Die and Stay Dead (17 page)

“If you’re going to skulk about my house, young man, you might try being less conspicuous,” he said.

I twisted onto my back and saw two guards standing behind him in private security uniforms. They had their guns drawn and pointed at me. The tip of the old man’s cane came down on my chest, as if to pin me to the grass.

“I assure you, I may be old but I’m not helpless,” he said. He nodded over his shoulder at the two guards. “Nor am I alone, as you can see.”

My eyes went to the old man’s hands. He wasn’t wearing the gauntlet. That was a relief. I didn’t want to know what it felt like to get hit with the same blast that had popped Yrouel like a water balloon and knocked Philip down a couple flights of stairs.

“Clarence Bergeron, I presume?” I said.

He grunted with self-satisfaction, as if he’d outwitted me somehow. “So you know my name. That speaks to premeditation. Motive.” He jabbed the cane into my chest again. “Now kindly get to your feet so my guards can take you into custody and call the police.”

The two private security guards looked well trained. Their expressions were grim and their gun hands were steady. Still, I knew I could take them if I needed to. The one on the right was smaller, with a baby face. Probably a lot younger than his partner, which likely meant he wasn’t as experienced. I could sweep his legs out from under him before he even knew what was happening, and while he was down I could draw my own weapon on the second guard …

Just then, Clarence Bergeron started coughing. Great hacking tremors shook his entire body, wet and deep and painful sounding. With his free hand he fished a handkerchief out of his vest pocket and put it over his mouth until the coughing fit passed.

This obviously wasn’t Yrouel’s killer. Clarence Bergeron was too old and sick to be the same man who’d led us on a chase across the rooftops of Chinatown. He didn’t look like he could run more than a few feet before collapsing. Not that it let him entirely off the hook. We’d traced the gauntlet to him. He was involved somehow.

“Let’s go, pal,” the older guard barked, waggling his gun at me.

Bergeron tucked his handkerchief away. He pulled his cane off me and held out his hand. Against the protests of the guards, he helped me to my feet. His hand felt frail in mine, fragile enough that I wondered if his bones would break as he hefted me off the ground. When I was on my feet, I put my hands in the air.

“Are you alone?” Bergeron asked.

Philip’s voice came from behind them, “No, he damn well isn’t.”

Bergeron and the two guards spun around. Philip was standing in his protective cloak a few feet away. Despite their surprise, the two guards fell back on their training with a speed I couldn’t help admiring. The older guard turned back to me quickly, keeping his gun on me. Baby Face moved toward Philip, holding his weapon in front of him.

“You told me you didn’t see anyone’s body heat,” I grumbled to Philip.

“I was looking in the house,” he replied. “They must have already been outside, tracking you.”

“Keep your hands up,” Baby Face said. “I’m authorized to use deadly force if necessary.”

“So am I,” Philip said. “Care to make it interesting? How much do you want to bet I can take your head off your neck before you even pull the trigger?”

Baby Face glared at him. “Mister, you don’t want to try me.”

“Really? Let’s see what you’re made of, kid.” Philip took one taunting step toward him.

Baby Face bristled at being called a kid, but he regained his composure quickly. He squared his shoulders and assumed a firing stance. “This is your last warning.”

Philip smiled, baring his fangs. Baby Face’s gun hand didn’t so much as shake. Either he didn’t know what he was looking at or he wasn’t scared of vampires, which made him a fool. A fool with a gun. That was the most dangerous kind.

If something didn’t change, this was going to spin out of control fast. “Tell your guard to back off,” I warned Bergeron. “He’s going to get himself killed.”

“Is that so?” Bergeron said. “My private security firm is the best in the country. They’ve handled far worse than your friend here, I assure you. Besides, your friend is clearly bluffing.”

“He doesn’t bluff,” I said. “He doesn’t have to.”

The older guard still had his gun trained on me. Suddenly, he went stiff. His eyes widened in surprise. Bethany peeked out from behind him.

“I don’t expect you to recognize the shape of the object I’m pressing against your back,” she told the guard, “but I assure you it can put a good-sized hole through you if I want it to. Drop the gun.”

The guard lowered his gun. Bethany snatched it out of his hand. She pocketed the charm she was holding, the same one she’d used to put a hole in the door of Biddy’s dungeon, and pointed the gun at Bergeron. The old man raised one hand. He kept the other on his cane.

“You’ll excuse me for not raising both. If I let go of the cane, I’ll fall,” he said. He lowered his hand slowly and pulled on his left pant leg, lifting the cuff. Above his expensive leather shoe and crisp argyle sock, the skin of his leg was withered and discolored, black and purple like a nasty bruise. “An old injury that never quite healed right.” He let go of his pants and raised his free hand again.

“Good enough. Just don’t try anything,” Bethany said.

“I wouldn’t get very far if I ran,” he replied.

Baby Face turned toward Bethany. Philip took another step toward him, drawing his attention back. The guard’s jaw muscles clenched under the skin of his cheek. He was clearly torn, unsure what to do and unwilling to stand down without a direct order from his employer.

“That’s far enough,” Baby Face barked at Philip. “Come any closer and I will
drop
you!”

“That sounds fun,” Philip said. “You promise?”

“Call off your guard,” Bethany instructed Bergeron. “Do it.”

Bergeron sighed. “That’s enough, Francisco. Stand down. There’s no need to make things worse than they already are.”

Baby-faced Francisco lowered his gun reluctantly. He didn’t take his eyes off Philip. The vampire snatched the gun out of his hand.

Bethany nodded at the second guard, who stood a few feet away with his hands up. “You, too. Get over here.”

The second guard didn’t move. He looked at Bergeron for instructions. The old man nodded. “It’s all right, LaValle. Do as she says.”

Keeping his hands up, LaValle moved to stand beside Bergeron. Philip herded Francisco over to join them. The three of them stood facing us angrily.

“Well, you’ve got us outnumbered and outgunned, so you might as well make your move,” Bergeron said. “What’s it going to be? Kidnapping? Blackmail? Petty theft?”

“None of the above,” I said. “Let’s start over. I’m Trent. This is Bethany and Philip. We’re with the Five-Pointed Star.”

Bergeron squinted at me. “The Five-Pointed Star. I see. So you’re the ones everyone is talking about.”

“You’ve heard of us?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “You killed Stryge, and since then you’ve been taking out Infecteds all over the city. Even that lunatic kidnapping women in Central Park.”

“Word travels fast.”

“It’s a small community,” he said with a smile that was both mirthless and condescending. “I met them once, you know. The original Five-Pointed Star, Morbius and the rest of them, back in the day. I was living in the city then, in an apartment building on Amsterdam Avenue. We didn’t know it, at least not right away, but an Infected was living in the basement. He’d mutated into something terrible. Something big and hungry. Let’s just say he wasn’t a vegetarian. The Five-Pointed Star came and…” He shook his head at the memory. “I never saw anything like it. Like
them
. They saved us. It’s a pity what happened to them in the end.” He sighed and composed himself. “So you’re picking up where they left off, eh? A new Five-Pointed Star. I’ll help however I can. I owe that much, if not to you then to your predecessors. But there’s no reason to keep my guards here, is there? Whatever brought the Five-Pointed Star to my home, I suspect it should be discussed in private. Am I right?”

I looked at Bethany and Philip. Bethany nodded. Philip cracked his knuckles, his expression unreadable behind his mirrored shades.

“They can go,” I told Bergeron.

Bergeron turned to his men. “Get back to your stations.”

“But, sir,” LaValle protested.

Bergeron didn’t let him finish. “That’s an order. I’ll be fine.”

The two guards began walking toward the house. Francisco stopped as he passed Philip. The baby-faced guard turned and glared at him, a silent challenge. His ego had been bruised, and the look on his face said he wasn’t going to let it go. This guy was more muscle than brain.

“Go ahead and take a swing at me, kid,” Philip said. “See how fast I put your face on a milk carton. Not a picture. Your actual face.”

“We’re not finished, you and me,” Francisco snarled.

“Francisco, that’s enough,” Bergeron interrupted.

Francisco glared at Philip one last time. Then he and LaValle stalked back to the house.

“You must excuse my men. I pay them quite handsomely to protect me from trespassers,” Bergeron said. The old billionaire sized up Philip like he was gauging how much he would go for on the open market. “A vampire, is it? Out in the daylight and working alongside humans? Well, I’ll be damned. The times really are changing. Now, how about you tell me why the Five-Pointed Star is spying on my home?”

Bethany slipped LaValle’s gun into her belt. “You bought a Thracian Gauntlet at the Ghost Market not long ago.”

Bergeron narrowed his eyes at her. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in trying to lie to you,” he said. “Yes, I bought the gauntlet. Please don’t tell me the Five-Pointed Star is working with the customs department now.”

“The gauntlet was used in the murder of an information broker named Yrouel,” Bethany said. “Did you know him?”

“Yrouel? No, I’m afraid not,” he answered, shaking his head. “But it’s an interesting name. Yrouel was one of the Hebrew angels. Pregnant women wore his amulet for protection.”

“This Yrouel was no angel,” I said.

“Killed with the gauntlet, you say?” Bergeron tapped his chin. “Yes, it’s quite possible. Quite possible.”

“What does that mean?” I pressed.

“There’s something you need to see.” Bergeron began walking down the hill toward the house, the tip of his cane spearing into the grass alongside him. “If you’ve come to take the Thracian Gauntlet away from me, I’m afraid you’re too late. Someone beat you to it.”

*   *   *

Inside his mansion, Bergeron led us through a hallway adorned with portraits and lined with cabinets full of fine bone china and antique silver and brassware. Overhead, crystals dangled like raindrops from lavish chandeliers, refracting the light back onto the ceiling in tiny rainbows.

“What do you mean someone beat us to it?” I demanded, hurrying to keep up with Bergeron, who was walking surprisingly quickly for an old man with a bum leg.

“Stolen, my good man, what else could I mean?” he said. “And if you and your friends will follow me, I’ll show you from where.”

He led us deeper into the house. The hallway seemed to stretch on indefinitely, leading us past countless guest rooms, studies, bathrooms, kitchenettes, music rooms, even whole other wings of the house. The mansion was palatial. It was also empty. A house this size ought to have maids, cooks, gardeners to maintain the hedges and topiaries outside. So where was everybody?

Finally, we reached the end of the hallway. Bergeron opened a polished rosewood door, and we passed through into the bottom level of an indoor atrium three stories tall. The walls, from the floor all the way to the top of the atrium, were bookshelves, each filled to capacity. The two levels above us had wraparound balconies sporting several doorways leading to other parts of the house. In the ceiling at the top of the atrium was an enormous stained-glass window. The image of an angel holding a burning sword stared down at us.

“What is this place?” I asked, astonished.

“My library,” Bergeron said, proudly spreading his arms. “The centerpiece of my home. These shelves represent lifetimes of book collecting, going back more generations than I can count. The sum total of centuries of knowledge, passed down from parent to child, from the very first members of my family down to me. Mathematics, history, philosophy, poetry, and yes, even some of the more arcane topics. Magic. Alchemy. Angelology, of course.” He looked up admiringly at the stained-glass angel above us. “I’m fascinated by angels. You might say they’re an obsession of mine. Did you know in early cultures angels and demons were the same? Twins, in a way. Both were terrible, unknowable forces that could either destroy or empower. And yet now we think of angels as our protectors, our personal guardians, and we think of demons as something to be feared and shunned. It’s strange, don’t you think? But of course angels and demons are merely aspects of our own nature. They always have been. It’s remarkable, the dualities we carry within ourselves.”

“Demons exist,” Bethany said. “They’re not just psychological archetypes.”

“Then perhaps angels do, too,” Bergeron said. “The universe is a vast place, full of infinite possibilities. Who am I to say otherwise?”

I looked up at the towering shelves of books again. Walls of hardcover spines stretched up to the stained-glass skylight. The angel reminded me of something I’d read in Calliope’s notebook.

“Have you ever heard of the Angel of the Waters?” I asked.

“I can’t say I’m familiar with the name,” Bergeron said. “But it’s rare for angels to be associated with a natural element like that. Usually angels represent emotions or states of being. Fear, loss, regret, anger.”

“You collect more than just books, though, don’t you?” Bethany said.

He nodded. “You mean artifacts. Yes, artifacts are something I’ve always been interested in. I have my genealogy to thank for that. Some distant great-great-grandfather was said to be a magician. Even though no one else in my family dabbled, his books were passed down with the others. The first time I read about artifacts, I was hooked instantly. Their beauty, the immense power hidden inside them, their very existence spoke to me on an aesthetic level. I was compelled to know more. To see one. To
hold
one. Now, if you’ll come this way.”