Low Midnight (Kitty Norville Book 13) (6 page)

Even when she was alive, she’d begun to hate the Spiritualists because, in general, they made her job harder. She couldn’t simply follow stories of magic and ghosts and otherworldly monsters. No, she had to make judgments, don an air of skepticism, and investigate before she truly began investigating. Was this person making claims really a psychic communicating with dead spirits, or a charlatan cracking her toes under the table? It was all a supreme waste of time.

In her current experience, as a spirit who actually
had
passed on and returned, most people were less inclined to willingly speak with the dead than such beliefs would suggest. She’d tried for a century before finding someone able to listen to her—Cormac. Speaking with the dead in reality was not a safe parlor-bound activity, as the old Spiritualists insisted. No, in all the stories that had a seed of truth to them speaking with the dead required hardship and sacrifice, journeys to the underworld and copious amounts of blood.

Since meeting Cormac and coming back to life, she learned that the movement still existed in one form or another. She learned about the Cottingley Fairies and the great rivalry between Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle over the photographs. The skeptical Mr. Houdini, Amelia decided, was a man she’d have very much liked to speak to, another reason to curse her early death that prevented such a meeting. But Sir Arthur believed utterly. Amelia thought the creator of the great Sherlock Holmes really should have known better. However, the First World War and accompanying horrific loss of life had inspired a renewal of interest in Spiritualism. Sir Arthur had lost a son in the war. Amelia supposed she could forgive him for succumbing to an emotional response.

Amelia had started on her path because she desperately wanted to see fairies, exactly the kind of fairies that those little girls made cutout pictures of and posed in their garden. That alone should have raised doubts—the pictures were just what a late Edwardian little girl would imagine a fairy should look like, based on all the storybooks, paintings, and drawings surrounding her. Reality never matched expectations so precisely, in Amelia’s experience. A hundred years ago, photography was still new enough that no one could believe that two young girls could falsify pictures. Photographs were the great truth-tellers, the artificial eye; they could not lie as paintings could. Except they could, and they had been made to lie from the very beginning. What would Sir Arthur make of the current era of computerized photo manipulation? How could one ever find the truth?

One simply had to keep looking, keep asking questions, and take nothing for granted.

*   *   *

T
HE DRIVE
back to Denver seemed to take forever.

Do you know, Frida and Judi—I think they’re together. As in a couple.

That had occurred to Cormac. He figured it was none of his business.

I had a spinster aunt, one of my mother’s sisters, who lived with another spinster friend of hers. The family always spoke of how lovely it was that they got along so well and could live together with such economy without troubling their respective families. But there was much the family didn’t say about them as well, and I wondered.

He got a hint of the memory as she rambled, an image of two dowdy middle-aged women standing arm in arm as if holding each other up, dressed all in black like they were shadows. They’d babysit sometimes, and Amelia remembered them teaching her croquet, when Amelia was young enough to wear her hair in pigtails tied up with big satin bows.

It seemed an alien world to Cormac, and he had nothing to say. But he suspected that, yes, there had been more to the women’s relationship. The thought amused him, the two hiding behind propriety so stiff and formal that no one even questioned.

You know, he thought to Amelia, nobody says spinster anymore.

Well, yes, certainly. Etymologically, the word was doomed, considering so few of the women called spinsters actually spun wool anymore. So what do people call unmarried adult women now?

Um. Women, he said.

Ah.

He turned over the story Judi and Frida had told him. The old mystery intrigued him in spite of himself, but the magic was less interesting than the personalities involved. The egos. That’s all it was in the end, clashing egos, and he was having trouble putting himself in that situation. There was a point where the only thing you were defending was your pride. He saw this kind of fight in prison all the time. Guys might call it fighting for dominance, to be top of the pecking order or to show some other asshole his place. But really, it was pride and not wanting to feel like anybody got the better of you.

Cormac figured out that he could walk away from those fights and his pride would survive just fine. He took care of his own pride, that wasn’t anybody else’s call. The petty fights and gang affiliations went on around him, and he didn’t give a fuck. Everybody knew it, too. He bashed just enough heads to convince everyone to leave him alone. And they did.

But Kuzniak and Crane—two monumental egos, and what exactly had happened there at the end?

As of now, Cormac officially had too many mysteries to deal with. Too many questions needing answers. Hard to know where to start.

One book at a time. One call, one journey, one piece of the puzzle.

She was right. He started with the answer he could get right now, tucking his hands-free over his ear and making a call.

Kitty answered. “Hi. How’d it go?”

“How’d what go?”

“You said you were going to Manitou; I assume you’re calling to tell me how it went. You find anything out?”

It hadn’t occurred to him to call out of the blue to tell her how the meeting went. Mostly because he still didn’t know how it was going to turn out. “No, not exactly. But I have a favor to ask.” One in what was turning into a long chain of favors.

“Oh yeah?” What did it mean, that she actually sounded pleased at the prospect?

“Amy Scanlon’s aunt wants to meet you. She wants to talk to the last person to see Amy alive.”

A hesitation. “That’s rough. I’m not sure I can tell her anything useful.”

“I think she’s just looking for a connection. The news about Amy seemed to hit pretty hard.”

Kitty had a good heart. A big heart. If she thought she could help, she couldn’t
not
help. That instinct had kept her as the alpha of the Denver werewolf pack the last several years. He felt like he was taking advantage.

“I’ll talk to her,” she said. “I’m happy talking to her. And can I just say I told you, you should have let me come along from the start.” She was smiling. Poking at him. He ignored her.

“We also need to talk about the book of shadows. Amy’s aunt says she can interpret the code, and I think I believe her.”
I believe her,
Amelia added. “We’re pretty sure she’s telling the truth. But she wants something in return.”

“That’s kind of fairy tale. What is it, you have to guess her real name or you have to give her your firstborn?”

That … he never knew how to respond to her jokes.

“She wants me to solve a hundred-year-old murder.”

“That sounds like … fun? Do you have a chance of actually solving it?”

“I’m mostly trying to decide if it’ll be worth it. You think we can figure out the book of shadows without her help?”

“Her help would make it a lot easier.
If
she can help. Might not hurt to dig a little, just to see. I’m kind of curious.”

“Then I’ll start digging. See where it goes.”

“Call me if there’s anything else I can do.”

“Yeah, will do.” He clicked off, and boggled yet again at the reality of his current situation: he had backup. He was calling people to ask for help. And they were willing to give it, gratis. He’d opened himself up to Amelia, and he’d had to open himself to the rest of the world. His instinct was to shut it all back down. Flee to the hills, go back to what he knew.

Too late for that, I think.

That wasn’t what bothered Cormac. Getting comfortable with it all—that was the weird part.

Chapter 6

K
ITTY FREED
up her schedule the very next day and rode with Cormac down to Manitou Springs. She was uncharacteristically quiet during the trip, spending most of the time fidgeting, picking at her fingernails. Remembering, he expected. The disaster that had killed Amy Scanlon hadn’t been all that long ago. Kitty’s gaze had turned inward.

He found parking a block away and led her to the souvenir shop’s front.

“This is it, huh?” she said, looking up at the
MANITOU
WISHING
WELL
sign overhead, arms crossed. Her hair was up in a sloppy ponytail, fringes of it hanging down around her ears and tanned cheeks. “Seems so ordinary. You say it’s a couple of witchy types?”

“Something like that. Ready for this?”

She sighed. “Yeah.”

A bell on the door rattled as they went inside. He watched her reaction—her nose flared, taking in scents, and she tilted her head and examined the space. Lupine movements, slightly odd if he hadn’t been used to them by now.

“I suddenly want to buy everyone I know a T-shirt,” she murmured, looking around at the collection, Colorado flags on pastels, lots of pictures of deer and columbine blooms. She gave a wry smile to one that showed a romanticized picture of a howling wolf, along with the words
COLORFUL
COLORADO
. Wild wolves hadn’t lived in the state for decades.

“I think they’ve got a spell on the place for that,” he said.

Her brow furrowed. “Really? Nice.”

The cat, Esther, was sitting on the glass counter again. When it saw Kitty, it arched its back, hissed loud enough to echo, then spun and dashed away. Kitty stared after it, blinking.

“Was that a cat? A hairless cat?” she said. “A hairless cat that evidently hates me?”

“She’s a good judge of character,” Frida said, emerging from the back room. She leaned both hands on the glass and nodded at him confrontationally. “You’re a man with two auras and now you bring me a werewolf?”

Cormac hadn’t remembered mentioning that about Kitty; of course, Frida could just see it.

“Hi,” Kitty said, waving a hand. “Nice to meet you, too.”

“Judi wanted to talk to her,” Cormac said, then stepped out of the way.

“Who is it?” Judi asked, coming from the back of the store, feather duster in hand. “Wait a minute, I recognize you—aren’t you the werewolf who shape-shifted on TV?”

Kitty turned to him. “See? We already know what the first line of my obituary is going to say.”

He wished she wouldn’t joke about obituaries.

When she looked back at the women, her smile was bright and amiable. The radio personality coming to the fore, a useful mask for situations like this. “I’m Kitty Norville. Cormac said you wanted to talk to me about Amy.”

Both women seemed to deflate. Like they hadn’t believed he would really bring Kitty to talk to them. She was the eyewitness, tangible proof that Judi’s niece was well and truly gone.

“I’ll go make some tea,” Frida said softly. She glanced at Kitty, and her gaze fell. Frida squeezed Judi’s hand as she passed by.

“We have some chairs, if you’d like to sit down.” Judi led them toward the back of the shop, near the crystals and bookshelves, where she arranged a couple of folding chairs that had been tucked to the side. Kitty took the offered seat, and Judi sat across from her, but not too close—enough to read her face, not close enough to touch.

Cormac shook his head at a third chair and remained standing nearby, listening in but looking elsewhere. Wasn’t his conversation, but he felt like he was standing guard.

Judi started: “He says you were with Amy when she died.” Not a question, almost an accusation.

Kitty’s smile was comforting, sad. “Not exactly. She was still alive when I left her. But we were in a cave, part of an old defunct mine up near Leadville. It collapsed while she was still inside. She … she knew she wasn’t going to make it.”

Kitty was very calm during this explanation. Cormac and Ben had arrived on the scene shortly after the cave-in—the noise of it, the rumble of a minor earthquake shuddering along the hillside, had drawn them to the location. She’d texted Ben, left a message with a GPS tag he’d been able to track, but the mine collapse had guided them the last hundred yards. Kitty had been missing for a week, and she’d looked like the survivor of some horror movie, coated with grime, torn clothes hanging off her, a wild look in her eyes. A starved wolf breaking out of a trap.

Hard to believe this was the same person. He’d been holding a rifle at the time, and a small corner of his mind had wondered if he’d have to shoot at her. When Ben arrived, she’d fallen into his arms, one of those beautiful scenes of reunion and love. He’d stepped aside, like usual.

Frida arrived with mugs of tea, gave one to Judi first, and Kitty accepted the next. She didn’t offer one to Cormac, and that was fine.

“She caused the cave-in. I don’t know exactly everything that happened, but there was a lot of magic involved. She and the people she was with were working a very powerful ritual. I was there because they kidnapped me, they needed a werewolf queen in order to work the spell—” She shook her head, as if she still hadn’t made sense of it. “They opened a door, and a demon stepped through. Amy tried to banish it, but couldn’t, so she brought down the cave to close the doorway on the thing. She didn’t make it out, but two of us did. She saved our lives.”

Judi gripped her mug and appeared dazed, as if she had just been informed about the death. “When I taught her, it was all charms, simple spells, nature magic. Nothing that would collapse a cave. What happened to her? These people she was with, this ritual—she knew better than to bother with anything that might summon a demon. What was she trying to do?”

“She was trying to save the world,” Kitty said, straightforward, without irony. “She was kind of nuts. But she was brave.” She took a sip of her tea, hiding her expression.