Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand Read online

  My kick caught Balthasar in the gut. He fell back but quickly regained his balance. I didn’t wait, kicking again, aiming for his face. He scrambled back, batting my foot away, and bared his teeth, which were sharper than they had been. Inside me, Wolf howled, cheering. She was close to punching through my control. My shoulders strained, pulled back at the wrong angle for Wolf’s body. If we changed now, it would hurt, far worse than usual. I hung there, gasping, legs bent and ready to kick again, panting, feeling fur at the surface of my skin.

  I didn’t know what to expect. Some men might have hit me, frustrated that I’d slipped out of their control. He might have laughed and kept on with the rape. His face was a mask. Right up until he smiled. Like a Cheshire cat.

  He announced to his followers. “She’s ready. It’s time.”

  Huh?

  The henchmen snapped the chains from their hooks, peeled me off the wall, and trussed me up for another round of dragging. This time, I was mostly upright, mostly face forward, so I could sort of see where we were going. Where we were going was through a doorway, a different one than they’d brought me through, as far as I could tell.

  We emerged onto the stage for the Balthasar, King of Beasts show. The ziggurat loomed before us.

  This had to be a joke.

  The stage was dark except for lit torches. Real ones this time, pitch and flame, not the gaslit ones for the show. This close, they stank of burning tar and filled the air with smoke that made my eyes water. Patterns in the fake stone of the ziggurat emerged, images in relief that seemed to move in the flickering firelight. They were like the pictures from Balthasar’s suite: processions of oxen with the heads of men, stalking lions, bird-people, and nameless demons continued here, but they were more complex, more threatening.

  They dragged me to the front of the ziggurat, to the two stone pillars where Balthasar was chained for the show. But that was a show, and this was real, performed in an empty theater for the troupe alone. The decor throughout the troupe’s suite and stage wasn’t for show, it wasn’t a motif or a design choice. It was the real thing. This whole place was a Babylonian temple. From hell.

  They secured a chain to each pillar, leaving my arms spread wide. I thrashed against the bindings like a snared rabbit. My blood was burning.

  The woman from the show, the exotic, half-clad torturer, stood nearby. This close, I could smell her. Even with all of Balthasar’s people gathered around us in a circle as if for some ritual, even with the smoking torches and the scent of my own fear filling me, I could smell the coldness of her. The deadness.

  She was a vampire.

  This time, she wore an undyed linen gown, a simple square tunic embroidered with more Babylonian-looking images and symbols around the hems and belted with rope. She had long black hair and skin like honey. Her eyes seemed to be rolled back in her head. She stood with her arms spread, and her left hand held a long, fierce-looking dagger.

  I had a bad feeling about this.

  Inside me, Wolf panicked, throwing herself against the bars of a cage that I imagined kept her locked inside of me. The bars were dissolving. My heart was racing. My skin prickled, ready to stretch, split, and set her free.

  I caught sight of Balthasar, who moved before me, serenely presiding over the scene. I nodded to the woman, who hadn’t deigned to look at me yet. “So who the fuck is that?”

  “She is the real Master here. She speaks to the old goddess—the oldest goddess, the one whose bones made the world. It is she we serve. We are her Band, as she had in the days before time. Tiamat!” Balthasar ended with a shout, and the others took up the word in a chant.

  “Tiamat! Tiamat! Tiamat!”

  You have got to be fucking kidding me.

  He stepped up to me and gripped my chin hard. Growling, I bared my teeth at him. “Go on, shape-shift. We need you to shift,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “The sacrifice must be of a creature neither human nor animal. A being partway between them. A lycanthrope.”

  “Sacrifice?” And because they were all cats, they preferred putting wolves on the block. That was why there were no werewolves in Las Vegas.

  The vampire, the priestess of Tiamat, stepped in front of me and raised the dagger high, pointed straight down to my chest.

  If Balthasar was right, if I didn’t shift they couldn’t kill me. They needed me to shift. So I just wouldn’t. Except that I’d already lost it. I screamed, but it came out as a terrified wolfish snarl. It was happening. My skin turned to gooseflesh, fur springing out all over. My hands thickened, nails turning into claws. All my bones were melting.

  Balthasar ripped my shirt open, tearing the fabric. I struggled, to put it mildly, as hard as I could, but my face, my screams were no longer my own. I’d lost my shoes. My clawed feet kicked out at him, caught flesh, ripped into it. Red lines appeared on his thighs. He hissed, catlike, and struck my face. I hardly noticed.

  All I could see was that knife hovering over my chest. It was silver. When a silver weapon—bullet, knife, whatever—wounded a lycanthrope, it wasn’t the wound that killed. It was silver poisoning. If that knife broke my skin, I would die.

  Then I heard something amazing. Incongruous. An explosion—the crack of a gunshot. Normally I hated that sound, but right now it was music.

  The chanting stopped, and a silence settled over the room, a shocked pause.

  The priestess of Tiamat had a red hole in the middle of her chest. It didn’t bleed. She didn’t fall. She turned, shouting something in a language I’d never heard before.

  The men howled, and the gunshots started again. I saw flashes from the doorway, and Wolf’s eyes saw faces in the faint light: Brenda. Evan. The cult hesitated.

  It didn’t matter. I was still shifting, and still half-bolted to an altar.

  A man stepped into view. He wore a dress shirt, sleeves rolled up, and he looked at me with familiar, sharp blue eyes.

  “Get away,” I shouted, crying. “Get away from me, I don’t want to hurt you!”

  Odysseus Grant ignored me. To my addled eyes he only had to touch the manacles and they snapped open. No doubt he used some escape artist’s trick. It was still too late. I couldn’t go back, Wolf was on the surface, taking over—

  —cornered. Blind rage and fear take over. No thought, only instinct. She roars, wanting to kill them all, to run, to find a place that smells like forest and home.

  But something happens, and the world stops. One moment, she’s looking at chaos, smelling blood and burning, enemies, hate. Then a darkness sweeps over her. The man, the cold-eyed one before her, does something and all falls silent. But the panic grows even more because she isn’t just cornered anymore, she’s boxed in, black on all sides, folding in, and it’s cold, and it smells of nothing. The emptiness tears at her, she opens her jaws to growl and makes no sound.

  Then it’s over. She’s standing in a small room. It isn’t forest and freedom, but it isn’t chains, burning weapons, or blood. It smells richly of human and is filled with human things. She doesn’t recognize the scent, the signature, the individual. Only that she still isn’t where she belongs, and while she might not be in danger, she isn’t home. She remembers the original quest: to search for her mate. Only when she finds him will she be well again.

  She sits back and howls, trumpeting to the low, artificial sky. The sound echoes back, too loud and close. She must call louder, he must hear her. Between long, sad cries, she runs against the door, claws at it, digs into the wood. She bounces off it and falls. The door holds. Doesn’t even rattle.

  She could do this for hours. Beat herself into exhaustion. She almost does, but something in her stops. The other side, her two-legged voice, tells her, “Stop.” Because she’s panting for breath and her paws are filled with splinters, her body bruised, she does. Curls up by the door and licks the pain from her feet. Too afraid to sleep, but weariness pulls her under.

  I woke up groggy and unhappy, without being able to remember exactly w
hy I should feel that way. When I sat up to take my bearings, the last few hours started to come back to me. Mostly because I was lying naked on the floor in a strange room. This wasn’t the first time I’d woken up naked in a strange place. It was never a good thing.

  A sofa sat against one wall, a long dressing table against the other. The place smelled of dust, sweat, and stage makeup. Then I recognized the smell, the signature— laundry starch and backstage. It was Odysseus Grant’s dressing room.

  He’d saved my life. Him, Evan, Brenda. Other faces I recognized from the bar at the Olympus but hadn’t met. The bounty hunters. This time, the great conspiracy was on my side.

  I’d Changed. I remembered starting to shift and losing control. Somehow, I’d survived while the silver bullets were flying, and Grant got me out of there. Without getting hurt, I hoped.

  I could almost work out what had happened. I had the images, the smells, the blurred memories from my half-shifted consciousness. I had none of the whys. I’d seen the temple, the Babylonian motifs, remembered Balthasar’s talk about the old gods, the sacrifice, needing someone half human, half animal. It almost made sense. It was a powerful bit of ritual.

  Then I’d been. . . what, rescued at the zero hour? By the bounty hunters and the cagey magician? How—

  My hands were rubbed raw, glowing red with a rash and stuck with splinters. Claw marks shredded the bottom half of the door. But it was a sturdy door, and Wolf hadn’t been able to get out. I was surprised I hadn’t really hurt myself in my panic.

  I remembered the panic.

  I grabbed a blanket from the sofa, wrapped myself, sat on the sofa, and shivered.

  When the door opened, I wrapped the blanket tighter around me, tucking my legs up under it.

  Grant poked his head in. “Are you all right?”

  I breathed out a sigh and nodded. “By the current definition of ‘all right,’ which means ‘not dead.’ ”

  “Usually a good thing.” He gave a tight-lipped smile.

  Usually? When was “not dead” not a good thing? I knew better than to ask a question like that, after everything I’d seen. “I don’t remember much. How did you get me out of there? Without me hurting anyone? I assume I didn’t hurt anyone.” My voice took a desperate edge. Shifting in a crowd was one of my worst nightmares. Grant didn’t look like he had any scratches or bite marks.

  “You didn’t. I was able to lock you in here. It all worked out.”

  “But—this is a mile away. How—”

  He raised an eyebrow in a look that seemed to say I was asking a silly question. Well, then.

  “Your clothes are on the chair. The shirt’s torn, but I can give you one to replace it,” he said, pointing to the chair by the table and mirrors. “And your phone’s been ringing.”

  I stumbled off the sofa and, blanket wrapped around me, raced for the pile of clothes. They’d been neatly folded, like I’d have expected anything else from Odysseus Grant. My phone was in my jeans pocket. The display showed four missed calls from Gladden over the last two hours. I could feel my heart beating behind my ears when I called him back. He answered on the first ring.

  “Detective Gladden? It’s Kitty Norville.”

  “Finally,” he said. “I figured you’d be waiting by the phone.”

  “I was. Then I fell asleep or something. I’ve been really worn out.” And none of that was a lie, exactly.

  “I got your message, but I think your lead must have been a bust, because a couple of hours ago we got an anonymous tip and found Faber’s base of operations. He’s definitely been running poker scams out of there, not to mention what looked like a couple of illegal high-stakes private games. Lots of good stuff for the Gaming Commission to get their claws into.”

  “What about Ben? Did you find Ben?”

  His sigh told me everything I needed to know. “We didn’t. I have to be honest with you, Ms. Norville. It looks like there was a fight of some kind. Some shots were fired, and there’s blood. Forensics is testing it now, and when we get a copy of Mr. O’Farrell’s medical records we’ll look for a match. In the meantime, the police are searching.” For a body, was what he didn’t say.

  Gunshots. It didn’t mean anything. Ben was a werewolf, almost invulnerable. Normal bullets would make him bleed a little, yeah, but that was about it. He was okay, he had to be. But where was he?

  “Isn’t there anything else you can do?” I said.

  “We’re doing everything we can.”

  “Ben only wanted to help catch the bad guys.”

  Gladden said, “I don’t suppose I have to tell you that if he contacts you, if you hear anything, please let me know?”

  “Yeah. Okay.” I switched off the phone. I stared at it for a long time. I even forgot that Grant was still leaning in the doorway.

  “If he’s anything like you are, I’m sure he’s fine,” he said.

  I chuckled quietly. “He’s better than I am.” And I had no idea where he was. Back to square one.

  “I’ll drive you back to your hotel, after you get dressed,” he said, then softly closed the door.

  He’d left one of his dress shirts for me to wear in lieu of my shirt that had been shredded. I gave myself a once-over in the mirror. I was a wreck: my hair was a tangled nest, the too-big shirt hung over my jeans and kept slipping off one shoulder, I didn’t have shoes, my face was pale, and my eyes were red. I looked like a woman who’d lost her fiancé in Las Vegas.

  And what kind of car did a guy like Odysseus Grant drive? An average car: white four-door, late-model sedan. A car you’d never notice.

  The sky was still dark, still night. I hadn’t even reached dawn, though it seemed like a week had passed. For the first time since I’d been in Vegas, the air felt cool. Nice, almost. That would vanish as soon as the sun rose, probably in an hour or so.

  During the drive, I tried to figure out how to ask Grant to come with me back to Balthasar’s stage. I wanted to see the place again. Reassure myself that it was real, that I hadn’t imagined it. Try to figure out who the woman was and what had really been going on there. It was all fuzzy.

  “Can I ask you something? The lycanthropes, Balthasar’s pack. The woman with the knife, and the altar. They were chanting Tiamat. What does it mean?”

  “Tiamat was worshipped in ancient Mesopotamia. In the mythology she was one of the original deities who helped create the world. But as often happens in these stories, the children rose up to destroy the parents. They killed Tiamat, and out of her body they created the earth and heaven. According to the true believers, we are all part of Tiamat, and she must be appeased if we want life to go on as it has. According to the stories, she had a band of demons. The Band of Tiamat, they were called, who defended her in the last battle with Marduk.”

  “So Balthasar re-created the Band of Tiamat.”

  “Or the priestess recruited them to re-create it, to preside over her own cult tucked away where no one would notice.”

  “Except for you. You’ve been watching them all along.”

  “Yes.”

  “But—what does it all mean?”

  “Tiamat is a goddess of chaos.”

  “Is? I thought she died. Her body is heaven and earth, all that jazz.”

  “Those stories are metaphors. You know that, yes?”

  “I majored in English. I’m all over metaphor. But what does a four-thousand-year-old metaphor have to do with a freaky retro cult in modern Las Vegas?”

  He gave me another of those “that’s a silly question” looks. Grim-faced, he watched traffic sliding along the Strip. Even at this hour, there was traffic.

  “Chaos is everywhere,” he said. “It would swallow us all, if it could.”

  We passed the Hanging Gardens on our way to the Olympus. Police cars, four or five of them, lights flashing, blocked most of the entrance. Investigating gunshots in the theater, no doubt. I felt sorry for the cop who had to write up that report.

  We pulled into the drive in front o
f the entrance of the Olympus. I opened the door and started to thank Grant, when he said, “I didn’t see any sign of your friend in that place. But I’m sure he’s all right.”

  I stared at my hands. My bare hands. “I lost my ring. When I shifted, probably. It’s probably still at that temple.” It was almost the last straw. Almost, I wanted to simply curl up under the covers of my bed and never come out again.

  “Check your left pocket,” Grant said.

  I did. All the way at the bottom, my fingers brushed something metal. Something small. When I pulled it out, I had my engagement ring, safe and sound. A diamond on a white gold band. White gold that looked like silver because Ben thought it was funny. I almost cried.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Everything will work out.” He smiled and glanced in the rearview mirror.

  Someone was walking up the sidewalk, scruffy and lanky, looking even worse than I did. But I knew him. I’d know him anywhere.

  I could only flash Grant a grin before leaping out of his car and running.

  Ben and I stopped with about three paces left between us. Not quite falling-into-his-arms distance. He wore what I last saw him in yesterday morning, but a bloody splotch covered the left side of the shirt. It was mostly dried and crusty now, but it smelled ripe.

  I stared. “You’ve been shot.”

  He smiled tiredly. “And you should have seen the look on the guy’s face when I didn’t fall down.”

  “Oh my God, Ben.” I fell into his arms, bloody shirt and all. His arms closed tightly around me. We stood like that for a long time, resting in each other’s embrace, smelling each other’s scent. I couldn’t guess where he’d been, he gave off such a mixed-up mess of smells, like a gangster movie if you could smell a gangster movie: sweat in a closed, hot room; blood; cigar smoke; booze. Women—other women. Hmm. . .

  After a moment he looked at me, his brow furrowed. “You smell like you’ve been running around with a bunch of were-somethings. You smell like you just shifted. Where have you been?”

  We must have been looking at each other with exactly the same befuddled expression. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”