Bitten in Two

by Jennifer Rardin

  Cole reached for it. “Don’t!” I said. “What, did you totally ditch the class on germ warfare?”

  “I might’ve been surfing that day,” he admitted. “Aw, come on, Madame B., don’t rake your fingers into your hair like that. You’ll give yourself curly red horns and then I’ll be forced to go buy a matador costume.”

  I pulled my hands free, clenching my jaws together as I said, “Well, you’re not playing in the ocean today. So assume anything you haven’t identified is laced with smallpox until proven otherwise.”

  “Okay.” He looked around until he found a couple of mallets. “Can I pick it up with these?”

  “Maybe,” I allowed, “but I don’t want to take the chance of a booby trap blowing us all to smithereens. Sterling?” I pointed to the Enkyklios ball. “Is this rigged?”

  He shoved Ahmed back to Vayl. From the look on his face, the mage didn’t appreciate being handled like a basketball, but with his wrists firmly bound all he could do was scowl as Sterling muttered some words over what should be a small treasure trove of information. He got no response. “It’s clear. And by that I mean it’s not trapped. And it’s empty. Whatever was recorded on here is long gone.”

  I watched Vayl study it, hoping it might trigger a memory as I said to him, “Okay, so we’re in Ahmed’s shop, and we know he’s the mage Roldan hired to mess you up. But we’ve just found an Enkyklios ball. And we also know that Sister Yalida had an Enkyklios with her before she and the Rocenz disappeared over eighty years ago. Coincidence?”

  Vayl said, “I have very little idea what you are talking about. However I do not believe in coincidences.”

  I nodded. “I guess some things never change. So we have to ask, why is it here?”

  “Symbol?” Cole guessed. “Maybe Ahmed is part of some guild and this is where they meet. But to keep it secret from everybody else they use the Enkyklios ball.” Now he was really warming up to the idea. “Maybe the balls are in shops all over the city, you know, to mark where their hidden tunnels come out.”

  “Mages are the most solitary of all the Wielders,” Sterling said. “No way is Ahmed part of a guild. Right, buddy?” He shook the mage’s arm, but the only response was a dark red flush that rushed up Ahmed’s neck and didn’t stop until it reached his forehead. My stomach twisted at the thought of how much we were pissing this guy off. The same guy who’d managed to wipe centuries out of Vayl’s mind. And who’d attracted the notice of the most powerful werewolf in Europe. I decided then and there that he could never go free. Not if any one of us wanted to survive to see the following dawn.

  “Maybe you want to take him to the office,” I suggested. “You know, so we can talk a little more freely?”

  Sterling nodded and jerked the mage back toward the front of the store.

  Kyphas said, “I think Sterling’s right. Wouldn’t displaying the Enkyklios ball defeat the purpose of keeping whatever it’s hiding secret?”

  Cole’s shoulders dropped. I smacked him on the back. “It’s okay. You’re still a badass sniper and one hell of a linguist.”

  “What do you think it is?” he asked me.

  Before I could answer, Kyphas said, “Maybe it’s a trophy.”

  “That sounds plausible,” said Cole, gaining a look of adoration that explained just how far she’d fallen for him.

  I glared at her, demanding that my inner crowd think up something cutting to say about what was probably hanging on the walls at her place. But they seemed to be off their game, because none of them came up with a great retort before the perfect moment had passed. Instead Vayl said, “I believe Miss Kendrick may be right. However, if Ahmed does take trophies, I have seen several items in this shop that lead me to believe he has a practical purpose for them. And that he puts them to that use before he displays them.”

  “What do you mean?” Cole asked.

  He pointed to a wooden instrument hanging on the wall. Shaped like a viper’s head that’s been smashed by a passing truck, its “fangs” were stretched so far to the front that they had to be connected at the tips by a wooden peg. Ten ivory strings ran from the peg, over the hole between the “fangs,” back to the head of the instrument.

  Vayl took care not to touch the strings as he said, “The vampire who ripped me had spent his humanity as a pirate. Part of the booty he tore from the last ship he took included a lyre just like that one. He loved to tell the story of the battle he waged just to kill the siren who guarded it.” His eyes locked on Cole’s. “Like the Enkyklios ball, it had carried within it special powers. I can tell you similar stories about that flute and those castanets.” His workman’s fingers brought our attention to simple, everyday products that were only made unique by the way they were displayed. The flute stood on end, held aloft by a hand carved out of mahogany. The castanets hung from a glittering silver chain that had been secured to the ceiling by four white cup hooks.

  “Sterling touched that flute,” I said. “He would’ve picked up anything out of the ordinary on it—if it still held magic, I mean.”

  Vayl nodded and started expounding on his idea that Ahmed had stolen the items primarily so he could drain the magic from them. Old story, really. Lazy bum oozing with talent but zero work ethic doesn’t want to put in the practice and study time despite the fact that it could lead him onto new paths that no one has ever walked before. Instead he puts his small store of energy into making off with other people’s treasures.

  Teen Me had stopped listening almost after Vayl’s first word. In fact, for the past thirty seconds she’d been running up Granny May’s back porch steps, pausing at the top to jump off, and then running back up them again to repeat the whole process. The entire time she kept repeating, Vayl was ripped! Holy shit! No wonder he never talks about it. It must’ve hurt like a muther not to take a whole year to turn, like every other Vampere. And his, what do you call it? Sire? Was a pirate? Is that cool, or what?

  Or what, I told her. Ripping isn’t something you do out of kindness. It’s harsh, and usually lethal for both sides. Considering that the vamp turned Vayl’s wife first, we can pretty much bet Vayl’s Sire was psycho.

  Was? Or is?

  What do you say we never find out?

  Vayl had stopped talking. Had come so close to me I could feel his power brushing against mine, a sweet friction I could hardly bear without touching him. I closed my eyes. “Madame? Are you quite all right?”

  I stared at him, my mind a complete blank. Cole came to my rescue. “Now that we’ve scouted the shop, we’d better secure the whole building before we question Ahmed. You know, in case his buddies come back before we’re ready to deal with them. And, uh, our boss is still bleeding.”

  Work. Right. That’ll get me through this. Or kill me. Sad, right now, that I don’t know which would be worse. I said, “Let’s go old-school and barricade all the doors and windows.”

  “I’m on it.” Without even a glance at Kyphas, Cole went off to secure the second floor before finishing the job below.

  Ignoring the demon’s pout, I followed him up to Ahmed’s living quarters, grabbed a couple of clean T-shirts when I couldn’t locate a first-aid kit, and came back down to find that everyone except our sniper had assembled in the office, a small room whose wide door opened to the service counter.

  Sterling had dropped the mage into a wooden chair on rollers that creaked like an eighty-year-old man whenever Ahmed shifted his weight. Our warlock had made himself comfortable by sitting on the edge of a battered wooden desk that held a PC, miscellaneous office supplies and, on its other corner, a blood-soaked vampire.

  At the opposite end of the room, Kyphas, probably under orders from Sterling, had filled his teapot with water and set it on a hot plate that stood on top of a filing cabinet so old the handles had been replaced with knotted bandanas. While she waited for the water to roll, she leaned against the doorframe and stared unwaveringly at Ahmed.

  “Tell her to stop,” he finally whispered. “I am a devout man. A
Mage of the Seal. I cannot be tempted by feminine flesh.”

  Kyphas nodded.

  I said, “Did you see that, Ahmed? She’s making a mental note. That’s what hellspawn do. They figure out what you don’t want. Then they offer you everything you think you need.”

  “Huh-huh-hellspawn?” he squeaked. “In my shop? Make her leave!”

  I went up to Vayl and motioned for him to lift his pants leg. It was work to keep the holy-shit-you’re-missing-a-hunka-yerself! off my face as I began cleaning and bandaging. I managed it by interrogating the asshole who’d made the past few days complete misery for me.

  “Ahmed,” I said. “Why would I want Kyphas to go when I’m considering asking her to reach down your throat and rip out your kidneys?”

  He cringed. Wow. These pixie-dust types don’t have a whole lotta backbone when their wands are pulled out from underneath them.

  “What have you done with Helena?” Vayl demanded.

  “What?” Now our prisoner was both scared and bewildered. Good mix? Maybe. You never can tell until it all boils over. Speaking of which, the teapot had begun to whistle. Sterling handed Kyphas a pouch full of, well, it looked (and smelled) like potpourri.

  “Dump it all in,” he said. Typical. Leave it to the warlock to keep the secret ingredient to himself until it was time to make real magic.

  At the same time Vayl was struggling to stand. I could feel his anger and frustration rising.

  “Lord Brâncoveanu—Vasil,” I said. “You’re making this extra hard to—”

  “I care only for Helena’s welfare!” Vayl snapped.

  Cole poked his head into the door, the barricading evidently up to his standards. “I think I can help.”

  He strolled over to Ahmed’s chair, and whispered at length into the mage’s ear. It was almost comical to watch the change come over his face. His expression went from confused and scared to piss-your-pants freaked. Then Sterling’s fun-mix hit the air and he fell into a happy daze. Naturally we’d all stuffed our nostrils with Sterling’s special wax, so it only felt like we’d been congested for a week. Well, all of us but Vayl, who’d flat out refused. Because, as he’d continuously reminded us, warlocks are evil.

  When my sverhamin began to smile, I mean really show fang, I thought, Uh-oh. But Ahmed had hit the confessional and I didn’t want to miss a word.

  He looked dreamily into Cole’s eyes and said, “I just wanted the money, that’s all. It takes money to buy components. And more money to experiment with new combinations that will impress the Ardent enough to convince them to bestow upon you the title of Mage of the Scroll. Roldan had money. Sooooo much money.” Ahmed rolled his head around to stare at me. “You have lovely hair. It’s like curly, red wood shavings.”

  “Her hair is not red,” Vayl said, wagging his finger at Ahmed like the bad boy had forgotten to take out the trash. “Silly.”

  “Oh you.” Ahmed circled his head around and grinned foolishly at the vampire, who’d begun shoving his finger forward like he was trying to stab Ahmed with it. Or saw off a piece of butter for his corn on the cob.

  Ahmed stared down at his feet. “I think I’m in trouble.”

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “Look at my little toe. It’s stopped dancing. You know what that means?”

  I caught Sterling’s eyes. He shrugged. “What?” I asked.

  His entire face puckered. “I’ve been a bad, bad boy.” He started to cry. Vayl, his forehead crinkling in sympathy, went over to pat him on the shoulder as Ahmed said, “I have scary werewolves living in my basement. You know what they eat for breakfast? Raw sheep’s liver. Liver is supposed to be cooked, you know!”

  Cole took my arm and escorted me to the corner of the little office opposite the file cabinet, at which time he asked, “If I laughed out loud, how hard would you kick my ass?”

  I shook my head. “This is so not the scene I was imagining. How are we supposed—oh no. They’re—Cole. Tell me they’re not…”

  He nodded, biting his lip to keep it from betraying him. “Yes, Madame B., I’m afraid so. Your loveypoo is hugging the mage who cursed him. Who is hugging him back. It’s a total hugfest. Do you want a hug?”

  “No!”

  Sterling held out his arms and nodded, so Cole and he embraced while giggling idiotically, and then, of course, Kyphas had to stick her big old boobs into it until everybody in the goddamn room was snuggling like a bunch of drunken idiots doing the Closing Time Dance.

  I heard a crack, looked down, and realized I’d just broken the pencil sharpener. When I looked up… huh. I caught Ahmed in the middle of a crafty expression that didn’t fit with his recent behavior. I checked his wrists. “Sterling! Your cuffs are loose! See what happens when you cuddle during an interrogation?”

  “Bound to me!” the warlock shouted just as Ahmed, in a single move, sprang from his seated position to a crouch on the same chair.

  Instead of tightening, Sterling’s wand fell off Ahmed’s wrists, dropping to the brown tiled floor as if its two parts held no power at all.

  Everyone moved at once.

  Sterling dove for the wand, whispering the words that united the halves and twisted them back into a warlock’s conduit.

  Kyphas grabbed the teapot off the hot plate. She threw it at Ahmed, screaming, “You might as well start burning now!”

  Seeing the container with its boiling contents flying his way, Ahmed yelped and jumped off his chair toward the desk. The tea splattered against the wall, at which point he jumped again, this time aiming for the filing cabinet.

  What is this guy, half bullfrog?

  I lunged to intercept him and caught his feet just as he tried to land. He crashed to the floor, squealing with pain as Vayl and Cole landed on top of him.

  Sterling came after, waving his wand over Ahmed’s head. As he chanted words under his breath, some of which sounded a lot like curses themselves, I squatted down by the mage so he could see my face. Pulling out Grief, I made it ready to fire. Then I said, “No more pissing around, you little fuck. You cursed my sverhamin. Now you reverse it. Or I put a hole in your head.”

  I pressed Grief against his temple.

  “They’ll kill me!” he protested. I pressed harder. He squalled, “It’s not that easy to do! I need time to prepare!”

  “Or maybe you just need to stop breathing,” I said. “I’ll bet that would do the trick. What do you think, Sterling?”

  “That could work,” he said easily. “But it makes a helluva mess. We’d appreciate a few seconds to get clear before you pull the trigger.”

  “Hmm, good point. Okay, I’ll count down from five, and then Lord Brâncoveanu, you, Sterling, and Berggia back to the door. Okay?”

  Vayl, staring at my gun like he’d never seen me, or a firearm before, nodded so slightly I’d never have caught it if I wasn’t clued in to every one of his gestures.

  I said, “Five. Four. Three. Two—”

  “All right!” Ahmed wiggled his butt back and forth a couple of times, like he thought he could unbalance the men shoving him into the floor. Then he gave up.

  And said, “Legerut.”

  Cole and I snapped our eyes to each other. Still on his knees beside the mage, he mouthed, Did you feel that?

  I nodded.

  Ahmed’s spell had slid over me like a mint-scented shiver. But it had moved past me. I looked at Sterling, whose wand hand had risen sharply. For a moment a sparkling blue shield burned around him like a second skin, revealed only by the presence of magic that ran counter to his. Kyphas didn’t act nearly as concerned. I figured she’d only transformed her scarf into the flyssa on the off chance that we’d allow her to impale Ahmed if this latest move turned out to be another ploy.

  I expected Vayl to react least, as usual.

  He’d pulled away from Ahmed, managed to stand before the spell hit. At first he just stared off into the distance, his jaw clenching at whatever played out on that invisible horizon. Then his head jerked
back, like something massive had him by the throat.

  “Vayl!” I lunged for him, but Cole wrapped his arms around my waist and whispered, “You can’t interfere now,” as Vayl’s hand shot out, the fist that he’d clenched around his cane trembling from the force of his muscles straining, resisting. His other hand went to the wall, through it, and found a beam to brace himself with as his lips sheared back from his teeth in a look of such grinding pain that I moaned his name again.

  His eyes came to mine. Locked on. And I swallowed my fear. Instead I poured all the love I felt for him, every ounce of strength, the last shred of my dreams and plans for us into those bruise-tinted eyes, and only when their orange flecks began to fade to honey gold did I remember to breathe. First his hands dropped. Then his head. No one spoke. Or even looked around. We just waited.

  Finally Vayl stepped away from the wall and looked down at Ahmed. Only my position allowed me to see the colors changing in his irises. Like the storm clouds that tell you it’s time to run to the basement, now black framed them, and in the centers, a deep, bloody red.

  “Vayl,” I whispered.

  “I remember.” His voice, so low none of us should have heard it, permeated the room like the rumble of a tsunami. He lifted Ahmed by the collar of his jellaba, rising slowly so we could see the mage begin to choke inside his own clothing, observe Vayl grab him by the hair and turn him so he had no choice. He must face the vampire he’d cursed.

  “I remember everything you did to me. What you made me relive.” He fastened his hand around Ahmed’s neck, lifted and shoved so that the mage moved on the tips of his toes, holding on to Vayl’s wrists to prevent a fall. His eyes were so wide I half expected them to pop out and roll down his cheeks as he stared into the blizzard of cold fury he’d unleashed. Though Cole and I were mostly immune to Vayl’s powers, we still shivered as icicles began to form in Ahmed’s nose hairs and every exhalation pasted another layer of frost around the rim of his mouth.

  “It wasn’t me!” he insisted. “Roldan—”

  “I will see to him in due course,” Vayl said. “But you had a choice. You took your pay. You wound your spell.” They’d moved into the shop now, and what could we do but follow? We watched, silent witnesses as Vayl slammed Ahmed against a wall, sending brass instruments of all shapes and sizes crashing to the floor. The dissonant shriek of sound accompanied the mage’s moan.