Kitty Raises Hell
Page 35

But no, I’d given Mick a jar of the potion yesterday—and he’d scoffed at it. I’d have to find out if he had used it—he probably hadn’t. Maybe this thing killed him simply because it could.
I should have done more. I should have protected him. Inside, Wolf howled.
“Do you need a minute, or are you ready to leave?” she said.
I closed my eyes and turned toward the door. “I’m ready.”
Hardin led us to a nearby conference room, where we could talk. She offered coffee, but I wasn’t thirsty.
“We got the call about ten last night,” she said. “Someone in Mr. Cabrerra’s apartment building smelled smoke coming from his unit. The building manager couldn’t find the source, and Mr. Cabrerra’s door was locked. The manager called the fire department; they broke in and found the body. Nothing else had burned. As I understand it, werewolves aren’t indestructible, they’re just really tough to kill without the magic silver bullet. Am I right?”
“You need to take the heart or cut off the head. Or do so much damage they can’t heal before they die of blood loss,” I said.
She nodded. “The medical examiner performed an autopsy last night. His heart was destroyed—we assume that’s what killed him, that if it hadn’t gotten to his heart he might have survived. But this is what has the ME wigged out. He burned from the inside out. It’s like someone reached inside him and lit a blowtorch.”
Numb and confused, I said, “This is why you brought up spontaneous human combustion?”
“Unless you know of some other weird, unlikely phenomenon that could cause something like this.”
I looked at Ben, who shrugged and said, “Hey, you’re the expert.”
Why did people keep thinking that? I must have been doing a good job of fooling everyone. Werewolves were werewolves—that didn’t make them any more prone to having unlikely things like this happen to them, did it?
As a matter of fact, it did. This thing had already proven it would go after the whole pack, not just me. A moment of dizziness made me hold my head to steady myself. I had to make this stop. There had to be a way to make this stop.
Ben put his hand on my leg, and the touch anchored me. Brought me back to the table, the conference room, Hardin, the horror of the situation. Didn’t stop tears from falling.
Hardin watched me. “You do know something. What is it?”
Once again, I explained the trip to Vegas, the cult, the sacrifice, the attacks, Grant’s potion, and my suspicion that Mick hadn’t used it. If nothing else, there’d be no such thing as a secret Babylonian cult lurking in Sin City anymore. Everybody was going to know about it at this rate. Not that everyone believed me. I’d have thought that Hardin would be beyond disbelief after everything she’d seen and studied, but her expression was blank.
She said, “That doesn’t get me any closer to figuring out what happened or who to arrest.”
“Yeah, well, sorry about that.”
“What’s the likelihood of this happening again?” she asked.
Likely. Very likely. I didn’t want to think about it, so I turned away, biting my lip.
“Do you want to talk about some kind of police protection?” she said. She was being as nice as she’d ever been to me, but her voice was still businesslike, almost harsh, when what I wanted was for someone to pat me on the head and say, “There, there.”
Ben said, “Police protection isn’t going to do a whole lot of good for people burning up from the inside.”
“I can’t sit around doing nothing,” she said, scowling.
“Trust me, Detective, as soon as I find the magic spell that will make all this go away, I’ll let you know,” I said.
She made an offhand gesture that might have been saying, touché. “I’ll keep digging on my end. But the usual request applies: If you find out anything, let me know, right?”
“You too, I hope.”
“Will do. Thanks for stopping by.”
She escorted us to the front door, said the farewells, then went back in. I almost said something to her about taking a break, getting some sleep, food, fresh clothes. I was worried about her and didn’t want her to burn out—metaphorically or literally, given the circumstances. Every time I saw her she looked harried beyond all reason. But the door closed, she was gone, and I lost my chance.
Leaning against Ben, I prompted a hug. We clung to each other, squeezing comfort into each other.
I muttered into Ben’s shoulder, “This isn’t a coincidence, this can’t be a coincidence. Spontaneous human combustion isn’t spontaneous when you’re being haunted by a heat-generating demon.”
“That makes sense,” Ben agreed.
“This is my fault. I’m the reason this is happening, and now I’ve put everyone in danger—”
“Kitty. You couldn’t help it. You couldn’t know. What were you supposed to do, let those guys in Vegas kill you?” Ben said.
If I could go back, knowing what I knew now, knowing I could save Mick’s life, maybe everyone’s life... I might have let them kill me. I looked at him, despairing, my eyes large and shining.
“Let’s go home,” he said and kissed the top of my head.
“Even though we might burst into flames with no warning at any minute?”
“Kitty.” He gave me a reprimanding look.
In the car and on the road, I slumped and looked out the window, watching the world go by. Wondering how to stop an enemy that we couldn’t see, couldn’t identify, couldn’t anticipate.
I said, “I can’t believe I’m the closest thing he has to next of kin.” It wasn’t fair that he didn’t have anyone. I hadn’t known him well enough to be the emergency contact in his wallet.
“You might not have noticed, but most people who get stuck as werewolves aren’t the kind who have close ties to big families. Present company excepted, of course.”
“I’d noticed,” I said. “I am constantly reminded that this isn’t the life I signed up for.”
“Does that include me?” He quirked a wry smile.
Erp. I could see now how my statement could be taken the wrong way. Especially since a relationship with Ben had been about as unexpected as getting attacked by a werewolf in the first place.