Another One Bites the Dust (22 page)

I thought Vayl had taken enough satisfaction from this revenge until he stood and started pacing. I couldn’t take my eyes off that cane, digging deeper and deeper gouges into the ground with every other step.

“We’re done,” said Dale. He dropped his wad of paper towels in the water and rolled the sleeves of his suit coat down.

I stood up. “Fine. Get out.”

“No. I have a few words to say,” he announced.

They always do
.

“Dale, maybe we should go,” said George. I liked him better when he was echoing my opinions.

“God has brought us here for a reason, George,” Dale said in that singsong TV-preacher voice that makes my molars ache. “We must uphold our responsibility to hiyum—”

I felt the power winding up in Vayl and suddenly understood where blizzards begin. I also knew clearly why my guy needed an
avhar
. If he killed these men in front of their sons, beyond the obvious tragic consequences, he’d be doing irreparable damage to his own soul. Both my instinct and a sudden heat from Cirilai told me so.

I strode forward, planting myself firmly between Dale and my
sverhamin
. “Dale, you are so far out of line that if this was a NASCAR race you’d be in the grass. I’m not going to argue philosophy or religion with you. Think what you think. I really don’t give a crap. But here’s the deal: Standing behind me is a vampire who’s quite capable of icing you like an Alpine ski slope. He is deeply pissed that you’ve insulted his Seer. But she’s a grown-up and he’ll eventually get past that.”

I closed the distance between us because Dale had puffed out his chest and begun rocking from foot to foot, starting his little I-am-the-man dance before I’d even finished. I slammed him hard in the diaphragm with the heel of my hand, backing him up, taking the strut right out of him.

“Listen up, asshole,” I hissed. “Because what I’m about to say may just save your life. My boss here is trying very hard not to rip a great big hole in your throat, but more and more he’s thinking, ‘Why the hell not? Here’s a guy who thinks nothing of sending his son, who should be more precious to him than his own soul, into mortal danger. Aaron will probably be safer if I just kill his father now.’”

I looked at George. “Same goes for you and James, Xerox.”

Aaron came up to me and grabbed my arm. “Please”—his desperate glance went to Vayl—“please don’t kill my dad.”

I told him, “Once a farmer murdered two boys just about your age. Why? Because he was ignorant. Too stupid to ask questions. Too narrow-minded to wonder if maybe things had changed while he was looking the other way. If I’d known the man before that instant, I would’ve killed him. And by killing him, I would’ve saved those boys’ lives.” I stared into Aaron’s eyes. I spent some time on James as well. “Vayl is wondering if he needs to save your lives now, the same way I would’ve saved his sons. Or if you have the brains and the courage to do that for yourselves.”

Aaron and James looked at each other. It was the first time I’ve ever seen a boy grow up. I just wish both of them had.

CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO

As soon as the eggers left our sight I slumped back into my chair, my arms dangling over the side, my feet stretched out in front of me with the toes of my boots pointing straight up at the sky. “So tired,” I muttered.

Vayl brought his chair close to mine and sat down.

“Can I get you something?” Cassandra asked.

“Caffeine,” I said.

She hurried inside.

Cirilai had quieted back down and, for that matter, so had Vayl. “You did well,” he said. “I . . . Sometimes it is harder than others. This year is shaping up to be a bad one. I lost my boys in April and already . . .”

“I know.” He nodded. Though it sucks to have such tragedy in common, it’s nice not to have to talk about how torturous the anniversaries can be. He just knew I’d be there to get him through. And come next November, I had a feeling I might not be the complete wreck I’d been last year.

Cassandra returned, carrying a carafe of Diet Coke. “Original and uplifting,” I told her with a smile. She also brought Bergman.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said.

That’s half your problem!
My mouth was fizzy full, so I just nodded and let him continue. “I might be able to come up with something that would make you sound like Pengfei,” he said. “I’ve been working on some instant translator software for a while and if I could . . . Well, let me see what I can do, okay?”

I gulped my drink, thanking my lucky stars it went down the right tube. “Really? I mean, really, really? Bergman, that’s awesome!”

“Well, it’s not a sure thing yet—”

“Dude, if anybody can do it, you can.”

I didn’t realize how much he’d slumped until he straightened up. “Thanks. I guess I’ll get started then.”

“Excellent.”

As soon as Bergman left earshot Vayl said, “I am going to buy you some pom-poms and a short pleated skirt—”

“Hey, if Bergman needs a cheerleader, that’s what he’s getting.”

Vayl tipped his head to one side and smiled wickedly. “I was just thinking perhaps I need a cheerleader as well.”

Cassandra got up. “If that’s where this conversation is headed, I’m leaving.”

“She wants some pom-poms too,” I told Vayl.

“I do not!” Moments later we heard the RV door close behind her too.

“Oh man.” I dropped my head back as far as it would go. “I am so wasted. And you know what’s sad about that?”

“What?”

“I’m the only person I know my age who can say that and not mean too many Fuzzy Navels.”

“Do you need to sleep?”

Hell yeah!
“Nope.”

“Do you want to visit David?”

Definitely not
. I looked at the wide Texas sky and thought about the golden cord I’d see stretching across it if I gazed up through different eyes. It connected me and my twin, and I could use it as a path to visit him anytime I wanted to have an out-of-body experience. It’s more dangerous than it sounds. But that wasn’t what was stopping me.

I turned my head, let my vision fill with the vampire who’d brought me back from the brink more times than I cared to mention, the last being less than two months before, when the year was new and I feared my grip might have finally slipped for good. I was afraid this trip might take me right back there. I opened my mouth, my lips already burning with the difficulty of the words I knew I had to say. “I feel like I’m finally beginning to heal from what happened back then. It doesn’t seem wise to dredge it all up again. It’s like picking at old wounds. How smart is that?” I asked him.

He did a quick visual inventory of my recent injuries, which were all aching despite the painkillers Dr. Darryl had prescribed. “Perhaps that is the only way they can truly heal,” he suggested. His eyes lifted to mine. I’d never seen such naked honesty in them before. “I would wish that for you.” His eyebrows shot up, as if he’d found something surprising behind some inner door. “Even if it came at my own expense, I would like for you to be whole again. Maybe David can help you find the way.”

I sighed, feeling slightly better, but not nearly enough to make this trip okay with my churning gut or my pounding heart. “I’d better go.”

Vayl sat forward, his presence wrapping around me like a blanket. “I will be right here beside you.”

I nodded my thanks, unable to translate my gratitude for his presence into speech. I wanted to pull into myself like a turtle, as if that could provide some extra protection for the trek ahead. But my stitched leg wouldn’t cooperate. Neither would my chair. In the end I simply closed my eyes and bowed my head.

I still remembered the words Raoul had given me the last time I’d traveled outside my body, when the fate of my country had been at stake. Frankly I preferred those circumstances to these. I murmured them now, concentrating on Dave’s face, his high forehead, stern green eyes, unsmiling lips, and dark brown hair touched with just a hint of red.

I shot from my body like a rocket. I’d forgotten how fast I could move outside physical being, or what a rush flying across time and space with so little to slow me down could be. I followed that yellow streak of lightning right to Dave’s shoulder. And if I’d been a little more corporeal when he turned his head to pull a breath before leaning back down to continue CPR, he’d have literally seen right through me.

The woman who needed his air was one of his, a sun-bitten veteran whose blond ponytail splayed across the dirty floor of the deserted house like a lotus floating on a pond full of scum. A tourniquet had been wound around her mangled thigh and a bloody bandage encased her head. She lay on the ground floor in the corner farthest from a bank of windows. Five guys and a woman wearing desert gear and armed with M4s kept up a steady barrage from those openings. A couple of them had taken damage as well.

I heard more assault weapons, including a SAW, ripping off rounds from upstairs. It looked to me like they’d planned a raid and had either been ambushed or outgunned. Either way, they’d had to pull back to this position. The firing slowed as, one by one, Dave’s unit picked off their targets. He evidently trusted them to do their jobs without direct oversight, because his mind was so elsewhere.

“Come on, Sergeant,” Dave said desperately as he compressed her chest with the heels of his hands. “Come on, Susan. Stay here. Stay with us.”

I had said the same words to Matt, begged him as I wept over his body the night Aidyn Strait had stabbed him to death.

My brain seemed to split. I wanted to scream from the pain of it. At once I hunched in the past, my heart exploding as I called for Matt to return to me. And I stood beside Dave, wishing I had eyes to weep when I saw Susan’s exquisite crystalline soul lift from her body. Like Matt, she had somewhere else she needed to be. And, as my love had left a part of him behind, so did she. The azure jewel that comprised her being spun and split. Nine gems separated from the whole, sought out and found each of her brothers and sisters in arms. Those who shared the room with her paused to gaze at her one last time. And then the main part of her flew up, up into the sun. A-mazing.

“She’s gone, Dave,” I said.

He looked up at me, his green eyes startling against his taut brown skin. I took it as a sign of his utter distress that he wasn’t even surprised to see me. “Son of a bitch! She was our fucking medic!” He wasn’t mad they’d lost their doc. Just that she could’ve maybe saved any of the rest of them if they’d suffered the same injuries. I crouched beside him. The gunfire had almost ceased. The sound of approaching helicopters signaled imminent rescue. In a few minutes they’d land, Dave’s unit would clear out, and life would move on. For now we sat beside Susan’s body, mourning her, yeah, but grieving for the rest of our dead as well. We’d racked up way too many in our lives. Mom and Granny May. Matt and Jesse. The Helsingers.

“Did I tell you I was one of the casualties at the Helsinger massacre?” I asked him. “Aidyn Strait broke my neck.”

“Yeah.”

“I did?”

“Yeah. When I called.”

“When was that?”

“The day Dad told me you were in the hospital.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember that.”

“You were pretty far out of it. They had you on about as much morphine as you could handle.”

Huh. I wonder what else happened then that I’ve forgotten. Must remember to ask someone I trust. Definitely not Albert.
“So you know about Raoul?”

“We’ve met,” he said dryly. He pulled Susan’s jacket closed. Smoothed her hair. “About a month after I joined up I was shot and killed during a live-fire training session,” he told me quietly enough that his men couldn’t hear. “As they tried to resuscitate me, I went to some sort of middle place, though it sure looked like a hotel room outside of Vegas to me.”

Damn
. Though he knelt right beside me, my heart still squeezed at the thought of my brother. Dead. No matter how temporary, that state still messed with my mind when it came to family. I realized I’d always expected to go first. Before him. Long before Evie. Even before Albert. And I suppose I had. I’d just returned unexpectedly.

“So Raoul gave you a choice?” I asked, trying to clarify Dave’s experience in my boggled brain.

“Yeah.”

“And you chose to come back. To fight.”

“I’m here.”

“I . . .” Geez this was hard to say. “I’ve been having some problems sleeping. Actually, sleeping’s okay. It’s what I do while I’m asleep that’s not so cool.”

“Like?”

“Jumping out of second-story windows.”

His eyes shot to mine. He looked me over hard this time and, by the way his brows dropped, didn’t appreciate what he saw. He shook his head. “We are damaged goods, Jazzy.”

“I can’t go on like this much longer. But coming here, seeing you lose Susan, at least I’ve figured out my main problem.”

He waited.

I shrugged miserably. “I believe after Matt died, he talked to Raoul just like you and I did. Only he decided not to come back. He didn’t love me enough to stay. Subconsciously I’ve known this for a while and, well, it’s killing me.”

I felt this horrendous wave of grief and anger claw its way up from a pit of agony I hadn’t even acknowledged, like a rich snob who walks past the same starving homeless dude every day, clicking her high heels on the dirty sidewalk in time to the music in her head. I began to sob, my non-stomach feeling as if it had just been kicked with a steel-toed boot. For a while I couldn’t speak. I just stood and cried, while Dave looked on helplessly.