Hellbent

by Cherie Priest

  It was rude, absolutely, but couples in a new relationship are rude beyond belief, and nobody ever throws them out of a banquet for it. Or that was my rationale.

  The waiters came around asking what wine we wanted, and what our selection from the very narrow menu might be. Adrian put in a request for the prime rib with braised asparagus, and I echoed the request because it wasn’t like I gave a damn what food they put in front of me.

  I did put in for a glass of their house red, though. It sounded nice. I didn’t intend to down a whole serving, given how slowly I process the stuff, but that wouldn’t stop me from giving it a taste.

  The room was huge, and split into two halves with an aisle in the middle. I got the distinct impression that this was not the usual layout, but it was to be expected when a special event was on deck. Whatever usual folding or otherwise cheap tables were in use, they’d all been put away for the evening and replaced with fancier versions, covered in posh white tablecloths with expensive floral centerpieces and candles that could’ve brought the whole joint down in under an hour.

  Up front there were two long tables separated by a podium—or a “lectern” as Adrian was so gauche as to correct me when I whispered something about it into his ear.

  “You have to stand on a podium. A lectern is what you stand behind.”

  “You’re a douche-canoe.”

  “Where did you pick that one up? It’s hilarious.”

  “Don’t you undercut my insult,” I joked in a soft breath, this time up against his cheek. “And I don’t know. I just heard it somewhere. I like it, don’t you? I think I’ll bust it out more often.”

  “It’s rich. Alliterative. Disgusting. It’s very you.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and would’ve said more but I stopped myself short and froze, with my head hung low and close to his.

  He noted the change and asked, all business, “What is it?”

  At the very distant edge of what I could perceive and what I couldn’t, I noticed her. Not as a spark, or a flash. Not as a swelling of emotion or maniacal havoc-wreaking, but a presence sharp and true.

  “Her,” I whispered. “She’s here.”

  “Where?”

  “Outside.” I looked up.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake,” Adrian swore. “Not another rooftop battle.”

  “At least it isn’t raining. And no, she’s not on the roof. She’s outside, that way.” I cocked my head in the general direction of the stage—but I meant behind it, on the other side of the wall and another dozen yards into the night.

  “What if she didn’t bring the bones?”

  “You can bet she’s brought one.”

  “What if she left the rest at home?”

  I’d been wondering along similar lines, but now wasn’t the time to start backtracking and overthinking things. “I don’t plan to kill her,” I murmured. “If I have to, I’ll drag the location out of her.”

  “Using your …” His eyebrows wiggled, like he was trying to use his face to gesture at his own hair.

  I knew what he meant. “Yeah, using those.” My psychic powers, that is.

  It was mostly untrue. My powers aren’t worth a shit, in the grand scheme of useful powers. I’d get a lot more mileage out of telekinesis, or levitation. But no. I get coach-class brain waves, and that’s it. Better than nothing, but not much.

  Not without divine intervention could I have wrested any information out of anybody’s head except maybe Adrian’s—and only him because he’d taken a swig out of Lake Me. Someday, we were really going to have to test the limits of that communicative ability.

  But today was not that day. And I didn’t want him thinking maybe I’d smack around a woman nearing sixty, bullying her like an old-fashioned pimp. I’m not saying I’ve never roughed up a fool in the name of information-gathering, because that’d be a bald-faced lie. But I knew before it even became hypothetically in the cards that I wouldn’t do it to Creed … and not simply because I didn’t think it’d work. Don’t ask me why. Just a feeling I had. Maybe I’m psychic or something.

  “Ray?”

  “I have to get outside.”

  “I’m coming with you,” he said.

  I grabbed his hand. “No, I need to take care of this alone. I want to talk to her, crazy-bitch-to-crazy-bitch.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes,” I vowed. “Please, I don’t want to spook her, and I don’t want to hurt her if I don’t have to.”

  “You’re being weird about this.”

  I frowned at him, hard. “Which sets this occasion apart from all others exactly … how?”

  “You’ve got me there.”

  “Thank you. And now, I hope, I’ve got you here. You have your cell?”

  “In my pocket.” He tapped it with his free hand. I heard the plastic case slide around in his pants, and knock against the seat.

  “Good. Put it on vibrate. I’ll ping you if I need anything.”

  “You’re just … leaving me here? With all these … people?”

  Some of those people were now looking at us, as the conversation had gotten barely loud enough to overhear in snippets. And up front, over by the lectern, thank you very much Adrian, the show was starting to get under way—thus the sudden lack of background noise that revealed us to be obnoxious chatterers.

  A spotlight was aimed at the still-vacant position of honor, but the “important” guests—or the guests who had seats up front with the honoree—were shuffling into position at their labeled place settings. The dull roar of a room full of whisperers dropped precipitously as a tall, thin man stepped up to the microphone and gave it a tap.

  A squeal of feedback cut through the remainder of the noise, and only served to underscore the similar peal of energy that was raring itself up outside. Elizabeth Creed was getting closer.

  “Adrian, I’m going. If you want to leave too, hit the men’s room or something. Just leave this one to me, please?”

  “Men’s room it is,” he grumbled and rose with me. He made some excuses disguised as pleasantries to meet the curious questions in the eyes of our tablemates, then hustled off behind me.

  He really was good at this high-society thing. Better than I would’ve expected, given his blue-collar, fighting-man background. Mostly he just kept his mouth shut, took care not to spill anything, and nodded politely when spoken to. I guess sometimes it really is that simple.

  I wondered idly if he’d done any undercover work. It would explain a few things, and it would also get me fantasizing about him busting out James-Bond-like all over the place. I rather liked that thought, but I shelved it for the moment and let him accompany me from the rear, all the way to the back exit where a man in a suit and an earpiece asked if he could help us.

  What he really wanted to know was, “Why are you leaving right now, when things are just getting started?”

  With feigned embarrassment and in a breathy voice, I asked if he could point me toward the ladies’ room. Adrian put one arm protectively at my waist and added, “She isn’t feeling well.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” said earpiece man. He indicated a corridor to our left and said, “All the way down, you’ll see the signs.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and I meant it. Earpiece man was sending us in the right direction; I could feel the signal getting stronger as I tap-tap-tapped along in my not-too-high heels down the marble-floored hallway. Adrian’s footsteps were likewise noisy in my wake, which only served to remind me that he was effectively accompanying me even though I’d told him not to.

  Outside the men’s room and ladies’ room was a pair of plush benches, perfectly primed for impatient husbands and boyfriends who were waiting on someone to touch up her lipstick one last time before deigning to rejoin his presence. I stopped, faced Adrian, took him by the shoulders, and shoved him down onto a seat.

  Surprise registered in his eyes. I’d shoved him pretty hard. He needed a reminder that I’m the big strong mean one, and I’m in charge h
ere. This was my job, my commission, and my crazy lady who needed to be addressed.

  “You’re going to stay here and wait for me.”

  Applause broke out in the big room behind us, where we should’ve been sitting at our round table surrounded by strangers.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive. This might take a few minutes, so if I were you, I’d go back inside and grab a bite to eat.”

  “I already had takeout, remember?”

  “Yes, but this will be better. And it’s free,” I told him, and I left him sitting there when I began my dash around the corner.

  I had no clue if the hallway would eventually lead to an exit of some sort, but it was pointed the right direction, so I took it. I didn’t run into anyone coming or going, which was good, because I was really trucking—fast enough to make any passersby wonder real hard about that red streak blazing past. Even in the high heels I was making good time.

  It’s hard to describe the sound of someone else’s mind. It’s not a frequency, or a cadence, or a colored light. It’s all of that and something else, too, both more distinct and less so.

  But I heard Elizabeth Creed. I would’ve known her anywhere, with that demented, dazzling-bright consciousness. Something broken, but still beautiful. I can’t explain it any better than that.

  I went toward it, feeling the pull of it like a leash, but I stopped when I hit a dead end with two doors. Both were offices, and the one to my right was closer to the direction I wanted, closer to Creed, so I followed her in the straightest line I could. I pushed the appropriate office door open and found it empty, cluttered, and uninteresting except for a window against its far end. Somehow, I’d made it to the exterior edge of the building—which was great, since I didn’t really want to punch a hole in a wall to let myself out.

  I’m not afraid of taking the direct approach, don’t get me wrong. But even for me, making a hole through drywall, studs, and framework takes more time than oh, say, opening a window.

  I didn’t break it open, though that would’ve been marginally faster. Instead I felt around its edges for any hint of a security system. Finding that it was wired into the main building’s components, I took care to unlock it properly and slide it up without too much speed or urgency. Some of these newfangled systems are very sophisticated; they can tell the difference between a window cracked for the breeze and a window flung open in an escape attempt, so I played it slow and steady. This was NASA, not the Starbucks down the street. They actually had shit in the space center that they didn’t want people looking at.

  It didn’t take me more than ten seconds to suss all this out, formulate a plan, and put it into action, but it sure as hell felt like forever. I needed to be careful this time. Creed had caught me off guard in California, but she wouldn’t do it here.

  Finally I got the window jacked up enough to let me out. I had to pop out a screen but it wasn’t attached to the alarms, thank God, so I bent myself over double—almost folding myself in half—to get outside into the warmish, southeast Texan air.

  A breeze kicked up around me and I froze.

  It might’ve been nothing, or it might’ve been the start of a Creed spell coming down the pike; either way, standing there like a pink flamingo on a lawn wasn’t going to help anything, so I roused myself, shook off my nervousness, and followed my ESP as far as it would take me.

  It took me over an open field of grass, into which my heels sank like I was drilling for oil. I whipped them off, held them by jamming my wrist through the heels’ slingback straps, and carried on—hoping I was moving fast enough that surveillance equipment wouldn’t catch me, but knowing that it might regardless. With the swirly logo everywhere, stamped on everything, it was hard to forget I was at a NASA compound, and hey, this place is where they do all the wazzy tech that fires shit up into outer space. I might as well assume they had very good security.

  Once I was outside, I found her signal harder to follow. I’m not sure why, but it may have had something to do with the electricity in the air—the now-all-too-familiar tang of ozone rushing up to clutter the atmosphere. And with it came humidity, swirling and lifting; I could feel the hairs on my arms rising, and I even started to sweat, which made me mad. Nobody wants to sweat in an eighty-year-old Chanel.

  But there was nothing to be done about it now except find the woman who was fiddling with the weather before, heaven help me, it started to rain. My poor dress would never be the same if it got all streaky with watermarks.

  There.

  I felt her again, a blip on an overwrought radar in my brain.

  I spun around, hunting for some sign of her, wondering where she’d gone off to so quickly—and why I’d lost her psychic trail so fast upon exiting the building. But there she was. She’d stopped moving. She had ensconced herself on a set of stairs leading up to a building covered with banners that looked designed to attract children. They announced things like SPACE CAMP and had pictures of stretchy-faced kids screaming with joy on the astronaut training simulators.

  I didn’t know what number building this was, so even if I’d had time to go fluttering through all my handy-dandy printouts, it wouldn’t have done much good.

  Regardless, I had her in my sights.

  She stood with her feet planted firmly apart, braced on the middle stair in the middle of the way—as if she’d triangulated it that way on purpose. Beside her left foot was a canvas bag (which I prayed held the rest of the bones), and in her right hand something pale and white glowed. And so did her eyes.

  Either she hadn’t done that before, or I hadn’t noticed it last time. Could be, this was a different spell, that’s all. What the fuck did I know about magic, anyway? Virtually nothing, that’s what.

  But I knew that a schizophrenic woman with a whole lotta power was on the verge of bringing down a building (somehow) in which I had (stupidly) left one of my only friends in the world, sitting outside a ladies’ room and twiddling his thumbs. And I also knew that last time’s strategy of “confront, accuse, and attack” hadn’t gone so smashingly, so this time I was going to bring her down like an antelope. It wouldn’t be personal, and it’d go down with regret, but I’d do what I had to do, now that I knew what needed to be done.

  I couldn’t tell if she’d seen me or not. She hadn’t acknowledged my presence at all, and she was preoccupied with destroying the space center, so it’s probably safe to say she had a lot on her mind and might not have been giving her surroundings her full, undivided attention. I used this to my advantage, sneaking up on her with my best burst of blinding quickness.

  I swept up the steps—there were about thirty of them, tiered like a fancy old library. Then, before she’d gotten a good look at me or seen what I was up to, I zoomed up behind her, swiped the bag at her feet, and slung it over my shoulder.

  I retreated to the overhang at the top of the stairs, out of her immediate reach though not, I guess, out of range of a tornado or whatever. I didn’t feel safe, but I felt like this was as good a defensive position as any. There in the shadows, I unzipped the bag and checked to make sure that yes, all was in order. It was full of penis bones.

  I watched her.

  At first, she didn’t notice that anything had happened. Why should she? She hadn’t seen anything, hadn’t heard anything, hadn’t expected any interruption. A chant was rising in her throat, moving incrementally from a gasp to a growl, to a normal speaking tone, and it could only get worse from there—or that’s how I looked at it.

  From my position close to the entrance doors, at the very top of the stairs, I called her name. “Elizabeth Creed.”

  I said it calmly, with as much authority as I could muster. I didn’t have to work too hard for it; after all, if all the bones that weren’t in her hand were in the bag, all I had to do was keep her from destroying Houston before the sun came up. Don’t ask me why, but that didn’t feel so daunting. This all sounded so much worse when I had to track her down and find her, too.


  She stopped chanting, surprising us both. The glow in her hand waned ever so slightly. She turned to look for me, and then spotted me. She cleared her throat and said, “You again.”

  “Me again, yes. Please—” I held out a hand to forestall whatever move or proclamation she was about to make. “I only want to talk.”

  I could tell by the way her eyes narrowed that she didn’t buy it, and she knew it for a goddamn fact when she looked down and saw that her satchel was gone. It was slung over my back, so not in her direct line of sight—but the incriminating strap across my chest no doubt told her plenty.

  “You want to talk?” she asked, a rhetorical uselessness if ever there was one. “Then tell me why you keep interrupting.”

  Barefoot, still holding those shoes dangling from my wrist, I descended a couple of stairs—bringing myself closer, but not so close that I looked aggressive. I wasn’t trying to threaten her; like an idiot, I was trying to connect with her. “I’m not trying to stop you. I was hired to get the bones, that’s all.”

  She absorbed this, considered it, and said, “I can see that you’ve got them. Mission accomplished?”

  “Except for the one you’re holding, basically, yeah. It’s nothing personal. It’s only money.”

  “It’s exactly the opposite of that,” she told me—in reference to her own situation, I assume. “Mistakes have to be unmade. I’m unmaking them.”

  “No, not really. You’re just destroying things and places that have made you angry. That doesn’t undo them. It just makes a big mess for other people to clean up.”

  “You’re wrong, but I don’t give a damn.”

  “Neither do I, as far as that goes. I realize you see it differently—”

  “Because I’m crazy?”

  “Well, you said it so I didn’t have to. But I’m not judging.”

  “How refreshing.”

  “No, you don’t understand. I … I have issues, too. Not the same as yours, but bad enough that I’ve spent a lifetime—longer than that, really—listening to the same things you have, I bet.”