Little more than an hour later, Brandon opened his motel room door, his eyes flying wide when he saw Rene leaning heavily against the door frame.
Jesus! What happened? the younger man exclaimed.
“Je suis bien,” Rene said as Brandon got an arm around his middle and led him, stumbling and dizzy, into the room. “I’m all right, petit.”
That’s bullshit, Rene—you’re bleeding! Brandon eased him down into an armchair and squatted beside him, visibly stricken. He reached for Rene, the shallow but messy laceration that cleaved a crooked path from his left temple to his cheekbone. What happened?
Rene shook his head. “Nothing I didn’t bring on myself,” he said, squinting against the sting of blood in his eye. Brandon stood, rushing to the sink vanity and soaking a washcloth under the cold tap. “I did something really fucking stupid, petit. And I need you to help me fix it.”
What are you talking about? Brandon brought the washcloth to him, then knelt again, leaning forward to press the wet rag against his brow. When Rene jerked, sucking in a quick, hissing breath, Brandon winced. I’m sorry.
“That’s all right. I got it,” Rene said, taking the washcloth from Brandon and holding it gingerly against his face. He glanced around the room. “Where’s Lina?”
She went for her morning run, Brandon replied. She just left a little while ago, but she’s got her cell with her. I can call—
He started to rise again, but Rene caught his arm. “That’s all right, petit. I’d just…” He sighed, glancing toward the window somewhat sheepishly. “I’d just as soon she not find out about this, if at all possible. Her or Tessa. We can just tell them I had car trouble or something, cracked my head on the hood when I popped it. The Jaguar is gone anyway. They won’t know the difference.”
What do you mean, gone? Brandon asked. Rene, what the hell happened?
“Martin got away,” Rene said after a long, shamed moment. Brandon’s eyes widened and he grimaced, nodding. “I know. I know, petit. I went out there to try and get him to help us, you know, like I’d told you before. I thought I could use that ledger Tessa found, all of those bank account records, to blackmail him into contacting the Elders, calling them off somehow. And if that didn’t work…” He gasped as he inadvertently touched a particularly painful place on his head with the washcloth. “If that didn’t work, I brought my pistol along. Figured I’d cut our losses if he wasn’t willing to play ball.”
What happened? Brandon asked.
Rene shook his head. “The son of a bitch clubbed me. I untied him long enough so he could take a piss—you know, making nice with him to get him on our side of things, and he slammed me back against the wall. Grabbed my goddamn gun and pistol-whipped me upside the head.”
Jesus Christ! Brandon exclaimed and Rene nodded grimly.
“Oui. Tell me about it, petit. He got my car keys, too. Took the Jag and tore out of there. I had to fucking hitchhike back here and used my telepathy afterward to wipe out the memory of the driver who gave me a lift. It was too much, too soon.” He winced again, drawing the washcloth back to find the terry cloth stained with blood. “I’m still weak from where Tessa fed from me. Damn near wiped myself out.”
Why did you go up there all by yourself? Brandon asked. He took the rag from Rene and went back to the sink, rinsing it out. You should have grabbed me or Lina, at least. Martin Davenant is next in line to be an Elder—he’s strong and he’s dangerous. He could have killed you.
“He tried awful damn hard, petit,” Rene said, as Brandon returned with the washcloth. “Trust me.” He looked up at the younger man, his expression drawn and grim. “We’ve got to find him, Brandon. He knows where we are. He can lead the Elders right to us.”
If he hasn’t called them already, Brandon said, glancing suddenly, anxiously at the window and door.
Rene shook his head. “He hasn’t. He doesn’t have the balls. Not with that ledger in his hands. If your grandfather finds out about that book, he’ll string Martin up. Martin took it from me and I know where he’s going—back to Kentucky. Back to the farm. Then he’ll call his daddy and the Elders, tell them all about us.”
How do you know that? Brandon asked, raising his brow.
“Because, petit,” Rene replied with a wink and a humorless smile. “A little birdie told me. I sent the birds out to look for him—just like I did to find Tessa. I saw through their eyes; I watched his car get on highway 58 heading north.”
North? Brandon frowned. Where the hell is he going?
“My guess is Reno. He can ditch the car there and get a plane ticket for Kentucky. Be home by dark.” He met Brandon’s gaze. “Which means the Elders can be here by the morning, petit, unless we stop him.”
Brandon nodded once. Tell me what we need to do.
“Did Lina take the Mercedes keys with her?” Rene asked, and when Brandon shook his head, he said, “Good. Toss them here.” He set the washcloth aside, wincing as he rose slowly, stiffly to his feet. “I’m driving.”
They drove north, diverting onto Highway 395 toward Reno and heading into the arid, high desert countryside of Nevada north of Carson City. They’d been on the road for little more than a half hour, when Rene suddenly veered the Mercedes off course, turning damn near one hundred and eighty degrees around onto the southbound Highway 429.
What is it? Brandon thought, leaning forward, frowning as he peered out the windshield.
“What the fuck is he doing?” Rene murmured, also frowning. When Brandon glanced at him, curious, he said, “I’m trying to track him in my mind, using the birds. He’s up ahead here a little ways. He’s pulled off the road, turned into some kind of parking lot. Looks like warehouses or something.”
He stopped the car, pulling the Mercedes off onto the soft shoulder of the highway and closed his eyes, pressing his fingertips against his brow. “Not warehouses,” he said after a moment. “Hangars. Airport hangars.” He looked over at Brandon. “He’s not going to the Reno airport. He’s going to some pissant little mom-and-pop one. He must mean to charter a plane.” He closed his eyes again, his brows narrowed, but after a moment, he shook his head, uttering a quiet, frustrated cry. “Goddamn it! I lost him. I can’t seem to keep focused. I’m still too weak.”
I don’t think it’s you. Brandon studied the road ahead of them, still frowning. I’m having trouble, too. I’m getting all kinds of weird sensations. I know he’s near us, just up ahead somewhere. I can feel him. But it’s different. He, too, touched his head, his frown deepening. I feel like he’s blocking me somehow. Maybe blocking us both.
“Can he do that, petit?” Rene asked when Brandon turned his way. “He’s strong enough?”
I don’t know, Brandon replied. I told you—he’s the oldest Davenant son, next in line to be named an Elder. That means he’s pretty damn strong. And if he stopped along the way to feed off someone, then it means his powers are even stronger, at least for the moment.
His expression grew apprehensive. I don’t know if we can take him, Rene. If he’s strong enough to block our telepathy…
“I know we can,” Rene cut in, leaning forward and pulling the Sig Sauer from the waistband of his jeans, where he’d tucked it at the small of his back. He showed it to Brandon with a thin smile. “I don’t need telepathy.”
They drove again, following the two-lane highway south until they saw the airport ahead of them on the left, little more than an outdated control tower and a couple of blacktopped runways crisscrossing a broad expanse of sagebrush-dusted plain. Three large hangars, each Quonset hut–shaped and constructed of corrugated metal, flanked one another along the far side of a small adjacent parking lot. Here, even from a distance, Rene and Brandon could see Martin’s maroon Jaguar parked in the midmorning sun.
“I don’t see him anywhere.” Rene had again stopped the car along the highway, and they had both climbed out. They stood side by side next to the Mercedes, shielding their eyes with their hands and surveying the landscape. “You got a feel for him, petit?”
Brandon had been watching Rene as he spoke, reading his lips, and shook his head, averting his gaze back to the trio of hangars. Nothing. It’s like I’ve run into a brick wall. Can you send a bird or two down there to scope things out?
Rene shook his head. No. I’m with you—nothing but a wall. Goddamn it, he’s blocking us somehow. He must have known we’d find a way to follow him, track his sorry ass down.
So what do we do now? Brandon asked, and Rene glanced at him with a wry smile.
“Offhand, I say we go down there and you use a little of that aikido shit to start things off. Then, whenever you get tired, I’ll introduce him to ol’ Betsy here.” Again, he pulled out the pistol, giving it a demonstrative little waggle. “How does that sound, petit?”
Brandon grinned. Fine by me.
Rene parked the Mercedes in the airport parking lot, observing a modest, wary distance from the Jaguar. There was still no sign of Martin; no sign of anyone, in fact. There were small propeller planes parked here and there with wheel blocks to hold them fast. A bright orange windsock flapped and waved in the breeze, but otherwise there was nothing; not a sound, not a hint of anything stirring. All of the hangar doors were closed, the tower windows dark.
Rene looked around, turning in an uneasy circle, the nine millimeter gripped lightly in his hand. “This place is a goddamn ghost town,” he muttered.
Over there. Brandon pointed to one of the hangars. Look, Rene. There’s a sign on that side door that says “office.” You think that’s where he went?
Rene thumbed the safety off on the pistol. I think it’s as good a place as any to start, petit. Let’s go.
They walked together into the shadow-draped hangar. Although there were light fixtures dangling from the rafters, none had been turned on and the narrow windows close to the ceiling provided only dim hints of illumination. Seven planes were parked inside the broad belly of the building, six smaller, propeller-powered charter planes and one large, sleek, glistening private jet parked at the far end of the room.
Do you see anything? Brandon asked, frowning as he glanced around. I have a really weird feeling about this, Rene. I—
Rene caught him sharply by the arm, drawing his mental voice short. When Brandon looked at him, his brows raised, Rene nodded to indicate the jet. Voices, he said in his mind. I hear people talking. They’re inside that plane.
He moved forward, striding briskly but quietly across the room, ducking and weaving in and among the planes.
Rene, wait. Brandon followed, his footsteps nearly silent against the smooth concrete floor.
No way, petit, Rene replied, his brows furrowed, his mouth turned down in a frown. That son of a bitch isn’t getting away. Not again. Not this time, goddamn it.
Rene, wait, Brandon said again. Something’s not right. I can feel it. I just—
As the younger man thought this, they rounded the tail of one of the charter prop planes, just in time to see Martin Davenant emerging from the jet. He started to walk down the steel steps while speaking to someone, a man who stepped out of the plane almost immediately behind him.
Rene froze and heard Brandon skitter to a halt behind him, his breath cutting abruptly, sharply short. Another man stepped onto the stairs leading down from the jet behind Martin, then another and another and another—ten of them altogether, all men in their late forties or early fifties dressed nearly identically in dark, well-tailored, crisply pressed suits.
Oh, Jesus, Brandon gasped inside of Rene’s head, his voice shrill and panicked. Oh, Christ, oh, fuck me, Rene—it’s the Elders! For Christ’s sake, run!
Rene whirled just in time to see Brandon take off, racing across the hangar floor away from the jet. He followed, hoping like hell his prosthetic knee didn’t fail him now as his feet slapped a heavy, hurried cadence against the floor.
Rene, come on! Brandon reached the door first and shoved against the bar, spilling a broad beam of daylight in as he pushed it open. Jesus Christ, Rene, we’ve got to—
He turned around and Rene shot him.
The nine-millimeter slug caught him in the right shoulder—almost exactly where he’d been shot only weeks earlier—and knocked him a good foot and a half backward, if not more. Brandon floundered, his knees buckling, his hand darting to his chest, and he blinked at Rene in wide-eyed, openmouthed bewilderment and shock.
“I’m sorry, petit,” Rene whispered.
Brandon gasped soundlessly, crumpling to the ground, and then the Elders were upon him, moving impossibly fast as they whipped past Rene, all of them grabbing hold of Brandon, tussling with him from all sides.
Brandon tried to fight them, but it was useless. Rene watched as one of them hauled him up, clamping a hand about his throat, and slammed him back against the wall, pinning him with his feet off the floor.
One of the Elders had lagged behind the others, standing with Martin Davenant at the base of the stairs leading from the jet while his fellows had pounced on Brandon. Now he walked forward, the soles of his polished leather shoes scraping softly against the ground, his pace almost leisurely. He watched Brandon’s struggle with cool detachment, as if the young man whose blood was splashed all over the concrete was nothing to him, less than a stranger.
He had long, pale hair that hung past the middle of his back in a smooth, heavy sheaf. His face was strikingly handsome, similar in features to Brandon, but colder, harder, as if etched out of a block of granite. Rene knew him; had seen him once before in what at the time had seemed like a dream.
“You and me, we’re square, no?” he said to Augustus Noble, drawing the man’s gaze. How his grandson and granddaughter could have such warm, wonderfully expressive eyes while his own—the same color, same shape, nearly identical in every way—could be so icy, almost dead, was beyond Rene’s understanding.
“Oui.” Augustus nodded once, watching as Brandon gargled helplessly for breath, slapping vainly, feebly against the hand that strangled him.
“You got what you came for,” Rene said, cutting a painful glance at Brandon. “You’ll leave them alone—Tessa and the bébé? They’re free now. For always.”
“You’re going to call Augustus Noble,” Rene had instructed Martin after untying him in the watch house. “You’re going to tell him his grandson Caine is dead. Then you’re going to broker a little deal for me.”
Martin had been thumbing through the stack of incriminating invoices and bank statements Rene had given him. “And why the fuck am I going to do that?” he’d asked, to which Rene had smiled wanly.
“Because if you don’t, mon ami, I’m going to send the rest of the shit you kept tucked in that ledger directly to his goddamn front door, certified and hand delivered,” Rene had replied, tossing him a cell phone. “Do you think I’m really fucking stupid enough to just hand it all over to you and trust you won’t screw me? Now make the goddamn call.”
Martin had taken a little too much pleasure in the part of Rene’s plan that had him clubbing Rene in the head with the pistol. He’d knocked the senses momentarily from Rene, sending him crashing to his knees, his scalp split open, his ears ringing.
“Nice doing business with you, mon ami,” Martin had sneered, lending particularly snide emphasis on the French words as he’d tossed the Sig Sauer on the floor beside Rene. “You fuck with me on your end of this, and I’ll come back and bleed you dry. You and that goddamn cunt I married.”
He didn’t know Tessa’s baby was a boy—none of them did—and Rene sure as hell wasn’t about to tell them. He was going to force Augustus Noble to his goddamn word and keep him there, no matter what.
Augustus cut those black, fathomless eyes his way and it felt for all the world as if he’d physically reached out, clamping his hand against Rene’s throat. “We had an agreement, boy,” he said, his voice low and even, yet still tinged with a brittle undertone of malice. “And you’ve kept your part. Now I’ll keep mine.”
Rene thought of the dream he’d had, when he’d somehow been inside of Augustus’s mind, when he’d seen the images of two young boys—Augustus and Rene’s own grandfather—sealing their friendship in a bond of blood, juxtaposed with the horrific sight of an enormous house ablaze, the people trapped inside shrieking.
“You know me,” Rene had told him on the cell phone from the watch house in the woods. “You know my name—Morin.”
“The world is full of names, boy, and yours—like you—means nothing to me,” Augustus had replied.
But as Rene looked now, he could see that wasn’t true; he could see the thin pale strip of scar cutting a diagonal path across the older man’s right palm. Augustus Noble had lied; he’d indeed known Michel Morin. Even if the other Elders hadn’t somehow realized who Rene was—what he was—Augustus Noble did. And oh, Christ, I think he killed them—killed them all. He burned my family alive.
Augustus nodded once to the Elders, and they released Brandon. The young man collapsed to the floor in a shuddering, bleeding heap, nearly unconscious. Rene turned away, his stomach knotted, his heart feeling as if he’d just shoved the business end of a meat cleaver clear through his sternum. I’m sorry! he wanted to cry to Brandon. I had no choice! I did it to protect Tessa and the baby! There was no other way!
“What…what are you going to do with him now?” he asked, his voice choked and strained.
“The question is not what I’m going to do with him,” Augustus said as two of the other Elders hauled Brandon up, seizing him beneath the arms. They began to drag him toward the jet, leaving a glistening trail of blood smeared on the concrete behind them, “but what I’m going to do to him. And that, boy, is none of your concern.”
“But you’re not going to kill him,” Rene said. “You need him, no? I told you—Caine is dead. You need Brandon now so the Nobles will stay dominant.”
Augustus studied him for a long moment, those dark eyes impaling him. “That, too, is none of your concern.”
Rene watched as he turned, walking away, the diffused light seeping down from the windows pale and aglow in his hair. He waited until they were gone, disappearing from view among the shadows and airplanes before he wheeled about, stumbling clumsily for the door.
Oh, God, he thought, raking his fingers through his hair and staggering about in the glaring sunshine beyond the hangar. Oh, viens m’enculer, what have I done? What have I fucking done?
He could hear the steel door of the hangar rumbling, screeching on its tracks as it rolled open. There was a low whine as the jet’s engines fired up, readying the sleek plane to taxi out onto a runway. The Elders meant business; there’d be no side trips to Reno to take in a little gambling or a show, no visits to nearby Virginia City to down a cold, frosty one at the Bucket of Blood Saloon or to pay an amorous call to the Bunny Ranch brothel. They were heading back to Kentucky and they were bringing Brandon with them.
God help him, they’re taking him home, Rene thought, then his stomach heaved and he doubled over, vomiting against the tarmac.