Once Bitten, Twice Shy

by Jennifer Rardin

  “Did you hire one yet?” Albert asked.

  “Yeah. She should be there in the next twenty minutes or so.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Shelby Turnett.”

  Irritated snort. “What’s the story on that, would you tell me? With millions of names out there made just for girls, why do they have to go and use men’s names? As soon as you name a girl Bobbi or Terri or Shelby that name is ruined for men for all time!” I should’ve known the grouch in him couldn’t be defeated.

  “I gotta go now.”

  “Work or play?”

  “Work.”

  “Have you noticed that’s all you ever do? You should play more.” He barked it, like an order, and I instantly wanted to work for the next forty-eight straight. Juvenile, I know, but he brings that out in me. I struggled to keep my temper in check.

  “I think I’ve forgotten how.” It was supposed to be a joke, but neither one of us laughed.

  “Matt was good for you that way. He always made sure you had plenty of fun to balance your serious side. You need to find somebody like him. It’s been long enough.” I knew, for him, that ended the subject. He had commanded me to move on, therefore I would. What a jerk.

  “I have to go,” I said as evenly as I could, considering I wanted to reach through the phone and smack him upside the head.

  “Me too.”

  Beep. We were done.

  Like a couple of Shriners who’ve veered off the parade route, Cole and I arrived at our meeting place in tandem and parked one behind the other. The minute he saw me he started laughing.

  “This is serious stuff, Cole,” I said, trying to sound stern.

  “Aw, come on Lucille, admit it: This is fun.” He blew a big blue bubble and popped it all over his nose.

  “You are so naive,” I said, but I couldn’t quite swallow the smile that kept surfacing every time I took in a new detail of his appearance. He’d gone with a pair of Drew Carey glasses. A green fishing hat, complete with dangling lure, hid most of his shaggy hair. Fake teeth gave him a slight overbite, and a gray jogging suit somehow managed to make him look wimpy and anemic.

  “Check out the socks,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows like Groucho Marx. He hiked up the legs of his sweatpants to reveal black dress socks. I couldn’t help myself. I started to giggle.

  “Those socks really bring out the turquoise in your sneakers.”

  “Did you notice they match my eyes? The shoes, not the socks.” He batted his eyelashes as I pretended to inspect his legs.

  I nodded. “I can see that. Now we just need to get you a handbag to complete the look.”

  He clapped his hands, fingers splayed like a three-year-old’s. “Oh goody! Shopping!”

  I shoved him toward my car. “Oh, just shut up and get in.”

  He looked at me brightly. “You mean I’m driving?”

  “Yup.”

  He didn’t argue the point, just jumped behind the wheel and started rubbing the soft leather of the seat as if it was his favorite cat. I got in beside him.

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “We go up to Derek’s room, pretend we’re looking for our father. When he’s not there, we both go into hysterics, thinking Dad’s dead. You raise hell, I pass out and fall onto Derek. The key is, I have to touch him.”

  “Why?”

  I showed him the Band-Aid.

  “Hey, I was just asking a question. You don’t have to flip me off.”

  “I was just . . .” I took note of the finger I was holding up and dropped my hand into my lap, laughing so hard I nearly blew snot all over the windshield. Cole started laughing too, and we sat there for a couple of minutes like two hyenas while deadly serious events moved forward without us. Eventually we would catch up, but for the moment it felt great to just let go. As much as it sucked to say so, Albert was right: It had been a long, long time since I could. Either Cole had come along at exactly the right time or I was going to have to carry him around in my back pocket for the rest of my days.

  Cole glanced out his window and pointed at a black SUV that had just passed us. “Hey, I recognize those guys.” He looked at me, his face suddenly sober. “They work for Assan.”

  I nodded and put on my seat belt. “Follow them.”

  I filled him in on the bug as we drove. Luckily the story only took a minute, because we didn’t have far to go. They stopped in the loading lane of the hospital. One guess who they’d come to recover.

  “Change of plan?” asked Cole, his eyebrows raised.

  “Yeah. Follow my lead and we can still get it done.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  I adjusted my wig in the passenger side mirror so I wouldn’t have to look at him. Until now he’d still been on the periphery of this whole nasty deal. Now I was about to dump him front and center. The guilt made my stomach ache. “I think I’m about to get very sick.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I’ll say this for Cole: He’s flexible and functions well under pressure. Not a letter of recommendation I’d be happy to write considering what kind of people hire that type, but true all the same. We drove around the block and parked right behind the SUV.

  “Come to my side and open the door,” I said, feeling the blood drain from my face. “He’s nearly here.”

  “Already?”

  I didn’t need to reply. Cole was already out of the car. Moments later he opened my door. “Undo my seat belt, and take your time about it,” I said, that terrible feeling of imbalance momentarily blurring my vision. Something shook me at the core, as if the Ohio River had suddenly reversed course or all the grass in Browns Stadium had burst into flame.

  “We have to meet them near the door,” I said. “Be loud. Be scared. Make a major scene. Make sure something happens so I can touch him.”

  He nodded. “Ready?”

  Hoping I wouldn’t puke on Cole’s nifty velour jogging jacket, I nodded. He pulled me out of the car and helped me toward the door. My blood seemed to jump in my veins, a warning so dire I would’ve turned to run if Cole hadn’t been holding on to me.

  “There they are,” he said.

  I raised my head, forcing my eyes to team up, show me the scene. The men, a couple of clones of the gatekeepers Vayl and I had dealt with last night, had reached the first set of automatic doors. One pushed the wheelchair. The other strode beside it. Derek slumped inside it, pale and tired looking, wearing a black turtleneck and white jeans. His head was tilted to one side, as if to protect the bandaged area that reminded me forcefully of my last confrontation with his attacker. Then I realized he was watching his reflection in the glass doors.

  “Smoke and mirrors,” I murmured.

  “What?”

  “Now. Make it loud.”

  He raised his voice. “It’ll be all right, honey.” He clutched at me, gave my arm a comforting pat, and stepped us forward. We’d almost reached the entry doors. He waited until Derek and his entourage emerged. “Don’t pass out on me now. It’ll be okay.”

  I obliged and sagged, keeping one hand firm on the back of his jacket. It took an effort not to hit my knees. All I wanted was to puke until my stomach was as dry as an AA meeting.

  “Look, honey, a wheelchair!” Cole maneuvered us into Derek’s path, blocking his way. “You’re leaving, right?” he asked them. “We need the chair, man. My wife’s really sick.”

  “Get out of the way,” growled one of the goons. He shoved Cole backward and I let go of him. This time I did fall, right into Derek’s lap. I flailed my hands and managed to slap the bug onto the uninjured side of his neck.

  “So sick,” I muttered. Derek shoved me off his lap, leaving me in a crumpled heap. I considered just staying there. Hell, I was two yards from a hospital. Eventually somebody would discover me here, tuck me into a nice, clean bed, maybe pump me full of tranquilizers. I could legitimately sleep for a week.

  Fortunately the person who hauled me off my butt was Cole. My hospital fantasy h
ad barely played itself out before he’d strapped me back into the Mercedes. Actually, the seat felt even better than my fantasy bed. Love those luxury models.

  I managed to focus on the road as Cole pulled away from the hospital entrance. The SUV was probably twenty yards ahead of us and gaining. “How close do we need to follow?” Cole asked.

  I tried to remember what Bergman had told me about receiving distance. They drew farther ahead of us and, as my nausea diminished, my brain kicked in. “Just close enough to keep them in sight.”

  We fell farther behind and I sat up straighter, wiped the sweat off my upper lip, ditched the wig and the beret.

  “Feeling better?” Cole asked, cocking a raised eyebrow in my direction.

  “Much.”

  “That wasn’t an act, was it?”

  I shook my head. “There’s something so far off about that man that every time I get near him I feel like the earth’s about to break orbit.”

  Cole absorbed my reply with quiet attention. “How come I don’t feel it?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve become, what you might call, super-Sensitive since Vayl took my blood last night. I think this reaction is part of it.”

  “Then we’d better find out what he’s up to. Are you hearing anything yet?”

  “No talking. Kind of a steady thrumming sound. Knowing Bergman, this thing is so fine-tuned I’ll be able to hear Derek’s pulse, but his conversation will sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher. Wa, wa-wa, wa, wa.”

  “Who’s Bergman?”

  I held up a finger. “Someone’s talking,” I whispered.

  “—Assan isn’t too happy with you,” said one of the guards. His voice was throaty and strained, probably lined with decades of nicotine buildup. I immediately dubbed him the Marlboro Man.

  “I was just following orders.” It was Derek—whining. “It’s not my fault somebody decided to play superhero. You don’t think it’ll hurt my chances, do you? Assan promised to put me in a movie as soon as this was all over with.”

  “I’m sure you’re fine. Who interfered with the experiment?”

  “A girl with red hair and a man with a foreign accent. He had a cane. Said his name was Jeremy. I don’t remember anything more about her.”

  “Well, between them they managed to smoke Jonathon and both your victims.” Jonathon must’ve been the doorman. It seemed strange to think of Boris and Svetlana as Steele’s victims, but that had been her take on the situation last night as well. The final experiment, my mind whispered, transferring the mutated virus from human to vampire. What did that do to the vamp? What did it do to the virus?

  “The Tor-al-Degan’s ritual is tomorrow. The senator’s even coming,” chided the Marlboro Man.

  “How should I know that?” asked Derek. “I just do what he tells me, and he never tells me more.”

  “Well, here’s what he’s telling you now,” said the other guard, his voice hard and sharp as an ax blade.

  A loud, scraping sound drowned out part of Ax’s message. Derek must’ve scratched his neck, or else gulped loudly, because all I heard was “—Undead tonight, and you’re snagging him another vampire so he can finish his test.”

  “Tonight?” The whine had reentered Derek’s voice. I suspected it never stepped very far aside. “I’ve lost so much blood. Surely tomorrow—”

  “—will be too late,” snapped Marlboro Man.

  Again the interference kept me from getting the complete reply.

  “—afterward?” said Derek.

  “Leave them to us,” said Ax. “We’ll make sure of it.”

  The third time was the charm for the bad guys. The sound that had kept parts of their conversation from me resumed in earnest and when it finished, I couldn’t hear anything more. Derek had killed the bug.

  I looked at my watch. More time had passed than I realized. Time enough, at least, to ensure that I’d fully recovered for my next meeting.

  “What did they say?” asked Cole.

  I hesitated, but he was already in it to his neck. So I told him what I knew. “That ritual is going to be the key,” I said. “If the senator’s coming, so are the rest of the bigwigs.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Dude, that’s just how politicians operate.” It’s going to be such a pleasure putting a bolt through your shriveled little heart, Senator. “Are you busy for the next hour?” I asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Then let’s chase another lead. Vayl knows a woman who might be able to decipher those glyphs you drew for me.”

  “Excellent.” I gave him the address, and Cole took the next left, heading us away from Derek and his companions. At least now I knew what destroyed my balance every time I got close to the man. The virus he carried must be as lethal as Aidyn and Assan had advertised. Though why those two thought it needed to become a vampire cocktail, I could not fathom. Maybe Cassandra could give us some insight into the whole situation.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Cassandra’s Pure & Natural was a tiny brick storefront in a predominantly Cuban neighborhood. Bins of fresh apples, oranges, and grapefruit sat on the sidewalk beside the door, which was equipped with the most soothing set of chimes I’d ever set off. Inside, the walls and aisles carried a surprisingly wide selection of spices, herbs, vitamins, and natural remedies for everything from erectile dysfunction to the common cold.

  I asked the cashier, a petite old woman with gleaming white teeth and blinding red hair, where we could find Cassandra. She directed us to the back of the store, where shelves full of fresh-baked breads, rolls, and sugar-free desserts made my stomach growl.

  As soon as Cole caught sight of Cassandra, he yanked off his glasses, spat out his fake teeth, and wrapped them both in his fishing hat, which went into the waistband of his sweats. Literally. He’d probably have to cut the lure to separate them. But at the moment he seemed pretty oblivious. All his concentration centered on Cassandra as she added some bran muffins to a glass case that already contained a full load of fiber-filled goodies for folks forced to make regularity a priority.

  A slender beauty with black-velvet skin and hair that fell in braids to her waist, Cassandra moved with the grace of a dancer. She wore a canary-yellow blouse, red flowered skirt, beaded moccasins, and enough gold jewelry to keep e-Bay shoppers bidding for weeks.

  “How may I help you?” she asked in an accent that made my Midwestern drawl sound pale and asexual.

  “My name is Lucille Robinson,” I said. “This is my friend Cole Bemont.” He nodded, doing a nice job of keeping his drool in check. “I—we—need a translation.”

  She nodded. “I assume you heard of me through a mutual acquaintance?”

  “Yes, um, you would probably know him as Vayl.”

  Instant sympathy filled her warm brown eyes, but all she said was, “Yes, I remember him.” She leaned aside, caught the cashier’s eye, and said, “We’re going upstairs, Rita.” To us, she said, “Follow me, please.”

  Cole managed to keep his tongue from rolling out onto the stairs as we trailed Cassandra’s swinging hips to the second floor. It made me laugh inwardly to see him smitten, as it were. But I was glad I’d seen the show. It confirmed my feelings for him. I might love him someday, but never in the way I’d loved Matt. Never in the way I could, maybe, if I found the guts, love Vayl.

  When we reached the landing at the top of the stairs I was surprised to find the three doors that opened to it, well, open. The one to our left revealed an apartment’s living room and kitchen. A bathroom stood directly in front of us, and a gypsy den sat on our right. That’s where Cassandra led us, into a large room, the walls of which were covered in silky materials that ranged from bloodred solids to dark gold prints. The new colors I saw within those familiar shades pleased my eye and my spirit. Somehow, despite the fringed pillows on the black couches and the multitude of candles on the large central table, the room maintained an exotic dignity.

  Four dark wooden chairs with more curlicues tha
n Shirley Temple sat around the table, which must’ve been crafted soon after Vayl’s transformation. Cassandra sank into one of the chairs and motioned for us to join her.

  “I sensed I would be entertaining three visitors today,” she said, her voice as satiny as the wall coverings. “Are you expecting another?”

  “Actually, yes, we are meeting a friend here. He should be arriving anytime now,” I said.

  Cassandra nodded, the golden studs that lined her ears shining with reflected light. “Rita will send him up when he arrives. Would you like to show me what you need translated?”

  I pulled the paper Cole had traced the symbols on out of my front pocket. I took care not to touch her as I handed it to her. Vayl might need the services of a Seer, but I preferred to leave my future a blank. My new senses told me that if Cassandra touched me, she would tell me things I didn’t want to hear. I was inclined to believe them.

  I’d never doubted Cassandra’s abilities. Charlatans don’t stay in the biz long when vamps join their clientele. But even if I had come into this thinking Cassandra’s upstairs gig was a fraud, her reaction to the symbols would’ve convinced me otherwise. She dropped the note onto the table in front of her as if she’d been burned. Her face tightened into a mask of fear, and the soul behind her eyes cringed like a spectator at the Holocaust Museum.

  “Where did you see these?” she asked, pointing a wavering finger at the symbols but making sure she didn’t touch them.

  “They had been carved into a dead body,” Cole told her. “Actually, two dead bodies on two separate occasions.”

  Cassandra fingered a crucifix at her neck and muttered under her breath in, well, oddly enough it sounded like Latin.

  “What are you saying?” Cole asked.

  She looked at him grimly. “A prayer for your protection.”