Kitty Takes a Holiday

His voice was rough. 'Norville, get over here. I need your help.' He pointed at the Jeep, as if that explained everything.

I didn't speak. I was too astonished. Too wary. He looked like someone getting ready to rush me, to attack, screaming. I knew he could kill me if he wanted to. I didn't move.

'Norville—Kitty, Jesus, what's wrong with you?'

I shook my head. I was caught up in some Wolf-fueled spell. I couldn't get over how weird this was. Suspicious, I said, 'What's wrong with you?'

Anguish twisted his features. 'It's Ben. He's been bitten.'

'Bitten?' The word hit my gut and sent a tremor up my spine.

'Werewolf,' he said, spitting the word. 'He's been infected.'

Chapter 4

I ran to the Jeep. Cormac steered me to the passenger door, which he opened.

Ben sat there, relaxed, head slumped to the side— unconscious. Blood streaked the right half of his shirt. The fabric was torn at the shoulder, and the skin underneath was mauled. Individual tooth marks showed where the wolf had clamped its jaw over Ben's shoulder, and next to it a second wound—a messier, jagged chunk taken out of the flesh near his bicep—where the creature had found its grip and ripped. Ben's forearm also showed bite marks. He must have thrown his arm up to try to protect himself. All the wounds had stopped bleeding, were clotted, and beginning to form thick, black scabs. Cormac hadn't ban­daged them, yet they were already healing.

They wouldn't have been, if it hadn't really been a werewolf that did this. If Ben hadn't really been infected with lycanthropy.

I covered my mouth with my hand and just stared, unwilling to believe the scene before me.

'I didn't know what else to do,' Cormac said. 'You have to help him.'

Feeling—tingling, surreal, blood-pounding feeling— started to displace the numbness. 'Let's get him inside.'

1 touched his neck—his pulse raced, like he'd been running and not slumped in the front seat for a five-hour car ride. Next, 1 brushed his cheek. The skin was burning, feverish. 1 expected that, because that was what had hap­pened to me. He smelled sharp, salty, like illness and fear.

His head moved, his eyes crinkled. He made a sound, a half-awake grunt, turned toward my hand, and took a deep breath. His body went stiff, straightening suddenly, and as he pressed his head straight back his eyes opened.

'No,' he gasped and started fighting, shoving me away, thrashing in a panic. He was starting to develop a fine sense of smell. 1 smelled different and his instincts told him danger.

I grabbed one arm, Cormac grabbed the other, and we pulled him out of the Jeep. Getting under his shoulder, I tried to support him, but he dropped his weight, yanking back to escape. I braced, holding him upright and manag­ing to keep a grip on him. Cormac held on to him firmly, grimly dragging him toward the cabin.

Ben's eyes were open, and he stared in a wide-eyed panic at shadows, at the memory still fueling his nerves.

Then he looked right at Cormac. 'Kill me,' he said through gritted teeth. 'You're supposed to kill me.'

Cormac had Ben's arm over his shoulder and practi­cally hauled him off his feet as we climbed the steps to the porch.

'Cormac!' Ben hissed, his voice a rough growl. 'Kill me.'

He just kept saying that.

I shoved through the open front door. 'To the bedroom, in back.'

Ben was struggling less, either growing tired or losing consciousness again. We went to the bedroom and hauled him onto the bed.

Ben writhed, then let out a noise that started as a whim­per and rose to a full-blown scream. His body arced and thrashed, wracked with some kind of seizure. I held down his shoulders, leaning on him with all my weight, while Cormac pinned his legs.

I shifted my hands to hold on to his face, keeping his head still and making him look at me. His face was burn­ing up, covered with sweat.

'Ben! Sh, quiet, quiet,' I murmured, trying to be calm, trying to be soothing, but my own heart was in my throat.

Finally, I caught his gaze. He opened his eyes and looked at me, didn't look away. He quieted. 'You're going to be okay, Ben. You're going to be fine, just fine.'

I said the words by rote, without belief; I didn't know why I expected them to calm him down.

'Kitty.' He grimaced, wincing, looking like he was going to scream again.

'Please, Ben, please calm down.'

He closed his eyes, turned his face away—and then he relaxed, like a wave passing through his body. He stopped struggling.

'What happened?' Cormac said.

Ben was breathing, soft, quick breaths, and his heart still raced. I smoothed away the damp hair sticking to his forehead, turned his face toward me again. He didn't react to my touch.

'He passed out,' I said, sighing.

Slowly, Cormac let up his grip on Ben's legs and sat back on the edge of the bed. Ben didn't move, didn't flinch. He looked sick, wrung out, too pale against the gray comforter, his hair damp and his shirt bloody. I was used to seeing him focused, driven, self-possessed. Not like this at all. I was always the one calling him for help.

How the hell had this happened?

I didn't ask Cormac that, not yet. The bounty hunter looked shell-shocked, his face slack, staring at Ben's prone form. He pressed his hands flat on his thighs. My God, were they shaking?

I unbuttoned Ben's shirt and wrangled it off him, care­fully peeling the fabric away where the blood had dried, pasting it to his skin. The adrenaline was fading, leaving my limbs weak as tissue paper. My voice cracked when I said, 'What was he saying? About you killing him? Cormac?'

Cormac spoke softly, in a strange, emotionless mono­tone. 'We made a deal. When we were kids. It was stupid, the only reason we did it is because it was the kind of thing that would never happen. If either of us got bitten, got infected, the other was supposed to kill him. The thing is—' Cormac laughed, a harsh chuckle. '1 knew if it hap­pened to me Ben would never be able to go through with it. I wasn't worried, because I knew I could shoot myself just fine. But Ben—it was for him. Because he wouldn't have the guts to shoot himself, either. If it happened to him, I was supposed to take care of it. I'm the tough one. I'm the shooter. But I couldn't do it. I had my rifle right up against his skull and I couldn't do it. By that time he was screaming his head off and 1 had to knock him out to get him to stay in the Jeep.'

I could picture it, too, Cormac's finger on the trigger, tensing, tensing again, then him turning away, a snarl on his lips. He was grimacing now.

Even at a whisper, my voice was shaking. 'I'm glad you didn't shoot him.'

'He's not.'

'He will be.'

'I brought him to you because 1 thought, you're a werewolf and you get along all right, and if he could be like you—he'd be okay. Maybe he'd be okay.'

'He'll be okay, Cormac.'

With his shirt off, Ben looked even more pale, more vulnerable. Half his arm was chewed up and scabbed over. His chest moved too rapidly, with short, gasping breaths.

'We should clean this up,' I said. 'He'll be out of it for a while. Maybe a couple of days.'

'How do you know?' Cormac said.

'Because that's how it was with me. I was sick for days. Cormac…' I stood and moved next to him, reach­ing out, tentative because he looked like he might break, explode, or tear the room apart. He was the same kind of tense as a cat about to spring on a mouse. He still had the handgun in his belt holster. I had to make him look away from Ben. I touched his shoulder. When he didn't jump, flinch, or punch me, I lay my hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

He put his hand over mine, squeezed back, then stood and left the room, disappearing into the front of the house. I didn't hear the front door open, so he didn't leave. I didn't have time to worry about him right now.

Armed with a soaked washcloth and dry towel, I cleaned up the blood. The wounds, the bite marks and tears in his skin, had all closed over. They looked like week-old scabs, dried and ringed with pink. His skin was slick with sweat; 1 dried him off as well as I could. Within half an hour, Ben's breathing slowed, and he seemed to slip into a normal sleep. If he'd been in shock, the shock had faded. Nothing looked infected. The lycanthropy wouldn't let him sicken. It wouldn't let him die, at least not from a few bites.

I took off his shoes and covered him with a spare blan­ket. Smoothed his hair back one more time. For now, he was settled.

I found Cormac in the kitchen, leaning on the counter and staring out the window over the sink. The sun had risen since we'd brought Ben inside. The outline of the trees showed clear against a pale sky. I didn't think Cormac was really looking at any of that.

I started setting up the coffeemaker, being louder than I needed to be.

The strangeness was too much. Cormac gave me this image of him and Ben as kids, talking about werewolves— that wasn't exactly a kid thing to do. At least, not for real. Not meaning it. I'd always suspected Cormac was edging psychotic, but Ben was the levelheaded one, the lawyer. I'd always wondered how he took this world—lycanthropes, vampires, this B-grade horror film life I lived—in such stride, not even blinking. I'd been grateful for it, but 1 won­dered. How long had he been living in it? Him and Cormac both?

I didn't know a damn thing about either of them.

I pushed the button, the light lit up, and the coffee-maker started burbling happily. I leaned back on the coun­ter, watching Cormac, who hadn't moved. A minute later, the smell of fresh coffee hit with a jolt.

'Are you hungry?' I said finally. 'I have some cereal, I think. A couple of eggs, bacon.'

'No.'

'Have you gotten any sleep?'

He shook his head.

'You think maybe you should?'

Again, he shook his head. Too bad. My day would be a lot easier if he'd just collapse on the sofa and sleep for the next twelve hours.

The coffee finished brewing. I poured two mugs and set one on the counter next to him. I held mine in both hands, feeling the warmth from it, not drinking. My stom­ach hurt too much to drink anything.

I had to say something. 'How did it happen? How did you let him get—how did he get in a position to be bitten by a werewolf?'