Another One Bites the Dust (10 page)

“Listen,” I said, trying not to sound desperate. He’d take it as a signal to charge. Grief weighed heavy on my shoulder as I tried to talk him out of his own demise. “Chien-Lung’s your master, right? Surely he won’t be happy knowing you’ve eaten the caterer. After all, he’s here to entertain, not mop up.”

“Chien-Lung is no master of mine,” the twit snarled, wrinkling his lips as if he’d just bitten into something rotten.

“Pengfei then,” I said, latching on to the name he’d dropped earlier.

He drew himself up to his full height, threw his thin shoulders back. “Those two are barely fit to lick the soles of my
sverhamin
’s boots. It is a wonder to me that Edward even bothers with them sometimes. I have never met a more unbalanced pair.”

I did a quick expression check. Mouth shut? Eyes focused? Inner turmoil completely masked? I sure as hell hoped so, because given the circumstances, the twit could only be referring to Edward the ‘Raptor’ Samos. Samos must not have been able to attend to this affair directly, so he’d sent his
avhar
to take care of it in his place. Weird to have the
avhar
thing in common with Mr. Thin-and-Pasty. I’d assumed it was only a human thing. Apparently vamps could form that kind of bond too.

“If you’re planning on eating me, could you at least tell me your name?”

He appeared to consider my request. Finally he nodded. “My name is Shunyuan Fa.” He didn’t ask for mine in return. Which brought us right back to our cat-and-mouse game. I was just moving into the acceptance phase, where Grief would come into play and this whole job might explode in my face, when Vayl blew into the room. He slammed the door hard enough to make the bed shake. Both the twit and I froze, looking at him in shock.

“
There
you are!” he said, waving his hands expansively, reminding me of my uncle Barney, a man who does everything on the Big and Loud. “I am so sorry”—he bowed to Shunyuan Fa—“she is always flirting with clients when she should be overseeing operations.”

He turned to me. “There seems to have been some sort of accident with the shrimp and the punch. Miles insists he has just invented a new hors d’oeuvre, however the guests may not agree. Also the cheese puffs have exploded. And I cannot be certain, but I believe I saw Cole sneeze all over the bar glasses.”

The twit gave a horrified little scream that nearly made me laugh out loud. However, since my knees were still shaking from my close call with mission-screwed, I managed to maintain an air of calm as Vayl took my arm and escorted me out the door. I purposely turned the wrong way, managed to plant two cameras on two separate doorframes before Shunyuan Fa joined us in the hallway and set us on the correct path. We parted ways at the deck.

Vayl and I found the rest of our team in the galley. After some hurried conferring during which we all agreed our cameras had been planted, the buffet set up, and the empty coolers packed back on the boat, we decided to blow on outta that joint before our luck completely deserted us.

CHAPTERELEVEN

We made it back to shore without sinking, which, I decided, was the second-best thing that had happened to me that night. We lingered just long enough to tie the boat to the dock, although it might have been kinder to let it drift. Then the kids moved the party to the RV while the grown-ups stood side by side, surrounded by sailboats and speedboats and fishing boats. The moonlight reflected off the soft waves of the bay, combining with the gentle breeze to create an ideal atmosphere for conversation.

“Close call,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Sounds like Shunyuan Fa is linked to the Raptor.”

“I agree.”

“I wish you’d stop to take a breath once in a while. I can hardly get a word in edgewise.”

Tightening of the lips. Corner-of-the-eye look. At last he spoke. “You would tell me if I had offended you in some way, yes?”

“Of course.”

“You know I did not think you needed to be rescued just now. I just supposed it would be nice to leave Shunyuan Fa alive so that, perhaps, we could trace him back to Samos.”

“Yeah.”

“And, before”—he let out a huge breath—“when our lips touched—”

“I know you were just trying to teach me a lesson,” I rushed in, glad of the night so he couldn’t see me blush. It had been a very pleasurable lesson.

Weird the way his eyes narrowed slightly like that. Usually that only happened when he was hurt. “Of course.” He nodded. “Exactly. I am glad we have that settled then. Shall we go?”

“Okay.” Nothing had changed. The breeze still wafted across the bay. The moonlight still provided a lovely backdrop for a walk along the pier. But I shivered anyway. I glanced at Vayl. Why did I suddenly feel so cold?

As I stepped inside the RV, I said, “Good God, our mobile home has swallowed a Radio Shack!”

Bergman had wired a bank of electronic whatsits to our plasma TV, making it look like it had sprouted a blocky beard. The screen itself was divided into multiple quadrants, showing views of the common area and the deck of the
Constance Malloy
. We settled down to watch, Vayl and Cassandra on Mary-Kate, Cole and I on Ashley, with me pretending I didn’t mind a bit that my
sverhamin
had forsaken my company for the psychic’s.

No big deal. Stop feeling like the kid who gets picked last in PE class.
In these times I looked to my old friend and roommate for comfort. Bergman sent me a wry smile from his position at the banquette where he’d set up a couple of laptops, one of which I recognized as Agency equipment. He said, “I’ve fixed it so we’ll only see views from the party area cameras. The rest will record straight to the computer. We can review that footage later.”

“What’s that?” Cole pointed to a black box about half the size of a DVD player sitting on top of Ashley’s table. It was fronted by eight dials and a red button.

“Brains of the RV’s security system,” Bergman said, as he tapped at his keyboard and tried to keep his eyes on all the screens at once. “Since I couldn’t hardwire anything I had to get creative. We’ve got cameras in the Chinese lanterns we strung along the edge of the front and back awnings. The dials control them, and they’ll only activate when they detect movement, in which case the bedroom TV will automatically switch on and begin feeding us video. That way nobody can sneak up on us.”

Okay, that explained the thin black cord snaking from the black box all the way back to the bedroom. Another ran from the box up the wall and out a vent in the ceiling. I assumed it ended up outside where it connected to the cameras. Old Miles had been a busy little bee.

“Vayl said I couldn’t play with the door lock, but it’s a good one. Everybody just make sure you memorize the key code. I’ve set a welcome mat I just designed outside the front door. Any visitors we’re not happy about get a punch of the red button there on the side of the black box. The mat will deliver a jolt that’ll knock them flat.”

“Impressive,” said Vayl.

“Thanks.” Bergman shifted in his seat, darting a glance out the window at the padlocked trailer, which still held a couple of boxes full of equipment he thought he might need but didn’t want us to see. He was just one of those guys who’d much rather be working from an underground bunker somewhere deep in the heart of Montana. One with its own special vault just for him.

“Don’t sorcerers have some sort of contract they make their apprentices sign?” I asked. “You know, where they promise not to give away any secrets upon pain of death?” I directed the question to the room in general, but my eyes were on Cassandra. As the eldest she should know damn near everything by now. But she deferred to Vayl.

“I suppose.”

“Write something up, Bergman.”

He went from resembling a parakeet, darting glances from trailer to monitor to TV screen, as if somewhere something was going to leap out and eat him, to watching me with the still sharpness of an owl. “What are you saying?” His voice broke on the last word, making him sound like a seventh grader at the Valentine’s Day dance. He cleared his throat.

“It’s close quarters. None of us can help seeing whatever you’re forced to trot out of that trailer during this mission. So we’ll all sign a paper guaranteeing that we will never utter a word of what we have seen to anyone anywhere ever, or else, well, you figure out the or else.”

Bergman immediately ducked behind his laptop screen so none of us could see his face. Off went the glasses. Left arm crossed the face to blot the tears. We heard a couple of sniffs. And then, “Thanks, Jaz. I’ll get right on that.”

Satisfied, I sat back to view Chien-Lung TV. Cole popped popcorn, handed out sodas, and for the next half hour we watched guests arrive from the mainland. At first it looked like any other party where the guests wear uncomfortable clothes and pretend to like each other. Vamps mingled with humans throughout, all of them Chinese. Shunyuan Fa was there, but acting a lot more like a guest than a host.

“Recognize anybody besides the Raptor’s boy?” I asked Vayl.

“No.”

Bergman said, “If you want, I can capture the video of every face on that yacht and send it through your database.”

“Fine,” said Vayl. His plethora of terse replies finally hammered the message through my thick skull. I’d brushed that kiss off like it was nothing. And he’d meant it as more. Maybe a lot more.

But it’s not like you can even tell he has feelings
, I reasoned.
Most of the time he walks around wearing the same frozen expression he woke up with
.

What, so that means he can’t be hurt?
demanded Granny May from her perennial spot at a card table near the front of my brain. Currently she seemed to be playing bridge with Spider-Man, Bob Hope, and Abraham Lincoln. She plunked down her glass of iced tea, fed Bob an Ace of Hearts, and said,
Have you ever stopped to think how hard a man has to work to show that kind of face to the world? It’s like the Hoover Dam, that mug. Can you even imagine the depth of pain that must be pooled behind it?

I peeked at Vayl from under my lashes. Actually, I could.

As Bergman tried to identify the people in the crowd, they remained quiet, polite, expectant. They didn’t have long to wait. First a petite, willowy woman wearing a red satin dress walked out of the living area. She’d put her hair in that funky Chinese up do that always looks like it’s about to leap off the lady’s head and wrap itself around some poor schmuck’s throat. Traditional makeup whitened her face, blackened her eyes, and reddened her lips. She carried a pair of shiny black rods at her side.

One quick flip of her wrist and the rods transformed into huge fans, one painted with the image of a warrior wearing a long golden robe and a sword belt. The other depicted a golden dragon lounging at the bottom of a river. She began to dance with slow graceful movements, manipulating the fans so it looked like the warrior first fought with the dragon, and then as if the dragon emerged from the warrior.

“She’s good,” Cole breathed.

“Now, how am I supposed to compete with that?” I asked.

Vayl fixed me with the icy-blue gaze that I inwardly referred to as his “intellectual” look. And then, because I knew him so well, I could see him imagining me in my costume, undulating to ancient rhythms while he watched. His eyes darkened. “For some, there will be no comparison,” he said.

My throat went dry. As my eyes dropped to his lips I wondered what would have happened if either of us had been bold enough when we’d kinda kissed to just let go. Would our worlds have exploded with new colors, wonders, miracles? Or would we have already destroyed each other?

Our eyes locked. By his count he hadn’t known me long. But he knew me well enough that I could often tell him things without speaking. Usually it was job related.
There’s a guy hiding behind that bush. Give me thirty seconds to get into position before you move. I’ll take out the one that’s pissing me off.

This time I had something else to say.
That kiss caught me off guard. Scared the hell out of me. Let me know how bad you could rock my world. I loved it. Now give me some time to deal, okay?

He sat back, a smile slowly lifting one side of his mouth. When his eyes softened to brown and he gave me a brief nod I knew we were all right.

The sound of clapping brought my attention back to the TV. The dancer had finished. She waited for the applause to fade, then turned toward the dining/entertainment area and bowed so low she could’ve gnawed her knees if the urge had hit her. The rest of the crowd bowed as well as Chien-Lung emerged from the shadows and stepped into camera range.

I’d seen pictures of Lung taken on his previous trips to the States. They’d showed a robust man of average height with an elegant mustache and beard, fierce brown eyes, and an expression of haughtiness that told you right away he totally bought the concept of racial supremacy. This shot of Lung showed a radically changed man. He’d lost so much weight his skin seemed to adhere directly to his skull, with no layers of fat or muscle to soften it. No hair covered his head. He didn’t even have eyebrows to soften the harsh lines of his face.

“Does he have cancer?” asked Cole.

Nobody knew how to answer that.

The dancer held out her arm. Lung rested his hand on it. At first I thought he wore gloves. Then I realized dark material covered both of his hands. Something about the shape of them bothered me, but before I could get a better view the dancer turned and led him toward a cushioned chair that had been set up for him at a point exactly opposite that of the doors he’d just exited. Two flags that hadn’t been there before hung from the edge of the awning. They flanked the chair, and though they flapped steadily in the breeze, I could tell they depicted gold dragons on a lush green background.