Kitty and the Silver Bullet (kn-4) by Carrie Vaughn

Author:Carrie Vaughn [Vaughn, Carrie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_fantasy
ISBN: 978-0446618755
Published: 2008-10-24T04:00:00+00:00

It was suppertime when I got back to Ben's place. I hadn't looked at my watch in hours. I'd spent the whole drive back thinking. Planning.

No police cars waited in the parking lot, no crime scene tape wrapped the building. If Carl and Arturo had moved against us—or rather moved against Ben since I'd abandoned him—it hadn't been here.

Maybe, I hoped, they hadn't known where to find Ben. And if I was really lucky, Ben hadn't gone looking for them. I went in, almost expecting the place to be trashed, with signs of a massive struggle, and Ben dead, torn to bits all over the living room. If I had found that, I would have taken the gun with its silver bullets and gone after Carl myself. It wouldn't have mattered if Meg and the rest of the pack slaughtered me after, as long as I was able to shoot him first. I braced myself for what I would have to do if I found Ben dead.

But the condo was fine. Ben was at the dining-room table, eating some sort of carryout food straight from the carton. He didn't seem particularly surprised to see me.

In fact, he glanced at his watch. Humorlessly, he said, "Back already? It hasn't even been twelve hours. I figured it'd take at least twenty-four to grow your spine back."

Ben was perfectly all right. Why had I even worried? But there was a semiautomatic pistol sitting on the table next to him.

I didn't look, didn't say a word. Didn't even stop. I did not need that kind of crap right now.

I went straight back to the bedroom and looked for the pair of jeans I'd been wearing the last time I saw Rick, when he gave me that phone number that I'd shoved in my pocket. If I was lucky, it hadn't gone through the wash yet.

As it happened, I'd put the jeans in the duffel bag I'd taken on my short-lived retreat I should have done this first thing, right after Hardin's visit, before ever leaving town. Rick was probably dead, but I had to try. Maybe he'd escaped.

It was twilight; the sun had set. I dialed, and the phone rang, and rang. The certainty that Rick had been one of those piles of vampiric remains that Hardin had found settled on me, the weight of doom clenching in my gut. I wasn't surprised, but I was sad.

Then, the phone clicked on. "Yes?"

It was Rick.

"Oh my God, you're alive!"

"So to speak. Kitty—are you all right?"

I didn't know. I didn't want to talk about me. "Detective Hardin came to see me this morning. She had pictures from the warehouse. Arturo and Carl hit your place, didn't they? What happened?"

“They surprised us," he said simply. I could imagine him shrugging. "It was a slaughter. A few of us were able to escape—Dack dragged me out of there himself. Charlie and Violet made it out. Impeccable survival instincts in those two. But…that's all. All I've been able to contact.

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