Kitty and the Midnight Hour

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?'

'Hell 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 flashing. 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?'

'Shit,' 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 assume you've pissed 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.'

I couldn't hear footsteps, couldn't hear weapons. He'd stopped moving. Was I nervous? I hadn't seen those guns yet. I didn't have to; I could smell Cormac's body odor, taut nerves with a spicy underlay of aftershave. I could smell the gun oil. I could smell—silver. He had silver bullets. Any doubts about the truth of his claims and intentions vanished. He hunted lycanthropes and vampires, and if he was alive enough to use the plural on that, he knew what he was doing.

I was still on the air. I was getting the show to end all shows, interviewing my own potential killer live on nationally syndicated radio. So was I nervous? I talked faster. Words were my weapons, like Cormac's guns were for him. I could only hope my aim was as deadly.

'Hey, Cormac. You ever have to deal with a PMSing werewolf?'

'No.'

'Well, it's a real bitch.'

He was right outside the door. All he had to do was lean in and shoot. My fingers itched; my bones itched. I wanted to Change; I wanted to run. I could feel the Wolf clawing at my rigidly held control, in self-defense, self- preservation. I could fight—but I wouldn't. Squeezing my trembling hands into fists, I held my breath. Matt crouched in a corner, his eyes wide. He was staring at me. Not at the door or at Cormac, but at me. The werewolf.

Cormac chuckled. The sound was soft, almost indiscernible even to my sensitive hearing. The next sound I heard was a click—the safety of a handgun snapping back into place.

'Can I ask you a question?'

Was I going to live? Die? What? 'Sure.'

'What the hell kind of name is Kitty for a werewolf?'

My breath hissed. 'Gimme a break; the name came first.'

'I have a deal for you, Norville. I call off the contract, and you don't press charges.'

'All right,' I said quickly. I was more interested in keeping my skin intact than pressing charges.

Cormac continued. 'I'm going to do some checking. If you're wrong, I'll come back for you.'

I swallowed. 'That seems fair.'

'If you're right, we can both rub Arturo's face in it. Now, I suggest we wait here for the cops to find us, then we can all explain things like reasonable people.'

'Um, can I finish the show?'

'I suppose.'

Matt scrambled to the board. 'Forty seconds left,' he said, a little breathlessly.

Perfect timing. 'Hey, listeners, I haven't forgotten about you. Seems this was all a misunderstanding. I think Cormac the Assassin and I have worked things out. The police are coming up the stairs as I speak. If this were a movie, the credits would be rolling. So that's it for The Midnight Hour. Next week I have as my guest Senator Joseph Duke, sponsor of a bill in Congress that would grant federal marshal status to licensed exorcists. Is he a crackpot, or is the country really under threat from hordes of communist demons? I can't promise that it'll be nearly as exciting as it was tonight, but you never know. I'll do my best. Until then, this is Kitty Norville, Voice of the Night.'

Matt started the closing credits, featuring a long, clear wolf howl rich with the full moon. It was my own howl, recorded for the show at the start.

I pulled off the headset and rubbed my eyes. Maybe Carl was right and I should quit doing this. So much trouble. Was it worth my life? I should just quit. Nah…

The hair on my neck tingled; I turned to see a man standing in the doorway, leaning on the frame. Even without the revolver in the holster strapped to his thigh, gunslinger style, he was scary: tall, six feet, and slim, dressed in a black leather jacket, black T-shirt, worn jeans, and thick, steel-toed biker boots. His mouth smirked under a trimmed mustache. He held a rifle tucked under his arm.

'That you?' he asked, indicating the last fading note of the wolf howl. He looked to be in his early thirties. His eyes glinted, matching the humor of his suppressed grin.

I nodded, climbing to my feet, propping myself against the wall. Big, dangerous werewolf—yeah, that was me. I wanted a hot shower and a nap.

Cops were pounding down the hallway now, shouting something about weapons down and hands up. Cormac followed instructions, gun down and hands up, as if he'd done this before.

I had a thousand questions for him. How did someone get into the business of hunting werewolves and vampires? What kind of adventures had he had? Could I get him on the show as a guest? What did I do now? Introduce myself? Shake his hand?

'Norville, don't ever give me a reason to come after you,' he said, before the police flooded the floor.

My smile was frozen and my knees were weak as the uniformed men arrived, surrounded him, and led him away.

The cop in charge, Detective Jessi Hardin, escorted me down the emergency stairway herself. She explained how I'd have to go to the police station, make a statement, sign the report, and so on. The long night was going to get even longer.

I wanted to say something. Like, I'm a werewolf. I wondered if it would change anything. No, not if. How it would change everything. I'd told the world. I felt like I had to keep saying it, to believe it had happened.

For once I kept my mouth shut.

'By the way, there's a guy downstairs looking for you. Name of Carl? I told him he can talk to you after you