The Deadliest Bite

by Jennifer Rardin

  But if the son had been stricken, the father was pained as well. I could detect a note of longing in his voice, the kind I’d heard before when he’d suggested we could be a great Vampere couple. I’d refused then, and now I saw the same terrified denial on Junior’s face. But suddenly it was like I’d stepped up on a platform where I could observe Vayl from a totally new angle. And I realized how lonely he’d been all those years with no family to get him through the empty days or share the laughter with. Not that he’d found much to call humorous, much less entertaining, in his early years as a Rogue. Even less so when he’d entered into a Vampere Trust. In fact, when we’d first started working together I’d become convinced pretty quickly that the dude had completely forgotten how to have fun.

  I stepped up and slipped my hand into his. When his eyes dropped to mine I put all the love I felt for him in my smile. The black bled from his pupils like a healing bruise, replaced almost instantly by honey gold with flecks of the warmest amber. “I’m so proud of you,” I whispered.

  “Way to represent,” agreed Cole. He still sat at Raoul’s knee, his hands flopped between his legs like he didn’t even have the strength to cross them. He winked at Vayl. “We attached guys gotta stick together.”

  Vayl’s eyebrows practically shot off his forehead. “What happened up there?” He took a threatening step forward.

  Suddenly Cole found the energy to raise his arms in protest. “I promise you, I am over your girl forever. Although she’s awesome, I’ve got my eye on the prize now.” He nodded so definitely that Vayl instantly checked himself. Cole’s eyes danced. “Hey, Jaz. I just realized. Someday, if it all works out, I’m gonna be your nephew. You know what that means, right? Magicians at my birthday parties, and trips to the zoo, and—”

  “Stop!” Holy crap! He’s back—and here I am without my beat-themoff umbrella! I thought fast and then said, “You might jinx it.”

  “Right. You’re absolutely right.” He made the zippy-lippy motion. However, he pointed from me to him and back again a couple of times and then mouthed the word “relatives” before subsiding into happy-grin land.

  Oh. Man. Could I deal with Cole at Thanksgiving? Giving Albert shit over the turkey and making veiled references to the “adventure” we’d shared in Scotland while Evie sat in barely concealed shock at his impudence, E.J. looking around the table in absolute confusion, while I tried desperately to think of an appropriate lie to explain how very well I knew him? Or would they all be so flipped out that I’d brought a vampire to dinner that it wouldn’t matter?

  I was suddenly readier than ever to go kill the Rogue Vayl had targeted. Still under the assumption that we’d only encountered a slight detour in our original plan, I asked Cole to move his car to one side of the drive so I could back mine out.

  “Where are you going?” he asked as he grabbed the open door to help himself to his feet. As Raoul filled him in, I strode toward the garage, assuming Vayl would follow with the rest of the group trotting more or less cooperatively behind. That was usually how it worked. Except I’d taken half a dozen steps when I realized nobody was following me. Not even Jack. I turned around.

  “Jasmine,” Vayl said tiredly. “She is doing it again.”

  The four men had gathered in a circle at the front of Cole’s Lumina. All of them had riveted their attention to the ground at their feet, as if they couldn’t believe Kentucky bluegrass managed to thrive this far north of the state line. Jack trotted around them, occasionally sticking his nose between their legs, but he didn’t like what he saw enough to stay in one place for long. He’d pull his head back, sometimes jumping like he’d been startled, and begin his rounds again.

  Dammit. We do not need this right now. And the worst part is, it’s all my fault. Or, more specifically, Jack’s fault. Which makes it mine. Dammit!

  I joined the circle, Vayl and Raoul moving back to give me room. As expected, Astral lay in the middle, flat on her back, waving her feet in the air while she cackled like a drunken hen. “Cluck, cluck, hic-cluck.” From the mini-projector in the back of her throat a startlingly realistic hologram replayed a series of images just like the ones we’d seen the last time she’d pulled this stunt. I’d come in in the middle, so I missed the skier flying off the cliff and the painter falling from the ladder. But I did make it in time for skateboard-crashing-off-the-garage-roof guy and hang-glider-dumping-into-the-ocean dude.

  “Cluck, cluck, hic-cluck,” said Astral.

  “Do you think it’s worse?” I asked.

  Vayl crouched for a closer look. “It seems about the same to me. But then, this has been going on for two days now. How did she get so much footage?” he asked as six kids went tumbling off a toboggan.

  “Well, she does have access to all the FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security databases. Plus she’s an Enkyklios, and who knows what those Sisters of the Second Sight have recorded while they were globetrotting, trying to get all the info they could on the world of others. Or, now that I know, I should say the world of the Whence.”

  “So that’s what it’s called,” murmured Aaron as he watched a figure skater blow a triple axle.

  “But…” Raoul motioned to Astral, whose clucking was so convincing I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d laid an egg. “Why?”

  Vayl glanced up. “I think perhaps Bergman missed a wire or two the last time he reattached her head.”

  They all looked at me. I raised my hands. “Hey, I feel terrible about that incident. But honestly, Bergman shouldn’t have made her self-destruct button so sensitive.”

  They gave me the point and went back to Astral watch. Finally Vayl said, “We cannot let this continue. What if she chose to emit some vital intelligence in her video feed instead of some fool slipping off his roof while trying to anchor his Christmas lights?”

  “I agree,” said Cole. “You should call Bergman.”

  All eyes came to me. Again. “Yeah, but he’s…” I sighed. “Fine. But if he cries, I’m handing the phone to one of you.”

  I left the circle as I dug out my cell and dialed his number. The series of clicks that preceded the ring lasted for at least thirty seconds, signaling the fact that even though he was still staying in Morocco with his new girlfriend, Bergman’s paranoia hadn’t slipped a notch. Our call would be encrypted as thoroughly as if the President of the United States were sharing the line.

  I thought Bergman had probably been born with a suspicious nature, but it had been sharpened to its current razor edge in college when a classmate had stolen his research and tried to use it to create a brand-new energy source. The fact that he’d blown himself to smithereens instead hadn’t given Bergman much comfort. After that he’d put five deadbolts on the door to his room and informed the rest of us that if we entered without permission there was every chance that we’d be impaled by a jungle spear.

  I wasn’t sure what it said about me that I continued to share an apartment with him until I graduated from college, or that he remained one of my closest friends to this day. Except that his mind unfolded before me like a work of art. And his inventions gave me happy tingles right down to my toes. Before Matt, and then again before Vayl, hardly anything else in life had done that for me.

  Finally Bergman answered the phone, which was when I thought to check my watch. Had I just woken him? Naw, it was already about nine-thirty in the morning over there. He said, “Jaz! It’s you!”

  “Yes. Hello.” Oh man, how do you tell an inventor his cat is on the fritz? Is this a good news/bad news scenario? Wait, I can’t think of any good news. See, this is what Evie means when she tells me I need to work on my attitude. Something good has to have happened lately. I mean, besides the mind-blowing sex with Vayl. And all the other fabulous moments in between, which you can’t really explain to your old buddy. And that’s not his good news anyway.

  “Jaz? Are you still there?”

  “Yeah! Hey, Miles, how are you?”

  “Great!”

  Did that sound fa
ke, or was it just the thousands of miles standing between our cell towers? “Excellent! How’s Monique?”

  “Great!”

  Huh. “Super. That’s good news.” Hey! That’s the good news! Now for the bad news. “Uh, Miles, why I’m calling… Astral’s kind of acting up.”

  “What’s she doing?” Total professionalism in his tone now, except for that thread of frantic worry he was trying hard to suppress.

  I described the problem. He wanted every detail. I had to go watch her some more so I could describe what era I thought the stuntman had been living in when he tried, and failed, to jump a canyon the size of Rhode Island. “What do you think?” I finally asked him.

  “Her self-recalibrations may have jogged something loose,” he said. “I’ll need to do some tinkering to be sure, but I think I can fix her.”

  “So I should, what, shut her down? Box her up and mail her to you?”

  “God, no! She’s a member of your team! You can’t function without her!”

  “Well, I wouldn’t—”

  “She needs to be repaired immediately, Jaz. I’ll be on the next plane out of Marrakech!”

  “Bergman! Seriously, I can—”

  “I won’t hear of it! I’m booking my ticket online right now.”

  “Miles. What’s happening?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I let a few seconds of silence stretch between us. Then I said, “When Vayl, Cole, and I left Morocco, you and Monique were so lost in Cuddleland you barely said goodbye. Now you can’t wait to leave her?”

  “It’s not her, exactly. It’s her kids. They came to visit. And, well, one of them is only a year younger than me!”

  “So?”

  I could almost hear Bergman’s gears turning as he considered and rejected reasons he knew I wouldn’t buy in the first place. Finally he said, “I guess I knew it couldn’t last. She’s twenty-three years older than me and—”

  “Stop.” This couldn’t be a coincidence. I turned to Aaron. “You’re twenty-three, right?”

  “Yeah, how did you guess?”

  I didn’t answer him. I was too busy trying to keep up with my racing mind. Raoul had said that E.J. would be twenty-three when she and Cole finally met for the first time. And now Bergman had let slip that Monique was exactly the same number of years older than him. Somebody was trying to send me a message. And considering the sources of the numbers, I had to think that same somebody wanted me to survive this ordeal. I tucked the idea away until I could bounce it off Vayl and went back to my call.

  “Listen, Miles. You’re my best friend. I’ll back your play, no matter what you decide. But I’m just saying that’s a pretty ridiculous reason to dump the only woman I’ve ever met who will cheerfully put up with your bullshit. If it’s something else that you can’t get past, fine. But if all you’re worried about is the age difference, then grab on to this—Vayl is two hundred and sixty-eight years older than me.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yuh-huh.”

  Long silence. “I need to come there. Just for a little while. To think.”

  My throat closed. More than I wanted my own happiness, I wanted the people I loved to find peace and love in their own lives. Eventually maybe I’d accept my startling lack of control over their decisions and just let it be. But I knew that at some point I’d probably try to talk him into going back. The French innkeeper was too good a fit for him, dammit! For now I said, “Okay. Text me the details of your flight and I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

  “Make sure it’s an unmarked car.”

  “Holy shit, Miles! What, did you think I’d be riding up in a parade float?”

  “Is Cole with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Possibly.”

  I promised him to keep it on the down low and we hung up. At which point Astral ran out of disaster video, rolled over on her side, and farted out one of her grenades.

  “Take cover!” Vayl bellowed as he snatched up the explosive and hefted it as hard as he could into the field that fronted his house. He grabbed Aaron’s arm, I whistled to Jack, and Raoul slapped Cole on the back of the head to snap him out of his bemused daze. We booked to the back of the garage, making it just in time for the explosion, which sounded so much like a fouled firework that Aaron checked out the sky.

  Then he looked at Vayl. “Does this kind of stuff happen to you all the time?”

  Vayl considered his question. “Only since I met Jasmine.” He smiled at me. “She makes life incredibly exciting.”

  “But you’re not alive… are you?” Aaron asked. For once he just sounded curious. Was he finally learning?

  Vayl leaned his shoulder against the rough brick of the garage wall. In the dim light of the moon the shadows covered his entire face, so that all we could see was the glitter of his eyes when he lifted his head. “I have watched humans move through their entire existence without ever truly testing the limits imposed upon them by their families, their cultures, and their own minds. They have willingly traded love, risk, adventure, and knowledge for a safe haven from pain. If those humans can choose undeath, I can choose life.”

  “Hello.”

  Aaron shrieked as Astral joined us, sitting quietly beside Jack, who panted over her happily, both of them acting as if nothing potentially deadly had just happened. Animals. So charming of them to poop and forget.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Wednesday, June 13, 3:45 a.m.

  We wandered around to the front of the garage, though only Vayl and I could see the devastation the grenade had caused to the cornfield. He could probably read a map in the dark, and my sight had radically improved each time he’d taken my blood, to the point where I barely needed to use Bergman’s see-in-the-dark contact lenses. Which, I could tell, Cole wasn’t wearing tonight.

  “So,” he said. “You guys were already outside when I got here, and the garage door was up. Jaz sure seemed eager to take off just now, so where were you headed?”

  Vayl had been checking his watch. He slid it back into his pocket and said regretfully, “We did have plans. But now it is too late for us to make a round-trip to Cleveland and be assured of completing our mission successfully before dawn. We will have to wait until tomorrow to smoke the Rogue.”

  Cole held up a hand. “Wait a second. Your Trust stretches all the way to the city?”

  Vayl said, “Our Trust includes the city.” He stared hard into Cole’s eyes. “And you, as well, if you would like to rejoin us.”

  I held my breath as Cole considered his offer. I’d only observed the inner workings of a single Vampere Trust—the one Vayl was attached to for most of the 1800s. So it had been pretty twisted. Plus, he hadn’t given me a lot of detail as to how ours should work since it was still mostly a show-car organization, put together for the sake of certain observers inside the Whence. Formed to protect those of us who were most obviously attached to Vayl from his enemies, who’d flout human law but would never risk trial in other courts, our Trust didn’t even have its own letterhead. I mean, if you’re gonna be official, shouldn’t you at least have a logo or something? So, while I wasn’t sure what a nod from Cole would provide him specifically, I knew that when he’d left Vayl’s protection in Marrakech he’d opened himself to attack from Kyphas. Which meant that if he accepted Vayl’s offer he’d be taking a solid step away from her.

  Cole ran a hand through his sun-drenched hair, pulling it back from a face that could easily have taken him into the spotlight, onto the big screen along with the rest of America’s pretty people. Instead he’d chosen dark shadows and cold rooftops. “I stand by the demand I made in Australia,” he said, his old charm lighting up his face as he reminded Vayl. “I want to be the secretary of social events.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then I’m in.” Aaaahhh! Inside my head, Teen Me was jumping up and down, screaming at the top of her lungs, and trading high fives with Granny May, who’d taken a break from some new project she’d started at t
he dining room table. For once I agreed with my inner adolescent. This was worthy of major mental celebration. Especially when Cole said, “I’m gonna need a party fund.”

  Vayl sighed. “Fine.”

  “So tell me, how far does our territory really run? And if it includes Cleveland like you said, what happened to the three nests I heard about last time I was in town?”

  “I will show you a map,” Vayl said. “We are responsible for the city, its suburbs, and several miles of surrounding countryside. As for the nests”—he looked at me—“Jasmine and I have been busy.”

  Cole stared at us. But he didn’t say anything as we led him, Raoul, and Aaron into the house. We’d decided Astral couldn’t be trusted near people until Bergman fixed her, so I’d ordered her to secure the perimeter until further notice. As a result Jack seemed slightly bummed. So I took him to the kitchen. To my surprise, all the other guys followed as well.

  “What do you want?” I asked my dog as I opened the fridge. “Cottage cheese? Baking soda? Oh, I know.” I pulled out a covered dish and, when I noticed him looking up at me suspiciously, said reassuringly, “Don’t worry. Vayl cooked it.”

  I pulled out a couple of brats and set them in his dog dish. “Don’t get used to this,” I warned him as he dove into them with the snorting noises that signaled deep satisfaction. “You’re back to that hard square stuff for your next meal.”