Vampire Babylon - Night Rising Part 34

Numb, Dawn took in what she'd just said. This woman hadn't been an innocent party in all this? Another victim?

But...d.a.m.n it. In all the vampire confusion, she'd temporarily forgotten. No one in this world was innocent. How could she have unlearned that lesson, even for a few days?

Self-hatred spiked Marla Pennybaker's weeping, but it didn't make any difference to Dawn. Not now.

Are you taking this all in, Jonah? she thought. Are you happy with who you chose to help here? Why did you select her?

"I didn't know what else to do," the older woman continued, "so I kept my peace. 'Dosomething,' I kept telling myself, and I tried to get strong enough to talk to Nathan about my suspicions, but I couldn't. And then...then Robby was gone." She sucked in a pained breath. "But now he's back, and this should be my chance to make up for my failings as a mother, shouldn't it? I've been trying to face every truth, but I can't. I just can't. If I let him inside, he'll destroy me because he won't forgive me-and I don't blame him."

"And here we were trying to save you from the agony of knowing all the dirty secrets until it was unavoidable," Dawn said.

"I just wanted you to find him, that's all." She sounded ashamed, cowed by Dawn's comment. "I even understood that he might not be...human, based on what Mr. Limpet explained. I was expecting that spirit though. And when you experts tracked him down, I thought that you'd take care of him. That you'd keep him away from me. That's what paranormal professionals do- destroy the ghosts who come back, right?"

Breisi frowned. "We told you we'd give him peace, if that was what he needed. You seemed to want your little boy back so badly, Mrs. Pennybaker. You seemed to want comfort for and from him. But now that Robby's knocking at your window, you're scared, finally telling us information we should have known up front. You were more interested in extermination than saving him, yes?" "Yes. No..." She shook her head under the jacket. "Maybe."

Now, as Dawn recalled Kiko's faith in Marla, it ate away at her. He'd thought she was a decent sort, too. The psychic had picked up on the matron's desperation to find Robby again; he just hadn't interpreted her buried motives correctly.

He'd be devastated to know he'd misconstrued them, because he was too proud of his talents not to take the failure to heart.

Dawn tried not to think of other visions that might have been misinterpreted, too.

"All Robby wanted was a mom and a dad," she said instead. "And he never really had either one."

Marla shrunk into herself, as if stabbed.

But Breisi kept her cool, even as Dawn boiled.

"In addition to Robby's lifestyle," the other PI asked, "did you know about this Underground Nathan took him to for a career overhaul?"

"Underground." Marla pulled the jacket from her tear-stained face. She had a glaze of apology over her eyes, the confusion of someone who knew they'd done wrong and was trying to compensate by doing right this time. "What's Underground?"

Dawn's gaze went red. "Stop jerking us around, Marla."

"I really don't know! Believe me. Nathan was in charge of Robby's career. I only heard a fraction of what was happening, I'm sure. It's all Nathan's..."

Behind Dawn, thettch, ttchtap of nails on gla.s.s returned. Marla stifled a scream, then burrowed under the jacket again.

Robby was back, and it looked like The Voice's buddies had lost their custody battle. Marla could be taken care of later.

Breisi seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "Dawn, do you remember what you did to Robby earlier? How you mind blasted him across the room at Bava?"

How could she forget? And, more importantly, how the h.e.l.l had she even managed it?

"If you're asking me if I can do that kind of thing again, when it's needed," Dawn said, "I'm gonna say no."

Breisi gave her an a.s.sessing glance, then turned back to Robby. That's when Dawn realized something.

What if mental warfare was the only way to contain this vamp? What if bullets and blades weren't enough?

Ttch, ttch, ttch.

Like a Greek chorus that had taken Marla's story into quiet consideration on the sidelines, Jonah spoke. "Let Robby in. He's about to have company."

Blowing out a breath, Dawn wiped her sweaty palm on her jeans, then prepared her revolver. Breisi turned to the window.

"Robby," she yelled, "come in."

Marla burbled out a string of "no"s from her corner.

And...Robby didn't move. He just continued staring with those don't-you-dare-look-into-my eyes.

"The invitation was useless," Breisi said. The Voice made a thwarted sound. "So it remains that only someone with owners.h.i.+p can issue the invitation. It's no different with Robby."

At the back of the house, a door slammed shut. Footsteps banged on the stark flooring.

"Company," Dawn murmured to Jonah.

Both fighters gunned up, aiming at different entrances to the room. And when a disheveled Nathan Pennybaker ran into the light, neither of them put their weapons down.

Immediately, he raised his hands in surrender. "Marla?" he asked without taking his eyes off the bullet-toting women.

Keeping the jacket on, Marla bolted up in the corner. "Don't look at the window, Nathan!"

Ttch, ttch, ttch.

Snubbing the warning, the man whipped his gaze there anyway. He froze in abject terror.

At the sight of Daddy, Robby began pounding on the window, the gla.s.s quaking.Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.

"Lord," Nathan said, his tone thin and trembling.

"Don't you recognize the vampire you made?" Dawn asked. "Where've you been and how'd you get in here without Robby knowing?"

"I..." Nathan gulped, turning his back on the window while still keeping his hands up.

Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.

"Where-have-you-been?" Dawn yelled.

Nathan cowered. "I've been looking for Robby, too. You know I kept in contact-Marla always knew I was safe, even if she didn't know my location."

Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.

"Dad!" Robby's voice was warped by hatred. "Let me in!"

"Robby," Nathan yelled, refusing to look back. "Just...stay where you are! Please!"

A s.h.i.+ver forced Dawn to face the window. And that's when she saw the eyes in the near distance. Red eyes, bobbing up and down, moving to the cadence of a demented heartbeat.

"Guards. They're behind him," she blurted. A connection sparked. "Nathan, did you bring them? Are you taking Robby back Underground?"

The vampire must've caught what she said; he probably had really good hearing, being a child of the night and all.

"Call the Guards off, Dad! Call them off!"

"And invite Robby in," Breisi said to Nathan. Then she glanced at the boy's mother. "You can still do it, too, Marla. Don't you want to make it up to Robby?"

When Marla began shaking her head under the jacket, Dawn reached her limit. "Help your son!" Neither parent spoke, and Dawn listened for The Voice to offer advice about what to do. But he'd gone silent. Why? Why wasn't he trying to persuade Nathan to invite Robby in?

Had Jonah deserted them?

Nathan stayed facing away from the window, as if he couldn't bear to see the outcome. "We're going back, Robby."

"I don't think so," Dawn said.

On the same p.i.s.sed-off wavelength, Breisi yanked Nathan to the window, her gun still trained on him. He kept his head down, refusing to look at his son. But he did hold up a hand.

It was an obvious command, because the red-eyes halted, pulsating in place.

"Look at me, Dad!" Robby yelled. "Look at what you made!"

Nathan shook his head, his palms now covering his face.

The vamp didn't seem to mind the Guards-after all, he was finally facing his father, his biggest nemesis. "See me? I'm never going to be a man, no matter how quickly I grow up. But you never wanted me to be more than a little boy, did you."Bam, bam, bam."You hated that my body was maturing, hated my ideas for a new image, so you charmed me into a 'program'"-he mocked the word-"that would reinvent me. And since you knew I wanted to transition into adult roles, I trusted you. I thought it was just what I needed for the change, and I went along with it. Itrustedyou."

Dawn was trying to grasp Robby's accusations, hold them long enough to match them with her questions and meld them into answers. But things were going too fast, and it was all she could do to wonder why Nathan had made Robby into a vamp...why he'd forced Robby to stay a child...and what good it did to even send his son to this Underground.

Why? And when would everything make sense?

Robby started pounding again, but he gave up, fists slipping down the gla.s.s with a suicidal yelp. Nathan wasn't giving any indication that he'd heard a word.

Not knowing how to maneuver things into their favor, Dawn simply targeted the red-eyes in the background. They were waiting patiently, stalkers in the night.

More than anything she wanted to shoot Nathan Pennybaker. And maybe even Marla, too, but...there was something about the way Marla Pennybaker was acting now, almost like she was sorry about her neglect.

But Robby wasn't done. "Do you know what a nightmare the Underground was?" He bent down, trying to snag his father's gaze.

"After I was initiated, I fought them. But perfect son that I am, I gave up and went back to trusting you again. I don't know why.

Seemed easier that way, I suppose. And, for years, I lived the program, but I couldn't follow through-especially when the final release got closer. I just wanted to stay the same, Dad-I wanted to bemyself. So I started to take some field trips away from the program, to find you again, to recapture the hopes I used to have, to get back the excitement of a normal son who had ambitions for the coming years-a human who could buddy around with his dad and become arealman someday. That's when they locked me in. And I answered that by escaping for good. But what did I actually escape?" His flesh began to glow. "Look at me, Dad!

What else can I ever be now but a child star?"

At the sight of his skin, Dawn stiffened-from trepidation and puzzlement. Nothing made sense, nothing was fitting together....

"Look at me!" he screeched.

His love and hatred for Nathan couldn't have been more muddled and, at the same time, clear. But Dawn fought sympathy for Robby. All she had to do was remember Bava.Remember what he'd done to her and Kiko without even a second thought.

As Marla wept, Nathan finally raised his head. His eyes were closed, probably because he knew the extent of Robby's mind- s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g powers. With every furious cell in her body, Dawn wished Nathan would give his son the chance to work him over.

"You're going to see," the father said, voice loud enough to carry through the window, "that I made the right decision, Rob.

You're going to be a bigger star now than ever before."

What? How would this Underground manage that?

A strict glance from Breisi told Dawn that listening was their most valuable tool right now, so she'd better keep mum.

"This needs to stop, Nathan," Marla cried from the corner. "Robby's an abomination. We need to let these women help him."

Her plea might as well have been vapor.

Nathan held his hand to the window, an appeal to his son. "I've got this all planned out. The public is aching for another Robby Pennybaker-the sweet child who captured everyone's hearts and will do the same thing again. Think of how you used to feel when girls would mob you for an autograph. Think of that adoration. Do you remember how it made you feel so alive? That doesn't happen for a lot of child stars after they grow older and uglier-after they lose their baby fat. I stopped you from becoming a late-night TV punchline, Rob."

The vampire was staring at his dad's hand, his body shaking as if craving the sustenance of his old fame.

"You'll be thenewRobby Pennybaker," Nathan added, voice slick. "Wors.h.i.+pped again."

h.e.l.lo-did they not see that Robby was a vampire? He wouldn't fool anyone.

There was a taut pause, one in which she could feel a ripple of indecision from Robby. Wary, she concentrated on blocking him, on barring out an invader who was at her locked door, waiting to barge in.

Marla's voice came from the corner. "Haven't you punished him enough? Every time you sold him out, I'll bet you were avenging yourself because he succeeded where you'd failed-"

"Marla." Nathan pushed his other hand out at her.

Dawn glanced at the woman to find that the jacket had slipped away from her face. She seemed torn between a mother's love for her son-to the extent that it existed for Marla-and her own nightmares.

As Dawn turned back to Nathan, she found that he'd raised more of his face to Robby. There was surprise widening his eyes- maybe because he now realized that Marla knew about the pimping. Had he meant to open his eyes or had shock done it?

Nathan's stare connected with Robby's. "I've been waiting a very long time for your release. I've missed you, and I'm going to look out for you. Just like old times, Rob."

The vampire raised his hand to the gla.s.s, pressed his palm against his father's, tears running down his cheeks.

The mean streaks brought back the memory of violence for Dawn, and she battled to shut out all of it-except for one thing. A vision Kiko had gotten right in this very house.

"You've killed for him," Dawn whispered.

Nathan kept lavis.h.i.+ng a glance on Robby, their gazes meeting like a mended vein. "Never."

Bulls.h.i.+t. "My a.s.sociate has evidence that you had blood on your hands the night Robby 'died.' Your housekeeper's blood." A fey, absent smile wisped over Nathan's mouth as he looked at Robby.

"I was merely cleaning up after my boy," he said, his voice slurred, altered. "That simpleton Ingrid, who was supposed to be off that night, stumbled into her room just after Dr. Eternity...left." His face went slack. Robby c.o.c.ked his head. Nathan imitated him.

"Rob was still hungry, even during his pain, and he asked her for a drink. It all happened so fast...Since she was the woman who'd brought him milk every night before bedtime, she automatically said yes. But then she realized something was wrong with Rob. She started to run away." A strangely proud grin lit Nathan's face as he continued gazing into his son's eyes. "They say he was the strongest vampire at birth that they've ever seen; so hungry for more. The creatures won't drink from the unwilling, but he got Ingrid's permission, and he took her blood. She was his first."

Several things. .h.i.t Dawn at once: the housekeeper hadn't committed suicide. And the reason Robby hadn't forcibly taken Dawn's own blood at Bava was because she'd denied him.