Bitten in Two

He looked at each of us in turn. And then he said, “The nightmares wil be the worst part. Those, and the urge to come back to this place. To rip away the lid that is growing over Sterling’s net and find out what it could have been like to let the hel ion in him join with Kyphas forever. But as long as he has us to remind him of who he is, as long as we need him, he wil hold fast.”

We stared at our friend, skirting the edge of what Granny May used to cal Satan’s Playground, suffering unimaginable torments because the games they played there made everybody scream—and because right now he wanted to be on the team.

“Touch him,” said Sterling. “Make sure you have contact with his skin.”

I took his hand. Vayl and Bergman each wrapped their fingers around an ankle. Every candle in the room flared.

Vayl didn’t seem surprised, but Miles and I traded Wowsa eye blinks.

The warlock held the stone out over the center of Cole’s body, almost directly on top of Astral’s head if they’d been sitting perfectly stil . He nodded to me.

“Okay, kittybot,” I whispered. “Access everything you just downloaded on Cole Bemont.”

She jacked her jaws open and out came the Enkyklios spotlight, signaling the playback of a brand-new holofile, one the three of us had made together while Sterling had prepared the reclamation. The movie began with the first time I’d ever met Cole, in the ladies’ room at a party thrown by terrorists. Though only a few months had passed, we’d both changed. I looked thinner then, worn down, and so grim that it seemed like I’d forgotten how to smile. Cole looked… younger.

Astral’s job was to play every file we’d entered into the Enkyklios that had to do with Cole, what we knew about his family and his work. Sterling said it would help him to see who he’d been when he was ful y human. I wasn’t so sure.

He’d gotten the crap kicked out of him a few times while I’d known him. Maybe he’d see this transition as a way to protect himself from that ever happening again.

Raoul, I whispered. Where are you? We could really use—

Sterling began to speak, arcane words I recognized only by the buzz at the base of my brain and the goose bumps rising on my skin. As the rhythm of his spel fil ed the room, I knew without a doubt that if he real y wanted to become a Bard, nothing would stop him. Already his magic felt like music, making us sway slightly from one foot to the other as we held tightly to our friend.

Cole began to convulse. It hurt to watch him, arching his back so high I heard his bones pop in protest a couple of times. When he lay flat again his legs began to tremble, but Vayl and Bergman held on, watching with me as the letters Kyphas had rammed into her heartstone transformed into a black, tarry substance that dripped into Sterling’s hand.

I’m not drinking that. Don’t even ask. But Sterling had other plans. He took Cole’s essence to the candles. Little by little he let the liquid from the stone drip into each flickering flame, until he’d walked the whole course of the room. By the time he was done the place had fil ed with grayish blue smoke.

Why haven’t the detectors gone off? Granny May was back at her tapestry, looking curiously at the sky.

Seriously? I’m inhaling Cole-juice and all you can think about are fire-safety rules?

What’s he smell like? asked my Inner Bimbo with an avid look on her face.

How can I take anything you say seriously when your lipstick is always smeared? I replied.

I’d like to know too, said Teen Me.

What, you’re all in this together now?

Granny May shrugged. He’s the one who could’ve been. So… we’re interested. Plus, we know who he ends up with, romantically speaking. Which gives us even more of a stake. So to speak.

We do? Who?

She waved her finger in front of her face and gave me that tch, tch noise that makes me want to throw pil ows.

Quit changing the subject. We want answers.

I sighed. He’s like… those french fries you can only get at the county fair. You know the ones I mean? Lick-your-lips salty with some sort of addictive secret flavoring that you know isn’t good for you but you don’t care because it’s so amazing.

They al nodded. Yup. That was Cole.

“Concentrate!” Sterling said, so sharply that I jumped and nearly lost my grip of Cole’s hand. I started to watch Astral’s projections but our warlock said, “Think of private conversations with Cole. Think of him at his most honest.

His most human.”

Almost at the same moment Vayl, Bergman, and I began to laugh. Sterling raised his eyebrows. “Real y?”

“He’s pretty funny,” said Miles.

“Good. Keep that in mind.” Sterling stepped away from the bed. I should’ve guessed what was about to come when he wrapped his arm around the bars that covered the windows. Three quick movements of his wand drew a sparkling white image in the smoke that faded as soon as it appeared. But it seemed to work as a catalyst, raising a wind inside the room that swirled the smoke in a circle, shoving more of it down our throats.

My curls began to dance in the air. Vayl’s shirt flapped against his broad chest. Bergman sneezed. Cole went perfectly stil as we remembered. His you-should-hug-me-now grin. The way his eyes lit when a woman, any woman, entered the room. And the love that spil ed out like concession-stand popcorn when he talked about his family, old girlfriends, the beach, bubblegum…

And then we could see it happening. The smoke clearing as our breath wafted out, looking winter-day frosty.

The cleansed air swirling into Cole, relaxing him more and more with each breath. The edges of his eyes fading to pink and then to white before closing. He began to snore.

Sterling left the window. “Astral can stop now,” he said.

I gave the cat her order and she closed the Enkyklios down, stepping off Cole’s stomach only to curl up beside him. “Good idea,” I told her. “Keep watch and let me know as soon as he wakes.”

We stil hadn’t let him go, though. It was like, having brought ourselves so close to the part of our team that brought us the most happiness, we couldn’t walk away.

Sterling said, “You did wel . I believe he’s been completely reclaimed.”

We nodded. Vayl stepped back. So did Bergman. I squeezed Cole’s hand. Then I placed it gently on the bed and began to turn away. Wait. What did I—

“Jasmine?” asked Vayl, coming to slip his arm around my waist. “Are you al right?”

I peered at Cole’s eyes. They stayed closed. Maybe I hadn’t seen them flutter just slightly. Maybe those two slits of red I thought I’d spied peering out from beneath his lashes had just been a side effect of sniffing soul-smoke.

This is why you never did drugs, right, Jazzy? asked Granny May as she threaded her needle.

Amen. I nodded, and laying my head against Vayl’s shoulder, I let him lead me from the room.

CHAPTER THIRTY

It is nearly dawn,” Vayl said. He stood by the window to my room, looking down into the courtyard. Lights came on in a second-floor window, distracting us both.

“Is that Monique’s room?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

We watched, shameless voyeurs, as Bergman’s skinny frame crossed in front of the curtain and stopped. His shadow was joined seconds later by the curvilicious shape of Monique. They stood that way for a long time. And then the distance between them slowly closed, until to our eyes they were a single entity. Moments later the light went out.

Vayl turned to me. “I hope she is gentle.” For the first time, his smile made him look old. He stared up into the sky, and I realized how much he was going to miss the sun.

I said, “Won’t you be able to stay awake now? I mean, now that you remember what year it is and everything?” He turned to me. Shrugged like it didn’t matter as he said, “No. I have lost…” He paused, looked toward the sky, as if by force of wil he could make the sun come out while he was stil up so he could see sunshine and clouds again.

“As with the ice armor, the ability I had gained to stay awake beyond dawn and dusk has been wiped out by the curse.”

“That fucking Roldan.”

His nod barely moved air. “Just so. However, we have the Rocenz now.” He gestured to the tool sitting on my trunk, looking so innocent I might’ve guessed the maintenance man had forgotten and left it there after he fixed the air conditioner. If I hadn’t known better.

“Yeah. What do you say after we use it to carve Brude’s name into the gates of hel , we beat Roldan to death with it?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Feeling violent tonight, my love?”

Though I’d closed the door behind me, I hadn’t been able to take my hand off the knob. It was like I thought this one extra step could keep Cole safe if he woke and needed me to come running and— what? Smother whatever Kyphas left in him? How would you do that without killing the rest, the best part of him now?

I dropped my hand and walked over to Vayl. Wrapped my arms around him. Breathed in his scent, closed my eyes and pretended that I was lying on a bed of pine needles with him, naked and wil ing, beside me. I said, “Umm, not as much now. I do want to know some things though.”

“Al right.”

“Back at the tannery, Sterling sent you into hel .” A sigh, so soft I nearly missed it, that told me he’d prefer never, ever to discuss those last hairy moments when neither of us knew if we’d survive to share another moment like this one. He said, “Yes. I knew I could only destroy Kyphas from the inside. But I needed help.”

“Astral?”

His arms tightened around me. “You know Bergman.

He would never outfit her with one weapon designed to defeat demon defenses when he could as easily equip her with two. Knowing he had already used one of Astral’s grenades to destroy Kyphas’s door blockade, I brought her through the door so I could direct the second grenade at both her and her… attackers.”

I waited for him to tel me what he’d seen in hel . But he wasn’t inclined to describe his version. Can’t say that I blamed him. So I asked him another question that had been nagging at me.

“What happened to Helena?”

He pul ed away long enough for me to wonder why his eyes had gone such a dark, troubled blue. And then he pul ed me in even tighter. “We moved several times after that first trip to Marrakech. Final y we settled in Northern Ireland, where she met a boy named John Litton who had brains and ambition but, alas, no money. They were married on my estate in the spring of 1783 and sailed to America with Berggia and his wife shortly after.” He paused. “I had many an entertaining letter from her for the next two years. And then a single note from John tel ing me that she had died in childbirth.”

“Oh, Vayl,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.” I hesitated, but I just had to know. “Did the… the baby die too?”

“No, they lived.”

“She had twins?”

“Yes.”

Wow. Now I felt even closer to her. And more determined than ever to exact some sweet revenge for her.

A life that short shouldn’t have had to spend so much time with misery in it. I said, “The Berggias?”

“They helped John raise his daughters and died at a very old age, within just a few days of one another.”

“That’s good, then.”

“Yes, they were a devoted couple who deserved some happiness”—his lips brushed my forehead—“like us. I can feel it, almost within our grasp. But first we must go back.” He tipped his head toward the tannery, though we both knew he meant deeper. “And it must be soon.”

“Yeah. But we need to make detailed, get-in-get-busy-get-out plans. And my head stil hurts.”

“So let us leave that for tomorrow.” He slid his hands up my back, squeezed the tension out of my shoulders. Ran his fingers down to the base of my spine. Parts of my body seemed to wake from a long sleep. To stretch and moan as trickles of pleasure washed through them.

I pressed my breasts against his chest. “Tomorrow’s soon enough for me,” I whispered as I ran my fingers up into his soft curls, as I left feathery kisses along his cheekbones, the sides of his lips, the base of his jaw.

“Then tonight,” he murmured into my ear, moved his lips downward, brushed his fangs against my neck. “In what we have left of it. Jasmine. Give me something to remember.” extras

meet the author

Cindy Pringle

JENNIFER RARDIN began writing at the age of twelve, mostly poems to amuse her classmates and short stories featuring her best friends as the heroines. She lives in an old farmhouse in Il inois with her husband and two children.

Find

out

more

about

Jennifer

Rardin

at

www.JenniferRardin.com.

introducing

If you enjoyed BITTEN IN TWO,

look out for

THE DEADLIEST BITE

Book 8 of the Jaz Parks series

by Jennifer Rardin

We ran up the main stairs to the third floor, where I found my jeans crumpled beside the cozy brown suede chair where I liked to curl up every afternoon with a book and a can of Diet Coke. I pul ed my phone out of the back pocket and stuck it between my ear and shoulder while I shoved my legs into my Levi’s.

“Hel o?”

“Jaz? Where’s Vayl?”

“Hi, Cassandra. He’s with me.”

“He’s al right, then?”

“What?” I felt my fingers go numb. Usual y I reacted faster. It was my job to make sure my emotions didn’t cloud my judgment. Even for the extra three seconds it took me to realize my psychic friend was freaking out about my lover.

“What did you See?”

“There was a mix-up in Australia. I accidental y packed one of your T-shirts in my suitcase. So I was folding it back into my luggage because Dave and I are coming up to visit you and Evie. It was supposed to be a surprise—” She swal owed a sob.

“Tel me now, Cassandra.” I tried to keep my voice calm. No sense in shouting at the woman who had already saved my brother’s life with one of her visions. But if she’d been in the room I’d have shaken her til her teeth rattled.

“When I touched your shirt I saw you, leaning over Vayl’s body. He had a stake through his heart. The blood—

oh, Jaz, the blood.” She started to cry for real now.

“Anything else? Come on, Cassandra, I need to know everything you Saw.” I’d zipped into my pants. Run to the stairs. Managed to make it to the second floor without breaking my neck. Jack was way ahead of me.

“I don’t know. There’s this explosion, but not like the kind you see in movies. It’s more… ripply. And at the middle is a young man. Younger than you. Tal er, even, than Vayl, with ful brown hair that keeps fal ing onto his forehead. He’s snarling, which makes two deep dimples appear on his cheeks. He’s standing in front of a tal oak door, above which is hanging—”

“A pike with a gold tassel,” I finished.

“Yes!”

“Shit. Cassandra, that’s Vayl’s front door. And you’ve just described the kid who was ringing the bel .”

“Did Vayl answer?”

“I don’t—”

A shot rang out, tearing my heart in two. Too far ahead of me to gauge his location, Jack growled menacingly, already on his way down the final set of steps. I glanced into the wel made by the turn of the stairs from second to first floor. Yeah, I could jump it. So I did, landing on Vayl’s blue, overstuffed sofa. Rol ing into the walnut coffee table fronting it, knocking it across the hal into a case ful of antique knives. I raised my arm, protecting my face from the shattering glass.

Not knowing how far the glass had scattered, I protected my bare feet by jumping back onto the couch.

Then I took one second to assess the situation.

Twenty feet from me, at the other end of the hal in front of the open door, Vayl lay in a spreading pool of blood, the bloody hole in his forehead a result of the .22 lying on the floor. Two reasons the young man kneeling over him stil wasn’t holding it: he needed both hands for the hammer and stake he now held poised over Vayl’s chest, and Jake’s teeth had sunk deep enough into his right wrist that, by now, he’d have been forced to drop it anyway.

Only a guy as big as this one wouldn’t have been thrown completely off balance by a ful -on attack via 120-pound malamute. His size had kept him off his back, though it hadn’t al owed him to recover his balance enough to counter with the stake in his free hand. That would change if I didn’t reach the scene in time.

I jumped to the outside of the stairs, holding the rail to keep from fal ing as I cleared the fal out from the display case. Another jump took me to the floor. Five running steps gave me a good start for a spin kick that should’ve caught the intruder on the temple. But unless they’re drugged, people don’t just sit and wait for the blow.

He pul ed back, catching my heel on his nose. It broke, spraying blood al over his shirt and Jack. But it didn’t take him down. In fact, it seemed to motivate him. Desperation fil ed his eyes. He ripped his hammer hand out of Jack’s grip, though the bloody gashes in his forearm would hurt like a son of a bitch when his adrenaline rush faded. Afraid his next move would be a blow to my dog, I lunged at him. I was wrong. He threw the hammer at me, forcing me to hit the floor. I rol ed when I felt his shadow loom over me, knowing the worst scenario had me pinned under al that weight. But it never fel on me. I jumped to my feet and began to unholster Grief, though the last thing I wanted was to kil the bastard before I found out who’d sent him.

Stil , I was too late. The intruder had retrieved his .22

and was pointing the business end at my chest. He’d probably hit me too if he held his breath long enough to stop shaking. The only positive I could see was that I stood between him and Vayl. For now.

Jack growled menacingly and began to approach the man, his fur standing on end so he looked like the miniature bear he sounded most like when he vocalized.

The gun wavered as the man said, “You tel that dog to stop, or I wil shoot it.”

“No, Jack,” I said. “Sit.”

He came to an unhappy stop beside me. Once again I was looking down the barrel of my ultimate end. Because Raoul had informed me that my body couldn’t take another rise to life. If this scumbag capped me, I’d be done. And I so wasn’t ready.

I said, “I don’t know you. And I thought I knew al of our enemies. You’re not a werewolf. You’re not Vampere.

You’re definitely not a pro. So what’s a human who’s never kil ed anybody in his life doing trying to off the CIA’s greatest assassin?”

His eyebrows went up. So. He hadn’t been told about our work. Baffling. Stil , whoever picked him had chosen wel .

Amateurs

occasional y

succeeded

where

professionals failed because they were unpredictable. And motivated. This one definitely had his reasons for being here. I could see it in the way his eyebrows kept twitching down toward his nose. He was a time bomb ready to blow everybody in the room to bloody bits.

He raised the gun. Uh-oh. While I’d been thinking, so had he. And it looked like he’d made a decision. “You need to walk away from that vampire,” he said.

“No.”

He pushed the barrel toward me, to make sure I understood he could pul the trigger. “I’m not playing. I wil kil you if that’s what it takes to smoke him.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’l die if you do that anyway.” The remark confused him. Upset him. This isn’t a bad man, but damn, something has pushed him way past his limit. I watched his finger tighten on the trigger. I said,

“Don’t. Dude, you’l be kil ing a federal agent. They put you in jail forever for that kind of shit.”

“Jail?” He laughed. “I’m already in hel .” Which was when I knew there was nothing I could say to divert him. I looked down at Jack, touched the soft fur on the top of his head in farewel . Glanced over my shoulder at Vayl. Only long enough for the pain to lance through my heart.

I could pul on him, make my final moments an epic shootout. But Jack could get hurt in the cross fire. And I’d never forgive myself if that happened. “Get it over with, then.”

NOT SO FAST!!

I slammed my hands over my ears, though I was pretty sure the voice came from inside my head until I saw that the intruder was wincing and wiping blood from his earlobes as wel .

The floor started to shake. Jack yelped and tried to hide between my legs as the polished pine floorboards between me and the intruder began to splinter and the fiery outline of an arched doorway pushed itself up from the basement below.

“Wel ,” I whispered to my dog. “This is new.” I was pretty sure the intruder couldn’t see the plane portal rising to stand between us. Most humans never did.

But he did get a load of the five-by-six-foot gap developing in the floor. And when my Spirit Guide, Raoul, seemed to step out of thin air, I didn’t blame him for needing to sit down. Which he did. On a plush, round-seated chair that was currently covered with wood chips.

Raoul recovered his weapon so easily I felt a little stupid to have ever been paralyzed by it. Maybe I was getting soft in my old age. Maybe seeing Vayl halfway to dead had freaked me out more than I should’ve let it.

Raoul reversed the gun and lightly tapped the intruder on the forehead with it. “Wrong choice, Aaron. And here I thought you knew better.” He lifted the back of his jungle camouflage jacket and stuck the .22 in the waistband of his matching pants. Then he turned to face me. “Stop trying to get yourself kil ed. Even the Eminent agreed with me on this one. It isn’t your time yet.”

“I wasn’t trying—it’s not? Cool.” Nice to think that the folks who cal ed the shots upstairs had actual y approved of Raoul helping me for once. Especial y since it had involved saving my neck. Again.

“So what do you and the other Eldhayr think about this dude? What did you cal him, Aaron?” I asked, pointing my chin toward the failed assassin.

Raoul pul ed me aside. “I’m not al owed to interfere there.” He looked hard into my eyes, trying to communicate information I hadn’t known him long enough to decipher. He said, “Al I can say is that it’s good, real y good, that you didn’t kil him. Keep doing that.”

“What about Vayl?” I asked. “What can you say about him?”

“You real y need to hear that he’s going to be okay?

You already know that, Jaz. A bul et to the head can’t kil a vampire as powerful as him.”

I shrugged. It’s one thing to understand something intel ectual y. Something completely different to see your lover looking ful y dead from a head wound. So I reminded myself again, He’s just been knocked out. If you lifted his head you’d see the back of his skull has probably already re-formed. You shouldn’t be trying to figure out how your stomach can manage to clench itself that tight. You should be patting yourself on the back for hooking up with a guy who’s that tough to kill.

“Jasmine? Jaz? Is it over? What happened?” The voice, smal and tinny, could’ve been mistaken for one of my inner voices. If I hadn’t suddenly realized I’d dropped my phone during the fight and now Jack was trying to dial China with his nose.

“Cut it out,” I murmured as I picked it up. “You don’t even like rice.” I put the receiver to my ear. “Cassandra? I can’t believe you’re stil there.”

“He’s important!”

“Of course he is. But he’l be fine. Vampires are—”

“No! I mean, yes, of course. But I’m talking about the young man.”

“WHAT? You can’t be on Raoul’s side in this. This guy, Aaron, nearly kil ed us both!” I glared at the would-be kil er.

He stared straight at me. Raised his chin slightly. Didn’t even blink.

Cassandra yel ed, “Jasmine Elaine Parks, you listen to your future sister-in-law, dammit! Something is making me tingle like I’m electrified. Let me talk to Aaron!” I held the phone out to him. “You have a cal .” He grimaced. “I’m a little busy right now.”

“Either you talk to the nice lady or I punch your lights out.” His eyes went to Raoul, so I added, “Oh, don’t look to him for help. He’s like the UN. He’l bitch and whine about my behavior, but he’l sit back and let me do the dirty work because, in the end, he knows I’m the one who’s gonna save the world.”

Raoul growled, “That was a low blow.”

I shrugged. “I’m sorry. I know the Eminent ties your hands a lot. I just tend to get pissy when people try to kil the guy I love.” I looked up at him. “But I do appreciate you coming when you did. Great timing, as usual.” I shoved the phone toward Aaron. “The threat stil stands, mainly because I’m highly ticked off and I wanna hit something. It’d be so great if you gave me an excuse.” Aaron took the phone, staring at me suspiciously as he said, “Hel o? Yes. No.” He listened for a while before his face puckered. But he managed to master the emotion Cassandra had pul ed out of him before he said another word. Which was “Thanks.”

He handed the phone back to me. “Wel ?” I asked the woman on the other end who deserved a respectful ear, both because she’d survived nearly a thousand years on this earth, and because she’d chosen to spend the next fifty or so with my brother.

Cassandra took a deep breath. “I can’t be sure without touching the boy, but I consulted the tarot while he and I were speaking. It points to the same signs the Enkyklios has been showing me. I have to do more research. But it would be best if I could touch him—”

“What are you trying to tel me?”

“Whatever you do, don’t hurt him,” she said, unknowingly echoing Raoul’s advice. “I believe that, in another life, he was Vayl’s son.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks so much to my agent, Laurie McLean, whose unfailing enthusiasm keeps me feeling optimistic. Orbit is a fab publisher, so I must thank al of my partners there, who include my editor, Devi Pil ai, publicity geniuses Alex Lencicki and Jack Womack, and my copy editor, Penina Lopez. Love and gigantic hugs to my readers, Hope Dennis and Katie Rardin. Thanks to Roxanne Montgomery Trahan for introducing me to Jimmy Buffet’s great song

“Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.” Anouk Zijlma was a wonderful source of information about Marrakech, so thanks to you, dear lady. I deeply appreciate your help! And to Jazfans everywhere—you rock!

Table of Contents

FRONT COVER IMAGE

WELCOME

DEDICATION

EXTRAS

MEET THE AUTHOR

A PREVIEW OF THE DEADLIEST BITE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

JAZ PARKS NOVELS

PRAISE FOR THE JAZ PARKS SERIES

COPYRIGHT

JAZ PARKS NOVELS

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Another One Bites the Dust

Biting the Bullet

Bitten to Death

One More Bite

Bite Marks

Bitten in Two

The Deadliest Bite

Praise for the Jaz Parks series

“If you’re in the mood for fast-paced supernatural adventure, the Jaz Parks series never fails to deliver.”

—sfsite.com on Bitten to Death

Bitten in Two

A JAZ PARKS NOVEL

Jennifer Rardin

www.orbitbooks.net

Copyright

Copyright © 2010 by Jennifer Rardin

Excerpt from The Deadliest Bite copyright © 2010 by Jennifer Rardin

Al rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S.

Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Orbit

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com www.twitter.com/orbitbooks

First eBook Edition: November 2010

Orbit is an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Orbit name and logo are trademarks of Little, Brown Book Group Limited.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

ISBN: 978-0-316-12173-6