Bitten to Death (24 page)

“Goddammit!” The cursing woke up Ziel, who came over to check on me. “Go away. I’m pissed off,” I grumbled.

He laid his head on the bed. When I refused to pet him, he jumped up, clearing me and landing on the other side, where he turned around three times before settling in beside me. “Okay, you can stay, but don’t get used to this. I’m only allowing it because I’m so bummed and for some reason you don’t smell like dog.”

I turned my back to him and instantly fell asleep.

“How long did I sleep?” I asked.

“Hours. Dusk has fallen.”

“Time to call Samos?”

“Nearly so.” Vayl cocked his head to one side. “Pete called while you were asleep. He wanted to know why you were trying to spare vampires. When I did not know what he was talking about, he had to explain.”

I crossed my legs in front of me and swallowed a gasp as I reached for the poker chips that stood like a tower of happy thoughts on the bedside table. When I still didn’t say anything, Vayl went on. “You cannot kill Disa.”

“So I’ve been told.”
Click. Clack. Click.

“Even if her death were to have no effect on me, you should still not be pondering this course of action.”

“Okay.”

“That does not sound convincing.”

Clack, click, clackety, clack.
“I could swear on my mother’s grave if you want.”

“What good would that do when she is in hell?”

I shrugged.
Ow
,
dammit!
He came and sat down in front of me. “Do not cross the line, Jasmine. Not for me. Do the mission, do it well, and go home.”

I met his eyes. “The mission’s changed.”

“According to whom?”

“Me. And you, if you’re thinking straight. Look, Pete can’t call this one. Neither can any of the candidates vying for a seat on the department’s oversight committee. They’re not here. They don’t
know
.”

“But if they were, their feelings for me would not cloud their decisions.”

“You forget what a valuable asset they see you as. If Disa ties you up for the next fifty years, they’re pretty much screwed, aren’t they?”

His brows arched. “What are you saying?”

“I have a good case, if it comes to that. But I don’t think it will. I think Pete will back me a hundred percent. So the second I figure out how to keep you alive—I’m taking Disa down.”

Actually my biggest concern was Cassandra’s warning about what would happen to Vayl and me if I pulled this off. But I’d detoured her prophecies before. I glanced up from the poker chips. Gave myself just a second to imagine what it would be like to spend the rest of my life with him.

“You cannot look at me that way,” Vayl said.

“Why?”

“Because suddenly it becomes impossible to keep my hands off you.” He reached up and cupped my face in his palms, his fingertips sending spirals of excitement down my neck into my heaving chest. Suddenly nothing hurt at all. Anywhere. As Vayl said, “And then I find I must kiss you,” his lips lowered to mine. Just a brush, a touch of flesh and then the alarm went off again.

I jumped, banging my nose against Vayl’s cheek. “Ow!”

Dave ran into the room, yelling, “Jaz, can’t you control your temper for one—oh.”

Tarasios came stumbling in behind him, holding his hands to his head, mumbling, “Stop the sirens. Please, stop the sirens.” He kept moving straight toward the bathroom, tripping over the doggy-dress-bed by the door. He landed on all fours and crawled toward his target, making it just in time to leave his mess where at least nobody would have to mop it up.

“I’m going to go find out what’s going on,” Dave said. “You two—get your own damn room. God knows what I’m going to walk in on next,” he muttered as he left.

“So, Tarasios,” I called. “Did Dave get a chance to ask you any questions?”

No answer but the sounds of his misery. Ziel took great interest in the entire process. He’d jumped off the bed when the alarm sounded and, after running around tracking everyone’s movements, followed Tarasios into the bathroom. He kept looking from the puking man to us, as if trying to solve a mystery. By the end we were trying not to laugh. It was the sound, I think. Like a bullfrog that’s just coming off a bad cold. Or maybe it was the mutt who decided it was a game, and began poking his nose in Tarasios’s butt every time he ralfed, which made him jump and squeak a little too.

“Dogs are disgusting,” I finally told Vayl.

“Yes, but high in entertainment value.”

We heard the hall door open.

“It’s not Dave,” I whispered.

“Disa’s lot?”

I nodded. “More than one, for sure.” As we moved into the sitting room I said, “Nobody knocks anymore, Vayl. Have you noticed that?”

Vayl arched his eyebrow at me. “You know, they say the first sign of a community’s downfall is when they scrap their good manners.”

Disa, Sibley, Marcon, Rastus, and Niall had all crowded into the open space between the door and the fountain. “Vayl,” Disa said, relief flitting across her face as she saw him, “come with us.” When he stared at her impassively she added, “Please.”

“Why?” I demanded.

She gave me a get-off-my-lawn-peasant stare. “It is none of your concern.”

“I disagree.” Vayl slipped his hand under mine, raised it so she could see Cirilai glittering on my ring finger. “My
avhar
is always welcome to join me.”

Disa didn’t seem to appreciate the reminder. She threw her head back and I saw her neck begin to bulge.
All right, if that’s how you want it
, I thought. But I couldn’t erase the chill that iced my blood when I thought of those tentacles leaping out to slash my face away. I’d never be fast enough. But I reached into my jacket anyway.

Niall stepped forward. “We are under attack. The wagon house is afire. Rastus believes the werewolves we sensed earlier have returned in force. Surely this is not the time for squabbles amongst ourselves?”

Disa snapped her eyes to him and Sibley swayed in his direction. It was like she wanted to jump in front of him but couldn’t muster the courage. In the end there was no need. Disa acknowledged his argument’s logic and backed off.

“I don’t believe the Weres have the strength or the will to attack us, but someone has breached our defenses,” she said.
You have no idea,
I thought, glancing at the spot on the floor where blood had been pooling only hours before. She looked into Vayl’s eyes, her own a midnight blue. “We need you, Vayl.”

Only because I was watching him closely did the slight arching of his eyebrows tell me he’d realized something key. He looked down at me. And we had one of our silent conversations.

All right, I shall play on her affections. Her vulnerability may lead us out of this mess after all
.

Are you sure? She seems awful strong to me
.

I sense desperation. We may be able to get the upper hand.

Okay. But I have my limits.

So I have seen
. He gave me such a look of tenderness I nearly jumped him right there. Oh boy, this was not going to be easy. I lowered my eyes, where they came to rest on Ziel, who had somehow managed to open the armoire and pull out one of my favorite dress shoes. A black suede pump with a kitten heel, it was now covered in teeth marks and dog slobber.

“Do you have a death wish?” I asked the malamute, who gazed up at me with the same look of innocence con men give their marks just before making off with their life’s savings.

“All right,” said Vayl, stepping forward to join them. “I will help if I can.”

I started to follow them out the door. But Disa stopped. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Niall said you were under attack,” I replied.

“You are not welcome.”

“I wasn’t asking permission.” I tried to keep my voice level, but it began to tilt anyway. Ziel stuck his nose in my hand. I glanced down. He moved forward until his head slid under my fingertips.

What, after you’ve eaten my best shoe?

He wagged his tail. So I scratched his head and immediately felt the tightening in my chest loosen. Good thing too, or we’d have been hearing more alarms.

When Disa realized I didn’t mean to back down she said, “Fine, you may join your man on the border. I sent him to patrol with Admes when I found him scampering through the halls like—”

And that’s when I went temporarily deaf. My temper’s kind of like dynamite with the fuse snipped to half. Considering that Disa had lit it the moment she’d breezed into my life, we were overdue for a really big bang. My first clue that the time had come? Heat like laser beams around my ears, lancing in toward my face until my entire head felt like I’d laid it under a broiler. “You
what
?”

Vayl might’ve said my name, but if he had the sound fell like a pebble into a canyon. I realized I’d raised my hands. Did I mean to strangle her? And was that really such a bad idea?

Disa saw something in my face that made her fold her arms across her chest, as if to shield herself. “Well, he wasn’t doing me any good inside.”

“He’s not yours!” I roared. “He’s ours! Where do you get off telling complete strangers to fight your battles for you?”

“I am the
Deyrar
!”

“You’re a fucking loon!”

I suddenly became aware of several things. Disa’s throat was starting to split and I had moved to within striking distance. Niall was having a hard time keeping a straight face. Sibley’s eyes were round as saucers. Marcon looked like he wanted to applaud, and Rastus had raised a rusty sword, which he shook at me in a manner that he thought was menacing.

“Put that down before you poke somebody’s eye out!” I snarled at him.

“Disa,” Vayl said. “You have once again acted against the terms of our contract.”

She turned to him, her hand flying to her throat as if to hide the changes trying to take place there. “How?” she asked, trying for an innocent expression and succeeding only in giving him the same old plastic stare.

“You have deliberately put my people in harm’s way.”

“
We
are your people.”

I opened my mouth, one of my taunts just seconds from flying through the air to slap her frozen face, when Vayl made a small motion with his hand.
Wait
, that gesture said.
I have her right where I want her.

“You have wronged me and mine,” Vayl said in a soft, deadly voice. “We will speak of this again. But perhaps now is not the time? Not when the Trust is burning?”

Disa’s hand dropped. The skin of her throat had mended. Her eyes faded to brown. “Of course. The Trust is what matters. Even you can see that. Come, we must see to the breach.”

Vayl gave me a moment’s glance. I nodded. We both knew what to do.

I gave them sixty seconds to go their way. Then I launched.

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

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

“Do you know how to shoot?”

“I took a class once.”

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

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

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

“Oh.”

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

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

“Isn’t that kind of petty?”

“Well, Niall wanted Aine to be
Deyrar
.”

“I’m saying.”

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

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

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

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

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

“No problem,” he said.

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

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

“Did she say why?”

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

“Uh-huh.”

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

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

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

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

“So Disa’s in love with Vayl?”

“As much as someone like her can be.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Whose dog?” asked Admes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?” Dave asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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