Tracking the Tempest (12 page)

“This is neither the time nor the place,” Phaedra warned her evil entourage. “We are here on
official
business.”

While the tension didn't ease, everyone did take a step back. Except for Graeme, who kept himself forward, staring at me and daring Ryu to do something about it.

“Just stay out of our way, Phaedra. And keep your minions out of my sight.” Ryu's voice was tight, his control barely in place.

“Sorry, Investigator, but I have strict instructions to aid you in any way I can. And I
will
aid you.” The Alfar smiled. “Get used to us. I am sure we will get used to you. Until then!” she called, walking back toward the door to the lab.

The harpies crouched low and then heaved themselves in the air, wings flapping furiously. We were again besieged by filth and dust, only this time Ryu's shields were in place well before anything could hit us. Behind the dirt swirling against our protective barrier, I saw Graeme mouth something at me. I'm no lip-reader, but even I could make out “See you soon.” I trembled, pressing myself into Ryu's side.

Finally, the dirt settled and we were alone in the laboratory. Daoud groaned and stretched. Caleb shuffled his hooves in the dirt, as if he were considering chasing after Phaedra's gang at ramming speed. Camille watched Julian worriedly as her son took off his glasses, breathed fog onto them, and then wiped them with his flannel shirt. His eyes, a beautiful sea green, met mine as he gave me a grin even more crooked than usual. Julian's kind expression helped to wipe away the smudge of Graeme's interest.

Ryu, meanwhile, looked apoplectic. He was gripping my hand like a vise, and I pulled, gently, to free myself. My fingers, when he finally let go, were mottled red and white.

We all stood there, in silence, for a few minutes till, finally, Ryu put into words what we were all thinking.

“Shit.”

We nodded.

“Fuck.”

We nodded again.

“And damn.”

Then he strode angrily toward the door as we scrambled to keep up.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

M
y fingers scrabbled at the smooth leather interior of Ryu's BMW as he missed the exit we needed, causing him to drop a few more F-bombs and slam on the brakes. He then opened up what I assume was a rift in the space-time continuum in order to hurtle his German-made steel cage of doom through said continuum, only just managing to avoid two Jesus truckers with their grill crosses glowing brightly in the night.

Ryu was decidedly cranky.

We were on our way to the head scientist's, Dr. Silver's, family home. It was about two in the morning, so we were officially on baobhan sith time. When we'd gotten back to the cars, Ryu had hurled poor Julian's laptop at him and said, “Find something. Now.” Much to everyone's surprise, and especially Julian's, he had. In the month since they'd officially canned the investigation, there'd been a few pings on the good doctor's “secret” accounts, and from somewhere in the States. So we'd split into pairs to investigate whether he'd made it back to his home turf. Camille and Julian had shot over to Silver's Boston pied-à-terre, Daoud and Caleb headed out to his summer home in Cape Cod, and Ryu and I drove out to the family manse in a ritzy suburb of Boston.

“This is probably a wild-goose chase, but it's all we've got. And at least we know Silver is alive, and hopefully back in the country.” Ryu frowned, again. “Plus there's something about this house in particular that I don't get. I'm glad I'm going back.”

“Whaddya mean, you ‘don't get'?”

“I can't put a finger on it. Something with the layout,” he said, as we pulled up in front of an enormous, gorgeous old home that bordered on being a mansion.

“Wow.” I breathed.
I guess there's a good living in running evil laboratories
.

We walked up to the house and Ryu murmured something to the door, which opened up as if in welcome. The house was warm, but unaired. From the foyer, I could see that it had been carefully shut up for the Silvers' holiday to the south of France: furniture covered, plants fitted with complicated watering devices, electronics unplugged.

I stuck close to Ryu as we walked toward the grand staircase dominating the foyer.

“Pay attention to the upstairs layout, and then think about it when we come back down,” he told me.

“Okeydokey, smokey,” I said, solemnly.

The house was professionally perfect; there had very obviously been a decorator involved. Even the family photos had been chosen for maximum effect. Tons of pictures covered the walls of the stairway, all full of healthy, wealthy people doing healthy, wealthy things. A baby-boomer couple, who I assumed to be Silver and his wife, dominated the action. In one photo, dressed in black tie and holding champagne, they flanked a famous politician. Another picture showed the same couple, this time wearing tennis gear and clutching rackets, sandwiching a famous tennis player. In others, they wore equestrian gear, or picnic-wear, or fancy dress, or business attire. Inevitably they were accompanied by someone either famous or who exuded a similar air of wealth and status.

I stopped at a picture of Dr. Silver at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a children's hospital in Chicago, and I tried to figure out how somebody who looked so respectable could be, for all intents and purposes, a kidnapper. I stared at the picture, looking for clues, until I saw something in the background that made me gasp.

“What is it, Jane?” Ryu asked, as he stepped up the stair next to me to peer at the photo.

I pointed at the woman behind Silver. He looked closer.

“Oh, that's Amelia Bathgate, of the Chicago Bathgates. Why are you interested in her?” For a second, I nearly told him to look closer. Then I remembered I'd promised Grizzie I wouldn't share her secret.

“Um, I was just wondering how Silver could be so good in some ways, and so evil in others.”

“Yeah, it's hard to believe the guy who owns this house is the same guy who ran that lab,” he said, stroking a hand down my back to comfort me. “Come upstairs when you're ready?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said, turning back to the photo. “Just give me a minute.”

I stared at the woman in the picture for one last moment. I could understand why Ryu didn't recognize her, and why Grizzie claimed few people had made the connection between Grizzie, Dusty Nethers, and Amelia Bathgate. As if by magic, she was the
complete opposite
of everything Grizzie represented. Whereas Grizzie oozed sexuality and strength and a kind of chaotic joy that bordered on the anarchical, the woman in the photo could have been a Nazarene minister's spinster aunt. She was wearing a conservative suit in dull taupe and her hair was slicked back in a tight bun. But it was her facial expression that I found most fascinating. She had an expression that was like the human, nonmagical version of what Anyan had taught me about glamouring. Her whole demeanor—the set of her shoulders, the way she pulled in her height as if she were ashamed, the downcast eyes—all said, “Nothing to see here. Pay me no mind.”

Unable to believe that Grizzie had lived like that for so many years of her life, I wondered, sadly, whether I'd ever meet Amelia Bathgate. Finally, I turned to join Ryu.

On the second floor, beds were stripped and covered and everything was unplugged. Except, I noticed, the security cameras set up in strategic locations throughout the house. Ryu's power was swirling away, making us invisible to them, but they still made me uncomfortable. Not least because they were our first sign that the man who made this his home was not all that his wholesome exterior claimed.

I tried to keep a mental map of the upstairs in my head, as Ryu had asked, and when we finished upstairs and made our way through the downstairs, I understood why. My spatial perception was excellent, and I'd always been good with floorplans. But the mental plan of the upstairs that I'd drawn as we explored did not match my mental plan of the downstairs.

“There should be an extra room down here,” I said, as we stood in the living room.

After pondering the issue for a few seconds, I walked out of the living room, through the kitchen, and into the large office. I paced it again, to be sure, and then looked up at Ryu. “This room is short,” I said. “There should be more office to this office.”

Ryu grinned at me. “Exactly. But there's less. So where's the rest?”

I looked around, and then started walking along the walls, followed by Ryu's eyes. The red lights on the cameras settled in either corner, however, blinked blindly at me, unable to see past Ryu's mojo. I leaned against Silver's desk, staring at them.

“Why two cameras, Ryu? You said you didn't find anything of interest in here?”

“No. Nothing that revealed anything about the lab, at least. It was all personal—taxes and shit. Nothing related to any sort of business dealings whatsoever. Silver obviously didn't work from home.”

“So why have two cameras in this room? And where do these cameras go?”

“They're internal,” Ryu replied. “They can be accessed by the TVs in each room. But we don't know where they're actually controlled from. There should be a control room, or something, somewhere, but we can't find it.”

We both fell silent, staring at the cameras and thinking. This scenario—the cameras inside the house, the foreshortened room—reminded me of a movie I'd seen a few years ago. Okay, so a movie wasn't the most professional thing to go on, but films—like the mythological monsters I now ran with—had to have some basis in reality, right?

“Quit your glamour for a second, Ryu,” I suggested.

“Why?” he asked.

“Just a hunch. I've seen too many action flicks, probably, but it's worth a shot.”

He frowned at me and then shrugged. “Fine, but it'll mean that Julian will have to hack into the security system to erase the tapes. Are you sure this is worth it?”

“Nope,” I said, honestly. “Just a hunch.”

Ryu frowned at me, and for a second, he looked like he might refuse. But then I felt the tickling little wind of Ryu's strong glamour ease up around me, and I knew we could be seen. I walked away from Ryu and toward the wall to my left.

After a moment, the camera tracked my movements.

“Bingo,” I breathed. “Panic room. And someone is in there.” I turned to my vampire in triumph. He was staring at me in surprise.

“Jane, you're a genius.” Ryu grinned, as he got out his cell to call in the reinforcements.

“You'll be like Bob Dylan in ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues.' Only cute,” Daoud said, as he capped his marker.

“Thanks,” I said, as I put my own marker away.

Ryu and I had torn the office apart, trying to find the entrance to Silver's hidey-hole. We'd gotten nowhere when we'd been joined by the others, first Camille and Julian and finally by Daoud and Caleb. Then we'd all proceeded to get nowhere together.

That's when Julian had suggested signs. The cameras didn't have microphones, so talking was out. If we weren't getting to Silver, we had to get him to come out to us. Explaining to him that we weren't there to kill him, and could actually help him, would probably be a good start toward achieving our goal.

So we got crafty. Silver had paper; the genie's Underoos provided the markers; all we had to do was make sure the message was readable. So I'd written, one word per page, “Tracking Conleth, must find him. Need help. Won't hurt you.” I'd been elected to show the signs because I was the only one who didn't look at all dangerous.

When my big moment came, I felt like a jackass standing there with the signs. I shuffled through them slowly, and then started over. Daoud helped out by humming an off-tune version of the Dylan song.

I'd just started my fourth shuffle through when we heard a hissing sound. I dropped the signs at my feet.

A large section of bookcases swung outward to reveal a stubble-cheeked elderly man with wild hair wearing pajamas and a bathrobe. He was holding a shotgun and his hands were trembling. Not a good combination.

Ryu tensed, but I stayed him with a hand on his elbow. I'd started this. Silver had come out at my behest; I would be the one to finish it.

“I'm sorry to break in like this, sir,” I said, as I stepped forward. “My name is Jane True. We're tracking Conleth. We know the damage he's done, and he's going to continue killing until he's found. We have to stop him.”

The old man eyed me warily. He looked far less healthy and wealthy now than the man in the photos.

“Knew he'd be back,” Silver grunted, finally. “Told my family he was gone, but I knew he'd be back.”

I nodded. “He is back, sir.”

He nodded, as if to himself, and said, “My family's hidden. And I'm here. He may come for me, but they'll be safe.” Then he looked up at me sharply. “How do I know you're not working with him?”

I shrugged. “You don't. But if we were, we'd have attacked you already.”

He stared at me hard. I tried to look as innocent and small as possible.

“Besides,” I added, “how could Conleth be working with anyone? He's been trapped in a lab all his life, as you know.” For a second the man's face hardened. I cursed myself, thinking I'd made a mistake in pointing out Silver's role in Conleth's tragic life. I blundered on quickly. “We're not working with him. But we know what he did to the people you worked with and to his own family. He needs to be found.”

Silver's eyes bored into mine as if trying to read my soul. I hoped mine was shinier than his must be.

“Who do you work for?” he asked. “Who are you?”

“Can you put the gun away?” I countered. Silver's hands hadn't ceased trembling and I wasn't sure whether any amount of magic could heal a shotgun blast at short range.

“First, tell me who you work for.”

I gestured toward my vampire. “This is Ryu. He's an investigator who works for… some very powerful people. They want Conleth stopped.” I figured that answered Silver's question without raising any more. “Everybody else works for Ryu.”

“And you?” Silver asked.

“I'm Ryu's… girlfriend.”

“You're his girlfriend?” Silver asked, his voice clearly indicating that he thought tracking mass murderers was not the proper place for people's “girlfriends.”

I ignored him. “Now will you put the gun away?”

Silver thought for a minute and then shrugged. He turned back to the room behind the bookcase—which I could see had a toilet and sink, an army cot, a control deck for the security system, tons of leather-bound books, and a big box of files—in order to put the gun down. He also picked up the box and then walked past us, toward the living room, as the door to the panic room slid shut.

“I was dead when I opened that door,” he said, over his shoulder. “So I might as well have a brandy.”

In single file, we shuffled after Silver's disheveled, wild-haired form as if we were in some bizarre pantomime performance of the Pied Piper. Silver put his huge box down in order to pour himself a stiff belt of booze, and the rest of us all joined him when he offered. It had been a long night, and it was just beginning.

“Here's what you came for,” Silver said, kicking the box over to Ryu. “Everything is in there. Well, everything from my time, so I don't know how much it'll help.” The old man's face grew grim. “I'm not responsible for what happened after I left… But there's Conleth's childhood, the records of the testing we did, and records about everyone who worked with me at the laboratory. What's not on paper is on the data sticks at the bottom.”