One More Bite

by Jennifer Rardin

  Yeah. Especially when we all know Humphrey would much rather hook that chain around a rich customer’s neck so he can do the miser tuck-and-roll. Wait. What did you just say?

  Suddenly I knew. Floraidh and Dormal didn’t need a thousand pounds. They needed a thousand diamonds. Whatever they were planning required major protection from exactly the sort of entity that only diamonds would divert. And what I’d overheard Dormal talking about in the hallway was a spell that had coerced Humphrey Haigh into bringing that necklace to Tearlach. Since Floraidh was trying to make it as an upright businesswoman, maybe she’d only meant to manipulate him into giving it to her wholesale. But time had run out on her, and now she had to get it the heinous way.

  I looked a question at Vayl. He shook his head slightly. Let it go.

  You’re shitting me.

  I think it is the quickest way to understand what she wants. And from her own mouth we know time is of the essence.

  I usually appreciated understanding his unspoken communications. In our business, sometimes having that edge can save your life. But now I didn’t want to recognize his expression. Because it reminded me, once again, why we were here. Not to prevent the wicked witch from riding her broom. But to keep Dorothy from dumping water all over her.

  Just for now, I promised myself. That’s all Vayl’s expecting of me. Keep Floraidh alive. Terminate her assassin. Then find out what she’s up to. And if it ends up threatening the safety of our nation, or anybody I’ve grown to like in the past fifteen minutes, to hell with our original mission. She’s outta here.

  A squeal from Lesley Haigh brought my attention to the kitchen. Our visitor, who I should probably now refer to as Oengus, had come back to reempty the cabinet. I didn’t know why he was so offended by the cookie sheets. Maybe Floraidh had slipped arsenic into his gingersnaps. I stifled the spurt of rage that flared at the thought and made my mind stick to business. Who’d brought the ghost clone this time? Dormal didn’t seem to be making any effort as she sat at the dining room table, keeping watch over the awed GhostWalkers. But I could smell the spell cooking, stinking up the atmosphere as it mixed with the pollution they’d already floated up there. Which meant somebody else had taken over her job.

  I reached out with my senses, already nearly overwhelmed by the gook flooding the lower level of Tearlach—and found what I was looking for outside. Somewhere behind the house, maybe in the barn, the stench of Scidair flowed toward me like a garbage-filled river. So hard not to charge outside and pound a couple of heads together. At the very least I could get them for fraud. But that wasn’t my job. Which, at the moment, was to stand around twiddling my thumbs. Dammit!

  Vayl’s breath, whispering against my hair, distracted me. He murmured, “I was going to search the bedrooms while everyone enjoyed the show down here. But perhaps, considering the frustration rising off you like lethal radiation, you would prefer that task?”

  “Are you kidding? I’d agree to play the pony at a five-year-old’s birthday party if it meant we were making some sort of progress on this crap deal.”

  “Be thorough. Be careful. I have plans for you, after all.” Hopefully Cole and Albert would take that as a professional comment. But the soft touch of his tongue tracing the edge of my earlobe let me know exactly what he meant.

  “Okay,” I said, my voice pitched half an octave higher than usual. I turned, not even needing to channel Lucille to unlock the bright smile I gave Floraidh as I danced toward the stairs. “I think I’ll check the rest of our equipment. Lots of times when one manifestation occurs another will be happening at the same time in another part of the house.” I paused at the dining room’s entrance to shake her doughy hand. “This is so exciting!”

  The smug expression on her face let me know she felt sure she’d pulled off a major play with this whole scenario. Great. Now let’s see if I could do the same.

  I took the steps two at a time, understanding at some level how pathetic it was that one guy sticking his tongue in my ear should make me feel capable of flying. Don’t care, I thought stubbornly. It feels good to let go. Even for five seconds.

  Skipping the second floor, I jogged to the third, stopping at Rhona’s door long enough to learn that Viv’s mother snored like a drunken logger. I hoped that meant she slept like one too, but just to be on the safe side I snapped the wristband of my watch. The hair on my arms tingled as the sound shield rose around me.

  My lock pick hung around my neck, a coral and shark’s tooth necklace that looked like jewelry any spring breaker could pick up between raves at Miami Beach. Except Bergman had crafted the tooth, which meant when you stuck it in a lock, wiggled and waited, it took the form of the mechanism inside. A couple of seconds later, voilà! Illegal entry.

  Having spent way more time with Rhona than I’d have liked, I expected the room to reek of soldierly order. Nuh-uh. More like postriot sprawl. She slept in the full-sized bed, making enough racket to shake the table, the lamp, and the nearly empty bottle of sleeping pills beside her. A green mud pack covered her face and she’d pulled an orange shower cap contraption over her hair. Seriously, if I’d encountered her in the hall and I was drunk, or under the age of twelve, I’d have screamed, “Alien!”

  The twin-sized bed looked like entire kindergarten classes had spent recess jumping up and down on it. She’d strewn clothes all over the floor and across the long pine dresser, whose drawers remained empty. Nothing under the beds or in the closet either. The bathroom sink, small as it was, had been packed with the junk you need to make yourself publicly presentable. Toothpaste flecks on the mirror. Hair in the tub. Gee-ross!

  Other than that, no sign that she’d taken up murder as a hobby. No weapons besides the one I’d confiscated. No weird potions that would call forty Inland Taipans out of their natural habitat into this one. Dammit!

  I flipped up pillows. Looked behind the dresser. Slipped my hand under the mattresses. Zip. I moved on to Viv and Iona’s room.

  Nothing interesting there. At all. Unless you counted Viv’s underwear, which Cole would certainly get a kick out of. What is the deal with thongs? I think they were invented by some towering chauvinist who knew the best way to blow a woman’s concentration was to make her think she needed to run around all day with a piece of string wedged in her ass crack.

  The Haighses’ room proved equally disappointing. It was so pristine I’d have thought nobody was staying there except for the suitcases standing at attention beside the dresser. I left the room just as I found it.

  “How am I doing?” I asked as I moved to the fourth floor.

  “Fine,” Vayl murmured. “The ghost is addressing people in the crowd now, mainly warnings about what will happen to them if they do not leave Brude’s lands posthaste. He is quite abusive, but they do not seem to mind. It is amazing.”

  “Okay. I’m going to check out Floraidh’s room.”

  “I expect more talking now. I want to know what you are seeing.”

  What he really meant was that I should be careful because she might’ve set some sort of trap that would leave me a shivering glob on the floor.

  “I don’t see any obvious triggers,” I said as I unlocked the door. I held my breath anyway, hoping she hadn’t set some sort of poison dart or cloud-o’-death trap. This is stupid. You’re messing with major mojo here, Jaz. As soon as the door opened I stepped aside. Nothing happened.

  Why should it? She’s in and out of this room all the time. She’s already shielded the whole house. Nobody’s in here but the guests she allows.

  Granny May looked up from the clothesline. She’d just taken off a pair of Gramps Lew’s overalls and was folding them in that I-don’t-give-a-crap-if-these-wrinkle way she had with all her laundry. You should still be careful, she warned me.

  Okay, Granny’s right. No sense in making a rookie mistake that’ll get me killed here. That would be such a humiliating way to go. I sent a feeler out ahead of me to see if I could smell anything similar to the gunk Floraidh and her
gang had pumped into the air downstairs. Yeah. Faint enough that I figured I hadn’t triggered anything yet. But then I hadn’t crossed the threshold either.

  I pushed the door open.

  Her room resembled mine. Cheerful fruit-inspired wall-paper. Clean white comforter on the bed. Wooden floor covered by a couple of bright red throw rugs and a sweet old rocker in the corner. Nothing a passerby would blink at if Floraidh happened to open the door to find them wandering around soaking up atmosphere. But she’d hung a white silk curtain on the other side of her bed, as if to give herself a dressing area. I had a claws-on-the-heart feeling that whatever hid on the other side would’ve made her boarders run screaming for the door.

  I scanned the room one last time, frustrated that I couldn’t tear it apart, find some damning piece of evidence that would give me leave to gun her down like a thirties-era gangster. The only personal item I could see was a five-by-seven picture in a sterling-silver frame. It sat on a large upended barrel that Floraidh had covered with a doily and turned into a bedside table. I moved to my left so I could get a better look. Yeah, Floraidh was smiling up into the eyes of her grinning companion like a smitten coed. She stood on the deck of a fancy-ass sailboat, leaning into the strong arm of Edward “the Raptor” Samos.

  “It is time to get out,” said Vayl.

  “Okay.” I shut the door. Glad to put any sort of barrier between my face and the Raptor’s. But as I moved down the hall to “check” the equipment Cole had set up there, I could still see him. Looking so alive.

  I paused at Dormal’s door. Checked over my shoulder. “Is anybody coming upstairs?”

  “No. But they are asking about you.”

  Just a peek. Then I’ll leave. I worked the lock and opened up. As in my room, the door gave you three steps and then offered you a bathroom experience you might want to pass on given Dormal’s obvious interest in growing multiple types of mold. She’d masked the view of her living area by hanging a dark blue curtain from the ceiling just before the room opened up. Since I smelled latent magic at work in Dormal’s place too, I knew better than to step inside. But, damn, I badly wanted to see what lay beyond that drape.

  “Jasmine!”

  “Just a second.”

  “No. Floraidh is off the couch. I cannot tell where she will head next. Get down here!”

  Albert’s voice next. “Excuse me, Floraidh. I’ve been wanting to ask since we got here and found such a terrific house waiting for us. Have you owned Tearlach long?”

  Floraidh’s answer came back as a murmur. But I didn’t really care what she said. Just that my dad had saved my ass. The feeling was too weird to relish. Plus I really wanted to see what was behind door number 402.

  If only I had Vayl’s cane. I glanced around the hall, trying to find something I could use to pull back the curtain with. There, on the wall. A needlepoint hanging depicting an old mill by a stream, its loops neatly threaded onto a black metal rod with fancy pointed ends that reminded me of fire pokers. Just the thing to hook the material back, like so, and reveal . . .

  A life-size cutout of Samos taped to a corkboard. A target had been painted on his chest, but his crotch was just riddled with dart holes. The darts, themselves, sporting neon-green flights, stuck out of random parts of his physique at odd angles. Dormal might not be good at the game, but evidently it provided her with great therapeutic relief.

  I began to grin as I pulled the curtain back farther. She’d hung a punching bag in the corner and taped a picture of Samos’s face to it. “I like the way this woman thinks,” I murmured. But maybe somebody should tell her she could relax now, he was dead.

  She’d tacked a map of the world over a quarter of one wall, while she’d covered another with a five-foot-by-eight-foot design, painted in lavish reds and blues, that reminded me, oddly, of the tattoos on the ghost guy Brude. Not in substance, necessarily. Just that you could tell the squiggly lines topped by a flaming candle (or was that a stick of dynamite?) surrounded by thirteen pentacles meant something. Despite my rush, I decided the pentacles deserved a second look. They resembled the one Tolly wore on an amulet, a five-pointed star contained within a circle. Except this star broke the circle at every point.

  I pulled my Monise out of my pocket.

  “Jasmine, is your party line dead?” demanded Vayl. “Why have you failed to rejoin us? Floraidh is halfway up the first flight of stairs.”

  “I found something interesting in Dormal’s room. Just taking a picture to send to Tolly.”

  I clicked off a few shots of the mural, moved the Monise around the room to forever preserve the Samos hate that had rivaled my own.

  “Jasmine, get out!”

  I pulled Dormal’s door shut just as Floraidh’s clickety-clacky shoes echoed on the wooden steps just below my floor. Hanging up my temporary tool shouldn’t have taken long. But its nail chose that moment to fall out.

  Shit! I glanced down the hall. No Scidairan yet. Okay, don’t panic. Breathe. Calm. Smooth. Pick up the nail. Shove it back in the hole. Rehang the needlepoint. Scurry your ass to the end of the hall.

  As Floraidh rounded the corner I made a big show of adjusting the ectoplasm sensor Cole had set on her pretty table. I glanced up as if I’d just heard her. “I think we’ve got some really good readings here,” I told her. “Like I said, activity seems to feed on itself. Would you like to see?”

  She shook her head decisively. “I’ll just wait for your final report, shall I? I’d hate to spoil it by learning too much ahead of time.”

  The wall hanging I’d just abused suddenly dropped sideways, the nail I’d reset bouncing onto the light green runner that covered nearly the whole length of hallway.

  Floraidh jerked her head toward it. My aw-crap reaction dissolved as soon as I caught her expression. Was that . . . fear in her eyes?

  “Oh my gosh, did you see that?” I demanded. I poked a couple of buttons on the sensor and hoped I wasn’t turning it off as I did. “Definite spike here. Floraidh, you are in such luck this week! Not one, but two, ghosts to entertain your guests!”

  She visibly swallowed, her eyes darting first to the strange diamond-studded inscription on her door, then to the matching one on Dormal’s. Only when she’d reassured herself that they were both intact did she seem to thaw slightly. Her chuckle sounded only half hollow as she said, “The Tourism Board will be so pleased.” But her fingers shook as she wrapped them around her doorknob.

  “Well, I’ve been gone as long as I can possibly stand it!” I told her brightly. “See you downstairs.” I rushed past her, not even glancing back as she entered her room. But as soon as I heard her door close I ran back to get a couple of pictures of the symbol she’d set on her door. Something in my gut told me to find a laptop as soon as possible. The quicker I could send them to Tolly, the sooner she could confirm the new theory stirring its muddy claws in the evolutionary swamp of my brain.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Floraidh and Dormal’s guests, both uninvited and bespelled to come, were so keyed up by the entertainment that they stayed up talking for nearly two hours after the last of the GhostWalk crowd had trickled out, and didn’t hit the hay until the sun had begun to peek over the horizon. Though I was prepared for the length of days in this part of the world this time of year, I still couldn’t get used to them. At five a.m. we’d already experienced over half an hour of daylight. Which meant Vayl had maybe two and a half hours left before he’d be forced to sleep—dammit, Jaz, can we just say he dies?—for the day.

  The Scidairans had finally stumped off to bed as well. But not before Floraidh had convinced Humphrey to let her stow Lesley’s necklace in Tearlach’s safe until they needed it for the Adair’s outing. “I didn’t like the looks of that suntanned buffoon,” she told him as the spell sunk into his skin. “He might come back when you and Mrs. Haigh are out shopping or walking, and if I was in the garden and didn’t hear, and you lost that lovely piece, I would never forgive myself.”

  I barel
y kept myself from snorting as she and Humphrey took the treasure upstairs. When they returned he patted his wife on the shoulder and said, “It’s safe as houses now, my dear. Time we got some sleep.” Which signaled a mass exodus.

  Our crew convened in my room to make plans. Cole stood by the door while Vayl sat on the dressing table bench. I leaned against the table beside him, acutely aware of how easy it would be to reach out and run my fingers through those dark, silky curls. I licked my lips and glued my eyes to Jack, who’d curled up at the base of the bed before I even had a chance to unsnap his leash. Albert sat on one corner of the mattress and worked it free while Cole said, “I’ll admit it, I’m wiped out. You wouldn’t believe how much energy it takes to be charming all the time.”

  “And yet you make it seem so effortless,” Vayl said. “The mark of a true master.” As Cole bowed his head at the compliment and I dared to hope this meant two of my favorite guys might be working out a temporary ceasefire, Vayl went on. “It only makes sense for me to watch Floraidh until I have to rest. I suggest you three get some sleep.”

  “Works for me. See you in a few.” Cole took off, nearly slamming his face into the door until he roused himself in time to open it wide enough to slip his body through.

  “You sure you don’t need some help?” I asked Vayl. “I could probably go another few hours.”

  His almost-smile told me he knew better. “You look as sleepy as that dog of yours.” His glance sent mine to Jack, who’d already started a twitchy-leg dream. “But if you must, perhaps you and Albert could have a little talk before retiring. I believe you both have left a great deal unsaid between you.”

  He gave me one of those you-know-what-I-mean eyebrow lifts. And left.

  Wait a second! I thought we were waiting to tell my dad until we could hope he choked on a chicken bone!

  Granny May chuckled from her seat at the bridge table. Weird. Today she’d chosen to partner with Buddha against General Patton and Elmer Fudd. What the hell was my mind trying to tell me with this setup? Before I could figure it out she said, Vayl knows when you’re stalling, Jazzy.