Kitty and the Silver Bullet

Friday night, time to party.

'Good evening, and welcome to The Midnight Hour. I'm Kitty Norville, your ever-cheerful hostess. Tonight it's all vampires, and all calls. I want to hear from you about those mysterious bloodsuckers of the night. Questions, problems, nothing's off-limits. Tell me a story I've never heard before. It's getting pretty tough to scare me these days, but I'd like you to try. Or even better—let's see if someone out there can give me a little hope. I've had one of those days.'

I was such a lucky girl. After doing this show for two years, my monitor still lit up with calls. My listeners had been waiting with their fingers on the speed-dial button. One of these days, I'd ask for calls and the phones would come up silent. Then I'd have to retire for sure. But this wasn't that night.

'Our first call this evening comes from…Maledar…Maledar? Is that right?'

'Yes, it is.' The light male voice managed to drip with pretension.

'Your parents actually named you Maledar.'

'No.' He sounded pouty. “That's the name I chose for myself. I'm preparing for my new identity. My new life.'

Inwardly, I groaned. A wannabe. Even more pretentious than the real thing. 'Am I to understand it, then, that you want to become a vampire?'

'Of course. Someday. When I'm older.'

It clicked then—the voice, the name, the utter cheese of it all 'Wait a minute—how old are you? You're supposed to be eighteen to call in.' The kid had lied to my screener. Fifteen, I bet. And to his credit smart enough to know how much it would suck to get frozen at age fifteen for all eternity.

'I'm ageless,' he said breathily. 'Ageless as the grave.'

'Okay, this is not the kinderbat poetry hour. You'll want—oh, I don't know—public access television for that.'

The pause was ominous. Then, 'Whoa, what a wicked cool idea.'

Dear God, what have I done? Hurry, move on quick before I get into more trouble. 'I don't know what your question was, but you're leaving now. Bye. Please, somebody with sense call me so we can discuss Byron or something. Next caller, hello.'

'I knew him, you know.' This was a suave male voice, coolly assured. The real thing. An older vampire showing off his hard-earned ennui.

'Knew who?'

'Lord Byron, of course.'

'Really,' I drawled. 'You know, there are about as many vampires who say they knew Byron as there are reincarnation freaks who say they were Cleopatra in a past life. Which would mean Byron had, like, hundreds of obnoxious simpering twits trailing after him. When he really only had Keats and Shelley.'

The guy huffed. 'How very droll.'

'I'm sorry, you just hit one of my buttons, you know?'

'You've never considered that perhaps one of those vampires who say they knew Byron might be right?'

'Okay, fine. You chilled with Byron. You want to tell me what he was like? Him and the others? Hey, maybe you can answer a question for me—that other guy who was there the night they told the ghost stories and Mary Shelley came up with Frankenstein, the one whose name I can never remember—'

'Polidori.'

'Uh, yeah. Him.' Oh crap, what if this guy really had known Byron? Was I going to sound like a royal idiot? 'I always wondered why he never amounted to anything.'

'He was what we call a hanger-on. Mary was the really clever one.'

I grinned. 'I always thought so. Now, I don't think you called just to talk about the Romantic poets. What's on your mind?'

'Destiny.'

'Right, the big question. Like, why are we here, what's the point to life, that sort of thing?'

'I'm curious to hear what you think about it.'

I pouted. 'That's my line.'

'Are you going to tell me?'

I sighed loudly to make sure the sound carried into the mike. 'All right. I'll bite. Here's what I think, with the caveat that I may be wrong. I think we're here to make the world a better place than we found it. I think we don't always deserve the cards that we're dealt, good or bad. But we are judged by how we play the cards we're dealt. Those of us with a bum deal that makes it harder to do good—we just have to work a little more is all. There's no destiny. There's just muddling through without doing too much damage.'

Most of the time I even believed that.

'Hmm, that's very nice,' the vampire said, coy and condescending.

'All right. I know you're just trying to bait me. Why don't you come out and say what you want to say.'

'You talk about us, vampires and lycanthropes, like we're afflicted. Like we have a handicap. And if your goal is to pass as human, to blend in with society, then I suppose it is a handicap. But have you ever thought that we are the chosen ones? Fate marked us, and we became what we are. We are superior, chosen by destiny, and one day we will rule the world. The Families know this. They are grooming us, the masters of the night, to be the masters of everything. We're the top of the food chain. One day humanity will see the truth of it.'

By this time, I'd heard a dozen versions of this shtick. Fortunately, vampires only ever talked about taking over the world.

When they stopped talking about it, I'd start to worry.

'Why are you telling me this?'

'I want you to know the truth.'

'Well, thank you for the public service announcement. I'm cutting you off now, you've had a little too much ego tonight. Next call—ooh, I think I might have a debate for us here. Hello, Jake? You're on the air. What do you have for me?'

'Um, Kitty? Oh, wow. I mean—hi.'

'Hi. So you have a response to our esteemed vampire caller.'

'Oh, do I ever. That guy is so full of”—he paused amusingly to censor himself—'crap. I mean, I really want to know where I can get in on some of this vampire world domination action. 'Cause I'm a vampire and I'm stuck working the night shift at a Speedy Mart. I'm not the top of any food chain.'

'You're not part of a Family?'

Jake chuckled. 'If it weren't for your show I wouldn't even know about Families.'

This was the part of my show that freaked me out a little. There were people out there for whom I was their only source of information, who used me as a lifeline. It felt like a burden. I had to sound encouraging to someone who'd been dealt a truly shitty hand: working the night shift at Speedy Mart for all eternity.

I said, 'I know this is personal, but I take it that you were made a vampire under violent circumstances, against your will.'

'Got that right. And if destiny had anything to do with it, I'd sure like to know why.'

'I wish I had an answer for you, Jake. You got one of the bad cards. But since you and I both know there's no destiny involved, you have a choice on what to do about it.'

'I really just wanted to tell the other side of the story. My side. That guy wasn't speaking for all vampires. Thanks for listening.'

'That's what I'm here for. I'm going to move on to the next call now, okay? Good luck to you, Jake.'

And so it goes.

I heard from men, women, vampires, humans, human servants of vampires, people who were funny, sad, lost, and angry. The problems ranged from silly to terrifying. I heard stories of people trapped in lives they hadn't expected, couldn't escape from. A lot of the time I didn't know what to tell them. I was totally inadequate to dispense advice—I could barely take care of myself. Early on, though, I'd learned that a lot of times people just needed to vent, and they needed someone to listen. People were desperate for conversation, and many of them didn't have anyone to talk to.

Talking about it made a thing—a problem, a weakness, a fear, a hope—more solid, and easier to confront. Easier to control.

I would do well to remember that in my own life.

'I've got time for one more call. Becky, you're on the air.'

'Hi, Kitty,' said a woman who sounded like she was on edge. 'This isn't about vampires. I hope that's all right. It's important, I think.'

At the end of the show, it didn't much matter. 'What's the problem?' I didn't doubt that she had a problem. I recognized that tone. The screener had put in 'domestic abuse' as the topic.

'I'm a werewolf, I'm part of a pack, and I'm worried. There's a new wolf. She's really young, really vulnerable, and the alpha male—he's taking advantage of her. But it's worse than that because he's beating up on her. This goes way beyond the dominance and submissive crap. The thing is, she won't leave. I've tried to talk her into going away, but she refuses. She won't leave him. I don't know what to do. How can I make her see that she doesn't have to put up with this? That she shouldn't? She won't stand up for herself.'

The story sounded way too familiar. My first three years of being a werewolf, I'd been on the bottom rung, completely submissive to an alpha who was borderline abusive. But the pack meant protection, and I didn't want to leave. A time came when I had to choose between the pack and my own life—my show, my goals, my future. And I picked me. I'd never looked back.

Despite my experience, I didn't know what to tell her.

I said, 'You should be given some credit for wanting to help. But sometimes that isn't enough. As hard as this sounds, there isn't much you can do if this person isn't willing to take that step for herself. I'm sorry.'

'But—' she said, and sighed. 'I know. I know you're right. I just thought there might be a trick to it.'

'You can be a friend to her, Becky. Keep talking to her. And maybe you could lead by example. Maybe you should both leave town.' I wasn't all that hot on the pack structure. My bias showed.

'That's hard to do,' she said. 'I'm safe here. But I can stand up for myself. She can't.'

'Then all you can do is look out for her the best you can. Good luck to you, Becky.'

You can't save everyone. I'd learned that.

I lightened my tone to wrap up. 'All right, my friends, we're about out of time. How quickly it goes when we're having fun. I'll be counting the hours 'til next week. In the meantime, a bit of shameless self-promotion: don't forget that my book, Underneath the Skin —that's right, my book, written by me, all about stuff I want to talk about—will be on sale in a few weeks. Like you weren't getting enough of me already. Stay safe out there. This is Kitty Norville, voice of the night.'

Cue credits, with wolf howl—my own wolf howl, recorded especially for the show.

I was exhausted. Sometimes doing a show left me so buzzed that I couldn't sleep until morning. Not tonight. I couldn't wait to get home and crash. I felt like I'd been awake for days.

After chatting with the producer and finishing some paperwork, I headed outside. In his car, idling by the curb, Ben was waiting to pick me up. I hopped in on the passenger side, leaned over for a quick kiss, and smiled. Now this was a lovely way to end the night.