Hellbent

by Cherie Priest

  “We’ll be back in a while, kids,” I told them, then I drew the gate across the service elevator’s entry and set the thing into motion.

  When we were down a floor or two, and out of the kids’ hearing range, he asked, “How did it go?” Because we were saving the specific questions until we got outside, apparently.

  “It went well, all things considered.”

  “I’ll know if you’re lying,” he warned, which may or may not have been true, but I didn’t intend to do any serious lying anyway.

  “I know. And I won’t. Hey, I got out of there and home without incident, didn’t I? It couldn’t have gone that badly. Wait, well. Okay, there was an incident, but it didn’t have anything to do with Max or the San Francisco guys.”

  On the rest of the way down, and out on the street, and all the way to the café I filled him in on the saga of Elizabeth Creed and her powers of flight, distracting him with someone else’s drama for once. By the time we reached the coffeehouse, I’d laid out most of the story, and he was shaking his head while we waited in line.

  “Unbelievable,” he observed.

  “If I didn’t still have the sore neck, I’d be inclined to agree with you. And thank God I had Adrian there with me for backup. For one thing, he may well have saved my ass by leaping on Creed, up there on the roof. And for another, he gives me someone to corroborate the story. Otherwise, no one would ever believe it.”

  I’d left out the part about Max doing the old toast ritual, and all the stuff about Adrian worrying over—or perhaps sneakily encouraging—potential ghoul-dom. That’s why Ian was able to say, “Except for the swan dive off the roof, it sounds like you two had a good time on your road trip.”

  “It was more of a back-flop than a swan dive, but sure. We had a pretty decent time. I even got a new lead on Adrian’s sister, sort of.”

  “Really? How’s that?”

  By now we’d received our steaming mugs of something we had no intention of drinking, and were homing in on a small table, conveniently located in a back corner without too many ears to overhear us. It wasn’t a huge concern, anyway. We were practically experts at speaking in public without being self-incriminating, and the place was half empty, courtesy of the hour.

  As we lowered ourselves into the wood slat seats, taking care to keep from spilling our almost-overflowing mugs, I went ahead and let the subject shift.

  “Not a lead on her, personally, though I remain convinced that she’s still loitering about, somewhere in the area. But I got a lead on the Atlanta House, and a way inside it. Courtesy of your brother Max.”

  “Ah” was all he said. He drew the mug up to his face and breathed in the aroma as if he were about to sip it.

  “I don’t know how much you’ve gathered through the grapevine about how your father died—”

  “Virtually nothing. No one would tell me anything unless I agreed to return home and hear it in person.”

  “Okay, well. Your father went to Atlanta to check out a potential alliance between—”

  “He went to the Barrington House?” he interjected, which amused me because he so rarely interrupts anyone.

  “Yes, the Barringtons—who are cozying up to the Crofts in Chicago, which makes exactly no one in any other city very happy.”

  “The world’s a safer place without those two courts in cahoots.”

  I agreed wholeheartedly. “Someone found a picture of Robert and Theresa hobnobbing, and your father went to insert himself into the gossip grapevine, as far as I can tell. He wasn’t there long before he died, and no one wants to talk about what went down.”

  “None of the Barringtons, you mean.”

  “Yes, that’s what I mean. Your old House is trying very hard not to get up in arms about the whole thing, because, well, the Barringtons are being difficult. It’s hard to say whether or not they’re being difficult at a usual level, or if this is something unique to your father’s situation. But Max is now in the crappy position of trying to assert himself as judge, and get them to recognize his position before the other Houses hold a convocation. Atlanta and Chicago see a chance to gang up on San Francisco, and they’re going for it.”

  “They’re trying to insert a judge?”

  “Basically. Since Max can’t prove he has the job free and clear, due to you being out there, aggravatingly alive. It’s an assault on his pride from all angles: They won’t recognize his authority, and they refuse to answer to him with regard to his father’s death. Convocation aside—he’s entitled to answers, and if he doesn’t get them, he’s entitled to seek recompense.”

  “He can seek it all day from the Barringtons, for whatever that’ll get him.”

  “I know. Thus my description of this as a crappy position. I call ’em like I see ’em. For what it’s worth, your son is out of the picture. He took off a couple of weeks ago, and it doesn’t look like anyone’s looking for him very hard. If Brendan has any sense, he’ll keep his head down and let this blow over.”

  Ian lowered the mug. He’d been all but resting it against his chin, and now he held it cupped in his palms. “So you didn’t see him? Brendan, I mean?”

  I thought about lying, then didn’t. “No. But Max hasn’t, either. Whatever threats he’s made to you regarding Brendan … ignore them. He’s talking out of his ass. So let’s just worry about you, for now, okay?”

  “If you insist.”

  “Thank you. You’re the one in the crosshairs, here. Max needs to shore up the idea that he’s in charge, and the Barringtons need to know that they can’t keep pulling this kind of shit. It’s entirely possible that this time, the Atlanta House has bitten off more than it can chew. Barely.”

  “Barely,” he echoed. Then he ticked off the pros and cons. “San Francisco has the population, the resources, and the moral imperative to call Atlanta’s bluff. But Atlanta has a long-standing tradition of refusing to play by the rules, and it might have Chicago on its side. It could be disastrous for everyone.”

  “And down on Peachtree, the crazy goes all the way to the groundwater. They’ve gotten away with murder for so long—if you’ll pardon the expression—that now they simply assume they’re entitled to do so. They could stand to be taught a lesson, and if anyone is in a position to teach it … it’s San Francisco.”

  “An open war would cost both Houses so much,” he mused unhappily. “But Max has always been wily.”

  “That’s a pretty good word to describe the guy I met, yeah. I didn’t come away a fan, but I can tell you this much—he’s no dummy, and he’s got a good grip on the situation, except that he needs you dead. You’re a loose end to be tied off. He’ll kill you if he can catch you.”

  “Of course he will. I could come down and challenge them, disrupting everything. I could challenge him.”

  Something about the way he put it made me wary. It didn’t sound like he wanted to go take over the whole show, but it sounded like he’d thought about it, and he’d concluded that if push came to shove, he could do it. “Ian …,” I broached.

  He set the cup down on the table and waved one hand. “No, I’m not making any plans. But I’d be an idiot not to have weighed the possibilities. Max doesn’t know about … my infirmity. He would assume that I’m considering these things.”

  “True, and you’re right. But since we know something he doesn’t know, let’s just take that right off the list of options.”

  “Done. For now.” He folded his hands together, elbows planted on the table. It reminded me of how he’d been sitting when we’d first met, at the wine bar downtown near the water. “Good God, what is Max going to do? He can’t let it go, but he can’t launch an assault, either.”

  “Not with you in the way. But that’s where I come in.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  I cleared my throat and spit everything out fast. “I got Max to agree to loan me out as his seneschal on a fact-finding mission to the Atlanta House, on the condition that I have to find out what really happened
to your father when I get there.”

  He didn’t blink. I think maybe he couldn’t.

  I continued. “Look at it from my point of view: One of these days, Adrian is going to get himself killed poking the Barringtons with a stick, and if I can solve this mystery for Max without starting World War Three, then that’s great for everybody, especially you.”

  “Why especially me?”

  “Because if I can sort out the Atlanta mess, I can buy you time.”

  “Time for what?” he asked.

  “Time to figure out how the hell we’re going to get Max off your case for good.”

  He shook his head slowly. “You may as well give up on that. I genuinely fear that one of these days …” He lowered his voice, and his gaze. “One of these days, he’ll find me here. He’ll wreak havoc on you, on the kids. On everything you’ve built, Ray.”

  “Don’t you turn this around on me. I’m the one protecting you here.”

  “But don’t you see? This is the only way I can return the favor. I can take myself away from here. Start over somewhere else, find a new ghoul. Begin a new life. I’ve done it before.”

  “So have I. It’s not any fun, it isn’t easy, and I don’t want you to go. And I don’t need your protection,” I added. “I just need some time to figure out how we can … I don’t know what, just yet. But I’m unwilling to roll over and give up.”

  “Admirable,” he said drily, “but I’m unwilling to see you wander off to Atlanta … with Adrian? I assume he’s made a bid to accompany you.”

  “Of course he has, the dumb motherfucker.”

  “You don’t mean that for a moment, and we both know it. What will you do, pass him off as your ghoul?”

  “That’s the obvious answer, isn’t it? I don’t like the idea, but he won’t let me go without him.”

  “And what do you hope to learn? What does he hope to learn?”

  “I hope to learn what happened to your father. And Adrian hopes the same thing he always hopes—that someone, somewhere, knows something about his sister. If he infiltrates her old House as part of the servant class, he might learn something. The ghouls know all and see all. If she’s still in Georgia, they’ll know about it.”

  “True.” Ian drummed his fingernails on the table. “But I still don’t understand how you got Max to agree to the seneschal position. What did you promise him? He doesn’t know you well enough to assume you’re Nancy Drew with fangs.”

  “Right. Yes. I was getting to that.” Slowly. Carefully. With not an ounce of pleasure, but a whole lot of optimism. “That’s the one place where a small measure of trickery enters the picture.”

  “I would assume.”

  “The truth is, I promised him you.” Before he could butt in again, wondering if I’d lost my mind in the last year or if I’d always been this inconsistent, I continued hastily, “I didn’t tell him you were living with me. I made up a song and dance—a good one, I’ll have you know—about having a distant but credible connection to you. He wants proof that I know where you are, and that I have the capacity to reach you.”

  “So that you can hand me over.”

  “Yes. I mean, that’s the trickery. I needed something to leverage the seneschal position in Atlanta, and you’re the only thing I have that he wants. I’ll need you to make a phone call, put on a show, and put up with some posturing from your brother—ostensibly at my behest. You’ll play dumb, like you know who I am if the subject comes up, but you had no idea that I’ve spoken with the San Fran boys. You’ll tell him that you’re calling him because I told you about the strange circumstances surrounding your father’s death, and that the House is on the lookout for you. Max doesn’t need to know that you’d already heard about it; the less he knows about how well you’re still plugged in, the better.”

  “But how does this lead to him assuming you can bring me in? Or lead him to me?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” I told him slyly. “And all you have to do is hesitate. Hedge your bets. Tell him you want to talk to me first. Tell him you and I will arrange a meeting—that way he’ll hear it from your own lips that I’m about to be in direct, physical contact with you.”

  “You really have given this a lot of thought.”

  “Oodles. All the way back from San Francisco. You have to be flexible in this business, Ian. And I excel at flexibility,” I lied out my ass.

  He called me on it. “Utterly untrue. But you’re excellent at preparing to be flexible, I’ll give you that much.”

  “I’ll take it. Now what do you say?” I asked, disappointed that he couldn’t see the puppy-dog eyes I was making in his direction. “Will you play along and call him? Let me work some magic, or let me try—before you gallop away from Seattle.”

  He closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples. “I don’t know, Raylene. This sounds … messy.”

  “Please trust me,” I begged, reaching across the table to take one of his hands. “I will take care of everything. I will fix everything. I will make everything okay.”

  “Even if it kills you?”

  “It won’t kill me. It might fuck me up a little, but I’ve survived worse.”

  We spent a conversational beat in silence, during which time I held his hand and wished I really did know some magic, for all I talked about how useless it was. I sure could’ve used some then and there, to convince this stubborn old vampire that I could save us all by the seat of my pants.

  For that matter, I could’ve used a little magical help saving us all by the seat of my pants, but there’s no sense in wishing too big. Every now and again, the little wishes do come true.

  Eventually, he broke the awkward quiet with an awkward question. “Ray, when you’ve started over, how have you done it?”

  “Oh, there’s a knack to it—a few steps you always have to take. It gets trickier every decade, now that there’s so much information out there, but—”

  “But,” he stopped me, “you’ve never had to fake your way out of a House obligation, have you?”

  And therein lay the rub. “No, I haven’t. When I left my House, they let me go because I wasn’t worth chasing down. If it ever occurs to anyone to wonder, they surely know I’m still out here someplace.”

  “It wouldn’t be so easy for me,” he said quietly.

  I was forced to agree. “No. Not unless you know a couple of Houses willing to sign off on your passing.”

  “You know I don’t.”

  “And neither do I.”

  You see, there’s actually a formal loophole to vampire deaths—not a formality that’s always observed, but one that can be, in a pinch. A good sunbath will reduce our kind to ashes, given enough time, and ashes are tough to identify. Therefore, if a vampire has died—by his or her own hand, or otherwise—the sworn statement of two other vampires can function as a death certificate of sorts.

  Basically, you get two vampires from two different Houses to sign a document saying, “I saw him/her go up in flames, and he/she isn’t coming back.” Then you present it to the House of the deceased, and that House is forced to accept it … even if everybody knows it’s a crock. If the House wants to argue about it, that House has to essentially call the two signing vampires liars. And that is a good way to pick a fight that starts out stacked against you, two Houses to one.

  I’m not sure who set up that system, but you can bet it was someone who (a) had a lot of friends, and (b) planned to fake his death someday.

  But alas, it wasn’t too helpful in our situation. I doubted we could find anybody in one House, much less two, who’d risk reputation and recompense on Ian’s behalf. He’d been out of the game for years—an isolation deliberately intended to keep people from knowing he was blind. His secret was safe, but he had no allies to speak of … apart from yours truly, and I barely counted. Seattle didn’t have a House, and that’s one reason I liked it there so well. No protective structure, but nobody’s rules to follow, either. The world is built on trade-offs like thes
e.

  I squeezed Ian’s hand, then picked it up and kissed it. “We’ll think of something. Will you trust me? For now? I’m begging you, because I know I can’t make you do anything—and I wouldn’t want to, besides. Give me time to pull some strings, call in some favors, and wreak some havoc back in Atlanta. If I can give your brother his father’s murderer, you never know. It might be enough to satisfy him.”

  “It won’t.”

  “But it won’t hurt, either. And if Atlanta had a hand in his death, and I can prove it … it’ll gum up their plans to take San Francisco by genteel force.”

  He relented with a sigh, and put his other hand on the table so I could hold that one, too.

  “All right. You have a phone number for him?”

  I reclaimed my hand and dug around in my bag. “Yes, I do. And I picked out a cell phone just for the occasion.” It was a disposable jobbie, acquired at a gas station somewhere between Medford and Grants Pass, Oregon. Effectively untraceable, pay-as-you-go. I handed over the phone and said, “The den operates out of a club called Ill Manner. The ghouls there can pass the phone around until they find Max. If he isn’t there, he’ll be there soon, so just keep trying.”

  “Ill Manner? That’s not quite—”

  “It’s on Wire Street.”

  “Oh,” he said, drawing out the vowel. “Clever.” Ian took the phone and lightly ran his hands over the buttons. “I’ll call tonight.” Then, to change the subject, “Has your coffee gone as cold as mine?”

  “At least.”

  “Then let’s bus our table and go home. I want to give this some thought before I actually get Max on the phone.”

  “Gotta psych yourself up for it?”

  “Something like that,” he said, meaning he’d take a bottle of wine and go sit up on the roof by himself for a while, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to stop him.

  If he wanted company, he’d ask.

  For some reason, the kids were out when we returned. God only knew what they did on their own time, and since it was pretty much all their own time when they were out of my sight, I suppose I should say instead that I have no idea what their lives were like when I wasn’t present. Probably they were out getting ice cream at the IHOP, or for all I knew they hit the town to beat up hookers. As long as they weren’t in my hair or in jail, I didn’t worry about it.