Bitten in Two (8 page)

“It’s not?”

“Not when you factor in the price.”

“But you’re tempted.”

“ I
am
human.”
I’m human. After all this time and all
that’s happened, I’m still
… I began to smile.

“You’ve got no reason to show your teeth,” Kyphas snapped. “You’re more miserable than you’ve been in nearly two years.”

“Nope. Maybe you have to strip the meat off a relationship to understand what its bindings are made of.

And that’s why Vayl could never tel me ful out what it meant to be the
avhar
to his
sverhamin
. He just had to slip his ring on my finger and hope someday I’d figure it out for myself.” I held Cirilai up to the light coming from the hal . The red facets reflecting on Kyphas’s face made her look diseased.

“Oh, right,” she scoffed. “Your lover thinks you’re a fat old lady and suddenly you understand why you can’t leave him?”

I shrugged. “Ten days. Ten years. Time stops counting when you’ve found somebody you can’t live without for the second time in your life. He’s mine, Kyphas. I’m not leaving him. And I’m going to bring him back. He deserves that from me.”

I didn’t react when I caught the movement of her hand out of the corner of my eye. She’d banged the
tahruyt
against her thigh hard enough to transform it into a sword whose shape I recognized immediately. Straight at the top, curved and tapered at its razor-sharp bottom, the flyssa was a local creation, especial y beautiful because of the brass design inlaid along its spine. The pommel of Kyphas’s blade, shaped like a bird of prey, flashed its ruby eye at me as she raised her hand.

“I can alter your prediction,” she said. “See what I know?” she drawled as I watched the blade approach my throat. “You can die now, even if you are Eldhayr. One short stroke and I can send you straight to hel .”

“Yeah, I’ve only got one life left. But neither of us believes you could Pit me. Besides, I’ve already escaped once. Don’t think you could keep me there, even if you tricked me into dropping in temporarily.” My smile widened as I saw her eyes flash toward my white curl, winding among its red neighbors along the right side of my face, providing evidence that I hadn’t just fil ed her ful of crap. Not that hel gets much in-and-out traffic, but those of us who do go in and then receive the touch of a family member come back with a memento that no brand of hair dye can disguise.

She dropped the sword. Her smile gave her face a beauty-queen shine. She said, “I had to try. No offense?” I shrugged. “It’s who you are.”

“You weren’t afraid I would cut you?”

“You’ve already signed a contract agreeing not to hurt anyone in Vayl’s Trust. I know how demons are bound.”

“You understand us, do you?”

“It’s part of my job.”

She smiled again, sisterly, like her next move might be to hug me. I shoved my other hand into my pocket in case she decided to fol ow through. Instead she jerked her head toward the chandelier and the light sputtered out, leaving us in almost total darkness. I yanked out my bolo, but it wasn’t necessary. Al she did was lean forward and whisper, “Then you’l appreciate why I set you up for this next bit.” She kissed me, peck, on the cheek, and ran up the stairs.

I stood with my back against the stairway wal, its tiles so cool I could feel them through the thin material of my dress.

That’s why I’m chilled
, I told myself as Cole and Vayl walked out of the lounge and came to stand at the bottom of the stairs.

“Berggia,” Vayl said, his smooth baritone more hesitant than I’d heard it the nearly ten months we’d worked together. “I did have a favor to ask of you now that your wife has gone up for the night.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Do you remember the first evening we arrived here?” Drol humor in Cole’s voice as he replied, “That’l be tough to forget.”

“Yes, you and Madame Berggia seemed quite confused at first. Of course, long periods of travel wil do that to anyone. But then you insisted we play that game with the smal portraits. Remember? You showed me several and asked me to respond if I recognized any of them.” I remembered. The panic. Near desperation.

Bergman’s idea to show Vayl familiar photos, every face we could find online, from vampires he’d lived with in the Grecian Trust, to mass murderers he’d disposed of in the thirties, to members of our present crew.

Cole said, “Yeah. Did you want to play the game again? Do you think—”

“No.” Impatient. Almost like,
Get with the program,
dammit. In fact, I’d be ecstatic if you could read my mind
so I wouldn’t have to say this out loud.
Vayl rubbed the back of his neck. Stretched his shoulders. Final y blurted it out. “I am interested in meeting a woman.” I stopped breathing.

Cole said, “Madame Berggia is making your appointment with the Seer in the morning—”

“No!” Deep breath. “I want an entirely different sort of woman.” Long pause.

Cole: “Oh.”

Vayl: “One of the smal paintings you showed me… I was captivated. I have been unable to turn my mind from her in these days since.”

Me:
You fucker. I’m going to kill you. Right here. Right
now.

Granny May:
He doesn’t know about you yet. You’d be
murdering an innocent man.

Me:
Like hell! Kyphas was right.
I turned to go upstairs.

Maybe I will just—

Cole: “Which one was it?”

Vayl: “I cannot remember her name. She was a green-eyed beauty with flaming red hair. You told me she was biding in Marrakech with her lover, a vampire named Vayl.” I shoved my palm against my mouth. Two fat tears tracked down my cheeks.

Cole said, “Her name is Jasmine.” Bless him, he pronounced it just like Vayl would have.

I turned back. My
sverhamin
stood on the bal s of his feet, his entire body tight with anticipation. “Yes! Can you arrange a rendezvous?”

“Sir.” Cole pushed his hands into his hair, pul ed his palms down his face. “Although I’m fairly sure she’s unhappy with her current situation, uh, I don’t think a face-to-face is going to be that easy. Vayl is the jealous type.”

“We shal start with a letter, then. I wil dictate and you wil pen and deliver it, yes?”

Cole nodded, but slowly, like he couldn’t quite believe the conversation. “I guess I could.”

“Excel ent!” Vayl clapped him on the shoulder. Which was when I realized his next move would probably be to bound up the steps and rush to his room on the third floor, next to mine, where he could have the privacy he needed to write his fantasy girl a love letter.

I grabbed my skirt, hiked it up to my thighs, and ran toward my room. My mouth was open the whole way, pul ing in big breaths of air to fuel my race, pushing out gusts of silent laughter. Because 1777 Vayl wanted me too.

Yeehaw!

Vayl never talked much about his childhood. But I always suspected it included lots of hand-me-downs and skipped meals. Because he’d reached the end of his second century with a wel -developed appreciation for the finest clothes, food, and accommodations.

I could see instances where spending extra dough got you better quality, but to me a room was pretty much just a place to crash unless you lost so many stars you began to see mold and bugs. Yeah, I appreciated my sunset-striped king-size with its wal -length headboard and the silk-cushioned bench at its foot. But Vayl would’ve wanted me to ooh and aah over my yel ow and red bathroom (egad, was there no end to the tile?) and the metalwork decorating the windows and the door that led to my balcony. No dice. I saved that kind of reaction for, say, people who could eat entire lemons without puckering. Now, that’s impressive!

For lack of a better place to put it, I’d set my trunk against the wal between the bench and the bathroom. I opened the lid, dug through a couple weeks’ worth of clothing, most of which Monique had sent out to be cleaned for me the day before. Vayl’s cane nestled between a pair of jeans and a pile of silky lingerie that threatened to depress me al over again. So I concentrated on the item that had been his companion so long that he’d added a metal tip to its base and then replaced that twice. Even if he hadn’t recognized me, he should’ve known his cane. But even it had gotten a REJECT stamp.

Which was, maybe, why I spent time with it every day, curled up on the bench with the cane across my knees, my fingers trailing along the whole length of the black wooden sheath that held a sword Vayl had once wielded like it was part of his arm. Now I wasn’t sure he knew how. I turned the cane on my lap, watching the carved tigers spiral down its length while the blue gem at the top glittered in the light of my wal sconces.

Maybe he’ll ask for it tomorrow
, I told myself, as I had every night since we’d arrived. My new mantra. The one I repeated right before I cal ed Cassandra.

Who, once again, had nothing new to tel me. Except that she wanted to put Jack on the phone.

“Cassandra, I’m not talking to a dog on the—”

“Here he is!”

I heard panting. Echoes of my conversation with E.J., only Jack had enough control of his slobbers that Cassandra

wouldn’t

need

to

decontaminate

her

mouthpiece when we hung up.

“Uh, hel o, Jack. This would be Jaz. Talking to you on the phone.” I dropped my forehead into my hands, knowing Cassandra could blackmail me until the end of time now.

Because I would pay, yes, raid my savings regularly to make sure nobody ever heard about this. Even so, I said, “I don’t know how you dogs deal with disembodied voices.

My guess? You’re wondering why I haven’t walked out of Cassandra’s bathroom by now. Anyway, be a gentleman and do your business outside, okay, buddy? See you soon.”

Cassandra said, “He’s smiling. Huh. I wonder why he’s checking out the toilet?”

“No idea. So we’re stil stuck on what happened to Vayl?”

“I’m sorry, Jaz. I haven’t found any mention of this kind o f memory loss in the Enkyklios or my books so far, so I don’t think it’s a natural occurrence for vampires.”

“Yeah, Astral hasn’t come up with anything either.” Which sucked. Cassandra could research hundreds of supernatural sources. Astral, the wundercat Bergman had invented for me, also contained an Enkyklios, along with every government database I cared to access. Problem was, only a smal number of vamps had ever made it into the records. Most of them lived highly secretive lives, and of those who’d shared info, none had experienced Vayl’s current malady.

I took a deep breath. “Al right, then. I’m bringing in Sterling.”

Silence.

“Cassandra?”

“I’ve heard of him.”

“Who hasn’t?”

“Do you think—that is—maybe someone else would do just as wel ?”

“We’ve worked together before.”

“And how did that turn out?”

I cleared my throat. “I believe the city was going to have that house torn down anyway—”

“Jaz—”

“He’s the best. Nobody else wil do.”

“Okay.”

“So, uh, could you cal him?”

I didn’t actual y hear her gulp. But the long pause led me to believe she went through a hard swal ow or two before she said, “Me?”

“Yeah. Wel .” I pul ed my poker chips out of my pocket.

Set them down on the bench and began to shuffle them.

When I’d calmed down enough to talk again I said, “The last time I saw him, he told me that if I ever spoke to him again he was going to turn my hair purple and put a permanent knot in my tongue. He’s good enough to pul that off, you know.”

“What did you
do
?”

I sighed. If she was going to be my emissary, maybe she should have some background. “It was about three months before I started working with Vayl. I was chasing down a mage who’d been hired by some lobbying group to give the first lady a disease. I can’t even remember the name of it now. But it was rare enough that the government wasn’t providing any research funding. They figured if the president’s wife came down with it, the money would come pouring in. I’d cornered the mage once, but when he nearly dropped a bank sign on me, Pete decided I needed some hocus-pocus in my back pocket.”

“So he sent in Sterling.”

“Who is, I kid you not, the most annoying man on earth.

We’re only on the case for two weeks, but the entire time he never stops bitching about al the gigs he’s missing and how his band is probably just fal ing apart having to play with this dude from St. Louis. Like they’ve never heard of jazz in Missouri.”

I shook my head, realized Cassandra couldn’t see me, and went on. “So we’re searching through this abandoned house in the worst neighborhood in D.C., where we’ve heard the mage has holed up. There’s trash everywhere. It stinks like rotten potatoes and I’m pretty sure rats are living inside the furniture, so at least Sterling’s wearing shoes this time out. But I can’t figure why he’s dressed the rest of himself like a house painter. If his T-shirt was any whiter it would glow, making him a prime target. This, of course, makes me realize my black-on-black ensemble has probably qualified us to star in the next series of Good vs.

Evil videos on YouTube. But I’m not interested in becoming a cartoon. I just want to kil the mage and run before I catch whatever he’s got cooking for Mrs. President. However, Sterling’s not in the
mood
. He’s just had a cal from his drummer, who’s enchanted with his St. Louis sit-in.