Hellbent (36 page)

“I’ve only seen the one blip so far, but that might not mean anything. If only these stupid screens were closer together.”

“I know, right? Wait, hang on.” I examined the farthest screen, realized it wasn’t hooked up to anything that couldn’t be
unhooked for the purpose of moving it, and yanked it off the wall. “Here,” I said. “Prop it up there, for easier watching.”

The connecting lines now ran across the panel, but that was okay. I was getting the hang of this.

“Okay,” I declared, and I began to narrate. “I was confused at first because the screens and the sensors aren’t lined up with their controls, but I think I’ve got it now. This screen here is connected to that panel there; those screens answer to these keys; that screen ties to this section.”

“It’s like this was designed by monkeys.”

“No shit. This slate over here handles the windows, I think—they’re on an electric current system, a little old-fashioned but perfectly serviceable. This same section of buttons and levers probably also handles the doors, and … and … 
this.
” I found the newest slab of electro-tech, which had an LED readout but not a black-and-white screen. “This is for the pressure pad in front of the back door. I’d bet money on it.”

“There’s a what-now?”

“A pressure-sensitive sensor. It—”

He cut me off. “I know what it is, I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I had no idea they’d put one in, that’s all. How did
you
know about it?”

“I felt it when we came inside.”

“You must have very sensitive feet.”

“Outrageously so, yes.”

“Or,” he said drily, “you have a very interesting primary career back there on the West Coast.”

“That, too. But don’t jump to conclusions just because I know what to look for.” Though for real, his conclusion-jumping was on base as likely as not. I’m not sure why I bothered to attempt a disclaimer, but with that, I flipped the switch to silence the beeping.
The immediate quiet startled us both, even though I, for one, knew it was coming.

“Now …” His eyes were locked on the screens, now conveniently positioned more or less in front of him.

I withdrew from the console and went to stand beside him so I could watch, too. “Now what?”

“Now we see what our visitor is getting up to. Can you tell if he’s breached the house itself yet?”

I checked the panel and saw that the circuits were still unbroken. “Not yet. So far, he’s staying outside. Maybe he’s just looking.”

“Like hell he is. He’s back, and God knows what for this time.”

“Back?”

“Yes,
back
. For you. Me. Them. I don’t know. But this same thing—all this scoping, swooping around, and sneaking—it happened the night William Renner died, too.”

“Were you here that night?”

“Yes. They were nervous about him. They didn’t want him here, but stood to lose a lot of face if they didn’t extend the hospitality. They were so damn desperate to keep anything from interfering with their Chicago merger that they had to put up the show. But they invited me to help keep an eye on him.” He delivered the last sentence with a dash of ironic disgust.

“And I guess we all know how
that
worked out.” Then I caught myself with a mouthful of foot, and said, “Not that I’m saying you had anything to do with it. Just that whatever happened—”

He shook his head and waved a hand at me. “No, it’s all right. It wasn’t my job to protect him. It was my job to protect
them
. Still, it’s hard not to feel a little egg on my face.”

Together we scanned the screens, and I kept one eye on the console lights. We were waiting, anxious because we didn’t know what we were waiting for. But it was out there, and it was coming, and we both knew it.

I noted, “You said he got himself killed.”

“As if you bought the line about his suicide.”

“No, you’re right. That was a bullshit pizza, and any idiot could smell it a mile away. How did he really die?”

“I’m not positive, but I can guess.” He hesitated.

“But you’re not supposed to tell me, I get it. All that stuff about transparency, cooperation, yada yada yada—we all knew it was just for show. I understand if you’re tied up with them, or tied to them, whatever. You’ve got lots to lose if you go against their wishes.”

“I suppose.”

Something about his tone made me not quite believe him. “Look, I don’t know what your arrangement is, so I can’t hold it against you if you don’t want to share. But it’s worth pointing out that I’m here with the specific intent of preventing something really bad from escalating up to the level of international incident.”

“International?”

“ ‘International’ sounds more dramatic than ‘interstate,’ don’t you think?”

“I do.”

After a long moment wherein we both pretended to dedicate our full attention to the screens, he finally spoke. “Let me ask you a question first, and if you answer it honestly, I’ll respond likewise. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“How powerful is the Renner House? Strong enough to knock down the Barringtons, should it turn out to be worth their time?”

“That’s hard to say without knowing more about the Barringtons. How many others are there—inner-circle-wise?”

“Not many. Two or three not-quite-children who have been orphaned from other places. It’s strange, how the Barringtons have chosen their kind for the last … I don’t know how long. As long as I’ve been acquainted with them, so let’s say forty years or so.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“Theresa got this idea that the line had become inbred, which wasn’t a far cry from the truth. She wanted to bring in new blood, reinvigorate the House with new people.”

“A worthy goal.”

“Yes, but the way she went about it … that’s the odd part. She was obsessed with the idea that her children weren’t devoted enough—that they’d leave her, or overthrow her one of these days. And Paul wasn’t too far behind her. He’s more arrogant than she is, and even happier about the prospect of control. She wanted it because she’s insecure; he wanted it to feed his ego.”

“But how do you guarantee loyalty?” I wanted to know. “Money won’t always do it, and money is the glue that holds civilization together. Makes the world go ’round, or that’s how I hear it.”

“I heard it was love, but maybe we listen to different radio stations. You’re right, though. Money wouldn’t do it. She didn’t want people on her payroll. She wanted addicts to be controlled. So she hooked up with this chemist from the east side, about twenty years ago. Between them, they developed a drug they could use to keep the newbies close to home. Nothing’s hard to escape like a bad habit, right? She tried it on a handful of kids but it didn’t work like the charm she’d hoped. There were too many side effects, like rage and paranoia. And besides that, the resentment ate them alive, until they either ran away or she killed them.”

I said “Hmm” because it lined up neatly with what I knew of Adrian’s sister—a young vampire in peculiarly poor health, begging for help, escaping her House and being left to her own devices … oh yes. The pieces fit nicely. Or horribly, as Adrian would probably see it.

“But you didn’t answer my question,” Clifford noted.

Drat his perceptiveness.

“I’m sorry. I got sidetracked.” And as I pondered how much to tell him, another blip went dashing across the screen—right to left, in front of the gate and around the inner edge of the wall. “Did you see that?”

“I did. He’s headed back to the east side. I think he’s covered the whole perimeter now. There’s nothing left for him to do but make a play to get inside. But I still want an answer to that question.”

Fine. “The answer is yes. Honestly, I think the Renner House could wipe this place off the map. I wouldn’t have thought so until tonight, but meeting these maniacs has sealed it for me.”

“Does San Francisco know this?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Do you plan to tell them?”

“I haven’t decided yet. But I probably will.”

He was no longer looking at the monitors, but looking at me. “You don’t give a shit about the San Fran House. What are you really doing here?”

“I believe that’s more questions than I agreed to answer.”

“Answer anyway.”

“No,” I told him. “Not until you tell me what
you’re
really doing here. You aren’t like the Barringtons, and it’s obvious enough that you don’t care for them. They drive you nuts, and they treat you like something they found on the bottom of their
shoes. I didn’t know Macon even
had
a House. Are you really part of their family?”

“Sort of. The Macon House isn’t much to speak of. There are only three of us, and we keep to ourselves.”

“I see. So if you want any authority or muscle, you have to keep yourself allied with these yahoos.”

“That about sums it up. Now what about you?”

“I’m not sure you’d believe me if I told you.” And I had no intention of telling him that I was here because my favorite blind vampire was in hot water, and my not-a-ghoul had lost a sister. “But it boils down to San Francisco wanting to know what the hell happened here, before Atlanta and Chicago come down on it and install a pet judge to drive California crazy. Maximilian sent me here in case I could turn up something that would derail—or at least delay—Atlanta’s efforts to mount a hostile takeover.”

“But you’re not one of the California people.”

“Look, buddy—I’m trying to help some friends, okay?”

I might’ve gone on, but right at that moment something landed hard on the roof.

If we hadn’t been vampires, we wouldn’t have heard it. It only reached us as a dull thump—something that could’ve been mistaken for the shutting of a door or the dropping of a heavy book. But we did hear it, and we both jerked our eyes up to the ceiling like a couple of dumb-asses—since neither one of us had X-ray vision.

Then we looked quickly at each other.

“He could be doing anything up there—setting the place on fire, cutting a hole in the roof …”

“Hanging out, disabling cameras,” I said, noting that the second screen with four quadrants had just lost the feed from the top of the chimney. “Were those new?”

“I don’t know.”

“How should we play this?” I asked him. “Do we go up there and try to take him down? We don’t even know if he’s alone.”

“I haven’t seen anything to indicate anyone else, have you?”

“No, but that might only mean that they’re really, really good.”

“Shit,” he cursed. “You’re right.” He leaned out of the small room, looking back and forth down the halls. Seeing no one, he said, “Between you and me, I’m tempted to say, ‘Let him have it.’ Maybe it’s time this dynasty rolled over and died. It’s been badly, stupidly run for decades. The Barringtons are coasting on their reputation, getting by because they stay so insular nobody knows how weak they’ve grown. Christ, the big fucking babies all bolted for their ironclad closet the moment that alarm went off!”

“They
do
seem a bit skittish.”

“I’m not saying they’re fragile. I’m saying they’re dumb, and they were given power without responsibility. They took it, and they wrung it dry.”

“And now you want it, don’t you?” I asked him levelly, even as I tried to track the sound of footsteps above—and I watched one more camera feed go dark. “You want to move in and take over.”

“I’d do a better job.”

“I bet you’re right,” I said, and I meant it. “But are you seriously proposing a coup d’état to a woman you just met half an hour ago?”

“No, I’m proposing that you go back to San Francisco and tell the Renners the truth—that this place is a sham, and that the Barringtons let a burglar kill their father one night in the back bedroom.”

“That’s how he died?”

“That’s where I found all the blood. They moved his body up onto the roof to cook it when the sun came up. But he didn’t
smoke himself to ashes. He bled out in the guest room after someone broke in.
This
someone, I bet.”

The third camera went down. One tiny square was left, wobbling on the roof—up at the edge of some gable or rain gutter. Whoever it was, he was knocking down dominoes and getting ready to come inside to play. But he didn’t want to be seen, or recorded at any rate.

I met Clifford’s eyes and didn’t blink. “What are you saying, Mr. O’Donnell?”

“I’m saying, let’s get out of here while the getting is good. You and I go our separate ways, you deliver your message to San Francisco, and you have a new ally when the Barringtons fall. I don’t know who
that
is upstairs, and I don’t want to know. Whoever it is, I’m sure his grievance is legitimate, and I don’t feel like standing between him and some righteous retribution.”

“Neither do I,” I admitted.

“Then let’s go.” He was pleading now, so desperate to get away and to get out from under the political thumb … for how long? Hadn’t he said he’d known them for forty years?

As they say down there, bless his heart.

I said, “I’d love to, and maybe I
will
. But I’m not leaving without my ghoul.”

“Well,” he said, shaking his head, “that’s your call. But I’m going to hit the road—and get out while I can. It’s been nice chatting with a rational person for a few minutes.”

“Likewise,” I told him.

He turned to run but stopped himself and faced me again. “One last thing. You really
will
send in the Renners?”

“Like the fist of God.” Something brilliant dawned on me, and I added, “If I can ask you for a little favor in return.”

“How little?”

“Very little,” I assured him. “I’ll give you a call about it later.”

“It’s a deal. And it’s time for me to take advantage of some vacation time.”

“Good luck,” I said with a wave.

“You too.”

He disappeared with a bang—the sound of him striking off down the tiled floor—then I heard nothing at all. His departure was swift, smooth, and utterly seamless. I didn’t even hear any doors open and close, but the alarm for the front door made a little chime and its blue light began to blink.

Just like that, Clifford O’Donnell was gone, and with him my sole ally of any supernatural power.