Kitty and the Midnight Hour

on lycanthropy and vampirism overseen by the CDC and NIH. It was relegated to footnotes in the back pages of the obscure report that had been all but buried in the CDC archives. I couldn't find any names of people there I could contact. No one wanted to be associated with it. The people I called at the CDC hadn't heard of it. The NIH referred me to the CDC. It probably wasn't a real agency, but some kind of think tank. Or smoke screen.

I didn't usually buy into conspiracy theories. At least not where the government was concerned. After all, when Congress had trouble voting itself enough money to continue operating, how was I supposed to believe that this same government was behind a finely tuned clandestine organization bent on obfuscating the truth and manipulating world events according to some arcane plan for the domination of the minds and souls of all free people?

Unless vampires were involved. If vampires were involved, all bets were off.

I worked on Rick's flyer next.

As much as I hated to admit it, I started with the website for Uncharted World. The Internet had a thriving community that dealt in supernatural news. The trouble was separating the hoaxes and fanatics from the real deal. Most of what Uncharted World posted was sensationalist and inaccurate. But they had a search engine that filtered for 'news of the weird,' and with enough patience and by following enough links, I could trace the Web to good sources and cross-check the information to verify it.

I hit pay dirt when I found a collection of bulletin board postings and some missing persons reports filed with various local police departments. It seemed that about four months ago, an old revival-style tent had sprung up in the middle of the night on the outskirts of Omaha, Nebraska. Posters appeared all over the bad parts of town, the likely haunts of lycanthropes and vampires, advertising a cure based solely on faith and the intercession of a self- proclaimed holy man, Elijah Smith. I couldn't find any documentation of what happened during that meeting. The tent had disappeared by the next morning and a week later showed up in Wichita, Kansas. Then Pueblo, Colorado. Stories began circulating: The cure worked, this guy was for real, and the people he healed were so grateful, they didn't want to leave. A caravan of followers sprang up around that single tent.

Smith's congregation was known as the Church of the Pure Faith, with 'Pure faith will set you free' as its motto. I couldn't find any photos, any accounts of what went on inside the caravan or what the meetings were like. I couldn't find any specifics about the cure itself. No one who wasn't earnestly seeking a cure could get close to Smith or his followers. People who came looking for their friends, packmates, or Family members who had disappeared into that tent were threatened. Interventions were forcibly turned back.

I came across a couple of websites warning people away from Smith. Some people screamed cult. After reading what I could find, I was inclined to as well.

Vampirism and lycanthropy were not medical conditions, so to speak. People had studied us, scanned us, dissected us, and while they found definite characteristics distinguishing us from Homo sapiens, they hadn't found their sources. They weren't genetic, viral, bacterial, or even biological. That was part of what made us so frightening. Our origins were what science had been trying to deny for hundreds of years: the supernatural. If there were a way to cure vampirism and lycanthropy, it would probably come from the supernatural, the CDC and Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology notwithstanding. In the case of a vampire, how else could one restore the bloodless undead to full-blooded life? Faith healing just might be the answer. That was the problem with trying to expose Smith as a fraud and his church as a cult.

I didn't believe there was a cure. Someone would have found it by now.

'Welcome to The Midnight Hour. I'm Kitty Norville. Tonight I have a very special guest with me. Veronica Sevilla is the author of The Bledsoe Chronicles, The Book of Rites, and a half-dozen other best-selling novels that follow the trials and tribulations of a clan of vampires through the centuries. Her newest novel, The Sun Never Rises, has just been released. Ms. Sevilla, thank you for being on the show.'

'Please, my dear, call me Veronica.'

Veronica Sevilla, whose birth name was Martha Perkins, wore a straight, black knit dress, black stockings, black patent-leather heels, and a black fur stole. Her dark hair—dyed, I was sure—framed her pale face in tight curls. Diamond studs glittered on her earlobes. She sat back in the guest chair, hugging herself, hands splayed across opposite shoulders. It wasn't because she was cold or nervous—it was a pose. Her official biography gave no age or date of birth. I couldn't tell how old she was by looking at her. Her face was lined, but not old. She might have been anywhere from forty to sixty. There might have been surgery involved.

She wasn't a vampire. She smelled warm and I could hear her heart beat. But she sure was trying to act like one. I couldn't stop staring at her, like, Are you for real?

'All right, Veronica. You write about vampires in a way that makes them particularly vivid. Some critics have commented on your ability to take them out of the realm of standard horror fare and turn them into richly realized characters. They're the heroes of your stories.'

'Yes, of course, why shouldn't they be? It's all a matter of perspective.'

'You've gathered a following of admirers who seem to identify strongly with your vampire protagonists. Quite a few of them insist that your novels aren't fiction, but factual accounts of real vampires. What do you say to this?'

She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture that was totally lost on the radio.

'I wouldn't know where to find a real vampire. Vampires are a product of the human imagination. My books are all products of my own imagination.'

I had my doubts. Putting Sevilla's rabid fans and her florid overwriting aside, she got too many details right. The way vampire Families worked, the things they said to one another, the dominance and posturing games that went on among them the same way they went on among werewolves—details that an outsider wouldn't be able to make up. So, she either did a great job on her research, in which case I wanted to know what her sources of information on vampire culture were, or she had connections. Before meeting her, I half-expected her to be a vampire, or a human servant of one, or something.

'Why do you think your fans are so attracted to your characters and stories? Why do people want to believe in vampires?'

'My books create a world that is enticing. My world, the Bledsoe Family, vampires in general—these are all metaphors for the power these poor children wish they could have in life but can't because they are so… so…'

'Insecure?'

'Outcast. Misfit Badly adjusted.'

'Are you saying your fans are social misfits?'

She touched a bitten-down fingernail to her lip. 'Hm, that is imprecise.'

'You have fans who come to you wanting to learn about vampires, wanting to become vampires. They see you as an authority on the subject What do you tell them?'

'I tell them it's fiction. Everything I have to say is there in the books. What do you tell them, when people ask you such questions?'

'I tell them that maybe being a vampire isn't all it's cracked up to be.'

'Have you ever met a vampire, Kitty?'

I paused, a smile tugging at my lips. 'Yeah, I have. And frankly, I find that your novels are pretty accurate.'

'Well. What am I supposed to say to that? Perhaps you could introduce me to one.'

I thought about it and decided that Arturo would love to have her for lunch—but he had better taste.

'Why vampires? You write centuries-long family sagas—why not write historical epics without any hint of the supernatural?'

'Well, that would be boring, wouldn't it?'

'Yeah, God only knows what Tolstoy was thinking. Seriously, though, what's your inspiration? Where do you get your ideas?'

'Writers hate that question.'

'I think writers only say they hate it to avoid answering it.'

'Is that any way to speak to a guest?'

I sighed. She was used to being pampered. Dressing room and a bowl of peanut M&Ms with the green ones taken out, that sort of thing.