Kitty's House of Horrors (Kitty Norville 7)

Tina and Ariel returned, prize in hand, about forty minutes later. Which, as long as it seemed, was still more quickly than I would have expected. It didn’t bode well, because I was pretty sure we wouldn’t be able to find our half so quickly, and I kind of wanted to win. And I hated that I kind of wanted to win, because that meant I was playing Provost’s game. I’d just have to be obnoxious about it.

Ariel was bubbling, holding up both halves of the locket for all to see. Tina looked annoyed. She held a crooked, forked stick a couple of feet long that she might have picked up off the ground.

“Is that a dowsing rod?” Jeffrey said. Tina nodded.

“A dowsing rod?” Conrad said. “Are you serious?”

“Took us straight to it,” Ariel said.

Jeffrey grinned at Tina. “You are so cool.” She blushed.

Conrad shook his head, as skeptical as ever, but he wrote the time down on the sheet of paper anyway.

“It’s spooky out there,” Tina said. “I’d just as soon not have to go out at night again.”

“Spooky?” I said. Meaning: spookier than a nighttime forest usually is?

“Maybe I’m still creeped out by that hypnotism trick last night.” She threw Grant a glare.

“You should trust your instincts,” Grant said. “If you think something’s out there, you should listen to that feeling.”

“That’s just it, I can listen to my instincts all I

want, but unless I get something specific, I’m just panicking.” She slumped into an armchair, shrugging off further inquiry. “Who’s next?”

Jeffrey and Lee went next. Jeffrey touched the locket like Tina had. Lee held the piece of jewelry to his nose and took a deep breath. Taking in the scent. It took them about forty-five minutes, and when they returned, Tina and Ariel did a little high-five because they were still in the lead.

“These things must not be very well hidden,” Conrad observed. “I guess Provost wouldn’t want to make it too hard.”

“Sometimes when you’re looking for something, it just calls out to you,” Jeffrey said.

Then came Jerome and me. We both took big draws of air off our locket, the oval one. Not that it would help, because it smelled generic—cheap metal, a little bit tangy, and a little bit like Provost’s aftershave. Maybe that would be enough to give me a trail. Really, I didn’t know how we were going to manage this. Picking a weak scent out of the wilderness was like looking for a needle in a haystack. No—a specific piece of hay in a haystack.

Jerome and I ended up outside, along with Gordon the PA and his camera, looking into the great outdoors, letting our eyesight adjust to the darkness. I turned my nose up, breathed deep, and caught the trail of Provost’s aftershave. Leading right back to the lodge, of course.

“I’m not sure this is going to work,” I said.

“Well, let’s get started doing something. Crisscross the ground, cover all the area around the house, see what we can pick up.” It was as good a plan as any.

We split up, him taking the front of the lodge and me taking the back. I caught the trails of the teams that had gone before us and ignored them. I was looking for Provost.

“Kitty!” Jerome called, and I trotted over to join him.

He was kneeling, resting one hand on the ground, head bent over. His powerful body was taut, like he was ready to run, his gaze up and watchful. He looked animal, a little bit of his wolf bleeding into his gaze. Not wanting to set him off, I approached cautiously, obliquely.

“There,” he said, nodding in the direction where the woods joined the meadow, a little ways from the lodge. Nose flaring, taking in the air, I caught it—Provost. I nodded, and we set off, stalking our prey.

We went carefully for about ten minutes. The trail was faint, but we were able to follow it. Especially after we told Gordon he had to stand downwind. A strange, twilight feeling came over me; I was feeling more wolf than human, even though I wasn’t shifting; I was still solid within my human skin, but this felt like hunting. Jerome and I hadn’t spoken since we left the lodge—we communicated by glances, by tilts of our heads and shoulders. The night blazed with information. I saw everything clearly, heard a hundred little noises in the woods and meadow, from an owl’s swoop of wings to insects and mice burrowing through grass. Being part of this world felt so natural. I’d be perfectly happy spending the whole night out here and not going back to the lodge. And wouldn’t that shake things up?

I followed the trail, but at one point I branched right and Jerome branched left. Brow furrowed, confused, I backtracked, zigzagged over the ground, reading the scents of the world like it was a book. Sure enough, the trail split. Joey Provost had been over this ground twice, in two different directions.

Noticing I had stopped, Jerome looked back at me.

“There are two trails here,” I said, wincing because my speech sounded so loud and intrusive. “Which is right?”

Jerome went over the same ground and found what I did. He took a moment to gather words, like he, too, had to remember human speech. “You sure it isn’t a false trail? When he was planting the other teams’ lockets?”

“It probably is. Just in case, you stick to the main trail and I’ll check this one out. If it goes to the wrong locket, I’ll turn back and catch up with you.”