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

“Look look look, here it is,” Brenda said, leaning forward.

We looked. A crowd of cops emerged from the hotel. In their midst, they escorted Boris and Sylvia. In handcuffs.

Brenda grinned mightily.

Evan explained. “We used their weapons. Their fingerprints are over everything. We lured them here in time for them to paw the bodies and get blood all over themselves. They’re going down.”

Astonished, I let my jaw drop. “But they didn’t—”

Evan put a finger over his lips. Quiet. He said, “But they would have. They were certainly after you, weren’t they?”

I couldn’t deny it, and I couldn’t say I wasn’t pleased to see them folded into police cars and driven away. There was a hint of karmic justice in all this.

“Couldn’t happen to a meaner couple,” Ben said, raising his glass in a toast. “Unless it happened to you two.”

“Why, thank you,” Evan said. “And now we can discuss how much you owe me for looking after Kitty and for tipping the cops about Faber’s operation.”

“What?” I said. “You mean you figured it out?”

Ben intervened. “That would be a fine discussion, except I busted out of there before the cops raided the place,” Ben said.

Evan furrowed his brow, skeptical. “What? No.”

“I even got shot,” Ben said, like he was proud of it. “Which I have to say is another advantage of being a werewolf you may not have considered.”

“It’s not an advantage when all my bullets are silver,” Brenda said.

“I still tipped off the cops,” Evan said. “I tell you what. I’ll give you the friends-and-family discount. Twenty percent off.”

Ben said, “That’s your friends-and-family discount?”

Brenda murmured, “It’s because he doesn’t have any.”

I stared. This was all so wrong. “You people are insane.”

Brenda just shrugged. Didn’t deny it.

A couple of the police cars drove away with Boris and Sylvia. More stayed, including a van marked CSI. This was going to end up on an episode of the show, wasn’t it? I guessed they’d be here a while. Five bodies, Evan said. Aside from Balthasar, I wondered which ones, who was left, and what would happen to the show. Not that I could think about them without shivering. Not even Avi, who’d seemed so friendly and earnest. I hoped the cult was broken up for good.

I said, “What about the vampire?”

“Vampire?” Evan said.

“Yeah. The woman in charge of the ceremony. That priestess. She was a vampire.”

“You sure?” Brenda said. “I remember her—I’m sure I capped her.”

“I smelled her. She got shot and nothing happened. She’s the real one in charge of that mess. If she got away, it’ll just start up all over again.” Or she might be looking to take revenge.

Brenda flattened her hand on the table. “What would a vampire be doing fronting a Vegas show?”

I thought about it: A vampire at

the head of a pack of lycanthropes was a pretty powerful vampire. She’d be a rival to the Master of the city—unless she was something else entirely. Like a Babylonian priestess, heading a cult of a goddess who hadn’t been worshipped since the ancient Mesopotamian empires.

I nudged Ben. “Let me use your phone.” I dialed Dom’s number. It rang, and rang, and rang.

Did Dom even know that the head of Balthasar’s pack was a vampire—maybe even an ancient Mesopotamian vampire? And how old would she have to be to be the priestess of a Babylonian cult? Four thousand years old? I didn’t want to think about that. Would Dom know about her if she didn’t want him to? Now that she’d been disturbed, maybe even exposed, what would she do next?