedy Mart hires vampires to work the night shift?”

  “Funny you should ask,” I said. “I once got a call from a vampire who said he was working the night shift at a Speedy Mart. Now, I don’t think this means that it’s a matter of policy that Speedy Mart hires vampires. I think this guy just needed a job, and there’s only so many places open in the middle of the night. But you can definitely see the advantages of hiring the ageless undead to work behind the counter. I imagine they don’t get too freaked out about holdups.”

  “But there’s probably not a whole lot of career advancement for vampires there,” he said.

  “Does anyone working the night shift at Speedy Mart have a lot of opportunities for career advancement? Although with vampires it would literally be a dead-end job.” I chuckled. I really shouldn’t laugh at my own jokes so much. “Right, we have Chuck from Nevada. Hi, Chuck.”

  “Hey, Kitty! How you doing?” He was brash, a real talker. This ought to be good.

  “I’m doing just great,” I said, the standard line. “Where in Nevada are you?”

  “Area 51.”

  Deadpan, I said, “Really?”

  “Okay, yeah, I’m from a little town about thirty miles up the freeway from Las Vegas. Near Area 51. And you want to talk about weird stuff going on with Speedy Mart, I’ve got a story for you.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  “UFOs.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “Okay, now you’re just making crap up.”

  “No, seriously, we get sightings all the time. We’re one of the stops on the Southwest UFO tour. The Speedy Mart parking lot is one of the best places to see them. UFO hunters park out there with their lawn chairs and binoculars looking for them. It’s, like, UFO central!”

  “If you say so, but like I always say, there’s weird and then there’s weird. But I suppose a data point’s a data point. Thanks for calling.” I didn’t have to tell him I wasn’t actually going to mark that location on my map. We’d call it an outlier. A real far-out outlier.

  I continued. “The real question here is: why Speedy Mart? Is it a coincidence? Does the supernatural really have some kind of strange affinity for this specific convenience store chain over any other? Or is it a conspiracy? Is there a guiding hand behind these stories? A dangerous hand? I’m not sure it’s possible to answer any of these questions, which is always the trouble with this sort of thing, isn’t it? It turns out the Speedy Mart chain is a privately owned company, which makes its records harder to get at. The owner and president of the company is Harold Franklin, who seems to have a typical upper-middle-class white guy upbringing, degree from Harvard Business School, vacation home in the Hamptons and all that jazz. Nothing to suggest he’d be behind any kind of far-reaching conspiracy. But who knows? For a company that’s managed to open branches all over the country, not many people seem to know anything about it. It all seems a little strange to me.”

  I checked the monitor and picked what looked like was going to be a live one: the caller wouldn’t give his or her name and city, but claimed to have worked at a Speedy Mart for several years.

  “All right, it looks like we have someone from the inside on the line, a former employee of Speedy Mart. Hello, you’re on the air.”

  “Um, hi.” The voice was female, hushed, like she was trying to keep from being overheard.

  “So you worked at Speedy Mart,” I prompted.

  “Yeah. For a couple of years when I was in college.”

  “You were a night-shift clerk?”

  “I worked whenever I could get the hours. Sometimes at night.”

  “And did you notice anything strange during your time there?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think it was all that strange at the time. I mean, I thought it was strange, but not supernatural strange or anything. These people would come in around midnight, about once a month. They’d be wearing cloaks. I just thought they were from some science fiction convention or Renaissance fair, driving home late. Strange but harmless. But looking back on it, they weren’t really the Renaissance fair type, you know? These were all older guys, middle aged and clean cut, dressed normal except for the cloaks. They came in, walked all over the store, all the way to the back and every aisle, like they were looking for something. They never bought anything—total freak cheapskates. They were just some weird club. I never did anything about it because they didn’t hurt anything, they weren’t trying to rob me or anything, what was I going to do? I couldn’t kick them out just because they didn’t buy anything.”

  “What do you think they were doing?” I said, intrigued. I tried to imagine it, cloaked men walking around the store, every month—during what phase of the moon, I wondered? The whole thing screamed ritual.

  “I don’t know, that’s why I’m calling. I thought maybe you would know.”

  “Well, that these men repeated the same action every month for—how many months?”

  “I worked that shift for maybe six months. It happened every month,” she said.

  “And do you know if it was at the same time of the month? The same phase of the moon maybe?”

  “I didn’t pay attention—do you think it’s important?”

  “I don’t know. The thing is, repetition says to me some kind of ceremony or ritual was going on. That means some kind of magic, some kind of power. Or at least they thought so—it may not mean anything. Can you tell me where this was?”

  “No, I can’t, I shouldn’t even be calling, I—goodbye.” The phone clicked off.

  Dang. I’d have marked that spot on the map with a big star next to it. Of course, it could be coincidence—some weird local club had an initiation ceremony involving nothing more devious than wandering around the local Speedy Mart. Somehow I didn’t think that was likely.

  I checked the clock, and we had the time, so I clicked the next call through. “Hello, Charles from Shreveport. What’s your story?”

  Charles from Shreveport talked fast. “You’re right about Speedy Mart. And Harold Franklin. He’s up to something. And someone has to stand up to him before it’s too late.”

  I assessed the voice: male, quick, a little thin. Kind of eager, or desperate. Not laid back, not a disbeliever calling in to try to get a rise out of me, not someone with a deep personal problem. He didn’t have the accent to go along with his Louisiana location. After doing this show for years, I’d become a pretty good judge of voices. Most of my callers fell into certain categories, and I could usually tell which one after a sentence or two. This guy had something to say, and he was the kind of person who thought late-night talk radio was a good soapbox.

  “What’s he up to, Charles?”

  “I’ve been tracking Franklin’s movements for decades. For example, in late August 2005, he spent four days in New Orleans, did you know that?”

  “No. What has that got to do with anything?”

  He sounded like he was reading off a list. “Biloxi, Mississippi, in August 1969—that was his first big showing. He was supposedly on a fishing trip right after college, but you know what happened next. He’s only gotten more ambitious since then. February 1978 in Boston, April 1991 in Bangladesh, October 1991 in Nova Scotia.”

  How intriguing. My favorite kind of call—devoted and a l
ittle crazy. “How do you know all this? Have you been stalking him?” I was buying myself a little time, trying to figure out what Charles’s pin markers in space and time meant. I wished I had an Internet browser on hand.

  “He always leaves a couple of days before the worst of it hits. Always.”

  “The worst of what?”

  “The worst of the storms!”

  New Orleans, August 2005. Matt, my board operator, knocked on the booth window, and I figured it out at the same time I read the scrawled note he pressed to the glass: KATRINA.

  Biloxi ’69: Hurricane Camille, wanna bet? And if I looked up the rest, I’d probably find other epic hurricanes, blizzards, perfect storms.

  I leaned into the microphone. “What are you saying, Charles? That Harold Franklin has really bad luck with the weather?”

  “I’m saying it’s not luck,” he said.

  “Do you know that experiments have shown that people have a tendency to find patterns, even when no actual patterns exist? In our attempts to make order out of the universe, we see connections where there just aren’t any.” Playing the skeptic—the term devil’s advocate made me nervous when we were talking about the supernatural—usually got my callers riled up, which had high entertainment value. But it also made them explain themselves. Made them delve, and often exposed more information.

  Frustrated, he said, “If he was at any one of those locations it would be a coincidence but not noteworthy. But the fact that he was at all of them? Right around the time of some of the most destructive storms in modern history? And doesn’t it make you wonder about the storms before modern history? That maybe Harold Franklin is just the latest in a long line of weather terrorists? Did you know that some people believe that the storm that scattered the Spanish Armada in the English Channel in the sixteenth century was created by English witches?”

  “How did you get so interested in this?” I said. “How did you know to look for Franklin?”

  “Have you ever met him?”