The Deadliest Bite (22 page)

And then I felt myself lifted into the air. Daisy had broken our anchor from the ground. The ceiling anchor had come free as wel . Just in time, too, because Brude’s guards had come howling into the chamber, waving their weapons over their heads as if we should be intimidated by their noise and motion alone.

“Now, Daisy!” Vayl yel ed. “Into the gateway with us!”

The blemuth swung us into the portal, and as we flew through, I yanked on the rope, pul ing my sword free of the monster’s foot, gaining myself a roar of thanks as we hurtled out of the Thin.

Sunday, June 17, 12:15 a.m
.

No other motion feels quite as exhilarating as flying, whether you’re parachuting from a Cessna Caravan at thirteen thousand feet or hang gliding off the cliffs at Mission Beach. However, in those cases you know that you have at least a decent chance of landing softly enough to maintain the integrity of your skeletal structure. Not so much when a blemuth has tossed you high into the cosmos and you’re not even sure your landing site is solid. So, while part of me grooved on defying gravity to the point that I felt like I was thumbing my nose at Mother Nature, the rest was trying desperately to figure out what I was hurtling toward.

I ruled out hot lava, just because our landing site wasn’t particularly glowing. I couldn’t hear surf, so we probably wouldn’t be swimming for it. Which left sharp, spiky rocks that could impale us in the most ghastly, gut-wrenching ways. Or some guy’s roof, in which case only a couple of us would have to worry about taking a furnace chimney up the ass while the rest of us could enjoy more typical crash-related injuries. Or—

“Trees!” Raoul cal ed out. “Get ready for a beating!”

Oh. Goody.

They were pines. So besides the abuse we took from smashing through at least half a dozen treetops whose branches tried their hardest to whip us off our perches, we also sustained slashes, cuts, and bruises that would take days to heal. But we didn’t die. I decided that was a plus.

When we final y dropped to the ground we lay there for a few minutes, gasping and sore, trying to convince ourselves we’d survived. Vayl was the first to decide he should ask the rest of us just to be sure.

“Jasmine.” He reached out to touch my bare shoulder where a piece of my shirt had ripped away. I shivered, laughed lightly. Only he could get a rise out of me after I’d nearly been stoned to death by a fal ing ceiling and then thrashed soundly by a forest. “Are you al right?” he asked.

“Yuh,” I answered. I touched my tongue, which was so sore it hadn’t wanted to make the S sound so I could reply to Vayl with a “Yes.” It was bleeding and slightly swol en. I must’ve bitten it during the landing.

Vayl sighed with relief. Then he said, “Aaron? Raoul? Did you make it?”

“We’re fine,” said Raoul.

“I need a knife!” Aaron replied. He’d already made it to his feet and was scouting for rips in his father’s cel . Though some of the bones that formed its structure had broken in the fal , the membrane itself remained horribly intact.

“Let us do this,” Vayl said as he helped me to my feet.

When Aaron started to protest I added, “We’re pretty handy with weapons. It would be a shame if you sliced half of your fingers off and bled to death at your moment of triumph, now, wouldn’t it?” First, however—“I’ve gotta talk to Aaron Senior.”

Vayl held out his hand. “Let us free him and see if he is in the mood to converse then, shal we?” I nodded, pul ing my bolo and giving it to him as we approached the corner of the cel where Raoul and Aaron were already standing.

Aaron went into a crouch and said gently, “We’re gonna get you out, Dad. Just go to the other side of the cel for a second, okay?”

In the moonlight that shone down through the broken treetops we saw the shadow inside the box move to its opposite end. Vayl made three quick cuts and a flap the size of a doggy door fel down inside the horror room.

The smel that wafted out gagged us, backing us al off a step or two. Then Aaron Junior’s dad came rocketing out of that place so fast that I could see the air flowing off his shoulders just as if he were a race car barreling down the track.

“Get back here right this minute, you ungrateful bastard!” I yel ed.

He swooped down and hovered in front of me, his grin showing a huge gap between his front teeth. “Forgive me. You can’t imagine how awful it’s been being cooped up in there al this time.”

“Wel , you’re about to be free forever,” Raoul told him.

“Except,” I added. Everyone paused to look at me. “The cowboy, Zel Culver. Did you know him?

I mean, did you meet him in the Thin or anything?”

Aaron Senior shook his bald head. “I didn’t meet any cowboys. Not anybody at al , real y, after they had the cel assembled. Except”—he nodded toward our group—“you people, the one time I was al owed out.”

I pul ed the Rocenz from my belt. “Does this look familiar?”

“No.”

I crossed my arms and tapped my foot. I was missing something. Senior was important, or Granny May wouldn’t have made her suggestion in the first place. And then I had a thought. “Does the number twenty-three mean anything to you?”

He shrugged. “That’s the mystery tattoo.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wel .” He jerked his head back toward his cel . “Lots of those wal s came from parts of people that had been tattooed. To keep myself from going crazy I numbered them. Number twenty-three never made sense to me, so I always thought of it as the mystery tattoo.” I glanced at Vayl, whose eyes reflected the same excitement I felt building in my gut. “Show us,” he demanded.

Senior led us into the horror chamber and obediently pointed out a stretched bit of yel owed leathery skin covered with the words the soul splits, with a ragged tear and nothing after the comma.

“See?” he said. “The soul splits. Whatever fol ows that last S looks to have been cut off and left,” he sighed, “with the rest of the body.”

I just stared, because when Senior had said “The soul splits,” the Rocenz had warmed in my hand like cheese in a microwave. “Vayl, we—” I swal owed, grossed out by my next words before I had to say them. “We need that tattoo.”

He cut the piece away from its anchors, the ripping sound the knife made as it freed its second prisoner of the day making me wince. When he was done he folded the patch neatly inside his handkerchief. And then handed it to me.

Ugh
. I bolted out of the chamber, fol owed closely by Vayl. Senior had left the minute he knew he was no longer needed. He was hovering beside Junior, talking quietly to his namesake as Raoul watched them with a look of regret that spel ed out just how long they had left together. As I moved toward my Spirit Guide I rebelted the Rocenz and tucked the tattoo inside my jacket pocket. The one that zipped, so I wouldn’t lose it. Or worse, accidental y stick my hand in there and feel it. By the time I’d stowed everything safely I’d moved within earshot of Aaron Junior and his dad.

“You’re going to be free now,” Aaron was saying. “Don’t get caught in the Thin again. Go straight toward, I don’t know, I’ve heard there’s a light or something.” Senior had started to shake. “Don’t worry. I’l fly like a rocket ship. I won’t even look back. Or down. Or to the side, because there are scary things in the dark with eyes that glow a sort of purply red—”

Raoul cleared his throat. “You’l see the Path clearly as soon as the Way opens for you. Stay on it. It’s that easy.”

Now Senior looked like he wanted to hug everyone. “Oh! Thank you al so much!” Junior brushed tears from his eyes. “Be careful, Dad.”

“Of course!”

“And say hi to Grandpa for me.”

“That too.” Senior gave his kid a kindly look. “Make sure you walk on the lit side of the street at night. And don’t think, just because you don’t have a fever, that you should skip going to the doctor when you feel sick. People die that way, you know.”

“Yeah, Dad. I know.”

“Al right, then. If you can figure out a way to that won’t send her screaming to her psychiatrist, tel your mom I love her.”

“Okay.”

Vayl slipped his hand around mine, his signal to stop eavesdropping on the family convo. We backed off as Raoul signaled Senior that it was time to stand, or rather hover, front and center.

“Keep watch,” Raoul muttered quietly.

He meant for anything that might come through the opening he was about to make. Anything undirected and entirely neutral, with the ability to slither through the cracks before we could catch it.

I said, “Okay.” I held my bolo as Vayl lifted the tip of his cane from the ground and rested the shaft over his shoulder, casual y, as if he weren’t primed to spring the shaft off the sword that rested inside and skewer the first monster that crossed his path.

Casting a frightened look at his son, Senior had moved to stand in front of Raoul. Raoul clasped his hands together, making a smal circle with his own body, and began to chant. I always felt Vayl’s powers, like a slow simmer that usual y gave me the kind of comfort you get from locked doors and wel -trained dogs. Raoul’s were never evident until he blasted them at you like a wel -aimed rocket.

Now the tips of my curls wound tighter as they emerged, ful and pure as a Brazilian waterfal . Fal ing over Aaron Senior, they began to reveal him as he truly was, a scared and wounded soul desperate for redemption. As the seconds ticked past he stopped resembling a pale echo of an overworked beer bottler, and instead took on the glittering beauty of a gem-laced spirit ful of the colors his life had laid on him, most of them the sweet pastels of spring.

As Senior took his true form, the words of Raoul’s chant blew from his lips ful y formed, wisps of silver coated in the cold fog of his breath. And I realized my
sverhamin
’s powers had risen, as if summoned by Raoul’s. Mine, also, had sharpened. How else could I be seeing so clearly? Vayl’s fingers tightened on mine and suddenly, without his even opening a vein, his magic coursed through me. I jerked my head back, shouting to the skies as I pushed my Sight into Vayl’s glittering green eyes, and
knew
that he shared it completely.

Aaron Senior gasped, tears running down his face as he rose into a whirlwind composed of pine needles, snowflakes, and bil owing clouds so purely white I final y knew the color of peace. Another minute and he was gone. Vayl and I fel silent, though we couldn’t let each other go. We just stood there, lost in one another’s eyes, the rapture of entanglement so complete I knew we’d never feel alone again.

Then Junior sniffed. And said, “Does anyone have a handkerchief? I hate rubbing snot on my shirtsleeves.”

I looked over at him. Tears were streaming down his face. And, yup, his nose was trying to add to the river. I sighed. Then I looked at Vayl. “I’l bet they don’t have boogers in heaven.”

“No. And, most likely, your underwear never gets stuck up your crack just when you are required to meet important people like, oh, the President of the United States.” I dropped his hands. “How did you know about that?”

His lips twitched. “Sometimes you talk in your sleep.”

“Great. Just great. My most embarrassing moments are a hit parade for you the second I start snoring!”

He pul ed me into his arms. “You are quite adorable. And I know you have always wanted to meet Abraham Lincoln. So I am simply assuring you that when the time comes, you can calm yourself in the knowledge that your panties wil remain securely in place.” Raoul cleared his throat. “I’m uncomfortable now!”

Vayl laid a soft kiss on my cheekbone, a caress completely innocent to witness but highly erotic to receive from lips so warm and promising, before he smiled over the top of my head at my Spirit Guide and said, “Then let us rejoin the rest of our crew, shal we? I believe I have another son to account for.”

Sunday, June 17, 3:30 a.m
.

Vayl’s positive mood lasted until Dave’s report. After which he snapped that since our trip to hel was stil on hold, we might as wel be driving in the direction of Hanzi’s rescue as staring baleful y at one another like a bunch of grave diggers. Then he dropped into the passenger seat of the Galaxie and began to brood. He spent long tracts of time staring out the window as we headed toward Spain, where Dave was sure he’d seen Hanzi in dire straits. He interrupted his thoughts only to throw a barrage of questions at my brother, who’d given his tour bus responsibilities to Cole so he could report on what Cassandra cal ed his “Spiritwalk” directly to Vayl. Our psychic sat in the backseat beside him to help fil in the blanks, though his memory never failed, possibly because he’d reviewed Astral’s holographic recording of the event three times before leaving the cat with Bergman. (Yeah, it would’ve helped to have her in on the review as wel , but our tech guru had said he wanted to tinker with her some more to make sure she didn’t have another funky fal ing-people episode. I thought he just wanted something to take his mind off his near-death experience. Hey, no judgments from my corner. If it worked for him I was going to try it the next chance I got.) We’d been driving for three hours when Vayl twisted in his seat. Cassandra poked Dave to wake him just before my
sverhamin
leaned toward him. “Tel me again where you saw him.”

“Vayl, we’ve been over this,” Dave said. “It was some kind of accident waiting to happen. Your kid on a col ision course with a semi.”

“No, I do not mean the specifics of the vision. I mean the periphery.” Vayl shook his head with frustration. “A Sister of the Second Sight told me that I would meet my sons in America. It was why I moved there over eighty years ago. And I did encounter Badu, pardon me, Aaron,” he said, nodding toward the tour bus behind us, where Junior was snoring loud enough to be heard over Bergman’s Party Line, “in Ohio. So it makes no sense to me that we should be heading toward Andalusia.”