Kitty and the Midnight Hour

Chapter 2

The second episode of the show that came to be called The Midnight Hour (I would always consider that first surprising night to be the first episode) aired a week later. That gave me time to do some research. I dug up half a dozen articles published in second-string medical journals and one surprisingly high-level government research project, a kind of medical Project Blue Book. It was a study on "paranatural biology" sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers attempted to document empirical evidence of the existence of creatures such as vampires, lycanthropes, etcetera. They more than attempted it—they did document it: photos, charts, case histories, statistics. They concluded that these phenomena were not widespread enough to warrant government attention.

The documentation didn't surprise me—there wasn't anything there I hadn't seen before, in one form or another. It surprised me that anyone from the supernatural underworld would have participated in such a study.

Where had they gotten test subjects? The study didn't say much about those subjects, seemingly regarding them in the same way one would disposable lab rats. This raised a whole other set of issues, which gave me lots to talk about.

Pulling all this together, at least part of the medical community was admitting to the existence of people like me. I started the show by laying out all this information. Then I opened the line for calls.

"It's a government conspiracy…"

"… because the Senate is run by bloodsucking fiends!"

"Which doesn't in fact mean they're vampires, but still…"

"So when is the NIH going to go public…"

"… medical schools running secret programs…"

"Is the public really ready for…"

"… a more enlightened time, surely we wouldn't be hunted down like animals…"

"Would lycanthropy victims be included in the Americans with Disabilities Act?"

My time slot flew by. The week after that, my callers and I speculated about which historical figures had been secret vampires or werewolves. My favorite, suggested by an intrepid caller: General William T. Sherman was a werewolf. I looked him up, and seeing his photo, I could believe it. All the other Civil War generals were strait-laced, with buttoned collars and trimmed beards, but Sherman had an open collar, scruffy hair, five-o'clock shadow, and a screw-you expression. Oh yeah. The week after that I handled a half-dozen calls on how to tell your family you were a vampire or a werewolf. I didn't have any good answers on that one—I hadn't told my family. Being a radio DJ was already a little too weird for them.

And so on. I'd been doing the show for two months when Ozzie called me at home.

"Kitty, you gotta get down here."

"Why?"

"Just get down here."

I pondered a half-dozen nightmare scenarios. I was being sued for something I'd said on the air. The Baptist Church had announced a boycott. Well, that could be a good thing. Free publicity and all. Or someone had gone and got themselves or someone else killed because of the show.

It took half an hour to get there, riding the bus. I hadn't showered and was feeling grouchy. Whatever it was Ozzie was going to throw at me, I just wanted to get it over with.

The door to his office was open. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket and slouched. "Ozzie?"

He didn't look up from the mountains of paper, books, and newspapers spread over his desk. A radio in the corner was tuned to KNOB. A news broadcast mumbled at low volume. "Come in, shut the door."

I did. "What's wrong?"

He looked up. "Wrong? Nothing's wrong. Here, take a look at this." He offered a packet of papers.

The pages were dense with print and legalese. These were contracts. I only caught one word before my eyes fogged over.

Syndication.

When I looked at Ozzie again, his hands were folded on the desk and he was grinning. That was a pretty big canary he'd just eaten. "What do you think? I've had calls from a dozen stations wanting to run your show. I'll sign on as producer. You'll get a raise for every new market we pick up. Are you in?"

This was big. This was going national, at least on a limited scale. I tried to read the proposal. L.A. They wanted me in L.A.? This was… unbelievable. I sat against the table and started giggling. Wow. Wow wow wow wow. There was no way I could do this. That would require responsibility, commitment—things I'd shied away from like the plague since… since I'd started hanging out with people like T.J.

But if I didn't, someone else would, now that the radio community had gotten the idea. And dammit, this was my baby.

I said, "I'm going to need a website."

That night I went to T.J.'s place, a shack he rented behind an auto garage out toward Arvada. T.J. didn't have a regular job. He fixed motorcycles for cash and didn't sweat the human world most of the time. I came over for supper a couple of times a week. He was an okay cook. More important than his cooking ability, he was able to indulge the appetite for barely cooked steaks.

I'd known T.J. forever, it seemed like. He helped me out when I was new to things, more than anyone else in the local pack. He'd become a friend. He wasn't a bully—a lot of people used being a werewolf as an excuse for behaving badly. I felt more comfortable around him than just about anyone. I didn't have to pretend to be human around him.

I found him in the shed outside. He was working on his bike, a fifteen-year-old Yamaha that was his pride and joy and required constant nursing. He tossed the wrench into the toolbox and reached to give me a hug, greasy hands and all.

"You're perky," he said. "You're practically glowing."

"We're syndicating the show. They're going to broadcast it in L.A. Can you believe that? I'm syndicated!"

He smiled. "Good for you."

"I want to celebrate," I said. "I want to go out. I found this all-ages hole-in-the-wall. The vampires don't go there. Will you come with me?"

"I thought you didn't like going out. You don't like it when we go out with Carl and the pack."

Carl was the alpha male of our pack, god and father by any other name. He was the glue that held the local werewolves together. He protected us, and we were loyal to him.

When Carl went out with his pack, he did it to mark territory, metaphorically speaking. Show off the strength of the pack in front of the local vampire Family. Pissing contests and dominance games.

"That's not any fun. I want to have fun."

"You know you ought to tell Carl, if you want to go out."

I frowned. "He'll tell me not to." A pack of wolves was a show of strength. One or two wolves alone were vulnerable. But I wanted this to be my celebration, a human celebration, not the pack's.

But the thing about being part of a pack was needing a friend at your back. It wouldn't have felt right for me to go alone. I needed T.J. And maybe T.J. needed Carl.

I tried one more time, shameless begging, but I had no dignity. "Come on, what could possibly happen? Just a couple of hours. Please?"

T.J. picked up a rag off the handlebars and wiped his hands. He smirked at me like the indulgent older brother he'd become. If I'd been a wolf, my tail would have been wagging hopefully.

"Okay. I'll go with you. Just for a couple of hours."

I sighed, relieved.

The club, Livewire, got a deal on the back rooms of a converted warehouse at the edge of Lodo, just a few blocks from Coors Field, when the downtown district was at the start of its "revitalization" phase. It didn't have a flashy marquee. The entrance was around the corner from the main drag, a garage-type rolling door that used to be part of a loading dock. Inside, the girders and venting were kept exposed. Techno and industrial pouring through the woofers rumbled the walls, audible outside as a vibration. That was the only sign there was anything here. Vampires liked to gather at places that had lines out front—trendy, flashy places that attracted the kind of trendy, flashy people they could impress and seduce with their excessive sense of style.

I didn't have to dress up. I wore grubby, faded jeans, a black tank top, and had my hair in two braids. I planned on dancing till my bones hurt.

Unfortunately, T.J. was acting like a bodyguard. His expression was relaxed enough, and he walked with his hands in his jacket pockets like nothing was wrong, but he was looking all around and his nostrils flared, taking in scents.

"This is it," I said, guiding him to the door of the club. He stepped around me so he could enter first.

There was always—would always be—a part of me that walked into a crowded room and immediately thought, sheep. Prey. A hundred bodies pressed together, young hearts beating, filled with blood, running hot. I squeezed my hands into fists. I could rip into any of them. I could. I took a deep breath and let that knowledge fade.

I smelled sweat, perfume, alcohol, cigarettes. Some darker things: Someone nearby had recently shot up on heroin. I felt the tremor in his heartbeat, smelled the poison on his skin. If I concentrated, I could hear individual conversations happening in the bar, ten paces away. The music flowed through my shoes. Sisters of Mercy was playing.

"I'm going to go dance," I said to T.J., who was still surveying the room.

"I'm going to go check out the cute boys in the corner." He nodded to where a couple of guys in tight leather pants were talking.

It was a pity about T.J., really. But the cutest, nicest guys were always gay, weren't they?

I was a radio DJ before I became a werewolf. I'd always loved dancing, sweating out the beat of the music. I joined the press of bodies pulsing on the dance floor, not as a monster with thoughts of slaughter, but as me. I hadn't been really dancing in a club like this since the attack, when I became what I am. Years. Crowds were hard to handle sometimes. But when the music was loud, when I was anonymous in a group, I stopped worrying, stopped caring, lived in the moment.

Letting the music guide me, I closed my eyes. I sensed every body around me, every beating heart. I took it all in, joy filling me.

In the midst of the sweat and heat, I smelled something cold. A dark point cut through the crowd like a ship through water, and people—warm, living bodies—fell away like waves in its wake.

Werewolves, even in human form, retain some of the abilities of their alter egos. Smell, hearing, strength, agility. We can smell well enough to identify an individual across a room, in a crowd.

Before I could turn and run, the vampire stood before me, blocking my path. When I tried to duck away, he was in front of me, moving quickly, gracefully, without a sign of effort.

My breaths came fast as he pushed me to the edge of panic.

He was part of the local vampire Family, I assumed. He seemed young, cocky, his red silk shirt open at the collar, his smirk unwavering. He opened his lips just enough to show the points of his fangs.

"We don't want your kind here." Wiry and feral, he had a manic, Clockwork Orange feel to him.

I looked across the room to find T.J. Two more of them, impeccably dressed in silk shirts and tailored slacks and oozing cold, blocked him in the corner. T.J.'s fists were clenched. He caught my gaze and set his jaw in grim reassurance. I had to trust him to get me out of this, but he was too far away to help me.

"I thought you guys didn't like this place," I said.

"We changed our minds. And you're trespassing."

"No." I whined a little under my breath. I had wanted to leave this behind for a few hours.

I glared, shaking. A predator had me in his sights, and I wanted to flee, a primal instinct. I didn't dare look away from the vampire, but another scent caught my attention. Something animal, a hint of fur and musk underneath normal human smells. Werewolf.

Carl didn't hesitate. He just stepped into the place the vampire had been occupying, neatly displacing him before the vampire knew what had happened.

Our slight commotion made the vampires blocking T.J. turn. T.J., who could hold his own in a straight fight, elbowed his way between them and strode toward us.

Carl grabbed my shoulder. "Let's go outside."

He was about six-four and had the build to match. He towered over my slim, five-six self. He had rough brown hair and a beard, and glared constantly. Even if I didn't know what he was, I'd have picked him out of a lineup as most likely to be a werewolf. He had this look.

I squeaked as he wrenched me toward the door. I scurried to stay on my feet, but I had trouble keeping up. It looked like he dragged me, but I hardly noticed, I was so numb with relief that the vampire was gone and we were leaving.

A bouncer blocked our way at the passage leading from the dance floor to the main entrance. He wasn't as tall as Carl, but he was just as wide. And he had no idea that Carl could rip his face off if he decided to.

"This guy bothering you?" the bouncer said to me.

Carl's hand tensed on my shoulder. "It's none of your business."

Frowning, the bouncer looked at me for confirmation. He was judging this based on human sensibilities. He saw a girl get dragged off the dance floor, it probably meant trouble. But this was different. Sort of.

I squared my shoulders and settled my breathing. "Everything's fine. Thanks."

The bouncer stepped aside.

Joining us, T.J. followed us down the passage and out the door.

Outside, we walked down a side street, around the corner and into an alley, out of sight of the people who were getting air outside the club.

There, Carl pinned me against the brick wall, hands planted on either side of my head.

"What the hell are you doing out where they could find you?"

I assumed he meant the vampires. My heart pounded, my voice was tight, and with Carl looming over me I couldn't calm down. My breaths came out as gasps. He was so close, the heat of him pressed against me, and I was on the verge of losing it. I wanted to hug him, cling to him until he wasn't angry at me anymore.

"It was just for a little while. I just wanted to go out. They weren't supposed to be here." I looked away, brushing a tear off my cheek. "T.J. was with me. And they weren't supposed to be here."

"Don't argue with me."

"I'm sorry, Carl. I'm sorry." It was so hard groveling upright, without a tail to stick between my legs.

T.J. stood a couple of feet away, leaning back against the wall, his arms crossed and shoulders hunched.

"It's my fault," he said. "I told her it was okay."

"When did you start handing out permission?"

T.J. looked away. Carl was the only person who could make him look sheepish. "Sorry."

"You should have called me."

I was still trying to catch my breath. "How—how did you know where to find us?"

He looked at T.J., who was scuffing his boot on the asphalt. T.J. said, "I left him a note."

I closed my eyes, defeated. "Can't we do anything without telling Carl?"

Carl growled. Human vocal cords could growl. The guys in pro wrestling did it all the time. But they didn't mean it like Carl meant it. When he growled, it was like his wolf was trying to climb out of his throat to bite my face off.

"Nope," T.J. said.

"T.J., go home. Kitty and I are going to have a little talk. I'll take care of you later."

"Yes, sir."

T.J. caught my gaze for a moment, gave me a "buck-up" expression, nodded at Carl, and walked down the street Carl put his hand behind my neck and steered me in the opposite direction.

This was supposed to be my night.

Usually, I melted around Carl. His personality was such that it subsumed everyone around him—at least everyone in the pack. All I ever wanted to do was make him happy, so that he'd love me. But right now, I was angry.

I couldn't remember when I'd ever been more angry than scared. It was an odd feeling, a battle of emotions and animal instinct that expressed itself in action: fight or flight I'd always run, hid, groveled. The hair on my arms, the back of my neck, prickled, and a deep memory of thick fur awakened.

His track was parked around the corner. He guided me to the passenger seat. Then, he drove.

"I had a visit from Arturo."

Arturo was Master of the local vampire Family. He kept the vampires in line like Carl kept the werewolves in line, and as long as the two groups stayed in their territories and didn't harass each other, they existed peacefully, mostly. If Arturo had approached Carl, it meant he had a complaint.

"What's wrong?"

"He wants you to quit your show." He glared straight ahead.

I flushed. I should have known something like this would happen. Things were going so well.

"I can't quit the show. We're expanding. Syndication. It's a huge opportunity, I can't pass it up—"

"You can if I tell you to."

I tiredly rubbed my face, unable to think of any solution that would let us both have our way. I willed my eyes to clear and made sure my voice sounded steady.

"Then you think I should quit, too."

"He says that some of his people have been calling you for advice instead of going to him. It's a challenge to his authority. He has a point."

Wow, Carl and Arturo agreed on something. It was a great day for supernatural diplomacy.

"Then he should tell off his people and not blame it on me—"

"Kitty—"

I slouched in the seat and pouted like a little kid.

"He's also worried about exposure. He thinks you're bringing too much attention to us. All it takes is one tele-vangelist or right-wing senator calling a witch hunt, and people will come looking for us."

"Come on, 90 percent of the people out there think the show's a joke."

He spared a moment out of his driving to glare at me. "We've kept to ourselves and kept the secret for a long time. Arturo longer than most. You can't expect him to think your show is a good idea."

"Why did he talk to you and not me?"

" 'Cause it's my job to keep you on your leash."

"Leash or choke collar? Sorry." I apologized before he even had a chance to glare at me.

"You need to quit the show," he said. His hands clenched the steering wheel.

"You always do what Arturo tells you to?"

Sad, that this was the best argument I could think of. Carl wouldn't want to think he was making Arturo happy.

"It's too dangerous."

"For whom? For Arturo? For you? For the pack?"

"Is it so unbelievable that I might have your best interests in mind? Arturo may be overreacting, but you are bringing a hell of a lot of exposure on yourself. If a fanatic out there decides you're a minion of evil, walks into your studio with a gun—"

"He'd need silver bullets."

"If he thinks the show is for real, he just might have them."

"It won't happen, Carl. I'm not telling anyone what I am."

"And how long will that last?"

Carl didn't like the show because he didn't have any control over it. It was all mine. I was supposed to be all his. I'd never argued with him like this before.

I looked out the window. "I get a raise for every new market that picks up the show. It's not much right now, but if this takes off, it could be a lot. Half of it's yours."

The engine hummed; the night rolled by the windows, detail lost in darkness. I didn't even have to think about how much I'd give to keep doing the show. The realization came like something of an epiphany. I'd give Carl all the syndication bonus to keep doing the show. I'd grovel at his feet every day if he wanted me to.

I had to hold on to the show. It was mine. I was proud of it. It was important. I'd never done anything important before.

He took a long time to answer. Each moment, hope made the knot in my throat tighter. Surely if he was going to say no, he wouldn't have to think this hard.

"Okay," he said at last. "But I might still change my mind."

"That's fair." I felt like I'd just run a race, I was so wrung out.

He drove us twenty minutes out of town, to the open space and private acreage that skirted the foothills along Highway 93 to the west. This was the heart of the pack's territory. Some of the wolves in the pack owned houses out here. The land was isolated and safe for us to run through. There weren't any streetlights. The sky was overcast. Carl parked on a dead-end dirt road. We walked into the first of the hills, away from the road and residences.

If I thought our discussion was over, I was wrong. We'd only hashed out half of the issue. The human half.

"Change," he said.

The full moon was still a couple of weeks away. I didn't like shape-shifting voluntarily at other times. I didn't like giving in to the urge. I hesitated, but Carl was stripping, already shifting as he did, his back bowed, limbs stretching, fur rippling.

Why couldn't he just let it go? My anger grew when it should have subsided and given way to terror. Carl would assert his dominance, and I was probably going to get hurt.

But for the first time, I was angry enough that I didn't care.

I couldn't fight him. I was half his size. Even if I knew what I was doing, I'd lose. So, I ran. I pulled off my shirt and bra as I did, paused to shove my jeans and panties to my feet, jumped out of them, and Changed, stretching so I'd be running before the fur had stopped growing.

If I didn't think about it too much, it didn't hurt that badly.

Hands thicken, claws sprout, think about flowing water so she doesn't feel bones slide under skin, joints and muscles molding themselves into something else. She crouches, breathing deep through bared teeth. Teeth and face growing longer, and the hair, and the eyes. The night becomes so clear, seen through the Wolf's eyes.

Then she leaps, the Wolf is formed and running, four legs feel so natural, so splendid, pads barely touching soft earth before they fly again. Wind rushes through her fur like fingers, scent pours into her nose: trees, earth, decay, life, water, day-old tracks, hour-old tracks, spent rifle cartridges from last season, blood, pain, her pack. Pack's territory. And the One. The Leader. Right behind her, chasing.

Wrong, fleeing him. But fleeing is better than fighting, and the urge to fight is strong. Kill her if she doesn't say she's sorry. But she is sorry; she'd do anything for him.

Run, but he's bigger, faster. He catches her. She tumbles and struggles, fear spurring her on, but he holds her fast with teeth. Fangs dig into her shoulder and she yelps. Using the grip as purchase, he claws his way to her throat, and she's on her back, belly exposed. His control ensures that he never breaks her skin.

She falls still, whining with every breath. Stretches her head back, exposing her throat. He could kill her now. His jaw closes around her neck and stays there.

Slowly, only after she has stayed frozen for ages, he lets her loose. She stays still, except to lick his chin over and over. "You are God," the action says. She crawls on her belly after him, because she loves him.

They hunt, and she shows him he is God by waiting to feed on the rabbit until he gives her permission. He leaves her skin and bones to lick and suck, but she is satisfied.

I awoke human in the gray of dawn. The Wolf lingered, bleeding into my awareness, and I let her fill my mind because her instincts were better than mine, especially where the One was concerned.

She lies naked in the den, a covered hillock that is his place when he sleeps off his Wolf. He is there, too, also naked, and aroused. He nibbles her ear, licks her jaw, sucks her throat, and pulls himself on top of her, leveraging her legs apart with his weight. She moans and lets him in; he pushes slowly, gently. This is what she lives for—his attention, his adoration.

Speaking in her ear he says, "I'll take care of you, and you don't ever need to grow up. Understand?"

"Yes. Oh, yes."

He comes, forcing her against the earth, and she clings to him and slips away, and I am me again.

Alpha's prerogative: He fucks whomever he wants in the pack, whenever he wants. One of the perks of the position. It was also one of the reasons I melted around him. He just had to walk into a room and I'd be hot and bothered, ready to do anything for him, if he would just touch me. With the scent of him and the wolves all around us, I felt wild.

I curled against his body, and he held me close, my protector.

I needed the pack, because I couldn't protect myself. In the wild, wolf cubs had to be taught how to hunt, how to fight. No one had taught me. Carl wanted me to be dependent. I wasn't expected to hunt for myself, or help defend the pack. I had no responsibilities, as long as I deferred to Carl. As long as I stayed a cub, he would look after me.

The next afternoon at the studio, I jumped at every shadow. Every noise that cracked made me flinch and turn to look. Broad daylight, and I still expected vampires to crawl through windows, coming after me.

I really didn't think anyone took the show that seriously. I didn't take it that seriously half the time.

If Arturo really wanted me to quit the show, and I didn't, there'd be trouble. I didn't know what kind of trouble, but one way or another it would filter back to me. Next time, he and his cronies might not bother going through Carl as intermediary. He'd take his complaint straight to me. I walked around wishing I had eyes on the back of my head. And the sides. I contemplated the fine line between caution and paranoia.

Carl might not always be there to look after me. He couldn't come to work with me.

I found Matt, the show's sound engineer, as he came back from supper. One of the benefits of my newfound success: Someone else could pay attention to make sure the right public service announcement played at the right time. He was laid-back, another intern turned full-timer, and always seemed to have a friend who could do exactly the job you needed doing.

"Hey, Matt—do you know anyone who teaches a good self-defense class?"