Kitty Raises Hell

Epilogue

This time, I was excited about going to visit Cormac in prison.

This wasn’t to say I usually hated going. Hate wasn’t the right word. Seeing how Cormac was doing, live and in person, on a regular basis, was reassuring. But the situation was uncomfortable. The prison, even the visitors’ room, smelled like being trapped to the Wolf side. I hated to think of Cormac being trapped, and he looked terrible in orange.

I brought a file folder with me and, along with Ben, grinned at Cormac through the glass.

“You found something,” he said.

“I did,” I said.

“Which means, I assume, that the demon problem is all fixed and everything’s okay.”

“Would I be smiling if it weren’t?” I said.

“Sorry,” Ben said. “We forgot to tell you. The genie is bottled and everything’s okay.”

Cormac pointed. “See, I know when the problems are solved even when you don’t tell me, because you just stop talking about them. And did you say genie?”

“Can I tell you about your executions now?” I said quickly, opening the folder. He leaned forward, interested. “If you take in the twenty or so years before and after 1900, there were about half a dozen women executed. There was only one woman executed in 1900.”

“What was her name?” Cormac said.

“Amelia Parker. Her story’s a little different.” I even managed to dig up a few scraps of information here and there, a footnote in an old history book, a couple of hundred-year-old newspaper articles copied off microfiche. I talked like I was delivering a lecture. “Lady Amelia Parker. British, born 1877, the daughter of a minor nobleman. By all accounts, she was a bit of a firebrand. Traveled the world by herself, which just wasn’t done in those days. She was a self-taught archeologist, linguist, folklorist. She collected knowledge, everything from local folk cures to lost languages. She has her own page in a book about Victorian women adventurers.”

Something lit Cormac’s eyes, some recognition, familiarity. He knew something. I stopped myself from calling him on it and demanding that he tell me, because I wasn’t finished with Amelia’s story yet.

“She came to Colorado to follow an interest in Native American culture and lore but was convicted of murdering a young woman in Manitou Springs. The newspaper report was pretty sensationalist, even for 1900. Said something about blood sacrifice. There were patterns on the floor, candles, incense, the works. Like something out of Faust. The newspaper’s words, not mine. She was convicted of murder and hanged. Right here, in fact. Or at least, in this area, at the prison that was standing here at the time.”

Cormac leaned forward. “The victim. How did she die? Did it say what happened to her?”

“Her throat was cut.”

He chewed his lip and stared off into space.

“What is it?” He didn’t say anything, and I pressed. “You know something. This all makes sense to you. Why? How?”

Finally, he shook his head. “I’m not sure. May be nothing. But she’s got a name. It’s not all in my head.”

“What isn’t?”

He looked at me, square on. “She didn’t kill that girl. She was trying to find out who did. What did.”

I blinked. “What do you mean what?”

“Never mind,” he said, leaning back and looking away. “I’ll tell you when I know more.”

“Why is she important?” I said. “She’s been dead for over a hundred years.”

His smile quirked. “And you really think that’s the end of it? You’ve been telling ghost stories for years. Are you going to sit here now and tell me it isn’t possible?”

For once, I kept my mouth shut.

Ben leaned forward and smirked. “She just doesn’t like the idea that someone else is having adventures without her.”

“I’ll have you know I’m looking forward to a good long adventure-free streak from here out,” I said.

They chuckled. No, actually, they were doubled over and turning red in the face with laughter. At me.

“A month,” Cormac said finally, wheezing. “I bet you don’t go a month without getting into trouble.”

“How are we defining trouble?” I whined, irate. “Are we talking life-or-death trouble or pissing-off-the-boss trouble? Hey, stop laughing at me!”

Which only made them laugh harder, of course. I growled.

Ben straightened and got serious. “I’m not taking that bet.” Cormac shrugged as if to say, oh, well.

I closed the folder. “I could try to mail this to you, but I’m not sure it would get past the censors.”

“Just hang on to it for me,” he said.

“Right,” I said.

We had a whole box of stuff waiting for when he got out. A whole world waiting.

A couple of months later, Paradox PI broadcast an entire episode on the Band of Tiamat and its aftermath. Peter dug up all kinds of dirt on the Band of Tiamat and their King of Beasts cover operation, including evidence that the group had been quietly murdering werewolves for almost a decade. They did a class job on the episode, bringing in experts with opinions on all sides of the debate. What could have been an exploitative show featuring fire and mayhem ended up being a fairly reasoned documentary on spells, djinn, and what happens when magic goes awry. Which wasn’t to say they didn’t air plenty of footage of flaming chaos.

Some skeptics still claimed that we’d staged the whole thing. I didn’t care, because the djinn was gone and Denver was safe. And we got in a big old plug for The Midnight Hour.

I also forwarded all the data to my contacts at the NIH’s Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology. Let those guys see if they could figure it out. Did a being made of fire even have biology?

We had a party at the refurbished and open-for-business New Moon when the episode broadcast. Rented a couple of big-screen TVs, served up lots of beer and pizza. Even my parents and Cheryl and her family came. I kind of wished they hadn’t, since I’d have to suffer my mother’s appalled expression when she realized what was really going on during those weeks. Maybe I could convince her that we’d staged the whole thing and hadn’t really been in danger. Enough skeptics out there were already claiming it.

A bunch of people from KNOB were there, as well as a good chunk of my pack. The Paradox PI team—Gary, Jules, and Tina—also came back for the party. The place was filled.

Shaun had plenty of staff on hand, but I still found myself carrying pitchers of beer and bouncing from table to table trying to be social with everyone at the same time. I was getting flustered playing hostess for so many people. So many disparate parts of my life had come together. Part of me wanted to run, but I clamped down on that side of my psyche.

Another part of me felt a thrill at being in charge, being on top of it all, being at the center. Rick had said that—being at the center of the pattern. Bringing people together. I felt pride in what was happening here, and that was new. I liked it.

Ben grabbed my hand when I happened to drift close enough to our table in the corner. “Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

I was flustered, and he’d noticed, which made the world a little sunnier. Squeezing his hand, I sank into the chair next to him. “I’ve decided it’s my job to make sure everyone has a good time.”

He chuckled. “How’s that working out for you?”

“I think it’s really good that we hired Shaun to run the place,” I said.

“Hey, Kitty,” Gary called. He, Tina, and Jules were sitting at a table halfway across the room. It pleased me that I now had a few more people I could hit up for information the next time something bizarre happened. Cormac was right. There would probably be a next time, and sooner than I liked.

Ben and I squeezed hands again, and I flitted off to be social with them.

“You guys okay? Need any more drinks? Any more food?” I asked.

“Maybe you should take a break for a minute.” Gary pulled an empty chair out from the table and nodded at it, encouraging me to sit.

“Of course, it’s nice to be worrying about not enough beer instead of demonic death,” I said, sitting with a sigh.

Gary had turned away to pull a manila folder out of an attaché case. He handed it to me. All three of them looked expectant.

“What’s this?” I said.

“We finally got a translation of the Arabic from the last séance. That’s the transcript. Thought you might be interested.” The video feed of us capturing the djinn had cut out, but one of the microphones inside the house had recorded the creature’s last ravings.

Of course I was interested. I started reading, and it was what I expected: curses, threats, some of them pretty creative. My favorite was the one that went, “You pathetic creatures of flesh and dirt, animals of crude matter.” And so on.

“Look at the end,” Tina said.

The last line. What it was ranting when it realized we had trapped it, when it was being drawn into the bottle. The transcript read, “No, please. I have a wife, a family. I had to do these things, the priestess forced me, she would not release me until I did these things. I am not evil, have pity on me, please.”

For a moment, I felt sick. We had condemned a sentient being to supernatural imprisonment, without trial and without recourse. The priestess had controlled it. In some ways, it had been as much a victim as the rest of us.

But it had killed Mick, and others. I kept coming back to that.

I set my expression and looked back at them, keeping any pity at bay. “It’s a manipulation. It wanted us to feel pity. To feel guilty. It’s still a murderer and deserved what it got.”

This was supposed to be a celebration, and now I was getting depressed. I needed another drink. I’d set my last beer somewhere and couldn’t find it now.

“Hey, Kitty!”

I turned and saw Peter Gurney standing by the door. His appearance was the same as always, kind of scruffy in his army jacket and biker apparel. But he looked better now: stood a little straighter, smiled a little more. He wasn’t so angry anymore.

After the confrontation with the Tiamat cult, I’d asked him what he’d planned on doing. Turned out Paradox PI made him an offer—they could use another person on the team, and Peter passed the audition. He brought his investigative skills to the show and played the part of their junior member in training.

“You made it!” I said, standing to meet him as he came over to join us. We hugged briefly, and he waved at the others, who all waved back. “Come on, sit down.”

He did, then pulled something from his coat pocket. “I brought this for you. Just to say thanks.”

“Thanks for what?”

“For filling in the blanks about Ted. For being his friend.”

He handed over a snapshot. It was T.J. A younger, cockier one than the guy I’d known. He was thin, with rough-and-tumble hair, looking very James Dean in a white T-shirt, tight jeans, and biker boots. Arms crossed, he was leaning against a motorcycle with lots of black and chrome, an older model I didn’t recognize, not the finicky Yamaha he’d had when I knew him.

“This was right before he left home,” Peter said. “He was eighteen. Just got his first bike. Looking back, I think he planned it all out. He worked, bought the bike himself. Bought himself a way to escape when Mom and Dad kicked him out. He expected them to kick him out. I know he never could have taken me with him. But I still wish... I don’t know. I wish he’d stayed safe.”

I had to smile, and I had to cry a little at the same time. I had a little piece of T.J. outside my memory now.

“Thank you very much for this,” I said.

“It’s the least I could do. It means a lot to know there’s someone else who feels the same way about him.”

“That your brother?” Tina said, craning her neck to look over the table.

“Yeah,” Peter said, and I handed Tina the picture, which she studied.

“Hm. Cute,” she said. “We could use more like him batting for our side.”

I almost laughed at the joke, but I had to stop and think: Had any of us mentioned to her that T.J. was gay? Had she overheard Peter and I talking about it? Before I could ask, Peter was talking.

“I know it was stupid of me to think you could talk to him on cue,” Peter said, shrugging inside his canvas coat. “I was assuming he’d have something to say to me.”

A thoughtful expression pursing her features, Tina slipped the photo back to me. Then she reached in her purse.

She said, “Peter, what do you know about automatic writing?”

“Nothing, I guess.”

But Gary raised his eyebrows, and Jules dropped his jaw.

“You’re not serious,” Jules said. “Are you serious?”

“What?” Peter said. “What is it?”

“Just open it,” Tina said, handing him an envelope.

We watched him intently as he tore open the envelope. He pulled out a sheet of paper, slowly unfolded it, and went a bit ashen. Looking over his shoulder, I could see mostly white, with just a line of handwritten text. He must have read it a dozen times, his eyes flicking back and forth.

Then he dropped the page, covered his eyes, and took two or three deep, shuddering breaths.

“I’m sorry. This probably wasn’t the time or place for this,” Tina said.

The page was lying there on the table. I couldn’t help but read it. It said: “Petey. Let it go.”

My eyes instantly teared up. It was like a Pavlovian reaction. I couldn’t control it, the tears just happened, in response to the implication of the note. If Tina could do what she said she could, these were his words. This was as close and as real as he’d been in over a year.

And he was telling us to move on. To let him go.

When Peter straightened and raised his head, his eyes were dry. “No. That’s okay. Thank you, I guess. I can almost hear him,” he said, chuckling. “Like a voice over my shoulder. I haven’t seen him in ten years, and it’s still hard to think he’s gone.”

I touched his arm. Like that would do any good. I could almost hear T.J.’s voice, too. I’d also had a voice whispering over my shoulder.

“It’s funny,” Tina said. “We try so hard to hold on to them. I think every ghost story, even the scary ones, is about the fear of dying. We don’t want people to just end. So we tell stories where they don’t. We try our damnedest to talk to them. We’ll believe anything. But I think if we asked them, the ones who are gone, they’d tell us to get on with our lives.”

Funny. I didn’t imagine Mick saying that. I imagined him saying, You were supposed to protect us.

Let it go, Kitty.

With an obvious flourish to break the mood, she drew out another sealed envelope. “I have something for you guys, too.” She put it on the table between Gary and Jules.

“What’s this?” Jules said.

“Remember the episode we did on Harry Houdini? About how he vowed that if there was a way to communicate from the great beyond, he’d do it?”

It took us all a minute to register the implications of that. Of that and her. My eyes got real big. “No way.”

In a near-frenzy, Jules tore open the envelope.

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Gary said.

Tina said, “I couldn’t say anything about it without blowing my cover or coming off sounding like a quack. We’d just debunked three fake examples of automatic writing. I couldn’t exactly say, ‘Yeah, here’s the real thing’ and not say where it came from. But. Well. I thought you’d be interested.”

Gary and Jules leaned in to read the sheet.

“What’s it say?” I was nearly out of my seat.

The note read, “Everyone who knew my codes is dead, this will not work, no one will believe you. But thank you for trying.”

“You’re having one over on us,” Jules said.

Tina said, “Here’s the thing. Most of the psychics are trying to contact Harry Houdini. How many of them ever try to contact Ehrich Weiss?”

Ehrich Weiss was Houdini’s given name. The really funky thing about it? The handwriting was different than the writing on Peter’s note. Wildly different. More different than someone could fake, unless they were really good.

I asked Tina, “You wrote these both?”

“I held the pen,” she said.

“Peter,” I said. “Does that look anything like T.J.’s handwriting?”

“I don’t really know. I could check, though.”

Then we’d have to compare the other note to samples of Houdini’s writing. God, this was weird.

“It’s like the channeling Arabic, isn’t it?” Jules said.

“I don’t understand it,” Tina said. “That’s why I hooked up with you guys, remember? Somebody’s got to figure out a way to explain stuff like this.”

In the end, maybe that was what separated the real paranormal investigators from the charlatans. The charlatans kept up the aura of mystery and obfuscation. The real investigators kept asking why and how.

“Hey, it’s starting!” Shaun announced, punching at the remote to turn up the volume on the TV. The show’s intro came up, and there was a cheer. Everyone turned to look at the Paradox crew’s table. I beamed at them proudly.

“Have fun, guys. Let me know if you need anything.”

I’d meant to sit down with Ben again, and not get up for the rest of the evening, but I saw Rick standing in the doorway. I went to meet him.

“I invited you in once already, isn’t it supposed to keep working?”

“The invitation stands. I just can’t stay long,” he said. “I only wanted to say congratulations on the publicity.” He nodded at the screen, which now showed my grinning face talking to Tina. I might actually get used to this TV thing someday. I seemed to be showing up on it more and more often.

“Thanks. But I think you owe me some stories, after everything I went through. Doc Holliday and Central City stories. And Coronado. And Spain.”

He twitched the sly smile that meant I wasn’t going to get any stories this time. “You never give up, do you?”

“Nope,” I said. “Not anymore. Not ever.”

“Good,” he said softly.

My smile fell. “I guess you haven’t heard anything about Roman. Where he ended up, what he’s doing now?”

“No. But I’m counting that a blessing at the moment. The usual request still stands. If you hear anything—”

“Same with you. Don’t treat me like I’m an ignorant underling. No more of this you-puny-mortals-wouldn’t- understand garbage.”

“All right. I promise.”

With a guy like Rick, that promise really meant something.

I glanced over at Ben, intending to see if there was space at our table where we could invite Rick to sit. But when I turned back to Rick, he was gone. Back to being all inscrutably vampiric and vanishing in plain sight.

So it was just me who returned to the table and sat next to Ben. “How are you doing?”

He donned a vague smile. “This feels like the first time in weeks I’ve been able to sit and catch my breath.”

“Amen,” I said.

We leaned back, our chairs against the shelter of the wall behind us, and gazed out over our realm. He squeezed my hand.

“I’m thinking of something else,” he said.

“Yeah? What?”

“You want to go out?”

Wolf perked up her ears. She knew what “out” meant, like any canine wanting to go for a run. I played obtuse. “Like on a date?”

“Sort of. Maybe out to that open space west of 93.”

“Full moon’s a week away,” I said.

“I know. But I keep thinking about waking up in the cold air curled up with you. No one around, just the two of us. Leave the kids at home.”

You know, it actually sounded romantic.

“I don’t like to make a habit of that sort of thing.”

He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close until he was whispering in my ear, his lips tickling against me, almost but not quite kissing me. I wanted to lean into him until he had to kiss me.

“Here’s the thing,” Ben said. “Who says we have to shape-shift in order to go out in the woods, get naked, and make out under the stars?”

Oh my. That flush reached all the way to my toes. My face felt like it had caught fire. Metaphorically speaking. There was something to be said for having one’s inhibitions lowered. I never would have done anything like this before becoming a werewolf.

I turned my head, leaning my forehead against his. “I think you just got yourself a date,” I whispered back.

Paradox PI had just gotten to the part where New Moon was on fire. The audience was riveted, staring ahead, completely enthralled. Good thing Ben and I were sitting in the back. Moving quietly along the wall, we slipped to the door, then crept outside. If anyone noticed, they didn’t complain.

Ben and I drove away, to wilderness and star-filled skies.