One More Bite

by Jennifer Rardin

  A young woman’s voice said, “Stop right there!” We kept moving. Neither of us follows orders well. Plus, Cole was close to passing out and Floraidh had begun to seize. If we waited any longer—

  “Stop or we kill the old man! And the dog!”

  Fuck.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  For some reason I looked at my watch. It was like a part of me wanted to mark this moment in my life’s history: 12:34 a.m. May fourteenth. My inner librarian spoke up. “In precisely thirteen days you will turn twenty-six.”

  If I live that long.

  Exhaustion dropped on me like a chronic disease as I turned to face our newest crisis.

  “Drop your weapons!” My knife hit the dirt. Vayl pulled his power back and the air warmed by a couple of degrees.

  I said, “Viv! Iona! What the hell?”

  I realized they’d been the two dressed women among the coven that I’d seen back at Clava Cairns. Now they stood with the rest of Floraidh’s flunkies on the opposite side of the ravine. All of them wore clothes now, shapeless knee-length robes and sandals that brought out the vivid whiteness in their legs. Why, at these moments, did my mind come up with thoughts like That chick should always wear pants? Most of them carried flashlights as well, which I found ironic. The scariest monsters out creeping around were afraid of tripping over a tree root in the dark.

  I tried to meet Viv’s eyes, but she dropped her head, leaving Iona to answer my question. “When Floraidh heard about what happened to Viv all those years ago, she was appalled. She explained how her group has learned a form of self-defense that only ghosts can beat. She invited her out here tonight to learn more about them. Of course, I had to come to translate. And to show her how wonderful life in a coven could be. It’s actually pretty neat, Lucille. You should join too.”

  She’d been signing the whole time, of course. Not easy to see from all the way across a dimly lit clearing, but then I wasn’t the intended audience. Her message was for Cole.

  “Jaz!”

  I turned back, rushing to put my hand into his. He pulled me close. “One last hug before I go,” he said. When he’d pressed his lips against my ear he said, “The girls are faking. Iona’s actually a witch. A Wiccan. She’s been sent by her circle to stop Floraidh.”

  Ahh. So she was the source of the spell I’d sensed earlier. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t been able to pick her out as other to start with, but she’d probably found a way to guard herself from discovery just like I had. Maybe that funky belt of hers was for more than keeping her crack from showing.

  “Iona, Viv, your move I understand,” I said, hoping they’d get my double meaning. “Albert, I hope this trip cost you every cent you had.” I stared at my dad, currently being held by a petite young blonde who carried a blade almost as long as her leg and a tall, spectacled woman with a professorial demeanor who carried a cleaver like she’d been raised by a butcher. I should’ve known he wouldn’t leave like I’d asked. He’d never listen to me, because in his mind I’d never outrank him.

  He didn’t say anything, just squared his shoulders and looked straight ahead as the blonde brought her sword closer to his throat. I memorized her face, so that when the time came I could exact just the right amount of revenge on those sweet, even features. Nope, she didn’t look evil. You couldn’t tell by the appearance of any of the Scidairans what they did in their free time. They all seemed like pleasant women. The kind you’d expect to trade idle gossip with at the grocery store or the bank line. Nine faces at nearly every point on the circle of life. But all of them joined by their shared lust for eternity. The weapons they carried proved it. Blades mostly. Ancient and wicked sharp by the look of them. Strangely, each woman had tied a leather bag to the hilt of her sword, or axe, or dagger.

  Maybe it’s their lucky charm, I thought.

  A couple of the younger women had traded metal for plastic. Naw, not that toy gun crap. This was heavy-duty stuff, so new even Bergman had just mentioned it. The lancers they carried shot a steel bolt into the victim, which pulled electric current without the need for a connecting wire. Don’t ask me how, I’m no engineer. But the black marketers couldn’t get enough of these fourth-generation tasers, because they killed within the first fifteen seconds of contact. Yeah, talk about your cruel and unusual.

  Vayl came back to stand beside me. “Look at Floraidh,” he murmured. When froth started to bubble out of her mouth, and I realized the bits of tissue swimming in it must have come from Cole’s shoulder, I couldn’t watch anymore.

  I turned to my friend, put my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. For everything. If we’d never met in Miami—”

  “I wouldn’t have lost my business. Gotten the shit kicked out of me. Taken a job with the CIA.” He took a breath. Met my eyes. His began to sparkle. “I’d never have saved your life in Corpus Christi. Or fallen for you.”

  I winced. He took my hand. “It’s okay. I know you’ve chosen Vayl. I love you enough that I just want you to be happy. I’ve never felt that way for anyone before, Jaz. It’s always been about me before this. What I wanted. What felt good. It hurts not to have you. But I’m glad to have felt this way about someone before—” His eyes cut to Floraidh. He took a deep breath. “Before Samos gets me.”

  Vayl, staring down at him, snorted. “Now I know what they mean when they call people drama queens.”

  “Vayl!”

  “Oh, come now, he is just working on your sympathies so he can—how do you say?—get into your pants. The man is incorrigible!”

  He’d used that word before. I was really going to have to look it up. If I survived. Vayl sure thought we were all going to skate through. But it seemed to me like our chances were fading even as Floraidh’s increased.

  She stopped shaking. Sat straight up, as if she hadn’t practically been broken in half minutes before. She swiveled her head, making sure we were all paying attention as she said, “Now, Cole, say your goodbyes. There’s not going to be room in that fine young body for the both of us.” Her face had hardened, as if her seizures had sanded off all the soft edges while I was looking the other way. Her voice had deepened by a couple of octaves too, and taken on the slight accent I’d recognize even if I lived forever. Finally I couldn’t deny the change any longer. “She” had just made too much of a transformation.

  “Samos?” I whispered. As in my earlier visions, his face had stretched itself across hers. But when her eyes turned brown and her teeth squared off like she’d just slid in a pair of dentures, I realized this time it was for real.

  He said, “My real name is . . . But why should I tell you now? Such a shame you didn’t know it when I was still a vampire. You might have killed me for good then. It was certainly a weak point in my contract.”

  Floraidh emerged again, her pink lips fighting for supremacy over his tanned ones. “Quickly, Edward. To the Cairns before the ghosts—!”

  Samos banged the heel of his hand against his forehead. “In my time, woman! Do you know how long I have waited to gloat over this bitch’s failure?”

  Vayl said, “You rush to judgment, Samos. After all, she has killed you once already. Just because you have raised the bar, who is to say she will not do it again?”

  I caught his emphasis, along with the look he sent Albert. When he met my eyes again I asked him silently, Are you sure?

  Only someone who loved him like I did could’ve interpreted the minuscule move of his head as a nod.

  “Do you know what I want to do, Jasmine?” Samos asked me.

  “Invest in an underwire? I’m sorry, Eddie, but you’ve got a real case of the droops going on.”

  Samos stood, stunned by his own intense rage while the younger women in the coven tried to swallow their giggles. He swung a shaking finger at Floraidh’s followers. “Kill them all!” he shouted.

  One of the older members, a wiry old gal who wore her long gray hair in a braid over one shoulder, cleared her throat as she half raised the dagger in her hand. “Excuse me, Mr
. Samos?”

  “What is it?”

  “I know you’re new to the territory, so you probably haven’t realized that we’re not in Clava Cairns. Where all the diamonds are? We’re standing about three minutes east of there. We should probably go back before we spill a lot of blood in Brude’s—that is—you know how the ghosts . . .”

  Her eyes darted toward us as she trailed off, unwilling to say out loud what Vayl and I already knew. Killing us would attract the ghosts. In fact, completing the resurrection here would probably bring Brude and his nasties running. They needed to do it at Clava Cairns, surrounded by all those glittering diamonds and the power of Scidair.

  Samos glared at the woman so fiercely that she put a hand to her throat, as if she could feel him strangling her from a distance. “In another time I would skin you alive for daring to gainsay me. And then I would feed you to my guests, who would’ve been invited to supper simply to be reminded that it would be in their best interests to continue to cooperate with me. Or they might end up just like you.” The soft sibilance in his voice reminded me so strongly of the snakes whose fangs had sunk into Dormal’s soft flesh that I shivered.

  “You don’t have to kill us, you know,” said Cole. “In fact, it’s kind of a stupid idea.” He wasn’t talking to Samos, but to the women, who naturally responded to his I–know-you-wanna-hug-me smile. “We’re CIA. If you kill three of us, you’re going to bring the whole Agency down on your heads. They’ll wipe you out faster than you can say genocide.”

  “That is not, technically, the right term for what they would be doing,” Vayl said.

  Cole flashed him an irritated glance. “Would you please stop messing with my rhythm?”

  “Sorry.”

  The younger women weren’t impressed. I could read the thoughts on those expressive faces. So what? Big deal if the whole world turns against us. That’s what attracted us to this practice in the first place!

  Their elders took more time to raise the rebel flag, but they knew they’d dug themselves in too deep to climb out now. Their eyes, showing lots of white as they darted toward Samos, confirmed that his venom had spread through them all. And with nobody shifting toward mutiny . . .

  “Vayl?” I whispered, so softly only his enhanced senses could pick up my words.

  “Yes.”

  “Is it time?”

  “Not yet. Albert is still too vulnerable. We must keep talking, seem to be conspiring until—”

  “You two!” yelled Samos. “I want you walking on separate ends of the line! Vampire—to the front!”

  Casting me a slow wink, Vayl jumped the ravine and strode to the forward edge of the column the Scidairans had begun to form. Not a smart move on our enemy’s part, because it put him within reach of Albert and Jack.

  I helped Cole to his feet as Samos crowded us into the gully. He didn’t carry a weapon that I could see. But we both sensed waves of dark energy emanating from him, power he could focus on us anytime he pleased, and likely would as soon as he had the protection of Clava Cairns’s diamonds. For a second, standing at the bottom of that narrow gorge with muddy walls ahead of and behind me, I had a vision of a mass grave. This was just the kind of place soulless pricks like Samos shoved their enemies into before blowing their skulls to pieces. I felt the skin tighten on my scalp. Too easy to imagine an entire row of gunmen standing at the ravine’s lip, rifles at their shoulders, ready to make me into another statistic.

  No. Not today. I scrambled out of that hole like I’d been goosed by the Midas Man, yanking Cole up after me. Leaving Grief lying there felt like desertion. But I was quickly distracted by the fact that I’d grabbed Cole’s mauled arm, and the moan that jerked out of him as he stumbled into the back of the Scidair at the rear of the line was totally my fault. She glared at him with that polite, contained rage he might inspire if he’d poked his finger into the middle of all the cupcakes she’d baked for the PTA meeting. Viv ran to him and put her shoulder under his arm.

  “Thanks,” he said gratefully. He pulled back. “Wait a second. I don’t think I’m supposed to be nice to you.”

  While she signed something that made him huff I stole a look at Vayl. To anyone else his expression would seem blank. I read his message clearly. Now is the time to strike, while they are still milling. Before Samos takes complete command of that temporary body of his.

  I lowered my lashes, which he’d interpret as a nod. I slipped my left hand into my pocket. Wrapped my fingers around the ring that sat there like an omen.

  “What are you doing?” Samos demanded.

  “My head is killing me so I was getting a couple of Advil from my pocket,” I moaned. “Are you stirring up some sort of spell?”

  “Not yet,” he chuckled. “But just wait until you see what I have in store for you, little imp. A headache will seem like bath bubbles compared to the tortures I have been planning these past decades.”

  “You’ve only been dead a few weeks.”

  “Hell runs on different clocks.”

  “Oh.” I squeezed my fingers around the pear-shaped emerald Matt had given me. Cocking the side of my thumb against the setting I jammed it down as hard as I could as I drew it fast across the spiked metal tips that held the jewel in place. Blood welled into the material of my pocket. Not much, but enough. I thought, Brude. I have a present for you.

  A breeze wafted through the glade, lifting my curls off my shoulders, drying the sweat that had begun to bead on my forehead. When I felt it raise the hem of my shirt, I knew it wasn’t a natural phenomenon.

  Keep your hands to yourself, you son of a bitch, I silently snarled.

  How did you know about my mother?

  I had a feeling.

  I knew if I waited long enough you would call. His triumphant laugh was the first clue to anyone else that visitors had entered the clearing. It rang like a mallet off a gong, sending shivers up the spine. The Scidairans began to fling their lights back and forth like they needed to direct a plane to the runway. As in the castle, the rays glinted off human-shaped figures. A whole crowd of them, grouped on either side of Samos’s line, holding weapons that towered above their heads. Could a ghost spear kill a Scidairan? I sensed I was about to find out.

  Dimly at first, as if they were still marching on us from a distance, we heard the stomp of booted feet steadily advancing. As the sound got louder, a white mist rose from the ravine and spread its fingers over the ground.

  “Get them out of here!” shouted Samos.

  The Scidairans prodded Vayl and Albert. But the women were so busy looking over their shoulders, they barely noticed when my guys took a single step and then stopped again. Because the mist had begun to rise. And as it did, like a slow theater curtain, it revealed the legs, torsos, weapons, faces of Brude and his phantom army.

  They were dressed like they’d been when they died. A mishmash of costumes, ages, and sexes. They didn’t even line up in formation, but stood where they pleased, poised to move, their expressions fearless and eager. This was no ordinary army. Brude had raised a horde. They’d kill and enjoy it. Aim to maim and laugh when the screams made their ears pop.

  Brude stood at the head of the group that had appeared on my left, holding his staff at his side.

  “What is your deal?” I had to ask as he surveyed the Scidairans with a mocking smile on his face. “Watch too many hangings as a kid? I mean, Christ, where do you find these creeps? You’re like some kind of Dark Age gangsta. And that is seriously not a compliment,” I added as he started to pose.

  His frown, as quick and unappealing as instant coffee, made the women closest to him back up a step. “Watch your tongue, woman. Or I may reconsider and leave you here to perish.”

  “You will not.” When his eyebrows arched at me I explained, “Whatever Samos has in mind for me doesn’t include a trip to your world after I buy it. In fact, I’m pretty sure his contract calls for some eternal tortures only his new boss could arrange for me. You and I both know that, or you woul
dn’t be here.” Light dawned in my overworked brain, making the menagerie that manned it cheer. “In fact, that’s why you led Jack to his old harness. Isn’t it?”

  “I never do anything for a single reason. You should know that if you are to be my queen.” Brude turned to Samos. “I cannot allow you to harm my woman.”

  Vayl’s reaction came ringing across the glade like a challenge from one stud bull to another. Brude spun. Raised one muscle-bound arm and pointed at my boss. “You are next, Vampire.”

  “So glad you have your priorities straight,” I snapped. “You did notice these bitches have my dad and my dog at a steep disadvantage, didn’t you?”

  I jerked my head in their direction. To be honest, they didn’t seem to be in much danger at the moment. The sword-wielding blonde looked like she was about to pass out. And the professor who’d been holding Jack’s leash dropped it the second Brude’s eyes fell on her. Plus Vayl stood ready to kick ass should anyone make a truly threatening move.

  Brude raised his hand almost neglectfully. “Now,” he said.

  Howling in glee, the ghosts attacked. But the Scidairans weren’t about to cave without a fight. And though their powers dwindled every time they tried to raise a spell, they still wielded power.

  Against phantoms, this came in the form of a red powder that trickled down their blades when they sliced open the pouches tied to the hilts. As soon as it hit the metal it flared, as if they’d stuck the entire weapon into a forge. From that moment on, when they found a way to shove those blades into Brude’s army, the men fell as if physically gutted, after which they melted into the ground like ice on a sunny afternoon.

  Still the shades fought like berserkers, the smell of blood sending them into a frenzy. And when one of them impaled a member of Floraidh’s coven, the entire horde shrieked in delight as the woman screamed, her flesh melting away from the blade like plastic put to the flame.