Kitty's Mix-Tape Page 12

  He didn’t know. He took another sip of tea and kept his gaze on the amber surface of the liquid. She wasn’t even wolf, and he was showing her signs of submission. He was useless.

  “Then what am I to do?” he said. He knew what happened to those the SS no longer had use for. Skorzeny knew how to kill werewolves.

  “It’s the night of the full moon,” she said.

  A window in the front of the cottage still showed daylight. The ghosts of his wolf’s ears pricked forward. No, it wasn’t quite time, not yet.

  She said, “They wanted you to come tonight, on the full moon, because they thought your wolf would make you a killer. Make murdering easier.”

  “I tried to explain to them, it doesn’t work like that—”

  “Especially when they have made us a world where men are the monsters, and the wolves are just themselves. Would you like one?” She offered him a plate piled with sugar cookies, wonderful, buttery disks sparkling with sugar, and where had she found butter and sugar in the middle of the war? He recalled the story of the witch who fattened children up to eat them.

  “No, thank you,” he said. Smiling, she set the plate aside.

  “Do you know what tonight is, boy? Besides a full moon night?”

  He thought for a moment and said, blankly, “Tuesday?”

  “All-Hallows Eve. The night when doors between worlds open. And a full moon on All-Hallows Eve? The doors will open very wide indeed. Where would you like to go? This is a night when you might be able to get there.”

  I want to go home. That was a child’s wish, and he was ashamed for thinking it.

  She might have read his mind.

  “The home you knew, you will never see it again. Even if I could transport you there this moment, home will never mean what it did. Germany will never be the same. We might as well all have landed on another planet, these last years.” She went to the table, wiped her hands on her apron, and began to work, chopping up a sprig of some sweet-smelling plant, scooping pieces into a mortar, grinding away, adding another herb, then oil to make a paste. The movements seemed offhand, unconscious. She’d probably done them a thousand times before. She spoke through it all. “They, your masters, are intent on harnessing the powers of darkness, but they do not remember the old stories, do they? The price to be paid. They have forgotten the lessons. They put werewolves in cages and think because they have a bit of silver, they are safe.”

  He leaned back in the chair, sipping his tea as worry fell away from him. He was a child again, listening to the stories of his grandmother, the old ones, about dark woods and evil times, bramble forests and wicked tyrants. He was sure he didn’t close his eyes—he remembered the fire in the hearth dancing, he watched her hands move as she chopped, mixed, ground, and sealed her potions up in jars. He saw his gun sitting at the corner of the table and remembered he had come for a reason. But he no longer cared, because for the first time in ages, the wolf inside him was still.

  “Some of us still have power, and some of us can fight them,” she said. “We do what we can. Your masters, for example. Just seeing you, here, I’ve learned so much about them. They think their werewolves will save them. Even without the true wolves like you, they think that they can act like wolves to strike at their enemies. They think that they can control the monsters they’ve created. But I will curse them, and they will fail. Keep this in mind when you decide what to do, and which way to run.”

  He saw an image in his mind’s eye of endless forest, and the strength to run forever, on four legs, wind whispering through his fur. His voice tickled inside him, not a snarl this time, but a howl, a song to reach the heavens.

  “Boy.” He started at her voice, suddenly close. She stood before him, arms crossed. “The moon’s up. It’s time for you to fly.”

  The world through the window was dark, black night. The trees beyond the clearing glowed with the mercury sheen of the rising moon. Both he and his wolf awoke. Marie took the teacup from him before he dropped it.

  He could change to wolf anytime he liked, but on this night, this one time each month, he had no choice. The light called, and the monster clawed to get out, ribs and guts feeling as if they might split open, the pinpricks of fur sprouting from his skin, over his whole body. His clothing felt like fire, he had to rip free of it. His breathing quickened, he turned to the door.

  She opened it for him. “Goodbye,” she said cheerfully as he raced past her.

  He ripped off all the clothes before he crossed the clearing, left his satchel behind, never thought again about the gun. By the time he reached the trees he had a hitch in his stride, as his back hunched and his bones slipped and cracked to new shapes. His vision became sharp and clear, and the scents filling his nose made the world rich and glorious. Tail, ears, teeth, a coat of beautiful thick fur, and nothing but open country before him.

  The doors of All-Hallows Eve had opened, and the boy’s wolf knew where to go, even if he didn’t. West. Just west, as far and as fast as he could. Armies and soldiers and checkpoints and spies didn’t stop him. No one fired on him. All any of them saw was a wolf, a bit scrawny and the worse for wear perhaps, racing through the night, a gray shadow under a silver moon.

  Later, Fritz would remember flashes of the journey, woods and fields, a small stream that he splashed through, the feel of moonlight rising over him. For decades after, the smell of fireworks would remind him of the stink of exploded artillery shells that filled his head as he crossed the site of a recent battle. The memories made him think of a hero in a fairy tale, the boy who had to fight through many hardships to reach the castle and rescue the princess. The knight with his sword, slaying the dragon. Never mind that he was a monster, like the monsters in the stories. Perhaps he didn’t have to be a monster anymore. Not like that, at least.

  He ran all night, collapsed an hour or so before dawn, not knowing where on the map of Europe’s battlefields he’d ended up, not caring. He’d run as far as he could, then he slept, and the wolf crept away again.

  He’d run all the way to France.

  The American soldiers found him naked, satchel and gun and clothing long gone. Hugging himself, he hid behind a tree trunk, torn between fleeing again or begging for help. When they leveled rifles at him, he didn’t flinch. He didn’t imagine the Amis had brought silver bullets with them. They could not kill him, but they didn’t know that. He waited; they waited.

  He read confusion in their gazes. He must have looked like a child to them: thin, glaringly pale against the gray of the woods and overcast sky. Lost and shivering. Ducking his gaze, a sign of submission, he crept out from behind the tree. He licked his lips, needing water, but that could wait. Still, they didn’t shoot. He decided to step through the door that had opened.

  “I . . . I surrender,” he said in very rough English, and raised his arms.

  Kitty and the Full Super Bloodmoon Thing

  “SO WHAT ARE WE EXPECTING TO HAPPEN?” Ben asked.

  “Same as any other full moon . . . but more so,” I said. “I’m kind of hoping we all spontaneously break into a synchronized lipsynch of ‘Day-O.’”

  Even Shaun gave me an annoyed look from across the clearing. So I guess that only sounded like fun to me.

  We were at our spot in the national forest up in the mountains, all of us in the pack, waiting. The place—a clearing by an outcrop of granite, surrounded by miles of pines, usually felt like home. Any other full moon night, the pack would gather, and as dark fell we’d shed our clothes. As the moon rose our skin would sprout fur, our bones break and stretch, our four-legged selves taking control. We’d run, we’d hunt—wolves, summoned by the full moon.

  This night, however, we nervously waited and watched the sky.

  “Supermoon,” Ben said, arms crossed, squinting through the trees. The moon—full, silver—was just starting to rise. “So we should all get X-ray vision or be able to fly or something.”

  “Listen to you,” I said. “Like turning into a wolf every
four weeks isn’t enough of a superpower.”

  He frowned, clearly dissatisfied. “You’re right. Not enough superpower.”

  “Well, next time get bit by a radioactive spider instead of a werewolf.”

  He gave me this look like he couldn’t tell if I was joking.

  People kept asking me: Supermoon. Blood moon. Did anything change? Was it all different? I didn’t know why everyone was worked up. The supermoon happened when the moon’s orbit brought it closest to Earth—a pretty regular occurrence. The lunar eclipse happened whenever the Earth came between the sun and moon—another pretty regular occurrence. Even both together happened every thirty years or so. I had to be honest—the philosophical underpinnings of the whole thing weren’t at the forefront of my mind when my fingers were sprouting claws and my mouth stretching to fit a predator’s set of teeth.

  Which they were about to do right now. My skin itched. I flexed my fingers. Elsewhere in the clearing, others of the pack were stripping down, while their backs arched and a sheen of fur grew down along their skin. Ben and I watched our pack, and a shadow took a crescent bite out of one side of the moon.

  “It’s time,” he murmured.

  I felt it, too. The animal inside of me pressing at the bars of her cage, waiting to break free.

  But there was something else. Something . . . kind of tingly. Weirdly, I felt more relaxed, when at this time during a full moon I ought to be feeling more than tense, like my body was ripping apart.

  Then I saw Becky in the shape of her sandy-colored wolf charge across the clearing, stumble, and roll over on her back, paws batting at the air, tongue hanging out the corner of her mouth. Shaun’s dusky wolf sat nearby, teeth bared, face pointed upward—almost like he was laughing.

  Ben watched, squinting. “Does that look kinda weird to you?” He spoke slowly—his words were almost slurred. I couldn’t really focus on what he was saying. Claws sprouted from my fingers. I was Changing. But the whole thing felt kinda . . . blurry.

  I looked at Ben, and both of us starting laughing. The laughs turned into lupine whines.

  “I think we’re drunk,” I managed to gasp out.

  “So. Less Blood Moon and more ‘nice dry, merlot moon’?” Ben said, and it was the last thing he said, because his body slipped and the Change washed over him. His wolf emerged—teeth bared, laughing.

  I was about to follow. And you know what? That was all right.

  Kitty and Cormac’s Excellent Adventure

  "I NEED YOUR HELP.”

  I leaned back in my office chair and stared at the phone for a moment. Cormac never asked for help. “Are you feeling all right?”

  He blew out a breath of what sounded like frustration, as if he was just as surprised as I was by this conversation. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just need a favor.” His tone was curt. He didn’t want a discussion.

  “What can I do?”

  Each word sounded forced out against his will. “I need to see Rick.”

  Rick, the Master Vampire of Denver. My brow furrowed, confused. “Why do you need to see Rick?”

  “Just a message. Not a big deal.”

  It was probably a big deal. “You could call him yourself—”

  “But he’ll actually talk to you.”

  “Come on, what’s this about? You hate vampires.”

  “Just five minutes.”

  “He’s going to want to know what this is about. He won’t open the door to you just because I ask.” Cormac was a bounty hunter specializing in supernatural creatures. Vampires, werewolves, a lot of other crazy stuff. At least, he used to be, before he went to prison for manslaughter. Now, he was more of a paranormal investigator, along with the ghost of a Victorian magician who lived in his mind. Long story there. He’d mellowed quite a bit under Amelia’s influence, or so I liked to think. But yeah, Rick didn’t exactly trust him. It sometimes seemed kind of weird that I did.

  “That’s why I need to you to ask. Convince him.”

  I was dying of curiosity. At this point I’d make the meeting happen just to see what it was about. And of course I would be there. “Am I going to regret this?”

  The pause told me that yes, there was a good possibility that I would in fact regret this. “It’ll be fine.”

  “Sure,” I drawled. “I won’t be able to talk to him until nightfall.”

  “The sooner the better.”

  “Seriously, Cormac, are you in trouble?”

  “It’ll be fine. Call me when it’s set up.” He hung up.

  What the hell had he gotten into, and why was I just going to dive in after him? I’d better get a good story out of this.

  Rick agreed to the meeting, probably because after I told him about Cormac’s request, he was just as curious as I was. “What could he possibly be up to?” he asked.

  “No idea,” I answered. “So, you’re in?”

  He was in, as long as the meeting happened on his turf at Obsidian, the art gallery that served as the public face of the lair of Denver’s vampire Family. Cormac wasn’t happy about that when I called him.

  “I’d hoped we could do this on neutral territory. Your place, maybe.”

  “Take it or leave it,” I said. “I’ll be there, if you think it’ll help.”

  He scowled. “I’d rather keep you out of this.”

  “Nope, you dragged me in already, I want the story.”

  I met Cormac in the alley behind the gallery. He was a tall, rugged guy with an easy manner and hard face, dressed in a T-shirt, jeans, and leather jacket. After his felony conviction—he’d been out of prison for a couple of years now—he stopped carrying guns, but he still kept weapons. He usually had a couple of stakes up his sleeve. Now he carried them openly, hanging in a quiver off his belt, along with a spray bottle that was no doubt filled with holy water, and a silver cross hanging around his neck. Had Cormac ever set foot in a church in his life?

  “Really?” I said, deadpan, glaring at him.

  “Just making a statement,” he said. Also, he wore sunglasses to protect against vampires’ hypnotic stare.

  “All right, wait here,” I said. He leaned up against the back of the building while I went down a set of concrete stairs to the basement door and knocked.

  Rick himself opened the door. Any other Master would have had minions and gatekeepers, but not Rick.

  “Hey,” I said, waving a little. “Thanks for doing this.”

  He smiled. “And how are you this evening?”

  “Good, good. Dying of curiosity.”

  “Any idea what he’s up to?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Then let’s get this over with.” He gestured me up the stairs first.

  Where Cormac was rough, Rick was elegant, his dark hair short, swept back, his gaze amused. I hadn’t gotten the whole story, but he was probably around five hundred years old. He claimed he’d been part of Coronado’s expedition into the southwest. Couldn’t guess that about him now. His accent was flat American, and while his looks and manner were refined, they didn’t seem particular to any time or place. He must have seen so much, had so many adventures. I wanted to hear all the stories, but he rarely talked about his own history.

  When we reached the alley, Cormac straightened, his hand moving to his quiver of stakes. Rick lifted a brow at Cormac’s armory. I made sure to stand between the two of them. The posturing was stupid; they both knew better than this.

  Rick said, “Well, Mr. Bennett?”

  Cormac looked down the alley, along the roofline. Everywhere but at the vampire. His mustache shifted when he pursed his lips. I’d have thought this was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

  “I’m supposed to deliver a message,” he said finally.

  “All right,” Rick answered. “What is it?”

  “The message isn’t for you.”

  Rick opened his hands. “Then why am I here?”

  “Because they told me . . . I was told that you’d know where I’m supposed to go.”

>   “You’re delivering a message but you don’t know where? What are you talking about?”

  I watched the back-and-forth, wide-eyed and intrigued. “Cormac. Maybe you’d better start at the beginning.”

  He scowled, paced a couple of steps, then seemed to come to a decision. “Yeah. Okay,” he said, glancing sidelong at an impatient Rick. Then Cormac told a story.

  He’d been hired for a job, he said. An easy job, and he should have known better. If you had to call a job easy it meant there was a catch. For the amount of cash he was offered, he figured he could deal with a catch.

  The morning after accepting the job, he found a box outside his apartment door. Inside the box was a padded envelope the size of a magazine, labeled with an address but no name. The address was in Ft. Morgan, a small town about an hour northeast of Denver.

  He found the spot on a lane off a dirt county road, and Cormac figured even getting this far was enough to earn his pay. He was careful, he kept a watch out. The job might be easy—feeding sharks was easy—but he didn’t trust it’d be safe. All he found at the end of the lane were a couple of sprawling cottonwood trees and an old plank board farmhouse that had fallen in on itself decades before. No one was here to deliver the message to. He couldn’t find a mailbox to put it in.

  Maybe he shouldn’t have assumed the job would be easy.

  Cormac studied his maps to see if maybe he’d come to the wrong place. He’d have sent a message to his client to ask for more details, but he couldn’t get a phone connection. The address on the envelope was specific. This was the right spot. He hunted around for some clue, maybe a forwarding address. Except clearly no one had lived here for years.

  Finally, he found a note on the front door. Had to dig for it around a collapsed wall and splintered shingles. It was as if someone had tacked the note there before the house collapsed, which seemed weird and unlikely. Maybe the note had been put here to protect it from the weather.

  On the outside of the folded page, the same address had been written in the same handwriting as on the envelope. He unpinned the note, unfolded it, read.