Kitty’s Greatest Hits (2 page)

Around bites, he finished his thought. “How did a werewolf end up with a name like Kitty?”

“The better question is how did someone named Kitty end up as a werewolf. That’s a long story.”

“It’s almost as bad as a werewolf named Harry.”

Perish the thought. “Oh my God, your name isn’t—”

“No,” he said, ducking his gaze. “It’s David.”

“Well, David. It’s nice to meet you. Though I have to say, I wasn’t expecting to see another one of us walk through the door. Are you from around here?”

“No. I’ve been on the road awhile.”

“That’s what I thought.”

He hadn’t yet taken a sip of his coffee, but he wrapped a hand around the cup, clinging to it like he could draw out its warmth. He hunched over, gazing out at the world with uncertainty. He probably didn’t realize how odd he seemed, coming out of the cold without a coat. Werewolves didn’t feel the cold as much.

Staring at the tabletop, he said, “I’ve never met another one. Not ever. But I could tell, as soon as I walked in here I could smell you and I knew. I almost walked right back out again.”

“What, let a little old thing like me scare you off?” She’d meant it as a joke, but he flinched. She willed him to relax. His hand around the mug squeezed a little tighter. He set his fork down and pressed his fist to the table.

His voice was taut. “You seem so calm. How do you do it?” His eyes flickered up, and the look in them was stark. Desperate.

She froze, nerveless for a moment. Is that how she looked? Calm? She was exiled from her pack, driven from Denver by the alpha werewolves, and so was spending Christmas at a Waffle House in a desolate corner of the state and not with her family. She felt like she was on the verge of losing it. Without an anchor. She’d lost her anchor—but David had never had one.

“What about the one who turned you?”

“I was camping by myself, something … something attacked me. It looked like … I remember thinking, this is impossible, there aren’t any wolves here. I knew something was wrong when I woke up, and I didn’t have any wounds, no scars, and I didn’t—”

He stopped, swallowed visibly, clamped his eyes shut. His breathing and heart rate quickened, and his scent spiked with fur and wild, wolf trembling just under his skin.

He didn’t know how to control it at all, she realized. He hadn’t had anyone to teach him. He’d been running as a wolf recently. Probably woke up with no idea where he was—no idea that it was Christmas, even.

Suddenly, her own situation didn’t seem so bad.

“Breathe slowly,” she whispered. “Think about pulling it in. Keep it together.”

He rested his elbows on the table and ran his fingers through his hair. His hands were shaking. “I turn all the time. Not just on full moons. I can’t stop it. Then I run, and I don’t remember what happens. I know I hunt, kill whatever’s out there—but I don’t remember. I try to stay away from people, far away. But I just don’t remember. I don’t want to be like this, I don’t—” His fingers tightened in his hair, his jaw clenched, teeth gritting. His wolf was right on the edge. Always right on the edge.

“Shh.” She wanted to touch him, steady him, but didn’t dare. Anything might set him off. And wouldn’t that be a Christmas to remember? Werewolf rampage in a Waffle House in southern Colorado.… He might have done okay by Jimmy Stewart, but she’d like to see Clarence the angel fix that mess.

He looked at her. Square on this time. “How do you do it? What’s your story?”

“I had a pack,” she said. “They found me right after it happened to me. Like you, in the woods, attacked. But they took care of me. Told me what had happened, taught me how to deal with it.”

“Does that happen?”

“Yeah, it does. There are probably more of us out there than you think. We keep quiet, stay hidden. At least, most of us do.” And that was more story than she should probably go into at the moment.

“Where are they? Your pack.”

Her smile turned wry. “I left. Or got kicked out. Depends on who you ask.”

He looked crestfallen. The concept of a pack—the idea that he might not be alone—seemed to have heartened him. But that opportunity had once again become remote. “I didn’t know. How was I supposed to know something like that was possible? I’ve been so alone.”

What were the odds that his wandering brought him here, to her, perhaps the one werewolf in all the world who’d listen to his problems and want to help?

She said, “It doesn’t have to be like that. You can control it. You can lead a normal life. Mostly normal, at least.”

“How?” he said, teeth clenched, voice grating. Like she’d told him he could fly to the moon, or dig a hole and find a million dollars.

“You have to really want to.”

Donning a smile that was more grimace, he glanced through the fogged window, to a graying, snowy parking lot. He spoke with sarcasm. “You make it sound so easy.”

“I didn’t say that. It’s not easy. I spend a lot of time arguing with my inner Wolf.”

“So do I. I lose.”

“Then you have to figure out how to start winning.”

He chuckled. “You ever think about going into the self-help business?”

She almost asked him if he listened to the radio much, or watched TV recently. Obviously he hadn’t, or he would have already said something about her talk radio show.

She smiled slyly at the tabletop. “The idea had occurred to me.”

David seemed calmer. Once or twice, Kitty had been accused of talking too much. But she found that talking improved almost every situation. Talking could make a lone werewolf on the run feel a little less lonely.

Jane marched in from the kitchen, straight toward the TV. Frowning, she pressed a cell phone to her ear. “Okay,” she said. “What channel?”

She pulled her stool under the TV again and stopped the tape. A cheerful Donna Reed cut off midsentence.

In place of the movie, Jane turned on a news station, turned up the volume, then moved away to watch.

A young news reporter was standing in a winter landscape, a windblown field in the foothills nearby, a few stray snowflakes drifting around her. She was lit with a harsh spotlight, striking in the evening darkness, and speaking somberly.

“… series of gruesome murders. The violence of these deaths has authorities concerned that the perpetrator may be using an attack dog of some kind. Police would not give us any further details. Authorities are asking residents to stay inside and lock their doors until the killer is apprehended.”

Behind the woman a crime scene was in full swing: three or four police cars, an ambulance, many people in uniforms moving purposefully, and what seemed like miles of yellow caution tape. The camera caught sight of a spatter of blood on the ground and a filled body bag before the scene cut away.

A male reporter in a studio repeated the warning—stay indoors—and a scroll at the bottom listed the information: five deaths within the space of an afternoon, violence indicating a highly disturbed, animalistic killer.

Jane folded her phone away, hurried to the door, and locked it. “That’s just a few miles up the road from here. I hope nobody minds,” she said, regarding her customers with a nervous smile. No one argued.

He said he Changed, and hunted, and didn’t remember.

For a long moment, Kitty stared at the stranger across from her. Nervously, he glanced away, tapping his fingers, slumped in the plastic booth like he didn’t fit in the confined space.

She shouldn’t have automatically been suspicious, but David’s situation raised questions. Where had he come from? What had he been doing before he woke up and found—stole—the clothes he was wearing? Was it possible? The only thing she knew: David was a werewolf, and werewolves were capable of violent, bloody murder.

“Get up,” she said to him, growling almost. She didn’t like the feeling rising up in her—anger, which stirred her Wolf. Quickened her blood. Had to keep that feeling in check. But she’d offered him friendship and didn’t want that to have been a mistake.

“What?” he said, voice low.

“Come on. In back. We have to talk.” She jerked her head toward the bathrooms, down a little hallway behind her. Glaring at him, she stood and waited until he did likewise. She stormed into the back hallway, drawing him behind her.

Kitty pulled him into the women’s restroom. If anyone noticed, let them think what they would. Keeping hold of his collar, she pushed him against the wall. Working on sheer bravado, she tried to act big and strong. He could throw her across the room if he wanted to. Trick was not to let him try. Dominate him, play the alpha wolf, and hope his instincts to defer to that kicked in.

“Where were you before you showed up here?” she demanded.

Whatever attitude she’d been able to pull out worked. He was almost trembling, avoiding her gaze. Mentally sticking a tail between his legs.

She hadn’t been sure she could really pull it off.

“I was walking,” he said. “Just walking.”

“And before that?”

“I was out of it.” He grew more nervous, looking away, scuffing his shoes. “I turned. I don’t really know where I was.”

“What do you remember?”

“I never remember very much.” His voice was soft, filled with pain.

She understood what that was like—remembering took practice, control. Even then the memories were fuzzy, inhuman, taken in through wolf senses. He didn’t have any of that control to begin with.

“Did you hunt?” she asked, hoping to spark some recollection. “Did you kill?”

“Of course I did! That’s what we do, what we are.”

He tried to pull away, cringing from her touch. She curled her lip in a snarl to keep him still.

“Think, you have to think! What was it? What did you kill? Was it big? Small? Did it have fur?”

He growled, his teeth bared, and an animal scent rolled off him.

She’d pushed him too far. She almost quailed and backed down. His aggression was palpable, and it frightened her. But she fought not to let that show. Stood her ground. Being alpha was a new feeling for her.

“So you could have killed someone,” she said.

He pulled away and covered his face with his hands. She barely heard him whisper, “No. No, it’s impossible. It has to be impossible.”

He didn’t know. Honestly didn’t know. Now, what was she supposed to do about that?

She tried again, calmer this time. Pulled out whatever counseling skills she’d picked up over the last year.

“Try to think. Can you remember images? Scents, emotions. Some clue. Anything.”

He shook his head firmly. “I don’t know what it’s like for you, but I don’t remember anything. I don’t know anything!”

“Nothing?”

“It’s a blank. But you—how can you remember? You don’t actually remember—”

“Images,” she said. “The smell of trees. Night air. Trails. Prey.” A long pause, as the memory took her, just for a moment. A flood of emotion, a tang of iron, euphoria of victory. Yes, she remembered. “Blood. Now, what do you remember?”

He dug the heels of his hands into his temples and dropped to a crouch. Gritting his teeth, setting his jaw, he groaned, a sound of anguish. Every one of his muscles tensed, the tendons on his hands and neck standing out. He was shaking.

Alone, out of control, he was over the edge. She knelt by him and touched the back of his head—simple contact, chaste, comforting. “Keep it together,” she said. “Pull it in. Hold it in. Breathe slower. In … out.” She spoke softly, calmly, until he matched his breaths to the rate of her speech. Slowly, he calmed. The tension in his fists relaxed. He lowered his arms. His face eased from a grimace to a simple frown.

She stroked his hair and rested her hand on his shoulder. “It’s possible to keep some control and remember.”

“I used to have a life,” he said. “I just want my life back.”

She didn’t know what to say. Of course he wanted his life back. So much easier if everything could go back to the way it was before. Nearly every day she thought of it. But if you wanted that life back, you had to fight for it. Fight for that control, every day.

“What am I going to do?” he said, voice shaking, almost a sob.

“Nothing,” she said. “We wait.”

If he hadn’t done anything, nothing would come of this. Nothing would lead the police to him. But she didn’t want to even suggest that much. In case he had done something, and the police did come for him.

*   *   *

David took a moment to recover after Kitty left the bathroom. Not that a moment alone would help. He felt fractured. The parts of his being had scattered, for months now.

He didn’t understand her at all. She was like him—the same, another monster, a werewolf. And yet she was completely different. So … with it. And he didn’t understand how she did it. How she looked so
calm.

If he couldn’t remember what had happened, maybe he could learn what happened some other way. He couldn’t sit here waiting for the cops to find him and haul him away. Not that they could. The moment he felt danger, he knew what would happen—he would turn, and run.

He stepped to the end of the hall that tucked the bathrooms away from the restaurant. Kitty had returned to the booth. The waitress poured her more coffee, which she sipped. Hunched over the table, she looked out with a nervous gaze. He could see the wolf in her, intense brown eyes flickering to every movement, watchful, alert. Part of him was afraid of her, her strength and confidence. She’d had him cowed in a second.

She believed he was a murderer, and he couldn’t deny it. Couldn’t say that she was wrong. He couldn’t be sure that she wouldn’t call the police. He’d only known her for an hour. She might be a monster like him, but she also seemed like the kind of person who would tell the police. A law-abiding werewolf. He never would have believed it.

He had to prove that he didn’t do it.

From the hallway, he ducked and slipped to the back of the kitchen, moving quickly so Kitty or the waitress wouldn’t see him. She’d think the worst.

One guy in the kitchen, a Latino wearing a white apron, looked at him. “Hey—”

David didn’t slow down but ran straight through the kitchen, unlocked the back door, and slipped out. Outside, he paused, taking deep breaths of chilly air through flaring nostrils. Night had fallen, gray and overcast. A light snow fell. A dusting of it would mask scents.