Bite Marks

I opened my mouth to say, “Don’t do it, Ruvin. This way only leads to potential beatings and situations that require you to flirt with women who remind you of the computer geek from Jurassic Park .” But Vayl had asked for my trust, so I shut my yap. If he had a plan, fine. If not, maybe I could call on my head-girls to partially deafen Brude while we devised a better strategy.

Ruvin had listened closely to Vayl’s entire presentation. In the end he said, “My wife’s more the brains of the family. I should talk to her about this.”

Vayl bowed his head slightly. “Of course. But you must not tell her who we are. Only that you feel leaving would endanger another innocent family.”

Ruvin nodded glumly and trudged out of the room, his shoulders so bowed his neck looked three feet long.

I said, “That went well.”

“He’s freaked,” said Bergman. “Can anyone blame him?”

“Will he play his part, though?” I wondered.

Vayl came to sit next to me. “I believe so.”

“I don’t know, Vayl. What’s to keep the gnomes from taking another family anyway? With Tabitha and the boys safely away, they have no leverage on Ruvin.”

Watching Bergman tinker with Astral he said, “I have an idea that will keep them on the same course.” The front door flying open made Bergman drop his mini-wrench. I shot off the couch, Grief already halfway out of its holster as Vayl rose, raising his cane like the sword it hid was already unsheathed.

We all relaxed as Cole and Raoul rolled in, packing such an arsenal with them that they clanked when they walked. Deep in conversation, they didn’t notice us at first.

“That works for you?” Raoul was asking.

“Women love it,” Cole said reassuringly. “I’m telling you, dude, try it. You can’t go wrong.” Raoul shook his head. “You don’t know Nia. She—” He stopped as he realized they had an audience.

“Oh, hey!” Cole said. “We thought you guys would still be scoping out the schoolhouse. Did you miss us?”

I grabbed a belt off his shoulder that held a succession of small silver canisters and, as he nodded his thanks, said, “Actually, yes. We could’ve used you during the prison break.” As his eyebrows shot up I added, “Don’t tell me you’ve already corrupted my Spirit Guide. He’s one of the good guys, you know.” Cole dumped a load of sheathed swords onto the floor and swung a strangely flexible shield down off his shoulder before saying, “Raoul and I have a deal. Which is none of your business.” He nodded reassuringly to the Eldhayr as Raoul gave him a warning look. “Although I have to say my odds of petting a kangaroo have spiked because of it. Now, tell us about the big escape. Did Bergman get himself arrested again?”

“I’ve never been arrested!” Bergman proclaimed, jumping to his feet like he meant to grab a sign and picket Cole in protest. Our sharpshooter’s response was to fall onto the couch right in the spot I’d vacated. Vayl and I both moved aside as he dropped his head onto a beige throw pillow.

“Where’s Cassandra? After we save her from demonkind, I think she should make us cake. And not that wheat-flour health-nut stuff she sells in her store, either. Sinfully delicious chocolate fudge cake with icing an inch thick. And sprinkles. I like me some sprinkles. Was she the one they arrested? But you said prison break.”

“Cole!” I resisted slapping him. Just.

He sat up. “What?”

“We rescued Ruvin’s family. And Cassandra’s…” I looked at Vayl for some help.

“She is looking after some business,” he said. “I will fill you in later.” When Cole’s eyes darted to mine before he looked back at Vayl and nodded, I realized the two of them might be keeping even more secrets from me. Because of the Domytr in my head. I wanted to clutch my hair and scream, except I had a feeling Brude would get a kick out of that.

Cole was saying, “You rescued Ruvin’s family? Really? Already?” He thought for a second. “Without me?”

I snapped, “I was just saying it would’ve been nice—”

“Why do I suddenly feel like the guy the professional shopper brings along to carry her bags?” Cole nudged the pile of weapons with his toe. Watched Raoul add a miniature catapult and a box that, I assumed, contained ammo.

“What do you—”

“What am I here for? All I’ve done so far is buy Vayl a fabulous airport funeral procession, and help Raoul strip his armory of every weapon that could possibly injure a demon.” Vayl cracked his cane against the side of the table, which for him was about the most extreme demonstration of frustration he’d ever allow himself. “Beyond your theatrics, which I am sure these people find endlessly entertaining, we are depending on you to hold up your end when we return to check out the Odeam people.”

Cole visibly swallowed as he remembered that, depending on the results of our search, he might be taking part in a mini- massacre. Didn’t matter that the men would be facing certain death anyway. That we’d be replacing horrific, writhing agony with a quick, relatively painless exit. He’d never done a multiple before. And I could see he’d only begun to consider how that might work on his head, not to mention the softer, more spiritual organs. After a second, he nodded. “Okay.”

“Plus, we need your translating skills,” I added. I pulled out the Ufranite guard’s stashed art and gave the paper to Cole. “Give this a look and let us know what you think.” While Cole studied the picture, Raoul began to hand out the weapons. He said, “If we knew these demons’ identities, we could finely focus our attacks. But without pertinent details like parentage and proclivities, we had to go with the old standards. So we’ve brought one two-edged blade for each of you.” He gave Bergman a sheathed sword, adding, “Try not to cut your own head off,” as the weight of the weapon nearly caused Miles to drop it.

“Can’t I have a bow or something?” Bergman asked. “It seems like we’d all live a lot longer if we fought these things from a distance.” He turned the sheath in his hands, pulled the sword halfway out and shoved it back with a clang. “The farther back the better.”

Raoul pointed to the canister belt Cole had carried in. “Those will do most of our long-range fighting for us.”

“What are they?” I asked as he laid the belt down on the shield.

“Lima beans.”

Silence.

I said, “Uh. What’s the point? Beyond the fact that they suck.”

“They were grown on holy land, by the Monks of Acquaro, to be specific. As soon as the beans hit hellspawn they’ll burn into them like hydrochloric acid.”

Bergman had begun to nod about halfway through. “So while regular explosives won’t do the kind of injury we’re looking for on this plane, if we blow up the cans…”

“Exactly,” Raoul replied. “A direct hit should cause intense pain and even permanent damage. That’s if we catch them anywhere around here. The idea, however, is to lure the demons into a plane where these cans can kill.”

“Which is why Raoul’s got his spies working to let us know exactly when we can expect another visit,” Cole put in. “So far they say we’re safe. Cassandra’s stalker is having a tough time finding allies.” He flashed me a grin. “Something about that badass bitch she’s hanging with who took out the Magistrate not so long ago.” He nodded at Vayl. “They’re not too psyched about going against you either. What’s the deal about you carving up a faorzig so badly he’s still afraid to leave his den?” Vayl shrugged. “That was a long time ago. And he deserved it.” I hid my surprise. Vayl had never told me he’d vanquished one of the hellspawn that’s often confused for a vampire. Though it would’ve been appropriate given that my mom had been married to one before she met my dad.

As Raoul gave me a blade that felt like it had been designed by a guy who adored underfed redheads and I returned his own sword, he said, “Since the closest door between planes is just on the other side of your fence, we need to set up our—”

He stopped as he heard the click of a regular door opening. Ruvin led his family down the hall and into the living room. The boys took one look at the weaponry on the floor and in our hands, exclaimed, “You beaut!” and began asking questions one after the other.

LAAL: “Are those swords real?”

PAJO: “Are you going to cut people’s heads off?”

LAAL: “Can I hold one?”

PAJO: “Are you going to cut people’s arms and legs off?”

LAAL: “What’s in the cans?”

PAJO: “What about their knees? People can live without their knees ya know. My grampa had his replaced.”

Tabitha shushed them both. “They’re all just movie props,” she said. And even when Laal stared up at her doubtfully she trucked on. “I told you, these people are from Hollywood and they’re filming a movie, which we have been a part of all this time.”

“Where were the cameras?” demanded Laal. “And the microphones?”

“All hidden,” she said. “They wanted it to be more like a reality show, which was why they didn’t give us scripts either.”

Seriously? You’re lying through your teeth and somehow you think that’s going to hurt your kids less than the crap they’ve just been through? What a crock! I suddenly realized that was what had made my relationship with Albert so strained. Who wants to cuddle with a dad who’s not only gone half your life, but a lot of times won’t even tell you where he’s headed? It wasn’t enough that he was a Marine. Or that later he’d worked for the CIA. Lies by omission are still lies. The worst kind, in fact, because they never give you the chance to challenge them.

Ironic that you are so good at weaving them, is it not, my queen?

Shut up, asshole.

While I stewed, Vayl introduced Ruvin and his family to Cole and Raoul. When I began to pay attention again he was in the middle of setting up an escort.

“—concerned that they should reach the airport safely,” he was saying. “Perhaps one or two of us should ride with them.”

When nobody spoke up right away, he pointed to Bergman. “What do you say, Miles? It would remove you from Ground Zero, so to speak.”

While Bergman debated, Tabitha said, “I won’t hear of it. You people have gone above and beyond what anyone should do for complete strangers. We can make our way from here.” Ruvin looked at her doubtfully, but something in the set of her chin must’ve convinced him because he said, “The wife’s right. You’ve done more than your share. Now it’s our turn.” CHAPTEREIGHTEEN

Vayl went quiet after Laal and Pajo left. He didn’t seem to notice my struggle to shove Brude out of every stray thought. He ignored Bergman’s announcement that Astral was almost finished. Just brooded and helped Raoul, Cole, and I bring the patio furniture around front onto the driveway.

We were setting the last chairs in place when Miles said, “That’s the last adjustment.” He set Astral down onto the table and slowly drew his arm back. When she didn’t topple onto her side he sighed with relief.

“Great!” I glanced at the living room window to make sure our cat killer was safely out of range. Jack stood inside with his nose pressed against the glass, trying to see past the shrubbery to figure out if he was in trouble or if we were just keeping him safe from passing cars and incoming demons. “Is she, uh, screwed on tight?” I asked.

“I think so.” He set her on the table just in time to keep his sword belt from falling down around his knees. As he hitched it up he said, “I’ve put her through all her tests and she’s functioning at acceptable levels in every aspect.”

Cole gracefully flipped his sword out of the way just before dropping into a chair. “That’s great news, kitty!” he said, talking directly to the robot like she was a real, live pet. “Now you’re a Sensitive like me and Jaz. Can you say Lazarus?”

“Hello!” said Astral.

“Watch out!” Cole grabbed the arms of his chair and jumped his feet from the front to the back so he ended up crouching, holding it in front of him like a lion tamer facing down a particularly scary customer.

He wasn’t the only quick reactor. When I looked down I realized I’d pulled Grief without even thinking.

And Vayl had dropped the temperature in our vicinity at least ten degrees. Only Bergman and Raoul seemed relatively calm. Maybe Raoul didn’t know Astral wasn’t supposed to talk like Long John Silver’s parrot. And Bergman just kept shaking his head.

He said, “Astral, what’s going on? Your voice-recognition program hasn’t been initiated.” Astral said, “Hello!”

Raoul said, “How interesting. Her mouth’s making just the right movements.” Bergman said, “Astral, shut down voice program until further notice.” Astral’s ears started twitching. Two seconds later they began emitting the worst music I’d ever heard in my life. Again. “It’s the gnome band!” I said as Raoul slammed his hands over his ears.

Vayl’s eyebrows crooked. “Bergman, make it stop.”

Miles reached for the cat, nearly lost his belt again, and compromised by unsheathing the sword. While he lightened his load, the rest of us watched his invention.

She didn’t seem to be melting down. It was more like she’d piped the music in for her own enjoyment.

Her tail began to twitch with the downbeat. Then she began to circle the tabletop, pausing every few steps to have some sort of all-body seizure.

Cole chuckled. “She’s dancing!”

“It’s not funny!” said Miles. “Astral, shut down your voice program.” The music stopped and she sat down. After a moment Vayl began to speak. We all turned to him. But his lips weren’t moving.

“So is that how you want it, my pretera ?” I turned back to Astral, realizing she was playing back another moment she’d recorded. Vayl, his voice low and suggestive, getting ready to bare all for me.

Holy shit!

I reached for her, ready to pop her head again myself, but Bergman was too fast. He dumped the sword on the table and swiped her off of it.

“I’ll fix her, I promise!” he said, his voice high enough to qualify as a squeal.

“Don’t you dare!” Cole was laughing so hard he’d dropped the chair. Even Raoul was having a hard time keeping a straight face.

“Perhaps if you could encourage her to play a form of music we could all bear?” Vayl suggested.

Something in his voice caused me to spin around. Yup, no mistaking that glitter in his eyes.

“I am not amused,” I growled.

He leaned in so only I could hear. “That is only because you did not get to see the end of the show. I promise you, it will be worth the wait.”

Eeep! I forgot my embarrassment in the sudden rush of anticipation.

“Okay, Bergman,” I said. “Astral’s off the hook if you can get something reasonable to come out of her mouth within the next three minutes. If not, I’m stuffing her in an Express Pak and Fed-Exing her to Zimbabwe.”

Bergman nodded gratefully. Slinging the shield he carried over his shoulder, he pulled a set of miniature tools out of his shirt pocket and yanked his chair as close to the table as his scarecrow frame would allow. I sighed.

On the positive side, Cassandra was relatively safe, hiding deep beneath the Space Complex’s guest quarters. Only, knowing her, she wouldn’t be content just curling up in an abandoned storage cave.

Nope, she’d probably had half a dozen visions and acted on every one, making herself twice as many friends (and probably a few enemies) in the process.

On top of worrying about her, the whole job-satisfaction rating had plummeted as well. Because lately it seemed like all we did was clean up after, around, and before ourselves. In fact, my muscles had already begun to ache from the heavy lifting we’d done in anticipation of the next few minutes. Because preparing for a demon attack is like getting ready for a party without the happy thoughts. Or the sneaky snacking.

The most important part was preparing for the portal crossing. They’d know about the door, of course, all others did. Weird to think they’d always been there, that I must’ve walked past hundreds of them without even realizing. Because I’d only begun to see them after a powerful creature named Asha Vasta had boosted my Sensitivity by brushing my cheeks with his tears. I still didn’t know much about them though. It took Raoul to explain that the fence boards might buckle when the lima bean cans exploded.

An acceptable loss. But that didn’t mean the play sets on the other side had to be destroyed too. So we’d moved them out of blast range. The kids’ indoor toys had already survived flying bodies. We figured asking the outdoor stuff to withstand shrapnel was going too far.

Since we’d lucked into a seminatural setting with the line of trees that separated the property from the hills, we capitalized on it. After rubbing mud on the cans to take the shine off, we made piles of brush to disguise them on either side of the door. They looked natural, like a dumping site where the owners had thrown the sticks out of their yard so they could mow. Raoul took the majority of the cans into the plane where we meant to lure the demons and Bergman rigged an ingenious trigger system for both sets. The one on the outside went off at a code word. The one on the inside exploded when you stepped inside the door. So anyone who went in from our group would have to jump and roll.

Raoul picked Bergman and Cole for that job, since he said they had the juiciest souls.

(At this point Cole got Bergman to do a bump and grind with him while Cole sang, “We are juiceee!”) He stopped singing when Raoul threw them both a set of full-body armor. It was a lot like the kind I’d worn in my battle with the Magistrate. Clung like a leotard. Protected like Kevlar. It would keep everything but their faces and hands safe from flying debris. It also made them look like blueberries.

“Jaz needs some!” Cole had protested.

“I only have two,” Raoul said. “Besides, Vayl has them covered.” He turned and raised his eyebrows at my boss. Was that a twinkle in his eye when he said, “Right, Vayl?” It must’ve been, because Vayl stirred uncomfortably before he replied, “Our protection is in place.” I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but the don’t-go-there sign was flashing on his forehead, and I was still having too much fun razzing Cole and Bergman about their blueman suits.

So we went back to discussing our options, since the whole setup wouldn’t work unless it didn’t look like a trap in the first place. In the end we decided to summon our enemies. Show them one hand. Slap them with the other.

Vayl and Raoul took seats at the head and foot of the table. When they were in position, I sat to Vayl’s left. I pulled up my right sleeve, unstrapped the syringe of holy water I usually kept tucked there, and laid it on the table in front of me. Cole, already parked beside Bergman, had been watching my preparations.

Now he raised his eyebrows as Astral began doing a remarkably good cover of “Survivalism” by Nine Inch Nails.

Miles bobbed his head and kept the beat against his thighs until he realized we were all staring. “What?” I began quoting lyrics. “I got my propaganda I got revisionism… All a part of this great nation?” He shook one of his fingers at me. “You know better than to trust your government. Or any government for that matter. Which is the best reason yet why you should dump the CIA and throw in with me.

They’ve already gone crooked on you once.”

When I started to protest, he added fingers until his whole hand was raised. “Don’t try to tell me Senator Bozcowski was some kind of blip. He was a rotten apple in a crate of wormy fruit. And he nearly got you killed back in Miami, not to mention what he had planned for the rest of the country! They’re all on the take. Which is why I’ll work with them, but not for them.” Cole leaned forward. “I think you need to wipe your mouth there, Bergie. You’re frothing at the corners.”

“None of you can tell me I’m wrong!” Bergman insisted, though he did press his sleeve against his mouth.

“Of course we can,” Vayl said, the absolute stillness of his posture a peaceful counterpoint to Bergman’s seat-wriggling passion. “The very extremity of your position makes it questionable.”

“Plus, you’ve forgotten the most important point,” I said.

“What’s that?” Bergman asked.

“Those government pukes you’re so afraid of are our employees. And if they piss enough of us off, we’ll fire them.”

“It’s not that easy!”

“Sure it is. Happens all the time. You’re just mad about a lot more things than the rest of us.”

“What if something terrible goes down? What if the entire cabinet gets infested with demons and starts some sort of coup?”

I leaned forward. “Just watch what we do next, and you should have some idea how much patience we’d have with an executive office full of possessed administrators.” At a nod from Vayl, Cole pulled his sword and cocked it over one shoulder like a ball bat. Raoul and I both had belts, his at his waist, mine at my back. We also drew.

Seeing all the metal put Bergman back in his seat. “I get your point,” he said.

Vayl rolled his cane between his fingers as if it helped him think. He said, “Then shall we move on?” We nodded.

Cole began. “Kyphas, drop everything and come flying.”

“Kyphas, do not delay, we require your presence, your visage, your favor,” said Vayl. He took the syringe off the table.

“Kyphas, rise quickly to our circle,” I said as I pulled Raoul’s blade across my forearm and let the blood drip on the ground between my feet.

“Blood to the hellspawn,” I murmured.

“Nema,” chorused Cole, Vayl, and Bergman.

We all spat over our left knees.

As we knew it would, the thrice-naming brought a feeling of electricity into the air that raised the hairs on our arms and made the backs of our necks itch. We rose together. Bergman and Cole strained to see into the night. Not a problem for the rest of us. Vayl and Raoul had natural abilities. Mine had come at a price I often questioned.

But it was almost worth it all to be able to see my blood and our separate puddles of spit merge and flow to a spot in the middle of the yard, like the driveway had tipped sideways, forcing all the liquid into the parched grass. The puddle expanded to the size of a manhole cover and Kyphas shot out of it. She landed badly, flopping onto the lawn like a beached dolphin.

Vayl threw the syringe into the middle of the summoning circle, shattering it. The holy water it contained boiled instantly, barring the gateway. But even our vampire wasn’t fast enough to prevent a few of Kyphas’s allies from flying through first.

“Slyein!” I yelled as I recognized the unlined faces of hell’s scum. The kid killers.

In life they’d been adults. Moms and dads, truck drivers and CEOs, fanatics who didn’t give a crap who died in the blast. In death they’d been doomed to the bodies they’d destroyed. Eternal youth screaming for the chance to grow up. Dream on. Fulfill.

The rage they brought to battle made them even harder to fight than their aerial capability, which could be awkward given the bloody rips they’d torn in their own wings. Self-mutilation. One of the sure signs that the creature you were fighting wasn’t hellborn. Only the originals weren’t subject to torture. Which made them harder to injure and, ultimately, destroy.

Still, we’d be lucky to survive the onslaught of the three monsters who’d followed Kyphas through the gateway before Vayl closed it. A girl with spiked black hair and eyes rimmed in purple, a blond boy whose reddened teeth showed he’d just been feasting on raw flesh, and a toddler with white curls and long black lashes who might’ve been a girl, except he wore a blue jumper with the words “I’m a good boy,” stitched across the front.

“No,” muttered Miles. “Can’t be.” He swiped his sword off the table. “Slyein?” His voice crept higher while he stalked toward Kyphas, who was halfway to her feet and already reaching for her hat. “You dare to bring those fuckers here?”

“Miles, no!” I yelled. “You need to run !”

We all do! Look, see? Raoul’s trying to lure them toward the trap. Follow him! No, you—this wasn’t the plan and you know it!

Ignoring me, he swung at Kyphas, who easily avoided his attack since he’d telegraphed it half an hour earlier.

I snapped, “Astral, protect Bergman!” fully realizing it might be an empty command. But my hands were full with the female slyein. With Vayl fighting the male and Cole trying to deal with the toddler, that left Raoul to save the crazed genius. And he’d only just realized nobody had followed him to the corner of the house.

As he rushed back to us, I slashed at the female’s wing, forcing her to abandon her first run at me. That gave me a second to check on Miles. Kyphas’s hat, which had done its boomerang trick, was just about to hit him. He turned aside, clearly forgetting that his shield still hung over his shoulder. The boomerang thumped against it, causing him to stagger backward, but doing no major damage.

Astral leaped into the air, snagging the boomerang between her teeth before it could return to its owner’s outstretched hand. At the same time, George Thorogood and the Destroyers began rocking “Bad to the Bone” out the sides of her mouth. Talk about multitasking! Those metal alloy jaws clamped down and refused to let go, even when George kept insisting he was “b-b-b-b-b-bad,” and her weight wasn’t enough to stop the spin of the weapon.

Together Astral and the boomerang slammed into Kyphas, making her screech as something snapped in her forearm. But even that crash wasn’t enough to stop their momentum. They spun into her chest, knocking the wind from her, and then bounced up into her face, bloodying her nose before flying off into the night like a demented whirlybird with kitty paws for landing gear.

Even Bergman recognized an advantage in a fight. While he pressed forward, slashing at Kyphas like she was an impassable jungle path and he wielded a machete, I ducked a dive-bomb designed to take off the top of my head.

I shoved my sword into the slyein’s side. “ ‘Hear, O Israel,’ ” I whispered as the creature who’d once murdered a teenage girl shrieked and yanked itself off my blade, “ ‘The LORD our God is one LORD.’ ” Don’t kill it , I reminded myself. Even though you want to. Even if you can .

Bergman’s satisfied grunt followed by Kyphas’s moan told me he’d struck at least one blow for the good guys. He bellowed, “ ‘And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might!’ ”

Beside me Vayl allowed his foe to slash into his forearm so he could gain the position he needed to strike. Scripture would probably singe his tongue if he quoted it, even the verses specifically designed to damage demons. Still he nodded sharply as Cole said, “ ‘And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:’

“ ‘And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children,’ you son of a bitch.” Sorrow twisted his face as he dodged the slyein’s grasping claws, its dripping fangs, and punched it so hard in the jaw you could hear the surgeons discussing how many wires they’d need to repair it from three days away.

“Aah!” Bergman’s cry of surprise brought me running. Kyphas had managed to disarm him and, despite heavy bleeding in her midsection, lift him over her head.

“Jaz!” Raoul yelled. “Behind you!”

I saw him begin his swing at Kyphas. Then I hit the ground, rolled and kicked as the slyein tried to tackle me. It missed its original mark, but slashed at my leg as it flew past. I only knew I’d been hit because the blood spattering the air like thrown paint couldn’t have belonged to anyone else.

Glad I wouldn’t have to deal with the pain until the adrenaline wore off, I leaped to my feet as the slyein spun away, momentarily stunned, its chest covered in blood, spitting something even blacker from the previous wound I’d given it.

I’d lost my sword in the fall, so I went for my bolo. In the time it took me to draw, Kyphas took Raoul’s blow square in the back. She arched, crying out in rage as she threw Bergman straight down to the ground. Hard. Blood spurted from his mouth.

I screamed, no longer rational enough to form the words to tell her what damage I’d cause if she’d ruptured anything he couldn’t live without. My throw, powerful and accurate, buried the bolo in her groin.

She dropped with an agonized shriek.

“Move!” Vayl bellowed, the urgency in his tone returning my reason.

Together Raoul and I reached for Bergman’s arms. “Can you run?” I asked.

“Yeah, I thig tho.” He stuck a finger inside his mouth as we helped him up. It came out bright red. “That bith made me bite my tug!”

Relief made me grin. Tongues heal fast. Bergman would be fine—if we could get to the flaming plane portal before anybody else decided to pull another WWE move on him.

“Cole! Come on!” I yelled.

“Right behind you!”

The smallest slyein disagreed. It wrapped its wings around Cole’s head, blinding him as it sunk its teeth in, tore out tufts of hair. He flailed at it, trying to hit what he could no longer see.

I left Bergman to Raoul, ran up behind Cole, and buried my fist in the slyein’s kidneys.

This thing is not a toddler. It killed somebody’s baby, I reminded myself sternly as its cries filled the air, so much like an injured infant’s that involuntary tears filled my eyes. Goddamn, I don’t care. My job sucks today!

It dropped away from Cole and together we ran across the dying lawn. We passed Vayl and his demon as my sverhamin delivered a brutal blow. The slyein dropped to the ground, moaning, one of its wings completely severed.

I wanted to reach out for my sverhamin . If I could just take his hand, I knew somehow nothing could defeat him. But he held his sword in one, his scabbard in the other. And my original foe, urged on by Kyphas’s demands, had come after him.

Which was exactly what we wanted.

But luring hell’s warriors into a trap is tough to survive. I glanced over my shoulder as we rounded the corner of the house, Cole to my right, Bergman and Raoul at our heels, Vayl bringing up the rear. I knew that thirty feet ahead of us the plane portal burned like a rock band’s gateway. And we were the groupies, about to be hammered by security if we weren’t gnarly enough to dodge their attack.

But the point wasn’t to evade. Not yet, anyway. Which was why Vayl was letting the female get in some major hits. By the time we’d reached the spot where the house ended and the fence began, she’d raked his shirt to ribbons and left his chest looking like something the butcher lets his trainees hack on, the other two slyein had joined her.

Fifteen steps to the portal and they hounded us all the way. We gave back only enough to make them think they were on the verge of a big win. Even Kyphas had come along, lured by the triumphant screams of the slyein every time a slash hit home. She’d folded up one of the chairs and was using it as a walker, holding it in front of her to help with balance as she stepped. She hadn’t pulled my bolo from her leg, though maybe she should’ve. The way the handle wiggled every time she moved couldn’t have felt pleasant.

Raoul had begun to chant under his breath. The portal shimmered and started to clear. I could see an endless plain littered with the shattered trunks of trees and the carcasses of dead animals. The slyein squealed at the sight.

Kyphas said, “The Great Taker must be pleased. Look where he’s sending us after this deed is done!”

“Jasmine!” yelled Raoul.

“I’m ready!”

His chant changed. Within seconds the destination changed to a meadow covered in newly mown grass at the edge of which sparkled a large lake. As soon as the new picture appeared he leaped through. Cole and Bergman quickly followed. All three of the slyein chased them in. Two of them flew. But Vayl’s original foe was forced to run. It tripped Bergman’s trap. The explosion, held inside the portal by its own power, still looked spectacular. A lima-bean storm flavored with the blood of our foes.

At the same time Vayl wrapped his arms around me, his own blood instantly soaking into my shirt.

Holding me more tightly than he ever had before, he leaped into the air as I yelled the trigger words Bergman had given me for the second explosion. “For Cassandra!” We flipped backward, whether because Vayl wanted us to or because the blast twisted us in the air I could never determine. In those brief moments I strained to watch Kyphas, poised in front of the doorway, the chair held out in front of her like a plastic-woven shield. I wanted a camera to lock in her expression for future generations. I’d have called it two parts what-the-hell mixed with a generous dollop of how-dare-you and just a pinch of oh-shit-I’m-screwed! Then the second set of bombs blew out their pile-o-sticks camouflage with a sound like automatic-weapons fire, splatting her arms, back, and legs with holy veggies. Damn, did she ever scream.

She was still yowling when we landed behind the doorway, protected from stray shrapnel by a pit so deep when I stood up I could barely see over the rim.

“When did you dig this?” I asked, glad he’d at least thought to line it with dead leaves.

“I began it after we found your rash.”

“Oh?” He crossed his arms. I did too. “Why did you dig a hole behind the portal, Vayl?”

“I supposed it was the last place you would look.”

“You didn’t want me to see?” He shook his head. “No wonder you kept sending me off to make other preparations for the fight. But why?” I demanded.

He shrugged. Jumped out and pulled me after him. I knew he didn’t want to answer. But he was my sverhamin . So… “I dig holes when I am… frustrated.” Oh… Oh! So all that teasing he does makes him half crazy too. Or maybe three-fourths, because this muther is, like, big enough to bury a tractor in! “What happened the last time you dug a hole like this?” I asked curiously.

“I struck oil.”

I was still trying to figure out how deep he must’ve drilled when we walked back around to where Kyphas lay. She was trying to pull herself to the door, sputtering ragged words that wouldn’t change it until Raoul released his hold. As if she could’ve crawled more than a couple of inches with half her muscles melted off.

I crouched down beside her. Grabbed her by the chin so she’d stop screaming long enough to focus. “I wish all those souls you’d stolen over the centuries could see you now. Maybe they wouldn’t have been so quick to cave. Which, by the way, is kinda what your back looks like. What do you say we make a deal?”

CHAPTERNINETEEN

Kyphas lay on her belly in the room at the end of the hall, on the bed Cassandra would’ve slept in if she’d been around. Nobody had much wanted to help her get there, so Cole finally stepped forward as the only one of us who thought he could touch her without losing control and causing further damage. I hadn’t missed the flash of pity in his eyes when he’d caught a glimpse of her wounds either. Surely we didn’t need to have a talk? I mean, okay, he loved women. Almost all of them, without exception, could fluff that down-filled pillow he called a heart. But this bitch wanted to dip Cassandra’s soul in shit and set it on fire. Forever.

We stood around the demon, trying to ignore the fact that frilly pink curtains hung from the two windows and a herd of ponies with excessively long manes and tails stared at us from the white shelves that had been built between them. Harder to glance away from was the toy chest beside the bed, so full of entertaining items the lid wouldn’t even close. Which meant the little girl who’d stayed in this room had left her baby doll hanging halfway out, like a prisoner who hasn’t dug the hole quite wide enough to fit her hips.

I moved my attention to Raoul, whose short brown crew cut had taken on a greenish tinge due to the fallout from the explosion. He, Cole, and Bergman had all huddled behind shields, which, along with the armor, had kept them safe from debris. But the goop had gone high, like a tennis ball lobbed over the head of the opponent, and splatted right over the top of them.

According to Cole it had decimated the slyein. But it had marked our guys as well, and they all needed about three days in the shower before they’d stop finding residue in their ear wax. Bergman had taken the glopping worst, and begun yelling at the other two to get it off of him almost before the last heap fell.

Something about being pasted in lima bean/slyein remains had turned a key in his brain, sending him into a frenzy of disrobing and skin-scraping. When he came out of the portal he was down to his ball cap and briefs, heading straight for the bathroom.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said as he jogged toward the front door. “I have to. You know. I can’t stand…” The door slammed over his last words, tilting slightly because Vayl had only halfway fixed it.

We followed him into the house, slow both because of Cole’s burden and because we really didn’t want a closer look at Miles’s Fruit of the Looms.

He was still in the shower.

“I wonder what Bergman isn’t telling us,” I said as I watched Cole pull a strand of ick from his hair and throw it in the waste-basket. I glanced at Raoul.

“Why are you looking at me?” he asked.

“Well, you know, you are…” I jerked my thumb toward the ceiling a couple of times.

“An experienced skydiver?”

“Now you’re just being a pain in the ass.”

Raoul shook his head. “I don’t know any more about him than you people do. Probably considerably less.”

“His best friend was murdered when they were children,” moaned Kyphas.

We all stared, shocked that she’d known and we hadn’t. She turned to gaze up at us with her good eye, her smile devastatingly beautiful as she said, “The man tried to kidnap them both, but Miles ran. A therapist would probably say that he hasn’t stopped running since. But I’m no shrink. I’m just the bitch who brought that man back into Bergman’s life. Ah, the promises I made Miles. He could’ve shoved that freak under the wheels of a train. Thrown him off a roof. Strangled him so slowly…” She held up her blackened hand, her palm facing up. “His soul was sitting right here. I had him. If only he’d been a little less brilliant, a little more gullible. I guess I shouldn’t have waited until he’d grown up. He’d become too suspicious by then, even of his clients.” She laughed regretfully, but it quickly turned into a cough.

I strode forward and grabbed her by what was left of her shirt. Her moan of pain made me smile with satisfaction.

“Jaz!” yelled Cole. “What are you doing?”

“I’m dragging her back to the door. Taking her through so I can finish her off.”

“But she might be the key to your freedom!”

“Don’t care. Bergman can’t—”

Vayl put his hand over mine. Held my eyes with his, which had gone the blue of storm-tossed waves.

“Miles is a grown man. He can bear this, and he will, because he knows what it means to you. Give him that option. Besides, you can always kill her later if she does not cooperate.” I released the shirt, let Kyphas flop back to the bed, happy when she moaned again because at least I’d hurt her doubly in Miles’s cause. When I began to speak to her, Vayl raised a finger. “Perhaps, considering the circumstances, I should be the one to negotiate?” My first reaction? Fuck, no! Nobody speaks for me! But then I saw the message in his eyes.

Trust me.

I stared down at the stained beige carpet, fighting the urge to hit something. It wouldn’t make what I had to do any easier, but the pain in my knuckles would be something I could understand. I loved partnering with Vayl. I’d laid my life in his hands multiple times and he’d never once dropped it. Why, now, was it so hard to lend him my edge?

Because I’m possessed. Because he knows it; knows Brude and what he must be up to. Therefore he’s playing some kind of game with me. Manipulating me. And I have to play along. Let myself be played, for the greater good. And now I have to burn every one of those thoughts from my mind before I become the king’s stooge. But after that, am I still just the vampire’s fool?

I looked up at him. Felt the love he’d raised in me tear at the walls of my heart. In the past week it had healed hundreds of old wounds, introduced as many new delights, made me feel sweet and new and alive again. But where love lights up a dark place, it also burns. Now I knew all the ways I promised myself I’d never be vulnerable again were unshielded, and another direct hit to those soft places might just destroy me.

I couldn’t say, I’m scared. Who, me? Badass, shit-kickin’ Jaz Parks? What would he think? What would any of them think?

That you’re human? Granny May suggested.

That you’ve read too many Stephen King novels? said the librarian.

Teen Me raised her hand. Maybe they won’t care. Maybe they’re scared too.

Bimbo-on-a-barstool snorted and leaned over to steal an olive from an open jar on the other side of the counter. Your problem is you think too much. Do what you need to do and then go get laid. Gawd.

While I was glad to see another member of my mental crew had made the long trek back from la-la land, now was no time to celebrate. Because I’d hesitated too long. A line had appeared between Vayl’s brows.

Brude chuckled from a throne he’d built out of sticks and stones. He’s going to turn away from you.

He is going to desert you, just like Albert. Remember how Daddy always left just when you needed him most? And, of course, Matt…

I felt myself start to shake.

“Jasmine?” Vayl said. “Do you need to use my belt buckle again?” He started to undo the leather strap at his waist, the concern in his eyes so sincere I nearly wept. Except I was laughing out loud. A ravishingly sexy vampire who’s spent the past seven days making you hoarse with cries of ecstasy, who is just as worried that your rash is making you miserable, is not one who is going to crush your heart like a ripe grape.

“No, I’m, well, maybe later. But right now it’s bearable. Go ahead, talk to Kyphas. I trust you.” He nodded and turned back to the demon. Nobody in the room but me knew about the bolt of heat that flared from Cirilai, flaming through my body, making Brude retreat the way he had when Vayl and I had first come together. I leaned against the wall, gazed down at the rubies glittering on my finger, and thought, Take that, you Scots son of a bitch!

Teen Me grinned. You swear a lot.

I slanted her a look, wishing I could send her somewhere safe. Knowing the ultimate stupidity of that desire when it was clear only Evie had emerged from those years somewhat intact. Still I said, I kill a lot too. It doesn’t mean either of them are good for you.

CHAPTERTWO

If Vayl and I were asked to teach a class, and I’m kinda surprised it hasn’t happened already, we’d probably begin by saying, “Welcome to Assassination for Beginners, boys and girls. You in the back! Put that knife away! We don’t kill anybody until the final! Geez!”

“Anyway, one of the reasons we’ve never yet failed a mission is because we’re terrific liars. We’re not talking mundane, slip-a-speeding-ticket fibs. No. We mean world-class shit. For instance, if you can’t make your targets believe you’re smitten to the point where you’d like to birth two or three evil spawn with them, you might as well go back to Analysis.”

I’d lied to all kinds of lowlifes in my time with the Agency. It sucked that, once again, I was using that finely honed ability against my own people. Still, I made sure Lucille Robinson’s smile was pasted to my face when I got back into the hearse. Because my crew had to think I wanted them close. And Vayl could never know he’d hooked up with another head case. After his ordeal with Liliana he could have sworn off relationships for good. And the fact that he’d never married again showed how deeply she’d wounded him. I didn’t want to be the one to reopen those scars.

But our team’s like a tight family. Hard to fool, especially when you’re trying. So when Bergman sat forward, slipped off his backpack, and gave me his you’re-about-to-be-a-happy-girl look, I could’ve kissed him.

“What’ve you got in there?” I asked, so glad for the distraction I didn’t care if it was a bomb and he was about to teach me which wire I should cut if the Daring Defusers got stuck in traffic.

He looked over his shoulder. “Thor?” he said, barely managing not to snicker. “We need a little privacy here.”

“No problem.” Cole raised the limo’s mirrored window between himself, Ruvin, and us. I spared a thought for the mourners we’d abandoned, but apparently they’d carpooled with the pallbearers since they all had another gig in an hour. For their sakes, I hoped the guy in the coffin was fully dead this time.

When Bergman felt we were secure he said, “I promised you an extra-special invention.” I sucked in my breath. “Already?”

He nodded. “I’ve been working on it for a while. I was going to sell it. But… well, that client doesn’t deserve it nearly as much as you.”

I didn’t have to fake the Christmas-morning anticipation on my face when he put the bag on the floor between us. Jack gave it a sniff, pronounced it inedible, and stuck his nose back on the window.

I glanced at Vayl. “Go on; open it,” he said. “It is bound to amaze us.” Under his breath he added, “And perhaps it will take my mind off the humiliation of having to crawl inside a golf bag at two thirty this morning.”

I reached out to touch him, but a major itch on my thigh detoured my hand. I said, “I’m sorry. I had no idea that’s what the company sent. I won’t leave the arrangements to Cole again.” Now the other thigh itched. What the hell?

“Did you forget to wash your blue jeans before you put them on today?” asked Cassandra as she ran her hand down Jack’s furry gray back.

“No.”

And why do you give a fuck, Miss High-and-Mighty with your name-brand outfits and effortless elegance? All you have to do is lift your little finger and you have me outclassed.

Without looking I grabbed Vayl’s hand and squeezed. His strong fingers, wrapping around mine like a lifeline, pulled me away from the voice in my head, which faded into a slimy gray mist as I smiled at Cassandra, reminding myself firmly that my brother had recently told me she made him feel like a king.

“Guess I’m just anxious to see what Bergman’s brought me.”

She nodded eagerly. “Me too. So open your present already, will you?” After a moment’s hesitation, Vayl released my hand so I could unzip the backpack. Movement inside made me jump back.

“Jaz Parks,” Bergman said formally, “meet RAFS.”

Out of the bag poked a head with inky black ears set wide apart and two golden eyes whose vertical irises betrayed the inspiration of Bergman’s schematic. A soft whir of hidden machinery accompanied its smooth leap onto the floor at my feet.

“It’s a cat!” I said. Oops. Jack turned around, his tongue dropping as he spied the new creature sharing his temporary confinement. I swear he smiled as he realized the potential for play that had just appeared.

“Don’t you dare!” I warned, lunging for his collar. Too late.

He jumped at RAFS, who sprang onto the seat between Bergman and Cassandra.

“This is not a toy, you gigantic slobberbag!” Bergman shouted. He shielded the cat with his body while Jack tried to stick his nose into the crack between our consultant’s elbow and knee. It must’ve been a ticklish spot because, even as I snagged Jack’s leash, Bergman began to giggle. Which caused the mechanical cat to feel its shelter had experienced an earthquake of an unsafe magnitude.

It squirted out of Bergman’s clutches onto the top of the seat and, from there, jumped onto the casket.

When it stared, unblinking, at us I could’ve sworn I saw—

“Bergman? Did you actually program in cat-snooty?” I asked as I struggled to keep Jack from joining his new buddy on its smooth, wooden perch.

As I glanced from the inventor to his prize I saw him nod happily. “I did. But that was just for fun. The serious attributes will make you wish you had a whole fleet of them.”

“What’s it do?”

He reached into his back pocket and handed me a container that held fake eyelashes. “Go ahead,” he said eagerly. “Put them on.”

Cassandra dipped her hand into her bag, did a couple of mixing bowl motions, and came out with a compact. “Here, this should help,” she said as she snapped it open and offered me the mirror.

“Thanks.” I stuck the lashes onto my own, reassuring myself that I didn’t suddenly resemble my dad’s sister, Candy, who’d danced her way across the States before the poles got too slick and she decided marrying a rich old coot who could buy her bigger boobs and a cushy retirement home in Orlando might be a better plan.

Vayl asked, “How will the cat help us, Miles?”

“RAFS is a mobile surveillance system with offensive capabilities, in that I gave her claws and teeth. And grenades. But those haven’t been sufficiently tested yet, so…” I looked at the kittybot, trying and failing to figure out just how she would launch a minibomb. “You said… her?”

Bergman shrugged. “RAFS seems female to me.”

I pointed to my lashes. “What are these for?”

Vayl leaned forward, his lips twitching. “They make you look… sooty.” I could tell he wasn’t talking about chimney sweeping. Especially when his eyes dropped first to my neck, then to my chest.

I was glad nobody could hear my heart speed up, although Cassandra’s smirk showed she wasn’t unaware. Still, I tried to keep the conversation on the right track.

“Are they like our party line?” I asked. We hadn’t yet shared out the earpieces and fake moles that would allow us all to talk with each other at a distance of at least two miles, because Bergman had promised an upgrade. Who knew that he’d also bring a cat that somehow connected with me through my blinkers?

Bergman didn’t even try to hide the smug. “Somewhat. You should see them at night. Point a light at them and they glow.”

I threw up my arms. “Great, now I’m gonna look like a freak too!”

“I like freaks,” said Vayl. His eyes, shining the emerald green he saved just for me, demanded some sort of response. I wished we were still vacationing on his island so I could show him how much his comment meant to me. Instead I scratched a new itch on my shoulder and turned back to Bergman.

“Come on, spill. What do the eye gadgets do?”

He grinned. “RAFS, you are now under Jasmine Parks’s voice command.” He whispered, “Tell her to switch to video mode.”

I looked at the cat, its smooth shell made less foreign by the jet-black color Bergman had chosen for it.

“RAFS, switch to video mode.”

A holographic image of Bergman and Cassandra, as seen through the cat’s eyes, appeared before mine.

“Is it operating?” asked Bergman.

I nodded. “How does it work?” I asked.

“RAFS beams the message to receivers in the lashes, which project an image just far enough from your eyes for you to get a clear view.” I gaped at Bergman. “What?” he asked.

“Dude! You never explain your inventions!” I studied his face. “You didn’t send a clone of yourself or something?”

“No!” He chuckled. “Maybe I’m just trying to impress you with my engineering genius.”

“I’ve known you since I was eighteen. You had me the second you rigged our refrigerator to dispense Diet Coke out the water spigot.”

His smile widened. “Okay, well, maybe I do have ulterior motives. But those can wait until you’ve gotten to know RAFS better.” He nodded at the cat. “She records audio too. And when you’re outfitted with the party line, she can receive that signal. You can also access all of the CIA’s databases through her, as well as Cassandra’s Enkyklios .”

“No!” Cassandra’s portable library was such a fascinating blend of cinema, history, and magic that I couldn’t imagine an alternative.

Our Seer nodded. “We needed another backup, so when Bergman offered RAFS and said she’d belong to you, it seemed like the perfect plan. Especially when he explained that one of her abilities was inspired by the Enkyklios to begin with.”

“Wait a minute. You’re basically handing me the chance to research any other I come across, plus enter the new events I experience, all on my own? Without one of you Sisters of the Second Sight looking over my shoulder?”

She nodded. “We’re making you an honorary member of the Guild.”

“But I’m not psychic.”

“Your Spirit Eye qualifies you in most of the Sisters’ minds. The rest are willing to welcome you as long as the title remains honorary. That means you won’t have any voting privileges.” Why was it nobody wanted to give me a say? The Greek werewolves who’d accepted me as a low-level pack member hadn’t forked over any power in their elections either. But to be fair, if I was anybody else, I wouldn’t let an assassin influence my policy either.

“Wow.” I glanced up at Vayl, wondering what he thought of this new development. Well, he definitely approves of my boobs. “Would you pay attention?”

“I am fully aware.” He leaned over to whisper, “I have never made love to a Sister of the Second Sight.

Find out if they have a catalog, would you? Perhaps you could order something in the way of a bustier and high heels?”

I stared into those bright green eyes and couldn’t find a shred of humor. Son of a bitch! He’s serious!

“Oh, for chrissake.” I didn’t know if I was pissed at him for totally veering off subject or at myself for the blush that burned my cheeks. I pinned my attention on Bergman, who would never mix business with pleasure. Or pleasure with pleasure, for that matter. “So, besides the information it’s toting, how is the cat like the Enkyklios ?”

Bergman leaned forward, rubbing his hands on his knees with excitement. “Remember the first time Cassandra showed us one of the stories from it? How all the glass balls kept rearranging themselves, changing shape as they searched for the information she wanted?” How could I forget? That story had played out the personal tragedy that still sometimes woke me up screaming. I cleared my throat. “I remember.”

“Considering the tight spaces you might need RAFS to slip into, I thought it would be helpful if she could change shapes the way the Enkyklios does. So I asked Cassandra to help me imbue her with some special qualities—”

I held up my hand. “Wait a second. You mean she’s a magical robot?” He winced. “It’s not like she’s going to pull out a wand and start zapping mice into oblivion. But, yeah, she can rearrange her anatomy in… Here, let me demonstrate. Call her.” I whistled. Jack wheeled around, put his front paws up on my legs, and shoved his face into mine.

“Dude, what have you been eating? No, don’t tell me.” I reached into my jacket pocket and found a Milk-Bone. “Here. Pretend you’re brushing your teeth.” As if I needed further evidence that he deserved lapdog privileges, he jumped into the seat beside me, curled into the smallest ball he could manage (mega-beach), and began chomping at his treat.

Bergman waited until Jack was settled before saying, “Obviously RAFS doesn’t respond to whistling.

She’s a cat. Try calling her name.”

“Come here, RAFS.”

“You could be sweeter.”

“She’s made of metal.”

“And other stuff!”

“Look, she came when I called,” I said, motioning to the robokitty, who’d climbed onto Vayl’s shoulder right next to me.

“Jaz!” Bergman wasn’t whining. Quite.

I rolled my eyes at Vayl. Seriously? I have to make nice with Bergman’s walking camera?

Since we’d been working together long enough to read every nuance of each other’s expressions, he got the message instantly. His response? Yes.

And I thought the neurotic in him wouldn’t piss me off until we’d at least gotten to the rental house.

Vayl’s lips rose a couple of millimeters. In anyone else it would’ve been a grin.

I said, “Fine, I’ll pretend she’s going to stalk off in a huff if I give her any sass.” I leaned back to get a better view, making sure I gave Jack a good petting as I did so he wouldn’t feel left out if he noticed me paying attention to another “animal.”

The sound her innards made tried to be a purr, though it reminded me more of computer fans than contented cat. Up close, her eyes seemed the most real, even when her pupils expanded and contracted to fine-tune her video feed. I reached out to touch her, poised to pull back in case she swiped at my hand, but she allowed me to run a finger down her front leg. It felt metallic but yielding, reminding me of the alien costumes on a bad Sci Fi Channel movie.

“RAFS doesn’t fit you,” I murmured. “It’s probably an acronym for some impossibly long and hard to pronounce gearhead title.”

“Hey!” objected Bergman, but weakly, because it was true.

Ignoring him, I went on. “You need a space-age name. One I wouldn’t be surprised to hear if Captain Kirk landed on your planet and found you rubbing up against his leg right before you disintegrated the henchmen he’d brought along just in case. Let’s see…”

“How about Pluto?” suggested Cassandra.

“You’re not naming my best-yet invention after a demoted planet!” Bergman objected.

“I had a great deal to do with the success of your invention!” Cassandra reminded him.

“I never said you didn’t!”

“Stop!” I yelled. “You two are giving me flashbacks to when I had to give you time-outs. Show me you’ve matured so I don’t have to call a nanny!” I turned to Vayl. “Tell your kids to behave.”

“Need I remind you that these are the good ones?” He reached up and pulled the cat down onto his lap.

“What if we call her Astral?”

“That I like. All in favor—I don’t care because she’s mine.” I leaned forward and patted Bergman on the knee. “Thanks, Miles. She’s amazing.”

“But you haven’t seen the best part.”

“Oh yeah, the shape-changing thing.” I was about to say, “Have at it.” But the beach ball beside me had been eyeing Astral and realized he might have a chance to give her a big welcome-to-the-family kiss now that Vayl held her quiet in one place.

Without warning he lobbed himself over my lap and landed on Vayl’s, reaching under his own forelegs to lick Astral’s smooth back. He yelped when his slobbers melted her, leaving a quarter-inch-thick blob to roll its eyes at Jack as he yanked his tail between his legs, jumped to the floor, and took refuge next to Cassandra.

“Bergman!” snapped Vayl.

At the same time I said, “What the hell?”

And Bergman held out both hands like he’d just introduced us to his favorite new girlfriend. “See?” The black blob in Vayl’s lap wiggled over his thigh onto the seat between us. She slithered up to the headrest before quietly re-forming. The only extra noises she made were a series of clicks when her claws emerged, evidently as part of a test cycle, because they pulled back into her paws shortly afterward.

“That’s freaking cool,” I breathed. Bergman smiled.

“How is she powered?” asked Vayl.

He shrugged, back to his old share-no-secrets self. “No need to worry about that for another five years anyway,” he assured us.

I watched her lick the dog spit off her back. “Where does the waste go that she collects along the way?” I asked.

“I’ve designed an outlet. The capsule looks a lot like cat poop, so when she needs to release one, there’s never a problem. She just goes into the bathroom—”

Vayl raised an eyebrow. “The cat is toilet trained?”

“I thought that would be easiest. So you don’t have to deal with litter boxes when you’re traveling.” I sat back, eyeing my dog. His eyes were half closed, his tongue drooped in ecstasy under Cassandra’s head-scratchings. So watching his new friend turn to goo hadn’t traumatized him. I wondered what he’d do if she exploded.

I said, “Bergman, you’re a genius.”

CHAPTERTWENTY

Vayl sat in a child’s chair beside Kyphas’s bed. You’ve gotta be some kinda stud to pull that off without looking ridiculous. He managed easily. The rest of us stood in a semicircle behind him. Except for the animals. I didn’t want Jack near the soul stealer, and since the fence had weathered the blast after all, I’d let him loose in the backyard. Astral, who’d become way too unpredictable to take part in the delicate task at hand, was zoning out to some old Doors tunes in Bergman’s room.

Vayl didn’t lean in to make it easier for Kyphas to see him, and since she was lying on her stomach she had to strain if she wanted to meet his eyes. Which was astonishingly often for a demon whose back half looked like it had been mauled by a starving bear.

Vayl said, “You have heard of the Rocenz.”

“Not at all,” Kyphas said, her answer slightly muffled by her pillow.

“We left you alive for a reason. Perhaps you would like to cooperate long enough to hear it?” She sighed. “So what if I have?”

“It is lost. It is demon made.”

“And?”

“That means the most likely creature to find it again will be a demon.”

“I don’t see how this benefits me.”

“If you help us find the Rocenz and use it to carve King Brude’s name on the gates of hell, you may have his soul in place of Cassandra’s.” As she began to laugh, and then cough, he raised his hand. She stopped immediately. “He is Lucifer’s Domytr . Your stock would skyrocket at such a catch. We can also give you three souls now serving in the U.S. Senate.”

“Politicians are Antyrfee’s territory.” Did she sound envious? Why not? Antyrfee must be rolling in souls.

“But you would have the inside track,” Vayl said. “We know them. You could probably snare all three within a week.”

Kyphas looked up at Vayl, though the pain caused her to wince. “Antyrfee’s never turned that many around so fast.” She paused. “What do you have against these three?”

“They tried to suspend Jasmine after our last mission. Friends of mine talked them out of that decision”—by that he meant that his old Trust buddies Admes and Niall had dangled the Oversight Committee members from their roofs by their heels—“but politicians ooze more slime than slugs. I expect them to wriggle out of the deal sooner rather than later. I have researched this particular group. They possess no redeeming qualities. They are exactly your type. And think what status their souls would gain you among your peers.”

“You’d be popular,” said Cole.

“I’d settle for accepted. Do you know how long… looong , they’ve been making fun of me over this Cassandra issue?”

“It is a four-for-one offer with us aiding you. What do you say?” She sighed. Went quiet for so long I thought she’d nodded off. “I’ll draw up a contract,” she finally mumbled.

Vayl reached over his shoulder to Raoul, who handed him a scrolled sheet of ivory paper. “We already have.”

In our business you learn to appreciate the lulls. Now that we had Kyphas under contract we didn’t need to worry about demon ambushes anymore. It should’ve been a somewhat relaxing time, waiting for Ruvin and Cassandra to return while we watched the clock tick off the minutes until we had to leave for the next phase of our original assignment.

Bergman had finally scrubbed himself to a shade of pink that satisfied his sense of outrage. He’d retreated to the room across from Kyphas’s that he was sharing with Cole, closing the door so firmly we got the message as if he’d yelled it. Don’t mess with me. I’m still pissed.

Cole and Raoul took turns showering and guarding Cassandra’s demon while Vayl and I sat in the dining room, tending each other’s wounds. Mine needed stitches. Vayl’s would’ve put me in intensive care. But by the time I’d cleaned all the blood off only two of the deepest needed bandages.

“I like it that you can survive shit like this,” I said. I taped some gauze over the second slash on his chest and sat back in my chair.

“It is one of my favorite, ah, as you say, perks of being Vampere.” He rested an arm on the table, tapping his fingers as he watched me through half-closed lids.

“What?”

Slow release of breath, like the hiss of steam from a volcanic vent. “I sit here, half dressed and triumphant from battle, waiting for you to share my usual enthusiasm. And you… do not respond.” Invitation in the silk of his voice. And behind that, pain. As if I’d rejected him outright.

If I hadn’t felt so exhausted I might’ve jumped and run. Because Brude’s wasn’t the only voice telling me, This will never last. You suck at relationships. The only man who understood you, who could put up with your crap, is dead. And you don’t have the energy to try again. It’s too hard to be half of a couple. Too scary. Get out before—

I lunged forward, wrapped my hands around Vayl’s back and kissed him so hard that I could still feel the tingle ten minutes later. When I finally came up for air I said, “I feel like hell. I’m still schlubbing around in blood-soaked clothes, itching like a kindergartner with chicken pox, and so worried about Bergman I’m considering sending him home. But no matter what happens, I will always want you.” His smile, slow and wicked, let me know I’d said at least one thing right. “A shower for you, then, and a new layer of lotion.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I crawled off his lap, where I seemed to have landed sometime during our mini-makeout session. “Uh, I was wondering.”

He reached for his shirt, held it up, shook his head regretfully, and tossed it into the corner trash can.

“Yes?”

“What did you think of Bergman’s offer?”

His eyes, when they rested on me, turned a warm amber as he said, “If you would be happier working with him, so be it.”

I backed up a step. He might as well have suggested we move in together. “Just like that?” Rising so deliberately that I could see the muscles bunch and relax in his shoulders and chest, he took my hand and lifted it to his lips. Every finger got a light caress. Then he kissed Cirilai solemnly before looking up into my eyes, his own telling me things only my heart could understand. “We are sverhamin and avhar now. That means we walk in our own Trust. Together.”

“For how long?”

His brow arched. “Who asks me this? The child of divorce? The bereft fiancé? The world-weary assassin?”

“How long, Vayl?”

He pressed my hands against the hard expanse of his chest. “Do you feel my heart?”

“Yes.” It beat so slowly that only a power we humans acknowledged as other could move it at all.

“When it stops, I will still come for you. When I am reduced to my essence, it will not be complete until it has melded with yours. I will never leave you.”

I sighed. “Cool.”

“But now I have to prove myself,” Vayl replied.

I shrugged. “People exchange marriage vows all the time. Ten years later half of them end up divorced.” He nodded. “But then you must give me the chance. That means no more throwing Cirilai in my face, and no more running from us.”

“I wasn’t—” I stopped at his don’t-shit-me expression. “Okay, I might’ve been thinking about running.

But I didn’t actually throw on the shoes.”

“It is a start.”

“Thank you. And as a gesture of goodwill, let me offer you first crack at the shower now that Raoul and Cole are done.”

“I would, but I am afraid my old-fashioned sensibilities would be mortally wounded if I were to avail myself of the facilities before the lady.”

“What did you just say?”

“Go ahead. You are filthier.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Twenty minutes later I understood why dogs shook themselves after baths. Because it felt good to be clean! So good you wanted to just, bbbggghhh . I changed into a pair of hunter-green jeans and a velvety red scoop-neck top. Unfortunately my boots had given their all protecting my legular regions in my last battle. Which meant I had to resort to backup footwear—a pair of black cross-trainers, the laces of which Jack had chewed and partially digested before deciding he didn’t like them after all.

Cole and Raoul looked up from a somewhat heated discussion as I joined them in the living room. Since they’d commandeered the couch, I pulled a chair over to the side, where I could see out the sliding-glass doors to check on the dog every once in a while. I leaned back and crossed my legs in front of me.

Cole immediately began to laugh. “What happened to your shoes?” After observing my deformed, slightly shredded laces I decided to change the subject. “I’ll tell you if you explain that shirt.”

He looked down at his tee, which depicted a Neanderthal dragging his club across a rocky plain. In the distance a bunch of prehistoric emus were thumbing their wings at him. The caption read, i can’t wait for kfc.

He said, “It was all I had that was clean. Now you.”

Raoul said, “Jack got into your closet, didn’t he? Don’t they sell bones for dogs to chew on nowadays?

And toys?”

“I felt sorry for him because he’d just gotten back from the vet, okay? I figured letting him gnaw on my shoelaces was the least I could do. He seemed so… depressed.”

“I told you!” Cole exclaimed. “You never should’ve had him snipped!”

“It wasn’t the surgery!” I snapped. “He met this schnauzer named Eetza while he was in there and they kind of got attached. You know how it goes.”

“Ah. She broke his heart.”

“I don’t know. He just seemed to miss her. He kept going to the door and licking it. And now, with Astral’s head blowing off in his face, I’ll be lucky if I’m not barefoot by the time I get home.” I tucked my feet under my chair. “Okay, now I’m getting bummed. Can we please talk about something else?” Raoul and Cole exchanged secretive glances. I said, “Yeah, that. Whatever you were up to, I want in.”

“You don’t even know the details!” Cole protested.

“It’s gotta be shady enough that you don’t want to discuss it with me. But Raoul’s dealing, so it can’t be evil. And that’s exactly what I need right now. Come on, you probably need a third.”

“Only if Vayl’s okay with it,”

“Okay with what?” asked Vayl. Who looked, well, the word “edible” came to mind as he stood at the end of the hallway, drying his hair with a fluffy white towel as he moved his eyes from Cole to Raoul to me. Would it be rude to turn my chair completely around and just gawk? I mean, he was kind of inviting stares by coming in all clean and damp, wearing those ass-grabbing jeans and nothing else. I scratched at my knees and wished for x-ray vision.

“Okay with what?” Vayl repeated, a little louder and a lot more sternly.

Raoul sat up, his camo jacket (of which he seemed to have an endless supply) nearly snapping to attention as he straightened. “I’ve agreed to help Cole find and pet a kangaroo. They like to feed at night.

I don’t think it will be too difficult.”

Vayl made a noise. Eventually we decided it was laughter.

“You are going to get your face caved in,” he told Cole. “And because of that, one of us should probably go along to make sure Pete gets the full report on your demise. Since I have no desire to wander the countryside, I will stay with Bergman and guard Kyphas. If that is all right with you?” he asked me, his eyebrows raised.

I sighed, moving my nails up to my thighs. “I could use some exercise.” What I didn’t add was, since I can’t jump your bones, and I really wanna wail on Kyphas, and Bergman’s problem is driving me slightly batso.

He nodded. “So be it.”

Which was how Jack and I found ourselves trailing two men who’d totally flipped their lids: the former ranger who thought he’d been transported to Candyland if the enthusiasm in his bated whispers were any clue; and the doof who hadn’t learned his lesson after a bout of camel-tipping in Iran.

“It’s dark,” I whispered.

“It’s after eleven,” Cole whispered back.

“We don’t even have flashlights. How are we supposed to find kangaroos in the dark without flashlights?”

“You and I are both wearing Bergman’s night-vision lenses and Raoul can probably see better with his eyes closed. Besides, they’ll be by water. Or food. Or both. Didn’t you ever watch Kangaroo Jack ?”

“Yeah. But I saw Crocodile Dundee too. Don’t you think they’ll be worried about becoming a midnight snack if they loiter by the river at night?”

“We’re following a freaking Eldhayr! We’ll find them!” he hissed. “What is your problem?”

“You mean besides the possession, worrying about Bergman and Cassandra, and saving the space program so her vision won’t haul off and kick us in the ass?”

“Yeah!”

“My butt itches,” I admitted.

“Well, deal with it! I’m sure not going to watch!”

So I did, and thought about how low I’d sunk. Scratching my ass like a beer-swilling, pot-bellied La-Z-lounger as I slunk through the foothills west of Wirdilling. Although, once I’d relieved the worst of my irritation, I realized the hills looked pretty nifty given the shades of gold and burgundy my contacts added to them, like a bowl full of mint ice cream scoops topped by waves of sugar-coated cinnamon sticks.

Even without our Miles-vision we’d have had an easy walk. At least at first. The hills had been grazed so close they traveled like a putting green. Yeah, we encountered some rocks and a few dips and folds. But compared to some of the bush I’d hacked through, this was pudding. Of course, I knew a devastating fire had done most of the clearing for us several years before. And as we climbed, we began to see its remains in the charred trunks of the pine trees that had once dotted the landscape.

Jack whuffed. Not a bark, but definitely a pay attention noise that stopped us. We stood silent, peering into the night. Then Raoul raised an arm, pointing to a copse of grass trees. They stood about sixty paces from us, looking eerily like a group of fingers tipped with frothy green rings. Behind one thick-trunked specimen, standing absolutely still and staring right back at us, was a large kangaroo.

I kept watching. Yeah, now I could see more. Probably fifteen in this group, including four or five pouch-free joeys. Most of them were too busy eating to have noticed the small sound Jack had made.

Teen Me squealed. Sew kewl! I rolled my eyes. But I did have to agree. Because, holy crap, were they large !

When the first roo began to graze again, Raoul crept forward, motioning for us to follow. I moved my hand around toward my back. My jacket creaked and Raoul jerked his head toward me. Parallel reaction from Cole. I shrugged, dropping my hand, trying to ignore the growing prickles that felt like my rash had erected tents and dug a fire pit.

Raoul motioned first to himself, then to me.

What?

He made the motion again.

No! Have you seen how big these hoppers are? I thought we were going after, you know, little ones!

Again with the motion, this time insistent and combined with a jab from Cole’s elbow. I sighed and nodded. I’d play up to a certain point, but no way was I going to get up close and personal with a creature whose feet looked like they were made specifically to crush my spine!

Raoul and I split, taking opposite tracks around to the back of the herd. Cole began to move forward. I gathered the plan was for him to try the pettage on his own. But if it didn’t work, Raoul and I were supposed to spook the roos into hopping toward him, in which case he’d have multiple shots at success.

I finally found a spot I liked where I could observe the landscape from between the split fingers of a grass tree. Jack sat beside me, his ears twitching as he followed the action. Which was progressing, but slowly. Cole now crouched within reach of a five-foot female that seemed completely occupied with her meal. At least he’d picked one that was too young for motherhood. Maybe, without that protect-the-baby imperative riding her, she wouldn’t try to cave his skull in when he touched her. Maybe she’d just squeal and run.

He stretched out his hand. His fingers were so close to her shoulder you couldn’t have slipped a bar of soap between them when the female startled, veered away, and ran. The whole mob caught her mood and suddenly they were on the move.

Raoul leaped up from his hiding place, yelling, “Ha! Move! Hop! That’s it!” Pause. “Jasmine, they’re coming toward you!”

But it wasn’t organized like a cow stampede. Fifteen kangaroos had chosen fifteen different directions out of that copse, and I was only guarding one exit.

A big male hopped at me, looking surprised and somewhat pissed. An expression I found eerily familiar.

But that was no help, and I couldn’t imagine how me yelling like a cowboy with his nuts in a wringer was going to turn the animal around. In fact, I kinda thought I was going to get pummeled. So I drew Grief and took a shot. Relax, I made sure it hit the ground.

Actually a couple of the roos did too. The sound must’ve scared them so much that they lost their footing. But they found it again and decided, as a group, that it should lead them away from me. At least three of them agreed that meant they should hop toward Cole. But this wasn’t a leisurely stroll. This was run-for-your-life-dammit! They pounded toward him, covering six feet at a stretch. And he just stood there, grinning.

“Move, you fool!” I yelled.

“Good thinking!” he shouted back, wheeling around so he could pace the group for the fraction of a second it would take to claim his prize.

I watched him reach for a male the size of a giraffe. And then another roo veered into him, sending him rolling like a skater who’s just missed his board.

Raoul and I ran up to him together, but before either of us could reach him he’d bounced back to his feet. “Did you see that? Was that not the most awesome moment ever? Tell me you saw that!”

“Yeah, yeah. You do know you’re lucky to be alive, right?” I asked.

Cole dusted off his jeans, which had developed holes in both knees. “What’s your point?”

“I…” I looked at Raoul, who was wearing the same this-kicks-ass expression on his face that I saw on Cole’s. “I’m just saying, you missed.”

“I know. That means we’ve got the whole thing to do over again.” Cole held up his fist and Raoul, who was apparently a close observer of modern gestures, gave it an enthusiastic bump with his own. Which was why I dropped the protest.

I don’t get guys half the time. But—I smiled to myself as we turned back for the house— they can be awful damn fun.

CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE

When we got back to the house, the Wheezer was parked in the drive beside Ruvin’s Jeep. Cole raced to the front door and threw it open. Vayl and Ruvin, who’d been sitting on the couch, talking quietly, jerked their heads toward him.

“Cassandra! You’ll never guess… Oh yeah.” By the time we’d crowded in behind him he’d decided his high-tops needed a polish and was rubbing one on the back of his pants leg. He glanced back at us. “I, uh”—he stuck his finger in his ear, wiggled it a few times.—“I need to pee.” He nodded to Ruvin as he strode from the room.

I looked up at Raoul. “What was that all about?” I asked.

“Maybe he’s worried.”

“Cassandra can take care of herself.” I didn’t buy a word of it and I’d just said it.

I swallowed my concern, told myself Cassandra wasn’t back yet because the exits were probably guarded, which meant we’d have to go get her as soon as we finished the mission. But that otherwise she was probably just fine. Really. Then I settled on the chair next to Raoul’s. Jack, reacting to the mood, dropped to his belly and laid his chin on my shoe. He began to chew at my laces.

Bergman left his post in the hallway to come hover behind us. I’d never seen him so grim. Which would’ve been enough to concern me. But I could almost see the gears turning as he stared toward Kyphas’s room.

“Where’s Astral?” I asked.

“She’s watching the demon,” Bergman said. My eyebrows lifted. “She may be… different now. But she still works.” He cleared his throat. “Unlike my bug,” he added, half under his breath.

I said, “Just because we haven’t heard from the Odeam team doesn’t mean your bug’s failed. It could be—” I stopped, mostly because he wasn’t listening. His eyes hadn’t budged from the demon’s doorway. Judging by the gleam in them, he was imagining some complex, devious revenge. Hopefully it would require an invention that would keep him out of trouble until we’d found the Rocenz and sent Kyphas out of range.

When we were settled Vayl said, “Ruvin’s wife was retaken at the airport. Fortunately she was able to distract her kidnappers long enough for Laal and Pajo to escape to the plane, which is well on its way to New Zealand by now.”

Ruvin dropped his face into his hands.

“What the f—?”

Vayl stopped me with a look. “We should be able to free her as before, but now we must wait until after we have accomplished our mission.”

“This isn’t right!” I said. I shoved my hands into my hair and pulled, but it didn’t stop Brude from giggling like a first-grader who’s just been visited by Santa Claus. With Tabitha back in gnome clutches the chances for a high body count—and thus an increase to his army’s numbers—had just multiplied.

Because Ruvin would do anything the Ufranites said now. Which meant when the larvae hatched, he’d be there waiting, a walking breakfast buffet, instead of following our plan, saving his hide and NASA’s goodies as well.

As Brude danced around his throne room, which was quickly gaining form and color, Granny May murmured, No, Jazzy, something about this isn’t right at all.

I peered through my curls at Vayl and Raoul. They should be dangling at the end of their collective patience as well. Instead they sat staring at Ruvin, silent and… comfortable. Shouldn’t they be pacing?

Or at least pissed?

I looked over my shoulder. Cole had finished his business and come out to stand beside Bergman. They were always quick to point out Vayl’s questionable decisions. And this was a doozy. So where was the criticism?

Ruvin’s shoulders were shaking, so I guessed he was crying.

But Vayl. Well, he was a master at hiding his thoughts, so who knew? Another thread of doubt drifted through my mind. I caught it before Brude could get a whiff.

Huddle!

My girls gathered on Granny May’s front porch.

I’m questioning this scenario. But I know Vayl wants me to believe everything he’s showing me.

In fact, I think it’s vital that I do, or else Brude will suspect and then we’re probably all deeply screwed. So when I have a stray thought that might raise Brude’s suspicions, you four have to distract him. I’m counting on you especially. I nodded to Teen Me. In fact, I’ve been thinking…

there’s a place in my head where we might be able to lock him away . I swallowed dryly as I remembered it. You know the one I mean.

Tears sprang to her eyes as I reminded her. What do I have to do? she asked.

Get in his face when I start to have doubts about what’s real and what’s for his benefit. Then, when the time is right, I’ll give you the signal. You’re going to have to open the door. You’ll have to shove him in.

But… I’m trying so hard to avoid it. For me it’s only a few years in my future.

As soon as you close the door you can lock it. He’ll be stuck in there with the memories. And hopefully we’ll never have to open it again.

The parts of my mind that had survived Brude’s onslaught nodded grimly. When he noticed them talking and demanded to know what they were doing, Teen Me stomped down the porch steps, strode right up to him, shoved her chin practically into his sternum, and screamed, “You are such a prick!” Then she burst into tears and ran into Granny May’s house.

Brude held out his hands, baffled by her outburst. What did I do? he asked.

I shrugged. I guess your charm doesn’t work on the virginal ladies.

My Inner Bimbo spoke up, leaving the huddle to collapse into a wicker chair as she said, Hell, it doesn’t even work on the horny ones.

Brude stalked off, Granny May’s uproarious cackle poking him in the back as he went.

Now that Ruvin had returned, we couldn’t put off the next phase of our mission any longer. Luckily it didn’t require a full crew, just Vayl, Cole, Jack, and I. Which left Bergman, Ruvin, and the talking cat to guard Kyphas. Not a comforting combination. So we’d convinced Raoul to stick around until we returned. At which point we promised him he could get on with the rest of his evening.

Armed with every weapon I’d packed, including a blood-test kit designed for involuntary donors, I drove Ruvin’s Patriot through the cold, trash-littered streets of Wirdilling. The fact that he’d allowed me behind the wheel of his dream machine showed how much this latest development had crushed Ruvin.

Determined to make it right for him, Vayl sat silent at my side, his cane lying across his lap like a second seat belt. Cole took up the entire backseat, looking a lot more relaxed than the jumping muscle in his cheek let on. As he checked the sites of his Parker-Hale he said, “You know, I studied the pictures Bergman took of the primary school pretty thoroughly, but I didn’t see much in the way of sniper cover.”

“Some big eucalyptus trees are growing by the back corner along with a few pines,” I replied. “You should be able to find a comfortable spot there.”

“So the whole Odeam team is inside the building?”

“That is where Ruvin dropped them off,” said Vayl. “They have no reason to leave until the appointed time. In fact, I suspect the Ufranites are stationed beneath them to make sure they do not wander off.” Cole nodded to the kit in my hand. “How confident are we in that tester?”

“The results are ninety-nine percent accurate,” Vayl said. “Within thirty minutes after we take the team’s samples, we will know which members—besides the vice president—are carriers.” I nodded. “Then phase two of the plan kicks in.”

“If necessary,” Vayl added. “Perhaps he will be the only traitor after all. In which case our mission will be finished before we leave NASA’s guesthouse tonight.”

“You’re sounding awfully optimistic. What’s the deal?”

Vayl was studying me with those gemlike eyes of his. “You are scratching less,” he murmured. “It is only a matter of time, my Jasmine.” A slow smile lifted his lips, which hadn’t touched mine in so long I suddenly felt like a downhill racer. I needed Chap Stick for the dryness and cracking. And a long night by a cozy fire to warm all the spots that had begun to chill in his absence.

I said, “Oh. Yeah. Well.” Why did my mind always spin and stutter when what I wanted most was to whisper all my deepest feelings into that perfectly curved ear of his right before the nibbling began? I sighed.

“You guys make me want to gouge out my eardrums. Seriously,” Cole said. We’d almost reached the primary school by now. Approaching it from the back this time, I found a small neglected corner dominated by delicate-leaved sugar gums, thorny acacia, and a mass of vines twisting around the fence. I parked there, knowing it provided perfect cover for three people who intended to kill a man before the night had ended.

CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO

Though it might’ve been well lit while functioning as a school yard, the outer edge of our target’s quarters now hid in deep shadows. The only working fixtures perched above the doors, both the one with the intricate lock we’d decided to avoid, and the basement illusion.

“Are you ready?” asked Vayl as Cole and I stood at the top of the steps. Cole finished screwing on his silencer, exchanged a look with me, and we both nodded.

Inside my head Brude shouted, I will not allow this!

“My brain-buster is threatening us,” I murmured.

Vayl unsheathed his sword. “Then it is time. Cole and Jasmine, trade positions. Now !” Like a switch flipping behind my eyeballs, the clarity of the moment sharpened to almost painful brightness. The speed of each movement, while outwardly phenomenal, still registered in my mind like I was playing it in slow-motion so it could be cataloged for future reference.

Cole slipped the harness of his weapon over his head and shoved the Parker-Hale into my hands along with his ammo belt.

At the same time I passed the blood-test kit into his.

Vayl spun and plunged through the fake doorway. Cole sped after him while I sprinted to the fence, hauling the rifle’s strap over my head as I moved. Once again my track training kicked in, allowing me to get a foot onto the fence, which gave me a boost into the lower branches of the nearest pine before Brude could roar, What is happening?

None of your damn business, I thought as I scaled the tree, needles and sap both leaving their mark before I was high enough to switch to a sugar gum that had grown in tandem with the pine.

Sweet silence greeted my final push to a sturdy crook where I could brace my hips while standing on the lowest branch. I unslung the rifle and checked my scope. Yeah, I had unobstructed views of all the windows and doors on this side of the school.

I disengaged the safety and chambered a round. I didn’t have time to doubt Vayl’s strategy. He had to figure one of the reasons the gnomes wanted easy access to their carrier(s) was to protect him/them. So he also had to bet their magic plant door would be alarmed once the carrier(s) took residence. But Vayl also knew Brude was a threat. So he’d decided to go in fast and dirty.

Maybe I won’t have anything to do, I thought. Maybe the riot we caused in the warren has already turned the guards against their shaman and the whole scheme has washed away like an eroded riverbank . I only had thirty seconds to believe that angle, because after that the first head appeared, sticking out of the fake concrete passageway like a target at a county fair duck shoot. My shot hit it in the ear and it dropped instantly, half in and half out of the door. The same was true for my next three targets.

Then somebody smartened up and quit sending the grunts into the line of fire.

During the breaks I snuck peeks at the action through the windows.

Vayl and Cole had separated. Cole’s job, which would’ve been mine, was to anesthetize the team members whose affiliation we couldn’t place and pull a blood sample. It would be a quick, simple procedure. Two plugs up the nose that released fast-acting sleepy gas. Then set the head of a device that resembled a staple gun against a major vein, hold it for three seconds while it lifted the vein to the top of the skin, and pull the trigger. Instant suckage followed by wound closure so quick most victims never realized they’d been punctured. The blood would be automatically stored in a compartment in the handle and a new vial moved into place for the next sample. The only downfall? You’ve gotta keep good track of who you’re testing if you haven’t marked the vials. So Cole would be murmuring descriptions into his transmitter as he went. That way Bergman, who was preparing to run the tests back at base, would have no doubt whose results belonged to whom.

A small light came on in the room closest to the main door. Cole had opened the test-kit lid, which came with its own built-in beam. “Black-haired dude with goofy mustache and a unibrow,” he whispered. “I think it’s the software engineer, Johnson.”

“Got it,” Bergman replied from over half a mile away. Have I mentioned lately how much I love his gadgets?

A shadow crossing past the windows in the room nearest the front of the building let me know Vayl had set to work. I couldn’t see much through the gauzy white curtains. But thanks to Bergman, I could hear.

So I glanced around the playground to make sure the gnomes hadn’t made use of a different escape hatch, and listened close.

VAYL:“You will speak to me in a reasonable tone of voice. You will not scream or call out. Do you understand?”

GNOME-PUPPET(no doubt influenced by Vayl’s hypnotic suggestions): “Yes.” VAYL:“What is your name and title?”

GNOME-PUPPET: “My name is Dade Barnes. I’m the vice president of Odeam Security Software.” VAYL:“Do you understand what you carry within your blood?”

DADE: “Of course. It’s no big deal. Like an infection you get over once they administer the shot. And now I’ll be able to keep my house. My wife and kids.”

VAYL:“Dade, there is no shot. You have been duped.”

DADE: “Heh.”

VAYL:“Who else carries the larvae?”

DADE: “Just me. They call me the godpleaser. I’m like a saint to the gnomes.” I can almost hear him grinning. He loves the adulation. I sense that he regularly got his ass kicked in high school.

VAYL:“You have betrayed your country. You are about to cause millions of dollars of damage. You may be responsible for the deaths of thousands of human beings if—” DADE: “You think I give a shit? What’s my country ever done for me? What’s my fellow man ever done for me?”

VAYL:“Ah, so your status within your company, the house, wife, and children. Those would all have been attainable in any other country by a social misfit whose parents regularly demonstrate for the nation’s destruction?”

DADE: “How did you know about my—”

VAYL:“Answer the question.”

DADE: “Highly unlikely.”

VAYL:“And your fellow man? Are you saying you and yours have never benefited from advances in medicine such as antibiotics, cancer prevention and treatment, or even simple headache remedies? What about electricity? Clean water? Or perhaps we should discuss the woman who found your daughter wandering alone in Target and escorted her to the front, where her mother was waiting, before some monster could make off with her.”

DADE: “Are you some kind of psychic?”

VAYL:“No. I am Vampere. And I have come to kill you.”

DADE(his voice shaking now): “Y-you don’t have to do that. I won’t go into to the Space Complex tomorrow. Or ever.”

VAYL:“No, of course not. But you will die. The larvae erupting will cause you a most excruciating and bloody death. You will not be a hero, nor will your widow be rich. But you can redeem yourself today. If you do not know who else on your team has been turned, at least tell me who turned you.” DADE(sniffling): “It was the shaman.”

VAYL:“Where would a gnome shaman get such a large amount of money as you no doubt required?” DADE(sniffling harder): “I don’t know. I never even met her. After the first call it was all just Internet contacts and money wires.”

VAYL:“Her? The shaman is female?”

DADE: “Psh, yeah. Are you sure it’s going to hurt?”

VAYL:“Have you ever had a blister?”

DADE: “Yes.”

VAYL:“This is like being encased in blisters that explode from the bone outward. You will die screaming.”

DADE: “Aaaah, God.”

VAYL:“I believe your god respects his children’s choices. You made the choice, Dade. As a result your country has been forced to make another. Come with me.”

DADE(quick intake of breath as Vayl’s power lifted. I could feel it, even from outside, the icy-cold tendrils of a Wraith’s touch, freezing the traitor into lethargy even as the smooth undertone in his voice insisted on cooperation.)

Distraction, as gnomes began to emerge, not from their faked door, but from bolt-holes in the back corners of the lot. I picked them off. Two from one. Four from the other. Pause to switch clips. Bam, bam, bam. Another set of head shots that left Ufran with yet more dead to process.

Stop shooting, you foul wench! Brude screamed, striking me with such a headache I was momentarily blinded.

“Help me out, ladies,” I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut, hoping the tears that rose would clear them.

Teen Me launched herself at the chieftain, her first bitch released before she’d even screeched to a halt within millimeters of his rage-blotched face. What is your major malfunction? she demanded. All this yelling just makes you look like a big, fat bigot! Admit it! The real reason you’re half crazed is because Jaz won’t kneel down and kiss your feet!

Hogwash! She is to be my queen. How much higher can a man raise a woman?

Gimme a fucking break! You’re not going to let her make any decisions when New Hell opens its doors. She’s just supposed to keep her mouth shut and make you look good, right?

I already have a plan in place. I have no need for—

Yeah, I hear you. I also saw what you did the second she disagreed with you. Tried to hit her, didn’t you?

I may have raised my hand. Even a dog must know who is master.

You son of a bitch! Guys like you are why women across the world are afraid to go home at night!

Once I was sure she really had him hooked, I moved my full attention to the playground and let the roaring and screaming become background noise.

Nothing moved at any of the exits. But Vayl and Cole had finished. Now was the key time. I saw the bodies that had piled up at the main door pulled back into the tunnel. No one else appeared. I needed to concentrate. Not wonder why Brude wanted to save gnomes when more dead should mean more soldiers for his army. I’d have to figure that out later.

“I think Ufranites are waiting to jump you as soon as you clear the building,” I whispered.

“We are nearly ready,” said Vayl.

Somebody stepped out of the basement door. Or seemed to. I trained my scope on the guy. He wasn’t moving right. And his head tilted at a strange angle. Which was when I realized he’d been dangled from a sturdy metal coat rack by the back of his jacket.

dade Barnes rolled his head up so he could blink at the light above the door. He smiled, mouthed the word, “Pretty,” then dropped his head to stare at the round, red object that had rolled out of the wall to his left. He frowned as spikes shot from the ball’s center. One of them emitted a plume of smoke, jumping the ball a foot into the air, where it spun in increasingly blurry circles until all I could see was a fiery sphere that began to spark like a metal-packed microwave. Moments later it exploded, tearing into dade’s body so viciously that huge chunks of him simply disappeared in the aftermath.

I kept my scope trained on the door as Vayl and Cole appeared through the smoke, running so fast I knew my boss must have a hold of Cole’s wrist. They sprinted for the Jeep as I took out the first curious guard to show his head. I heard the pop of Cole’s silenced Beretta as he helped clear their path. Another couple of shots from each of us and the Jeep’s engine roared to life. Seconds later it had pulled around to the side of the building, within feet of my tree.

Cole jumped out, covering me as I shimmied down, jumping the last few feet. Moments later we’d screeched away, leaving behind us the scent of Febreze and a pile of bodies it would take the rest of the night to bury.

CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE

We parked the Jeep behind the house and took Cole’s blood samples to Bergman, who’d set up his mobile lab on the kitchen table. So much for a family-style breakfast in the morning.

In fact, I thought as I watched Bergman retrieve the vials, some of which probably held larvae, forget breakfast altogether.

The guys didn’t seem to have a problem with it though. Vayl leaned against the counter, sipping his favorite beverage from a coffee cup while Cole scoped out the contents of the fridge. “Does Cherry Coke count as fruit?” he asked me.

“Only if you’re in college.” I closed the drawer I was searching through and opened up another. Surely some food gadget inventor out there had created something that would double as a back scratcher!

Aha! Potato masher! Let’s see what Jack thinks.

I ran the rounded tines through his fur a couple of times. When his tail slapped against the floor I decided to call it a thumbs-up and tried it on myself.

Huh. Not bad. Wish it was a little more pointy, but overall—

Raoul stomped into the kitchen, pointed at Cole, and said, “You like women. Go deal with that wounded monster before I drag her into another plane and chop off her head!” Raising his eyebrows at me, Cole grabbed the Cherry Coke, a bowl of chocolate pudding, a large spoon from the wall rack mounted above the stove, and took off to see what all the fuss was about.

“It’s time I left. I have better things to do,” Raoul told me.

“Like what?”

He paused. Shook his head angrily. “All right, I don’t. But Cole gave me the location of his train set and this is the perfect time to retrieve it.”

“You should get Nia to help you set it up.” I hid a grin as he tried to laser burn me with his glare. “I’m serious! Chicks dig being included in hobby stuff.”

“That’s not what Cole said.”

“Do you want to charm her temporarily or wrap her up for good? Of all the humans in the house right now, I’m the only one who’s been engaged.” I gave a mental nod to the dull heartache that accompanied my words. Once it had been a pain so searing I would’ve had to run to the bathroom and shake until it passed. Maybe time had been kind after all.

After giving my comment some thought, Raoul said, “All right. I’ll invite her over. But I’m going to use some of Cole’s moves,” he warned me. “They’re really very good.”

“I have no doubt about that. I just don’t get how a handsome guy like you doesn’t have some of his own.”

Raoul glanced at Vayl, who’d abandoned his drink to help Bergman with a portion of his test that required three hands. Though he knew it wouldn’t make much difference where my sverhamin was concerned, Raoul lowered his voice.

“I’ve never been very comfortable around girls,” he admitted. “I think it’s the lipstick. It makes them look so… unattainable.”

“Ah. So you can talk to me because I don’t usually wear lipstick?” He shrugged. “Saving your life broke that ice.”

“Too bad you didn’t have any sisters. That would’ve…” I stopped. Raoul had gone still and white, his reaction so close to those of many of my former victims that I looked over my shoulder to see if Kyphas had miraculously recovered, slipped past our guard, and buried a knife in his side.

“My sister died when we were small,” he said.

I understood instantly. During our last mission, when I’d called Raoul out over his crappy attitude toward Vayl, his colleague, Colonel John, had let slip that my Spirit Guide’s history involved a nasty confrontation with vampires. This must be part of what he’d been hinting at.

“That must’ve been awful for you,” I said. And then, because I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, “You know how sorry I am, right? But just because you didn’t develop mad communication skills in your childhood doesn’t mean you can’t do some shaping now. Just take it slow at first. Maybe pretend Nia doesn’t wear lipstick.”

“She doesn’t.”

“No?”

“She wears gloss.”

“Oh. Shiny.”

“Like the sun on steel.”

“Okay, well, don’t look at her lips, or her eyes, which are probably just as devastating, am I right?” He nodded miserably. “Look at her nostrils.”

“What?”

“Have an entire conversation with the cilia inside her nose holes. If that doesn’t ground you, I don’t know what will.”

Raoul chuckled. “Between your advice and Cole’s, this may just work out.” I badly wanted to ask what “this” consisted of, since they only inhabited physical bodies a small percentage of the time. But I found Raoul and I hadn’t developed our relationship to the bump-ugly point yet. And, come to think of it, I hoped it never would.

Jack and I showed him to the front door. “You can keep the weapons we brought until your deal with Kyphas is done. I can’t tell you how she’ll try to turn on you, only that eventually she will.” I nodded, returning his somber look to let him know how seriously I took him. “Thanks. For everything.” He knelt, gave Jack a swift rub on the head, then leaned forward and whispered something in his ear.

After which Jack backed up a few steps, sat down, and nodded. What the hell?

Raoul smiled up at me, and for a second I saw through the body he wore to the being he’d become. His beauty made me close my eyes.

When I opened them again he said, “You did right to keep this dog.” And then he left.

Jack and I stared at each other. “What are you two hatching?” I asked him. He just licked his nose.

Then he trotted to the kitchen to hover over his empty food bowl.

“What, have you got a tapeworm? You just ate like, an hour ago!” Pathetic eyes, blinking soulfully, followed by a sloppy drink that clearly didn’t satisfy. “Okay, I’ll get you a snack,” I said. “But I don’t see how you can eat at a time like this.”

I went to my room, followed by the hungry mutt, who seemed to think I needed an escort to remind me of the importance of my current mission. Deciding Jack needed some exercise, I detoured past Kyphas’s room on my way. Raoul had moved an adult-sized chair beside her bed, on which Cole currently lounged. He’d made himself comfortable by putting his feet up beside hers.

She was laughing.

We’d all removed our party lines, but I didn’t need cutting-edge technology to overhear the convo.

“Naw, none of my brothers are nearly as charming as me,” Cole was saying with his usual utter lack of humility. “I think the only reason Trig and Pait are married is because their wives have no judgment when it comes to character. They actually think I’m a solid citizen.” Kyphas giggled. I shoved my hand in my pocket. The hilt of my knife fit smoothly into my palm.

“Jasmine?” Vayl came up from behind me, hooked my elbow, and led me to our room, waiting until Jack had followed us in before closing the door. “Why am I sensing barely restrained violence from you?” he whispered.

I jerked my head back toward the demon. “She’s a menace. We should’ve taken care of her along with the rest of them.”

“You know we chose the wiser course.”

“She’s going to try to steal souls the whole time she’s with us!”

“She is a demon. We cannot prevent that because she cannot sign a contract that contradicts her nature.”

“But—”

Vayl stepped in closer, rubbing his fingertips from my shoulders to elbows as he spoke. “Enough, my pretera. Worry about matters you can influence.”

“Like?”

“Why you began scratching like a flea-infested mongrel in the first place. After all, it did not occur at the first bite.”

I dropped my fingernails from my rash-covered arms. “Oh, I’m pretty sure I know what the problem is.” Vayl’s eyebrows inched upward. “And?”

“He wasn’t calling the shots then. Now he’s making a play for all the control centers in my brain. And the rash shows you how successful he’s been so far. I do think I know how to put him in a place where he can’t reach me anymore. But…”

When he realized how hard it was becoming for me to explain, Vayl sat on the bed. He pulled a box of treats from my trunk and gave Jack a couple to crunch on while I pulled myself together.

Finally I sank down beside him. I ran a hand down his thigh, watching my fingers trace the hard outlines of his muscles. Ignoring an itch behind my knee, I reached toward him with my other hand, sliding it across the flatness of his belly. His breath caught as I swung my leg over his, sat on his lap facing him, and took his face between my hands. “Help me,” I whispered.

He clasped his hands around my back and pulled me so close it felt like we must be melding in some way. “I am here,” he murmured into my ear.

Are you ready? I asked Teen Me.

She stood at a door so tall it seemed to touch the mountains of my mind. At least a dozen locks secured it. She looked fearfully over her shoulder, but Brude had retreated, as he always did when Vayl touched me. Her small nod allowed me to lean back, to look Vayl in the eyes.

“You’ve read my file.” His chin inched downward, the most extreme nod I’d ever seen him pull off. I looked away, feeling the locks give, remembering the terror you only get the first time death stares you in the face—and laughs. I sucked air and forced out the words. “My first kill wasn’t the vulture of that vamp nest in Atlanta.”

His hands tightened, helping my spine straighten. “No?”

“I was seventeen. Evie was sixteen. She was dating a senior named Bret Ridden. We all liked him at first. He was smart. On the Math Team. He’d built his own computer. He was seeded first on the school’s tennis team. And he had plans, you know? College. A solid career in finance. I think Evie saw all that potential stability after a lifetime of shifting roots and… she fell. Plus, he wasn’t bad looking.” Vayl rubbed my back gently enough that he didn’t even start an itch. “I take it the romance fizzled.” I began playing with the buttons of his shirt. “He turned out to be a control freak. And when Evie didn’t dress or act like he wanted, he pushed her around. Literally.” I stopped, dug my hands into Vayl’s chest as Teen Me began her work. Chills hit my soul as I heard the locks crack. Fast. Way too fast. I didn’t feel ready. But I had to be.

Vayl’s hands fell away. When I looked down, I saw they’d clenched into fists. His voice was almost a growl when he asked, “When did you first discover the abuse?” I shrugged, like the memory might slide off my shoulders, make the burden somehow easier to bear.

“She came home with a black eye. She made some lame excuse that Mom bought. Albert might have questioned her closer, but he was out of the country.” I swallowed. “Dave and I knew better. We forced her to admit that he’d hit her because she’d stopped to talk to a guy from Chemistry class about the lab experiment they had to do that afternoon. Bret said she was flirting. And, hell, maybe she was. But, knowing Evie, probably not. Anyway, he got irate, they argued, and he punched her.”

“But she stayed with him.” Vayl sounded tired. How many versions of this story had he heard during the long course of his life? I stared into his eyes, wondering what lay behind those troubled indigo depths.

“Yeah. We begged her to dump him. But she said he’d cried afterward and promised never to hurt her again.”

“They always do.”

“It did take him a while.” I went on. “Maybe two months later she came into our room after a date.” I dropped my forehead onto Vayl’s shoulder. “She looked like hell,” I murmured. “They’d had another fight. She’d ordered something at the restaurant that she hadn’t ended up liking, so she didn’t eat much.

And he was pissed that she was wasting his hard-earned money by leaving a full plate. Then he was mad because she’d insisted on paying for her share. In the parking lot he brought up the Chem lab guy again and as soon as they got into his car he started hitting her. She cracked her head against the window before she could finally get out. A couple of her friends were in the same restaurant, so she ran in and got them to bring her home.”

“Did she break it off then?” The snap was back in his voice. Angry at him for dishing it out. At her for taking it. I’d felt exactly the same.

“Yeah. That was when the death threats started. We got the cops involved, but the state we were living in had crappy harassment laws at the time. And Evie was so scared. He’d stare at her from the other end of the hallway at school, and when nobody was looking he’d slide his hand across his throat. He left a dead squirrel in her gym locker. It just went on and on, until she was half crazy from fear.”

“What did your mother do?”

“She didn’t want to take any of it seriously, but Granny May kept nagging her, so she finally decided to move us in with Gran until Dad got transferred again. We tried to keep it quiet, but news gets around.

And Bret found out. The Friday before we were supposed to move, Stella had to work. She left Dave, Evie, and I at home to finish up with the packing. Then Dave got a call. One of his buddies had been in a bad car wreck and they were all gathering at the hospital to support him. So he left.”

“Was his friend really hurt?” As if he knew. I stared into those old eyes, saw the rage, and knew it wasn’t just for Evie.

“No. But by the time he figured it out, Bret had already broken into the house. I’d gone into Stella’s bedroom for more boxes when I heard a weird sound from our room. A thump, like somebody had fallen. I don’t know why I didn’t yell at Evie about it. Maybe just the fact that we’d been so freaked for so long. Or maybe because she’d suddenly stopped singing along with Christina Aguilera.” She still went white whenever “Genie in a Bottle” came on the radio.

His hands had moved back to my hips. They pushed at me, like he wanted to stop the replay, because he knew how much it hurt. But he also knew it had to be done. So he asked, “What did you do?”

“I put the boxes down. Looked around Stella’s room for a weapon. Which was when I saw Albert’s gun cabinet. I grabbed the key from where he kept it in his desk drawer and pulled out his Winchester.” I paused, licked my lips. “I was scared shitless, Vayl. My heart was pumping so fast I was afraid I’d pass out before I found out I’d just been imagining things. My hands shook as I loaded the rifle from the box he also kept in the cabinet. I was terrified the sounds I made echoed through the house like a bell. I was afraid my imaginary intruder was real, and that he’d walk in before I was ready. Mostly I feared I was too late. That Evie was lying in our room, bleeding to death while I tried to remember everything Albert had taught me about shooting.”

I began to shake and Vayl pulled me close. I breathed in his scent, trying to calm myself as Teen Me yanked the doors wide open with a shrill screech that made my head ache.

As Brude’s attention riveted on a vulnerability he might be able to exploit, Vayl said, “Stop. You should not—”

“No. I have to finish.” I licked my lips, unable to prevent myself from falling back into that time, looking out at the familiar scene through the fear-glazed eyes of the teenager who’d joined the crew inside my head.

I crept through the living room, listening so hard I was surprised I didn’t hear the neighbor’s TV

blaring. A choking sound. An angry whisper, way too low to come from a girl’s throat. As soon as I knew Evie was alive and in trouble, I stopped feeling altogether. I brought the rifle up to my shoulder. Moved to the edge of the door. He’d left it open. Maybe he figured to find both of us in there. I heard another thump.

“Where is she?” he hissed. Evie whimpered, a sound that cut into my heart like a surgeon’s scalpel. The sounds put them in the corner diagonal to the door. In my mind I saw them standing next to the closet under the poster of Ricky Martin that Evie blew a kiss to on the mornings she was in a really good mood.

Next to them would be a waist-high bookcase Granny May had given us that had been packed with Evie’s books before she’d boxed them. Then her bed. It still had a canopy, which might block my shot if I got my angles wrong. My bed stood across the room, directly opposite the door. We kept our stereo and speakers on a narrow table along the wall next to it. The floor was cluttered with book bags, piles of clothes, and Evie’s purse collection.

I stopped. If the lead-up had been hard, this would be excruciating. But Brude had taken the bait. I could sense him looming, making Teen Me clutch at the door handles like a big wind might come and blow her away if she didn’t hold on tight enough.

“Finish it,” Vayl said, gripping me like he thought I might fall.

I cleared my throat.

I stepped into the room. It only took a second to work out what had happened. He’d caught her while she was unloading the closet for the next round of packing. Shoved her face-first into the wall so hard some of the paint had flaked onto the floor. Used the butcher knife in his hand to shred the back of her shirt, leaving a couple of bloody lines where he’d gotten too eager.

He stood with his back to me, but his face was turned to snarl into hers so he caught my move peripherally. And I knew. I had to act before he could think. Before either of us could, really. I fell into drill-sergeant mode instinctively. Because it had always gotten immediate compliance for my dad.

I screamed at my sister first, “Evie! Nuts!”

Her heel flew up, striking Bret in the groin. Not a solid shot, but still hard enough to make him grab at himself with the hand that had been pinning her.

“Duck!” I bellowed, using the tone Albert saved for only those dire moments when he thought we were about to pull some ultimately stupid stunt like running into traffic or jumping off a bridge.

She dropped, screaming as she went because Bret had caught her by the hair.

“You fucking bitches!” he rasped. “I’ll slice you both into tiny little piec—” His knife hand punched toward Evie’s back. But I took the half second I needed to aim. And when I fired, all I felt was the kick of the gun butt against my shoulder. I watched blankly as Bret’s skull shattered and parts of his brain sprayed across the closet door and the floor, Evie’s clothes, and Evie herself.

Without looking at him, she scrambled away, screaming so loud my ears started to pound. I pointed the rifle to the floor so I wouldn’t accidentally shoot my sister, just like Albert had taught me to do.

And that was when I started to cry. I’d made somebody stop breathing. Forever. Even after the police came, after the newspaper stories and the inquest, where people I’d never seen or met before cleared me, I cried myself to sleep. Not because I was a killer. But because something so horrible and final, something only God should have charge of, had felt so right. I had come face-to-face with my inner monster. And she fit me like a second skin.

“And now?” Vayl asked, running his hands up to my shoulder blades. “Have your feelings changed?” I looked at the window, like the world on the other side of the faded brown curtains might be different if I could give him the answer I wanted to.

“Some,” I said. “I know in my head that what I do is vital to my country. And I’ve saved the lives of thousands, if not millions, of people who run to the grocery and Wal-Mart and football practice, blissfully unaware that I’ve just offed the scumbag who wanted to turn their kids into nuclear waste. But…”

“Yes?”

I winced. Made myself meet his gaze. “I know something is broken in me. Not so bad that I can’t see what side I should be fighting on. Or where I need to draw the line. But enough that I’ll never be right. I’ll never”—I drew in a breath—“be normal.”

The doors in my head swung wide. Brude swept in, howling with glee. All he saw were the walls, covered in scars, some of them so new the blood was still drying on the floor beneath them. All he felt was the dull, unrelenting ache of hopelessness beating out a rhythm that sounded horribly close to the words, “Loser, loser, loser,” repeated with the conviction of an eyewitness.

I grabbed Vayl’s shoulders, dug my fingers in, and willed the tears away. Now. I gave him my fiercest look. Help me, Vayl.

For a moment he didn’t move. A spike of terror drove itself into the back of my neck. You said I could trust you! Don’t let me down, dammit!

Then he yanked me against his chest and in one swift move, rolled me onto my back. His lips met mine with a force that blew the doors closed on Brude. Every touch, every stroke, the winding of our tongues and bodies set another lock into place.

Between caresses he said, “Someone as remarkable as you should never reach for normal. I know the word appeals to you, but the existence would bore you into committing real mischief. If you change, I swear to lock you in my castle until you return to your usual strange ways.” He has a castle! shouted Teen Me, who immediately discovered a huge wooden bar that she slid into place just at the point where Brude’s relentless door pounding wouldn’t even bother me in my sleep.

I sighed. Relieved. Strung-out. And increasingly excited by Vayl’s wandering hands and lips. Which was when my stomach began to itch. I tried to scratch, but he pulled my hand away, raised the hem of my shirt so he could see the double-heart belly ring he’d given me surrounded by blotchy redness.

“I was right. It is improving,” he said. “But not enough for me to put you into further misery.”

“But I want to be miserable!” I protested as he rolled off me and propped himself up on an elbow. I sat up. “Wait. That didn’t sound right.”

“Jasmine, you are rubbing your leg against the side of my boot. And I am certain at least half of the writhing you were doing was to set your back against the comforter just to relieve the itching there.”

“Ah. Uh.”

He reached over and kissed me on the forehead. “When you have recovered, I promise to make up for every moment we have missed. And then some.”

I smiled. How lovely to have snagged a dude who kept his promises. Once I would’ve said there wasn’t more than one in the world. Now I knew there were at least two. And I had fallen for both of them.

CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR

Iwanted to spend more time celebrating. Let Vayl know what he’d really done for me in this tiny bedroom whose bare white walls seemed to sparkle with silver-pink now that I knew Brude was trapped. But maybe I should wait. Yeah. Make extra sure I had control back before I started the festivities.

So I let Vayl return to the living room to check on Ruvin without saying a word about our success. And then, the moment I stepped into the hall, it dropped to the bottom of my priority list. Because, despite Vayl’s reassurances that Cole knew how to take care of himself, when I heard his chuckle thread around Kyphas’s laughter, I lost it. Just a little.

I called for Astral. “Snoop time,” I whispered to her as I knelt between the doors to my bedroom and the bathroom. “I want you to spy on Cole and Kyphas. But don’t you dare start singing. In fact, don’t talk at all. Don’t even record any audio.” There, that should cover all the bases. Besides, it seemed a little too invasive. “And above all, don’t get caught!”

Astral slipped into Kyphas’s room and began streaming video, mostly of Cole sitting by her bed, talking, sharing spoonfuls of pudding, smiling with his usual übercharm. He looked so comfortable! Didn’t he know demons had no net of values to prevent them from stealing the souls of great guys like him? When he helped her turn over, because her back had already healed that much, I nearly growled.

That’s it. The next time Raoul threatens to behead her, I’m handing him an axe.

I joined Vayl and Ruvin in the living room, but the waiting around we were forced to do didn’t improve my mood. We discovered that late-night television in Australia consists of crappy old movies or infomercials that none of us wanted to veg out to. With nothing to distract us, we took turns throwing a tennis ball down the hallway so Jack could race after it. How he managed not to smash into the wall I never could decide, but he always retrieved it without causing any damage.

In the kitchen, Bergman had finished centrifuging the blood. But the next part of the test would still take a while and Ruvin had started checking his watch.

“Are you sure this plan will work?” he asked Vayl for the third time. “The Odeam team did say they wanted me to pick them up at two a.m. That only gives you fifteen minutes to identify the rest of the infested.”

“It will be fine,” he said with a confidence I would’ve had to fake.

“Why are they leaving so early?” I asked.

He shrugged. “When they first called to book a ride from the airport, dade explained that they were just supposed to stop over at the guesthouse for a nap, to sort of rejuve after the flight. And then he wanted me to drive them to the Complex early, he said so they wouldn’t be tying up everyone’s computers during the busiest time of the workday.”

“Makes sense,” I told Vayl. “But that means if Bergman doesn’t get the tests done on time—”

“We will not know who is infected and who is clean.”

“Maybe they’ll find the body and call the cops. That’ll delay this whole deal by at least a day.”

“We both know the gnomes have probably cleaned up that entire mess by now.”

“But we can’t let them get into the Space Complex.”

We both turned toward the kitchen and said, “Hurry up, Bergman!”

“You can’t rush these things!” he called back. “That’s how you get false positives. And vice versa!” Which was why two a.m. found Vayl, Jack, Astral, and I in the Wheezer, following Ruvin and his clients in the Jeep, none of us any wiser as to who in the team, if any of them, had drunk the larvae-laced lemonade.

Since we’d decided to leave Cole back at the house to nurse/babysit (guard) Kyphas, we’d given Ruvin his party line doodads. He tried to do the chatty, but nobody’s ever up for light conversation at two in the morning. Especially not two software engineers, a marketing manager, and the mistress of a missing vice president. And, well, Ruvin wasn’t all that gifted anyway. So only once did they have anything to say.

And that was when they got into the Jeep.

“G’day, mates! Do we have a sleepyhead, then? I only count five of you and I’m sure I brought six from the airport.”

“Our team leader left a note saying he had a family emergency,” one of them replied shortly. “I’m surprised you’re not the one who drove him to the airport.”

“Oh, no, Mr. uh…”

“Johnson.”

“No sir, Mr. Johnson, that wasn’t me. I’m so sorry to hear… well, if there’s anything I can do…”

“Just get us to work before Tykes starts whining about his arm again.”

“It hurts!” came another voice, higher than the first and laced with pain. “I have a mark. Did one of you punch me when you were trying to wake me up?”

Chorus of denials, although I thought I heard a third voice, which must’ve belonged to the marketing guy, Pit, mutter, “I’d like to take a swing at you.”

Then Tykes said, “Look, Bindy’s asleep already. It’s a miracle that bimbo got dressed as out of it as she was before. Does she take sleeping pills?”

“Dunno,” said Johnson. “But she’s gotta be on something, because she wasn’t even upset when she heard dade took off.” Geez, had Cole given her a double dose of knock-out nose stuffing? I waited for more info, but that was the last any of them said.

I fell far enough back that they couldn’t have seen my headlights even on the straight sections of roadway. Sometime in the next five minutes the nail we’d driven into Ruvin’s back tire would release enough air to flatten it. Hopefully by then Bergman would have the results. Otherwise we’d have to move on to plan B. Which involved holding everyone at gunpoint until we knew for sure who to plug.

Vayl’s phone rang. Bergman, you are such a great—

“Hello, Martha,” Vayl said.

“Why is our secretary calling you?” I whispered. “It’s the Oversight Committee, isn’t it? They’ve found some sort of loophole and they’re—”

Vayl made a swift, cutting gesture with his hand. One he’d never used on me before. When his fingers clenched into a fist I knew the news was bad.

“When?” he asked.

While he waited, I tried not to dredge up all the possible nuggets o’ nasty she might be feeding him.

Problem was, in our business, that was all we ever dealt with. So nightmare visions kept slapping the backs of my eyeballs. Floraidh Halsey wasn’t as decrepit as we’d thought when we’d left Inverness.

She’d recruited a new coven and declared war on the CIA. Or worse, another zombie king had risen in Tehran, one too powerful even for our friend Asha Vasta to combat. Or—

“All right. Yes, I understand.” Vayl closed the phone. “Pull over.” I didn’t protest. He knew the risk we were taking with such a delay. Which meant I really didn’t want to be driving when he dropped the bomb. I eased the Wheezer onto the narrow shoulder, even remembering to activate the hazard lights before turning to face him. “What is it?”

“Pete is dead.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE

Isat so still, staring out onto the hood where I’d last seen Pete’s image that I could’ve been a corpse.

Like Pete was now. Lying somewhere, inanimate. Nothing left to lift his hand, brush it across those two proud hairs on his head. No spark to light his eyes when he talked about his wife and kid.

Who’s going to bitch at me when I throw a dent into the fender now? I’ll be totally out of control!

I’ll be like a one-woman Demolition Derby!

Vayl said, “Jasmine. Are you listening?”

“Um.”

“He was murdered in his office. Slashed across the throat with something duller than a knife. Theories abound, but Martha believes it was a claw. His computer was stolen. His files ransacked. Whoever did it now has access to every field agent’s identity and current location. Everyone is being called in. Officially, the department will be shut down until a full investigation can be completed.” His voice went arid.

“Which, according to Oversight Committee estimates, will take at least six months.”

“I just reorganized all those files. Remember? While my collarbone was healing. God, was Pete pissed.”

“Jasmine?”

The concern in Vayl’s voice woke me up just enough to show me what to do. “Everyone I care about dies. You see that, right? Matt and Jessie, my crew. Granny May and Gramps Lew. I don’t know if my mom counts, but Pete does. You have to go.”

“What?”

I shot out my door, ran around to his side, and yanked his open, ignoring Jack’s attempt to poke his head outside. “If you stay with me, you’re going to go poof. Like a big cloud of steam coming out of a locomotive, and all that’ll be left is your cane, and bits of really expensive cloth, and some ash, which I’ll have to scoop up and put in some kind of container that I’ll be able to carry around with me the rest of my life. Not an urn, because the lids pop off at the worst possible moments. Maybe a Rubbermaid container. Tell me you don’t want that! Tell me you don’t want to ride around in a plastic box like a piece of leftover turkey!”

I said the last part into the lapel of Vayl’s jacket, because he’d come out of the Wheezer sometime during my rant and toward the end had pulled me into a bone-squeaking hug. “And I was afraid you would not react at all,” he said softly. “But perhaps you could agree this is somewhat extreme?”

“How?”

“I am Vampere. People have been trying to murder me for centuries. And you see how successful they have been?”

“Even an idiot can get lucky,” I muttered.

“Which is why I have you. Now, do you truly want to abandon the subject of our conversation?” I said, “I can’t talk about h-him right now. After?”

He inclined his head. “Then let this be of some consolation. Before Martha disconnected she gave me a code phrase.”

“Yeah?”

“She said, Owls are not the only night-hunters .”

“But… that means…”

He shrugged. “Martha must never have been a secretary, because now she is the acting head of our department. Also in code, she directed me to complete our mission and to report back only to her.” I shook my head. “It’s too much.”

“So let us save Ruvin’s life and, in so doing, rescue NASA from these zealots, as Pete requested in the first place.”

Is this what Cassandra meant? Have we failed already and Pete is the first of many to die as a result?

Pete! You dumb son of a bitch! Why did you let them do it?

He assumed he was safe, Granny May said sadly.

I hunched my shoulders. Why don’t they ever know better?

CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX

The Wheezer was damn near choking by the time we caught up to Ruvin’s Jeep. Since the party line’s reach maxed out at around two miles, we hadn’t heard the conversation when the tire went flat. But there the vehicle stood, parked by the side of the road just as we’d planned.

“Where’s the jack?” While my dog panted in my ear to let me know he hadn’t gone far I added, “And the spare? Ruvin should’ve been faking some repairs while he waited for us.”

“In fact, where is Ruvin?” Vayl asked as we pulled in behind the Jeep. The tinted back windows revealed nothing of what might be going on inside. “Do you feel anything?” he asked.

We could both pick up on extreme human emotions, but when I shook my head I could tell he agreed.

Either everybody inside was grooving to some great new jazz tune, or it was empty.

I drew Grief anyway. “Jack, stay. And don’t scare the robokitty. Astral, you stay too. We may need you later. With your head attached.”

“Okey dokey, pokey!” she said. Vayl raised his eyebrows at me as I shrugged. Personality change was one thing, but this cheerful bullshit was wearing thin quick. Deciding it would be okay if Jack gave Astral another nasty surprise, I approached the Jeep’s driver side, keeping step with Vayl, who’d taken the opposite.

“Ready?” he asked softly.

I reached forward. Wrapped my hand around the back door handle. Raised my gun and nodded once.

“Now.”

We jerked the doors open, Vayl’s sweep of frigid powers preceding my shout of, “Don’t move!” I jumped back as a body flopped out the door, torso first, its hips and legs remaining inside. It was dade’s mistress. Or what was left of her. “Shit!”

I moved back into position, training Grief on every possible point of attack. All I saw was a second body, slumped over the feet of the first, still bleeding onto Ruvin’s upholstery. They were both full of bullet wounds and missing their heads, so we couldn’t tell who the second body belonged to until Vayl slipped off its wedding ring. Lyssa & Max forever had been engraved on the inside.

“I believe that is the marketing executive,” he said.

“Which means Ruvin and the software engineers are missing.” We did a quick perimeter check. No more bodies. No sign of a struggle.

“Why?” I murmured. “You just change the tire and keep moving. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Do you suppose Ruvin told them about us?”

“Possibly.” It didn’t feel right though. “Maybe… I don’t know, maybe Brude had something to do with this. He’s got resources other than me. And the shaman might be able to reach into the beyond. Maybe they connected somehow. Maybe he let the information slip before I got a handle on him.” Vayl sent me a piercing look. “Are you saying you have control now?” I hesitated. Aw, what the hell. I hadn’t heard a peep from him, and my whole crew of mental misfits had returned. “Yeah. As much as I can with him stuck in my brain. I know my thoughts are my own. He can’t move me. And he can’t snoop into my conversations anymore.” Vayl stepped toward me. For a second I thought he looked taller. Then I realized the relief had been so immense that I’d actually seen it release him. He grasped my shoulders, stared deep into my eyes, like he needed more assurance.

“Yes,” he murmured. “Finally. I knew you could do it.”

“We did it. Together.”

Realization widened his eyes. “Ahh. I only wish…” He rubbed his thumb across my bottom lip, leaving a trail of tingles that multiplied so rapidly I had to grab his elbows to hold myself steady. He went on. “But we have just begun this night’s work.”

Dammit! We need another vacation! To Mars!

“True,” I said, sighing. Vayl’s phone rang again and we stared at it with dread. But this time the source was expected. Vayl spoke into it for a total of ten seconds and then hung up.

“That was just Bergman confirming what we already suspected. The software engineers, Johnson and Tykes, are both carrying gnome larvae for the Ufranites.”

“Okay. So our targets are clear.”

“And now I can clarify our other plans as well. You see, the flat tire idea was never real. We only developed it because we were sure Brude would find a way to leak it.” Vayl’s voice had loosened in his relief, become fuller as if every revelation released a strangler from his throat.

“Oh. So. Where are they?”

“They are on foot, just as we wished it.” He paused. Grimaced so deeply the sides of his lips actually turned down. “We should have been here sooner to chase them into the ambush we had set up, but the news about Pete…” He paused. We both drew a breath before he went on. “Ruvin’s chatter leads us to believe we should still be able to turn events to our advantage.”

“What ambush are you talking about? And how are you hearing Ruvin but I’m not?” Vayl chose to answer the second question. “Ruvin is carrying a bug, so we can listen in on his conversation.”

“On another frequency,” I said bitterly.

Vayl said, “Tap your earpiece three times.”

I followed his instructions, realizing I was aping the move Cole had made when we’d arrived back at the house after the failed kangaroo petting mission, when he’d been so eager to talk to Cassandra. Suddenly I could hear Ruvin, panting, saying, “Are you sure I can’t talk you out of this? Aw!” And the sound of his feet scrabbling to keep himself upright after an obvious shove.

Vayl said, “You must understand, our misdirections have only been because of Brude. Because we could not work out how to fool him without excluding you as well. And…”

“What?”

“You are not going to like this.”

“So say it fast.”

“Come, let us walk while we talk.” We started up the hill to the west of the car. In a low voice so as not to spook those we pursued Vayl said, “We have proof that the Ufranites are not acting alone. They are, in fact, being funded by a group who wants to keep the moon free from human interference. At first it bewildered us how such vastly different others could meet. But Cassandra’s investigations have yielded a trove of information.”

“I like that,” said Cassandra. “It makes me sound like the kind of pirate who would never hurt anyone.” I stuck my finger in my ear. “Cassandra! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“But you didn’t just hunker down like I told you to.”

“How could I? When you handed me the drawing from the dead guard, I Saw that some of the gnomes were disgusted with the shaman and I knew that could be our route to discrediting him. After Cole translated ‘ ylmi’ to mean ‘tainted’ I realized the gnomes with the crowns were actually Ufranites with stars on their heads. Pure gnomish. And the sign of the Resistance is the star tattoo, just like the one we saw on the guard. So I began searching for others like him. I had so many visions I began to feel like I was walking in a dream. But I found them. They’re only a handful, but they recently discovered the truth.

That the shaman is a female, born without a tail or a blue nose.”

“Do you know who she is?”

“Not yet. They’re taking me to her quarters now. As soon as I touch her belongings, I’ll know.”

“What about this partnership?”

“That was what I’d sensed earlier with Ethan Mreck’s death. Werewolves. The Ufranites are working with the Valencian Weres, who will come out of this deal wielding vast powers among all moon-changers if they can prevent humans from further exploring, or worse, settling on their most sacred site.”

“I don’t get where Brude fits in though. Or how the Ufranites and the Weres partnered up to start with.”

“I think he might be the middleman. The guards say the shaman took a pilgrimage that catalyzed her rise to power, because that’s where she heard the voice of Ufran. Guess where she went?”

“Dunno.”

“Scotland. Just south of Inverness, to be exact.”

“No way.”

I could almost hear Cassandra’s head bobbing. “According to the shaman, Ufran wears his hair in long black braids. And his chest is covered with tattoos.”

“Oh. Shit.”

* * *

Vayl and I didn’t have time to hash everything out. But he’d probably already reached the conclusions I was rapidly catching up to. If Brude had cooked up this deal years ago, then his infiltration of my psyche had a lot more to do with my current mission than my future afterlife. The bastard must’ve been shaping this scheme for ages. He’d just been waiting for the perfect patsy to ride to the finish line. And boy was I ever ideal. I wanted to put my hands to my head and shake it till his teeth rattled.

No! yelled Teen Me. What if that breaks the locks?

Fine, I won’t. But if he ever makes it to solid again, I’m carving another tattoo on that jerkoff.

And it’s going hilt deep.

Ruvin’s voice interrupted my internal bitchfest. “Here’s the trail I told you about.” He was panting.

Fearful. On the edge of tears. He must’ve thought our no-show meant we’d deserted him.

He said, “Watch your step; it’s curvy. But it’ll lead us to that rock shelter I told you about. The Ufranites and the aborigines both worship there.” Information he wanted us to have, not the Odeam team. But they didn’t know that.

The voice I’d come to know as “Johnson” said, “That’s common knowledge, dumbass, otherwise we wouldn’t be following you.”

A grunt from Ruvin. I wished they wouldn’t keep pushing him. It was already getting tough to control my temper. And the last thing this country needed was another bushfire.

Vayl and I followed their trail, a series of signposts ranging from crushed grass to white scars where the bark had been brushed off the remains of fire-blackened pines.

“Explain this,” I whispered, mostly to calm myself down. “How is it better for them to walk than to drive on a spare? And you still haven’t answered my ambush question. Is Cole up there? Or have you called in even more reinforcements?” The thought chilled me. My people I could trust not to blab about my current condition. Strangers—never.

“No, we have not requested extra help. Yes, Cole is in position higher up the hill. Ruvin and the Odeam team are walking because the Jeep’s spare is back at the rental house.”

“Okay. But why not stay on the road?”

“Ruvin produced a map that he told them the original carrier had given him in case of emergency. It proves that the Ufranites have a tunnel leading directly from the rock shelter to the Space Complex, so they will still be able to get inside and hatch the larvae without interference. By the way, remind me to praise Bergman for his quick work in drawing that up. It looks remarkably authentic.” As I made the ascent, moving carefully past rocks that would gleefully snap an ankle if I stepped wrong, I said, “This should be a pretty quick hit, then. As long as we haven’t been followed.” Which was when I heard it. A scrabbling among the rocks. Not claws, like you might expect to hear from a foraging wombat or opossum. No, that was definitely the click of a heel.

“Call Astral,” whispered Vayl.

“Why? She’s stuck in the Wheezer.”

“No, she is not.”

He must’ve left its door cracked. Which means Jack’s loose too. Shit! Okay, worry later. I whispered, “Here, kitty. Make it fast, and give me video on your way to my location.” Astral’s view appeared in front of me. She’d leaped out of the car and come racing up the hill. I couldn’t tell where Jack’s curious nose had taken him, but I did see her pass a series of armed Ufranites. They were moving slowly, creeping along so the night noises, mostly crickets and the occasional hooting owl, covered their advance.

“I count ten gnomes at our backs,” I whispered. I drew Grief as I looked ahead. Could they be trying to herd us into another crowd waiting up the tree-dotted hill? Probably not if Cole was already there. Which meant they just wanted us to move too far from the road to consider escaping by car.

Vayl paused, checking the trail, considering our options. He tapped his ear. “Are you both in position?” he asked.

When Vayl nodded at a conversation I couldn’t hear, I said, “You didn’t tell me about a second sniper up here. Which means you’re still hiding stuff from me. And while I understand why, I’m about to risk my life without knowing the whole picture. Which is pissing me off.”

“Will you ever fully trust me?”

“I have no idea. I’m trying, but people close to me have been jerking me around my whole life. It’s hard to put your next breath in another person’s hands after that.”

“But I am not another person,” he said. “I am your sverhamin. ” The first of the gnomes had almost reached Grief’s range. Which meant I’d be a clear target for his weapon as well. I sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

“Kiss me.”

My supervisor had just been killed. My dog was missing. A radical fringe group of gnomes had partnered with a bunch of Weres to destroy one of my country’s most precious resources. And suddenly that was all I wanted to do. I rose on tiptoe, felt him lean down and wrap his arms around me. Our lips met, a mix of despair and promise in their tender touch. What an odd time to feel home.

Vayl moved his caress down to my neck. “You must survive this,” he murmured against my throat.

“Promise me you will live on.” Like I was crushed inside, where even surgeons couldn’t reach.

“I promise,” I said. Because we both needed me to, though I didn’t understand the source of his request until he kissed me again, and I felt his fangs pierce my bottom lip.

Cold shot through me, an icicle rocket threatening to rip off the top of my head. I screamed into his mouth as frost rimmed my teeth and tongue. The skin on my face and hands tightened painfully. My entire body felt like it had been buried in a snow bank. I jerked away, too cold even to shiver. I stared down at my arms. They were covered in ice.

“What have you done to me?” I demanded. It took a while to get the words out. My mouth didn’t want to work anymore.

He stared intently, his expression an odd mixture of triumph and dread. “I have lent you this, my greatest power, because I could not warn you that Cassandra had Seen this attack, embroiled as it had been in all her other visions of the shaman, the Weres, and Brude. If you had donned a bulletproof vest for this leg of our mission, we assumed Brude would have soon become suspicious and warned the shaman. So I have armored you.” He stopped, swallowed. “Are you all right?” I tried to shake my head. But it didn’t want to turn. So cold, right to my core, as if he’d pumped liquid nitrogen directly into my bloodstream. I could feel everything falling, failing. I wanted to shriek, but my mouth had frozen shut.

“Jasmine?” Cassandra could’ve been a mile beneath my feet, crouching behind an Ufranite sun generator, but her voice sounded close and urgent as she said, “Listen to me. Vayl only attempted this because of my vision. You can survive, but you must summon up that rage, the one that burns so hot in you that it catches your surroundings on fire when you release it.” I can’t! It’ll ash part of my soul!

Though it wasn’t one of her skills, it seemed like she could read my mind when she added, “The ice will keep it contained, Jaz. I Saw this. Call out your fury. Let it warm you.” I reached for the anger that always seemed to simmer right beneath my civilized surface. And found it, churning like liquid iron around a massive anvil engraved with the names of everyone I’d ever lost. The newest, pete, shone like silver next to the others, which had aged to dull pewter.

Suddenly all the voices in my head, the ones who’d stayed and those that had just returned, screamed, Pete’s dead! Matt’s dead! Jessie’s dead! They’re never coming back, and I’m possessed, and my mother’s hell-self tried to kill me less than two weeks ago and everybody I know has been Lying To Me! FUUUUUUCK!

I opened my eyes, not even realizing I’d closed them until I saw Vayl’s face hovering over mine, eyes wide, jaw tight with suppressed panic. I blinked. Nodded. I’m okay. The ice still encased me, but now it felt less like a freezer pop body bag and more like mega-stiff coveralls.

“They are coming,” he said. “We must lead them up this hill to the path.”

“Why?”

“Cole and Kyphas are waiting among the trees, perhaps fifty yards up.”

“Kyphas? So that whole sickbed thing…”

Vayl’s lips tightened. “It was largely an act to mislead Brude. I made a separate deal with her, when you—and he—could not hear. She has agreed to fight with us.”

“Because it’s in her best interests to!”

“She has also vowed to do no violence to any within our Trust.”

“Trust. That word bites on so many levels,” I muttered as we struggled up the slope, both of us now armored in such thick coatings of ice that when the first shots hit us we barely noticed them. In fact, some of them actually sounded pleasant, like Jack barking, that’s how wishful my thinking had become.

“Faster,” Vayl urged.

I grunted to let him know I was moving as quick as my creaking outer skin would allow. But when I felt the impact of a gnome slug slam into my back, I paused. Did a slow-motion spin. Raised Grief and commanded my finger to pull the trigger. The extra three seconds it took helped my aim. The guard crumpled, a hole in the socket where his eye had once been.

I glanced at my gun and felt glad I’d been holding it when Vayl had covered me. Because its grip had frozen to my palm, and if I hadn’t had my finger inside the trigger guard when the icing had gone down, I’d be cruising the woods for a club right now.

I backed up, took out another pursuer who was so sure of his future success that he’d stepped out from behind a grass tree to shoot. His buddy, sitting in the lower branches of the tree next door, dropped to the ground to check on him. I took him out, as well as another guard who was moving toward us from the same small hide.

“Come, Jasmine, run!”

Turning back, I forced my legs into a slow lope, my inner fire warming my muscles as the adrenaline boosts from all the shards flying off my body boosted me to even greater speed. Vayl led me straight uphill to a spot where a gravel path crossed ours. We turned sharply right to follow it. The trail would’ve been a cinch in any other conditions. Rising gently upward toward the skirts of Mount Eliza, its width allowed us to jog shoulder to shoulder. In places planked bridges gave us easy access to the opposite sides of shallow gullies. To our right, the trees grew closer together, giving us better cover than we’d had since beginning the chase. To our left large rocks had begun to take the place of trees, jutting from the side of the hill like giant, fleshy mushrooms.

“Do you see the bend in the path ahead of us?” Vayl asked.

“Yeah.”

“That is our goal.”

I’d turned to shoot again when I heard the sound of gunfire coming from behind us. We’d passed Cole.

I’d seen the flash from his muzzle. Heard the death-scream of a pursuer. Swift movement from Astral’s feed caught my eye. Kyphas, flinging her boomerang, laughed with delight as she watched it crush the throat of a careless Ufranite before it flipped back into her hand.

I may now owe my life to a demon. This sucks!

I pushed forward, making the bend just in time to dodge a shot that cracked into the rock behind my left shoulder. I’d escaped a bad blow. Plus the shadow trotting at my feet assured me Astral had come through the firefight unharmed. But I had no time to celebrate. Something punched me in the chest, taking me to my butt. I looked down. The ice had shattered, leaving a hole the size of a pool ball.

Astral sat beside me, her head cocked. “Hello!” she said.

I said, “Shit! They’re ahead of us, Vayl!”

We rolled into the brush, taking shelter behind a pile of nearly leafless branches. Vayl slammed his hand against the trunk of a nearby tree. The ice encasing it shattered, giving him the flexibility he needed to access his sword.

Astral leaped onto my lap, lost her grip, and skidded down my legs like a ski jumper. She hopped clear when she reached my ankles, sat at my feet and stared at me reproachfully.

“See what you get for behaving like a cat?” I told her. “R2-D2 never would’ve pulled such an embarrassing stunt.”

She turned her back to me, licking little frozen shards off one pitch-black paw. Every time she opened her mouth I could hear Foreigner singing, “You’re as cold as ice.”

“Smartass,” I muttered. I squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them again, I saw what hadn’t been clear before. Movement under a bridge that lay the length of a football field ahead of us. Which put us within range of their weapons. But we’d have to get a damn sight closer before we could strike with ours.

They were a group of chasers who’d circled around and set themselves up under the bridge’s wood-planked shelter. The path continued beyond them, and I studied it with a sense of urgency so deep it made me twitch. We had to get past these goons fast, before Ruvin became infant formula. But how?

Trees continued beyond their position along our side of the hill, so we could approach from that direction. But we wouldn’t have them pinned. Because it looked like a gap in the rocks by the bridge led to another trail.

“What do you think?” I whispered. “Charge them?”

“How many do you count?” Vayl asked.

“Astral, go get me video of those gnomes.”

Though she stalked off like I’d told her cats would never be superior to dogs, her pictures came back quick and clear.

I took inventory. “Eight.”

“All right, then. How is your armor holding up?”

Covering the hole, I said, “Terrific.”

With the exception of letting the Ufranites ahead of us slip their net, Cole and Kyphas were dealing with the ones behind pretty well. But they could only hold them off for so long. Cole would be running low on ammo soon. And Kyphas, despite her heritage, was still only one versus an organized unit. We needed to move this group of troll wannabes out of our way.

Then I heard it again. Barking. Definitely my canine pal, whose Chewbacca-like vocalizations currently let us all know he’d discovered the best game ever.

I could die any second and my mutt is playing. This is so typical. Maybe when I finally croak I should just have my coffin painted like a checkerboard and install a keg in the funeral home’s foyer. That way all my “friends” can party at the visitation.

What I couldn’t place was the second sound joining Jack’s ruffs. Hard to describe. Like a dense thumping, as if the earth was a drum and hands the size of houses were playing it. I could feel the beating, thrumming up through my legs. And then branches started to snap. Bushes rattled. Grass trees whooshed. Here and there a gnome screamed independent of Cole’s gunshots.

Kyphas yelled, “Watch out! They’re everywhere!”

Cole nearly deafened me with his shout. “Jaz! Your dog’s panicked a whole mob of kangaroos! They’re pounding up the hill like it’s a trampoline! Only they’re going, like, three hundred different directions! I never saw such chaos! Aw, man, that one just trampled a guy!”

“Are you in a safe place?” I whispered as I peered around the corner.

Cole said, “Yeah, but I’m not sure about Kyphas.” Was that worry in his tone? And if so, could it be bribed out of him? I was betting he’d promise anything for a lifetime supply of bubble gum.

More screams now, which drew the first two guards out of hiding. I cocked Grief and got ready to run.

Vayl made a motion. Wait.

They crept into the opening opposite the trees, one waving for the next to follow. Finally all eight had moved out from under the bridge, the hems of their pants dark from wading the shallow water of the creek it spanned.

Vayl made four quick gestures, pointing himself in the direction of the trees and me toward their escape route. I felt his powers rise again, a cold wind at the back of my neck that sent my pulse pounding as I moved forward. Luckily the gravel on this part of the path had been ground into the dirt by countless hikers who’d never dreamed that one night two assassins would be stalking up the same walkway, leaving a string of bodies behind them, planning even more destruction ahead.

I set my back to the rock wall, glancing behind me to make sure Cole and Kyphas hadn’t missed any stragglers. Motion. I raised Grief, my finger solid on the trigger. A kangaroo burst out of the trees, paused half a second to recalibrate, spun toward me, and leaped past.

I lifted Grief’s barrel. Laid my head back. Shit!

But then, unmistakable, the sound of running feet. I took aim. “Jaz! I’m coming toward you. Don’t shoot me, all right?” Cole had barely gotten his request out before he appeared, his hair flying as he skidded to a halt.

I dropped my arms. Squinted up at the Big Guy. Really? Are You trying to give me a heart attack, or do close calls give you the giggles? No reply. Typical. Probably the next time my Maker spoke to me, he’d be in full lecture mode and I… well, I’d be altogether dead.

CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN

Ileaned hard into the massive rock formation behind me. Something about it made me feel oddly calm. It had only been commanding this location for hundreds of thousands of years. If it could survive that long, I could damn well make it through the next few minutes.

Cole tapped me on the shoulder.

“Quiet,” I directed. “We’re going after another group.” I set off, prepared to shoot anything that looked remotely like a gnome.

Cole fell in behind me. “Okay, but can I just say Jack is having the time of his life down there? Did you tell him you wanted a kangaroo for your birthday? Because I think he’s bringing you a present.”

“My birthday isn’t for four more days. And Jack doesn’t strike me as an early giver. But I’m planning to reward him for his excellent timing anyway.”

“Good. Because they saved our asses.”

“Speaking of asses, where’s Kyphas?”

“Finishing off the few that didn’t get mangled.”

More like leaning over the mostly dead, making deals they’ll eternally regret. Shaking off the image I said, “What a stellar addition to our crew. Now, can you shut up for three seconds while we take out these guards?”

“Okay. We’ll talk about how I got to pet one of the big boys later. It was really beautiful. Like giving a governor a wedgie while he does his adultery confession next to his stunned but supportive wife.”

“How is that beautiful?”

“Things are satisfying in different ways, Jaz. You just gotta go with me on this one. I feel like I got away with something major.”

“Great. Now shut the hell up.”

He clamped his lips together and pulled an imaginary zipper across them. Rolling my eyes, I stepped forward, moving quickly now that I knew Vayl must be in position. When I reached the bridge I slid around the corner.

“Vayl?” I asked.

“I am under the bridge.”

His approach would take him low, through the nameless creek. Mine was a three-foot ledge, possibly man-made, that hugged the rock face as it threaded deeper into the heart of the hill.

“You continue on the main path,” I whispered to Cole. “Scouting only. Report back as soon as you find something. Astral, you’re with Cole. Follow his orders until I tell you otherwise.”

“Be careful,” Cole said, patting my back. I realized I shouldn’t have felt his palm against my left shoulder just as he said, “You’re flaking pretty badly in places.”

Too freaking true.

I stepped forward as he slunk away, robokitty a shadow at his feet.

Within minutes we found the gnomes in a gorge that was blocked at the far end by an old rockfall that had taken several trees with it. Water flowed over the boulders to the creek below, raising a mist, making footing treacherous.

The Ufranites had found excellent cover. They should’ve stayed behind it. But like many newly initiated to violence, they overestimated their abilities and attacked first. The lead gnome’s shot slammed into my right leg, spun me back into the wall. Since I was slicker than the rocks supporting me, I lost my footing before I could even attempt to regain my balance. I took another shot as I fell. A shout of pain let me know I’d hit one before I landed on my hip, teetered on the lip of the ledge, and then rolled off. Ice flew like shattering glass as I swept down the slope, banging into an outcropping before landing at the bottom in a foot of water.

I stared up, estimated that I’d fallen at least a story, and began my inspection. Yup, I’d be bruised worse than a sloppy stuntman, but nothing seemed to be broken. Except the armor, which had taken a helluva pounding. A slick coating still covered my head, arms and legs, but it was cracked so badly I didn’t think it would protect against anything more intense than a friendly tap. My theory gained weight when I felt water trickle through the gaps, soaking my jeans.

“Shit!” I crawled onto the creek bank.

“Jasmine, are you all right?” Vayl crouched over me, shielding me from the steady onslaught of killer steel.

I looked up at him, kneeling like a warrior praying before battle, supremely confident behind his icy coating. And wanted to punch him.

“Your goddamn armor put me on my ass!”

“I hardly think—”

“Stop protecting me, okay? It’s going to get me killed!”

I rolled to one side, squeezed off three shots, hitting three guards who’d chosen that moment to rush us.

Their buddies, who’d peeked above cover to catch the show, ducked when I continued to pull the trigger. Pausing to reload, I noticed that Vayl had disappeared.

I caught sight of him a few seconds later, moving like a mountain goat among obstacles that would’ve broken another man’s legs. “Walking icebergs shouldn’t be that graceful.” I didn’t realize I’d muttered the words out loud until Vayl replied.

“Would you prefer it if I went sprawling?” he asked, his tone as cold as his coating.

“No! I just don’t want anyone else saving my life, that’s all.”

“That is the most ignorant comment I have ever heard you make.” Oh, he sounds mad, said Teen Me, biting her nails. Maybe you’d better back off. What if he breaks up with you?

My Inner Bimbo finished off her Jack and Coke and yelled for another. There’s more where he came from.

Um, not really. But he just refuses to see the big picture! Every time someone pulls me back from the brink I end up farther down the road to Freaksville. Right now, if I was in a game show audience and the host said, “Would all the humans please stand up?” I wouldn’t know what to do!

Luckily the Ufranites didn’t give a crap what I was. Which forced me to swing my mind back to the job.

I took another shot, watched my target drop as Vayl’s sword swung and the chill of his powers filled the air. Realizing our opponents were out of Grief’s range, I crawled forward, sliding across the ground like a sled on snow.

Another swing, the gargling protest of a dying foe. Then Vayl dropped behind a rock the size of a mattress. A grunt. The clash of metal on metal. One last whooshing report from a gnomish gun. And then nothing.

“Vayl?”

No reply.

“Vayl?” Nothing.

Naw. No, no, no! I creaked to my feet and scrambled to the spot where I’d seen him last, hopping from tree trunk to stone step without a single thought as to how I was going to get out of this dead end if I broke a bone.

I found him kneeling over one of the bodies, searching its pockets.

“What the hell are you looking for?”

“I am searching for clues as to the shaman’s identity or location.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I demanded. “You scared the crap out of me!” He looked up. “And if I had been in mortal danger just now? If I could have died as you can? What would you have done to save me?”

“I…” I clamped my mouth shut.

“Jasmine?”

“Still trying to put me through my lessons, are you?” I asked bitterly.

“I have a great deal to share and you are, usually, a quick study. So, yes. I want you to understand the lengths to which I would go in order to assure your continued existence.”

“You sound like a damn Vulcan. You know, from Star Trek ? So freaking smooth and logical with all your emotions locked down like death row prisoners.”

He raised an eyebrow. As if he knew how much that single move would irritate me. “Perhaps this conversation would be better saved until we have no audience?”

“What, you mean we should tune the others out? Like you’ve done to me for the past few days?”

“You are the one who got yourself possessed. I am simply trying to complete this mission successfully with you, though clearly I would have been smarter to ship you back to Cleveland the moment I learned that your situation compromised every move we attempt.”

“I didn’t get myself possessed! I saved my life, and Raoul’s, by biting that monster! And now he’s in me, like a poison, and all you’ve done is cut me off like I’m already dead!” Not fair, I knew. No way could we pull this off with Brude undermining us, which he’d do every chance he got because clearly the gnomes and the Weres had promised to help him bulk up his army. But I’d taken care of that problem myself. Me. Without any help, dammit! Just like I could do everything else!

Vayl came at me so fast I didn’t even have time to jerk away. His hands gripped me, the ice instantly melting beneath his touch. His eyes, black as the pit I felt yawning beneath me, speared mine.

“I did what I had to in order to make this mission work. Tell me you would not have done the same!

And then promise me you will never die!”

Silence. And then, quiet but clear, the singsong voice of Cole ringing in our ears, “Jazzy’s a pain in the a-ass. So glad she gave me a pa-ass!”

Vayl snorted.

I chuckled. Then I said, “I’m sorry. It’s Pete.” I closed my eyes against the burn of unshed tears. Forced myself to roll on. “And the ice thing.” I glared up at him. “I get your point, okay? But you bit me, dammit!

You know what that means. Nobody saves me without consequences. And it seems like the part of me that pays is my humanity. I can’t… Jesus, Vayl, how much more can I afford to lose? I mean…” I couldn’t go on. He didn’t make me. He crushed me to his chest, the clash of our armor sounding like a gunshot in the gorge. What didn’t break off began to melt, the ice running so quickly to water that I could feel his muscles straining to press against my breasts.

Cold, slick ice on my hands. On his back. Both of us practically writhing beneath it, burning to touch one another in ways we were still just discovering.

Knowing we could be overheard, I kept my pleas silent. Begging him with my eyes to do something.

Suddenly his fingertips were on my face. He’d dropped his sword. Entwined his hand in my wet hair.

I felt material under my hands. The abused denim of his jeans, splitting as he adjusted his stance, giving me room to slide my fingers around to the back of his thighs and up—to more ice.

I tore at it, ignoring my broken fingernails, my bleeding knuckles as it came away in sheets. I nodded.

Yes, yes! Pressed into him as our lips met, warm and lush as an afternoon in the rainforest.

A great weight left my back. I heard the crack of ice breaking on the ground beside us and then Vayl’s hands, tearing away the remains of my coat. Sliding underneath the shirt it had protected.

More cracking as our remaining armor heated and fell away.

I felt his lips again, this time feathering against my neck. Teeth nipping. The soft, wetness of his tongue.

Everything sensed but unseen between us seemed to whirl around our bodies, creating a storm so electric and powerful that I felt the hairs at the back of my neck stand on end.

We both knew what was missing. The swift pain of fangs, piercing, sucking, raising me so high on tiptoe that my precarious balance would force me to shove my fingers into his sopping curls, to press so hard against his body that I couldn’t imagine us as separate beings. Already we wanted it so badly we could hardly resist. What would it be like a month, a year down the line?

Vayl raised his head. “Duty,” he said hoarsely.

“Yeah.”

He threw his head back and swallowed, licking his lips like he’d just chugged a can of Coke and needed a minute to clear the acid aftertaste of what had been a predominantly bitchin’ drink. When he looked at me again his eyes had softened to amber.

“Are you ready?”

Instead of answering his question the way I wanted to, I checked my Astral-feed. It showed a dark path similar to the one we’d come in on. And then, a flicker of light. “They’ve found something,” I said.

He grabbed me and kissed me, quickly, deeply, before whispering into my ungadgeted ear, “Never mind the bustier. I want you in wet, tattered clothes. Imagining peeling them off of you, and the hot, soapy shower to follow, is suddenly driving me mad.”

“Do I need to get you a shovel?”

His eyes widened. That choked sound that passed for laughter gurgled out of his throat. He nodded slowly. “Perhaps.”

I allowed myself a moment of pure delight despite the mass of emotions that still clawed at me. Even though I’d regained control of my mind, I’d lost Pete forever. Who knew what would happen after the department reopened? And what the hell was I becoming?

Heavy sigh. Oh well, everybody’s got their shit to deal with. At least I have Vayl at the same time.

CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT

With Vayl’s hand wrapped securely around mine, I ran up the trail beside him, the wind of our sprint making droplets of moisture fly from my hair. Cole met us at a spot where the trail rose abruptly, the steepness of its ascent made user friendly by a set of wooden stairs.

“I figured you’d seen what I saw, but I was coming back to get you just in case,” he whispered as we huddled beside the first step.

“I can’t make out much,” I told him. “Astral is just inching forward, so she must be pretty sure they’ll catch her if she moves any faster.”

Cole responded to Vayl’s puzzled look. “Ruvin and the software guys aren’t inside the rock shelter like we thought they would be. They’re on top of it.”

“How did they get up there?” asked Vayl.

“Not sure. I didn’t see a ladder and the boulders are too smooth to make it a quick climb even if you know what you’re doing.”

“Another illusionary door?” I suggested.

Vayl squeezed my hand. “Brilliant. Let us find it.”

We ran up the stairs, the breeze of our movement chilling me as it plastered my wet clothes to my body.

I put my discomfort aside as we came to another wooden bridge that spanned a shallow ravine and led us to the shelter, a simple arrangement of one massive boulder leaning on another that left a triangular space clear underneath for wanderers who needed shelter from the rain. On top of this monolith our quarry had lit a fire. The angle didn’t allow me to pick out any faces other than Ruvin’s.

“I’m not hearing anything from his bug. Are you on a different frequency again?” I asked.

“No,” said Cole. “Do you think it could’ve fallen off while they were shoving him around?”

“Search for a door,” Vayl ordered.

Cole slipped inside the white fence that kept tourists from touching the ancient paintings I could see adorning the bottom of the bigger boulder. He began combing the outer edges of it as I moved to go inside the shelter.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Vayl asked. When I raised my eyebrows at him he added tactfully,

“I realize it probably would not bother you much that tons of rock were hovering over your head, waiting for just the right earth tremor to shake it to the ground. But if I went in you would not have to be disturbed at all.”

I waved him off. “Naw, I feel great!” And I ducked inside, realizing I did feel awesome. Better than I should considering my circumstances.

It’s Vayl’s bite, said Teen Me. She’d found herself a beanbag chair and thrown it on Granny May’s front porch, where she’d also, somehow, installed an Xbox 360. You’ve got a megahigh going on.

I am not high, I snapped. I’ve never done drugs in my life.

Okay, fine, she agreed without looking away from the flatscreen she’d bolted to the porch rail. What would you compare it to?

I pressed my lips together, only now feeling the soreness from where Vayl’s fangs had sunk in. I felt oddly uncomfortable discussing the aftereffects of tremendous sex with my adolescent self. But I did have that same grin-and-click-your-heels feeling that the world was singing a special tune only I could hear.

Even though I’d experienced similar reactions after Vayl’s two previous bites, I still wasn’t prepared to relax and go with the flow. Because later on I’d crashed. The first time, pretty hard. The second had been shorter, but just as debilitating. I needed to wrap up this case before my body demanded a milk shake and hammock time.

So, while I hummed that soaring song under my breath, I ducked into the shelter and conducted a quick search that netted nothing.

Maybe it’s on the other side. I went through, noting that the path, however far it meandered beyond the shelter, eventually came around to the back of it. And right up next to the formation, nearly buried behind a pile of dead branches, was a Jaz-sized boulder whose face looked like granite but felt like Silly Putty.

I went back for the guys. “Found it,” I whispered, motioning for them to follow me.

“I’ll go first,” Cole volunteered. “After all, if I’d picked a better spot to snipe from, Ruvin wouldn’t be in this mess.” Before we could argue he’d stuck his head through the door. And just as quickly pulled it out.

“Duck!”

He pushed me back, falling on top of me as a deep rumble from inside the boulder made me wonder if we were all about to be crushed. Vayl covered us both as a hail of pebbles shot from the door, followed by a spurt of dust and then a door-sealing rock lodged half in and half out of the opening.

We stared at it for five long seconds. I said, “I hear something.”

“Another boulder?” Cole asked as the guys rolled to their feet. He looked up fearfully.

“No,” said Vayl, lifting his eyes to the star-filled sky. “Something unnatural.” CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE

Vayl was the first to leap on the door-blocking boulder, using it as a launching pad for his climb. While I waited for him to clear it so I could start up, Cole slung his rifle over his shoulder and said, “I’m going up the other side.”

“This is stupid,” I said. “They’re just going to throw us off the second they see our hands reaching over the rim.”

“Which is why I’m letting Vayl get a head start. Hopefully he’ll keep them occupied until I can make it up.”

“Wait a second,” I said, grabbing Cole’s sleeve before he could move away. “What about that weird noise?”

He cocked his head. “You know what it is, don’t you?”

“No.”

“Jack’s tired of the kangaroo. Now he’s found a herd of platypi and he’s stampeding them right toward us.”

“Platypi?”

“That clacking is their bills snapping together. They do that when they’re enraged. You should go for higher ground, Jaz. They’ve been known to chew women’s legs off.”

“With beaks?”

“Well… it takes a while. And you kinda have to stand in one place—”

“When you two are quite done,” came Vayl’s voice over the party line. We looked up. He was already halfway to them. Above him, only visible because it had begun to sway, I saw the outline of a wire. The type that lodge owners connect to lifts so skiers can chug up the mountain from dawn to dusk.

“Son of a bitch!”

“What?” Cole shaded his eyes, like we were standing in the noonday sun instead of the blackness that blankets a mountain’s apron at three in the morning.

“Vayl, they’ve got transportation. I’m thinking some kind of open-air, no, check that. I see it now. Sky car, black, roomy. It’s coming in quick! And it’s got passengers—I count five!” Cole pointed into the air. He said, “Hey, Jaz! The car looks like a big nose!” Go Ufran. We watched the air trolley descend to the boulder. A couple of Ufranites scrambled out to help the humans and one struggling Ruvin inside. “This is bad.”

“Why?”

“Because suddenly I feel like I’ve been transported into an Austin Powers movie, which means any second now the kittybot will probably turn on us and start shooting torpedoes out her tail. I wouldn’t have objected if we’d been able to rescue Ruvin. Had the Odeam guys called our bluff and brought in their ‘A’ team? Or had Ruvin given up on us and decided to save his wife the only way he knew how?

Either way we were pretty—”

I gasped as the sky car hummed away and, at the same time, Vayl launched himself from the boulder, barely managing to grab hold of the axle for the maintenance wheels that jutted beneath the nose like blackened teeth. The car rocked at his impact, causing Ufranites to crowd the windows, but nobody saw him raise his legs to slide them over the second axle.

“Vayl!” I called. “Are you okay?”

“Fine! I believe I can reverse the car’s course from here. If my calculations are correct, it should fly back to its source. Since the warren is under Wirdilling’s primary school, this car must be stored somewhere in the same town. Meet us there!”

“What if you’re wrong?” asked Cole.

“I cannot be,” Vayl replied. “We have no time to spare.”

“Let’s get our asses back to the Wheezer. That means you too, Astral.” I turned to run back down the path, whistling for Jack as Cole called Kyphas on his phone and asked her to join us.

“Jaz isn’t going to wait long,” he told her after a pause.

“Put her on speaker,” I snapped.

He pushed the required button.

“—not quite finished here,” Kyphas was saying.

“If you’re not down the hill when I start that car, I’m leaving you!” I said flatly. “We’ve got to get back to town before everything blows up in Vayl’s face!”

“You sure can pick the rental cars.”

I ground my teeth together and glared at the demon in my backseat. “Shut up,” I said.

Kyphas peered at me over the top of Jack’s furry head. “I was just—”

“I could happily kill somebody right now. And since you’re immortal in this realm, I’m gonna be real tempted to take a few stabs at you if you don’t—just—chill!” For the hundredth time I ignored her smirk and glanced in the rearview mirror. My eyes skipped past Astral, who’d taken her regular window seat. She had an even better view of Cole as he leaned over the Wheezer’s trunk, pushing the car along the road that would eventually end in front of Crindertab’s. Of course, by the time we reached the restaurant, Ruvin would be little more than a skeleton, picked clean by infant gnomes who’d already have caused irreparable damage to NASA’s connection to the cosmos.

And we’d never want to eat again. Not to mention the fact that Cole would be too tired to lift his weapon, and Vayl would probably be dead.

“Jasmine?”

I touched the reciever in my ear. “Cassandra! Are you back yet?”

“No, I… was hoping for one last vision. Do you need help?”

“I’m going to when I get back to Wirdilling. Can you shake out a few Resistance gnomes for me?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Kyphas opened her yap. “I was just going to say that I thought you people were better organized. I would’ve thought twice if I’d known I was tying myself to a bunch of hack—ow!” She stared down at the syringe waving from her arm and at my thumb, hovering over the plunger.

“I did warn you.” My thumb jerked.

“Okay! I’m sorry! Take it out!” I resheathed my supply of holy water while she rubbed at the spot. “It hurts! Did you squirt some?”

I shrugged. “Could be. It’s pretty sensitive. Not your ordinary prescription-fill. Bergman designed it for me.”

“Tell me about Bergman,” Kyphas invited.

I glared at her. “You blew your chance. If you try to take his soul again, if you hurt him, if you even bump into him hard, I will kill you.”

“Ooh, I’m so scared.”

I held her eyes. “I didn’t say how long I was going to take to do it.” Kyphas lost her yen for conversation after that and decided to spend her time gazing out the passenger window.

I didn’t realize Cole had stopped pushing until the Wheezer came to a stop in the middle of the road. I looked back. “Pop the trunk,” he instructed.

I did as he asked and got out. Which was when I heard it. The roar of an oncoming vehicle. Cole grabbed a couple of flares, fired them up, and set them in a line behind the Wheezer. Just in case the driver coming up on us at what sounded like light speed didn’t get the message in time, I pulled the animals out of the car and took them a few steps past the shoulder. I was hoping Kyphas would stay inside. I’d get a kick out of a good demon-smooshing right now. But she emerged, making sure Cole got a load of her long legs before she moved to his side.

As soon as he smiled at her I marched over and dumped Astral into her arms. “This is an extremely valuable tool. Don’t let it get broken.” Jack panted loudly in agreement.

She shook her head in confusion “I don’t—”

“Over there with the priceless robot,” I said, waving her to the shoulder. Once she’d left earshot I grabbed Cole’s arm and jerked him down so he could hear me better. “Stop being nice to the evil demon.”

“She seems okay,” he said.

“So did John Wilkes Booth. Then he killed the one guy who could’ve hammered away a big chunk of the bullshit prejudice that black Americans still have to piss with today.”

“I think she’s got some good in her,” he insisted.

“I think she’s got big boobs, and in your mind that’s the same thing.” Cole grinned. “You could be right. Although you know what else I was thinking?” As I shook my head he lit a third flare and waved it around. “I can write my name in the air with this!” Jack also thought it was cool. He kept biting at the dropping sparks, though he was at least smart enough not to go for the whole banana.

“What are you gonna do when you singe your tongue?” I asked my dog. When he let it hang out of his mouth I said, “That might work. But don’t expect any pity when you can’t eat anything but gravy for the next month.”

Jack grinned and wagged his tail, like he knew I’d never let it go that far.

Cole set the last flare in place and we waited. Lights appeared in the distance, played hide-and-seek for a while, and then came barreling down on us so fast that we evacuated the road.

But the driver stopped in time. With only a minimum of tire-screeching, she rolled her lemon-drop yellow Hyundai Accent to a stop an arm’s length from the first flare. By the time we’d reached her door, all three of her passengers had bailed, two guys and another girl, all of them giggling and staggering like they’d been partying since dawn.

“Oh goody,” Cole murmured. “We are saved.”

I snorted as I watched the driver try to herd her horde back into the vehicle.

“Hello,” said Cole, pasting on his I’m-unforgettable smile. “I’m Thor Longfellow and this is Lucille Robinson. We’re from Holly—”

“G’day, mate!” the driver sang. “Would you help me gather up this mob before they trot off into the never-never?”

She asked so cheerfully despite the relative impossibility of the task, her black ponytail dancing along with the request, that he immediately said, “Oh, uh, sure!” The other girl, a double-chinned brunette wearing jeans so tight you could see the cottage cheese below her butt cheeks rippling through them, friendlied up to Cole right away. So he had no trouble escorting her back to the car.

“Kyphas!” I called. “Get the big guy!” Leaving Astral to study her reflection in the Wheezer’s hubcaps, Kyphas went after the dude whose scars were either a sign that he kept running his face into people’s fists or that he thoroughly enjoyed his rugby. I tagged the smaller one.

“You are one luscious lady,” he told me, his breath reeking of cheap beer as he dropped an arm around my shoulders.

“And you are going to puke like a school full of flu-bitten kids. But hopefully not until your friend’s gotten you home. What’s your name?”

“Lance.”

“Lance-a-lot-o’-fun!” called out his buddy.

“That’s Rory,” Lance said. “He cannot hold his liquor. But he is a ripper, Rory is. Rory’s a ripper!” Lance announced loudly.

“Clearly. And the girls?” I pointed to the driver, who, Lance informed me in what he probably thought was a bedroom voice, was Dachelle.

“We’re just friends,” he said, trying to wink and succeeding only in squinching his face together like a constipated old man. “Me and Gabbie are also only just friends,” he went on, nodding at Cole’s newest fan. “We’re all friends here!” he shouted. Then he gave me a one-armed hug. “Can we be friends?”

“Well, that depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not Dachelle can give me and my colleagues a ride to Wirdilling. Fast.” CHAPTERTHREE

Between the city of Canberra and the Space Complex that uses its name lies a depressed little burg called Wirdilling. We meant to reach it via Tourist Drive 5, which runs in a huge curvy loop past all kinds of camera-clicking stops. While taking photos would’ve been great for our cover—we didn’t. Because it was nearly four thirty in the afternoon, and if we wanted to make Wirdilling before midnight we all needed to preserve our energy on the excellent chance that we might have to shove our feet through the floorboards of the wreck Cole had rented and walk it there.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find myself and Vayl squeezed into a 1980 powder-blue Leyland Mini Clubman with a dog, a robot, two irritated crew members and a bubble-blowing comedian.

A shrunken station wagon that might’ve been made to seat five, but only if they were anorexic starlets, the Clubman was a four-speed brake-eater that tended to wheeze when we hit any grade steeper than two degrees. The rest of the time the engine rattled so loudly we had to shout to be heard. Which meant the car spent the majority of the drive through the tree-dotted hills that rolled down to Murrumbidgee River and up to the Tidbinbilla mountain range either gasping like a badly medicated asthmatic or roaring like a mean drunk.

Normally I’d have babied the poor girl. After all, a car isn’t responsible for its renter. But ever since I’d given blood to save the life of a werewolf named Trayton, fires tended to break out when I got pissed.

And if I didn’t find some outlet for the emotion making the skin around my eyes redden like stove burners, there was a good chance Cole’s gum would transform into lava. So I rode the gearshift like a crashing pilot, shoving it from third to fourth and back again way more than I needed to, and shaking the steering wheel when I thought the Wheezer needed an extra push to make it up the next slope.