Bitten to Death

Chapter Twenty-Six

Most rescuers run right out the door. Which is why many of them die right along with the people they’re trying to save. I dove into the armoire where I’d stowed my weapons bag.

“I heard,” said Tarasios as I pocketed a couple of extra clips and slung my new crossbow over my shoulder.

“Huh.” I dumped Bergman’s faulty missiles and replaced them with my throwing knives, shuddering as the sheath bit into my skin. Gonna have to find some other weapons for this arm, I finally admitted to myself. These suckers are going to haunt me forever.

As I checked to make sure my syringe of holy water was full, Tarasios said, “I want to go with you.” He’d come out of the bathroom to stand at the foot of the bed. The battered old trunk looked better prepared to face an invasion than he did.

“Do you know how to shoot?”

“I took a class once.”

I checked the safety on my .38 before tucking it in the small of my back and then handed him the weapon I called No Frills. “This is a twelve-gauge shotgun,” I told him. “The barrel has been sawed off, which means it sounds like a bomb and kicks like a cannon. Just point it at what you want to hit and you’ll do fine.”

“So,” he mused as he turned the gun in his hands, “you’re not going to argue with me?”

“Why should I? Gives them another target, which means my chances of survival skyrocket.”

“Oh.”

“Disa said Dave was with Admes, patrolling the border. Any idea where they’d be?”

“Probably as far from Niall as possible. She likes to keep them apart because they take such joy in being together.”

“Isn’t that kind of petty?”

“Well, Niall wanted Aine to be Deyrar.”

“I’m saying.”

Tarasios acted like he wanted to rush to Disa’s defense. Then he remembered. “Yes.”

“Okay. So if they’re all headed toward the wagon house, we’ll go in the opposite direction, to the woods southwest of the villa. Surely somewhere around there I’ll be able to pick up Admes’s scent.”

I put Ziel on the short leash Blondie had brought him walking with. Then I glared at the dog. “You try to hump me one time and I swear I’m wrapping this sucker around a tree trunk and leaving you to the wolves. Got it?”

He stuck his tongue out, panted a couple of times, which I took to be an affirmative, and the three of us trotted through the dank, empty villa and out the back door.

“You going to be able to keep up?” I asked Tarasios as we quick-hiked through an olive grove whose canopy loomed over us with a menace I assured myself had more to do with him stumbling and gasping every few steps than any actual danger Dave might be facing up ahead. I glanced over my shoulder. Disa’s former flame was breathing harder than necessary, looking pale and sick in the early-evening moonlight. I wasn’t so much worried about him. But if he dropped No Frills I was going to be pissed.

“No problem,” he said.

I wasn’t so sure. Maybe if I kept him talking he’d be able to continue moving as well. “So why the dive into the ouzo bottle? Did you and Disa have a fight?”

“I told David already. You don’t fight with Disa.” Well, that certainly had been proven. “She just . . . dismissed me. Like some employee. She actually said, ‘Your services are no longer necessary,’ and shoved me out the bedroom door.”

“Did she say why?”

“She didn’t have to. I may be slow, but I’m not stupid.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s your boss.” Hard to ignore a theory that was gaining momentum. But I tried.

“Are you sure? He ripped her into vampirism, you know.”

“Oh, I know.” Tarasios rolled his eyes. “Haven’t I heard that story a hundred times? How he took her hard and fast like a pirate captain. How he left her to die, only to return and save her, murmuring apologies into her ear until she wept with joy. Ugh.”

Yeah, that version grossed me out too. It sounded like something she’d pulled from the pages of a bodice ripper. Had the reality warped in her mind over time? Or had she always loved him? Always wanted the eternity he could give her if she just played the right strategy?

“So Disa’s in love with Vayl?”

“As much as someone like her can be.”

Which led me to wonder if she’d manufactured this whole situation. Had she arranged for Samos to prey on the Trust, knowing that Hamon would call on the one vampire who could save it? And then had she killed Hamon and maimed Blas so she’d be in charge when Vayl arrived? Hmm, that seemed a little extreme. Plus, her job was to protect the Trust, not tear it apart. On the other hand, she had offed several of its members.

But she hadn’t known the details of our contract. She hadn’t been aware of it at all until Vayl mentioned it. Aw hell, it was all too confusing to straighten out while running uphill, dodging the shrubs that had grown up between the trees, trying to scent out werewolves, werebears, and whatever else the Trust had mortally offended. I had a feeling the list was lengthy.

I’d activated Bergman’s lenses. Though nothing moved within my enhanced vision, I could sense others lurking just outside the border of the Trust’s lands. Not Weres. Vampires. But it was so faint I imagined it was miles distant, maybe a group of hunters stalking prey in one of the dark alleyways of the city whose lights filled the coastline below us.

I reached out for Admes’s scent and found it much closer. I began to run, no longer caring if Tarasios could keep up or not. Ziel galloped by my side, his tongue flopping like a big pink necktie. Thirty seconds later I found my quarry, walking the tree line carryinghis gladius in one hand, an AK-47 in the other, a crossbow strapped to his back. After a space of about three feet, Dave followed.

“It’s Jaz,” I called in a low voice, hoping neither of them felt extra jumpy tonight. Admes nodded while Dave motioned me over. “Tarasios is with me,” I said as the vampire and my brother turned to check out the injured-boar sounds coming from the darkness behind me. Somebody should just put that man out of his misery.

“Whose dog?” asked Admes.

“Uh, he’s a loaner,” I said. “We’re letting everybody in the Trust have some face time with him to see if he grows on them. Do you like dogs?”

Dave came over and hissed in my ear, “What are you doing?”

“We got to find this ball of fur a new residence pretty soon. It would be highly convenient to leave him in the villa after we go if—”

“You’re going to dump an innocent animal with vampires?”

“He’s hardly pure. You should’ve seen what he did to my shoe!”

Tarasios caught up to us, interrupting the argument with a short bout of hawking and spitting. “Don’t get any of that on No Frills,” I said.

“Sorry. Just trying to get this taste out of my mouth.”

This from a guy who’s drunk Disa’s blood?

“Let’s keep moving,” said Admes. He led Dave, Tarasios, and myself along the trail he’d been taking, though I didn’t really see the point. All the action was at the wagon house. Where Vayl had no backup, except possibly Niall. And not even him if it came to a choice between my sverhamin and the Trust. Now that I knew Dave was safe, I couldn’t help but think that’s where I needed to be.

I stared into the darkness between the fir and beech trees that grew thickly on this edge of the property. I tried to reach out with my Spirit Eye to sense any threats to the Trust. But I couldn’t make myself concentrate on the job at hand. Knowing Dave and I should be watching Vayl’s back made me so jumpy I nearly shot Tarasios when he stepped on a stick, cracking it so loudly I thought we’d been attacked.

I went back to my obsessing. We should leave. Admes and Tarasios can hike all night long if they want to. Disa wanted Dave here, which is enough in itself to insist we get the hell out. I stopped just as Dave said, “I don’t like this.” Most people would’ve thought he meant our patrol in general. I knew different. Something about the layout of the land disturbed him.

We’d just begun to head down a hill. The forested edge of the property, which we’d kept to our left, banked around in front of us before straightening out again, enclosing the depression we were about to enter on two sides. The grapevines that filled the area hadn’t leafed out yet. Between them the grass grew short. In most places it barely brushed our ankles. A couple of trees had gone down recently, their bare branches reaching into the path Admes meant to take between the vineyard and forest like the open jaws of sleeping sharks.

Would it be so bad if I grabbed the AK-47 out of the vamp’s hands and sprayed the tree line until bark and pine needles flew like grenade fragments? I knew I’d feel better. Especially now that I’d look like a big wuss if I tried to get us off this crappy little detail.

I clutched Grief, solid and reassuring, in my right hand. The other held Ziel’s leash so tightly it would leave red marks when I finally released it. As we trekked down the hill I wished we’d had time to break out our communications devices before Vayl left. Now the only way he and I could contact each other was through Cirilai. Maybe if my emotions tipped the holy-shit! scale he’d get the message. Were we there yet? I took inward stock. Almost.

Ziel backed up three or four steps, causing me to stop again. “Hang on,” I said. “Something’s wrong.” Another faint whiff of vampires. I concentrated on it. Realized it was more familiar than it had first seemed. “Aw, no.”

“What?” Dave asked.

“Vamps,” I whispered. “A lot closer than I’d thought.” Admes gasped and went to his knees, a bolt sticking through his left shoulder.

“Take cover!” Dave yelled. We hit the ground just as a bullet whined between me and Tarasios. Both had come from beyond the fallen trees ahead of us.

“I need them alive, you idiots!” came a slightly accented voice off to my left. I concentrated my fire in that direction. When I heard a body crash in the woods I paused to reload.

We’d hit a tough spot. Our cover consisted of the night, our ability to make like flatworms, and the trees most of our attackers seemed to be hiding on the other side of.

I saw Dave’s blade flash and realized he was cutting the bolt that had hit Admes so he could lie comfortably while he fired. “Thanks,” Admes whispered as he rolled to his stomach. He began shooting his AK in short bursts that forced our enemies to keep their heads down. Meanwhile Tarasios lay with both hands clasped over his head, moaning, “I don’t want to die,” over and over again, No Frills forgotten at his side.

“How did we not sense them?” Dave asked as he rolled to his back, Beretta in one hand, crossbow in the other, watching for maneuvers meant to surround us.

“Blas,” I said bitterly. I pressed the magic button. Heard the whir of machinery that meant Grief was transforming. Though I could sense some humans feeling hugely pumped by their surprise attack on the other side of those gnarled branches, I figured Admes had them covered. The vamps were the ones Dave and I needed to worry about. And I was pretty sure they still lurked near the edge of the forest.

I went on. “He can camouflage his own psychic scent. Apparently he can do it for others too. He didn’t claim it as his cantrantia, but as masterfully as he fooled me, I think that’s his main ability. He’s the cause of this mess.”

“I thought he was dead,” Admes said unbelievingly. “You’re saying he invited this attack?”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “I kind of admire his tenacity. You’d think losing half your face would quench pretty much any ambitions you had left. But he keeps on trucking. I suppose he figures Samos is his best bet to dethrone Disa.”

“I should be Deyrar, not that mutation they’ve all bowed down to.”

I was so startled by the voice of Blas, coming from every direction but seemingly disconnected from any physical form, that my entire body came off the ground. Ziel, who’d been lying quietly beside me, began to growl.

I baited the vampire, trying to make him reveal his position. “And here you had me thinking you were the poor, pitiful victim.”

“I am the one who called the Raptor from the skies. Hamon’s leadership had already begun to crumble. Beneath Samos’s attack it would have fallen, and Aine would have found no support for her succession, she was such a sycophant of his. The rule of the Trust would have fallen peacefully to me if Hamon hadn’t phoned Vayl.”

“What’s he got to do with this?” I demanded, staring into the night, trying to track Blas by the sound of his omnipresent voice.

“I overheard them speaking of a contract. I could hardly let Hamon live once I knew Vayl was coming to shore up his position, now, could I? So I killed Hamon and made my play.”

“But it didn’t work out the way you’d planned, did it?”

“How were we to know about the Preserve?” he shrieked. “Hamon kept everything such a secret! Hoarding all his power like a damned . . . power hoarder!”

I almost had him pinpointed now. Out of Grief’s range. But Dave should be able to reach him. I whispered, “He’s standing between your ten and twelve o’clock.”

“Can you be a little more specific?” Dave replied quietly. “That still leaves a whole lot of black between the trees.”

Admes traded another few rounds with our human ambushers. I waited for the firing to pause before I yelled, “We found the Preserve, Blas. Lovely little spot right off of Octavia’s dressing room. You should see all the relics Hamon’s collected in there. Oh wait. That’s right. You can’t.”

His scream raised the hairs on the back of my neck. In the extremity of his emotion he allowed his guard to slip. I saw movement. And so did Ziel. He didn’t bark. Just shot straight toward the faceless vampire like a furry torpedo, leaped, caught him just below the jaw, and tumbled him backward into the grass.

Blas squealed like a little girl as Ziel tightened his hold.

“Can’t get a shot without hitting the dog,” Dave said, so calmly he might’ve been discussing lunch plans as Admes fired off another burst and one of the humans screamed his death cry into the night.

“Leave him to me,” I replied.

“Fine. I’ll take care of the vamps at our six o’clock,” Dave said. As he readjusted I realized there were at least two more heading our way. Easier to sense now that Blas was down, they must’ve left the woods after we’d passed them and snuck up behind us. Dave would have his hands full.

I snaked my way forward, pulling my knife as I moved. Ziel, making growly sounds deep in his chest, was chewing Blas up pretty good.

“Don’t hurt the dog!” screamed Samos as he came charging out of the forest, both arms raised as if Blas could see him waving them in a desperate negative. But somewhere in his panic, Blas had realized he was stronger than the enormous canine and had managed not only to pry himself free but to throw him forcibly into one of the dead trees. Ziel hit it with a yelp that went straight through my gut. He landed on his feet, staggered a few steps, sat down, and shook his head as if to say, That’s going to smart in the morning. At which point I realized he was the toughest four-legger on the face of the earth.

But my focus, every atom of my being, pointed toward the vampire I’d been sent to kill. I took careful aim.

“You imbecile!” Samos grabbed Blas at the precise spot where Ziel had let go and lifted him just as I pulled the trigger. The bolt that should’ve taken Samos down smoked Blas instead. One moment the Raptor was shaking him like a piñata. The next he held two fistfuls of air.

“Goddammit!” I had a second to note the blotch of blood on Samos’s thigh while I waited for Grief to reload. So he was the one I’d hit with my blind shot into the woods earlier. Nice. Then Dave said, “A little help here,” and I turned to find him barely holding his own against Samos’s two assistants.

Dave’s bolt had just missed the sweet spot and jutted from the gut of a tall, lanky woman who came at him with a pair of escrima sticks, wielding them with such speed they were a bone-breaking blur.

“Tarasios!” I yelled. “Get your head out of your ass and fight!” I shot at the second assistant, who was swinging some sort of net as if he was a Roman gladiator who’d lost his trident in a game of poker. The Gladiator pitched forward, only temporarily sidelined. But it gave Dave the breathing room he needed to roll out of Stick Lady’s path and empty his Beretta into her chest.

Tarasios’s scream brought my attention back to Samos, who’d advanced so far that his bright brown eyes shone like the headlights of a train on whose tracks our vehicle had stalled. I recognized his expression. Crazed, baby. So far past reason, in fact, that the crossbow in my hand counted as nothing to him. I brought my right hand up to steady it. Nothing was going to screw this up for me. Not this time.

“You stole my dog,” Samos growled. “You killed my avhar. I would tear you into tiny pieces and make you watch me eat them if I could. But the witches say if I am to gain the power I need to overtake this Trust I need a burning—the more bodies the better. I was going to wait until I had the Vitem together in the Odeum. But you forced my hand taking Ziel as you did. Of course, listening to your screams for mercy will be so much more satisfying.”

“I don’t think we’re up for any more fires, Eddie,” I said as I sighted him in. One shot, that’s all I was going to get. I had to hit the sweet spot the first time. “Although, for what it’s worth, I didn’t smoke Shunyuan Fa. I just thought he was a colossal pain in the ass.”

Samos’s avhar had been killed as he tried to protect the last vampire I’d been assigned to terminate, an ancient Chinese dragon named Chien-Lung. Hell, I hadn’t even been on the yacht when Shunyuan Fa lost his head. But Samos would never believe that one.

I took a breath and held it. My finger crooked. I swear, I was so close to that final triumph I was actually grinning. And then Cirilai shot me. Pain lanced up my arm straight to my heart. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t see.

Vayl?

Yeah, said another part of my mind. Where is he? He would’ve been here by now if it had been at all possible.

Cirilai struck again. My left arm curled into my body, cramping so badly I couldn’t have stretched it out to save myself from drowning. My eyes were open, but all I could see were black dots flying in a red haze.

I heard Tarasios scream again, couldn’t make myself care. Vayl was in more trouble than I could imagine. The kind that meant I might never see him again.

“Jasmine!” Dave yelled. I identified the ripped-air sound of those escrima sticks right before something smashed into my head and everything that mattered faded to black.