Kitty's House of Horrors (4 page)

She huffed, and whatever moment of honesty and openness had passed. The defenses slammed back into place. “Counseling? I don’t
need help. I’m not
weak.
” She clicked off.

I sighed. “Alrighty, then. Public service announcement here: there’s no shame in getting help. Really. Honest. We’re all in
this together, and life is a little easier when we act like it. Well, it looks like we’re out of time. Alas. Now, for next
week I’m trying to dig up information on a vampire-only beauty pageant held in New York City last month. Apparently it was
all very hush-hush and no one’s talking about it. But I’m bound and determined to bring the winner of that pageant on the
show for an interview. Join me for the next exciting
Midnight Hour.
This is Kitty Norville, voice of the night.”

T
wo weeks later, I was set to go.

Ben and I stayed awake for a long time the night before I had to fly to Montana. I was still contemplating backing out of
the whole thing. If he’d told me right then that he didn’t want me to go, I’d have called it off and stayed, just for him.

But we were both trying to pretend that neither of us was that needy.

We’d made love, then made love again, and now lay sweaty and tired, arms around each other. I absently ran my fingers through
his hair—scruffy and tangled no matter how much I combed it and smoothed it. It was amazing how long I could focus on his
hair. I was comfortable, with his arms around my middle holding me to him like I was a giant pillow. His face nuzzled at my
neck, moving along the skin, around my ear, into my hair, as he breathed deeply all the while. Like he was trying to memorize
my scent.

“I can’t smell that good,” I whispered.

“Yes, you can,” he whispered back. “I’m not going to wash the sheets ’til you get back.”

I pulled away so I could look at him, and so he could see my goofy smile. “That’s so romantic.”

“It is? I was thinking it was another one of those creepy things that only a lycanthrope would say.”

“That, too,” I said. “Maybe I can get myself voted off the island early.”

“Hmm, cool.”

We kissed again, and again, and again.

W
hen Joey Provost said the mountain lodge where the show was being filmed was in the middle of nowhere, he wasn’t kidding.
I arrived at the Great Falls airport, then had to wait for another, smaller airplane that would take us to the site. The lodge
was accessible only via aircraft or a long, hard hike. Was it bad that I kept thinking, limited escape routes?

“Kitty! You’re here!” a female voice squealed when I entered the tiny waiting area at the far end of the concourse, and a
minute later Tina McCannon had her arms around me.

I resisted an urge to snarl or flee. “Tina, you know better than to sneak up on me like that.” But the moment of panic faded—I
managed to convince Wolf that just because someone ran at us didn’t mean they were attacking—and I hugged Tina back.

Tall, thin, buxom, she was the eye candy for the paranormal-investigator TV show
Paradox PI
and the secret of its success. She had an uncanny sixth sense, and spiritualist tricks like Ouija boards and automatic writing
actually worked for her. She always knew which places were really haunted. She was kinda scary—the same way I was kinda scary.
We were scary only if someone knew what we were. Otherwise, we must have looked like a couple of really girly girls, hugging
and carrying on.

Tina stepped aside, and I glanced past her to see Jeffrey and Ariel, also waiting for the same flight out. TV psychic Jeffrey
Miles gave me a big hug. In his thirties, clean-cut, with sandy hair and a photogenic smile, he was handsome and charismatic.
Friendly as all get-out. You couldn’t help but like him.

“You look great!” he said. And he totally wasn’t kidding about that, because he could read auras. At least, he said he could.
The first time we met, he’d pegged me as a werewolf before I’d introduced myself. Like Tina, he was too nice and friendly
to be
too
scary.

I beamed at him. “Thanks. It’s good to see you.”

I’d never met twenty-something Ariel in person, but I recognized her because her photo was on her website, and we’d talked
on the phone—a lot. Ariel, Priestess of the Night, hosted a talk-radio show like mine, if a bit fluffier. She was way nicer
to her callers. Her black hair was pinned up in a bun, and she wore a black dress with a lacy black cardigan, and cool boots.
Goth-y, and she wore it well.

“Kitty!” She squealed, just like Tina had. God, this was going to start sounding like a fourth-grade sleepover. She wanted
to hug me, too. “I’m so happy you’re here and I finally get to meet you.”

“God, Kitty. Do you know everyone or what?” Tina said.

“Kinda. Just because I end up interviewing everyone on my show. Come on, sit down, tell me everything.”

We traded gossip and recent life stories for about half an hour before the pilot for the local commuter airport came to tell
us the plane was ready. We filed out behind him to the tarmac.

My confidence was not boosted. The pilot was brusque, not talkative. He wore what he probably considered to be a uniform,
the logo of the tiny commuter airline embroidered on the sleeve of his khaki shirt, tucked into slacks. He wore aviator sunglasses
and didn’t smile. And the plane—I wasn’t convinced it would even get the five of us and our luggage off the ground. We barely
fit inside, and the walls seemed paper thin.

I hesitated, staring at the tiny airplane.

“Come on,” Jeffrey said, urging me on with a smile. “It’ll be an adventure.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I replied, scowling.

But the pilot knew what he was doing, and the little plane did get off the ground. The engine rumbled so loud we couldn’t
talk—or even think much—which left me staring out the windows at the scenery. We quickly left civilized territory, the city
falling away, development growing more sparse, until all I saw were open meadows, forests cut through by hills, then mountains.
Forty-five minutes later, we landed on a narrow airstrip nestled in a mountain valley. I closed my eyes during the landing
and tried not to think about being trapped in a little metal box, hurtling toward the ground.

The plane pulled to a stop, the pilot opened the doors, and we all piled out. The clean mountain air hit me, and all was forgiven.

Another plane, a bit larger than ours, was parked at the end of the narrow airstrip. The pilot explained that it belonged
to the production company and had been used to fly in equipment and supplies. The production crew had a pilot with it—there
was our escape route. We wouldn’t be completely cut off.

The descriptions I’d been given, variations of “a beautiful mountain retreat,” didn’t do the place justice. I’d seen mountain
lodges that didn’t have much thought put into them, squat buildings that looked like they’d been dropped into the landscape
by a crane with no consideration of surroundings. This place nestled at the edge of the valley like it had grown there. I
had to search for it, where it sat against a hillside—part of the hill, almost. A meadow swept down from it, a clean expanse
of rippling green grass dotted with patches of wildflowers. I bet elk and deer grazed here in the mornings. A wide stream
ran through the meadow to a lake, and on the other side of the lake—ringing the whole meadow, in fact, up to either side of
the lodge—was a forest of tall pines. And beyond the forest, on the horizon, were the mountains. A spur of the Rockies jutted
out here, bluish-gray peaks capped with snow even at the end of summer. They were sharp, grouped together like teeth. Clouds
were gathering above them. The sun was setting, casting the whole valley in a rich blue twilight. I hoped I got a room with
that view.

A few aspens butted up against the lodge itself, which was tasteful log architecture rather than the obnoxious version of
it. The whole thing had a warm, rustic atmosphere. My muscles started relaxing.

We spent a few moments just looking around, admiring. I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath of air: trees, stone, a hint
of snow, cold water, sun-touched grass, animals in a collage of trails and scents. Untouched wild. So much prey here, my Wolf
thought. So many creatures, vegetation, smells all jumbled together, I couldn’t make them all out right away. Also, predators:
bears, maybe even mountain lions. Their smells were dangerous.

The pilot unloaded our luggage. I turned to thank him, but he had already climbed back into the cockpit and revved the engines.
Taxi ride over. We collected our bags and found a path that led to the lodge.

I took out my cell phone just to check, and sure enough: no signal. I couldn’t say I was surprised. Middle of nowhere and
all that.

We climbed the steps to the lodge’s front porch and went inside.

Stopping inside the front door, with the other three crowding around me, I had my first look at the place: the entire first
floor was open, with a large, modern kitchen on one side and a living room area on the other. Here, a big stone fireplace
dominated the far wall, and a collection of sofas and cushy armchairs gathered in front of it. A couple of cameras and cameramen
were set up in opposite corners, staring at us. So, they’d already started collecting footage. One of the cameramen was Ron
Valenti, from the meeting with Joey Provost. He’d shed the Armani in favor of jeans and a flannel shirt—very rustic, in a
bought-it-out-of-a-high-end-catalog way. He looked at us but didn’t acknowledge us. Focused on getting that perfect shot.

People were sitting on the sofas, looking up at us with interest. One of them was Joey Provost.

He stood and came toward me, hand outstretched for shaking.
Another attack,
Wolf growled. We were never going to appreciate aggressive human friendliness, were we? I gritted my teeth, smiled, and shook
his hand.

“Hi! Welcome, all of you!” He shook each of our hands in turn. His smile was ferociously pleasant.

“Thanks,” I said, glancing around, taking it in. I smelled old soot and the smoke of many fires from the immense fireplace;
dinnertime cooking smells from the kitchen, red wine in glasses, and people. Different kinds of people—not entirely human
people. My nose was working overtime, trying to take it all in.

“Why don’t we come in and make some introductions?” That smile never dimmed, and I sensed an edge of anxiety to it. I didn’t
envy Provost his job here; he wasn’t just going to be producing a TV show, he was going to be playing mediator and camp counselor.

Provost gestured to a large, aggressively muscled black man with a hooded glare sitting on a chair, a little ways from the
others.

“Jerome Macy,” Provost said.

“Yeah, we’ve met,” I said while the others nodded greetings.

The pro wrestler nodded at me. I nodded back, and we didn’t meet gazes—wolf body language that said,
Hey, we’re cool, nothing wrong here.
He was another werewolf and understood how weird this all was. I might spend the next couple of weeks being more comfortable
around him than anyone else.

“Finally, we get some eye candy,” said a guy I didn’t know, scoping out Tina, Ariel, and me with a definite leer. I had to
admit, we did sort of look like Charlie’s Angels standing together.

He smelled weird. Definitely not human, but a flavor of not-human I hadn’t encountered before—and I was racking up quite the
scent catalog. Not a vampire, not a werewolf, were-tiger, or were-jaguar. I’d even met a were–African wild dog, but this wasn’t
any of those. He had a human and something-else smell, like all lycanthropes had. But the something else was kind of… fishy.
Salty. Wild without the fur. Weird.

“Lee Ponatac,” he said in response to my inquiring glare. He had dark hair, and his features were square, young, his eyes
brown and shining. He had the scruffy appearance of someone who spent a lot of time outside and didn’t care much about polish.
It was a nice look, and he pulled it off well. My inquiring glare didn’t go away, and he just kept his charismatic smile.
“Were-seal. Children of Sedna, we call them back home,” he said finally.

My eyes widened. “Really?”

Provost said, “Lee is a state legislator in Alaska. He may be the first publicly acknowledged lycanthrope elected to office
in the country. I’m a little surprised we discovered him before you did.”

“Yeah. But hey, happy to meet you now. Were-seal? Really? And you don’t think this gig will come back to haunt you if you
ever decide to run for president?”

He smirked. “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”

I didn’t think there’d ever come a time when I couldn’t be surprised, and he seemed pleased at my astonishment. Oh, this was
going to be a fun couple of weeks.

The other man, a guy in his thirties, a little overweight and a little balding but not more than average, sat back in an armchair,
arms crossed, frowning slightly as he regarded us all. He smelled human. But so did more than half the people in the room.

“And you are?” I asked.

“Conrad Garrett,” he said.

“The author?” I said. I’d heard of Garrett, who’d made a profession of writing books debunking the existence of the supernatural,
claiming government conspiracy about the NIH’s Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology, calling foul on every shred of
evidence proving the existence of things like, oh, werewolves. The public recognition of all this was still too new—of course
skeptics came forward. “So why don’t you return any of my calls?”

“Because acknowledging you only validates your claims,” he said, straightforward, like he’d practiced the line.

I huffed. “If you don’t believe any of us are real, what are you even doing here?”

“That’s putting it a bit existentially,” he said. “I just don’t believe any of you are what you
claim
you are.”

“Wow. Extreme state of denial,” Ariel said.

I stared. “Seriously? Really? After everything that’s happened? After Congress held hearings and all the stuff on TV?”