Six months. I'd done the show once a week for six months. Twenty-four episodes. I was broadcast on sixty-two stations, nationwide. Small potatoes in the world of syndicated talk radio. But I thought it was huge. I thought I would have gotten tired of it by now. But I always seemed to have more to talk about.
One evening, seven or eight o'clock, I was in my office—my office!—reading the local newspaper. The downtown mauling death of a prostitute made it to page three. I hadn't gotten past the first paragraph when my phone—my phone!—rang.
"Hello, this is Kitty."
"You're Kitty Norville?"
"Yes."
"I'd like to talk to you."
"Who is this?"
He hesitated a beat before continuing. "These people who call you—the ones who say they're psychic, or vampires and werewolves—do you believe them? Do you believe it's real?"
I suddenly felt like I was doing the show, on the phone, confronting the bizarreness that was my life head-on. But it was just me and the guy on the phone. He sounded… ordinary.
When I did the show, I had to draw people out. I had to answer them in a way that made them comfortable enough to keep talking. I wanted to draw this guy out.
"Yes, I do."
"Do they scare you?"
My brow puckered. I couldn't guess where this was going. "No. They're people. Vampirism, the rest of it—they're diseases, not a mark of evil. It's unfortunate that some people use them as a license to be evil. But you can't condemn all of them because of that."
"That's an unusually rational attitude, Ms. Norville." The voice took on an edge. Authoritative. Decisive, like he knew where he stood now.
"Who are you?"
"I'm attached to a government agency—"
"Which one?"
"Never mind that I shouldn't even be talking to you like this—"
"Oh, give me a break!"
"I've wondered for some time now what your motivations are in doing your show."
"Let me at least take a guess. Are you with the NIH?"
"I'm not sure the idea would have occurred to someone who didn't have a… personal… interest."
A chill made my hair stand on end. This was getting too close.
I said, "So, are you with the CDC?"
A pause, then, "Don't misunderstand me, I admire the work you're doing. But you've piqued my curiosity. Ms. Norville—what are you?"
Okay, this was just weird. I had to talk fast to fend off panic. "What do you mean, 'what am I?'"
"I think we can help each other. An exchange of information, perhaps."
Feeling a bit like the miller's daughter in Rumpelstiltskin, I took a wild stab. "Are you with the CIA?"
He said, "See what you can find on the Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology." Then he hung up.
Great, I had my own personal Deep Throat.
Hard to focus on work after that. I kept turning the conversation over in my mind, wondering what I'd missed and what someone like that could accomplish by calling me.
I couldn't have been brooding for more than five minutes when the phone rang again. I flinched, startled, and tried to get my heart to stop racing before I answered. I was sure the caller would be able to hear it over the phone.
I answered warily. "Hello?"
"Kitty? It's your mother." Mom, sounding as cheerful and normal as ever. I closed my eyes and sighed.
"Hi, Mom. What's up?"
"You never told me if you were going to be able to make it to your cousin Amanda's wedding. I need to let them know."
I had completely forgotten. Mostly because I didn't, under any circumstances, want to go. Weddings meant crowds. I didn't like crowds. And questions. Like, "So when is it going to be your turn?" Or, "Do you have anyone special!"
I mean, define special.
I tried to be a little more polite. Mom didn't deserve aimless venting. I pulled out my organizer.
"I don't know, when is it again?" She gave me the date, I flipped ahead to next month and looked. The day after the full moon. There was no way I'd be in any kind of decent shape to meet the family the day after the full moon. I couldn't handle being nice to that many people the day after the full moon.
Now if only I could think of an excuse I could tell my mother.
"I'm sorry, I've got something else going on. I'll have to miss it."
"I think Amanda would really like you to be there."
"I know, I know. I'm really sorry. I'll send her a card." I even wrote myself a note to send her a card, then and there. To tell the truth, I didn't think Amanda would miss me all that much. But there were other forces at work here. Mom didn't want to have to explain to everyone why I was absent, any more than I wanted to tell her why I was going to be absent.
"You know, Kitty, you've missed the last few big family get-togethers. If you're busy I understand, but it would be nice if you could make an appearance once in a while."
It was her birthday all over again. That subtle, insipid guilt trip that only mothers are capable of delivering. It wasn't like I was avoiding the family simply for the sake of avoiding them.
"I'll try next time." I said that every time.
She wouldn't let up. "I know you don't like me worrying about you. But you used to be so outgoing, and now—" I could picture her shrugging in lieu of cohesive thought. "Is everything okay?"
Sometimes I wished I could tell her I was a lesbian or something. "Everything's fine, Mom. I'm just busy. Don't worry."
"Are you sure, because if you ever need to talk—"
I couldn't tell her. I couldn't imagine what sort of nightmare scenarios she'd developed about what I was doing when I said I was busy. But I couldn't tell her the truth. She was nice. Normal. She wore pantsuits and sold real estate. Played tennis with my dad. Try explaining werewolves to that.
"Mom, I really need to get back to work. I know you're worried, I appreciate it, but everything's fine, I promise." Lying through my teeth, actually, but what else could I say?
"All right, then." She didn't sound convinced. "Call me if you change your mind about the wedding."
"Okay. I'll talk to you later."
The sound of the phone clicking off was like a weight lifting from my shoulders.
A telephone. Business cards. Next, I needed a secretary to screen my calls.
When a knock on my door frame sounded a few minutes later, I just about hit the ceiling. I dropped the newspaper I'd been reading and looked up to see a man standing in the doorway. My office had a door, but I rarely closed it. He'd arrived without my noticing.
He was of average height and build, with dark hair brushing his shoulders and refined features. Unassuming in most respects, except that he smelled like a corpse. A well-preserved corpse, granted. He didn't smell rotten. But he smelled of cold blood instead of hot blood, and he didn't have a heartbeat.
Vampires had this way of sneaking around without anyone noticing them. He'd probably walked right past the security guy in the lobby of the building.
I recognized this vampire: Rick.
I'd met him a couple of times when Carl and Arturo got together to resolve squabbles. He was a strange one. He was part of Arturo's Family, but he didn't seem much interested in the politics of it; he always lingered at the edges of the Family, never close to Arturo himself. He didn't cultivate the demeanor of ennui that was ubiquitous among vampires. He could actually laugh at someone else's jokes. When I asked nicely he told stories about the Old West. The real Old West—he'd been there.
Sighing, my hair and blood prickling with anxiety, I slumped back in my chair. I tried to act casual, as if his presence didn't bother me.
"Hi, Rick."
His lips turned in a half-smile. When he spoke, he showed fangs, slender, needle-sharp teeth where canines should have been. "Sorry if I startled you."