Kitty’s Big Trouble (18 page)

“Then…” He gestured, indicating that she should continue.

“There’s an artifact in Chinatown. The Dragon’s Pearl. Roman is looking for it. I need to find it first. He can’t be allowed to have it; it’s too powerful. This is bigger than you, or your Family, or San Francisco.”

“You should have come to me anyway, Anastasia. The city’s changed since you were here. I can help you.”

“You can’t defeat Roman,” she said.

He chuckled. “No, of course not. But I can protect San Francisco. It’s what I’ve promised, it’s what I’m able to do. Roman won’t find a foothold here. Maybe I can help you find this pearl of yours, since when the boys found you none of you looked like you were doing too well.”

Anastasia was stubborn. Her dignity was like armor. I had to wonder if she just didn’t like other vampires all that much. At least, the ones she didn’t create herself.

“Ask him about Grace,” I said to her. “It can’t hurt.”

Sighing, she nodded. “There’s a young woman, a magician named Grace Chen. She was helping us before we ran into some of Roman’s soldiers. We don’t know where she is now, and I need her to find the Dragon’s Pearl.”

“You want me to find her?” Boss said.

“If you can.”

“I’d be happy to help you, Anastasia,” he said, opening his arms. “Give us a couple of hours.”

“It’s only a few more hours until dawn,” Anastasia said.

“It’s the best I can do. Feel free to wait here. Make yourselves at home.” He stood, and his companions stood with him, flanking him. Boss waved at Henry. “You stay, keep an eye on things.” Henry nodded, straightened, and stood solid as a tree, his hands crossed before him in a clear bodyguard posture. The posse departed, leaving the room quiet.

Were we trapped? Prisoners? Could we leave? Was there a shower somewhere? A bathroom maybe? Anastasia wasn’t offering commentary. She seemed to be focused inward, stewing. Cormac was in “wait-and-watch” mode. Since they weren’t saying anything, I wanted to talk to Ben, who couldn’t talk. I rubbed his fur, and he leaned into my good leg.

Henry it was, then. “Are you here to guard us or to play host?”

“A little of both. Boss doesn’t trust you not to poke around where you shouldn’t.”

“He could have just asked.”

Henry only smiled.

“So.
Do
you have any Janis Joplin bootlegs?”

He chuckled quietly. “The rarest bootleg’ll never be as good as the real thing, live and in person. She was one of a kind.”

“Well, yeah. But … do you?”

Still chuckling, he waved me off, refusing to answer, which was as good as yes in my mind. Arrogant vampires …

That left us sitting around the living-room-slash-audience hall, waiting. Anastasia settled into an armchair. Crossing her arms, she stared at Henry, who crossed his arms and avoided looking at her. I chose a padded chair and stretched my leg out. In all the excitement, I hadn’t noticed that the pain had almost faded. Now, my whole leg and side just ached horribly.

Cormac paced over and loomed. “You okay?”

“You keep asking that.”

“I don’t like this,” he said. “We need to get out of town while we can.”

“I know, but I want to make sure Grace’s okay. And I’ll stick around if it means getting to take out Roman.”

“With everything you’ve told me about the bastard I’m inclined to agree.”

“If you see an opening, take it.”

“Absolutely.”

Ben left my side and padded to the corner, where he turned in a couple of circles, lay down, and curled into a tight ball, paws tucked in, tail resting over his nose. He finally felt safe enough to sleep. Or at least, to try to sleep. He still didn’t look particularly comfortable.

I leveraged myself out of the chair and went to join him, settling on the floor and resting my hand on his back. He snuggled closer to me.

Cormac said, “I’ll keep an eye out.”

Then Ben seemed to relax.

I dozed, leaning against the wall, my arms draped over Ben, fingers laced in his fur. When he moved against me, I awoke and drew away as the fur under my touch thinned and shrank. I watched Ben come back to me.

Cormac said he’d keep watch, but he turned away when Ben started to shift back, when the fur faded and vanished, his skin stretched and bones melted into new shapes. It happened slowly, bit by bit. The Change back to human was like a sunrise—the sky paled, paled some more. Then—suddenly, you’d swear—it was daytime. Ben, naked and chilled, lay curled up, head and shoulders tucked into my lap, arms and legs pulled protectively close.

I stayed still, quiet, letting him sleep. Absently, I touched his ruffled hair, smoothing it behind his ear.

When he was human again, Henry came over with a blanket. He kept his distance, holding it out as an offering, taking care not to startle Ben by getting too close, for which I was grateful. I took the blanket from him and spread it over Ben.

The others left us alone, and we waited.

After a time, Ben tensed—I felt his muscles tighten against my leg. His nose flared, and he flinched awake, sitting up. I waited for him to gain his bearings, to get the scent of the place, to settle. It only took a second.

He looked at me. “I thought I’d lost you.”

I fell against him and we kissed. His arms closed tight around me and I pressed myself to him while our lips worked, hungry for each other’s taste. I wanted to rub myself all over his skin, taking in his warmth, his scent.

“Werewolves are all about instinct, emotion. They’re so full of passion. Makes them fascinating, don’t you think?” Boss had returned, regarding us from the doorway. He seemed to be speaking to Anastasia, conspiratorial, as if this was a long-running vampire joke.

Most vampires annoyed me because I didn’t know their ages. But to not even tell me his name? It was typical. Rick hadn’t been born with that name, Roman was an acquired name, and I really doubted that Anastasia was her original name, either. They’d reinvented themselves, like shedding old skins, when they became vampires. They could choose their identities, because who from their old lives was around to remember? To call out the inventions?

I tried to imagine Anastasia as a young woman, a child, eager instead of calculating and obsessed. And I couldn’t.

Joe was with Boss, and between them stood Grace Chen. Mission successful.

I rested my forehead against Ben’s shoulder and sighed. For just a moment, I’d been able to forget about everything, everyone, but him. We’d had our own little sphere of perfection, however fleeting. Ben kissed the top of my head and kept his arms around me, holding me close. Yeah, we could stay like that for a while longer.

“Are you okay?” I whispered, trying to keep the conversation between us.

His breath ruffled my hair, which felt marvelous, comforting. I reveled in the smell of him. “I’m feeling kind of stupid. I lost it. Completely.”

Obviously. “Why? You got through two fights without losing it. What happened?”

“When you didn’t answer, I panicked. I didn’t know what to do—so I lost it.”

“And came looking for me?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s sweet, you know.”

“I’m glad you think so.” We kissed again, a reassuring touch of lips. “What about you? You’re hurt, your leg—” He put his hand on my right hip, which twinged at the touch. But I held his hand there, not wanting him to move.

“I fell,” I said. “Broke something, I think.”

“But you’re okay? It healed?”

“It’s taking awhile, but yeah, I think so.”

“We have to get out of here,” he said.

“Yeah. But we can’t, not yet.”

“I know.”

I nestled closer in his embrace, finally feeling strong enough to deal with the situation outside.

Boss was still grinning at us like he thought we were cute. Cormac was back to standing guard. He didn’t particularly look like he was standing guard, but he’d put himself between the two of us—huddled on the floor, vulnerable—and the rest of the gathering. The arrangement suggested us against them.

Anastasia was talking to Grace.

“I didn’t count on any of this!” the young magician said.

“Your family understood what was asked of them—”

“That was hundreds of years ago! What do you expect me to do? I wasn’t going to stick around and try to fight monsters. I can’t do that.”

“Do you honor your ancestors or not? We’ve lost time, it may be too late.”

“I have to butt in,” I murmured to Ben, extricating myself from his embrace, as much as it pained me to do so.

“Of course you do,” he said, his smile turning crooked. He wrapped the blanket firmly around him after my departure. Which was a shame. If we’d been alone I’d have stripped down to join him. Later …

“Anastasia, chill out,” I said. “She did the right thing when she ran.” Both Anastasia and Boss arced brows at me, as if surprised by my interruption. I hoped they were impressed by my assertiveness. “Roman’s here. But he doesn’t have the pearl or those werewolves wouldn’t have been asking us for it. So we still have a chance of finding it. Don’t we?”

Anastasia set her mouth in a frown—grim and hopeless. She didn’t think there was a chance.

“Grace,” Cormac said. Everyone looked at him, startled. He was quiet enough most of the time that he almost blended into the background. That was exactly how he planned it. “I might be able to work out a way to search for it, but I don’t know what it is, what it looks like. If you can give me something to look for, we might be able to find it.”

The young woman raised her arms in a gesture that was half pleading, half frustration. “Have any of you considered that if this terrible Roman guy doesn’t have it, and we don’t have it, then someone else got to it first—someone who put the
huli jing
in a cage? Someone more powerful than any of us? You really want to go after that?”

Anastasia frowned. “If you had not failed in your duty to your ancestors—”

Grace put her hands over her ears. “Oh, stop with that, please! You sound like my grandmother!”

Taken aback, Anastasia pursed her lips.

“Grace,” Cormac said again. “You think we can do this?”

Deflating, she fidgeted, taking off her glasses, wiping them on the hem of her shirt, putting them on and glaring through them, giving the vampires surly glances. “Yeah, I think so.”

“We’ll need some space and quiet,” Cormac said to Boss.

“Can we watch?” he asked.

“Sure. Long as you’re quiet.”

“This way, then.” He started toward the other side of the room, where a door stood.

Ben got to his feet, keeping the blanket wrapped modestly around his waist. The look was kind of cute, showing off his lean body. I had an urge to pull his hand away so that the blanket dropped …

“I could use some clothes,” he said.

Cormac reached to the floor behind one of the chairs and produced several items of clothing, stacked and folded—and Ben’s battered semiautomatic. And that answered the question of whether he’d been searched. Boss and company obviously didn’t think we were much of a threat. It was almost insulting.

“I picked up what you dropped. Some of it’s kind of mangled.” He handed the stack to Ben.

“You shouldn’t even be
holding
this thing.” Ben gestured at the gun.

Cormac shrugged him off. “Won’t happen again. I thought you might need it.”

“For all the good it’s done so far. Anyway. Thanks.” He set the gun on a table and surveyed the clothing.

“It’d be nice if you could avoid that sort of thing from now on.”

“I’ll put that on the list: ‘Don’t lose your shit.’ Then you won’t have to use those silver knives of yours on me.”

“I wouldn’t—”

Ben pointed. “You would if you had to.”

Cormac looked away. So did Ben. I wondered if I should shove in between them to keep from saying anything else—something either one of them would regret.

“Sorry,” Ben said finally. “I’ll try to keep from freaking out too badly from now on.”

Cormac shrugged him off and headed to the doors. “Let’s see that room.”

Boss led the way, and the others followed, leaving us alone for a moment, and I was grateful. Ben handed me the pile of clothes, taking the shirt off the top and holding it up. Sure enough, the
I ESCAPED ALCATRAZ
shirt was ripped at the seams, Incredible Hulk–like, as a result of Ben tearing it off rather than bothering with conventional removal. Not to mention all the blood soaked into it from the earlier fight. It showed up even against the black. We’d all had a hell of a night, hadn’t we?

“Huh,” he said, then wadded it up and threw it into a corner.

“At least when that happens to you you can go shirtless,” I said. “I have to walk around with my arms crossed.”

The trousers, boxers, and shoes were intact enough. He put them on and gave a satisfied sigh. Straightening, he squared his shoulders, indicating that he felt increasingly more human. I wrapped my arms around his middle and rubbed my faced against his chest, letting the hair there tickle my skin and taking in his scent.