Biting the Bullet

by Jennifer Rardin

  “They are,” Vayl agreed. “And yet, the strength of your feelings is not directed toward them just now. And neither are they positive emotions.”

  I pressed my lips together. Maybe if I did it hard enough this whole unpleasant business would go away and we could get on with the assassinating. Or not.

  “I am puzzled,” Vayl said with the quirk to his lips that passed for a frown. “I have only just risen. How is it that I have disturbed you so deeply already?”

  “Ha, ha, ha.” What a lovely little trill of a laugh I have. When I’m drunk. Otherwise — gag. “You know, I’m just thinking about the, uh, the thing tonight. Getting wound up. Like I usually do. You know me.”

  “Yes, I do.” He approached me slowly. As if I might spook at any sudden moves. His brows slanted down. “You and I should be fine. I have rescinded my agreement with Zarsa. I will not try to meet Badu and Hanzi until I am sure they will not be harmed by our reunion. And yet I sense you would cheerfully slam my head against the wall if you thought you could get away with it. Why is that?”

  “Uh.” My voice broke. I cleared my throat, which felt far too dry for somebody who’d just downed an entire glass of tea. “Do we really have time for this?” I tapped the face of my watch. “We should be at the café in, like —” I checked the time. Crap! An hour? How was I going to put him off that long? Screw it. I sat down. On the floor. Looked up at him until he sank down in front of me. I was about to rip him a new one over Zarsa. Let him know I didn’t appreciate being the other woman. But some part of me knew that wasn’t the real problem. And when I opened my mouth, that was the bit that spoke up.

  “You need to bury your boys,” I said.

  Immediately his powers shifted. As if I’d physically threatened him, he raised his abilities the way a boxer will lift his fists. “What do you mean?” he asked, biting off each word as if he wished it were my head. His eyes, which had been their typical relaxed brown, began to darken. The ghost of my mother rose before me. Not like I’d seen her in hell, but the real-life version. She spread her nicotine-stained fingers like she was holding a plate full of chicken gizzards and screeched, See? This is why you need to learn to bury your feelings. Never mind how crazy that’ll make you. These conversations never turn out well!

  Ignoring her, I plowed on. “You never really grieved. I mean, you went from fury over their deaths, to plotting and pulling off the ultimate revenge. And then, from what I gather, you stepped straight into denial that you might never see them again. You never really mourned. And you definitely never accepted. This whole search has been one long demonstration of how far you’ll go to deny the fact that Badu and Hanzi died. That you lost them. And that it feels horrible.”

  “How do you know what I did and did not do?” he snarled. “You were not there. You did not follow me to their graves every night.”

  “What did you do there?” I asked mildly. “Did you talk to them about how much you missed them? Or did you promise them vengeance?”

  Vayl’s powers tightened up another notch. I didn’t believe he’d freeze me, but I could tell by the look in his eye I’d pushed him about as far as he was willing to go. So I gave him one last shove.

  “I need to be able to trust you. Professionally I know I can. But if you want to be with me . . . you need to be with me all the way.”

  “This is an ultimatum, then?” he spat, his black eyes sparking red. “Either give up on meeting my boys or forget about us?”

  I sighed. “Liliana really did a number on you, didn’t she?” At his wide eyes I said, “I don’t do ultimatums, Vayl. It’s not a this or that deal. You’re going to do what you feel is right. So am I. That’s why they call us adults. And, frankly, I do think you should try to meet the souls that once lived in the bodies of your boys. Someday. After you’ve said goodbye to Hanzi and Badu. When you’ve come to realize that the men you meet in America will not be the teenage Rom you loved beyond words over two hundred years ago. They’ll be grown-ups. Who were raised by men other than you. Men they call Dad.”

  Vayl shook his head. Hard. “No. It must not be like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they are all I have!” He spat the words like they’d been beaten out of him.

  “No, Vayl,” I said softly. I let my fingers brush across the top of his hand. Just a touch to remind him of what could be. He shuddered. To be honest, I felt the same. I sucked in a breath. Forced myself to concentrate. I said, “They were all you had.”

  Before his eyes could go completely green I held up my hands. “My point is, your obsession has already messed with me. The fact that you took Zarsa’s blood. That you did something that intimate with her. That you planned to get even closer. You’re right. It makes me want to wrap you up in rubber bands and then just sit next to you and snap them every time I feel annoyed at you. Which at this point would be all night long.”

  He should have looked remorseful. But I thought my words actually excited him. His voice, always husky and low took on a rich undertone as he said, “Jasmine? Are you jealous?”

  “Not quite,” I said softly. “But if you belonged to me. Only me. I would be.”

  He knew exactly what I meant. He ran his hands up my thighs. Oh. So. Slowly. “Soon,” he whispered. I shook my head. “Not until you’re ready.”

  He pulled his hands back. My thighs throbbed, missing their weight, their heat. “My boys,” he whispered.

  “I love them too,” I told him. “Because they were yours.” Startling thought. I wish they’d been mine. I’d have kicked their asses up, down, and sideways before I’d have allowed them to be the kind of hellions who’d steal a farmer’s wagon. Then they would never have been in a position for that same farmer to shoot them dead. “But you’re holding them too hard.”

  He took a while to ponder the palms of his hands. The mask that typically held back every emotion he ever experienced had slid back into place. “I will have to think on it. This is not something I can just . . . do.”

  “Sure.”

  I watched him get up, go into the kitchen. I still had to tell him the man we were assigned to take out tonight wasn’t the Wizard’s henchman, but somebody our country would love to support if only we’d known about him. I sighed. It should be good news. Guess what, Vayl? We don’t have to kill anybody tonight. Let’s partaaay!! Except the uppity-ups wouldn’t buy our evidence. It was way too flimsy in light of their particular theory, which took into account everything they’d invested in this project. They wanted results. And since we couldn’t promise them that, at least not the kind they could parade across the TV

  screen, we’d no doubt lose our jobs before we had a chance to pull off the mission as we’d rearranged it. I went into the kitchen. Vayl was sitting at the counter, pouring blood into a coffee cup. I took the stool beside him. “Is there any way we can avoid contacting Pete and the DOD dudes until our mission’s over?”

  “Why?”

  I explained what I’d learned about FarjAd Daei while he was out of touch. And my suspicions that my little rewrite of the Big Boss’s script would be met with either outright hostility — “You’re FIRED!” — or surface cooperation — “Well, what you say makes sense” — at which point General Danfer covers the receiver, tells an aide to call Dave on the other line, and orders him to follow through on the assignment Vayl and I inexplicably refuse to complete.

  Vayl looked at his cup thoughtfully. “I apologize.”

  “What?”

  “You have shouldered the burden of this entire mission yourself.”

  “Naw, not really. I mean —”

  “Yes. And you must be frantic about David. But you have not said a word to me, your sverhamin. To whom you should feel free to reveal any thought. Any wish.”

  I shrugged. “It’s what I do.”

  He shook his head. “It was what you did before we met. Long before I gave you Cirilai. I have shoved you back into your former life. And you barely even noticed. Were you so com
fortable there?”

  I shrugged. “No. Horribly, terribly un comfortable. But I knew where I stood. Here, it’s like I’m never sure of my next step. Nobody tells me the rules until five minutes before I need to know. And you.” I shook my head. “Being with you is like riding the highest, longest roller coaster ever made.”

  When he winced I added, “Don’t get me wrong. I love coasters. I’m just explaining why I can transition back to Lonersville so easily.”

  He wrapped his hands around his cup. I could see the whites of his knuckles, so I was surprised he didn’t actually break it. He said, “Then I will have to make sure you come to like your new situation so well you cannot stand to slide back anymore. Not even for a day.”

  As we stared at each other across the countertop I felt like he’d just made some sort of sacred vow. Especially when Cirilai sent a shot of warmth up my arm. I managed a breathy “Okay,” and realized I was considering climbing on top of that smooth flat surface, knowing that if I did he’d meet me halfway and whatever happened would be Guinness World Record material. Then Cole walked into the room. I tried not to glare. But dammit! He was like a three-year-old. Always interrupting at the worst possible moment! He sauntered in like he was actually welcome, splayed himself across half the counter, and grinned charmingly. “So. What are we doing?”

  Sending your ass to Portugal the first chance we get, I thought, my inner bitch snapping her fingers in his face as I spoke. Surprisingly, Vayl was the one who kept his temper. He said, “A great deal of Jasmine’s plan tonight rotates on your ability to convince our target that he is a target, but not of our country. That, indeed, we have come to help.”

  “We don’t know much about him beyond the fact that his name is FarjAd Daei,” I added. “And that he’s sort of the Martin Luther King Jr. for his people. Which would explain why the Wizard wants him dead.”

  “Why is it the good ones always die young?” Cole wondered.

  “Generally it is because the bad ones have been in charge far too long and they are reluctant to release power,” Vayl said.

  Score another one for the Master of Understatement, I thought. But I gave Vayl a smile. He had a very European way of sliding up on a subject that I’d only recently come to appreciate. Maybe it had something to do with becoming one of those subjects. I said, “Well, look, I don’t know how long we can keep this guy alive. I don’t expect him to stress the retirement system around here, for sure. But we have to, at least, keep him safe until the Wizard is no longer a threat.”

  “So has the plan changed?” Cole asked.

  “Not much,” I said. “We set up just like for the assassination. We know the event’s not private, so the three of us can enter the café as arranged. Vayl goes to the bathroom early. When FarjAd exits the main room to relieve himself, the two of us follow, bag him without the previously planned fatal blow, hustle him out the window to Asha’s waiting car, and hide him at Zarsa’s house until it’s safe for him to go home.”

  “And Zarsa’s okay with this?” Cole asked, slicing a narrow look at Vayl.

  “She’s practically frothing at the mouth for a chance to help,” I said. Cole gaped at me. “You talked to her? When?”

  “Today. She’s a mess, you know.”

  He blew a breath through his teeth. “Well, Christ, who the hell can live here for long and not be? I haven’t seen so much pain in one place since I watched that training video on torture.”

  We were silent, conceding the point. Which was why we heard so clearly the knock at the door. “That’ll be Asha,” I said. “Everybody ready?”

  The guys nodded. Though I didn’t expect violence, I’d geared up for it. After leaving Bergman I’d gone back to my room, dug into my weapons bag, and pulled out my usual array of guns and blades. Grief sat in its customary shoulder holster. Grandpa Samuel’s bolo was snug in its hip sheath. Since my holy water carrier had been converted to a chew toy, I now wore wrist sheaths for throwing blades on both arms. Knives on the left. Stars on the right.

  Since Vayl and I had both been the victims of thrown blades on our last mission, I’d used our downtime to raise my own proficiency in that area as well as swordplay. Now I was confident I’d increased my ability to keep enemies at a distance, which was always my main concern.

  Bergman had also outfitted us with his latest improvement on group communication devices. For receiving audio we still had the tiny hearing-aide type devices that fit into our ears. But for transmitting, we’d graduated from mint-style gadgets that stuck to the roofs of our mouths to much smaller stick-on items that looked remarkably like beauty marks. Mine was adorable and went in the crease of my left cheek, à la Marilyn Monroe. Vayl had placed his just above and to the right of his lip. Cole had started with his on the end of his nose which, while hilarious, made you want to recommend a good dermatologist the second you saw him. So in the end he’d put it on his chin. The result — now, instead of hearing our comrades in the woofer range of surround-sound stereo, they sounded more like themselves. We went to the door and I let Asha in. I expected an überawkward moment when he and Vayl met. But Asha took care of that problem right away. “So you belong to Jasmine,” he said in his melancholy voice. It somehow delivered Vayl his deepest condolences without bearing a trace of malice toward me. Vayl let out a bark of laughter as he shook Asha’s hand. “Indeed. I am honored to meet the Amanha Szeya. Your legend is vast.”

  “And unearned as of late,” Asha said. He turned to Cole. “And you, young hero? Do you also belong to Jasmine?”

  Though Cole sent me a quick, searching glance, he grinned at Asha and said, “Not even close, buddy. I’m a free spirit. But if you know any beautiful lady Amanha Szeyas who’d like some company . . . point the way.”

  Asha smiled, lighting up the entire room. I instantly felt better. Surely everything would go according to plan tonight. Just because Asha had smiled.

  Chapter Thirty

  It did seem at first as if we were charmed. We arrived at the café in plenty of time to get good seats near the bathroom so no one would notice when we slipped away. Vayl sat across from me at a small white table, giving us each a full view of the room. Without hesitation, Cole settled in the seat beside mine. If we’d been in America, I suspected he’d have gone so far as to rest his arm across the back of my chair, give Vayl that challenging stare I’d seen him send a couple of times when he thought I wasn’t looking. But Cole knew the rules in Iran. A casual touch in our country could get us jail time in this one. So he kept his hands on the laminate and behaved.

  Even more miraculously, most of the people attending the evening’s festivities spoke English, so Vayl and I didn’t feel lost in a sea of gibberish. They didn’t say anything worth overhearing. Asked after each other’s families. Commented on the weather. But their nods, their smiles, and that hand gesture I’d first seen at the hanging, all pointed to a bigger, more exciting conversation going on just under the surface. The evening started to go wrong when the owner and his pals began unrolling the blinds that had been tied at the tops of the windows. Claustrophobia scratched at my skull as, one by one, my portholes to the outside world were blocked. Shortly afterward Asha called.

  We’d left him in the car, though he’d protested. “I would like to go in with you. I could help,” he’d said. His mournful face held such eagerness I nearly hugged him.

  “Dude, you’re the getaway driver,” said Cole.

  “We may need to exit quickly,” Vayl agreed. “It would help if you were ready to leave at a moment’s notice.”

  More to make him feel involved than out of a true sense of need, I’d donned my special specs and given him the access number. “Just phone me if you see something fishy,” I’d told him. Now I put my hand over my ear to hide the tiny arm that snaked out to provide me with audio and looked down, so the movement of my lips would be hidden in the folds of my hijab. “Yeah?”

  “The mahghul are gathering.”

  “What? Here?”

 
; “Yes. What is it that you intend?” he asked, his voice strained.

  “It’s not us, Asha. Somebody else must be looking for trouble tonight.”

  “Should I come in?”

  “Are you sure the source of the danger is inside?”

  Long pause. “No. The sidewalks are busy tonight.”

  “Well, we’re already inside. So we’ll do what we can from here. Why don’t you scout around out there? See what you come up with. Call if you need help, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I disconnected. “Crap.” I told the guys what was happening. Both of them thought we had another assassin in our midst.

  “This guy FarjAd’s got to have a ton of enemies,” Cole reasoned. “In a country full of radicals, his viewpoint is bound to raise alarms. Frankly, I can’t believe he’s still roaming around free. Either he’s one lucky sucker or they’ve only just started hearing about him.”

  “Just look at this assemblage,” Vayl agreed. “Strangers such as we should not be given such easy access if they wish for FarjAd to live a long life.”

  “The whole point is freedom,” I reminded them. “These people are trying to create an atmosphere where it’s okay to just walk in and listen. You know? Like in America?”

  “Well, all this freedom is going to get their keynote speaker killed,” said Cole.

  “Goddammit!” I hissed the word, but it got Vayl and Cole’s attention. “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you two quite vying for coolest agent of the month and help me figure out how to save a guy who’s naive enough to think he can run around Iran having open forums?”

  Vayl’s nod allowed me the point. “People are milling about enough that I believe we can move through the room without causing undue attention. It is Secret Service time.”

  Even though Cole had only been hanging with us a little while, he knew what Vayl meant. When we’re not working, we’re training, and Vayl’s go-to drill is the Secret Service. The idea is to disguise ourselves and then try to pick one another out of a crowd. It’s how we learn to blend so we don’t get nailed before —