Kitty and the Midnight Hour (Kitty Norville 1)

“He tried to kill me! What other explanation do you need? Moving on to the next call. Hello!”

“Um, hi, Kitty. I sort of forgot my question. But that last caller’s idea—about you going out with Cormac and stuff. That would be kind of interesting, don’t you think?”

“No. No, I don’t think it would be interesting at all.”

“Well, it’s just that you’re always talking about cross-supernatural racial understanding, and that would, you know, make a bridge. It would be diplomatic.”

Diplomatic. Yeah. I thought real hard about being diplomatic before I answered. “Just a reminder: This is my show. I’m the one who’s supposed to give out lousy advice.”

I searched the monitor for a call that couldn’t possibly have anything to do with werewolf hunters.

“Hello, Ingrid from Minneapolis.”

“Hi, Kitty. I just wanted to tell you that I’m a werewolf, I’ve been one for about ten years now, and I’m married to the most wonderful man in the world. And he’s a wildlife control officer. We get along fine; we’re just careful to keep the lines of communication open.”

The studio was getting stuffy. I fanned myself with my cue sheet.

“Wow, Ingrid. That’s really interesting. Can I ask how you two met?”

“Well, it was a full moon night—”

I read between the lines of the story and was willing to bet that Mr. Ingrid had a fur fetish. It happened sometimes. But they sounded happy and that was what mattered, right?

“—so I wouldn’t let your prejudice against bounty hunters interfere with what might turn out to be something wonderful.”

Keeping my voice as even as possible, I said, “I don’t have a prejudice against bounty hunters. I have a prejudice against people who are trying to kill me.”

Matt started waving frantically at me through the booth window. “Kitty, you gotta take line two.”

“What? Why?” I checked the monitor. “There’s no name. Didn’t you screen it?”

“Just take the call.”

I punched the line. “Yes? What?”

“Norville. It’s Cormac. If you don’t change the subject right now, I’m going to have to go over there and have a word with you.”

Cormac. Geez. I was strangely flattered that he even listened to the show.

“I’ve been trying to change the subject.” Not that he’d know it from the last fifteen minutes. I wondered what would happen if I called his bluff. “But hey, thanks for calling. So, you did get out of jail.”

“DA didn’t want to prosecute without your testimony. Got off scot-free.”

“And have you ever dated a werewolf?”

There was a pause of a couple of beats. “That is none of your business.”

He didn’t flat-out deny it. Oh, how interesting.

“What if someone you were dating was attacked and infected with lycanthropy and became a werewolf? Would you dump her? Would you feel a deep instinctual desire to kill her?”

“Change the topic. I mean it.”

“Cormac, when was the last time you went on a date?”

One of the challenges of doing a radio show was judging everything by people’s voices. I couldn’t see their faces and expressions. I had to gauge the inflections of their voices to judge their moods and reactions.

So while I couldn’t see Cormac’s face, I could tell by the lightness in his voice that he was grinning. “Norville, when was the last time you went on a date?”