Kitty Steals the Show (Kitty Norville) (25 page)

C
ALEB DROVE
us to a neighborhood in south London called Brixton. Dawn hadn’t yet broken, but the sky had paled to a gunmetal gray. Soon, it would become light. Shadows played strangely.

“Not the best part of town, is it?” I said, whispering. We’d passed street after street of row housing, endless three-story buildings of brick walls stained by decades of soot and graffiti. They might have been a hundred or more years old, but they looked tired and decrepit rather than quaint.

“Depends on who you are and why you’re here,” Caleb said. His focus wasn’t on me, but out and around, scanning his territory. “Some vampires like staying in neighborhoods like this. Helps them keep their cover. They certainly don’t mind a little thing like crime rates. I suppose we could have brought along your soldier friend for more backup.”

“No,” I said. “I want to leave him out of this.” Tyler had his own problems, he didn’t need to fight my fights, too.

After turning the next corner, Caleb nodded. “Right, there he is.”

He was one of Caleb’s lieutenants, a man with dark skin and a shaved head. In his midtwenties, he was tall and broad, tough. Pure enforcer, though he ducked his gaze and slouched when Caleb looked at him.

The British alpha parked on the street and rolled down his window. “Find anything?”

“Don’t know just where the fangs are holed up, but there’s a pair of wolves patrolling the end of the block. I stayed downwind of ’em, they haven’t spotted me.”

“Whose?”

“Solomon’s.”

“Good man,” Caleb said. “Let’s walk, shall we?”

The four of us got out of the car.

“Which one is Solomon?”

“Master of Istanbul. You probably met him at your fancy meeting.”

Which one at the convocation had he been? It didn’t matter. We could chalk him up to Roman’s side, now.

“Cormac, maybe you’d better wait here,” I said.

“I’ll be fine. They won’t know I’m there.”

I believed him. “Just stay back behind the others.”

“Here, take this with you.” He offered me a slender dagger tucked in a black leather sheathe. If I pulled the knife out, looked at it, the metal would wink, edged with silver.

I shook my head. “I don’t need that.”

“It’ll give you authority,” he said.

“I don’t need it. I don’t want to take a chance of having it used against me.”

“It’ll make me feel better,” he said.

“No.” I glared and walked away.

“Don’t take it personally,” Ben said to him.

“You want it?”

“Hell, no. I’m likely to trip and cut myself on it.”

Cormac standing guard with his silver daggers should have made me feel better. But I had this sneaking worry that he was right, and that we would need the weapons.

I’d learned to carry myself with a straight back, my chin up. To move as if I was powerful, no matter what I felt. A far cry from the old days, my earliest time as a werewolf when I cowered at every stray noise or cold glance. A far cry from before I became a werewolf even, when I was a pampered college kid willing to go along with whatever flow was carrying me. I wondered sometimes—if I’d been stronger then, would it have prevented any of what came after from happening?

I had to work to show any confidence here, on a street with no lights, with blackened and broken windows staring down on me, where the air smelled unfamiliar and a distant shattering of glass distracted me. Ben walked at my side, unflinching, and I couldn’t tell if he was faking it, too. Cormac was, as he had indicated, out of sight. Surveying from a secure location, an ace in the hole.

Caleb’s enforcer followed us, and he ducked his gaze when I looked at him.

“There he is,” Caleb said, nodding ahead. I turned my nose to the air, smelling. Our quarry didn’t just smell of wolf; he carried a trace of his Master’s scent with him, too. “You want to do this or should I?”

Ben’s fists clenched, and he tensed, ready to pounce. They all expected this to turn out badly, didn’t they?

“I’ll do it,” I said evenly. This was my idea, right?

“What about me?” Ben said.

I squeezed his hand. “Stay close.”

“Kitty. Be careful.”

I moved ahead. The others fanned out in a protective arc behind me. I could hear their steps on the asphalt, even the soft hush of their breathing. We were a pack on the hunt.

A figure darted ahead of us, crossing the street. A second one prowled in the shadows of the row houses, looking like he wanted to try to flank us. We were in the wide open; we’d see anyone trying to get the best of us. The guards probably hadn’t been expecting a frontal assault.

“Hey!” I called. “I just want to talk!” My voice echoed along the empty street as if we were in a cave. Even the clouds hung low, ceiling-like.

“Talk. To say what?” The one moved from the shadows, coming to face me in the middle of the street. He kept glancing over his shoulders, probably looking for the inevitable ambush. He was powerfully built, broad shoulders, defined muscles along his arms, visible under short sleeves. He showed teeth when he scowled.

“Calm down. I really do just want to talk.”

“Don’t move any closer,” he said. His accent was precise, as if he’d learned English rather than growing up with it. I stopped advancing. But I also wouldn’t lower my gaze.

“You ever think about leaving? Walking away from this? From Solomon?”

The werewolf huffed a nervous chuckle. “And do what?”

“Whatever you want.”

He shook his head, like he thought I was joking.

“You know you’re just cannon fodder, right? You stay with him, you’ll get killed eventually. Messily, probably. You know what happened at Hyde Park tonight?”

“That’s not normal.”

“How many of your pack did you lose tonight?” He scowled and didn’t answer. “There’s a war coming. It may get to be normal. You might want to ask yourself if you’re on the right side.”

He fidgeted, nervous, and ducked his gaze, just for a second.

“You don’t owe him anything,” I said, pressing.

“He looks after us—”

“By using you to fight his battles?” I raised a skeptical brow. “Solomon serves Dux Bellorum. He may have told you that Dux Bellorum’s army has no opposition. That the coming war will be easy to win. But they’re wrong. Because we’re here to stop him.”

“This is a trick—”

“No. We’re just tired of werewolves killing each other. Especially for people like Solomon, Mercedes, and Jan.”

I didn’t need an answer from him. I didn’t expect him to drop everything and follow me. I just wanted him to think. Turning, I gestured to Ben and Caleb, indicating it was time to leave.

Then Solomon’s guard said, “I remember you at the convocation. You don’t fight. Is that it? That you don’t want anyone to fight?”

“Oh, I fight. When I need to. But you’re right, I’d rather avoid it.”

“Because you’re weak?’

“Because I’m lazy. Essentially.”

I’d hoped for a laugh. At least a smile. His curled lips remained in a snarl. “This is a trick.”

He backed away. Out of the corner of my vision I saw his partner paralleling him along the houses. They both retreated, without turning their backs to us.

“I think it’s time to go,” Caleb said.

We fell into step and jogged back to the car. By the time we reached it, Cormac had reappeared.

“Where were you?” I asked him conversationally, in a tone that I hope also said,
told you so.

“I was there. Saw it all.”

“What, were you invisible?” Could Amelia do that, I wondered?

“How about just not noticeable.”

I decided I didn’t really want to know.

Caleb gave his lieutenant instructions, and the man went back to the shadows he’d emerged from, to guard this corner of their territory. The alpha returned to the driver’s seat.

“This is bloody useless,” Caleb said. “They’re not going to listen to you.”

“He listened,” I said, determined to believe my own words. “He didn’t start a fight, did he?”

“I don’t know,” Ben said. “I think you got to him.”

“We just have to shake things up a little,” I said. “What’s the next stop?”

“Njal,” Caleb said. “My scouts say he’s holed up in Chelsea. Can’t bear to slum it, the git.”

In my mind, this was the most important stop on the list. The two werewolves in chains at the convocation belonged to him. If I could only shake up one vampire’s household tonight, convince the werewolves to leave their Master just once, this would be it.

We drove in silence, back north into London’s interior neighborhoods.

Chapter 18

T
HE CONTRAST
between this neighborhood and Brixton couldn’t have been more profound. Even in the misty dawn, the rows of ornate town houses and well-groomed parks seemed picture-perfect. The low, wrought-iron fences had fresh coats of paint, the façades were clean and elegant. Not a smudge of graffiti in sight.

“His guards have staked out the next block,” Caleb said. “Same routine, I take it? Walk in until we flush ’em out?”

“Wait,” I said, focused out the window to a stray shape that had moved in the morning shadows. “Let me out here.”

“What are you on about?” He slowed the car.

“I saw something. They’ve spotted us, let me out.”

“Kitty—” Ben said. The car had stopped, and I was already out.

I breathed deep and caught only a hint of werewolf. The air moved wrong, and felt wet and heavy in my nose. But they were out there. Caleb had parked, and he and Ben moved in behind me. Cormac was around, I was sure, but again stayed out of sight. They wouldn’t interfere, but they had my back. I didn’t have to worry about anything but what lay in front of me.

The street narrowed, curved, funneling into a small square, hemmed in by town houses. Even narrower lanes led away. I wasn’t quite hemmed in without escape. The lair had to be nearby.

Several werewolves were watching me from sheltered places around the square. Only watching.

“I have a message,” I called out. “Once I’ve said what I need to, I’ll leave. No trouble.” Their scents were musky, tangy with adrenaline, with fear. Some of them were in wolf form, fur bristling, panting.

“Tonight’s battle was just the start. But this isn’t about us, it’s about the vampires. They should fight their own war, don’t you think? Instead of using us. That’s my message: our fight isn’t with you. You don’t have to stay. If you leave, trouble won’t follow you. Your Master’s already picked sides, and he’s already finished. But you don’t have to go down with him.” I felt a little ridiculous, calling platitudes in an empty street, unable to gauge my audience’s reaction. Couldn’t be too long before someone called the cops, in a neighborhood like this.

Nothing happened, no one answered.

“Like I said,” I added finally. “It’s just a message. Think about it.” I turned to leave.

“Where are we supposed to go?” a man called in accented English.

The same question, and that was the problem, wasn’t it? Did they only stay because they didn’t have anywhere else to go? If I could just get all these people together …

I shrugged, wishing I could produce a magical floating island where we could all live in peace. Yeah, right. “Where do you want to go?”

“No matter where we go, we are in someone’s territory. In someone’s reach.”

Europe was crowded, in other words. “Maybe someone would let you in. If you talked to them. Made a deal. It has to be better than this.”

The speaker emerged into the light, and my breath caught. He was the male wolf, the one in chains who had lain at Njal’s feet. He was dressed now, shockingly ordinary in jeans and a sweater. But he still wore a metal-trimmed collar around his neck.

So did the lean wolf who padded beside him. The woman, his mate. She lowered her head when I saw her, hanging back, pressing herself to her bipedal companion. His hand reached down to brush her fur. He was protecting her; everything he did was to protect her.

“I’m listening, because you wouldn’t fight,” he said. “You understand.”

My voice stretched thin with sympathy. “You have to get away from him. You know that, don’t you?”

“He cares for us. In his own way.”

“You’re not pets.”

He looked away, like he didn’t believe me. “You don’t fight. Why are you trying to start a war?”

My smile felt bitter. “Oh, I didn’t start this.”

Four others had emerged, arranging themselves in the square behind the man. Two were in wolf form. Their ears were up, listening. Their postures were wary. Even the humans had stiff shoulders and taut expressions.

“You’re a pack. If you left together, looked to yourselves for leadership instead of that jerk of a vampire—” I shook my head. It had taken me years to learn that lesson. I couldn’t just rant at them and expect the lightbulb to turn on.