Kitty Raises Hell (21 page)

“Except he’s dead,” I said, more harshly than I wanted. T.J. was dead, and I didn’t want to keep dwelling on it.

He shut his eyes tight and marshaled words. “I know . . . I know that now. I believe you. But since I’ve been trailing you,
I’ve been watching
her.
”

He gestured to Tina.

“I know about you. If there was another way to try this, I would, believe me. But I don’t think there is. I want you to try
to talk to him. Maybe . . . maybe he can tell you what happened. I just want to talk to him one more time.”

God. He was a kid again. That was all he wanted, for his older brother to tell him he loved him. Some reassurance that he
hadn’t been abandoned. I understood the feeling. I kind of wanted to talk to T.J. right now myself. Maybe ask, Why didn’t
you tell me you had a brother? Why didn’t you tell me you ran away from your family? Why didn’t you tell me anything?

The Paradox crew watched him, silent.

Peter kept trying. “I can pay you. I’m not looking for a conversation, I just want . . . something. A sign. Some kind of proof.”

“You and every other bloke in human history,” Jules muttered.

“It’s not that easy,” Tina said, soft, serious, diverging from her bubbly on-screen persona. “It’s not like making a phone
call. So, no. I can’t do it.”

Peter grit his teeth. He was almost shaking. “But I know you can do it. Please, I don’t want a séance, I just need . . .”
And he couldn’t say it. Couldn’t finish the thought, and none of us tried to finish it for him. He could have meant anything:
closure, comfort, some assurance that his brother hadn’t forgotten him, when all the evidence suggested that he had.

He turned away, hiding eyes that were shining with tears.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, and couldn’t tell if he’d heard me. “But if you’ve been following us, you know what a really bad
time this is.”

Jules said, “Right. We’re in the middle of something here. But later, maybe we can set up an experiment—”

“It doesn’t work on command,” Tina said. “I can’t promise anything.”

Peter had pulled himself together, but that only meant he was back to his surly, fidgeting self. “Thanks. Don’t do me any
favors or anything. I wouldn’t want to put you out.” He turned and stalked out.

I went after him. I wasn’t letting him get away again.

“Peter, wait!” I said before he was halfway down the sidewalk, and I must have growled it, because he stopped in his tracks.
I faced him. “I need something, too. I need to know about T.J.”

He didn’t answer—but then, he didn’t leave, either, so I begged.

“Please,” I said. “He was my best friend. I survived becoming a werewolf because of him, because he helped me. And now I don’t
even have a picture to remember him by. Please tell me about him.” Watching him, face locked in a scowl, head bent, unwilling
to stand tall and look at me, I thought this was what T.J. must have looked like at this age. Before he mellowed, before he
grew comfortable in his skin. Before coming to grips with what he was. Peter hadn’t acquired any of that confidence yet. But
I wasn’t going to let him walk away. I blocked his path to the parking lot.

He took a breath, steeling himself. “I’ve got some things I can show you. They’re out in my bike.”

Of course he rode a motorcycle, just like T.J. had. We walked to the parking lot, where he’d pulled his bike into the slot
next to my car. It was an older model, not too big, not a muscle, speed, or status bike. Something tough and functional, with
a helmet strapped to the back and saddlebags over the rear tire. T.J. hadn’t worn a helmet. As a tougher-than-human werewolf,
he hadn’t thought he needed one.

Peter opened one of the saddlebags and removed a thick accordion file, setting it on the bike’s seat like it was a desk. “It’s
been impossible getting a straight answer about him from anyone. I don’t know why I thought the psychic would be willing to
help.”

“They’re good people,” I said. “They just don’t want to treat it like a tool. It’s not an exact science.”

“It’s like being a kid again. It’s like everyone’s keeping secrets, everyone knows something, but they won’t tell you, because
you’re not old enough, or smart enough. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of not knowing anything.”

“You seem to be a pretty good detective. You figured out their secret. You’ve figured out a lot of this.” I nodded at the
file.

“And if he were alive I could have just asked him. If I’d found him sooner—” He shook his head. His frown was deep. “He was
eight years older than me, so we weren’t real close. But it’s like you said, he looked out for me. Helped me. He was good
at that. Our parents weren’t too involved, I guess you’d say. Kind of distant. We had two sisters, but I couldn’t talk to
them, so I always went to Ted. When he turned eighteen, he came out. Announced he was gay over the dinner table to the whole
family. Mom and Dad didn’t take it so well.” He chuckled; the sound was bitter. “That’s an understatement. They kicked him
out. Wouldn’t speak to him again. I think he expected it, because he already had his bag packed. He left, and that’s the last
time I ever saw him. But God, I would have gone with him. I wanted so badly to go with him.

“We weren’t allowed to even say his name at home. I kept hoping he’d call, or maybe come back to take me with him. I left
home last year. That’s when I really started looking. Trying to track him down. I didn’t think it would be this hard, but
he didn’t leave much of a trail. No credit card, no jobs—he only ever worked for cash under the table. I can’t imagine him
in a life like that. I don’t think I ever really knew him.” He did wipe a tear away, then.

“But you tracked him this far.”

“By luck, mostly. The name isn’t all that common.” He pulled pages out of the file. T.J.’s life, all wrapped up in a neat
little package. “He was in motocross racing for a while, working as a mechanic, fixing bikes, that sort of thing. I found
some people who knew him then.” He showed me sheets of paper with names and contact information typed out, a few pages with
handwritten notes, probably from interviews, records of conversations. Grainy black-and-white photos—photocopies of photos.
He set them aside to reveal a couple more pages, these ones typed forms. “I didn’t start to worry about him until I found
these. A couple years after he left home, he had an HIV test. It came back positive. A second one confirmed the positive.”

I shook my head. This definitely wasn’t the T.J. I knew. “T.J. wasn’t HIV positive—I would have known that. Aren’t these things
supposed to be confidential?”

He turned a cocky smile, crinkling his eyes—and for a flash looked just like his brother, the way I remembered him. My breath
caught.

“I got a job at the records department of the clinic. That’s how crazy I’ve been over this. But here’s the thing.”

A few more pages down in the stack, he pulled out another sheet, an almost identical medical form. “About eight months later,
another test came back negative. The odds are slim, but I’m guessing the first two were both false positives, or lab error.
Something like that. So he wasn’t really HIV positive. If he was, there’d be more medical files on him. Wouldn’t there? But
that third test is the last time he ever went to a doctor, I think.”

Holding up the pages, I stared at them side by side, my mind tumbling. Lightbulbs of understanding flared to life. T.J.’s
life, gathered together in a stack of papers. It shouldn’t have been able to explain anything, but it did. It explained everything.

“The first two tests weren’t wrong,” I said softly.

“How can you tell?”

I pointed to the dates on the last two pages, the tests that showed the switch from positive to negative, from HIV infected
to healthy. Eight years ago now. Just a few years before I met him. I explained, “Within this stretch of time, he was infected
with lycanthropy. That’s when he became a werewolf. Lycanthropy makes someone almost invulnerable. They’re very hard to injure,
they heal rapidly. They don’t get diseases. He cured himself of HIV by infecting himself with lycanthropy.” And how had he
found out about werewolves? How had he found one who would bite him without killing him? The address on the letterhead of
the test forms was in California. What had brought him to Denver? And what about the positive test in the first place—what
kind of trouble had T.J.—a gay kid kicked out of the house, maybe living on the streets, doing who knew what—gotten into that
led to getting HIV?

Peter probably wouldn’t be able to answer any of those questions, but I now knew something about T.J. I’d never known before:
He’d chosen lycanthropy. He’d gotten himself infected on purpose. And it had made him strong.

So, T.J., was it worth it? You might have lived longer with HIV.

No answer came from the beyond.

“Jesus,” Peter murmured.

I gave the pages back to him. “I didn’t choose this life. I always wonder why some people do. Why someone like T.J. would.”
Not that it made me feel any better.

“I think he must have been a different person than the one I remember. I just wish—” He shook the thought away. He hadn’t
seen his brother in ten years. He’d been a kid. If my memories of the man were idealized, what could his possibly be like?

We stood in silence, both of us wishing he was still alive.

“The thing is,” Peter said after a moment, “I don’t know what to do now. I had a plan. I’d find him, and he’d—he’d have a
great life. I just knew he would. He’d own a bike shop somewhere, or be a mechanic for some big racer. He’d have his own place
and a bunch of great friends. I wanted to be part of that. He’d get me a job, I’d meet his friends, I’d be his little brother
again. He’d be happy to see me. I always imagined that he’d be happy to see me. He’d say, ‘I knew you’d find me.’ Like finding
him was a test. I never thought that he’d be . . . that he wouldn’t be here. And now I don’t know what to do.”

I spoke carefully. “I think he’d have wanted you to be your own person. He wouldn’t want you trailing after him like this.
Being in his shadow.”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I’m sorry I was so rotten before. That I didn’t believe you. It must have been a shock, me calling
out of the blue. I didn’t mean to stir up bad memories.”

“It was a shock,” I said, accepting his apology with a shrug. “But I’m glad you did. I’m glad I got to learn more about him.”

“Were you really his best friend?”

That made me smile. “I don’t know about that. But he was definitely my best friend for a while there.”

Peter chuckled, like he understood the difference.

We both turned around at Ben’s approach. “Is everything okay?” He gave Peter a sinister look. He was here checking up on me,
and the statement was a warning.

“Everything’s fine,” I said, reassuring. “We’re just going through our own little version of ‘This Is Your Life.’ Ben, this
is Peter. T.J.’s younger brother.”

Ben’s eyes widened a little, and they shook hands.

Peter said, “Did you know him, too?”

“No, but he’s kind of a legend around here. A lot of people miss him.”

“I guess that’s good,” Peter said, shrugging deeper into his jacket, looking younger. “Is it strange, that that makes me feel
better?”

I patted his shoulder, because it didn’t sound strange. He could be proud that T.J. had left a mark on the world. Not everyone
did.

Ben pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “They’re still talking. Tina wants to try again with the Ouija board, but they need
to talk to you.”

Back to it, then. I turned to Peter. “Are you going to be in town long? I can introduce you to more people who knew T.J.,
if you’d like.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I guess I’ll be around a few more days at least, until I figure out what’s next.”

“Well. Okay, then.”

“Kitty—” He stepped forward, looking boyish and nervous. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but is there anything
I can do to help?”

I started to say no, because I didn’t want anyone else involved in this, but I hesitated. The thing we needed, more than almost
anything else, was information. And Peter knew how to find information. Another set of eyes doing research had to help.

“You know anything about paranormal investigation?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “I’m more up on the mundane version.”

I smiled. “That may be exactly what we need.”

We went back to the suite. Ben leaned over to mutter at me, “Just what we need, another potential target.”

“Yeah, I know,” I admitted.

“So you invited him anyway?”

“I couldn’t say no.” It wasn’t like I was hoping Peter might replace T.J. It just kind of looked that way from the outside.

“Everyone, this is Peter,” I said, introducing him.

The sound of recorded laughter answered me, coming from Jules’s laptop. Not eerie, sinister, Vincent Price laughter. Rather,
it sounded like a grown man trying not to chuckle at a silly joke. It was sniggering. Then it vanished into crackling static.

“What was
that?
” I said, wincing. The noise grated in my sensitive werewolf ears.

“EVP. The timing matches it to the appearance of the figure in the fire,” Jules said.

EVP. Electronic voice phenomenon. Another paranormal investigative mainstay, like EMF detectors. Great. Giving the creature
a voice somehow made it even worse. “What’s it mean?”

“I’m thinking of all the ways someone could claim the figure in that clip is a guy in a fireproof suit, like you said,” he
explained. “Even though we all know there was no one else in that building, and the cameras didn’t pick up anything, no movement,
nobody entering and leaving, nothing. Because I’m sorry, but that sounds like a guy in a suit laughing at us. Even though
I
know
it isn’t. But that’s what the skeptics are going to call us on when we show this.”

“But how do you prove a negative?” Peter said. “How do you prove it wasn’t a guy in a suit?” The voice of the skeptic. The
voice of reason, rather. If it weren’t for everything else that had happened, I’d be there with him.