Kitty's Big Trouble by Carrie Vaughn

Author:Carrie Vaughn [Vaughn, Carrie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: next in series
ISBN: 9781429970082
Goodreads: 11509410
Publisher: Doherty, Tom Associates, LLC
Published: 2011-06-27T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

THE DRIVER WAS human. Living, breathing, though tainted with the scent of vampire. A human servant, then. Average size, he had pale skin and wore a designer leather jacket. Both Henry and Joe sat in front, even though it had less room, leaving the back to us. I had to admit I felt safer this way. I had room to breathe—and a possible escape route. Ben found an awkward position, sitting braced across me, still protecting me, and half twisted forward so he could keep the vampires in view. His lip stayed curled, showing sharp teeth. I rested an arm across his back and breathed in the warmth of his fur.

Henry was tall, meaty—almost stout. He had the build of a retired athlete. Joe had Mediterranean features. His dark hair had curl to it, and I would have called his skin tanned if he hadn’t been a vampire.

“You two are a long way from home,” Henry said.

“Not so long,” I answered.

“What brings you to the city by the bay?”

“The sights.”

“Which is why you’re gallivanting around Chinatown at midnight.”

“Ghost tour. We got separated from the group.”

Joe craned around. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

Such a loaded question. I wasn’t sure if my identity would make things better for Ben and me, or worse. Complete toss-up. “That depends. You listen to much radio?”

The looked of recognition dawned. “You’re Kitty Norville.”

Henry looked at him. “What? Are you sure?”

“Yeah. It’s not the voice so much as the sarcasm.”

I rested my head on Ben’s back. We were so doomed.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Henry said.

“Because saying something is just as likely to get me shot in some circles as not,” I said.

They both chuckled. The driver glanced at me in his rearview mirror, and even he was smiling.

“Boss is going to love this,” Henry said.

I hugged Ben.

We drove for maybe fifteen minutes. I couldn’t see out the tinted side windows, so I tried to watch out the front windshield. We’d entered a neighborhood of Victorian-looking townhouses with bay windows, on pleasant, tree-lined streets.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“The Haight,” Henry said. “We own a few buildings here.”

“Like, Haight-Ashbury?”

Henry nodded. At another time—during daylight and with no injuries, for example—I’d have been excited. Site of the Summer of Love, home to icons of psychedelic rock, I’d have loved to just wander, to see if anything was left of that old hippie atmosphere or if it had all been swallowed by twenty-first-century commercial tourism. But right now all I wanted to do was go home.

Finally we turned down a sloped driveway into an underground garage and stopped.

“Everybody out,” Henry said.

I leaned around Ben to open to the door, and he jumped out ahead of me. Again, we stood side by side, to face whatever came next. The garage looked as if it was used for a motor pool of some kind. A couple of other sleek sedans were parked here, along with a zippy red sports car and a big SUV. The place was lit with flickering fluorescents, which made my eyes hurt.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.