The Deadliest Bite (10 page)

“Damn.”

“Yuh-huh.”

Long silence. “I need to come there. Just for a little while. To think.” My throat closed. More than I wanted my own happiness, I wanted the people I loved to find peace and love in their own lives. Eventual y maybe I’d accept my startling lack of control over their decisions and just let it be. But I knew that at some point I’d probably try to talk him into going back.

The French innkeeper was too good a fit for him, dammit! For now I said, “Okay. Text me the details of your flight and I’l pick you up at the airport.”

“Make sure it’s an unmarked car.”

“Holy shit, Miles! What, did you think I’d be riding up in a parade float?”

“Is Cole with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Possibly.”

I promised him to keep it on the down low and we hung up. At which point Astral ran out of disaster video, rol ed over on her side, and farted out one of her grenades.

“Take cover!” Vayl bel owed as he snatched up the explosive and hefted it as hard as he could into the field that fronted his house. He grabbed Aaron’s arm, I whistled to Jack, and Raoul slapped Cole on the back of the head to snap him out of his bemused daze. We booked to the back of the garage, making it just in time for the explosion, which sounded so much like a fouled firework that Aaron checked out the sky.

Then he looked at Vayl. “Does this kind of stuff happen to you al the time?” Vayl considered his question. “Only since I met Jasmine.” He smiled at me. “She makes life incredibly exciting.”

“But you’re not alive… are you?” Aaron asked. For once he just sounded curious. Was he final y learning?

Vayl leaned his shoulder against the rough brick of the garage wal . In the dim light of the moon the shadows covered his entire face, so that al we could see was the glitter of his eyes when he lifted his head. “I have watched humans move through their entire existence without ever truly testing the limits imposed upon them by their families, their cultures, and their own minds. They have wil ingly traded love, risk, adventure, and knowledge for a safe haven from pain. If those humans can choose undeath, I can choose life.”

“Hel o.”

Aaron shrieked as Astral joined us, sitting quietly beside Jack, who panted over her happily, both of them acting as if nothing potential y deadly had just happened. Animals. So charming of them to poop and forget.

Wednesday, June 13, 3:45 a.m
.

We wandered around to the front of the garage, though only Vayl and I could see the devastation the grenade had caused to the cornfield. He could probably read a map in the dark, and my sight had radical y improved each time he’d taken my blood, to the point where I barely needed to use Bergman’s see-in-the-dark contact lenses. Which, I could tel , Cole wasn’t wearing tonight.

“So,” he said. “You guys were already outside when I got here, and the garage door was up. Jaz sure seemed eager to take off just now, so where were you headed?” Vayl had been checking his watch. He slid it back into his pocket and said regretful y, “We did have plans. But now it is too late for us to make a round-trip to Cleveland and be assured of completing our mission successful y before dawn. We wil have to wait until tomorrow to smoke the Rogue.”

Cole held up a hand. “Wait a second. Your Trust stretches al the way to the city?” Vayl said, “Our Trust includes the city.” He stared hard into Cole’s eyes. “And you, as wel , if you would like to rejoin us.”

I held my breath as Cole considered his offer. I’d only observed the inner workings of a single Vampere Trust—the one Vayl was attached to for most of the 1800s. So it had been pretty twisted.

Plus, he hadn’t given me a lot of detail as to how ours should work since it was stil mostly a show-car organization, put together for the sake of certain observers inside the Whence. Formed to protect those of us who were most obviously attached to Vayl from his enemies, who’d flout human law but would never risk trial in
other
courts, our Trust didn’t even have its own letterhead. I mean, if you’re gonna be official, shouldn’t you at least have a logo or something? So, while I wasn’t sure what a nod from Cole would provide him specifical y, I knew that when he’d left Vayl’s protection in Marrakech he’d opened himself to attack from Kyphas. Which meant that if he accepted Vayl’s offer he’d be taking a solid step away from her.

Cole ran a hand through his sun-drenched hair, pul ing it back from a face that could easily have taken him into the spotlight, onto the big screen along with the rest of America’s pretty people.

Instead he’d chosen dark shadows and cold rooftops. “I stand by the demand I made in Australia,” he said, his old charm lighting up his face as he reminded Vayl. “I want to be the secretary of social events.”

“Of course.”

“Then I’m in.”
Aaaahhh!
Inside my head, Teen Me was jumping up and down, screaming at the top of her lungs, and trading high fives with Granny May, who’d taken a break from some new project she’d started at the dining room table. For once I agreed with my inner adolescent. This was worthy of major mental celebration. Especial y when Cole said, “I’m gonna need a party fund.” Vayl sighed. “Fine.”

“So tel me, how far does our territory real y run? And if it includes Cleveland like you said, what happened to the three nests I heard about last time I was in town?”

“I wil show you a map,” Vayl said. “We are responsible for the city, its suburbs, and several miles of surrounding countryside. As for the nests”—he looked at me—“Jasmine and I have been busy.”

Cole stared at us. But he didn’t say anything as we led him, Raoul, and Aaron into the house.

We’d decided Astral couldn’t be trusted near people until Bergman fixed her, so I’d ordered her to secure the perimeter until further notice. As a result Jack seemed slightly bummed. So I took him to the kitchen. To my surprise, al the other guys fol owed as wel .

“What do you want?” I asked my dog as I opened the fridge. “Cottage cheese? Baking soda?

Oh, I know.” I pul ed out a covered dish and, when I noticed him looking up at me suspiciously, said reassuringly, “Don’t worry. Vayl cooked it.”

I pul ed out a couple of brats and set them in his dog dish. “Don’t get used to this,” I warned him as he dove into them with the snorting noises that signaled deep satisfaction. “You’re back to that hard square stuff for your next meal.”

The guys had settled around the tiny table, Vayl and Aaron on one side opposite Raoul and Cole. They al looked pretty wasted. But I could tel Vayl had more to lay on them. He motioned for me to join them, so I pul ed the desk chair over and sat at the end of the table. Then he said, “I have a bad feeling. It is near to making me il . Hanzi—or rather the man he is today—is in terrible trouble.

The longer I think on it, the more certain I am that Roldan wil have cornered him just as he did Aaron here. We cannot wait for him to make his move. We must find him first.” Cole, Raoul, and I traded helpless looks. They left it for me to say, “But, Vayl. You’ve been searching for him for… ever. What makes you think we’l have any better luck now?” Vayl leaned his head toward Aaron. “My younger boy is with me now. I believe it is inevitable that I wil be rejoined with the elder. But fate seems determined to reunite us in violence. If there is any way we can stop that from happening, we must try.”

“What do you suggest?” asked Raoul. “And don’t look at me. This is one area where I absolutely can’t step in for you.”

“Cassandra,” said Cole.

“She has read me before, and failed,” Vayl said.

“Yeah. But you said yourself times have changed. You have to bring her here. The sooner the better, I think. Let her touch you and Aaron. I’m betting she’l have a mega-vision that’l head you straight to Hanzi.”

Vayl turned to me, his eyebrows raised a notch. “She’s coming this way anyhow. Family visit before Dave’s leave ends,” I explained.

“Cal her,” he said. “Tel her I wil charter her and David a plane if they wil agree to come tomorrow.”

And just like that I knew my crew was going to be whole again by the time the sun set on the fol owing day.

Raoul had agreed to take the first watch over Aaron, who protested that it was ridiculous to imprison him until we reminded him that he was, according to his own law, an attempted murderer.

At which point he quietly fol owed my Spirit Guide to the guest bedroom, his head clearly so ful of new thoughts to ponder that he didn’t even protest the company of Jack, who stil felt like being social after his last trip to the backyard. Cole, who was just as exhausted as Vayl’s attempted assassin, took the green room, which also contained a guest bed and bath in addition to an indoor sauna that made our newest Trust member fal to his knees and pretend to kiss Vayl dramatical y on his nonexistent ring.

“I wil be your vassal forevermore, me lord,” he said in a horrible Cockney accent, bucking his front teeth so far over his bottom lip as he talked that it completely disappeared. He rol ed onto his back. “Do you want to rub my tummy to make it official?”

“Would you get up?”

“Okay, but I’m warning you, I may have slightly obscene thoughts about you while I’m sitting in your sauna. I’l try not to, but it’s probably inevitable, I’m just that grateful.” I grabbed him by the cheeks, reminding myself forceful y not to pinch as I pul ed him forward and kissed his scar-free forehead. “Just get some sleep, you doof. We’re going to need you fresh tomorrow.”

He brought his hands up to wrap around my wrists so he could pul my hands down and kiss the back of each one. His eyes held depths I never would’ve imagined the day we first met in a ladies’

bathroom in the house of a terrorist sympathizer. “Thank you,” he said. “For everything.” A light seemed to go on from his heart, and I had no doubt whom he was talking about when he said, “You’l take good care of her for me?”

“Of course.”

He nodded and dropped my hands. “Then I’l be in your debt forever. Anything you want, anytime, you just have to ask. Except for right now, when I suggest you run, don’t walk, out the door, because I’m stripping down for my first of many sweats in that sauna in five, four, three, two—” Vayl slammed the door on Cole’s laughter and together we closed ourselves into the room we’d shared since we’d gotten back from Marrakech.

It reminded me of its owner. Large, masculine, with a preference for life’s luxuries. The wal s, papered in ivory with a hunter green stripe, each held a single memento from his past that, I hoped, someday he’d feel comfortable explaining. On one hung a glass case that displayed a British heavy cavalry saber that I dated to around 1800. On another hung a framed program and two tickets to
Don Giovanni
. The third wal held a black-and-white photograph of two men, one of whom was Vayl, standing arm in arm in front of Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow. The fourth I had demanded an explanation for, because preserved behind a long glass frame was a beautiful y tailored wedding dress that had gone yel ow with age. The moment I’d seen it, the fact that I carried my dead fiancé’s engagement ring around in my pocket didn’t matter a damn. Vayl was gonna fork over a reasonable explanation or I was out the door.

He’d touched a finger to the frame with a tenderness that nearly broke my heart. Then he’d said,

“Helena wore it when she married John Litton.” And I’d wrapped my arms around his waist. I didn’t care how pretty that dress was, if I’d had a long-dead adopted daughter, anything that reminded me of her would’ve had to be buried in a trunk and stored in the attic. But Vayl had preserved this piece of her happiness so he could always remember those few years when they were a family.

I felt her now, like an old friend at my shoulder, as I walked to the dresser and looked down at the items I’d arranged there. In a strange way she was responsible for their presence. If Vayl hadn’t discovered her back in 1770—an eleven-year-old orphan cowering in a deserted mansion about to be attacked by Roldan—that same Were would never have tried to give him permanent amnesia.

Because Roldan had become obsessed with her, and the fact that Vayl had saved her from him made them bitter enemies. And if they hadn’t been enemies, we might never have discovered that Roldan’s pack was guarding the Rocenz, which sat on the dresser, a silver hammer magical y glued to a chisel, looking like nothing more than an extrafancy paperweight.

Next to it lay the map we’d stolen, which had led us to its hiding spot in Marrakech. We’d kept the dusty old leather because on it was written a clue related to separating the hammer from the chisel. Natural y it wasn’t in English, but the translation read, “Who holds the hammer stil must find the keys to the triple-locked door.”

I picked up the map and curled up on the couch while I watched Vayl prepare his room for the coming day. He pressed a button beside the balcony doors that activated light blockers within the window glass, turning them pitch-black. But Bergman, whose middle name was probably Redundancy Plan, had also instal ed a massive canopy above Vayl’s bed that was made out of the same black material as the traveling tent that he slept in when we went out of town. It could descend from the ceiling and spread over the intricately turned wooden frame that towered feet above the gold silk bedspread. During the night Vayl kept the canopy raised almost to the top of the frame so it looked like a regular bed. Now he flipped a switch on the wal and the curtain lowered to the floor.

I hadn’t been able to bring myself to crawl under that enclosure with him yet. For a kinda-claustrophobic like me it al seemed a little too cave-like. So when I final y decided to hit the sack I’d scooch the curtain toward him until I literal y tucked him in, flip the covers back, and settle in. Kinda weird, I know, but so far it had worked okay. And I loved waking up beside an emerald-eyed vampire who couldn’t wait to see what I’d decided to wear to bed that morning.