Bitten to Death

Chapter Twenty-Four

It would’ve been great to spend the rest of the day flat on my stomach recuperating. Sleeping. Dreaming of a world minus one highly annoying Deyrar who everybody wanted dead, including me. In that world Vayl and I would never stop at one kiss. The brush of a hand would lead to a night full of caresses. Yeah, I pretty much wanted to spend the next nine hours in Fantasyland.

Dave wouldn’t allow it. As he worked over my back he whispered, “Tarasios may know a way to get Vayl out of this mess.”

I looked over at him from where I sat the wrong way around in a library chair. He’d passed out on the floor right next to the pool of blood. “The guy has the IQ of a cornstalk,” I said. “I doubt he knows why Disa goes night-night when the sun rises, much less how to break the binding.”

“He may have seen something though,” Dave insisted. “They were getting along fine last time I saw him. And now he’s turned lush.” He paused, came around the chair to confront me. “Tell me I was never in as bad a shape as him.”

I took some more time to look over Disa’s reject. “I don’t know. What kind of condition were you in when you punched those officers?” I gazed up at Dave, working to keep an expression of mild inquiry on my face.

His face went blank. Pale. For a second I wondered if he’d had a stroke. Then his nose scrunched, followed closely by his top lip. Anybody who’d followed his sports career through high school and college would’ve recognized that snarl. It had won more football games, wrestling matches, and track meets than any other expression in his arsenal. “I’m done being that guy,” he growled.

“Good,” I said. “Because I don’t think he’d be nearly as successful at weaseling info out of Tarasios as you.”

Dave nodded so sharply it reminded me of a salute. “As soon as he wakes up I’m going to become his very good buddy. See what I can find out. In the meantime, you and Vayl should check out Hamon’s room. Remember he said he had some idea how to get in? We’ve got to find out who this Octavia bimbo is and why Disa thinks she needs to be fed.”

“What about the mutt?” I asked. Ziel had finally calmed beneath Vayl’s gentle hands and soft murmurs and, after giving him a couple of final sniffs, trotted off to check out the blood and the unconscious guy next to it.

“I’ll watch him,” Dave said. “We’ve still got that steak we stole from the kitchen when we brought him in, so maybe I’ll give him some of that. He looks like he could use a snack.”

That took care of my excuses. Which made me wonder why I kept looking for more. Did Hamon’s secrets worry me that much?

Or was it the idea of being alone with a vampire I had no clue how to befriend?

“What do you say, Vayl?” I asked. “Wanna do some breaking and entering?”

The dimple in his cheek told me I might’ve just made a good start.

Hamon Eryx’s room stood at the end of a wide hall lined with six glass cases, each of which held a single item.

“What are these?” I asked Vayl as we passed a black glove, a brown leather shoe, a tan fedora, a dangly pearl earring, a pair of round-lensed sunglasses, and a white lace corset.

“Artifacts from former Deyrars.”

“Whatever happened to presidential portraits?”

Vayl’s eyebrows rose just enough to let me know he saw the humor. He glanced at the cameras that covered the area. The slight narrowing of his eyes told me what he wanted. I reached for my gun.

Overkill, he mouthed.

Party pooper, I replied in the same manner. Instead I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. Bergman had programmed the Monises to obey simple commands sent from them, including those that would shut down cameras within a twenty-foot radius. You never know when you’re not going to want an audience. But in the CIA, you’re always pretty sure the time will come.

I could’ve done the same job directly from the Monise as well. But this way, whoever was monitoring us would think I was just pulling a typical American stunt that involved my cell. Especially when I provided audio to go along with it.

“Cole’s been sending me text messages,” I said as I activated the code. “This hat reminded me of one I just got.” I held the phone up for Vayl to see and he nodded with interest as we both watched the screen until it blinked the words we were waiting for: Video Feed Deactivated.

I returned the phone to my pocket as Vayl swept his hand across one of the artifact containers. “Can you feel their power?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“As I suspected, the glass is as much for containment as it is for protection.” He looked the boxes over. “No discernible locks.” He slammed his fist into the glass. It shivered, but didn’t break.

“Wow, vamp-proof. I’m impressed,” I said.

The corners of Vayl’s mouth turned up even farther. “Wait until you see this.”

He positioned his hands on either side of the box and raised his power so swiftly that even I shivered in the rush of its increase. Clouds appeared inside the glass. Which turned into sparkles of ice. And then suddenly the bottom popped out of the case. I lunged forward to catch it, barely snagging it before it hit the floor.

“Geez! You could’ve warned me!”

He shrugged. “I thought the top would come off.” I picked up the glove. “Put it on,” he said. “It obviously belonged to a woman.”

I didn’t want to. With its powers unmasked, the glove felt like a beating heart to me, something alive that had no business being anywhere near my skin. But my boss had given me an order, so I obeyed, sliding the black silk over my tingling palm. It was too long, its tips hanging nearly an inch from where my fingers stopped.

He pulled the same stunt with the other five boxes. By the time we were finished, he wore the shoe, sunglasses, and fedora, which made him resemble a muscular Johnny Depp cast as a gangster for his next big film.

I’d clipped on the earring and Vayl had tied the corset over my sweater.

“You look incredible in this,” he murmured as he stood back to admire his handiwork.

I peeked down. “You mean my rack looks great, don’t you?” Frankly, I had to agree. I’d never thought there was much you could do with average. But, by golly, someone had hunkered down and come up with a pretty spectacular idea.

When I looked up it was to meet sparkling green eyes, twin jewels in a face taut with desire. “Jasmine.” The way he said my name, drawing out the syllables so it sounded like Yaz-meena, made me shiver. I ran my tongue across my lips, drawing his gaze.

“We, uh, didn’t we have a plan? You know, for you to settle your past and for us to learn to be friends? Because I suck at that?”

“Do friends ever kiss?”

“Um.”

He took it as a yes, pulling me to him so quickly that my hands slapped against his shoulders as our bodies met. “Just one,” he murmured, more to himself than to me. “Just a taste to help me through the rest of this interminable day.” And then his lips came down on mine.

Sometime later he whispered, “How can it be that your kisses sustain me?”

“Dunno.” Honest, I just wasn’t capable of any reply more intelligent than that. Also, I’d forgotten how to inhale by that time, so I’d probably experienced some level of brain damage.

He took a deep breath. Not because he needed to. Maybe to clear his head. “I usually have better restraint than this. Perhaps it is the power of the artifacts combined with Disa’s binding pulsing through me. Or the feeling of the sun shining bright outside these walls. I truly meant to give us more time. I will.” He dropped his arms, his lips tightening with remorse.

“Don’t you dare feel bad about stealing a smooch here and there. I haven’t studied the friends-to-lovers credo lately, but I’m sure it’s allowable under certain conditions, including the ones we have right here.” Plus, if he stopped, I’d probably end up doing something unladylike. Several examples came immediately to mind. As usual, my top picks were taking an African hunting trip wherein I got to kill all the poachers I could locate, and eating an entire chocolate cream pie while drinking brandy-laced coffee and watching every Jason Bourne movie ever made.

Vayl was smiling now. “So you like it when I kiss you?”

“I’m panting, aren’t I?”

“But you agree we should get to know each other better.”

“We have a pretty thorough professional knowledge of each other. But, yeah, I guess personally there are a few [huge!] gaps.”

“Which we never seem to have the time to fill.” He glanced at Hamon’s door, which was blocked by a second, iron-barred gate. “For instance, we have already used precious minutes that should have been spent trying to enter this place. Someone could come past at any moment and ruin our plan.”

“Yeah, although according to my Monise they’re sticking pretty close to their chosen vamps’ rooms. Maybe because Disa’s pissed us off so much she’s afraid we’re going to come hunting her while she sleeps.” I stopped, gave myself a second to fantasize. “You’re right though. Let’s get inside if we can. I guess we’ll just have to keep stealing moments for ourselves until—”

“Until you agree to visit my diamond mines with me.” He’d turned away, so he didn’t see my jaw drop. But maybe he sensed it, because he chuckled. “No, I have not forgotten your promise. And I know you have vacation time coming. A month at least.” He slanted a look over his shoulder. Sly, brilliant vampire. “If we kill Samos, perhaps then—”

“You never know.” I tried for cheerful and ended up sounding like a nervous little virgin instead. Geez! Would you relax? Every time you even smell the potential for something terrific, you do not have to lay a damn egg!

Vayl went to the door. He motioned for me to come stand in front of him and then pulled me tight against him, his arm warm around my waist.

“Put your hand over your heart and tuck your hair back so the earring is visible,” he whispered. I did as I was told, noting that he slid his left leg forward beside mine so the shoe showed clearly to whoever—or whatever—was watching. “I am going to whisper words in your ear. Then we must repeat them together.”

“What are they?” I asked.

“You said that when Hamon died Camelie recited ‘McNaight’s Refrain.’”

“That’s what Blas told me.”

“It was Hamon’s favorite poem, one he often quoted. I am sure Disa tried using it to get into his room. But not with the relics. I believe they are significant because some are meant for a man, and some for a woman. Are you ready?”

“Yeah.”

He whispered the first line into my ear, and together we said, “As separate souls we met in the moon-bathed glade.”

With pauses for prompting, we continued to the end.

“And if our eyes locked, they are the bluer for it.

Never should we have tarried, not a sigh, nor a touch,

For now we mix and cannot blend our hearts, our minds, ah

These bodies serve to curb our love,

We two,

We ultimate duet.

In the end, we sing alone,

Our voices rent by fate.”

The door began to weep. At least it seemed that way. Black flecks fell from the bars like tears for the next several seconds. And then we heard a click.

“I think the sucky poem worked,” I whispered.

“You did not like it?”

“Hell no!”

“Which part?”

I looked over my shoulder and rolled my eyes, though Vayl’s were hard to see, hidden behind the specs like they were. “You know. That bullshit about being alone in the end. Once you’ve loved for real, you’re never alone. Lonely, maybe.” I stuck my hand in my left pocket. Gave my old engagement ring an affectionate squeeze. “But never truly alone.”

Vayl cocked his head to one side. “I like that.” He motioned to the door. “Shall we?”

I pulled on the bars and they moved easily. Behind them stood your standard Deyrar-style door. Ceiling-high oak engraved with the image of a Hydra. A simple twist of the knob revealed a sumptuous bedroom that had not, like the rest of the house, fallen prey to any sort of rot, mold, or mildew. Hamon had hung wallpaper in thick blue and white stripes that made me feel like I was standing inside a circus tent. Ornate white woodwork lined the paper top and bottom. A plump-mattressed bed framed by black iron scrollwork took up one wall. Another held a bachelor chest and a brown leather wing chair. A full-length mirror flanked by wall shelves that supported busts of Einstein and Newton filled a third.

“Just one room?” I said. “That doesn’t seem right for the head of a high-falutin Trust like this one. Or at least, like it used to be.”

“No, not at all,” Vayl agreed. “Nearly everyone had a secret place where they kept their crypt. So if we search along the walls, perhaps we will find the entrance to another room.”

“Like the one Blas had?”

“Precisely. Or, perhaps, the one referred to as the Preserve.”

As we searched on opposite walls I spent some time trying to convince myself Vayl’s former sleeping arrangements were none of my business. Then I decided this was exactly the kind of thing a friend would ask. “Um, Vayl?”

“Yes.”

“Did you, ah, have a stone, that is, a coffin-type thingy when you lived here?”

Long pause. I counted to ten. Gave up. Then he answered. “No. I could never bear the feeling, the thought—”

“I so get that,” I said. “When I was a little kid one of my greatest fears was of being buried alive. I don’t even know where I got the idea it could happen. Some show, probably, about scratch marks on the inside of coffin lids and people who could fall into comas so deep that doctors thought they were truly dead.”

Sigh. “Yes,” he said. “You understand. Also there was the real possibility that an enemy would discover the crypt and seal me inside.”

“Did you have many enemies?”

“Several.” Another pause. “Did I ever tell you why I am so bothered by snakes?”

“No.” Although he had let me know he didn’t appreciate them. To the point where I’d had to dispose of one for him during a previous mission.

“When I was a child we were traveling from one camp to another and we had to cross a river. My dog had been traveling on the wagon, but he loved water, so as soon as he could, he jumped in. About halfway across he squealed and began to struggle, as if he had been caught by a fast-moving limb. I cried for my father to come to his aid, but when he pulled him out by the scruff of his neck, his entire underbelly was covered, crawling with water snakes.”

“Oh my God.”

“My father threw him back in. It was a miracle neither he nor the horse was bitten as well. But still, the vision haunts me.”

“Stuff that happens to you when you’re little, it just sticks, doesn’t it?”

“Some of it, yes. And some memories I cannot grasp though I experienced them fully at the time.” I moved to the next wall, looked over to see him shaking his head. “Ah, but it has been a while, as you say.”

“Hey, I think I found it!” I’d made my way to the mirror. Framed in pewter, it had lots of scrollwork, but at the top and bottom were smooth, round expanses of metal inscribed with Vampere phrases.

“What’s it say?” I asked as Vayl joined me.

“It is a famous quote from one of our first Council members, Sereth, who passed perhaps a century ago. Reality is but a reflection of humanity’s manipulation of itself.”

We began pressing and prodding the mirror, pushing the round sections, trying to shove it in different directions. Vayl looked around the room. “This has to be it,” he said, resting his hands on his hips in frustration.

“Wait a second. That word, ‘manipulation.’ See how it’s in a different font?” I said.

“Yes!” Vayl pressed his forefingers onto the word and pushed. It sank into the surrounding metal. Moments later, with the whispering whoosh I associated with hydraulics, the mirrored section, along with the geniuses Eryx had idolized, swung inward.

We grinned at each other in delight. Vayl felt inside and found a light switch. When he flipped it we saw a hallway covered with a mural the artist had called The Daemon Wars. The setting looked fairly recent. Times Square full of cars I dated to the fifties. Humans carried on with their business, oblivious to the vampires and hell spawn battling in alleyways, sewers, and on rooftops, just out of their sight.

“Were you around for this?” I asked, shoving a thumb at the painting.

“Of course.”

“How come I’ve never heard of it?”

He darted a glance at me that looked almost—amused. “Our department was only involved peripherally. And other than us, the government stayed out completely.”

I stared at the painting another minute. One of the fighters had caught my eye. A woman with honey-colored hair pulled back into a braid. I could only see her profile, but it looked oddly familiar. I shook my head. Couldn’t be. Evie’s twenty-four, for God’s sake.

I pulled Grief and nodded as Vayl led me into a red-painted, gold-carpeted room full of open shelves, glass cases, and carefully arranged displays.

“This must be the Preserve,” he said.

“Wow” was my brilliant reply. Vayl had said Hamon was a math professor, but given how the items we passed were posed, lit, and grouped, it looked to me like his secret passion had been museum curation.

Enormous statues of long-nosed faces stood on their own waist-high pedestals. Original paintings, all depicting scenes of war or martyrdom, filled the walls. Skeletons of dinosaurs posed as if in full chase of the recomposed bones of their mammalian prey. Two gigantic round tablets containing ancient writings stood on their ends, propped by intricately detailed Ionic columns. They filled one entire end of the room.

“Don’t these people ever throw anything away?” I asked.

“Why would they? This is the stuff of legend!” Vayl fingered a full-scale costume made of dried yellow grasses that reminded me of Dorothy’s Scarecrow minus the suit that made him charming. The mask that topped it looked like the contraptions people wear after they’ve broken their necks, except colorful tufted feathers stuck out of the band that ran around the forehead. To one side of it stood a six-foot-long spear draped in hemp-braided beads.

We explored the whole area, discovering priceless relics neither of us had ever seen before and antiques my grandparents’ folks would’ve used when they were kids. We knew we’d found Eryx’s prize possession when we reached the center of the exhibit. Sitting on a velvet-covered dais was a mask the size of a pro basketball player. When worn it would cover the entire body, front and back, except for maybe the ankles. The carved wood shone as if it were polished daily. And a wreath of silk laurel leaves circled the forehead.

Though some of the other masks we’d seen in the Preserve had worn the faces of animals and fiends, this one clearly symbolized a human. It looked like a Master’s hand had done the carving of lips, nose, ears, cheeks, and forehead. The most amazing parts of the whole piece were the eyes, painted so artfully that they looked real, and you had to look hard to see where the empty space had been left in the pupils for the wearer to see through.

Vayl said, “I do not care for the whiskers. It detracts from the artistry of the rest of the piece.”

It did seem odd that the crafter had carved lines that radiated out from the face to the edges of the mask. “It’s probably some magically symbolic thing like those words at the bottom,” I guessed. I’d been taking pictures with my Monise all along. Now I got a close-up of the phrase, which wasn’t in a language either one of us recognized.

“Do you suppose this is symbolic?” he asked, pointing to a small door that had been built into the front of it, about a foot below the face. It was square, with a round, black knob. As soon as he touched the door, an image appeared to the left of the dais. It was a vampire wearing a brown suit with a ruffled white shirt underneath. He’d clasped his hands in front of his hips to speak, making it easy for me to recognize the ring on his pinky finger. The same one I’d seen on the dangling corpse in Blas’s room.

“It’s Hamon, isn’t it?” I asked as Vayl stepped back from the hologram.

“Yes.”

For a few seconds we watched the former Deyrar stare thoughtfully over our heads. Finally he spoke. “I will not welcome you,” he said, in a voice I found hauntingly familiar. “Not yet at least. By solving the puzzle of my death-spell and the riddle of unlocking the Preserve’s doors, you have proved yourself clever. But that does not necessarily make you a fitting Deyrar, dearling. Especially if you are the one who killed me, since my sudden demise is the only way this recording could be activated.”

He swallowed several times, struggling with emotions he didn’t care to share. “I have given everything to assure the continuance of this Trust. You could have had all my secrets willingly if you had just waited until I was prepared to step down. But now—no, I will not reveal it all. Only this. If I am gone, my mate, Octavia, will follow me quite soon. We ruled over the Trust together, partners, as has been the case for Deyrars since the first pair powered this Trust. If you wish to keep this community alive, you must also find a partner. Ideally a mate. Give her to the mask. Let Octavia decide if your choice is appropriate. But do it quickly. If Octavia dies without initiating a renewal within the mask, the Trust will die with her.”

Hamon’s image flickered and faded away.

“Dearling! That’s where I’ve heard that word before!” I exclaimed. When Vayl sent me a startled look, I said, “Every time we’re in a room full of blood this face appears to me. The first time it showed up, it said ‘dearling.’ I think it’s Hamon, or what’s left of him, still hanging around trying to save the Trust.”

Vayl shook his head. “He was certainly devoted.”

“I guess you could use that word. I’d go for something a little more extreme myself. Like obsessed. Or, oh, I don’t know . . . bonkers?”

Vayl ignored me as he regarded the mask with even more interest than he’d shown it before. “What do you think he meant by equating Octavia with the mask?”

“Maybe it belongs to her.”

“Or maybe . . .” Vayl reached forward and pulled the small square door open. Behind it, moving on its own as if animated by some outside force, sat a beating heart.

We must’ve stared at that organ for five solid minutes.

“Octavia?” I asked.

Vayl closed the door, his cheekbones looking more prominent than usual because he’d locked his jaws so tight. He walked around to the back of the mask. “Take a look at this,” he said grimly. When I joined him, he pointed out a line of chocolate-turtle-sized protrusions running down the center of the piece.

“Looks like a spinal column,” I said.

“Do you feel any power coming from it?” Vayl asked.

“Like an all-over skin crawl. And I’ll bet my savings there are actual vertebrae hidden behind those bumps.”

“I believe you would win,” said Vayl.

“So where’s the rest of her?”

“I have no idea.”

Aw, hell. He reached around to take my hand. His was cold, and oh, so strong.

“Vayl.” I squeezed his hand as hard as I could. Which, to him, probably felt like a mouse jumping on a trampoline. “I’d like to point out how much this sucks.”

“Agreed.” He moved back to the front of the mask, studying the face so closely that my urge to pull him away nearly got the better of me. “I believe she must be sleeping.”

“Well.” I gulped. “It is daytime. If she’s still a vampire, that would be a logical conclusion.”

“We must return tonight.”

“Do you think she’ll know how to break you free of Disa?”

“It is difficult to say. But given the fact that she is dying, I would suspect whatever information she has to offer will be genuine.”

“Okay.” I stifled the urge to kick the mask over and stomp it into kindling. Destroying the Trust could free Vayl from Disa. But he might see it as slightly extreme given that he still had some friends here.

I followed Vayl back to the Hydra-covered door, which we once again secured with the barred gate. The artifacts went back where we’d found them and Vayl resealed the cases. After unblocking the cameras we returned to our suite.

Dave was still at the library table when we came in, studying the cemetery layout as if he could somehow make the whole plan work just by staring at its visual design. He readily switched interest to the photos we’d taken. “Are you telling me this mask is somehow alive?” he asked.

I looked to Vayl. Are we sure about this? His nod gave my answer confidence. “Yeah. We don’t know how, but it’s packed with power.”

He took a closer look at the picture. “What are these symbols in the base?”

Vayl said, “It is not Vampere.”

“Cassandra’s really good at ancient languages,” I hinted. “And if she can’t translate, maybe the Enkyklios has a clue.” It often gave her a leg up in the research department when her own knowledge came up short.

Dave looked at his watch. “It’s just after twelve thirty p.m. here, which means it’s, what, eight or nine thirty where she’s at?”

“Something like that,” I agreed.

“Okay, I’ll give her a call. Maybe she can come up with something.” He dug out his phone.

I looked around the room, finally noticing the blood had been cleaned up, though Tarasios was still passed out on the floor. “Where’s the dog?” I asked.

“In the bedroom,” said Dave as he waited for his call to go through. “He’s sprawled out on that dress of yours like it’s made of ermine or something. Which reminds me. He snores.”

“Thanks for the warning. I’ll grab my earplugs before I try to get some shut-eye,” I said. “Anybody have any objections?”

Dave shook his head and walked away as Cassandra answered her phone and he began to talk, hesitantly at first, but more eagerly as the conversation went on. I glanced at Vayl. “You okay with me catching a nap?” I asked.

“Of course.” He smiled. “With Disa clear of the library, perhaps I can spend some time in there. Among all those old tomes there must be one recommendation as to how a Maker can force his nestling to fly.”

I realized I’d clasped my hands together like a little girl who’s just been promised a dolly for her birthday. “You think there might be some info in there about breaking the binding?”

“Absolutely.” For a couple of seconds I believed it. Because I wanted to. But I could tell he didn’t hold out much hope for rescue. Which was when I finally got fed up. I’m killing that bitch. Not just for Vayl. But for Aine. And Niall and Admes. For the werebears and my honorary pack. And that bloody face that makes me go ewww.

Suddenly the question was no longer how to break the bond between my sverhamin and the woman he’d ripped, but how to keep him alive once I’d smoked her.