Kitty Steals the Show (Kitty Norville) (17 page)

“You were right,” Cormac added. He wore the closest thing to a grin I’d ever seen on him. “Amelia thinks this is just fascinating.”

“Great,” I said, and sighed.

Lingering by the wall of the building, Luis and his sister looked like they should have been munching on a bucket of popcorn: wide-eyed, fascinated.

I turned to Luis. “What was that you said? Never a dull moment?”

“I won’t argue,” he said.

“I’m impressed,” Esperanza said. “Handling all those wolves? That big one was actually cowering, I think.”

“It’s either that or get eaten. I’d prefer not to get eaten.”

“Jaguars are solitary,” she said. “Makes it easier.”

She might have been right. We started walking back to the hotel. I dug in my pocket for my cell phone so I could call Tyler and see if he’d gotten any mysterious visits or warnings.

When I looked up after punching in his number, the two Fae women stood on the sidewalk in front of me, blocking the way. Without Cormac’s charm, they really did look like ordinary women, excitable grad students living it up at a conference. Maybe they were that, maybe fairies had a reason to go to school. But I had to remind myself that they were more than they seemed.

And one of them was holding what looked like a tiny bottle, maybe a perfume bottle with a spray nozzle, and she was getting ready to fire.

I stopped and stared, and the rest of my party crowded in behind me. We all froze, the two women crouched like they were about to run away, us gaping in astonishment. Not many people could sneak up on a pack of lycanthropes—and a human with his pockets full of second sight charms.

“Hi,” I said finally, as if they were acquaintances I hadn’t expected to run into.

By their crinkling eyes and widening grins, I guessed that they were about to do something with that perfume spritzer, and that I probably wouldn’t like it. I brought out a little Wolf, hunched up my shoulders, and stepped forward.

“Okay, just who are you guys and why do you keep showing up in my space?”

“Um…” The one with the spritzer hid her hands behind her back. “How ’bout we pretend you never saw us?”

“But—” I stopped again, because a newcomer was standing behind them, and she’d appeared just as suddenly as the first two had.

Tall, striking, she appeared regal despite the patchwork nature of her clothing: scuffed boots, a flowing gypsy skirt, an oversized lumpy sweater, and a faded, lacy shawl. Her golden hair flowed in thick, lush waves down her back. She wore a smile like she knew secrets.

“I’ll take that, thank you very much,” she said, plucking the spritzer out of the young woman’s hand and pocketing it somewhere. “And after all that talk about not causing trouble.”

The two fairies weren’t giggling anymore. One was biting her lip, the other had her hands to her face, flinching and squinting as if expecting a loud noise. They cringed away from the woman—and who was she? I stole a glance back at Cormac for confirmation; he gave me a single nod. So yeah, she was one of them, too. Even
more
of one.

“Exactly what kind of trouble are we talking about here?” I said. They were avoiding looking at me, and the regal woman had put her arms around them, drawing them close. I had never seen two people look more sheepish.

“Oh, just a little old-school mischief,” she said, giving them a squeeze. “A spot of nectar in the eyes, a bit of confusion with mortal affections.” She looked at me, and Luis. “Never mind that I told them to stay away.”

I needed a second to work out the puzzle. I’d been seeing the two fairies all weekend, so they’d been seeing me, which meant they knew about the history between me and Luis, they way he’d been carrying on, Ben’s reaction—

“You mean like some kind of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
shtick? For real?” I said.

The one who’d had the spritzer perked up. “Never gets old! Ow!” she added, when her captor pinched her shoulder.

“We’ll just be getting out of your way now,” she said and grabbed the two by their shirts to drag them off. They didn’t even struggle.

“Wait—that’s it?” I said.

She paused, glanced back. “What more do you want?”

I wanted an interview with her for the show. What were their kind doing in the middle of the city? What did they get out of playing pranks on us? On anyone? I realized: I wanted all her secrets. Wasn’t going to get them, no doubt. “How do we know they won’t come right back and bother us again?”

She pointed at her two charges, who huddled where they were. Convinced they’d stay put, she turned back to me, tilted her head. An odd expression, when she’d been commanding before. My image of her kept changing, even though I hadn’t looked away. “You want a guarantee? Or a wish—that’s usually what mortals ask for. All right, then—what’s your wish?”

One thing popped into my mind, and it wasn’t an interview this time. If I could have
anything,
I knew. I didn’t even have to think about it. Whether or not she could even grant such a wish didn’t occur to me—it couldn’t hurt to ask, right? I just had to say it, and if she said no I wouldn’t have lost anything, I couldn’t be more disappointed than I already was. But if she said yes …

“Nobody answer that,” Cormac said. “It’s a trick.”

I hesitated, my mouth open to speak, and realized I could be more disappointed. I took a deep breath to settle myself, and the exhale was a little shaky.

The woman put her hands on her hips and glared at Cormac. “You’ve had dealings with us before, I see.”

“Not hard to read a few stories,” Cormac said. He glanced to me. “She’ll twist your words, you’d get what you asked for but not what you meant. Or she’d ask for more in return than you could give. Better to ask for a rain check.” He spoke with a confidence that I wasn’t feeling. “We accept your offer, to be redeemed at a later date.”

“You make us beholden to you,” the woman—the leader of them—said, disbelieving. “Do you think that’s wise?”

“We’ll see,” he said.

I hoped he and Amelia knew what they were doing. They seemed to know what they were doing. Did Cormac ever seem otherwise? Would we know if he didn’t?

“Well then. I owe you a wish.”

“We’ll need a token of that,” Cormac said.

“You’re a demanding mortal.” The woman pulled a scarf from some pocket or other with a flourish. Pale gold, wispy, and floral, it floated in her grip as if it might have been a ribbon of mist, until she dropped it in Cormac’s outstretched hand, when it became just a strip of cloth.

My phone started ringing. I’d had it in my hand the whole time, set to Tyler’s number. I couldn’t remember if I’d actually dialed him or not. I stepped away from the others and answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Kitty, did you just try to call me?” the soldier said.

“Yeah, I did. I’m sorry, I was distracted.”

“You think?” he said, chuckling.

How did I explain the last ten minutes? I didn’t. “I just wanted to check in. Have you had any weird encounters? Any more random recruiters or warnings? Vampires hanging around?”

“You mean more than you’d expect at a conference on the supernatural?” He was still chuckling, and I flushed, chagrined.

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Not really. But I do feel like I’m walking around with my hackles up all the time.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling. Well, let me know if … I don’t know. You see something weird. There’s some bad politics around just now.”

“I know the drill. You just look after yourself, okay? I’ll talk to you later.”

I hung up and returned to the group. The fairies, the regal woman and her two underlings, were gone. The others were looking back at me with bemused expressions to match my own.

“Where’d they go?” I said.

“They just left,” Ben said. “None of us really saw them go, but there you are.”

And no matter how fast I ran after them, I wouldn’t find them. Which didn’t mean they also still weren’t lurking, spying. I grumbled, “I can’t keep looking over my shoulder like this.”

“This evening’s been much more exciting than Luis promised,” Esperanza said.

“What can I say? I know how to have a good time,” I said. “What are we going to do with a fairy favor?” My hands itched to touch that scarf, still lying in Cormac’s hand. Would it feel like cloth or something else? The hunter unceremoniously wadded it up and shoved it in his jacket pocket.

“Best not to use that word. It annoys them,” Cormac said. “As for what to do with it—we’ll find out when we need it. This gives us a chance to plan. Maybe mitigate the unintended consequences.”

He was right, this was the smart thing to do. I still wondered.

“You had a wish right on the tip of your tongue, didn’t you?” Ben said.

“Yeah, I did.” I reached for him, and he gathered me into his arms. “And is it me or did that woman look kind of like Stevie Nicks? Is Fleetwood Mac a fairy rock band?”

He pulled away just enough to be able to look down his nose at me. “It’s you, and I don’t think so.”

Chapter 12

M
ATT AND
Ozzie set up time at a recording studio near the convention, making it easier for me to haul in delegates for interviews. I’d record as many interviews as I could through the afternoon and into the evening, assuming I could convince any vampires to show up, which I hadn’t been able to do yet. Ned and Emma said no, I didn’t know how to get in touch with Marid, Mercedes was out of the question, and the few others I saw hanging around seemed to be spying on me. I’d have asked them for interviews, but they always vanished before I could get close enough. I thought of using the fairy wish to ask for an interview, but I also had an idea of how that would go—not the way I wanted it to.

Matt was with me online. He and the local engineer had arranged a whole techy solution, allowing us to record the show, upload it, and deliver it to Matt, who could get it immediately and be able to edit the show for Friday night.

“Greetings, listeners, you’ve tuned in to
The Midnight Hour.
I’m your super-vigilant host, and this week’s episode has been prerecorded in London, England. Let me explain: I’m here attending the First International Conference on Paranatural Studies, which has brought together hundreds of scientists, academics, and pundits like me to discuss where we stand on the topic of the supernatural in society, and recognition of the same. I’ve been having a great time, learning lots, and I’m going to report to you on what I’ve been up to the last few days. I have a whole crowd of fascinating people for you to meet. I’ll be talking with a were-jaguar who is an environmental activist in Brazil. We’ll meet an attorney from Tanzania working to prosecute those accused of murdering albinos in the name of witchcraft. I’ve met a music critic who’s been tracking down rumors of fairy music in the modern rock scene, a werewolf with a seat in the House of Commons, and we’ll be visiting with an old friend of the show, Jules Simpson from TV’s
Paradox PI
and member of the Society for Psychical Research.

“As many of you have figured out by now, I really like talking. Sometimes I even like listening. I’ve been enjoying myself immensely because this week has been full of both. Some stats: the conference has around eighteen hundred attendees from twenty-three countries—not bad for the first time out. The six days of the conference include forty presentations on topics ranging from the supernatural’s impact on the legal system and the depiction of vampires in popular culture. You’ll forgive me for avoiding that one, I’m sure. I’ve always advocated shining lights into dark corners and dragging the unknown into the open, and we’ve spent the week doing just that.

“Right now I have a couple of previous guests with me: Sergeant Joseph Tyler, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who also happens to be a werewolf, and Dr. Elizabeth Shumacher. I was delighted to discover that they’re both here at the conference to discuss what happens when the military utilizes soldiers with nonhuman abilities…”

With me egging them on, Tyler and Shumacher talked for an hour. Matt could edit it into a sharp half-hour segment we could all be proud of. Next up was Esperanza, who was happy to discuss her experiences tracking illegal logging in the Amazon basin, and how her lycanthropy—the result of an attack—has helped her rather than limited her. She was articulate and enthusiastic, I hardly had to prompt her at all. The best kind of guest. Nell Riddy, the conference director, needed a little more nursing along, but we still managed to produce a good conversation about how a childhood encounter with fairies put her on the path to studying cryptozoology, and from there to paranormal research.

I might actually pull off entertaining
and
informative with this episode. I was feeling awfully pleased with myself. Of course, I couldn’t entirely avoid the bizarre. It wouldn’t be an episode of
The Midnight Hour
without it.

“Martin Pearce runs a popular blog, Enchantment Underground, discussing music and the supernatural. Martin, thanks for joining me,” I said.

“Thanks for inviting me.” He was young and jittery, bouncing a foot and tapping a hand on his knee. A DJ—anybody in the music business—ought to know better than to make noise like that during a recording. The sound didn’t carry, fortunately. Dressed modern hipster, he wore a T-shirt for what must have been a band, though one I’d never heard of, a jacket, and fashionably distressed jeans. He had a regional British accent, northern and industrial if I had my broad strokes right. I’d tracked him down via his blog and invited him on the show.