I gathered Bergman hadn’t entirely passed on the description I’d given him of the pyramid. Considering the import of such information, I seriously considered calling in some folks with handcuffs and squad cars. Maybe that would scare him out of his idiotic prejudices. But that would be for later. Now Cassandra seemed to be on a roll. She studied the book with more and more interest while the men studied her. About the time I expected her to jump up and shout “Eureka!” or something equally enthusiastic but a lot less geeky, my cell phone rang. After an odd moment when my nonexistent hands itched to dive into my absent pockets, I realized Vayl had it. Our gazes met across the room and he raised his eyebrows as if to say, Should I answer it? I nodded.
“Hello, you have reached Jasmine Parks’s phone. This is Vayl speaking.” He listened intently. “No,” he said. “I am afraid Jasmine is not available. Can I take a message? . . . Oh, hello, Mr. Parks.”
Holy crap on a TV tray! My dad is talking to my undead boss! Could this get any stranger?
Apparently so. Because when Vayl hung up he said, “You never told me how kind your father is, Jasmine.”
Kind? This was the man who cut off little old ladies with his grocery cart so he could beat them to the checkout counter. If you caught him at the park, he wouldn’t be feeding the pigeons, he’d be shooting them. Once I saw him punt a Chihuahua twenty yards because it nipped his ankle. Kind? Huh!
I whooshed at Vayl, making him blink. “Oh no, you don’t,” I ordered him. “You don’t get to like my dad until I like my dad, and I don’t. Do I?” I could tell he thought I’d really flipped out. So I tried to distract him. It turned out to be remarkably easy. “What did Albert have to say?” I asked.
“Senator Bozcowski does have a prescription for Topamax. Apparently he suffers from migraines. Also his cousin-in-law owns the firm that made your faulty beacon. And get this: He’s on the board of directors for the National Zoo. Not to mention vacationing with his family in Miami at the moment. But you knew that. Did you also know when he is scheduled to return to Washington?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure his dance card’s full tomorrow night, so I’ll say . . . day after tomorrow.”
“No.”
“No?”
“He is leaving in the morning.”
“This morning?” As Vayl nodded I checked out the Regulator clock hanging over the fireplace. It showed close to midnight. Oh my God, it’s happening tonight! Those lying weasels!
“Um, Vayl?” Bergman ventured hesitantly. “Is there a reason you’re talking to the mantel?”
Vayl quickly explained, making it sound like I’d gotten myself into a predicament when I had, in fact, been trying to rescue poor Cole from the sling we’d wound him into to start with! While Vayl talked, Bergman searched the air for clues to my existence, Cassandra smirked at Bergman, and Cole just slouched among the pretty pillows, scowling at the drawn curtains. When Vayl had finished, Cassandra stared at Bergman triumphantly. “Explain that with your equations!” Before he could think up a suitable retort she went on. “By the way, while you were playing doctor, I found it.”
“Found what, Cassandra?” Vayl demanded. “Quickly please, Jasmine and I have to leave.”
“The key!” She pointed to the artifact. “The Tor-al-Degan! I believe I have found the words”—she glanced at Bergman—“the spell that activates the key.” She held up, not a book, but the Enkyklios. “We seem to have a detailed record of this beast after all.”
“It sounds as if you are coming with us, then.”
Bergman lurched off the couch, went to Vayl and grabbed his shoulder, which he quickly released when Vayl shot him his don’t-touch-me look. But he didn’t back down completely. “If she goes, I go,” he said, jabbing a finger toward Cassandra.
“Fine.”
Bergman blinked a couple of times, surprised at his success.
“You’re not leaving me here while Jaz is sitting on that bomb,” said Cole. We all looked at him. Despite the fact that he resembled a plane crash survivor, no one ventured an argument as to why he should stay. Finally Vayl said, “All right, if that is what you want.”
“It is.”
Another moment of silence passed out of respect for Cole’s determination and, on my part at least, an attempt to balance myself against a staggering wave of concern. How were we supposed to keep them all safe? I wasn’t sure it was possible, but I could tell none of them would entertain my arguments. As I fought a feeling of impending doom, Bergman launched himself into a packing frenzy Cassandra quickly copied. For the next five minutes my little gang looked like they were preparing a full-scale evacuation. All except for Cole, who glared at the drapes so hard I was kind of surprised they didn’t catch fire. And I was pretty sure that wasn’t Visine I saw glittering in his eyes.
Vayl drove toward Club Undead like a drag racer. Every time he had to stop for a light or a sign, his next move was a flat-pedal takeoff. The first couple of zero to sixties left me so unprepared, I found myself hovering outside the van watching its taillights rush off into the night. When I resumed my place between him and Cassandra for the third time, he sent me an apologetic look. “Sorry about that.”
“That’s all right,” said Cassandra, overriding my objections without realizing I wanted to voice them. “So can I tell you what I have learned about the key?” We both nodded. “It acts as a controller. Remember I told you the Tor-al-Degan can perform good or evil acts? Whoever owns the key can tell it what to do.”
“So if they summon the beast before we get there, all we have to do is tell it to go back to where it came from,” said Vayl.
“I’m not so sure. In fact, I think the Tor-al-Degan is already here. You said it ate the soul of Amanda’s brother. And Cole said the torso they found bore the same markings.”
“True. But Jaz said they said they needed a willing sacrifice.”
“Yes. According to my research, the Tor-al-Degan cannot be completely released from its bonds until it receives a willing sacrifice. It can, however, exist in more than one realm at once. Which is why I think it is already here. Most of it, anyway.”
“Why would they bring it only partway into the world?” asked Bergman.
“I suppose they didn’t know any better. They seem to be working from a partial text, or perhaps a copy of a copy of a translation that has left out vital information.”
Vayl clutched the steering wheel hard and shifted anxiously in his seat. “We have to get there. Now!” He laid on the horn as a light brown Crown Victoria pulled out in front of him, forcing him to brake hard. “Next time take the bus, you old geester!” he yelled as he swerved to go around.
“Geezer,” I corrected him.
He glared at me. “Never leave your body again!” He jerked us back into our lane just in time to keep us from getting flattened by a street-sweet Hummer. He tried twice more, nearly colliding with a red Mustang and a dark blue Camry before he finally succeeded in leaving the old fart to stew in his prunes.
“Would you quit driving like a maniac if I went back to my body?” I asked. I’d never seen him so unnerved.
“Yes!” Vayl practically shouted. He took a breath, visibly pulled himself together. “We need to know if you are still unharmed, whether they have moved you, what they are planning. Report back as soon as you discover anything at all.”
“Gladly,” I agreed. “Your driving is making me nauseous and I don’t even have a stomach!” I floated through the roof of the van and looked around. All my golden cords still stretched in their various directions. Was it me, or did they seem slightly dimmer than before? I didn’t spend much time pondering. I was too busy looking for the light that connected the separate parts of me. I played the cords one by one, as if they were the strings of a gigantic harp, and delighted to hear one of them sing my own tune back to me. It wasn’t as pure as Evie’s or as powerful as Vayl’s, but I liked it all the same. Especially when it led me straight back to my body.
There I sat, breathing,
blinking, looking as blank as the porcelain dolls Evie collected. I shook my ethereal head. Unfathomable. I still sat alone and, yes, the bomb still blinked its harsh lights at me when I checked under the chair.
No longer interested in standing at my own side, I moved out, through the door into the control booth, now manned by a bald black man who looked fit enough to break world-sprint records. He played with the sound board, tweaking the music that pounded through the teeming rooms beyond. It hadn’t taken long for the smoke to clear and the partiers to return.
Floating out the window and over the humans and vamps who danced shoulder-to-shoulder, I imagined the devastation that would occur if I jumped back into my body and rose from the chair. Hundreds would die. Still, it’s nothing compared to the loss of life our targets have planned. Something to consider. Seriously. But not yet. At least not until I found them, and it would take precious minutes to search the crowd, time I no longer possessed.
“Help me out here, would you?” I asked, hoping the owner of the thunderous voice hadn’t taken a nap. “I’ve got to find the three stooges.” Intuition told me I could sniff out evil now that I’d seen and accepted my transformation, but that ability didn’t help much here, with my nose stuck in the attic.
The answer rolled across me like an avalanche, reverberating through me, making me glad I didn’t currently possess teeth that might well have shattered against each other in the aftermath. “UNDERGROUND!” I fought a perverse urge to do just the opposite: float back into the atmosphere, chase down the source of that overwhelming voice, and discuss with it the benefits of the whisper. But something told me once I went hunting for my guide, I might never be able to return.
So I dropped from my lofty perch near the catwalk, past the dancers’ masklike faces, and through the floor beneath their feet. The wine cellar I entered looked like it belonged under a medieval castle. Dusty bottles lined row after row of custom-made shelves that filled more than half the space. A gorgeous cherry table with four matching chairs stood at the open end of the room, made even more prominent by the ornate Persian rug lying underneath them. Floating next to the table, I could see a set of stone stairs leading upward. But my guide had left strict instructions. So I dove through the wide-planked pine floor into the cancerous bowels of Club Undead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I fell into a pit, the symbolic significance of which did not escape me. Lit by flaming torches, painted by their smoke, the pit easily measured four times the width and length of the wine cellar standing above it. Uneven stacks of floor-to-ceiling stone impeded the view, so you could never see more than a quarter of it at once. The walls were as crooked as the load-bearing columns, as if some enormous mole had been snacking on various sections, leaving shallow caverns and outcroppings in its wake.
I drifted around the pit’s perimeter, hugging the jagged wall like an amateur skater. The floor beneath my non-feet looked muddy, and steaming pools of viscous liquid made me wonder just what a good CSI would discover given the right chemicals.
In one corner a bona fide stream trickled through a gap in the wall and exited via a basin that could’ve been twenty feet deep for all its blank, black surface revealed. In another corner I discovered portable metal stairs that led up to a door in the ceiling. A quick check confirmed that it opened to the wine cellar, though it was hidden by the rug that lay beneath the tasting table.
About halfway between the stream basin and the stair, a folding table leaned against the wall. It reminded me of the church buffet suppers Granny May had dragged us kids to on alternating Sunday nights during our summer visits. Eight devoted parishioners could’ve used it comfortably, or perhaps, not so comfortably after all. The dried stains on the tabletop looked a lot more like blood than beef gravy.
The occupants of the pit stood in groups of two or three, wearing basic black, as if they meant to attend a highbrow cocktail party after the festivities ended here. I counted thirteen altogether, none of whom I recognized as major players. Disappointed that Bozcowski, Aidyn, and Assan, not to mention Derek and Liliana, were haunting some other pit—I mean part—of Miami, I continued my exploration. Still hugging the wall, I moved toward the part of the room farthest from the stairs.
I saw her before she saw me, and though I withdrew into a shallow alcove, I knew she would not miss me once she knew what to look for. The Tor-al-Degan viewed the world through cold, dead eyes, making me feel like a deer forced to drink from crocodile-infested waters. Irises the color of gangrene swam in pus-hued sclera, making any of the acolytes they rested on shudder and back up a step. I’m not sure I’d have held my ground either. And I could understand why no picture of her existed in Cassandra’s old books. She was just plain hard to see.
It could have been a trick of the lighting, the rise and fall of flame throwing odd shadows so all you got were confusing snapshots, none of which revealed an entire picture. After the eyes I didn’t expect to glimpse an ounce of beauty in the beast, but there was a finely sculpted cheekbone, and there, the smooth curve of a shoulder. But I couldn’t blame the fizzle-fade the Tor did next on the torches. I blinked, squeezed my eyes shut before I remembered they weren’t physical orbs at the moment.
Must be tough, existing in a couple of different planes at once, I thought, as she gained enough definition that I could make out a foot—oh, ugh, make that a big, hairy claw. Definitely hard on the posture, too. She seemed to hunch, as if to protect something she held close, though I couldn’t tell what it might be since she wore a dark, voluminous gown that hid a great deal. Then she turned her head and I saw the webbed tissue that connected her neck to something even larger that moved, squirmed, underneath the material that covered her back.
Again, the Tor-al-Degan began to fade, taking on the translucence of fine Japanese paper. She turned her head toward the waiting crowd, which immediately began to chant and sway, reminding me of the snake charmers I’d seen on Discovery Channel specials. Three women, all in their late thirties, all prematurely gray, stepped forward. They kept their backs to the crowd as they knelt on the floor, their knees sinking a good inch in the muck. The rest of the group formed a semicircle behind them and fell to their knees as well. The bottom third of their pants darkened as the cloth soaked up the mystery soup that covered the floor. As I tried to figure out its ingredients, Granny May’s strident voice popped into my head. Well, that’ll never come out, not even with bleach. Frankly, I was glad to hear her. This whole scene gave me the willies. Mostly because I figured my sacrifice was going to be part of the Big Finish.
The Tor’s eyes swiveled in their sockets as she opened her mouth so wide her jaw came unhinged with an audible pop. Enormous fangs descended from the pointed teeth surrounding them, and she spit thick white goo at the watchers, making them cringe and retreat though they continued to chant. Then the Tor whipped her head sideways and slammed those teeth into the wall. The power she might soon unleash became clear as she took a bite out of the trembling earth, leaving ugly black scars in her wake.
As soon as she began to chew she solidified, and I realized how she’d managed to survive in this state for so long. Not only did she gain sustenance from unwilling souls, but she fed on the earth as well. Assuming our Native Americans were right, some of the earth’s spirit entered her that way, providing even more nourishment. Though I don’t throw trash on the ground and I have been known to recycle a soda can or two, I’d never thought of myself as an environmentalist until that moment, when all I could see were the scars she’d left in her steady consumption of the good earth.
That’s enough, I thought. That’s all I need to see. That’s all I want to see.
I rushed back to my body and found it where I’d left it, still blinking and breathing, still alone. Out the window I flew, my phantom heart skipping a beat when I discovered the cords connecting me with everyone who mattered in my life had now visibly faded, a hushed octet drawn from the original magnificent orchestra.
Urgency moved me to new sp
eeds and I reached the van within thirty seconds. Vayl jumped in his seat when I dropped through the roof, landing on, or rather in, Cassandra’s lap. Muttering a quick apology, I withdrew to my former spot while Vayl informed Bergman and Cole that I’d rejoined them.
“They’ve started the ceremony,” I said. “It’s happening below the basement of Club Undead.”
Vayl slammed on the brakes and I suddenly found myself perched on the hood of the van as it slid to a stop inches from the back bumper of a dirty green station wagon. Just ahead of us a four-car pileup jammed the street. It must’ve just happened, because all the drivers involved still sat in their cars and no cops were in sight. I moved over to Vayl’s side of the van, standing beside his window as if I really had feet, and told him what I’d seen.
“Dammit!” Vayl never swore. Never. I guess that’s when I knew how much he cared. He jerked the van into reverse, but braked hard again as he realized a parade of minivans had him blocked in. He shoved the van into park and let it idle. “This is going to take some time. Go back to your body and stall them.”
“What? Vayl, this is not a basketball game! I can’t go in there and eat the clock, because when that buzzer sounds the whole top-floor explodes!”
“You have got to do this, Jasmine. We will be there as soon as I can convince these drivers to move.”
“How are you going to know where to find me?”
“Give me directions.” So I did, along with my last excuse.
“I don’t want to go. What if the monster eats my soul?” I sounded like a three-year-old cowering under the covers because we all know what sleeps under the bed. But I was scared, more even than I’d been that night in West Virginia, when I’d been young and dumb enough to believe I could survive anything.
Vayl stared into my eyes, willing me to believe him. “It will not. And if it does, we will hang it by the ankles and thump it on the back until it coughs you up.”
Once Bitten, Twice Shy Page 24
