The Deadliest Bite (27 page)

I turned back to my own fate. Cole, back on his feet and fighting more fiercely than I’d ever seen him, raised his sword just in time to parry a blow meant to separate my arm from my shoulder. And then Bergman yel ed from behind us, “Okay, I’m ready, guys! Duck!” Cole and I traded a single look. And dropped to the floor like we’d just heard the whistle of a bomb zeroing in on our coordinates.

The
Ichok
, seeing its prey do the don’t-slice-me dance, leaned over us with a leer on its butt-ugly face and roared. I saw its throat work and realized, “Cole. It’s going to spit on us. Cover your eyes!” And then I forgot my own advice, because Bergman whooped like a cheerleader whose team has just won the playoffs. “It’s gonna work, guys! Watch this!” We al turned to where Bergman stood, holding his boot in front of him like it was his very first twelve-gauge, the toe tucked under his arm for support, the empty leg pointed toward our foe. Only it wasn’t quite empty, as we could tel from the blue spiral of smoke curling out of it. My guess?

Bergman had just lit a fuse.

He said, “So long, mo-fo,” growly, like he was just recovering from a bout of laryngitis. And then the back blew off the boot, smashing into the wal behind him, shattering a mirror that had been hanging there. He glanced over his shoulder, frowning. “That wasn’t supposed to happen. Maybe I have the power-boost too—”

He never finished his sentence, because out of the opening his leg had so recently fil ed shot a series of cannonbal s so smal they looked like marbles. Except they hit like vats of acid, leaving smoking holes that ate at the skin, growing larger with each second, making the
Ichok
scream and writhe with pain.

“Bed,” Cole panted.

I nodded, and without another word we charged. I fended off the
Ichok
’s weak attempts at defense as Cole drove it toward the narrowing gap between worlds, a door closing quickly behind Kyphas and the other sufferers like it was a living thing that knew we wanted to use it to our advantage.

Who knows?
came the random thought,
maybe it is. Maybe all the doors are
. And that’s when I knew, as surely as I knew my dad would never stop bitching at me because that was the only way he could tel me he loved me. I’d stood at the threshold of such a door at each moment of my death, my soul about to shatter into thousands of diamond-like shards that would travel the universe, settling into my family, my friends, and other destinations I could only imagine. I’d communed with the creature that provided pathways into worlds beyond worlds. Felt her fire caress the gemlike skin of my being. And promised her, one day, that I’d return so she could fly me home. So now she was always near, letting me know the trail was clear, no matter which turn I chose to take.

With this thought fresh in my mind I snapped, “Open up,” at Kyphas’s door. “Or I swear I’l put a hole in you so big cement trucks wil be able to drive through it.” The door hesitated. Then slowly reversed course as Cole continued harrying the
Ichok
toward the bed, slamming it with slicing blows that left it looking like the victim of an old-time British Navy whipping. I slammed my heel into its knee, cracking it so soundly that my ears rang. It screamed and fel into the pit just as Cole swung his sword, cleanly decapitating the hel spawn just before it hurtled out of reach.

We turned to help Raoul, Dave, and Cassandra just in time to see Raoul shove his sword deep into the
Ichok
’s side while Dave’s lightning knife strike left the creature’s right arm limp and hanging.

“He’s going to spit!” Cassandra cried, but neither one of the men was in any position to prevent the strike. So she stepped in and dumped her enormous, beaded bag over its head just as it let go.

We could heard it scream as its venom hit fal ing tubes of lipstick, a paperback book, and a bright green cosmetics bag, not to mention a smal er purse ful of necessities and at least one ful bottle of Febreze. Some of its spit also dripped down onto its neck, where it began to eat into its skin like a plague of carnivorous beetles.

Dave caught a pair of handcuffs as they fel from the bag and locked them around the handles.

“Oh, baby,” murmured Cole. “I gotta know the story behind those puppies.”

“Shut up,” I said as I cranked my elbow into his ribs. “For al you know Cassandra’s a deputy sheriff.”

“Ha!” Cole’s laugh was cut short by another elbow. This one to his gut. One guess who threw it.

Now Dave and Raoul hefted the
Ichok
between them, shuffled it to the portal, and, after a three-count that al owed them to swing the creature into a nicely rhythmic arc, threw it into the pit. I don’t know if they aimed or it was just dumb luck, but the demon hit an empty stake about halfway down and impaled itself on it. The last thing I heard before the door closed was its screams.

Cole leaned over the abyss and yel ed to Kyphas, “Looks like your prophets were wrong, demon. In fact, you can just tel them they can kiss my ass!” Her smile, ghastly as it was, stil seemed to approve. “Even they can be blind sometimes,” she said. “It al depends on how they
look
at things.” She emphasized the word so clearly that I knew she was trying to send him a message. And then she threw her head back and screamed. I looked to see if one of the hydras had taken a fresh bite out of her arm, but she’d covered herself up again.

What I saw instead was that the fog was rising. Or maybe she was being swal owed within it.

“This door is closing,” Raoul said. “We need to leave the room in case something reaches through it at the last minute and manages to trap us inside it.”

“Could that real y happen?” Aaron asked me nervously.

“Just the fact that you can ask that question shows what a rookie you are,” I said. “Now, see how Bergman has hustled his butt to the hal way? There’s a guy who knows how to take physical threats seriously. You should fol ow his lead.”

“Except when it comes to raiding old cemeteries, right, buddy?” said Cole, slapping Bergman on the back as he joined him outside the room.

“Huh,” was Bergman’s pale-faced response. Thank goodness Astral had witnessed that event or we might never have known the extent of his heroics. “What about the bed?” he asked Raoul as he, Vayl, and I joined him in the hal .

Raoul said, “By morning very little wil be left to show that the room was once a gate to hel .” We looked around at each other. Raoul seemed the worse off for injuries, having been cut deeply in a couple of places. Cole and I had each taken minor wounds to the arms that we hadn’t even felt until this moment. Vayl’s two chest wounds were already closing. Dave, Cassandra, and Bergman hadn’t been touched. We’d been lucky, we knew that. Hel wouldn’t be so kind the next time.

Vayl wondered aloud, “Wil we be safe here or should we move on immediately?”

“I can make us safe for at least an hour,” Raoul replied. “It wasn’t like we were going to tackle that gate anyway. Our scouts wil find us a much less wel -traveled route.” Cole snorted. “Which the prophets have already seen.”

Cassandra said, “Kyphas was trying to tel you something about that. I think there’s a way to cloud their vision.”

“I agree,” Raoul said.

“Then I need to consult my Enkyklios. And Astral,” she added. “If there’s a way, I’l find it.” Vayl nodded. “Do that. Everyone else must eat, and think. If you have any ideas of how to improve this mission, now is the time to come up with them. Because as soon as we find a way to rescue Hanzi, Jasmine, Raoul, and I must leave for hel .”

Sunday, June 17, 5:00 a.m
.

Raoul’s idea of protecting the hotel from further invasion was simply to bless it. He took my holy water, scattered it at the four corners, and prayed as he walked around the building. It seemed like such a simple solution. And yet, as I watched the part I could see from the room Vayl and I had temporarily claimed on the ground floor, it seemed to me like if I turned my head just right I could see Raoul, transformed by the ceremony and his place in it into his true self. The shining white beacon whose slightest whisper could blast my brain to jel y if he wasn’t careful.

It wasn’t that he shone with an inner light or that I could see his skeleton glowing through his skin.

It was that I could glimpse, just for a second or two, the rare and beautiful creature he’d become moving just behind the physical form he’d taken in order to walk with us. And I had to wonder—was this what Granny May had become? When Matt had chosen paradise over me… had he known this perfect grace, this wisdom wrapped in white fire, was waiting for him?

I felt Vayl before I heard him, his fingers moving gently up and around my shoulders, his chest pressing against my back as I dropped the curtain. “Does it hurt you?” I asked. “Standing inside a blessed building?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “But Raoul gave me this. It shields me from the worst of it.” He turned me around so I could see the amulet hanging from his neck. Made of gold, the pendant looked like a reverse question mark in which the circle had nearly been closed. Inside the circle, held there by fine golden lines that reminded me of Queen Marie’s favorite palace room, was a second nearly complete circle whose opening was at the exact same space as the first. Fil ing those spaces was a golden arrow so intricately made that I could see the fine lines of its feathers had been hammered in by some meticulous craftsman.

I wanted to touch it, but settled for laying my hand against the soft shirt below it. “So.” I looked into his eyes, trying to gauge his mood. They were brown. Leave it to him to be total y relaxed before the biggest mission of our lives. “Hanzi. And then hel ,” I said.

“Yes.” He caught my other hand in his and brought it to his lips. “We have had so little time together of late. And now.” He pressed his lips into my skin and I closed my eyes, concentrating on the feel of him, his hips crowding closer to mine. His tongue tracing a path to my wrist. Had the air just thickened? As I took a deeper breath, I thought maybe so.

I raised my eyelids and smiled as I watched his eyes brighten to hazel and then to the emerald green that always felt like a celebration to me. “What do you say we leave them in the future where they belong?”

He glanced toward the window. “Dawn approaches. Already tomorrow is nearly here.”

“How much time do we have?”

“Perhaps an hour.”

“Then let’s make the most of it.”

Even now that our deadline loomed like a factory boss in our heads, yel ing at us to get to work fast because every second counted, we undressed each other slowly. Savored each new bit of skin an unbuttoning revealed with lips and tongues and softly worded murmurs.

The bed creaked like its box springs had been sitting at the bottom of a river for the past twenty years, so we moved the bedding to the floor and lay in each other’s arms as comfortably as if we’d been testing out a Tempur-Pedic mattress.

Vayl wrapped his arms around me and pul ed me close, my breasts flattening against his chest as he whispered in my ear, “Tomorrow may be our last day together. I try to banish the thought, and yet it keeps tearing through my mind.”

I shuddered, holding him tight. “Listen, I’m not letting you go. No matter what happens to us, I’l find you. Somehow, I’l come for you. Okay?”

He buried his mouth in my hair, muttered something I didn’t understand, and then kissed me so fiercely that I couldn’t have formed a single coherent thought for fifteen minutes after that.

We made love with a desperation I’d never experienced before, a love so immense I realized my cheeks were wet, and then knew that I was weeping. But it was al right, somehow. Our rhythm was the rhythm of the universe, and it sang out that we were meant to be. That we would always find one another, because music like ours was timeless… eternal. Afterward we lay in each other’s arms until another rush of fear, of need, of desire pushed us forward again, to that place where only we could go together.

I must’ve dozed off, because my eyes felt heavy and my concentration dim when Vayl final y said,

“Dawn is breaking. I need…” He trailed off. I’d never seen him go into the daysleep before. But now I’d looked into his face just in time to see his eyes flutter shut, his expression relax. I slapped my hand against my heart.
He’s not dead. He didn’t just die. Chill, Jaz. He’ll be up again at dusk. If you
can make sure no light hits him in the meantime
.

I went to our luggage and dug out the sleeping tent. Since there was no way I’d be able to lug him onto the bed, I set it up right next to our spot. When it was done I levered Vayl into it, using angles and his weight, more than my muscles, to get the job done. Once I’d zipped the door closed I sat down beside him and cried. Because the past hour had been one of the best we’d ever spent together. And despite what I’d said, I wasn’t sure we’d ever get the chance to repeat it. Then I jumped into the shower. Because everybody should face their fate with clean hair, a ful stomach, and at least an hour’s worth of lovemaking behind them.

Sunday, June 17, 6:20 a.m
.

What is it about the shower? Water hitting your head in just the right pattern? I don’t know, but I get some of my best ideas while rubbing suds into my hair. This time it helped a lot that Jack chose that moment to poke his head in and give me that doleful look that meant he had digested every morsel in his massive gut and I had neglected him shameful y by not feeding him in the past two hours.

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Seriously, dude. I have a feeling you wouldn’t be my buddy like you are today if I didn’t have the key to the chow cabinet.”

And that made me think of doorways. And my sense that the portals fol owing me around the planet were somehow alive.

I finished showering in record time despite the fact that I had to fend off another nosebleed, dressed, fed the mutt, and ran for Raoul’s room.