Bitten to Death

by Jennifer Rardin

  Vayl yelled, “Disa, no!”

  I shot her once, winging her, but it was too late. She’d already grabbed the bartender’s gun and ripped it out of his hands, though it went off before he released it, showering steel shot into the ceiling. Chunks of plaster peppered our heads and shoulders as the bartender died, the front half of his head severed from his body by Disa’s razor-sharp tentacles.

  She spun as my bullet hit her, her add-ons waving like sea anemones. “Now you die!” she croaked, jumping easily from the bar.

  Despite the fact that fear had turned my intestines to that ooze Dr. Scholl squirts into his insoles, I amazed myself by opening my mouth and saying, “Really, Disa. You’re the Deyrar of a kickass Trust about to square off with one of America’s best assassins, and that’s the best line you can come up with? Plus, and this is just my curiosity talking, do you really think Vayl’s going to feel ecstatic about anything now? Your plan’s a big fat bust. Now that Samos is dead, what do you say you release him from this ridiculous bond and we all go home happy?”

  “No!” she screamed, well and truly beyond reason now. “I can force ecstasy on him if I must. I am sure the world wouldn’t be seething with drug addicts if I couldn’t find one chemical that would put him in exactly the state I require. Which means you are not necessary to either of us now.”

  She whipped those medusa tails toward me and I reacted instinctively, leaping backward, surprising myself at the speed at which I avoided decapitation, knowing my exchange with Trayton had everything to do with it. I pulled my bolo as Vayl roared in outrage and jumped to my defense. “Vayl, no!” I screamed as he jumped between Disa and me and, for the second time in my life, I could do nothing to stop the man I loved from dying in my place.

  I staggered backward against Dave, who grabbed my arm and helped me regain my balance. The boom of Cam’s gun sent Disa staggering, but not before she took a second swing at me. Except Vayl was standing where I should’ve been, and he bore the full force of her attack.

  “Vayl!” I yanked myself out of Dave’s arms and clawed at my sverhamin’s back, sure he was only standing because his brain hadn’t yet been able to send the rest of his body the message that it was truly dead. My fingers hit hard, unyielding, frozen . . . “Oh, yes!” Tears ran down my face and I didn’t even care that they might later give somebody in the room cause to call me a crybaby. “You genius!” He’d raised his greatest power, one he’d only recently acquired, and in a way none of us could properly explain. He’d armored himself in ice.

  Everything’s going to be okay.

  Yeah, I actually thought that.

  Idiot.

  Cirilai sent pain exploding through my hand, forcing me to pull it into my chest as if it had been broken in six places. No, Disa hadn’t pulled this one. The ring’s warning rang true this time. Disa’s bonding spell combined with her attack on me had ripped away the last bit of Vayl’s self-control.

  He grabbed her with both hands, tangling one in her hair because it was hard for him to grasp with his digits encased in ice and he needed a way to keep her from running. The other went straight to her tentacles and ripped. The part of my mind that wanted badly to keep a distance thought, It’s kinda like watching a disgruntled electrician tear the cables out of a fuse box.

  But, of course, it wasn’t like that at all. And when he didn’t stop there, I realized we could be in big trouble.

  “Vayl!” I put both hands on his shoulders, though his shirt had begun to shred and the cold burned my palms. “You’ve got to stop!”

  Cole made a sudden move that caught my attention. He’d kept quiet up to this point. Observing the action, watching the CIA’s wanted man. Now he drew his Beretta Storm and trained it on him. I looked over my shoulder. Petrov Kublevsky’s companion was slumped over his drink, as if he’d had way more than he could handle. But he’d come in after us and our uproar would’ve made a lifetime alcoholic recall one of his more spectacular blackouts. Kublevsky had risen halfway off his chair before he realized Cole had taken aim at him. At least it seemed that way. But I saw the glint of metal, held close to his chest as he pretended to sit back down.

  I yelled, “Cole, he’s armed!”

  They both fired at once. Cole had won more shooting competitions than his wall had room for trophies. He should’ve nailed the guy and walked away clean. He had the angle and ample cover. But Vayl and Disa were fighting, wrestling almost, and they rammed into him just as he took the shot.

  The shove pushed him right into Kublevsky’s line of fire while it threw him off, guaranteeing only that he wounded his target while the bullet that should have zipped harmlessly past his shoulder buried itself in his chest.

  “Son of a bitch!” Cam swung his gun off Disa and emptied it into the Russian, who managed to return a single round as he slammed backward into the wall.

  I screamed as Cole fell and Cam tumbled into a bar stool before collapsing to the floor.

  Dave raced to Cam’s side, so I went to Cole. I stood over him like a stone-cold fool who’s been clubbed on both sides of the head and can’t think what to do. “Vayl?” I whispered. He’d reached down for his cane. But his ice-encased fingers wouldn’t close around it.

  “What do I do?” I murmured. “This is . . . it’s just like the prophecy. Maybe Cassandra was wrong. Maybe you have met your sons. And because it was too soon, they’ve died again.”

  I gazed into Cole’s pain-bunched face, stifling an urge to run a comb through his tousled hair. I turned my eyes to Cam, lying still on his side. When I looked back at Vayl I realized he’d heard. He’d understood. He stared at the two young men at his feet.

  When our eyes met I realized he wasn’t seeing me at all. “You did this!” he cried, turning on Disa with an expression I recognized because I’d worn it myself only seventeen months earlier. It was the mind-bending combination of grief and rage that had nearly driven me mad.

  He slammed his hand against his chest, shattering the armor that covered his fingers, sending ice shards flying from them like poisoned darts. Once again he grabbed for the cane, his hand tightening and twisting even as he straightened. The sheath flew across the room, knocking the napkin dispenser off a table before clattering back to the floor. Disa watched it with unbelieving eyes. “Vayl!” she screamed. “You are Vampere! I am your mate!”

  He pinned her with dead, black eyes. “You are nothing to me!” He shoved his sword through Disa’s heart. Since it was metal it didn’t kill her. But, already weakened by her previous injuries, she couldn’t seem to hold her feet against this one. She dropped to her knees. He jerked the sword free. As if I could read his mind, I knew his plan.

  “Vayl, no!” I cried. “You’ll die!” But he was buried in more than ice. He swung the sword with all his might. Not knowing what else to do, I screamed at Dave. “Banzai!”

  He turned from Cam, who he’d just helped sit up. What? my mind yelled even as my twin and I charged Vayl, both of us going in low. My eyes sought Cole. He too was rising, pulling his shirt open to check out the damage on his bulletproof vest.

  “Vayl!” I screamed as Dave and I raced toward him. “Stop! Cam and Cole are alive!”

  We hit him just as his sword sliced into Disa’s neck. I screamed again as I felt my collarbone crack when it met the unyielding armor encasing Vayl’s thigh. The entire floor shook as Dave and I took Vayl down. When he didn’t immediately move, I turned to Disa. She was still in one piece, but just barely. The sword had split into her neck and lodged in her spine. She lay in a heap on the floor, the blood puddling beneath her like a filling tub.

  I wasn’t at all surprised when the face rose from those red waters to blink at me in utter frustration. “She must die,” it said.

  “No. If she goes, so does Vayl. Give me another choice.”

  I’d never seen anyone gnash his teeth until that very moment. Not pretty. Especially when done by a blood vision. But finally he realized I wasn’t going to budge. “All right, then. There may be
one other option. But it is not going to be popular.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  We took the plane back, since there were too many of us for the helicopter and we were in a helluva hurry. Jack harassed us all the way from Skofja Loka to the Trust, tripping people up, ramming his big shoulders into our legs in a way his grin said was friendly but I began to think was otherwise. As Admes bused us all to the villa, I whispered in Jack’s ear, “You don’t have to tell me how much this plan sucks. But until you come up with a better idea, it’s all I’ve got.”

  Trayton and his pack, along with Kozma and the five werebears he could muster on short notice, met us at the Trust’s borders, followed us inside the mansion, and provided the numbers we needed to herd everyone into Hamon’s hallway. They, more than anything, had convinced the Trust vamps to follow my lead.

  “It’s this or war,” I’d told them flatly. “The Weres have agreed to lay aside their grudges against you, righteous though they are, in return for your cooperation with my plan.”

  Opening the doors to Hamon’s suite again posed something of a dilemma until I decided to summon the vision one last time.

  Gesturing with my good arm for Genti to step out of the crowd, I had Trayton and Phoebe hold him as I pulled my knife. “You’ve got a lot to answer for,” I told the shaking vamp. “It’s hard to know where to start.” I nodded to Aine, who stood near the back of the crowd wearing a dark red veil, her hand steady on Admes’s elbow. “But I’m thinking you can give her some payback right now.”

  I directed Phoebe to hold his arm over the case that held the fedora and, with one quick move, slit the sleeve of his fancy blue jacket as well as a foot-long opening in his skin. Phoebe snarled, her silver-painted eyelids crinkling with delight, as the blood poured onto the glass. “Trayton can remember you cheering as he fought,” she whispered into the vampire’s ear. “Your pain is like candy to me, suckster.”

  “Put your fangs away,” I told her. “You know the deal. You bite somebody, you’re going to start a new fight I’m not willing to referee.”

  She glanced at Trayton, who gestured for her to back off. He returned my grateful nod and added a slow wink that reminded me I wasn’t alone in this. I glanced down the line at Cole and Dave, who each gave me a sober nod. So good to have trusted people at my back again. It made even this tonnage easier to bear.

  I stared back at the blood. Whispered, “Okay, Hamon. Now would be a good time to—”

  He didn’t rise this time. Genti’s blood simply rearranged itself on the case, taking the familiar form of Eryx’s image. Nobody else reacted, which almost made me wish I could give one of them this extra eye I’d grown. Almost, but not quite. Maybe, I thought, maybe Dave was right. I could find all kinds of reasons to bitch and whine about my Sensitivity. About my potential love interest. But if I didn’t have either, where would I be?

  “Is it done?” Eryx asked. He blinked, an odd movement that made droplets run down his cheeks like bloody tears. “No. I can still feel the threat to the Trust.”

  “We’re outside your room,” I said. “I need your help to get in.”

  The eyes closed again, the entire face clenching in concentration. Seconds later the barred gate blew open. “Good work,” I said, but the face was gone.

  I went first, Jack trotting at my side. Hamon had also opened the door to the Preserve. The lights were even on. What a welcome.

  I led the way to the center of the Preserve, surrounding myself once again with that sense of history you only get when someone a thousand years’ gone has crafted the items you currently share space with. But the costumes and shields, the magic bones and blood cups did nothing to help me brush aside the depression that wanted to crush me like a bug beneath its heel.

  This is the right thing to do. The only way to save Vayl, I told myself. And, listen, it doesn’t mean anything has to change for him. Or between the two of you. Before cynical me could rip off a hearty laugh, I poured her a Jack and Coke and shoved her into the arms of a guy who owned a Ferrari. She shut right up.

  I took my place beside the mask, which was blinking. Okay, pretend that doesn’t make you want to find the nearest bat and practice your home run swings on Octavia’s wooden head. It helped that I couldn’t have held one at the moment. Dave had immobilized my arm on the plane and, now that I was a pack member, Krios had willingly sent a doc to the airport for me in one of those mobile clinics set up inside an RV. He gave me a local anesthetic, a brace, and an urging to visit the hospital the second I had a spare day.

  Cole came behind me, carrying the front end of Vayl’s litter. I allowed myself a spurt of happiness at the reminder that I hadn’t watched him die after all. Cassandra had been right. Which did us no damn good at the moment. My boss had entered some sort of coma state, and nobody could explain to him that his sons were still alive because they weren’t Cam and Cole to begin with.

  The ice had begun to melt as soon as Vayl lost consciousness. But it had left his clothes a shredded mess. I’d found a thin yellow blanket on the plane, and that’s what covered him now, making him look like a sick kid who’s spent way too long in the nurse’s office waiting for his parents to pick him up from school.

  Cam carried the other end of Vayl’s stretcher. Despite the pain in my collarbone, I could’ve danced across the floor to see both his eyes open, though their customary twinkle had been replaced by the grim face he wore in battle. He’d survived the fight only because he’d worn his own body armor, which had covered even more skin than Cole’s. Thank God for that, because the shooter’s bullet had hit him in the armpit. A death blow to any but a Special Ops trooper who was issued the best of everything.

  Genti and his crew followed, guarded by Dave, who’d loaded his crossbow with a Bergman special. Which meant, as he’d reminded them, if any one of them decided to get snippy, they’d experience a repeat of the Koren incident. Only this time we’d all stand and wait until the smartass burned.

  Niall and Admes, still escorting Aine, walked around to the side of the dais opposite mine. Disa’s guards were flanked by Kozma and his bears: burly, broad-chested men who looked like they spent their weekends braiding saplings into giant slingshots. They carried Disa on a second litter, which Tarasios walked beside, making sure the sword that still impaled her caused no more damage.

  Trayton’s pack came last, led by Krios, who’d promised to make sure everyone behaved, even the hotheaded dockworker who’d been so ready to war the last time I’d seen him.

  Yeah, I hadn’t left much to chance.

  The second I’d understood what the vision wanted back in Skofja Loka, as soon as I’d realized all the ramifications, I’d pretty much called in all my favors. To orchestrate an event that would force me to betray my basic instinct. Which was to grab Vayl and get him as far away from the monstrosity of a mask at my side as soon as I could. But that, I knew, would kill him.

  The guards laid Disa on the floor at the foot of the mask. Cam and Cole had already given Vayl a spot of his own on the carpet beside me. They flanked him in a good imitation of Disa’s former shieldmen, though each of my guys held an armed crossbow. The message should’ve been clear to the assembled Trust members. But I drew Grief and pressed the magic button anyway. Jack looked up at me when he heard the whir of working gears.

  “Stay low,” I told him. He sat. Well, it was a start.

  Admes, Niall, and Aine came to stand beside me. “Are you ready?” asked Niall.

  I swallowed the obscenity that lay like salt on my tongue. But I supposed Niall saw it on my face, because he said, “Vayl will be an excellent Deyrar. And he should not have to give up his work with you in order to continue the Trust’s business here.”

  I looked at him, feeling colder than I’d be if I were truly dead. “Vayl left this place for a reason. Now we’re cementing him to it. If you don’t think he’s going to be sick and pissed, you don’t know him at all.”

  Cole put his hand on my arm. I appreciated the outreach.
Because I knew I was betraying everything Vayl had fought so hard for when he’d separated himself from the Vampere world decades ago. But I’d seen injuries like Disa’s before. Vamps didn’t recover from them. They simply died more slowly than usual.

  Cam and Cole stepped forward to remove the mask from its stand. As soon as they touched it, the keening began, emerging from the mouth of the mask like an opera singer’s death scream. Jack began to whine. I shook my head.

  Admes and Niall went to kneel by Disa, pulling her into a sitting position so the mask would slide down over her head and torso. “Don’t allow any part of your body to go inside the mask with her,” I warned them. “I can’t predict what would happen, but I don’t think it would be good.” I looked at my guys. “Ready?” They nodded. “Okay, here I go.”

  I strode over to Disa, took a firm grip on Vayl’s sword with my good hand as I planted my foot in her chest and yanked. She didn’t feel a thing. Krios’s doc had her on so many painkillers she could’ve smiled through an elephant stampede. In fact, you might even say she was in a state of ecstasy.

  As soon as the sword was free, our men lowered the mask over her, holding it steady so it wouldn’t topple over. We heard one piercing scream. And then, with the stomach-churning sound of rending flesh and crushing bone, her entire body began to rise up into the mask.

  Cole looked at me, his eyes rounder than the poker chips that sat in my hip pocket. “This is bad, Jaz. Worse than watching all the Friday the 13th movies in one sitting. Which I did once.”

  “This is what she wanted to do to Vayl,” I said. I knew it sounded cold, and I was sorry. Not for Disa. She’d dug her plot. But for me. Because I didn’t care.

  Suddenly the mask’s eyes opened. Bored into mine. I felt light, almost separate from myself, like I had those few times when I’d actually traveled outside my body. I put my good hand on the mask to steady myself. The power beat into me, as if the entire Trust had balled up its mojo and thrust it through my chest. And I could hear her, Octavia, speaking to me just like Raoul sometimes did. Only her voice didn’t make me feel like my brain was about to shatter. In fact, it spoke so softly I could barely make out the words as they fell like coals from a burning log. However, at last I knew what she wanted.