Kitty's House of Horrors

Chapter 20

Tina, Jeffrey, and Grant were in the kitchen, tending to the magician’s hands with ointment and bandages. Someone must have found a first-aid kit. Grant’s jaw was taut, and he bore what must have been terrible pain without flinching.

Leaning on the counter, I watched, wondering what to do now. I asked myself what Cormac would do, and I couldn’t think of an answer anymore. No, that wasn’t true. He’d hole up somewhere defensible with a case of ammunition and shoot anything that moved.

Not a bad idea, that.

Jeffrey said, “Kitty, you should get some sleep. You look like you’re about to collapse.”

My muscles ached; my brain hurt. And the walls were closing in. “So do you.”

“Is there a plan?” Tina said.

I shook my head. “I’m all out of plans.”

“Anastasia can’t leave until nightfall,” Grant said, forcing his voice to stay steady. “Getting sleep in the meantime isn’t a bad idea. We can rest in shifts while the others keep watch.”

“They’re still out there,” Tina said. “You think they’re still after us?”

“Of course they are,” Grant muttered, harsh with pain.

“But they have to sleep, too,” Jeffrey said. “Maybe they’ll leave us alone for a while.”

Maybe they would. Maybe we’d have a few hours’ respite. “I’ll take the first watch,” I said.

“No,” Jeffrey said. “Tina’s right, you’re half asleep already.”

“I’m fine.”

He touched my shoulder and guided me to the second sofa, and I was too tired to shrug him off.

I woke up not knowing how I managed to fall asleep at all, but exhaustion had caught up with me. But I didn’t exactly feel refreshed. I still felt hunted, all my muscles tied in knots, my hackles permanently taut. When I looked around the living room, it was with suspicion, searching for the thing that was wrong. Looking to see who was missing now.

Grant was asleep on a bed of blankets on the floor by the fireplace. His injured hands wrapped with gauze bandages lay on his chest. Tina was slumped in a chair, also asleep. Jeffrey sat in a chair near the window, out of sight from the outside, where another beautiful sunny day in the mountains shone through.

Conrad, sitting up, his injured leg stretched out on the other sofa, was awake and looking at me. He actually seemed a little better—more relaxed, not so pale. His leg had been washed and bound with gauze and tape. Blood still seeped through the bandages. He really needed a hospital. That goal seemed a tiny bit out of our reach at the moment.

“Hi,” I said, slowly drawing myself into the moment.

“Hi,” he answered.

“What’s been happening? What have I missed?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been kind of out of it. The others have been taking turns keeping watch.”

“How are you doing?” I asked.

He smiled wryly and shook his head. “It’s gone numb.”

That couldn’t be a good sign. “We’ll get out of this. Everything’ll turn out.”

That sounded lame, didn’t it? I glanced away in apology.

His voice was soft but steady now. As long as he didn’t move, the pain seemed manageable. “You’re married, right?”

“Yeah.” The reminder of Ben sent an ache through my heart. I couldn’t think about him right now—just think about getting through the next few hours.

“You have kids?” he said.

“No.”

“You want kids? Are you and your husband trying for them?”

My smile got tighter as the old wound twinged in my gut. “It’s not a matter of what I want. Lycanthropes can’t carry a baby to term. Shape-shifting causes a miscarriage.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Life’s a bitch.”

“I didn’t think I wanted them. My wife—Trish—talked me into it. I could never say no to her. But when Toby came along—God, I didn’t think I’d feel that way. It’s like the whole world shifted so everything centered on him. This amazing little thing. Toby, then Hannah…”

He wiped his nose on his shirt. That whole life-flashing-before-your-eyes thing? Maybe it happened sometimes, but I had a feeling that just three faces were flashing before Conrad’s eyes.

“We’re going to get out of this,” I said weakly. “You’ll see them again.”

He gave a painful chuckle. “Yeah. Sure. Okay.” Unconvinced.

“Get some rest,” I said. “In case we have to go running again.”

“I want to be awake. When the next thing happens, I don’t want to be asleep.”

Yeah. I got that.

“Jeffrey?” Conrad craned his neck, looking for the psychic, wincing as he jostled his leg.

Jeffrey came over. He didn’t look any better than the rest of us. A beard had started growing, his hair was shaggy and uncombed, and his face was pale. Jeffrey was one of the most upbeat people I knew. I’d never seen him so grim. He didn’t even speak, just waited for Conrad to continue.

“Jeffrey,” he said, full of emotion. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t believe. I want—can I talk to Natalie? I want to talk to her. Can you help me?”

Jeffrey smiled, though sadly. “Just talk to her, Conrad. She’ll hear. She’s always heard you.”

“And my kids. If anything happens to me, I’ll still be able to see them, I can talk to them—will you help me talk to them? I just want them to know—”

“Don’t think about it,” Jeffrey said. “It’s not worth thinking about.” He went back to the window, staying at the edge, sneaking careful looks out. He was tense, arms crossed, jaw set. I wanted to hug him. Like that would help.

Conrad settled back on the sofa, staring miserably into space.

I went to find something to eat. Drank a cup of flat soda and a slice of bread and peanut butter that went down like sawdust.

“Tina, Grant, Kitty—” Jeffrey called. The others woke and sat up instantly; they may not have slept at all. “I saw something. They’re out there—one of them is, at least. In the trees there.”

“What do you see?” Grant said. He didn’t act injured at all, except that he kept his hands cradled in front of him, sheltered.

“I think it’s Provost.”

I thought for a minute. “You think we can catch him?”

Grant said, “Where’s the rifle?”

“We lost it with Lee,” I said, thinking I probably should have picked it up. I consoled myself by believing it had been damaged in the explosion. “Who has the handgun?”

Looking around, I found it on the kitchen counter. I grabbed it, checked the ammunition. Still full.

“Can you use it?” Tina said.

“I’d have to get out in the open—he’d get me before I got him,” I said.

Jeffrey said, “So that’s it? We’re talking about killing him?”

I said, “I think we’re firmly in them-or-us territory. As nice as it would be to see them convicted of murder, they’re not going to sit still for that.”

Jeffrey looked at Grant. When the psychic spoke, he sounded unhappy. Maybe he dealt with enough death that he didn’t want to go around causing it. “You have a spell for this? Maybe some of the hypnotism?”

“I’d need to use my hands,” Grant said, moving to the window. “Where?”

Jeffrey told him, describing the place at the edge of the clearing, near Valenti’s old spot.

“What is it you keep saying, Kitty?” the magician said. “Flush them out?”

“Who gets the short straw on that one?” I said.

“What if you went out the back? Then shifted to your wolf form and came at him from behind? He’s looking for people coming out the front.”

I had so many arguments against that plan. It was a horrible plan. As hyped up as I was at the moment, I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t turn wolf and head for the hills, never to be seen again. I might try to join that pack of wild wolves we’d run into. Then again, I was pissed off enough that I might be all too happy to go after Provost and tear him to shreds. But if I didn’t kill him, if he didn’t die—I never wanted to be responsible for infecting another person with this disease. Even someone like Provost. Especially someone like him. Homicidal bastard as werewolf? Bad scene, there.

“You’re not saying anything,” Grant said.

“I think you’re overestimating my ability to follow a plan once I shift.”

“What if you didn’t follow a plan? What if you just ran, got out of here, and went for help?” Jeffrey said. “Even if you didn’t remember what you were doing as a wolf, you’d remember when you woke up, right?”

“Assuming I didn’t run up against silver razor wire or get caught in another insane trap.” The whole lodge had become a trap, of course.

“I keep expecting them to attack the lodge,” Grant murmured. “We don’t have anywhere else to go.”

That, more than any other reason, was why we had to do something. If we didn’t, they would.

“I don’t have to be a wolf to flush him out,” I said. “But are we scaring him, catching him, or killing him?”

Nobody answered until Conrad said from the sofa, “Do we have a choice?”

I had killed to protect me and mine before. I could do it again. I drew the handgun from my pocket, checked the chamber and safety one more time. Loaded with silver bullets, of course, which made me twitch. But Provost and his party hadn’t brought along any other kind, apparently. I felt horribly ostentatious doing the checking—bad action-film girl, right here.

“Distract him,” I said. “Keep him looking out front. Make him think he can get a shot off.” Then I’d sneak up from behind. It was a Cormac-grade plan.

I left them and went to the back door. Quietly opened it. Didn’t make a sound. Stepped out.

And fell back as the wall beside me exploded. Another gunshot blasted as I slammed shut the door and hunched on the floor.

Grant, Tina, and Jeffrey came running.

“Cabe,” I said, picking myself up, checking myself over. Some scratches from flying splinters marked my arm, but I could handle that. Just as long as nothing silver touched me, I’d be fine.

Tina huffed, turning away in a show of frustration. “So they’re waiting us out.”

“We have to think of something,” Grant said. He started pacing, slow, moderate steps. He winced with pain.

Jeffrey was looking at the front door. “I want to try something. Kitty, can you stay out of sight?”

“What are you going to do?” I said.

“Just don’t let Provost see you through the window.”

He went to the front door and opened it.

Tina gasped and reached after him. “Jeffrey, don’t!”

Jeffrey called out, so the man in the trees could hear, “Joey! We want to make a deal! Let’s talk!”

Grant joined Tina by the front door to listen. Still holding the gun, I crouched nearby, under the window.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Grant demanded.

Jeffrey kept calling. “You’ve made your point! Cabe just shot Kitty out back—”

I thought I saw where this was going. I ducked and listened.

“Except for the vampire in the basement, the monsters are all gone. The rest of us are human. We know this is all about the monsters. If you let us go, the four of us will walk away. We’ll leave the vampire to you.”

It just might work.

The thing was, Provost and Cabe couldn’t let anybody walk away. They’d already killed their witnesses, the show’s assistants. But maybe he didn’t know that we knew that. Jeffrey was good with people. Maybe he really could lure him into the open. All I needed was a clear shot…

“Conrad and Odysseus are hurt. We need to get to a hospital. We just want to talk to you, Joey. Stay there if you want, but talk to me.”

A long moment passed. This wasn’t going to work. Provost was in communication with Cabe, who might or might not have seen whether he actually shot me. I wanted to yell to Jeffrey to get back inside.

From the trees, Provost yelled, “The werewolf bitch is really dead?”

Jeffrey hesitated, but it didn’t sound like a man about to lie. It sounded like fear, grief, helplessness. All things we were feeling anyway. “Death by silver bullet isn’t pretty. But I’m sure you know that.”

Provost’s answer was filled with mirth, with victory. “You’re a dead man, Jeffrey Miles. You’re all dead.”

Provost appeared, moving out from behind the shelter of a pine tree. Like Valenti, he had transformed himself from the slick Hollywood guy. He wore black fatigues, a belt holster—gun in place, I noted—a knife at his belt, combat boots.

In seconds I’d have a shot. I was lining him up. Jeffrey said over his shoulder, “Don’t shoot him. He’s not holding a weapon. I want to see where this goes.”

He had better be right about this.

“Just tell me why,” Jeffrey said. “I keep trying to understand this.”

When Provost smiled, it was a slanted, wicked expression. “There’s nothing to understand. None of you is human. You, the psychic bitch, the magician, the atheist. You’re still monsters. The things you do? Makes you all witches. And you ought to be burned!”

Atheist? I had to assume he was talking about Conrad, who didn’t have a magical cell in his body. I glanced at Conrad and muttered, “Since when does being an atheist make someone a monster?”

“It does to the kind of people who threaten to burn witches,” he said. “Trust me, I’ve heard this line before.”

Provost was still ranting. “We wanted to see if we could kill monsters. Turns out we can, and we’re going to show the world how to do it,” he said. He walked toward the lodge now, casually, step by step. Carelessly, almost. He had to know we had the weapons we’d taken from Valenti. Maybe he really thought Jeffrey didn’t have it in him to shoot anyone. But Jeffrey didn’t have to.

“Ron Valenti doesn’t agree with you,” Jeffrey said, and Provost stopped walking. “In fact, he’s pretty upset.”

Provost said, “You haven’t really talked to him.”

Jeffrey shrugged. “You might as well burn this place to the ground, because it’s going to be very haunted when this is all over. Then again, all that negative energy doesn’t need a place to anchor to. It’s hanging over you, Joey.”

Provost was frowning now. “This isn’t about Valenti. It’s about who gets out of here alive.”

“You’re right. I’m just telling you—free consultation—that this isn’t going to end here. But you might get yourself a few points to balance that out if you let us go. I know you believe all that—some kind of balance, some kind of life after death—or Tina and I wouldn’t be here. I’m making the offer: let us go. Because if you kill us, you’re never getting rid of us.”

It didn’t work quite so simply. Jeffrey had said as much. But maybe Provost didn’t know that, and maybe he was just keyed up enough to believe it. The men looked at each other across the clearing. Jeffrey faced Provost with all the courage in the universe. Arms at his sides, calm, nonthreatening. Treating Provost like he was an approaching predator.

Provost shot him. A quick draw, he’d grabbed his gun from his holster, aimed and fired in a heartbeat, before any of us could react. Jeffrey fell back, boneless.

I stood, leveled my gun out the door, and fired at Provost.

I didn’t practice much and wasn’t very good at the gun thing, but I hit him. He staggered, his right arm flung back, the gun flying from his grip.

Which was good, because I lost it. I flung my own gun aside and ran at Provost.

From the stress of the last few days, the rage at losing friends and good people for no reason at all, I lost control. Wolf had been battering at me, at the mental bars of the cage that kept her calm, since all this started. I’d shot Provost, but she—we—wanted more. Wanted his blood in our mouth, his flesh in our teeth.

I was Changing without even feeling it.

The fury in me felt molten. Like I had turned into fire, liquid iron. The Change had never come so smoothly, so painlessly. I had always fought it, but this time, Wolf was simply there when I wished it. My limbs melted. I stretched my fingers and they were claws. I hunched my back, bared my teeth. My clothing tore away.

I run fast, with Wolf’s speed and strength. He doesn’t have time to reach for his fallen weapon. I shove into him, and my claws are into him. I can’t see through the anger, I only feel. Hear his scream. He doesn’t think I have it in me to tear his throat out. No one ever thinks I have it in me.

For a moment we look into each other’s eyes. I can’t imagine what he sees in mine, what amber fire is blazing in them. But I see that he is frightened—eyes ringed with white, terrified. I dig—

On the ground now, her weight has toppled him. Teeth around his neck, not letting go, shaking her head to rip the skin. Blood fills her mouth, a taste of ecstasy. Flesh gives way. He shrieks in her ear, hits her with fists. Only makes her more angry. Not dead yet, but he already smells rotten. Snarling, clawing, ripping, she mauls.

A distant memory recognizes a voice that calls, “Kitty! Get back, get inside!” One of the two-legged ones, but familiar, and the voice within her, her other half, urges her: listen. Go. Too dangerous in the open.

She raises her head to look, sees the male who called her running toward her and sees another male in the trees. Her nose flares, takes this one’s scent, and the wrongness of it shocks her. He is weapons, steel, fire. Her other half knows this means terrible danger. Only one option: run to safety. But she has no den here, no pack, no safety—except the house, which smells lived-in, denlike. Closest safety she’ll find.

She runs for the door she burst from only a moment ago. Leaps past chaos, a male and female dragging two others. An explosion, a hot streak ripping through air. Part of her expects to feel an impact, expects that this is her death. She doesn’t stop running, even after she passes through the door.

She’s felt nothing, no pain. The weapon of smoke and fire missed.

Another explosion sounds, very close—the female stands at the door, holding another weapon straight. It fires, bursts of heat and thunder, again and again, until the man slams shut the door and they both collapse, along with two bodies that smell richly of blood.

She licks her snout, which is covered with blood. She is standing by the far wall, tail rigid, hackles raised, a low warning growl breathing out each time she exhales. Waiting for the next attack.

“Oh God, oh God. Odysseus, Tina—what do we do about her?” Another man is sitting up, staring. He smells like old blood. Injured. Easy prey. He’s staring right at her, and this makes her angry. She directs her growls at him, and he cringes.

“Conrad, don’t look at her. Look away. Conrad! Look at me!”

The injured one looks away. She was almost ready to pounce to show him which of them was stronger.

“Tina, can you see outside? What’s he doing?”

“He’s staying there—he hasn’t left the trees. Jeffrey, how’s Jeffrey, oh, my God—”

The room has filled with blood. Makes her hungry. The two-legged ones are trembling like a frightened herd.

“Kitty—she wouldn’t really,” the female says. “She’s in there somewhere, right? She wouldn’t really attack us.”

“Tina, stop looking at her.” This is the strong male, the one who called her inside. “Walk very calmly along the wall to the kitchen. Find the pantry—there should be some canned food left. Open a can of chicken or tuna.”

Movement. The female is edging along the wall. She’s strong—the only person here who doesn’t smell injured. Let her go.

The male is speaking, his voice like soft fur. He’s looking at the floor near her. “Shh, Kitty. It’s all right. Danger’s over for now. It’s all right.”

The calming voice helps. The fury ebbs. But she’s still standing with her back to a wall and the smell of an enemy in the room. Where is her pack? Her mate? The growl turns into a whine.

The female puts something on the floor and quickly edges away—a new scent. Meat, but not fresh. Not fresh, but available, a few paces away. Hunger has become more important than the rest. She pads to the scent, finds several mouthfuls. She eats warily, keeping a watch on the group of two-legged people. Finishes the carrion quickly, but it settles her.

She does not mean to sleep, but weariness pulls her under.

I had blood and skin under my fingernails. I picked at it.

Either I didn’t remember what had happened, or I didn’t want to. I could guess. The last thing I remembered was Provost’s face, white with fear. Yeah, I could guess what had happened. I hadn’t even felt the Change come. I’d just snapped. That had never happened before.

If I stayed numb, I wouldn’t have to think about the implications.

Someone had put a blanket over me. I lay against the far wall, nearest the kitchen. My muscles were stiff, as if I’d slept curled in a tight ball. Looking across the room, I was having trouble recognizing what I was seeing. My mind was still filled with wolfish vision and the taste of blood. I could smell death.

A body lay against the wall, covered with a sheet, dead. I made a wish, took a breath, and let out a moan, because I smelled Jeffrey. Provost had been so close, Jeffrey couldn’t have survived the shot. Still, I couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t. I just wouldn’t deal with that right now.

There was another person lying on the floor, breathing fast, painfully, in the way of the seriously injured. I recognized his scent, too.

Joey Provost was alive.