Another One Bites the Dust

by Jennifer Rardin

  I turned, snarling like a cornered badger. It was Vayl. He let go of me, holding both hands up, as if I needed to know he went unarmed.

  “You went to the hotel,” he said, “to shower. I should not have let you go unguarded. I should have known you might fall asleep. Cirilai warned me of your danger.” His eyes filled with tears as he took in the damage I’d done. I barely heard him say the next words, and maybe they only registered because I was so shocked to hear him swear. “Bloody fucking hell, look what I have allowed you to do.”

  I began to hurt, all over. A wave of weakness washed over me. “Vayl? I don’t feel so good.” I looked down at myself. Blood and glass covered me in fairly equal doses. A particularly large shard of window stuck out of my right thigh. “That’s definitely going to need stitches,” I murmured. Then I passed out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The next two hours drifted past like a slow boat through zombieland. Mostly I just stared. I did assure a concerned and quite humorless Dr. Darryl that I wasn’t suicidal and he wouldn’t be seeing me again this week. I agreed to see a sleep disorder specialist, and wasn’t even surprised such a thing existed. But when Vayl and I walked out of the emergency room, I threw the appointment card in the trash can.

  “Why did you do that?” he demanded.

  “This is for three weeks from now. No way am I going to survive these nightmares that long.”

  We took a cab back to the hotel. I sat outside while Vayl dealt with the desk clerk. It was all very civil. They even shook hands at the end, though I wished there had been yelling. If she’d been pissed that I’d broken her window I wouldn’t have felt so mental.

  After assuring him I could handle the walk back to the RV, I found myself wishing I’d let Vayl carry me. It might’ve lessened his guilt, which currently could’ve powered Vatican City for a week. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. I mean, he hadn’t even been there. But he felt like he should’ve. It was that sverhamin thing. I knew it without even asking. And guilt, well, it never plays fair.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked. “We could get sandwiches.”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Cold?”

  “Not really.”

  “Tired?”

  “A little.”

  “You should sleep,” he said. He banged his cane against the ground. “Never mind.” His eyes raked my bandaged arms. Moved down to my leg.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” I told him.

  “But it will.” Yup, soon the meds would wear off and I’d be one huge ouch.

  What to say? “I forgive you.” That sounds arrogant. “It could’ve happened to anyone.” Obviously. “It’s my problem.” Not unless I want to be alone forever. Some words must exist, though, to thaw that frozen expression on Vayl’s face, the one hiding that massive feeling of I failed to protect you.

  “You definitely owe me one,” I said.

  “What?”

  I touched his arm, stopped him so I could give him a long, frank look. “I’m gonna want some payback is all.” I grinned. “And with me, you know payback will be a bitch.”

  He threw back his head and barked out a laugh that sounded ferocious and relieved at the same time. “I have no doubt about that. So, do you have any first requests?”

  “Actually, yeah, I do. Could you clear something up for me?”

  “I can try.”

  “Just how many gold mines did you win playing poker?”

  Minor lift of the eyebrow. “Have you been gossiping with the office staff again?”

  “Just answer the question, mister.”

  “One. I bought the other two about ten years later.”

  “Oh.” I thought a minute. “You’re definitely the only person I’ve ever known who owns three gold mines.”

  “Would you like to visit them with me someday?”

  I think my toes are actually curling at the possibilities that question raises. “Yeah, I guess I would.”

  His eyes lit. “Did you just agree to go on a vacation with me?”

  Yipes! Why do I keep speaking before engaging my brain? “Um, well, technically, I believe I may have. But at a date to be named much later. And when you wear me down to the point where I do finally contact my travel agent, we’ll probably have to combine it with business so I don’t totally freak on you like I’m about to do now, so let’s change the subject, okay?”

  The dimple made an appearance as he nodded. But all he said was “So what do you want to do with the rest of the night?”

  “Work.”

  “Are you certain?”

  Are you kidding? I just stirred up every disturbing feeling I have for you and dumped it on your plate after jumping out of a second-story window! If I don’t work I’ll go bonkers! “Oh yeah.”

  Bergman met us at the RV door. He didn’t ask how I was feeling. It wasn’t his way, but it still kind of ticked me off. I would’ve checked on him. “Would you guys get in here? I’ve got stuff to show you!” As we followed him inside he said, “I recorded all this earlier.

  “Jasmine!” Cassandra jumped off Mary-Kate and came running to me. “Are you all right? I’m so sorry. I had no idea you would fall asleep. I’ve been beside myself!”

  Cole wandered in from the kitchen. “She actually has been beside herself. Literally, she’s been pacing back and forth so much I think she’s met herself coming and going.”

  “Jaz is fine,” said Bergman. “Look at her. It’s obvious they took good care of her and she’ll be okay or they wouldn’t have released her. Now can we all take a look at this?”

  “Oh my God,” I said as my eyes tracked to the living area where dirty footprints led from where the carpet began at the kitchen to where it stopped at the cab. “Look at all those stains! Does anybody know how to get that out? I don’t.” I reached inside my jacket, wrapped my fingers around the deck of cards I’d tucked there. Just touching them made me feel a little better. But when I thought of Pete’s reaction to those footprints I badly needed to shuffle. Could you get fired for losing your security deposit?

  “I will call a carpet cleaner in the morning,” said Cassandra. “That should come out easily.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  Okay . . . go ahead and breathe, Jaz. I pulled my hand out of my jacket and let it drop to my side.

  Bergman lined us up behind the counter that edged the banquette, Cole next to the wall, then Vayl, me, and Cassandra with Bergman nearest the door. “Everybody take a look, would you?” he begged, pointing at the middle frame on the monitor. The picture he called our attention to showed Lung, Pengfei, and Li stepping onto the back of the yacht from a small blue and white speedboat. They looked like they’d been dragged through a garbage dump.

  They mounted the ladders to the middle level, where they’d staged the party/massacre the night before. Since then several blue-cushioned deck chairs had been set out, forming four different conversation areas, one of which included the bar. They walked straight through this area into the lounge, each choosing a different couch to collapse on. Pengfei had been chattering away in Chinese the whole time, her voice getting louder and angrier as the minutes passed. Her bullet wound had already closed.

  “What’s she saying?” I asked Cole. He leaned both elbows on the counter, watching the screen with interest.

  “She’s obviously irate. She’s calling Lung and Li all kinds of names, Lung for losing control, Li for running.” He listened awhile longer. “She’s telling them there’s a huge difference between slaying a few Chinese rebels and killing random Americans. They were supposed to stick to the plan. She’s mad the cops got involved because it jeopardizes everything she’s been working for.”

  He looked at me in amazement. “She’s in charge. She’s just using Lung as a figurehead because the Chinese would never respect or fear a woman the way she needs them to.”

  I watched Pengfei with new interest as she rose from the couch and began to pace around the room, first reading L
i the riot act, then moving on to Lung. When he talked back to her she gave him a slap that rocked his head back hard enough to make it hit the wall.

  “I had to kill the Seer!” Cole translated for Lung, who was rubbing his head. “I could see it in her eyes. She had already had a vision of me, and I could not allow her to repeat the prophecy.”

  “What prophecy?” demanded Pengfei.

  Lung’s face squeezed tight. “The one about the white dragon,” he whispered.

  “Ach, white dragon, white dragon. You are sick, obsessed, crazed with being defeated by this ridiculous white dragon! Why do you let one simple monk’s prophecy haunt you after five hundred years, tell me? Did I not kill him thoroughly enough for you?” Pengfei asked harshly.

  Lung looked down at his knees and nodded.

  “Did I not save you from the boiling pot and nurse you back to health?”

  Another bob of the head.

  “Then remember to whom you owe fealty and keep your claws sheathed until I order you otherwise!” she screeched.

  He didn’t speak to her again.

  “So Lung is superstitious enough to jeopardize their entire setup over a five-hundred-year-old prophecy, and Pengfei is our real target,” I said. “Does that about sum it up?”

  “Not quite,” said Vayl. “Samos still remains part of the picture. We cannot discount his influence even if we cannot see him.”

  “We still need to get my armor back,” Bergman said fearfully, as if we would consider leaving his baby behind.

  “Yes, of course,” said Vayl. “Unfortunately it will not be coming off Lung tonight.” He gave Bergman a tired smile. “Li ate the snail.”

  “I saw.” Bergman’s shoulders slumped. “I never thought about Lung having a food taster. Who does that anymore?”

  “People who’ve been around a lot longer than you and me,” I told him.

  “There is a silver lining,” said Cassandra. “I recognized Li. He sleeps in one of the rooms with a camera, so you’ll still be able to see if the pill works as you designed it to.”

  We all looked at her.

  “Cassandra?” I asked. “Is this you? Looking on the bright side?”

  “Go Jericho,” Cole murmured.

  “Uh-oh.” Bergman’s comment brought our eyes back to the TV. Pengfei had worked herself into a real tizzy by now. She leaned into Li’s face, screaming, spraying spit, her fangs in clear view as her lips drew back in a furious snarl. Suddenly she pounced. Being more of a runner than a fighter, Li put up only token resistance as she buried her teeth in his throat. At the same time her claws sank into his chest and within moments he began to seize. Her strength alone kept him sitting upright as she bled him, her nails stabbing into him repeatedly, piercing every organ she could reach.

  He lived a long time. And we stood, horrified spectators as she tortured him while Lung looked on, quietly waiting for her to finish. Finally she tore his chest open and pulled his heart out, reducing the gore to a dusting of ash and a puff of smoke. It reminded me so much of the reaver’s grisly work that I wondered if there was some connection. Could she have been one? Known one?

  “Sorry, Bergman.” Cole clapped him on the back. “Guess you don’t get to see the pill work after all.” He was trying for that I’m-a-normal-guy tone, but the undertone said, I didn’t want to see that, and now that I have, I’ll never forget it. This sucks!

  I watched him, pressing my lips together so I wouldn’t yell at him for signing onto this insanity in the first place. Idiot. Now he’d never be the same.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  As the violence on the TV screen dissipated we all moved away from the counter, each looking for a way to insert some sense of normality into our atmosphere. Cole and Bergman set up a game of chess at the table. Cassandra spent some time digging in her purse, an olive-green, bead-covered monstrosity, before emerging with a book of crossword puzzles. I opened the refrigerator. What did I expect to see? Eggs? Bacon? There they stood in a line, just as the five of us had at the counter. Clear plastic bags full of blood. I leaned in. Did Vayl prefer a certain brand? O Positive? Plasma Lite?

  “Looking for something?” asked Vayl quietly.

  I jumped, banging my head against the rim of the door. OW! I straightened up, rubbing my sore skull. “Sometimes a girl just wants some milk and cookies,” I said. And not because she’s been stitched shut for the second time by a doctor who’s too honest about how it hurts him to see scars on beautiful women.

  “Is your head all right?” he asked.

  What kind of question is that? It’s attached, isn’t it? Otherwise—too damn personal, if you ask me. Which you just did! “It’s fine.”

  “Let me see.”

  “No.”

  Slanting of the eyebrows. Translation—now you’re just being stupid stubborn. “Come, let me take a look.”

  “Go on, Jaz,” said Cole as he took Bergman’s rook with his bishop. “You could have a concussion or something.”

  Vayl reached for my head. “I’m fine!” I snapped as I jerked back, banging it into the freezer door.

  “Okay, now I’m not,” I said, rubbing both sore spots. But suddenly I was. I began to grin. “Vayl, I’ve got it.”

  Concern poured from his eyes. “What is it, a migraine?”

  “Would you stop worrying? It’s going to make you crazy!” I skirted him and went to the guys at the table. “Bergman, I need to watch the footage of Pengfei lecturing Lung and Li again.”

  “Can it wait a sec? It’s my move.”

  I grabbed his queen, slid her eight spaces forward, and told Cole, “Checkmate.”

  He frowned at the board as Bergman pulled his laptop off the seat beside him. “Looks like my schedule just opened up,” he said with a smirk. As he powered up the computer he told me, “If you want to see it on the TV it’ll take some time to find the spot on the DVD. But if you want to watch it straight from here, I can have it up in less than a minute.”

  “The sooner the better,” I said.

  We all crowded into the banquette to watch the recording of Pengfei’s hissy fit. When it had played out I said, “Did anybody see it?”

  Vayl began to nod, the look of dawning comprehension making him seem younger. Less burdened. He said, “When she slaps him his armor does not react.”

  “Exactly!” I said. “Look! Scales don’t run up his face like they did when he was threatened last night.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Cassandra. “But how does it help us?”

  “That’s how we get past his defenses. By making him think I’m Pengfei. We’ll have to take her out first, but”—I shrugged—“that was going to happen anyway.”

  I could tell the idea intrigued Vayl, but the risk to me took him so far out of his comfort zone that he had to think it over. He slid out of the banquette and went to retrieve his cane from the bedroom. I could hear him muttering all the way there and back, though he stopped talking before I could do any actual eavesdropping. I would’ve told him only crazy people talk to themselves, but I was in no position to judge.

  Cole also got up. He went to the fridge. And as he poured himself a mug of orange soda he said, “I don’t see how we can pull that off, Jaz. You’re about two inches too tall, for one thing.”

  “Plus you can’t speak Chinese,” added Bergman. “And even if you stuck with English, you couldn’t manage an accent without sounding like some idiot redneck making fun of all Asians everywhere.”

  “He’s right about the accents,” I told Cassandra regretfully. “I can’t even do that nasal Chicago twang, and my dad lives there.”

  “Well, I can’t help you with sounding Chinese, but looking the part could be easier than you think. What about some sort of disguise spell?” she asked.

  I felt Bergman shiver, as if he’d brushed up against a low-voltage electric fence. Keeping my face turned well away from him I said, “Generally I stick with the old-school method, but I’m willing to try it. Can you do something like t
hat?”

  “Maybe. But—”

  “What? No! You’re a psychic,” Bergman told her, as if she’d suddenly developed Alzheimer’s. He spoke so loudly I wanted to stick my fingers in my ears. “You have visions,” he insisted. “You don’t do spells. That’s for witches. And wizards. And, and”—he noticed we were all looking at him funny—“those other oogly boogly types.” He wiggled his fingers to emphasize his point.

  I shook my head. “Bergman, I kid you not, if you don’t get your head into the twenty-first century I am going to take you out behind the woodshed and tan your hide.”

  “What?”

  Cassandra reached over me and flicked Bergman on the shoulder to get his attention. “A bomb is a powerful weapon, yes?”

  “Of course.”

  “So not just anybody can build one.”

  “Well . . .”

  “I could not get on the Internet, find a good plan, and by the end of the day construct myself an explosive device, could I?”

  “Yeah . . . but it’s not a fair comparison.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re two entirely different things.”

  Cassandra leaned forward. “They’re both tools used as a means to an end.”

  “The philosophy behind them is light-years apart.”

  They were nearly nose to nose now, not a comfortable position for me, since I sat between them. “Bergman,” said Cassandra, “I could build a bomb if I wanted to, although it would help if I had an interest in science. And if you had a bent toward magic, which by the way you do, you could cast a spell.”

  He recoiled so fast you’d have thought she spat in his face. I held up my hand. “Stop,” I told him. “I know you’re about to say something I’ll regret, so don’t even go there.”

  “But—”

  “Bergman, I love you like a brother and I respect your right to believe whatever you want to believe. But you can’t be on this team if you offend somebody every time you open your mouth.”