The Deadliest Bite (17 page)

tended gardens and a roughly hewn fence. The arched red door opened when we got to the arbor gate, and a wrinkled, balding gentleman wearing a butler’s uniform tottered down the path to let us in.

“My queen,” he said, bowing deeply enough that I wondered if he’d fal on his head before he was able to right himself. Then I saw he had a firm grip on the gate and relaxed.

“We have guests, Stanislov,” she said as she breezed past. “Make sure the dogs don’t get loose, wil you? I don’t want them eaten before they’ve fulfil ed their potential.”

“Very good, madam.”

I suddenly wished I’d brought Jack. He would never let another dog eat me. I glanced over my shoulder. Nope. Nothing even close to canine. Although the soldiers did look a lot hungrier than you’d general y expect in such a wel -run camp. Probably Marie didn’t let them feast on each other.

And then it hit me.

“Your queenishness?” I asked. “What do you cal your soldiers?” As she sailed toward the open door of her cottage, Marie said, “I thought you knew, darling.

Those troops are none other than the Dogs of War. They are leashed tightly here. But I am training them to tear the throat from Brude’s army.” Under her breath she added, “Even if they have to do so without the aid of my squeamish neighbors to the south.” Realizing she was thinking out loud, she finished with a flourishy sort of punch to the air, saying, “When the time comes, they wil rage, my dear, they wil rage.”

She glanced over her shoulder at me, the smile in her eyes so sly and calculating that I shivered.

Vayl put his arm across my shoulders. “We have the key to destroying Brude. Al we need is your cooperation and you could win this war.”

“I
will
win this war,” she corrected him imperiously. “And when I do this little universe wil step to
my
tune.
I
wil force order onto this bedlam.” She sighed. “What a shame it was that Brude never shared my vision.” Her laugh, so bitter, was clearly aimed at herself. “Leave it to me to involve myself with the most ambitious and least loyal of Satan’s elite guardsmen.” She shook her head. “I have such terrible taste in lovers.” Her eyes rested on mine, and for a moment she looked at me as an equal. “What about you?” she asked. “Are you satisfied with him?” She nodded toward Vayl like he was a piece of sculpture that she might, at some point, consider stealing.

“He’s mine,” I told her, keeping most, but not al , of the warning growl from my voice.

“Why?”

I looked at him steadily for a while before I answered, “Because it could never be any other way.”

“I thought that about Brude once,” she said, her voice dropping into melancholy.

“What changed?” I asked her.

“I came face to face with the real
domytr
one day,” she said. “And I couldn’t fool myself any longer.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Have you truly faced your vampire?” I glanced at Vayl. “He’s a kil er,” I told her. “But then again, so am I. Which is why we’re such a good fit. Aren’t you lucky you found us?”

Saturday, June 16, 11:00 p.m
.

I had never visited the site where Vayl had buried his two sons. It was like he wanted to keep that part of his past completely separate. And I respected that. But I saw enough of Astral’s feed, and Cassandra described the emotions of those moments so clearly, that I could always visualize it as if I’d been there myself, locked inside the weather-treated steel fence with the two black marble stones Vayl had bought to replace the broken pieces of the white, unreadable originals. They stil lay at the bases of the new monuments, like offerings to the bodies that lay beneath the rich, needle-blanketed sod, so precious to their surviving family member that he had etched A FATHER’S LOVE IS FOREVER into each of the stones. It was in Romanian, but Cassandra had asked Cole to translate, and felt her throat close at the catch in his voice when he’d done as she asked.

Dave said, “We can’t let Vayl down now.” They nodded, Cassandra and then Cole sneakily wiping away a tear as David continued. “This could get scary.” They looked over their shoulders at Bergman and his Rider, whose positions hadn’t changed. Then they looked back at him. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “I mean worse than that.”

Big swal ows. Nods. “Let’s get this done,” said Cole, leaning over to pet Jack, who kept prancing sideways and glancing toward Bergman, as if he knew something should be done and he was fal ing down on the job.

“The sooner the better,” Cassandra agreed. She handed Astral to Dave as she said, “I want that Rider off Miles
now
.”

He nodded and said, “Al right, cat. Let’s see how good you real y are.” He knelt between the graves of Hanzi and Badu Brâncoveanu. He took off his backpack and from it pul ed two steel rods that had been folded multiple times, the same way tent poles are broken down after a camping trip.

Assembled, they were at least ten feet long, with the last section of each tipped like a spear. He careful y shoved each of them into the ground as far as he could. Tapping his shoulder, he waited until Astral had taken her place, perching beside his ear like he was just another mantelpiece to add to her col ection. And then, wrapping a hand around each pole, he closed his eyes and began to chant.

Cole and Cassandra took their places, each standing at one corner of Hanzi’s grave.

Cole whispered, “I stil don’t understand what we’re supposed to be doing.”

“We’re like landmarks,” Cassandra explained. “Dave is traveling a long way in his head. He needs to be able to find his way back. Even with Astral acting as a filter, he could get lost. You and I, standing right here along his route, can actual y be seen and latched on to when he tries to find his way back.”

Cole glanced back over his shoulder, wincing as Bergman groaned. “How long?” Cassandra nodded. “I know what you’re thinking. We have to be here until he comes al the way back.”

“Both of us, though? I mean, we’re standing three feet apart!”

“In this world. But in that one we might be hundreds of miles away from each other, we don’t know. Which is why we have to stay. But only just until Dave is done. Then”—she pointed at Bergman—“we run for him.”

Dave cracked open his left eye. “People? I’m trying to home in on a traveling soul while a robot tries to take root in my col arbone and you guys are gabbing like a couple of beauty shop regulars.

Could we concentrate here? That would help a lot.”

Cole and Cassandra traded guilty looks. “Sorry,” said Cole. “I talk when I’m nervous. Sometimes I have to pee. Like right now, I could whiz clear over that fence, bounce it off that tree, and sink it into that hol ow stump, that’s how bad I have to go.”

A laugh, so dry and cracked it could’ve been confused for a smoker’s cough, interrupted them.

Except it had come from Bergman, so everyone knew what it meant.
Don’t stop. That was funny,
and because it made me feel better, I can fight a little longer. So while you’re just standing there
like a couple of lumps, how about you goddamn goofballs make. Me. Laugh
.

Saturday, June 16, 11:10 p.m
.

In the end, Queen Marie had to admit we’d come up with a plan that might just work. So she caled in a couple of her best Dogs and demanded that they switch their uniforms for something a little less bow-wow and a little more Brude-rocks. While they turned the camp upside down looking for a couple of outfits that didn’t scream trained cavalryman, the queen took us behind her house to a fine brick patio surrounded by blooms. In the center sat a birdbath whose water looked like it hadn’t been changed for at least a mil ennium. My nose, stil physical y intact thanks to Raoul’s ability to transport us al in the flesh, wrinkled as I walked past it and stood next to Vayl under an arched trel is covered with yel ow roses.

“I didn’t know water could turn that shade of brown and stil stay liquid,” I said.

“I think you are being generous in referring to it as water,” he replied.

I had to agree when the center of it bubbled up, stretching the edges toward it as if the entire surface were made of rubber. When it popped I had to cover my mouth; the stench was so oily that it felt like it was trying to crawl down my throat and nest in my stomach.

Aaron, who’d chosen that moment to walk past it, moaned, “Oh, God,” and ran to some bushes to his right, where he spent the next few minutes gagging and spitting. Raoul, stil standing at the entrance to the garden, stared first at the birdbath, and then at the queen, who sat comfortably between him and us on an intricately tooled metal bench while her ladies-in-waiting arranged the skirts of her dress as if they were flowers that had just been added to the garden.

She waved the women away when Raoul said, “Wel disguised,” as he gestured to the infested water. “The last one I saw was in the Eminent Museum of Enlightenment.”

“It is a classic piece,” she agreed. “However it has its advantages, even now. For instance, it can transport entire regiments of my men into areas of the Thin that are not currently guarded by Brude’s hordes. We like to cal them avoidance jumps. Or it can shoot a single person directly to the site he wishes to visit.” She rose, reached into the birdbath, and completely grossed me out when she pul ed free a gerbil-sized handful of shit-colored goo that smel ed like a neglected zoo. When she threw it at Raoul he sidestepped, and I thought he was going to let it fal into the bushes behind him.

But he caught it between his fingertips, his lips turning down at the corners when the impact let loose a fresh barrage of odor. He let go of the sphere with one hand, and I was pretty sure he was going to throw it down with disgust when the queen ripped into him.

“Hold on to that!” she snapped, the command in her voice automatical y straightening his spine.

He renewed his grip on the slippery bal as I asked, “What’s the idea?” afraid that whatever Raoul had touched might foul him permanently. When he tried to protest I waved him off. “I should have that. Or Vayl.”

“No.” Her reply felt more like the passing of a law than conversation. “Raoul is the senior Eldhayr here. He has the sense that the Sniffer”—she nodded to the bal —“needs in order for it to find Brude’s realm. You didn’t think it stayed in one place, did you? If it had, I would have razed his castle and fed his minions to my Dogs ages ago. Speaking of which.” She nodded to Aaron. “Were you planning on leaving this one as payment for your guards and the Sniffer?”

“Luscious!” “Juicy!” screamed her ladies.

I hadn’t seen Aaron so pale since he thought he’d committed vampicide. He looked around wildly, not, I noted proudly, for help. But for something heavy to defend himself with. Unfortunately the only weapon he could find was the fountain, and he didn’t dare get any closer to it. Which meant he actual y looked grateful when Vayl stepped up to face the queen.

He said, “In al the years I have lived, I have learned that nothing is truly required to exist. As a result, I am the best kil er in the world and the Whence. Shal we try for the Thin as wel ?” The queen’s smile never wavered at the threat on her life. Maybe she understood what a hard time Vayl would have actual y snuffing it out here, on her turf. But her eyes, shifting slightly to the left and then to the right, admitted that he meant what he said, and she would probably find herself in a world of hurt before the deed was done, no matter what the outcome.

Raoul stepped forward. “No, Vayl. Aaron may be your son, but this place is more my territory than yours.” He looked steadfastly at the queen. “Your skil at bartering nearly equals your political finesse, Majesty. But you need, and wil receive, nothing more from us than Brude’s destruction, if we succeed. You should remember, as wel , that if you threaten any of mine, you threaten me.” He paused. “And al the Eldhayr.”

The queen smiled happily. “Just as I’d hoped. Barring the boy, every one of you is as fierce as a Romanian infantryman.
Now
I am sure of your plan.
Now
I can send my Dogs with you in confidence.

They wil guard you while the Sniffer jumps you into Brude’s land. After that I feel sure the strategy you have outlined wil gain you entrance into his castle.” She pierced every one of us with a meaningful look. “Remember also that while you have your own agenda, you also fight for Queen Marie. My people fol ow me, and my laws, because their souls need structure in order to rest and mend and, perhaps someday, even move on. Be noble in this noble cause.” Wow. Al this time she’d been testing us. Suckage. And yet maybe a true leader needs to do those things if she’s going to ask her people to risk their lives on a venture as dangerous as the one we’d proposed. Which made me admire Marie al the more. As if I needed another reason to decimate Brude. But if I could destroy him, at least Marie’s little realm would become a place where lost souls could shelter, safe from torture and violence, until they found themselves again. What a cool concept.

Saturday, June 16, 11:05 p.m
.

Dave felt like he’d spent hours kneeling between the graves of Vayl’s sons, bearing Astral’s weight like it wasn’t trying to cave his shoulder joint while he held tight to his spiritual divining rods and kept an eye on his “landmarks,” Cole and Cassandra, so that he’d be able to find his way back. He’d entered into serious chant mode now, barely pausing to breathe between lines that sounded so much alike that sometimes only the last vowel of the last word changed.
“O ma evetale râ. O ma
evetale ré.”

At least that was how it sounded to Cole and Cassandra. When they had three seconds to listen.

Which wasn’t often because they too were busy. Doing improv. For Bergman.