Absolution (11 page)

Shards of panic and doubt wedged themselves into Matthias’s heart. He made a lot of money under the table through the committee and gained power and business connections through his Tribunal position. To lose it was unimaginable. The humiliation. The disgrace.

A vampire’s worth was only as good as the power he wielded, the contacts he maintained, the favors owed him. Matthias had been vampire a much shorter time than most of these insufferable Tribunal bureaucrats, and he’d risen through the ranks because of his unblinking willingness to do anything it took to get the power he needed. Leading by fear was highly underrated, in his experience. And he wasn’t conceding defeat to Renz, ever.

He kept his voice as steady as he could, hiding his fury behind a facade of bored resignation. “Of course I’m disappointed in my son, but William’s whereabouts have nothing to do with this, and the allegations that I would supply anyone with tainted blood are ludicrous. I simply wanted confirmation that Aidan Murphy has amassed a scathe of more than thirty vampires and more than fifty unvaccinated humans who’ve been bonded to him and his lieutenants—one of whom is the Slayer.”

“Mirren Kincaid is alive?” Frank Greisser leaned back in his chair, shocked, and Matthias felt a tinge of relief. He could divert their attention with Kincaid.

“Not only alive, but also has pledged fealty to Murphy as his second-in-command. Mirren Kincaid has no love for the Tribunal.”

“Where Kincaid lives is irrelevant,” Renz said, his gaze traveling around the room as if gauging the temperature of each Tribunal member. “Vampire law doesn’t specify how large a scathe can be built by a master vampire, nor does it limit who pays fealty to whom. Aidan Murphy has broken none of our laws. And Mirren Kincaid left no friends on the Tribunal, but he, too, broke no laws of which I am aware.”

Frank leaned back, frowning. “Still, a bonded community of more than eighty, if Mathias’s numbers are correct…Should he attempt to seize power, if vampires such as Mirren Kincaid have thrown in their lots with him, it could provide a real threat to the Tribunal’s authority.”

Renz shoved the papers back inside his briefcase. “That number is unsubstantiated. As I have reminded you, there is nothing in our law that dictates the size of a scathe, and I know Aidan very well. He has no interest in challenging the Tribunal. God knows, we’ve tried to get him to take a seat among us often enough. You know he is honorable.”

Matthias wasn’t backing down. With Renz out of the picture, the rest of these bureaucrats could be swayed. “In normal times, I agree that it wouldn’t be of concern. But our people are starving, and we haven’t been able to come up with a viable solution to the pandemic issue. It makes us appear weak to allow one of our master vampires to create his own little well-fed kingdom. With everyone bonded to him or his lieutenants, he can keep out anyone he hasn’t invited.”

Renz pounded the table. “So you punish someone who’s come up with a workable solution? Jesus, Matthias—we should be encouraging others to do the same thing. I’ve visited Penton; Aidan has made it work. You’re just angry that he commands more respect than you—even with your own son.”

“Gentlemen.” Frank rose, and his anger-fueled power rippled across Matthias’s skin. He saw Renz shiver across the table, and the other Tribunal members, who’d remained silent, shifted in their chairs. “I agree that Aidan’s group in Penton needs watching, but that is Margaret’s job as head of the US vampire communities. Unless it can be proven that the Penton scathe has broken our laws, it is not the purview of the Justice Council.”

“I propose that we vote today, at least, on removing Matthias Ludlam from his position as head of the Justice Council and that we convene later to discuss his removal from the Tribunal.” Renz virtually preened, and Matthias had to clutch the arms of his chair to keep from lunging across the table at the bastard.

Frank paused a long moment before nodding. He pulled a gold case from his pocket and extracted a small pile of cards. “We will take a confidential written vote as to whether or not Matthias Ludlam should be removed from the Justice Council. Matthias, if you will wait outside?”

Matthias rose in a daze and fumbled his way into the hallway without a word. He’d kill Aidan Murphy and his lapdog Lorenzo Caias. Not right away, not while the Tribunal watched him, but he would kill them. And God help William if he got in the way.

It took less than five minutes. The door opened, and Frank Greisser stepped out, shaking his head. “The vote to remove you from the Justice Council was unanimous—Renz had done his homework, and it left us no choice. But I’ve convinced the others to table a discussion about removing you from the Tribunal until, and if, Renz finds more conclusive evidence against you. You’ve been a valued member for many years.”

Frank dropped his voice. “I’d advise you to keep a low profile for a while. And if there’s anything Lorenzo Caias can find to nail your proverbial coffin shut, take care of it. He thinks of Aidan Murphy like a son, so you’re in his crosshairs.”

Matthias’s shock-numbed mind felt disconnected from his body as he took the elevator to the first floor, retrieved his overcoat, dismissed his driver, and exited the club. He set out on the ten-block walk to his brownstone along the slushy sidewalks, and gradually, the cold air cleared his head.

There was nothing he could do about the Justice Council—the decision had been made. And before he could think about how to take down his enemies, he had to secure his continued place on the Tribunal. There was only one person who could tie him to illegal activity and put his head in the noose, literally.

He had to track down that damned little junkie human Mirren Kincaid had taken with him before that nosy Brazilian found out about her and make sure she never, ever talked.

CHAPTER 11

G
lory sat on the bed in her room at the Penton clinic wearing more borrowed clothes, waiting for someone to take her…somewhere. She wasn’t quite clear on where. She hadn’t seen Mirren again after he’d left her room, but Aidan Murphy had visited just before dawn and told her he and his scathe leaders agreed she should stay in Penton for her own safety, at least for a while.

A scathe, as near as she could tell, was kind of like a family—something Sir Matthias sure didn’t seem to have. And Aidan had told her she’d need to be bonded to one of them so no stray vampires who might wander in could feed from her. Apparently, as the vampire starvation threat got more pronounced, hungry vampires wandered around willy-nilly in search of walking blood banks, aka humans. Her words, not Aidan’s. He was very polite, very oozing-with-sincerity. She preferred Mirren’s direct, in-your-face style.

Aidan had gotten the address of her apartment in Roswell and offered to have someone close it out, get her stuff, pay off her lease, and try to retrieve her car—if it was still at the Circle K. He warned that some of Matthias’s men might be watching it already, however.

Glory had thought about it, but finally told him not to bother. Her furniture was crap, and her car had probably been stolen or stripped down to parts. It bothered her that her landlord would think she’d skipped out on her lease, because she always paid her way. She’d have to find a means of earning another month’s rent and mail it to him. Although, since her stuff was there, people would assume she’d become one of those women who up and disappeared every once in a while, only to have her skeletal remains found in the woods a year later.

Glory had to wonder how many of those women had been taken by vampires.

Where she would live, how she would make money to live on, exactly what this bonding business entailed—Aidan hadn’t told her any of that, and by the time he’d left with his vampire-doctor wife, heading off to wherever vampires spent their days, her head spun. Not from drug withdrawal, but from too many changes, too fast, and from an uncertain future.

“You ready to go?” Melissa Calvert stood in the doorway. Melissa Calvert, the strawberry-blonde
human
. Glory vaguely remembered her being around during her first days here, but the last day or two was the first time she’d been coherent enough, out of her drug-induced stupor, to talk. And she liked Melissa. At twenty-seven, Melissa was only two years older than Glory, and she was talkative and friendly.

Glory stood up and didn’t waste time looking around. She had no material possessions left, not even the raggedy clothes she’d been wearing during her abduction. She hadn’t asked what they’d done with them and didn’t care. “Not much to get ready. If it wasn’t for you loaning me clothes, I’d be running around naked. Not that I know where I’m going.”

Melissa laughed, a happy sound that Glory realized she hadn’t heard very often in her life, even before she got mixed up with vampires. So far, the fanged set hadn’t struck her as a cheery lot on the whole.

“Oh, sweetie, we’ve got to have a talk,” Melissa said. “Come on, I’ll give you the introductory lesson in Penton 101.”

Glory found herself smiling as she followed Melissa down the clinic hallway and out the front door. The air had turned from damp cold to pleasant springtime while she’d been in what she’d begun to think of as her
Dark Shadows
fugue, and she inhaled deeply of air that smelled like pine and dogwood. A row of brilliant pink azaleas bloomed in front of the small clinic parking lot. And it was so freaking
quiet
here. No blasting car horns, thumping bass lines, planes overhead. Just birds.

“How many people live in Penton?” She followed Melissa to a white Honda sedan. Melissa unlocked it and tossed her jacket in the backseat. She squinted her green eyes and shoved a lock of out-of-control curly hair out of her eyes. Glory envied those curls; her hair wouldn’t curl if her life depended on it. “One hundred and seventy-five. No, wait. We lost a few people just after the first of the year, then added a few. Maybe one sixty, something like that. Crazy small, isn’t it?”

Glory laughed. “I grew up in a little town in Georgia not much bigger, so it feels kind of like home to me.” Well, home without recriminations and feeling like an outcast. No one here had made her feel like a freak, so far. Maybe if you hung out with vampires—or were one—it took more to make someone a freak. Of course, no one knew about her gift, either, except whoever Mirren had told. Aidan, probably. Maybe the blond guy. She couldn’t imagine Mirren had told anyone he didn’t have to; he sure didn’t seem like the gossipy type.

Melissa cranked the car before Glory got in, and turned down the oldies rock station on the radio so they could talk. “You want to stop for breakfast?”

Glory slid into the passenger seat and reached out to pull the door closed. Melissa and Dr. Krys had been bringing her standard diner fare for the last couple of days, sandwiches wrapped in wax paper that bled grease into the brown bags they’d been packed in. She liked her new slimmer figure, but she was starving. “Please, I’d love it. Only…”
Crap.
“I don’t have any money, so I’ll have to owe you. I don’t even have a purse. Maybe you can tell me where I might find a job here?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Melissa adjusted her rearview mirror. “Mirren’s sponsoring you.”

Huh?
Glory slammed the door on her foot. She barely noted the pain as she wiggled her toes to make sure nothing had broken. “What do you mean, Mirren is sponsoring me?” Did she really want to know the answer to that? “Because nobody pays my way. I want to work. I’ve always worked for what I had, and just because they’re vampires and rich as God, it doesn’t change who I am. And I’ll tell Mirren Kincaid that myself whenever he…wakes up, or whatever it is vampires do.”

Melissa whooped as she pulled out of the clinic lot and turned left, her laughter filling the small car. “Oh, it’s going to be such
fun
having you here.”

Yeah, fun. She still hadn’t said what
sponsoring
meant.

Glory was diverted from asking again by their entrance into downtown Penton, a short row of small storefronts lining both sides of the four-lane street. No litter lay on the pavement or sidewalks, and landscaping filled with flowers and greenery prettied most corners. Quite a few people bustled in and out of businesses—a hardware store, a shop that looked like it sold women’s clothes, a small supermarket. On the left, just before they reached what appeared to be Penton’s only traffic light, sat the charred remains of a building with its own small parking lot.