Hellbent

by Cherie Priest

  Cuffs is a leather bar. Let us say no more about it.

  Adrian is always good-natured about rejecting the advances; he earns most of his living as a drag queen, and he knows how to fend off a grip. He’s straight—or so I gradually deduced, over the last few months of knowing him—and he always does decline. So far as I know.

  But when I pulled up to the curb in the Taurus of the Damned, as he liked to call my car, he was up against a wall with a motorcycle leather-daddy leaning in for the kill.

  I honked. The off-duty queen waved, excused himself, flung open the car door, then tossed himself inside. He chucked a duffel bag over the seat; it landed on the floor behind me with a very heavy thud, and I smiled to consider what useful stuff he might’ve brought along.

  “Everything but the kitchen sink?” I asked as I pulled back out into traffic, nearly smacking a cyclist who didn’t think the rules of the road applied to him. Mr. Cyclist flipped me off, and I honked while gunning the engine to make sure he got the idea that he needed to get the fuck out of my way.

  You have to be firm with the cyclists in Seattle. When it comes to smug self-entitlement, they’re worse than the pigeons.

  Adrian unclenched his hand from the Oh-Shit bar and said, “What? I’m sorry, I thought we were going to die, so I wasn’t listening.”

  “If you’re going to start this adventure by picking fights about my driving, I can pull over and let you out on the next corner.”

  “Who’s picking fights? I’m just making observations,” he said, his faint Spanish accent buffing the words to a shine. He sounds a little like Antonio Banderas crossed with Tommy Lee Jones. It’s hard to explain, but easy on the ears.

  “If you’re hinting that you’d like to take the wheel, you can forget it. And I was simply noting that you’ve got a whole lot of gear.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “You don’t have to pack like you’re going to war, you know. I’ve got that covered.”

  “Sure,” he agreed. “But sometimes you forget things.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “And when you forget things, it’s up to me to pick up the slack.”

  I said, “You’re full of shit.” Because we both know I am the most ludicrously overprepared woman in the world. I have a stack of neuroses that a toddler could use for a booster seat, and those neuroses keep me braced for every possible contingency.

  He asked, “Did you remember the duct tape?”

  “In three colors.”

  “How about the handcuff master keys?”

  “Two different kinds,” I said.

  “And an extra shooter? With ammo?”

  “I brought four, and if you want something small enough to stash, you can take your pick.” I’d seen his tuck-job when he’s dressed in full lady-wear and working a room. I had every confidence that he could hide a small firearm with such efficiency that it would go unnoticed by any casual searcher. It might not be comfortable, but it’d be successful.

  We played that game all the way to the interstate.

  I could’ve shut him up by pulling over and showing him what was in the trunk—an arsenal of emergency and self-defense preparedness—but I let him guess. Our grown-up version of “I’m thinking of something red” was more entertaining than calling out license plates from other states, or slugging each other in the arm every time we spotted a Volkswagen, that was for damn sure.

  We stopped for the night in Medford, Oregon, to break up the trip. The drive from Seattle to San Francisco is about a thousand miles long, so it’s not like we were going to make it in a straight shot—and we’d decided not to fly.

  For all the previously mentioned ravings about packing lots of contraband, it’s easier to hop in the car and drive down the westernmost slice of the nation, even though Oregon has that weird thing where they won’t let you pump your own gas—“For your own safety” or some other bullshit. I hate filling up there, and the next night my hatred of this intrusive practice almost led to us running out of gas before crossing the California state line and finding a gas station where I could service myself. I mean the car. You know what I mean.

  But we didn’t end up walking along the shoulder with an empty gas can and a scowl, despite Adrian’s dire predictions, and fully ninety minutes before dawn we were checked in to a nicely restored turn-of-the-century hotel in downtown San Francisco. It was a little close to the tourist district for my liking, but the room was quiet and clean, and it had two big queen-sized beds—which I joked about rather endlessly, at Adrian’s expense.

  I tell you all that in order to tell you this: Within three nights, I was right where I’d promised I’d go, and doing exactly what I’d promised to do.

  If Adrian were reading this over my shoulder, he’d take this opportunity to insert some snark about how I must’ve promised to sit in the hotel room and drink while surfing the Internet, but he’s a bitch sometimes, and there were moments when I wished I’d left him at home.

  I’ve already mentioned that I’m not sure why I dragged him along, other than a whiny, obsessive need for comfort-company at a difficult time in my personal life. But it’s probably worth examining why he agreed to come along, when nobody in his right mind would have done so.

  The answer, I suspect, is pretty simple: He adores me, and will do whatever I ask.

  Ha! Yes, I’m kidding.

  Don’t get me wrong, I think he likes me well enough—I mean, he’s the closest thing to a girlfriend I’ve had in ages—but that’s not the real reason he’s along for the ride. The real reason is sneakier and more sinister, and if he thought I didn’t know about it, he was deluding himself.

  Adrian came to San Francisco on a vampire fact-finding mission because he wants to know more about vampires and how their Houses work. The underlying basis for this near-suicidal desire has to do with his sister, Isabelle—who was turned into one of us night-stalkers when she was a teenager. She was also experimented on by the government, but that’s another story. Come to think of it, that’s also the story of why Adrian is now a drag queen, and not a Navy SEAL. But I don’t like to repeat myself, so I’ll make this rehash quick.

  Suffice it to say, Isabelle ran away from home—or was taken; that’s still up for debate—and ended up running with the House in Atlanta. Atlanta’s House is run by the Barrington family, and those sons of bitches are about fifty different kinds of trouble.

  My own House in Chicago, back when I had one, was trouble, too, so I suppose I should qualify that statement by saying all vampire Houses are trouble. All of them.

  But some Houses are more stable than others, and some are better run than others. The Barringtons aren’t just numerous, they’re psychotic—or at least their judge and her immediate family members are. They’re beyond capricious and well past understated. They’re the kind of vampires who dress like goths every chance they get, and probably have entire DVD collections dedicated to old movies about the undead.

  They are very, very excited to be vampires. I would say “comically so” if it weren’t so fucking frightening. It absolutely says something about the House that it’s so violent—and it creates such a preposterously high body count—but the mortal authorities are prepared to look the other way.

  Obviously they know about it. They have to know about it.

  But worst of all, the authorities probably aren’t even in the Barrington family’s pockets. They’re probably too scared to do anything about them, or maybe they just buy in to that old line the Mafia dons used to throw around—“We only kill each other.” But it was bullshit when the mob said it, and it’s bullshit when vampire Houses say it.

  For the Atlanta House to be so unapologetically badass that it’s been operating this way for nearly a century … you know that means they’ve got power.

  Why?

  See, here’s the dark, terrible secret that every vampire secretly knows, but refuses to admit out loud: Houses can be huge and intimidating, and immensely dangerous to vampires
and those who cross them, unwittingly or otherwise. But generally speaking, they can be brought down by ordinary mortals with very little effort and pressure.

  There, I said it. Call me an iconoclast.

  Maybe it sounds strange, but it’s true. And it’s true because, for all our heightened senses, our speed, and our occasional psychic abilities … we’re fragile. We’re freaky little hothouse orchids, is what we are, and all it takes is sunlight to wipe us off the map. All you have to do to demolish a vampire House is show up during the day and burn some buildings down. You can effectively unseat an entire community that way. Simple. Brutal. Effective.

  And rarely attempted.

  The drawbacks are obvious. Anyone ambitious enough to try to burn out a House would have to get through an army of intermediary ghouls (or not, if he or she were crafty enough); and there’s always the chance of collateral damage if mere mortals are employed or otherwise present. And most important, vampires tend not to let that kind of thing slide—so if an arsonist were to undertake such a plot, he or she would have to cover his or her tracks very, very well. Retaliation is a bitch with fangs.

  I’m not sure why I just now used all that “his or her” bullshit. The truth is, I’ve thought about it before. A lot. Fantasized many a time about taking Chicago’s House by a cleansing, fiery storm.

  But I’ve always chickened out. Or, if I were to treat myself more charitably, I’d argue that I came to my senses and walked away instead.

  It was easier for me than for Ian. Ian was a power player, someone high up in the hierarchy. I was a total nobody. Bottom of the pack, and bottom of the barrel. I suspect that no one at all gave a shit when I left, except perhaps my “mother,” who was angry that I didn’t stick around and take the fall for her indiscretions.

  To this day, I’m not sure if I escaped her because of my outstanding brains, wit, and paranoia … or if she only concluded that I wasn’t worth the effort. Either way, it doesn’t keep me up at night or anything. Not anymore. I stopped wondering about why she did the things she did a long time ago.

  What was I saying to begin with? Oh yeah. Adrian.

  So Adrian’s little sister became a vampire, then became a government subject in the same weird experiment (Project Bloodshot) that had blinded Ian. No, this wasn’t a matter of ludicrous coincidence, that three friends found out we had this weird connection; it’s this weird connection that brought us together.

  For a long time, Adrian assumed that his sister was dead. After all, that’s what Uncle Sam told him—and he had no evidence to the contrary. But now we had reason to believe that she might well have survived, and that perhaps she was roaming around as a loner.

  As a favor to Adrian, I’d done a little bit of reconnaissance through the gossip grapevine, and I’d learned that Isabelle had most definitely not rejoined the Barrington House, which surprised me not at all. I’d also learned that there are rumors of a deaf vampire matching her description lurking around North Georgia, and Vegas odds suggest it’s her. Whatever she’s up to, she’s keeping a low profile like a smart girl. Any vampire on the outs with the Atlanta House would be wise to vanish (begging the question of why she’s still in Georgia, or back in Georgia, as the case may be), and any vampire with a significant physical disadvantage (see also: Ian) would be likewise smart to keep that under wraps.

  There are no civil rights groups out there lobbying for fair treatment of the disabled undead. Disabilities make vampires targets. And nobody anywhere is going to do anything about that.

  Adrian isn’t a vampire, though.

  And in case it isn’t abundantly clear by now, I’m not the kind of vampire who runs around knocking off denizens of the night who are weaker in some fashion than myself. So if I could help Adrian find his sister, awesome. He’d owe me a favor, and he’d be happy, and I’d be two vampires into collecting the whole Bloodshot play set.

  (No, we don’t know exactly how many vampires—or other creatures—were carved up by that project. I won’t know that for certain until I get my hands around the neck of a guy named Jeffery Sykes, and he’s proving rather difficult to locate. But I’m working on it.)

  Come to think of it, I probably shouldn’t have brought Adrian along.

  I was only putting him in mortal danger, and whether or not he was excited about the prospect was rather beside the point. I didn’t think he could learn anything in San Francisco that I, personally, couldn’t have told him … but hadn’t yet. I’ve been trying to protect him by pretending that all my information is fiercely difficult to come by, and impossible for a living human to acquire.

  It isn’t.

  But it is true that if he went sticking his nose into vampire lairs, asking questions about a deaf undead girl tootling around Fulton County, he’d be calling dangerous, unwanted attention to them both. So far, I’ve been utterly unable to convince him of how bad this is, or how badly he should not attempt it.

  He’d been sticking his neck out, which is literally the stupidest thing I can imagine anyone doing when it comes to vampires. That ought to be Rule Number One For Dealing With Vampires, right there. Don’t stick your neck out!

  So I guess that’s why I invited him, if I have to offer a less selfish reason than “so I don’t have to do this alone.” I’d rather have him dive headlong into that danger while I’m standing around, available and willing to dive in after him and pull him out.

  Adrian stole the television remote from me, and clicked through all the usual cable channels while I surfed the Web. “What are you looking for, anyway?” he asked. “When do we get out of this room?”

  “As soon as I figure out where we need to go when we leave this room,” I said, answering his second question first. “You want to run downstairs and find a latte? Go ahead. This might take a few minutes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because dens don’t advertise. Or, okay, they do advertise—but not in any way that’s immediately obvious or helpful.”

  He seized on the niblet of information I’d let slide. “Dens? What’s a den?”

  “Sort of like a lobby,” I muttered, sticking a pen in my mouth and reaching for the pad of paper that sits beside every phone in every hotel room everywhere around the country. “Or … think of it more as a foyer, I guess. The foyer of a vampire House. It’s where they receive visitors, out-of-towners, and the like.”

  “Is it a public place?” he asked.

  “The storefront is usually public, yes. But the real action goes on somewhere else. Downstairs, more often than not.”

  “So you’re looking for a storefront …” He dropped himself onto the bed beside me and narrowed his eyes at my screen.

  “Not a literal storefront. Well, okay.” I chattered with a lisp as my mouth moved around the pen. “Maybe a literal storefront. Probably not.”

  “You’re being obtuse.”

  I removed the pen so I could reprimand him without sounding like a third-grader with a mouthful of paste. “I’m trying to answer your questions, but the answers aren’t so much direct. It’s like this,” I explained. “Dens are hidden in plain sight, but they aren’t marked with a big neon arrow pointing down, declaring VAMPIRES HERE! That would be stupid. Instead, the dens come with little telltale clues about them.”

  “What kind of clues?”

  “Subtle clues. The kind only another vampire would pick up on. They’ll have funny names—something with a double meaning, or sometimes an anagram of the House’s family name.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “All right. Then what’s the SF House’s family name?”

  “Renner. Not super-inspiring, I know.” I jotted it down on the paper pad beside my thigh. “Or in case it broadens the possibilities, the judge who just died … his name was William.” I scratched that down, too, and tried to imagine the letters in different configurations. “I’m not saying for absolute certain that we’re hunting an anagram, but it’s a place to start.”

  “And probably not an actual storefront, but mayb
e.”

  “Yeah. I mean, no. I mean … shit, Adrian. Look at the clock. It’s ten PM on a weeknight. We’re looking for an establishment that might reasonably be open, routinely, at ten PM on a weeknight—and much later than that. And nothing too quiet. Something noisy, like a bar or a club.”

  “So a late-night coffeehouse is out.”

  “Correct.” I scrolled through the listings, demonstrating that yes, I was checking the names and addresses of bars, clubs, theaters, and pool halls. There were, to my best estimate, approximately a bajillion of them.

  “How are we going to narrow it down?” he wanted to know, and I didn’t know what to tell him.

  “This isn’t my town, dude. If I were local, or if I had local ties, I could ask somebody and that would be faster. But I’m not local, I don’t know anybody local, and—”

  “Why don’t you just ask Ian?”

  I sighed heavily. “I did ask Ian. The last den he knew about closed down three years ago. And nothing has reopened in its place.”

  “What was it called?”

  “Claret Drip. It was an anagram of someone else’s name—whoever had been judge or family before the Renners came into the picture. Sometimes the new guys change all the signs right away; sometimes they let the old things ride awhile.”

  “I get it. I think.” He flopped down on his stomach and propped his face up on his hands. “Wine is kind of a code for blood, and it was an anagram, too. Double the meaning, double the chance someone would twig to the fact it was hiding a den. But probably not someone who didn’t need to find it.”

  “Smart cookie. And now that you grok the generality of how this works, keep your eyes open for something similar. I’ll scroll slowly.”

  “Scroll faster,” he suggested with an imperious swish of his finger. “I’m a fast reader.”

  “I’m a fast reader, too, but I’m trying to give my subconscious a moment to absorb all this crap,” I complained.

  He wriggled to make himself more comfortable, and the bed rolled like the wave pool at a theme park. I smacked him on the shoulder and told him to settle down, and he smacked me back, and told me to hurry the fuck up or we were never getting out of here. I told him it was his own damn fault for not bringing a laptop, and he replied that it was my fault for not telling him to toss one into his go-bag.