My first deep, whooping intake of air echoed Vayl’s nightly wakings in a way that made the watching me shudder. The creature who’d brought me back gave me a strange look, a mix of pride and pity that made him seem ancient. By the time I opened my eyes he was gone.
Feeling an immense sense of confusion, I struggled to focus. My first movements were so random I looked more like an infant than a professional vampire killer. A supreme effort brought me around to my hands and knees, and that’s when I saw Matt. The soul behind my eyes cracked like roughly used china.
Cassandra touched the orb and the picture faded as my true collapse began. I remembered it all now. The keening, the wailing, the crawling through the blood of my team, screaming for help. Losing, losing, losing my mind. I sent her a grateful glance for sparing me the humiliation of an audience for at least that part of my journey through hell.
“I am so sorry,” she said, swiping at the tears that rolled down her cheeks. She kept trying, and failing, to meet my eyes. Maybe she thought I intended to punish the messenger. And, okay, the thought had crossed my mind. Very briefly.
“I’m not mad, Cassandra,” I said. I struggled to explain. “For me, it’s always better to know. There was so much I couldn’t remember about that night, so much I needed to understand. Now I guess I do.”
“Yeah, but can you believe it?” asked Bergman. “I sat here and watched the whole thing and I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that you’re—”
I cocked my head at him. “Alive? Or should I say undead?”
Vayl gave my shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. “Welcome to the club.”
Eventually the shock faded, replaced by our pressing need to rescue Cole and my own personal desire to reduce Aidyn to so much vapor. Vayl’s focus remained on Assan, as it should. And we hoped to find all three at Alpine Meadows.
Everybody sort of wandered off, leaving me free to do what I needed. So I worked. Packing our gear calmed me more than anything. The familiar movements through my memorized checklist made me feel, well, real. I spent extra time cleaning Grief, making sure it was fully loaded and ready to smoke. I found new pockets for the toys Bergman had provided that I wasn’t actually wearing, and stowed the rest of our stuff where it belonged. I came more fully back to myself when I banged my head on the van door while loading it, and finally understood why sometimes people just need to be pinched.
We left Bergman elbow deep in blood tests and Cassandra up to her eyeballs in some musty old books she’d brought with her. If worse came to worse, as I find it often does, maybe she could figure out how to deal with the Tor-al-Degan. She was sure giving it the old college try. She’d read for a while, find something pertinent, and whisper it to the Enkyklios. She hadn’t gotten the marbles to move by the time we headed for the van, but hopefully it was just a matter of time.
Behind the wheel again, I maneuvered the van through traffic without once swearing at the red Volkswagen that cut me off or the light blue Taurus that hugged my bumper like a lost and lonely child. When it finally turned off our street, Vayl heaved a sigh of relief. “I expected you to slam on the brakes if that man followed you any closer.”
“The thought never crossed my mind.”
He sat silent and stared at me for so long I started to squirm. “What?” I finally asked.
“Are you going to change now?”
The question took me aback. “Shouldn’t I?”
He frowned. Then the mask returned, settling over his face like a shroud. “Of course. Never mind.”
“Look, Vayl, it’s . . . Reliving the nightmare . . . This new knowledge . . . It’s too much, you know? I don’t know how to act. Hell, I don’t know what to think.” I shook my head. “It’s too big for me to figure out all at once. So I’m just going to be Jaz Parks, Albert’s daughter, Dave and Evie’s sister, and Vayl’s avhar for now. If I need to tack another label on later”—angel? demon? zombie?—“I guess there’s room there at the end of the list.”
Vayl’s eyes snapped to my face when I said “avhar” and stayed there until I met them with my own. The shroud lifted and he smiled. “I like your plan.”
“Is that what it is?”
“Yes.”
“How about my idea to rescue Cole?”
“I like that too. Where are the smoke grenades?”
“In the duffel with everything else.”
“What about this new communications invention Bergman gave you?”
“Might as well try it out.” I told him where to find it and he dug it out, handing me my hearing aid and mouth-mint, putting his own in place. We did a little test and I got goose bumps when Vayl’s voice came to me in Barry White bass. They disappeared when he told me mine did the same.
Forty-five minutes later we reached the cul-de-sac behind Assan’s house. We would access his property from the back, case the place, figure out who was situated where, and move on to Plan B, which involved heaps of smoke and a well-timed call to the fire department. During the diversion we would execute Cole’s rescue, and the Double As, if our luck held. But not until they’d spilled all the juicy details on tomorrow’s ritual. Then we’d make them all wish they’d caught their own virus.
Big words for a skinny, redheaded woman who had never felt so overwhelmed in her life. Because, to be honest, I wasn’t sure we could pull this off. Yeah, we would put up a helluva fight. But we were going against the most vicious, brutal minds on the planet. People who didn’t believe in rules or mercy or the sanctity of life. And even worse, people with the money and the contacts to pull off whatever atrocious plan their devious little minds could concoct. To top it all off, I had no idea how to beat their Kyron. Starve it? Give it permanent amnesia? You’ve got to be kidding me! Hopefully we could wring that information out of Aidyn and Assan as well. Otherwise Cassandra, her ancient tomes, and her New Age library would be holding our last hope.
We parked the van, Vayl retrieved our bag, and I locked it up tight, using a special button on Bergman’s key ring to activate its security system. I wasn’t sure how it worked, but I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he’d rigged the van to blow if anyone so much as wiggled the door handle while it was set.
The oval of pavement we’d chosen as our parking lot was well lit but quiet. Each of the six homes that surrounded it looked fit to house a president. But despite the lights glowing behind several of the windows, I had a feeling no one was home. It gave credence to my theory that anyone who could afford such luxury never had time to enjoy it.
We walked into the strip of trees that led to the edge of Assan’s property. An artfully landscaped palm grove, it reminded me, despite the lights at my back, of a desert island. But maybe that was because I couldn’t shake the feeling Cassandra’s little show had given me that I’d been marooned. When we hit the border of those trees and saw Assan’s expansive backyard, the feeling grew into a sickening sort of anxiety.
“Vayl,” I whispered, “something’s wrong.”
He nodded. “We will wait and watch.” Fifteen minutes later nothing had moved, inside the house or out, and I still couldn’t relax. “I was kind of expecting dogs,” I said.
“Or at least a patrol,” Vayl added. “Let us go.”
We made the short, cross-country run to the kitchen door without incident. I started to check out the security system, then realized the door was cracked open.
“Vayl.” I spoke so low I thought even Bergman’s communicators wouldn’t pick me up, but he turned to look at me. I pointed at the door, said, “Trap?”
He studied it and what he could see of the dark, empty room beyond through the window. “It could be,” he whispered. He nudged the door open and squeezed through. Snapping my watch band for maximum stealth, I followed close behind. My disquieting feeling doubled. I concentrated on it, tried to pinpoint its source.
“Something’s really wrong here,” I hissed as we crept past a six-burner stove, an immense island, a three-door fridge. “Somebody’s feel
ing extreme . . . It’s hard to explain. They’re . . . on some sort of edge.”
“Yes, I feel it too. What do you think? Are they waiting for us?” Vayl asked.
“I don’t know.”
We found the back stair that Cole had used to escape from the guards at the party. Vayl gestured that he would check the rooms along the farthest hall, so I took the three closest, working my way from the back toward the rest room where Cole and I had met.
No one occupied the first room, but Derek’s scent lingered, the way it will beside an empty trash bin. The second room had been an office, and might be again. But the file drawers sat open and empty. So too did the desk drawers. And a dust outline showed where the computer had rested.
“They’ve cleared out,” I said. “This room used to hold a paper trail. Now even the shredder’s clean.”
“So far only two deserted bedrooms over here,” Vayl told me. “Empty hangers. Empty drawers.”
“Damn! So much for solid evidence.”
“Maybe not. I hear something coming from the third room.”
“I’ll be right there.” I hurried across the front hall to where Vayl stood, poised to open the third door once he’d satisfied himself it didn’t hide an army.
“That’s the source of the bad feelings I’m getting,” I whispered, “behind that door.”
“Did you hear that?” Vayl asked.
I nodded, trying to identify the sound. There it went again, the deep, throaty utterance of a person in pain. And then—“Is that . . . ?”
“Crying? I think so.”
“Let’s get in there.”
For an answer, Vayl tried the door. It was locked.
“No problem,” I whispered, pulling off my necklace. I slid the shark tooth into the lock, waited a second, turned it. The door yielded to my funky key with a soft click. I left the key in the lock and drew Grief. Vayl had left his cane in the van, but he was hardly unarmed. I felt his power shift and rise as we prepared to enter the room.
“On three,” Vayl whispered. He raised his fingers in quick succession, one, two, three. Vayl threw open the door, shoving his power in front of him like a winter storm. Anyone inside would feel it as a compelling need to do whatever Vayl required before their eyelids froze shut.
I dove inside, staying low, seeking targets. The only one I saw was bleeding too heavily to be any sort of threat.
I holstered Grief and ran to where she lay on the floor of a bedroom so frilly and sumptuous I could not have imagined violence occurring there, except for the beaten woman sprawled on the Persian rug.
“Amanda?”
She moaned, tried to open her swollen eyes. Only the right one obeyed, and that by just a slit. “He said you’d come.”
“Assan?”
She shook her head, winced, and fresh tears tracked down her torn and broken face. “Cole,” she croaked. I could hardly believe talking was still an option for her.
“Give me your phone,” Vayl said. “I am calling an ambulance.”
I fished it from my pocket and tossed it to him.
“Too late,” Amanda gasped. “I’m . . . you must listen.” She reached up and I took her hand. It seemed to comfort her. “I thought that . . . since I couldn’t sneak you in here . . . I could find some evidence for you.”
“Oh, Amanda. Didn’t Cole tell you how dangerous your husband is?”
“Yes.” She licked her lips. “So thirsty.”
“I will get you some water,” said Vayl, his call already complete. He left the room.
“Is that the vampire?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Mohammed . . . thought he was dead.”
“How do you know that?”
She took a couple of breaths, seemed to steel herself. “I overheard him talking on the phone. So I confronted him.”
“I sure wish you hadn’t done that.”
“We fought,” she went on, her voice bleak. “He . . . admitted he killed my brother. He said Michael was a Son of Paradise too. That the trip to India was his idea, to get some relics they needed to summon . . . But then he tried to back out.” In my imagination I could see them fighting over Assan’s virulent plans, with Michael dying horribly as a result. But what in the world had he thought would happen? It angered me that this family had no sense of self-preservation. Somebody should’ve smacked them upside the heads years ago and said, “Wake up, fools! You can be hurt!” But even as I raged, logical me wondered why the move to the United States when they already had the Kyron in their pockets in India.
Amanda went on. “He made me admit I’d hired Cole. Then he brought Cole here and made him watch while he . . . beat . . . me.” One hopeless sob escaped her swollen lips.
“The bastard’s going to die for this, Amanda.”
Amanda sighed. “Okay.” She was quiet for so long I thought maybe she’d passed out. Or passed on. She stirred. “He burned the files. Took the bag from the safe. Except for . . . He said it was the key, so I snuck it from the bag while he was . . . out.”
The hand I wasn’t holding had been lying across her chest. Now she raised it, pointed to the bed. I lifted the ruffled skirt, fighting a flash of childhood apprehension as I peered underneath. Even with my enhanced night vision I could barely see the pyramid that sat there, just tall enough to brush the bedspring. I pulled it out. It weighed a lot more than I’d expected.
“What is it the key to?” I wondered aloud.
Vayl, who’d just reentered the room, came over to look. “Something else for Cassandra to research?”
“I guess so. If she has time. If we have time.”
Vayl helped Amanda drink some of the water he’d brought her. When she’d had her fill, he laid her head back onto a pillow I had taken from the bed. I’d never seen him so gentle.
“Mohammed took everything else with him.” Amanda’s mind must have been wandering—or shutting down. She was repeating herself. But her next comment was new. “He said the things in his bag . . . he’d used them to summon his goddess and that”—she squeezed her good eye shut and new tears emerged—“that it had eaten my brother’s soul.” I patted her arm, at a loss to know how to comfort her.
I spoke to Vayl now. “There it is, proof that he summoned the Tor-al-Degan in India. So why didn’t it decimate that country? Why does he need to do it again over here?”
“Maybe he did something wrong there. Maybe he timed it wrong,” suggested Vayl.
I shook my head, frustrated by our ignorance. “Maybe Cassandra will come up with something.”
We heard the strident wail of the ambulance and silently agreed it was time to go.
“We have to leave, Amanda,” I said. “The paramedics are here.” But she didn’t hear me. Sometimes it happens like that, while you’re looking the other way, distracted by events and conversations. Sometimes people just go. Those quiet departures sit wrong with me. Death should be louder.
“Wait,” I said as Vayl took the pyramid. It seemed disrespectful to leave before Amanda. Her essence rose from her body, violet and blue with large golden crystals interspersed here and there.
“Do you see it?” I whispered. Vayl shook his head. “I wish you could see it. It’s so . . .” There really were no words. Maybe just the “ooh” and “aah” that comes unbidden from you when you see an amazing display of fireworks. And then, just as suddenly as the fire fades from the sky, she was gone.
I retrieved my necklace/key from the door and we left the way we’d come, melting into the trees along the edge of Assan’s estate just as the ambulance crew reached Amanda’s room and turned the light on.
“We’ve got to find Cole.” An unnecessary statement, I know, but I could hardly contain the urgency I felt.
“Where do you suggest we look?”
“I’ve only seen Assan in one other place—chatting up Aidyn Strait at Club Undead.”
“It is as good a place to try as any.”
I let Vayl drive. I think he was flattered. To
be honest, directing a van down the interstate is, for me, at most a Jell-O-mold-elephant kind of thrill. Plus, I needed to get some updates. I called Bergman first. After a series of annoying beeps and whistles he answered. “Is this line secure?” he asked.
“Safe as a home run hitter. What have you got?”
“Drugs in Vayl’s blood supply called Topamax. They tried to dope him with a huge dosage of an antiseizure medication that’s also used to prevent migraines.”
I repeated the report to Vayl, who let out a string of curses that would’ve made Hugh Hefner blush.
“Okay, thanks. How’s Cassandra doing?”
“No luck so far.”
“Um, would you mind helping her with her research? We really need to find out all we can about this monster.” I described the pyramid we’d found and waited for him to jump on the bandwagon. Unfortunately he’s afraid of wagons. And bands. There was this pause, during which I could almost hear him cringing.
“Bergman, she’s trustworthy.”
His voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t know. She’s got that funky, supernatural thing going on.”
“As opposed to Vayl’s perfectly straightforward existence? And mine, come to think of it?”
“She’s different.”
“In what way?” I asked, wishing I could reach through the receiver and shake some sense into him.
“What if she touches me?”
Aah, now we were getting somewhere. The man who hoarded his secrets like pirate treasure wanted nothing to do with the woman who could divine them anytime she pleased. I said, “I promise she won’t touch you. And if you’re that worried about it, go find a pair of gloves. Tell her you’re cold and get busy helping us out, man!”
“Okay, then,” he said after some hesitation. “You’ll call?”
“Or come knocking.”
“Good enough.” We broke the connection. Albert was next on my list. He answered on the first ring.
Once Bitten, Twice Shy Page 21
