Once Bitten, Twice Shy (28 page)

Wow. Did anybody else see a Divine Hand dipping down to smack Aidyn every time he took a forward step on this one? First his abominable disease turns into a bunny rabbit when he tries to get humans to pass it around. Then he gets the bright idea for vamps to take the lead role, but they're like a bunch of two-year-olds. NO, WE WON'T SHARE!

Aidyn continued, "However,
One
among us knew the story of a visionary leader named Tequet Dirani and how he nearly ruled this world and those beyond, with the help of the Tor-al-Degan.
She
will be our delivery system. She will take the plague from the infected vampire and spread it to the world."

"So, what are you telling me, that I should send my damn-you're-an-evil-genius-Hallmark card to the Raptor?"

Bang. If we'd been standing in front of an impartial jury I'd have gotten my guilty verdict simply from the expressions on their faces. They recovered quickly, however, and without revealing anything incriminating, damn them.

But maybe they didn't need to. Vampirella had said something before I smoked her that didn't make a lot of sense at the time. She'd said Aidyn would kill her for a guy named Edward, because she and Boris had rejected his proposals.
So, just for laughs, let's say Boris and Vampirella are the Vultures of a Russian nest that the Raptor wants as an ally because maybe it's big and bad and centrally located. The Raptor approaches them with a proposal and they say hell no. He's pissed, so he works it out with Aidyn to bring them to Miami, get them killed by plague (or by assassin) and both he and Aidyn get what they want. Huh
. I'd have to do a little research to back up my theories, but I was willing to bet I'd just discovered the Raptor's real name.

All this time Aidyn had been considering me silently. Now he said, "You look familiar. Do I know you?"

His question staggered me. Did he
know
me? I experienced an endless moment of total nothingness, like the shock you get right before the boom of a nuclear blast. In that white stillness I instinctively wanted to grab onto something solid. My emotions were suddenly so mangled I couldn't believe I was capable of coherent thought.
Oh. My. God
! Then I became the explosive, a sleek silver canister containing a mushroom cloud full of infinite death. He'd killed Matt. He'd killed
me
! And I was supposed to keep chatting him up as if we'd met at a conference years ago and were getting reacquainted?

"Jasmine!" It was Vayl's voice in my ear, concerned, maybe even a little panicky. "I can sense your feelings from out here. Something is tearing you up inside. Do I need to come in?"
Hell yeah! Get in here and trash this room! Impale Aidyn's image on that coat rack over there! Save Cole! Save me
!

I took a deep breath. And another. I had to get control. Right. Now. I started to shake. Full body tremors that made me tighten my shoulder blades and clench my hands. My teeth didn't quite chatter but it was a close thing, as if I'd been walking in 40 degree weather with no coat for hours.

I closed my eyes.
The killing time will come, Jaz. You can wait for it. The Voice told you so
.

"Jasmine, I am coming in," said Vayl.

"No."

"No?" Aidyn echoed.

"No, you don't know me," I replied, wishing my voice wouldn't shake like that. I tried to get back to the facts. Things we at the C.I.A. would want to know when we prosecuted the ones Vayl and I didn't immediately terminate. "What I don't get is—why kill us off in the first place? The way you look at things, that's the majority of your blood supply moved so far down the food chain even the worms wouldn't benefit."

Aidyn began shaking his head before I'd finished. "No, not at all. We are simply culling the herd, weeding out the weak in order to purify our stock. When they are gone, we will introduce the antidote." I wanted to wipe the smug expression off his face—with a flamethrower. "This will, of course, make the survivors extremely grateful to us. In fact, they will decide they owe us something in return for saving them from the very plague we have begun."

"I suppose that's where you step in, Senator?"

He gave me his classic, CNN smile. So caring, so sincere.
Ass
. "A country under siege needs a strong leader. A popular leader. Someone who can explain the new order to them in such a way that they'll wonder why they didn't think of it themselves." His delivery was so smooth I'd have bet he was speaking from a script. One written by Edward the Raptor.

"And that is?"

"Willing servitude, Jasmine dear. Blood for safety, blood for health. It's not such a high price to pay. I'll show them that."

"And your terrorist friends get to see America brought to her knees."

Assan flashed his teeth. "We'll be dancing in the streets."

It wasn't hard to envision. They'd done the same after the Towers fell, and I'd wanted to kill every one of the sons of bitches then. Soon I'd get the chance. But first…

I sighed. "All right. Flip the switch. I'm trading places with Cole."

"Like hell!" said Cole, while at the same time Vayl snapped, "You will
not
do this!"

I took Cole by the hands, but I spoke to Vayl too when I said, "You have to trust me now.
Believe
me. I know what I'm doing."

Vayl's voice blared in my ear as Cole tried to shake his head without passing out. "Jasmine! I forbid this!"

"Now!" yelled Assan. "Switch!"

I squeezed Cole's hands as hard as I could, yanked him out of his chair and took his place. He staggered backward until he collided with a pile of boxes. I thought he'd hit the floor next, but he found his balance.

"Time to go," I told both of my men, before either could argue. "I'll see you again.
Soon
."

"I'll be back for you," Cole vowed, his battered face combining with his ferocious expression to make him resemble a biblical prophet.
Wild
.

"I'm counting on it," I said. I checked Grief to make sure the safety was on, tossed it to him. "Shoot anyone who tries to stop you. Now get going."

With a final nod, Cole stumbled out of the room. I didn't have time to worry about whether or not he'd make it down the ladder, much less the stairs. The three amigos were still tuned in and I really needed to get rid of them.

"Would you like me to prepare you for tomorrow's activities?" Assan inquired. "We have such a fantastic evening planned."

Oh goody, I've given myself over to the Cruise Director of the Beast Boat
. "Why don't you surprise me?" I suggested. "You give me too many details and I may just decide to walk away from this whole deal."

"But—you would be blown up!"

"Exactly."

He and Aidyn exchanged a quiet word with the senator. "Very well then, we will leave you in peace." The picture flickered and faded to gray. They'd gone, though I was sure somebody over at Psycho Central still kept tabs on me.

I closed my eyes and lowered my head. Hopefully my watcher would assume I was praying. And in a way, I was. As when I made my out-of-body visit to David, I focused my entire mind on what I wanted. Except this time I had the right words to go with it, words the Voice gave me now in tremendous, booming thumps, as if they resounded from the world's largest drum.

My
voice was a quiet murmur, fitting perfectly with the dust and neglect surrounding me. As the words spilled over my lips I began to feel dizzy and disconnected, as if the moment before sleep falls had been magnified a hundred times. My entire body began to tingle, and if I touched someone right now I'd expect to shock them.

I opened my eyes as I felt myself rise. It scared me, actually. I thought maybe I'd truly begun to stand up, and I sure didn't want to end it all with an accidental
Ka-Boom
. Part of me, the gravity-bound bomb-sitter, stayed put. But another part continued to move up to and through the ceiling, into the roof's crawlspace and through that as well. I started to wonder if anything would stop me from floating away like a hot-air balloon minus its release valve. I tried to direct my movements, without luck. Up, up I went, a space-bound spirit with no hold left in the world.

"WRONG!" It was the Voice, still sounding more like thunder than communication. "LOOK!"

I
am
looking
! The snippy little reply was on the tip of what now passed for my tongue. It was also a lie. All my attention had been directed inward. Now I looked outside myself. Seven golden cords stretched from various points of the earth up, up to me. I concentrated harder and realized I could tell who the cord was touching simply by the way it vibrated. Actually, the vibration was more of a song. I identified Albert and Evie immediately. Dave, whose cord had just been a yellow blur the first time I'd traveled beyond my body, was there too. Vayl had his own tune, as did Bergman and Cassandra. Cole's was the one I focused on, however. I grabbed that cord of music with what passed for my hands and hurtled down it, delighting in the speed, wondering if this was how it felt to be a skeleton racer.

I stopped just short of ramming into Cole or, more likely, through him. He slumped against the post of a traffic sign, trying to hail a cab. But nobody wanted to stop for a guy who looked like he'd just been mugged and, therefore, had no money for fare.

"Cole," I said softly, whispering right into his ear. "Relax. Vayl's coming."

He jerked upright and spun around, his face a picture of relief and joy. The picture quickly changed to confusion and disappointment. "She's not here, fool," Cole chastised himself. "She's sitting on a bomb. Where you should be."

Okay, I'm invisible. Why is that? Dave saw me.

I let go of Cole's cord and grabbed Vayl's. It took me right into the van, which he was trying, and failing, to start. I settled into the passenger seat as he cranked the key and stomped the gas pedal. Over the sound of the struggling engine I heard him mutter, "Stupid, stupid, stupid son of a
bitch
!" He slammed the steering wheel with both hands, making it shudder on its perch.

"Geez Vayl, chill would you? At this rate Cole's going to freak out and walk in front of a bus while you're still deciding whether to flood the van or trash the steering column."

He gaped at me, smiled his dangerous smile and grabbed for my arm. I think he was hoping for a hug, but his fingers went right through me. The dismay on his face would've been funny any other time. "Um, I guess I should've warned you I'm not quite solid. But I wasn't sure you'd see me."

He shook his head slowly. "Unbelievable."

"You say that like you're impressed, but you're making that face, the one I get after I've made a stupid mistake."

He made a frustrated, that's-exactly-what-you've-done gesture. "How are you planning to rejoin your body, that is, if it is not blown to bits during the course of events?"

"I thought I'd try just jumping in."

"Are you insane?!" Now that Vayl had a living—sort of—target for his anger he had no problem starting the van. And now that he'd asked me the one question I'd feared most, I found I was too mad to care.

"You know what? I probably am! I did walk straight into a trap so obvious even a wooly mammoth could've avoided it. Because that's my job. Yes, it
is
insane to leave the biggest part of me sitting on an explosive device. But, according to my job description, I'm supposed to save innocents, not endanger them. Yes, it's crazy to stick around waiting for a plague beast to eat my soul. You'd think one death would be my limit. But apparently I just can't get enough of it! So can we just agree I'm bonkers and move on already?"

Vayl jerked his head, his version of a nod, and said, "So where is Cole?"

"Two blocks west of here, last I saw him."

"You… saw him. You went to him first?"

"His nose is broken," I said, as if I needed an excuse. "And, you know what, I don't need an excuse. I might be a couple of hundred years younger than you, but I'm still an adult! If I want to show concern for a friend, I will do exactly that!" I nearly stomped my foot, but that seemed a little too junior high to ram home my point.

Vayl steered the van back onto the street as he began to mutter again. I didn't catch it all, but I thought I heard him say, "That won't be all that is broken."

Dammit! If there is any way to screw up a relationship, I will find it
. I pictured Cupid sitting in a crappy little bar, drunk and depressed, while he moaned to the bartender, "That Jasmine Parks,
gods
she pisses me off! Did you see what she just did? Totally blew off this immortal stud who's nuts for her to play kiss-the-boo-boo with a fickle little rent-a-cop. Why? 'Cause she's the biggest chicken-shlit on the planet! I'm ready to toss my bow and pick up a bazooka!"

"Vayl?"

"What!"

"I love you."

I knew he was going to ask for a repeat before he even opened his mouth, as if it wasn't hard enough to say the first time. That's what convinced me it was the real deal. I wouldn't go through this for anyone else on earth.

"What?" he whispered, looking suddenly young and vulnerable.

"I love you, Vayl. There's Cole, see? Can we stop and get him before he keels over?"

"Only if you love me."

We smiled at each other. "I do," I said. "Sorry about the crappy timing. This sort of thing should be sealed with a kiss. Or… something."

"I suppose we will have to save that for the plane ride back."

Oh my.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch
, I thought as I floated into Bergman's house, leaving Vayl and Cole to pass the doorknocker's muster. From the looks of things, we shouldn't have left the cowpokes to their own devices for quite so long. With Bergman bristling like an irritated land baron and Cassandra throwing off bad vibes like a cornered gunslinger, it looked like we were about to have a good old-fashioned bar fight. Never mind that the bar had never seen a shot of whiskey in its whole upper-middle class life, Cassandra looked like she wanted to drag Bergman down the length of it, scattering test tubes, chemicals and bags of contaminated blood all along the way.