Kitty’s Big Trouble by Carrie Vaughn (books to read as a couple .TXT) 📕

glanced up; Cormac waited patiently at the end of the alley, keeping his distance. That prompted Ben to turn, to follow my gaze. He quickly looked away again, leaning his head against my shoulder.

“How is he?” Cormac called.

“How are you?” I whispered to Ben. He shook his head, but heaved a sigh, and the last of the rage and terror left him. When he pulled away from me, I felt cold.

He met my gaze. “That was too close.” His voice scratched, rough from growling.

“Yeah,” I said, rubbing my arms, returning to warmth.

“They wanted to hurt you.”

“They didn’t. I’m fine.” He rubbed a spot on my jaw, and the skin stung. A scratch or cut. So they’d gotten me. “I’m sorry—I should have let you shoot him.”

He shook his head. “He was faster than me—they all were. I’d have missed.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I said, pushing to my feet, holding my hand to him. We helped each other up.

We faced Cormac, who just stared. I couldn’t guess what he thought of this.

“I had you in sight,” the hunter said, breaking the silence. “Spotted them just as they moved on you.”

“You weren’t planning on trying to stop them, were you?” I said. Cormac used to hunt rogue werewolves. He had a whole arsenal of weapons and silver bullets, but since serving a prison term for a manslaughter conviction, the guns were off limits. Him getting into a hand-to-hand fight with a werewolf was unthinkable.

“I think I may have distracted them. Scared them off. Ben—you okay?”

Ben looked away.

Any chance we’d had to follow our attackers was gone. Maybe we could track their scent, but it would be easy to disappear in the city. Staying with Ben was my priority. I wrapped my arm around his, keeping him close.

“Did you get a look at them?” I asked Cormac.

“They had a van waiting,” Cormac said. “I got the plate, but I don’t know how much good it’ll do us. They looked like professional heavies to me.”

I shook my head. “Well, we got what we wanted and flushed them out.”

Cormac asked, “Do you think they were trying to kill you or just hurt you badly?”

“There are easier ways to kill a couple of werewolves.” My breathing had steadied, but my senses were still on trip wires. I took a moment to look myself over, and Ben. We were scratched and bruised, clothing torn, blood flecking our arms and faces. Our skin had gravel embedded in it from where we scraped along the pavement. We needed to wash up. We needed to get out of town—and maybe that was the point. Send a message, scare us off. “Let’s find someplace to sit down,” I said.

Ben retrieved his gun, which was lying hidden in the gutter, and we moved out.

We were in no shape for the nice sit-down seafood dinner I’d envisioned for us. My shirt would clean up with a little scrubbing in a restroom sink, but Ben’s jacket and shirt were ruined, torn and streaked with blood. We didn’t look anything like yuppie tourists now.

While we waited, Cormac ducked into a souvenir shop to find a cheap replacement. He returned with a black shirt with words in a white typewriter font printed on it: I ESCAPED ALCATRAZ.

“I suppose you think this is funny?” Ben said.

“I could have got the one with the big heart on it,” he replied.

“As in, ‘I left my heart in San Francisco’?” I asked.

“It was pink,” Cormac said.

Shaking his head, Ben tore off what was left of his old shirt and slipped on the new one. It looked obnoxious on him. I kind of liked it. He tucked the gun into his waistband, under the shirt, and left the holster in the car.

Back at the waterfront, we picked up clam chowder, sourdough, and sodas to go and ate them at a shabby bench off the sidewalk. Restless, wary, we kept looking over our shoulders. None of us were very hungry and ended up picking at our food, but Ben and I drained the sodas and went back for more. The fight had sucked us dry.

Cormac kept glancing at us, surreptitiously studying us. Making sure we really were calm and collected.

Ben stared at his uneaten food and smiled wryly. “I guess you’re used to shooting werewolves like me who can’t keep it together.”

“I’m not going to shoot you, Ben,” Cormac said, sounding tired.

“You kept it together.” I brushed my leg against his, hoping to transmit calm and reassurance. In turn, he shifted his leg to rest a little more firmly against mine. He’d be okay. “Now, what are we going to do about those freaks? Wait until they hit again or go after them?”

“They won’t hit again, not like that,” Cormac said. “Their cover is blown. If they just wanted to send a message, they already did that.”

“I have to say,” Ben said, pulling apart a chunk of bread, “this meeting with Anastasia is looking a whole lot more sinister than it did an hour ago.”

I pulled out my phone and dialed her number. Roman knew that we were in town, and I had to warn her. The phone rang, and rang, and rang, and the voice mail came on. I hung up.

“She’s not answering,” I said.

“So something’s happened to her?” Ben said.

The sun was only just setting. She may not have been awake yet. Maybe she turned her phone off. I put my phone back into my pocket. “I guess we’ll find out when she shows up for the meeting.”

Or, when she didn’t show up.

Chapter 6

WE DROVE SOUTH a couple of miles, parked the car, and wandered into Chinatown. The neighborhood was identifiable, self-contained—the high-rises stopped at its borders. The streets narrowed. The buildings were mostly brick, three or four stories, crammed together, some of them topped with painted pagoda rooftops that would have been cheesy anywhere else. Signage in both Chinese characters and English announced restaurants, tea shops, souvenir shops, herb shops, import shops, and so on.