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

sky was dark. I didn’t want it to be night. Inside, several candles burned, on the coffee table and the kitchen counter. A low fire flickered in the fireplace. The light was warm, full of rippling shadows. Terrible, terrifying.

“Kitty.” Odysseus Grant sat on a sofa, watching me.

“Déjà vu, huh?” I said, smiling weakly.

“Are you all right?”

Screwing my face up to keep from crying, I shook my head.

“What happened?” Grant asked.

I swallowed, to clear the tightness in my throat. “Jerome is dead. We’re being hunted.”

Chapter 13

I went to my room so I could wash and change while Grant gathered the others in the kitchen to try to figure out what to do next. I took a quick shower, enough to rinse off and wake up, but I wanted a longer one. I could have stayed under the spray all night, as long as the remaining dregs of hot water lasted, hoping it would wash away all that had happened. But standing still made me feel like a target. Whoever had shot Jerome would come after the rest of us. I couldn’t just stand here waiting for it.

After putting on a shirt and jeans, I felt mostly human again. But my shoulders were stiff, the shadow of rigid hackles, and the part of me that had claws still glared out of my eyes. I went barefoot, in case I had to run again.

Before my shower, Grant told me that they’d dismantled all the cameras around the house. I still felt like someone was watching me.

The others were waiting for me, gathered around the kitchen table, pensive. In the wavering light of candles and the fire in the fireplace, their faces looked long, skeletal. Grant presided, arms crossed. He might have been a wizard from a fairy tale. I shook my head of the vision. He nodded to me in greeting.

The rest stared at me, and I knew they had seen me as Wolf. They looked at me differently now. They might have known what I was intellectually, they might have seen the video clip from Washington and thought they knew the story, thought they were ready for it. But to see the actual wolf, large for a wolf and gazing with a strange intelligence—then to see the woman lying where the animal had fallen asleep. The most open-minded person in the world would still have to think about it. I’d still look different, somehow. Tina, Jeffrey, Ariel—they looked a little bit afraid.

But Lee—he looked on me with pity.

I couldn’t blame them. But it made me sad, self-conscious. I crossed my arms to match Grant, tried to put out a little alpha attitude.

We were missing people. Besides Dorian and Jerome. The vampires hadn’t yet emerged, but there was one more.

“Where’s Conrad?” I said.

That broke whatever tension had held us all rigid. Ariel giggled—nervously, but still. Even Grant smiled a little.

Tina said, “He watched you change back. He hasn’t come out of his room since.”

I held my forehead and winced. “Finally got through to him, did we? I’m sorry I missed it.”

“No, you’re not,” Jeffrey said. “Grant had to knock him out to get him to quit yelling.”

No, really, I was. All that buildup and I didn’t get to see the denouement. I wouldn’t even get to watch it when the show aired. Because this show was never going to air, not if I could help it. “Should someone go get him? I don’t think any of us are safe alone.”

“Kitty—what happened to you? What happened to Jerome?”

I took a deep breath; I could do this calmly. “About twelve miles out, someone put up a fence. Silver-alloy razor wire across the trail. It was a trap, enough of a barrier to slow us down. Jerome was shot with a silver-tipped crossbow bolt.”

The reactions were various: Ariel covered her mouth and looked away, Lee hissed in sympathy. Tina stared, Jeffrey bowed his head. Grant just looked colder than ever.

“How did you get away?” Grant said.

“Jerome bought me time. Stayed between me and the shooter and bought me time.” And I couldn’t even thank him for it. I shook my head. I could thank him by not succumbing to panic now.

“But why?” Ariel blurted. “Why kill any of us?”

“Do you really have to ask?” Anastasia said, standing by the basement door. She was pale, chalk-white. She hadn’t fed yet and was standing here under sheer willpower. In the candlelight, she looked like a ghost. A couple of us gasped. I wanted to look away, but I didn’t. I moved toward her, but she gestured and shook her head, to convince me she was all right.

“Whoever did this was watching the way out. They expected at least some of us to run. They were waiting,” I said.

“There are more than one?” Grant said.

“I don’t know. The smells outside are mixed up. There’ve been so many people running around here over the last few days, it’s hard to pick out individuals. And it’s hard to know who’s involved and who isn’t.”

Lee leaned forward. “So you think Provost and the production crew are in on it?”

“I knew it,” Tina said. “I’ve been feeling weird about this since we got here.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Three of the PAs are dead. Provost, Valenti, and Cabe are missing. They may have been kidnapped, killed, bribed away, anything. I just don’t know. But I know it isn’t over.”

“What do we do?” Ariel said, her voice small.

Grant didn’t say anything. Then everyone was looking at me. Like I was more likely to have answers.

“I don’t know, I need to think.” I chuckled harshly, looked away. “Part of me didn’t want to come back. Part of me wanted to just keep running. But the only way I can pay Jerome back for saving me is to figure out what happened, who did this, and stop them.”

“Easier said than done,” Grant said.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “We’re all smart people here—we can handle this, right? It’s not like we’re stuck in