Kitty Goes to Washington

Chapter 6

The committee staffers finally put me on the docket for that afternoon. I was beginning to suffer anticipation-induced, nail-biting anxiety. I just wanted to get it over with.

Ben and I walked down the hallway to the hearing room. Fifty feet or so away, I put my hand on his arm and stopped him.

I recognized the silhouette of the man leaning against the wall outside the door. I would have noticed him in any case. He was out of place here, wearing laid-back, Midwest casual—a black T-shirt, faded jeans, biker boots—at odds with the East Coast business fashions that predominated the capital. His leather jacket hung from one hand. The building security guards let him keep his belt holster—still holding his revolver.

I knew exactly what I'd see when the man turned to face us. He was in his early thirties, with brown hair, a trimmed mustache, and a lazy frown. When he was amused, the frown turned into a smirk, which it did now. Cormac.

Somebody let Cormac in here with a gun. What happened to security? How had he snuck by them? A moment of blind panic struck. I glanced around for the nearest exit, which was behind me—I could run there in no time.

A split second of reflection reminded me that the last time I saw Cormac, I'd almost invited him into my apartment for the night. Maybe the panic wasn't entirely fear-driven. I didn't want the confusion of having Cormac around.

"What the hell?" Ben murmured, catching sight of who I stared at.

Cormac shrugged himself away from the wall, crossed his arms, and blocked the hallway in front of us. Ben matched his pose, arms crossed and face a wry mask. Ben was a couple inches shorter and a bit slimmer than the hit man, but he matched him attitude for attitude, smirk for smirk.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Cormac said to him.

With a nonchalant shrug, Ben said, "Representing my client."

The weird part of it was, Cormac was the one who referred Ben to me. By all accounts, Ben was the reason Cormac wasn't in jail. Neither of them would tell me if Cormac ought to be in jail.

I butted in. "What are you doing here?"

His eyes lit up, like this genuinely amused him. "The committee wanted someone with experience to be on hand in case things get out of control. Duke called me, hired me on as extra security. Great, isn't it?"

Security had been around the entire week. Knowing Duke and his paranoia, I had assumed they were all armed with silver bullets. That was the thing about all the "special" methods used to kill supernatural beings: a stake through the heart or a silver bullet will kill anyone.

I might have been mistaken. Normal security might not have changed their routine at all. Rather than arming the regular guards with silver bullets, in case the werewolf called to testify went berserk, why not call in the expert? Cormac was a professional, as he was pleased to call himself. He was a bounty hunter/hit man who specialized in lycanthropes, and brought in a few vampires on the side for fun. We'd had some run-ins. We'd even helped each other out a couple of times, once I talked him out of trying to kill me. The man scared the daylights out of me. And now he was standing here with a gun, looking at me like hunting season had just been declared open.

It seemed that Duke's paranoia knew no bounds.

"You wouldn't really shoot me, would you?" I felt my eyes go large and liquid, puppy-dog eyes. After all we'd been through, I'd like to think he wouldn't be so happy about traveling across the country for a chance to kill me.

He rolled his eyes. "Norville, if I really thought you were going to get out of control, I wouldn't have taken the job. I've seen you in action, you're okay."

I looked at Ben for a cue. His wry expression hadn't changed.

"No, I'm not going to shoot you," Cormac said with a huff. "Unless you get out of control."

"If you shoot my client, I'll sue you," Ben said, but he was smiling, like it was a joke.

"Yeah? Really?" Cormac sounded only mildly offended.

Could Ben simultaneously sue Cormac for killing me while defending Cormac against criminal charges for killing me?

I was so screwed.

Also on the docket for the day were some folklorists from Princeton who gave prepared statements about how phenomena attributed to the supernatural by primitive societies had their roots in easily explained natural occurrences. When the floor opened to questions, I was almost relieved that Duke harried them as hard as he'd harried Flemming. The senator was after everyone, it seemed. He'd cornered Flemming on vampires. He cornered the folklorists on the Bible.

"Professor, are you telling me that the Holy Scripture that tens of millions of good people in this country swear by is nothing more than a collection of folklore and old wives' tales? Is that what you're telling me? Because my constituency would respectfully disagree with you on that score."

The academics just couldn't counter that kind of argument.

Duke called one of the committee staffers over and spoke for a few moments. Then he left. The remaining senators conferred, while the audience started grumbling.

Then Senator Henderson recessed the hearing for the day. I didn't testify after all.

Anticipation produced the worst kind of anxiety. It didn't matter how nervous about a show I was beforehand, how worried I was that a guest wouldn't show, or that I'd get a call I couldn't handle, or that I was presenting a topic that would get out of control, once the show started that all went away. I was only nervous when I sat there, doing nothing, inventing terrible stories of everything that could go wrong.

The longer I sat at the hearing without doing anything, the more nervous I got. I'd be shaking by the time I finally got up there to testify.

Cormac stayed in the back, leaning by the door, where he could keep an eye on the whole room. When the committee members left out the back and the audience was breaking up to leave, he came to our row and sat beside Ben.

"Has it been going like this the whole time?"

Ben crossed his arms and leaned back. "No. They've been totally businesslike until now. I wonder if they've lost interest."

I pouted. "That doesn't matter, they still have to let me talk. I drove all the way out here, I've been sitting here for three days—could they really not let me talk?"

"Theoretically, they can do anything they want," Ben said.

Case in point: one of Senator Duke's aides, a young man looking stiff and uncomfortable in his suit, came down the aisle toward us. I guessed he was Duke's aide—the senator had returned to the room and watched us closely from the side of the benches. The aide only glanced at Ben and me, then leaned in to whisper to Cormac.

"The senator would like a word with you, if you don't mind." He waited, then, like he expected to escort the bounty hunter that very moment.

Cormac deliberately picked himself up out of the chair, taking his time, then followed the aide to see Duke. The reason for the summons became clear at once. Duke didn't even need a microphone to be heard.

"You didn't tell me you were friendly with her!"

If Cormac answered, he kept his voice subdued, and I didn't hear him.

Duke replied, "Does conflict of interest mean anything to you?"

He apparently didn't know Cormac very well. Even I knew the answer to that one.

"You're fired! You're off security! I want you out of this building!"

With as little concern as he'd shown strolling up there, Cormac walked back, wearing a wry smile.

"So sue a guy for trying to make an easy buck," he said.

Ben asked, "Could we? Sue, I mean. Is there a breach of contract?"

"No," Cormac said, shaking his head. "I took a kill fee."

Ben hesitated, then said, "Kill fee. That's funny."

"No, it's not," I said, interrupting. "That's not funny at all."

Too bad they were both grinning. I gave a long-suffering sigh.

"Come on," Ben said. "We'd better get you out of here."

Flemming left just ahead of us. He'd tucked his briefcase under his arm, ducked his head, and strode out of the room like he was late for something. His gaze flickered over us as he passed; we were all staring at him.

"Who's that guy?" Cormac nodded after him.

"Dr. Paul Flemming," I said. "He heads the Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology. The committee spent the first two days grilling him."

"He a straight shooter?"

"Not in the least. I went to his office this morning and found him shredding a stack of documents. Just try to get a clear answer from him."

"Used to working under the radar. Going crazy now with the spotlight on him. He looks the type." Ben nodded in agreement.

I said, "What I want to know is: what's he hiding?"

Cormac pursed his lips thoughtfully. "You really want to know? We could find out."

"How? I've tried talking to him, I even had him on the show."

Ben said, "I've pulled everything on him I could—military record, academic record. He's got this scientific veneer over everything he does. Talks a lot, uses big words, doesn't say anything."

"We could break into his office."

I hushed Cormac. "Are you out of your mind?" He was talking like this in a government building. I looked around, but no one seemed to have heard.

"You know I can do it," he said. "Especially since it looks like I'm not busy for the next couple days after all."

He could do it. I didn't know where he learned how to do things like breaking into radio stations and government buildings, but he could do it.

Cormac could probably learn more in a couple of hours of breaking-and-entering than I had in months of wheedling. He grinned, because my hesitation was all the confirmation he needed to go ahead with the plan.

"Officially, I'm not hearing any of this," Ben said. "Unofficially, be sure to wear gloves."

Cormac huffed. "I think I've just been insulted."

"I'm only saying." Ben squeezed past us to the door. "You kids have fun."

Cormac turned to me. "Where's this guy's office?"

"Bethesda. At the Magnuson Clinical Center, in the basement."

"Show up there at about four. Go inside the building, I'll be watching for you."

"Four—in the morning?" I said.

"Four this afternoon," Cormac said.

"You want to do this in broad daylight?"

"Do you trust me or not?"

If he really wanted to shoot me, he'd had half a dozen chances. And I still couldn't answer that question. I swallowed a lump in my throat. "Do I really have to be there?"

"You're the one who knows what you want to find."

Ben said to me once that Cormac wasn't a crusader. He wasn't a werewolf hunter because he hated werewolves, or had a religious beef against them like Duke. Rather, he liked to see how close he could walk to the edge without falling off. He didn't have any loyalty to the government, the people who hired him, or anyone else.

Cormac was only planning this to see if he could. For him, it was a challenge.

"All right. Four o'clock this afternoon." I sighed, hoping to still my pounding heart.

"Bring gloves," he said, then stood and walked away.

This was a bad, bad idea. I knew it in my gut. You didn't just go breaking into government buildings in the best of times, and this wasn't the best of times. But if I didn't show, Cormac might break into Flemming's office without me. If he learned anything juicy, he'd keep the information from me out of spite.

I had to go.

I drove my car from the alley around the corner and found Luis waiting outside Alette's town house. He casually leaned on the wrought-iron fence that divided the property from the sidewalk. By all appearances he looked like he was out enjoying the unseasonable sunshine, pausing during a stroll. I pulled up to the curb in front of him, parked, and got out.

He beamed at me. He had a generous smile and sparkling eyes. My stomach fluttered.

"You're a hard person to track down," he said brightly. "I hoped to find you outside the Senate building, but you were already gone."

I winced in apology. I hated the idea of him running all over town after me—then again, it was awfully flattering. "I gave you my cell number, right? You should have called."

He shrugged. "Chasing you is more fun."

Spoken like a true predator. He stepped toward me, looking like he was getting ready to pin me against the car. Part of me wanted to dodge, to keep the chase going for a little longer. But I let him put his hands on my hips and lean forward for a kiss. I held his arms and pulled him close.

I glanced over his shoulder at the windows of Alette's townhome, hoping no one was watching.

Coming up for air, I said, "You shouldn't be here."

He followed my gaze back to the building. "I'm not afraid of them. Is it too early for me to take you to dinner?"

"I'd love that. But—" I wanted to pull my hair out. I couldn't believe I was going to turn down Luis to go play Mission: Impossible with Cormac. "But I can't. I set up a meeting and I can't miss it."

"Something for your show?"

"Yeah, something like that." It wasn't an outright lie. Most everything ended up on the show eventually. But Luis looked at me sidelong, like he knew I wasn't being entirely truthful. He could probably smell it on me, or sense the twitchy nervousness through my body.

He said, "The full moon is coming soon, in just a few days. Do you know where you'll be?"

I knew the full moon was coming soon. I couldn't forget. "No. I usually scout out a place to run, but I haven't had time."

"Come with me. There's a park about an hour outside town, a few of us drive there. It's safe."

Full moon night with friends. It had been a long time since I had anyone watching my back.

"I'd really like that. Thanks."

He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. "Then it's a date."

When one lycanthrope said to another, "run with me," it was usually a euphemism. I certainly hoped so.

"I should let you get to your meeting."

"Yes."

"Then until I catch you again." He touched my cheek, kissed me on the corner of my mouth, lingering for just a moment as if he'd draw the breath from me, then pulled back. He stepped away, grinning, and it was all I could do to keep from following him, step by hypnotized step.

He turned and continued down the street, hands tucked in his trouser pockets.

So where were all the seductive Brazilian hunks when I had time on my hands?

I picked up a visitor's badge, found my way to the Clinical Center building, and kept walking, like I was going to Flemming's office again: down the hall, around the corner to the elevators. At this point, I had no idea what I was doing. Cormac said he'd be watching for me.

It was easy for him to talk about sneaking into government buildings. He hadn't been accosted by Men In Black on his arrival in town. He wasn't having paranoid delusions about the hallway in the Senate building being bugged so that some security goon heard all our plans and was waiting for us to make the first move and catch us red-handed.

I clung to the wall, glancing around with wide eyes, convinced someone was following me.

I scented Cormac—his light aftershave and the faint touch of gun oil that never left him—just before he stepped around a corner and grabbed my arm. I still gasped and had to swallow back a moment of panic. This isn't danger, I'm not in danger. He put his hand against my back and guided me forward, so that we continued down the corridor, walking side by side, like we belonged here. He'd left his guns at home this afternoon.

We stopped by the elevators. Cormac pushed the button. No gloves, I noticed. Maybe that came later.

I leaned close and whispered, "I have to ask, aren't you worried that maybe somebody heard us? That maybe the FBI or something knows we're here and is watching us? I mean, we planned this inside a Senate office building. They probably read our lips off the video surveillance." I glanced over my shoulders. First one, then the other.

"Norville, the thing you have to understand is, the government is a big bureaucracy, and the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing most of the time. The fact that it gets anything done is a miracle. Nobody's paying attention to us. But they'll start if you keep acting like you're up to something. Stop looking around."

We didn't much look like we belonged here. Cormac was still wearing jeans and a T-shirt. I was only marginally better in slacks and a knit top. But he acted like we belonged here, and that was the key. Keep quiet, don't spend too much time looking around like you needed directions, and know where you're going.

The elevator opened, we stepped inside, after letting the few occupants exit: a couple of people in white lab coats, a woman holding a flower arrangement. She was dressed about like I was. Cormac was right. No one paid attention to us.

He pushed the button to send us to the basement, carrying on like we had an appointment with Flemming. By the time the doors opened to spit us out, my stomach was doing somersaults.

"We can't walk right into his office," I whispered at him, hoping I didn't sound as panicked as I felt. "What if he's there?"

"He won't be. I sent him on a wild goose chase."

"You what?"

He looked down his nose at me, the long-suffering stare that made me feel like an annoying younger sibling.

"I called him from a pay phone, said I knew him from the army and had information about his research, but I had to talk to him in person. I told him I was in Frederick." He pursed his lips in a wry smile. "He'll be gone for a couple of hours."

Frederick, Maryland. Some thirty-five miles away. Close enough for Flemming to think that following the lead was worthwhile, far enough away to keep him busy for a couple of hours. Flemming would be gone all afternoon, assuming he took the bait. Considering Flemming was more paranoid than I was, I could assume he had.

That was hilarious. I was beginning to think that Cormac hadn't just done this sort of thing before. I was sure he'd done it often.

Now, Cormac put on gloves, made of thin black leather. I followed suit, though mine were cheap knit ones I'd dug out of my car. Not nearly as cool as his. By the time we got to the door of Flemming's office, he'd pulled something out of his pocket: a card key.

"Where'd you get that?" I hissed.

"Janitor," he said. "Don't worry, I'll give it back."

Oh. My. God.

The lock clicked; the door slipped open.

I followed Cormac into the office. He closed the door smoothly behind me.

The office was dark. Cormac made no move to turn the lights on. Enough ambient light showed through the frosted window in the door to find our way around the room. My sight adjusted quickly. Quicker than Cormac's—I headed toward the paper shredder in the corner while he was still squinting.

The bin under the shredder was empty. So was the counter next to it. All those papers, gone. Of course they were, he'd spent the morning shredding them.

I started working my way through the remaining stacks of documents piled around the desk and bookshelves. They were all medical journals, published articles, photocopies of articles, dissertations, and the like. Some of them I'd dug up on my own. At first glance, none of them offered insight into Flemming's research. It was all background and supporting documentation. The bread, not the meat at the middle of the sandwich.

Cormac went to the desk to fire up the computers. After they'd booted up, the screens coming to life, he shook his head at me. "Password protected," he said. "Hacking isn't my strong suit."

No, he was a stolen key and .45 revolver kind of guy.

I wasn't prepared for serious digging. I'd assumed—wrongly—that in all this mess I'd find something just lying around, even with all the shredding going on. I studied the bookshelves, hoping for a spark of inspiration. The physiology reference books butted up against the folklore encyclopedias amused me.

I sighed, on the verge of defeat. "Let's see if we can get into the next room."

The second door also had a frosted window in it, but the other side was dark. I couldn't see anything through the glass. Cormac took out his trusty stolen card key, slid it through the reader, and popped the door open. The door swung away from him. He straightened and gestured me inside.

"After you."

I felt like I was stepping into an ancient Egyptian tomb. The place was so still, I could hear my blood in my ears, and it was cold with the kind of chill that seeped through stone underground. I could see well enough in the dark. The linoleum floor continued, and like the office this room had walls of shelves. It also had lab benches, sinks and faucets, and a large metallic refrigerator that hummed softly. Also, Flemming had here a good collection of the medical equipment I'd expected to find in his laboratory: racks of test tubes, beakers, Bunsen burners, and unidentifiable tabletop appliances plugged into walls. They might have been oscillators, autoclaves, the kind of things one saw on medical dramas on television, or in the dentist's office. Again, the place had more of the atmosphere of a college biology laboratory than a clandestine government research facility.

The far wall was made of glass, maybe Plexiglas. Behind it, the room continued, divided in two by a partition. I moved closer. Both extra rooms had a cot, a washbasin, and a simple toilet in the corner. The Plexiglas had doors cut into it, with handles only on the outside. The doors had narrow slots through which objects might be handed through. Like meal trays. They were cells.

Moving quietly, Cormac stepped beside me. "This is kind of fucked up."

Yeah. "Do you smell garlic?" One of the cell doors was open. I wasn't mistaken; inside, the scent of garlic grew strong. It wasn't like someone was cooking with it, or there was a chopped-up piece of it somewhere. It came from everywhere. I went to a wall, touched it, then smelled it. "Is it in the paint? Did they put garlic in the paint?"

"Check this one out," Cormac said from the next cell over. He shined a penlight over the wall, which glittered. Sparkling like silver—tiny shavings of silver, imbedded in the paint. I kept my distance.

Two cells. One for a vampire, one for a werewolf, designed to keep each of them under control using innate allergies. They looked like they'd been empty for a while.

The sheets were fresh, unwrinkled. They didn't smell occupied.

"Hands-on research, looks like," Cormac said.

Involuntary test subjects was what it looked like to me. My stomach hurt.

Cormac left the cell. "You seen enough?"

"Just a minute." I scanned the room one more time. Most of the paperwork had been moved to the office and shredded, it looked like. Nothing here but empty tables and defunct equipment.

To the side of the silver-lined cell, a clipboard hung on a nail. It looked like the kind of setup someone would use to keep medical records handy. It seemed rather forlorn and forgotten. I picked it up.

Only three sheets of paper were clipped to the board. They were charts, with a list of names. Names—jackpot. Quickly, I scanned them. First names only, maybe two dozen in all.

Halfway down the second page I read: Fritz, 6', 210 lbs., h.s. lupus. Homo sapiens lupus. It couldn't possibly be the same Fritz.

I flipped back to the first page and caught another name, one I should have noticed right away: Leo, 5' 9", 150 lbs., h.s. sanguinis. Vampire.

Riddle wrapped in an enigma… I wasn't sure I wanted to know how Flemming and Leo were tied together. I was about ready to buy into any conspiracy theory that came my way.

"This is it," I murmured. "This is what I need." I took it off the clipboard and started to fold it, to take it with me.

Cormac snatched the pages out of my hand. He stalked back to the next room and the tabletop photocopier parked near the shredder. The machine was so loud, and the scanning lights so bright, I thought surely security goons would find us. Quickly, in a perfectly businesslike manner, Cormac had the three pages copied. He handed the copies to me, clipped the originals back on the board, and returned it to its nail on the wall. He closed the door to the lab and made sure it was locked.

He shut down the computers and surveyed the room. Satisfied, he nodded. "Looks good. Let's get out of here."

After making sure the door to the hallway was locked, he stripped off his gloves and shoved them in a pocket. I followed his lead, then nervously curled the papers we'd liberated.

We took one detour before leaving the building. Cormac stopped at a closet in a side corridor on the main floor. True to his word, he slipped the key card into the front tray of the janitor's cart parked there. It only took a second.

We didn't speak until we were outside, walking down the sidewalk with a dozen other anonymous pedestrians. Daylight still shone, which seemed incongruous with the darkness of Flemming's offices and our clandestine activities there.

"And that is how you break into a government office," Cormac announced at last.

"Those Watergate boys could have learned something from you, eh?"

He made a disgusted huff. "What a bunch of posers."

Supper that evening was room service at Ben's hotel. Cormac sat on the bed, plate balanced on his lap, one eye on the news channel playing on the TV, volume turned way down. He and Ben drank beers, like a couple of college buddies. Maybe that was where they'd met.

We'd debriefed Ben on our field trip. The chart from the lab lay spread across the middle of the table.

Ben nodded at it. "Is this a copy or did you just take it out of his office?"

"It's a copy."

He pursed his lips and gave a quick nod, like he was happy with that answer. "Was it worth it?"

They both looked at me. I rubbed my forehead. My brain was full. "Yeah, I think so."

Ben said, "This doesn't prove anything, you know."

"I know people on that list. At least, I think I do. If I can track them down, they'll give me someone else to talk to." I hoped.

"Will they talk to you?" Cormac said.

"I don't know."

Ben leaned back in his chair. "Kitty, I know this Flemming character is suspicious as hell. But maybe he's exactly what he appears to be: an NIH doctor, ex-army researcher, nervous because he doesn't want his funding cut. What is it you think you're going to find?"

Fritz the Nazi. I wondered what kind of questions Flemming asked him, assuming he actually talked to his subjects. I wondered if Fritz told him the stories he wouldn't tell me. What would an ex-army medical researcher want to learn from a Nazi werewolf war veteran—

"Military application," I whispered. I swallowed, trying to clear my throat, because both men had set aside their forks and beers and were staring hard at me. "He told this story about a patient in a car accident, horrible injuries, but he walked out of the hospital a week later. Flemming seemed totally… entranced by it. By the possibilities. He talked about it in the hearing, remember? Curing diseases, using a lycanthrope's healing abilities. Imagine having an army of soldiers who are that hard to kill."

"If he has military backing he wouldn't need to be explaining himself to Congress," Ben said.

Cormac said, "Even if he's developing military applications, is there anything wrong with that?"

"There is if he's using people," I said. "He has jail cells in his lab."

"Look, I thought you liked what this guy was doing," Ben said. "That you wanted all this out in the open. You want him shut down now?"

"Yeah, I think I do."

"Why?"

I shrugged, because it was true. I'd loved seeing this stuff in the Washington Post. I was enjoying the respect. But I could still smell the garlic paint in the lab. "Because he's unethical."

I hadn't finished dinner, but I couldn't eat any more. It was dark now; time to see Alette. "Look, I won't be able to track one of these guys down until tomorrow, but I think I can find the other one tonight. I'm going to go do that."

"Need company?" Cormac said. Read: need help?

"No thanks, I'll be fine. I think." I collected the pages from Flemming's lab.

"You might want to think about making a copy of those," Ben said. "Maybe put them in a safety deposit box. Just in case."

"Or mail 'em to someone," Cormac said. "With a note to open it if anything happens to you. If you get in trouble you can use it as a threat and not be lying."

"Or you could not do it, say you did, and use it as a threat anyway." Ben said this pointedly at Cormac, weighing the statement with significance.

Cormac gave his best shit-eating grin. "Would I do something like that?"

Ben rolled his eyes. "I'm taking the Fifth on that one." I stared. "Uh, you two go way back, don't you?" They exchanged a look, one of those familiar, it'd take too long to explain the inside joke looks. "You're not going to tell me, are you?"

"You're better off not knowing," Ben said. Now I wanted to run to the nearest Internet connection and dig up what nefarious plot these two had cooked up in the distant past. At least, I assumed it was the distant past. Maybe I should get a different lawyer. Except it would take too long to explain everything to a new one.

I wanted to show the list to Alette, both to find out if she knew any of the Homo sapiens sanguinis represented, and to rat out Leo. Yeah, I was tattling, and it hadn't felt this good since I was eight and ratted out my twelve-year-old sister's stash of R-rated videos. If she'd only let me watch with her, she could have kept the TV in her room.

I rushed into the foyer, pausing a moment to debate whether to look in the parlor or the dining room, or find Emma or Bradley and ask them where'd she be. Think, if I were the head vampire, where would I be?

A touch brushed my shoulder. I gasped and turned, shock frying my nerves. Leo stood behind me, calmly, as if he'd been there all evening, watching the scenery. I could have sworn he hadn't been in the foyer when I entered the house. But I hadn't sensed him approach, I hadn't seen him, smelled him, or heard him.

"Hello, there," he said lightly. "Can I help you with something?"

I wanted to punch him. "What the hell is your problem?"

"You're so easy to rile up, can you blame a man for trying?"

"Yes, yes, I can."

"Ah. Well, then." He strolled, circling around me, blocking the exits.

He was teasing me. That was all. Provoking me, like he said. I took a deep breath, determined to calm down.

"I have a question for you," I said, trying to sound bright and unperturbed. "What do you know about Dr. Flemming?"

He shrugged. "Government researcher. What would you like me to know?"

"I've spoken with him. Your name came up." Both were true, in themselves.

"Really? What did he say about me?"

"Nothing. He's closemouthed. That's why I'm asking you."

"And I'm openmouthed, am I?" He smiled to show teeth and fang. Then his expression softened. "I might have spoken with him a time or two."

"About what?"

"This and that. About being a vampire. I was—how would you call it?—a native informant." He started pacing, hands in his trouser pockets, gaze downturned. "I'll give him this much, he knows his subject. At least, he knows enough to know where to find us, if he wants to. Then, would you believe he simply asks nicely? He proves how much he knows, and you don't feel bad about answering his questions. You become just another data point. There's nothing more to it."

I had a hard time picturing Flemming traveling the streets, finding his way to a place like the Crescent, notepad and tape recorder in hand, and asking nicely.

"What did you tell him? What's it like being a vampire?"

He looked away for a moment, his gaze distant and thoughtful. It seemed he did have another personality buried in there somewhere.

"Time almost stands still," he said. "The world seems to freeze for a moment. You're able to study every little piece of it. All the microscopic points become clear. And you move through this world like a lion on the veldt. You realize everything is yours for the taking. All you have to do is reach out and grab hold of anything you like. Anyone you like."

In the next beat of time he stood beside me. Brushing my hair aside, he breathed against my neck, a faint, warm sigh. No teeth, no threat, only a caress. I shivered, but didn't move away from him. For some reason, I didn't move away.

"Is that what you expected to hear?" he said.

I turned and glared. But he hadn't done anything. They were only words.

I knew better than anyone what a person could do with mere words.

"Is that what being a vampire is all about?" I said. "Is that why you're such an arrogant prick?"

He laughed. "An arrogant prick? Really? I suppose that's how it must appear to the rest of you. But to us, you're little more than a bit of hair floating on the breeze. We don't care what you think."

"Not all vampires are like that. I've met some who are reasonable human beings." One or two. Maybe. "That's all Flemming's doing? Collecting stories? Gathering true-life accounts?"

"I'm sure that's not all he's doing. He's a medical doctor, isn't he? He's probably doing some blood tests on the side. I know I would." He licked his lips.

"What if I told you Flemming has a lab with holding cells? One of them has garlic in the paint, like it was meant to subdue a vampire. What if it looked like he was holding test subjects against their wills?"

His gaze had been wandering, studying the room as if he were a fan of interior design, unconcerned. Now, he focused on me, suddenly interested. I almost took a step back. Though if I'd taken one step, I might have gone ahead and run all the way out of the room. Leo's interest was not something I wanted.

"That would be extremely dangerous and foolish of him if he had done so," he said. "Even if he could trap a vampire, he could never again release it—and survive." His lips parted and he showed his teeth, the sharp points of his fangs.

"Unless he's really good with a stake," I said.

"In-deed?" That British accent could make one word take on a world of meaning.

"Ah, Kitty, you've returned." Alette, queen of her domain, strode into the foyer, smartly dressed and elegant as always, looking like she was on her way from one task to another. She acknowledged Leo with a nod and stopped before me to regard me with that prim nod that made me feel like I'd somehow fallen short of her standards, and that I would always fall short. "I expected you back some time ago. I hope your tardiness means you've had a productive afternoon?"

This was where I ponied up that information I promised her. The only question was, how much did I tell her? "I've learned that Flemming has holding cells for vampires and werewolves in his lab. I think he's been keeping test subjects against their wills."

"By test subjects you mean vampires and lycanthropes? Do you know how he could possibly hold such beings against their wills?" Her disbelief was plain in her tone.

"I don't know, but he's done it," I said, frustrated. "Here, look at this. He's been talking to people." I showed her the list, being sure to point out Leo's name on the first page.

Alette looked at him. "You've been speaking with Flemming?"

I wanted Leo to squirm like a kid who'd been caught lying. I wanted him to blush, look abashed, duck his gaze, something. He stood quietly and completely unruffled.

"Yes," he said. "I have. The good doctor's been going around collecting folktales. I talked to him on the assumption that such conversations work both ways. I've been a bit of a double agent, if you like." He flashed his devil-may-care smile.

"You didn't see fit to tell me of this?" Alette said.

"Because I didn't learn anything. Which leads me to think he isn't hiding anything." He said this pointedly to me. "He really is just an earnest scientist in danger of losing his funding."

Why didn't I buy that?

Alette did. She gave a satisfied nod and handed the pages back to me. "Have those cells been recently occupied?"

"I couldn't tell," I said. I hadn't smelled anything. "I don't think so."

"We'll continue to watch Flemming. Your vigilance should be commended, Kitty. But don't let it become paranoia."

Leo said to Alette, "My dear, you seem to be in the middle of some chore. Might I be of service to you?"

"Always, Leo." He offered her his arm, and she took the crook of his elbow. She gave me one last glance over her shoulder as they left the foyer.

I had no way of knowing who to believe. I wanted to think well of Alette, and if she trusted Leo I shouldn't question it. She'd known him longer than I had. Maybe Flemming really was harmless, and all the cloak-and-dagger shenanigans with Cormac had been a waste of time. I felt like I was working my way through a maze. I hated mazes.

This town was getting to me.