Kitty and the Midnight Hour

EPILOGUE

"Okay, we're back with The Midnight Hour. We have time to take a couple more calls for my guest this evening, Senator Joseph Duke, Republican from Missouri. Evan from San Diego, you're on the air."

"Yeah, hi," Evan said. "Senator Duke, first off I want to thank you for being one of the few members of our government willing to stand up for his beliefs—"

Inwardly, I groaned. Calls that started this way always ended with Bible thumping.

Duke said, "Why, thank you, Evan. Of course it's my God-given duty to stand for the place of moral rectitude in the United States Congress."

"Uh, yeah. And for my question, what I really want to know: In your knowledgeable opinion, what is the best method for punishing the minions of Satan—burning at the stake or drowning in holy water? If the federal government were to institute a code of mandatory punishment, which would you advocate?"

Why did people like this even listen to my show? Probably to collect quotes they could take out of context. The answers I gave to vampire orgy questions always came back to haunt me later.

The senator had the good grace to look discomfited. He shifted in his seat and pursed his lips. "Well, Evan, I'm afraid I'm not the expert on punishing the unrighteous you think I am. In this day and age, I believe the current penal system addresses any crimes for which the minions of Satan might be convicted, and the just punishments for those crimes. And if they come up with new crimes, well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it, won't we?"

That was what made guys like Duke so scary. They were so articulate in making the weirdest statements.

Senator Joseph Duke, a fifty-something nondescript picture of Middle America, like the guy in the American Gothic painting but twenty pounds heavier, sat at the other end of the table, as far away from me as he possibly could and still reach the microphone. He had two suited bodyguards with him. One of them had his gun drawn, propped in the crook of his crossed arms. The senator refused to be in the same room with me without the bodyguards. I asked about the gun—silver bullets? Of course.

After all the people declaring that the show and my identity had to be hoaxes, part of some elaborate ratings scheme, or a sick joke played on my gullible fans, Duke's unquestioning belief in my nature was almost refreshing. He almost refused to come on the show at all—originally he'd been scheduled to appear the week after Cormac invaded. We'd had to postpone. I'd had to agree to the bodyguards.

"Next caller, please. Lucy, hello."

"Hello, Kitty. Senator, I want to know how after all your talk about smiting heathens and ridding the country of the nefarious influences of the unrighteous, which you have openly stated include werewolves, can you sit there in the same room with Kitty like nothing's wrong?" I couldn't judge Lucy's tone. It might have been the height of sarcasm, her trying to get a rise out of him; or she might have been in earnest.

"Lucy, the Lord Jesus taught us not to abandon the unrighteous. That even the gravest sinner might be saved if they only let the light of Christ into their hearts. I see my time on this show as the ultimate chance to reach out to the unrighteous."

In my experience, becoming a werewolf had more to do with bad luck than with being a sinner. I couldn't mock his belief, or his sentiment, though. He wasn't advocating mass werewolf slayings, which made him better than some people. My folder of death threats had gotten thick over the months.

Lucy said, "So, Kitty, has he reached out to you?"

A couple of impolite responses occurred to me, and for once I kept them on the inside. "Well, as I've said before, while I may not be the most righteous bitch on the airwaves, I certainly don't feel particularly unrighteous. But I'm probably using the word differently than the senator. Let's just say I'm listening attentively, as usual."

The sound engineer gestured through the window to the boom, giving me a count of time left. Not Matt. I was in Albuquerque this week, at a public radio station that carried the show. It wasn't my booth, or my microphone, and the chair was too new, not as squishy as my chair back at KNOB. I missed that chair. I missed Matt.

"All right, faithful listeners—and mind you, I'm probably using the word 'faithful' differently than Senator Duke would use it. We've got just a couple of minutes left for closing words. Senator, I have one more question for you, if you don't mind."

"Go right ahead."

"Earlier in the show we discussed the little-publicized report released by a branch of the NIH, a government-sponsored study that made an empirical examination of supernatural beings such as werewolves and vampires. I'd like to ask you, if I may: If the U.S. government is on the verge of labeling lycanthropy and vampirism as diseases—by that I mean identifiable physiological conditions—how does that reconcile with the stance taken by many religious doctrines that these conditions are marks of sin?"

"Well, Ms. Norville, like you, I've read that report. And rather than contradicting my stance on these conditions as you call them, I believe it supports me."

"How?"

"I said before that I want to reach out to people suffering from these terrible afflictions—just as we as a society must reach out to anyone suffering from illness. We must help them find their way to the righteous path of light."

And what did the vampires think of being led to the path of light?

"How would you do this, Senator?" I said, a tad more diplomatically.

He straightened, launching on a speech like he'd been waiting for this moment, for this exact question. "Many diseases, such as lycanthropy and vampirism in particular, are highly contagious. Folklore has taught us this for centuries, and now modern science confirms it."

"I'd argue with the highly, but go on."

"As with any contagious disease, the first step should be to isolate the victims. Prevent the spread of the disease. By taking firm steps, I believe we could wipe out these conditions forever, in just a few years."

A vague, squishy feeling settled on my stomach. "So you would… and please, correct me if I've misinterpreted… you would round up all the werewolves you could and force them into, what? Hospitals, housing projects—" Dare I say it? Oh, sure. "—ghettos?"

Duke missed the jab entirely. "I think hospitals in this case would be most appropriate. I'm confident that given the time and resources, science will find a way to eradicate the mark of the beast that has settled on these blighted souls."

If it wasn't so sad, I'd laugh. Trouble was, I'd talked to people like this enough to know I'd never argue them out of their beliefs. "Right. I think I and my blighted soul need a drink. That must mean we're near the end of our time. Once again, Senator Duke, thank you so much for being on the show."

"Thank you for having me. And I want you to know that I am praying for you. You can be saved."

"Thanks. I appreciate it." The other thing about people like this was how they completely lacked the ability to identify sarcasm. "Right, I think we have a whole lot of food for thought after that. And just so everyone out there is clear about how I stand on the issue, and because I've never been shy about expressing my opinion: I think we need to look to the lessons of history when we discuss how the government should handle these issues. I for one don't want people with black armbands coming for me in the middle of the night." This was my show. I always got the last word.

"Thank you for listening. This is Kitty Norville, Voice of the Night." Cue the wolf howl. Another one in the can.

I sat back and sighed.

Senator Duke was staring at me. "It won't come to that."

I shrugged. "That's what they said in Berlin in the thirties."

"I would think people like you would want to be helped."

"The trouble is in how many definitions of 'help' there are. Everyone thinks they have the right answer. I did mean it, though—I appreciate your being on the show, Senator." I stood and offered my hand to shake. Frowning, he looked at it. "I can't hurt your with just a handshake. Honest."

Nodding crisply at his bodyguards, he turned his shoulder to me and left.

I blew out the breath I'd been holding. That was rough.

But never let it be said my show was one-sided.

I went to the control booth, where the engineer handed me the phone. "Hey, Matt."

"Hey, Kitty. Sounded good." Matt still worked on the show remotely, coaching the local guys on how to run things, making sure the phone number got transferred, stuff like that.

"Cool. Thanks. It only sounds good 'cause you're the best."

"Yeah, I'll believe it when Ozzie gives me a raise. Hey, speak of the devil. Talk to you later, Kitty." There was a rustling as he handed the phone over.

Ozzie came on the line. "Great show, Kitty. Just great. You had that bozo sweating, I could tell."

"You think they're all great, Ozzie."

"That's 'cause they are. I'm your biggest fan. Are you going to be in Albuquerque next week, or someplace else?"

"Someplace else, I think. I haven't decided. I'll let you know."

"I wish you could tell me why you're doing the fugitive bit."

"You don't really want to know. Trust me."

"Just remember, if you need anything, anything at all, you call me."

"Thanks, Ozzie. Give Matt a raise."

He grumbled, and I laughed.

Who said a pack had to be all werewolves?

I bought a car, a little hatchback with enormous gas mileage. I doubled my salary when I stopped paying off Carl. Maybe I'd even buy myself some new clothes. With a car I could go anywhere. I'd be traveling at my own speed from now on. And traveling, and traveling.

I checked in with my parents before I left Albuquerque; I checked in with them every week. They bought me a cell phone so I could be sure to call, no matter where I was—and so they could always find me. They weren't happy about my situation. They kept inviting me to stay with them however long I needed to. I appreciated the thought. But I couldn't do that to them.

I kept a lookout for Elijah Smith and the Church of the Pure Faith. There was still a story there. My ultimate goal was to get Smith himself as a guest on the show. Not likely, but a girl could dream. Every now and then I found a flyer, or someone sent one to me, advertising his caravan. I always seemed to be a week behind him.

Detective Hardin got hold of me through Ben O'Farrell. God help me, I hired the lawyer on retainer. I had my mail forwarded to him, and he had my contact information. He'd been calm and straightforward the night Zan died. In daylight hours, outside the stress of the police station, he proved just as straightforward. He was never above giving advice on something as mundane as car insurance.

Best of all, Hardin had to talk to him before she could get to me. But even O'Farrell couldn't put her off forever. We talked on the phone the week I stayed in Albuquerque.

"We found your DNA on the first werewolf's body, in his mouth and under his fingernails. That makes you an assault victim. Then we found your DNA in the saliva on the wounds of the second body, which could get you in trouble. But we're willing to make a case for self-defense since he also had your blood under his fingernails." She made it sound so technical. This was my blood we were talking about.

If it hadn't been my blood involved, I would have laughed at how the whole thing sounded like some werewolf version of a Mexican standoff. I admired Hardin for trying to sort out who had attacked whom first.

"We found a fourth set of werewolf DNA in the saliva on the wounds of the body outside your apartment. It's the only link unaccounted for. All I need is a name."

The implication was that I could be charged with a crime in the middle of this mess. O'Farrell wanted me to fess up.

I didn't have anyone to protect anymore.

"T.J. Theodore Joseph Gurney. He lives in the cabin behind the garage at Ninety-fifth and South. I don't think he's there anymore." Present tense. If I told Hardin he was dead, she would just open another murder investigation. I could have pointed her to Carl in that case. But I didn't. This had to end somewhere.

"Then where did he go?"

"I don't know." That at least was true. I didn't know where he was now. "He didn't tell me."

"Can I believe you?"

"Yes."

"Why did you leave town?"

"I had to. It wasn't safe for me to stay, after what I did."

"You were afraid of ending up like that body outside your apartment."

"Yes."

She sighed. "You might be interested to know, the powers that be are actually listening to me."

"You mean you say 'werewolf' and they believe you?"

"Yeah. The alternative is the theory that some ritual slaying specialist came up with about a cult of cannibals to explain why they found shredded bodies with pieces missing. The idea is the cult imploded when it turned on itself and the members started eating each other. Werewolves sound downright rational compared to that."

Except there was a hint of truth to the cannibal theory as well.

She said, "If I think of anything else, I'll call you."

"Yeah. Sure."

We parted civilly.

Hardin was a good person. I felt grateful for her open-mindedness and her professionalism through all this. I just wished I hadn't been the focus of her efforts.

I didn't even have a picture of T.J.

I was closing in on Austin when NPR aired a report. I cranked up the volume when I heard a key phrase.

The reporter said, "… Paranatural Biology, releasing findings to Congress in response to questions that have been raised regarding unusual appropriation requests. Doctor Paul Flemming, an assistant director of the National Institutes of Health overseeing the Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology, offered this statement at a press conference held earlier today."

Then Doctor Flemming spoke:

"I am authorized at this time to announce the formation of the Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology within the National Institutes of Health. In conjunction with the British Alternative Biologies Laboratory, we are prepared to release findings recognizing the existence of alternate races of Homo sapiens, races that were once considered only legend…" Blood rushed in my ears. This was the government, a spokesperson for the government. They were blowing my world wide open.

More than that, I recognized the voice. Deep Throat. My secret government spook. I stifled a laugh as he went on to explain the report in terms of taxonomy and science.

"These conditions are mutations brought on by as yet unidentified infectious agents. The following conditions have been identified… Homo sapiens sanguinis… commonly known as vampire. Homo sapiens lupus… commonly known as werewolf. Homo sapiens pinnipedia…"

I had his name. As soon as I stopped for the afternoon, I was going to find his phone number and give him a call.

At a gas station somewhere in West Texas, I went into the store to stock up on road trip munchies. On my way to the cash register, I passed a rack of newspapers and stopped cold. I stared. I smiled. I bought a paper, the latest issue of Wide World of News.

I would frame it, and as soon as I had a wall, it would go up. The headline read:

"Bat Boy to Appear as Guest on The Midnight Hour."