He started us walking again, leading me while I stared at the shadowed path, trying to make this new layer settle onto the portrait of my mother that I thought I’d finished the day she died. “Did you ever meet him?” I asked.
“No. He’d left her long before I came on the scene.” Albert shook his head. “Your granny May tried to warn me. She thought he took something, I don’t know, he took all the softness from her when he went. But you can’t really talk to me once I’ve made my mind up.”
“No kidding?”
“Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Yeah.”
“Then listen for once.” I swallowed my smart-ass reply and let my dad talk. “He wasn’t the kind of man Granny May and Gramps Lew wanted for your mom, but what could they do? She was as bullheaded as you. Unfortunately she wasn’t nearly as smart. And I don’t think, deep down, she understood what she was worth the way you do.”
“So . . . she ever get over it?”
He shook his head. “I believe she always loved him. Our biggest fight happened after I found out she’d kept in touch with him, especially when I was out of the country. That’s, uh, when she left me. I thought it was forever. She thought it was for the night. Until she found me with her best friend the next day.”
I held up my hand. “Okay, you know what? Enough. Parents aren’t supposed to have secret spouses. And discuss their messy breakups with their kids.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Because I’m an idiot!”
We walked in fuming silence for about five minutes. Finally I said, “I have to go.”
“Where?”
“Away. I’ve put it off long enough. And I’m just pissed enough not to care what happens while I’m gone. You just hang on to my arm and don’t let me fall on my face during my trip, okay?”
“What are you blabbing about?” Albert frowned at me. “Are you on THE drugs?”
Here we go. How many times in my life had he accused me of being on THE drugs? Like there was a brand out there made just for me. “No, Dad, I’m as sober as you are.” I sighed. “There’s a guy I know who can help us both with our problems. But the only way I can visit him is to leave my body. I’ve never tried it while I was moving, so I’m just asking you to keep me from walking into a tree for the next few minutes. Will you do that for me or not?”
He stared at me for so long I had to steer him clear of a low-growing limb. “How can you do that?”
“Well, it all started the night I lost my virginity—”
“Never mind. I don’t wanna know.”
I could’ve told him the truth. But we were too far from a portable defibrillator for me to feel comfortable breaking the news that I’d died while he was puttering around his apartment, pissing off his former nurse because he wouldn’t test his sugar levels more than once a week.
“So will you lead me for a while or not?”
“Fine. Just let me hang on to you, will ya? That way it still looks like I’m the one who needs a guide dog.”
We rearranged our arm linkage while Cole stole looks over his shoulder at us. He motioned to me. You need help for this?
I shook my head. Just keep the girls busy.
He nodded. Gave me thumbs-up, like I was a pilot ready to take my F18 airborne.
It sounds almost that easy. I’m going to leave my body now. Like I can just zip down the runway and lift off. Not so much. Especially when the dude I’m headed to meet isn’t one I’m thrilled to be seeing.
Before I’d met Raoul “in person” he’d been a thunderous voice in my head, pulling me toward a destiny I couldn’t have imagined before he’d reconnected me with this life. His were the words that split the two halves of me, allowing my body to continue as if it were run by remote control while my invisible self bounced around the atmosphere like a weather balloon.
I repeated those words now, whispering them into the night, noting that they provided their own kind of light when I looked at them in just the right way. The parts of me resisted the call to separate, every movement of my body working to keep them united. I concentrated harder, closing my eyes, trusting Albert to keep me walking upright. The words buzzed in the back of my throat, gathering the threads of my traveling self, winding it into a cohesive unit that spilled out of me in a single exhale.
I looked down, watched automatic me walk beside Albert and Jack while Cole, Viv, and Iona carried on an animated conversation about the cemetery lying just ahead of us, a monument-marked clearing among the surrounding trees. Above me, nine golden cords, including my own, shot into the sky like ropes dangling from a celestial helicopter. I knew if I brushed against them they’d sing a tune unique to the person they connected to on the ground. Weird to see two of them actually streaming from my guys as they ambled below. And, hey, what do you know! Another, silver streamer flying up from Jack that was so finely woven it practically disappeared against the black background of wide-open sky.
All the cords seemed to orbit around a tenth one, which contained every color of the rainbow, and a bunch more I’d only begun to see after Vayl had taken my blood. The first time I’d seen this cord I’d thought it belonged to a high-level gatekeeper. Somebody who could whisper the password to heaven in your ear if you truly believed. Now I wasn’t so sure. Because Raoul leaned against it like it was a streetlight and he was some hood deciding whether or not to mug me.
I felt my nonstomach clench as I read the expression on his face. Or rather, the lack of it. I’d been around enough guys to know that wasn’t a good sign.
I nodded to him, deciding to keep my distance. After all, the hands that could heal your broken neck could resnap it. “Raoul.”
“Jasmine.”
“What’s up?”
“Not much. Just wondering why I’m wasting my energy here when I could be lounging on my sofa, talking to you like a regular person.” I wanted to yell, We’re not regular people, you doof! But I’d decided to play nice. At first.
I said, “I haven’t seen any portals since I got to Inverness.”
“There’s one in the castle!”
“Oh.” I cleared my throat. “Raoul?”
“What!”
“I didn’t really want to go to your place.” I held up my hands, marveled that you could see through them. Hey, I’m kind of a ghost up here. Weird! I rushed on. “Not that your penthouse isn’t magnificent. And oddly large given the dimensions of the building,” I added, recalling a visit I’d made to be outfitted for a demonic battle. The guy’s rooms must unfold into a parallel universe or something. Which was cool in itself. Neater still were the contents: weapons and armor I still routinely recalled with a feeling so close to lust you might as well not even split hairs.
Raoul’s eyes narrowed. “If nothing’s wrong with it, why are we meeting here?”
Because I only have a limited amount of time before I have to go back. Which gives me just the excuse I need if [when] this conversation goes sour.
“Because part of this is about him,” I said, pointing to Albert. I filled him in on the visitations. “What does that sound like to you?”
“Nothing good. Does your father have any enemies? I mean ones who would take their anger with them to the grave?”
“Dozens.”
Raoul nodded. “I’ll check with my scouts and see if there’s been any unusual activity that we can connect with his troubles.”
“Thanks.” Next I told him about finding Jack’s old harness and seeing Samos’s face. “What do you think?” I asked. “Can vampires rise from the dead?”
Raoul shook his head, though his troubled expression didn’t comfort me. “I have never heard of such a thing. The very fact that they are reduced to smoke and cinders at the end belies the idea that anything spiritual might remain.”
“Okay.” Despite the fact that none of me currently rested in the physical, I expected a certain amount of unwinding to take place, as if I’d been bound with an ever-tightening cord that only Raoul
’s reassurance could loosen. It didn’t happen. I sighed. “Look, I’m totally buying into your argument. I’ve made it myself. But my gut’s telling me something’s wrong. While your scout’s nosing around anyway, can you ask him to find out what was in that contract Samos signed with the devil? Demon? Whoever? I know he had to give up his most precious possession to get to me. Which was Jack. But maybe there was some fine print. Something that allows him to hijack a poor innocent’s face and stick out his tongue at me every twelve hours or so.”
Raoul nodded thoughtfully. “I think we can do that. Hell’s archives are never well guarded.”
“Cool.” I began to hope I was going to get out of there without a fight. Then Raoul said, “You’re still with Vayl.”
“Of course. We’re a team.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
I clenched my hands, which wasn’t at all satisfying in this form. “Are you spying on me?”
“That’s not allowed. I simply observe you from time to time to make sure you’re not in need of intervention.” His tone, shaded with just enough self-righteousness to make my eyes cross, jerked the calm right out of me.
“What are you saying? That I’m headed down a bad road? Lucky me to have you looking over my shoulder, otherwise I’d be a crack whore by now?”
He jerked upright like I’d yanked him by his dark brown crew cut. “I said nothing of the sort! But you are Eldhayr. That designation brings with it certain responsibilities.”
“Well, that’s news to me!” Not really. I’d known for a while. But I’d decided some time ago the only way I could function after everything that had happened to me was to hold tight to the part I liked best. The one that kept shrinking but still yelled the loudest, laughed the hardest, and knew everything there was to know about that gorgeous two-and-a-half mile oval located at 16th and Georgetown in Indianapolis.
While we glared at each other, Raoul closed the distance between us. Fine. If he wanted a nose to nose I’d give him one! “Our business is akin to holy war,” he said. “There’s no room in it for vampires!”
“First of all, if you’re going to get all fanatical on me, you can just back the hell off and get another grunt to do your dirty work. And second, I fight my targets, my way, with my people. If you don’t like my crowd, you can wrap your Eldhayr responsibilities around a Popsicle stick and shove them up your—”
“Raoul! Do we have a problem?” We snapped our chins in the direction of the question, because the command in that voice demanded it. Walking toward us across the—well, I don’t know what you’d call the stuff we stood on—dark mist? Really tickly shadows? Anyway, this dude moving at a fast clip wore the uniform of a Civil War colonel. Union side. His black hair had been slicked back, emphasizing the worry lines on his forehead. Just a hint of bottom lip peeked out between his droopy black mustache and precursor goatee.
“No, John, nothing’s wrong,” Raoul said. “I was just talking to Jasmine about her affinity with the vampire Vayl.”
As I watched the colonel approach, I fought the urge to salute. Geez, the guy oozed authority like vice principals emit detention slips! And my reaction so pissed me off. You’d think by now I’d have learned how to stifle that urge to obey that all Marines’ daughters are trained to. Realizing my emotional cocktail had made for a potential explosion, I did what any reasonable, level-headed woman of my background would’ve done. I shook it.
“I’m not dumping Vayl,” I snapped. “I don’t give two craps about your rules. Hell, I didn’t even know they existed until this moment.” Ignoring the fact that Colonel John had winced when I swore, I bulldozed on. “I don’t appreciate you people cranking out the high-and-mighty on me when I’ve fought on your side ever since—well, you know. And so has Vayl!”
I stopped. Realized I’d taken a pretty aggressive stance with my hands on my hips and my legs spread. And didn’t change it when Colonel John said, “Are you finished?”
I thought a second. “Yup.”
“You’re fading, you know.” I looked down. Shit! Time was running out on me and I wasn’t even close to done! He held out his hand. “May I?”
I shrugged. He touched me on the shoulder, sending a tingling warmth through me that tasted of honey and roses. I know, no tongue to do actual sensing, but that’s what it felt like. And when I held a hand up, it looked more solid than it ever had in this form. “Cool.” Then I remembered I was pissed off and frowned. Which made Colonel John laugh.
“You must forgive Raoul. Though he would never tell you this directly, he cares a great deal for you. He fought passionately for your inclusion among the Eldhayr when the Eminent met to decide whether or not to invite you. And again when your brother’s fate hung in the balance.”
I glanced at my Spirit Guide, who’d crossed his hands over his chest and glued his gaze to some distant star. “Really.”
“And perhaps you could also pardon his feelings about your vampire. He has . . . personal reasons to resent them. The fact that he still struggles, after all these decades, should tell you how deeply their kind hurt him.”
I nodded, not daring to look at Raoul at all now. I knew the last thing he wanted was a sympathetic stare from me. “Now.” The colonel slapped his hands together and rubbed them. “Did someone call for a Hell Scout?”
We briefed Colonel John on the details of his mission, and I told him everything I could remember or that I’d concluded about Samos. “Excellent,” he finally said. “I’ll get on it right away.”
“But . . . don’t you have to, I don’t know, hang out at headquarters? Send out orders while somebody else pulls off the dangerous stunts?” I asked.
Colonel John shook his head. “Rank works differently among the Eldhayr, Jasmine. Here, the higher you climb the ladder, the more risky work you’re required to do.” He nodded to me and then to Raoul. “I’ll report in when I have something interesting to discuss.”
“Godspeed,” said Raoul.
“Yeah, that,” I agreed.
Colonel John grinned and marched off into the shadows as quickly as he’d arrived.
“I think I like him,” I said after a long, strained silence.
“He grows on you.”
“So . . . how are we?”
Raoul refused to meet my eyes. “Fine.”
Small spurt of anger, quickly doused when I remembered Colonel John’s advice. “Vayl’s not that kind of vamp. You know that.”
“He’s a killer. Closer to pure predator than you realize, Jasmine.”
I said, “So am I.” Raoul met my eyes then. “That’s why you recruited me, right?”
His nod barely moved air.
“I love him.” It was the first time I’d ever told anybody. The feeling nearly brought me up on tiptoe. “You, of all people, know what I’ve been through. What I’ve lost. I never thought I’d find anything remotely close to that again. And now that I have, I’m telling you, I’m never letting it go. Never.”
Acceptance in Raoul’s eyes. A hint of a smile at the corners of his lips. “So that would be a not ever?”
“Yes.”
“As in, eternity?”
“Pretty much.”
Long sigh, followed by an okay-I’ll-deal nod. “Do you really think it will last that long? After all, you are an absolute pain in the rear.”
“Raoul!”
“Always interrupting me with your demands. Wreathing my head with obscenities. Borrowing my equipment. Bringing it back all bloody and chipped.”
“I did not!”
By now he was grinning. “Do you irritate everyone you work with this much?”
I didn’t have to stop to think about it. But I hesitated anyway. Finally. Reluctantly. “Yeah.”
“Good. That makes me feel much better about what I’m going to do next.”
“What—”
He set the heel of his palm against my forehead and said, “Return!”
I rocketed back into my body so fast the entire world blurred. The
pain dropped me to my knees, where I stayed, trying not to heave supper all over the tombstone I’d landed in front of. I’d never experienced the bends, but I imagined this was what they felt like, as if all my joints had been stretched to their limit and then compressed by g-forces equivalent to those experienced by astronauts and race car drivers.
Swearing would’ve relieved some of my pain and a lot of stress. But Raoul’s words still rang in my ears. Plus, as my eyes focused on the words carved into the granite before me, I figured neither Caitir Burns (born—1779, died—1804) nor her family would much appreciate me dropping the F-bomb on the final monument to her memory.
Well, what do you know, my body walked all the way to Siorruidh before it keeled over like an unmanned muppet.
I forced my chin up, let my eyes wander over the Hoppringhill family’s old burial grounds. The stones marched along in symmetrical rows, as if a city planner had mapped out the whole place for the first castle laird with ease of mowing in mind. Younger than Clava Cairns by around thirty-five hundred years, the cemetery lacked the pagan hue of its neighbor. Until I felt movement under my fingers. A ripple of the earth, as if something lying far below had turned, disturbed in its rest by all of us clunking around above. I jerked my hands off the grass. But not before the psychic scent hit me. A mix of wood smoke and old blood.
Brude.
“Did you feel that?” I asked.
Albert checked over his shoulder, as if I’d just warned him of a sneak attack. “What?”
I pointed to the ground. “That. Just now. Like a mini quake?”
“Nope. Maybe you had gas.”
I cocked my head up at him, wishing once again that I could claim to be adopted. “You’ve gotta be kidding.”
He spread out his hands. “Hey, you haven’t been around me on chili night lately. Swear to God, some of those farts lift me right off the chair.”
Despite the lingering pain, I scrambled to my feet. Albert didn’t offer me a hand. Of course. I began to curse him inwardly. Then I stopped. Looked at him. He stared back, waiting for me to pull it together. And I realized this had been his gift to me. Always being a presence in my life. Never more than a phone call away. But holding back his strength. Allowing me to find my own, so that when I fell, I could learn to stand again. I might not agree with his methods, but I suddenly understood his reasoning.
One More Bite Page 17
