Today’s session was late in starting. Time dragged. Reporters fidgeted, Senate aides hovered in the background, wringing their hands. The senators themselves shuffled papers and wouldn’t raise their gazes. Testimony that should have taken just a few days had been dragged out to the end of the week. I quivered, waiting for something to break.
The audience was dwindling. Most of the reporters had drifted off to cover more interesting stories, and maybe a dozen general spectators remained. Even some of the senators on the committee hadn’t bothered showing up.
As expected, Roger Stockton was there, ready to stick it out to the very end. He looked like he’d been able to sleep. He invited himself into the seat next to mine. After last night he must have thought we were some kind of buddies.
Maybe we were.
He leaned close and immediately launched into questions. “So where are the aliens and what do they have to do with the vampires? Are vampires aliens?”
“Aliens?” Ben, overhearing, asked.
“A couple of really bad movies have covered that plot,” I said. “Where did you come up with it?”
“Last night, the Man In Black with the vampires, the one keeping people away like it was some kind of UFO cover-up. You seemed pretty tight with all them—what aren’t you telling me?”
I tried to smile mysteriously, which was hard to do when I really wanted to laugh. “It’s not really my place to give away secrets. Honestly, though. The ‘Man In Black’ was just a guy. There aren’t any aliens.”
“That’s what they all say,” he said, glaring. “‘It was Venus,’ my ass.”
Ben gave me a look that said, What the hell are you talking about? I gave him one back that said, Later.
Finally, the session started. I still hadn’t been called. We listened to half an hour of testimony from Robert Carr, a B-grade filmmaker who’d been praised for the frightening werewolf shape-shifting effects in his movies—had he used real werewolves, by any chance? He claimed no, he had a talented CGI artist who used a morphing technique to shift images of people into images of wolves, and if his effects were more successful this was because he pictured actual wolves, instead of the unlikely broad-chested, fake-fur-covered mutant grotesques that most werewolf movies used.
I’d seen a couple of his films, and I was sure he was telling the truth and didn’t use real werewolves. Though his effects were impressive and awfully realistic. He might have seen a real werewolf shape-shift. I’d have to tackle—er, approach—him after the hearings and get him to come on the show. We could talk about werewolves as metaphor in film.
I was a little put-out, though, that the committee decided to talk to the werewolf filmmaker before the actual werewolf. Okay, we were still in the entertainment industry portion of the testimony, and maybe some of the committee members didn’t believe I was a werewolf. But I’d been on the schedule for three days now. Impatient didn’t begin to describe it. I hadn’t been able to eat more than half an English muffin for breakfast, I was so anxious.
“Thank you, Mr. Carr, that will be all.” Duke straightened the papers on the table in front of him with an air of finality. “I’m afraid that’s all the time we have for testimony today. We’ll recess for the weekend and resume on Monday to hear from those witnesses we haven’t called yet. Thank you very much.”
The place burst into activity, people talking among themselves, getting up to leave, aides rushing to attend to the committee members. The other senators looked as confused
as I felt; they hadn’t been expecting this, either. The tension that had been there from the start didn’t dissipate.
“This is weird,” Stockton said. “Weren’t you supposed to be up there today?”
“Yeah.” I crossed my arms and pouted.
“I don’t believe it.” Ben flopped back against his chair with a sigh. “You see somebody’s name on the docket, you expect them to get called. This isn’t just annoying, it’s unprofessional. They expect us to be on time, the least they could do is run an extra hour to hear everybody.”
Maybe there was a reason. Was there anyone else due to be called after me? Or did Duke just want to postpone my testimony?
I counted forward, checking off days on the calendar I kept in my mind, confirming the day with the inner tide that felt the pull of it even if I didn’t know exactly what day the full moon fell on. I stared across the room to the table where the senators were cleaning up, heading out, conversing with each other or aides. Duke glanced up and caught my eye. He set his jaw and turned away.
Alette was right. She’d called it.
“The bastard,” I said. “He planned it. He planned it this way all along. He needs to drag the hearings out until Monday.”
“What’s Monday?”
“Full moon. He wants to make me testify the day of the full moon.”
Stockton gave a low whistle. “Sneaky,” he said with something like admiration. I glared at him. He may have thought we were great friends after our adventure last night, but he was doing a lousy job staying in my good graces. He was less like a war buddy and more like an annoying younger brother.
Ben said, “You make it sound like that’s not good.”
I shook my head, trying to call up some reserve of righteous outrage. Mostly I felt tired. “I’ll be at my worst, that’s all. Edgy, nervous. Itchy. He knows enough to know this. Maybe he thinks I’ll lose my temper and Change right in front of them all.” This put me in a foul mood.
“Can you handle it?” Ben said. “Should we put in a request to delay testimony for a day?”