Bloodshot - Cherie Priest [97]
“That can’t be a coincidence,” he said.
“Coincidence? Are you shitting me? No way.” Bruner was obviously in this up to his eyeballs, no doubt fancying himself a puppetmaster or something equally sinister. But how was he coordinating the operation from all these different angles?
Earlier, Adrian had brought up satellites, which was superlatively worrisome—because I’d been tailed, that much was clear. But I hadn’t seen or heard or sensed any electronic equipment and I knew damn good and well it hadn’t been as simple as sending a car after me.
I would’ve noticed that. I’m old and wily, and I’m not the kind of girl who fails to notice when she’s being chased.
From a certain crazy, paranoid, conspiracy-theory slant, observation-from-space wasn’t the dumbest conclusion I could draw. It was frankly terrifying, the idea that Ian and I—and maybe, once upon a time, Isabelle, too—could be watched by some radar or spy satellite, just because this dickhead Bruner thinks vampires make excellent experimental subjects.
The thought had me glaring down at the paper, in case I could channel all my rage through that signature upon it, sloppy and arrogant, and make the major’s head explode.
“It’s my own fault,” I grumbled.
“What is?”
This time I shook my head, not sure how to tell him what I meant without telling him too much. “I’ve gotten into this guy’s sights, somehow. Just like your sister did, and just like my client did, a long time ago.”
“You said that already.”
“I meant it, too. See,” I said, putting on my teacher voice and refusing to notice that the towel was slipping, “most vampires conduct business through thralls or ghouls—in order to keep their own names and identities out of the social security office, or the DMV, or anywhere else. But I’ve spent a very long time conducting my own business, apart from any of the Houses. As you so astutely gathered.”
“Why do you go it alone? If it’s so much safer to work through other people, I mean.”
“Habit, I guess. I left my House just a few years after I turned.” And I wasn’t sure why I was telling him all this, except that I so rarely had anyone to talk to, and once I got started talking I found it difficult to stop. Besides, I wasn’t telling him anything important. All of this was ancient history as far as I was concerned. “I had a falling-out with the matriarch, a woman who thought I ought to wait on her hand and foot, and take the fall for her … indiscretions.”
Talk about your euphemisms. She’d fucked and killed her husband’s favorite ghoul, and then she tried to pin it on me. I was new to the family, and no one was willing to take my word over hers—even though everyone knew she was lying. It was bullshit politics, plain and simple. I never got over it. I never shook the idea that other vampires are exactly as horrible as regular people, except that they have a greater capacity to ruin lives and wreak havoc.
No thank you. Call me lone wolf and leave me the hell alone. Besides, I’ve already mentioned my deep-seated mistrust of ghouls. Houses almost always come with ghouls, often a whole consortium of them. If I don’t like and don’t trust one ghoul, you can imagine my comfort level with an entire slave class of them.
I went on, “I may have built up more of a paper trail than I thought. And I don’t have anyone out there watching my back. Most of the other vampires I know I don’t like much. Except Ian.
He’s okay.”
“He’s your client?”
“Yeah. He’s the guy I’m working for.” It could be argued that I never should’ve told him this, but he’d already overheard Ian’s name and I decided it was all right … because I’d already come to a conclusion. “I think you’re going to like him.”
Adrian was taken aback. “Like him? When am I ever going to meet him?”
“Sooner rather than later. Bruner’s office is in D.C., and I’m interested in paying the major a visit. A very quiet visit. The kind where I rifle through all his shit and maybe do him a little bodily harm while I’m at it.”
“How