by Drew Hayes
The . . . skinny? Sometimes I forgot how old Arch really was. But before I could comment on his word choice, Lillian gave her reply.
“If that’s what you really want, I can. Or I can pretend things are going fine. Doesn’t matter; sooner or later, they’re going to find out the truth. Petre is nothing if not thorough. He won’t stop digging until he finds the source of those amazing vampire rumors, and from the sound of things, there are certainly enough dots to connect him to Fredrick.” She halted, running a pale finger along the rim of her glass, creating a high-pitched whine. “As for why I’m giving you the heads up, I suppose I sort of like the idea that one of our kind can actually form relationships based on genuine affection. In the House of Turva, the only worth you have is how useful you are. After over a century of dealing with that bullshit, I wouldn’t mind seeing them take a failure or two.”
“Are all clans like that?” I asked. Though my question was directed at Lillian, it was Arch who answered.
“Vampire clans are organizations, and they work in different ways, but most of them have some form of hierarchy and need to keep people productive. Inter-clan conflict is almost a staple in the vampire world, so those who don’t shore up resources and numbers are leaving themselves open to takeover. The only thing that keeps them from building an army are the clan-size limits in the treaties, and, obviously, the conversion rate issue.”
While I wanted to ask about what the heck Arch meant by “conversion rate issue,” Krystal added on to his speech and steered my mind quickly away from the topic.
“Some clans are better than others. The Turvas are just especially aggressive, dickish specimens,” she explained. “All of them come with strings and rules, though. That’s why we built a condition into the treaties that exempts all vampire agents from their clan’s authority. If we didn’t, there would be no end to the special treatment and favors they’d be obligated to provide.”
“Bad or not, they do offer protection,” Lillian added. “Protection that you don’t have, Fredrick. My advice would be to abandon Colorado now, before anyone else puts this all together. We’ll be here for a long while, so as long as you leave the region, you should be fine. They might send a runner or two after you, but with an agent at your side, I hardly expect that to be an issue.”
“Damn right, it won’t be,” Krystal concurred. She turned in her chair, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Freddy, you said that if you needed to run, you would. I hate to be the voice of caution, but it sure seems like if there was any time to skip town, this would be it. I can have the jet prepped within a few hours.”
“Albert, Neil, and I would only be a half-day or so behind you,” Arch added. “And I assure you, they would be well protected until they reached Boarback.”
“What about Bubba and Amy?” I asked. “And Charlotte?”
“Amy Wells is a respected mage and student of the King of the West,” Lillian told us. “The clan has no way to come at her that would not invoke retribution. Same for Bubba Emerson, employee of Richard Alderson, whom we must keep in our good graces to survive.”
“As for me, I’m a fortress,” the waiter spoke up, earning a sideways stare from Lillian, who still didn’t know the true nature of the home she occupied. “I could easily keep a whole clan of vampires at bay, if they even decided to attack me. Which, honestly, seems unlikely. You already saved me, Fred. It’s time to save yourself.”
“From the mouths of magical houses,” Krystal muttered. “We have to go, Freddy. You heard Lillian. There’s no way they won’t come for you.”
No, actually, that wasn’t quite right. What she’d said, what lay at the core of all of this wasn’t the fact that I was a vampire. It was my being an unprotected vampire. Quinn the traitor, my sire, had screwed me once again by creating me as an abandoned vampire. But there might still be a way to keep myself—and my friends—safe, while staying in the town I considered home.
“What if . . . what if I joined a vampire clan?”
An Accountant in the City
1.
There were, admittedly, flaws in my plan, issues that Krystal was quick and vocal to make clear. Aligning myself with a different clan of vampires might solve my current problem, but it would undoubtedly open me up to a whole slew of new ones. No clan came without costs, and to throw in with one would mean owing allegiance to people whose goals and ideals didn’t always line up with my own.
Arch was the one who pointed out the more pragmatic issue: vampire clans weren’t often keen on taking outsiders, and we would be working with a limited time frame. Even if Lillian hid what she’d learned from her people, sooner or later there would be a target on my head, and if I hadn’t negotiated protection by then, I would out of luck.
Lillian, who I’d expected to be at least a little supportive of the idea, turned out to be my staunchest opponent, insisting that it was better to run as a free vampire than seek shelter in the cage of a clan. Her metaphor, not mine. The fact that she was the only one of us who was actually part of a vampire clan wasn’t lost on me; yet, all the same, I couldn’t bear to let the idea go entirely. Once I did, all that remained was running, and while I’d never had any issue with fleeing from danger before, something about this occasion just stuck in my gut. I couldn’t explain it, but the idea of abandoning Winslow, of starting a new life in Boarback, seemed intolerable. Which was strange, all things considered, because I’d really liked our vacation there.
Eventually, the bickering wore down as dawn approached. It seemed prudent to get some rest and think things over. Arch and Lillian went to their own rooms, while I followed Krystal up the stairs to hers. We dressed for bed in silence, slipping out of our night’s clothes—stained with blood and soot, respectively—and into comfortable pajamas. Keeping a small stash of clothes in her room had begun as a precaution and was quickly turning into a frequently needed asset. Sliding under the covers, I reached for her, but found she’d taken a perch near the edge of the mattress.
“Why are you doing this?” Her tone wasn’t one of gentle concern, or frustration, like I’d been expecting. No, I’d heard Krystal pissed off enough to know what her anger sounded like, and there was quite a bit of it in her demand for explanation.
“I just don’t want to leave town if I don’t have to,” I said.
“It’s just a place. Buildings and streets and shitty, overpriced restaurants. Our families don’t live nearby. Neither of us is even from here. I know you’ll miss the friends who stay, but life means starting over sometimes. I’ve had to do it a lot, and no one was trying to kill me. So tell me, really, why the hell are you being so stubborn on this?”
“Honestly . . . I’m not even sure I know.” Despite the fact that the room was dark, I could still see the ceiling perfectly as I stared up at it from the soft bed.
“Do you think it’s brave? That refusing to budge is manly? Because it’s not. It’s self-destructive, and pig-headed, and damn it, that’s my job in this relationship. I don’t need someone who is unwilling to bend. You’re supposed to be the sane one, Freddy. The one who makes the calls that are actually good for us.” Despite the fact that her fury seemed to be growing, she scooted a bit closer to me, away from the bed’s edge.
“I don’t think it’s brave at all. I know it’s stupid, that I’m being stupid, but I just . . . you were wrong a few seconds ago,” I said. “About us not having family nearby. We have Bubba, and Amy, and Charlotte, and Richard and Sally, and even Gideon, if you count him as the scary cousin with tattoos and a rap sheet. Yes, Albert and Neil would come with us, but we’d have to leave so much behind. Resetting our lives for a good cause or each other is one thing; I don’t want you to think for a moment that I wouldn’t be willing to do that. But I’ve never had something like this before. A community. A family that genuinely cared about each other. The idea of leaving it all behind is more than I can stand.”
Krystal moved closer, wrapping her arm over my chest. “It’s harder to run away when you have
to actually leave something behind.”
“Guess I never had anything worth missing before.” I pulled her in close, holding her in the darkness that never seemed dark to my altered eyes. “Am I totally off base with this idea? Be brutal with me. If it’s just going to cause everyone more pain, if it will leave us worse off, if you say it’s a lost cause, then I’ll let it go.”
“You will?”
“I trust you, Krystal. With my life. And no one knows more about this stuff than you do—at least, no one in my social circle. Well, except maybe Arch, but he’s got his own desires to look after. The point is, if you tell me there’s no hope in coming out ahead on this, then I’ll believe you. We can catch the plane to Boarback after dusk.”
Instead of the expected and immediate barrage of reasons why that idea was idiotic, Krystal greeted my request with a long pause of silence. Most who knew Krystal Jenkins operated under the impression that she was impulsive, and that was a very accurate impression indeed. What many people missed, however, was that when a decision truly mattered, she showed more care with it than anyone else I’d ever encountered. That was why I didn’t object to the silence as she thought the problem through; I merely listened to the sound of her breathing from a few inches away.
“Joining a clan just to stay in Winslow is an overreaction,” she finally began. “You’re taking way too big of a jump to handle a problem that could be solved with just a sidestep of location. But the truth is that you’re ageless now, Freddy. There will be more problems in the future, and running might not solve all of them. Belonging to a clan of vampires actually would be helpful in a lot of ways down the line. You understand that the act of joining opens up a myriad of problems all its own, but the clans thrive for a reason. At least as a member, you’d only have to deal with one clan’s bullshit, instead of every House of Whatever that wants to hassle you.”
“So, joining up now might not be worth it for dodging the Turvas, but it could pay off overall in the long run,” I summarized.
“Maybe. You don’t age, but I think we’ve both been around the block enough times to know that that doesn’t mean something else couldn’t knock you off the mortal plane.” Krystal laid her hand on my chest, just above where my undead heart lay. “Though I’d make sure whoever took you regretted it, I’ve seen too much death to think even I could prevent it. No one is promised an eternity, Freddy. No one knows how long they get. You might be trading some wonderful years down in Boarback with me for kissing the ass of some vampire house’s leader and scampering about at their every order.”
“You do know how to make a compelling case for Boarback,” I admitted. “But that seems like a worst-case scenario. We have a little time, here; Lillian said she’d keep the truth a secret for now if I asked. How about I at least do a little research into the vampire clans and see if there’s one who aligns with my own general sentiments?”
A hot wash of air splashed over my chest as Krystal snorted. “Freddy, vampire clans are notoriously tight-lipped about what they do and what their long-term goals are. They file exactly the paperwork the treaties demand each year, and no more. Everything they can conceal, they do, from the Agency and from other clans. You can’t just look that kind of shit up on the internet.”
“Oh. I guess I just assumed someone would know something. I mean, Arch always seems to have the inside track on everything.”
“When you’ve been around as long as him, you’ll seem that way too,” Krystal said. “But he’s still an agent, which means he has way too much on his plate to keep up with the scheming and regime changes of every vampire clan out there. We have some analysts who do monitor what they can in that area, but pretty much all of that is confidential.”
“Well, crud. There goes my brilliant idea of doing research.” I gazed into the depths of the ceiling’s tilework, wondering if I’d be able to get Charlotte a contractor to do updates from Boarback. With no way of knowing who I’d be throwing in with, my idea seemed dead in the water. I was willing to take some risk to stay near my friends and business, but blindly joining up with a vampire organization was a step too far. I might just as easily throw in with someone as bad as the House of Turva, if not worse.
“There might be one person who can fill you in, but you won’t like it.” Krystal muttered the words slowly, like she was pulling them out of her mouth by sheer force of will. “Someone who was around when the treaties were created, and got a sense of every clan’s leader at the time. Someone who keeps an ear to the ground for schemes and rumors, and isn’t beholden to any sort of confidentiality agreement. If he’s willing, he could probably give you at least a basic understanding of most vampire clans.”
Dense as I could sometimes be in regards to all things parahuman, the dots of this suggestion were large enough that even I could connect them. So far as I was aware, I only knew one person who was alive when the treaties were signed, which is to say, when America itself was founded. And he certainly would have been a part of the process, given the title he still held. Plus, since he was watching over a therian child, he would assuredly keep his ears perked for any sudden ambition or regime changes, lest they find their way to Winslow, Colorado.
“I have to go talk to Gideon,” I said, trying to think of another option and failing miserably.
“Told you, you wouldn’t like it.”
2.
To say that Gideon and I had a complicated relationship would probably imply a familiarity that wasn’t actually there. The first time we met, I’d fallen under the sway of his draconic aura, as all vampires did, and become a terrified, catatonic mess on the floor who’d had to be physically hauled out. The second time, I’d been kidnapped along with Sally Alderson, and he’d given me a single drop of his blood so I could withstand the aura and get her to safety. Our third meeting was the strangest, though, in which I’d slipped into a magical cage surrounding him and become a vessel for his magic so he could break free, all in order to stop the dragon who’d taken his place. That last one had actually been the most awkward of our encounters, and not just because it left me with the silver immunity as a side effect.
No, what had made that experience so strange was that, in conducting Gideon’s power, I’d gotten a sense of just how strong he really was. If the draconic aura had conveyed how scared I actually should have been in our first meeting, I probably would have never recovered and instead just spent my undead life as a weeping mess on the floor. Knowing that power like Gideon’s even existed terrified me in a way that went beyond fear of death. It was the first time that I’d understood just how great the divide between myself and the King of the West truly was. Powerful as vampires might be, we were still just augmented humans. Gideon was a living force of nature.
Some part of me suspected he knew what I’d seen, which was why Gideon had been absent every time I visited Richards in the months that followed. Perhaps it was out of deference to the fact that he didn’t want me to give in to fear, or maybe he just didn’t feel like dealing with me clumsily trying to kiss up lest he smite me with a thought. Whatever the reason, when I dialed Richard that afternoon and asked for a meeting with Gideon, I fully expected to be rebuffed. Even if he wasn’t avoiding me, Gideon was still the King of the West; he had every right to tell me his time was worth more than my petty requests.
Which made it all the more surprising when Richard told me that Gideon would see me at ten, after Sally went to bed. I should have been relieved—this meant my plan still had a bit of traction—and a small part of me was. It was just dwarfed by the far vaster side that was terrified at the realization I’d booked a meeting with an ancient dragon to ask his advice on which vampire clan I should try to join. My best hope was that he found it amusing and didn’t take offense. Otherwise, the whole issue of my safety could become very moot, very quickly.
As the sun was nearing the edge of the horizon, Krystal and Arch came downstairs for our nocturnal version of breakfast, followed by Lillian a few minutes later.
“What’s on the docket for tonight, boss?” she asked. She wore the same outfit as before, though it had been cleaned and pressed since she went to bed. Charlotte’s laundering skills were like the rest of her hospitality abilities: flawless.
“Don’t you need to head back to Petre and report on me?” I asked.
Lillian rolled her eyes while helping herself to the plate of eggs one of the Charlotte-waiters had set down in front of her. “I’m supposed to be covertly investigating you, remember? Wouldn’t make much sense for me to run back to the clan every night. They’ll be expecting me to hang around for at least a few days, worming my way in and getting the account details. I’ve probably got three more nights, this one included, before I need to report back and make sure things look like they’re on track.”
“Lillian, I wanted to ask you this last night, but there wasn’t quite the opportunity,” Arch said, exercising a lot more diplomacy than I usually saw from him. “If you cover for Fred, pretend you didn’t realize he was the vampire Petre’s hunting for, will there be consequences for you?”
“Oh yeah, Petre’s going to be mad as hell,” Lillian confirmed. “Even if he believes me that it was an accident, that’s the same as failure in the House of Turva. They’ll probably keep me off blood for a week or so as punishment.”
It took her three bites of eggs before she realized we were all staring at her in silence. Lowering her fork, she let her practiced smile shrink by several degrees, if not fall away entirely. “It’s okay. This isn’t the first time I’ve disappointed my sire, and it won’t be the last. I’ve had to go a month without blood in the past, so a few weeks is nothing. Sometimes, they punish me for things way beyond my scope of control. I’d much prefer to take this one for something I decide is worthwhile.”