Kitty Steals the Show

Chapter 14

I HAD A sudden need to look up where the Jack the Ripper murders had taken place. Not near Hyde Park, it turned out, which was only mildly reassuring. At night the place was spooky enough to start my imagination running. The nearly new moon and gas lamp–looking lights on posts gave the wide lawns and straight paths a sepia tone cast: gray, orange, murky. Stands of trees ringed the area like sentinels, and the buildings beyond the park seemed unnaturally far away.

I was a creature of the night, I wasn’t supposed to be afraid of the dark. Not that it was the dark I was afraid of—it was the other creatures of the night.

Caleb had chosen a spot almost in the center of the park, where several paths converged, and some distance away from the Serpentine, the long, winding lake on the south end, where someone could easily be trapped in case of an ambush. Not that he was thinking in those terms. He probably just wanted to be in a place with good visibility, where he could watch people approach.

Ben, Ned, and I followed one of the paths, then cut across the lawn, roughly in the area Caleb asked us to wait. Emma stayed home; Ned was worried at the interest she’d drawn from Jan’s flunky and wanted her safe. He had four other vampires standing guard. Marid and Antony promised to stay out of the park, but they didn’t say where they would be. I hoped they didn’t spook Caleb. What was I saying, could anything spook Caleb?

“This would be nice if I weren’t so twitchy about it,” Ben said, scanning the shadows.

The place was quiet, peaceful. We could go for a run—the four-legged kind even—and not feel the press of the city. Lie together on the grass and watch clouds passing in front of the moon. But yeah, twitchy. Caleb and his wolves were on the way; I could sense them, a touch of wild on the air. We were in their territory, and Wolf wasn’t happy about it.

“Well, we’re here,” Ned announced. Bundled in a coat, face up, hair ruffled, he was a shadowed figure in the dark, perfectly at home and not at all nervous. “And no werewolf. I’ll give him ten minutes, then give up on him.”

“Here he is,” I said, nodding.

Caleb and three men approached on one of the other paths. He spoke to his companions briefly, and they broke off, cutting across the lawn to take up some kind of perimeter lookout. Ben watched them go—keeping a lookout on them.

Britain’s alpha werewolf closed the distance with an easy stride, as if he’d happened to meet friends on the path during a casual stroll. But his gaze was focused, his shoulders tense.

I smiled at him. “We thought maybe you changed your mind at the last minute.”

“Naw, I wouldn’t miss this. You bossing the bloodsuckers around? Priceless.”

“I do what I can.”

“Ned,” Caleb said flatly.

“Caleb, good of you to come.” The vampire offered his hand. The werewolf considered it a moment, as if thinking of biting it. He finally shook it in a civilized manner. “Kitty said you disabled the security cameras?”

“Of course I did. We’re not stupid, no matter what you lot think of us.”

Ned pouted, but his eyes crinkled with amusement. “Don’t be cross. I had to ask.”

“You wanted this meeting. Why?”

Ned answered, “There’s a war coming, we both know it. There are forces that would destroy what we’ve worked for, and destroy us. I would like to prevent that and I assume you would as well. I believe we can no longer approach this conflict defensively, as insular entities.”

Caleb studied him for a long moment. I was about to interrupt when he finally answered. “That all sounds very fine, but my only concern is keeping the isles stable. You sound like you want to bring a war to our doorstep ahead of schedule.”

Ned said, “If we’re strong enough, the war may not come here at all. We might even consider launching an offensive.”

“Have you been giving him ideas?” Caleb said to me.

I winced. “I might have made a suggestion or two.”

“I knew you were trouble.”

“Here’s the thing,” I said. “This isn’t about territory, this is about building an army to withstand Roman. To raise a defense that he can’t touch. If he solidifies his power in Europe, what does that do to your stability?”

The werewolf frowned. “You’re staging World War Two over again, you know that?”

I considered that a moment. The comparison seemed too easy to make. Maybe there was a reason for that. “I guess I am. So how about it?”

“You remember the Blitz, Caleb?” Ned said.

“Before my time, but I know the stories,” he said. “The city’s werewolves could see and move in the blackouts, and they weren’t easily injured by falling debris and shrapnel in the bombing. They organized, became Air Raid Wardens, walked patrols, and arranged rescues of survivors buried in fallen buildings. They could smell them and guide the rescue crews to them. The city’s alpha at the time, a hoary old monster without a lick of patience, punished any wolves caught hunting or killing in the chaos.”

Ned said, “I gave the wolves who patrolled the run of my properties so they always had a safe place to go, rations that no one else had access to. I organized—”

“Give yourself a bloody medal, why don’t you,” Caleb said.

Ned pursed his lips. “I’m merely demonstrating that we can work together to protect the city because we’ve done it before.”

“This isn’t the Blitz.”

“Not yet,” Ned said.

Even I thought that might have been overstating the case, except for the voice in the back of my head that said, What if he’s not?

Caleb might have been asking himself the same question, the way he scowled.

Ned continued. “The turmoil surrounding this conference of Ms. Norville’s has convinced me that I can no longer watch events from the sidelines. Our two tribes working together must be stronger than the sum of our parts.”

The werewolf gave him a sour look. “You talk high and mighty, sir, but you’re no Churchill.”

“I knew him, you know.”

Caleb turned away, scowling dramatically.

“What do you think, Caleb?” I said.

“I’m willing to consider an alliance. But an alliance isn’t strategy. How do you expect—”

A long, strained howl echoed from a distant part of the park, then cut off abruptly. A warning.

“That was Sam,” Caleb said, listening, ear cocked. “He’s meant to be watching the east approach.”

“That sounded like trouble,” Ben said.

“Yes,” Caleb said.

We all faced different directions, scanning the edges of the open space.

“Might I suggest moving indoors?” Ned said. His town house was maybe ten blocks away.

“It’s too late for that, I think,” Caleb murmured.

The figure of a man, shirtless and barefoot, came toward us across the lawn from a distant row of trees. He was fast, powerful, running with a long, loose stride that had an animal quality to it, easy and fluid. One of Caleb’s pack—the lieutenant who’d been with him the other night. The alpha trotted out to meet him.

“They got him, they killed Sam,” he said to Caleb. “They went right for his heart, he didn’t have a chance—”

“Who is it, Michael? Who got him?” Caleb held the man’s head steady and made him look in his eyes. The wolf, Michael, was struggling, gasping for breath, his muscles tense. All his instincts were telling him to shift, but he was holding on. “Was it vampires or wolves, Michael?”

“Both, Caleb. Both!”