Bitten to Death (14 page)

I suddenly felt the gap in my training. I knew how to be a prisoner. Like my twin, I could survive the incarceration no matter what it entailed. But the aftermath? I had no idea how to slog through that, much less help somebody else deal. He needed professional assistance. But I might as well suggest he dress in drag and sing “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

Then I realized I had a pro right at my fingertips. But before I could make the call, I needed to discuss one more item. And I thought I might have calmed down enough to do that without setting off any more alarms.

I waited for a pause in the discussion. “I ran into Blas before.”

Vayl sat even straighter. “You did? But Disa said he was—” I waited while Vayl recalled their conversation about the lost vampires, during which Disa had not told him what happened to a single one. “Where did you find him? Why did he stay inside when the rest came out to confront us?”

“I imagine that would have something to do with the fact that he couldn’t have found his way without a guide. And he seems to be avoiding Disa like the plague since she’s the reason he’s”—I almost said blind, but that didn’t go far enough—“maimed,” I finished.

“What has she done?” he demanded, his features so taut you’d have thought I’d threatened to stake him in his sleep.

I didn’t take any pleasure in telling him. I sensed he’d begun to feel personally responsible for Disa’s horrors, like the father of a girl who opens fire on all her least-favorite classmates. Well, maybe he should. I’d terminated plenty of targets whose parents had been even more monstrous than them. Then again, as my Granny May used to say, some people are just born with the devil in them.

As I described my conversation with Blas, part of me wondered what it had been like for Vayl, living here. From bits of information he’d let slip during our time together, I figured he’d spent a little over a century in the Trust. A hundred years hunting, gambling, partying, fighting, eating, and yeah, most likely sleeping with these people. I thought of Sibley and the woman he’d called Aine and quickly doused a spark of jealousy that might easily have set some papers aflame in a wastebasket somewhere.

As grief etched long lines in his cheeks, I blurted, “What were you like?”

He reared back, almost as if I’d slapped him. “What do you mean?”

“When you lived here before. What kind of man—” I shook my head. Why did my brain keep classifying him as human? “What kind of vampire were you?”

He gave Dave and me a long, considering look before he spoke. And then he shrugged. “After the split from Liliana I became a Rogue. It is not an easy life. Vampires are quite territorial. I spent nearly all my waking hours either fighting or moving on. It became tiresome trying to find a new safe spot to rest every morning before the sun rose. So when I met Niall while I was hunting one evening and he did not immediately try to rip my throat out, I began to think perhaps I had found a way to a better life.”

I licked my lips. They’d dried out suddenly when he’d mentioned hunting so casually, like Albert and Dave had right before deer season started, when they’d begun to get their gear in order for opening day. But what he’d meant was that he’d hidden in dark alleyways and abandoned warehouses, waiting for drunken sailors and unsuspecting night owls to stroll by. At which point—

“Did you kill them?” I asked, unable, somehow, to find any tact now that I’d taken this line of questioning. “The people you hunted, I mean? Did they die after you . . .”

He shook his head. “Some vampires kill their prey, but it is only for the pleasure of it. Death is not necessary for sustenance. You know that, Jasmine.” Rebuke in his voice.
How could you think that of me?
his eyes asked.

Don’t try to bullshit me,
I told him in a way he could read clearly on my face.
I know you’re a natural-born killer.

As are you,
his expression said.

Just so we’re clear.

He inclined his head. “I have destroyed many vampires and their human guardians in my time. More than I can count. While I was a Rogue, I did it to survive. Once I began to walk in the Trust, I killed the ones who threatened our territory. I even smoked a few within the Trust who, for one reason or another, threatened the stability of the group to such a degree that they could not be allowed to continue.” He jerked his head up, almost defensively, as if he could feel me judging him. “I found no joy in it.” He leaned forward. “But it is one of the things I do best.”

“Have you turned anyone besides Disa?” I asked.

“No.”

Dave piped up. “And you can’t think of any way to break this binding?”

“Not as yet. Every Trust is wound with the power of its members. This creates something more that is unique to each community—that power Jasmine has discovered that pulls at me even now. And it builds over generations, so that a century ago the villa I escaped might be compared to a fort. Today it is a citadel. Impassable, yes? This is what Disa used to bind me.”

We nodded. Maybe we’d been naive to think all that
shazam
would just sit there, pulsing, and not try to manipulate us once it had us in its grasp. Or that the
Deyrar
wouldn’t use it to further the Trust’s agenda. But that’s what happens in this line of work. Sometimes you don’t have all the background you need before you go in and the risk factor spikes to holy-crap-where’d-we-stash-the-hazmat-suits? Which is why they pay us the big bucks.

“You make the Trust sound impregnable,” I said. “But we got inside.”

“Hamon had opened the way for us. A path Disa had apparently failed to block.”

“Or one she left open,” Dave said. When we turned his way, he added, “I’m sticking with the puppy love theory. It’s just too cute to drop.”

Vayl rolled his eyes. “At any rate, I believe our best hope is to find the true source of her power. Remember what Tarasios said about the masks being spokes of a wheel? Jasmine, with your observations of the power in the Trust’s objects, you have at least given us a place to begin.”

“That could take years, which we
mortals
don’t have,” said Dave. “Why can’t we just take Disa out?” His casual tone chilled me. It seemed slightly hypocritical, since terminating bad guys was my gig after all. I decided it bothered me because I didn’t
want
him to be like me. Married people might talk about their better halves. But Dave really was mine. Seeing him go down my road made me all the more determined to detour him. Where was an exhausted, pissed-off construction crew when you needed them?

Vayl said, “Beyond the fact that her life, and death, are now inextricably linked with mine, the
Deyrar
exists at the center of the Trust, its strong heart. As such, she wields her own power, the Trust’s, and everyone else’s as well. She cannot be denied.”

“You got out,” I said. “That implies that the
Deyrar
isn’t omnipotent.”

Vayl shrugged. “It took me decades to build the strength. And in the end, it was what Hamon and I both wanted.”

Dave said, “That seems pretty convenient. Care to elaborate?”

Vayl spent some time studying the fountain. “I had begun to realize I was trading safety for freedom, and the price was the erosion of what remained of my—” He glanced up. Tightened his lips. It reminded me so strongly of Bergman’s nunya-bizness look that I smiled. Vayl said, “I realized I did not want to fit into Hamon’s world anymore. But many in the Trust felt my new leanings would serve them better. When I expressed a desire to leave, they asked me to challenge him instead.”

The way Vayl said the word “challenge” let us know he wasn’t referring to a chess match.

Though we all knew the ultimate outcome, none of us mocked Dave when he asked intently, “So what did you do?”

“I had found a new Seer. A Sister of the Second Sight, like Cassandra. She had told me I would meet my sons in America. It was 1921. I had spent one hundred and nine years in the Trust. More time than I had lived anywhere else in all my life. But the possibility of seeing my boys again began to obsess me as it had not in over thirty years. So I went to Hamon with an ultimatum.” Vayl looked at his empty hands, rubbed his fingers together as if he missed the feel of his cane. I realized with a sense of awe that he’d probably held that very item in his hands the night he’d confronted Hamon with his choices. “I told him either he had to let me go. Or I would drape myself with the powers of my supporters and tear him from the center of the Trust like a cancerous tumor.”

“What did he say to that?” Dave prodded.

“He sat back in his throne of a chair, steepled his hands like the mathematics professor he had once been, and said, ‘Dearling boy, I see no need for us to be at odds. Of course you may go.’”

That word “dearling” caught my attention, but before I could figure out where I’d heard it before, Vayl had gone on with his story. “So I packed my bags and took the first ship I could find for New York. Of course Hamon sent hunters after me. It could do his reputation harm if word leaked that one of his own had deserted the Trust.”

“But you killed them,” Dave said, trading a knowing look with me.

“You might call it my introduction to my new career,” Vayl said with a slight nod, his gesture taking in the room but referring to every mission he’d had since signing on with the CIA in 1927. “Of course, it took the government some time to organize a department that could use my particular talents. But when it finally evolved, I became its first staff member.”

I hadn’t known the department Pete now supervised was created around his longest-living and most legendary staff member. But when you thought about it, it made perfect sense.

“That was a pretty slick escape,” said Dave, rubbing his neck as he once had when the Wizard was in charge of him. I could tell by the tone in his voice that he wondered why he hadn’t been able to pull off something similar. Well, hell, if he’d had forty years to plan, maybe he’d have figured something out as well!

Deciding now was the time to make my own exit, I said, “’Scuse me,” as I headed toward the bathroom. When I was safe behind the locked door, thumbing through my short list of numbers, I realized Cole hadn’t contacted me in a while. Did that mean his mission was going well? One could only hope.

My father answered the phone with his usual grumble. “
Judge Judy
’s on. Make it quick.”

“It’s good to hear your voice too, Albert. How’s Shelby?”

Shelby is Albert’s nurse, and the main reason the old man still has all his fingers and toes. Though why any diabetic needs another human being to explain the dangers of donuts and hot chocolate to him on a daily basis I still have no clue. “He’s fine. He’s the only person I know who can make a salad that fills me up. Explain that, will ya?”

“I imagine he’s injecting the lettuce with steak and potatoes.”

“That’s what I thought too, but I couldn’t find a trace of either one in there.” He sounded so sincere I nearly laughed. Then I went ahead and let ’er rip. Because only a few weeks before I’d thought I might never hear his voice again.

While I’d been working in Iran, Albert had been hit by a woman driving a minivan as he toured his neighborhood on his new motorcycle. During the time he’d been stuck in Chicago West with tubes sprouting from every orifice, he’d become convinced the woman had hit him on purpose. Especially when she skipped bail. But by the time he and Shelby had driven to my sister’s house in Indy to help us celebrate Easter, his whole thought process had changed. Mine hadn’t.

“Any sign of that driver?” I asked.

“Naw. The cops are baffled. They say it’s like she never existed. Dumbasses.”

“Any more phone calls from nowhere? Ghostly guests?”

“I told you what I saw was probably a morphine hallucination.”

I
thought the grinning skull that had taken the place of his ICU nurse’s face to warn him of future visitations had probably been as real as the phone in my hand. But when my family doesn’t want to stomach a reality, they do a damn good job of denying it. I didn’t have time to talk sense into him, and nothing had happened since to convince him otherwise, so I decided to go along with the pretense for a while longer. At the moment, Dave’s problem pressed harder.

“Look, I’ve got a situation here.” I explained my theory about Dave. “You’ve been in the military forever. Even if you don’t have firsthand experience, surely you know somebody who has an idea how to get him through this. Someone who’s dealt with guys who’ve been taken hostage or spent time as prisoners of war?”

We sat in silence for so long I began to wonder if I’d lost the signal. “Hello?”

“Goddammit, I’m sorry, Jazzy. So sorry to have brought you and your brother to this spot.”

I was so shocked I plopped down on the toilet. Thank God its last user had dropped the lid or I’d have sunk to the bottom. Thing was, Albert didn’t know the half of it. If he had, he’d probably be on his knees blubbering. Yuck. “We’re grown-ups, Dad. If we’d wanted to do anything different, we would’ve.”

He took a breath. I could almost hear him pulling himself together. Old guys pop like bubble wrap. Especially marines. “Yeah, you know what, there are a couple of people I could call.” There, that assured tone in his voice that had gone missing after his forced retirement. It kept me calling him, asking for small favors that others could have done for me. Well, I had to admit, he’d pulled a few strings lately that had helped my missions skip right along.