Another One Bites The Dust

The creature circled me, looking a lot less intimidated by Great-Great Grandpa’s knife than I would’ve liked.

Well, screw it. I ran straight at him, yelling like a pissed-off soccer mom, waving my blade like a samurai warrior. I faked left, right, left, watching as his shield opened wider and wider. It could not keep up with his bobbing head as he tried to avoid getting his throat cut. One more feint and I jumped forward, burying my blade in the shield gap his movements had caused.

He died instantly.

I pulled my weapon free and cleaned it on his stolen uniform. Glad the bolo had saved me. Sorry the same family had subjected it to nearly one hundred years of blood and guts. We seem to spawn killers, no doubt about that. I found myself hoping hard that E.J. could break that chain. Maybe when I got a free second I’d give her a call and make that suggestion. Never mind that she was less than a month old and would spend the entire time trying to eat the receiver. It’s never too early to start brainwashing your young.

Jaz Parks Novels

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Another One Bites the Dust

Biting the Bullet

Bitten to Death

One More Bite

For Katie . . . When you look in a mirror, see the miracle. I love you.

Copyright © 2007 by Jennifer Rardin

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Orbit

Hachette Book Group USA

237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com

First eBook Edition: December 2007

ISBN: 0-316-02395-7

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

Acknowledgments

Meet the Author

CHAPTERONE

You are what you drive. My personal ride is a fully reconditioned 1965 Corvette Sting Ray 327 convertible, inherited from my Granny May after Pops Lew passed away. He taught me everything I know about fast, powerful cars. How to drive them, keep them running, love them with unrelenting passion.

So maybe it was understandable that, despite wearing a helmet that currently hid my entire face from view, if a pit had suddenly yawned open before me, I would’ve happily leaped into it and hurtled to my untimely death rather than spent another second with my ass pinned to the seat of a 1993 moped.

Sometimes my job just sucks.

Nobody would’ve agreed with me less than my mo-buddy, Cole Bemont, who chugged along the Bay Trail beside me at a stately rate of speed, humming a little ditty into his helmet mike as he avoided crashing into yet another stray Texan. On this mild, sunny afternoon it seemed like half of Corpus Christi had read our adventure-seeking minds and said, “Cool. Let’s go get in their way.”

Skaters, bikers, and fishermen vied for space along the wide stretch of asphalt we shared with parents guarding strollers and scampering kids. To our left a bright white seawall punctuated by an inviting little gazebo divided land from water, a sparkling blue inlet to the Gulf of Mexico. To our right, a broad strip of grass led up a gentle slope, past a deserted bandstand to rows of hotels, restaurants, and the occasional dance club. Ahead of us a palm-lined parking lot and boat-happy marina marked the end of everyday recreation and the beginning of extra-special fun. Which was where we came in.

We’d taken upon ourselves the task of scoping out the Corpus Christi Winter Festival, which was even now rising from the trampled grass just beyond our vision. Afterward we planned to report our findings to our boss, Vayl. Once he rose. As in, from the dead. He’s a vamp, one of the growing minority who’ve cast their lot with society for better or, as has commonly been the case, for worse.

At any rate, Cole and I, having already been given most of the necessary details regarding our target, figured it might be fun, and indeed professional, to locate the spot where said target was digging in. It wouldn’t hurt to become familiar with the overall plan of the festival, either, considering the fact that we were going to become attractions ourselves all too soon.

Within minutes we reached the site. Hundreds of scurrying roadies and home business owners infused the place with an atmosphere of anticipation as they set up game booths, food trailers, and shops where you could drop a load of cash on potions, pendants, or candles whose scent made you dream of lost loved ones. As we wound our way past craft tables and warding booths Cole said, “Jasmine, promise we’ll stop there before we leave this place!”

He pointed to a stall whose four-foot-high hand-painted sign announced its name in neon orange letters as Boogie Chickens. According to the smaller print, you only had to invest a dollar to watch four Brahma hens groove to classic hits by the Bee Gees.

“We should hire them to open for us,” I said.

“It won’t work,” Cole replied. “I’ve seen that look in Vayl’s eyes before. You’re not talking him out of the belly-dancing gig.”

Ouch.

Vayl hadn’t even tried to soften the blow. He’d smacked me with it two days before, while we were still motoring through Indiana. When I’d asked him what our crew would be doing at the Corpus Christi Winter Festival he’d replied, “Our target, whose name is Chien-Lung, is taking a troupe of Chinese acrobats to divert copious crowds of Texans throughout the last week of February. Because his security is unparalleled, the best way for us to lure him into the open is to become entertainment ourselves. As a Seer and Reader of Tarot, Cassandra will be our main draw. Lung is obsessed with psychics and will not be able to resist attending her show. Before she arrives onstage we will whet his appetite with our own unique talents. Cole will juggle, I will sing, you will belly dance, and Bergman will attend to all electronic apparatus including lights, sound, and surveillance.”

I held up my hands as if they could actually stop this rocket. “Whoa! Now, wait a minute. I’m not belly dancing.”

“Yes, you are. It is a beautiful, ancient art. One you should be proud to share.”

“I can’t belly dance.”

“Yes, you can. It is in your fi—”

“Will you stop reading my goddamn file!”

Nobody had said a word. It reminded me of a classroom right after the teacher has gone ballistic and thrown a textbook out the window. I’d briefly considered making my own exit that way, but since we’d been traveling down I-70 in a gigantic RV at the time, that option had seemed a little extreme.

The whole show-must-go-on concept explained the presence of Cassandra, who’d helped us tame the last monster we’d faced, though the Tor-al-Degan had nearly chowed down on my soul before our black-braided beauty had finally sent the beast back to Kyronland where it belonged. It didn’t clarify Bergman’s presence, however. A mom-and-pop show like the one Vayl meant for us to stage didn’t require a brilliant, neurotic inventor to babysit the spotlight and the CD player. However, I was willing to leave that mystery until later. My integrity was at stake here!

“Surely there’s another, better way to get close to this Chien-Lung,” I said, very reasonably I thought, considering the fact that I wanted to rip off Vayl’s eyebrows and Super Glue them to his upper lip.

He didn’t reply. Just sat back on his beige couch. It exactly matched the one on which I perched directly across from him. But he ignored me, looked instead at Cassandra, who sat beside me, and said, “Chien-Lung is an ancient vampire with a dragon fixation. It is said that soon after he turned, he was caught draining the chieftain’s daughter. For this crime he was boiled alive.” Cassandra made a sound that landed somewhere between compassion and disgust, and smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her bright red skirt. “He claims a dragon saved him, though not soon enough. He lost his sanity but not his brilliance. In him it has become an explosive combination.”

Vayl went on. “During at least three previous presidential administrations Chien-Lung enjoyed diplomatic immunity while he stole nuclear technology and influenced foreign policy toward China. Then he disappeared. Our sources tell us he was trying to complete his transformation from vampire to dragon.”

Without taking his eyes off the road (good thing, since he was driving) Cole said, “Hang on a second. Transformation? To dragon? What’s that all about?”

“He believes his vampirism is a larval state from which he can, when stimulated correctly, emerge as a dragon.”

Bergman, sitting beside Cole in the passenger seat, spun completely around at that comment. “You can’t be serious.”

“I did say he was insane.”

Yeah, but that’s no cause to call in the assassins, I thought. So I asked, “What’s he done this time?”

Vayl raised his left eyebrow just enough to let me know he was about to say something momentous. “He has been conspiring with Edward Samos.”

Moment of silence while we all digested. During our last mission we’d averted a national disaster planned by Samos and a few of his newest allies. Only we’d been calling him the Raptor then, for want of a true identity. Unfortunately, only the partners had paid for their crimes. Samos had slipped our net entirely.

“What have they been plotting?” I asked, managing a casual tone despite the fact that I badly wanted to punch something.

“We were able to intercept a cell phone call during which they discussed exactly how Samos would arrange for Chien-Lung to get in and out of White Sands undetected.”

Bergman perked up like a dog that’s just smelled a T-bone. “I know that base,” he said. “I’ve sent a few things to be tested there.”

I was still so distracted by the belly-dancing news combined with this new bombshell I almost didn’t catch Vayl’s nod or the tightening of his lips. Sure signs of trouble on the horizon. I said, “Are you telling me the same son of a bitch who nearly released a plague on our country gained access to one of our military installations?”

Vayl clenched his jaw so hard I could see the muscles spasm in his cheeks. “The prospect horrifies me as well,” he admitted. “But we know Chien-Lung traveled to Las Cruces last week with his Chinese acrobats. He took the show to the base, and while he was there we believe he used the Raptor’s inside knowledge to steal a vital piece of technology.”

He looked at Bergman, who shifted uneasily at being the focus of the vampire’s gaze. “Miles, I am sorry. The item is your invention.”

“But the only thing I have at White Sands right now is . . .” Bergman’s eyes lost focus. He turned red, paled, then slumped so far forward in his seat I thought he’d passed out. “Oh my God,” he moaned, clenching tufts of his limp brown hair between his fingers. “Not M55. Not that. Not that.”

“What is that?” asked Cole.

“The researchers I was working with called it dragon armor. It’s a type of personal protection for soldiers in the field that actually binds to its wearer at the cellular level. It took me eight years to develop it and now you’re telling me it’s gone?” Bergman put his hand over his mouth as if to keep himself from gagging.

“We will get the armor back, Miles,” Vayl said, in a tone so reassuring even I felt better. “That is part of our mission. Though during the conversation we overheard, Chien-Lung and the Raptor did not reveal why they were working together, we can assume Samos feels his nefarious schemes will be furthered once he controls the armor. That we cannot allow.”

Despite the gravity of the situation I took a second to delight in Vayl’s continued connection to his eighteenth-century roots. Oh, he tried to fit in. Back at the home office (we work out of Cleveland, I think because the CIA’s tired of paying DC rental prices), Vayl and our boss, Pete, could trade football stories like they’d both played for Ohio State and hoped to God the Browns needed a fifth-string quarterback the year they graduated. True for Pete. For Vayl, well, as soon as he fumbled a word like “nefarious” you knew he’d never touched a pigskin in his life. Unless it was attached to an actual pig.

He met my eyes. “The second part of our mission is directly related to the first. In order to retrieve the armor, we must terminate its wearer. When Bergman feels better, he will help explain why.”

I couldn’t stand it any longer. I went to Bergman, knelt beside his chair, and took his trembling, chapped hands in my own.

He peered down at me through blasted eyes. “Oh, God, Jasmine, please. Please get it back.” He looked like he’d lost his only child. And in a way he had. That’s how much he invested in his creations.

“We will,” I said. “I promise.”

Bergman had barely spoken a word since. When we’d finally parked our colossus at a gas station/convenience store called Moe’s, I’d been relieved when Cole had suggested our present mission. It would finally give me a chance to escape the gloom that had permeated our ride so thoroughly I’d begun to feel like I was breathing thunderclouds.

“There’s a booth with an actual phone book inside,” I’d said as we’d exited the RV, pointing to the plastic-encased stall at the north corner of Moe’s lot. I’d headed toward it.

“Who’re we calling?” asked Cole.

“A cab. I assume the festival is too far from here for hiking.”

“Oh, we don’t need to walk,” he said. I stopped, turned, and followed him back to the trailer we’d towed all the way from Ohio. Though small, it still looked like it could hold everything I owned. Since he’d been the last one to drive, Cole had a set of keys in his pocket. He unlocked the doors and threw them open. I looked inside, and every one of my ribs knocked against its neighbor in a domino drop straight to my feet. No doubt they heard therattle, rattle, clunk all the way to Amarillo.

“Oh my God, this can’t be happening!” I cried.

“What?”

“Mopeds? Those are the wheels Pete gives us? Iknew he was pissed off at me! It was all that time I spent in the hospital, wasn’t it? Or was it the wrecks? But I only tore up one car last time! And that wasn’t my fault!” I wailed.

“Jaz, calm down!” Cole pleaded. “They don’t allow anything more powerful on the festival site. He thought it would give us the best mobility for what the rules permit.”

“Oh.” I watched mournfully as Cole backed the mopeds out of the trailer and relocked it. The manufacturer’s pallid color choice, white with pale blue gas tanks and tan seats, defeated even my Sensitivity-enhanced vision. These vehicles blew. Worst of all, their top speed would probably only finish middle of the pack in the Boston Marathon.

But they did get us to the festival, where we put-putted past the mass of tents housing a national flower show, the future site of a hamburger-eating contest, the rides.Seedy , I thought when I caught a good look at the old equipment, peeling paint, and dripping oil, looking as sorely used as the people forcing it all back into action.

“Get a load of that,” I told Cole, nodding at the multiarmed monster that would soon be twirling people around like plates at the top of a circus performer’s pole. “Next time we need to interrogate somebody, what do you say we stick them on that puppy for about twenty minutes first?”

“Think how much money we’d save on truth serum.”

“Pete would probably promote us.”

“Is it just me or is this crowd thicker than burnt oatmeal?”

“It is getting kinda tough to avoid the rug rats. Let’s park these wagons and walk.”

We headed north of the crush to a Four Seasons parking lot, ditched the mopeds, and took the helmets with us. Hopefully someone would steal the ridiculous little bikes while our backs were turned. If not, I would seriously consider dropping my keys into some wild-eyed teenager’s lap.

For the next half hour we strolled the wide, mulched walkway that ran the length of the festival site. It wound around and between attractions like a long piece of dark red licorice. Besides all the sales booths and rides, we passed eight separate stages where singers, dancers, comedians, mediums, and magicians would enthrall the masses for the next seven days. But not us. Cole told me we had our own tent, the better to control those random happenings that can, if left unchecked, slam an operation right against the wall.

We found Chien-Lung’s Chinese acrobats setting up their performance space in an enormous clearing toward the northwest corner of the festival site. At the moment a seemingly infinite series of air pumps the size of Cassandra’s makeup case lined up next to neat tunnels of plastic. Eventually these would inflate the mass of red, yellow, and purple material the acrobats were still unfolding into an actual building. Since Vayl and I had tailed a guy through a similar structure in France four months earlier, I knew it could be done. But from this point of view, it seemed unlikely.

“Wow,” said Cole. “They look so organized.”

“And clean-cut,” I added. “Apparently you’re only allowed to let yourself go if you’re a U.S. citizen.”

A squeal and a giggle followed my comment. I looked around to see who found me so amusing, so naturally it had nothing to do with me. A young Chinese woman wearing red capris and a plain green T-shirt had set up a checkered picnic blanket where she sat with her legs folded underneath her hips while she threw her baby up in the air and caught him. And when I say up, I don’t mean up like a preservice tennis ball. I mean like an NFL kickoff. And heloved it. Every time he flew he laughed uproariously, and every time his mom caught him he wiggled madly, clearly encouraging her to toss him even higher the next time around.

I nudged Cole, whose grin told me he also thought Flying Baby rocked. “You know,” I said, “if I tried to do that with my niece she’d puke in my face.”

“Sensitive stomach, huh?”

“Let’s put it this way. I helped take care of the kid for three weeks, and every day by noon I had so much spit-up on my shirt I could’ve squeezed it into a trough for the neighborhood cats.”

Not that I was complaining. After spending a month in the hospital recovering from the punctured side, broken ribs, and collapsed lung I’d suffered during our final showdown with the Tor-al-Degan on our last mission, I couldn’t wait to fly to Evie’s and help out after the birth of her daughter, E.J. It should’ve been fun. The new parents were like kids at Christmas when I talked to them the day E.J. was born. But when I arrived she was five days old. They hadn’t slept more than four hours a night total, and she’d been howling like a coyote pretty much ever since they’d brought her home.

“Colic,” the pediatrician had said at her first checkup, when Evie asked frantically why E.J. cried so much. “She’ll outgrow it,” he told us absently, as I struggled not to charge him and shake him until his stethoscope fell off and, if there was a God, whacked him right in the cojones. I’m sure Tim would’ve done the same, but he’d taken his chance to catch forty winks in the rocking chair in the corner of the room.

That was the day I discovered a new way to vent my frustrations.

After driving the exhausted family home and leaving Evie to tuck Tim into bed and then watch E.J. go another round in the living room with her swing, I grabbed a six-pack of Pepsi and retreated to the backyard.

It had snowed the night before, covering the frozen ground with a fine white powder that sparkled with vivid, spirit-boosting colors. Tim’s maul leaned against the redwood deck where he’d left it after splitting some logs. I straightened the handle and twirled it absently. Then I got an idea.

“You know what?” I murmured, releasing a can from the pack and setting it on the ground. “This could be a good thing.” I took a moment to measure the distance, swung the maul high over my head, and brought it down hard. The can crushed with a lovely, metalliccrack and pop flew everywhere. I couldn’t help it. I had to smile.

Eventually I introduced my little sanity saver to Evie and Tim. But I didn’t think Chinese Mom would have need for it. Not with such a cooperative boy in hand. She finally got tired and grounded her little astronaut, tucking him into a sit-and-stroll contraption whose wheels she seemed to have locked. With his own personal joyride closing without warning, and his new one temporarily on blocks, I expected him to throw a massive tantrum. But he just grinned, his four teeth twinkling like little pearls in the dying light. I caught his mom’s eye as she gave him a handful of hot dog wedges and a sippy cup full of milk.

“He’s adorable,” I said, smiling.

She smiled back. “Thank you.” From her accent I suspected she didn’t know a heck of a lot of English. Still, I had to ask. “Is he always this happy?”

She nodded proudly. “He only cry when he hungry or tired.”

“Wow, that’s great. So, you’re with the acrobat troupe?”

“Yes, my husband and I both perform. But I am having slight injury”—she pointed to her ankle, which was wrapped and taped in the classic “badly sprained” style—“so I sitting out this week.”

Suddenly Cole lunged forward, startling us both. “Something’s wrong with the baby,” he explained as he knelt in front of the new-age walker, his face very close to the boy’s. “He’s not getting any air.”

Chinese Mom and I exchanged horrified looks as we both realized the baby’s lips had begun to turn blue.

Cole tried to clear his throat. “It’s not coming out.” He pulled the boy out of his seat and laid him on his back. Then, gently but firmly, he performed the Heimlich maneuver on him, using just two fingers from each hand to force air out his lungs and back up his throat. After four fruitless tries it worked. The baby spit out a chunk of hot dog that looked big enough to choke an elephant.

He took a deep breath. Looked at his mother in surprise. And burst into tears. That worked for her. Within seconds she was crying too, holding out her arms so Cole could transfer him for some dual boohooing and a comforting rock while we watched.

“Should we leave?” Cole finally asked.

“I’m not really sure about Heimlich etiquette,” I replied. “But it is getting kind of late.” I patted Chinese Mom on the arm. “We’re so glad he’s okay,” I said. “You’re okay too, right?” She nodded. “Great. Well, we have to go.”

“Oh, no, but I must thank you properly! And my husband! He will want to thank you also!” She looked so horrified at the thought of us leaving that Cole quickly reassured her.

“We’re not leaving for good. We’re performers too. Tell you what, why don’t you come by our tent tomorrow? We’ll give you tickets to our show and we’ll have a chance to meet your husband then.”

“Oh, yes, that will be fine. And then you will come to our show as well. Yes?”

“Of course,” Cole agreed, before I could throw an elbow to remind him we’d come to kill a vampire, not make friends with his employees. We all smiled and bobbed our heads at each other. Then Cole and I said our goodbyes to Flying Baby, who’d already dried his tears and moved on to more interesting diversions, like trying to snag his mom’s earrings while she thanked us about three dozen more times.

As we moved on I said, “Wow. I think you get gold stars in heaven for stuff like that.”

Cole shrugged. “I dated a nurse for a while. And an EMT.” When I glanced at him he gave me a wink. “I went through this whole women-in-uniform phase.”

“Which is my cue to change the subject. That kid is amazing. Don’t tell my sister some babies hardly ever cry. As freaked as she is about motherhood right now she’ll probably leap to some bizarre conclusion about the colic being her fault, and next thing you know she’ll be in a convent somewhere, reciting her sins into some poor priest’s ear between her hourly lashings.”

“I didn’t know you were Catholic.”

“We’re not.”

It didn’t take long to cruise the rest of the site. Past the Chinese acrobats’ building, a cheap orange fence manned by two security guards cordoned off the northwest border. The guards, big-bellied men with self-important attitudes, stood with their backs to the building and the scattering of booths here at the end of the path, watching a group of nine picketers who’d commandeered the last twenty-five yards of a narrow access road for their demonstration.

Four women and five men circled a group of kids who sat in lawn chairs, pretending to be homeschooled when, in fact, they were carefully studying the festival setup. I picked out two teenage boys in particular who could probably be counted on to sneak off and hop a ride or two later in the week. But for now they continued the charade as their parents lugged gigantic billboards around their perimeter. These signs had apparently ground the grown-ups down so far all they could manage was a weary staggered chant: “Othersarenot our brothers.” The sign slogans delivered their messages with a lot more punch.SUPERNATURAL IS UNNATURAL. TO BE HUMAN IS DIVINE! GOD HATES OTHERS. UP WITH HUMANS! And, oddly,VOTE FOR PURE WATER!

“Whoare these people?” murmured Cole.

“Well, I’m ninety percent sure this is about half the congregation of the Church Sanctified in Christ the Crucified.”

Cole laughed.

“That is not a name I could make up that fast.”

“How do you even know about them?”

“One of their members sent a letter to the president threatening to kill him if he agreed to giveothers the right to vote, so Pete sent out a memo.”

“The president doesn’t even have that power.”

“I don’t think that question came up during the sermon.” I looked for the group’s van. According to Pete, its slogans were so offensive that evenothers trying to blend might be tempted to roll it over a cliff. Yup, there it was, parked just up the road. I couldn’t see much from this angle, just a cracked front window, two American flags flying off the corners of the front bumper and a white banner someone had tied across the grill that screamed,GOD IS ON OUR SIDE!

Cole said, “Do you think they ever stop and walk the other direction?”

“I imagine that’s a sin.”

Cole threw me a look I couldn’t interpret. “What?” I asked.

“Don’t these idiots make you mad?”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Vayl’s another . Plus, considering what happened in Miami, technicallyyou may be one. Dude, they’re putting your peeps down.”

“You worry too much about what other people think of you. Plus, they have a right to their opinions. For that matter, so do I. The problem isn’t that we disagree.”

“No?”

“The problem is that they can’t disagree without getting so mad they want to kill somebody. Like the president, for instance. And if it really does go that far, somebody calls me and then I have to go kill one of them. And the first rule you learn in this business is . . .” I waited for him to finish my sentence.

“Never kill when you’re mad,” he complied, “because that’s when it might be murder.” I didn’t tell him how often I’d broken that rule. He’d figure that out on his own soon enough.

Eventually I felt about as bored as the guards looked. I was just getting ready to suggest Cole and I hike back to our (hopefully missing) mopeds when one of the guards turned to speak to his companion.

“Did you see that?” I asked.

“See what?”

Some instinct made me pull Cole into the shelter of a white party tent, the sides of which had been rolled down to keep the wind from blowing away several boxes full of cone-shaped cups that would eventually contain a ton of ice and a teaspoon of syrup. I peeked through the crack between the material and the pole it had been tied to. A second later I saw it again. “The guard on the right. Watch his face when he moves.”

Cole stared hard, squinching his eyes until he kind of resembled Chinese Baby. “I don’t see anything.”

Weird. I’d been counting on confirmation from him. A childhood accident had changed him, made him a Sensitive like me. It allowed him to pick up on the presence of vamps and other things that go bump in the night. But then, since I had donated blood to a vampire—my boss, in fact—I sort of had an advanced degree.

“What did you see, Jaz?”

“Every time he moved, his face sort of blurred, like it was catching up to the rest of him.”

Cole blew out a breath. “Bizarre.”

“Yeah. And I get the feeling he’s not the type we should just stroll up and introduce ourselves to.”

“What do you think? You want to stick around, see what he’s up to?”

I took another peek. “He’s not going anywhere. Let’s get the rest of the posse. Maybe they’ll know something.”

I realized Fate, which had often punched me so hard I couldn’t see for the swelling, may have dealt me a pair of aces in Cassandra and Bergman. Though I always had reservations about using consultants, those suddenly disappeared. I had a feeling this new wrinkle was going to need all our resources if we ever meant to lay it flat again.

CHAPTERTWO

I’ll say this, RVs have developed panache since the bang-your-chin-on-the-sink-while-using-the-toilet days of my youth. The one Vayl had reserved for our use was tricked out. A plasma TV took up headspace behind the cab. Cassandra’s couch had a small reading table. Beside Bergman’s there was enough room for a light brown leather banquette to wrap around a glass dining table. Behind it a black granite counter that could be used as a standing breakfast bar rounded back toward the wall, which held a mirrored wine case, a black refrigerator, and maple cabinets. On the opposite wall, more cabinets framed the stove, microwave, and black porcelain sink. The designer had even left room for another, smaller TV.

Down the carpeted hallway, the bathroom looked like it had been lifted straight out of the Ritz. And the bedroom had its own TV plus a big old queen-sized bed and plenty of drawer space. Oh, we still had that RV thing going on, where the couches and banquette all made into beds and you could store stuff in every conceivable nook and cranny. But, baby, we were stylin’.

I’d just entered the RV when I heard Vayl come to life. The gulp he took reminded me of a kid who tries to hold his breath past too many rows of tombstones. I nodded to Cassandra, who’d looked up from her book when I came in. “Cole’s securing the trailer,” I whispered, since Bergman was snoozing, his face buried in a red tasseled pillow, his right arm and leg dragging the gold carpeted floor.

Cassandra nodded and went back to her reading.

I went to Vayl’s room and knocked on the door.

“Jasmine?” His voice sounded gruff and slightly pained.

“Yeah.”

“Come in.”

The light-impermeable tent he slept (died?) in every morning engulfed the top of the bed. He came around from behind it, closing the top button of his tailored black slacks, his navy blue shirt hanging open, revealing a broad, muscular chest covered with black curls and an empty gold chain that had once carried the ring I now wore on my right hand.

I forced my eyes to the ring, swallowing a spurt of highly inappropriatewowsa. The rubies that marched around their gold settings glittered in the soft lights Vayl had turned on when he woke. I concentrated on the craftsmanship Vayl’s grandfather had put into the ring, the love and artistry and power that had been required to turn gold and gems into a relic that protected, and connected, us both.

“What are you thinking?” he asked. He stood so close I could feel his cool breath against my heated face.

“Your grandpa must’ve been an amazing man to have made such a beautiful ring for you.”

I peered into Vayl’s eyes. At the moment they were the soft brown that characterized his most relaxed, real self. They squeezed at the corners, as they often did when I forced him into his distant, painful past.

“He was . . . devoted to his family, but also very set in his way of thinking.” His lips drew back at some memory.

“Vayl?”

He began forcing the buttons of his shirt through their holes so abruptly I was surprised they didn’t pop off. “Do you know how the Roma regard vampires?” he demanded.

“No, not really.” Though I should. Why didn’t I delve more into Vayl’s roots?Because to know him is to love him, and you’re so not ready to go there.

“To the Roma we are dead. And therefore unclean. But that impurity is spread also to our family.” When I didn’t seem suitably impressed Vayl said, “When my grandfather found out about Liliana and I, he led the mob that came to kill us.”

“But . . . he made the ring for you. He knew your soul would be in danger—”

“Yes, but he expected me to be attacked by demons. He did not think I would become one myself.”

“And, what, infect your family somehow?”

“No, not infect them. Kill them, turn them, destroy their very souls.”

“Well, that’s just stupid.”

Vayl’s finger brushed against the ring he’d given me. He called it Cirilai, which meant “Guardian.” The barest hint of a smile lifted his lips. “I appreciate your support. But you must remember the age. It was 1751. Long before computers, cars, penicillin, or anything approaching civil rights. Even now the Roma are a tortured people. But then, it was magnified a thousand times. All they had was one another.”

“So what, they had to cut you out of the flock in order to save the rest?”

“I suppose you could look at it that way.”

“But you’re here. How did you survive?”

“My father arrived first. He could not bear to lose me. He said I was all he had left of my mother. He moved us to a safe place as we slept. And then, that night, for our own safety he returned and banished us.”

“You can do that? Banish vampires?”

He fixed me with his most piercing glare. “You can, if you have the power and the means. But it is not common knowledge. I tell you this strictly assverhamin toavhar , which means you may not share this information with anyone else.”

“There you go again, invoking our special bond, like I know all the rules or something. Is there a book I can read somewhere? Because I’m getting a little tired of being in the dark on the parameters of this relationship.”

Twitch of the lip. In any other man, it would’ve been a full-face smile. Maybe even an outright laugh. But I guess when somebody murders your sons, and your closest relations all try to kill or kick you out before you turn forty, you learn fast how to nail those emotions in the coffin you refuse to sleep in when the sun rises.

Vayl said, “You do not strike me as the type of person who enjoys being lectured. In fact, I sense that if I began to list all of the intricacies of thesverhamin/avhar connection and the related rules, the moment I turned around you would fish out your tape recorder, set it on the nearest flat surface, and sneak off to the closest all-night monster truck rally.”

“Okay, although my taste runs more to auto racing, I get your point. Just don’t get all pissy when I break a rule I’m not even aware of.”

“Fair enough.” Vayl collapsed his tent with a couple of quick moves, and suddenly there was a nice big bed at our backs. Vayl’s eyes strayed to my neck and I knew we were both remembering the time I’d bared it to him.

His eyes lightened to green and my heartbeat must have tripled at the thought that we could so easily ignite those feelings again.

“So, banishment,” I blurted, so loudly they probably heard me three blocks away. Vayl dropped his hand. I didn’t even know he’d reached for me. He turned away.

“Yes.”

“What exactly does that mean for you?”

“Liliana and I were forced to distance ourselves from all members of our family for ten generations.”

“What happened if you didn’t?”

Vayl whipped me a look over his shoulder that told me he’d had about enough. You can only scratch a scar so long before it becomes a wound again. “Magical banishment is not like a restraining order, Jasmine. It is quite effective. Well, it was.”

“You mean, it’s over now?”

Vayl nodded. “The banishment expired three years ago.”Fat lot of good that does me , said the bleak look in his eyes.The family I knew is all dead now. Dead and gone . Or, as he so desperately hoped in the case of his boys, dead and reincarnated.

I felt like such an ass. I’d made Vayl dig up some bad old memories just so I wouldn’t have to face down my own growing desire to toss that tape recorder he’d mentioned off the nearest flat surface and throw Vayl down there instead. Thing was, when I looked in those remarkable eyes and thought of sharing that ultimate moment of ecstasy with him, the image that came to mind was not me and Vayl. It was me and Matt. My fiancé had been dead nearly sixteen months, but parts of my brain still couldn’t seem to believe it.

Vayl had fished some socks out of a drawer and sat on the bed to put them on. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Great, I’d hurt him and he was asking after my welfare. Typical. “Yeah, look, I’m sorry I made you talk about that stuff. It’s none of my business—”

“Actually, it is. As myavhar you should be privy to all my secrets, past and present.” His lips twisted. “It is just that, there are so many to tell. And very few of them are pleasant.”

“Well, by all means, take your time. I know, maybe every couple of weeks we can have a slumber party. You can come over to my apartment and we’ll play Truth or Dare. You can let a couple juicy ones slip while we gossip about how Cassandra wears too much jewelry and Cole always smells like grape bubble gum.” An image came to mind of Vayl wearing SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas and pink fuzzy slippers and I started to giggle. When I got a load of the confused look on his face I laughed even louder. The sharp rap on the door didn’t stop me, but the look on Cole’s face when he stepped in did. He looked pissed. When he saw that Vayl and I were practically on opposite sides of the room his shoulders dropped and his fists opened.

Oh man, he can’t still be carrying a torch for me, can he? I mean, we had it all out already, right? Yeah right, drawled my cynical self, a chain-smoking echo of my mother, who wore hair curlers like diamond tiaras and was a master at keeping her kids out of the house.

“Yes, Cole?” Vayl’s tone could’ve frozen a pitcher of lemonade.

“I just wanted to know what you thought about the security guards.” When Vayl gave him a blank look Cole’s shoulders bunched right back up. “What’ve you been doing in here all this time?” he asked me.

Before I could reply Vayl said, “The conversations that occur betweensverhamin andavhar are private. If information arises that concerns you, we will let you know.”

“That’s enough,” I told them both, holding out my hands, which immediately seemed kind of stupid. Did I really want to be the one standing in the middle of a pissing match? Ick. “If you boys can’t play nice I’m sending you to your rooms.”

Vayl raised an eyebrow as if to say,But I am already here .

I went on. “Cole makes a good point. I should’ve told you straight off that we went to scout out the festival, and while we were there I saw something funky.” I described the guard. Luckily that made Vayl forget all about how much he didn’t care for Cole. Which made his presence on our current mission something of a minor miracle. Enter the flaming ball of guilt who is me.

I’d met Cole on New Year’s Eve during a reconnaissance mission. His connection to our target’s wife had piqued Vayl’s interest. That attention had not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It had resulted in the burning of Cole’s office, his kidnapping and severe beating. At the end of that mission he’d held my hand in the dungeon below Club Undead, tears flowing unchecked down his battered face. “I’m so sorry,” he kept saying.

The pain of my injuries had nearly overwhelmed me. I badly wanted a paramedic with a needleful of morphine. But it helped to concentrate on the men, Cole on my left and Vayl, running soothing fingers through my hair, at my right.

“Why?” I asked, my voice raspy with barely checked agony.

“I should be in your spot. If you hadn’t pulled me off that bomb and taken my place—”

“She would have been fired,” Vayl told him.

I squeezed Cole’s hand. “And that really would’ve killed me.”

“But—”

I squeezed harder, making him wince. “You saved me just now. We’re even.”

But I hadn’t really felt that way. I still had a job, after all, while Cole’s was little more than a pile of ash. So when he visited me in the hospital a week later to ask for a recommendation, I called my boss, Pete, that afternoon.

“Does he know what he’s talking about?” Pete had asked.

“He was there for the big showdown. I can tell you he has no illusions,” I assured him. Then I listed all the reasons Cole would make an excellent agent. It took me quite a while. I finished with the two items I knew Pete couldn’t resist. “He currently knows seven languages and can pick up new ones in a snap because of his Sensitivity. Plus he’s an ace shooter. He started competing in high school. Still does when he can. And he rarely loses.”

“I thought you told me he was a private investigator. Isn’t there enough supernatural crime in Miami to keep him busy?”

“He doesn’t want to be a PI anymore. I tried to talk him out of this decision and realized he’s made it for all the right reasons. You know, Amanda Abn-Assan was a childhood friend of his. He said after losing her, he just can’t sit on the sidelines while somebody else chases down scumbags like her husband.”

Cole had just completed his first course of training when this mission came up. Since he spoke Chinese—and we didn’t—Pete figured he could help us out while we gave him some on-the-job experience. Vayl hadn’t seen it that way. I’d made some very intelligent, convincing arguments, none of which he’d bought. In the end I’d promised to personally drop off and pick up his dry-cleaning for a month, since he suspected the new delivery boy was rifling through his mail, and we had a deal.

I wondered idly if the shirt Vayl currently wore was a dry-clean-only model as he said, “I am not sure what kind ofother you detected, Jasmine. Maybe Cassandra will have a record.”

We all moved into the living area to check with her. But with so little data to give theEnkyklios , her portable library, we came up dry.

“My books may have something,” Cassandra said. “I’ll check them.”

“Thank you,” Vayl said graciously. He pulled a bag of blood out of the refrigerator and poured it into a mug. In our time together I’d learned that he liked to let it slowly warm to room temperature. He said nuking it burned away most of the flavor. And while I thought my skin should’ve crawled at learning those kinds of details, it didn’t, because it implied a trust I felt honored to have earned.

Our noise had awakened Bergman, who sat rubbing his eyes on the couch I had decided to dub Mary-Kate. Cassandra sat across from him on its twin, Ashley, already leafing through a heavy old tome whose pages were thick as postal paper. Cole grabbed a piece of gum from a green bowl on the table beside her couch (um, Ashley) and dropped down beside her.

“I’m researching,” she told him sternly. “No funny comments about the pictures.”

“But look at that guy! He’s clearly constipated.”

“He eats people’s brains!”

“Exactly!”

I took a seat beside Bergman and gave him the once-over. His nap hadn’t done him much good. Though he shouldn’t, he reminded me of a bereaved parent. He dreamed, incubated, birthed his inventions, and was very choosy about where he let them go to work. Knowing some lunatic currently wore his baby, and that the Raptor was circling overhead, waiting to swoop in and hook it, probably made him feel desperately helpless.

Vayl, still standing in the kitchen, leaned his elbows on the counter that backed the banquette. He didn’t even clear his throat and suddenly we all snapped to attention. He said, “Before we leave for the festival site, I want to complete your briefing on Bergman’s armor. I will ask him to explain the details of its workings in a moment. As he said, it is an incredibly advanced piece of biotechnology that physically binds with its carrier. Once they are united, the only ways you can separate the suit from its wearer are to kill him, or administer a chemical bath that fools the suit into thinking he is dead.”

“I take it Mr. Bubble isn’t manufacturing that particular brand of bath additive just yet?” asked Cole.

Bergman sat up, then laid his head against the back of Mary-Kate despondently. “That’s what the experiments at White Sands were about. They were trying to target which chemicals administered in which way would throw the suit into death response.”

“But they haven’t had any luck yet?” I asked.

Bergman shook his head.

“Is it that big of a deal?” Cole inquired. “We’re going to kill the guy anyway.”

“You can try,” moaned Bergman.

Vayl nodded. “Go on,” he urged as he took a sip from his mug.

Bergman looked at each of us in turn, shook his head, and ran a hand across the reddish brown grizzle that had appeared on his jaw sometime in the past twenty-two hours. As he spoke, he gazed out the window at the glaring lights of Moe’s gas station and the city beyond. “The armor will repel every kind of projectile in existence. It’s impervious to fire, can’t be shredded, and can withstand pressures equal to those found in the deepest parts of the ocean.”

“What about cold?” I asked, feeling a rush of pleasure as Vayl looked at me proudly. Maybe his greatest power was the ability to leech heat from an area so fast people had frozen to death inside his circle of influence.

But Bergman shook his head again. “Cold will slow it down, but not destroy it.”

“Water?” Cole ventured.

“When the hood is closed, the armor becomes self-contained. It has its own internal breathing system that functions just fine when it’s immersed.”

“Tell us more about this hood,” I said.

“It activates automatically when it perceives the wearer’s in danger. It’s the only part of the armor that can be deactivated at will. The rest is permanent.”

Cassandra stirred. “You’ve begun at the end when the most important details may be at the beginning. What does this armor look like?”

Bergman shrugged. “We’ve had it on all kinds of animals, including fish, cats, and monkeys. It’s looked different on each one, probably because it binds differently to each depending on body chemistry, physical size, species type—”

Cassandra waved her hand impatiently, making Bergman crook his eyebrows with frustration. “A general overview, if you please,” she said.

“Scales,” said Bergman. “The material is made up of thousands of individual units that are physically and chemically bonded together. The colors vary as widely as the texture. On the fish it was rough, almost like steel wool. On the chimp it was softer, more elastic.”

“Is it just a defensive thing?” asked Cole. Another excellent question. My, weren’t we just operating on all cylinders this evening?

“No.” Bergman’s eyes filled with passion as he described offensive capabilities that only made me shudder because I had to find a way around them. “When the hood is activated, the wearer can ignite volatile chemicals that are contained in the nostril cavities.”

“What does that mean?” I asked. “Are you telling us the guy can breathe fire?”

“Exactly.”

“What else?” Vayl demanded.

“Contact poison in the claws that paralyzes the victim. Detachable spikes carried along the back that are so well balanced they can be launched to hit targets accurately at forty feet.”

“And when they hit?” I asked.

“They explode.”

I felt my shoulders droop.Holy crap! This one is definitely Mission Sucks-Out-the —

Vayl interrupted my thought, which was probably just as well. No sense in depressing myself any more than necessary. “We knew it would be difficult,” he said. “But that is why this task has been assigned to us. Wecan do this. And we will.”

Somehow that little pep talk allowed us to move to other issues. As Cole drove us to the site, we discussed the stage setup. It would take place tonight while Vayl could help. We talked about the show, realizing we’d probably have to spend the entire day tomorrow practicing in order to present anything remotely entertaining. And I privately wondered how a 291-year-old vampire and a thousand-year-old Seer didn’t seem at all familiar with the creature I’d seen pretending to be human today.

CHAPTERTHREE

As we pulled into our space, Cole and I noticed the Winter Festival setup had chugged ahead, making steady progress since our recent visit. We all agreed our parking spot seemed ideal, situated as it was where the mulched walkway almost met the seawall before it turned back north toward a series of craft and game booths that led to Chien-Lung’s Chinese acrobats’ half-inflated building.

Cole parked the RV south of the walk, parallel to the seawall, and we began to unload the trailer. A barbecue cook-off site stood so close to our performance location that if we stretched we’d hit a grill. But that meant we could let them take care of outdoor lighting for our customers. Several gray-headed gentlemen wearing ball caps and stained aprons had already strung yards of pink-shaded patio lights across the area. Now they were moving in several green-painted picnic tables.

Still, as we carried poles, canvas (probably something Pete had ripped off an old tent revival preacher), more poles, tons of wooden slats, and absolutely no directions whatsoever from the trailer to the tent-erection site, it was apparent we’d have enough room for our purposes. As long as one of us could figure out how to put the damn thing together.

Already the bickering had begun. Cole picked up two poles and connected them.

“Cole!” snapped Bergman. “You need to put them all in piles first. That way you know what you have!”

“We have poles and canvas, dude. You stick the little end in the big end.” He demonstrated on another pair. “It’s like magic how they go together.”

Bergman looked at Vayl. “You tell him.”

Cole gave his imagined rival a smirk. “I’m thinking you know how a tent goes up by now, Vayl.”

Cassandra decided to bail first. “I need to do some research. Weird-faced man, you know,” she murmured, and disappeared into the RV.

That woman is brilliant.I turned to follow her.

“Where are you going?” demanded Vayl.

Quick, think of a marvelous excuse he’ll totally swallow. Aha!“To practice. Unlike you guys, I haven’t tried my particular talent since Granny May signed me up for belly-dancing classes when I was fifteen.”And, by the way, why the hell did I consent to that? Or decide I loved it? Never mind, he’s buying it. In fact, he seems to be hot on the idea. Are his eyes glowing? And is Cole’s tongue hanging out? This is why I didn’t want to dance in the first place! “Anyway,” I rushed on. “I’m going to find a private place where nobody can see to laugh at me while you beat this tent”—or, more likely, these two idiots—“into submission.”

“Aah,” said Vayl. He took a couple of steps toward me, got hopelessly entangled in a mound of canvas, and stalled. But that didn’t stop his eyes from roaming. “Believe me, Jasmine, no one who sees you dance would ever dream of laughing.”

“I could come with you,” Cole offered. “You know, give you some tips. Run the camera. Maybe oil your hips for you when they get rusty.”

I couldn’t help it: I started to laugh. It was a combination of Vayl bristling like a threatened porcupine while Cole wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and Bergman stealthily organized the poles just like he wanted them.

“I’ll be over there,” I said, pointing west, where you could just make out a strip of white sand where the seawall stopped and a series of abandoned piers began. “By myself.”

And I was alone for about an hour. Then this couple came strolling by, making enough noise that I didn’t totally humiliate myself in front of them. I couldn’t see them well. Didn’t need to. They were holding hands. Kissing every fifth step or so. Smitten. And suddenly my brain cut the power to my knees.

I plopped down, watching like a starstruck fan as the lovers strode across the sand in front of me. It was the laughter that did it, transforming me from watcher into participant. Suddenly I was part of the couple, reliving a moment I hadn’t dared to remember until now.

Matt and I had taken our first real vacation together, a trip to Hawaii, to celebrate his twenty-ninth birthday. The night after we landed on the island we’d walked the beach, arm in arm, the boom of the surf echoing the music from a distant luau. Lights from hotels, bars, and all-night parties gave the evening an effervescent sort of glow. We passed other couples, whole families even, but it was as if we moved within our own love-lit world. If a giant marlin had swept out of the ocean and offered us three wishes I wouldn’t have been surprised. It was that kind of evening. Magical.

We’d walked the length of a pier lit by tiki torches. At the very end, a table dressed in china and crystal awaited us. We ate like royalty under the shelter of a thatch-roofed gazebo. And after dessert we danced to the music of a four-man reggae band called the B-tones.

“This is amazing,” I breathed as Matt held me close, moving me to the sultry rhythms of a song whose name I never learned.

He pulled back far enough to look into my eyes. “You’reamazing.” He smiled, his teeth extra white against the natural deep tan of his skin. “But not so observant.”

“No?”

He shook his head, pulled his hand out of my clasp, took a ring off his pinky, and held it in front of my face. “I really thought at some point you’d ask me why I was wearing a girl’s engagement ring.”

“Have you had that on all night?”

He grinned. “Only since dessert.”

Then I realized what he’d just said. “Are you—are we—”

“Say yes, Jaz.”

I’d screamed, and jumped up and down, and jumped on him, and made him jump up and down with me, which turned out to be pretty funny. At which point he put the ring on my finger. It was a full-carat pear-shaped emerald. “For my green-eyed vixen,” Matt had said before he kissed me breathless.

I still had that ring. Carried it with me everywhere, in fact. I slipped my hand into the left pocket of my jeans. My seamstress had sewn a silver key ring into these, and indeed, every pair of pants I owned. A similar key ring attached the band of my emerald to the one in my pocket so I never had to go anywhere without it.

“Thank you, ma’am. Enjoy your stay.” I blinked.What . . . happened? Where am I?

Across a wide, shiny counter stood a smiling young clerk wearing a blue blazer and a name tag that said,THE FOUR SEASONS AND JUNIE TAYLOR WELCOME YOU. In my hand I held a receipt for room 219 and the key card.

CHAPTERFOUR

Holy crap, I’ve had another blackout!But as soon as the suspicion hit me I knew otherwise. I hadn’t experienced the usual warning signs, and I’d never before left my mind in a daydream while the rest of me got busy. This was something new. Something scary. Because after the knock-down drag-out with the Tor-al-Degan, I thought I’d kicked those nutty little habits that made me seem, well, nuts. Okay, the card shuffling kept up without much of a break. And sometimes words still ran loops around my brain until I forced them back on the road. But those moments were rarer now. And the blackouts really had stopped, along with the dread that someone I knew would find reason to recommend an asylum and a heavy dose of Zoloft.

Familiar laughter caught my attention. The couple from the beach. They were here, just entering an elevator. Without conscious thought I’d followed them to their hotel and booked a room. I checked the receipt. At least I’d used my personal credit card. If I’d had to explain this to Pete, well, maybe I could’ve come up with something. But I probably would’ve just resigned.

I shoved the stuff the clerk had handed me into my back pocket and strode outside. I needed to do something concrete. Something to bring me back to myself. So I phoned my sister.

“Evie?”

“Oh, Jaz, I’m so glad you called.”

“You sound tired.”

“I am. E.J. has hardly stopped crying all day. This doesn’t seem right, does it?”

Hell no! But then I’m the least qualified to say.“Did you call the pediatrician?”

“No. I know he’ll just say it’s that colic.” Her voice started to shake. “I just feel like such a terrible mother that I can’t make her stop crying!”

Now here was something I could deal with. “Evie, you are an awesome mother. This I can tell you from experience. I’ve seen you in action. Plus, I have had a crappy mother. So I know what I’m saying here. You rock. It’s tough on you guys having a baby who cries all the time. The lack of sleep alone is probably making you a little crazy. I’m still kinda grouchy and I’ve only been gone, what, a couple of days? But listen, you will figure this out, okay?”

Big pause. “O-kay.”

“Did I say something wrong?”

“It’s just . . . usually you tell me what to do. Then I do it, and things get better.”

“That was before you started playing out of my league,” I said, smiling when I heard her soft laughter. “Just . . . trust yourself, okay? You and Tim know E.J. better than anybody, including the pediatrician. And get some sleep, would you? You’re going to have bags under your eyes that you’ll be able to store your winter clothes in.”

“Okay. How are things going with you?”

Well, let’s see. I think my vampire boss should pose for his own calendar and I’m having a crazy-daisy relapse. Otherwise—“I’m doing okay. Call me when you can, okay?”

“Okay. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Feeling somewhat rebalanced now that I’d touched base with the most stable person I knew, I walked around to the back of the building, which faced the festival site. As I wound my way through the first tier of cars in the parking lot, a green glow near some fencing that disguised a large garbage bin distracted me from my inner teeth gnashing. It didn’t mesh with the white of the lot lights. I drew Grief and chambered a round. The glow brightened, changing color from pine needles to ripe limes.

I closed my eyes tight for a couple of seconds, activating the night-vision contacts Bergman had designed for me. They combined with my Sensitivity-upgraded sight to show me a greenish gold figure standing beside the fence. It faced me, but leaned over every few seconds, fully engrossed in whatever lay at its feet. Oddly, a black frame surrounded it, as if someone had outlined it with a Sharpie.

I moved closer, sliding past the dark hulks of parked vehicles, taking quick glances every few steps, trying to identify the thing on the ground that acted as both the source of the green glow and the subject of the outlined figure’s interest. When I finally caught a glance, I bit my lip to keep from gasping. It was the body of the security guard, the one who’d been hanging out with the two-faced man.His face, a twisted photo of his last tortured moments, warned me not to look any further. But I had to. One of the suckier parts of my job.

Okay, enough with the procrastinating. You’re at a possible murder scene with a potential suspect. Look at the body already.

Blood, everywhere, as if someone had tapped a geyser. Exposed ribs. Dark, glistening organs. Someone had ripped this guy’s chest open from neck to navel! The smell, damn, you just never get used to it. And thank God we were outside; otherwise I’d be puking like a bulimic after an Oreo cookie binge. Above it all hovered a jeweled cloud I could only think of as his soul. I wanted to regard it as untouched. The one part of the man his murderer couldn’t soil. But I could not. Because this is what had his killer’s attention.

No doubt, the one who’d taken his life stood right next to him still, and had been all day, posing as a man with only one face. “Man” was the wrong descriptor though. That outline—nobody I’d ever met had that. And when he leaned over, the frame split at his head and his fingers, allowing some of the greenish gold of his inner aura to seep through.

His mouth opened wide and from it unrolled a huge pink tongue covered with spikelike appendages. He ran it along the length of the dead man’s soul. It shivered, frantically trying to fly apart, to meld with his family, his friends, his Maker. But the spikes released some sort of glue that forced the jewels into immobility. At the same time the soul cloud bleached to pastel.

The two-faced man looked up, his eyes closed, ecstasy lifting the corners of his flabby lips. And then a third eye opened on his forehead—a large, emerald-green eye that darkened at the same rate at which the dead man’s soul lightened.Coincidence? I don’t think so.

I’d had enough.

I stepped forward, skirted the bumper of an Eldorado Coupe, and trained my gun on the monster’s face.

“Dinner’s over, pissant.”

The two-faced man opened his regular eyes, which were blue, took one long look at me, and growled.

“Give me a break,” I drawled, sounding oh-so-bored though my stomach spun like a roulette wheel. “I know special-effects guys who can produce scarier roars than that.” Okay, I don’t reallyknow any, but I’ve watchedResident Evil , haven’t I?

This time he bellowed, and I admit, it gave me something of a chill. But it didn’t freeze me like it was intended to. I was ready when he charged, leaping over the body like some meat-hoarding gorilla, his hands stretched wide, a full set of lethal-looking claws appearing and disappearing as he moved. If he raked those vein-poppers across my throat while they were just fingernails, would they still leave stitch-worthy gashes?

Not something I wanted to find out. I fired five shots in quick succession. They staggered him, though I could see the black outline had worked as a shield, preventing them from delivering any fatal wounds. Five more shots backed him up, almost to the body. Thanks to Bergman’s modifications I still had five left. And I intended to make them count.

As he moved on me again, I concentrated on the breaks in his shield. They came and went in rapid succession, but I noticed a pattern based on his movements. It helped that he approached more warily this time. Apparently it still hurt to be shot. I should be thankful, but small favors sometimes suck.

I watched his face, waiting for the blur and the accompanying break in his shield. There!

I fired once, but the shield had already closed. I would have to anticipate the breaks, rather than wait for them to reveal themselves. Four rounds left. I took careful aim and fired. One. Two. Three. Four. Damn! The timing just missed with every shot. And now I’d used the last of my ammunition. If Grief didn’t work in gun mode I didn’t anticipate much success from it as a crossbow. I holstered my weapon.

But I was still armed.

Unlike Vayl, I don’t use blades as a rule. Generally if I have to get that close to a target, something’s gone terribly wrong. Same deal defensively speaking. Still, I keep one on me. My nod to the wisdom of weapons redundancy.

My backup plan started life as a bolo. It had been issued to the first of my military ancestors, Samuel Parks, before he marched off to war in 1917. Handed down father to son since that time, the ugly old knife had lost its appeal for David after Mom threw it at Dad upon finding him on top of her best pal. Since it had sailed clear through the bedroom window on that occasion, I’d discovered it on the lawn the next morning. Thus, it came to me.

I carry the knife, sheath and all, in a special pocket designed for near invisibility by my seamstress, Mistress Kiss My Ass. I call her this because it’s the response she gives me every time I call and say, “Sherry Lynn, guess what. I just got a new pair of pants!”

Reaching into my pocket, I grabbed the artfully disguised hilt and pulled. A blade the length of my shin slid out. Originally meant more as an all-purpose tool, the bolo had been refined to my needs thanks to Bergman. Now it was sharp enough to cut metal or, better yet, defend my life.

The creature circled me, looking a lot less intimidated by Great-Great-Grandpa’s knife than I would’ve liked.Well, screw it . I ran straight at him, yelling like a pissed-off soccer mom, waving my blade like a samurai warrior. I faked left, right, left, watching as his shield opened wider and wider. It couldn’t keep up with his bobbing head as he tried to avoid getting his throat cut. One more feint and I jumped forward, burying my blade in the shield gap his movements had caused.

He died instantly.

I pulled my weapon free and cleaned it on his stolen uniform. Glad the bolo had saved me. Sorry the same family had subjected it to nearly one hundred years of blood and guts. We seem to spawn killers, no doubt about that. I found myself hoping hard that E.J. could break that chain. Maybe when I got a free second I’d give her a call and make that suggestion. Never mind that she was less than a month old and would spend the entire time trying to eat the receiver. It’s never too early to start brainwashing your young.

CHAPTERFIVE

As I leaned over the body, trying to figure out what I’d just killed, Vayl stepped from the shadows, our crew dogging his heels. I looked up, surprised to see them. “I had a feeling you might need some assistance,” Vayl said.

“You did?”Oh. “Of course you did.” Ever since he’d taken my blood, Vayl could sense strong feelings in me, apparently at some distance. I thought he was referring to that until he nodded at the ring on my finger.

“Cirilai gave me the impression you were fighting.”

“He rushed us all over here; then he wouldn’t let us help,” Cole told me apologetically. “Said we might distract you at the wrong time. But we had your back!”

I nodded my gratitude.

Bergman crouched beside me, prodded the two-faced corpse’s third eye open with the clicky end of one of the pens he usually kept stuck in the pocket of his shirt. “What the heck is this?” he wondered aloud.

“I don’t know, but keep that eye open,” I told him. The color leeched out of it even as the murdered guard’s soul brightened. Soon it was the forest green that had caught my attention to start with. It shivered for another tense moment, then split into hundreds of tiny pieces that whizzed off into the night.

“Cool,” I whispered.

“I don’t know,” said Cassandra. “I’m thinking more along the lines of stomach churning.” She stared at Bergman, who’d dug out another pen and used it to roll the spiked tongue out of the monster’s mouth.

“What does theEnkyklios say about that?” he asked, his eyes shifting to the multileveled collection of bluish gold orbs in Cassandra’s hand.

“Nothing yet,” she answered defensively, “but it will.Propheneum ,” she said sharply. A single orb rolled to the top of the marble plateau. She began reciting the battle as she’d witnessed it, asking me for details here and there. When she’d finished, Cassandra said, “Daya ango le che le, Enkyklios occsallio terat.”The marbles rearranged themselves, always touching, never falling, until a new globe sat on top of the plateau with the one we’d just recorded my story into.

“What did you just do?” Bergman asked, his eyes darting from theEnkyklios to Cassandra as if one or both of them might suddenly explode.

“Cross-referencing,” she said shortly. “Now we will see what is already on record.” She touched the new orb, pressing hard enough to make a temporary indent, and said, “Dayavatem.” Then she held the magical library at arm’s length while the home movies began.

At first, all we saw was a blinking light, as if the orb’s eyelids were just fluttering open. Then,voila , full color and sound poured from it, the images so detailed it didn’t seem like she should be able to hold them in her hands.

Dark gray clouds scudded across the sky. A wild wind tossed the green-leafed trees, making them look as grim as the elderly couple who bumped along the rutted road in their fancy carriage. Had they just come from a funeral? Their black clothing led me to think so, though for all I knew they’d dressed for the opera. Suddenly the gentleman reigned in the horses and both he and the wife looked to their left, a dawning horror stretching their faces.

As if sensing my frustration, the cause of their consternation came into view. A mounted bandit wearing a black tricorn. His dirty brown jacket covered a stained white shirt and even more blemished brown breeches, and his battered riding boots were falling apart at the seams. He brandished a rusted gun that seemed more likely to blow his own hand off than injure the person it threatened. A dirty red kerchief hid the lower third of his face.

“Gimme yer valuables!” he snarled. The couple snapped to, laying a load of jewelry and cash into the hat he held out to them. He had to lean over to collect his loot, and when he sat back up in the saddle the kerchief slipped off his face.

“Randy,” gasped the woman, “howcould you?”

“Goddammit!” swore the bandit. “Now I have ter kill ye!”

The old man stood up. “No, wait!”

Randy leveled his gun, but before he could fire, another rider came into view, pulling up so hard that clods of dirt flew and a cloud of dust lifted at his arrival. He’d run his horse so fast its sweat-soaked flanks heaved as it panted for air.

The man himself looked harmless enough. If you had to pick him out of a lineup you’d say, “No, he couldn’t have beaten that poor woman over the head with a tire iron. He must be the desk sergeant you slipped in there to fool the witness.” He did have the broad-shouldered, straight-faced, lean-on-me look of the dependable cop. But when he turned his head to wink at the old folks, it blurred, as if another face hid behind the one he showed the world.

“Who er you?” Randy demanded.

The man grinned, exposing crooked yellow teeth and a hint of something horrid lurking behind them. “My name is Frederick Wyatt, and I am a great admirer of yours. Ah, Randy”—he rolled the R around his mouth as if it tasted like chocolate—“someday you will provide me with such pleasures. But just now, I have a job to do. So off with you. Shoo!” He smiled as a third eye opened in the middle of his forehead, making Randy scream like a kid in a haunted house. The bandit wheeled his horse around and galloped away.

When Wyatt turned to the couple, that extra sphere rolling gleefully in its socket as it beheld their terrified faces, I thought the old guy was going to have a heart attack. He slapped his right hand to his chest and fell back in his seat, his hat flying out the rear of the carriage as his wife screamed and screamed.

“Shut up, you old bat!” Wyatt kicked his horse forward so he could slap her across the face, leaving a thin line of blood on her cheekbone.

It didn’t work. She just shrieked louder. “Run, Joshua, run! It is Satan made flesh!” They rolled out of their seats onto the floor of the carriage. From there they dropped to the ground. But Wyatt hemmed them in with his horse, edging those sharpened steel hooves close enough to keep them pinned beside the back wheel.

“I feel I must correct you,” he said. “I am, in fact, only a servant of the Great Taker. Though we reavers are his favorites.” He chuckled fondly as he dismounted. I expected the horse to wander off, but it stayed close, dripping globs of sweat and stringy bits of spit all over Joshua’s bald head. The reaver went to the old gal and lifted her by the scruff of the neck.

“Now, you stop flailing and shut it tight, or I’ll rip your lungs out and call it self-defense,” he said, throwing her back into the carriage and returning for her husband.

The picture froze just as Wyatt sunk his hands/claws into Joshua’s chest.

“I fainted then,” said the tired, hopeless voice of Joshua’s widow. “The next thing I knew . . .”

Wyatt had remounted. Joshua’s body lay across his legs, his chest torn open, his soul struggling for freedom as the reaver bent to run his spiked tongue over it. As I’d just witnessed, the soul slowly drained of color even as the reaver’s third eye filled. In the end, the husk of Joshua’s soul disintegrated, falling back into his body, which jerked eerily at the impact.

Another fade to black, this time with no accompanying narration.Poor woman . My mind would supply no other thought.Poor, poor woman.

When she came to again, the woman had been moved, along with her carriage, to the site of an old, abandoned cemetery. Tombstones peered through long tufts of grass. Most of them leaned hard to the left, as if a gigantic pissed-off chess player had tried to clear the board before stomping off into the hills beyond.

Wyatt spurred his horse to the middle of the stones, reached into the corpse’s chest, yanked out the heart, and fastballed it at a vine-covered tree stump. When the vines blackened and crumbled, I realized the stump was actually a tall, spire-shaped monument.

The woman hadn’t made a sound since the reaver’s threat to her life. In fact, I figured she was nearly catatonic by now.

But when the heart hit that stone and shattered, and the etchings began to ooze thick gobbets of blood down the white marble, she moaned like a dying animal. I reluctantly acknowledged a growing feeling of we’re-so-screwed as my hands itched for my playing cards. I’d left them in the RV.For the last time , I vowed.This is some sick shit we’ve stepped into.

As soon as the blood touched the ground it solidified, growing, building into a fence, a wall, an arched doorway that pulsed like a gigantic aorta. The reaver rode up to it, tossing Joshua’s body aside as he went. A smaller, fist-sized door within the door appeared in the middle about three-quarters of the way up. Wyatt leaned toward it, his saddle creaking eerily as he moved. The small door flew open with abang ! Out of it shot a thick, sinewy, red tentacle covered with tiny suction cups. It latched on to the reaver’s third eye and yanked, making the reaver scream and pound his fists on the door.

Eventually the eye gave and the tentacle retreated with it, slamming the small door behind it. Wyatt leaned his bleeding forehead against the big door for several minutes while the stunned old woman looked on. Then it turned to her. “I cannot take your life,” it said in a fearfully joyous voice, “but I find I have need of your eye.”

The picture faded as he advanced on her, grinning malevolently.

But we weren’t done. Next came a slide show narrated by a woman whose delivery reminded me of all the times I’d slept through Environmental Biology.

“This is the only visual record we have of a reaver,” the professor said blandly as a still shot of Frederick Wyatt appeared. “Our research tells us they are parasitic fiends, which must find host bodies in order to move among humans. The reaver’s sole purpose is to rip souls from hapless victims and transfer them to the netherworld. This is not a random occurrence, but one governed by rules wherein the murder must either be commissioned by an enemy of the victim, or perpetrated by one human against another. In the latter case, the reaver acts as a scavenger, snagging the soul before it can release.

“Reavers are known to run singly and in packs and can often be found traveling on the shirttails of human evildoers. The reaver is extremely difficult to vanquish. In fact, all sources recommend the wisest tactic when encountering such is to retreat. Quickly. Please note: True Believers are somewhat immune to their powers. See also, Holy Dagger of Anan. See also, Reaver Pack Tactics.”

The picture faded to black this time. Bergman watched theEnkyklios nervously, as if at any moment some new horror flick might leap out of it. He scanned the parking lot, looked over each shoulder repeatedly. “I don’tsee a pack.”

“I do not think there is one,” said Vayl.

“Why?” demanded Bergman.

“Because if there were, we would have been attacked by now.”

“Oh. Well, if you don’t mind, I’m still going to set up the security system I brought for the RV. Just in case the pack is back at the watering hole.” On a snide scale of one to ten, I’d say Bergman had just hit a 7.5, which meant he was one scared puppy. I held my breath, waiting to see if Vayl understood Bergman would chill as soon he’d put the system into place, or if he’d take offense, in which case I’d be spending the rest of the night soothing ruffled feathers. Not my strong suit, which was why it would take so long.

“I approve your plan,” said Vayl, watching with one eyebrow slightly cocked as Bergman threw the pens in the Dumpster and headed back to the RV. Luckily he had no idea Vayl was broad-casting his I’d-love-to-knock-your-block-off expression. Cassandra seemed to have more of a clue. After a moment during which she considered Vayl with a look of mounting alarm, Cassandra followed Bergman. She caught up to him within fifteen seconds and moments later they were deep in conversation.

The rest of us stared down at the two bodies. Finally Vayl said, “Cole, call the office. I believe it would be best if our people disposed of these. There is no need for it to become common knowledge that Jasmine knows how to kill reavers.”

Capital idea, Sherlock. Let’s not make them think they have to terminate me before I have time to organize a How-to-Stab-a-Reaver Workshop.

Cole nodded and took out his cell phone.

“Hang on,” I said. I bent down and slipped the two-faced man’s watch off his wrist. At the guys’ puzzled and somewhat grossed-out glances I said, “I wouldn’t ask Cassandra to touch the body, or even this, if I could help it.” Psychics had been known to lose their minds when they came into contact with the belongings of known murderers. “But if we get desperate, we may ask her to touch this. See what it can tell her about this monster, where it came from and why.”

Vayl said, “All right, but only if we must.”

CHAPTERSIX

I’d gotten into a bad habit while staying with Evie, Tim, and E.J. I blamed it on the baby. If she’d slept through the night even once I wouldn’t have needed multiple naps to make up for the 2:00 a.m. feedings. (Tim and Evie had taken all the other shifts, so I shouldn’t complain. But I did anyway.) During the three weeks I stayed with them, I’d developed the ability to fall asleep anytime, anywhere. Waiting in line at the DMV. On the floor while Evie and I played with E.J.’s toys and pretended it was all for the baby’s benefit. Once on the toilet.

I hadn’t quite shaken the habit by the time we’d reached Corpus Christi. As soon as we entered the RV and I felt this immense exhaustion creep over me, I figured I’d better grab forty winks before somebody caught me snoozing on the crapper.

“Do you want to discuss tonight’s plan?” asked Vayl.

“Yeah, absolutely, but you know what? I need to freshen up first. Give me five minutes?”

“Take all the time you need,” Vayl said gently. “We will finish the tent while you recoup.”He’s not really being nice. He just wants me fresh for later on. It’s going to be a demanding couple of hours. That’s what I told myself. But I still felt warmed as I went to the back of the RV, stretched out on the queen-size, and almost totally avoided thinking about how big and empty it felt.

“No more beds for me,” I murmured into the pillow. “I’m switching to hammocks when I get home. Who could be lonely and depressed sleeping in a hammock?”

Jasmine, wake up!”

The hammock I snoozed in jiggled and swung so drastically I was either going to fall out or puke. Or both. I opened my eyes. Oh wait, never mind the hammock. I was still in bed. I checked my watch. I’d only been asleep for eight minutes.

“What the hell—?” I demanded irritably.

“Shush,” David hissed. “We don’t have much time. They’re coming.” Weird. I’d thought he was thousands of miles away, kicking terrorist ass somewhere in the Middle East. But here he stood, his urgency catching more easily than the chicken pox.

I jumped out of bed, knowing he was absolutely right. And I knew who “they” were too. A nest of newbie vamps and their surviving human guardians, all severely pissed that we’d killed their leaders, the ones we called vultures.

I followed him out of the RV, my eyes searching the empty beach and the swarming festival site. I couldn’t see them, but they were out there. Theirother ness combined with their evil intent to send waves of psychic stench ahead of them, making my stomach churn.

We conferred in front of the RV. “We have to lure them away from here,” he said. “Otherwise Jesse and Matt are goners.”

The thought sent a shaft of alarm through me. If either of them was hurt, I’d never forgive myself. Moving in concert, we ran west, across the last strip of grassy slope nobody had covered with some commercial venture. We jumped a low concrete wall and dove onto an undeveloped section of beach. Here the grass grew almost as high as our heads. We plowed through it, dodging mounds of trash, jumping the pilings from a crumbling pier that had been built for higher water. Soon we heard them behind us, stumbling, cursing, moving like a herd of buffalo. I actually thought we could outrun them. Then we emerged from the grass to find a swampy inlet blocking our forward progress.

We looked at each other grimly. Out of choices, we turned south, wading into the moonlit water of the Gulf, counting on it to slow the attack, give us more time to load and fire. Dave raised his crossbow. I looked at it with a pang. It had been Matt’s favorite, one he’d only recently abandoned. I pulled Grief from its holster and thumbed off the safety. True to form, the humans appeared first, sprinting into the clearing between the grass and water as if they too had expected a more protracted chase.

I mowed them down like ducks at a carnival.

The vamps came more warily, spreading out in the grass, surveying the battlefield, yelling directions to each other. I pushed Grief’s magic button and—presto change-o—my gun transformed into a miniature crossbow.

David and I stood shoulder to shoulder, expecting a rush, trying to keep our minds empty so our training would kick in when the time came. What we didn’t expect were the two vamps who came strolling toward the edge of the water, holding hands like creepy Hansel and Gretel. They seemed familiar, though I couldn’t make out their faces at first. I could, however, smell the blood. They’d been freshly turned, which was why they’d been unleashed on us. Nothing fights harder or dirtier than a newborn vamp.

“Oh my God,” Dave moaned, dropping his crossbow.

“David, don’t—” I followed his eyes to the approaching vampires. His wife, Jesse, and my Matt stood gazing at us, their faces set in that flat, otherworldly look that signals the loss of a soul.

“Matt,” I whispered.

He heard me. Of course, he could hear ice cubes melting too. “Jasmine.” The way he said my name, as if it was a foreign language to him, broke my heart.

“We shouldn’t have left them.” Tears coated David’s words.

“They should’ve come with us,” I said, my voice curiously harsh and unforgiving in my own ears.

“It’s your fault!” David turned on me. He grabbed Grief from my hand. Pointed it right at my forehead.

Inside, a part of me broke. And I knew nothing he did or said could ever fix it.

Another part of me thought how remarkable it was that, after all those who’d tried to kill me so far, my twin would be the one to finally get it done.

“JASMINE!” Startled, I looked back toward the beach. Bergman, Cassandra, and Cole huddled together there, like they needed each other’s body heat to keep from freezing to death. Vayl waded into the water. The whites of his eyes made a shocking counterpoint to the blacks of his irises. I’d never seen him so shaken. He held out a hand that trembled ever so slightly as he said, “Please, Jasmine, please, give me the gun.”

And that’s when I realized I’d been dreaming. David hadn’t set foot in the States in over a year. Matt and Jesse were dead. And I was holding my own gun to my head.

CHAPTERSEVEN

Ilowered my arm, thumbed the safety, and set Grief in Vayl’s outstretched hand. As soon as I let it go he pulled me into his arms. It didn’t feel so much like a hug as it did a straitjacket.Don’t move, you crazy fool .

“Jasmine, I never knew you felt so desperate. You should have spoken to me. I would have helped you. I am yoursverhamin .” As if that explained everything. After a few moments of escalating struggles, I disengaged from Vayl’s embrace. I didn’t like his tone. It was too . . . freaked. And Vayl never freaked. Never.

I said, “I know what it looked like, but I wasn’t trying to kill myself. It was a dream.”

“You mean, you were sleepwalking?”

“Looks like it.”Be calm. Pretend that wasn’t the most insane thing you’ve done so far. And, for God’s sake, shut off that Pink Floyd soundtrack in your sick, twisted brain. But no matter how hard I tried, I kept hearing the song “Brain Damage” and Roger Waters crooning, “The lunatic is in my head.”

We’d made shore. Cole, Bergman, and Cassandra turned to lead Vayl and me back to the RV.

“I’ve heard of sleepwalkers acting out their dreams like that. There’s a name for it,” Bergman offered.

“There’s a name for everything,” I said dryly. I sounded calm, but inside my psyche had drawn up with asnap! The normal order had, once again, gotten all mangled in Jazland. Only this time I couldn’t hide it from my coworkers and pretend all was right with the world.Damn, damn, damn . . . I bit my lip.Okay, Jaz, you are now in damage-control mode. That means you may not flip out all the way. No word looping. No blackouts. And no card shuffling —until you’re alone. At which time if you want to swing from the chandelier and bark like a German shepherd, go right ahead. Until then—play sane.

Inside the RV, several cups sat on the table, but someone had dropped a pile of paper plates on the floor. I retrieved them, set them on the counter beside the sink, and headed toward the shower.

“Jasmine,” Vayl said softly. I turned around. He remained on the entry steps, trying not to drip onto the carpet. He’d let the others come in before him, and they huddled together between Mary-Kate and Ashley, staring at me with varying expressions of concern. The kids looked achingly normal. A multicolored hair band held Cassandra’s braids away from her face. She wore at least five pairs of gold earrings, the biggest of which reached the shoulders of her teal-blue knit blouse. Her black peasant skirt touched her ankles and she wore matching black pumps edged with blue ribbon. Bergman’s gray sweater with its stretched sleeves topped old blue jeans and the same snow boots he’d worn when they’d picked me up at Evie’s house. Cole wore his red high-tops, khakis, and a black T-shirt with a pile of lumber on it. The caption underneath readHEY LADY, NEED A STUD ?

“What is it, Vayl?” I asked.

“What just happened was not mere sleepwalking. Your finger was pressed against the trigger of a cocked crossbow. We cannot simply disregard this problem and hope it goes away.”

So, okay, I did want to say,We can soignore this! But I knew he was right. What if I’d come awake with that gun pointed at Cassandra’s head? Or one of the guys’? I nodded. “What do you suggest?”

That’s where speech failed him. Cassandra waited a moment, and when it was clear he didn’t have an immediate plan, she stepped up. “I know someone who might be able to help.”

“Okay, when this mission is over—”

“Actually, he lives in New Mexico. He could probably meet you tomorrow.”

“Is he a doctor?”

“Of a sort.”

Alternative medicine. Okay, I can deal with that.“Fine, set it up.”

“And . . .” Cole began.

I swallowed the urge to snap. They just wanted to help. It wasn’t their fault the idea of getting to the root of this bizarre behavior terrified me. In my point of view, any explanation of what causes a person to point a gun to her own head is not going to start with “Good news, Jaz—” But considering the current potential for a bolt to my brain, pretending it never happened wasn’t the smartest tactic I could choose. “Yes?”

“Until we’re sure how to deal with this, someone should guard you while you sleep.”

“Naturally. You can all draw straws or something. And stop with the war orphan faces, will you? I’ll deal.”

“Of course you will,” said Bergman. “You’re Jaz.”

I nodded, appreciating his vote of confidence. Unlike Bergman, however, I knew my limits. Sometimes I could see that line in my mind, a stark black wall at the horizon reminding me that sanity, unlike the earth, is flat. And there is a point at which you can fall off. I just hoped this dream didn’t mean I already stood on the wrong side of the gate.

CHAPTEREIGHT

Evie had bought me the outfit I changed into after my shower, a white scoop-neck peasant top with lace and crochet accents and a pair of jeans somebody had beaten soundly with a jackhammer before forwarding to the retailer. So I knew I looked good. My girl’s got an eye for these things. Plus—übercomfy. And not just because she knows my size. There’s something about stuff from your family. For instance, when I’m home, I sleep under a comforter Granny May made for me. Ugliest damn blanket I have ever seen. But it makes me feel better to snuggle under fabric and thread she put together to warm me. Evie’s outfit, Granny’s blanket—they’re part of the basic core of my life that assures me I matter.

For the same reasons, Bergman handpicked where his inventions traveled and who put them to bed at night. And the more I learned about the freak who’d stolen his baby, the less I blamed Miles for totally losing it when he’d found out the baby had been kidnapped. Because after spending Vayl’s shower time with my face in my laptop, reading the file some intrepid agent had gathered on this guy Chien-Lung, I had come to a single conclusion. The guy was a total whack-job.

Frankly it made me feel better about my own peculiarities. But there was a method to Lung’s madness. For instance, dragons are deeply revered by the Chinese. According to legend they have megapowers that include weather control and life creation. And they’re seen as kind, benevolent creatures. Funny. Every fairy taleI’d ever heard involving dragons starred daring knights trotting off to kill said dragons. Probably the real reason every time East meets West they get pissed off and throw tea in our faces.

Vayl came out of the shower wearing jeans and a hunter green T-shirt. “Where is everyone?” he asked.

“The guys went back to the tent raising and Cassandra decided to supervise so Cole wouldn’t be tempted to clonk Bergman over the head with a stray pole.” Which was when I realized we were all alone.

“I was just researching Chien-Lung,” I said quickly, motioning to the laptop on the table in front of me. “I guess when he didn’t actually turn into a dragon he decided to settle for second best and go for the armor.”

Vayl raised an eyebrow. “From the sound of it, I would hardly describe the armor as second best.”

“No, that’s not really how Bergman operates, is it?”

Vayl sank onto the banquette beside me and sighed. “We are not going to talk about this sleepwalking issue, are we?”

“Nothing to discuss. I’m seeing Cassandra’s guy tomorrow. He’s going to slap me with a cure.Bam . I’m ready to roll.”

“Do you understand how few things actually get accomplished with abam ?”

“You’ve never watchedThe Flintstones , have you?”

Twitch of the lip. For him it was practically a giggle. “Fair enough. Let us talk about work then.”

“Okay. Just how were you planning to take out an ancient vampire wearing invincible armor?”

“The simplest approach would be to find his resting place. When dawn breaks, he dies, so the armor automatically detaches. We pull it free and then smoke him like a Cuban cigar.” He said it with such zest I could imagine him sitting on the balcony of some Caribbean villa, sharing a hand-rolled cancer-carrot with Hemingway while they mused over the aroma of vaporized vampire and discussed which shoes to wear for the next running of the bulls.

I snorted. “Sometimes you are about as PC as Peter Griffin.”

“Who?”

“This cartoon guy . . . Never mind. I am curious, though. You did notice that the majority of people are against smoking these days, yes?”

“Yes. And a good thing too. We used to lose houses and barns left and right to careless smokers. Now it is usually just faulty wiring or children with fire fetishes. I imagine the rate of fire loss has dropped drastically since smoking became so unpopular.”

I crossed my arms, pursed my lips, and nodded through his entire statement. As hard as I stared I could not unearth a single twitch of the lip. Vayl seemed absolutely sincere. But really, what did a guy who could live forever under the right circumstances care about malignancy?

“You know what,” I said. “Your get-him-while-he’s-zonked idea seems solid. And yet I’m thinking if it had a chance, somebody would’ve made it work a long time ago.”

Vayl held up a finger. “Ah, but you see, this somebody you speak of never had you.” He pointed the finger at me and I still had to fight the urge to look over my shoulder.Who, me?

“Vayl—”

“Tonight we will scout out the most likely locations. And then tomorrow you and Cole will revisit those locations as well as any others you can think of. If you sense any vampires—what is that word?—Ah, yes:bam .”

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 forothers 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 theDragon —”

“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 theMayflower . 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.

Bergman said, “Vayl? Can we do one more test of the equipment?”

“We just did one on the dock,” Cassandra protested.

He gave her a dirty look. “It might function differently when we’re surrounded by water.”

Itwas a dandy little system wherein wires, kindly sewn into our collars by our resident psychic/needlewoman, bounced some sort of wave off surrounding objects. A machine Bergman had wired to the boat then translated those signals. Ideally it would keep us from getting caught by wandering guards while we installed the surveillance cameras. We each had five of the little gadgets in our pockets, none bigger than a Tic Tac. Is it a bad thing when you need a magnifying glass to examine your examining equipment? I’m thinking maybe.

Vayl’s job, besides keeping our getaway boat buoyant enough to ferry us back to shore, was to monitor the monitor. If someone was coming, he would contact us via mouth-mint, or as Bergman liked to call it, wireless oral transmitter. We each wore minute hearing aides that allowed us to receive the communication in barbershop quartet bass, while preventing us from looking like we’d spent way too much time dancing by the speakers at a KISS concert in our intrepid youths. Vayl could also receive our messages, though we’d been cautioned against blabbing any old time we felt like it. Enhanced hearing is a common vampire trait and Vayl thought maybe we should leave any stray bad guys who might be listening out of the loop.

“You know, I could probably get us all talismans that would do the same job,” Cassandra said casually, glancing at Bergman out of the corner of her eye. My God, she was baiting him! Didn’t she know better? Especially with him wired to blow any moment, now that his invention was in the hands of a psycho? The potential for disaster suddenly spiked to orange, the same level you get when you tell a group of prom queen candidates their shoes don’t match their dresses.

Bergman’s face looked like he’d just stuck it in a vacuum-pack machine. His cheekbones may have actually touched. Concerned that if he lunged for her he would either fall out of the boat or knock a hole in the bottom, I leaned forward and patted his knee. Hard.

“She’s kidding, Bergman. Your inventions are essential to us.”

“I was not kidding,” Cassandra mumbled.

Holy crap, what has gotten into her tonight? It’s the pirate outfit; I just know it. “Cassandra,” I mumbled back, “I know you’re, like, a millennia older than me. But trust me, this is not the time for a magic versus machine debate. Bergman is not a cat you want to poke with a stick right now.”

“Not even a little?”

With my lips still burning from my recent vamp teasing I said earnestly, “Not even.”

“Jaz, look.” Cole pointed to Chien-Lung’s yacht as we pulled up beside her. Big black letters spelled out the name “Constance Malloy.” “I didn’t expect that, did you?”

“Hmm. A Chinese vampire on an Irish yacht. Nope, I wouldn’t have thought it.”

Vayl maneuvered us to the back of the yacht, which opened nearly at the water’s level. Cole tied us on and the three of us unloaded right there on the mini deck. Straight through a set of glass doors we saw metal tables and benches, the crew’s mess, no doubt. It looked about as comfortable as the cafeteria at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Cleveland. At least it had a view.

Two ladders on either side of the doors led up to the main deck. I was just considering the wisdom of running up one and taking a peek when I caught a scent that made me wrinkle my nose.

“Company coming,” I whispered as I took the last cooler from Vayl.

Moments later a Hollywood-thin Asian vamp wearing a purple suit, ruffled white shirt, and shiny black shoes emerged from the glass doors as if walking onstage. Cassandra, Bergman, Cole, and I exchanged glances. Were we supposed to applaud?

“Youare late,” he fussed, running his pinky across his forehead, where his thin black hair traversed it on its way to the opposite ear. He spoke to Cole, which pissed me off. Why is it that the jerks always assume the good-looking guy is in charge?

“Sorry about that,” I told him. I stuck out my hand, which meant I released the handle of the cooler. As expected, he caught it instantly, but he was not happy to be touching the menial’s equipment. I shook his limp fist hard enough to make him wince. And he could’ve broken my back without breaking a sweat. Theoretically at least.

I went on. “The oven caught fire while we were baking the cheese puffs and it took us forever to put it out. You know how cheese likes to burn.” I smiled, letting go of the other handle to adjust my bandana. Oops! Now he held the entire cooler. He put it down and wiped his hands on his violet slacks.

He looked down his nose at me, not an easy feat considering I had him by a good five inches. “I know nothing about cheese,” he said. As I began to speak again he held up a hand. “Moreover, I wish to know nothing about cheese.”

Moreover? Who says that?“What a lovely outfit,” I said, pouring every ounce of sarcasm I could muster into the statement. “Where did you find such a stellar suit?”

He totally missed my undercurrent as he began to preen. “Oh, this old rag? I just picked it up at a little men’s store called Frierman’s. The tailor there is a genius. But then, you don’t look as if you could afford his wares.”

Okay, this guy is obviously color blindanda social leper. I may have to kill him now . “If you would just point us to the kitchen?”

“You mean the galley?” he asked with a superior little sniff.

Cassandra slid in front of me before I could act on my brilliant plan to tie an anchor around the twit’s neck and toss him overboard. She shoved a box in his hands and picked up the cooler. “If you would be so kind,” she said.

He swished toward the doors, followed by my crew, with me lagging behind. Vayl cleared his throat. I glanced over my shoulder. He made three short gestures that clearly meantGet in. Get out. Don’t screw up . I made a gesture of my own that was also quite clear. Unfortunately he took me literally and I think I left him in a state of rising excitement.

The twit led us through the doors into the crew’s mess. Beyond the tables a stainless-steel counter separated the dining area from thegalley. “What a lovely kitchen,” I said as the twit scowled at me and Cassandra hid a smile. I opened the fridge, checked out the cabinets. “Very . . . organized.”

The twit set his box down on the counter. “Chien-Lung is quite particular about cleanliness,” he told me sternly. “Please see that you straighten up after yourselves before you leave.”

“Why certainly. We are here but to serve.” I gave him a bow with just enough angle on it to let him know if he ever hit the Midwest, nine of ten farmers would agree he had a cob up his ass. He sniffed and tossed his head, perhaps wishing he had long curls that would allow him to emphasize the huffy. He left through a large arched doorway at the other end of the galley. Having studied the plans of this particular vessel before we left, I knew he was taking a twisting ramp up to the main deck.

Together we unloaded the goodies. Vamps may not require delicious layouts of shrimp cocktail, bite-sized crackers topped with funky green veggies, and gallons of margaritas to survive, but they sure do relish them. (Hah! Pun intended!) By the time we finished, the galley resembled a behind-the-scenes Food Network show. I half expected an abnormally thin TV chef to step out of the broom closet and start breaking down the recipe for the mini kebobs.

“I’m starving,” Cole said, his hands full of small square brownies. “And since there’s no room on the tray for these . . .” He popped them all into his mouth.

“Cole!” Cassandra smacked him on the shoulder.

“Wha—?” When he opened his mouth all you could see was half-chewed goo.

“How oldare you?” I demanded. I threw a shrimp at him and it got stuck in his tangle of wig hair. Bergman fished it out, wiped it off, and put it back on the serving dish.

“Now,that is disgusting,” said Cassandra.

“Children!” Vayl’s voice boomed in our ears, loud and sudden enough to make us all jump guiltily. “I trust you are performing actual work right now.”

“Chill out, Vayl,” I replied. “Bergman is just conducting an experiment to see how vampires respond to ingesting brown hair dye.”

“That makes me curious, Vayl,” said Cole in a sticky, goodie-between-the-gums voice that reminded me of Winnie the Pooh after a major honey binge. “Have you ever colored your hair? You know blonds have more fun.”

“Not when they are in the hospital.”

Cole suddenly struck a pose that bore a remarkable resemblance to the twit. “What a meanie bo-beanie. God.”

We all spent the next three minutes swallowing huge peals of laughter, and when one did escape, disguising it as a cough. Before we were done our eyes were streaming and we were hacking like a bunch of cigarette hounds. Some people play video games when they stress. Some people kick their dogs, beat their spouses, have heart attacks. I laugh. Usually at exactly the wrong moment. Apparently my crew had caught the bug. But it worked. It was, in fact, just what we needed to help us relax into our assigned roles.

Having consulted Yetta’s map and figured out where to situate all the goodies, we grabbed the boxes marked “table coverings,” threw the booze, a few trays, and the tableware on a cart, and hoofed it upstairs.

We emerged in a huge open space divided into a formal dining room at the back, an entertainment area complete with baby grand in the front quarter, and a conversation corner in which someone had arranged two overstuffed couches and six chairs around a fake fireplace. The decor combined gleaming maple with rich blues and just a touch of ivory. Uh-huh, fancy.

We headed toward a set of open glass doors that led to the main deck. Cole stopped at the serve-yourself bar just outside the doors to stock up and attach a couple of cameras. A built-in awning provided protection from the weather, but it stood at least ten feet above the deck, so no cameras there. Gold silk had been wound around the railing, which meant anything we attached there could be covered by the blowing material, discovered by whoever cleaned up in the morning, or butt rubbed right into the bay. Everything else was portable. Straight-backed chairs lined up to starboard, waiting-room style. To port, two bare and embarrassed-looking buffet tables waited for our touch.

“Time to explore,” I murmured. Cassandra nodded, and while she and Bergman began wind proofing the tablecloths I went back to the galley. Grabbing a tray full of dime-sized sandwiches, I headed through the arch once again. But instead of taking the ramp, I went down the adjoining hall. Passing several closed doors that led to crew quarters, I walked to the very end, where metal steps led me up two levels to the pilothouse.

What a sight. Recessed lighting combined with maple cabinetry and state-of-the-art navigational equipment to make the place resemble a cruise ship. At the very least I expected to find some bored young sailor babysitting a bank of inactive dials while the captain spent his evening on land. But the room practically echoed.

“Huh.” We’d seen no staff while we were in the galley and I’d encountered nobody while I was on their turf. Had Lung sent them all ashore?

Well, hey, if the wind was blowing my way, I sure wasn’t going to turn my head and spit. I planted a camera and took a different set of stairs to the guest level, where a long hall carpeted in blue Berber offered up all kinds of options in shiny arched doors with glowing gold latches. After knocking lightly on the first one to my right, I inched it open and looked inside. Empty. I left a camera near the porthole and moved across the hall. I’d just opened the door when Vayl said urgently, “Jaz, someone is coming.”

Crap!I slipped into the room, closed the door behind me, and scoped the place out. Bed against the wall wearing black sheets and matching pillows, topped by a red velvet throw. Black bedside table with built-in lamp. Mirrored closet to the left. I checked inside. Definitely no room for me unless I found another place for the shiny silk suits and neat lines of shoes. Look at all those loafers! The guy was definitely gay.

I reached for Grief, realized I held a tray full of party food in my shooting hand, and by then it was too late. I turned to face the door as it swung open and the twit walked in.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“We were told to bring a tray of sandwiches to this room,” I said, smiling politely as I switched it to my left hand.

“I did not order anything,” he snapped.

“Well, she definitely told us to bring it here.” I could see him mentally thumbing through the list of possible women to whom I could be referring. It must’ve been pretty short, because within seconds he was considering me with less irritation and more interest.

“Pengfei must know I like chicken salad with my brunettes.”

He moved toward me and I backed up, wishing for more room to maneuver. “Now, wait a minute,” I said, my heart beating so hard I was surprised my bra straps didn’t snap. “The caterersprovide the food. We aren’t food ourselves.” I didn’t want to smoke the creep. It would so compromise the mission, and I’d done enough of that last time around.

I’d run out of floor space, so I stepped up onto the bed. The twit continued to stalk me, enjoying his abbreviated hunt, sure of the outcome.

“Listen,” I said, trying not to sound desperate. He’d take it as a signal to charge. Grief weighed heavy on my shoulder as I tried to talk him out of his own demise. “Chien-Lung’s your master, right? Surely he won’t be happy knowing you’ve eaten the caterer. After all, he’s here to entertain, not mop up.”

“Chien-Lung is no master of mine,” the twit snarled, wrinkling his lips as if he’d just bitten into something rotten.

“Pengfei then,” I said, latching on to the name he’d dropped earlier.

He drew himself up to his full height, threw his thin shoulders back. “Those two are barely fit to lick the soles of mysverhamin ’s boots. It is a wonder to me that Edward even bothers with them sometimes. I have never met a more unbalanced pair.”

I did a quick expression check. Mouth shut? Eyes focused? Inner turmoil completely masked? I sure as hell hoped so, because given the circumstances, the twit could only be referring to Edward the ‘Raptor’ Samos. Samos must not have been able to attend to this affair directly, so he’d sent hisavhar to take care of it in his place. Weird to have theavhar thing in common with Mr. Thin-and-Pasty. I’d assumed it was only a human thing. Apparently vamps could form that kind of bond too.

“If you’re planning on eating me, could you at least tell me your name?”

He appeared to consider my request. Finally he nodded. “My name is Shunyuan Fa.” He didn’t ask for mine in return. Which brought us right back to our cat-and-mouse game. I was just moving into the acceptance phase, where Grief would come into play and this whole job might explode in my face, when Vayl blew into the room. He slammed the door hard enough to make the bed shake. Both the twit and I froze, looking at him in shock.

“Thereyou are!” he said, waving his hands expansively, reminding me of my uncle Barney, a man who does everything on the Big and Loud. “I am so sorry”—he bowed to Shunyuan Fa—“she is always flirting with clients when she should be overseeing operations.”

He turned to me. “There seems to have been some sort of accident with the shrimp and the punch. Miles insists he has just invented a new hors d’oeuvre, however the guests may not agree. Also the cheese puffs have exploded. And I cannot be certain, but I believe I saw Cole sneeze all over the bar glasses.”

The twit gave a horrified little scream that nearly made me laugh out loud. However, since my knees were still shaking from my close call with mission-screwed, I managed to maintain an air of calm as Vayl took my arm and escorted me out the door. I purposely turned the wrong way, managed to plant two cameras on two separate doorframes before Shunyuan Fa joined us in the hallway and set us on the correct path. We parted ways at the deck.

Vayl and I found the rest of our team in the galley. After some hurried conferring during which we all agreed our cameras had been planted, the buffet set up, and the empty coolers packed back on the boat, we decided to blow on outta that joint before our luck completely deserted us.

CHAPTERELEVEN

We made it back to shore without sinking, which, I decided, was the second-best thing that had happened to me that night. We lingered just long enough to tie the boat to the dock, although it might have been kinder to let it drift. Then the kids moved the party to the RV while the grown-ups stood side by side, surrounded by sailboats and speedboats and fishing boats. The moonlight reflected off the soft waves of the bay, combining with the gentle breeze to create an ideal atmosphere for conversation.

“Close call,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Sounds like Shunyuan Fa is linked to the Raptor.”

“I agree.”

“I wish you’d stop to take a breath once in a while. I can hardly get a word in edgewise.”

Tightening of the lips. Corner-of-the-eye look. At last he spoke. “You would tell me if I had offended you in some way, yes?”

“Of course.”

“You know I did not think you needed to be rescued just now. I just supposed it would be nice to leave Shunyuan Fa alive so that, perhaps, we could trace him back to Samos.”

“Yeah.”

“And, before”—he let out a huge breath—“when our lips touched—”

“I know you were just trying to teach me a lesson,” I rushed in, glad of the night so he couldn’t see me blush. It had been a very pleasurable lesson.

Weird the way his eyes narrowed slightly like that. Usually that only happened when he was hurt. “Of course.” He nodded. “Exactly. I am glad we have that settled then. Shall we go?”

“Okay.” Nothing had changed. The breeze still wafted across the bay. The moonlight still provided a lovely backdrop for a walk along the pier. But I shivered anyway. I glanced at Vayl. Why did I suddenly feel so cold?

As I stepped inside the RV, I said, “Good God, our mobile home has swallowed a Radio Shack!”

Bergman had wired a bank of electronic whatsits to our plasma TV, making it look like it had sprouted a blocky beard. The screen itself was divided into multiple quadrants, showing views of the common area and the deck of theConstance Malloy . We settled down to watch, Vayl and Cassandra on Mary-Kate, Cole and I on Ashley, with me pretending I didn’t mind a bit that mysverhamin had forsaken my company for the psychic’s.

No big deal. Stop feeling like the kid who gets picked last in PE class.In these times I looked to my old friend and roommate for comfort. Bergman sent me a wry smile from his position at the banquette where he’d set up a couple of laptops, one of which I recognized as Agency equipment. He said, “I’ve fixed it so we’ll only see views from the party area cameras. The rest will record straight to the computer. We can review that footage later.”

“What’s that?” Cole pointed to a black box about half the size of a DVD player sitting on top of Ashley’s table. It was fronted by eight dials and a red button.

“Brains of the RV’s security system,” Bergman said, as he tapped at his keyboard and tried to keep his eyes on all the screens at once. “Since I couldn’t hardwire anything I had to get creative. We’ve got cameras in the Chinese lanterns we strung along the edge of the front and back awnings. The dials control them, and they’ll only activate when they detect movement, in which case the bedroom TV will automatically switch on and begin feeding us video. That way nobody can sneak up on us.”

Okay, that explained the thin black cord snaking from the black box all the way back to the bedroom. Another ran from the box up the wall and out a vent in the ceiling. I assumed it ended up outside where it connected to the cameras. Old Miles had been a busy little bee.

“Vayl said I couldn’t play with the door lock, but it’s a good one. Everybody just make sure you memorize the key code. I’ve set a welcome mat I just designed outside the front door. Any visitors we’re not happy about get a punch of the red button there on the side of the black box. The mat will deliver a jolt that’ll knock them flat.”

“Impressive,” said Vayl.

“Thanks.” Bergman shifted in his seat, darting a glance out the window at the padlocked trailer, which still held a couple of boxes full of equipment he thought he might need but didn’t want us to see. He was just one of those guys who’d much rather be working from an underground bunker somewhere deep in the heart of Montana. One with its own special vault just for him.

“Don’t sorcerers have some sort of contract they make their apprentices sign?” I asked. “You know, where they promise not to give away any secrets upon pain of death?” I directed the question to the room in general, but my eyes were on Cassandra. As the eldest she should know damn near everything by now. But she deferred to Vayl.

“I suppose.”

“Write something up, Bergman.”

He went from resembling a parakeet, darting glances from trailer to monitor to TV screen, as if somewhere something was going to leap out and eat him, to watching me with the still sharpness of an owl. “What are you saying?” His voice broke on the last word, making him sound like a seventh grader at the Valentine’s Day dance. He cleared his throat.

“It’s close quarters. None of us can help seeing whatever you’re forced to trot out of that trailer during this mission. So we’ll all sign a paper guaranteeing that we will never utter a word of what we have seen to anyone anywhere ever, or else, well, you figure out the or else.”

Bergman immediately ducked behind his laptop screen so none of us could see his face. Off went the glasses. Left arm crossed the face to blot the tears. We heard a couple of sniffs. And then, “Thanks, Jaz. I’ll get right on that.”

Satisfied, I sat back to view Chien-Lung TV. Cole popped popcorn, handed out sodas, and for the next half hour we watched guests arrive from the mainland. At first it looked like any other party where the guests wear uncomfortable clothes and pretend to like each other. Vamps mingled with humans throughout, all of them Chinese. Shunyuan Fa was there, but acting a lot more like a guest than a host.

“Recognize anybody besides the Raptor’s boy?” I asked Vayl.

“No.”

Bergman said, “If you want, I can capture the video of every face on that yacht and send it through your database.”

“Fine,” said Vayl. His plethora of terse replies finally hammered the message through my thick skull. I’d brushed that kiss off like it was nothing. And he’d meant it as more. Maybe a lot more.

But it’s not like you can even tell he has feelings, I reasoned.Most of the time he walks around wearing the same frozen expression he woke up with .

What, so that means he can’t be hurt?demanded Granny May from her perennial spot at a card table near the front of my brain. Currently she seemed to be playing bridge with Spider-Man, Bob Hope, and Abraham Lincoln. She plunked down her glass of iced tea, fed Bob an Ace of Hearts, and said,Have you ever stopped to think how hard a man has to work to show that kind of face to the world? It’s like the Hoover Dam, that mug. Can you even imagine the depth of pain that must be pooled behind it?

I peeked at Vayl from under my lashes. Actually, I could.

As Bergman tried to identify the people in the crowd, they remained quiet, polite, expectant. They didn’t have long to wait. First a petite, willowy woman wearing a red satin dress walked out of the living area. She’d put her hair in that funky Chinese up do that always looks like it’s about to leap off the lady’s head and wrap itself around some poor schmuck’s throat. Traditional makeup whitened her face, blackened her eyes, and reddened her lips. She carried a pair of shiny black rods at her side.

One quick flip of her wrist and the rods transformed into huge fans, one painted with the image of a warrior wearing a long golden robe and a sword belt. The other depicted a golden dragon lounging at the bottom of a river. She began to dance with slow graceful movements, manipulating the fans so it looked like the warrior first fought with the dragon, and then as if the dragon emerged from the warrior.

“She’s good,” Cole breathed.

“Now, how am I supposed to compete with that?” I asked.

Vayl fixed me with the icy-blue gaze that I inwardly referred to as his “intellectual” look. And then, because I knew him so well, I could see him imagining me in my costume, undulating to ancient rhythms while he watched. His eyes darkened. “For some, there will be no comparison,” he said.

My throat went dry. As my eyes dropped to his lips I wondered what would have happened if either of us had been bold enough when we’d kinda kissed to just let go. Would our worlds have exploded with new colors, wonders, miracles? Or would we have already destroyed each other?

Our eyes locked. By his count he hadn’t known me long. But he knew me well enough that I could often tell him things without speaking. Usually it was job related.There’s a guy hiding behind that bush. Give me thirty seconds to get into position before you move. I’ll take out the one that’s pissing me off.

This time I had something else to say.That kiss caught me off guard. Scared the hell out of me. Let me know how bad you could rock my world. I loved it. Now give me some time to deal, okay?

He sat back, a smile slowly lifting one side of his mouth. When his eyes softened to brown and he gave me a brief nod I knew we were all right.

The sound of clapping brought my attention back to the TV. The dancer had finished. She waited for the applause to fade, then turned toward the dining/entertainment area and bowed so low she could’ve gnawed her knees if the urge had hit her. The rest of the crowd bowed as well as Chien-Lung emerged from the shadows and stepped into camera range.

I’d seen pictures of Lung taken on his previous trips to the States. They’d showed a robust man of average height with an elegant mustache and beard, fierce brown eyes, and an expression of haughtiness that told you right away he totally bought the concept of racial supremacy. This shot of Lung showed a radically changed man. He’d lost so much weight his skin seemed to adhere directly to his skull, with no layers of fat or muscle to soften it. No hair covered his head. He didn’t even have eyebrows to soften the harsh lines of his face.

“Does he have cancer?” asked Cole.

Nobody knew how to answer that.

The dancer held out her arm. Lung rested his hand on it. At first I thought he wore gloves. Then I realized dark material covered both of his hands. Something about the shape of them bothered me, but before I could get a better view the dancer turned and led him toward a cushioned chair that had been set up for him at a point exactly opposite that of the doors he’d just exited. Two flags that hadn’t been there before hung from the edge of the awning. They flanked the chair, and though they flapped steadily in the breeze, I could tell they depicted gold dragons on a lush green background.

Lung swept past his guests at a stately rate of speed, his golden neck-to-ankle robes swishing with each step. When he reached the chair, the dancer stood in front of him, blocking the view while he rearranged his clothes. When she stepped back he was sitting. On his knees.

“Okay, that’s just weird,” I said.

Eating, drinking, and polite conversation followed, during which the dancer played an instrument she’d retrieved from inside. Though it wasn’t the kind of music you could rock to, it worked for drinks and appetizers. Then she started to sing.

“Holy crap!” I exclaimed. “It sounds like somebody’s seesawing dental floss inside her nose!”

Cole stuck his fingers in his ears. “Are you sure she’s not our target? Because I think a strong case can be made for that racket being a threat to national security.”

“Bergman,” said Vayl, ignoring our juvenile outbursts, “do you have any idea why Lung is sitting on his knees?”

“None at all. Every part of him but his head is covered, so I can’t tell how the armor is interacting with his body.” Very professional wordage, but underneath it all Bergman’s voice shook with a rage that said, “If I had the son of a bitch alone in a lawless universe I’d rip his head off and parade it through town on a pike.”

Responding to those unspoken feelings, I said, “Vayl, I wonder if you and I should go back out there.”In a seaworthy boat this time . “Lung’s a perfect target right now.”

Vayl nodded. “It looks that way. But he has not lived this long through carelessness.” He thought awhile. “We will wait,” he decided. “Let him believe his current security measures suffice.”

“They probably will,” said Bergman, managing to sound depressed and proud at the same time. “As soon as the armor detects danger, the hood will automatically cover his head. This vamp is not going to die by conventional weaponry.”

“He’s got to have some vulnerability,” I said, getting the urge to throw something. Like Bergman. “You do want to get your invention back, don’t you?” I asked him.

“Of course!”

“Then you’re going to have to find a way to beat it!”

Bergman tapped a few keys and said, “Do you think there’s any way I can get a piece of it? I could do some tests.”

“Why can’t you just make some more and test that?” asked Cole.

“Because it physically changes once it’s been put on according to who, or what, is wearing it. We had that, at least, figured out before it was stolen.”

“How much do you need?” I asked.

“A fingernail. A scale—”

I looked at Cassandra. “We’re the ones most likely to get close to him. Do you think, between the two of us . . . ?”

She suddenly had a hard time meeting my eyes. “Maybe. I would like to consult the cards first.”

Bergman snorted. “Likethat’ll help.”

I grabbed a pillow and winged it at his head.

“Hey! What was that for?”

“Just jogging your brain out of asshole mode.”

“Something is happening,” Vayl said, the urgency in his voice calling everyone’s attention back to the plasma screen.

At first we could only see quick movements at the limits of the cameras’ range. Then the woman with the criminal singing voice screamed. A group of maybe ten masked intruders raced into view, still dripping from their recent swim. They headed straight toward Lung, accompanied by several men and a couple of women from the crowd. The rest of the guests scattered, clearing out so fast you’d have thought they participated in duck-the-violence drills on a regular basis. Only Shunyuan Fa and the singer remained.

The singer grabbed a passing guest and ripped his throat out with her delicate little fangs before moving deeper into the fray.

Shunyuan Fa struck a straggler of the attackers, jerking the man’s head sideways and burying his fangs in his jugular. The man died flailing, his last word an anguished gurgle.

The man’s companion was better prepared. He pulled a short, straight sword and cut off Shunyuan Fa’s head as he leaned over his victim’s body. Vayl and I shared a silent moment of dejection as our best clue to the Raptor’s location went up in smoke. Then we turned our attention back to the screen. We still had Lung, and our original connection to Samos was faring quite a bit better.

Lung’s headgear had activated instantly, moving up from his neck so fast it was a blur. Later, when Bergman slowed the footage down, we witnessed how the scales erupted from his skin like immense golden blisters, growing up and outward at his eyebrows and mouth, so by the time the scales stopped moving two pairs of barbed horns jutted from his forehead and his long, square snout bristled with fangs.

Lung shed his robe in a single, quick motion. Scales covered his entire body, flashing gold and red as he moved, which brought my attention to his legs. He hadn’t been sitting on his knees after all. They seemed to have become fused in a permanently bent position. He’d actually been crouching on his feet, which had grown at least another twelve inches. His toes had lengthened to the point that he could walk on them like an ostrich. It looked awkward, but he moved just as fast as his would-be killers.

The first wave was almost on him when he stopped it with a single burst of blue flame that caught two of the attackers in the face. It burned so fast and hot that seconds later nothing remained of their skulls but smoking craters. Despite the fact that their clothes were soaking wet, the three men standing nearest those unfortunates also caught fire. They immediately stripped off their jackets and threw them overboard.

“Remarkable,” Vayl murmured.

Watching through clenched fingers, Bergman muttered angrily, “Just wait.”

Lung dropped off his perch, held his hands in the air, and flexed. The wrapping material shredded as they swelled to twice their bandaged size. In fact,he was growing, filling out in height and breadth until he at least doubled the size of his largest attacker. My gaze went back to his hands. As Bergman had described earlier, they were gnarled claws now, massive weapons tipped with poison that he used with deadly efficiency, raking deep furrows in faces, necks, and chests. He left his victims writhing on the ground as he met the next wave.

This group carried a variety of machine guns—Uzis, MAC-10s, MP40s, likely bought out of the back of some thug’s van—which they trained on Lung’s face. Made sense to me. The eyes, nostrils, mouth, any one of them should admit a round, especially one traveling nearly three hundred feet per second. But, as Bergman had said, the armor deflected the ammunition, closing over the vulnerable areas with lightning speed. And while the assassins concentrated on Lung’s head, his tail swept into action.

He’d kept it tucked behind him all this time. Now it whipped through the gunmen like a snapped guy wire, leaving a wake of severed and broken bones.

“That’s new,” said Bergman. His hands were in his hair now, pulling it in two directions, just like his heart. The scientist in him was fascinated. The creator in him had never been so violated.

Lung’s cohort had kicked ass too, though she much preferred the hand-to-hand method highlighted by the occasional terminal bite. I watched her work with grudging admiration. She spun to deliver a head kick and her opponent chose the same block and counter I would have used. Neither worked.

“Look at that speed,” I murmured, my eyes unable to keep her movement from blurring as the man went down, leaving his neck open to her final attack. I felt a sudden need to work out old-school, accompanied by some stirring music from, say,Rocky IV . Just in case she and I squared off, I did not want to find myself flat on my butt with the heel of her foot as my last living visual.

Within three minutes it was over. Lung and his partner stood triumphant in a spreading pool of blood while the chicken-shit party guests slowly made their way back to the deck. For the first time, Lung spoke. Holding out his massive arms he challenged the crowd. In Chinese.

“What’s he saying?” I asked Cole.

He’d sat absolutely still through the action, a toddler at his first pay-for-your-ticket movie. Had he done any better than a three-year-old at connecting the pictures on the screen with actual reality? I studied him. Relaxed face and shoulders, hands crossed quietly on his lap. But his heel jumped up and down like it needed to telegraph a battleship, and his hand inched toward the bowl on the table where he’d dumped his bubble gum. Somewhat relieved to see our rookie wasn’t as green as the bowl, I waited to hear his translation.

“See me. Hear me. I. Am. DRAGON!” Lung looked slowly around the crowd. “You have witnessed my enemies. Though they try to destroy me, they are powerless against my strength. Iwill be your next emperor!” Nobody said a word. One by one, they began to bow.

CHAPTERTWELVE

We sat in the RV, watching Lung’s cocktail bash become a mop-up. Nobody felt like talking. Not on the yacht. Not in our bus.

Cassandra sat hugging her knees, her luxuriant braids hiding her face.

Cole slumped beside me, warming up a new piece of Dubble Bubble, looking away from the TV every few seconds to check on the rest of us.

I couldn’t read Vayl, but if I had to guess, I’d say he looked the way you’d expect a Roman warrior to appear right before being impaled by an enemy lance.

And there was Bergman, immersed in the technology, calling out the names of the guests as the software matched their pictures.

“General Sang Lee and wife.”

“General Ton Sun and wife.”

“General Wing Don.”

Clearly Lung had designs on the People’s Liberation Army. No doubt he’d convinced the surviving generals to ally with him. And if he could figure out how to replicate the armor, his military, already the largest in the world, would be unstoppable.

It felt like someone had sucked all the hope from the room along with most of the air.

“This whole deal pisses me off,” I said. Rising from the couch took effort, made me realize the battle had already begun. Our foe had made the first sortie. And dragon fear was no myth. But now that I’d hit my feet, I felt better.

Cassandra swept her hair back from her face. Nodding at her I went on. “This guy is nothing but a duded-up version of Tammy Shobeson.”

Cole straightened and turned to listen.

“Who is Tammy Shobeson?” Vayl asked.

“My childhood nemesis. If God is just, she is now a fat, pimply divorcée with a chronic yeast infection.” I even had Bergman’s attention now. This had been our first point of commonality as college students. His bully had been a redheaded jerk named Clell Danburton, and I thought sometimes he still had nightmares about their showdowns.

“So what’s your point?” he asked, sounding less like a robot and more like my old jogging partner.

I looked him in the eye. “Bottom line, Lung is just a spoiled brat who gets his way by scaring people. He may have found an effective way to do that, but it is not assassin-proof. We”—my gesture took in everybody in the room—“are being paid to kick this bully’s ass. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

Almost dawn in the Body of Christ. As gross as that sounds, Corpus Christi glowed like a promise from our vantage point on Bay Trail. The breeze felt great, invigorating. Or maybe it was the renewed hope that our plans could work, that we might all make it to the other side of this mission without being roasted alive by Iron Chef Lung.

The five of us watched the lights of theConstance Malloy wink out one by one. We’d emerged from the RV by silent agreement. Even Bergman stepped out for a breath of fresh air, as if the massacre we’d watched had somehow poisoned the RV’s ventilation system. He didn’t stay long.

“Gotta get some sleep if I’m going to come up with anything workable in the morning,” he said. By “anything workable” he meant a new invention. One that, after several hours of brainstorming, we agreed could actually destroy Lung if we could get him to ingest it.

“Okay, that puts me at the monitors,” said Cole. He’d stay up while the rest of us slept. And if I dreamed again, my safety would be his responsibility. Maybe Cole could tell how much the whole deal bothered me, because he patted me on the shoulder and grinned. “Don’t worry, Jaz. If you try anything funny I’ll wrestle you to the ground and tickle you until you pee yourself.”

“Oh great, that gives me something to look forward to,” I drawled. “Killer nightmaresand incontinence. Thanks a lot.”

He spread his arms and gave me a disarming grin. “I am here but to serve.” With a parting chuckle he followed Bergman back into the RV.

Cassandra remained with us, arms crossed over her chest, staring into the dark water.

“You are troubled,” Vayl said.

She didn’t roll her eyes at him, but it struck me as a close thing. “Naturally.”

“A vision?” he asked hopefully.

She shook her head. “Nothing that specific. Just a feeling.” She stood a little straighter, and you could almost see her slamming all the doors and windows. “Never mind,” she said.

“But—”

“Believe me, Vayl, if I knew anything that would help, I’d tell you.” She stared at him. I got the feeling she was talking about two things at once. She left at a regal, controlled pace although I suspected she would’ve enjoyed it more if she could’ve stomped on his foot and run off, cackling madly as she receded into the Texas dawn.

Vayl and I stood quietly for a couple of seconds while I tried to decide how much I was about to upset him. In the end, it didn’t matter. We were on the job, which meant the team came before everything. Even our personal feelings.

I decided to be blunt. “What did you do to piss her off?”

“Nothing I know of.” I felt a surge in his power and the temperature dropped a couple of degrees.

“Don’t you pull that vamp crap on me,” I told him. “If you don’t feel like talking about something, just say so.”

“I do not feel like discussing it.” He gave me that raised eyebrow that I’d come to learn was a challenge.Go ahead, it said,just try and go there. We’ll just see who’s more stubborn .

“Fine,” I said. “But you and I both know that allowing your search for your boys to come between you and the people who are helping you complete this mission is not only wrong, it’s stupid. And I am not losing another team to one member’s idiocy.” Vayl believed Cassandra might be able to connect him with the men who had, in another life, been his sons. A long succession of Seers had led him to believe they were Americans. But he’d had no luck finding them.

“I am not some amateur slayer who is going to call doom upon the heads of another group of your companions,” Vayl said, his voice deepening, as it usually did when he was seriously disturbed. “I simply want what is mine.”

Here we go again, tromping into no-reasoning-with-the-man territory. If his boys had lived out their natural lives they’d have still died over two hundred years ago. But he couldn’t, wouldn’t let them go. And who was I to judge, when the pain of my own losses still had the power to bring me to my knees? I wouldn’t have said another word if the job had only involved the two of us. But we’d attracted a crowd that I felt a deep need to protect, the way I hadn’t been able to protect my first crew.

“You’re just going to have to be patient—”

“I am tired of being patient!” Vayl blasted the words toward the water, as if to challenge some unseen god who’d been playing hide-and-seek with his boys all these years. He looked down at me. “I want to know where they are. I want to see them. Speak to them. Tell them everything I have been holding in my heart since the day they died. Cassandra can do that for me. She can connect me to them if she would just try! So stop coddling her and let her do her job!” Desperate tone in his voice now. Raw and angry. Patently unfair.

“Cassandra’s not going to pull a vision out of her ass just to appease you. But she is going to tell you where to shove it if you keep pushing her. And we need her if we’re going to do this job right. So knock it off!”

I tried to make a graceful exit, but apparently Cassandra had the market cornered on that one. I tripped over a bunch of electric cords Bergman had run from the RV to the closest outlet and nearly fell on my face.

“Fuck!”Funny how sometimes that one word says it all. And how, having said it all, I felt much better. Maybe I’d even sleep right through the next eight hours.

I didn’t. Awake and restless after only forty-five minutes on a couch that felt more like a pile of rocks covered by a thin layer of batting, I wandered around the empty RV. Figuring everybody had gone outside to investigate the mouthwatering aromas coming from our neighbors’ grills, I followed suit.

Bergman, Cole, and Cassandra had made themselves scarce, but I found my brother sitting at a picnic table, stirring a bowl of glop that might have once been ice cream. It broke my heart to see him so sad. And it didn’t help that we were surrounded by families who were having a blast eating greasy food and riding in various spinning, rolling, teeter-tottering contraptions that looked like they could fly apart at any moment.

“I can’t believe she’s gone,” Dave said as I sat down beside him. I waited for him to jump down my throat, accuse me of destroying the only woman he’d ever loved. In some twisted way I wanted his rage, knowing it would make me feel better if he couldn’t stand me. I could hardly bear the look in his eyes as they met mine.

“Is there a way to bring her back?”

“I don’t . . . no, Dave, there’s no way.”

“Why did she go?”

“I don’t think she had a choice.” But we both knew better. Unwilling people cannot be turned. I looked down at my hands as they rested on the table, watched them curl into fists. I felt a strange sense of detachment as I realized I had never hated Jesse more than I did at this moment.

When I looked up it was dark. Dave was gone and Matt sat in his place. He looked hungry. And not for ice cream.

“Wanna tango?” he asked, giving me his lazy, come-get-me smile. But the fangs ruined the effect.

“You’re not a vampire,” I said, digging my fingernails into my palms to keep myself from punching that look off his face. It mocked everything we’d been, everything we might have become. “Aidyn Strait killed you. I saw your soul . . . fly away. Remember?”

“Can I help it if this is how you dream of me?”

“Yes!” I yelled, though I knew I was lying. “You have all kinds of choices, you son of a bitch, and they all affect me! Did you think of that even once before you turned?”What? Now I was confusing myself. Was he a vampire or not?

I looked at him and felt something inside me shatter. “I hate you.”

He grinned. “You love me.”

“You left me.”

He held out his arms, looked down at himself as if to say, “What the hell am I doing here then?”

“You know what I mean! This isn’t really you!”

“Come on, baby. If I’d needed a transfusion you’d have given it to me, no question. This way we can be together forever.”

I started to shudder from the effort it took to hold back a torrent of sobs. “My Matt would never ask that of me.”

He lunged over the table, but I’d known he was coming. I was already up and running, threading through the jostling crowd, which now ran heavily toward gangs of loudly laughing teenagers and young couples in the sizzling stage of romance. Bad place for a showdown.

I darted off the main walk, between food booths, through the parking lot of a Christi’s Crab Shack, deeper into the city. Matt’s vampiric scent dogged me, reminding me that I could only outrun him as long as he allowed me to. And then what?

You know what I want,his voice whispered in my head.

I stopped. I stood on the sidewalk of a busy street, surrounded by office buildings whose windows glared at me between evenly spaced streetlights as if through the reflective sunglasses of a hard-ass cop.Of course. I get it now. Matt wants to drive me crazy. It was the price he’d set for allowing him, Jesse, and the rest of our crew to die. Because he knew me so well, he understood that for me, insanity equaled hell.

Burn, baby, burn,came his voice, laughing uproariously inside my pounding head.

“No. Not like that.” I looked down the street. Vehicles sped past, probably fifteen miles over the forty-mile-per-hour speed limit. I stepped forward.

“Jasmine!” I looked back. Cole was three steps behind me, reaching desperately for my arm. Oh God, was Matt after him too?

I teetered on the curb, one foot floating in the roadway, the other leg shaking with the effort of holding my unbalanced body weight. I reached back and Cole grabbed my hand, yanking me toward him so hard I stumbled and fell. When my knees hit the concrete I came fully awake.

Cole lifted me to my feet. Traffic roared behind me. The sun beat down on my head, which I promptly dropped to Cole’s shoulder.Oh please, no, not again .

“I’m so sorry, Jasmine,” Cole said, stroking my hair. “I just left the RV for a second. Chinese Mom came by to exchange tickets, our show for theirs—remember the deal? And I got distracted by the baby.”

I would too. He was almost as cute as E.J. “What time is it?” I asked. Though I still wore the watch Bergman had made for me, my arm felt heavier than a cannon.

“It’s almost two o’clock.”

“So tired.”

“Come on.” He put his arm around me and began leading me back to the bay. “I’ll find you something criminally caffeinated.”

My head ached. And my heart . . . wiser not to go there. “I think I’m going to need something stronger than coffee.”

“Yeah? What would that be?”

“Chocolate.”

Cole gave me a brotherly kiss on the cheek that nearly did me in. “You got it, chief.”

Chief. He called me chief. Oh, Jesus, how am I going to keep this crew safe when they can barely prevent me from killing myself?No answer. Not from Jesus, anyway. I had another open line, of course.

Raoul.

But when I thought of him, I experienced a sort of full-spirit cringe. Raoul dwelt among my most inapproachable memories. He’d brought me back from death. Twice. His guidance, while it had been vital, nearly overwhelmed the senses. I wasn’t sure what kind of being he was. Only that he’d been a warrior in life, and his ability to command had followed him into the afterlife, where he conducted his activities from a place that looked a lot like a suite at the Mirage. But I couldn’t go there. Because I suspected that whatever I discovered would be more devastating than anything I’d experienced so far.

CHAPTERTHIRTEEN

Cole stepped into the RV first. As soon as he turned to me with that aw-crap look on his face, I knew all was not right in Castle Kick-Ass. Then I heard the sobbing, not quite muffled by a pillow we would all want dry-cleaned very, very, very—I bit the inside of my cheek to stop the inner chant—soon.

I walked all the way in and closed the door. Cassandra sat on Ashley, swiftly drying her eyes, refusing to meet mine.

“I’m fine,” I ventured. “No need to worry. Cole caught me in time.”

“Oh, it isn’t that,” she replied. As soon as she heard herself she looked at me apologetically. “I didn’t mean—of course I was worried—”

“Don’t sweat it.” I faked a smile, sinking into Mary-Kate. “I know you don’t cry that easily.”

“No, I can’t remember the last time . . .” She wiped more tears off her clear, dark skin, then wiped her damp fingers on her lacy orange skirt. She wore matching orange suede boots and had topped it all off with a fluffy white short-sleeved sweater that would’ve made anyone else resemble a poodle. Not Cassandra. Even in the midst of emotional turmoil she maintained this incredible grace of motion, this self-assuredI am , that let you know she would never waste your time or steer you wrong.

Cole had headed straight for the fridge, rummaged around inside, and come back with a Hershey bar the size of my forearm. He brought it to me with such a look of triumph I had to laugh. I motioned for him to sit beside me, then shared it out among the three of us. Bergman still slept on the converted banquette, so we saved a square for him.

After a moment of munching that bordered near to holy, I said to Cassandra, “Can you talk about this?”

She shrugged. “It would do no good.”

“How do you figure?”

“It never does.”

“You know what my Granny May used to tell me?” I asked, taking another luscious bite.

“What?”

“‘Never’ is a dirty word.”

“No wonder you swear so much,” said Cole. He spun on his butt, flopping his jeans-clad legs into my lap, laying his head back on the arm of the couch. His army surplus jacket fell open to reveal a white T-shirt peppered with realistic red spatters, I’d guess from a .22, along with the sloganPAINTBALL IS FOR SISSIES . “You’re obviously very confused about the English language.”

I did a number on the sides of his knee that made him yelp and he settled right down. “Come on,” I said, waving my hand at Cassandra as if I was moving her through a construction zone. “You know I’m going to weasel this information out of you sooner or later, so you might as well cough it up right now.”

She sighed, her shoulders slumping as she surrendered to my well-developed powers of persistence. Laying her hands on her legs so all twelve of her rings showed clearly, she worried at her skirt as she spoke. “I have had a vision”—she swallowed—“of my own death.”

Wow. No matter how you look at it, that just sucks.

“Are, uh”—Cole rose to his elbows—“are your visions always right?”

“Very nearly.”

“What did you see?” I asked.

Cassandra began chipping away at the red polish on her fingernails. “I was in the show tent, alone, with the dragon.”

“With Lung?” I clarified.

Her shrug said,either way . “I had just given him a reading that put him into a murderous rage. He . . .” She shook her head, trying to dispel the vision, but it wouldn’t go. “I could feel the fire of his breath shriveling my skin.” The tears welled up and spilled over. The pillow went back to her face, muffling her next words. “I can feel it even now.”

Aw, man, Jaz, you gotta fix this. And I mean now!Poor Cassandra was just about to go out of her mind. Without even thinking, I said, “Not gonna happen.”

“Wh-what?”

“I won’t allow it. It’s that simple. I will not let Lung kill you.”

“How are you going to prevent it?” she cried.

She would have to ask. I decided to take it slow. If I talked it out logically, maybe it would make sense to both of us. “Well . . . I’m going to start off by keeping two things clearly in mind. Number one, your visions are sometimes off. And number two, if he does try to kill you, he’ll be in for a nasty surprise. Because, having been forewarned, I am already forearmed.”So there .

The tears picked up. Soon Cassandra was sobbing big-time. Cole and I shared an anxious look. “I’m sorry,” I told her. “Did you misunderstand me? I’m not going to let him kill you.”

Cole rustled up a box of tissues, sat down beside her, and put them in her flailing hands. After a while she slowed down, blew her nose a few times, and squeegeed the tears from her face. “I am so sorry. I just didn’t expect you to believe me.”

“Why not?”

“So many people don’t. Vayl, for instance . . .” She trailed off, aware he probably didn’t want her to share. Despite the hot water it had already thrown me into, I made a mental note to prod him on the issue of his sons again. He must really be hounding her to pinpoint their present locations for him, like she was some sort of human GPS. And instead of telling him to quit obsessing, she’d clumped that worry with her current stress, with the result that she was positioned to keep Kleenex in business well into the next century.

“I am an old woman, you know,” she said pitifully.

I leaned over and patted her hand. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Even now you don’t look a day over seven hundred.”

Her smile trembled, but it held. “I spent the first years of my life in Seffrenem.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s a lost city, buried deep beneath the desert now. But once it was a center for art, trade, and religion. All the gods lived there, each within his or her own temple. And I was the oracle for the greatest of them all, Seffor. People would travel for months to kneel at my feet, hear my prophecies. They brought me gifts of rare jewels, foods, and furs. They treated me like a goddess. And with such visions as I had, is it any wonder I began to think of myself as divine?”

I had no answer to that. I knew what I’d thought of myself after hearing the immense, booming voice of Raoul, and it wasn’t anything nearly that elevated.

“How the gods must have laughed,” Cassandra said bitterly. “They knew what lay in store for me. Perhaps they had orchestrated the entire tragedy.” She paused, mulling over her past while Cole and I tried not to bounce up and down in our seats and yell, “What tragedy? What tragedy?”

Finally she continued. “One morning I woke to a vision of such horror I was nearly struck dumb. I saw my husband thrown from his horse, Faida, and killed under her hooves. I told him what I’d seen, but he just laughed. He had trained Faida from a filly. She was a fine, obedient animal, not at all skittish. He told me my pregnancy had me on edge. It was my third, and had lasted into the fourth month, twice as long as the first two.”

She swallowed painfully, as if she had a knife at her throat. “He died that afternoon. They never saw the snake that bit Faida, causing her to rear in panic, to throw him, to crush his skull with her flying hooves. All the men who were with him could tell me was that Faida had died shortly afterward. I lost the baby the next day.”

She looked at us with pain-drenched eyes. “It’s been the same for me ever since. I can’t save the people closest to me, because they never believe my visions.”

Cole and I shared a moment of stunned silence. There was no way to grasp the scope of a life that long. But the love. And the pain. I could connect to that. And I was always awed by the survivors.

“People only hear what they want to hear,” I said finally. “One of the more idiotic traits of humans, but one that has its perks. For instance, when someone says, ‘Don’t be stupid, there’s no way you can come up with a cure for AIDS.’ That’s an excellent time to develop situational deafness.”

“So what doyou want to hear?” she asked.

“That you’re relieved because we believe you,” I said, glancing to Cole for confirmation. He nodded quickly.

“You know what I think this means?” he asked us both. We shook our heads. He took Cassandra’s hands, smoothing over the flaked polish, the chipped nails. “I think the gods have stopped laughing.”

CHAPTERFOURTEEN

Having already eaten dessert, we decided a healthy lunch was in order. While Cole opened three cans of ravioli and Cassandra made orange Kool-Aid, I called Evie.

“Jaz, the best thing happened!”

Thank God. I am so ready for some good news. “What’s that?”

“E.J. cried all night last night.”

“Awesome!”

“Okay, I can see how you don’t get that’s a good thing. But you’ve got to understand. There we are, just me and her, rocking in the chair beside her crib at four a.m., both of us crying buckets. And suddenly it hits me. This is complete and utter bullshit!”

I held the phone away from my ear and stared at it. Evie does not swear. And I mean never. I finally realized the extremity of her situation. “So what happened?”

“I woke Tim up and I said, ‘Tim, you can only cry so long before it doesn’t do you any more good.’ I don’t think he really knew what I meant by that, but he did think it was a good idea to take E.J. to the emergency room. We met this amazing pediatrician there who said E.J. had an awful ear infection. She said E.J. had to have been in utter misery. Plus she said there’s medicine we can give her for the colic, which is actually reflux. She doesn’t have to suffer, Jaz. Isn’t that incredible? And we are sticking with this new pediatrician. She’s amazing!”

“That is such a relief! I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that! Hey, are you listening really closely to me right now?”

“Of course.”

“Because I want to make sure there’s no interference on your end when I say I told you so.”

Evie’s laugh, finally stress free and full of the same joy I’d heard the day her daughter was born, lifted my spirits like nothing else could. “Yeah, I guess you did.”

“Okay, you keep on being an excellent mom and I’ll get back to work. And, hey, next time she takes a nap, you take one too.” I, on the other hand, would be avoiding sleep like a bad concussion victim until further notice.

“Yes, ma’am!” Evie sang.

“That’s what I like to hear.”

I took ten minutes to shower and change. By then lunch was ready. After I’d related my good news we ate in relative silence, which might’ve been why Cole’s eyes quickly lowered to half-mast and, if not for Cassandra’s rapid reflexes, his entire face would’ve been masked with pasta sauce when he fell asleep a minute later. I woke Bergman and he willingly changed places with Cole once he learned we’d saved a can of ravioli and a handful of chocolate for him.

“Are you women going to stay in here all day?” he asked as he sat down to his meal. One glance at the monitor had shown him what Cole had reported seeing all morning. A whole lot of nothing. “Since theConstance Malloy seems to be in a temporary coma, I thought I’d do some experiments.”

“Are these tests so painfully shy they can’t stand an audience?” I asked.

“Something like that.” Despite the fact that we’d all signed Bergman’s lip-zip oath the night before, it looked like old habits would be dying real hard, or possibly not at all, on this trip.

“No problem,” said Cassandra. “It’s time for Jaz to meet my friend anyway.”

“What, did he send you a message by courier fairy?” Bergman asked, his lip curling.

That is it. “Bergman—” Cassandra cleared her throat, shook her head, and mouthed, “Later.”

We each grabbed ID and money and I holstered up, covering Grief with my leather jacket. I also wore the outfit Vayl had bought me to replace the one that had been ruined on our last mission, a soft red silk blouse with an ornate, scooped neckline and black jeans. I’d stuck with my boots, since Cole said a guy from Seven Seas Succulents had come for theirs, plus all the other stuff we’d borrowed, earlier in the day.

We left Bergman to pull a couple of boxes of electronics from the trailer and start playing in them like a kid with his LEGOs. As the door slammed behind us I told Cassandra, “I want to say, ‘Don’t mind him,’ but you should. He’s acting like such a jerk.”

“He’s afraid,” she replied.

“Fear is the locus of his entire existence. But that doesn’t make it okay for him to demean you and your work every time he opens his mouth. If he wasn’t so damned brilliant I’d have given him an earful weeks ago. It’s just, he’s very thin-skinned, so you always run an excellent chance of mortally offending him. And then we can kiss our dandy gadgets goodbye.”

“I can deal with him,” she said. “I have just been so distracted ever since . . .” She looked at me with good-humored accusation. “Ever since I met you, in fact.”

“What can I say? I just have a way with people. Now, where is this buddy of yours?”

“At a sidewalk café called Sustenance. We’ll have to take a taxi.” Though I would’ve preferred to arrive in my corvette, I found that as long as she didn’t suggest mopeds I’d be fine with whatever mode of transport she chose.

We took the twenty-block trip from the festival to Sustenance in a cab that looked like it had been the site of a major WWE showdown. If it wasn’t dented, it was torn and if it wasn’t broken, it was stained.

“Is that blood?” Cassandra whispered, pointing to a spot on the floor near her feet.

“That or amniotic fluid,” I joked.

She looked at me in horror. “Tell me no one has ever given birth inside of this car.”

“Why not? The seats still have plenty of spring and when a contraction hits, all you have to do is grab this grimy strap here.” I acted as if I was going to slip my hand through it. Cassandra let out a little shriek and clutched my wrist.Shit!

“Don’t you dare get that faraway look!” I snapped. Too late, she’d pulled a vision out of our brief contact.

“You must take me and Bergman on your next mission,” she whispered.

“What?”

“We’ll fight about it later.”

“Everything all right back there?” asked the driver, his accent placing his parents squarely south of the border.

“No problem, thanks,” I replied. “My friend here is just a little germaphobic.” Okay, maybe I was hunting a little stop-touching-me revenge when I advised her, “Watch out for the back window. I think that smear could be vomit.”

Cassandra flinched. “Do you know I spent an entire year cleaning out a rich man’s stables and I never once felt like bacteria were skittering up my dress like a herd of mindless insects? It’s not me. It is thiscar !”

“Do you need a shower?” I asked.

“Yes!”

“Too bad, we’re here.” She leaped from the cab and, as I paid the driver, ran into the café and demanded to be shown the bathroom. Funny how a good gross out will take your mind off scary dreams and visions. I know I felt better.

I eyed the tables outside of Sustenance, all round four-seaters with large yellow umbrellas sticking out of their centers. Yellow and white striped tie-on pillows cushioned the black metal chairs. Only three were in use at the moment. Two moms with toddlers in strollers lingered over a cup of coffee while their kids shared a power nap. At the other end of the narrow veranda sat a man who would make me believe in aliens, if I were so inclined.

His thick white hair grew straight up from his head, as if he’d just spent the past fifteen minutes hanging upside down from a trapeze. His eyes were such a light blue they bordered on silver. Deep wrinkles crisscrossed the bits of skin showing beneath his bushy white eyebrows, handlebar mustache, and collar-length beard. He wore a poet’s shirt, complete with poofy sleeves and a V-neck presently closed with leather ties. His corduroy pants were dark brown and matched his intricately tooled cowboy boots.

“I like your boots,” I told him as I closed the distance between us. I noticed he wore a single diamond in his left ear.

“Thank you. I had them made special in Reno. I found a store there called Frierman’s that I would highly recommend to any of the gentlemen in your life.” His soft, Southwestern accent invited you to be comfortable, even sit a spell if the spirit moved you.

I stuck my hands in the pockets of my jeans, mostly because it would’ve been polite to shake his hand. Polite, and stupid.

His gesture invited me to join him. I sat in the chair opposite his, thinking I’d heard that name—Frierman’s—somewhere before. But this was no time for mental inventory. The old gentleman was looking at me expectantly.

“Cassandra will be out in a second. She just had the most harrowing cab ride.”

He smiled. “It is so difficult to put your life in another’s hands.”

“Yeah.”

“My name is Desmond Yale.” The waitress cut him off, asking for my drink preference. I ordered iced tea.

“I’m Lucille Robinson. Cassandra tells me you’re from New Mexico,” I said after the waitress left.

“Born and raised,” he agreed.

“She didn’t really tell me any more than that.”

“What would you like to know?”

I considered him for a moment. “How did you come by your Gift?”

He thought awhile. “After my wife died I became something of a hermit. I spent a lot of time in the desert . So I would have to say the loneliness did it.” He took a sip of his coffee and smiled. “I spent so much time in my own head that I finally found a way beyond the grief and the loss. After years of study I learned to do the same for others.”

I nodded, but a kernel of doubt popped in my stomach. Yale didn’t come off like the wise old dream interpreter Cassandra had described. What the hell did this guy have in mind?

“Can you give me some idea of what to expect? Cassandra made it sound so easy.”

“It is,” he assured me. “We simply clasp hands and away we go.”

“Away where?” Was this kook going to make me literally revisit my nightmares? And where was Cassandra? She had some explaining to do!

The waitress came back with my drink, a refill for Desmond, and three sets of napkin-wrapped silverware. “Are you ready to order?” she asked.

“Still waiting on my friend,” I told her. “Actually, maybe I’ll go check on her, make sure she hasn’t fallen in.” The waitress smiled at my pathetic joke as she left, for which she would be tipped at least 15 percent.

I tried to stand, didn’t get the chair pushed back far enough, and knocked the table with my thigh. Biting back a curse as my tea wobbled, I put both hands on the table to steady it. But Desmond’s coffee cup tipped precariously. He caught it before it could crash, however, saving himself from a lap full of hot caffeine.

His hands.I looked at the waitress, hoping she’d confirm what I’d seen, but she was looking over her shoulder at the babies, who’d awakened at the same time, howling. I knew that cry. It expressed something-spooked-me hysteria, the kind E.J. experienced every time she heard a siren. Tim now had to watchCOPS in his bedroom with the door shut and the volume as low as he could stand it.

At the same time the toddlers were inspiring their moms to quick action, I saw Cassandra through the window. She rushed toward me, pointing at Desmond, shaking her head so hard her braids whipped across her face.

I looked at him again, almost sure now that I’d seen his hands blur as they’d moved to grab the coffee cup. That underneath those long, pinkish white fingers I’d caught the hint of claws.

“Don’t let him touch you!” screamed Cassandra as she burst through the café door.

I pulled my hands back, but too late. He caught them, pinned them to the table by sinking his fingernails (claws, my mind whispered frantically) deep into the soft areas between knuckles and wrist. It hurt so much I screamed. Blood welled up instantly, much more than such an injury should release. It flowed onto the table, dripped to the floor.

The babies wound it up a notch, and as soon as their moms saw my situation they joined right in. We were making a regular ruckus in the heart of the city. I’d heard so much about Texas SWAT, all of it good. Where were they in my time of need?

“What are you doing to me?” I yelled. I tried to pull my hands free. They might as well have been nailed to the table. Hell, maybe they were.

Desmond fixed me with those gleeful alien eyes and said, “You killed my best student, you little bitch. He had a real gift for reaving. Now I have only one left.” He cocked his head to one side, as if tuning to his own personal radio station. “Stop whining, all right? I’m getting to that.”

I fought panic as the schizoid reaver held me down, and one of the moms yelled into her cell phone, “Police! Woman being attacked! Sustenance on East Leopard!” I was glad to know the cavalry was on its way. But at the rate blood flowed from my hands, I’d be dead long before then. I was positioned so awkwardly I couldn’t have delivered an effective kick if I’d strapped on six-inch heels. So I went with my last resort.

Gathering all my breath, all my power, every last iota of energy in my aching body, I focused it all on that wrinkled piece of parchment between Desmond’s eyebrows. I imagined that spot highlighted with a big, black X, and slammed my head right into it.

The old reaver staggered backward, looking as stunned as if he’d been shot. Cassandra used that lull to drag the moms and their kids off the street and into the relative safety of the café.I used it to bind my bleeding mitts with two of the brown linen napkins that had been wrapped around silverware moments before.

The thought of pulling Grief never entered my mind. And I didn’t care if Desmond looked like somebody’s kindly Martian grandpa. I’d forgotten every lesson Vayl had tried to teach me about keeping a reasonable distance and decided to kick this reaver’s ass up close and personal.

I started with his torso.Bam, bam, bam . Three kicks to the diaphragm. Damn, it felt like hammering concrete blocks! Still, if he could breathe through his ears, now would be the time to start. The force of the blows backed him hard into a table. It caught him just under the ass and the momentum took him off his feet.

I hadn’t seen his shield, not once, until now. Maybe my attack had distracted Yale enough that he’d allowed it to show. Maybe I’d hurt him. But if so, no gaps appeared in the thick black outline that danced around him like a live wire, so I doubted I’d done much damage. However, I figured if I beat on him long enough a weak spot would eventually appear. Then I’d finish him. For now I kicked him again. Twice to the shoulder and once to the head to make sure he hit the ground.

But he hadn’t come to the game without a few tricks of his own. As he fell, he swept one leg around and caught me behind the knees, bringing me down. I rolled with the fall, taking the brunt of the impact on my butt.

Something came flying at me as I began to rise and I hit the deck again. Metal clattered against metal as it hit. Knife? Throwing star? Whatever, I figured it for lethal, and part of a set.

I rolled to my feet and lunged to my right as another missile flew past my head, the high-pitched whir of its spin making my ears throb. I watched it whirl into the street. It was a knife. An ancient one by the look of the black rune-covered hilt, with a curved blade that punctured the first minivan tire that hit it.

I upended a table and dove behind it just as Desmond pitched another close one. It sliced right through the metal and stopped just inches from my eye.Holy crap! Apparently they had access to Ginsu technology in Reaverland.

I wrestled Grief out of its holster, not an easy task with mummy hands. I nearly dropped it, and accidentally pushed the magic button as I recovered, which meant I suddenly held a crossbow rather than a pistol. At this point I didn’t even care. Anything that could fly through the air and hit the son of a bitch worked for me.

Sirens wailed somewhere close at hand.Yes! Come on, boys! There may just be a big fat kiss in it for you if you get here before I pass out!

Another knife thudded into the table, ripping sleeve but missing skin. I bobbed up and took a quick shot. It hit Desmond’s shield, knocking him backward. But it didn’t even penetrate to his body. In full defensive mode now, he spun three more knives at me as he backed out of the seating area. When I rose to return the volley, all I could see was his back receding into the distance. The professor in Cassandra’sEnkyklios had neglected to mention the reavers’ vampirelike speed.

I considered chasing him. Okay, not really. The cops sounded interested, at least that’s how I interpreted those sirens. Which meant they’d want to get in on the fun. Plus I felt like hell.

I holstered Grief, took a couple of steps, and decided sitting sounded more appealing. My hands began to throb so loud they drowned out Cassandra’s first words to me.

“What’d you say?” I asked as she righted the chair that had been lying beside mine and took a seat.

“You look morbidly pale,” she told me.

“I lost a lot of blood.” I nodded to the small pool I’d made beneath my original table.

“Can I get you anything?”

“Orange juice and some chocolate-chip cookies.”And somebody to pat me on the back and tell me I didn’t just screw something up here. I mean, I was the victim, right? Plus, nobody died, and our mission is still viable. So I feel like crying right now because . . . adrenaline and blood loss, I decided.It’s all chemistry, baby, and don’t you think any different .

Cassandra went back into Sustenance. When I saw her rise to her full height, I realized the manager preferred that we leave as soon as possible. But it was hard to deny that regal command in her slashing hands (How ’bout I just cut off your head, you uncooperative peasant?) and her tone of voice. The snacks turned up just before the cops.

I wolfed down my first cookie, watching with interest as five squad cars pulled up, forming the spokes of half a wheel with Sustenance at the hub. A couple of nice officers began interviewing the hysterical moms, shortly after which two cars pulled away and headed off in the direction Desmond had taken.

A ruckus behind me distracted my attention. A small man with a pointy nose and enormous ears waving from behind his straight black sideburns came rushing out of the café followed closely by the manager.

“I have been banging on that door for a solid fifteen minutes! Don’t tell me you didn’t hear me!”

“I am so sorry, sir,” said the manager. He had a please-don’t-sue-us tone in his voice as he said, “Could I offer you a gift certificate for two complimentary dinners before you leave?”

Cassandra rose from the chair beside me. “Gregory?”

He came to her and grabbed her outstretched hands. “Cassandra! You wouldn’t believe what I’ve been through!”

Her eyes went wide as he touched her. “Actually, I would.” She looked sharply at me. “The reaver locked him in their storeroom.”

I studied Gregory thoughtfully.

“What happened to her?” asked Gregory.

Cassandra filled him in. Even though she skipped a lot it still came out sounding überscary. He started backing toward his car before she was halfway through. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“I . . . I’m sorry, Cassandra. I can’t become involved in this.”

“But . . . her dreams. They could kill her, Gregory.”

I held up my hand before Cassandra felt like she had to beg the guy. “Let him go. He’s safer away from me. It’s what I’ve been trying to get you, Bergman, and Cole to do practically since the day we met.”

Gregory nodded his thanks and took off, not even waiting for his gift certificate.

“Very interesting.” We turned our attention to the handsome, bald black man from SWAT. The van had pulled up shortly after Gregory had charged out the door and though the five guys who’d dismounted seemed pretty disappointed to have missed the fun, one had strolled over to listen in. He’d also used Cassandra’s distraction to his advantage, openly admiring her while I wondered if there was any way on earth I could hook them up.

I stood. “Cassandra, my ID is in my left front pocket. Would you show it to Sergeant . . . ?”

“Preston,” he said, his voice a silky bass that made Cassandra stand a little straighter.

Cassandra retrieved my CIA identification, allowing me to sink back into my chair before the street could spin any faster.More juice, I decided, taking a couple of generous swigs before I inhaled another cookie.

Preston took some time examining the plastic he held. When he gave it back to Cassandra, their hands brushed and she gave him a long, sad look before turning away. Was she truly shrugging off this gorgeous young ass-kicker?But . . . Cassandra . . . he’s SWAT!