The Deadliest Bite (8 page)

The car, a rusty white Lumina, made a graceful right turn and came to a stop in a drive-blocking maneuver that I would’ve suspected was the beginning of a ful -out assault on the house. Except that the driver’s side door opened and a man tumbled out, fal ing to his hands and knees on the dew-drenched grass.

Vayl was the first to reach him. Already he’d sheathed his sword. He looked up at me. The tone in his voice chil ed me when he said, “Jasmine. Come quickly.” I holstered Grief and ran to his side, Raoul, the animals, and Aaron right behind me.

The man, practical y curled up in a bal , wore a filthy gray sweatshirt and cutoff shorts. He could’ve been anybody. Except for the red high-tops that made my heart twist inside my chest.

“Cole?” I whispered.

He raised his head and blinked his blood-red eyes. “Help me, Jaz.” I slapped my hand over my mouth to hold back the moan as I dropped to my knees beside him.

Jack, understanding only that something had just gone terribly wrong in Happysvil e, pressed his nose against Cole’s cheek. Cole reached out blindly, wrapped his hand in my dog’s fur, and then buried his face in it.

I swung to Raoul. “What happened? Kyphas only had him halfdemonized when we saved him.

And Sterling purified him afterward.”

“Didn’t the warlock tel you to keep Cole close?”

“Yeah, and we did until he decided to go to Florida to visit his family.” Raoul frowned down at the man who’d once loved me. “Obviously he never left. It’s important after a purification for the victim to stay close to friends and family until he or she has worked through al the guilt and anger. I’m guessing Cole felt so much of both that he thought it best to isolate himself before he hurt someone else when, in fact, that was the worst thing he could’ve done.”

“But he didn’t hurt anyone back in Marrakech,” I protested.

“I doubt he sees it that way.”

Vayl had knelt beside me by now. He put a hand on Cole’s shoulder and pul ed him back. “Talk to us, son.”

The gentleness in his voice brought tears to my eyes, because it meant Cole was doing even worse than I’d feared.

Cole pul ed away from Jack. When he ran his hands through his wild surfer-boy hair I thought I saw the nubs of two horns shoving their way through his skul . “She’s pul ing me back,” he said, his voice hoarse and dire.

“Kyphas is dead,” I reminded him. “Vayl blew her to bits—”

He shook his head. “No. No. No. I can feel her.” He thumped his hand against his chest. “And I want it.” His crimson eyes bored into mine. “Make it stop. One way or another. Jaz, I’m counting on you. Don’t let me go over.”

I shared a doubtful look with Vayl. “You kil ed Kyphas. Right?” He shrugged. “I could not imagine her surviving that blast. However, Cole is tel ing us differently.

Perhaps the sea creature that was attacking her at the time took more of the damage than I anticipated it would. Or maybe hel pieced her back together just so it could have the pleasure of torturing her.”

I wanted to deny the possibilities, but bizarre was pretty much Lucifer’s domain. And I had Cole to worry about right now. I looked up at Raoul. “Please. There must be something you can do.” I could tel he wanted to leap back through the nearest plane portal by the way he held himself, stiff with denial, reminding me with his eyes that his office stationery had NONINTERFERENCE

imbedded within the weave of the paper itself. “I’m not his Spirit Guide, Jasmine—” I said, “No. Maybe you could’ve jumped and run back in January, when you were just a scary buzz fol owed by an earsplitting voice in my head. But not now. You’re my friend. And he’s my friend.

Which makes you his friend by default. And friends save each other’s souls.” There was a lot I didn’t say that I let him read in my eyes. That if he let Cole slip away I’d never fight for him, or the Eldhayr, again. And that there was every chance I’d come after them for letting him down—providing I survived the massive revenge I’d attempt to visit on the demon who’d broken my pal in the first place.

Raoul swiped off his hat and threw it on the ground. “You owe me.”

“Absolutely. We both wil .”

He glared at Vayl, like he’d had something to do with my uppity attitude. “Guard us.” The request struck me as weird, until he grabbed my arm and wrapped the fingers of his free hand around the back of Cole’s neck. “Oh,” I whispered, dizzy with the rush of separation as he swept me out of my body.

Wednesday, June 13, 2:45 a.m
.

I immediately relaxed. Never had I broken from my physical self so wilingly, even though I knew the return trip would feel like a fal into thorn-covered bushes inhabited by army ants and kil er bees.

I flew up and up, the rush of flight so extreme I nearly forgot why I’d forced Raoul to yank me off this edge to begin with. He obviously hadn’t, his spirit form even more forbidding than his physical one as he pul ed Cole and me toward a distant star.

I looked back, reassuring myself that, yes, the golden cords that signified every relationship binding me to life stil stretched from the world to my spirit. Dave was safe, wherever he wandered.

Albert, too, along with Evie and baby E.J. I savored every connection, but most especial y Vayl’s, because it meant he hadn’t given up everything, or maybe that he’d earned something back, by creating a relationship with me.

I couldn’t see Cole’s cords, which wouldn’t have been alarming, except that he seemed to show no interest in them either. “Raoul? Has he lost everything?” I asked, motioning to my own lifelines.

“They’re fading,” Raoul said shortly. When I realized he was done talking, I slipped my hand into Cole’s, such as they were, and whispered, “I’m here.”

He didn’t look at me. Only nodded and kept his eyes glued to that star, which was growing brighter as we approached it. Soon we could see it was a plane portal, similar in shape to the ones that seemed to appear near me wherever I went. But instead of being wreathed in flames and black at the center, this one shone with light so bril iant that human eyes would’ve been blinded by it.

Raoul began to chant as we jetted toward the light. Everything in me said to turn away before my brain fried, but the light had begun to
sing
. And I’d spent enough time with Sterling, who wanted nothing more than to become a bard, to realize I was staring into the source of the old guild’s power.

We burst through the doorway accompanied by a chorus of voices so utterly beautiful that tears would’ve streamed from my eyes if I’d had them. Cole and I looked at each other. And smiled. How could we not? We stood in a meadow of wildflowers beside a stream so clear we could see the fishes’ shadows. Music stil echoed in our ears and now we knew the source—it was the combined orchestra of al the cords that touched our souls to those of the people we loved.

Raoul said, “Cole Levon Bemont, hear me and know the truth of my words. Your futures lie before you.” He picked a ripened dandelion and blew the white seeds into the air. Suddenly we saw Cole in twenty different places. But al of them shared one common denominator. A flame-swept sky covering a landscape of mutilated creatures who’d once been human.

Cole staggered backward, shaking his head. “No. No. There has to be another way.” Raoul came to me and whispered in my ear. I jerked my head away from his. “Are you serious?”

“You asked for this,” he said.

I hesitated, watching the man who had taken beating after beating for me, who’d fol owed me into this career after his business had been burned to the ground because of me, fal to his knees as his eyes darted from one hel -scene to the next, searching, searching, and always finding the demon he would become marching among the forsaken, a blood-drenched whip clutched in his hand. And I did as Raoul asked.

I strode to the newest golden cord to be added to my col ection. It was only four months old, but its beauty outshone that of the others in this place like a rose among the clover. I strummed E.J.’s cord, playing the song my niece had begun to sing for me, and with me, since the moment she was born. I’d heard it before, when I battled a demon cal ed the Magistrate. Then it had sounded out pure and fine as a fresh snowfal . Now, in this place of wonder, her song had changed. Become ful of interesting harmonies interspersed with drumbeats so intense I half expected an army to take the field. Instead the cord began to vibrate against my non-hand so painful y that I backed away.

“Raoul?”

“Behold,” Raoul said to Cole.

He turned away from the nightmare spread out before him just as the cord seemed to separate and rebraid itself into a new shape, that of a woman whose dark brown hair swept in ringlets down her back. When she looked up, as if in amazement that a sky so blue could exist anywhere in the universe, the sun glinted off her red highlights.

“I’ve never seen eyes so green,” Cole whispered. His hands had dropped, palms up, into his lap, as if he were a beggar pleading for her mercy. “What’s her name?” Raoul looked at me. “Her name is Ezri…”

I finished it for him. “Ezri Jasmine. E.J. for short. She’s my niece in, what, twenty years?”

“Twenty-three,” Raoul told me.

Cole didn’t seem to have heard. His jaw had dropped slightly, as if he’d been hit by an armored truck. He whispered, “She’s an angel.”

“You could say that,” Raoul agreed.

I riveted my eyes to his. But he avoided my gaze. Suddenly random events in my life clicked together in new ways. I understood why the Magistrate had gone after E.J. during that battle back in Tehran. Why the part of her that connected to the cosmos was able to resist his attack so wel for so long. And maybe even why her father did his best to avoid me during those rare times that Evie blackmailed me into attending a family event.

Cole stretched out his hand as if he wanted to touch her but knew the museum guards would kick his ass if they saw him defiling the fine art. He said, “Ezri? She’s—”

“Your destiny, if you choose to embrace it,” said Raoul. “You won’t seem old to her when you final y meet, because having most of your name chiseled to the demon’s heartstone has slowed your aging process by decades. But be warned. Even if you decide to wait for her, you’l have to endure tortures in the space between. As I said, the Rocenz has changed you. But its marks aren’t clean and precise, like a carpenter’s tool. They leave the scars of a brand. For some the dark fire becomes so al uring that they choose it despite the fact that it burns away everything that made them human.”

Cole touched the horns that had almost completely receded back into his skul . “She’s just a baby now? How do I fight it for twenty years?”

“Twenty-three,” Raoul corrected.

Cole’s eyes drank her in. He knew he wouldn’t see her again for decades, and I could see him trying to memorize every feature, right down to the beauty mark high on her right cheekbone. Final y he said, “You saw how wel I made it through the first couple of weeks. How am I going to pul off years?”

Raoul reached into his pocket as he said, “Soon Vayl wil decide that you need to travel to Romania, which has just recently embraced its roots as the country that birthed vampirism. Perhaps you wil find a use for these?”

I couldn’t see what he held at first. He did a little turning motion with one hand, set the object down with the other, then stepped back and watched with us. A pair of ruby-red lips smiled up at us as its blinding white wind-up vampire teeth chopped up and down so fast they looked to be stuck in the middle of the Antarctic without a hat or scarf to keep them toasty warm. The vamp mouth walked around in circles with the help of a pair of pointy-toed black dress shoes.

Cole’s chuckle started somewhere near his belt buckle and by the time it emerged from his throat he was doubled over and slapping his thigh. Which isn’t easy when you’re mostly spirit.

“Excel ent! I can just see Vayl looking down his nose at those, going, ‘Those are not in the least bit amusing. Also, you cannot get a good anchor into your victim when you are gnawing at him like some kind of jackal.’ I’l take two!”

Raoul handed him the teeth. “They’l take form for you as soon as you reenter your body.”

“Magical!”

Raoul smirked. “Just don’t lose them.” His eyes sent the bigger message,
or your sense of
humor
.

Cole nodded. “Gotcha. Thanks.”

Raoul clasped his hands behind his back. “Anytime,” he said, his faint Spanish accent suddenly a little easier to detect.
By damn, he is getting attached to us!
“We must leave soon,” he said, nodding to the golden cords that surrounded us. They were beginning to fade. “Perhaps you’d like to say goodbye?”

“Can she hear me?” Cole asked.

“At some level.”

Cole went up to E.J. Wow, she was tal ! Her eyes were nearly at the same level as his. I felt tears prick my eyelids. To see the child I’d give anything to or for standing, al grown up, beautiful and healthy, blew me away. The man who’d decided to spend the next chunk of his life hoping she’d save his soul walked to within a few inches of her. Her gaze, uplifted and thoughtful, flew far past his tired blue eyes. But he didn’t seem to mind.

“Ezri, it’s Cole Bemont. Remember that name, okay? It’s going to be a big deal to you someday.” My hand flew to my mouth when his you-real y-should-hug-me grin appeared. I hadn’t seen it in so long I’d almost forgotten how happy it made me when it came out to play. “I’m not the man that you’re going to need me to be yet. But I’ve got a while to get myself straight. And, I promise, by the time you’re ready for me, I’l be set to sweep you off your feet.” He leaned forward to murmur into her ear. Her eyes came to his face, sparkling as they found a new focus. When he pul ed back she was smiling straight at him. The breath left him in a long sigh. He blew her a kiss.