Kitty Takes a Holiday

Chapter 6

Come on, get your coat," I said, grabbing my own and my bag.

"Why?"

"We're going out. Quietly—don't wake up Cormac."

He went to the bedroom and came back with a jacket. He looked sullen, but didn't argue. That scared me a little. Was he really buying into the whole alpha female thing? I thought I'd been bluffing.

"Where are we going?" he finally asked when we were on the road.

"Into town to buy groceries. You guys are eating all my food." That wasn't all; I'd put the bag of barbed-wire crosses in the car. I planned on getting rid of them.

"Why do I have to come along?"

"Because part of being a werewolf is learning how to function in the real world. It's a little freaky at first. McDonald's will never smell the same."

He wrinkled his nose and made a grunt of disgust.

"Also, I'm not going to leave you alone and let you kill yourself just to spite me."

"I made a deal with Cormac. I'll stick it out through the full moon. I won't go back on that."

I sighed. "You're doing it again. You'll stick it out for Cormac, but not for me. I think you just don't like me."

He paused to consider. "You know you're crazy?"

"I'm not the one who wants my best friend to shoot me in the head!"

He turned away to stare out the window.

I'd been through what he was going through now. I'd awakened after being attacked by a werewolf, with my whole world turned upside down, and I hadn't wanted to die. I hadn't even thought about it beyond the vague, unserious half urges that came with depression. I had a life and I wanted to keep it, lycanthropy or no. What was wrong with Ben?

Nothing was wrong with Ben. He was right to be afraid, to want to avoid it. This was about me. I was the problem. Ben knew what was coming, because he'd seen what it did to me. I couldn't blame him at all.

I said, "I'm a werewolf—am I so terrible that you'd rather kill yourself than be that?"

"No." He glanced at me, and his look was sad. "You're not terrible at all. You're…" He turned back to the win­dow without finishing.

I'm what? I almost yelled at him to make him finish. But what would that get me? An answer I wasn't sure I wanted to hear. You 're not terrible, you 're… confused.

I pulled into the driveway of Joe and Alice's store and parked. It was midday, but we were the only ones there. Small favors. I'd already gotten out of the car when Ben said, "I'll just wait here."

I put my hands on my hips. "That defeats the whole point of you coming along. And I need you to help carry groceries."

He lurched out of the car, slouching in his coat like a sullen teenager, his hands shoved in the pockets. I walked across the dirt parking lot, and Ben fell into step beside me. Halfway to the front door, though, he paused and looked up, turning his nose into the faint breeze. His brow furrowed, faintly worried, faintly curious.

I could filter it all out, the hundred smells that I encoun­tered every day: spilled oil, gasoline, asphalt, the garbage Dumpster, drying paint from the shed around the corner, somebody's loose dog, a feral cat, the earth and trees from the edge of the woods. A normal human wouldn't be able to differentiate them at all. Ben was smelling it all for the first time.

"You okay?" I asked.

After a moment, he nodded. Then he said, "What do I smell like to you?"

I shrugged. I'd never tried to describe it before. "Now? You smell like a werewolf. Human with a little bit of fur and wild thrown in."

He nodded, like that sounded familiar—he could smell me now, after all. Then he said, "And before?"

"I always thought you smelled like your trenchcoat."

He made a sound that was almost a chuckle.

"What do I smell like to you?" I said.

He cocked his head for a moment, testing the air, tast­ing it. He seemed puzzled, like he was still trying to figure out the sensation. "Safe. You smell safe."

We went inside.

Ben hesitated at the door, once again looking around, nose flaring, wearing an expression of uncertainty and also curiosity. I looked, hoping to see Alice, bracing for Joe and his rifle.

Behind the counter, Alice looked up from the maga­zine she was reading. She smiled. "Hi, Kitty, how are you today?"

"Oh, fine. I have friends visiting. Alice, this is Ben. Ben, Alice."

Alice smiled warmly and extended her hand for shak­ing. Ben looked stricken for a moment—to the wolf side, it was not the most harmless of gestures. In fact, it looked a little like an attack. I waited to see how he'd react and let out a bit of a sigh when he recovered and took her hand.

"Good to meet you," he said. He wasn't smiling, but he behaved in a straightforward enough manner.

"Let me know if I can help you find anything," she said.

"Actually, I did want to ask you something. Do you know any blacksmiths around here? Someone with a forge who could melt down a bunch of metal for me?"

"Well, sure. Jake Torres is the local farrier, he's got a forge. What kind of metal?"

This was going to be hard to explain without sound­ing like a loon. But I was crazy, according to Ben anyway. Maybe I should just embrace it. "I've got a bunch of pieces of barbed wire that I'd love to see completely destroyed. You think he'd do that for me?"

She creased her brow. "Oh, probably. What kind of pieces?"

"They're in the car, I'll go get them. Ben"—I grabbed a plastic shopping basket from the pile by the door—"here. Find some food. Whatever looks good."

He took the basket, looked at me quizzically, then headed for the shelves.

Feeling like I was finally accomplishing something, I ran to the car, grabbed the bag of crosses, ran back to the store, and dropped the bag on the counter in front of Alice. It landed with a solid, steely thunk. She pulled out one of the crosses, studied it, and looked increasingly worried. That made me worried.

"Something's wrong," I said. "What is it? You look like you've seen one of these before."

Shaking her head, she dropped the cross back and quickly tied up the bag. "Oh, you know. Folklore, local superstition. Crosses are supposed to be for protection."

"Yeah, well, someone's been dumping them in a circle around my cabin and I don't feel very protected. Friend of mine thinks it's part of a curse. Like someone isn't happy with me being around."

Alice's eyes widened, startled. "That's certainly odd, isn't it?"

"I just want to get rid of them. Melting them down seems the way to go. You think your farrier will do it?"

"Jake stops in here once a week. He's due in a couple of days. I'll ask him myself," she said with a thin smile. She put the bag under the counter. It was out of my hands now.

That was easy. A weight lifted from me. "Thanks, Alice. That'd be great."

I went to check on Ben. He was standing with the still empty basket in front of a shelf full of canned soup, chili, and pasta sauce.

"Nothing sounds good," he said. "I just keep thinking about all that venison in your freezer. Is that normal?"

I patted his arm. "I know what you mean."

We stocked up on the basics—bacon and eggs, bread and milk. Ben gamely carried the basket for me, and Alice rang up the goods, her demeanor more cheerful than ever. We made it back to the car without incident.

"There," I said as I pulled the car back on the road, "that wasn't so hard."

After some long minutes of driving, Ben said, "I could hear her heartbeat. Smell her blood. It's strange."

I wet my lips, because my mouth had gone dry. Even smelling him, smelling him change into something not quite human, even seeing the bite wounds and knowing intellectually what was happening to him, it didn't really hit me until that moment. Ben was a werewolf. He may not have shape-shifted yet, he may have been infected for less than a week. But there it was.

"It makes them seem like prey," I said, aware that I was talking about people, normal people like Alice, in the third person. Like they were something different than Ben and I. "Like you could hunt them." Like you could almost taste the blood.

"Does that happen every time you meet somebody?" he said.

"Most of the time, yeah," I said softly.

He didn't say a word for the rest of the trip home.

When entered the house, Cormac was awake, sitting at the kitchen table, cleaning a gun or three. As soon as the front door opened, he stood and turned to us. I'd have said he was in a panic, if I didn't know him better.

"Where'd you go?" he said.

"Shopping?" I said, uncertain. Both Ben and I hefted filled plastic grocery bags, which we brought to the kitchen. "You want to help unpack?"

He just stood there. "You couldn't have left a note?"

"I didn't think you'd wake up before we got back."

"Don't worry," Ben said. "She looked out for me."

"Should you even be out?" Cormac said accusingly, almost motherly.

I nearly snapped at him, something juvenile like what'syour problem? Then I realized—I'd never seen Cormac worried before. At least, worried and actually showing it. He was downright stressed out. It was almost chilling.

Ben slumped into the other chair at the kitchen table. "I survived, didn't I?" Cormac scowled and looked away, which prompted Ben to add, "I'm okay, Cormac."

"At least for another three days," I muttered as I shoved food into the fridge. I put the groceries away loudly and angrily, as if that would make me feel better. The guys ignored me.

"You need help with that?" Ben indicated the spread of gun oil and gun parts on the kitchen table. Cormac had put paper towels down first, so I couldn't even get mad at him for messing up the table.

"I'm done." Cormac began cleaning up the mess, pack­ing everything away into a metal toolbox.

Ben watched for a minute, then said, "If you'd just shot me, you wouldn't have to deal with this crap now."

"You are never going to let me live that down, are you?"

"We had a deal—"

Cormac slammed the toolbox on the table, making a wrenching crash. "We were sixteen years old when we made that deal! We were just kids! We didn't have a clue!"

Ben dropped his gaze. I left the room.

Couldn't go far, of course. A whole five feet to the so-called living room. Still, the space made ignoring them marginally easier. The whole cabin became entrenched in a thick, obvious silence. A moment later, Cormac left out the front door, toolbox and rifles in hand. Then I heard him repacking his Jeep. I half expected the engine to start up, to hear him drive away forever, leaving me to deal with Ben all by myself. But he didn't. Maybe he planned on sleeping out there to avoid any more arguments, but he didn't drive away. Ben went to the bedroom. I sat at my desk, at my computer, pretending to write, and wanted to pull out my hair.

I'd spent a year on the radio telling people how to fix their supernaturally complicated relationship problems. And now I couldn't deal with the one right in front of me.

Ben emerged long enough for supper. More venison steaks. After, he pulled a chair into the living room and sat in front of the stove, just watching the embers burn­ing through the grate, slipping into some kind of fugue state. I couldn't really argue. I'd done the same tiling when this had happened to me. As the body changed, per­ceptions changed, and the world seemed to slow down. You blinked and a whole afternoon went by. The sense of disconnection had lasted for weeks. I'd almost flunked out that semester. If I hadn't been just a year away from finishing, I might have given into that urge to drop out and walk away. Walk into the woods, never to return.

Cormac stayed in the kitchen. They still weren't speaking.

Later, at the appropriate hour, I turned on the radio. Yes, it was that time of the week again. I curled up on the sofa, cell phone in hand.

Ben looked at the radio, brow furrowed. Then, he nar­rowed his eyes—an expression of dawning comprehen­sion. "What day is it?"

"Saturday," I said.

Immediately he stood, shaking his head. "No, uh-uh, there is no way I am listening to this. I'm not watching you listen to this. I'm out of here. Good night." He went to the bedroom and flopped on the bed.

Cormac came from the kitchen, glancing at the bed­room, and sat on the other end of the sofa. "What's this?"

"The competition," I said.

The sultry voice announced herself.

"Good evening. I am Ariel, Priestess of the Night. Wel­come to my show." And again, "Bela Lugosi's Dead." Of all the pretentious…

I muttered at the radio in a manic snit. "Tell us, Ariel, what shall we talk about this week?"

Ariel, via the radio, answered. "We've all heard of werewolves," she intoned. "We've seen countless mov­ies. My little brother even dressed up as the Wolf Man for Halloween one year. All this attention has given short shrift to the oth er species. Lions and tigers and bears. And a dozen other documented lycanthropic varieties. Oh, my."

Cormac crossed his arms and leaned back. "You have to wonder if she's got a body to go with that voice."

I so wasn't going to tell him about the Web site. I glared at him instead. Then, a niggling voice started scratching at the back of my mind. Scratching, gnawing, aggravating, until I had to ask, "What about my show? You know, before you saw me in person—did my voice ever, you know, make you wonder if I maybe had a body to go with it?"

He looked at me, stricken for a moment. "You're a little different," he said finally.

Oh, God, I'm a hack. An ugly, talentless hack and nobody ever liked me, not once, not ever. I hugged the pillow that was on the sofa and stewed. Cormac rolled his eyes.

Ariel was still talking. "Are you a lycanthrope who is something other than the standard lupine fare? Give me a call, let's chat."

I had the number on speed dial by this time. I punched the call button and waited.

Cormac watched thoughtfully. "What are you doing?"

I ignored him. I got a busy signal the first time, then tried again. And again, until finally, "Hello, you've reached Ariel, Priestess of the Night. What's your name and hometown?"

I had it all planned out this time. "I'm Irene from Tulsa," I said brightly.

"And what do you want to talk about?"

"I'm a were-jaguar. Very rare," I said. "I'm so glad that Ariel's talking about this. I've felt so alone, you know? I'd love a chance to talk."

"All right, Irene. Turn down your radio and hold, please."

I did so, pressing the phone to my ear and tapping my foot happily.

Cormac stared at me. "That's really pathetic."

"Shut up."

Then he had the nerve to take the radio to the next room, to the kitchen table. He hunched before it, listening with the volume turned down low. Couldn't he leave me alone?

I listened in on three calls: the callers claimed to be a were-leopard, a were-fox, and a werewolf who refused to believe that lycanthropes could be anything other than wolves, because, well, he'd never met any others person­all y. If he'd called into my show I would have told him off with a rant that would have left him dumbstruck. Some­thing along the lines of: Okay, you big jerk, let's try out anew word, shall we? Say it along with me: narcissistic…

By comparison, Ariel was shockingly polite. "Marty, do you consider yourself to be an open-minded person?"

"Well, yeah, I suppose," said Marty the caller.

"Good, that's really good," Ariel purred. "I'd expect a werewolf to be open-minded. You're involved so deeply in the world behind the veil, after all. I'm sure there are lots of things you haven't had personal experience with, yet you believe—like the Pope, or the Queen of England. So exactly why is it that you can't accept the existence of other species of lycanthropes, just because you've never met one?"

Marty hadn't thought this one through. You could always spot the ones who spouted rhetoric with no thought behind it. "Well, you know. All the stories are about were­wol ves . And the movies—werewolves, all of ttiem. It's the Wolf Man, not the Leopard Man!"

"And what about Cat People?"

Hey, that was what I'd have said.

"That's different," Marty said petulantly. "That was, you know, made-up."

Ariel continued. "Stories about shape-shifters are found all over the world, and they're about all kinds of animals. Whatever's common locally. You really have to accept that there might be something to all these stories, yes?"

"I've never heard of these stories."

Wow, I loved how some people were so good at dig­ging their own holes.

"Your culture isn't the only one in the world, Marty. Mov­ing on to the next call, we have Irene from Tulsa, hello."

My turn? Me? I was ready for this. I tried to sound more chipper and ditzy than I had the last time I called. "Hi, Ariel!"

"So, you're a were-jaguar. Can you tell me how exactly that happened? Jaguars aren't exactly native to Tulsa."

"When I was in college I spent a summer volunteer­ing in Brazil for an environmental group, working in the jungle. One time I started back to camp a little late, and, well…" I took a deep, significant breath. "I was attacked."

How could you not sympathize with that story? Oh, yeah, somebody nominate me for an Oscar. I wondered how long it would take her to spot the fake.

"That's an amazing story," Ariel said, clearly impressed. "How have you coped since then?"

"I have good days, I have bad days. It's really hard not having anyone to talk to about it. As far as I know, all the other were-jaguars are in Brazil."

"You ever think about going back and finding someone who might be able to help you?"

"It just never worked out." I'm so sad, pity me…

"Well, Irene, if you really want something, there's always a way."

Maybe that was why Ariel bothered me so much: that Pollyanna sunshine attitude. Sometimes, things just didn't work out.

"I want to get married under a full moon. Is there a way for me to get that?"

"Sometimes you have to adjust your wants to be a little more realistic."

"Easy for you to say."

She dodged, yanking control of the conversation back to her. "Tell me why you really haven't been back to Brazil."

I said breezily, "Well, you know, I had to come back home, finish school, then I met this guy, see, and then I broke up with this guy—and you know how it is, one thing then another, and I guess I got distracted."

Ariel wasn't having it. "Irene, are you pulling my leg?"

Damn, she got me. That didn't mean I had to admit it. "Oh, Ariel, why would I do something like that?"

"You tell me."

"Calling you with a fake story about being a were-jaguar would be—oh, I don't know—a delusion based in some psychiatric disorder? A desperate cry for attention?"

"That's what I'm thinking," Ariel said. "Moving on to the next call, Gerald—"

I hung up in disgust. I still hadn't gotten her to say any­thing stupid. I was feeling pretty stupid, but never mind that. My inner two-year-old was enjoying herself.

Cormac was watching me from the kitchen, which made me even more disgruntled. I didn't need an audi­ence. At least not one that was sitting there staring at me.

He said, "You ever think that maybe she's really a vam­pire or a witch or something, the same way that you're really a werewolf? That she's keeping it under wraps like you did?"

"Right up until you blew my cover, you mean?"

He shrugged noncommittally, as if to say, Who me?

She's a hack," I muttered. Then what the hell does that make you?"

"A has-been, evidently." I brushed back my hair and sighed.

He stood and grabbed his coat and gun off the kitchen counter. "You want a pity party, you can have it by yourself."

"I'm not… this isn't… I'm not looking for your pity."

"Good. 'Cause you're not getting any. If you're a has-been it's your own damn fault."

"Where are you going?"

"Guard duty. If I see any gutted rabbits I'll let you know."

Bang, he slammed the front door behind him and that was that.

I let out a frustrated growl, grabbed the blanket, and cocooned myself on the sofa.

I wasn't a has-been. I wasn't.

Yet.