Hard to focus on work after that. I kept turning the conversation over in my mind, wondering what I'd missed and what someone like that could accomplish by calling me.

I couldn't have been brooding for more than five minutes when the phone rang again. I flinched, startled, and tried to get my heart to stop racing before I answered. I was sure the caller would be able to hear it over the phone.

I answered warily. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Kitty? It's your mother." Mom, sounding as cheerful and normal as ever. I closed my eyes and sighed.

"Hi, Mom. What's up?"

"You never told me if you were going to be able to make it to your cousin Amanda's wedding. I need to let them know."

I had completely forgotten. Mostly because I didn't, under any circ.u.mstances, want to go. Weddings meant crowds. I didn't like crowds. And questions. Like, "So when is it going to be your turn?" Or, "Do you have anyone special?"

I mean, define special.

I tried to be a little more polite. Mom didn't deserve aimless venting. I pulled out my organizer.

"I don't know, when is it again?" She gave me the date, I flipped ahead to next month and looked. The day after the full moon. There was no way I'd be in any kind of decent shape to meet the family the day after the full moon. I couldn't handle being nice to that many people the day after the full moon.

Now if only I could think of an excuse I could tell my mother.

"I'm sorry, I've got something else going on. I'll have to miss it."

"I think Amanda would really like you to be there."

"I know, I know. I'm really sorry. I'll send her a card." I even wrote myself a note to send her a card, then and there. To tell the truth, I didn't think Amanda would miss me all that much. But there were other forces at work here. Mom didn't want to have to explain to everyone why I was absent, any more than I wanted to tell her why I was going to be absent.

"You know, Kitty, you've missed the last few big family get-togethers. If you're busy I understand, but it would be nice if you could make an appearance once in a while."

It was her birthday all over again. That subtle, insipid guilt trip that only mothers are capable of delivering. It wasn't like I was avoiding the family simply for the sake of avoiding them.

"I'll try next time." I said that every time.

She wouldn't let up. "I know you don't like me worrying about you. But you used to be so outgoing, and nowa"" I could picture her shrugging in lieu of cohesive thought. "Is everything okay?"

Sometimes I wished I could tell her I was a lesbian or something. "Everything's fine, Mom. I'm just busy. Don't worry."

"Are you sure, because if you ever need to talka""

I couldn't tell her. I couldn't imagine what sort of nightmare scenarios she'd developed about what I was doing when I said I was busy. But I couldn't tell her the truth. She was nice. Normal. She wore pantsuits and sold real estate. Played tennis with my dad. Try explaining werewolves to that.

"Mom, I really need to get back to work. I know you're worried, I appreciate it, but everything's fine, I promise." Lying through my teeth, actually, but what else could I say?

"All right, then." She didn't sound convinced. "Call me if you change your mind about the wedding."

"Okay. I'll talk to you later."

The sound of the phone clicking off was like a weight lifting from my shoulders.

A telephone. Business cards. Next, I needed a secretary to screen my calls.

When a knock on my door frame sounded a few minutes later, I just about hit the ceiling. I dropped the newspaper I'd been reading and looked up to see a man standing in the doorway. My office had a door, but I rarely closed it. He'd arrived without my noticing.

He was of average height and build, with dark hair brushing his shoulders and refined features. Una.s.suming in most respects, except that he smelled like a corpse. A well-preserved corpse, granted. He didn't smell rotten. But he smelled of cold blood instead of hot blood, and he didn't have a heartbeat.

Vampires had this way of sneaking around without anyone noticing them. He'd probably walked right past the security guy in the lobby of the building.

I recognized this vampire: Rick.

I'd met him a couple of times when Carl and Arturo got together to resolve squabbles. He was a strange one. He was part of Arturo's Family, but he didn't seem much interested in the politics of it; he always lingered at the edges of the Family, never close to Arturo himself. He didn't cultivate the demeanor of ennui that was ubiquitous among vampires. He could actually laugh at someone else's jokes. When I asked nicely he told stories about the Old West. The real Old Westa"he'd been there.

Sighing, my hair and blood p.r.i.c.kling with anxiety, I slumped back in my chair. I tried to act casual, as if his presence didn't bother me.

"Hi, Rick."

His lips turned in a half-smile. When he spoke, he showed fangs, slender, needle-sharp teeth where canines should have been. "Sorry if I startled you."

"No you aren't. You enjoyed it."

"I'd hate to lose my knack for it."

"I thought you couldn't come in here unless I invited you."

"That doesn't apply to commercial property."

"So. What brings you here?" The question came out tense. He could only be here because I hadn't quit doing the show and Arturo wasn't happy about it.

His expression didn't waver. "What do you think I'm here for?"

I glared, in no mood for any more mind games tonight. "Arturo told Carl to make me quit the show. I haven't quit. I a.s.sume His Mighty Undeadness is going to start hara.s.sing me directly to try and get me off the air. He sent you to deliver some sort of threat."

"That's a little paranoid, isn't it?"

I pointed. "Not if they're really out to get me."

"Arturo didn't send me."

I narrowed my gaze, suspicious. "He didn't?"

"He doesn't know I'm here."

Which changed everything. a.s.suming Rick was telling the truth, but he had no reason not to. If he was seeing me behind Arturo's back, he must have a good reason.

"Then why are you here?"

"I'm trying to find some information. I wondered if you could help me." He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket, smoothed it out, and handed it to me. "What do you make of this?"

It was a flyer printed on goldenrod-colored paper. The production value was low. It might even have been typewritten, then photocopied at a supermarket. It read, Do you need help? Have you been cursed? Vampires, lycanthropes, there is hope for you! There is a cure! The Reverend Elijah Smith and his Church of the Pure Faith want to save you. Pure Faith Will Set You Free.

The bottom of the flyer listed a date a few weeks old.

The site was an old ranch thirty miles north of town, near Brighton.

Reading it over again, my brow wrinkled. It sounded laughable. I conjured an image of a stereotypical southern preacher laying hands on, oh, someone like Carl. Banishing the demons, amen and hallelujah. Carl would bite his head offa"for real.

"A cure? Through faith healing? Is this a joke?"

"No, unfortunately. One of Arturo's followers left to join them. We haven't seen her since. Personally, I smell a rat and I'm worried."

"Yeah, no kidding. Arturo must be p.i.s.sed off."

"Yes. But it's been next to impossible to learn anything about this Smith and his church. Arturo's too proud to ask for help. I'm not. You have contacts. I wondered if you'd heard anything."

"No." I flipped the page over, as if it would reveal more secrets, but the back was blank. "A cure, huh? Does it work?"

Every hint of a cure I'd ever tracked down had turned out to be myth. Smoke and folklore. I could be forgiven for showing skepticism.

"I don't know," he said simply.

"I've never heard of a cure actually working."

"Neither have I."

"Arturo's follower thought it was for real. And she never came back. Soa"it worked?"

"Some might be attracted by such a possibility. Enticing bait, if someone wanted to lure people like us."

"Lure why?"

He shrugged. "To trap them, kill them. Enslave them. Such things have happened before."

The possibilities he suggested were downright ominous. They incited a nebulous fear of purposes I couldn't imagine. Witch hunts, pogroms. Reality TV.

He was only trying to scare me so I'd get righteously indignant enough to do something about this. It worked.

"I'll see what I can find out." Grist for the mill. I wondered if Smith would come on the show for an interview.

"Thank you."

"Thanks for the tip." I pursed my lips, suppressing a grin. "It's a good thing the humble subordinates keep running around their leaders' backs, or nothing would get done around here."

Rick gazed innocently at the ceiling. "Well, I wouldn't say anything like that to Arturo's face. Or Carl's."

Things always came back to them, didn't they? The Master, the alpha. We were hardwired to be followers. I supposed it kept our communities from degenerating into chaos.

More somber, I said, "Do you think Arturo's going to do anything about the show?"

"That depends on what Carl does."

As in, if Carl did nothing, Arturo might. I winced. "Right."

"I should be going."

"Yeah. Take it easy."

He nodded, almost a small bow that reminded me that Rick was old. He came from a time when gentlemen bowed to ladies. Then he was gone, as quietly as he'd arrived.

Phone. Business cards. Secretary. Maybe I also needed a receptionist. And a bodyguard.

Chapter 4.

Dressed in sweatpants, sports bra, and tank top, I stood on the mat, and at the instructor's signal, kicked at dust motes. Craig, an impossibly fit and enthusiastic college student who looked like he'd walked straight out of an MTV reality show, shouted "Go!" and the dozen of us in the cla.s.sa"all of us women in our twenties and thirtiesa"kicked.

Rather than teaching a specific martial art, the cla.s.s took bits and pieces from several disciplines and combined them in a technique designed to incapacitate an a.s.sailant long enough for us to run like h.e.l.l. We didn't get points for style; we didn't spend a lot of time in mystical meditation. Instead, we drilled moves over and over again so that in a moment of panic, in the heat of an attack, we could move by instinct and defend ourselves.

It was pretty good exercise as well. Breathing hard, sweating, I could forget about the world outside the gym and let my brain go numb for an hour.

We switched sides and kicked with the other leg a dozen or so times. Then Craig put his hands on his hips.

"All right. Line up so we can do some sparring."

I hated sparring. We'd started with a punching bag the first few sessions. Where most of the women hit the bag and barely budged it, I set it swinging. I got many admiring compliments regarding my upper-body strength. But it had nothing to do with upper-body strength. Something about werewolves made them more powerful than normal humans. Without any training at all, by just being myself and what I was, I could outfight all my cla.s.smates, and probably Craig as well.

That wouldn't help me with vampires.

What the episode with the punching bag taught me was that I had to be very careful sparring against humans. I didn't know how strong I was or what I was capable of. I had to pull every punch. I didn't want to hurt anyone by mistake.

I didn't want to hurt anyone at all. The Wolf part of me groveled and whined at the thought of fighting, because she knew Carl wouldn't like it. Wolf, ha. I was supposed to be a monster. Ferocious, bloodthirsty. But a monster at the bottom of the pack's pecking order might as well be as ferocious as a newborn puppy.

Dutifully, I lined up with the others and gritted my teeth.

We practiced delivering and taking falls. Tripping, tackling, dropping, rolling, getting back up and doing it all over again. I fell more often than not, smacking on the mat until my teeth rattled. I didn't mind. My sparring partner was Patricia, a single mom on the plump side who'd never even thought about sports until it looked like her eight-year-old son, a Tae Kwon Do whiz, was going to be able to beat up Jackie Chan soon (she claimed), and she wanted to keep up with him. Patricia seemed gleeful at the idea that she could topple a full-grown adult with a couple of quick moves. A lot of these women had to overcome cultural conditioning against hurting other people, or even confronting anyone physically. I was happy to contribute to Patricia's education in this regard.

"You're holding back, Kitty."

I was flat on my back again. I opened my eyes to find Craig, six feet of blond zeal, staring down at me, weirdly foreshortened at this angle. He was all leg.

"Yeah," I said with a sigh.

"Come on, get up." He offered his hand and helped me to my feet. "Now I want you knock me all the way across the gym."

He had the gall to put a twinkle in his eyes.