Kitty’s Greatest Hits (25 page)

These people had no idea. Try dating people who sprouted three-inch claws on a regular basis.

It was all pretense, one way or another. The reason I wasn’t kissing Ozzie’s ass or worrying about my job was because if I lost this job, I’d have an excuse to run away and never come back. So maybe that was why I kept up the pretense. For the challenge. Because I wanted to believe that civilization was worth the effort.

“Kitty! What was that shit you were playing the other night?”

I blinked, startled, and searched the room for the heckler. Ozzie, aging hippie ponytail and all, was standing on the other side of the sofa, hands on hips, glaring at me. The cluster of people seated on the sofa and nearby chairs fell silent, watching with big eyes like they’d just seen a car wreck.

What shit?
was not the ideal response to that question. “Can you be a little more specific?”

“A couple nights ago. That spoken word stuff. That totally suicidal spoken word stuff.”

I composed myself and said, “That was poetry. I found a recording of Sylvia Plath reading her poems. You know—literature.”

With a scowl, he pulled a crumpled wad of cash from his pocket, smoothed out a couple of ones, and handed them to Bill, who grinned.

They’d had a bet going on one of my sets? Crazy.

Ozzie pointed at me. All ready to take his loss out on somebody. “Well, we can’t have that.”

Have what—literature? I raised my brows, inquiring.

He continued. “Suicidal shit on the radio. We might be held liable for—for something.” He made a vague gesture.

My God, if the Plath estate were held liable for every suicidal teenager who got ahold of
The Bell Jar
 …

I rolled my eyes. “It was two in the morning. Can you prove to me anyone was even listening?”

“Kitty, we can’t have that kind of attitude here.”

The air quivered. I wasn’t being nice. I wasn’t playing the game. I might as well have acquired a bull’s-eye on my chest. My colleagues stared at me, nearly salivating. Like a pack of wolves moving in for the kill.

I supposed I should have been flattered that
someone
had listened to my shift.

“Can we talk about it at the next programming meeting?” I said. Nicely.

“Yeah, sure.”

Ozzie didn’t deserve to be alpha of this pack.

I stared at him. Hard. Almost, a growl started in my throat. I pursed my lips, to stop them from curling and baring my teeth. My shoulders tensed, like hackles rising. Frank’s German shepherd would have recognized the challenge. Ozzie almost did. His eyes went a little wide, but then he took a long draw from his beer and skulked off to the break room. He may not have understood that he was avoiding a challenge, but that was what he was doing.

I turned my lips into a wry smile as people nervously restarted conversations and stole twitchy glances at me.

“Baa-a-a-a-a-a-a!” I yelled in a staccato voice, hands cupped around my mouth. And they all just looked at me, before turning back to their beers and conversation.

I could eat them all. But I had a bad taste in my mouth. Time to blow this Popsicle stand. I grabbed another handful of crackers, waved a half-assed good-bye, and stalked out the door. It was early enough I could still find someplace to serve me a nice, rare steak.

K
ITTY AND THE
M
OSH
P
IT OF THE
D
AMNED

It felt good to get away from the radio station.

At least that was what I kept telling myself as I tried to make my way to the back of Glamour, a nightclub that attracted a young and dissolute crowd. I was here for a concert. I squeezed along the wall, pausing every couple of steps as people surged back, threatening to crush me. I dodged full cups of beer and lit cigarettes. The dance floor was shuffle-room only. The crowd was way past fire-code capacity.

A few hundred hot-blooded beating hearts surrounded me. It was all I could do to keep from drooling. A deeply buried part of me sensed the sweat, the heat, and thought,
Easy prey.
I could smell ten different brands of perfume and aftershave. Someone nearby was high on pot; I could smell it on his breath. Another had done X in the last hour; I could smell it in her blood.

This part of me had to sprout fur and claws every full moon. Between moons, I was careful to keep my claws to myself.

I finally reached the secondary bar with the majority of my self-control intact. Red track lighting backlit a couple rows of liquor bottles, casting shadows over the usual detritus of napkins, lime slices, dirty glasses, and taps. I checked for spills on the black Formica, and finding a dry spot, hopped up to take a seat.

The bartender started to glare, but when he saw me, he leaned his elbows on the counter.

“Kitty, hiya.” Jax was about six feet tall and a hundred thirty pounds on a heavy day. He was shaved bald, and, living the nocturnal lifestyle he did, his skin was pale.

“Hey. When’s Devil’s Kitchen up?”

“Five minutes. Your timing is great.”

“What are the chances they’ll stick around after the show to talk to me?”

“When I tell them Kitty Norville wants to talk to them? They’ll stick around like duct tape.”

I was still getting used to the fame thing. My call-in radio talk show for the supernaturally challenged went national less than a year ago, but a lot had happened in that time. I’d revealed my werewolf identity on the air, for one. The episode put my ratings through the roof and made me one of the first lycanthrope celebrities in the country.

Fame opened doors and I had to take advantage of it when I could. I wanted to get Devil’s Kitchen on my show for an interview.

The concert started late. The crowd, sensing the minutes ticking on some internal group chronometer, pressed closer to the stage. The angry edge tingeing the air intensified. Lots of black, lots of chains, and shouting.

The room went dark, all the lights cutting off at once, and the taped music went dead. Crammed bodies that had been governed by the beat of the music milled, uncertain. Then, the stage lit up. White spots glared straight down on amps and mike stands. A drum machine started up, followed by an electrified bass line, manic and terrible, like coming war.

Spirits from shadow, the band appeared. A bald guy with a ripped T-shirt and denim overalls played bass—Danny Spense. He came on stage and played like he was digging his own grave, with a kind of intense desperation, focusing only on his hands clutching the instrument, wincing in anguish.

Lead guitar, Kent Hayden, had a fascist look, slick-backed black hair, black T-shirt and jeans, fingerless leather gloves. He stared at the crowd impassively while his fingers danced on the frets of his instrument.

Together, they set up a textured rain of sound, melody struggling to escape chaos.

Eliot Ray, lead singer, leapt to the fore, grabbing the mike and pressing his mouth to the foam. He wore work boots, cutoff shorts, and a three-sizes-too-big T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off. He shut his eyes and wailed, but it was controlled, playing with the rhythm and song; it was, after all, music. I forgot to pay attention to the lyrics.

The crowd in the pit surged toward the stage, screaming. Fists pounded the air, a hundred bodies jumped in time with the beat.

Near me, Jax leaned on the bar, as enthralled as I was. Nobody wanted to buy drinks now.

Shouting into his ear over the music, I asked him, “How much security you guys have tonight?”

“Every bouncer on staff—and each of ’em brought a buddy. Ambulance waiting around the corner.”

Over the last year, Devil’s Kitchen had started headlining the club circuit. Their recent East Coast tour had made news: They’d left a trail of injured concertgoers in their wake. Every show they did, someone was hospitalized with injuries way beyond the usual cuts and cracked ribs of the mosh pit. It became part of the show in a way—a new kind of extreme sport, like rock climbing in Afghanistan. The more publicity they got about the casualties, the more popular their shows became. People had started following them from show to show like they were some kind of postapocalyptic version of the Grateful Dead.

They attracted a dangerous crowd. Part of this was the music they played, heavy as granite, sharp as razors, drawn from the old European industrial scene and punk they’d cut their teeth on as kids. Most of it was the band’s reputation for putting people in the hospital. Not that any of the spike-haired heroin-thin manic kids currently in the mosh pit thought that
they
were in danger of getting hurt. But they sure wouldn’t mind watching someone else break a bone.

I had some theories about the band and the kind of energy they generated. They, or maybe just one of them, were vampires. Maybe not the standard bloodsucking undead, but some kind of psychic variety, feeding on danger, aggression, and bloodshed. What better venue to generate such emotions?

Eliot had more energy than any one person had a right to, leaping from one end of the stage to the other, bent over with the mike stand clutched in both hands one minute, stretched to his full height the next. He was fun to watch. I was screaming just as loud as anyone at the end of each song.

A couple of kids had started crowd surfing in the mosh pit, people passing them overhead from one end to the other. Then, one would get swallowed, disappearing in the crowd and another would spring up to take his place, riding on the upstretched arms of his friends.

They must have been four songs into the set when the first fight broke out. I didn’t notice exactly when it happened; the surge and lurch in the crowd seemed like part of the natural flow. Then, a body slammed against a railing. The guy bent, his arms limp and flailing, and slid down to the floor. Four or five other guys suddenly locked together, grappling, and a space of a foot or two cleared around them. In the press of people trying to get away, more punches and body slams crashed. Eliot kept screaming into the mike, and a swarm of bouncers descended on the crowd.

A half-dozen people, men and women, with bloody cuts streaming over their faces were dragged past me. The music faded, reverb whining over the speakers and echoing in my ears.

“We’re taking a break,” Eliot said. Kent and Danny were unplugging their instruments. “Round two, ten minutes. Don’t move.” They disappeared behind the stage.

All that blood. My shoulders tensed, hackles rising. I had to get out of here.

I jumped off the bar and ran, climbing stairs to the catwalk circling the pit, dodging the press of onlookers. The pit was a war zone, half the mob still thrashing to the taped music now playing, the other half trying to pick fights, struggling against bouncers and friends who held them back. At the other end of the walkway, I slipped over the rail and hopped to the back of the stage.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, it’s not even ten minutes into the show and they’re already killing each other! That’s a record even for us. I can’t do this anymore.”

“Come on, it’s what they’re paying for. You don’t think they’re actually coming for the music, do you?”

The green room was a piece of the club’s storage area that had been curtained off and decorated with a minifridge and sofa. I stood at the edge of the curtain’s opening and listened.

“Shit like this is not supposed to happen every show!” The angry voice—I could tell he was stalking back and forth across the space by the stomp of his boots—belonged to Eliot.

“So what’re you going to do?” said the other one. “Quit in the middle of a gig? What kind of riot do you think that’ll start?”

Eliot threw something and kept pacing.

“Just chill, Eliot. You’re not going to quit, so stop bitching.” I was guessing that was Kent. Calm and pragmatic. The third, Danny, hadn’t spoken. “We’re going to go back and play. The crowd’ll fight like they always do. Then we’ll go home. We’re not paid to worry about what those jerks do to each other. Not our problem.”

“Just once,” Eliot said between deep, careful breaths, “I’d like to get through an entire gig without stopping because of a fight.”

He threw back the curtain on his way out and ran smack into me. It was my fault; the possibilities presented by this conversation—dissention within the band, the fact that they, or at least not all of them, knew what was going on—so intrigued me that I missed him stomping toward me. We stared at each other, startled. His jaw clenched, and he looked like he was about to yell a string of obscenities.

I forestalled this by smiling. “Hi. You must be Eliot Ray. I’m Kitty Norville.” I stuck out my hand for him to shake.

He looked at my hand, looked at me, his snarl twitching. “Kitty Norville? The fuckin’ talk show chick?”

“Yeah.”

The snarl melted into a smile, and he shook my hand. “Cool. I’m a big fan.”

“Thanks.” I looked over his shoulder. Kent stood with his arms crossed. Danny sat on the couch, shoulders hunched. “I’m real interested in talking to you guys. Maybe after the show? Would that be possible?”

“You want to talk to us?” Eliot threw a grin at the others. “Now we really are famous, if Kitty Norville wants to talk to us. You’re, like, the Barbara Walters of freaky shit.”

Kent, frowning, shoved past Eliot and me. “You’ll have to set it up with our manager.” He stalked toward the stage door.

“Sorry about that. I think he’s got a thing against werewolves.”

“Werewolves or nosy people? So—this kind of thing happens every show?” I nodded toward the chaos still rumbling from the main part of the club.

His expression tightened; he looked like he was going to yell again. But he just ducked his gaze and scuffed his boot on the concrete floor. “Yeah.”

“You ever think it might be caused by something—oh, external? Like someone’s manipulating things to cause the violence?”

“You mean—not our fault?”

I shrugged noncommittally. “Not specifically. It’s just something to think about.”

Danny was staring at me from the sofa. I couldn’t read anything in his expression. Just a hard, interested stare. It made me twitch.