Hellbent (16 page)

“When did you say the convocation was, again?”

“Next week. You have six nights to get Ian on the phone, and get yourself in and out of the Barrington House.”

“Great,” I said without enthusiasm. I knew he was hoping I’d find something in Atlanta to help him undermine their power grab, but making too many promises could get me killed. So I stuck with what was already on the table and promised to do my best.

I meant it, too. Now I wasn’t just headed south for Adrian’s vengeful satisfaction. Cutting the Barringtons down to size was a tall order, but I figured you never know. I might find something so shocking or helpful that Max could seize power without ever having to worry about offing his wayward elder sibling.

Pure fantasy, yes. And deep down, I knew it.

We shook hands again and slipped up the stairs, into the front of the club, through the crowd, and back out the front door where we spilled onto the sidewalk with the smokers and drunks who always collect like a scab outside such places. Adrian and I didn’t speak until we were once more ensconced in a cab and on our way back to the hotel.

I wasn’t sure what to say. I wondered how he was feeling—if those few sips of my blood had done anything to him. Would he want more? Would it not affect him in the slightest? It could go either way. Maybe he didn’t know, and was trying to sort it out for himself.

About halfway to our destination he asked, “Why did you promise to have Ian call him? A phone call won’t bring him back to San Francisco.”

Happy to land on a subject other than the elephant in the cab, I replied, “Max wants to get Ian on the phone because he knows him, and he knows that Ian is a man made of guilt. Max is pretty
sure he can manipulate him into coming home if he can only speak to him in person—and not through ghouls, or whatever intermediary they’ve been using so far.”

“Is he right?”

“Yes. No. Maybe.”

He shook his head. “You have no idea, do you?”

“I have an idea, but not much more than that. Hey, did you hear anything useful about Brendan while you were hanging with the nearly-deads?”

“Only that he’s not around, and they don’t know where he went. If Max is lording Brendan’s safety over Ian, it’s probably bullshit.”

“That’s what I’d gathered, but it’s nice to hear independent confirmation.” Unless, of course, they were all lying to us. Which was not outside the realm of hypothetical possibility.

“Do you think he’s dead?”

“He might be. Or he might have just made the strategic decision to lie low and let Uncle Max have his way for a while. If he’s smart, he’s staying out of the way until the power balance settles. Regardless, Ian obviously thinks he’s still alive and somewhere near the Renners, and Max will use that to his advantage.”

“At least until you tell Ian the truth.”

“Right.
I
am a good manipulator, too, and I will con Ian into staying put.”

“You sound confident. But what if he’s already made up his mind? What if he lies to you?” Adrian raised two very valid concerns.

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and leaned my head against the cold, vaguely damp and icky-smelling window. “I don’t know. He’s a grown man. A civilized adult. I can’t tie him down and force him to stay.” The truth of it sank in and weighed on my
stomach like a brick. It made me feel queasy. “When all is said and done, I can’t save him unless he wants me to.”

Adrian leaned against his own window, mirroring my pose and staring at me. The city lights drew colors and streaks across his face, both illuminating him and hiding whatever he was feeling. Finally he said, “I know from experience, when it comes to the people you love—there’s only so much you can do to help them, without their consent.”

“Yeah. I guess you
do
know what it feels like.”

We rode on in silence a few minutes more, eventually reaching the hotel and letting ourselves out of the car. I paid the driver and sent him on his way; and when I turned around, Adrian was looking at me funny.

“What?” I asked him.

I’d like to accuse him of blindsiding me, but that wouldn’t be fair. He wanted to know, “Why didn’t you tell me about that
thing
?” Rather than clarify, since we were standing on a public sidewalk like rocks in a stream, he said, “You know which thing I mean. You could’ve warned me.”

I focused my earnestness and honesty into a laser. “I didn’t know,” I swore. “That thing—it’s an old tradition, the kind of thing nobody does anymore, like a gentleman dropping his coat on a puddle so a lady can keep her feet dry. I swear to you, Adrian, it’s damn near
that
obscure.”

He considered this. “If I hadn’t done it, they would’ve known you were lying, and I wasn’t a ghoul like you’d told them.”

“Yes.”

“They could’ve thrown us out or killed us.”

I countered, “They could’ve
tried.
”

“No,” he shook his head. “There were more of them than you saw.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. But yeah, they would’ve known we were full of shit. I’m sorry,” I added.

He turned to head inside, and stopped to hold the revolving door for me. As I joined him, we slipped into the lobby and he asked, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you sorry? It’s not going to fuck me up for life or anything, is it?” He broached this right as we were crossing the lobby, heading toward the elevators.

“What? No, no it won’t,” I assured him, but I also smacked him on the arm in a “Shush, you fool! People are listening” gesture that may have undone some of the sincerity.

Once we were back in the room, he made it clear that he hadn’t believed me—not completely. “No, it won’t fuck me up for life?” he revived the subject. “How about in the short term? Will it fuck me up for a week?”

I threw my bag down on my bed, and he sat down on his bed.

I told him, “No, it won’t fuck you up, period.” And because I was too crazy and dumb to let it lie there, in case I was wrong I added, “As far as I know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded, but he was peeling his shoes off while he was demanding it—and people who are peeling off shoes in a leisurely fashion aren’t typically the kind who fear for their lives. Not in my experience.

“It means … I don’t know. Did you … feel anything?”

Finishing with the shoes, he moved on to the socks and flung them one at a time with a snap against the TV cabinet. “Feel anything? Hard to say. I felt disgusted, but in a vague way, like other people’s bodily fluids aren’t my cup of tea. And I was nervous, because I know that’s how you make ghouls—by getting them to drink some of your blood. Isn’t that right? You let them drink from you?”

“Yeah, that’s right. But listen.” I sat on my bed so we faced
each other. I drew my feet up until I had an Indian-style pose going on, and I concluded, “That wasn’t enough for you to … um … become one of them. Or anything like that. I’m pretty sure.”

He frowned. “You’re pretty sure? That’s all? Not even very sure, or totally sure—just
pretty
sure?”

“What do you want me to say, Adrian? I’ve never had much ghoul interaction before, much less made one myself. I don’t know what the proportions are. There must be some formula, something to do with height and weight, I assume—something that lets people drink without crossing that line, but I don’t know what it is. Regardless, I’m virtually totally confident that the few sips you took from a wee tiny brandy glass weren’t enough to make any real changes in your body.”

“Virtually totally confident. I guess I can live with that,” he said, but I knew he was putting on a show. It’d unsettled him—as it damn well should have.

I wished there’d been another way to gracefully escape the House, but there hadn’t been, and there was no undoing it now. I’d let him drink from me. Now we had a connection—a paranormal one, whether either of us wanted to admit it or not—and only time would tell how deep it went, if it went anywhere at all.

“What … um …” He faltered his way to the question, “What’s different about ghouls, anyway? How are they ghouls, and not just … plasma enthusiasts?”

“It varies from person to person, but generally ghouls end up psychically bonded—like it’s a substance addiction—and the vampire is able to control the ghoul that way.”

“Hang on.
Control
the ghoul?”

“Sure. They use their mind-powers, and the link between them. Not all of them, obviously. Not everyone comes from the better-to-be-feared-than-loved school of co-dependency. I mean,
I don’t think Ian was shuttling Cal around like a puppet or anything.”

“But he
could
have, if he’d wanted to.”

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.” I didn’t like where this was going, but it was going there anyway, so I braced myself for it.

“Does that mean you can control me now, since I drank a little of your blood?”

I threw up my hands. “No? I don’t think so? It was only a little blood, and you were a very good sport about it. I very strongly doubt I could make you do anything, okay? And keep in mind why we kept up the charade in there.”

“Hey, I like Ian just fine, but I didn’t plan to set myself up for programming!”

“Dude, I think we both know you didn’t come along on this wild carpet ride for the sake of Ian. You’re on board because you want to know what happened to your sister, and I’ll have you know, we might have gotten ourselves a lead out of this mess.”

“Wait. What?” Ah. Now I had his attention.

“You heard me. I think I might’ve scored a pass to the Atlanta House. And believe me, it wasn’t easy.”

“What does that mean? You’re going to Atlanta? You’re going to find my sister?”

“I’m going to try. And I’m also going to solve the mystery of what precisely happened to William Renner, upon pain of death. Or that was the subtext of Max’s offer.”

Then Adrian asked the thing I was most afraid he’d ask. “What about me? I’m coming with you, right?” I didn’t answer fast enough. He asked again,
“Right?”

“Adrian, I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? She was
my
sister—and I have a right to know.”

“Absolutely you do,” I agreed. “And I’ll see what I can do. But frankly, those people are crazy and I can’t guarantee your safety. Hell, I can’t guarantee my
own
safety.”

“I can take care of myself,” he reminded me in a too-loud voice that told me he’d be happy to demonstrate, perhaps on my battered corpse, if necessary.

I shot back, “I know you can, you idiot! If I thought you were a pretty-pretty princess who couldn’t do anything but wink and giggle, I’d have left you at home!”

By now, we were both shouting. “So why would you try to keep me out of Atlanta? It’s the one House I really want to visit, and
now
you want to protect me?
Now
you want to lock me out of this?”

“Yes,
now
, you asshole.” I flung one of my own shoes at him, and nearly clocked him in the ear. “There’s a better-than-fair chance that Ian’s quietly planning to run out and get himself killed, and in case you hadn’t noticed, my life isn’t exactly crawling with friends.” By the last word, I wasn’t even yelling.

I kind of felt like crying.

The only one more surprised than me was Adrian, who stared at me with my shoe in his left hand, which he’d caught before it broke the window and sailed out into the street. He opened his mouth to say something, and I opened mine to say something, too—but neither one of us had any words on deck and then, thank God, my cell phone rang.

I grabbed it like a lifeline, glared down at the display, and said “Horace” as much to myself as to Adrian.

“Who? That art guy, in New York?”

“I’m taking this,” I said as I snapped the thing open, relieved for the excuse to change topics. I turned my back to Adrian. “What?” I said into the phone.

“You told me to call you back when I had any leads. Well, I have some leads, and I still want you to go get my penis bones.”

“Awesome, because it’s not like I’m doing anything else right now,” I muttered sarcastically. I gave Adrian a wave and headed for the door. I didn’t know where I planned to wander while I talked, but I had to get out of that room.

“It
is
awesome, I’ll have you to know. Those things are worth—”

“A fortune, yes, you’ve mentioned.” I shut the door behind myself and stood in the hall. I picked a direction and wandered out to the lobby by the elevators, figuring that if I was quiet enough, I probably wouldn’t bother anybody.

He was quiet for a few seconds, then he asked, “Did I interrupt something?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

I sighed. “You didn’t interrupt anything
interesting
. I was in the middle of a conversation with a friend, but he’s an understanding friend when it comes to money.”

“I like him already.”

“Great. Now what have you got for me?” I prompted. I was still calming down from what had not, precisely, been a conversation but more like a fight. I needed something to distract me, something that was all business—because my friends were nothing but fucking trouble right now.

“I’ve got a woman. A crazy woman.”

“Sounds like the start of a country song to me,” I said. “Did she total your truck or shoot your dog?”

“No, but she stole my box of penis bones.”

“Even worse!” I declared with mock drama. “Give me the deets.”

“The
details
”—he emphasized the word to be contrary, I
assume—“are as follows: Her name is Elizabeth Creed and she’s crazy. Not just rhetorically crazy, but actually crazy.”

“I believe the correct term is
mentally ill
these days, Horace.”

“To hell with you and your correctness,” said the man who had just fleshed out my abbreviation for “details” with a neurotic’s flair. “But you can call her mentally ill if you like. She qualifies. She even has papers certifying it.”

“Was she committed or something?”

“Actually, yes,” he said. “That’s partly how I found her out, the sneaky bitch. She was in attendance at the antiques show. I’ve got her in the footage, in several places.”