Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Vayl nodded, just a slight jerk of his head. "She died. Then she killed me. Ergo… late wife."

That song started going through my head, the only words I remembered being the most pertinent at the moment. How bizarre, how bizarre.

Vayl's voice sounded robotic, a programmed conversational gambit offering no meaningful detail as he said, "Whatever happens, Jasmine, do not take off Cirilai." Who? Oh, duh, the ring.

Still basically clueless, I fell back on what Granny May used to call my 'spider sense.' (She was a big fan of Marvel Comics. Dave still has her collection.) She had meant my woman's intuition, and even without my newly honed senses to back it up, it thrummed like a newly strung web. The rate of thrum increased when Vayl added, "Under no circumstance should you draw your gun."

Grief, a comforting lump under my jacket, contained some Bergman-engineered options that would work beautifully on Liliana. And he didn't want me to pull it? Nuts! Vayl—

His look, foreign and glacial, silenced me. I suddenly felt outnumbered.

"This is not something we can escape through violence," he said, thawing slightly as I searched his eyes.

"What about through the threat of violence?"

His lips twitched. "One cannot encounter you without sensing that threat. Tonight it should be enough simply for them to know you are dangerous."

I disagreed. I hated to question Vayl's commitment to me or to the Agency, but he'd just dropped a big old bomb on me. What else had he been hiding? Should I, God forbid, mark his name down next to Martha's on the suspect list?

I felt like I was looking at a portrait as I gazed into his empty eyes. I'd seen life in them plenty of times, but now I felt stupid to have assumed his life had anything in common with my own. He wasn't a monster. I'd seen enough in my time to recognize the difference. But he wasn't a man either. Could I ever really know, could I ever really trust someone so different from me and mine?

Vayl and I stood staring at each other, teetering at either end of a finely balanced lever. Should I step off? Would he?

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

"That you're up to no good." I sighed. "I hope Granny May was right."

"About what?"

"About trusting my sp… my intuition."

"Grannies are generally very wise in these matters."

Yeah, but mine never met a vampire.

Liliana strode forward, clearly put out that we hadn't unrolled the red carpet for her dramatic entrance. I gave her a look meant to be blank.

"Your kitten is bristling," Liliana told Vayl.

"I would not push her," Vayl replied, leaning just slightly on his cane, "many before you have found her to be more a tigress than a kitten."

Whatever happened to 'Hey, how are you?' 'Long time, no see.' Apparently you don't have to observe the rules of etiquette when reuniting with a murderous spouse.

"How did you find me?" Vayl asked, his voice absolutely even. I took my eyes off the Bad Boys for just a moment to confirm what I had sensed shaking underneath that silken baritone. Yeah, it was there, in small movements most wouldn't notice. A lift of the shoulder. A jerk of the head. The hollowing of a cheek that said he was biting the inside of it. Vayl was fighting enormous rage, something so big that if he released it he might never get it all back in the box.

Oh boy. I'm in smartass mode and Vayl wants to break his ex's neck. If we don't play this right they'll be scraping parts of us off the bumpers of these cars for days.

Liliana flipped a chunk of her long, polyester hair back over one shoulder. "These surroundings are rather… public, don't you think?" The smile she gave Vayl could've cured frostbite. "Come into my car." It wasn't a request.

Vayl's gaze cut her like an arctic wind. "No."

"You owe—"

"I owe you nothing."

She moved so fast her arm was a blur. Vayl caught it just before her hand connected with his jaw.

"Back off, bitch," I snarled. With no time to draw Grief, I'd resorted to my primary backup, a wrist sheath loaded with a syringe.

The needle was halfway into her hip before she could look down to see what was pinching.

A series of mechanical clacks drew my attention to Liliana's goons.

Chinese dude had added a sawed-off shotgun to his arsenal, pulling it out from behind his long, black coat like a Matrix groupie. The tattooed wonder and his buds had their guns locked and loaded and trained on us as well.

"What is in that syringe?" Liliana demanded.

"Slow, painful death by way of holy water," Vayl told her.

"My men can kill her before she depresses it."

"Then I will finish what she has begun. But perhaps you would prefer to talk?"

Liliana responded with a pretty little pout I was sure she'd practiced in a mirror before she'd gone out for the evening. "All right, then," she said. "You always did like to have things your way." By mutual, unspoken agreement I withdrew the needle and Vayl pushed her away. The goons let their barrels drop.

"Is that really how you remember our lives together?" Vayl asked grimly. "Because I have the scars to prove otherwise." Good God, had Liliana inflicted those marks on Vayl's back?

"You earned every one of them," she said viciously, looking as if she'd like to hit him again.

"Maybe." For a fleeting moment Vayl's guard fell. His expression became bleak as a dying man's. Then it was gone, replaced by cold, hard hate. "Who told you I was here?"

"Why Vayl, it's not like I've been looking for you for the last 200 years. I could have found you any time I wanted."

He shook his head, his eyes so dark you could imagine walking right through them and emerging in a whole different universe. "Not true. Someone tipped you off to my whereabouts."

She tilted her head, her hair forming a little river of silver behind her. "What makes you so sure I was looking for you? But I did get your attention, yes? You did enjoy my show?" She inclined her head towards the restaurant. "I thought you would appreciate the irony of two sons losing their father."

Vayl's power spiked and the temperature in the immediate area plummeted. But he didn't reply. If he'd tried, he probably would've spit sleet in her face.

"You must admit I have improved over the centuries," Liliana went on. "Once I would have had to sink my fangs into him to kill him. Now it only takes a scratch." She slid her fingernail against her creamy white forearm to demonstrate and a thin line of blood rose from the wound she'd opened. Vayl stared at it, his hand convulsing on the head of his cane. She stepped closer.

"Do not let her touch you, Jasmine," Vayl commanded. "Just a drop of her blood mixed with yours will kill you."

Liliana recycled the pout. "Only if I want it to." She gave me a look I recognized right away. It was Tammy Shobeson, the sequel. I half expected her to kick me in the shin and call me a sissy pants crybaby. Her psychic scent hit me again, and the stench of death and decay backed me up a step. "My dear, there is no need to be afraid. I won't hurt you… too much." She darted a flirty little smile at Vayl, but he'd lost his appreciation for cruel humor. And apparently she blamed me for that. When she met my eyes again I felt like that poor goat they'd set out to bait the Tyrannosaurus in Jurassic Park. And that's when I knew she really had come for me. That's also when she saw my bandage. Her eyes narrowed instantly. My hand flew upward, a protective gesture I couldn't seem to shake. Her gaze moved to Cirilai.

"Vayl," she said, her voice sort of hollow-sounding, as if she was speaking from the bottom of a well, "why is this—" she made an I've-just-seen-a-cockroach face, "eichfin—wearing your ring? And her neck—have you marked her as well?"

I didn't like that word, "marked." It sounded too much like a dog raising his leg on its favorite hydrant.

"She is my avhar" said Vayl.

That hit her like a wrecking ball. I had a juvenile desire to get right in her face, put my thumbs in my ears, wiggle my fingers at her and sing, "Nah, nah, nah-nah, nah." She lapsed into steaming silence, made a dismissing motion with her hand, and the four stooges backed off. Though I was relieved Liliana had elected to delay the war, I suspected she still meant to wound us. And, like most homicidal maniacs, she followed the profile to the letter.

"Has Vayl fulfilled his end of the bargain?" Liliana asked me, her voice as sweet as powdered sugar. She took my silence for the answer she wanted and went on, "An avhar carries a great burden and responsibility," she told me. "Therefore she also receives certain privileges, one of those being the right to know every detail of her Sverhamin's past."

"Liliana," Vayl growled. The panther prepared to pounce.

"So I just wondered if Vayl has told you about his sons—our sons—and how he killed them—"

"Enough!" Vayl's voice rang with power. Somewhere nearby a meteorologist had flipped out because the temperature had just plunged from 59 to oh-crap-cover-the-oranges. I shivered as frost coated my eyelashes and my lungs filled with winter. Liliana's gunmen, not being Sensitives, weren't fairing nearly as well. They blew into their hands and stomped their feet, and I heard the Tattooed Wonder say, "I can't feel my nose."

"You four," Vayl barked, "get into the car!" They snapped to attention, did a quick about-face and marched right into the limo.

"And you," he regarded his former wife like a mongoose facing a cobra, "get out of my sight, for good this time!"

She bared her fangs and hissed at him, a fairly hilarious reaction in any other circumstance. "Do not believe this is over," she warned, "you cannot guard her every moment. You cannot see in every direction at once. I only have to wait until you blink."

"Harm one hair on her head and I will burn that laughable wig of yours with your head still in it."

I felt a sudden urge to applaud as Liliana muttered an insult I couldn't quite translate, my Romanian being limited to "yes," "no," and "Where's the bathroom?" But, to my surprise, she did retreat to the limo. The door slammed shut and it pulled away.

"So," I said, "we're just letting them leave?"

Vayl took hold of my arm. "No, we are letting them think we let them leave. Come."

We hurried to the Mercedes and pulled into traffic a comfortable distance behind the limo. Ordinarily this would be an easy tail considering the make of their ride. But inside our car the atmosphere was far from relaxed. Finally Vayl said, "I do owe you an explanation."

"Just tell me what I need to know to survive this mission. You can save the rest—"

"—for the plane ride back?" We smiled at each other. "At this rate we will have to fly to Ohio by way of Portugal." Our shared laughter eased the tension, and by the time Vayl spoke again he sounded more like himself.

"I think, first of all, we must face the fact that you have been the target of these attacks all along."

"I'll buy the first attempt," I said, "but why would they poison your blood? And why would they call in your ex?"

"Think about it. They taint my blood supply, I turn on you and take yours. All of it."

"That doesn't quite make sense to me. I mean, you didn't, and—"

Vayl stopped me with an irritable shake of his head. "You are looking at this like a human being, Jasmine. Look at it from a vampire's perspective."

Vayl stopped, stared hard out the window, and by the time he met my eyes again I knew we'd made the same leap. Like a couple of kids on their way to yelling, "Jinx, you owe me a coke!" we chorused, "The mastermind is a vampire!"

Chapter Eleven

"It makes perfect sense," Vayl rushed on as I tried to gather my scattered thoughts enough to keep us from crashing into the nearest electric pole. "A vampire would know that, when faced with a deepening hunger, I would turn to the nearest possible source of nourishment."

"You make me sound like a granola bar."

"Jasmine!"

"I'm joking, I know it wasn't that way. Go on, go on."

"Most vampires, at least the ones who scoff at the idea of assimilation, would have drained you without hesitation. This one is, I believe, no exception. That also explains much better the appearance of Liliana. Until you, only vampires knew of her connection with me."

"How many knew?" I asked.

His shrug and grimace told me not to get excited. "All of the Old Ones, who could have told anyone. Everyone Liliana ever consorted with. I would wager the information is shared by hundreds."

"Including a senator. I mean, that's where we're going with this, right? I saw Martha right before we left. She was still human then."

Vayl nodded, "And still is I will wager. But that does not clear her. It only makes her a potential partner, or patsy, of the senator."

"A senator though? Are we sure we're sober?"

"Remember I told you at the beginning that something seemed off about this mission?"

"Yeah."

"The Committee was supposed to meet with us before we left. They called it a six-month review. Despite Pete's reassurances that he and I were happy with your performance, they wanted to ask you a whole slew of questions. Something about making sure we had made the right decision."

The specter of my past lifted its raggedy head and cackled. The thought that it might always haunt me felt wretched. I wanted to crawl into the nearest bed and burrow under the covers until I was just a lump. Nobody expects anything of lumps. It could be a peaceful existence. Unless you'd just eaten chili. And I liked chili. Never mind.

"Then, without warning, the senators canceled their interview. They said this new mission was much too urgent to put off any longer. Although when I discussed it with Pete he made no mention of a need to rush."

"So what are you getting at?" I asked.

"If the interview had taken place, the undead politician would have been forced to attend. You are a Sensitive. As soon as you entered the room you would have pegged the vampire."

"A vampire senator." I shook my head. "Scary. But how did they figure to pull it off? People in Washington get kind of suspicious when you only come out at night."

Vayl shrugged. "Technology has befriended the human race; I imagine there are times when it smiles kindly on vampires as well."

Well, maybe. Or maybe our senator had a double. Public figures had done the same throughout history. Or maybe he or she was so newly turned and this plan so quickly hatched that he or she could go a couple of weeks in the dark without raising suspicion. Bottom line, our senator had found a way.

I said, "Okay, so at this point we have a dirty plastic surgeon with terrorist ties allied with a Most Wanted vampire allied with a senator. You know what this smells like don't you?"

"Raptor?"

"That son of a bitch is the only one I can think of who could pull together three such unlikely collaborators."

We both fell silent, thinking about the vamp who would, according to Pete's prediction, become the nemesis of every government of every developed country in the world by the end of the decade. If we could use our current suspects to prove all the suppositions we'd collected regarding the Raptor and thus justify a hit on him—to say that the safety and stability of the world would increase exponentially would not be an overstatement.

The limo ahead of us slowed, searching for parking. It had led us to South Beach, where the pretty people met to PARTAYYY! Bars, restaurants, two theatres and a comedy club, all dressed up in Art Deco and neon, shared the neighborhood with the establishment in front of which the limo stopped. The place resembled a Jaycees haunted house, from the rocking tombstones that spelled out CLUB UNDEAD on the fake granite facade, to the glowing skeletons that hung from the second floor balcony, to the green lights that outlined the entire building.

Despite the fact that many party hounds still sat at home whimpering into their doggy pillows, a steady stream of handsome men, beautiful women, and gorgeous men dressed as women moved up and down the sidewalks. Braving the unseasonal chill, even more revelers sat together at the tables that lined the walk, enjoying the company, the booze, and the cheerful glow that came from twinkle lights lining the frames of their patio umbrellas.

Lucky for us, Liliana and her goons had to wait in line before Club Undead's bouncer, a 21st century version of Frankenstein, let them in. That gave us the slack we needed to secure a parking space in an open lot just down the street. We left the car and joined the crowd, sauntering as close to the club as we dared before finding a spot in a darkened doorway beside a closed deli to make like cuddling lovers.

I stood in the circle of Vayl's arms, fighting distraction. This whole new spectrum of color had opened up to me, but I couldn't relish it. I felt like a security guard at the Louvre, forced to watch the potential thieves when I really just wanted to stare at the Mona Lisa. As it happened, that lovely little side effect was just the first in a series of brushstrokes that would eventually reveal an entirely new picture of my life. The second had just begun to show its shadow, a creeping feeling of immense imbalance, when Vayl interrupted my inner inventory.

"There is something else you need to know." His voice rang loud, almost strident, in my ear. "I did not kill my sons."

"Do I look that gullible?" I asked. "Geez, Vayl, I don't believe half the things you say and I trust you."

I didn't realize he was holding himself rigid until he sighed and slumped against the wall at his back.

"I was nearly 40," he began as he kept vigil, his chin just level with my nose. "My boys were almost grown. Hanzi was fifteen. His brother, Badu, was thirteen." Vayl spoke their names as if they were holy. "Liliana gave me five children altogether, but Hanzi and Badu were the only ones to survive infancy. And so… we spoiled them." He lapsed into silence. I felt my heart break a little for the couple he and Liliana had been, desperately sad for their lost children, desperate to make sure their living children survived.

Something near the apex of my aching ribs started to quiver. I felt like I was about to get a really grim phone call. And though Vayl was laying out the story of his tragic life for me because some warped vampire rule said I deserved to know, I knew the feeling wasn't coming from him.

"They grew wild right in front of my eyes," he continued, "and by the time I mustered the courage to tame them it was already too late. They went from teasing dogs with sticks to breaking windows with stones. When they drove into camp one afternoon in a wagon they had stolen… I snapped. I raged at them. I whipped them like toddlers. I forced them to return the wagon with their apologies."

The modern girl in me thought, Vayl's family was camping? What, were they trying to save on hotel bills? The next thought, riding a sea of embarrassment, washed over me with the speed of a tidal wave. They were gypsies.

"What happened?" I asked.

"The farmer they had stolen it from shot them both before they had a chance to explain."

"Oh, Vayl." I held him tight, and not just because my heart bled for him. That feeling of wrongness had intensified. The little girl in me urgently needed a teddy bear. "That's awful," I murmured.

Vayl made a sound in the back of his throat, a primal distress signal, the kind of sound you might hear from elephants as they mourn over the bones of lost brothers. "I wanted to kill the man, because I could not kill myself. I blamed him completely, heaping my own weakness and self hatred upon him until just shooting him would not be enough. I wanted him to die slowly, over days, even weeks if possible. I wanted him to sink into horror as if it were quicksand."

"What…" I swallowed, sick with this nameless feeling of dread, appalled by Vayl's story, "what did you do?"

"I became the horror." His voice dropped to a whisper. "It was so easy. My family," he frowned, "my father, my grandparents, you have discerned by now that they held certain… powers?" I nodded, Cirilai warming my finger like a living thing. "Though I had never felt the call to take part in their rituals, I had watched them work all my life, lifting curses, saving souls. Now I simply did the opposite."

"How?"

"I took three wooden crosses, profaned by the blood of murdered men, my own sons in fact. I set them in a triangle and stepped into its center. I called upon the unholy spirits to send me a vampire."

"And?"

"They sent him all right. But they made sure he met my wife first."

"I'm so sorry."

"It was a long time ago, lifetimes ago. There is no need for you to be sorry."

"Well, I am, but that's not what I was talking about."

"What then?"

"I'm sorry I have to stop you telling a story that was so hard to start. But we have to go. Now!" I grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the shadows, onto a sidewalk lit by street lamps and some other source my new vision appreciated but could not pinpoint. I led him to the corner where we stood facing a stoplight, the music from a heavy metal band blatting through the walls of the bar behind us.

"What is it?" Vayl asked as we waited for traffic to clear.

"Hard to describe." I squeezed his hand, trying to stay calm, to separate new shades of neon and the screaming street music from the barely leashed panic that made me feel like jumping out of my skin. "That song," I finally said, "by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Remember the words?" Oooh that smell.

"Yes," Vayl said quietly, his eyes darting around the street, fixing every person, every street sign and park bench in his mind.

"That's it. I'm smelling that smell, the slow descent into misery and helplessness. And beside that, the scent of vampires. Something foul is going down behind Club Undead." And I'm afraid to go look.

But when the light changed we moved. Halfway to an alley that festered like an infected sore behind all those festive lights and decorations, I began to cough. The closer we got the more the coughing turned to gagging. By the time we reached the first dumpster I felt like someone had locked me in a hot car with a rotting carcass. I puked beside a trio of dented silver trash cans and wished to God that Umberto's had shut down before I'd had a chance to eat an entire plateful of their spaghetti.

I squeezed my eyes shut, more a reflex of the upchuck than a need to see in the dark, and when I opened them the alley glowed, not just green now, but muted yellow and blood red as well. God, what's happening to me?

I stood up, Vayl steadying me as I looked around. Small piles of garbage huddled next to overflowing trash bins like a bunch of freshmen who hadn't made the dance squad. Potholes full of greasy water marked a path down the alley only a staggering drunk could have followed. A couple of three-legged chairs leaned against a brick wall under a rusty fire escape. And in the middle of it all stood a vampire who must have spent part of his past battling Neanderthals and wrestling mammoths. Long, dark hair and a full beard hid most of his features. His mountainous frame blocked ninety percent of my view of the alley behind him. But the man laying at his booted feet showed up fine.

Another vamp knelt beside the prone man, gripping the edges of his torn shirt as she pulled him toward her bared fangs. I blew out a disappointed breath when I realized her hair was short, curly and real. Not Liliana after all.

The moment stretched into another plane, where time froze as we all tried to plan our next move. My attention riveted on the downed man, whose slow-blinking, unfocused eyes and blood-soaked collar bore witness to the attack he'd just survived.

Oooh that smell.

I looked at him closely, trying to pinpoint the source of his scent.

The mountain man saw us, and started speaking in Romanian. The tone was wary but not yet warning. For all he knew, Vayl had simply decided to duck out of the club for a midnight snack. As Vayl answered, I tried to unravel the mystery of this pitiful human lying on the garbage slimed pavement one block from where Miami's beautiful people met to play. In the words of Granny May, he wasn't right.

Standing this close to him felt like wading through swamp water. If you could distill the scent of maggots on manure, you might come close to his odor. But it wasn't body odor or bad breath. The man definitely bathed and scoped on a regular basis. In fact, for somebody whose pallor reminded me of a mortician with mono, the guy looked remarkable, a male model who's made one too many round trips on the express elevator.

The smell of death surrounds you.

His lips moved, though no sound escaped them. He mouthed the words, 'save me,' then slumped into unconsciousness.

I drew my gun, my forefinger lingering on what I called, to Bergman's delight, the magic button.

"I'll take the girl," I said, mostly because she looked like a runner, and I was highly motivated to put some distance between myself and the man she'd bitten. With my free hand I transferred the car keys from my pocket to Vayl's. "Do me a favor, when you're finished here. Take the guy to the hospital. If I had to do it I think my head would explode."

Vayl nodded, taking all his weight off his cane as he and Mountain Man sized each other up. I pressed the magic button and a mechanical whir signaled my Walther's transformation. The top quarter of the barrel opened to reveal a sheaf of thin wooden bolts no wider than a shish kebob skewer. Metal wings snapped open from each side of the barrel, the action also dropping a bolt into the chamber and cocking the metallic bow string that could send it flying nearly as fast and true as a bullet.

Vampirella gaped at me as I raised my weapon. She said, "You would not dare!"

"Yes," I said, "I would."

"I have done nothing wrong! I have a right to feed!" she responded, her voice shrill. She sprang to her feet, pulling the man up with her. He blinked, tried to focus, gave up and passed out again. The bloodstain on his shirt spread as the wound on his neck began to bleed again. My hand started to shake as his scent rolled over me.

"You have no rights," I told her, trying desperately to dodge a wave of nausea. It hit me anyway, and the effort it took not to gag brought tears to my eyes. I blinked them away, talking fast, aiming high. "On the other hand, I have several, including the right to shoot vampires with an unwilling donor's blood on their fangs."

Screaming with frustration, she picked the man up and threw him at me. Heavy as a side of beef, he hit me hard and I went down under him, feeling like I'd fall forever, knowing there was no escaping the living death that oozed over me like a flood of yellow pus.

I yelled and flailed at the inert weight holding me down, as panicked as if I was truly drowning.

The blackness came in a buzzing rush, and for the first time I reached out to it, thankful, ready to embrace it. Then the man's weight left me. I breathed fresh air, air tinged with the ice of Vayl's power. The man lay in a crumpled heap twenty feet away. Vayl stood over me, slashing at the male vamp with his cane. I looked for the female, trying to force my brain into motion.

Vayl moved and I sat up, feeling stupid and stunned. I retrieved Grief from where it had fallen beside me. I stood, stumbled off in the direction she must have taken, only years of training keeping me on my feet.

I heard a door click shut. Nothing was automatic. I had to tell my body to move toward the door. I concentrated on the handle, ordered my fingers to wrap around it and pull.

Inside, the thick, hot air pulsed to the beat of latin dance music. The door snapped shut behind me and I sprang forward, the sudden rush of energy that replaced the nausea propelling me into the dancing crowd. I slid the hand holding Grief inside my jacket and followed the wake my quarry's passage had created. Winding my way between pale young thrill seekers and their immortal lovers, feeling myself come alive again, I could hardly tell the real vamps from the pretenders. And plenty of both filled all three tiers of Club Undead's multi-colored dance floor. Leashed power sizzled and popped like cooking bacon, and I knew more than one of these bored rich kids would get burned tonight. In fact, one already had. He probably still lay in the alley like an abandoned lounge chair.

Who was he? What godawful horror crawled through his veins, exuding a stench that could knock me out like a glass-jawed boxer? Could it be that cancer had sunk its claws into him? I didn't think so. Hundreds of people had crossed my path tonight. Some of them must've been fighting the big C. But they hadn't shown up on my radar.

The mystery of the man's existence and the effect he had on me distracted me as I slogged toward the door. I didn't see Liliana or her goons, though I should've been looking for them. And I nearly missed Assan talking to his vampire accomplice, Aidyn Strait. They stood at the bottom of an ornate wrought iron staircase drinking and laughing, looking like they'd just figured out a foolproof way to rip off Fort Knox.

I averted my face as they headed upstairs, which was when I caught sight of Vampirella heading out the door. Frankenstein met me just outside. "Hey!" he bellowed as I tried to push past him, "I don't remember letting you in."

"You don't smell like Frankenstein at all," I said as I pulled out Grief, shoved it against his chest and fired. "You smell like Dracula."

A new wave of nausea hit me, but not as hard as before. Lucky for me my gal's trail led away from Nightmare Alley. I followed her at speed, hoping for an open shot, finding none.

After running hard for several blocks, dodging partiers and pedestrians, she surprised me by stopping suddenly. She stood outside a lamp store, the light from the front windows throwing sparkling highlights onto her hair. Like an A-list actress, she oozed confidence. Somewhere between here and the alley she'd pulled herself together and the realization stopped me in my tracks.

She smiled and I liked her immediately. Her charm could melt glaciers. She might actually be the cause of global warming. I smiled back; how could I resist? Though the spike in her power told me her charisma ran on batteries, I lowered Grief, resisting the urge to drop it.

"That man back there, with the blood on his shirt, who is he?" I asked, wishing I dressed as stylishly as this beauty with her knee-length boots, short denim skirt and silky red blouse.

"He is a friend of mine," she replied. "His name is Derek Steele."

I nodded. "He's very sick, you know. Probably dying."

Her smile wavered, seeming to shrink along with the rest of her. "Bad blood," she whispered. "Aidyn, you son-of-a-bitch, what have you done to me?"

Now I knew where I'd seen her. She'd been the small half of the couple on last night's helicopter. I should've recognized her and Mountain Man right away. I could blame my lapse on Derek Steele's sickening effect on me, but excuses are for wimps. I really should've noticed. Between this, the wrecked Lexus and the impulsive kiss, I may have just struck out. And I didn't even have a free afternoon to wallow in self-pity. At least I had my new friend.

I said, "I thought all vamps could smell bad blood."

"Not me. Not Boris," she said bitterly.

"So Aidyn set you up, huh? You must be part of his 'final experiment.' But it'll just make you sick, right? I mean, ultimately, you should be fine." I really wanted her to feel better. "Think about it logically. You must mean something to Aidyn. He wouldn't bring you here just to kill you."

"Not for himself. But he would do it for Edward." Her voice dropped to a whisper as she worked it out. "Edward must have burned inside that Boris and I rejected his proposals. But he never showed it. Not once."

"Edward sounds like a real shit," I offered.

Her head jerked in agreement. "I need an avhar," she whispered.

I was so honored. But maybe she had a different definition than Vayl. "What would an avhar do for you?" I asked.

Her smile returned, switched to high-beam, her fangs making her look more deadly than a pissed off biker chick. "She would be a dearly loved companion," Vampirella explained. "She would watch over me if I should fall ill and protect me, perhaps even from myself."

She took a step toward me. "You could be my avhar. I feel… so close to you already."

What a sweet thing to say! I waved my hand in front of my face like a dizzy southern belle. "I'm so flattered!" I said, feeling like I'd just won the Congressional Medal of Honor, also feeling her power pulse against my skin like a warm waterfall. "But I don't think I'd do you much good."

"Oh?" She cocked her head sideways, her dimples making her resemble a tree sprite, "and why is that?"

"Because I can't be trusted. See, I feel so close to you, like we're best friends. But last year my best friend was killed by a vampire. In fact, I thought she was fully dead until she came to visit me three nights after her funeral. And though I loved her like a sister, and though I was strangely happy to see her, I had made her a promise before she turned, one I couldn't bring myself to break," I raised Grief and took aim, "which was why I killed her anyway."

I shot Vampirella through the heart before she could move. And as I watched the breeze disperse her remains I whispered, "And that's what I couldn't tell Cole. Why David can't bear the sight of me. Why my brain gets stuck on replay every once in awhile. With friends like me, there really is no need for enemies."

Chapter Eleven

I pushed the magic button, stowed Grief inside my jacket and hoofed it back to Club Undead in time to see Liliana and the Liliettes climb back into the limo minus Scarface. Aidyn Strait had joined them, making chummy with Liliana like they were long lost pals. I started to go for my car, realized it was gone. Vayl had carried Derek Steele off to the hospital in it, leaving me temporarily stranded.

"Derek Steel." I snorted. "Sounds like the hero in a really raunchy Harlequin novel." Only none of those heroes ever found themselves donating blood in dark alleyways. As if opening a vein in the comfort of your putrid pink hotel room makes you better somehow.

"No, I'm no hero." A couple of die-hard fun-seekers gave me a strange look as they passed by. Great. Now I'm standing out in a crowd. Man, am I slipping.

It did feel that way, like all the layers I'd managed to stitch together to form my so-called life had shifted. Now nothing seemed to line up. I suddenly felt ancient, a tired old antique rusting on the sidewalk along with the metal trash cans. My knees quivered with the effort it took to hold myself up. Drained, as if a bad flu had grabbed me and shaken me till my brain rattled, I decided to find a better place to collapse than on the corner of Washington Avenue. I hailed a cab and slid in, giving the driver, who looked like he'd just gotten off el raft-o Cubano, directions to one of our backup hidey holes. I called Vayl on my cell phone.

"Jasmine?" He answered on the first ring. Only people who care answer on the first ring. The thought made me tear up. Which made me want to slap myself. What had happened to the thick-skinned agent who yelled at old ladies and stonewalled handsome young admirers?

"Jeremy, I'm beat." My bruised ribs and cut lip began to ache, as if even I needed proof before I could give myself a break. "I'm going to crash at the condo until you're finished with your business. Can you pick me up there?"

"Certainly."

"Is everything… okay?"

"Fine," meaning he'd handled his vamp easily. Good. "We are just pulling up to the Emergency Room. I will probably see you in an hour."

"Sounds good. Drive safe."

He sighed, knowing I really meant, "Take care of my Mercedes."

We hung up and I spent the rest of the drive wondering exactly what kind of world had just opened up to me. It was as if my senses, two of them at least, had undergone a major upgrade. I could see a whole new spectrum of light. And I could sense great imbalances in human health. Now if I could only hear through brick walls I'd make a great sideshow for Barnum & Bailey.

The cab dropped me at the Star One Resort, a multi-level apartment building right on the beach. Most of the apartments were time-shares. So if I ran into anybody in the commons or the elevator, they wouldn't raise an eyebrow at the presence of a stranger.

The lock on the door looked intimidating. A metal-faced number pad with a digital readout prevented easy access, unless you had the right fingerprint. I did. I pressed my thumb on the small sensor pad next to the latch. The tumblers tumbled and I stumbled in, swinging the door shut behind me.

The room looked much better than the Bubblegum Bordello. The walls had been painted off-white. Evie would've called it something romantic like Ivory Lace. The chocolate brown furniture felt like velvet and the dark gold carpet complimented the gold fleur-de-lis in the red wine curtains. I opened them and saw a small balcony overlooking the ocean. Nice view if you had the time to enjoy it.

I shucked my shoes and plopped onto the couch, promising myself to try out the matching chair and ottoman before I left. And maybe, yeah, maybe if dawn caught us here I'd explore garden too. It was on the roof and easily accessed from the bedroom by means of a stairway that hid behind the closet door. That extra escape route was what had sold us on the place.

Never mind waiting till dawn. I'll just rest here for a minute, then I'll check out the garden. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply the smells of recycled air (just the right temperature) and apple-cinnamon plug-ins.

I admit it. I blew it. I should've stayed awake, done some brain-storming, solved the mystery and gotten myself a Scooby Snack. Instead my sleep-deprived bod yelled, "Break time!" and all systems hit Pause.

I dream vividly every time I sleep. Even my power naps remind me of Super Bowl commercials. This time I dreamed of Granny May, not as I remembered her, wearing faded jeans and bulky sweaters that made her extra huggable. But as I imagined her, winged and haloed, living it up with a distinguished old saint who also dug popcorn and Frank Sinatra movies.

We talked like a couple of beauticians, and she said a lot of things I couldn't recall later on, though I knew they were important. I do remember a feeling of deep, resounding contentment, the kind you mostly lose after the age of six. Then her face took on a look I recognized, but not from her. Suddenly she resembled my mom when I was about to hear the words, "Grounded for life!" The contentment fled and I began to feel a familiar prickling sensation in my fingers and toes.

"It's not your time," Granny May snapped, "wake up!"

I opened my eyes. I stood. I damn near saluted. I guess it's true that old habits die hard. So do old field agents. As soon as I recognized my magical alarm had not been dreamed I spun to face the source of the power that had tripped it.

The balcony doors flew open and I could actually see the glass shivering as the doorframe hit the wall. In walked Vayl's former wife.

"You sure know how to make an entrance," I said. I sounded calm, amused. It was a total scam, and the scowl on Liliana's face told me she'd bought it. Good. It might give me a couple of extra steps when I turned to run. Okay, if I turned to run. I hadn't made up my mind on that yet.

"So do you. I think everyone at Club Undead saw you stumble through that doorway. Are you still drunk?"

"Probably." Shit! I was like the Texas Hold'em pro all the amateurs enjoy beating. My tells were obvious enough to be noted, to attract a shadow, most likely Scarface. Is it time for a vacation?

I think Liliana badly wanted to call me a candy-ass, but just didn't have the phrase at the tip of her tongue. So she went straight to the point.

"You have something that belongs to me." She'd suddenly developed an accent. She must really be pissed. I snuck a look at my watch. Vayl might be on his way, but he wouldn't get here in time to back me up, much less save me. And I didn't much savor the thought of him scraping me off the carpet. What to do, what to do? My nerves were running around like earthquake victims, screaming hysterically and ramming into each other, causing no end of damage and helping me not one damn bit.

"Everything I have is mine," I told her. Wrong thing to say. Her eyes, including the whites, turned the bright red of fresh blood. Her hands twitched and I realized those perfect, store-bought nails doubled as covers for retractable claws. They grew, even as I watched, to letter-opener length, and I imagined they'd slice through skin just as easily as they'd cut paper.

"That is where we fundamentally disagree." She moved forward and to her left, intending to block my exit. Evidently she couldn't visualize me jumping off the balcony. It seemed like a bad plan to me as well. My adrenaline had already deserted me. I'm so tired. Almost too tired to be scared. Almost, almost, almost—

"I don't know what you mean," I replied. As she moved I did too, maintaining the distance between us as I inched closer to the bedroom door.

"Cirilai." She pointed to the ring on my right hand, her claws shaking with the force of her anger. "It is mine."

"Vayl told me his family made it for him."

"I am his family!" she spat. "It is my right to wear Vayl's ring!" She took a step forward and I pulled Grief. It was still in gun mode, but it stopped her. For now. So, of course, I egged her on.

"You're not his wife anymore, Liliana. You're not even his avhar. The ring is mine, and I'm keeping it."

She screamed. Like a banshee. On uppers. Caught in a vice.

I shot her as she charged. Three times, bam, bam, bam in a nice tight pattern in the chest. Bright red blood spattered the wall behind her as she fell backwards. She hit the dining room table on her way down. It teetered and crashed sideways under the impact. I used the extra time it gave me to turn and run.

Should've nailed her with a bolt, I chastised myself, Should've pressed the magic button, Jaz. I should've, but I hadn't, and there was no time now to figure out why.

My bare feet hardly touched the carpet as I sprinted for the bedroom door. Liliana's screams and growls spurred me on. I made it through the door, slammed and locked it before she could reach me. It was a closer race than I'd thought. Just after the bolt shot home she banged into the door, making it shiver on its hinges. I got a sudden vision of a Liliana-shaped indentation on the other side and laughed. That brought on another scream of rage and a series of attacks on the door that would eventually shatter it. I headed for the closet and the stairs it hid.

I threw that door open and charged up the cold, concrete stairs, taking them two at a time. Another door, sturdy and metal with a bar across its middle that reminded me of the entry way to my high school's old gym, stood at the top. I hit it flying. For a millisecond I thought it might be locked and pictured myself bouncing off the handrail and down the steps like a bird who's just smacked into a third story window. But the door opened easily, leading me out to the most amazing rooftop I'd ever encountered.

My first, brief impression of the garden was a feeling of bursting into fairyland. White lights had been strung in potted trees and along the latticework walls that divided the rooftop into numerous small rooms. Somewhere running water accompanied the sound of my breathing. It smelled like spring, but my toes curled against the cold night air and goosebumps rose like tiny mountain ranges along my arms.

A quick hunt bagged me a concrete bench whose top wasn't attached to its legs. I lugged the seat to the door and wedged it under the handle so that it couldn't be depressed. Maybe it would hold Liliana long enough for me to make a clean getaway.

My escape route required me to cross to the other side of the roof, so I walked through the garden rooms as quickly as I could, avoiding tables and benches where people would sit with their morning coffee when this cold spell snapped, never knowing the story unfolding on this very spot.

Liliana's power snapped at my heels like a pit bull at the edge of its chain. It reminded me of Umberto's, and I sure didn't want to be the next poor schmuck to keel over in a plate of linguini. I rushed through arbors thick with vines. I slipped past statues of angels, wind chimes that swayed dangerously close to song, an empty concrete bird bath that looked abandoned and forlorn. I'd made it about halfway across the roof when Liliana's power peaked and a sudden, explosive noise halted me.

Liliana's voice hit the air like a jet engine. "I am not just going to kill you!" She screeched. "I am going to tear your chest open and drink the blood directly from your beating heart!"

"That's just gross, Liliana. Didn't your poor, dead mama ever teach you any manners?"

I slipped to another section of the roof as she tracked my voice. Hopefully I could play mouse to her cat long enough to find the twin to the door she'd just destroyed. Then I'd run some more. The thought made me want to break something.

I could confront her, of course, maybe even smoke her if she wasn't too fast or too strong. If my aim was true. But I realized, though I wanted to kill her, I couldn't. Vayl should be the one to finish her.

I found the door, framed by hanging baskets, and gently depressed the handle. Nothing happened. It was locked. Holy crap, I'm trapped on top of an eight story building with a homicidal vampire!

Liliana's power settled on me like a thick fog. I began to sweat as I waded through it, somehow managing to reach the fire escape without making a noise. When I grabbed the rails to start my descent, I looked down and saw Liliana's limo parked under a streetlight. I only saw the car, but I couldn't believe she'd sent her goons home for the evening. Were they all huddled inside with the heat cranked, still trying to regain the warmth Vayl had stolen from them earlier? Were they guarding my escape routes, waiting to grab me the moment I thought I was free? Why hadn't Liliana brought them up with her? It seemed almost… fair.

No, not fair—confident. She was just that sure one puny woman couldn't stand against her amazing super powers. She hadn't brought reinforcements because she simply saw no point.

I decided my best bet was to circle back to the door I'd come through. I managed to find my way through a maze of potted shrubs and outdoor furniture without making a sound. Part of the twisted remains of a hammock peeked out from beneath the blown door, and the opening it had left beckoned. I'd just decided to run for it when her voice froze me.

"I thought you might come back here."

Shit! I wanted to bang my head against the wall, but figured that was a part of Liliana's overall plan and decided to leave it to her.

I turned around, my Lucille mask firmly in place.

She held out her hand, her smile both condescending and triumphant. Three dark blotches on her chest were all that remained of the bullets I'd fired. "The ring," she said, wiggling her fingers to make me move faster.

She had me on strength, speed and pure evil intent. I'm sure she expected me to cringe and shuffle. Which is why my kick swept right up the center of her body without a block, or even a delay. It contacted her beneath the chin, driving her head backwards and breaking her jaw from the sound of it. Off-balance and staggering on her too high heels, Liliana's only move was to reach forward, try to regain her balance. I couldn't allow that.

I kicked her three times in quick succession, contacting her high on the chest, moving her backwards several steps each time. When her heels hit the lip of the roof I jump-kicked her right over the side. She fell loud and long, her body making a spectacular watermelon-under-the-sledgehammer whump when it hit the pavement.

Oh no, it wasn't over. People wouldn't be willing to pay such a high price for immortality if it didn't come with some major perks. Her screaming might have stopped when her body met asphalt, and she'd be in no shape to demand anything more of me tonight, but she'd heal. Quickly. Bed rest and fresh blood would put her back on her feet by tomorrow night. But for tonight, I had won.

I peered over the edge of the roof. The headlights from a couple of stopped cars lit the scene like something out of a Hitchcock movie. Liliana's body sprawled on the street, twisted and disjointed as a scarecrow's. One driver yelled into his cell phone while the other checked her pulse. Liliana's car pulled up, screeching to a halt from its short trip around the block. All four goons piled out and went to work.

Two held off the protesting drivers with handguns while the others grabbed the unconscious vamp by the wrists and ankles and carried her to the car, reminding me of the deer Albert and Dave used to haul out of the woods after a good morning's hunt. They'd barely gotten her stowed and driven off into the night when sirens announced the arrival of cops who, having seen damn near everything, would probably believe every detail of the drivers' stories.

Considering the noise we'd made in the room before coming to the roof, I decided even my I.D. might not stand between me and a visit to the police station. Not a comfy thought with Vayl due any minute and dawn following him like a stray dog.

I ran down the stairs, gritting my teeth against the pounding my poor feet were taking. When I got to the room I went straight to my socks, pulled them on and wrapped my jacket around my feet before punching into my phone the special combination of numbers that would provide me with some semblance of privacy while I talked. Ignoring the blood spatters on the wall, I stared hard at the drawer pull on the end table next to my chair while I waited for an answer. I got one on the 12th ring.

"Hullo?"

"Pete? It's Jasmine."

"Don't tell me you wrecked another car."

"Okay."

Medium pause. I heard rustling, probably him checking out his bedside clock because the next thing he said was, "Do you know what time it is?"

"Not really."

Silence. I half expected him to start snoring.

"So why did you call at nearly four in the morning?"

"I didn't wreck the car."

"Spit it out, Jaz."

I winced. "Please don't yell at me."

"I'm not yelling."

"I know. But you might be. Soon."

"If you don't start passing on some real information soon I'm going to yell at my wife. Then you'll have guilt."

"Manipulator."

"Spill."

I ran a hand through my hair and got Cirilai caught in some tangles. As I tried to free myself I said, "I pushed a vamp off a roof tonight."

"Not part of the mission, but acceptable."

"Not really. The cops are coming up here soon, and they're not going to believe I'm innocent when they see the bloodstains."

"Bloodstains?"

"I shot her first, here in the room. And her goons came and took her away while I was still on the roof, so I have no proof she and I fought."

"Your badge—"

"—could be faked. I don't have the time to talk myself out of this situation, Pete. Dawn's coming."

"All right, let me talk to them."

"I heard sirens. They'll be here in a sec. In the meantime—"

"Don't you dare sing me a lullaby."

"I wouldn't dream of it. I just wanted you to know, we think one of the senators on our oversight committee might be dirty."

"They're politicians, Jaz. It kind of goes with the territory."

"You're tired, I get it." I told him about our suspicions, wondering how much really sunk in. The guy might actually still be asleep. Dave could do that, carry on a perfectly logical conversation with you in the middle of the night and then not remember anything about it the next day because he'd been mostly asleep the whole time. "Pete, are you awake?"

"Yes, Jasmine, I'm awake. It's your fault too, I want you to remember that."

"Believe me, I will. And, um, we've got the senator thing covered from here, okay? If you get nosy and get yourself killed I'm gonna have to put your kids through college or something, so do me a favor and steer clear."

"You know, last week Ashley was talking about getting her Ph.D. at Yale, so I have to say I'm a little tempted. But don't worry. There's a reason I hire the best."

Wow. If only I deserved that remark. "Hang on, somebody's at the door."

I opened it mid-knock. The cop on the other side looked slightly stunned that I'd responded so quickly. Even more so when I handed him my badge and the phone and said, "It's for you."

He took it like it might be rigged to blow, and held it about six inches from his ear. "Hello?" he said while his partner hung back, his Glock out but pointing at the floor for the moment.

The first cop listened for awhile and when he gave me an amused look, I relaxed. When he chuckled I started to fume. No doubt Pete was telling him all about my tendency to leave a trail of wrecked cars and blood-spattered walls that a blind dog with a cold could follow.

"Did she really?" asked the cop. He laughed louder and motioned for his partner to listen in on the call. All told, Pete kept them entertained for another three minutes and 25 seconds while I leaned against the wall and timed them. At 3:26 the cop handed me the phone and my badge.

"He wants to talk to you," he said, then he nodded, headed out the door and down the stairs with his partner close behind.

"I take it I'm off the hook," I said as I shut the door.

"Yup."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

We hung up. Since my toes still felt like icicles, I went into the bathroom, shucked my socks, plugged the tub and ran in enough hot water to soak my feet. I could see the front door from where I sat, so I was aware of the chiseled marble look on Vayl's face when he entered the condo a few minutes later. That all changed when he saw the blood on the walls.

"Dear Christ!" He staggered sideways, caught his balance on the stove and pulled his phone from his pocket with shaking fingers. "Jasmine, be all right. Please be all right," he whispered as he dialed, his face suddenly very human, and extremely worried. He jumped about three inches off the floor when my phone rang. I answered it.

"Make it quick," I said, "there's somebody else in the condo with me and he looks alarmed."

He didn't say a word, just dropped his phone, came over and picked me up off the edge of the tub. It's a little disconcerting being dangled effortlessly. Plus, I generally equate bear hugs with lumberjacks and friendly purple dinosaurs, not with suave, sexy vampires who savor a daily dose of necking.

"I thought you were dead," he said.

Ah, that explained the momentous show of affection. "So you knew Liliana was coming after me?"

"I… had a feeling." I let his evasion stand for now. But in my mind I drew the line. One more and I would raise hell. Or, smarter but less satisfying, ask him to come clean. He let me slip through his arms until my feet touched the carpet. But he wasn't quite ready to let go. "I am sorry that I left you. I suspected she would come after you, only not so soon. She has always coveted Cirilai, first because she was my wife and thought she deserved it. Then because our sons were dead and she thought I did not."

"So… you've never… taken it off before?"

"No. Not for Liliana. Not for anyone. Until now."

I started to squirm and he let me pull away slightly. Okay, don't panic. Every time you panic all hell breaks loose so do-not-panic.

"You're right, she came for the ring," I told him. "She demanded it from me."

"What did you do?"

"I shot her. Then I pushed her off the roof."

He smiled. Not the twitchy twitch but a genuine, full-face smile. "You must have really wanted that ring."

I put my hands on his chest, because he still held me by the arms and, frankly, because I suspected there might be hyperventilating in my not too distant future and I needed a strong base to lean on. I looked into his remarkable eyes, just now a warm, honey-gold with flecks of amber, and I nodded.

"To be honest, I did want it. I do. I'm… I can't explain how honored I am to be wearing it. But, also to be honest, the whole deal terrifies me."

"Because…"

I took a long look at the stitching on his collar, the urge to cower my way out of this conversation damn near primal. He and I had been tiptoeing around the subject so long I suspected if I made us face it squarely, one of us would be required to cut and run. A perfectly acceptable reaction if you had a place to retreat to. Neither of us did.

"I've only been your assistant, your avhar, for awhile," I finally said, avoiding his gaze, "and I can't imagine any other kind of life. When you gave me this ring… when I gave you my blood… it's… we've gone beyond that. We're trusting the safety of our souls to each other."

He raised my chin with a gentle finger and I winced as our eyes met. The look we shared pained me in its naked honesty.

"You are my avhar. I am your sverhamin. The intensity of that relationship has taken us beyond the bonds between co-workers or teammates. Some would call that love."

I winced again.

"But you would not have it so." He squeezed my arms, put one of his arms around my back. "It is no secret. You have experienced the heaven and hell of love."

"But, see, the hell came last, so that's still the memory, the feeling, that lingers. For a long time I tried to come up with some way to explain how I felt because Evie kept pushing me to put it into words. She thought, somehow, that would make it all better. But I couldn't tell her I felt like I should be bleeding from every pore. I couldn't tell her I felt like I'd been flayed alive, that when I looked in the mirror every morning I couldn't believe my hair hadn't turned white overnight. It just wasn't close enough to the truth. So I didn't say anything at all."

"I understand." He whispered it into my hair. And I believed him.

"There's only so much a person can go through, Vayl."

He pulled me closer. "There is only so much a person can go through alone. But I am not asking you to do anything you cannot bear. I have eternity, Jasmine. I can wait until your feelings are no longer fractured."

"It may be awhile. My feelings for you… it's hard to be okay with them when my love for Matt is still fresh in my memory, still strong in my heart."

If my statement had hurt him, he didn't show it. He said, "My father used to say that true love never dies. It simply makes your heart big enough to hold even more love."

"So… I can keep the ring?"

"Yes."

Chapter Twelve

I drove Vayl back to the Pink Palace, leaving the room cleaning chores to the experts. The Agency employs a whole fleet of them for obvious reasons. We made it inside with barely 20 minutes to spare before dawn.

"You look exhausted," Vayl said as he eased my jacket off my shoulders and hung it over a chair. I had something intelligent to say about that, but then he started rubbing the back of my neck and all I could say was, "Oh."

"I know I should let you sleep, but I am so relieved Liliana did not kill you, I cannot take my eyes off of you."

"You're relieved! When she caught me trying to make my getaway I thought I was toast."

"And that young man I took to the hospital. His blood smelled so wrong, I was afraid just being close to him had damaged you permanently."

"Yeah, what the hell do you think is up with him?"

"I have no—"

My phone began to ring. This close to dawn it couldn't be good news and I hated to answer it. But Vayl retrieved it from my jacket and tossed it to me.

"Yeah?" I barked.

"It's Bergman. I'm in Florida, but I've gotta sleep. Do you need me tonight or can I meet you tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow's good."

"Where do I look for you?"

"Hang on." I covered the mouthpiece. "It's Bergman," I told Vayl. "Do you know of a good place he and I can meet tomorrow?"

He thought a moment, then his eyes lit. "Actually, I do." He gave me the address and I passed it on to Bergman, along with an agreeable time. When we hung up I said, "So where are we meeting?"

Vayl looked vaguely embarrassed, like I'd just caught him and his pals plotting to stroll on over to the Silver Saddle, where girls dance mostly naked and all the drinks taste like sour lemonade.

"Vayl?"

"The place is called Cassandra's Pure and Natural, after the woman who runs it. It is a small health food store."

"Nice front," I drawled, getting more and more annoyed at Vayl's hesitation. Hadn't we just had a major moment? What the hell was he hiding? "And if you pay Cassandra a little extra?" I asked.

"She will take you upstairs and give you a reading."

"A… what?"

"She is psychic. She will touch your hand or read your tea leaves or deal your tarot. Whatever you like."

I slumped onto a couch and started to mutter. "Unbelievable. After what just happened between us… no, I don't have any right. None at all. We're barely a couple. We're not even sleeping together. I have to—"

"What in God's name are you babbling about?"

I jumped to my feet. "You're cheating on me!"

Vayl's eyes went black. He looked like a drill sergeant about to demand pushups. "I—never—cheat," he said slowly and distinctly, so even we neurotic idiots could understand.

"Then what's with the attitude?"

"What about your attitude?"

I slapped myself in the forehead. "Okay, fine. We all know I am crappy at relationships. Whatever is happening between you and me makes me feel like I'm surfing in shark infested waters. So, yeah, I am overly sensitive at the moment, even paranoid. But you're acting Shifty!"

Vayl sat across from me. "All right," he murmured, "if you will know it all, then I will tell you." He looked at me balefully. "Though I think you ask too much, you are my avhar."

"There is a theory," he began, "one I hold dear, that says nothing can truly be destroyed. Everything that was ever present will always be present in some form. That is as true of souls as it is of water and wood." He cleared his throat. If he'd been wearing a tie he'd have loosened it. "I believe my sons exist somewhere today as they did in 1751. I believe they live, physically, somewhere in this world and so, wherever I go I find a Seer, in the hope that I will be directed closer to them. In the hope that I will see them again."

"You're saying… you think they've been reincarnated?"

He nodded. "I have been told we will be reunited in America. It is why I came here."

"What… what do you," I paused. How to ask this without causing more pain? "So you want to meet them? Make friends? Be… a father to them?"

"I am their father!" he snapped. "That is the one, incontrovertible truth of my existence."

I shut my mouth. Then I opened it again, but only to say, "Cassandra's is fine."

He stood up. "Ask her about the signs they found on Amanda Assan's brother's body. She studies ancient languages the way you shuffle cards." As in, obsessively. "It may take her some time, but she will not stop until she finds a translation."

"Okay."

"Dawn is coming."

"Yes."

He shoved his hands in his pockets. At the moment there couldn't have been a bigger gap yawning between us if we'd been standing on opposite sides of the Pacific. I was sorry for it. And grateful. "Well," he said, "good night."

"Good night."

He moved so silently I wouldn't have known he entered his bedroom and closed the door unless I'd been watching. If vampires dreamed, and if it would be a comfort to him, I hoped he would dream of his sons.

Chapter Thirteen

"I'm having a hard time getting the wife to cooperate." Cole had managed to keep my business card safe from the ravages of the washing machine. Obviously his guardian angel had dropped the ball. Too bad it hadn't landed on Cole's head. A bout of amnesia could've turned events in a safer direction for him. As it stood, he'd kept his word and approached Amanda Assan with our plan. Needless to say she was less than enthusiastic.

"No kidding?" I checked my watch. It was 2:00 in the afternoon. I'd only been up an hour and already I was irritated. And not just because of the nightmares that had stalked my sleep, or because Cole had ignored my advice. True to form, Evie had followed through and left the number of Albert's nursing agency on my voice mail. I'd called them and they'd told me I'd have to put him on a waiting list. They had recommended another group in the meantime, and I'd given them a call. But it bothered me to hire blind like that, not knowing a place's reputation. No choice, though. I sure wasn't going to make Evie do any back-checking in her condition and frame of mind. When I had a spare minute I'd do it myself. Meantime, Albert would be breaking in a new nurse named Shelby Turnett any minute now. I'm not big into prayer, but I did send up a wish that she had thicker skin than mine. She'd need it.

Now this. Trying to gain cooperation without threat leverage always annoys the hell out of me. People are just too willing to say no.

"Did she say why?" I asked.

"She was putting her jewels in the safe last night when he caught her checking out the contents of a small duffel bag she remembered he'd brought back with him from India. When she asked him about it he told her to mind her own damn business. Then he ordered her to stay in the house for the next week. She had to sneak in her phone call to me. Apparently she's not allowed to talk to anybody either." A spurt of rage made me grit my teeth. I calmed myself with the reminder that soon Amanda Assan would be a free woman.

Cole went on. "She also said one of their houseguests had to go to the emergency room last night and for some reason Assan was more enraged than worried. Long story short, he's on a rampage and everybody in the house is kissing his ass until further notice."

"There's got to be a way to get a peek inside that duffel bag. I wouldn't mind checking out the sick houseguest either. Did she say where they'd taken him? Or was it a her?" He took so long to answer I thought we'd been cut off. "Hello?"

"I just had a thought and I'm feeling like an idiot for not thinking it before."

"What's that?"

"I have pictures of everyone Assan's talked to in the last two weeks." Cole speeded up as he began to get excited. "Amanda hired me as the new pool boy so she and I could talk without making Assan suspicious. I might have a picture of that houseguest. And if Assan's meeting with terrorists I might have the pictures to show which ones!"

Oh baby!

"I'm supposed to clean the pool today," Cole went on. "Why don't you come with? You could meet me at my office and take a look at the pictures first. Then we could go to Assan's together. We'll both do the pool work, then I'll go to the kitchen, now that I know where it is," he paused and I could tell he was smiling, "and distract the cook while you snoop around. What do you say?"

"This could be incredibly dangerous for you, Cole." I don't even think he heard me. He rushed on, like a parent-challenged teen planning his first kegger. "You know what else? I saw somebody the night we met. At the party?"

"Yeah?"

"As I was leaving, a door opened and a man looked out. I got the feeling we were having a mutual oh-crap-you're-not-supposed-to-see-me reaction."

"Could you identify him again?"

"No problem." Being purely hetero, I'm a little embarrassed to say this, but he was easily the best looking guy I've ever seen.

Click. Blocks of information shifted and realigned in my brain as I realized Derek Stinkin' Steele must be the same stud Cole had glimpsed during the Great Bathroom Escape. And his amazing looks suddenly made sense in light of Assan's legitimate profession. It was suddenly imperative to know the man's true identity.

"Forget the pool work for now," I said, "and tell me you're a big fan of the Pink Panther movies."

"I own the whole set."

"Then I assume you also own a few disguises?"

"A dozen at least." I could tell he was grinning. Despite knowing better, so was I.

"Excellent." I told him to meet me down the street from the hospital Vayl had taken Derek to. "How soon can you get there?"

"An hour."

"Good. See you then."

We hung up, and after a quick phonebook search I found Samaritan Care Center in the yellow pages. Thirty seconds later I knew Derek was still there, reclaiming some lost fluids in room 429.

I kicked it into gear. I pulled the costumes I'd brought from my trunk. One would transform me into a working-class brunette, the other a truck-stop blonde. I chose brunette.

The hair was straight and shoulder-length. I stuck a red beret on top at a jaunty angle and a new girl began to emerge from the mirror. I called her Dee Ann. She liked to pronounce her name Dee-on and, though she worked as a bank teller, she pretended she could paint better than Van Gogh. A man's shirt covered in multicolored parrots, blue jeans, army boots, a long green trench coat and reflective sunglasses completed the ensemble.

I dressed in my room. My weapons case coughed up Grief and a small black box containing Bergman's latest prototype. It had started life as a band-aid. But Bergman had replaced the absorbent padding with a tiny bug. That went on the middle finger of my right hand. I stuck the receiver, a former hearing aid, into my left ear. Theoretically I should be able to attach the bug to Derek's skin, and it would transmit every conversation he took part in for the next two hours. Having had some experience with Bergman's new inventions, I wasn't expecting it to last more than 20 minutes. Hopefully that would be all the time I'd need.

On the way to the hospital I dialed Albert. I often called him in transit. That way I always had a good excuse to hang up. He answered on the second ring.

"Hello?"

"Hey Albert, it's Jaz."

He chuckled and said, "Two calls in two days. Jazzy, are you turning into a nag?"

I had to slow down so I wouldn't swerve into a fire hydrant. Albert hadn't been nice to me—or anyone else—in years. Was he high?

"Just curious what the doc said," I replied, careful to keep my voice neutral.

"Said I could keep my foot—for now. I gotta tell you, I've never been so relieved about anything!" Ah, so that explained it.

"That's great!"

"So, uh, about the nurse."

"Yeah?"

"I cleaned the house. They're pretty anal about week-old sandwiches on the end tables."

"I imagine so," I said.

It is a strange and unfair phenomenon that children of crappy parents still love those parents. Despite my best efforts, I'd never been able to erase that feeling. So maybe it's understandable that I suddenly felt the urge to park the car and tap-dance the rest of the way to the hospital, throwing some classic Gene Kelly moves in as I went. Luckily I managed to resist temptation.

"Did you hire one yet?" Albert asked.

"Yeah. She should be there in the next 20 minutes or so."

"What's her name?"

"Shelby Turnett."

"What's the story on that, would you tell me? With millions of names out there made just for girls, why do they have to go and use men's names? As soon as you name a girl Bobbi or Terri or Shelby that name is ruined for men for all time!" I should've known the grouch in him couldn't be defeated.

"I gotta go now."

"Work or play?"

"Work."

"Have you noticed that's all you ever do? You should play more." He barked it, like an order, and I instantly wanted to work for the next 48 straight. Juvenile, I know, but he brings that out in me. I struggled to keep my temper in check.

"I think I've forgotten how." It was supposed to be a joke, but neither one of us laughed.

"Matt was good for you that way. He always made sure you had plenty of fun to balance your serious side. You need to find somebody like him. It's been long enough." I knew, for him, that ended the subject. He had commanded me to move on, therefore I would. What a jerk.

"I have to go," I said as evenly as I could considering I wanted to reach through the phone and smack him upside the head.

"Me too."

Click. We were done.

Like a couple of Shriners who've veered off the parade route, Cole and I arrived at our meeting place in tandem and parked one behind the other. The minute he saw me he started laughing.

"This is serious stuff, Cole," I said, trying to sound stern.

"Aw, come on Lucille, admit it, this is fun." He blew a big blue bubble and popped it all over his nose.

"You are so naive," I said, but I couldn't quite swallow the smile that kept surfacing every time I took in a new detail of his appearance. He'd gone with a pair of Drew Carey glasses. A green fishing hat, complete with dangling lure, hid most of his shaggy hair. Fake teeth gave him a slight overbite and a gray jogging suit somehow managed to make him look wimpy and anemic.

"Check out the socks," he said, wiggling his eyebrows like Groucho Marx. He hiked up the legs of his sweatpants to reveal black dress socks. I couldn't help myself. I started to giggle.

"Those socks really bring out the turquoise in your sneakers."

"Did you notice they match my eyes? The shoes, not the socks." He batted his eyelashes as I pretended to inspect his legs.

I nodded. "I can see that. Now we just need to get you a handbag to complete the look."

He clapped his hands, fingers splayed like a three-year-old's. "Oh goody! Shopping!"

I shoved him toward my car. "Oh, just shut up and get in."

He looked at me brightly. "You mean I'm driving?"

"Yup."

He didn't argue the point, just jumped behind the wheel and started rubbing the soft leather of the seats as if it was his favorite cat. I got in beside him.

"So what's the plan?"

"We go up to Derek's room, pretend we're looking for our father. When he's not there, we both go into hysterics, thinking Dad's dead. You raise hell, I pass out and fall onto Derek. The key is, I have to touch him."

"Why?"

I showed him the band-aid.

"Hey, I was just asking a question. You don't have to flip me off."

"I was just…" I took note of the finger I was holding up and dropped my hand into my lap, laughing so hard I nearly blew snot all over the windshield. Cole started laughing too, and we sat there for a couple of minutes like two hyenas while deadly serious events moved forward without us. Eventually we would catch up, but for the moment it felt great to let go and laugh. As much as it sucked to say so, Albert was right, it had been a long, long time since I could.

Either Cole had just come along at the right time or I was going to have to carry him around in my hip pocket for the rest of my days.

Cole glanced out his window and pointed at a black SUV that had just passed us. "Hey, I recognize those guys." He looked at me, his face suddenly sober. "They work for Assan."

I nodded and put oh my seatbelt. "Follow them."

I filled him in on the bug as we drove. Luckily the story only took a minute, because we didn't have far to go. They stopped in the loading lane of the hospital. One guess who they'd come to recover.

"Change of plan?" asked Cole, his eyebrows raised.

"Yeah. Follow my lead and we can still get it done."

"What are you thinking?"

I adjusted my wig in the passenger side mirror so I wouldn't have to look at him. Until now he'd still been on the periphery of this whole nasty deal. Now I was about to dump him front and center. The guilt made my stomach ache. "I think I'm about to get very sick."

Chapter Fourteen

I'll say this for Cole, he's flexible and functions well under pressure. Not a letter of recommendation I'd be happy to write considering what kind of people hire that type, but true all the same. We drove around the block and parked right behind the SUV.

"Come around to my side and open the door," I said, feeling the blood drain from my face. "He's coming."

"Already?"

I didn't need to reply. Cole was already out of the car. Moments later he opened my door. "Undo my seatbelt, and take your time about it," I said, that terrible feeling of imbalance momentarily blurring my vision. Something shook me at the core, as if the Ohio River had suddenly reversed course or all the grass in Browns Stadium had burst into flame.

"We have to meet them near the door," I said. "Be loud. Be scared. Make a major scene. Make sure something happens so that I can touch him."

He nodded. "Ready?"

Hoping I wouldn't puke on Cole's nifty velour jogging jacket, I nodded. He pulled me out of the car and helped me toward the door. My blood seemed to jump in my veins, a warning so dire I would've turned to run if Cole hadn't been holding onto me.

"There they are," he said.

I raised my head, forcing my eyes to team up, show me the scene. The men, a couple of clones of the gatekeepers Vayl and I had dealt with last night, had reached the first set of automatic doors. One pushed the wheelchair. The other strode beside it. Derek slumped inside it, pale and tired looking, wearing a black turtle-neck and white jeans. His head was tilted to one side, as if to protect the bandaged area that reminded me forcefully of my last confrontation with his attacker. Then I realized he was watching his reflection in the glass doors.

"Smoke and mirrors," I murmured.

"What?"

"Now. Make it loud."

He raised his voice. "It'll be all right, honey." He clutched at me, gave my arm a comforting pat and stepped us forward. We'd almost reached the entry doors. He waited until Derek and his entourage emerged. "Don't pass out on me now, it'll be okay."

I obliged and sagged, keeping one hand firm on the back of his jacket. It took an effort not to hit my knees. All I wanted to do was puke until my stomach was dry as an AA meeting.

"Look honey, a wheelchair!" Cole maneuvered us into Derek's path, blocking his way. "You're leaving, right?" he asked them. "We need the chair, man. My girlfriend's really sick."

"Get out of the way," growled one of the goons. He shoved Cole backward and I let go of him. This time I did fall, right into Derek's lap. I flailed my hands and managed to slap the bug onto the uninjured side of his neck.

"So sick," I muttered. Derek shoved me off his lap, leaving me in a crumpled heap. I considered just staying there. Hell, I was two yards from a hospital. Eventually somebody would discover me here, tuck me into a nice, clean bed, maybe pump me full of tranquilizers. I could legitimately sleep for a week.

Fortunately the person who hauled me off my butt was Cole. My hospital fantasy had barely played itself out before he'd strapped me back into the Mercedes. Actually, the seat felt even better than my fantasy bed. Love those luxury models.

I managed to focus on the road as Cole pulled away from the hospital entrance. The SUV was probably twenty yards ahead of us and gaining. "How close do we need to follow?" Cole asked.

I tried to remember what Bergman had told me about receiving distance. They drew further ahead of us and, as my nausea lessened, my brain kicked in. "Just close enough to keep them in sight."

We fell further behind and I sat up straighter, wiped the sweat off my upper lip, ditched the wig and the beret.

"Feeling better?" Cole asked, cocking a raised eyebrow in my direction.

"Much."

"That wasn't an act, was it?"

I shook my head. "There's something so far off about that man that every time I get near him I feel like the earth's about to break orbit."

Cole absorbed my reply with quiet attention. "Then we'd better find out what he's up to. Are you hearing anything yet?"

"No talking. Kind of a steady thrumming sound. Knowing Bergman this thing is so fine-tuned I'll be able to hear Derek's pulse but his conversation will sound like Charlie Brown's teacher. Wa, wa-wa, wa, wa."

"Who's Bergman?"

I held up a finger. "Someone's talking," I whispered.

"—Assan isn't too happy with you," said one of the guards. His voice was throaty and strained, probably lined with decades of nicotine buildup. I immediately dubbed him the Marlboro Man.

"I was just following orders." It was Derek—whining. "It's not my fault somebody decided to play superhero."

"Who was it?"

"A girl with red hair and a man with a foreign accent. He had a cane. Said his name was Jeremy. I don't remember anything more about her."

"Well between them they managed to smoke Jonathon and both your victims."

Jonathon must've been the doorman. It seemed strange to think of Boris and Svetlana as Steele's victims, but that had been her take on the situation last night as well. The final experiment, my mind whispered, transferring the mutated virus from human to vampire. What did that do to the vamp? What did it do to the virus?

"The Tor-al-Degan's ritual is tomorrow. The senator's even coming," chided the Marlboro Man.

"How should I know that?" asked Derek. "I just do what he tells me, and he never tells me more."

"Well here's what he's telling you now," said the other guard, his voice hard and sharp as an axe blade.

A loud, scraping sound drowned out part of Axe's message. Derek must've scratched his neck, or else gulped loudly, because all I heard was, "—Undead tonight, and you're snagging him two new vampires."

"Tonight?" The whine had reentered Derek's voice. I suspected it never stepped very far aside. "I've lost so much blood. Surely tomorrow—"

"—will be too late," snapped Marlboro Man.

Again the interference kept me from getting the complete reply.

"—afterwards?" said Derek.

"Leave them to us," said Axe. "We'll make sure of it."

The third time was the charm for the bad guys. The sound that had kept parts of their conversation from me resumed in earnest and when it finished, I couldn't hear anything more. Derek had killed the bug.

I looked at my watch. More time had passed than I realized. Time enough, at least, to ensure that I had fully recovered for my next meeting.

"What did they say?" asked Cole.

I hesitated, but he was already in it to his neck. So I told him what I knew. "Have you ever heard of the Tor-al-Degan?" I asked.

"Nope. But I know some people who might have."

"Me too. And I've got to meet Bergman there in half an hour, so let's try her first."

"Works for me." I gave him the address and Cole took the next left, heading us away from Derek and his companions. At least now I knew what destroyed my balance every time I got close to the man. The virus he carried must be as lethal as Aidyn and Assan had advertised. Though why those two thought it needed to become a vampire cocktail I could not fathom. And where the hell did this Tor-al-Degan fit in? Obviously it was a key component in the plan, or Assan wouldn't have been so pissed about his 'final experiment' interfering with the ceremony. And in my experience, senators never showed up anywhere unless it benefited them in some way.

As it did so often, my brain looped back to the original question. Why did Derek need to hook vampires for his vicious little boss? It made no sense, no matter how I looked at it. Hopefully Cassandra would clear up the whole situation.

Chapter Fifteen

Cassandra's Pure & Natural was a tiny brick storefront in a predominantly Cuban neighborhood. Bins of fresh apples, oranges and grapefruit sat on the sidewalk beside the door which was equipped with the most soothing set of chimes I'd ever set off. Inside, the walls and aisles carried a surprisingly wide selection of spices, herbs, vitamins and natural remedies for everything from erectile dysfunction to the common cold.

I asked the cashier, a petite old woman with gleaming white teeth and blinding red hair where we could find Cassandra. She directed us to the back of the store, where shelves full of fresh-baked breads, rolls and sugar-free desserts made my stomach growl.

As soon as Cole caught sight of Cassandra he yanked off his glasses, spat out his fake teeth and wrapped them in his fishing hat, which went into the waistband of his sweats. Literally. He'd probably have to cut the lure to separate them. But at the moment he seemed pretty oblivious. All his concentration centered on Cassandra as she added some bran muffins to a glass case that already contained a full load of fiber-filled goodies for folks forced to make regularity a priority.

A slender beauty with black velvet skin and hair that fell in braids to her waist, Cassandra moved with the grace of a dancer. She wore a canary yellow blouse, red flowered skirt, beaded moccasins and enough gold jewelry to keep e-bay shoppers bidding for weeks.

"How may I help you?" she asked in an accent that made my Midwestern drawl sound pale and asexual.

"My name is Lucille Robinson," I said. "This is my friend, Cole Bemont." He nodded, doing a nice job of keeping his drool in check. "I—we—need a translation."

She nodded. "I assume you heard of me through a mutual acquaintance?"

"Yes, um, you would probably know him as Vayl."

Instant sympathy filled her warm brown eyes, but all she said was, "Yes, I remember him." She leaned aside, caught the cashier's eye and said, "We're going upstairs for awhile, Rita." To us she said, "Follow me, please."

Cole managed to keep his tongue from rolling out onto the stairs as we trailed Cassandra's swinging hips to the second floor. It made me laugh inwardly to see him, smitten, as it were. But I was glad I'd seen the show. It confirmed my feelings for him. I might love him someday, but never in the way I'd loved Matt. Never in the way I could, maybe, if I found the guts, love Vayl.

When we reached the landing at the top of the stairs I was surprised to find the three doors that opened to it, well, open. The one to our left revealed an apartment's living room and kitchen. A bathroom stood directly in front of us and a gypsy den sat on our right. That's where Cassandra led us, into a large room, the walls of which were covered in silky materials that ranged from blood red solids to dark gold prints. The new colors I saw within those familiar shades pleased my eye and my spirit. Somehow, despite the fringed pillows on the black couches and the multitude of candles on the large central table, the room maintained an exotic dignity.

Four dark wooden chairs with more curlicues than Shirley Temple sat around the table, which must've been crafted soon after Vayl's transformation. Cassandra sank into one of the chairs and motioned for us to join her.

"I sensed that I would be entertaining three visitors today," she said, her voice as satiny as the wall coverings. "Are you expecting another?"

"Actually, yes, we are meeting a friend here. He should be arriving any time now," I said.

Cassandra nodded, the golden studs that lined her ears shining with reflected light. "Rita will send him up when he arrives. Would you like to show me what you need translated?"

I pulled the paper Cole had traced the symbols on out of my front pocket. I took care not to touch her as I handed it to her. Vayl might need the services of a Seer, but I preferred to leave my future a blank. My new senses told me that if Cassandra touched me, she would tell me things I didn't want to hear. I was inclined to believe them.

I'd never doubted Cassandra's abilities. Charlatans don't stay in the biz long when vamps join their clientele. But even if I had come into this thinking Cassandra's upstairs gig was a fraud, her reaction to the symbols would've convinced me otherwise. She dropped the note onto the table in front of her as if she'd been burned. Her face tightened into a mask of fear and the soul behind her eyes cringed like a spectator at the Holocaust Museum.

"Where did you see these?" she asked, pointing a wavering finger at the symbols but making sure she didn't touch them.

"They had been carved into a dead body," Cole told her, "actually, two dead bodies on two separate occasions."

Cassandra fingered a crucifix at her neck and muttered under her breath in, well, oddly enough it sounded like Latin.

"What are you saying?" Cole asked.

She looked at him grimly. "A prayer for your protection."

Cole said, "Why do we need God's protection in this, Cassandra?"

"These symbols," she said, "are powerful runes designed to trap the soul, after death, to keep it from ascending."

I recalled the scene in the restaurant, when Harry's beautiful blue soul went flying into the wild blue yonder. What if it had remained stuck there, straining to be free? The image made me flinch.

Cole shook his head. "How is that possible?" he asked.

Cassandra made a visible effort to pull herself together. "When people die violently, their souls do not immediately break free," she explained. "During that short delay the soul can be contained inside the body by branding these runes on the skin around the death wound."

"So," ugh, leant believe I'm saying this, "then what do you have? Zombies?"

"That is a possibility." Cassandra looked as revolted as I felt. "Another explanation is that a rail, or hell-servant, trapped the soul until his master could arrive to eat it."

I couldn't help it, my mind suddenly supplied a picture of a red-skinned, horned demon picking its teeth with a purple claw as a waiter cleared the dishes from its table.

"How was the soul?" the waiter asked.

"Not bad with butter and lemon," the demon replied. "In fact, I'd have to say it was finger lickin' good."

I know, I know, not funny.

"Aside from the obvious biblical explanations," I said, "why would a demon eat souls?"

Cassandra shuddered. "For the fun of it," she suggested, "or perhaps because it had been called to do so by a vengeance-minded human who was willing to pay the price."

Great, that's what I need right now. It's not enough that I have to stop a mega-terrorist from spreading some godawful virus. Now I get to chase down a psychotic netherworlder with the munchies too.

"There is a third possibility," Cassandra said.

"What is it?"

"Demons are not the only monsters who eat souls. My people tell a story of how, once, an evil emperor named Tequet Dirani made it his passion to rule, not only this world, but all the worlds beyond this one. He summoned a Kyron to help him."

"What's a Kyron?" asked Cole.

Cassandra started to look ill as she described something that sounded more like a George Lucas creation than the real deal. "It is a beast built for destruction. Its presence can herald a plague or a nuclear meltdown. And it can rip through the walls that divide universes like a wrecking ball."

"Sure sounds like a demon to me," Cole murmured.

"Not at all. It will destroy in any cause, good or evil. It is, like the djinn, at the mercy of its master's whim."

"Only genies don't scarf down somebody's essence every morning for breakfast," I pointed out. "So how do you master something like that?" I wondered. "How do you beat it?"

Cassandra didn't realize I was waxing rhetorical.

"You control it with food," she said. "Souls, to be specific. Likewise, you might be able to beat it by starving it."

"Is that how the emperor's Kyron died?"

"Oh, Kyron don't die," Cassandra said earnestly, "they simply become weak enough to bind."

Somehow I didn't think she meant bind as in 'Yo, Henry, go find me some rope.'

"Bind how?" I asked, feeling suddenly exhausted. I eyed one of the couches speculatively. How offended would Cassandra be if a perfect stranger collapsed there for, oh, say three days, more or less?

"According to the legend, a powerful mage bound the Kyron by making her forget her own name."

"That must have been a major bump on the head."

"Indeed," Cassandra agreed. "It would take more than a mild concussion to forget the name Tor-al-Degan."

Chapter Sixteen

H—Holy crap! Cole and I exchanged dumbstruck looks while Cassandra puzzled out our shock. Before she could put her questions into words, however, Bergman slunk into the room.

"What?" he asked, immediately suspicious as we stared at him, some of us dazed, some confused, none quite able to muster a common pleasantry.

"We've had a kind of a shock," I finally managed. Talk about understatement. That was like saying Vesuvius' eruption was a slight blip in Pompeii's weather pattern. If we weren't so damn civilized we'd be on our knees, kissing our asses goodbye.

Bergman looked around the room furtively. If you didn't know him, you'd suspect he'd caused our consternation. He just carried that air of guilt with him wherever he went.

"I'll fill you in later," I said, pretending this powerful fist of foreboding hadn't just sucker-punched me in the gut. "We've, uh, that is… we've found out what we needed to know so, now that you're here, we'll get out of Cassandra's hair."

I stood up, digging in my pocket for a twenty.

"No, please," said Cassandra, "there's no charge."

"My boss blesses you," I said. I leaned across the table and held out my hand, my Military Brat Politeness Training temporarily overcoming common sense. "Thanks for your help. You've been a godsend."

She shook my hand, barely squeezing in response to my firm grip. Then her focus shifted, and I knew I was screwed. I tried to pull my hand back before she could connect with spirits I wasn't ready to face. But her vision had nothing to do with worlds beyond death.

"David is in danger," she said tightly. "You must tell him to stay away from the house with the pink door. It is rigged to blow."

She dropped my hand and sat back in her chair, looking like somebody who's just debarked from an intense roller coaster ride. She murmured something that sounded like, "Who are you?" But I could barely hear her beyond the roaring in my ears. It was as if the explosion had already happened inside my head. The blackness stormed over me like a level five twister, a miles-wide black-on-black runaway train I could never hope to resist.

But I tried. For David's sake I fought to stand, to simply stay upright and functional while my own wild-eyed psyche tried to bowl me over. This time it worked. The force that had, for so long, squashed my awareness and pushed it down into unconsciousness, now tugged at me, pulled me forward so fast I felt dizzy with the rush. I felt supercharged, as if I could see everywhere all at once, be anywhere I wanted to go, do whatever I wished. The way I figured it, this was no time to kick Tinkerbelle in the teeth. I wished to be with David, wished hard, like when we were kids and Tammy Shobeson had me down in the dirt, demanding that I call myself and my snake eating, son-of-a-bitching dad a dirty, rotten coward.

There was a moment when the blackness seemed to offer up a navigational beacon, my own personal yellow brick road on which to set a new land-speed record. Later I would gain the knowledge I needed to slow that trip down, put it into some kind of perspective. But now it seemed instant, a Jell-O Pudding trek that put me where I needed to be, in the middle of Desert Nowhere in the dark, in the heat, slamming into my brother, through him, screaming, "David! David! David!," in a voice so loud and shrill I expected some unseen enemy to lob a grenade my way just to shut me up.

David stood still, a sheen of sweat covering his artificially darkened face. Night vision goggles covered his eyes, but I knew what they looked like. I faced their twins every day in the mirror. He carried an M-16 in one hand and a radio in the other. He looked so fit, so healthy, I just stood there for a second and watched him breathe.

"Jaz?" he whispered.

"You can see me?"

Immediately he shook his head. I could almost read his thoughts. Nope, can't see a thing because this was not covered in Special Forces Booklet 14 A. But he reached out his hand, poked it through my stomach and out my back. The same hand went immediately to his forehead and banged on it hard. "What a helluva time to start hallucinating."

He turned his back on me, and over his shoulder I saw the house, a squat little square with dark, dark windows and a pale pink door. His team surrounded it, crouched in the shadows like latter-day ninjas, awaiting his orders.

"David!" I jumped in front of him, holding up my hands, failing to stop his slow advance. "The door! The pink door! It's booby-trapped!"

"Quit freaking out, D." That's what he called himself during his damn-I'm-stressed pep talks. "It's all been scouted. It's all good." The hand with the radio moved toward his lips.

"Goddammit, I didn't come all this way to blow smoke up your ass, Daz. Don't go through that door!"

He looked straight at me. "You haven't called me Daz since West Virginia. Not even in my dreams." It was my pet name for him, the one I'd used to remind him he was a part of me despite his hip friends, his athletic prowess, his ability to make even little old librarians laugh.

"You haven't called me at all," I whispered.

He murmured orders into the radio and waited, Neither of us spoke. I didn't want to spook him further. He didn't want to understand how I was, and wasn't, there. I heard frantic whispering.

"You were right, Jaz. The door is wired like a bale of hay."

"Good. Good. I'm glad you listened. Thanks."

"Thank you." He shucked his goggles and looked at me then, making sure I saw that he meant it for himself. But he meant it even more for his team, twelve men and three women who kicked terrorist ass all over the globe without most people even knowing they existed. "It's…" he grimaced, "it's not easy keeping them all alive. I know that now."

It was the closest he'd ever come to apologizing about the rift he'd opened between us.

I just nodded. "I have to go." I had stood in the eye of the storm as long as I could. It was pulling me back, now, blowing me home.

David held onto me with his eyes, which had suddenly filled with alarm. "How did you do this, Jazzy? You're not… dead are you? Because you look awful damn ghostly standing there."

"No," I laughed uneasily, "of course not. I'm just weird."

Relief cleared David's expression. "Okay, then. I'll… I'll call you. Soon. I promise."

"I'm holding you to that one, Daz. Take care."

I let the storm whip me away from my twin and his crew. Back to the gypsy den I flew, dropping into myself at a jarring rate of speed. I gasped and looked around. Lucky me, somehow I'd made it onto one of the couches. Cole, Bergman and Cassandra hovered over me like emergency room nurses.

"Wow, what just happened?" I asked. "I mean, what did I say?"

"Not much," Cole told me. "You just went white and started to sway, so we sat you down here. You said 'David' a few times. Is that your…"

"Brother," I supplied. "My twin."

Cole looked impressed. "A twin. Wow. I'd have bet money they broke the mold after you."

"Thanks, I think."

Cassandra was wringing her hands, looking more and more agitated. "But, now, surely there is someone you can call? Someone who can stop David before…"

"Yes, of course," I said, inserting worry into my voice. No sense in sharing the story of my latest adventure right now. Maybe later, when I could figure out a way to keep it from sounding like a bad episode of Star Trek.

I dug my phone out of my pocket. "Is there a place I can talk privately?" I asked.

Cassandra nodded, ushering the men out of the room and gently closing the door.

I dialed a number without even thinking about it. I was probably even more surprised than Albert when he answered the phone to find me on the other end.

"Dad?"

"Jasmine? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, now. There was something, but it's okay." I stopped. Had to. Tears had thrown a hitch into my voice, and the next step was crying on the phone to Daddy. No. Way. Maybe Albert sensed that because the next thing he said was, "The nurse came. Damndest thing, Jaz, she's a he! I mean, Shelby's a fella. He was a medic in the marines, can you believe it? Plays a mean game of poker too."

"Really? That's great!" I put so much bright and perky into my tone a cheerleader would've gagged.

Albert took a second to wipe the crap out of his ear, then he said, "Jasmine, hang up. I'm calling you back on the other phone."

"Okay." I disconnected. I sat on the couch and waited, and when the phone rang I punched the button and said, "Dad, you don't have another phone."

"Yes, I do." He sounded more serious, more like the dad I'd grown up admiring and fearing, than he had in years. "It's safe to talk. I have a scrambled line."

"Dad, did you just eat a big piece of chocolate cake? Because you said 'scrambled line' when I'm pretty sure you meant to say 'scrambled eggs.'"

"I'll make this quick, because Shelby's in the kitchen whipping up a meal he says I'll actually eat and I don't want him getting curious. I have a scrambled line because when I retired from the service I did some freelance work for the C.I.A. Still consult for them from time to time, which is why I still have the phone."

"But… you retired because of the diabetes. Why would—"

"Didn't have it then," said Albert. "What I did have was some expertise in military intelligence that the C.I.A. thought they could use. The diabetes, well, that turned out to be a case of life imitating lies." He paused, giving it time to sink in. Then he went on. "I know what you do for a living, Jaz. Have from the start. So when you call sounding like you just dodged a cannonball, I'm naturally going to want to help out. So, first of all, are you really o.k.?"

I thought about it. "No, but I'm not in any danger." After another second I added, "At the moment."

"Is there anything I can do?" When I didn't answer right away, he said, "Dammit, Jasmine, don't make me beg. I'm so frigging tired of being a useless old man I'm ready to volunteer. Yeah, I said it! Volunteer, like some God-fearing, church-going, one-foot-in-the-grave bastard who thinks he can save his shriveled old soul by doing five hours of good works a week."

Only my father could have that kind of perspective on volunteerism. Twisted old poop. And yet, since we still didn't know the identity of our leak, I really could use somebody with his contacts. And it sounded like he could use the exercise, so to speak.

Feeling like I was taking a gondola ride through Surreal-land, I said, "Actually, Albert, there is something you can do. Can you check out some senators for me?"

Chapter Seventeen

It must've been Albert's military background, because man, when he dropped a bomb the entire country shook. I was still jittery as a hurricane survivor in New Orleans, and I was sure that somewhere in Alaska some poor Inuit had just taken a tumble from his sled for the very same reason. Thirty seconds ago I'd discovered my dad was not only a mostly retired consultant for the Agency, he also maintained a few connections in Washington D.C. who could make my life much easier and quite a bit longer. Now I'd believe anything. If Cole and Bergman rushed in and told me pterodactyls were circling Cassandra's building, I'd run to the window to get a good look.

Speaking of which, they were about ready to burst in, despite my request for privacy. I could feel their anxiety through the door. I sighed. Already I missed the good old days when being Sensitive only pertained to vamps, and even then their feelings never entered into it. I also thought it would've been convenient to be able to open the door with a simple wave of the hand. Unfortunately my newfound abilities didn't lean that way. Maybe I could buy a really well-trained dog…

Sighing, I lurched to my feet and opened the door. They weren't pacing in the hallway as I'd expected. They were pacing in Cassandra's apartment.

"It's all right," I said as I entered the room. They didn't exactly leap at me. In fact Cassandra stayed in her tall, wooden rocker and Bergman continued skulking back and forth behind her royal blue couch. Cole came and took my elbow, led me to the couch's matching recliner and sat me down gently.

"You're making me feel old," I told him.

He just grinned. He sat on the granite-topped coffee table that visually connected the seating area to a red brick fireplace that held dozens of white candles.

"You okay?" he asked, inspecting me closely, perhaps to see if I'd grown an extra appendage during our brief separation. "You look better than I expected you to."

"I feel better than I probably should."

"So things are squared away?"

"For the moment."

"Can I get a ride back to my truck, then? I really do need to clean that pool or they'll think something's up."

"Okay, but no snooping. Call me when you're done, too. I want to see those pictures." I checked my watch. "Jeremy ought to be up by then. I'll bring him along." I looked at Bergman, raised my eyebrows. "Follow us?"

He nodded. "Then you and I need to talk." He looked pointedly at Cole, "alone."

I wanted to snarl, "Well, of course, alone. We already established that Cole would be going somewhere else!" Sometimes Bergman's paranoia made me want to break things. Like his neck. But, being a neurotic—I mean sensitive—genius, he continued to benefit from my best behavior. For now.

"Of course," I replied, "I'm anxious to hear what you have to say." I rose and looked at Cassandra. "Thank you for saving my brother. It was… wow… thanks."

She nodded graciously. "I'll see you later."

"You will?"

"Yes." She didn't elaborate so I let it go. No sense in chasing more problems. "Until then, I must ask you to be very careful."

"Who, me? Gosh, Cassandra, I guess I should've told you, there's no need to worry about me. At work they call me Safety Sue."

She gave a very unladylike humph, which made me like her lots better.

The four of us trooped downstairs and, maybe seeing the way I'd ogled her fresh baked foods, Cassandra gave us each a free box of blueberry muffins to take with us.

"I love girls who bake," sighed Cole as we drove back to his truck, with me behind the wheel this time. He launched into a rapturous monologue that featured, I kid you not, his mom's apple pies. From there he moved to his boyhood, oatmeal-cookie-stealing stories and by the time we reached his truck I'd inhaled two of Cassandra's freebies. I'd also decided that if I ever met Cole's mom I'd just come right out with it and ask her to adopt me.

I let him off at the corner. Bergman pulled alongside me and yelled, "Follow me!" out the window, so I did. He drove a dark green work van with no windows in back and tinted windows in front. The words "Flaherty's Fine Foods" were stenciled on the side in big gold letters that circled a picture of the sun, complete with curvy yellow beams, Blues Brothers shades and a big, toothy smile.

He drove to a large deserted park. No kids played on the red and yellow jungle gym. The benches were empty and so were several of the flowerbeds. He parked beside a pond with a working fountain and I got into the van beside him.

"Thanks for coming, Bergman. I really appreciate it."

"No problem," he said, though we both knew better. "I'm sorry about all the secrecy, but you said to bring all the bells and whistles, and I didn't want anyone else to get a look at your new toys."

I felt a smile chase away my earlier irritation. I love new toys.

He reached behind his seat and brought out a silver case with black combination-lock latches. Just the kind of thing inside of which you'd expect to find a top-secret weapon or two. Grinning in response to my excitement, he unlocked the case and set it on my lap. "You open it."

I raised the lid. Inside, cushioned by a casing of black foam, sat three smaller cases, also gleaming silver. I nearly jumped up and down in my seat, but confined myself to a short round of applause.

"You don't even know what they are yet!"

"Look at this," I demanded, bringing his attention to the case with a Vanna White inspired flip of the hand. "Stuff that starts out looking like this always ends up awesome. Didn't you ever see I Spy?"

"Come on," he said, his long, pale face twitching with anticipation, "open them up."

"If you insist." The first case snapped open to reveal a necklace made with shells, beads and an arrow-shaped item that looked an awful lot like a shark's tooth. I pulled the necklace out of the case and looked closer. Finally I said, "Okay. I give. Why is this not any other souvenir store rip-off?"

"I'll show you," Bergman said, the brown eyes behind his glasses gleaming with techno-passion. He took his keys out of the ignition and traded them for the necklace. He stuck the shark's tooth into the keyhole and wiggled it a little. Then he turned it sharply and the van started. To his delight, all I could say was, "Whoa. That's cool."

He turned the engine off and handed the necklace back to me.

The shark's tooth was now in the shape of a key, but even as I held it in my palm it reformed itself to its original shape. "What's your secret?" I asked, although I knew he wouldn't tell me, not even if his feet were bleeding and his hair was on fire.

"Caffeine," he replied, and we both smiled. I put the necklace on and he said, "Oh, yeah, the line everything's threaded on is super strong. It's been tested to 600 pounds."

I fingered the beads and the stretchy cord they hung on with wonder. "Cool! Now I can steal some rich old coot's Jaguar and go fishing for marlin with the same piece of jewelry."

"Not many women can say that, you know."

"There's no doubt I'm blessed among them. What else have we got?" I opened the second case. It held a couple of hearing aids like the one I'd just used and two round items that looked like mints. "Listening devices?" I guessed.

"And sending," Bergman agreed. "The round piece is made to stick to the roof of your mouth. The receiver goes in your ear. The second set is for Vayl. When you're both equipped you can talk to each other without the bother of radios and headsets. The only downside is the sound is a little distorted."

"Yeah?"

Bergman grimaced. "It's like somebody pumped up the bass. I'm working on cleaning that up."

"What's the upside?"

He pointed to two items I hadn't noticed because they were nearly the same color as the box's lining. "Careful," he warned, as I picked them up. They looked like the fake tattoos retailers sell to little kids who haven't yet heard of hepatitis. One resembled a line of barbed wire. The other was a long, serpentine dragon. "These adhere to your skin and are indistinguishable from tattoos once they're on. They're transmitters," Bergman explained. "They should allow you to hear each other from a distance of about two miles."

"No kidding? That far?" Bergman bobbed his head, looking like a rooster who's just discovered the henhouse.

I opened the last box. It contained a simple gold watch with an expandable band. I turned it inside out and upside down, but it looked completely normal. So I put it on.

"Snap the band," suggested Bergman.

I did and my hand immediately began to tingle. The face of the watch turned blue, though I still had no problem reading the time. It turned white again and the tingling stopped. "What's up with this?"

"I'm still researching all the possible applications, but at the moment I can tell you the watch absorbs the energy your body movement creates and kicks it back out as an electronic shield. When it's fully charged you can walk through a metal detector carrying a bazooka and no bells will go off. It also masks the sounds your natural movements cause."

"So, you're saying all I need to do is snap this band and I'm in stealth mode?"

"As long as the face of the watch is blue. As you can see it didn't stay blue long because it hasn't had much time to absorb your energy. It also has a limited storage capacity."

"How long?"

"Five minutes at the most."

"Not bad when 30 seconds is all you need."

"So you like it?"

This was the side of Bergman I'd never figured out. The guy could make a lead door do back flips, but he still needed his pats.

"Are you kidding me? This is the finest stuff you've ever given me to work with. You've really outdone yourself this time." Minus the weight of that worry, he sat a little straighter. "Have you got a place to stay?" I asked.

"Yeah." He didn't tell me where, which came as no surprise.

"Great. But look, before you go back there, I have a couple of requests."

"I'm at your service."

I told him about the bad blood and Vayl's need for a clean supply. "So is there any way you can process the tainted blood? See what exactly Vayl's smelling?"

"No problem." Bergman jerked his thumb over his shoulder, bringing my attention to at least 20 bags and boxes that filled the body of the van. "I pretty much brought the office with me since I wasn't sure what you'd need."

My next request didn't want to roll right off my tongue like the first, but I forced it out. "How about a willing donor for Vayl?"

Bergman's eyebrows shot up. "Skirting Agency supplies?"

"For now."

He nodded thoughtfully. "I think I can arrange that by tomorrow. But there's no way I can get him a supply any sooner."

"Tonight's not a problem," I said. I had shed my bandage when I'd donned my costume, but Bergman's eyes still tracked to my neck. If he could see the puncture marks between the gathering gloom and my mane of hair he didn't comment.

"The blood's at the hotel," I told him. "Follow me back?"

"No problem."

I jumped out of the van and into the Mercedes. To soothe Bergman's concern that we might be followed and, I admit, to give myself a few extra minutes behind that smooth leather-clad wheel, I took the long way back to Diamond Suites. Bergman approved of the digs right up to the point when our exclusive elevator opened into our exclusive entryway and we discovered neither was as exclusive as advertised.

"Son of a bitch!" I whispered, pulling Bergman into the corner. The scene reminded me of Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa Parks'. The smell of cheap aftershave. The trashed living room. The sound of voices coming from the bedroom, two of them, hissing at each other like a couple of pissed off geese.

I motioned for Bergman to stay put as I pulled Grief from its holster. He nodded at my watch band and held up his fingers, telling me I might have twenty seconds of stealth built up by now. I snapped the band and moved through the open door toward Vayl's bedroom.

"Look in the closet," said one of the intruders, a woman whose accent made me think of those overcrowded trailer parks that attract cops and tornadoes in equal doses.

"Vampires do not sleep in closets," said her male partner in an equally thick drawl. "Besides, I already checked."

No movement or sound came from any other part of the suite, so I decided these two had arrived without reinforcements.

I edged along the wall until I stood next to the open doorway.

"We never shoulda taken this job, Rudy," the woman whined. "Killing the undead is no way to make a living."

"You're the one who wanted to go straight, Amy Jo, not me. I'd be just as happy popping cheating husbands and rich old uncles."

"Now what kind of folks would we be if we kept going around murdering other people's folks? Did you look under the bed?"

"Yes, I looked under the bed!" Rudy's voice held that defeated note of exasperation sung by henpecked husbands the world over.

"Sounds like it's just not your day, Rudy," I said as I stepped into the doorway and took careful aim. I picked the target closest to me, knowing in a moment the shock would wear off, they'd react and I'd better be ready to shoot. Unfortunately my target was heavily pregnant, so my own initial shock offset theirs and we all recovered at pretty much the same time.

"Don't shoot!" Rudy yelled, jumping in front of Amy Jo and, no doubt, scoring lifetime brownie points in the process.

"Behave yourselves and I won't have to," I said in the most professional voice I could muster considering Amy Jo reminded me strongly of Evie, and she and Rudy both wore black clothing covered with bright yellow, fabric-painted crosses. "You guys look like you should be representing the letter 't' on Sesame Street."

They traded a look that said they'd had the same discussion.

"Who are you?" Rudy demanded, rather haughtily, I thought. After all, he was not only dressed like a letter of the alphabet, he looked like a young Mr. Magoo.

"C.I.A." I replied, sounding as crisp as a new 50 dollar bill. "And you two are flirting with a long list of felonies that will put you behind bars until that kid of yours needs knee replacements."

"We're just doing our job," said Amy Jo, flipping her strawberry blonde hair away from her face with one hand while the other guarded her distended belly.

"Who are you working for?"

Rudy squinted his eyes tightly, until all you could see of them behind his coke bottle lenses were glittery black pinpoints. "Who wants to know?"

I sighed. "The C. I. A." I said it slow so they wouldn't misunderstand. Our acronym can be so confusing.

Amy Jo jabbed her right elbow into Rudy's left love handle. "She's the one with the gun. Tell her what she wants to know!"

It was Rudy's turn to sigh. "We don't know. They hired us over the Internet, mailed us half the cash and promised the other half after we nailed the vampire."

I lowered Grief until it pointed straight at Rudy's crotch. "You two wouldn't recognize the Internet if a server fell on your heads. So give it to me straight this time, Rudy, before I lose my temper and make sure Junior grows up an only child."

Rudy let out a very Homer Simpson-like yelp and crossed his hands over my target. "All right, all right! This couple came into the bar where we hang out."

"What did they look like?"

"She had big boobs and bright white hair that went down to her butt," said Amy Jo, peeking around Rudy to make sure I heard her right.

"And he had longish reddish hair," finished Rudy. "I think they were both vamps."

Aidyn and Liliana. Should I be surprised? Yeah, I thought so. You don't hire a couple of local yokels to off two of the best assassins in the world. Unless that's not really what you want for your money. Maybe it's well spent if all you want to do is distract said assassins from their original mission. It made good, key-in-the-lock sense when you took it as a package along with Vayl's tainted blood and our run-in with Graybeard and his henchmen.

"The vamp you're after is already smoke," I told them.

"What?" the two of them squawked like a couple of irritated blue jays.

"Yeah. Thought he needed a suntan, I guess. Walked right out into full daylight this morning."

"Son-of-a-bitch!" Amy Jo punched poor Rudy in the arm because, well, he was there.

"Look," I said, before she threw another jab Rudy couldn't duck, "tell them you bagged the vamp. He's gone, so it doesn't really matter if you take the credit. Then get out of town. Way out. You'll get the cash and help the C.I.A. at the same time."

Amy Jo looked a little doubtful, but Rudy grinned and rubbed his palms together as if they'd already been greased. "We can do that."

"And, uh," I motioned to their costumes, "I'd rethink the vamp-smoking biz. The one you were after wasn't put off by crosses. Most others keep tougher goons than you around to guard their sleep. Why don't you go arrow straight and, uh, open a liquor store or something?"

"Wow," said Amy Jo, "how did you know?"

Because you are me and Evie minus college and Granny May. The words sat, silent on my tongue. I just looked at her, and when her eyes narrowed I knew she had me pegged. "You're a Sweep, aren't you?"

I shrugged. "I'm not familiar with that term."

"Like a chimney sweep. You dust vamps and get rid of the ashes. Dust people too, I'm betting," she said, nodding wisely, like an old Chinese monk.

I accepted her metaphor, despite her ignorance of what actually happens when a vamp goes bye-bye for good. "Yes," I said, "I do." I let her see in my eyes what all my victims had seen in their time. She was already a tough old bird, though I wouldn't put her age past 22, but I backed her up a step. "Someday you might even be as good as me, if a vamp doesn't rip your throat out first. Of course, Junior there might not appreciate that." I motioned to her belly. "There are Moms, and there are Sweeps, Amy Jo. You can't be both."

I stopped, mentally kicking myself for falling into lecture mode. Either she was smart enough to figure it out for herself, or she was too damn dumb to waste my breath on.

"Throw the room key on the bed," I told Rudy, too tired to be polite anymore. He fished the card out of his back pocket and laid it on Vayl's crumpled comforter.

"We'll be taking the stairs down." I motioned them out of the bedroom. "You come too," I told Bergman when he caught my eye.

He nearly leaped out of our way as we moved to the entry way, a nervous gazelle smelling predator in all directions. To give him credit, however, he didn't rush to his ride once we reached the parking lot. He stood slightly behind me as Rudy and Amy Jo boarded their beige Chevy Van, circa 1975, and pulled away. Even from a distance I could see Amy Jo talking into her cell phone, hopefully reporting Vayl's final demise.

"Come on, Bergman, lets get you that blood sample so you can get the hell out of here."

"So Vayl's okay?" he asked as we took the elevator back upstairs.

"Of course. If you've taught me anything, it's to be perfectly paranoid when it comes to securing sleeping quarters. He's snoozing in the basement."

"What're you going to do now? I mean, now that the bad guys know where you're staying?"

I shook my head as we exited the elevator and reentered the suite. Trashed by trailer trash. How poetic. I started picking up junk and throwing it into a pile. "Find the one place in Miami that won't show up on these jerks' radar." Bergman frowned heavily as he helped me clean up. After a few minutes he squared his shoulders and said, "I know just the place."

"You do?"

"Yeah. Actually, I'm staying there."

I swallowed my spit and it went down the wrong tube. Through the coughing fit that followed I said, "Are you… inviting us to stay with you?"

Bergman nodded unhappily. "I figure it's the patriotic thing to do."

"You figure rightly. Thanks!"

Boy would Vayl's jaw drop when he heard this one. Bergman's privacy, sacred to him as the Torah, had bowed to the needs of two of the Agency's most notorious members, I'd have to choose the right time to tell him. Definitely after he'd climbed off the top of the toilet paper cabinet upon which he now roosted.

After our little confrontation the evening before, I'd expected him to complain when I'd stomped into his room and demanded that he change sleeping quarters so I could leave him during the day without worrying. But he'd just shrugged, grabbed a pillow and followed me to the darkest corner I could find. I'd covered him with a tarp and disguised the lump he made by placing a row of paint cans along the top edge of the cabinet.

"Sorry," I'd said as I'd turned to leave, knowing he was laying in enough mildew to start a spoor factory.

"It is fine," I heard him say, "there is little a hot shower cannot cure."

What a guy. Too bad he'd been mostly dead for centuries.

Chapter Eighteen

Bergman and I sat on a couple of overturned five gallon buckets in the basement of Diamond Suites, waiting for night to fall. Any minute now Vayl would stir, and he probably wouldn't appreciate the audience, but Bergman's unspoken sense of urgency had rubbed off on me. We really needed to get out, before Aidyn and Liliana caught onto our scam and resorted to something more dependable than southern-fried assassins. Like a bomb.

The last vestige of light left the basement. Yeah, creepy. Bergman and I flicked on our flashlights. Somehow that made it worse. And it was no consolation to know there really could be monsters hiding in the shadows between the boiler and the storage closets. I'd been eyeing the edges of Freakoutland for maybe a minute when I heard a huge, gasping gulp that made me jump up and overturn my bucket despite the fact that I'd been expecting it. When the muttering started, however, I relaxed. The Vayl-shaped plastic on top of the cabinet in the furthest corner of the basement creaked as he started to move, his complaints getting louder as he remembered where he was. With our flashlights trained on his location, we were mesmerized by the sight of a vamp dressed in blue plastic. We watched him struggle to escape seemingly endless yards of tarp while paint cans dropped off the cabinet's edge like gumballs from a faulty machine. Still enmeshed from the knees down, Vayl flopped off the cabinet before we realized he needed a hand down, falling fast and hard like a penguin who hasn't bought the whole flightless scenario. Somehow he recovered, so quickly his movements were a dizzying blur, and landed on his feet.

"What are you doing here?" he grumbled, giving Bergman a slight nod to acknowledge his arrival.

"Waiting for you," I replied. "Need some coffee, do you?"

"No." He looked pointedly at my neck and, this is embarrassing, but I'm pretty sure I blushed. Nonetheless, I barreled on.

"Bergman needs a day to find you a willing donor—"

"I told you, I can find my own donors," he snapped. He took a minute to regroup. "I am sorry. Waking is never pleasant for me. What I meant to say…" he stopped, took inward stock and started over, "What I now realize is that I do not need any donors, not tonight anyway. I woke with the same longing as ever, but without the need. Last night… the blood I took last night was more… potent… than I realized."

I cleared my throat. What do you say when you find out your blood is really filling? It's not a manwich, it's a meal! Nope, not going there. "Um, we need to get out of here as soon as possible." I gave Vayl the short version of Rudy and Amy Jo's adventures and my distraction theory. I also told him about my visit with Cassandra. His immobile face registered actual shock when I mentioned the Tor-al-Degan.

"So you've heard of this thing?" I asked.

"I have. I do not know how it was vanquished the last time someone brought it forth, but I know many died trying."

"Well, look, Assan's goon said there was a ceremony tomorrow that seemed to involve the Tor-al-Degan, Assan, the senator, and possibly Aidyn. If we're lucky the Raptor will show up too and we can bowl a strike." I went on, "I figure we eliminate Assan tonight after we get the details we need to crash their party and," like the hero and heroine in a really fine melodrama, "foil their plans."

"I agree. But we must anticipate what other distractions they may throw at us to keep us from accomplishing that."

Right on cue, my phone rang. It was Cole. "Lucille? My building's on fire! The pictures, they're burning!"

"Where are you?"

"Here! With the fire trucks!"

Holy crap! "Listen! It's not an accident! Assan is onto you! Look around, do you see any of his men?"

"No. I don't know. It's… there are dark patches here and there. They could be hiding."

Through the phone I heard an explosive, popping noise. "Cole? What's that?"

"The windows just exploded! Oh my God, my business!"

"We'll work it out for you, Cole. But right now, you need to run—"

"Hey! What're you doing! Let me go!"

"Cole, tell me—"

"Lucille! They've—" the phone went dead.

I shoved it into my pocket and jumped up. "Assan has Cole!"

Vayl laid a hand on my shoulder, probably to keep me from sprinting off into the night like some mad cross country runner. "We will get him back. Tonight. But we need to get Cassandra too. She is the only other person who has had contact with us. They may know about her. They may use her as the next distraction."

I wanted to say something stupid like, "But she's not on the way." I held my tongue. Vayl was right. "I should call her, though. So she'll be ready to go when we come."

"I imagine she already knows."

Bergman and I had already packed everything that could be salvaged into the van. The Mercedes would stay put until the dealer came for it at the end of the week. We didn't exactly tear out of the parking lot, but we wasted no time in hitting the road. Bergman drove while Vayl and I sat in the bucket seats behind him, our legs pinned between boxes and trunks. Naturally, since I wasn't driving, traffic cooperated.

"I am sorry," Vayl said, his voice low in my ear, "I know you cherish your privacy, but your emotions are shooting out of you like fireworks. You have every right to be scared and worried, but you cannot let those feelings take you over. Not tonight."

A spurt of anger made me want to slap him, as if I was some diva who didn't get the Double Stuff Oreos she'd demanded before her concert. I took a deep breath, and then another. "Okay, reign it in. I understand. I will."

Cassandra waited for us on the curb in front of her store, two bags in hand, two on the sidewalk beside her. Even after everything I'd seen and done in my life, the Midwesterner in me thought, Wow, that's just weird. But weird in a way I deeply appreciated.

Bergman helped her load her stuff, giving Vayl and I each a bag to hold on our laps. She kept the other two, tucking one beneath her feet and keeping the other in-hand.

"No speeding," I told Bergman as he settled back behind the wheel. "You hit a bump going over 60 and your exhaust system is going to snap off like a Lego."

"I know, I know, I packed too much. I always do."

He sounded so contrite I backed off. "You wouldn't have brought it if you didn't need it."

"That's why I like you, Jaz. You never sneer at my craziness."

"If you could watch a film of my childhood you'd know why."

He chuckled, the way a person will who's had similar suspicions about insanity in the family. "Where to now?"

I looked at Vayl. "Bergman's offered us asylum. We get to stay on his turf as long as we make our beds and put our dirty plates in the dishwasher."

"Excellent. Take us there, if you please." Vayl looked at Cassandra then. "It is good to see you again."

"Likewise." She looked at me and smiled. "Hello Lucille. Or should I call you Jaz?"

"Why don't we stick with Lucille? The less you know about me the better."

"But that is why I'm here."

"Really?"

She held my gaze, her eyes like twin wells in the dim light. I nearly kicked in my night sight, but I wasn't sure I wanted to see her that clearly. "When we shook hands, the vision of David came strongest," she told me. "But another vision crept in, like a shadow, and I could not understand what it meant. So after you left I consulted the Enkyklios."

Vayl nodded as if he knew what that meant, which irritated me. Or maybe it was the fact that Cassandra felt free to nose around my psyche.

"What's an Enkyklios?" I asked, the suspicion in my voice causing Bergman to flash me a look of approval.

Cassandra slipped into lecture mode. "An Enkyklios is like a metaphysical library. It is full of the information Seers have whispered to their descendents practically since the beginning of time. For the last several generations we have taken it upon ourselves to travel the world, gathering and storing that information so it won't be lost forever."

"We?" asked Bergman. "Who's we?"

"An international guild I belong to called Sisters of the Second Sight."

"Never heard of it." He sounded as snappish and impatient as I felt.

"No," Cassandra smiled sweetly, "you wouldn't have."

I cut to the chase before Bergman came up with a conspiracy theory even Julia Roberts wouldn't buy. "So what did you find in the library?"

She looked down, hiding her eyes from me. Uh-oh. "I think you need to see it for yourself when we get to a safe place."

I sat back in my seat and sighed. Then I felt Vayl's cool hand wrap around my own.

"What are you afraid of?" he murmured, quiet in my ear so no one could overhear.

I whispered right back. "She's going to tell me my dad's a demon and my mom was a harpy. She's going to uncover the fact that I'm a monster. I don't guess I'll be surprised to hear it. I've always known at some level. After all, it takes a certain kind of someone to be capable of assassination. You just hate to have your worst traits confirmed by a panel of independent judges, you know?"

I felt Vayl shrug. "I think your perspective is tainted. But if you insist on looking at it that way, is it so bad to be our kind of monster? Look at the evil we have averted in our time together." He squeezed my hand. "As long as you do not corrupt any monks or paint eyelashes on the Venus de Milo, I would say you have nothing to worry about."

Nothing to worry about. Nothing… nothing… nothing.

Chapter Nineteen

Bergman pulled into the circle drive in front of his hideaway as Vayl and I gaped at the view out the van's front window. Tastefully lit by low wattage lamps and a couple of well placed spots, the beachfront two-story looked like it would've been just as comfortable on Cape Cod. The landscaping, the wraparound porch, the white wicker furniture for cripe's sake, it might've come from the latest issue of Better Homes & Gardens.

"This is your safe house?" I asked Bergman.

"Yeah. Why not?" I waited to reply until he got out and opened the side door.

"Well," I said, as Vayl and I handed him Cassandra's luggage, "it's just so… pleasant." I got out, grabbed a box and followed him to the front door. "I'd always imagined you in a cave. Or, at the very least, one of those rickety old mansions with droopy shutters and more tunnels than windows."

"I prefer a really excellent security system." He put the bags down, lifted the lion's head doorknocker, and thumbed a switch underneath it. The lion's head slid sideways, revealing a square of metal and electronics that took detailed measurements of Bergman's left eye before deciding he passed muster. The door clicked several times and stopped.

"Wait," said Bergman as I reached for the latch. Another couple of seconds passed and then I heard a final click. Bergman nodded, so I turned the knob. As the door swung open Vayl said, "Just remember Bergman, sooner or later you will have to give us a way to get inside without the benefit of your eyeball."

"No problem. As soon as all our stuff is unloaded I'll modify the system."

I stepped into the front hall and a piercing whistle stopped me in my tracks. Knowing Bergman, if I moved any further a cannon would descend from the ceiling and blow my head off.

"What is that?" Vayl asked as Bergman came in to give me a critical look.

I held up my hands. "I didn't do anything."

"But you did. That's a wavelength sensor. You're sending some sort of signal."

"Is it the watch?" I asked, snapping the band to see if that stopped the alarm. Nope.

Bergman had run out to the van. He brought back a box, dug around inside and came out with a hand-held wand that looked like a super-sized cigarette lighter. Starting at my head, he swept it down my body. As soon as it reached my navel it sent out its own warning beep.

I raised my shirt. "It's your belly-ring," Bergman said, adding urgently, "Give it to me."

I took it off and handed it to him. He jumped back into the van, started it up and raced off. In the time it took us to figure out how to turn the alarm off he returned. "I planted it on an ice-cream truck. Whoever's following that signal will hopefully zero in on the truck and forget the signal stopped here for a couple of minutes."

"Pete said I had to break it to activate it. That only then would our backup team get involved."

Bergman grimaced. "Somebody activated it remotely."

"The same somebody who supplied it in the first place?" wondered Vayl.

"Well it's not one of mine," said Bergman.

"That's how they found us," I said. "Those God's Arm fakes on the road. Liliana at the restaurant. Mr. and Mrs. Magoo in the hotel. All they had to do was follow the belly-ring signal." I clenched my jaw, trying not to kick a hole in the wall. "When I get hold of this senator I'm going to rip his ears off and stuff them down his throat."

"What about the Raptor?" Vayl asked.

"I'll leave him to you, as long as you promise to make it vile. God, that pisses me off!" The anger wasn't going to help me think clearly though, so I tried to walk it off by exploring the house. Its interior lived up to the exterior's promise. Wooden floors, colorful throw rugs, overstuffed furniture and antique accessories in twisted iron and oak made the house feel like the set for one of the daytime dramas Granny May used to love to watch. She called them her "stories," and never failed to shake her head sadly when last season's true love became this season's big breakup.

I just about had it back under control once we unloaded Bergman's van into the living room, a light, airy place with pale blue beadboard walls and a huge fishing net hanging from the ceiling. A long, mahogany bar separated it from the kitchen/feed-a-party-of-thirty dining room. A hallway, painted pastel green, led to three bedrooms and a bathroom. Stairs just to the right of the doorway led to a large family room, a home office and a master bedroom with a view that made me wish I could sail. I thought there might be some truth to the idea that surroundings influence mood. Maybe I should paint my apartment.

Once everything was in, Cassandra and I started unpacking while Bergman and Vayl set everything up. Several of the boxes held computer components, and before long they'd transformed the dining room table into a communications center. Four PCs sat back to back, connected to each other, the Internet and a central printer through a maze of cords that lay like a big, sloppy coil basket in the middle of them all. Our laptop sat beside them and yet separate, a snooty, secretive step-sister. The table was so long that half of it still remained free for other purposes.

Bergman and Vayl began setting up a mini lab on the bar while Cassandra stored the empty boxes in a downstairs bedroom, so I got to work elsewhere.

"Jaz, why did you rearrange the furniture?" Bergman asked a few minutes later, staring curiously at me over a row of shiny glass beakers.

"What do you mean? I'm just—" I looked around the living room and realized I'd done it again. Without any conscious thought, as though an entire section of my brain had switched to blackout mode, I'd reproduced the same design I'd created at Diamond Suites. "What the hell?" I murmured.

Cassandra came down the hallway, took a look at my little project and sent me a look of trepidation that cut straight to my heart. Vayl's forehead creased and the corners of his lips drooped. For him it was the equivalent of a thunderous frown.

"You deceived me about this, didn't you?" he demanded, waving his hand to indicate the new room arrangement. "This is not how it once looked at your house." I shook my head. "What else have you lied to me about? I cannot abide liars." His tone, straight out of the Knucklecrackers Handbook for Schoolmarms, made me grit my teeth. Before I could defend myself, or launch a vase at his head, or plan a massive spitball campaign with Jimmy and Susie that would probably get us expelled but would be well worth the trouble, Cassandra spoke up.

"I may be able to explain that better than Jasmine."

She brought out the smallest of her four suitcases and set it on the ottoman I'd moved from its spot beside the couch not five minutes earlier. Now it sat center stage. I sank onto the couch beside her. Vayl, still looking irritated, sat opposite us in a wing chair upholstered in blue twill.

Cassandra opened the case, reached into it and brought out a foot-high pyramid made of multicolored glass orbs, each about the size of a large marble. I moved the case out of the way and Cassandra gently set the piece on the ottoman.

"Is this what I think it is?" I asked.

"The Enkyklios," she said, nodding. "My vision of your… my second vision is recorded here." She touched the top marble of the pyramid and the whole thing shivered in response. "You may want to watch this in private."

"No," I said, challenging Vayl with my glare, "let's keep this all wide open. That way nobody can accuse me of more lies, and later we can talk about how I can't abide people who leap to judgment!" I let the anger carry me, give me the strength to sit in the living room like a regular person rather than lock myself in a closet like a scared kid. It's hard, it hurts to stop hiding. Riding another, and probably my last, wave of anger, I said, "Let's do this."

She pressed on the top marble, which bent but didn't break, like the Jell-O molds Granny May used to make because she thought we liked the taste of rubbery strawberry letters and two-legged elephants.

"Enkyklios occsallio vera proma," Cassandra whispered. Well, that's what it sounded like anyway. She kept going, reeling off a list of words that sounded like Latin but weren't. As she spoke the marbles shivered again, then began to roll in random directions, though they never completely lost touch. It reminded me of clock gears, and yet no one movement seemed to trigger another.

The pyramid undid itself, rolling into a variety of other forms that resembled the prow of a ship, a sailor's hat, a Harley Davidson, a strand of DNA.

"That is so cool," I whispered, despite my pounding heart and a nauseating fear of how Vayl would react to the new discovery. Bergman had left his lab/computer center, a miracle in itself, and sidled over to the empty wing chair. He stood behind it, looking as if he wanted to attack the Enkyklios with a bat.

At last the marbles stood in vertical rows of three, forming a sort of plateau with a single, bluish-gold globe sitting above the rest. "Is that me?" I whispered, feeling a little faint as Cassandra nodded.

"Are you ready?" she asked. I rubbed sweaty palms down my pants.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's get it done." My voice sounded fake in my own ears, a recording in definite need of a remix.

She touched the marble and said, "Dayavatem!" She pulled her hand away and sat back, making room for the images that rose from it, digital quality holographs in living color and sound.

I saw myself, 14 months younger and light years closer to innocence, sitting in the living room of what looked like an old frat house. The stuffing peeked out of several holes in the couch and love seat, the coffee table had once been a working door that now sat on a double-high pile of cement blocks, and the chairs only rocked because their legs were uneven.

"Look, Jaz," said Bergman, "the furniture in the picture is arranged the same way you did it just now."

"The same way she always does it," Vayl said, folding his arms across his chest.

"Since you're so determined to be mad at me, go right ahead," I said, "but the fact is I never knew why I kept moving the furniture around. I wasn't usually even aware I was doing it. Then you said something, and it seemed like such a strange thing to do," I shrugged, "I made up a reason so you wouldn't think I was crazy."

Did I detect a slight softening in Vayl's expression, or was I just fishing? Never mind. The show had gone on. In a room it hurt my heart to see again, my band of Helsingers and I sat around the recycled door playing a card game I knew I'd been good at but could no longer remember the name of.

I could tell we meant to go back out, because we still wore our uniforms. Superman Suits, we called them, feather-lite body armor encased in navy blue leather. We were all high on adrenalin and success, toasting each other like German bobsledders, eating pizza for God's sake. Pizza.

The room tilted and nearly took me with it. But Vayl's hand on my shoulder steadied me. I looked up, grateful he still thought enough of me to leave his chair. He settled on the arm of the couch beside me.

"I only remember bits of this," I said, sensing that explanations might keep me from falling headfirst into the nightmare that, until now, had only played itself out behind my eyelids. "That's Matt on my left. He'd just turned 26 two weeks before. The tan is from the trip we'd taken to Hawaii to celebrate." My throat closed on the words, and for a minute I couldn't speak.

Matt and I sat on the couch, talking softly while the others played out the hand. Brad and Olivia, a married couple from Georgia, sat in the tattered love seat that met our couch at 45 degrees. They took turns throwing red plastic chips into the growing pile and teasing each other about losing the down payment on their house in a single hand.

Dellan, a muscle-bound vamp who'd been turned in the 60s, sat on the floor to my right, cradling his crossbow, eating all the toppings off his pizza. He threw what was left to Thea, also a vamp and sometimes his lover—depending on how much he irritated her—who sat on the floor to Olivia's left. Tomato sauce made her gag, but she couldn't get enough of that stuffed crust.

We'd go back into the field as soon as the pizza and cards had played themselves out, but for now we were just kicking back and enjoying the company. "That's Jessie, sitting in the chair across from us, the one in front of the fireplace. She was my sister-in-law. She was—" I shook my head, not knowing how to capture Jessie's vibrant, infectious humor, her intense loyalty, her deep and abiding passion for my brother in words. "She was my hero."

Jessie had draped her leg across the chair beside her, as if saving it for David. Having made her bet, she was fashioning an airplane from a couple of paper towels. I knew eventually it would come floating my way and I would be required to throw my napkin back at her, but for now I was content to snuggle with my honey.

It felt a little sick to watch my handsome young lover rear his head back and laugh at one of my wiseass comments, as if I was some grief-crazed widow rolling out the home movies for a torturous walk over the coals of memory lane. But, God, it was good to see him, to see all of them, and remember with a sort of shock how happy we'd been together.

I started talking again, fighting the vortex of pain that had robbed me of everything I'd liked about myself. "Nobody ever heard the knock at the front door. No one except Ron. He was Dave's sub, a rookie straight out of the academy. He was still kind of sick from the slaying, not the vampire bit, the human part that comes before you get to the vampires. Anyway, he'd been visiting the upstairs bathroom periodically." We watched him, a young, spiky-haired version of David Spade, with the physique of a marathon runner and the constitution (at least temporarily) of a tubercular alcoholic. He was coming down the stairs, one hand on the rail, the other on his stomach.

In the living room it was my deal, and I'd just begun to shuffle the cards.

Ron came down the steps slow, stepping in eerie time to the rhythm of my shuffling. When he reached the bottom, he heard a knock at the door. Nobody else did. They were all yelling at me.

"Get the lead out and deal the cards already!" Jessie roared, throwing her paper airplane at my head.

I grinned. "Just getting the cards warmed up for you, Jess."

A chorus of "Aw, come on!" and "Deal, dammit!" drowned out Ron, who was saying, "Please tell me you didn't order more pizza," as he opened the door.

A blue-eyed, long-legged blond stood on the threshold, carrying an insulated pizza box container. She smiled coyly at Ron. "Hi. Wow, are you a S.W.A.T. guy? I love your uniform!"

Ron grinned. The poor fool couldn't help it. She resembled every centerfold he'd ever drooled over. "Kinda," he said. "Um, how much do I owe you?"

"Sixteen-fifty," she said, flashing a couple of dimples, this time accompanied by a tempting bit of cleavage. "Do you mind if I come in?" she asked, looking over one shoulder with just the right hint of fear. "It's kind of creepy out here in the dark."

"Sure, come on in. My house is your house," he said, a chivalric knight taking temporary ownership of federal property to save his distressed damsel. It turned out she was just damned. Ron died with both hands in his pockets, fishing for a twenty while a goofy, I've-bagged-a-Playmate smile played across his face Pizza Girl had lunged for his throat and torn out his larynx before he understood his mistake had killed us all.

The complaints from my comrades had finally reached a satisfying peak and I'd just dealt Matt his first card when we heard Ron's body hit the floor. Jessie, who had the best view of the entrance, jumped up and yelled, "Vampire!" just as Pizza Girl cried, "Enter and be welcome!" out the front door.

A stream of vamps poured into the house with the impact of a tidal wave. But we were nothing if not prepared, and all of us still wore the weapons we'd used to clear the nest earlier that day.

Brad and Olivia fought shoulder to shoulder, pumping bullets into the vamps. Pizza Girl, her chest a mix of her own blood and Ron's gore, waded through the barrage, lofted the love seat and threw it at them. They went down in a flurry of splinters and stuffing and the vamps went after them, swarming like locusts until all you could see were Brad's twitching fingers and all you could hear were Olivia's fading screams.

Dellan smoked two of the vamps who came after him, but with no time to restring his crossbow, he had to resort to hand-to-hand combat. His punches rocked the three monsters who came for him, his kicks knocked them back, and I'm sure I heard ribs crack before they overpowered him. One vamp, who looked like he should've been doling out the cash at First National's drive-up window, picked Dellan up and threw him head first into the fireplace where he lay, limp and broken as a discarded doll. He followed up with a poker through Dellan's heart.

Thea emptied her magazine into the swarm before retreating to the fireplace wall and having at them with the ash shovel. She held her own until Dellan lost his battle. The momentary distraction of seeing him fade to nothing was all her attackers needed. They jumped her like a gang of rapists, only it wasn't her body they wanted. They bled her dry while Matt, Jessie and I made a fighting retreat to the kitchen and the back door that entered into it. We delivered bolts, body blows and bullets in equal numbers. For a minute there was so much blood and smoke in the air you'd swear it was storming plasma.

"Get out, Jessie!" I yelled. She stood closest to the door. "Get help!" She ran to the door and I shot the vamp who tried to intercept her, tore a hole through his brain that would take days to heal. She wrenched the door open and stepped outside. But they were waiting for her, a hungry little horde of newbies so freshly turned their bite marks still remained, livid and glowing to my new-seeing eyes.

Through a haze of grief and unshed tears, though my teeth were chattering like a badly tuned engine, I managed to say, "I don't remember anything at all after Jessie's death."

"I hate for you to have to see this," Cassandra whispered, clutching her hands together so tightly her nails made bloody imprints in her skin, "But it is necessary in order for you to understand the final outcome—to believe."

Oh, I've believed I was God's biggest mistake for some time now, Cassandra, I thought as I watched Matt and former me trade blows with our adversaries. It seemed like they were everywhere, although I only counted four. They just moved so quickly it was like fighting an army.

"What," said a voice from my holographic memory, one I now recognized, "are they still alive?"

Aidyn Strait stepped into the room and we experienced a sudden ceasefire. He sneered at us, his fangs dripping with the blood of the other Helsingers. "When you killed my humans, you set me back years in my research, did you know that?" He snatched a knife from the butcher block table that stood just inside the kitchen/ living room throughway. "That makes me angry. And it's not nice to make Aidyn angry, is it children?"

The other vamps flinched at their own hidden memories and shook their heads.

One moment Aidyn was sidling towards us, the next he was a blur of motion. He dove at me, the knife he held a glittering extension of his arm.

"Jasmine!" I'd never heard such fear in Matt's voice; it squeezed at my heart. But I couldn't comfort him because I couldn't escape the blade. Unbalanced by the speed of the attack, realizing my fatal vulnerability, I felt this tremendous, oceanic regret that my life should end so soon, with so much left undone.

And then Matt was there, pushing me aside, standing where I'd stood, trying to deflect the blade, trying to defend me. I grabbed at him, attempted to reverse direction and push him out of the way. I was still innocent enough to believe the blade would pause, give me the time I needed to save him. But all my youth and all my will did nothing to slow the blade's descent. I watched it fall and wanted to be the one beneath it after all. But time ran out on me.

Both in that place and in Cassandra's living room, tears rained down my cheeks and I jerked like a marionette as Aidyn's blade pierced Matt's chest. He crumpled to the floor, pulling my whole world with him. An abyss of grief opened beneath me, obliterating every other thought.

I kneeled over Matt, weeping uncontrollably. And Aidyn, his knife still in Matt's chest, closed in. One kick, powerfully dealt and directly on target, snapped my neck. I slumped over Matt, so obviously dead that present-day me put my hands to my chest, puzzled and amazed that I could feel my heart beating.

Every eye in the room was on me, but I couldn't tear my gaze from the tragedy that had ended life as I knew it. I shook my head. "I didn't know," I told them, "I don't remember this."

Bergman started to speak, "How—"

"It is a shame we had to kill them in a way," said holographic Aidyn. "They would have made excellent lab rats."

"We turned at least one of them." Pizza Girl had come to survey the damage. "You can experiment on her." She nudged my body with her toe. "Did you get to see this one's face when she died, Aidyn? I love to see their faces as they die."

Suddenly, like a window opening in my brain, I remembered why I'd missed Christmas. I'd been chasing Pizza Girl. In fact, I'd nailed her with the syringe Liliana had escaped. And my other long blackouts, yeah, those had been revenge trips too. During the last 14 months I'd killed every vampire in the holograph except Aidyn Strait.

Good God Almighty, if one more insight crashed into my skull today my eyes would stop spinning and just completely pop out of their sockets.

In the holograph there was no movement, no noise, and yet all the vamps jerked their heads up, looked to one corner of the kitchen ceiling as if something hovered there, threatening their very existence.

"Out," hissed Pizza Girl, "back through the front door. Move!"

They ran like scared kids, cleared out of the house so fast the curtains swirled in their wake.

"I don't see anything," said Bergman. "What did they see?"

Vayl shushed him. I felt sorry for him. Because I could see. I could see my soul rise from my body and stretch, reaching over to touch Matt's soul as it hovered in the air, seafoam green laced with dark blue, a living jewel that suddenly flew apart just like poor Charlie's had. Most of it raced out into the night. But some remained, swirled into my silver-red essence and stayed there, waiting with me, becoming part of me.

A golden light, bright as a meteor, warm as a pair of fuzzy slippers, moved from its spot in that corner of the ceiling and encompassed me, coalescing into human form. Into a man. He could've been one of David's men his bearing was so upright, so military. But he was gentle as a lover as he turned my body so my sightless eyes faced his. He laid my hands across my stomach and straightened my twisted neck. He leaned over and lay his lips on mine, passing his breath into my mouth. Then he sat back on his heels.

"What is it that you want, Jasmine?"

He watched my mouth open, heard me say, "To fight." Nodding with satisfaction, he touched the tips of his fingers to my neck and leaned in to lend me one last breath.

Chapter Twenty

I've lived through some strange moments. Once, when Granny May took me Christmas shopping, we stopped at a Hallmark store. I was idly eyeing a display of candles, trying to decide if I could weasel 25 cents out of her for a gumball when all the candles suddenly lit. I looked around and caught the eyes of a boy my age who, with a jerk of his head, put them all out again. It's certainly a novel way to meet girls and one I hope worked out for him in the end.

Another time, I was working a case that required me to partner with a coven of witches who got so irate at our target that they cursed him. Before I could actually eliminate him he stepped off the curb wrong and broke his ankle, ate a hamburger that had been left out overnight and spent a night in the hospital puking it up, found his wife cheating with his boss, and chipped most of his front tooth off when a drunken waiter got too enthusiastic with a champagne cork and let it fly into the guy's face. I think by the end he was probably grateful when an honest-to-goodness piano fell on his head.

I've met psychics and snake charmers, serial killers and geniuses. But nothing in my experience had ever come close to watching my own rebirth. I suddenly understood the supernatural meaning of weird. I'd always imagined resurrections would be quiet, sacred events. But now I thought maybe Lazarus had screamed just like holographic me did when my soul plummeted back into my body and parts that should never be broken were forced into repair.

My first deep, whooping intake of air echoed Vayl's nightly wakings in a way that made the watching me shudder. The creature who'd brought me back gave me a strange look, a mix of pride and pity that made him seem ancient. By the time I opened my eyes he was gone.

Feeling an immense sense of confusion, I struggled to focus. My first movements were so random I looked more like an infant than a professional vampire killer. A supreme effort brought me around to my hands and knees, and that's when I saw Matt. The soul behind my eyes cracked like roughly used china.

Cassandra touched the orb and the picture faded as my true collapse began. I remembered it all now. The keening, the wailing, the crawling through the blood of my team, screaming for help. Losing, losing, losing my mind. I sent her a grateful glance for sparing me the humiliation of an audience for at least that part of my journey through hell.

"I am so sorry," she said, swiping at the tears that rolled down her cheeks. She kept trying, and failing, to meet my eyes. Maybe she thought I intended to punish the messenger. And, okay, the thought had crossed my mind. Very briefly.

"I'm not mad, Cassandra" I said. I struggled to explain. "For me, it's always better to know. There was so much I couldn't remember about that night, so much I needed to understand. Now, I guess I do."

"Yeah, but can you believe it?" asked Bergman. "I sat here and watched the whole thing and I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that you're—"

I cocked my head at him. "Alive? Or should I say undead?"

Vayl took my hand, laced his fingers with mine. "Welcome to the club."

Eventually the shock faded, replaced by our pressing need to rescue Cole and my own personal desire to reduce Aidyn to so much vapor. Vayl's focus remained on Assan, as it should. And we hoped to find all three at Alpine Meadows.

Everybody sort of wandered off, leaving me free to do what I needed. So I worked. Packing our gear calmed me more than anything. The familiar movements through my memorized checklist made me feel, well, real. I spent extra time cleaning Grief, making sure she was fully loaded and ready to smoke. I found new pockets for the toys Bergman had provided that I wasn't actually wearing, and stowed the rest of our stuff where it belonged. I came more fully back to myself when I banged my head on the van door while loading it, and finally understood why sometimes people just need to be pinched.

We left Bergman elbow deep in blood tests and Cassandra up to her eyeballs in some musty old books she'd brought with her. If worse came to worse, as I find it often does, maybe she could figure out how to bind the Tor-al-Degan before it had a chance to unleash whatever hellish plague Aidyn had drummed up. She was sure giving it the old college try. She'd read for awhile, find something pertinent and whisper it to the Enkyklios. She hadn't gotten the marbles to move by the time we headed for the van, but hopefully it was just a matter of time.

Behind the wheel again, I maneuvered the van through traffic without once swearing at the red Volkswagen that cut me off or the light blue Taurus that hugged my bumper like a lost and lonely child. When it finally turned off our street, Vayl heaved a sigh of relief. "I expected you to slam on the brakes if that man followed you any closer."

"The thought never crossed my mind."

He sat silent and stared at me for so long I started to squirm. "What?" I finally asked.

"Are you going to change now?"

The question took me back. "Shouldn't I?"

He frowned. Then the mask came back, settling over his face like a shroud. "Of course. Never mind."

"Look, Vayl, it's… reliving the nightmare… this new knowledge… it's too much, you know? I don't know how to act. Hell, I don't know what to think." I shook my head. "It's too big for me to figure out all at once. So I'm just going to be Jaz Parks, Albert's daughter, Dave and Evie's sister, and Vayl's avhar for now. If I need to tack another label on later," Angel? Demon? Zombie? "I guess there's room there at the end of the list."

Vayl's eyes snapped to my face when I said "avhar," and stayed there until I met them with my own. The shroud lifted and he smiled. "I like your plan."

"Is that what it is?"

"Yes."

"How about my idea to rescue Cole?"

"I like it too. Where are the smoke grenades?"

"In the duffle with everything else."

"What about this new communications invention Bergman gave you?"

"Might as well try it out." I pulled the silver case from my jacket pocket and gave it to him. Vayl handed my hearing aid and mouth-mint to me, put his own in place. We did a little test and I got goose-bumps when Vayl's voice came to me in Barry White bass. They disappeared when he told me mine did the same.

Forty-five minutes later we reached the cul de sac behind Assan's house. We would access his property from the back, case the place, figure out who was situated where and move on to plan B, which involved heaps of smoke and a well-timed call to the fire department. During the diversion we would execute Cole's rescue, and Assan, if our luck held. But not until we found out where they were keeping the Tor-al-Degan. I was sure if we discovered the whereabouts of the Kyron, we would find all the other monsters as well. Then we'd make them wish they'd caught their own virus.

Big words for a skinny, red-headed woman who had never felt so overwhelmed in her life. Because, to be honest, I wasn't sure we could pull this off. Yeah, we would put up a helluva fight. But we were going against the most vicious, brutal minds on the planet. People who didn't believe in rules or mercy or the sanctity of life. And even worse, people with the money and the contacts to pull off whatever atrocious plan their devious little minds could concoct. To top it all off, I had no idea how to beat this beast. Starve it? Give it permanent amnesia? You've got to be kidding me! Come on, Cassandra, give me an option I can work with!

We parked the van, Vayl retrieved our bag and I locked it up tight, using a special button on Bergman's key-ring to activate its security system. I wasn't sure how it worked, but I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that he'd rigged the van to blow if anyone so much as wiggled the door handle.

The oval of pavement we'd chosen as our parking lot was well-lit, but quiet. Each of the six homes that surrounded it looked fit to house a president. But, despite the lights glowing behind several of the windows, I had a feeling no one was home. It gave credence to my theory that anyone who could afford such luxury never had time to enjoy it.

We walked into the strip of trees that led to the edge of Assan's property. An artfully landscaped palm grove, it reminded me, despite the lights at my back, of a desert island. But maybe that was because I couldn't shake the feeling Cassandra's little show had given me that I'd been marooned. When we hit the border of those trees and saw Assan's expansive back yard the feeling grew into a sickening sort of anxiety.

"Vayl," I whispered, "something's wrong."

He nodded. "We will wait and watch." Fifteen minutes later nothing had moved, inside the house or out, and I still couldn't relax. "I was kind of expecting dogs," I said.

"Or at least a patrol," Vayl added. "Let's go."

We made the short, cross-country run to the kitchen door without incident. I started to check out the security system, then realized the door was cracked open.

"Vayl." I spoke so low I thought even Bergman's communicators wouldn't pick me up, but he turned to look at me. I pointed at the door, said, "Trap?"

He studied it and what he could see of the dark, empty room beyond through the window. "Could be," he whispered. He nudged the door open and squeezed through. Snapping my watch band for maximum stealth, I followed close behind. My disquieting feeling doubled. I concentrated on it, tried to pinpoint its source.

"Something's really wrong here," I hissed as we crept past a six-burner stove, an immense island, a three-door fridge, "somebody's feeling extreme… it's hard to explain. They're… on some sort of edge."

"Yes, I feel it too. What do you think? Are they waiting for us?" Vayl asked.

"I don't know."

We found the back stair that Cole had used to escape from the guards at the party. Vayl gestured that he would check the rooms along the furthest hall, so I took the three closest, working my way from the back toward the restroom where Cole and I had met.

No one occupied the first room, but Derek's scent lingered, the way it will beside an empty trash bin. The second room had been an office, and might be again. But the file drawers sat open and empty. So too did the desk drawers. And a dust outline showed where the computer had rested.

"They've cleared out," I said. "This room used to hold a paper trail. Now even the shredder's clean."

"So far only two deserted bedrooms over here," Vayl told me. "Empty hangers. Empty drawers."

"Damn! So much for solid evidence."

"Maybe not. I hear something coming from the third room."

"I'll be right there." I hurried across the front hall to where Vayl stood, poised to open the third door once he'd satisfied himself it didn't hide an army.

"That's the source of the bad feelings I'm getting," I whispered, "behind that door."

"Did you hear that?" Vayl asked.

I nodded, trying to identify the sound. There it went again, the deep, throaty utterance of a person in pain. And then—"Is that…?"

"Crying? I think so."

"Let's get in there."

For an answer, Vayl tried the door. It was locked.

"No problem," I whispered, pulling off my necklace. I slid the shark tooth into the lock, waited a second, turned it. The door yielded to my funky key with a soft click. I left the key in the lock and drew Grief. Vayl had left his cane in the van, but he was hardly unarmed. I felt his power shift and rise as we prepared to enter the room.

"On three," Vayl whispered. He raised his fingers in quick succession, one-two-three. Vayl threw open the door, shoving his power in front of him like a winter storm. Anyone inside would feel it as a compelling need to do whatever Vayl required before their eyelids froze to their eyeballs.

I dove inside, staying low and looking for targets. The only one I saw was bleeding too heavily to be any sort of threat.

I holstered Grief and ran to where she lay on the floor of a bedroom so frilly and sumptuous I could not have imagined violence occurring there, except for the beaten woman sprawled on the Persian rug.

"Amanda?"

She moaned, tried to open her swollen eyes. Only the right one obeyed, and that by just a slit. "He said you'd come."

"Assan?"

She shook her head, winced, and fresh tears tracked down her torn and broken face. "Cole," she croaked. I could hardly believe talking was still an option for her.

"Give me your phone," Vayl said, "I am calling an ambulance."

I fished it from my pocket and tossed it to him.

"Too late," Amanda gasped. "I'm… you must listen." She reached up and I took her hand. It seemed to comfort her. "I thought that… since I couldn't sneak you in here… I could find some evidence for you."

"Oh, Amanda. Didn't Cole tell you how dangerous your husband is?"

"Yes." She licked her lips. "So thirsty."

"I will get you some water," said Vayl, his call already complete. He left the room.

"Is that the vampire?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Mohammed… thought he was dead."

"How do you know that?"

She took a couple of breaths, seemed to steel herself. "I overheard him talking on the phone. So I confronted him."

"I sure wish you hadn't done that."

"We fought," she went, her voice bleak. "He… admitted he killed my brother. He said Michael was in on it at first. That the trip to India was his idea, to get some relics they needed to summon… but then, he tried to back out." In my imagination I could see them, fighting over Assan's virulent plans, with Michael dying horribly as a result. But what in the world did he think would happen? It angered me that this family had no sense of self preservation. Somebody should've smacked them upside the heads years ago and said, "Wake up, fools! You can be hurt!" But even as I raged, logical me wondered why the move to the U.S. when they already had the Kyron in their pockets in India.

Amanda went on. "He made me admit I'd hired Cole. Then he brought Cole here and made him watch while he… beat… me." One, hopeless sob escaped her swollen lips.

"The bastard's going to die for this, Amanda."

Amanda sighed. "Okay." She was quiet for so long I thought maybe she'd passed out. Or passed on. She stirred. "He burned the files. Took the bag from the safe. Except for… he said it was the key, so I snuck it from the bag while he was… out."

The hand I wasn't holding had been laying across her chest. Now she raised it, pointed to the bed. I lifted the ruffled skirt, fighting a flash of childhood apprehension as I peered underneath. Even with my enhanced night vision I could only barely see the pyramid that sat there, just tall enough to brush the bedspring. I reached for it, pulled it out. It weighed a lot more than I'd expected.

"What is it the key to?" I wondered aloud.

Vayl, who'd just reentered the room, came over to look. "Something else for Cassandra to research?"

"I guess so. If she has time. If we have time."

Vayl helped Amanda drink some of the water he'd brought her. When she'd had her fill he laid her head back onto a pillow I taken from the bed. I'd never seen him so gentle.

"Mohammed took everything else with him." Amanda's mind must be wandering—or shutting down. She was repeating herself. But her next comment was new. "He said, the things in his bag… he'd used them to summon a terrible wrath into the world and that…" she squeezed her good eye shut and new tears emerged, "… that it had eaten my brother's soul." I patted her arm, at a loss to know how to comfort her.

I spoke to Vayl now. "There it is, proof that he summoned the Tor-al-Degan in India. So why didn't it decimate that country? Why does he need to do it again over here?"

"Maybe he did something wrong there. Maybe he timed it wrong," suggested Vayl.

I shook my head, frustrated by our ignorance. "Maybe Cassandra will come up with something."

We heard the strident wail of the ambulance and silently agreed it was time to go.

"We have to leave, Amanda," I said, "the paramedics are here." But she didn't hear me. Sometimes it happens like that, while you're looking the other way, distracted by events and conversations. Sometimes people just go. Those quiet departures sit wrong with me. Death should be louder.

"Wait," I said as Vayl took the pyramid. It seemed disrespectful to leave before Amanda. Her essence rose from her body, violet and blue with large golden crystals interspersed here and there.

"Do you see it?" I whispered. Vayl shook his head. "I wish you could see it. It's so…" There really were no words. Maybe just the ooh and aah that comes unbidden from you when you see an amazing display of fireworks. And then, just as suddenly as the fire fades from the sky, she was gone.

I retrieved my necklace/key from the door and we left the way we'd come, melting into the trees along the edge of Assan's estate just as the ambulance crew reached Amanda's room and turned the light on.

"We've got to find Cole." An unnecessary statement, I know, but I could hardly contain the urgency I felt.

"Any idea where to look?"

"I've only seen Assan in one other place—chatting up Aidyn Strait at Club Undead."

"It is as good a place to try as any."

I let Vayl drive. I think he was flattered. To be honest, directing a van down the interstate is, for me, at most a Jell-O-mold-elephant kind of thrill. Plus, I needed to get some updates. I called Bergman first. After a series of annoying beeps and whistles he answered. "Is this line secure?" he asked.

"Safe as a homerun hitter. What have you got?"

"Pool chemicals in Vayl's blood supply. Specifically, a cleanser that melts mineral deposits."

I repeated the report to Vayl, who let out a string of curses that would've made Hugh Heffner blush.

"Okay, thanks. How's Cassandra doing?"

"No luck so far."

"Um, would you mind helping her with her research? We really need to find out all we can about this monster." I described the pyramid we'd found and waited for him to jump on the bandwagon. Unfortunately he's afraid of wagons. And bands. There was this pause, during which I could almost hear him cringing.

"Bergman, she's trustworthy."

His voice dropped to a whisper. "I don't know. She's got that funky, supernatural thing going on."

"As opposed to Vayl's perfectly straightforward existence? And mine, come to think of it? Come on, buddy, what's the real problem?"

"She's gorgeous." He said it with an awe that probably should be left on holy ground.

"And?"

"Gorgeous women make me nervous."

"As in—they can't be trusted?" His silence made his opinion clear.

"Are you going to make a pass at her or something?"

"God, no!"

"Then relax. The worst thing that can happen is she'll jump your bones and you'll get so wild you break the lab equipment. So stay away from the kitchen and you'll be fine."

He huffed in the phone, but I could hear the laugh he was trying to hold off. "Okay, then," he said. "You'll call?"

"Call or come knocking."

"Good enough." We broke the connection. Albert was next on my call list. He answered on the first ring.

"Dad?"

"Jaz? Hang on." The background blare of Albert's t.v. muted. I heard more clicks as he transferred to his safe phone. "Okay, I'm here."

"I know it hasn't been long but—"

"I've got a lead."

"Yeah?" I guess I sounded, well, shocked, because he said, "Hey, I may be a feeble old Marine, but I still got connections."

"And?"

"There's something funny about Tom Bozcowski."

"The retired football player?"

"Right. He's had an unnaturally large turnover in interns. Seems they keep getting sick."

"With what?"

"Anemia."

"That is interesting. Has the name Mohammed Khad Abn-Assan come up in relation to the senator? Or maybe Aidyn Strait?"

"Hang on, that first name sounds familiar."

He started to mumble to himself, not so you could understand him, and I heard the sound of papers shuffling. "Yeah, here it is. I asked my contact for anything unusual, and he included this little item with the other stuff. Says here Bozcowski had plastic surgery done by Assan right before he ran for senator five years ago."

"Thanks. Keep digging, will you?"

"Sure thing."

"Oh, would you find out if any of the senators owns a pool? And look for connections to technology purchasing for the Agency." I described the faulty beacon without saying how I'd carried it. No point in starting a fight I didn't have time to finish.

"Yup. Uh, Jaz?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you eating right? Getting plenty of fruits and vegetables and all that stuff? I'm just asking because Shelby's been lecturing me on nutrition. You'd be surprised what good food'll do for you."

"Don't worry," I said, both exasperated that it took this long for the blockhead to figure out maybe he should eat well, and warmed by the fact that he gave a crap about my health, "I'm eating fine." So's my vampire friend, but we won't get into that. No sense in flirting with a strode at your age, Albert. "Why don't you call Evie? She definitely needs a good lecture on nutrition."

"Maybe I will."

I hung up. Vayl glanced over at me and both his eyebrows went straight up.

"What is the source of your evil grin?" he inquired.

"I sicced Albert on Evie."

"I thought you loved your sister."

"I do. She'll worry less when she hears from him, and that's good for the baby. So's eating right, which is all he'll probably talk about."

"I see. Is that the only reason you are smiling?"

"I think we found our leak."

Chapter Twenty-One

Club Undead waved its tacky tombstones at us as we drove slowly by. A new bouncer watched the front, where only the loveliest and palest of partiers lined up for their chance to touch immortality. Beside the bouncer stood a sign on an easel that hadn't been there before. A mix of words traced in neon colors spelled out the message Welcome to Jazz Night, only the colors were arranged so that the words "Welcome Jaz" stood out in glowing yellow relief against the black of the board. An arrow drawn in the same glowing yellow pointed straight up.

"Do you see it?" I asked, leaning past Vayl to get a better view. "I do."

"Do you think Cole's in there surrounded by goons who're just waiting to shoot me?"

"I would say that is the most likely scenario."

Even with the heater on and my jacket buttoned, I felt chilled. But my fear factor didn't matter. Cole needed me. "Let me off at the corner, okay?"

"What are you going to do?"

"Smoke out the innocents downstairs, then meet you upstairs. I think that's his most likely location. Remember, they believe you're dead. Use it to your advantage."

"I always do." He pulled up to the curb; I got out and waved him off. He'd park in the alley and make his way to the club's upper story from there. I unbuttoned my jacket, walked to the line in front of the club, wiggled my butt right up to the new bouncer and gave him a smile so sweet, if they put me on t.v. I could've sold chocolate covered cherries to an audience of diabetics.

Okay, Amanda, wherever you are… this one's for you.

"Do you know what I smell?" I asked the bouncer.

"Nope." He looked interested though.

"I smell freshly turned vamp." I reached into the special pocket reserved for Grief and it came to my hand smooth and deadly as a cobra strike. A flick of the magic button, and two seconds later all that remained of the bouncer was a puff of smoke rising from a tiny rain of debris.

The girls at the front of the line screamed and shoved their way to the street. A few others went with them. Somebody yelled, "Gun!" an understandable mistake considering the crappy lighting, and a mini-stampede ensued during which I let myself into Club Undead. It stood empty—dark and silent as a freshly dug grave. Creepy.

"Vayl," I whispered, "nobody's here."

"Not even a mouse?"

"Hardy har. Where are you?"

"Approaching the fire escape. But there is time, if you wish to abort this plan."

"No, no, let's keep going. I'm taking the spiral staircase now." I crept up each step, expecting to hear the thunderous roar of gunfire despite the fact that my newly amplified senses told me the second floor was empty as the first. The silence held. So did my nerves, but just barely. If some joker jumped out of the shadows and yelled Boo! I'd blow his head off without even thinking.

The cavernous room's only light emanated from the red and white exit sign stationed above a dark door on the back wall. I walked past the dance floor and a steady succession of tables dressed in white cloths. Each held a black vase with a black rose in it. Matching black candles flanked the roses, each held by expensive looking crystal.

I eyed the door. No telling what lay behind it, and any surprises promised to be nasty. I looked around, hoping to find another way up. What I saw suspended from the ceiling reminded me of a university theater. Lights tilted at every possible angle covered the entire expanse, except for the section taken up by the catwalk. It started at a glass-walled booth, perched nearly ten feet above my current position, and wandered across the ceiling in a pattern that allowed access to all the lights. A black metal ladder, nearly invisible against the darker black wall, allowed access from my level. I told Vayl what I'd found.

"I'm going to check it out," I said. "Maybe the booth has a back door."

"Good idea. I am headed up to the third level now. Looks like the windows are boarded up, so you will have to be my eyes."

"Okay."

I climbed the ladder, which hugged the wall from floor to ceiling, intersecting the catwalk on its way. From there just a couple of steps took me to the door of the overlook. It was open.

I kept expecting a gang of goons to jump out from behind a curtain and start shooting. "But nobody's here," I whispered. "What are they planning?" I stepped into the booth. To my left, a bank of unlit controls stretched from one edge of the window to the next. Two black chairs on rollers parked in front of it. The only other contents of the room were an empty trashcan and a full ashtray. There was, however, another door. I eased it open, expecting a sound, a click maybe, that would signal the closing of a trap. I need not have bothered. The trap Aidyn and Assan had set for me was too big for a click. A gong, maybe, but not a click.

This time my senses told me the room wasn't empty, was actually inhabited by someone feeling deep, repeated waves of misery, and once again they were right. I pulled a long-handled dental mirror out of the kit I'd packed at Bergman's, and slipped it through the crack I'd made in the door. I couldn't see any guards, not one. I did see Cole.

He sat in a chair in the middle of a room that reminded me strongly of Granny May's attic. Boxes, old trunks and abandoned chairs took up every bit of wall space. From the scuff marks in the dust, it looked like they'd been shoved to the sides to make room for the chair. And Cole.

He sat perfectly still, looking straight ahead, breathing through his mouth because his nose had been broken. The only way I managed to contain the fury I felt at seeing him hurt like that was to promise myself that I would damage Assan badly before I finally wiped him off the face of the earth.

After another look around the room, I decided Cole was its sole occupant.

"Jaz?" Vayl's voice in my ear held the slightest trace of worry.

"I'm here. So's Cole. But it looks like everybody else has taken a coffee break."

"These boards are flimsy. I can break through them anytime you need me."

"But you'd rather keep a low profile?"

"For now. We are only going to get one chance at this surprise. But be careful. This is weird stuff."

"I'm getting good at weird," I said grimly, nudging the door wider with my foot while I trained Grief on various sections of the room, both of us primed for attack. The only thing that happened was Cole turned his head and saw me.

He looked like a spring break boozer who's somehow survived a tumble off the balcony. Black and blue bruises covered his entire face, except for where it was red from dried blood. Blood-crusted gashes showed through his torn clothes. His hands, laying limp in his lap, were swollen, the knuckles scraped and cut. He could've gotten up at any time, nothing bound him to the chair, or even to the room, but he stayed put, looking at me with wordless regret.

"Cole?" I stepped forward and he said, "Stop." The word came out slurred, mostly due to his fat lip, but I also noticed a couple of gaps where he'd had teeth the last time we talked.

"We've got to get out of here," I urged him.

"Can't."

"What?"

He shifted his gaze and I followed his eyes to a dark, lifeless t.v. that sat on top of a round, wooden bar stool. It blinked to life and within seconds I was involved in a staring match with Mohammed Khad Abn-Assan.

Mostly for Vayl's benefit I said, "Assan, what are you doing on t.v.? Don't you know scumbags like you have been outlawed by the FCC?"

"Good evening, Lucille. Or should I say Jasmine? We appreciate your quick arrival. Gives us some extra time to prepare."

"For what?"

He chuckled, flashing a couple of gold fillings as he looked off camera, sharing his amusement with his comrades. "Why, the end of the world as we know it."

The fear that spiked through me fueled my comeback. "You know, you could be killed for throwing cliches around like they actually mean something. However, I believe I'll kill you for your other crimes instead. Starting with your wife's death."

Cole made a desolate, lost sound that demanded comfort. But I couldn't give it. Not now, while I was still locked in conversation with Assan. He laughed again, his absolute lack of remorse making me feel truly murderous. "You are a jewel. How fortunate for us both that my master has created the perfect setting for you."

"Bozcowski's not a master. He's a slave to his own psychotic fantasies." And the Raptor, I'm just sure of it, if I only had proof.

My comment worked like peanut butter on a mousetrap. No sooner had I laid it down than here came the rodent himself, leaping into the camera frame, red-faced and defiant. I expected him to bluster, but he pulled it together fast. He actually smoothed his thick, stubby fingers through his gray-blond hair and straightened his navy blue suit coat. Ah, the magic of television.

"You are a straight talking woman, aren't you?" he said. "Well then, I'll give it to you straight. Your actions in the next few minutes will determine whether or not your young man dies. You see, we've strapped a clever little device beneath the seat of his chair. If his weight leaves that chair, it will explode, destroying the two of you, the club and most of the block it sits on. Think of the loss of innocent life."

"Go on."

"I can disarm it temporarily from my present position, but only for the ten seconds it would take for you to switch places with him."

Scumbag. "You don't mind if I check out your story, do you?"

He beamed at me as if I'd just won him a bet. His jowls quivered with pleasure, reminding me of that bulldog from the old cartoon. Would he come prancing into the room if I yelled, "Oh Belvedere, come here boy!" I hid a smirk at the mental image as he said, "Of course not, feel free."

I knelt in the dust of Club Undead's attic and peered under the chair. Yup, definitely a bomb. I had seen similar devices in bomb squad manuals under the heading, 'Run Like Hell!' I had that sinking-in-quicksand feeling that anything we tried now would only make us descend deeper and die sooner.

I stood up again, my mind looping around a single word—run, run, run, run—and providing the Pink Floyd soundtrack to back it. A roaring began in my ears, and it had nothing to do with my reconfigured hearing aides. The blackness came next, creeping into my peripheral vision like a feral dog, making my face tingle, making my eyes water. Instinct made me stiffen, resist. It felt so much like losing control, being engulfed in some other, more powerful personality.

I looked at Cole and my heart began its own chant. Get him out, get him safe, whatever it takes, whatever it takes, whatever…

I let my head fall forward and closed my eyes. Without the distraction of sight, I could feel the blackness towering over my psyche like a monstrous storm-filled sky. I resisted the urge to bolt. I didn't invite it in. I just listened. Instantly the roaring sounded less like the Atlantic hammering Florida during Hurricane Charlie and more like… a voice. All it said was, "Let yourself go," but the words carried a richer meaning, showed me exactly what needed to be done.

I raised my head and opened my eyes, catching Bozcowski in such a look of greedy anticipation that I was suddenly reminded of the villain who starred in many of my childhood nightmares, the kid-snatcher from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."