Kitty Rocks the House (18 page)

That was still better than thinking he’d been killed, which was an alternative I hadn’t voiced. Rick had lived for five hundred years, he couldn’t just
die.

Ben slowed, his arm tugging me to a stop beside him. He nodded toward a back corner of the chapel, where a figure moved, stepping out of shadows from behind a clump of shrubbery. I didn’t recognize him at first—he was wearing a T-shirt and trousers, and his dark hair was mussed, flopped around his ears instead of combed back from his face. Without his trench coat, his shape was different.

“Rick?” I said, walking toward him.

He waited for me, lingering by the doorway he’d come out of, as if wanting to stay near shelter. “Kitty.”

“Are you okay?”

“Of course. But are you? You look like you’ve had a rough night of it.”

With the overcoat covering them, I’d forgotten my clothes were ripped enough to fall off in a slight breeze. I hugged the coat tighter around me. When I didn’t say anything, Rick looked at Ben.

“She lost it,” he said. The vampire raised an eyebrow.

“I lost my temper and shifted in the middle of Highlands Ranch.”

“She ate somebody’s cat,” Ben added. I was never going to live that down, was I?

Rick seemed taken aback. “Really? That isn’t like you. What’s wrong?”

Everything, I almost said. “I’m a little stressed out. And this isn’t supposed to be about me, this is about you.”

“I’m fine, Kitty. What are you even doing here?”

“Angelo called me. He’s worried.”

“There’s nothing to be worried about,” Rick said curtly. “That is, as long as your bounty hunter keeps his distance.”

I didn’t want to talk about Cormac right now. The protective spell was obviously doing its job; Cormac wasn’t a threat. “The Buenos Aires vampires are going to be here in a couple of days, they’re bugging Angelo about procedure, and we haven’t talked at all about what to say to them.”

“I’m sure you can handle it,” he said. “There’s nothing I can say to them that you can’t say perfectly well on your own.”

“Besides the fact that I’m a werewolf and they probably won’t want to talk to me at all?”

“You’ll just have to convince them otherwise.”

He was dumping this all on me, all of it. The weight of the world, settling on my shoulders. Even Wolf curled up and whined at the thought.

“What’s so important that you can’t come out and deal with this?” I said. I pointed at the wall of the church. “What are you and Columban
doing
in there?”

“I’m…” He clenched his hands, as if reaching for pockets that weren’t there. “I can’t discuss it. But yes, it is important. Columban is taking on this battle just as much as we are. I think I can help him.”

“But I
know
you can help me.”

He started to say one thing, but shook his head. He turned back to the building, changed his mind, and looked back. “Kitty. Ben. I appreciate your concern. But you should go home. Get cleaned up, get some rest. You obviously have enough problems of your own, you don’t need to be worried about me.” He spoke with such confidence, in such a decisive, commanding tone, how could I argue? I still felt uneasy.

“Ricardo?” an accented voice called from within the shadows, from an open doorway in the back of the church.

Ricardo, not Rick. I could see the shape of the vampire priest’s cassock, but not his features. I wanted to grab him, shake him, demand to know what spell he’d put on Rick. But I didn’t.

“I have to go,” the vampire said. I might have imagined him pressing his lips in an apology as he turned away and disappeared back through the doorway.

“We’ve lost him,” I said, my voice bleak.

Ben put his arm around me, turned me to the street. He had to push, urging me, before I could get my feet to move.

Chapter 14

I
CALLED
ANGELO
to tell him Rick wasn’t going to be available for the meeting with the Buenos Aires vampires.

“You talked to him?” he said, astonished.

“Briefly. He wasn’t really interested in talking.”

“What did he say?”

“I think he’s gone sort of Buddhist monk. Can vampires be Buddhist monks?”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know. Kitty—the envoy will be here tonight. He wants to talk to
Rick.
Not
you.
”

“Well,” I said, feeling hollow. “He’s got me. Why don’t you send him to New Moon after the show?”

His voice turned arch with disgust. “I can’t send him
there.
”

“Yes, you can. And make sure he eats something first—somewhere else,” I said and hung up the phone. Either the guy would be there after the show, or he wouldn’t.

Friday night again, already. Couldn’t be possible, but it was. Ozzie called me around lunchtime, because I hadn’t been into work since Thursday morning, and he wanted to know when I was coming in to prep for the show. If there was ever a time I wanted to call in sick, this was it.

Ben insisted on driving me to the station—and coming inside with me, and staying through the show.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said for the ninth time, as we entered the lobby. The receptionist waved hello, and I made a halfhearted motion in response on our way to the elevator.

“Yes, I do,” Ben said. “After your breakdown yesterday? I’m not letting you out of my sight. You might need someone to peel you off the ceiling.”

He was worried about me. It was kind of sweet, and I teared up a little even as I argued. “I wouldn’t call it a breakdown.”

“Then what would you call it?”

Shape-shifting in the middle of the suburbs because of stress? Um, right. I grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Thanks for looking out for me.” He smiled back.

We stopped off at my office to pick up materials for the show and were still hand in hand when we walked into the studio. Matt, in position in the booth by the soundboard, waved at me. And Ozzie was sitting in his seat in the corner. Of all the weeks he could pick to play supervisor. I managed not to groan.

Ben leaned in and murmured, “Someone else been keeping an eye on you, I take it?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Have a seat and be good, okay?”

He kissed my forehead and did as I asked. I turned a bright, fake smile on my boss. “Hi, Ozzie.”

“Kitty. You haven’t been around much this week. I’ve been worried.” He was a good guy, but his worry usually translated as smothering. Made me bristle.

“Yeah, I know. Family stuff came up.” In a manner of speaking …

“You got something good for tonight?”

“Do I ever. In fact, I’m glad you’re here. You’ll love it.” In fact, I was starting to get an idea …

Some weeks, I was on top of things: planning, organizing, recording interviews ahead of time, writing up my rants and speeches to make sure they sounded intelligent and insightful. Other weeks, not so much. I’d tell myself I’d do it tomorrow, for sure. Then I’d wake up, and it’d be Friday, and I’d have a show to do
that day.
This week in particular, Friday seemed to have sneaked up on me. Good thing I always had something to talk about. I kept a folder full of articles, links to online rants requiring responses, and notes of random thoughts. The world never failed to provide shocking, interesting, head-scratching topics for me to discuss.

This week, I literally pulled my topic off the shelf and hit the ground running.

I watched Matt through the booth window, waited for him to cue up my intro with the theme song I’d used since the start: CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising.” As relevant now as it ever was. The music made the rest of the world disappear, so that nothing existed but me, my microphone, and the show. It felt like flying.

“Good evening, and here we are again. This is Kitty Norville and you’re listening to
The Midnight Hour,
where we spend a couple of hours talking about all the things that no one else will. And probably shouldn’t. It’s a good life, isn’t it? I have something very special on deck tonight. Christmas or winter solstice–associated holiday of your choice came to the studio early this year, and I got a present. I don’t know who exactly to thank for this, but let me take a moment to express my appreciation to my mysterious benefactor. Thank you, sir or madam. I love it. Now, what is it? Dear listeners, I’ve been sent a vampire crystal skull.”

A month or so ago, I’d received a package in the mail. I got a lot of mail, most of it junk, but this one had intrigued me. The brown paper wrapped box didn’t have a return address; the postmark said Texas. Since the package didn’t smell like a bomb or vat full of anthrax, I went ahead and opened it, and there it lay, nestled in a cloud of Styrofoam peanuts. A crystal skull, milky white, a little larger than a grapefruit, rounded and stylized, with deep-set eye sockets and distinctive, sharpened fangs where its eyeteeth should have been. It had been living on a shelf in my office ever since, waiting for the perfect opportunity. Like this one.

I set the skull on the table in the studio right next to my monitor and studied it as I talked. It stared back at me with hollow eyes that reflected and scattered the dim lights in the studio. Was it winking at me? “Is it a gift? A curse? Am I supposed to investigate it? Debunk it? Is it a kitsch object from a Mexican flea market? Or are the stories true, and crystal skulls aren’t just the plot device in a couple of unfortunate movies? Are these artifacts the source of some great ancient power possessed by the Mayans, the awesome gift of travelers from the stars, the key to the lost city of Atlantis? Or someone’s idea of a joke? Before I tell you what I think, I’m going to open the line up for calls. You’ve been sent not just any crystal skull, but one with sharpened canines. What do you do?” The lines lit up. Likely, people had called in before I’d even started talking in an effort to get into the queue and didn’t have a thing to say about crystal skulls, vampire or otherwise. But someone with an opinion would get through. I checked the monitor, found a likely victim, and pounced. “Hello, you’re on the air.”

A confused-sounding woman said, “So wait, does that mean that vampires have crystal skeletons?”

I winced. “That’s a good one, I hadn’t actually thought of that. But no, I don’t think so. I think vampires have bones like the rest of us. Just really old bones. Next call, please.” I hit the line.

“It’s got to be a fake,” the male caller said.

Well, yeah, I figured that pretty much went without saying. In the course of my research I’d found crystal skulls for sale in a rock art catalog. But that wasn’t the way to keep a show going.

“Why do you say that?” I said, trying to sound genuinely curious.

“Because vampires weren’t even in North America until a couple of hundred years ago, so a real Mayan crystal skull couldn’t possibly have anything to do with vampires, since the Mayan empire was in decline before then.”

“Five hundred, but yes,” I said.

“What?”

“European vampires arrived in North America about five hundred years ago, but I see your point.”

“How do you even know that?”

“How do you?” My tone was cheerful, which probably confused him.

Flustered now, he said, “I just know it, okay? So it has to be a fake.”

“Let me see if I’m understanding you correctly. When you say it’s a fake, you’re not saying that it’s fake because crystal skulls aren’t really mystical artifacts, you’re saying it’s fake because it’s the skull of a vampire. And if it wasn’t, it would be real?”

“Exactly,” he said, pleased with himself.

Well, this ought to be interesting. “Now when you say ‘a real crystal skull,’ what exactly do you mean?”

He sounded put out. “You don’t believe this is real, do you? Why did you even bring it up?”

“Look, someone sent it to me, I’m not the one who brought it up. Well, I am. But I wouldn’t have brought it up if someone hadn’t sent it to me.”

“You’re dealing with powers you don’t understand!” he said.

“I get that a lot,” I said and clicked him off the air. “I did a little research of my own, and here’s what I found. Historical records—Mayan, Aztec, or otherwise—show no trace of crystal skulls as part of their worship, and the famous ones that form the center of current mystical belief all seemed to have appeared on the scene in the mid to late nineteenth century. Despite claims to the contrary, they appear to have been manufactured. By plain, nonmystical human beings. Now, I’ve seen some crazy stuff in my time and I’m willing to entertain the notion that some crystal skull somewhere might have some of the powers its adherents credit to it. But personally, I have to file this one under crop circles. They’re just too easy to replicate using nonmystical means. I’ve got another caller ready to argue with me. Clare, hello.”

“Hi, Kitty, thanks for taking my call. I just want to say, there’s an alternative that I think your previous caller hasn’t considered.” She had a light, matter-of-fact voice that made me brace for even more bullshit than usual.

“And what’s that alternative?”

“That there are vampires among the aliens.”

I had to think about that a moment. “You’re right. I hadn’t considered that. I mean, generic sci-fi horror movies notwithstanding.”

“It makes perfect sense—immortal vampires are the best choice to travel the long distances between the stars.
They’re
the ones who would come to visit us here on Earth.”

Was it wrong that the concept sort of did make sense? “You seem to have a lot of good ideas on the topic,” I said, rather nonplussed. “So I’ve got this vampire crystal skull. You think it came from outer space?”

“I do,” she said.

“I gotta tell you, I’m skeptical. I hold it and it just feels like a big rock. I mean, it’s not even a realistic skull. It’s kinda small and lumpy. But plenty of people will tell me it’s magic. What’s it supposed to do? Am I holding it wrong?”

“The skull should give you access to a higher plane of knowledge,” she explained. “Place your nose against its nose and stare into its eyes. You should feel your mind
expand.
”

I studied the skull where it sat on my desk. Green status lights from my monitor flickered strangely through its depths. Did it seem to be smiling at me? If I tilted my head, looked at it from a certain angle—yeah, it kind of did.