Kitty Takes a Holiday

The others gathered in the kitchen. Ben took me to the bathroom.

'Jesus, look at you,' he said when he turned on the light.

I whimpered. I didn't want to look. 1 turned away from the mirror.

'Should we take you to a hospital or something?'

'No, it'll be okay. I've had worse.' Brave words.

We had to cut away my shirt and bra. My chest and shoulders had a dozen puncture wounds where the skin­walker had dug in her claws again and again. My right arm was shredded. This was where she'd bitten and worried, and dozens of slashes and tooth marks streaked the flesh. I stood over the sink while Ben sponged me off. The blood had spattered on my face and hair as well. I'd have to stay in the shower for a week to get clean.

'I should have done something,' Ben murmured. 'I should have helped.'

'I'm glad you didn't. We'd both have ended up like this. That thing—I was frozen. I couldn't move, I couldn't do anything. Just like Cormac said.' Just like those cows. They couldn't run, they couldn't struggle. She'd slaugh­tered them at her leisure.

'When does this rapid healing start?'

'It should have started already.' All the wounds still oozed and hurt like hell.

He shook his head absently, dabbing away fresh blood. 'You have a first-aid kit? i think we're going to have to tape some of this up. You have something you can wear?'

'I think there's a button-up shirt in the closet. I ought to be able to get that on without crying.' I was still propped up against the sink, afraid to move because I knew it would hurt.

Ben regarded me a moment, and then had the gall to smile. 'For someone who says she doesn't like to get mixed up in the middle of things, you sure have a way of getting mixed up in the middle of things.' He kissed my lips and left on his errand. That made me feel better. Heck, it was almost like I'd planned it: Ben was doing great now that he had someone else to worry about. I'd have to keep that in mind.

He came back with a flannel shirt, and I sent him back for something else. I didn't want to think about bits of flannel mixed with cuts scabbing over.

By the time we emerged back into the kitchen, Alice, Joe, and Tony were chatting. If not happily, at least cor­dially. Like they might actually come out of this as friends. Tony was pouring hot water from a kettle into mugs. His tea smelled rich, warm, soothing—just like he promised. I identified chamomile twined in with scents I didn't recognize.

Tony said, 'You just don't seem like the kind of person who'd be into animal sacrifice.'

'Well… I'm not. It was all roadkill Joe and Avery picked up. We added blood from the butcher shop to make it look fresh. The only thing I did, really, was fix it so nobody saw or heard them placing the things.'

Of all the… Before I could say something snotty, Tony continued. 'That explains a lot. It didn't work, she didn't leave, because you weren't willing to make the sacrifice yourself, to spill the blood. You weren't willing to take that onto yourself to get what you wanted.'

Softly, she said, 'Not like that girl out there.'

After a moment of silence, I took the opportunity to bust in on the group. 'I spend all that money in your store, and you still didn't want me sticking around?'

Alice's face puckered like she was going to start cry­ing and 1 regretted my cattiness. She really hadn't known what she was doing, had she?

'Oh, Kitty, I was just scared. We all were. We didn't know. You hear stories, and you think the worst. We were just trying to keep the town safe, surely you can under­stand that.'

'So… the last couple full moons. Did you notice any­thing different? Could you tell that a werewolf was living in the neighborhood?' A law-abiding werewolf who made very, very sure that she didn't cause trouble.

'No, I didn't notice.'

Joe said, 'That's because we spent the night locked in the house with all the lights on.'

'And the days I shape-shifted that weren't on the full moon—you didn't notice then, did you?'

They both looked at me. Alice said, 'You turn into a wolf on other days, too?'

Even Ben looked at me sharply. 1 wasn't supposed to shape-shift on other nights. He knew I wasn't supposed to do that. Now what kind of role model was I?

'Whenever I want.'

'I didn't know that,' Alice said softly.

Tony straightened from where he'd parked by the counter. 'Hey, Alice, you want to help me with something?'

'What?'

'That thing out there left a lot of bad feeling in the air. No reason we can't try to clean it up a little, even if things didn't go the way we planned.'

'But the coroner, shouldn't we wait—'

'This won't bother them. We won't have to touch anything.'

She brightened. Tony had offered a chance for redemp­tion, and she seemed eager to take it. 'All right.'

The two left the cabin, and Tony flashed me a smile on the way out.

Joe busily rinsed out mugs.

I started toward him. 'Don't worry about that, I can get it.'

Ben interceded. 'No, you sit down and start heal­ing.' He pointed at me until I sank into a kitchen chair. Funny—I hadn't noticed I was dizzy until I sat down and the room stopped trembling. Ben put a mug of something steaming in front of me, then went to help Joe.

Clutching the mug in both hands and sipping carefully, I watched Ben and Joe washing coffee and tea accoutre­ments at the sink, side by side. Joe, who wouldn't let me, the werewolf, into his store without holding a gun on me, stood next to another werewolf and didn't even know it.

Over the next half hour, Sheriff Marks's backup arrived, including a coroner's van and a few deputies to take statements. While they worked, Tony and Alice walked around the clearing, each waving a smoking bundle of plant matter—some kind of incense. Some kind of bless­ing, or cleansing. 1 didn't know if it would work. Alice seemed to feel better, at any rate. At least it worked for someone.

One of the deputies took Joe and Alice home. The cops had taken statements from everyone, and Tony was the next to leave. Before that, he found me, sitting on the porch steps to watch the proceedings.

He sat next to me.

'Here. Take this.' He reached over his neck and pulled something from under his shirt: a small leather pouch on a long cord. Before I even had time to lean away in surprise, he put the cord over my head, so 1 was wearing the pouch around my neck. 'It's protected me through the years. It may help protect you.'

I put my hand over it. Small enough to fit inside my fist, the brown leather was soft. Stuffed inside was some­thing crunchy and fibrous. Dried herbs, maybe.

'May?' I said.

He shrugged, like we were talking about the weather. '1 do what I can.'

'Well. Thanks for trying.'

'If I had known that's what we were dealing with, I might have been able to do more.' He nodded to where the coroner's people were loading the body onto a wheeled stretcher. Some forensics officers wrapped the wolf skin in a plastic bag and carried it away.

'Any advice for what to do next?' I said.

'Let it end here. Don't go asking any more questions. Don't look for any more trouble.'

I hid a smile. Good advice, to be sure. Not sure it was the right advice. I had way too many questions, and this hadn't ended because Cormac was still sitting in the back of Marks's car, wearing handcuffs.

'Ben told me about the silver,' I said. '1 don't usually keep that sort of thing around, but we could probably pay you with some of Cormac's bullets.' I'd pay Cormac back later. He'd understand.

'This one's on the house,' he said. Then, as unobtrusively as he'd arrived, he disappeared into his truck and away.

Finally, after the coroner's crew and deputies were gone, the sheriff left with Cormac riding in the backseat, leaving the clearing suddenly empty and quiet. Ben and I stood on the porch, watching the chaos disperse. The night wasn't over for us; we had to get in my car and go spring Cormac.

'I don't know if I can do this,' Ben said, watching the cars leave.

'Do what?'

'Sit there and argue with those clowns. Not without… something happening. Losing my temper. You know.'

'You've done it before, haven't you?' They'd both acted like this was routine. Which was kind of scary.

'Lost my temper? Sure.' He smiled a little. 'Or do you mean representing Cormac? You keep saying you and I are a pack and we have to look out for each other. 1 feel like Cormac is part of my pack. I have to protect him. The wolf side would do anything to protect him.' He flexed his hands, like he could already feel that anger, that determination, waking up inside him.

1 touched his hand, to bring him back to himself. He let out a nervous breath.

'I'll go with you,' I said.

Looking away, he nodded. '1 was hoping you would.'

I hadn't ever considered not going.

The truth was, the thought of him leaving me here, of being alone after all that, made me ill. Between that and the queasy, injured feeling that still lingered after the fight, I wanted to throw up. 1 wasn't okay at all, and I wasn't going to sit around waiting for the next curse to arrive.

Chapter 13