The Deadliest Bite (3 page)

“Hel o?”

“Jaz? Where’s Vayl?”

“Hi, Cassandra. He’s with me.”

“He’s al right then?”

“What?” I felt my fingers go numb. Usual y I reacted faster. It was my job to make sure my emotions didn’t cloud my judgment. Even for the two seconds it took me to realize my psychic friend was freaking out about my lover. “What did you See?”

“There was a mix-up in Australia. I accidental y packed one of your T-shirts in my suitcase. So I was folding it back into my luggage because Dave and I are coming up to visit you and Evie. It was supposed to be a surprise—” She swal owed a sob.

“Tel me now, Cassandra.” I tried to keep my voice calm. No sense in shouting at the woman who’d already saved my brother’s life with one of her visions. But if she’d been in the room I’d have shaken her til her teeth rattled.

“When I touched your shirt I saw you, leaning over Vayl’s body. He had a stake through his heart.

The blood—oh, Jaz, the blood.” She started to cry for real now.

“Anything else? Come on, Cassandra, I need to know everything you Saw.” I’d zipped into my pants. Run to the stairs. Managed to make it to the second floor without breaking my neck. Jack was way ahead of me.

“I don’t know. There’s this explosion, but not like the kind you see in movies. It’s more… ripply.

And at the middle is a young man. Younger than you. Tal er, even, than Vayl, with ful brown hair that keeps fal ing onto his forehead. He’s snarling, which makes two deep dimples appear on his cheeks. He’s standing in front of a tal oak door above which is hanging—”

“A pike with a gold tassel,” I finished.

“Yes!”

“Shit! Cassandra, that’s Vayl’s front door. And you’ve just described the kid who was ringing the bel .”

“Did he answer?”

“I don’t—”

A shot rang out, tearing my heart in two. Jack growled menacingly, already on his way down the final set of steps. I glanced into the wel made by the turn of the stairs from second to first floor. Yeah, I could jump it. So I did, landing on another one of Vayl’s overstuffed sofas. The impact sent me rol ing into the walnut coffee table fronting it, knocking it across the hal into a case ful of antique knives. I raised my arm, protecting my face from the shattering glass.

Not knowing how far the glass had scattered, I protected my bare feet by jumping back onto the couch. Then I took half a second to assess the situation.

Twenty feet from me, at the other end of the hal in front of the open door, Vayl lay in a spreading pool of blood, the bloody hole in his forehead a result of the .38 Special lying on the floor. There were two reasons the young man kneeling over him wasn’t stil holding it. He needed both hands for the hammer and stake he now held poised over Vayl’s chest. And Jack’s teeth had sunk deep enough into his right wrist that by now he’d have been forced to drop it anyway.

Only a guy as big as this one wouldn’t have been thrown completely off balance by a ful -on attack via 120-pound malamute. Despite the fact that a hundred pounds of the guy was weight he didn’t need, his size had kept him off his back, though it hadn’t al owed him to recover his balance enough to counter with the stake in his free hand. That would change if I didn’t reach the scene in time.

I jumped to the outer part of the stairs, holding the rail to keep from fal ing as I cleared the fal out from the display case. Another jump took me to the floor. Five running steps gave me a good start for a spin kick that should’ve caught the intruder on the temple, breaking his glasses in at least two places and taking him down so hard he’d be dreaming before his head bounced. But unless they’re drugged, people don’t just sit and wait for the blow.

He pul ed back, catching my heel on his nose. It broke, spraying blood al over his shirt and Jack.

His glasses flew off, hitting the wal , but remaining miraculously intact. And it didn’t take him down. In fact, it seemed to motivate him. Desperation fil ed his eyes. He ripped his hammer hand out of Jack’s grip, though the bloody rips in his forearm would hurt like a son of a bitch when his adrenaline rush faded.

Afraid his next move would be a blow to my dog, I lunged at him. I was wrong. He threw the hammer at me, forcing me to hit the floor. I rol ed when I felt his shadow loom, knowing the worst scenario was me pinned under al that weight. But it never fel on me. I jumped to my feet and began to unholster Grief, though the last thing I wanted was to kil the bastard before I found out who’d sent him.

Stil , I was too late. The intruder had retrieved his revolver and was aiming the barrel at my chest.

He’d probably hit me too if he squinted hard enough and held his breath long enough to stop shaking. The only positive I could see was that I stood between him and Vayl. For now.

Jack growled menacingly and began to approach the man, his fur standing on end so that he looked like the miniature bear he sounded most like when he vocalized.

The gun wavered as the man said, “You tel that dog to stop, or I wil shoot it.”

“No, Jack,” I said. “Sit.”

He came to an unhappy stop beside me. Once again I stood staring at my ultimate end.

Because my Spirit Guide had informed me that my body couldn’t take another rise to life. If this scumbag capped me, I’d be done. And I
so
wasn’t ready.

I said, “I don’t know you. And I thought I’d pegged al of our enemies. You’re not a werewolf.

You’re not Vampere. You’re definitely no pro.”

His eyebrows went up. So. He hadn’t been told about our work. Baffling. Stil , whoever picked him had chosen wel . Amateurs occasional y succeeded where professionals failed because they were unpredictable. And motivated. This one definitely had his reasons for being here. I could see it in the way his eyebrows kept twitching down toward his nose. He was a time bomb ready to blow everyone in the room to bloody bits.

He raised the gun. Uh-oh. While I’d been thinking, so had he. And it looked like he’d made a decision. “You need to walk away from that vampire,” he said.

“No.”

He pushed the revolver toward me, to make sure I understood he could pul the trigger. “I’m not playing. I wil kil you if that’s what it takes to smoke him.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’l die if you do that anyway.”

The remark confused him. Upset him.
This isn’t a bad man, but damn, something has pushed
him way past his limit
. I watched his finger tighten on the trigger. I said, “Don’t. Dude, you’l be kil ing a federal agent. They put you in jail forever for that kind of shit.”

“Jail?” He laughed, his voice rising into girl-land as he said, “I’m already in hel .” Which was when I knew there was nothing I could say to divert him. I looked down at Jack, touched the soft fur on the top of his head in farewel . Glanced over my shoulder at Vayl, only long enough for the pain to lance through my heart.

I could pul on him, make my final moments an epic shootout. But Jack could get hurt in the crossfire, and I’d never forgive myself if that happened. “Get it over with then.”

“NOT SO FAST!!”

I slammed my hands over my ears, though I was pretty sure the voice came from inside my head until I saw that the intruder was wincing and wiping blood from his earlobes as wel .

The floor started to shake. Jack yelped and tried to hide between my legs as the polished pine floorboards between me and the intruder began to splinter and the fiery outline of an arched doorway pushed itself up from the basement below.

“Wel ,” I whispered to my dog. “This is new.”

I was pretty sure the intruder couldn’t see the plane portal rising to stand between us. Most humans never did. But he did get a load of the five-by-six-foot gap developing in the floor. And when Raoul seemed to step out of thin air, I didn’t blame him for needing to sit down. Which he did. On a plush, round-cushioned chair that was currently covered with wood chips.

My Spirit Guide recovered Vayl’s attacker’s weapon so easily I felt a little stupid that I’d ever been paralyzed by it. Maybe I was getting soft in my old age. Maybe seeing Vayl halfway dead had freaked me out more than I should’ve let it.

Raoul reversed the gun and lightly tapped the intruder on the forehead with it. “Wrong choice, Aaron. And I thought you knew better.” He lifted the back of his jungle camouflage jacket and stuck the .38 in the waistband of his matching pants as Aaron tried to get his face to stop twitching. Raoul regarded him quietly for a while and then turned to face me. “Stop trying to get yourself kil ed. Even the Eminent agreed with me on this one. It isn’t your time yet.” the Eminent agreed with me on this one. It isn’t your time yet.”

“I wasn’t
trying
—it’s not? Cool!” Nice to think that the folks who cal ed the shots upstairs had actual y approved of Raoul’s helping me for once. Especial y since it had involved saving my neck again.

“So what do you and the other Eldhayr think about this dude? What did you cal him, Aaron?” I asked, pointing my chin toward the failed assassin.

Raoul pul ed me aside. “I’m not al owed to interfere there.” He looked hard into my eyes, trying to communicate information I hadn’t known him long enough to decipher. He said, “Al I can say is that it’s good, real y good, that you didn’t kil him. Keep doing that.”

“What about Vayl?” I asked. “What can you say about him?”

“Do you real y need to hear that he’s going to be okay? You already know that, Jaz. A bul et to the head can’t kil a vampire as powerful as him.”

I shrugged. It’s one thing to understand something intel ectual y. It’s something completely different to see your lover looking ful y dead from a head wound. So I reminded myself again,
He’s
just been knocked out. If you lifted his head you’d see the back of his skull has probably already
re-formed. You shouldn’t be trying to figure out how your stomach can manage to clench itself that
tight. You should be patting yourself on the back for hooking up with a guy who’s that tough to kill
.

“Jasmine? Jaz? Is it over? What happened?”

The voice, smal and tinny, could’ve been mistaken for one of my inner girls, the various parts of my personality that I chat with when I’m überstressed or strapped for choices. But it was real. And hysterical y worried. I suddenly realized I’d dropped my phone during the fight and now Jack was trying to dial China with his nose.

“Cut it out,” I murmured as I picked it up. “You don’t even like rice.” I laid the receiver against my ear. “Cassandra? I can’t believe you’re stil there.”

“He’s important!”

“Of course he is. But he’l be fine. Vampires are—”

“No! I mean, yes, of course. But I’m talking about the young man.”

“WHAT? You can’t be on Raoul’s side in this. This guy Aaron nearly kil ed us both!” I glared at the would-be murderer. He stared straight at me. Raised his chin slightly. But his lower lip was sending out an SOS I figured his mom could hear from inside her local beauty shop’s hair dryer.

Cassandra yel ed, “Jasmine Elaine Parks, you listen to your future sister-in-law, dammit!

Something is making me tingle like I’m electrified. Let me talk to Aaron!” I held the phone out to him. “You have a cal .”

He looked away. “I’m busy.”

“Either you talk to the nice lady or I punch your lights out.” His eyes, suddenly round and uncertain, went to Raoul, so I added, “Oh, don’t look to him for help. He’s like the UN. He’l bitch and whine about my behavior, but he’l sit back and let me do the dirty work because, in the end, he knows I’m the one who’s gonna save the world.”

Raoul growled, “That was a low blow.”

I shrugged. “I’m sorry. I know the Eminent is always tying your hands. I just tend to get pissy when people try to kil the guy I love.” I looked up at him. “But I do appreciate you coming when you did.

Stel ar timing, as usual.”

I shoved the phone toward Aaron. “The threat stil stands, mainly because I’m stil highly ticked off and I wanna hit something. It’d be so great if you gave me an excuse.” Aaron took the phone, staring at me suspiciously as he said, “Hel o? Yes. No.” He listened for a while before his face puckered. But he managed to master the emotion Cassandra had eked out of him before he said another word. Which was “Thanks.”

He handed the phone back to me. “Wel ?” I asked the woman on the other end, who deserved a respectful ear, both because she’d survived nearly a thousand years on this Earth and because she’d chosen to spend the next fifty or so with my brother.

Cassandra took a deep breath. “I can’t be sure without touching the boy, but I consulted the tarot while he and I were speaking. It points to the same signs the Enkyklios has been showing me. I have to do more research, but—”

“What are you trying to tel me?”

“Whatever you do, don’t hurt him,” she repeated, this time in such a sober tone that I looked at him with less anger and more curiosity. Which was why I didn’t shove his head into the wal like I’d been planning to when she said, “I believe that, in another life, he was Vayl’s son.” I stared at the guy, who looked so much younger than me that it was hard not to think of him as a kid. He glared back. And then, al at once, his face crumpled. It was like he’d only brought enough adrenaline with him to get him through fifteen minutes of action. After that the bravado shattered like an old piece of glass. I said, “You’re lucky to be alive.”

He tried to answer. I could tel he wanted to say something smartass and slightly witty. Instead his jaw dropped and he keeled over, his head hitting the floor with a satisfying
clunk
.

I looked at Raoul. “Cassandra says that’s Vayl’s son.”

Raoul studied the unconscious young man. Then he said, “We should break it to him gently.” CHAPTER TWO

Wednesday, June 13, 1:30 a.m
.