Another One Bites the Dust (33 page)

“Try mustard,” I suggested.

“Ahh.”

“It shouldn’t be that hard to find the guy,” I told them. “How many Chinese men wearing gold robes pushing baby strollers do you see on a daily basis?”

“None,” Cole replied. “But people are starting to trickle into the parking lot where I’m standing. I’ve got a pretty good view down the path behind them too, and the thing is, I’m not seeing any now either.”

What the hell? He should be sticking out like Santa Claus on a nude beach!

“Maybe he has the chameleon’s ability to blend in,” suggested Vayl.

Bergman’s voice came tight and shaking over our earpieces. “Listen, when we put the armor on certain animals they
were
able to blend in with their surroundings. And these were mammals whose coats did not typically change colors with the seasons. It could be that he’s ditched the robes and the armor itself has become his disguise.”

Shit
. Part of me just wanted to sit down on that dirty path along with the discarded candy wrappers, soda straws, bits of popcorn, and wads of tasteless gum and give the hell up. You think you’re almost to the top of that bastard of a mountain. You’ve killed the Empress of Doom. Saved the innocents. Staved off world war. And then some psycho dragon wannabe makes off with the second most adorable infant on earth,
and
he might as well be invisible. What the hell is
with
that?

But I kept moving, kept studying faces, kept following the path. Then I heard it. Not clearly, but not distant either.

I couldn’t run. Not unless I wanted to start a stampede. But I picked up the pace big-time. Took that path nearly to the marina and then stopped again to listen. Above the babble of scared voices, crying children, and stern cop voices shouting directions, a baby screamed.

I said, “Guys, I spent enough time with E.J. to know the kid I hear crying right now is not hungry, wet, or tired. That is a freaked-out baby who wants his mommy.”

Vayl said, “I am on my way, but do not wait.”

“Cole?”

“I can see you.”

“Good. Keep me in sight. Be ready for anything.”

I zeroed in on the source of that sound. Within thirty seconds I found Lai, bawling so hard his chubby little cheeks were beet red and soaked with tears. Pushing his stroller was a person with Lung’s facial features. That was it. He had, indeed, shed his robes. His armor had crafted itself into a plain black suit, the long sleeves of which covered his hands. He even had matching shoes and a fedora.
Bergman would be so proud,
I thought bitterly.

Reminding myself to behave exactly as Pengfei would, I marched up to Lung and wrenched the stroller out of his hands. Maintaining translating distance was tough with people jostling us from every side, but I managed.

“Are you out of your mind?” I shrilled at him, remembering just in time to spread the fan in front of my mouth with my free hand.

Lung jerked the stroller back. “Samos betrayed us, as I warned you he would! You should never have trusted our grand plan to one who does not put China foremost! Now we are going to do this as
I
wished to! This child will be the start of an army trained from infancy to our way of thinking. With Chinese boys outnumbering girls five to one there is no limit to our supply. And now that we have the armor, we can ensure their invincibility on any field of battle on earth!”

Even in this horror-framed moment, when I understood if I so much as cocked my head in the wrong direction this lunatic would kill baby Lai, I couldn’t quite understand how Lung managed to contain all that insanity inside his spare frame. It seemed to me something monstrous should erupt from the top of his head, maybe a gigantic pus-covered fist holding a twenty-foot billboard flashing a warning to all comers not to be taken in by the fact that this guy could fake normality for long periods of time.

The words came out so fast I suspected I might be channeling Pengfei. A pleasant thought, as long as she loathed every second of it. “We’ll never get out of Texas with this baby, Chien-Lung. His parents have already sent the police after him. The FBI will join the search soon. Before we are out of American waters his face will be on millions of television sets. Additionally, think about this, we don’t have the resources to take care of one baby, much less the thousands we would need for an army.” I grabbed at the stroller. Lung yanked it to his right, out of my reach.

“Do not touch it!” he snarled.

I kept talking, which was stupid, I know. Lunatics don’t follow logic. But we were still surrounded by people. Vayl hadn’t arrived. There was Lai to consider. So . . . “Lung, please believe, the idea is strategic disaster. You must understand, Americans value children above all. They will be in no frame of mind to war with the Chinese when their hearts are breaking for Chinese parents who have lost their baby. At least let this one go. Wait until we get back home. Then you can take as many babies as you wish.”

The stroller inched toward me. My palms itched to seize it. Instead I smiled. “I have arranged for our speedboat to meet us in a private place, away from the crowds. If a reporter recognizes us we may never reach the yacht.”

What was that in his eyes? A moment of reluctant sanity? “All right.” The stroller came into my hands. As I pushed it into the crowd I felt, more than saw, Cole take command of it.

“Come.” I led him past the marina, across the auto-filled lot to Sanford Park. Why was it suddenly so dark? Oh yeah, the amulet squashing my enhanced vision again. Luckily I still had my night-vision contacts in, so I shut my eyes tight. When I opened them everything showed up much more plainly despite the fact that the whole area looked to have been pissed on by a drunken leprechaun.

I took Lung to the gazebo. The body lay where I’d found it. Lung crouched over it, wrinkling his nose at the smell. “I see you allowed Yale his share.” He stood. “Well, now that Samos is no longer our ally, at least we are rid of the reavers.”

“Yes. There is that.” I set the fan on the railing. Surely it was dark enough here he wouldn’t notice a lack of lip synching. Plus I needed both hands free now.

One cool thing about the dress I wore, the sleeves hid my wrist sheaths nicely. I’d loaded my syringe of holy water into the right one. The one on the left held my throwing knives. My bola had posed the biggest challenge. Cassandra had helped me solve it by braiding the wig hair around it and wrapping the bit of hilt that showed with red ribbon. It had never looked so pretty or given me such a headache.

“I don’t see any boats yet, do you?” I asked. I used my left hand to point back toward the marina. My right pulled back, activating the sheath’s automatic-feed system. Within a second I held the syringe.

As Lung turned to look, I lunged forward, jamming the syringe into his ear. But the armor saw me coming. It had moved at half-speed, as though confused by my disguise. But it had warded off my attack. By the time the needle hit, the scrape of metal on metal told me scales already covered the side of his head. However I knew better than to depend on a single attempt. I’d already begun reaching for my bola as I made my first move, and by the time I knew the syringe was useless the knife hilt filled my left hand.

Shocked that Pengfei would attempt to kill him, Lung’s first reaction was defensive. He crouched. After a brief delay, maybe only two or three heartbeats, the armor raced to cover his head. Already he had horns and fangs.

But that short pause had given me the opening I needed.

Using both hands to power the move, I jammed the bola through his cheek and into his nose. He screamed and jerked away, launching one of the spines off his back, more out of instinct, I think, than any real attempt to hurt me with it. It landed halfway up the hill and exploded, sending grass and dirt flying.

I yelled, “Vayl! Gazebo!
Now
!” Trying to avoid getting blown to bits or crispy-curled, I stayed in close, and I mean tight, like a tick on a German shepherd in the middle of July. Lung did his expanding act while I slammed kicks into his growing torso, trying to keep one eye on his tail and the other on his fire-breathing apparatus.

But it looked like the knife had done a number on the mechanism. In fact, a quarter of his face from cheek to forehead still remained scale-free. Blood splattered across his shoulders, me, and the grass as he shook his head, trying to dislodge the knife, but it wouldn’t budge.

When his claws ripped out of their wrappings I darted clear, remembering the damage they’d done his attackers on the yacht. But he seemed more intent on using them to knock the bola free. He roared as he somehow managed to wiggle it deeper, and a fresh gout of blood ran down his cheek and neck.

I popped the top button of Pengfei’s dress and drew Grief. It felt like taking aim at an F-18 with a spit wad. I was so not packing the necessary heat to smoke this monster. Hell, that kind of firepower might not even exist. But Vayl’s sudden presence along with his reassuring “I am here,” made me hope otherwise.

He ran past me so quickly I barely saw the blur as he leaped at Chien-Lung, making my heart stop for a terrifying two seconds as he went straight for the face and I thought, “Oh my God, what if the fire erupts now? What if he burns? He’ll never come back!” The possibility took the starch right out of my knees.

In movements so swift my eyes could barely follow, Vayl jerked Lung’s head around, using the hilt of the knife as a handle, and sank his fangs into the exposed skin of his face.

Lung went nuts. He screamed as if all the demons in hell were shredding his soul bit by tiny bit. He launched every single spike from his back, blowing so many pits in Sanford Park’s hillside it looked like the land had developed a skin-eating infection. His tail whipped wildly from side to side. He beat Vayl with his claws. He raked at his back, which should’ve left deep furrows that should have filled first with poison and then with blood. But they did neither.

Vayl released Lung and jumped away from him. I scrambled to my feet, keeping my eyes on those nongrievous wounds. I couldn’t believe what I saw.

“Vayl,” I whispered. “What’s happening?”

“The power you gave me tonight with your blood,” he said, his voice ringing with triumph. “Remember I said I could feel the change?”

“Yeah.”

“It is a second
cantrantia.
The ability to consume another vampire’s power and make it my own.”

I came close to him, close enough to touch the torn edges of his shirt, the gaping openings of which revealed—“Ice,” I said. “You’re armored in ice.”

Bergman’s voice came tinny and distant in my ears. “Jaz, what’s happening? What did you say?”

“Bergman, I thought you said this armor was . . . was man-made. How could it . . . How could this . . .” Speech failed me as I watched scales cover the rest of Vayl’s back, neck, head, and face. Frosty-white scales that covered him with his own thick, hard armor. He didn’t get the dragon face. Didn’t grow to massive proportions or develop freaky claws. He simply looked as if he’d stood outside during a vicious ice storm.

I touched his back and yanked my fingers away, singed by the cold. His clothes weren’t holding up too well either. Rips developed in the thighs of his pants and his shirt pretty much disintegrated. Beneath—beautiful white scales. Even though I knew Vayl had somehow commandeered the biological portion of the armor and rebuilt it according to his own powers, my brain said,
Bullshit,
as my head shook from side to side in absolute agreement.

Lung couldn’t believe it either. “NO!” he screamed. “Not the white dragon!”

That’s right. He went after Cassandra so she wouldn’t repeat some long-dead monk’s prophecy to him. Something about
—I looked at Vayl, shocked into utter stillness by his alien beauty—
a white dragon
. Nope, I didn’t see it. But then Lung wasn’t operating even close to reality. If I had to place Vayl in some sort of prophecy I’d call him a white knight. And we all knew how those stories ended.

He zeroed in on Lung like a torpedo, and Lung, with flight no longer an option, lowered his head and took it.

They slammed into each other like a couple of bull elephants. Scales and blood flew. The ground beneath their feet churned. They clawed and grappled, lost their balance, and rolled down the slope to the edge of the water.

Chien-Lung’s immediate disadvantage was grip. He couldn’t find a purchase on Vayl’s slick armor. His claws scraped harmlessly down Vayl’s sides, off his head and back.

Vayl, having never battled within that hard shell, moved like a freshman football player, slow and awkward, unsure of angles or even his own strength. But as he fought and didn’t lose, he gained confidence. Always aware of Lung’s vulnerable spot, he attacked the face again and again until it was an unrecognizable pit of blood and gore.

But during the course of his attacks, he broke the blade free. Lung blew one fiery breath. The armor encasing Vayl’s head and right arm cracked and blew apart, shards flying in every direction. I ducked, covering my head with my arms as deadly cold missiles landed all around me. When I looked up I discovered the clash had continued, but now Vayl fought to keep Lung from raking his vulnerable right side with claws, tail, and teeth. So far, so good, but he had no way to fight the flame.

“Bergman!” I yelled. “How long does it take to recharge the fire?”

“Thirty seconds!”