Bloody Acquisitions (Fred Book 3) (26 page)

“You didn’t ‘fix’ anything,” I told her. “You just made my clients afraid.”

“They
should
be afraid.” Her surprise was morphing to puzzlement before my eyes. “You are a vampire, one of the most feared and powerful types of parahumans out there. The very fact that they continued speaking when you entered the room was a slap in the face. All I did was restore the natural order. And without touching a single person, I might add.”

I think I would have preferred it if Lillian had been at least a little miffed as she spoke. If she were angry, then I could have pretended the words came without thought and forgiven them as such. But Lillian wasn’t mad. She didn’t even seem overly prideful as she spoke of the natural order. The only emotion that came across was confusion, like I was the weird one. Which, when viewed objectively, I suppose I was.

“Is that what it’s like inside your clan?” I asked. “Vampires are seen as the best, and the other parahumans are lesser?”

“Not the best, just among the top. We’re aware of our abilities, and our limitations,” Lillian countered. “As for the others, the satyrs and mages and therians, they are our food, Fredrick, just like the humans. A bit more difficult to hunt, but the nutrition is far superior. Or are you honestly saying that you don’t use this job as a way to get in close to other parahumans so you can feed on them?”

Slowly, I lowered my head until the rims of my glasses were pressed against the steering wheel’s leather.
That
was what she, what her clan, thought I was doing? Running an elaborate ruse to take blood from unsuspecting parahumans? Everything came into sharper focus now. Lillian wasn’t here to learn about me, she was here to learn about my business. How it worked, and likely how it could be replicated. A blood-stealing venture that flew under the nose of a man like Richard was the sort of thing any worthwhile clan would be interested in.

“Lillian, I am going to say this once, and only once, so please listen carefully. I do
not
feed on other parahumans. Or regular humans, for that matter. I buy my blood through the Agency’s supply system. My accounting business is not a way for me to drink from anyone. It’s just an accounting business. Parahumans run businesses, and they sometimes need as much help as anyone else.”

“I’m sure they do, but if you’re not drinking from them, then why would you actually do this job?” Lillian asked.

“Because I like it. Because I’m good at it. Because it fills a very needed role in the parahuman community. Why do you think I was looking for new employees in the first place? There are so many of our kind out there who need the help I offer that there’s more business than I can handle,” I told her.

“Really? I mean . . . we just assumed you were either going to feed on the new employee or you wanted an accomplice to help make disposal easier,” Lillian said.

“I assure you, that is not the case. What I need is another accountant, someone who can help with the workload.” I raised my head from the steering wheel and looked at Lillian, who seemed oddly at peace with discovering she’d been lent to a real accountant rather than an ingenious blood thief. “There’s nothing hidden about me or my business. What you see is what you get.”

“That a fact?” Lillian leaned back, taking in my full profile. “While I’ll admit it doesn’t seem like you’re eating people, you can’t tell me there isn’t something going on here. You happen to know one of the preeminent mages in the state, are good enough friends with a therian to care about his health even as he’s attacking, and have what I’m pretty sure was a zombie on the payroll as your assistant. That’s not normal for a vampire, accountant or not.”

“What can I say? I was left without a clan.” Putting the car into drive, I swung us around, heading away from Gerda and Oskar’s ranch. “I didn’t get a ready-made family, or a template for who I was supposed to hate, so I ended up making friends with anyone I got along with, regardless of their parahuman traits.”

“So it seems. I am curious, though, since you’ve worked for Richard Alderson, have you ever had occasion to meet the King of the West?” She wasn’t even trying to hide how closely she was watching my face for a lie. The other things were small coincidences, nothing that linked me to the vampire of rumor. If I had a good relationship with a dragon, though . . . well, very few vampires could honestly claim such a thing.

“I met him on the first night I met Richard, actually,” I told her. “It was one of the absolute scariest experiences of my life, before and after undeath.”

“He wasn’t nice?” Lillian asked.

“He was
Gideon
.” I shuddered involuntarily at just the memory of that night. “Have you ever been near a dragon? Had their attention focused fully on you? That aura of theirs is like nothing else. Your body begins to spasm as your brain loses all cohesive thought, filling only with animalistic screams of panic and terror. It left me so catatonic that I had to be carried from the building. When I went back to work on Richard’s taxes, it was only something I could manage because Gideon wasn’t there.”

My words, carefully chosen, were all completely true. I just left out the part where Gideon came back to rescue Sally, giving me a drop of his blood so I could bring her home, and eventually filling me with more of it to later break him out of a magical cage. Disclosing all of that would pretty much mean the jig was up.

“I’ve met lesser dragons,” Lillian said, after soaking in my story. “And even they were impossible to function around. I can’t even imagine what the King of the West’s aura would be like.” She paused, watching the street signs go by as we drove back into a more developed neighborhood. “Do you really think there’s a vampire out there who was able to withstand it? The rumors people have been passing along, about a vampire who won the dragon’s respect . . . they must have a will of absolute iron, if they exist.”

“I can’t say I’ve ever met a vampire I thought was strong-willed enough to pull such a thing off.” A bit self-deprecating, if honest assessment of my own abilities, but still not a lie. “All I have learned since I became undead is that this is a much bigger, stranger world than I ever realized when I was alive. Maybe there is a vampire out there who can stand up to a dragon’s aura. If one of us can be happy as an accountant, that doesn’t seem any less unreasonable.”

“Still wrapping my head around that one,” Lillian said. “This is really it? You just . . . do people’s budgets and taxes and stuff? No intimidation, or forced feedings, or any of it?”

“I’m not sure how you think a business works, but I rely heavily on word of mouth for my clients. If I tried scaring them into doing what I wanted, or, heaven forbid, assaulted them, my reputation would fall apart within the span of a week. Which is why I had to come down so hard on you with Gerda and Oskar.” I pulled onto the small loop that circled Winslow, heading back to Charlotte Manor. After that last stop, it seemed prudent to call it an early night before more could go wrong.

“No, I get it now. I’m sorry. What I did was out of line. It’s just . . .” She tilted her head back, her dark hair bunching up on the headrest. “I’ve been with the Turva clan for so long. More years by far than I was alive for. They’re all about intimidation and power plays, the dominance of the vampire species. You live with that, surrounded by it all the time, and it’s easy to forget that there are other ways to get by.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing that I won’t be much help to them,” I said.

“Yeah.” A shadow that had nothing to do with the passing street lamps fell over Lillian’s face. “Someone who could get them parahuman blood under the table would have been a lot more useful than just an accountant.”

“Do I . . . should I be worried about not being useful?” My words hung in the air between us, the unspoken topic that had been present all night finally beginning to tear its way into reality. Lillian’s gaze wandered out the window again, watching the few other cars out so late zip by as we puttered along at the speed limit.

“Probably,” she said at last. “The House of Turva is moving into Winslow full force. They’ll play nice with the therians and stick to the treaties, since the King of the West is here, but they’ve never been much for competition. If you had the backing of a clan, that would be one thing; there’s a lot of politics involved when dealing with fellow clans. As an abandoned vampire, though . . . .” Lillian let her voice trail off. There wasn’t anything more that needed to be said. I wasn’t one of them, and without a clan to protect me, I had limited options. Be absorbed or be destroyed; those were my most likely scenarios. Absorption might not even be on the table.

We rode in silence the rest of the way back to Charlotte Manor. I wanted to press her for more, to ask about exactly what they might do. Part of me even wanted to ask her to lie, but that piece of me was foolish. Sooner or later, they’d realize the truth. Unless I actually started assaulting clients, it was an impossible façade to keep up. There was no sense in dragging Lillian down with me. She, at least, had given me a bit of warning.

Thanks to Lillian, if I wanted to, there was still time to book a ticket to Boarback.

That thought was heavy on my mind as I pulled into Charlotte Manor’s parking lot. I was so lost in my musings that I almost didn’t notice the unfamiliar gray minivan parked a few spaces up. It had government plates, and no windows aside from those in the front. Part of me wondered if the Turva clan was moving already, somehow getting the word that I was useless to them. Then, before my eyes, the back of the van was ripped off from the inside, revealing three white creatures with snapping jaws. If I lived a thousand years, I would never forget that sound. It haunted my nightmares, was tied to one of my worst memories. Dozens of those things had surrounded us the night Quinn kidnapped Krystal, the night he almost killed me.

The night I saw him tear out her throat, before I knew such wounds only made her stronger. Ghouls, that’s what was leaping out of the van. Mindless appetites given physical form, they knew only hunger. And, before I could so much as yell, they were racing right toward my car.

9.

A whole lot happened in a very short span of time. I screamed at the ghouls’ approach, while Lillian’s hand dipped into her pantsuit and came out with a knife that looked like it was built to carve bone. The ghouls raced toward my car, their jaws clacking and eyes empty as they endeavored to lock those crooked teeth around our flesh. Gunshots rang through the night, turning two of the ghouls’ skulls to mist and shattering my windshield. Because of the cracks, I could only barely see someone bolt around from the other side of the van, tackling the third ghoul and pressing a weapon to its temple. Another shot, and the monster went limp.

Lillian was out the door before I could say a word, so I forced my hands to grab the handle and yank it open, determined not to let her face whatever lurked out there alone. As it turned out, the well-meaning gesture was wasted. Not a single ghoul was left moving, or even with their skulls intact. What did greet us, however, was Krystal sitting atop the third ghoul’s back, blood all over her sweatshirt as she removed her gun from the chunky mess that used to be its head. She glanced up, noticing Lillian and me for the first time.

“You’re . . . uh . . . you’re home early, Freddy. Kind of thought we had another hour or so before you showed up.”

“We?” I’d barely gotten the question out when it was answered; Arch came walking around from the other side of the van, his own gun still out and ready to fire. I had a pretty good idea who’d taken out the first two ghouls with those perfect headshots; Krystal was good, but not flawless.

“You just smoked those things.” Lillian was gazing at Krystal and Arch with a new expression, one I’d yet to see on her serene, always-certain face. Fear. Even if it hadn’t been said out loud, she knew what she was looking at. The pieces were falling into place in her subconscious, and her sense of vampire superiority was crumbling quickly. “I thought you did software design.”

“Would you believe I also play a lot of first-person shooters?” Krystal asked. Her glasses were gone, left off since she hadn’t been planning on playing her part so soon, and the deferential attitude was just as absent. She was on the clock, which meant the real Krystal had resurfaced, and there didn’t seem to be much purpose in pretending otherwise.

“Fredrick, your girlfriend is an agent!” For a moment, I thought it was an accusation, which I was more than braced for. Then I caught sight of the panic in her eyes and the frantic gestures she was making. Lillian was trying to warn me, to give me a chance to escape. Even if I’d wanted to move, though, I couldn’t. The sudden crushing boulder of guilt over deceiving her was weighing me down far too much to manage even a shuffle.

“Lillian . . . I know.” Had I shot her, I don’t think she could have looked more surprised. It seemed like we might get to find out, though, as Arch turned his weapon toward Lillian.

“It seems like this is the sort of conversation best had inside, wouldn’t we all agree?” Arch’s tone wasn’t exactly what I would call cordial—he was still Arch, after all—but it was calm, which meant a lot since there were three ghoul corpses bleeding on the ground and he was holding a gun on one of us.

“Is that a threat, or a request?” Lillian spat, eyes never wavering from his weapon.

“Mandatory debriefing. You just witnessed three captured parahumans try to escape custody. We need get your account of how it went down for the record, and to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Arch kept his weapon aimed, but nodded his head toward Charlotte Manor. “I can cite the treaty precedent, if you need it.”