I looked to Pembroke, who fielded the question. “Not typically, no. I mean, we are no slouches, particularly by the standards of mortals, but the strength to do that kind of damage to a vampire with one hit? No, I dare say he’s a might bit stronger than even I am.”
Maura was quiet for a few seconds. “So what are we dealing with? Cause it’s clear that Franklin Allgeir isn’t human.”
“Or, at the very least, isn’t human anymore,” I corrected. “Maybe he was, but—what if what we saw wasn’t the result of torture for torture’s sake, but someone performing some kind ritual to change him, like Tandi did with her Sisters of Pain?” My mind went back to the trunk of the car we had found near the body, and the metal shavings that had accompanied signs of something big being removed. Perhaps whatever it was had been used in the process.
So many questions, so many loose threads, so many possibilities, and so few answers. Because, however much I tried, I was only getting half the story. I needed to talk to the person with the other half.
“Maura, I’m going to have to call you back. I’ve got another call to make.”
After I hung up, I turned my attention to Pembroke. “I’m going to assume you have a number for Benazir.”
He arched an eyebrow at me. “What makes you say that?”
“Whenever you speak about her, it’s always in familiar terms, which for someone with your politeness would imply she’s someone you regularly engage with. You also seem to act like you know exactly what Benazir is thinking, like you’ve spoken to her recently. Chummy, as you might say.”
Pembroke laughed and reached into his pocket. “You have caught me, sir. It’s just the way of us old-fashioned villains, I suppose. We like to have a means to threaten each other and gloat about our victories.” He pulled out his phone and scrolled for the right entry. “Take this number down.”
Once I had Benazir’s number, I took a walk to the back of the house and stepped out through the backdoor. Not that I was worried about the others overhearing my conversation, but I felt that I could be at my best when I wasn’t playing for an audience. After a taking a few moments to decide exactly the right tone to take, I made the call.
I heard the click of the line connecting but no voice answered. Still, I knew that Benazir was listening. “Hello, Benazir. I thought it was about time I introduced myself properly. My name is Kurt, and I’m—"
“The Succubus Hunter,” a voice like crackling embers interrupted. “Yes, I know you. You have been meddling in things that do not concern you, boy, and have not had the good manners to die yet for doing so.”
“It’ll take more than a few shoddily constructed golems if you want that to happen, witch.” I decided that antagonizing a villain was usually a good way to get them to shout their plans at you.
Benazir cackled, apparently finding my attitude more amusing than aggravating. “That’s some spirit you have, boy. I wondered the kind of man it would take to rid the world of that fool Tandi Goren once and for all.”
“You’re welcome, by the way. I know you were waiting for someone to take care of that problem for you, because you were too weak to come here and do it yourself.”
That one hit the right nerve, as she just about screamed her response. “You don’t know what you speak of, child. I could have wiped that arrogant wench off the face of this world whenever I wanted. She only lived because it was convenient for me that she should continue to unknowingly prepare things for my arrival. My only regret is that I didn’t get to see her face when she realized her pitiable life ended.”
I chuckled. “I’ll bring a mirror when I come to kill you. I’m sure you’ll make a similar face.”
Ragged breathing came from Benazir’s side of the call as she tried to master her anger. “You are walking on unsettled sand, boy. I hope you will remember your humor as I make you watch while I tear apart your little girlies, piece by little piece, and put them back together, stitch by tiny stitch. I hope you will laugh as their screams fill your ears—"
I let her continue for a while as she made her threats and promised horrible fates to me, the women of my house, my family, my friends, my neighbors, the pizza delivery guy, and so on. Usually if you let someone go on like this for a while they will eventually slip up and reveal a little more than they meant to, often trying to prove to you that they’d been one step ahead this whole time. But while Benazir certainly had an impressive imagination and colorful vocabulary for words related to torture, at no point did she hint at anything close to resembling a plan.
It was all just … raving.
“Benazir, shut up for a second,” I demanded, interrupting her description of turning our lungs into hamburger meat.
“How dare you, boy! I’ll—"
“You’re not listening. I don’t have time for the whole evil genius speech. I’ve got things to do. A war is going to break out in the city, and you’re probably going to lose.”
“Another attempt at humor? I’ll crush the life out of—"
I cut her off again. “I don’t want to see mummies and—whatever you count as people—fighting and killing civilians in some bizarre supernatural battle. Not over a lie.”
“I am many things, but liar is not among them. I will control Tandi’s network, and I will—"
I cut the call. I’d let her rant. She wasn’t making sense, and—I stopped. She wasn’t making sense. Like someone on the edge of death. Threats. Old memories. Grasping at things she didn’t understand.
This whole time I had been operating under the assumption that Benazir was some kind of master planner, that all the pieces I had picked up in my investigation all fit into a puzzle that I just didn’t know the bigger picture for yet, and once they came together a grand scheme would be revealed.
But what if that wasn’t the case. What if everything—Allgeir, the golems, luring over Pembroke’s family, the violence in the streets—what if it wasn’t all part of a greater plan, but chaos in the wake of a powerful woman who wasn’t quite herself anymore.
If Benazir wasn’t herself, then I had no plan at all. She would bring the fight to Pembroke, and people would die, both human and undead.
I looked inward, felt the flail, and went back inside to the kitchen table, where everyone sat in a cloud of uncertainty. “Pembroke, are your people here yet?”
“They arrive tomorrow. Why?” he asked.
“What airport?”
“LaGuardia, naturally.”
“You really are immortal if you have time enough for them to land there. I need to be there when they arrive.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Call it my natural curiosity, but I’ve never met anyone who was a human sacrifice before,” I said.
Pembroke shrugged. “If you insist. We’re taking a luxury coach from the airport.”
“You rented a bus,” I corrected.
“I did no such thing. It’s a luxury coach, you barbarian. And you call me the one who’s dead inside,” Pembroke huffed.
17
In Pembroke’s defense, it was a fairly luxurious bus. The seats were all heavily padded and plush. Each row had outlets to plug in electronics and switches to control the air conditioning and heating, there was a well-stocked minibar to separate the front rows from the back, and I was fairly certain the back two rows folded out together to form a bed should one be desired. Overall, not a poor way to travel, if one needed to travel by bus.
Also, not a bad way to impress a handful of bog people who you had once used as human sacrifices, though I always felt a steak dinner would go a lot further in making amends for those kinds of things.
I helped myself to a drink from the minibar as the bus pulled into the airport pick-up lot. Pembroke hurried up to the front, an excitement about him like he really was about to be reunited with long lost family and not the people he once sacrificed for his own gain.
His face was youthful again, using that strange ability mummies possess to not look like walking jerky when they wa
nted. “Wait here. This shouldn’t take long.”
I gestured to the minibar, indicating my content at remaining behind. “Why would I think it would take long? It’s just a bunch of bog-mummies who have never been inside an airport before. I’m sure security and customs will wave them right through, despite their, ah, unique qualities brought on by a few hundred years in a bog. Aren’t they the color of iced tea or something? And wrinkled?”
Pembroke gave me a wide smile and an airy wave. “When you have the kind of money and connections I do, I would wager you are quite correct. The effects of their years in the ground can be taken care of. Mostly.”
“How?”
“Spa treatments, of course. Good heavens, lad, we’re civilized people. We don’t walk around without exfoliating now and again,” Pembroke said.
It seemed he had not been overestimating his station, as just fifteen minutes later he returned with a cluster of some of the strangest people I had ever seen following behind him. And as someone who has both hunted the supernatural and spent a lot of time on the streets of New York City, that was saying something.
For one thing, even a discerning eye would probably have trouble telling that the chaotic rabble was supposed to be a family. Their skins tones ranged from a pallid grey like a corpse drained of all its blood to a golden bronze. Their hair and eyes were similarly diverse. The only thing that connected them was the way many of them moved, stiff and lumbering like they were trying out for the part of Frankenstein in an off-Broadway play. I supposed a few hundred years of immobility was hell on the joints, and wondered if any of them would be taking Yoga classes. People did Yoga with goats. Mummies seemed like the next logical step.
Another oddity was they were dressed more like tourists on their way to a tropical getaway than New York City during the cold season. Very few of them had coats of any kind despite the biting chill in the air, many were in shorts and t-shirts, and one was even wearing a Hawaiian shirt under a blazer, a natty combination he made even better by refusing to wear socks.
They began to pile into the bus after Pembroke, with him stopping to greet each by name and a quick pat on the shoulder or shake of the hand before having them take a seat. Very quickly a musty smell began to dominate the bus, and I became regretful of my curiosity as it became clear just how full the bus was about to get.
Up close, Pembroke’s family was even odder than at first glance. Most of the stiffly moving ones were completely silent, barely even pausing to register Pembroke’s greeting before quietly shuffling to their seats. Others seemed to have a tough time controlling the volume of their voices, alternating in whispers and shouts, their variety of accents a tuneless cacophony peppered with language that had long since fallen out of fashion. Some of them were carrying odd items in addition to their luggage, including but not limited to a toilet plunger, half a watermelon, a pasta strainer, and what looked to be a pile of keys pulled off a computer keyboard. The mummy with the computer keys tossed them from hand to hand in an endless loop, making a clacking sound that no one else seemed to notice.
They kept on coming, and I spotted one, a middle-aged man with sunken eyes like a corpse, loudly instructing the others with the stowing of their luggage. “Yes, up there, above the seats. No, don’t crawl in after it! It will be there when we arrive—okay, fine, you can hold that in your lap, but don’t get in everyone’s way, move to the back. No, you can’t just drop that there, you’re blocking the aisle! Don’t lie down next it!”
I came over and helped him guide a bedraggled old woman to a seat near the front. Her eyes seemed to have trouble focusing, but then I realized it was only because they were locked onto her reflection in the driver’s mirror.
“Thanks,” the middle-aged mummy said as he glanced around for the next crisis.
“Don’t mention it. You seem like you’re really on the ball compared to some of your fellows. You in charge?”
The look he gave me was not entirely friendly. “No, just helping where I can. It is the duty of those of us who have been awake for longer to assist those transitioning into the new world.” He paused, his face hardening. “Even if many of us are about to die in the fighting anyway.”
His bluntness caught me off guard. “A little harsh, don’t you think?”
Another man, one of the few wearing a coat though with cut-off sleeves that defeated its purpose, piped up. “Better than laying in the cold mud while the stars burn out, boy.”
“A fair point,” I admitted, wondering exactly how this street fight was going to look with mummies and golems duking it out over some sort of supernatural prize.
By the time the last of the mummies were onboard, the luxurious bus no longer felt so luxurious. Not only did the air reek of staleness and mold, but it was cramped. I counted one-hundred-fifty for a bus that was only supposed to seat about seventy. Some of Pembroke’s folks were willing to stand or sit on the floor, and others were crowded two to a seat as the bus came to a laborious start.
I found myself squeezed beside a young woman who had decided to bring an entire sack of oranges with her. Apparently she was not patient enough to wait for us to reach our destination before enjoying her citrusy treats, as we had barely pulled out of the airport before she pulled out one of the oranges, peeled it with her bare hands—discarding the peel on the floor—and shoveled the fruit into her mouth. She finished that orange and repeated the process with a second, and then a third.
“Really like those oranges, eh?” I asked, hoping to start a conversation. “I’m more a tangerine man myself.”
She gave me a look like I had just said the stupidest thing in the world, then bit into her next orange. Some of the juice squirted out at me and hit me in the face, stinging my eyes with its acidity. I’d like to think she did that on purpose, but if so, the accuracy was incredibly impressive.
Seeing this attempt at conversation was not likely leading anywhere, I turned my attention to the window and watched the city pass by. Pembroke had given me a vague idea of where we were heading, which was more in New Jersey than New York and thus outside of the places I was familiar with. He was confident it would be a safe place for his family to acclimate before it was time to confront Benazir. “Unless you are willing to extend your gracious hospitality to all my relatives as well?” he had flippantly asked when I pointed out that I had to endure his company for nearly a week because of his fears of Benazir catching him off-guard.
Over the next hour, my seatmate had worked her way through most her bag of oranges, three mummies had fallen from their seats and needed help to get back into them, one man had begun to relieve himself over the minibar before the middle aged one I had talked to before stopped him, and Pembroke had grandiosely announced to the whole bus his pride in working with such a fine group of people twice. Overall, I’d had worse bus experiences, but never weirder.
We arrived in an unfamiliar suburb full of mansion-sized houses, any one of which would have rivaled the size of my place in Vermont, though the estates here were only afforded small yards and were packed close enough together that a determined person could leap from one rooftop to the next. New and expensive cars shined at the edge of driveways like trophies. New money, is what Lyanne would have said if she was here—those who recently came into wealth and wanted the things that usually came with it, such as a big house and nice cars, without appreciation for the reasons those things usually had value. It was a surprising choice for someone as ancient as Pembroke, who clung to archaic notions of class and society like his childhood memories.
The bus parked in front of a house at the end of the street and Pembroke’s family began the arduous process of gathering their possessions and shambling out. I wished that I had chosen a seat closer to the front so I could get out into the fresh air sooner. My seatmate seemed to not be in any rush herself, content to finish off the last of her oranges as the other mummies filed past in the aisle toward the front.
The bus was nearly empty by the time she finally ro
se and gathered the rest of her things, content to leave the empty sack on the ground next to all the orange peels. Pembroke came back to give her a hand. “Hope you enjoyed the ride, Morcant. You should be careful with this one, you know, he’s quite the lady killer.” He gave me a wink, which made me sigh and shake my head. Morcant gave me only the most disinterested of looks before taking her things and making her way down the aisle.
“Ah well, old boy,” Pembroke said, patting my shoulder, “you can’t win them all over.”
“I’ll try and contain my disappointment.”
Pembroke and I were the last ones out of the bus. He made a grand gesture as we walked up the drive toward the suburban McMansion. “So what do you think?”
I tried to think of a polite way to express my feelings on the shoddy looking hodgepodge of architectural styles thrown together to create an impression of wealth for those who don’t know better. “It’s … certainly large. Should be big enough to accommodate everyone.”
Pembroke laughed at that. “Ten to a room, perhaps. You can go ahead and say it’s a turd dolled up to look like a princess. Like in that old fairy tale, about the poor girl who dresses up and goes to the ball.”
It took me a moment to figure out which he was talking about. “You mean Cinderella?”
“Ah, yes, that is her modern name, isn’t it? I always disliked that one—such dishonesty, trying to pass yourself off as better blood than your breeding should allow. Anyway, that’s why this rental makes for such a good hiding place. It’s the last place Benazir would expect someone with my class would hide out.”
I looked around at the neighborhood full of civilians who would be caught in the crossfire if a fight did break out here. “Sure hope you’re right.”
Succubus Hunter 2 (The Succubus Series) Page 14
