Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand (Kitty Norville 5)

“What—” I stammered. Couldn’t get my voice to work, which was weird. I swallowed and tried again. “What is that place?”

“It’s just a box,” he said. “A magical cabinet.”

He guided me to a chair at the side of the stage, which was good, because I hadn’t realized how wobbly my knees were until I sat down.

“They’re gone,” he said. “They should stay off your trail for a while, but you might want to lie low.”

I wasn’t sure I could manage that. Stifling a smile, I shook my head.

“How’d you get mixed up with them, anyway?”

“This is what happens when a werewolf finds herself at a gun show,” I said. “It was bound to happen sometime this weekend. Apart from that, it’s a long story.”

“You look like you could use a drink of water. Wait here—”

“No—don’t go. I’m okay, really. I just need to sit a minute.”

“All right.” He leaned on the wall nearby and drew a pack of cards from his pocket and startled shuffling.

I needed a few moments to catch my breath, that was all. But as soon as I left here, I’d be alone again. Pack instinct had kicked in. I needed someone at my back, and right now, Grant was it.

I shouldn’t trust him. I didn’t know any more about him and his motives than I did about Balthasar. The door to the cabinet was still open. The prop loomed, but all I could see inside was darkness. That was all that was there, wasn’t it?

I said, “The box. It’s not perfectly safe inside, is it?”

“No. Not perfectly.”

“It’s not a cabinet. It’s a doorway.”

His expression didn’t change. He wore a wry, uncommunicative smile, and his gaze focused on his cards. He continued shuffling the deck, a different way each time, a dozen different methods that made the cards a blur.

“Who are you really?” I said.

“I suppose,” he said, “my act is exactly that—an act. You might say my real job is to be a gatekeeper. A guardian.”

“For what’s in there?” I took his silence as assent. Gateway, indeed. A doorway into yet another world, as if the current one hadn’t become complicated enough. I asked, “What’s in there?”

“Have you ever read Lovecraft?”

“No,” I said.

He made a wry face. “Never mind, then. Is there someone who can come get you? Someone you can stay with, in case those two come looking for you again?”

I had to shake myself from a spell. Reality was returning. . . slowly. I remembered: I’d been coming to see Grant anyway before the two bounty hunters waylaid me.

“Not at the moment. I was sort of coming to see you about that.”

He’d moved on to doing tricks with the deck of cards. He displayed a car

d—the three of spades—slid it back in the middle of the deck, shuffled, tapped the top of the deck, flipped the top card over. The three of spades. Shuffle, pick a card—ace of hearts this time—shuffled it back in, tap, and there it was. He did the sleight of hand another dozen times, producing a dozen cards on cue. His fingers seemed to move by instinct, as if they had minds of their own, working in a graceful, choreographed dance.

“I understand you can make people reappear after they’ve vanished,” I said.

“Given the right circumstances.”

“Trapdoors and hidden mirrors?”

“Something like that. You’re missing someone?”