Kitty's Big Trouble Read online

  “Huh,” he said, then wadded it up and threw it into a corner.

  “At least when that happens to you you can go shirtless,” I said. “I have to walk around with my arms crossed.”

  The trousers, boxers, and shoes were intact enough. He put them on and gave a satisfied sigh. Straightening, he squared his shoulders, indicating that he felt increasingly more human. I wrapped my arms around his middle and rubbed my faced against his chest, letting the hair there tickle my skin and taking in his scent.

  He hugged back, then picked at the T-shirt on my shoulders.

  “That’s not your shirt,” he said.

  “Yeah. The last one was kind of covered with blood. It seems to be the theme of the night. That guy loaned me one.”

  “That guy—the on the street where I found you? I remember him. What was up with him?”

  “I don’t really know,” I said. “He seemed nice enough.”

  “That’s kind of what’s weird about him,” Ben said. “Did he even want his shirt back?”

  I looked down at myself and furrowed my brow. “Why do I suddenly want to look for a homing device stitched into this?”

  “I wouldn’t mind seeing you walk around with just your arms crossed,” he said.

  “Later,” I said.

  “I knew we wouldn’t be going back to the hotel room just yet. Can’t we go back just for an hour?”

  “Aren’t you the least bit curious about how all this is going to turn out?”

  “Not at the expense of losing you,” he said, smoothing my hair back from my face. “I don’t ever want to get that close again.”

  I wanted to tell him that he wouldn’t, that I’d always be all right. But I couldn’t make that promise.

  Hand in hand, we followed the others through the door and into the next room.

  It wasn’t much of a room: bare tile on the floor, off-white walls, no windows, a couple of floor lamps in the corners giving off muted light. About fifteen by fifteen, the place reminded me of a cell.

  “What do you use this for?” I asked Boss.

  “Time-outs,” he said.

  “Time-outs? Like, if one of your vampires gets violent?”

  “You ever seen what that looks like?”

  Until recently, I’d have said no, but the starving vampire we found near Dodge City gave me a pretty good idea of why vampires might need a room like this. A question remained: Just what did you do with a vampire that far gone? How did you get them back to normal, or what passed for normal among vampires? Answer: they needed blood. And what did that look like? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. The place smelled innocuous enough—it had the cold, clean scent of the rest of the lair. I surreptitiously hunted for stray bloodstains on the floor and didn’t find anything.

  We kept to the edges of the room. Cautious, Grace stood in the middle, waiting for Cormac, who paced around the room, touching walls, studying the ceiling. His lips were pursed, thoughtful.

  He took off his jacket and put it on the floor in the corner. His gray T-shirt showed off his rugged frame—he’d grown up on a ranch and it showed. He let his arms hang loose, tipped his head back, took a deep breath. When he released it, he made the soft hiss of a slowly deflating balloon. He rolled his shoulders, his head, stretching his neck. Then, blinking, he gazed around the room as if waking from a nap. His scent became bookish, older.

  “What’s happening?” Boss asked.

  “He’s Amelia now,” I said.

  The vampire glanced at me, his expression questioning, but I couldn’t explain.

  Brisk now, businesslike instead of watchful, Cormac returned to his jacket and pulled a few items—small, hidden in his hands—out of the pockets. Going to Grace, he handed her a piece of red chalk. “Draw a picture of the Dragon’s Pearl, right here.” He gestured at the center of the floor.

  “I can’t draw that well. I’m not an artist.”

  “It doesn’t have to be an exact likeness. Just a suggestion. A symbol.”

  Tentatively, she took the chalk from him, crouched, and began drawing. I stood on my toes and craned forward trying to see what she drew, but the image remained hidden. While she was drawing, Cormac unfolded a street map of San Francisco and spread it on the floor.

  Next, he spread a layer of a fine, dark-colored powder over the map. It smelled a little like charcoal.

  “What is it?” I whispered to Ben.

  “Gunpowder,” he said.

  This ought to be good. The last item in Cormac’s hands was a lighter.

  I didn’t know enough about magic to be able to guess what spell, incantation, ritual, divination, cantrip, or whatever Cormac was going to work. I was learning more all the time. Amelia’s magic seemed to be rooted in items and in ritual. Objects she could manipulate, procedures she could perform, tapping into external symbols rather than drawing on any innate power. Apparently, in some cases magic could be learned and didn’t depend on natural psychic ability. This should have been comforting—it meant anyone could control it, and it wasn’t so mysterious after all, right? But for the true wizards and magicians I’d met—Odysseus Grant, Harold Franklin, and Amelia Parker—magic wasn’t a hobby they’d picked up in a few classes or weekly knitting circles. They’d dedicated their whole lives to the study. It consumed them. In some ways, they became something other than human—as monstrous as I was. They no longer fit with the human community.

  That wasn’t such a huge change for Cormac, as it turned out. Maybe that was how Amelia had found him—or how they’d found each other. I wondered if I’d ever learn the whole story.

  “Are you finished?” he asked Grace after a moment.

  She sketched the last couple of lines, then got back to her feet, brushing her hands on her jeans. “Yeah. Don’t know how much good it will do you.” She gave him back the piece of chalk, which he used to draw a circle around both the map and Grace’s drawing. I scooted forward, trying one more time to get a look at what the Dragon’s Pearl looked like—she’d drawn something square with squiggles in the middle.

  Cormac shot me a look. “Stand back.”

  I raised my hands in a gesture of innocence and backed away.

  Cormac stood just outside the circle. The room was so quiet, I could hear us breathe—at least, those of us who did breathe. The moment demanded stillness. I was about to say something, unable to bear the tension of anticipation any longer, when the sometime-wizard flicked the lighter on and knelt, touching the flame to the map.

  A spark flared on the paper, and a tongue of fire leaped a few inches high. Just as quickly, it vanished, leaving behind a wisp of smoke and the smell of sulfur. Cormac remained kneeling, his hand over the map, the smoke curling around him.

  “Whoa,” Ben murmured. We all leaned forward for a better look at what had happened.

  Cormac shook a layer of fine soot off the map and held it up to the light. The flame had burned a perfect pinpoint mark into the map. X marks the spot.

  “Really? It’s there?” Grace said, moving to Cormac’s side to look over his arm at the image.

  “I guess so,” Cormac said. I studied him, searching for a sign that it was really him, that he was back in control instead of Amelia. His posture seemed more like himself. He smelled like books and leather, a confusing mix that didn’t tell me anything.

  “That seems too easy,” she said.

  “Sometimes you just have to lay out what you really want,” he said.

  “So what,” Grace said. “We go pick it up?”

  “I doubt it,” he said. He began scuffing out the chalk marks with his shoe, erasing the circle and then the drawing, until the whole area was a vague red smudge.

  She looked confused, and I explained. “We still don’t know who took the thing from the safe in the first place. I assume we’re going to have to take it back from them.”

  Anastasia hadn’t spoken through the whole spell casting. The other vampires seemed interested and amused, as if we were entertaining them.

/>   “We’ll have to move slow,” Cormac said. “Scout ahead and check it out before we go in. Make sure this is even right.”

  That was Cormac. The hunter was back in charge. Grudgingly, I had to admit that they made a pretty good team, however weird I thought the arrangement.

  “Part of the tunnel system goes there,” Grace said. “We should be able to get to it, no problem.”

  “This time we stick together,” Cormac said. “Nobody gets lost.”

  “That’s going to depend on what we find,” Grace said.

  I turned to the vampires. “Anastasia?”

  “I think it’s a trap,” she said.

  “Just like last time,” I said cheerfully. “Shall we get moving and get this over with?”

  Anastasia turned toward the door. “Yes.”

  “Just like that?” Boss said after her. “You’re not going to ask me for help? For an army?”

  “As if you would give it.”

  Boss turned to his right. “Henry? You want to go with them?”

  “Sure,” the vampire said, shrugging.

  “Ah, so now you’re sending a spy,” Anastasia said, glaring at Boss, sneering at Henry, who actually wilted a bit.

  “Yeah. But you don’t have anything to hide and he might really be able to help,” Boss said.

  They couldn’t do a damned thing without arguing. I said, “Do vampires ever just help anybody out of the goodness of their hearts?”

  “Didn’t you know, we don’t have hearts,” Boss said, and he and his minions laughed.

  Cormac looked at me. “I hate vampires.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered.

  Boss shrugged. “If you don’t want Henry along, just say so and you can go on your merry way.”

  “He can come,” I said before Anastasia could pitch a fit about it. “Thanks for the offer. I’m sure we can use all the help we can get.”

  Boss inclined his head, the hint of a bow, and Henry winked at me.

  Anastasia pursed her lips. “Fine. But you’ll listen to me.” She pointed at Henry.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  Boss sighed and shook his head. “I bet we can even find a shirt for Mr. Kitty here. You see how helpful we are?”

  “Mr. Kitty?” Ben said, eyebrows raised.

  “I may have to borrow that one,” Cormac said, smirking.

  “Don’t even think about it,” his cousin said.

  I butted in. “A shirt would be great.” We could argue about name calling later, though I had to admit I was hating Ben’s reaction. Seriously?

  Henry went to fetch a shirt.

  “Well,” Anastasia said to Boss. “At least you’ll learn how it all turns out.”

  “It’s my city, after all,” he said.

  “You never did thank me for that.”

  “Is that all you really want?” he said. “Well then, Anastasia dear, thank you for helping me win San Francisco.”

  She rolled her eyes and scowled. “Too late.”

  “Oh, Anastasia, it’s never too late. We have all the time in the world.”

  Of course they did.

  Chapter 13

  THE SPOT BURNED into the map was back in Chinatown, not far from where we’d originally met Anastasia. If the Dragon’s Pearl had up and wandered away, it hadn’t gone far. At least, not far in linear distance. What we couldn’t tell was if the pearl was accessible, resting on a shelf in a back room at street level, or if it was hidden in one of the winding tunnels that Grace and her strange key had access to. If that was the case, I couldn’t quite trust the spot on the map.

  Henry borrowed the car and driver to take us that far. We crammed in and rode in silence until we reached the corner that Grace picked for us to begin quest part two—Stockton Street this time, a block over from Grant, and the not-as-touristy section of Chinatown. The traffic lights hanging above the narrow intersection glowed red, but there were no cars in sight. Old brick and concrete facades stood around us like sentinels, watching, waiting to pounce.

  Ben had acquired one of Henry’s Havana shirts, red with cream embroidery. He was fidgeting in it; it wasn’t a good look for him. I’d rather have seen him in a retro suit with suspenders, maybe a fedora. But hipster it was.

  “What do you suppose he’ll do if I manage to get this one all bloody?” he said.

  “Thank you?” I answered, and he grumbled.

  The air had turned cold—winter cold, it felt to my Colorado bones. The damp in the air made the temperature clammy, insidious. I shivered; Ben put his arm around me, and I huddled close.

  Grace and Cormac consulted the map.

  “I just pointed the way,” Cormac was saying. “This is your show now.”

  “If this is a trap, it’ll get us as soon as we head underground,” she said.

  “Do we have a choice?” Cormac said.

  Anastasia glared at them. “Just find me the pearl—I’ll worry about the trap.”

  Grace shot back, “If I’m supposed to be in the lead I’m damn well going to worry about a trap.”

  “Just go,” the vampire said.

  We started walking. Grace had the map now and kept glancing at it, then at the buildings. She turned a corner, and another, and into an alley, where a set of stairs led down to a basement door. Here we go again.

  “I have to admit, I’m missing my nine mil right about now,” Cormac muttered.

  “Not that it would do you any good against vampires,” Ben said. “Or in the tunnels.”

  “No. But sometimes I just want to hear something go bang.”

  Henry acted like he was on a tour, hands in pockets, strolling along looking at all the interesting buildings. “I’m not sensing any trouble. Everything seems normal to me.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d recognize normal any more if it bit me in the ass.

  “Where are we going?” Anastasia asked.

  “This is the spot on the map, at the mouth of the alley,” Grace said. “But there’s nothing here, so we have to go underground.”

  “There’s not much underground here, is there?” Henry said. “The tunnel system’s an urban legend. The real tunnels were all destroyed in the earthquake back in ’06. The previous ’06, I mean.”

  “I don’t care how long you’ve been here, how long you’ve been alive, you don’t know Chinatown,” Grace said. She glanced back at Anastasia. “None of you do.”

  “I’ve known Chinatown for a hundred and fifty years,” Anastasia said.

  “But it’s not the same. You act like China hasn’t changed in eight hundred years. All you know is what you think you know, but that isn’t always what’s real.”

  Anastasia sneered at Grace, the puny mortal who had only a fraction of her years. She must have really hated needing the magician’s help.

  Grace wasn’t done. “What about your ancestors? You keep holding mine over me, but what about yours? I bet it’s been centuries since you’ve made any offerings to them—that’s why you’re having all this shitty luck. Maybe you should be heading to a temple—”

  Anastasia reached and caught hold of Grace’s neck. Grace gasped, and I jumped, lunging forward to grab hold of the vampire’s arm.

  “Anastasia, stop,” I said.

  She glared down at Grace, imperious and dispassionate, while Grace blinked back, struggling for breath. I squeezed Anastasia’s arm. “Let go.”

  She did. I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t. Grace slumped against the wall.

  “I have stepped outside the cycle,” the vampire said. “I have no descendants to burn offerings for me, so I burn no offerings for anyone else.”

  “Your ancestors remember you. It doesn’t matter how long they’ve been dead, they’re still watching—”

  The vampire shook her head and turned away. She murmured, “I’m sorry, Grace Chen. I shouldn’t have touched you.”

  Grace would have been justified in walking away right there. But she reached into her bag and, frowning, said, “Let’s get
this over with.”

  We all turned to the door. Cormac tucked his cross and stake back into his jacket.

  Grace pulled the candle and lantern from her bag and handed them to Cormac, who lit the lantern while she shouldered open the door at the base of the stairs. The second oil lantern had evidently been abandoned. Once again, the candle was our only light. We entered a dark tunnel.

  “Where does this go?” Henry asked, and Grace shushed him.

  Grace led, and Cormac and Anastasia kept close to her; Henry, Ben, and I followed, constantly glancing over our shoulders. The flickering candlelight created shadows, in which I was sure I saw demons.

  I’d have thought I’d eventually get used to the feeling that ghosts were moving at the edges of my vision; that tingling feeling had settled into my spine and it wasn’t any more comfortable now than it had been at the start. This wasn’t my world down here, and I got the impression that I wasn’t welcome. None of us were. We’d escaped the tunnels last time—that didn’t mean we would again. A rat in a maze must feel like this, closed in, only able to see the paths in front of you and behind, wishing you could somehow see above it all, to see what terrors lurked ahead.

  On our last trek, we’d moved forward with some amount of purpose, confident that we’d find what we were looking for at the end of the journey. This time, we walked cautiously, uncertain that any amount of vigilance would help us. I didn’t think any of us believed that we’d find the Dragon’s Pearl just lying there, waiting for us to take it.

  “Ben, Kitty—you guys smell anything?” Cormac called back to us.

  “I need a shower,” Ben said. “That’s about it.”

  “Hm, shower,” I murmured. “Incentive for getting this over with and getting out of here as quickly as possible.”

  Our footsteps sounded loud on the floor.

  “We ought to be getting close,” Grace whispered.

  We turned the next corner and saw a glow ahead. It could have been anything—a stray lamp, the first light of dawn breaking through a street-side aperture. But as we approached, it took on the quality of a lantern burning—yellow, warm, dancing. Whether we found ourselves in a room, in another part of the tunnel, or in some kind of alternate reality, someone was there, waiting for us. My nostrils widened as I tried to take in as much air as I could, hoping to sense what was waiting for us. I only smelled burning wax, heat, and lingering smoke. It masked whoever was there.