“What about vampires?”
“Look at the numbers for any rare disease. They’re probably comparable.”
He made a show of holding one of his pages up, staring at it down his nose like he was trying to focus on something, like maybe he’d found the one question he’d almost forgotten to ask. He made a long buildup, which meant it was going to be the bombshell. Even worse than are you recruiting?
“On your show, you’ve met a lot of your kind, haven’t you? You’ve said that most of you have packs, that you tend to congregate. So, let’s say there’s another werewolf in this room. You could tell us who it is?”
“I suppose.”
“If, in the name of security, I needed you to tell me how to find other werewolves, could you do that?”
Um, I didn’t like where this was going.
“How many werewolves do you personally know?”
I glared. “I couldn’t say.”
“Could you give us names? In the interests of security.”
“Right now?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “In the future, maybe.”
I leaned toward the mike. “I think the next thing you’re supposed to say is ‘I have here a list of known werewolves working inside the U.S. government.’ Isn’t it?”
He frowned. “I was rather hoping you could help me make up that list.”
“Oh, no. No way. You guys—I mean you, the Senate as an institution—you’ve been down this road before. I won’t have anything to do with it.”
“Ms. Norville, are you refusing to answer my question?”
“I don’t think it’s a reasonable question. It’s an invasion of privacy, it’s—”
“I could hold you in contempt of Congress.”
The world had suddenly shifted to an old black and white newsreel. This sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen anymore.
Ben leaned forward to say in a low voice, “The phrase you want is ‘Fifth Amendment.’”
Duke pointed at him. “Who are you? Are you influencing the witness?”
Ben stood. “I’m Benjamin O’Farrell, Your Honor. The witness’s attorney. Under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution my client refuses to answer your question on the grounds that it may be self-incriminating.”
There. That showed him. I sat a little straighter.
“That’s nonsense! It’s not an unreasonable question! I can hold you in contempt, I can throw you in jail if I want. The moral and spiritual sanctity of this nation is at stake, and right here in the nation’s capital we have the spawn of Satan himself lobbying for equal consideration! The Constitution does not apply to you!”
Everyone started talking at once. Well, not everyone. But it seemed like it. I was stunned, glaring bullets at Duke, and I managed to sputter something about showing him my birth certificate proving I was a natural-born citizen and the Constitution in fact did apply to me. Ben was on his feet, talking about suing in federal court for civil rights violations. Dreschler seemed to be in a mild panic, speaking with one of the committee staffers behind her. Henderson was yelling at Duke; Duke was still shouting quasi-religious bigoted inanities at me.
If I’d been a spectator it would have all been very exciting, I was sure.
Amid the chaos, that deeply buried part of myself was rising to the surface, clawing at the bars of the cage I kept her in, wanting to escape, wanting to run, on all her four legs. She knew that in a few hours she’d get to do just that, and she didn’t want to wait.
I stayed seated and breathed very calmly, because that was the only way I’d keep her, the Wolf, locked away.
Dreschler reached over and unplugged Duke’s microphone, right from the back. That didn’t stop Duke from continuing to rant, but now his voice was faded and lost in the back of the room. At last, he realized he’d been had. It took him a surprisingly long time. He glared at Dreschler, eyes bugging and face turning scarlet.
“The committee withdraws the question,” Dreschler said coolly into her own mike. “And with all due respect, Chairman, another outburst like that and the committee will vote to censure you.”