Another One Bites the Dust

by Jennifer Rardin

  “Which I don’t. The cool thing is, it’s mostly fueled by his biochemistry!”

  “So . . . the energy his body generates is what will set it off?”

  “Not just set it off, magnify it several hundred times. He should be dead within two hours of ingesting it.”

  “So now we just need to make sure he gets a colossal headache?”

  Bergman shrugged. “Or the munchies. However you can get him to swallow the pill.”

  I shook my head, viewing Bergman with renewed respect. “Can I ask you something, Miles?”

  I could tell by the set of his shoulders he wanted to say no. But he surprised me.

  “Okay.”

  “Why do you do this?” My gesture took in the monitor, showing the empty decks and hallways of the Constance Malloy, the laptops currently snoozing on the floor beside sleeping Cole, the lethal pill in Bergman’s hand.

  He adjusted his glasses, tried to meet my eyes and failed. “Because I have to,” he mumbled. Was he embarrassed? At the moment, I didn’t care.

  “No, you don’t,” I said.

  “Yes, I do,” he insisted.

  “What if you didn’t?”

  He thought about that a second as he drummed his fingers on his leg and studied the TV over my shoulder. Now he met my eyes. “I’d probably be dead.”

  “Really? How do you figure?”

  “Boredom. You know, I’m not much good with people.”

  “You could be.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve tried. The wrong things keep coming out of my mouth. And honestly, most people annoy the hell out of me. I’d rather be alone than put up with their idiocy. I mean, all I have to do is watch two minutes of any reality-TV show and I’m reminded why I never go out. Anyway, I’ve come to accept that I’ll be spending the majority of my life with machines. And that’s okay, because I love them. I love everything about them. All the tiny parts that have to work together in perfect order so the whole will operate exactly as planned. I love the entire process, from concept to actuality. I even love the setbacks.”

  “In other words, you’re hooked.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you happy?”

  He gave a kind of sideways nod. “Most of the time.”

  Wow. Another first. I never thought, of the two of us, that I’d end up being the one envying Bergman.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  As Miles and I finished the prep work for our show, the tent flap opened and in walked the Chinese woman Cole and I had befriended, carrying Smiling Baby on her hip.

  “Well, hi there,” I said as I hopped down from the stage.

  She bowed a couple of times, smiling widely as she said, “Hello. Hello.”

  “You know, I don’t think we ever exchanged names. I’m Lucille Robinson,” I said, pointing to myself because I still wasn’t sure how much English she understood. Then I bowed.

  “My name Xia Ge,” she said sweetly. She pointed to the baby. “This Xia Lai.”

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Is Cole there?”

  I looked over my shoulder. Oh, she meant—

  “Did someone call for me?” asked Cole as he strutted through the tent’s back opening and grinned at Ge and her little boy. He’d showered and changed into his costume—tight black dress pants, matching shirt, and a glittering red vest with enormous black buttons. Lai immediately reached for him, so Cole obliged, grabbing him firmly under the arms and swinging him in circles until he giggled and squealed.

  “You are perform tonight?” Xia Ge asked him shyly. I could tell she approved of the outfit.

  “Yeah. Are you still coming? If I have time, maybe I can fit Lai, here, into my juggling act.”

  She nodded happily. “Yes, we will be there.” She touched his hand briefly as she added, “Then you come see acrobats show end of week. Yes? You still have tickets?”

  Cole nodded. “Yeah. You know, unless something prevents us, we’ll definitely be there.” He handed Baby Lai back to his mom, she bowed some more, and they left.

  Hmm, should I lecture or let it go? “Do you always have this effect on women and small children?” I asked.

  Cole stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down bashfully at the toes of his high-tops. “Pretty much.”

  “You’re a regular flirting fiend, you know that?”

  “I don’t flirt with married women,” he said with an absolutely straight face. Really? I wasn’t sure I bought it and he must have been able to tell. “Did that look like flirting to you?” he demanded.

  I considered his expressions, his body language, not much different than usual. But then he was usually flirting. “Maybe.”

  He was in my face in moments, grinning like a lunatic. “Then I haven’t been flirting with you enough lately.” He grabbed my arm, kissed down the length of it as he made French lover noises. “Hwah, hwah, hwah, my ravissant mademoiselle.”

  “Oh my God, you are such a dork!” It kind of tickled so, despite my best intentions, I was laughing by the time he got to my hand, where he stopped with genuine horror.

  “What the hell?” So much for funsies. My giggles dried up like a desert stream.

  “Ambushed by a reaver,” I said shortly.

  “I hope he looks worse than you do.”

  “Um, probably not. He ran before I could do any real damage.”

  “Woman, you need a keeper.”

  “It’s probably my fault. He was pissed about the reaver I killed last night,” I said. “You know what they say, look before you shoot.”

  “They say that?”

  “Yes. And it pertains to making friends while on the job too. Did you realize you’ve arranged for your new pals to possibly be sitting in the same audience with Chien-Lung?”

  “Actually, yeah, I have. The way I figure it, the dad’s one of his acrobats, so they’ve been under his thumb for a while. Which also means they might know something that would help us.”

  “You don’t seem to have much confidence in Bergman’s inventions.”

  “Just planning for just in case.”

  I considered him, a twenty-six-year-old stud who loved women and children but wasn’t married, who’d lost his business but had found a way to progress, who popped bubbles like a sixth grader but made sensible, thoughtful, professional decisions. “No wonder you fit right in. You’re just as warped as the rest of us!”

  He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “It took you long enough to figure that one out. Speaking of which, it’s almost dark, beautiful lady. Aren’t you supposed to be getting into something a lot less difficult to see through?”

  The costume. My dive into belly-dancing denial had gone so deep I hadn’t even seen it yet. Oh man, if I was going to make any sort of adjustments to what promised to be a too-sexy outfit, I’d better get busy. I ran out of the tent, half wishing my newly found awkwardness would allow me to break an ankle before I reached the closet and, as I saw it, my impending doom.

  When I got back to the RV, Vayl had already risen. Grumpy. His first words to me as I entered the kitchen were “I want to talk to you. Outside.”

  I felt like punching something because, despite my hurt feelings, I still responded warmly (okay, hotly) to his getup. He’d dressed for the show in clothes so retro he’d have looked at home on the set of A Christmas Carol. But the pants were just tight enough, the jacket just the right length, the shirt showed just enough chest hair that all I wanted was to slide down the wall and stare.

  I followed him out the door to the water’s edge, trying not to slink guiltily, fighting the feeling that the dean had caught me smoking in the girls’ room.

  “What happened today?” he demanded. “Neither Cassandra nor Bergman would give me any details.”

  “I’m not surprised. You look ready to pounce.”

  “I am!” He realized he’d been close to shouting and lowered his voice. “Consider this a formal debriefing. Leave nothing out. Go.”

  Go? What am I, a sprinte
r? And what the hell with the I Spy talk? With a mounting sensation of you suck feeding my attitude, I gave him his damn debriefing: dream, reaver, hospital, killer pill, Xia Lai, and all.

  After I’d finished he stood staring at me, one hand in the pocket of his gray slacks, the other clutching his cane so hard I expected the jewel on top to pop off at any second.

  “And why do you smell like Cole?”

  “Oh, we were just goofing around.” Vayl’s eyes blazed dark green with gold flecks exploding like depth charges at random intervals. “Not like that. Like, joking.”

  He started to pace, his cane making an irritating clack! as he hit it against the seawall every other step. Also there was muttering and some very sharp gestures stopping just short of punching the air. When he whirled on me I actually jumped, which didn’t help my frame of mind. One. Bit.

  “You are driving me mad!” he thundered. “Do you have no sense of restraint whatsoever?”

  “You’re the one who volunteered me to strut my stuff in front of mobs of weirdos!”

  “This has nothing to do with belly dancing!”

  “This has everything to do with belly dancing!” In a roundabout way, but still.

  “If you had not killed that reaver last night—”

  “That poor man he murdered would have lost his soul!”

  Vayl jabbed his cane into the concrete so hard it shivered. “You could have died today! And how would I have learned? Perhaps the barbecue chefs would have had another fortuitous gossip session? Or maybe Cole would have mentioned it between play dates with Chinese Mother and Baby Charms-Them-All.”

  “What’s your point?”

  He struggled to bring his voice to maybe-they-won’t-hear-us-in-Mexico level. “I would like to wake up one evening without wondering whether or not you will be alive to greet me!”

  “I am what I am, Vayl! I take risks. Sometimes that means I get hurt. Someday that means I’ll die. And I won’t come back. You’re going to have to deal with that.”

  “Why should I, when you could be like me?” The words ripped out of him as if yanked by an invisible hand. He jerked, as if I’d slapped him. I’d never have had the energy. His last pronouncement had left me completely zapped. Vayl wanted to turn me? So I could hang out with him forever? I didn’t know whether to cry or puke.

  “I apologize,” he said. “I had no right—”

  “No. You didn’t.”

  More silence. He heaved a big sigh, and I suddenly wondered if it felt extra good to him, taking a deep, sweet breath of air after not breathing the entire day before. Judging from his present stance, not so much. He’d turned his side to me so that he faced the bay and his feet were placed just right to knock one out of the park if I had one to pitch.

  “The dreams.”

  “Yes.”

  “Without Gregory’s help . . . do you have any idea what to do next?”

  “Yes.”

  He turned, fully facing me in his surprise. “You do?”

  “I think I need to talk to David.”

  “Not over the phone, I take it.”

  “Nope.”

  “I want . . .” He ground his teeth together. “Would you mind doing that while I am awake? I would appreciate the chance to watch over you.”

  “No problem.”

  Vayl came to me, lifted a curl from my face, brushing my cheek with his fingertips as he did so. I didn’t understand why, with his powers so closely related to cold, his touch couldn’t leave me numb. No such luck. Just that slight graze of skin on skin had sent little spikes of flame rushing through my bloodstream. It took an effort not to pant. This is your boss. Who has mentally taken you through the whole human-to-vamp scenario. Where is your pride, woman? “Please believe,” he said, “no matter how much I wish it, I would never ask you to become a vampire. I do know better.”

  “I should hope so!” There it is! You go, girl! At least until he touches you again!

  He nodded. “But I wish you would try somewhat harder to lengthen your life.”

  “Now you sound like Pete.” Oh, hey, somebody sound a gong. I’d just spotted a hint of dimple. “Look, I am good at this job, Vayl. You of all people should know that.”

  “I do. I just—ever since Miami, I have been haunted by the vision of you lying limp within the Tor-al-Degan’s jaws. It has forcefully reminded me how vulnerable you are.”

  Wow, how often do you really get to step outside your own selfish view? And here I thought I was the only one who still had nightmares starring that monster’s putrid scent and her bright red tentacles.

  “Jaz!” Bergman yelled out the RV door. “Half an hour till show time.”

  “Gotta get into my costume,” I told Vayl. I smiled brightly, pretending my stomach hadn’t just tied itself into a noose. You can do this, Jaz. No problem. Just pretend you’re back on the beach, not in a tent full of strangers.

  “Are you nervous?” asked Vayl.

  “No, who me? Of course not! Why would I be? Ha, ha, ha!” I skipped off to the RV, ignoring the undeniable sound of Vayl’s low chuckle behind me.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Bergman had estimated our fifteen double rows of benches could comfortably hold about one hundred fifty people. Since nobody looked that relaxed, I guessed our crowd tipped the scale around two hundred.

  No doubt about it, I thought as I stood waiting in the wings. My skirt’s going to fall right off. Oh God, did I remember to put on underwear? I checked. Whew! Plus the skirt’s tied on pretty tight. Oh geez. What about the top? There’s nothing to this damn thing! What if I fall out? What if I just plain fall?

  Vayl had forced me into this, the lout. I began to plot my revenge. The next time he slept I would sneak into his tent and draw a mustache on his face in red marker. I’d insist he go shopping with me and then make him stand next to a bin of panties while I tried on clothes. I’d take him to Evie’s first PTA meeting and volunteer him to serve cookies and punch.

  Hey, Cole’s not a bad juggler. Bowling pins, rings, a couple of cans of tennis balls. Didn’t know he had it in him. What? Is he done already? Holy crap, it’s my turn!

  Bergman switched from general lighting to a single spot and pumped up the music. I swishy swished onto the stage. The crowd greeted me with loud, prolonged applause. Now that I could no longer hide behind the curtain and obsess, I felt better. After all, I wore three tons of makeup, most of Cassandra’s traveling jewelry, and six layers of skirting, under which I’d strapped my leg holster and a sweet little .38 I usually reserved for pants-free occasions. My gold sequined top erred on the skimpy side, but rows of flat golden discs had been sewn to it so it looked less like a sports bra and more like a lets-play-banker costume. Long, sheer black sleeves covered my arms, and black lace fingerless gloves disguised the bandages on my hands.

  And those posed the real challenge. The hands are an integral part of the belly dance and do a lot to make you look graceful. Despite being under the influence of painkillers, they hurt like hell to hold correctly. But concentrating on that really helped me ignore the fact that Chien-Lung had indeed shown up and sat front and center, where he smiled and bobbed his head in time with the music. He wore another traditional Chinese robe, this one black embroidered with red dragons. I caught his eye once, and immediately felt grateful he had to keep his hands stuffed in those oversized sleeves. Otherwise he probably would’ve been waving dollar bills around like the best man at a bachelor party.

  Lung’s lady sidekick, who sat to his right, didn’t seem too thrilled with his interest in the belly dancer either. She kept nudging him with her elbow, until finally he leaned over and said something to the vamp to his left and they both shared a quiet laugh. I thought I recognized the new vamp as one who’d waited out the fight the night before to see who’d win.

  On the other side of the aisle, the Xia clan seemed to be enjoying their night out together. Mom sat straight and proper, hands in her lap, but her eyes had shone extra bright when Cole took the sta
ge. Xia Lai stood on his dad’s muscular legs, bouncing in time with the music.

  Before I knew it the first song had ended. The next one was much faster. Harder, yes, but more fun too. About halfway through the crowd started to clap in time, which inspired me to try moves I hadn’t attempted in years despite the very real possibility that I might be too sore to move in the morning. I must’ve pulled it off, because they cheered at the end.

  Now I remembered why I’d always been the first one to arrive at my dance lessons and the last to leave. Forget tattoos. Done correctly and received with an open heart, belly dancing is true body art. And my audience was ideal. Besides Lung and his pal, who I pointedly ignored, it was mostly families. No wolf whistles. No whooping and hollering. Just lots of clapping in time as I moved them through the music, telling them a story they understood at the gut, where rhythm speaks its universal language. Okay, I admitted, as I bowed to yet another round of avid applause, this is a freaking blast.

  The last song had barely begun before Vayl began to sing along from the back of the tent. I didn’t even know the thing had words, and I sure hadn’t expected him to turn it into a group performance. But there he was, walking toward me down the center of the aisle, singing Romanian in his husky baritone.

  Definitely a love song, I decided as I turned and swung my hips at him. I looked over my shoulder. His smile was definitely predatory. I gave him a little torso roll and he rewarded me with a look of such piercing hunger I nearly jumped on him. How we maintained a PG rating through the rest of that song I will never know. But the thunderous applause at the end told me it was big fun.

  I strutted off the stage, waving and blowing kisses to my new fans. Which was undoubtedly why, as soon as I made it past the backstage curtain, I ran straight into a support pole. I damn near brought the whole house down. Literally. I held the pole very still and tried not to think of what would happen if we couldn’t lure Lung into a one-on-one because the Assistant Assassin ran her head into a steel rod.

  A sound to my right caught my attention. It was very subtle, landing somewhere between a quiet snort and a faint gurgle. I took a short hike outside the tent and found Cole rolling on the ground.