Hellbent (30 page)

It was my turn to say, “Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit!”

“Do you see anything to guide us?”

“Yes!” I screamed back inside the cabin. “A tornado! A big black one!”

“And that’s going to guide us how?”

“We’re going to get as far away from it as we can, as fast as we can!” I wiped a sopping curtain of hair out of my face and threw my head left and right, hunting for anything of use. But it was so hard to see, even for a monster like me, and it was so hard to look away from the tornado.

It’s not like she hadn’t warned me.

The woman said she was bringing a tornado, and by God, she’d brought a tornado. Say what you will about her mind or her methods, but hot damn. That’s follow-through.

Off in the distance I saw a huge banner waving—the kind of vinyl sheet that’s easily the size of a house, flapping from one corner and being on the very verge of ripping loose. A lightning strike landed way too close, causing Adrian to jerk the wheel and nearly fling me out of the open window … but it also gave me the short clarity to see that the banner advertised a new exhibit in the space museum. Something about the progression of flight suits from the sixties to the present.

Okay. Space museum.

I lunged back inside the Hummer and sat wetly on my maps, which were now absolutely dripping. That didn’t stop me. They were still readable. I pulled them out from under my butt and ran a finger along the pages until I found the museum building—only to learn that it wasn’t one structure, but several. Regardless, they
were close enough together to give me an idea where we were. This idea, combined with the tempest-tossed compass, sufficed to show me the way.

I force-rolled the window back up—an exercise in futility tantamount to closing the barn door after the barn has burned down.

“We’re about to hit a cross street,” I said, pointing pointlessly up ahead, as if he could see what I was trying to indicate. “Take a right, and the road ought to go straight for a few blocks.”

Adrian discovered this cross street by virtue of plowing over the
YIELD
sign. Its red-and-white design mocked us from the windshield until it slid slowly off the side and stuck corner-down into the street. It didn’t stay there long. The wind grabbed it and threw it like a discus, surely beheading or otherwise belimbing anyone unfortunate enough to get in its way.

“Yes,” I said, gesticulating wildly. “This way! Now at the next … it’s not an intersection, I don’t think. It’s a roundabout. Take it far enough around so that you’re going straight.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Yes it does! Just pretend it’s not a roundabout, and you’re going straight! Or shit, just do what I tell you!”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

I growled, “You’re the one who wants to play ghoul. Here! Yes! Go right—go around to the right, I mean.”

He did, and I looked behind us only to see that the tornado had not gotten any farther away, and if anything it looked bigger, meaner, and closer. That might’ve been my imagination, but I didn’t think so.

“Here,” I said, punching him in the right arm. “Here, right here. Now veer off to the right again—see? It’s like there was no circle in the middle and you just went straight.”

“Roundabouts are fucking retarded.”

“No doubt.”

“Now where?” he asked, straining to see through the insufficiently cleared glass.

“Straight, until the road dead-ends in a T,” I said, consulting my notes. I consulted them fast. They were falling apart in my hands. “Then go left, and we ought to be home free.”

“Ought to be?”

“Let it never be said that I made promises I can’t keep.”

“Sometimes I hate you. A little.”

“Back at you, gorgeous,” I said, giving up on the maps. I wadded up what was left and chucked the clumps of disintegrating paper into the backseat before I remembered Creed was there. Upon checking her status and noting that it was unchanged, I decided that it didn’t matter if she played host to some enormous map spitballs. This was all her fault anyway.

The Hummer heaved and jumped one more curve—a big one, and I had no idea if it’d been on the map or not—but suddenly we were on something that drove like a regular road. Beneath the tires, regular asphalt crunched, not the poured cement of driveways and compound paths; and within the sheets of water slicing down through the headlights I could see streaks of yellow.

Adrian saw them, too. He said, “Lane markers.”

“Is this the interstate?”

“No, we haven’t gone that far. But I’ll take it.”

“I don’t see any other cars,” I said with the first wisps of optimism I’d felt in an hour.

“Me either. It might just be a service road, or a local route. Who cares? It’s empty, it’s straight, and it’s pointing us away from the tornado. Right? I don’t see it.” He sat up to look into the rearview mirror.

I turned around and said, “I see it, but it’s not getting any closer. I think we’re leaving it behind.”

“Jesus be praised,” he said under his breath.

“I wouldn’t go that far. I think it stopped on top of the cafeteria. That’s why it’s not coming toward us anymore. It’s busy tearing shit up back there.”

“Just doing its job,” he said, and gave the Hummer more gas than was probably safe—given that we were headed top speed down a two-lane road, in the dark, in the absolutely-not-fucking-around rain, with only one working windshield wiper. But we rolled like hell now that we weren’t scaling curbs, medians, and signs at every turn.

Every tick of every yellow stripe took us farther away from the Johnson Space Center, and away from the storm.

V
ia the world’s most circuitous route, we returned to the hotel about an hour before dawn. I had to carry Elizabeth up into the room, partly because she was still unconscious, and partly because Adrian refused to help me.

“Oh no. She’s
your
pet project. You deal with her.”

“If you’re my ghoul, then she’s
your—
”

“Forget it. This ghoul shit can go out the window.”

“Not if you want to pass in Atlanta, it won’t. We should practice. This would be good practice; here, take her arm.”

“No.”

So I was the one who wrangled her up the elevator and to the relative safety of our hotel room. I dropped Elizabeth on the bed just before remembering we were both still kind of wet from our adventures, so
I swooped her up again and deposited her on the love-seat-type settee up against the window. It’d probably wind up being her bed anyway. Might as well let her get comfortable, or get out of my way as the case may be.

Then I set to peeling off my own wet garb and simultaneously digging round in my rolly case for something clean and dry.

Adrian did likewise over on his side of the room, trying to pretend that he wasn’t so mad that he could barely stand to look at me. He’s not a very good pretender. He blew it when he asked, “Tell me again what the fuck we’re going to do with this woman?”

“For starters, we’re going to let her rest.”

“And then what? Am I in charge of her while you’re asleep? Is that the cunning plan?”

“It’d be nice if you keep her off me while I’m napping. I don’t want to make a mega-mess for housekeeping in our wake—certainly not the kind of thing that might prompt them to contact the authorities. So yeah, do me a favor and mind her while I’m out.”

“I swear to God, I can’t imagine what you were thinking …”

I threw my hands up. “I was thinking,
Shit, this lady is really powerful and kind of fucked-up, but maybe she needs a little help and not a violent take-down.
”

“I don’t believe you for a second. I think you’ve got some weird mommy-complex going on.”

“You take that back!”

“I won’t,” he declared, breaking eye contact long enough to pull his tuxedo shirt off and throw it at the curtains for no apparent reason. “It’s obvious—you’ve met this woman who’s old enough to be your … well, she
looks
old enough to be your mother, and she’s as crazy as you are. Maybe even crazier! And you think,
Hey, I have to help her because we’re, we’re, I don’t know. From the same planet or something.
”

He’s an asshole when he’s being smart, but he’s hard to argue
with. “Okay, I don’t see it like that,” I partially lied, because I could totally see the sense in what he was saying. “But even if every word were true, who cares? I grabbed her, I brought her here, and more important, I scored the bones.”

“You scored
her
and the bones. One of these things you can sell. One of these things you might be stuck with for a while!”

“So goddamn shortsighted,” I accused as I turned away from him, unfastened my bra, and peeled it off my chest. It made a slurping sound as it unstuck from my boobs. While I still had my back to him, I yanked a T-shirt on over my head. “We can sell the bones, yes. I’ll call Horace and let him know I have them, first thing tomorrow night. But Ms. Creed over there … she can stay with us, or head off on her own. She might be a little unbalanced, but she’s an adult. All I did was rescue her from the NASA security goons. I didn’t
adopt
her. I’m not going to get her spayed and find her a good home.”

“You ever tell yourself that about Pepper and Domino?”

“All the time, but that’s different. These days, I kind of
need
them. Or Ian does.”

“
These days
, yeah. Whatever lets you sleep at night.”

“I sleep like a stoner, and it’s no business of yours whom I rescue, adopt, or kick to the curb. You’re not even really my ghoul, anyway. If you were, you might be in some place to criticize—but of course, if you were really my ghoul, you wouldn’t dare. You’d have too much sense for that.”

“Maybe we should put this whole ‘ghoul’ thing to bed right now—it’s not going to work.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” I said. I held the absolutely trashed Chanel in my hands and tried not to cry. It was a stupid thing to cry over, but I’d bought it new, when I was young. And I wondered if I could save it, because I’m a sentimental loony. “So
obviously
,” I said, feeling spiteful at the world and aiming it at him, “you can’t come with me to Atlanta.”

“Say what now?”

“You heard me. If you can’t pass as my ghoul, you won’t survive the Barrington Household. So forget it. You’re headed back to Seattle tomorrow.”

“Like hell I am.” He did a 180. “I’ll fake it so good, you’ll give me an Oscar when we get home.”

“You haven’t done much to demonstrate it yet. Don’t you understand? Ghouls are deferential, they’re quiet, and they’re useful. You aren’t any of those things. Ever.”

“I learned on the fly in San Francisco.”

“That was for the span of half an hour. And you weren’t
great
, even for that long. Look, I know you think I’m laying this on thick because I want a lackey, but that’s not the case. I’ve never had a lackey before, I don’t like lackeys, and I particularly don’t like
ghouls
, if you’ll recall. Ergo, the fact that you’re the world’s worst ghoul is a huge point in your favor from a personal standpoint, but it’ll get you killed in the kind of scenario I’m looking at in Georgia.”

“Obviously, I’ll fake it
better
in Georgia. I’m much better at kissing ass when my life is on the line.”

“Not good enough,” I countered. “I can handle the trip myself, and if you can’t convince me otherwise by next nightfall, you’re going home.”

He looked like he wanted to call me names—creative names, names that I’d write down and use again for how awful and brilliant they were—but he swallowed them down and only glared. Then he said, “You’re im-fucking
-possible.
”

“I am also exhausted and to paraphrase the bard—here comes the sun.” I drew the curtains shut and fastened them with the
binder clips I’d picked up on a whim a few days previously. They’re perfect for the job—cheap, portable, and efficient. “So if you don’t mind, I’m going to burrito myself up in the comforter and call it a day. If you want to prove to me what an awesome ghoul you’re capable of being, perhaps you’ll consider helping Ms. Creed get her shit together while I’m not looking.”

I kicked my mutilated shoes under the bed, grabbed the comforter, and swathed myself therein—pulling the covers up over my head until I couldn’t see a thing, including the thing I least wanted to see. (Read: The expression on Adrian’s face, which no doubt could’ve killed dandelions.)

Much to my surprise, he didn’t say anything.

I kept waiting for it, lying there wondering when the retort would come. But it didn’t. And before long I fell asleep.

I awakened however-many-number-of-hours later to the soft sound of voices, and I was somewhat confused. Was it the television? Not unless Adrian was on TV, which felt unlikely. Then who the hell was he talking to?

Oh yeah.

Her
.

I extricated myself from the blankets with about as much grace and speed as you’d expect, then rubbed at my eyes to clear them—revealing Adrian and Elizabeth sitting on either side of a small table they’d pulled away from the wall to sit between them. Upon this table was a game of what appeared to be gin rummy.

The rustling of my unfurling drew their attention. Elizabeth folded her cards down onto her lap and said, “Good evening,” like this was the most normal thing in the whole world, sitting in a room with an off-duty drag queen and a vampire, playing cards.

“Back at you,” I mumbled. “Who’s winning?”

Adrian responded, “This round, she is. I won the last one. We’ve just been killing time.”

“Waiting for me to wake up? How thoughtful.”

“Waiting for Elizabeth’s flight. She’s heading out in another two hours. Had to get her a red-eye; it was all I could arrange on short notice.”

“On the Internet?” I assumed.

“With your credit card,” he nodded. “Also, we went shopping.”

“I’m sure you exercised restraint.” I was sure he hadn’t, just to get back at me.

“Absolutely,” he lied. “She needed some clothes. I needed some retail therapy.”