Bitten in Two (24 page)

Sterling glanced over his shoulder. “Look, Chil , it’s like a third-world band closet. What do you say we go shopping for that guitar?”

I didn’t ask Sterling how he knew the address matched our mage’s ID. Sooner or later I’d figure it out, and it wouldn’t do to look ignorant in front of the captive. So I said,

“Sounds like a plan,” and watched him pul Ahmed toward the shop, his hips and shoulders moving to that internal rhythm that marked him as surely as a tattoo. At the mage’s other shoulder, Kyphas seemed more like an attachment, built for the ride, but not committed to it.

She was, however, wil ing to hold on to the mage while Sterling dealt with the Wielder’s lock. In fact, she seemed fascinated by Sterling’s amulet, watching with the greed of a jewel thief as he pul ed it out from beneath his shirt and a jewel thief as he pul ed it out from beneath his shirt and held it between his cupped hands. When his fingers began to glow red, I shouldn’t have been surprised at my own reaction. My Sensitivity had jumped a few notches since I’d last rubbed against Sterling’s powers. But this was eerie.

Like breathing air from a hot oven.

I glanced at Cole, but he didn’t seem to be as bothered by the warlock’s rising powers as I was. He’d pul ed his Beretta and was watching Kyphas do her
tahruyt
-to-sword trick. So I unleashed Grief and said to Vayl, “This could get hairy. Here.” I handed him the cane. “If you twist the blue jewel at the top, the sheath wil shoot away from the sword that’s hidden inside.”

Vayl eyed it careful y before taking it firmly in his hand.

When his eyebrows lifted a notch I felt another spurt of excitement. He’d recognized it, at least subconsciously.

Minuscule progress, but stil enough to make me want to hug him. I managed to control myself, but only because Sterling was moving his amulet across the lines of the doorway.

He murmured, “
Evendium.
” When the lines glowed yel ow he backed up. “It’s protected,” he said. He blew out his breath, fast and hard, as if he could release every ounce of tension that way. And maybe it worked, because his face settled and his shoulders relaxed. He reached into one of the pockets of his cargo pants and dug out a plastic zip-close bag containing a substance that resembled grape jel y. But when he pressed it against the top right-hand corner of the door it stuck like chewing gum. Circling the amulet over the spot like he meant to hypnotize it, Sterling began to hum. It wasn’t a tune exactly. But I could feel the music thrum through my feet, and, weirdly, I wanted to dance.

Cole was already waltzing with Kyphas. Spinning her around the shadowed, dusty street like they’d been partners for years. She threw back her head and laughed, her hair flying behind her like the tail of a racehorse. As she smiled up into his sparkling eyes she seemed to shed al her layers of treachery and deceit. For those few moments she wasn’t übergorgeous or evil. She was just a pretty girl with her arms around a boy she couldn’t resist. Except the hand that was wrapped around his shoulder held a sword that could easily slit his throat.

Who was I to judge? I held a lethal weapon too, and I couldn’t wait to swing my partner. I reached out to Vayl, but the demon had already shoved Ahmed into his hands, so it was Sterling who two-stepped me down the block. We flew past the other dancers, skating over the cobblestones like they were coated in bowling-lane wood, the air whistling past our ears as if cheering us on.

“The door.” Vayl sounded surprised. “It has unlatched itself.”

We stopped.

“Excel ent,” said Sterling.

I shuffled toward the entrance after him, my elation deflating like a post-birthday bal oon as I realized he’d sucked us into his spel . Cole and Kyphas held hands al the way to the door, then Cole looked at her, shook his head remorseful y, and jerked away.

As I shouldered past Sterling I said, “What you did was out of line. Making us dance like puppets just so you could pul off some minor magic.”

“You wanted inside. I assumed that meant—” I tossed my head, slapping him with my braid. “You haven’t changed. It’s stil al about how people can help you manipulate—”

Sterling interrupted me. “But
I’m
helping
you
!”

“Tel me that wasn’t a Bardish spel .” Silence. I nodded grimly. “You’re already into the change, aren’t you?” Even less response this time. “And how do you figure you’re going to help us when pirates hear a Bard is operating in Marrakech?”

“Well,
I’m
sure as hel not gonna tel them!” He looked around the circle of people who’d become fascinated by our exchange. “And neither are you.” The threat, sung softly, stil raised the hair on the back of my neck. Vayl barely reacted. Cole went so pale for a second his hair was actual y darker than his skin. Kyphas raised her hands as if to say it was beyond her realm of interest. And Ahmed looked like he wanted to throw up.

I turned my back to him. We both knew his threat probably wasn’t necessary. Until he took the oath, and al that went along with it, it was unlikely that anybody would be interested in dicing him up so they could squeeze the magic into an elixir so treasured only the mega-rich could afford it. Stil , I was pissed. And that gave me an excuse. To ignore my disappointment that the joy hadn’t been real. And that coming down had reminded me so forceful y of how little was good in my life right now. I switched Grief into firing mode and prepared to enter Ahmed’s souk. But I couldn’t bury the thought that, considering Vayl had just bitten me, the reaction might’ve lasted longer if Sterling hadn’t stuck his nose in. Normal y it wouldn’t bother me. But I had so little of him left to hold on to. That our warlock had cut the moment short stuck in my throat like a chicken bone.

Feeling frustrated and raw, I kicked the door open, half hoping that I’d find the remaining Weres standing on the other side ready for some hand-to-hand ass kicking. The door slammed into the wal , then sprang shut again. I heard Cole snort behind me.

Vayl said, “I must say, Madame Berggia, I have never seen a lady deliver quite so brutal a blow to an entryway before. Perhaps next time you might simply walk through?” As I looked up into his bright brown eyes, five different responses occurred to me, most of them containing some form of obscenity that would, no doubt, get the poor housekeeper fired again. Then my sense of humor returned from vacation wearing an exoskeleton T-shirt and carrying a bag ful of exploding cigars. I smiled.

And I said, “Where I come from, this is just how we enter a strange building, Lord Brâncoveanu. You should see what we do with suspicious packages.” He sighed. “You make very little sense to me. I suppose I must assume this has something to do with Sister Hafeza’s prediction. However, where I come from, ladies do not risk unpredictable situations before gentlemen. Or, in fact, at al .” He stood, waiting for me to let him pass.

When his eyebrows rose a whole centimeter I fluttered my lashes like a real girl and waved him in.

Because I refused to budge, he had to slide past me to get through the narrow door, his whole body rubbing slowly against mine as he made sure he wasn’t stepping into an ambush. I closed my eyes and relished the moment. The smel of Vayl, so unique that it made me feel as cozy as hot chocolate. The feel of his chest pressing against mine, his tight, flat stomach brushing just close enough to make my bel y ring jingle against my skin. Our thighs met, and I licked my lips, remembering al the times nothing had separated our bodies and we’d tried desperately to hold off, to take one more minute for exploration, but the passion had stolen our senses and al we could do was try to breathe while it rode us.

“Madame Berggia?” The low rumble of his voice, sweet and dark as brown sugar, glided straight down my throat.

Which I had to clear before I said, “Yeah?”

“Are you quite al right?”

“Um.”

“Good. Fol ow me.”

Gladly. Because your ass is a work of art, my dear. I
could watch it all day and—probably get my head blown
off if I don’t pay attention now.

We’d entered a shop that was like the evil twin of Sister Hafeza’s place. Smal and dark, it was impossible to view in one sweep because at the squat service counter just a few steps in, it swerved and ducked, its countless cubicles each containing enough instruments to supply a smal , North African orchestra. Drums of al shapes and sizes lined up like mischievous kids against every vertical space, from which hung gongs, hand harps, and instruments with trumpetlike bel s at the end but way too many curves in the middle to go by that name. Anything you could get a halfway decent tune from had been crammed into the souk.

Sterling couldn’t stop grinning. He cocked his head at Ahmed, who he’d taken charge of again. “What a shame you’re such a creep. Otherwise we could’ve been buds, man.”

We spread out, Vayl taking the upper floor while Cole, Kyphas, and I each chose a different turn and Sterling led Ahmed straight toward the back. Within thirty seconds we’d each cal ed, “Clear.”

With nothing spectacular to report in my section, I wandered over to Cole’s, where I found him admiring a drum. Shaped like a wine goblet, it came almost to his thigh. “Check this out.” He rubbed the head, which, according to the tag, was covered in goatskin. “It’s an antique.”

“You should come back and buy it,” Kyphas said as she joined us. Cole, looking over her shoulder, gave a short laugh.

“Not on my salary.”

Sterling cal ed to us from a back corner of the store,

“We need to have a family meeting!”

Vayl joined the three of us, and together we found Sterling and Ahmed standing beside a concrete pedestal.

Instead of a statue, it held a wide china bowl painted with blue flowers and green vining leaves. The mage had fil ed it with blue-stained water. And in the middle of the bowl, floating on a spun-glass rose, was the round, marblelike bal from an Enkyklios.

Cole reached for it. “Don’t!” I said. “What, did you total y ditch the class on germ warfare?”

“I might’ve been surfing that day,” he admitted. “Aw, come on, Madame B., don’t rake your fingers into your hair like that. You’l give yourself curly red horns and then I’l be forced to go buy a matador costume.”

I pul ed my hands free, clenching my jaws together as I said, “Wel , you’re not playing in the ocean today. So assume anything you haven’t identified is laced with smal pox until proven otherwise.”

“Okay.” He looked around until he found a couple of mal ets. “Can I pick it up with these?”

“Maybe,” I al owed, “but I don’t want to take the chance of a booby trap blowing us al to smithereens. Sterling?” I pointed to the Enkyklios bal . “Is this rigged?” He shoved Ahmed back to Vayl. From the look on his face, the mage didn’t appreciate being handled like a basketbal , but with his wrists firmly bound al he could do was scowl as Sterling muttered some words over what should be a smal treasure trove of information. He got no response. “It’s clear. And by that I mean it’s not trapped.

And it’s empty. Whatever was recorded on here is long gone.”

I watched Vayl study it, hoping it might trigger a memory as I said to him, “Okay, so we’re in Ahmed’s shop, and we know he’s the mage Roldan hired to mess you up.

But we’ve just found an Enkyklios bal . And we also know that Sister Yalida had an Enkyklios with her before she and the Rocenz disappeared over eighty years ago.

Coincidence?”

Vayl said, “I have very little idea what you are talking about. However I do not believe in coincidences.” I nodded. “I guess some things never change. So we have to ask, why is it here?”

“Symbol?” Cole guessed. “Maybe Ahmed is part of some guild and this is where they meet. But to keep it secret from everybody else they use the Enkyklios bal .” Now he was real y warming up to the idea. “Maybe the bal s are in shops al over the city, you know, to mark where their hidden tunnels come out.”

“Mages are the most solitary of al the Wielders,” Sterling said. “No way is Ahmed part of a guild. Right, buddy?” He shook the mage’s arm, but the only response was a dark red flush that rushed up Ahmed’s neck and didn’t stop until it reached his forehead. My stomach twisted at the thought of how much we were pissing this guy off. The same guy who’d managed to wipe centuries out of Vayl’s mind. And who’d attracted the notice of the most powerful werewolf in Europe. I decided then and there that he could never go free. Not if any one of us wanted to survive to see the fol owing dawn.

“Maybe you want to take him to the office,” I suggested.

“You know, so we can talk a little more freely?” Sterling nodded and jerked the mage back toward the front of the store.

Kyphas said, “I think Sterling’s right. Wouldn’t displaying the Enkyklios bal defeat the purpose of keeping whatever it’s hiding secret?”

Cole’s shoulders dropped. I smacked him on the back.

“It’s okay. You’re stil a badass sniper and one hel of a linguist.”

“What do
you
think it is?” he asked me.

Before I could answer, Kyphas said, “Maybe it’s a trophy.”

trophy.”

“That sounds plausible,” said Cole, gaining a look of adoration that explained just how far she’d fal en for him.

I glared at her, demanding that my inner crowd think up something cutting to say about what was probably hanging on the wal s at
her
place. But they seemed to be off their game, because none of them came up with a great retort before the perfect moment had passed. Instead Vayl said,