Kitty Saves the World (Kitty Norville 14)

“I’ll be right over.”

* * *

BEN HAD been hanging out with Cormac long enough that he knew the score and kept a whole kit in the trunk: not just a crossbow and spears, but a spray bottle of holy water, a pile of garden stakes, and wooden javelins. It would be the kind of thing I would tease him about, if we didn’t seem to need an antivampire arsenal so often. He also reloaded the Glock from the box of ammo in the glove compartment. Ben was a paragon of practicality.

The front of Obsidian was entirely nondescript: double glass doors between display windows containing antique furniture and gilt floor lamps. The door didn’t have an open or closed sign, and didn’t display hours. If it wasn’t for the sign above the windows, you’d never know this was a business. I was sure that was the idea. The stairs to the vampire lair were around the corner from a loading dock.

“You know what we’re looking for?” Ben asked. He had the crossbow and bolts; I had a couple of stakes in my good hand and the spray bottle tucked under the bad arm.

“No. But it makes sense, if Angelo had sided with Roman, that would give Roman a base of operations here. So we’re looking for Roman, the Manus Herculei, the Holy Grail. Whatever. To be honest, I’ve always wondered what was in the back room of this place.”

“What do we do, knock?”

I did so, rapping knuckles on glass. Nothing happened. “We move on to the back, I guess.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

We stepped carefully. A couple of streetlights gave us a pretty good view of the front of the building, but the back parking lot, with its cracked pavement and lone Dumpster, was mostly dark. It was the kind of place I’d been told not to walk alone when I was in college.

His voice dropped to a whisper. “Hey, Kitty—smell that?”

The place was a vampire lair—it always smelled like vampires, so my hackles were already up. But the scent Ben picked up was fresher—and moving. We stopped, back to back, looking around, even though in the dark we likely wouldn’t spot them until they were right on top of us. I might have caught a flash out of the corner of my eye, then another. Movement. We were being watched.

Since they weren’t attacking—hell, they weren’t even appearing to lord themselves before us, all smug and superior like—I kept on toward the back, trying out a service door next to the loading dock. It was locked. Maybe Cormac could break us in when he got here.

The only door left to try was the one to the basement lair. Heading down those stairs would get me cornered, trapped. Besides, I was pretty sure anyone I wanted to talk to was up here, watching us.

“Hello?” I called. “By chance does anyone have the key to the gallery? You know, so I can maybe look around?” Hey, it was worth a shot. “They’ve got to be just as nervous as we are,” I murmured to Ben when nothing happened.

“That’s what I’m worried about,” he answered.

A cornered predator was the worst kind of predator. We knew that very well. “Hello?” I called again.

A figure broke off from the shadows—Braun, standing at the corner of the building, arms at his sides. I felt a tiny bit of comfort—he hadn’t been with Angelo and the others. Maybe he wouldn’t try to kill me.

“What do you want?” he asked, suspicious.

Ben turned and aimed the crossbow at him; I put my hand on his shoulder to calm him. I glanced around—other vampires came out from where they’d been hiding, or from where they’d been stalking us. None of the ones here had been at KNOB. Had the Family broken into factions? Should that give me hope?

Ben turned again, watching the others, covering me while I talked.

“Braun, right?”

“Kitty.”

“I just want to talk,” I said. “You didn’t come after me with Angelo and the others.”

“No. You got a little banged up, I see. What happened?”

Ben and I looked like we’d done a couple of rounds in a cage fight. Cormac wasn’t going to be happy when he saw us.

“Angelo is dead,” I said.

He didn’t seem surprised. I wondered if they?

??d felt it, because he was the Master. “What happened? How did you survive?”

“He was trying to kill me—under Dux Bellorum’s orders. Did you know that?”