Kitty in the Underworld (Kitty Norville) (25 page)

Then she moved to me. “I don’t have a passport or visa. I can’t let them find me.”

I blinked at her. “But … wait a minute. Ben’s a lawyer, we can get help—”

She took my face in her hands and made me look into her eyes. She had decided, and I wasn’t going to talk her out of it. “I’ll always know how to find you, Kitty. I’ll call.”

She kissed my cheek, hugged me quickly; unconsciously I reached for her, to try to hug her back, but she was already slipping away from my arms.

“Sakhmet, wait a—”

“Samira,” she said, then turned and ran. Barefoot, skirt trailing, hair slipping from its braid in flying strands, she was around the hill and gone in moments. Gone, leaving me with her dead lover, my only solid evidence that any of this had happened. I had so many questions, and nothing to say.

Other figures appeared, a pair of men in dark green forest service coats, a man in a blue state patrol uniform. Wow, they’d really been looking for me. My phone, the message, I’d left it outside so Ben would find it—they must have been able to track the signal. Or the sound and fury of the collapsing mine had led them here. Both, working together, probably. I’d ask Ben about it later.

Dawn was creeping into the sky. The light faded into a tinny gray, the shadows grew thin. Features of the landscape revealed themselves, but seemed washed out. The slope of the hill had changed, and the trees seemed to loom. I had a pounding headache. Eventually, about half a dozen officials and a search crew arrived on the scene and fanned out over the area, playing flashlights over the ruined mine entrance, investigating the surroundings. I squinted when they shone lights on me, but Ben intercepted them before they could actually approach me. Keeping me safe. I’d have to talk to them eventually. But not right now. I could sit here for a while, not thinking about anything. Just sit. The sky grew brighter.

The state patrol guy called in a coroner for Mohan. At least I could tell them his real name now. The official marking and documenting of the site began, and I was asked to move out of the way. I did, finding a tree to sit against while Ben continued running interference. I hoped we could leave soon. But oddly enough, part of me didn’t want to. I wanted to make sure I had my memories firmly in place first, or I’d never be able to hold on to them. I found myself clutching three items that had gotten tangled around my arm toward the end, which I’d managed to hold on to as I escaped: Kumarbis’s coin, Zora’s spell book case, and the demon’s goggles. More evidence than I thought. Pieces to a strange puzzle.

Cormac tracked where I went and walked toward me. Strolled, almost, his steps slow, as if giving me a chance to tell him to go away. I didn’t. He slouched to the ground, resting his elbows on his knees, looking out at the view, sunrise through a snowy forest. I waited for him to say something; he didn’t. The movement of him coming over was his simple way of asking how I was.

I untangled my mess of artifacts, cords and straps wrapped around my arm, and handed them over to him. He held up the goggles first. “Is this what I think it is?” I nodded, and he frowned, concerned. “The demon—she was here? What happened?”

“She’s buried under that mountainside, I hope.”

Shaking his head, he said, “She’d have gotten out like she did last time. And what’s this one?” He shifted his grip to the coin, rubbing his finger over the damaged surface. “One of Roman’s? Where’d this one come from?”

“A vampire who claimed to be Roman’s progenitor. Who was conspiring against Roman in a very roundabout way. He said this was the first coin Roman made.”

He grunted, a response with a dozen meanings. Amazement, disbelief, calm acceptance. Maybe even amusement. He wasn’t going to make demands; he had the patience to wait for further explanations. “And this?” He turned the tin box back and forth in his hand.

Reaching over, I popped open the lid, revealing the thumb drive. “It’s Zora’s spell book, I think. She’s the magician behind this mess. She worked on a laptop, and that’s her backup. There might be something there you could use.”

“We’ll check it out.” He tucked the case into a jacket pocket. “This magician—was she any good?”

I had to think about that one. Empirical evidence said no, based on the amount of damage she’d done. Empirical evidence also said yes. She hadn’t accomplished what she’d intended, but I couldn’t argue against the sheer chaos she’d created. But when it counted, she’d battled the demon without flinching.

“I don’t know. She was powerful, at some level. Did some really impressive stuff. But I think she was also more than a little crazy. I’m not sure she really knew what she was doing with all that power.”

“Crazy and magic seem to go together an awful lot,” he said.

I tilted my head, raised an inquiring brow. “What does that say about you? All this magic driving you crazy?”

His mustache curled with his smile. “Depends on what kind of crazy, I guess. You want me to hang on to this stuff, see what we can figure out about it?”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind,” I said, and he gave a satisfied nod. “Thanks. For coming after me.”

“Always,” he said, not looking at me, but off in the distance, watchful. Always watchful.

I loved my pack. I set my hand on his arm, and when he didn’t move away or find an excuse to wander off, I left it there, taking in his warmth, his presence, and letting it calm me.

Ben crossed the hillside to join us, and Cormac squeezed my hand before standing and moving off to put himself in a bodyguard position, as if he expected demons to spring from the rubble. And maybe they would. Cormac I would trust to save the world if he had to.

Bemused, Ben looked after him before offering his hand to me and helping me to my feet. Time to go, then. When I was upright, he put his arms around me, and I leaned against him. I might never leave him again.

“The cops want a statement,” he said. “You ready to talk?”

“Can we go home after?”

“Yes. Absolutely.” Those were the only words that would have gotten me moving.

“Paramedics are on the way—”

“I don’t need paramedics.”

He gave me a look, half frustrated and half pleading. “Humor me. They’ll check you over, and we’ll get documentation. Just let them treat you like a victim for the next couple of hours. Please?”

He was in lawyer mode, and ultimately he was right. None of this was going to make sense from a legal standpoint anyway, might as well fill in as many blanks as we could. Such as an official medical exam stating that I’d gone through hell. The wound across my back was healing. Nobody would believe it had happened an hour or so ago.

We trekked back to a service road a few miles from the mine, where they’d all gathered for the search, and where an ambulance was waiting. Turned out the paramedics decided I was suffering from dehydration and wanted to give me IV fluids. My supernatural healing meant my skin kept trying to grow over the needle. I finally convinced them to just give me a bottle of Gatorade.

This was getting hilarious, and I hadn’t even explained everything that had happened. The state trooper in charge stopped taking notes halfway through and then stared at me like I was crazy. He looked as if he was thinking of arresting me for something when Ben stepped in, making noises about harassing the witness. Ben in lawyer mode was a beauty to behold.

Finally, I said to the trooper, “Call Detective Jessi Hardin with the Denver Police Department. She heads up their paranatural unit. She can help.”

“Help make sense of all this?” he said, brow furrowed, mouth crooked with confusion.

“Maybe not,” I said. “But she knows what to put into the reports.”

He scowled at his notebook and wandered off, cell phone pressed to his ear. Full morning had arrived. I was dozing, tucked under Ben’s arm, when the state trooper decided he’d had enough of us and let us go. Cormac was already waiting by his Jeep.

Now, finally, I could go home.

Epilogue

She Changes before the sun sets, before the moon has fully risen, before the pack gathers, because she can’t wait any longer, because she is finally free, because the fear and anger still fill her. The memory of walls closing in, of brimstone attacks and otherworldly ceremonies, writhe in her hindbrain like living things, like parasites. She runs to escape, but she can’t escape, so she just runs, until her muscles feel loose, like water. She will run until dawn.

Her mate is at her flank, stride for stride. At first, she runs to escape him as well. To escape everything. Soon, though, she’s glad he’s followed. Grateful. Her other self, the self that thinks too much, would cry, knowing that he stays by her.

When the full, round moon has climbed overhead, she finally slows, stops. Stands panting, exhausted. Her mate is there, licking her face, rubbing himself against her, offering what comfort he can.

When she catches a scent of something warm, fast, full of blood, her urge to hunt returns, and that simple need feels glorious. They hunt together, she chases a rabbit into his path, he grabs and twists its neck, and they feed, devouring the meat in a few bites. When they finish, they lick blood off each others’ muzzles. The world feels almost normal, with a full belly and a forest full of moonlit shadows.

She ran for a long time, and they have a long journey back.

The moon is sinking when her mate blocks her path. The fur on his back has stiffened, his ears pin flat to his head, and his tail sticks straight back. Danger—her own nerves spike with a feeling of exhaustion, because such anxiety, such readiness to fight, feels too familiar.

She catches the scent that he does, that he’s now circling to examine—an intruder in their territory. But not wolf. This creature is strange and musky, female, and she isn’t hiding, not caring if she’s found. Feline, like a mountain lion—but not. This scent is foreign—and like them. Both beast and human.

They lope, following the path until the creature appears, crouched down, flat to the ground, watching. Stockier than a mountain lion, with a broader snout, round ears, large eyes. A long, tufted tail flicks back and forth. The stranger waits.

But not a stranger. Her smell is familiar, striking at those blazing memories. We know her.

She bumps her mate’s flank, calming him, nipping his ear to tell him this is all right. She approaches the lion, head and tail low, sniffing, and finally settling to the ground in front of her. They regard each other.

The lioness stands, approaches. Rubs her cheek along Wolf’s face and ruff. Stands for a moment, as if simply feeling her presence, taking in her scent. Looks over Wolf’s back to eye the mate. Then, she turns and runs, loping into the woods. She’s gone in seconds.

Her mate has to prod her, pushing her with his snout, nipping at her flank, to finally get her to embark on the long run home.

*   *   *

I
REMEMBERED
meeting the lion on full-moon night. I could recall her smell, and my gladness at seeing her. Worry for what was going to happen to her. I would have brought her home with me and let her into our pack, if she wanted. Back in the daylight, the human world, a week passed, and Skahmet—Samira—didn’t call. Maybe she would, still, someday. But that meeting in the forest felt like a good-bye. Or, good-bye for now. I hoped. I wanted to talk to her. If I could just find out
more
.

I had to be content with what I had.

The mine where they’d found me ended up being near Leadville. Only about a hundred miles from Denver, but high in the mountains and far from any maintained roads. The place even showed up on a USGS map. But so did a dozen other abandoned mines in the area, and Mohan and Samira had covered their tracks well when they caught me. Eventually, I had to laugh about it—I’d been that close to home, but still five thousand miles and a couple of thousand years away.

I looked up the name Kumarbis. It was the name of a Hittite god, by turns power hungry and tragic. Kumarbis, father of gods, was eventually deposed by a storm god—as many father-gods would be after him. In revenge, he decided to create a rival to the storm god, a creature who would depose him and return Kumarbis to his rightful place. But the creature, a giant made of stone, decided his true purpose was to destroy all of humanity. The other gods had to unite to stop him before he could destroy the world, and Kumarbis was no better off than he was before.

Whatever his name had originally been, the vampire Kumarbis might very well have taken the name as self-inflicted punishment. A man who kept trying to exert his power on the world, out of the best intentions, but who instead just kept making things worse. The father aspect of the god probably appealed to him. The ambition to be caretaker of the world appealed to him. Not the character’s utter failure to do so. On the other hand, the vampire might not have meant to appeal to that part of the legend. Rather, the name might have meant something to him culturally, from some of the stories he might have heard when he was young and alive. If that was the case, if Kumarbis had been Hittite originally, it would have made him well over three thousand years old. That didn’t seem outrageous to me.

I would never learn the truth. Unless I asked the one person who must have known Kumarbis better than anyone else: Roman. There was a thought. Since I wasn’t likely to ever have a face-to-face, civil conversation with Roman, I let the idea go. Another mystery to file away.

*   *   *

T
HE POLICE
sketch artist scratched his pencil, and I had to stop myself from leaning over to look at what he was drawing.

“Eyebrows?” he asked, the latest in a string of questions about eyes, mouth, cheeks, earlobes, all manner of details about someone’s face I’d barely seen over my shoulder during the ritual.

“Dark. Thick. Kind of flat.”

Detective Hardin sat nearby in the conference room at the downtown police station. I’d called in a favor, asking her to help me get a picture of the woman I’d glimpsed. I didn’t tell her why. Just that I’d seen a face, and I wanted a picture.