Kitty's House of Horrors (kn-7) by Carrie Vaughn (christmas read aloud txt) 📕

“The whole thing seems one-sided to me,” Jerome said. “When’s your turn, Kitty?”

“I keep offering, and you all keep saying no,” I said. “You can’t change your mind now. With you guys letting it all hang out, I can be a little discreet.”

In what had become routine, right around the time we finished eating dinner at the long dining room table, the basement door opened and the trio of the night emerged.

“Have we missed anything interesting?” Anastasia said, striding up to take one of the extra chairs. Gemma settled in beside her. Dorian remained standing, close to the wall, looking over them in a bodyguard stance that probably wasn’t just for show.

“You missed a great sunny day by the lake,” Jeffrey said.

“You can’t miss what you don’t want,” Anastasia said.

“Lee shape-shifted and scared the bejeezus out of everyone,” Tina said.

“I am sorry I missed that.”

“It seemed like the thing to do,” Lee said. He’d rejoined the group after putting on clothes and seemed to be beaming, like he was proud of the escapade.

“And is our resident skeptic convinced yet?” Anastasia said.

“He walked away for five minutes and missed it.”

She chuckled. “How perfect. We’ll be able to draw this out for days.”

From the kitchen, where he was opening another bottle of wine and pouring drinks, Conrad said, “I haven’t seen anything yet that can’t be explained by perfectly normal means.”

“Hey Conrad,” I called. “You know the principle that in a given situation, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one?”

“Occam’s razor. Yes.”

“What’s simpler: that we imported a live seal, brought it a thousand miles inland, and set it loose in an environment that might kill it, for the purpose of playing a joke on you; or that Lee’s a lycanthrope?”

He said, “If one of your options is impossible, it doesn’t matter how outlandish the only probable one sounds. It has to be the correct one.”

“I won’t argue with your logic,” I said. “Only your assumptions.”

“I don’t think you imported a seal. I think you’re making it all up,” he said.

Almost angrily, Tina said, “Is someone paying you to be this stubborn?”

Now, there was an idea. I hadn’t considered that Conrad might also be part of some conspiracy. Hell, maybe we had more than one conspiracy afoot. Wouldn’t that be exciting?

But Conrad denied it. “I’m getting paid the same stipend the rest of you are. At least, I assume I am. I’m just a lowly author and not a TV celebrity, so I may be getting peanuts compared to you.”

The door to the study/production room opened, and I jumped. Just a little. Not freaked-out jumped. Just startled. Ghost fur prickled along my back. Looking around, I saw at least a couple of the others had also flinched, startled: Tina, Gemma. All of us stared at Joey Provost, who came into the living room wearing his showbiz smile. He was carrying a shoe box–sized wooden case.

“How’s everyone doing?” he said. I clamped shut my jaw so I wouldn’t be able to say, Fine, until you got here.

“We’re all just fine, I think,” Anastasia said, eyes half-lidded, purring in perfect vampire allure. It must have been one of the powers they got, along with immortality.

“That’s great. You all up for some more fun and games?”

“Another activity rigged for maximum entertainment value,” I said. “Excellent.”

I couldn’t pull off allure like Anastasia could. All I had was snark. Glaring at me, Provost set the box on the coffee table. We gathered around.

“Your instructions are in here. Wait ’til I leave, then take a look and have at it.” He smiled like a guy who was having a lot of fun keeping a secret. Very smarmy. I didn’t like it.

The door closed behind him. He was gone, but nobody moved.

“Well?” Tina said. None of us looked all that enthusiastic—none of us were really the types who appreciated being Provost’s dancing monkeys. I wondered how they were going to edit the footage to make us look excited.

“Let’s get this over with,” I said and knelt by the table to open the box.

Inside, on bare wood, lay a folded note, five velvet jewelry boxes, and a stopwatch. I unfolded the page and read aloud.

“‘Treasure Hunt,’” the top of the page said. “‘You all have special talents, ways of searching out the hidden, of doing the impossible. You’ll break into the following five teams, and one at a time each team will have a chance to find the other half of the lockets in these boxes, which have been hidden outside the lodge. Conrad will monitor the stopwatch and see who finds the treasure the fastest.’ Dude, cliché,” I said. Sure enough, each box had a gold locket on a chain with the lid broken off. Each locket was a different shape: oval, circle, square, rectangle, and—of course—a heart. I read off the teams: Jerome and I were on one team, the vampires and Dorian on another. He’d teamed Tina with Ariel and Jeffrey with Lee. Odysseus was all by himself. This ought to be interesting.

“Isn’t there supposed to be a prize?” Lee said. “What do we get for winning?”

“The satisfaction of winning?” I said, shrugging. I didn’t really care, because I shuddered to think of what cheesy prize Provost would come up with.

“This isn’t very scientific,” Tina said. “And I thought we weren’t supposed to have competitions.”

“Bitching isn’t going to get it over with any faster. Think of it as a party game. Like Pin the Tail on the Donkey,” I said. “Who’s first?” We all glanced guiltily away—no one wanted to be first. We weren’t even bothering to look enthusiastic.

“Conrad, you pick, since you seem to be the one in charge,” Anastasia said.

“Let’s see,” Conrad said in a mock-serious tone. “Tina and Jeffrey are supposed to figure out where it is using their psychic powers, right? The werewolves… what are you supposed to do, sniff it out?”

“You’d be surprised,” Jerome said.

“The vampires do what, fly through the air and use super vision?”

“You watch too many bad movies,”