Another One Bites the Dust (8 page)

CHAPTERNINE

Vayl and I left the RV thinking we’d check out the Chinese acrobats’ camp. Lung housed his employees in RVs like ours. Okay, not like ours. Like regular-people versions of ours. They stood in neat rows behind the inflatable stadium. Maybe Lung had his own little pop-up tent set up in one of their bedrooms. Okay, highly unlikely. But it was a place to start.

We were distracted almost immediately by loud talk and even louder laughter coming from the site of our soon-to-be Psychics-R-Us extravaganza. Upon further investigation, we discovered our crew had made friends with three of the barbecue cook-off chefs, who’d brought over a cooler full of beer, some lawn chairs, and quite a bit of friendly advice.

“I’ll tell you what,” said one big-bellied gentleman as he leaned over a pile of poles, his tooled leather belt waging a heroic struggle to keep his butt crack at a PG rating. “I believe they used this very same tent as headquarters for the 82nd Airborne during World War II.”

“I get it: it’s old,” said Cole with his good-natured grin. “Now, I told you my three-breasted tennis star joke, which fulfills my end of the bargain. So it’s your turn, Steve.” He grabbed a section of canvas and held it to his chest. “Is she gonna live?”

“Oh yeah, we’ll get her up. But I think we’re gonna need help.” He turned to his buddies. “Hube! Is Larry still awake?” One of the seated gentlemen took a swig of beer and turned toward his companion, a red-faced guy whose goatee worked mainly to divide his puffy cheeks from his bloated neck.

“Didn’t he have to go somewhere?” Hube asked him.

“Yeah,” replied Goatee Guy, “his sister called. She had some weird, last-minute catering job right around here. I guess this Chinese fella, you know, the one in charge of the acrobat show? He’s having a big party and his cook’s stuck in Chicago. But get this: The party doesn’t start until one a.m. So Larry’s gotta help her get the food done, set it all up, and then get out before the guests arrive.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” said Hube. “At least she doesn’t have to serve it.”

“Nope, but she’s gotta get it there.”

“Where’s there?”

Goatee Guy twisted in his chair, making it creak so loudly I was pretty sure it had just reached its maximum-weight capacity. He pointed to a large white yacht floating serenely on the water. “Should be a helluva party,” he commented. “They ordered escargot.”

Vayl and I nosed-to-nosed next to the RV like a couple of gossips at the beauty parlor. “Did you hear what he said?” I hissed.

“Of course I heard what he said. I am a vampire!”

“Are you getting snippy with me?”

“Maybe, but if I am it is because I dislike obvious questions.”

Oh really?
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I have no idea.”

“We need to get hold of this caterer. Get onto the yacht with her. See if Lung’s got himself a daytime hidey-hole somewhere aboard. And then plant some cameras.”

“It looks as if I was thinking what you were thinking.”

“Actually, you weren’t. I was really thinking I needed to ask you a question.”

“What was that?”

“Do you think we should ask Goatee Guy how to find the caterer?” I smiled at him innocently as his eyebrows practically met above his nose.

“I am never going to share my pet peeves with you again.”

“Should we ask Bergman to get a few cameras ready for us?”

“Jasmine!”

“Maybe break out those nifty communications devices so you and I can talk even if we end up in different rooms?”

It happened so suddenly I didn’t even have a chance to react. One second Vayl was glowering at me, practically speechless with annoyance, and I was feeling all righteous and superior. The next moment his lips were on mine. As kisses went, it barely qualified. Just a quick brush of the lips and a swift withdrawal. But the gesture left me gasping.

“That will teach you for pushing a vampire over his limit,” Vayl said, the huskiness of his voice a stark counterpoint to the sternness in his eyes. The words combined with that look to transport me back to our fourth mission together.

We’d been assigned to eliminate a vampire named Leonard Potts, who’d made himself a small fortune smuggling his own kind into the States. It’s so tough for
others
to legally immigrate that creature smuggling is quite the booming trade. However it’s not a killable offense. Unless you’re providing your clients with innocent civilians to snack on as soon as they make landfall. To be honest, it probably still would’ve remained a local issue if Potts had just grabbed homeless people and the occasional stray tourist. But when he hooked a cabinet member’s daughter, he wrote himself a one-way ticket to Smokesville.

As we prepared to confront Potts in his Connecticut Colonial, Vayl warned me to keep it low-key. “I do not understand why you like to enrage our targets before we eliminate them, but in this case I would appreciate a little self-control. Potts is a known coward. He will probably go down easily as long as you do not goad him.”

I went in with good intentions. But when I saw him lounging on his chaise, watching David Letterman while a couple of his clients slurped at the girl like she was a strawberry shake, I forgot myself.

“He’s mine,” I growled, leaving Vayl to deal with the hungry vamps while I zeroed in on Potts, who was just now rising from the lounge, the first vamp I’d ever confronted who actually looked scared to see me.

“So what is it with you?” I asked him, coming in close enough to shove him back down to his seat. “Like messing with defenseless women, do you?” I shoved him again. His feet came up and he flew backward, tumbling off the chaise. When he got up he looked pissed. I didn’t really care. I could hear fighting behind me. I figured Vayl was winning, but I wasn’t worried about that either.

“Who are you?” Potts demanded. “What are you doing in my house?”

“We’re just a couple of drifters looking for some action,” I told him.

“Look”—I held up my hands—“no weapons. So come on, ya big brave vampire. Show me what a badass you really are.”

He leaped over the chaise. I wished for a second I had vamp strength so I could meet him head-on. Bash that complacent look right off his face. I dodged at the last second, not soon enough to escape a blow from his right fist, which sent me staggering into the wall. But I’d landed one myself, a kick to the shoulder that left it sagging.

“Jasmine!” Vayl yelled. “This is not a boxing match! Smoke him!”

The girl moaned from where they’d dropped her on the floor. She was so covered in bites it looked like she’d been dog-mauled. No way would she survive the night. It didn’t seem enough to just kill the son of a bitch who’d engineered that damage. I wanted to hurt him first. Make him feel a piece of her pain.

I whirled into him, attacking with every move in my arsenal. Kicks designed to shatter bone. Punches meant to induce unconsciousness, coma, even death. I put so little effort into defense that any other vamp would’ve kicked my ass into the next century. But after the first couple of seconds this guy wanted nothing to do with me. Coward that he was, he covered his face and backed away, screaming, “Get out of my house, you witch!”

Thing was, once he hit the corner, realized there was nowhere left to run, he remembered I was human.

“Jasmine!” snapped Vayl. I heard the warning too late. Potts ducked inside my attack as if I was standing still. He grabbed my chin, forced my eyes to his, and started talking.

I felt the power in his words, knew his special Gift was reaching into people’s minds and picking out their deepest, darkest secrets. And yet I believed everything he told me. “The government’s blessing changes naught, Jaz. You are nothing more than a murderess. The bloodstains on your hands will never come clean. Because even if you could justify the villains, you will never be able to sidestep responsibility for your Helsinger crew, your sister-in-law, your fiancé. Their deaths scar your soul and you will pay and pay and pay until the end of time.”

My hands dropped. I stood as helpless before him as any of his victims ever had, and the feeling chilled me to the marrow. No, wait, it was Vayl, sending a wave of his own cold power through the room, hoping maybe it would clear my mind. It worked.

I jerked my right wrist upward and the syringe of holy water I kept sheathed inside my sleeve slid smoothly to hand. A second later I’d plunged the needle deep into Potts’s gut. He died writhing in pain, huge blisters rising and popping on his steaming skin before he finally exploded like he’d swallowed a grenade.

Vayl finally dispatched his last vamp and joined me where I’d collapsed on the chaise, watching dully as the cabinet member’s daughter died. When he touched my leg I jerked away as if I’d been shocked.

“You are bleeding,” he said.

“It’s nothing.”

And that’s when he’d given me the look and the words he’d repeated just now, followed by round after round of missions in which I wasn’t allowed to say a single thing.

Just take out the target, Jaz,
I reminded myself again.
It’s not your job to decide who needs to be punished how much. And yeah, experience has taught you that when you push a vampire past his limit
—I looked at Vayl, standing still as a painter’s model, his leather coat billowing behind him, a mouthwatering mix of power, strength, and sexuality—
you’re bound to get hurt.

“What do you want to do now?” asked Vayl.

I licked my lips. He tensed, his eyes flaming to green in the mellow festival light. I turned to Goatee Guy. “Actually we’re going to need a caterer pretty soon. Do you know how we can get hold of Larry and his cousin?”

CHAPTERTEN

We stood at the end of the pier, looking out at the yacht we’d learned Lung had bought the previous week. “If this was a James Bond movie,” I said, “we’d just change into our skimpiest suits, snorkel out to the
Dragon
—”

“Because that’s obviously what the boat’s name would be,” put in Cole.

I nodded. “We’d clamber up the side without alerting the one, sleepy guard, sneak into Chien-Lung’s room—”

“And then get caught and fed to the sharks,” said Bergman.

“Are there sharks in Texas?” asked Cassandra.

“There are sharks everywhere,” said Vayl.

We watched the yacht’s twinkling lights awhile longer. “Well, this party is never going to start without the caterers,” I said, turning to eye my crew’s outfits critically.

Larry’s cousin, Yetta Simms, had provided them. In fact, she’d turned out to be quite the patriot. She couldn’t wait to cooperate. Said she felt we’d accomplish our task much better without her folks getting in our way. So she’d handed her entire catering gig over to us. “Just remember,” she’d said as she’d handed me the map she’d drawn of the bar and food tables with detailed descriptions of what went where. “Chien-Lung left strict instructions for us to be off the yacht before he and his guests arrived.”

Which probably meant Lung spent his daylight hours in an entirely different location. It made sense. Even a floating palace wouldn’t be able to provide a vamp with much protection against a raging fire. Underground, that’s where we’d find him—if we were due a miracle anytime soon.

Though we didn’t expect to make direct contact, we’d made some major changes to our looks just in case. We all wore prosthetics on our faces, which altered the shapes of our noses and chins. In addition, Bergman had chosen a cap that gave him the look of a Hair Club for Men candidate. Cassandra, Cole, and I had gone for wigs; mine was black, hers red, his sandy brown. We all wore red bandanas and pirate outfits. Not our idea. Yetta called her company Seven Seas Succulents, thus the leather vests, poofy white shirts, and tight black pants tucked into tall black boots.

Speaking of which: “I like these boots,” I told Vayl. “Do you think they’d sell them to me cheap? I keep ruining mine.”

“Since when do you fret over money?” he asked with amusement. “I was not even sure you knew what to do with it.”

I shrugged. “A woman has needs.”

“Still?” said Cole. “Gosh, Jaz, why didn’t you say something to me? I’d never let you suffer.”

“Be quiet and get in the boat,” Vayl barked, giving Cole such a pointed look I was surprised he didn’t burst a couple of vessels right then and there. We did as we were told, piling into an ancient vessel covered in flaking green paint that looked as if it would sink if one of us tapped our feet just a little too hard. The metal seats were topped by life jacket/cushions that probably came over on the
Mayflower
. Coolers, boxes, and trays filled every spare bit of space, so we squeezed in where we could, Cassandra in the middle with me, Bergman and Cole on each end. Vayl cast us off, jumping lightly into the rear of the boat as it floated away from the dock. To my relief, he didn’t fall through.

The engine roared to life, sounding so powerful I was afraid it would rip the back of the vessel completely off and, like the characters in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, Vayl would ride that Evinrude clear to Brazil while the rest of us sank to the bottom of the bay, looking glum and yet somehow resigned as the last of our air seeped from our lips in perfect round bubbles.
Glug. Glug, glug
.

On second thought, if this sucker broke up I intended to leap onto Vayl’s shoulders. If he had to travel all the way to South America with only his eyebrows above water, so be it. I gauged my distance, got ready to jump, and in the meantime, grabbed hold of the edge of the boat and held on tight.