ADVANCED SEARCH  

Support WWEnd

WWEnd Blog

WWEnd BookTrackr™

Synopsis

Three soldiers recently returned from the war in Afghanistan are in custody at Ft Carson in Colorado Springs. They're werewolves, suffering from post traumatic stress, which has left them unable to control their shapeshifting, unable to interact with people. Kitty agrees to see them; after her own battles in KITTY'S HOUSE OF HORRORS (Kitty #7), she feels a great deal of sympathy for them. The soldiers were part of a unit fighting Taliban insurgents in the remote mountains of Afghanistan. Their captain, the original werewolf, transformed the others; their new-found strengths including the ability to survive untold violence while infiltrating remote enemy positions, made them the perfect soldiers for this mission. But it was the captain who kept the group together and kept them sane; when a particularly potent mortar attack killed the captain, the remaining lycanthrope soldiers grew more and more wild, until the final three survivors were captured and delivered to Dr Shumacher at the Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology for treatment. Kitty tries to bring the men into her own pack, to socialise them back into some kind of normal existence, but the group's sergeant has other plans: he's intent on driving out Kitty and Ben and becoming the leader of a new squad of killers.

Excerpt

I sat at my desk, my monitor and microphone in front of me, maps and notebook paper spread over the whole surface. I was writing down addresses and marking points on the map as people called in.

"So you're saying it burned down and nobody could find out why?" I asked Pam from Lexington.

"That's right," she said. "My friend Stacy who's kind of a witch said it's because it was on a crossroads, and something demonic must have happened there, one of those deal-with-the-devil-type things, and the energy overflowed and incinerated it. Could she be right?"

"I don't know, Pam," I said. "That's why I'm discussing the topic, to find out if these events are all coincidence or if something spooky really is going on here. Thanks for the data point. Okay, faithful listeners, that gives me about a dozen independently verifiable stories about supernatural happenings at Speedy Mart convenience stores all over the country. This is already more than I thought we'd get, so keep them coming."

After the third person suggested that something weird was going on at Speedy Mart, I started paying attention. And wondering. And remembering a couple more stories I'd heard about intersections between the chain of stores and weirdness. Then I decided to devote an episode of my call-in radio show to the subject. It turned out that maybe something strange was going on here. That didn't explain why the Speedy Mart chain would have anything supernatural associated with it.

"My next caller is Al from San Jose. Hello, Al."

"Hi, Kitty. I'm such a big fan, thanks for taking my call."

"Well, thank you, Al. What's your story?"

"It's more of a question: is it true that Speedy Mart hires vampires to work the night shift?"

"Funny you should ask," I said. "I once got a call from a vampire who said he was working the night shift at a Speedy Mart. Now, I don't think this means that it's a matter of policy that Speedy Mart hires vampires. I think this guy just needed a job, and there's only so many places open in the middle of the night. But you can definitely see the advantages of hiring the ageless undead to work behind the counter. I imagine they don't get too freaked out about holdups."

"But there's probably not a whole lot of career advancement for vampires there," he said.

"Does anyone working the night shift at Speedy Mart have a lot of opportunities for career advancement? Although with vampires it would literally be a dead-end job." I chuckled. I really shouldn't laugh at my own jokes so much. "Right, we have Chuck from Nevada. Hi, Chuck."

"Hey, Kitty! How you doing?" He was brash, a real talker. This ought to be good.

"I'm doing just great," I said, the standard line. "Where in Nevada are you?"

"Area 51."

Deadpan, I said, "Really?"

"Okay, yeah, I'm from a little town about thirty miles up the freeway from Las Vegas. Near Area 51. And you want to talk about weird stuff going on with Speedy Mart, I've got a story for you."

"Lay it on me."

"UFOs."

I leaned back in my chair. "Okay, now you're just making crap up."

"No, seriously, we get sightings all the time. We're one of the stops on the Southwest UFO tour. The Speedy Mart parking lot is one of the best places to see them. UFO hunters park out there with their lawn chairs and binoculars looking for them. It's, like, UFO central!"

"If you say so, but like I always say, there's weird and then there's weird. But I suppose a data point's a data point. Thanks for calling." I didn't have to tell him I wasn't actually going to mark that location on my map. We'd call it an outlier. A real far-out outlier.

Copyright © 2010 by Carrie Vaughn

Reviews

There are currently no reviews for this novel. Be the first to submit one! You must be logged in to submit a review in the BookTrackr section above.

Images

No alternate cover images currently exist for this novel.