Kitty and the Midnight Hour

He shrugged. 'To trap them, kill them. Enslave them. Such things have happened before.'

The possibilities he suggested were downright ominous. They incited a nebulous fear of purposes I couldn't imagine. Witch hunts, pogroms. Reality TV.

He was only trying to scare me so I'd get righteously indignant enough to do something about this. It worked.

'I'll see what I can find out.' Grist for the mill. I wondered if Smith would come on the show for an interview.

'Thank you.'

'Thanks for the tip.' I pursed my lips, suppressing a grin. 'It's a good thing the humble subordinates keep running around their leaders' backs, or nothing would get done around here.'

Rick gazed innocently at the ceiling. 'Well, I wouldn't say anything like that to Arturo's face. Or Carl's.'

Things always came back to them, didn't they? The Master, the alpha. We were hardwired to be followers. I supposed it kept our communities from degenerating into chaos.

More somber, I said, 'Do you think Arturo's going to do anything about the show?'

'That depends on what Carl does.'

As in, if Carl did nothing, Arturo might. I winced. 'Right.'

'I should be going.'

'Yeah. Take it easy.'

He nodded, almost a small bow that reminded me that Rick was old. He came from a time when gentlemen bowed to ladies. Then he was gone, as quietly as he'd arrived.

Phone. Business cards. Secretary. Maybe I also needed a receptionist. And a bodyguard.

Chapter 4

Dressed in sweatpants, sports bra, and tank top, I stood on the mat, and at the instructor's signal, kicked at dust motes. Craig, an impossibly fit and enthusiastic college student who looked like he'd walked straight out of an MTV reality show, shouted 'Go!' and the dozen of us in the class—all of us women in our twenties and thirties— kicked.

Rather than teaching a specific martial art, the class took bits and pieces from several disciplines and combined them in a technique designed to incapacitate an assailant long enough for us to run like hell. We didn't get points for style; we didn't spend a lot of time in mystical meditation. Instead, we drilled moves over and over again so that in a moment of panic, in the heat of an attack, we could move by instinct and defend ourselves.

It was pretty good exercise as well. Breathing hard, sweating, I could forget about the world outside the gym and let my brain go numb for an hour.

We switched sides and kicked with the other leg a dozen or so times. Then Craig put his hands on his hips.

'All right. Line up so we can do some sparring.'

I hated sparring. We'd started with a punching bag the first few sessions. Where most of the women hit the bag and barely budged it, I set it swinging. I got many admiring compliments regarding my upper-body strength. But it had nothing to do with upper-body strength. Something about werewolves made them more powerful than normal humans. Without any training at all, by just being myself and what I was, I could outfight all my classmates, and probably Craig as well.

That wouldn't help me with vampires.

What the episode with the punching bag taught me was that I had to be very careful sparring against humans. I didn't know how strong I was or what I was capable of. I had to pull every punch. I didn't want to hurt anyone by mistake.

I didn't want to hurt anyone at all. The Wolf part of me groveled and whined at the thought of fighting, because she knew Carl wouldn't like it. Wolf, ha. I was supposed to be a monster. Ferocious, bloodthirsty. But a monster at the bottom of the pack's pecking order might as well be as ferocious as a newborn puppy.

Dutifully, I lined up with the others and gritted my teeth.

We practiced delivering and taking falls. Tripping, tackling, dropping, rolling, getting back up and doing it all over again. I fell more often than not, smacking on the mat until my teeth rattled. I didn't mind. My sparring partner was Patricia, a single mom on the plump side who'd never even thought about sports until it looked like her eight-year-old son, a Tae Kwon Do whiz, was going to be able to beat up Jackie Chan soon (she claimed), and she wanted to keep up with him. Patricia seemed gleeful at the idea that she could topple a full-grown adult with a couple of quick moves. A lot of these women had to overcome cultural conditioning against hurting other people, or even confronting anyone physically. I was happy to contribute to Patricia's education in this regard.

'You're holding back, Kitty.'

I was flat on my back again. I opened my eyes to find Craig, six feet of blond zeal, staring down at me, weirdly foreshortened at this angle. He was all leg.

'Yeah,' I said with a sigh.

'Come on, get up.' He offered his hand and helped me to my feet. 'Now I want you knock me all the way across the gym.'

He had the gall to put a twinkle in his eyes.

The rest of the class formed a circle around us, an audience that I didn't want and that made me bristle. Wolf hated fighting. She was better at cowering. Inside, I was whining.

Craig bent his arms and hunched like he was getting ready to charge me. If he charged, I was supposed to drop, letting him trip over me, and shove, making sure he lost his footing. Sure enough, he ran at me. I dropped. Instead of tripping, though, he sidestepped. If I'd shoved like I was supposed to, he would have lost his balance. But I just sat there, allowing him to jump behind me and lock his arm around my neck.

'I know you can do better than that. Come on, let's try it again.'

I could fight, I was strong enough. But I had no will for it. Too used to being picked on, a victim by habit. I closed my eyes, feeling like a kid who'd flunked yet another test Slowly, I got to my feet.

Craig faced me again. 'Okay, let's try something. This time, imagine I'm your worst ex-boyfriend, and this is your chance to get even.'

Oh, that was easy. That would be Bill. All Craig had to do was say it, and I saw Bill there, and all that anger came back. I clenched my fists.

Being angry meant not holding back, of course. I wasn't sure I could have pulled the next punch if I'd wanted to, once I had Bill on the brain.

Craig charged. I ducked. Then I shoved, leading with my shoulder and putting my whole body behind it. I connected with his side. He made a noise, a grunt of air, and flew. Both his feet left the mat. Women squealed and dodged out of his way as he crashed to the floor, bouncing twice. He lay on his back and didn't move.

The bottom dropped out of my stomach and I nearly fainted. I'd killed him. I'd killed my self-defense instructor. Shit.

I ran to where he lay and stumbled to a crouch at his side, touching his shoulder. 'Craig?'

His eyelids fluttered. A few panicked heartbeats later, he opened them. Then he grinned.

'Yeah, that's what I'm talking about! You gotta learn to hit people.' He was breathing hard. He had to gasp the words out. I'd probably knocked the wind out of him. 'Now, never do that to me again.'

I gave him a hand up. He was rubbing his head. I bet he would hurt in the morning. How embarrassing.

'Wow,' Patricia, coming to stand next to me, said. 'Your ex must have been a real winner.'

'You have no idea.'

Between my mystery phone call and Rick's visit, I had my research assignments for the next week set. I worked on my mystery caller first.

The Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology was the government agency that had conducted the study