Kitty Raises Hell (24 page)

I ducked inside long enough to tell the others to get some sleep and say good night.

We spent twenty minutes of dead silence on the ride home. I was so tense I wanted to scream. Howl. Something. I wanted to
stick my tail between my legs and grovel. I’d have to turn Wolf to do that. It would almost be worth it; wolves were so much
better at apologizing than people.

Finally, by the time we parked, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I tried apologizing from the parking lot to the condo. Ben walked
quickly, keeping a stride ahead of me. Making me beg until we were finally home. I shut the door behind us.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry—how many times do I have to say it?”

“Until it sounds like you actually mean it,” Ben said.

We both turned away at that one. Ben huffed a sigh, ran his hand through his already mussed hair. I crossed my arms and squeezed
my eyes shut, trying to stop the stinging.

This was never going to get easier, was it? We were always going to fight like this. Being married to each other didn’t change
the fact that both of us were opinionated and stubborn to a fault. We both wanted to be in charge. We both thought we knew
best.

I bowed my head. Took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I’ll call you next time.” Be honest, now. “I’ll try to remember.”

I didn’t dare look at him to see how he took this. I listened, took in his scent, tried to sense him, feel the heat of his
body. When he spoke at last, there was almost a smile in his voice. “I
really
hope there isn’t a next time. At least where the demon hunting is concerned.”

Smiling weakly, I looked over my shoulder at him. Then I turned, sidling up to him. Tail low, ears flat—at least if I had
them in this form, that was what they’d be doing. It was amazing, though, how much of that attitude the human body could emulate.
Slouching, I looked up at him with big puppy-dog eyes.

“Can we go ahead and skip to the making-up part?” I said. Making up, making out . . .

He glared, resisting. Playing hard to get. Still a little angry. So, how much could I get away with? I took a breath through
my nose, hoping to catch a scent, a clue.

He was focused on me. His body was saying yes.

I hooked my fingers over the waistband of his jeans, pulling myself toward him. He rocked a little but stood his ground, making
me come to him. I was okay with that.

Body to body, I breathed out, brushing his throat, almost close enough to kiss him. Not quite. I watched movement under his
skin as he swallowed. A quick kiss, a taste of salty skin with a flick of tongue at the V of his open collar.

My hands slid to the button of his jeans, unfastening it. Then I opened the zipper, slowly. He made a sound deep in his chest,
like he didn’t want to let it out, didn’t want to admit I was getting to him. He was perfectly capable of running away if
he wanted to. He didn’t. Looking up, I could just see the smile touch his lips.

I slid my hand down the open access, maneuvered under his boxers to bare skin, and felt for him. Wasn’t hard to find. Throbbing
manhood, they called it. Ben had it. He shivered a little at my touch. Pressed into me. His hand—fingers spread, eager—found
my hip, slid to my backside.

I kissed his chin—he turned his face and caught my lips with his.

Cradling him, melted against him, I urged him on. Pulled him to the sofa, pushed him down, climbed on top of him. I was hungry
for him. And relieved that he hadn’t walked away. Grateful and thrilled. It all wrapped together with heat and lust building
in me. I pulled off my shirt, tossed it aside. Grabbed his jeans and yanked down. Rubbed my hands up his body and watched
him flex under my touch. He closed his eyes, and his hand clenched on the sofa.

I considered: This had been a pretty big fight. I’d screwed up, I could admit that. That meant I was going to have to spend
a good long time making it up to Ben, right?

I could do that.

I
felt better in the morning. That might have been from anticipating the show, looking forward to taking the next step. Or
it might have been from being curled up in bed with Ben, who was smiling vaguely in his sleep. The apology must have worked.

Despite everything, I was looking forward to talking about the demon on the show. Some people accused me of being a sensationalist,
of fishing for controversy. Maybe even of inciting controversy. Really, I loved drawing back the curtain, dragging this stuff
into the open, kicking and screaming sometimes, and shining a bright light on it. I thought of it as dispelling ignorance.
Ignorance bred fear, and I didn’t like being afraid.

I didn’t want to have to wait through an entire day until it was time to do the show. On the other hand, vampires couldn’t
bother me during the day.

No, bothering me during the day was Detective Hardin’s job. I would have loved another hour or two of sleep on a day when
I had to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at midnight, but Hardin called my cell phone.

“What have you been doing?” said Hardin, and she wasn’t happy.

“What do you mean, what have I been doing?”

“Are you near a TV? Can you turn on the news?”

“Just a sec.”

The TV was in the next room. I pulled on a robe and went out to turn it on, then flipped channels until I found what Hardin
was talking about: A local newscast showed a building on fire. Then another one. And another. A series of film clips showed
five different buildings, in different parts of town, all on fire. The scenes were nighttime—they must have happened last
night. A caption read “Fire Department Stretched Thin.”

Ben had been working at his desk. Drawn by the images, he leaned forward and stared at the TV.

“Oh my God,” I said, sinking to the sofa. “What happened?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. Even apart from injuries from the fires, I have three more bodies just like Cabrerra.”

A wave of dizziness hit me as the blood left my head. I sat down. “Who? Who are they?” Which of my pack members had paid for
my curse this time?

“They’re not werewolves. The victims are random, as far as we can tell. If these are all connected, and I dare you to tell
me they aren’t, this thing’s gone on a rampage, and I need to know why.”

Not werewolves. My pack was safe. But I didn’t feel any better, since three random innocents had died because of this. No
one was safe.

“I think we cornered it,” I said. “Maybe even scared it.”

“So you figured out what’s doing this? You know how to stop it?” She sounded excited.

I winced. “What would you say if I said it was a genie?”

“Like in a bottle?”

“Yeah.”

She paused for a long moment. “I don’t know what I’d say. Aren’t they supposed to grant wishes? Not go around burning people
to death?”

“Well, there’s the bedtime stories, and there’s reality. We all know how that works, right?”

“This doesn’t help me figure out what to do about it. I don’t want anyone else to die, Kitty.”

“And you think I do?” I said, shrill.

Taut with frustration, she said, “Why do these things always happen to you?”

I nearly screamed, but I swallowed it back. My voice sounded unnaturally calm. “If I knew that, I would make them stop.”

We both simmered for a moment. Then she said, “How do I arrest a genie?”

That was always the first thing she asked. How do I arrest it? She’d managed lycanthropes so far and was gunning for vampires,
and I had no doubt that if a way to arrest genies existed, she would find it.

“Some of us are working on the problem,” I said, sighing.

“I want in on it,” she said.

“What?”

“I’m not convinced you’ve ever really bought into this supernatural-and-law-enforcement-working-together philosophy, no matter
how much you might talk about it on your show. I think you’re still in this mind-set of working under the radar and making
sure the supernatural takes care of its own problems. I don’t know who you have working on this, and I don’t really care.
I just want in on it. Don’t keep me in the dark.”

Whoa. She not only listened to my show. She, like, paid attention. Read into it.

I changed my tone, leaned back against the sofa, and tried to sound nonchalant. Tried to relax so I could sound nonchalant.
“Detective. You like my show?”

She huffed. “I consider it part of my job to listen to it. I don’t know if there’s any
like
involved.”

Ouch. That wasn’t exactly a vote of confidence. I avoided an urge to whine about it. “Listen tonight,” I said. “Then you’ll
know everything I know.”

I hung up before she could argue.

Leaning on the table, I covered my face with my hands. I wanted to run. Wanted to be wild, without responsibility. I didn’t
want to have to face this problem anymore.

We watched the news report run on. This was a special, not the regular newscast. Another fancy caption and graphic came on-screen:
Arsonist Loose in Denver?
They had no idea.

“That was Hardin, I take it,” he said. “Calling about this?”

I nodded. “She says three people have died. No one from the pack, but still.”

“Shit,” he said again. “I hate to think what this thing is going to do next.”

Him and me both. I shook my head, leaned back to stare at the ceiling with aching eyes, beyond tears and beyond words.

“There isn’t enough blood and dust to protect the city,” I said. Now it was all of Denver I felt responsible for, not just
me and my pack. All I had to do was make enough of the potion to drench over the whole city. That would go over well.

“You know what this means?” Ben said. “If you bring this up on your show tonight, it’ll strike again. Every time we’ve provoked
it, it’s struck back. Lashed out. It’ll use your show as an excuse to attack again.”

This had occurred to me. “Then you think I shouldn’t do it. I shouldn’t talk about it on the show.”

He shook his head. “No. It just means you have to finish it tonight. You can’t let it go on another night.”

“What if we can’t? What if we can’t figure out how to stop it tonight? What then?”

“Then we’ll deal with it tomorrow. One day at a time.”

He was right. If we wanted to rile it up, it had to be because we knew how to finish it. No good just pissing it off for the
hell of it.

That was it, then. One way or the other, tonight, we’d face the monster.

W
e had all day to prepare. That should have been enough time, right? I read everything I could get my hands on about genies,
though most of what was out there was from the
One Thousand and One Nights
collection of stories, and I wasn’t sure I bought most of that. They were mischievous and seemed most often trapped by clever
tricks. The stories were like those of Celtic fairies, pixies, and leprechauns—over time, the truly scary, otherworldly creatures
had turned into harmless, cute little beings who granted wishes. Time made the stories nicer. Grimm turned into Disney. Why
couldn’t I get a genie that granted wishes and sounded like Robin Williams?

Then again, this genie was granting wishes—just not mine, but my enemies’.

Peter called to check in from Las Vegas. “Hey, Kitty.”

“Hey, have you found Grant?”

“There’s something weird going on with that guy. I tried to get into his dressing room, but nothing worked, and I’ve picked
dozens of locks before. I’ve never found a door I couldn’t get into.”

Was that even legal? “You know, if you ever want to do this sort of thing professionally, I think there are guidelines that
say breaking and entering is bad.”

“Yeah, okay, but there’s still something weird going on.”

“Agreed.” He had no idea just how weird.

“I went to the police to see if a missing person report’s been filed on him, and I think I found something. There’s about
a dozen people over the last five years who’ve gone missing at the Hanging Gardens. That’s unusual, even for Vegas. If you
need nonsupernatural proof that something’s going on over there, this may be it.”

“Enough to get the police involved?” I said.

“I need to get someone here interested enough to start an investigation and get a search warrant. I still don’t know quite
what I’m looking for—”

“Anything they might be using to cast spells or summon demons. Blood, daggers, arcane symbols, Arabic written on ancient parchment.
Use your imagination. You’ll probably be close.”

“I still have to talk someone into serving a search warrant.”

“I think I know someone who might be able to help you with that,” I said and grinned over at Ben. I handed the phone to him
at his desk.

They talked for a good long time, and I tried not to be antsy, sitting on the sofa with books and my laptop pretending to
do research. I couldn’t get a whole lot of meaning from only one side of the conversation, especially when Ben slipped into
lawyer speak, but they sounded like they were making a plan.

“I’ll fax you a copy of the paperwork,” Ben said, and hung up.

“Well?” I said.

“You have a DVD of the show from Vegas?”