Kitty and the Midnight Hour Part 7

"Sarah, take a breath. That's a girl. I know this is a blow, but let's look at it together. How long have you been married?"

"Sixa"six years."

"And did your husband tell you how long he's been a werewolf?"

"Two years."

"Now, Sarah, I'm going to ask you to look at the situation from his point of view. It was probably pretty traumatic for him becoming a lycanthrope, right?"

"Yes. He was working the night s.h.i.+ft alone, locking up the store, when it happened. Hea"he said he was lucky he got away. Why didn't he ever tell me?"

"Do you think maybe he was trying to protect you? You had a good marriage and he didn't want to mess things up, right? Now I'm not saying what he did was right. In a great marriage he would have told you from the start. But he's having to keep this secret from a lot of people. Maybe he didn't know how to tell you. Maybe he was afraid you'd leave him if he told you."

"I wouldn't leave him! I love him!"

"But people do leave their partners when something like this happens. He's probably scared, Sarah. Listen, does he still love you?"

"He says he does."

"You know what I'd do? Sit down with him. Tell him that you're hurt, but you want to support him if he'll be honest with you from here on out. Before you do that, though, you have to decide whether or not you can stay married to a werewolf. You have to be just as honest with yourself as you want him to be with you."

Sarah was calm now. She hiccupped a little from the crying, but her voice was steady. "Okay, Kitty. I understand. Thank you."

"Good luck, Sarah. Let me know how it turns out. All right, I've got lots of calls waiting, so let's move right along. Cormac from Longmont, h.e.l.lo."

"I know what you are."

"Excuse me?"

"I know what you are, and I'm coming to kill you."

According to Matt's screening, this guy had said he had a question about lycanthropy and STDs.

I should have cut off the call right there. But the strange ones always interested me.

"Cormac? You want to tell me what you're talking about?"

"I'm an a.s.sa.s.sin. I specialize in lycanthropes." His voice hissed and faded for a moment.

"Are you on a cell phone?"

"Yeah. I'm in the lobby of the building, and I'm coming to kill you."

Good Matt, he was already on the phone with security. I watched him on the phone, just standing there. Not talking. What was wrong?

Matt slammed the phone into the cradle. "No one's answering," he said loud enough to sound through the gla.s.s of the booth.

"I rigged a little distraction outside," Cormac said. "Building security is out of the building." At that, Matt picked up the phone and dialed, just three numbers after punching the outside line. Calling the cavalry.

Then he dialed again. And again. His face went pale. "Line's busy," he mouthed.

"Did you manage to tie up 911?" I said to the caller.

"I'm a professional," Cormac replied.

d.a.m.n, this was for real. I could see Carl standing there saying, I told you so. I hoped he wasn't listening. Then again, if he was, maybe he could come rescue me.

Over the line I heard the ping of the elevator on the ground floor, the slide of the doors. It was a scare tactic, calling me on the phone and walking me through my own a.s.sa.s.sination. It was a good scare tactic.

"Okay, you're coming to kill me while you warn me on the phone."

"It's part of the contract," he said in a strained way that made me think he was grimacing as he spoke.

"What is?"

"I have to do it on the air."

Matt made a slicing motion across his neck with a questioning look. Cut the show? I shook my head. Maybe I could talk my way out of this.

"What makes you think I'm a lycanthrope, Cormac the a.s.sa.s.sin Who Specializes in Lycanthropes?"

"My client has proof."

"What proof?"

"Pictures. Video."

"Yes, I'm sure, video taken in the dark with lots of blurry movement. I've seen those kinds of TV shows. Would it hold up in court?"

"It convinced me."

"And you're obviously deranged," I said, fl.u.s.tered. "Have you considered, Cormac, that you're the patsy in a publicity stunt to get me off the air? Certain factions have been trying to push me off for months."

This time of night, Matt and I had the studio to ourselves. Even if some sharp listener called the police, Cormac would be at the booth before they arrived. He'd counted on it, I was sure.

Matt came into the booth and hissed at me in a stage whisper. "We can leave by the emergency stairs before he gets here."

I covered the mike with my hands. "I can't leave the show."

"Kitty, he's going to kill you!"

"It's a stunt. Some righteous zealot trying to scare me off the air."

"Kittya""

"I'm not leaving. You get out if you want."

He scowled, but returned to his board.

"And grab one of the remote headsets out of the cupboard for me."

Matt brought me the headset and transferred the broadcast to it. I left the booth, removing myself from direct line of sight of the door. The next room, Matt's control room, had a window looking into the hallway. I moved to the floor, under the window, near the door. If anyone came in, I'd see him first.

Cormac would need maybe five minutes to ride the elevator and get from there to here. Soa"I had to talk fast.

"Okay, Cormac, let me ask you this. Who hired you?"

"I can't say."

"Is that in the contract?"

He hesitated. I wondered if he wasn't used to talking and resented that part of the job he'd taken on. I didn't doubt he really was what he said he was. He sounded too controlled, too steady.

"Professional policy," he said finally.

"Is this one of those deals where I can offer you more money to not finish me off?"

"Nope. Ruins the reputation."

Not that I had that kind of money anyway. "Just how much is my life worth?"

A pause. "That's confidential."

"No, really, I'm curious. I think I have a right to know. I mean, if it's a really exorbitant amount, can I judge my life a success that I p.i.s.sed someone off that much? That means I made an impact, right, and that's all any of us can really hope to accomplisha""

"Jesus, you talk too much."

I couldn't help it; I grinned. Matt sat against the wall, shaking his head in a gesture of long-suffering forbearance. Getting pinned down by an a.s.sa.s.sin definitely wasn't in the job description. I was glad he hadn't left.

Thinking of everyone who had it in for me was an exercise in futilitya"so many did, after all: the Witchhunters League, the Right Reverend Deke Torquemada of the New Inquisition, the Christian Coalitiona The elevator pinged, one, twoa two more to go. "So let's back up a bit, Cormac. Most of your jobs aren't like this, are they? You go after rogue wolves. The ones who've attacked people, the ones whose packs can't control them. Law-abiding werewolves are pretty tough to identify and aren't worth going after. Am I right?"

"That's right."

"You have any idea of how few wolves actually cause trouble?"

"Not too many."

Cormac's a.s.sertion about my ident.i.ty, on the air, demanded some response. Denial. Claims of innocence, wrongful accusationsa"until he shot and killed me. Or until he tried to shoot me and I defended myself. I hoped it wouldn't come to that.

He probably expected me to make denialsa"you can't shoot me, I'm not a werewolf. But it was a little late for that. Denials now would sound a bit lame. And if he really did have photographsa"where could he have picked up photos? Only thing left was to brazen it out. So this was it. The big revelation show. My ratings had better pay off for this.

"So here I am, a perfectly respectable law-abiding werewolfa"must be kind of strange for you, tracking down a monster who isn't going to lift a claw against you."

"Come on, Norville. Go ahead and lift a claw. I'd like the challenge."

There it was. I'd said it on national radio. I'm a werewolf. Didn't feel any differenta"Cormac was still riding the elevator to my floor. But my mother didn't even know. I heard a series of metallic clicks over the headphones. Guns, big guns, being drawn and readied.

"Is this really sporting, Cormac? You know I'm unarmed. I'm a sitting duck in the booth here, and I have half a million witnesses on the air."

"You think I haven't had to deal with that kind of s.h.i.+t before?"

Okay, wrong tack. I tried again. "If I shut down the broadcast, would that void the clause in your contract saying this has to be on the air?"

"My client believes you'll stay on the air as long as possible. That you'll take advantage of the ratings this would garner."

d.a.m.n, who was this client? Whoever it was knew me too well. Maybe it wasn't the usual list of fanatics. Somebody local who had a grudge.

Arturo.

Carl hadn't made me quit the show. Maybe Arturo decided to take care of me himself. He couldn't do it directly. A vampire attacking a werewolf like that would be an act of war between the two groups. Carl and the pack would take it as a breach of territory at the very least. Then Arturo would have to deal with them.

But Arturo could hire someone. He wouldn't even have to do it himself. He'd work through an intermediary and Cormac would never know he was working for the vampire. Arturo had the means to get photos of me during full moon nights. He knew where the pack ran.

I heard elevator doors hiss open. Boot steps on linoleum.

"I can see the window of your booth, Norville."

"Hey, Cormac, do you know Arturo?"

"Yeah. He's in charge of the local vampires."

"Did he hire you?"

"h.e.l.l no. What do you think I hunt when I'm not after werewolves?"

So he hunted lycanthropes and vampires. I really wanted to get on this guy's good side, as impossible as that seemed at the moment.

I had to figure out how I could prove that Arturo had hired Cormac through an intermediary. Maybe that would get the bounty hunter to back off.

Then I heard the sirens. A window looked from my studio to the street outside. I didn't have to move to see the red and blue lights flas.h.i.+ng. The police. The last few minutes had dragged, but even if an intrepid listener had called the cops as soon as Cormac announced his intentions, they couldn't have gotten here this quickly.

"You hear that, Cormac?"

"s.h.i.+t," he muttered. "That's too quick."

Hey, we agreed on something. "It's almost like someone called ahead of time, that they knew you were going to be here. Are you sure you don't want to rethink my patsy theory?"

Arturo could get me via Cormac, and with the cops downstairs he could get Cormac, too, if he had it in for the bounty hunter. The cops wouldn't buy the werewolf story. They'd get him for murder.

"You can't be serious."

"Arturo, the local vampire Master, wants me off the air. Can I a.s.sume you've p.i.s.sed him off recently?"

"Um, yeah, you could say that."

There was a story behind that. I'd have to wait until later to pry it out of him. "Let's pretend he hires you through a third party, calls the cops as you're doing the job, so there's no way you have time for an escape. You may have it in for werewolves on principle, but you can't justify killing me. The minute you pull that trigger, the cops bring you down. How does that sound for a theory?"

A pause, long enough for my palpitating heart to beat a half-dozen times. "You're insane."