Kitty and the Midnight Hour (Kitty Norville 1)

There had to be a catch.

I kept my voice steady, attempting journalistic impartiality. “You stayed with him for four months. What did you do?”

“I traveled with the caravan. I appeared onstage and witnessed. I watched sunrises. Smith took care of me. He takes care of all of us.”

“So you’re cured. That’s great. Why not leave? Why don’t those who are cured ever go away and start a new life for themselves?”

“He’s our leader. We’re devoted to him. He saves us and we would die for him.”

She was so earnest, it made me wonder if I was being set up. But I was close to something. Questions, more questions. “But you want to leave him now. Why?”

“It—it’s so stifling. I could see the sun. But I couldn’t leave him.”

“Couldn’t?”

“No—I couldn’t. All I was, my new self, it was because of him. It was like . . . he made me.”

Oh, my. “It sounds a little like a vampire Family. Devoted followers serving a Master who created them.” For that matter it sounded like a werewolf pack, but I didn’t want to go there.

“What?”

“I have a couple of questions for you, Estelle. Were you made a vampire against your will or were you turned voluntarily?”

“It—it wasn’t against my will. I wanted it. It was 1936, Kitty. I was seventeen. I cont

racted polio. I was dead anyway, or horribly crippled at best, do you understand? My Master offered an escape. A cure. He said I was too charming to waste.”

I developed a mental picture of her. She’d look young, painfully innocent even, with the clean looks and aura of allure that most vampires cultivated.

“When did you decide you didn’t want to be a vampire anymore? What made you seek out Elijah Smith?”

“I had no freedom. Everything revolved around the Master. I couldn’t do anything without him. What kind of life is that?”

“Unlife?” Ooh, remember the inside voice.

“I had to get away.”

If I were going to do the pop-psychology bit on Estelle, I’d tell her she had a problem with commitment and accepting the consequences of her decisions. Always running away to look for a cure, and now she’d run to me.

“Tell me what happened.”

“I was mortal now—I could do whatever I wanted, right? I could walk in broad daylight. I was assigned screening duty at the front gate two nights ago. I lost myself in the crowd and never went back. I found a hiding place, an old barn I think. In the morning, I walked past the open door, through the sunlight—and I burned. The hunger returned. He—he withdrew his cure, his blessing. His grace.”

“The cure didn’t work.”

“It did! But I had lost my faith.”

“You burned. How badly are you hurt, Estelle?”

“I—I only lost half my face.”

I closed my eyes. That pretty picture of Estelle I had made disintegrated, porcelain skin bubbling, blackening, turning to ash until bone could be seen underneath. She ducked back into shade, and because she was still a vampire, immortal, she survived.

“Estelle, one of the theories about Smith says that he has some sort of psychic power. It isn’t a cure, but it shields people from some of the side effects of their natures—vulnerability to sunlight and the need for blood in the case of vampires, the need to shape-shift in the case of lycanthropes. His followers must stay with him so he can maintain it. It’s a kind of symbiotic relationship—he controls their violent natures and feeds off their power and attention. What do you think?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.” She sniffed. Her voice was tight, and I understood now where her hushed lisp was coming from.

Matt came into the studio. “Kitty, there’s a call for you on line four.”