Bitten to Death (27 page)

I began laughing before we hung up. I know, such the wrong time. But I was imagining the old wolf streaking through the streets of the city wearing nothing but sunglasses and a pair of Filas, his tongue hanging out like Jack’s as he did some mad dialing.

“This is not funny,” said Admes, shifting in his seat as if to disguise the worry in his voice. “In fact, I almost wish I had stayed silent. The Weres are angry with us. What if I have set off the firestorm Disa began brewing with the
Sonrhain
?”

I don’t give a crap if you guys war for the next two hundred years! I just want to know where Vayl went!
Dave must’ve seen some of what I was thinking on my face, because he said, “Silence kills a lot more often than talk, Admes. You were right to share what you knew.”

By the time Krios called we were motoring toward the airport, speeding past square white high-rises spilling light and laughing partyers onto the streets. “The plane is a charter headed for Ljubljana, Slovenia. Two vampires were on it, both of them in a state of high spirits.”

“What? Wait a minute—
both
of them were happy?” I clenched my fingers in Jack’s thick fur and he swung his head up to look at me. Yeah, a little reproachfully.

“I’m only reporting what my man told me.”

I made myself relax. There must be some explanation. I’d imagined her loading him aboard via wheelchair. How else could she force him to travel with her? Cirilai couldn’t have sent me a false message, could it?

Disa, of all people, understood the consequences of tampering with Vayl’s powers. But she must’ve found a way to circumvent them. Or he thought he’d found the key to her downfall. Maybe he was just playing along.

Or maybe I was going to drive myself crazy trying to figure this out, in which case my big rescue would end with me standing in a corner, drooling, while I watched an imaginary parade on Venus. Not an option.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m not that familiar with Slovenia. Ljubljana’s the capital, right?”

“Yes, but I don’t think they’re staying. He overheard her speaking of renting a car once they arrived.”

“What are they going to do there?” I wondered out loud.

“Hold on, I’m getting another call,” said Krios.

I turned to Admes. “Does your Trust have any ties to Slovenia?”

He shook his head. Before I could ask him any more questions Krios was back. “My man just remembered something. Before they boarded, she laughingly gave him a coat, telling him they will need to bundle up because it might even be snowing where they were headed. And the male vampire said something like, ‘I hope my boys dress better for the weather than they used to.’”

“Oh God.” My hand dropped to my lap. I could hear Krios asking for me repeatedly, until Dave finally took the phone from my hand.

“What is it?” asked Admes. Only when he reached out to touch me did I come back to myself.

“Don’t,” I said, more sharply than I meant to.

“What is happening?” he asked.

Dave hung up, and immediately the phone rang. As he answered it I said, “Disa is taking Vayl to his sons.” He and I stared at each other and I felt as if thunder had crashed inside the minibus. My ears rang from the immensity of the realization. Because every genuine psychic Vayl had consulted since his sons were murdered had been vague or stalled him purposely—knowing that the day the three of them met they would all die. “How could she know, though?”

Dave closed the phone. “That was Tarasios,” he said grimly. “Niall made him join the chase for Koren. They found her pounding the door to the town psychic’s rental house, trying to gain entry. After some intense questioning, she admitted she was trying to get the woman, whose name was Erilynn, to help her discover where Disa and Vayl had gone.”

“And?”

“They found her slumped over her kitchen table. Her face was gone. She’d been there for a while, Jaz. The bugs were feasting.”

“Why wouldn’t anybody check on her before—”

“Last-minute vacation plans with orders for no one to disturb her until early next week. Disa had herself covered pretty well.”

I felt my stomach lurch and wrapped my arm across it as if that could keep my insides from banging against each other in the physical version of a bloody scream.

“But—it can’t be happening tonight! He’s supposed to meet them in America!” I realized I sounded desperate, but couldn’t seem to pull it into myself. “He told me a Seer said so.”

Dave gripped my shoulder. “Then maybe that’s how it’ll go down. Disa’s conned him before.”

“So you’re telling me to chill.”

“Hell yeah.”

I shook my head. “I’m too close to him,” I whispered. “It’s making me panic when I need to think the clearest.”

“Bullshit.”

“Huh?”

“I’m sick of listening to your excuses, Jasmine. You can sit here all day and list reasons why you and Vayl shouldn’t be together. Same with me and Cassandra. But there’s always the one that outweighs all the rest.”

“Which is?”

“Aw, for chrissake, I’m a guy. Don’t make me say it.”

Oh.
“Okay.”

Admes sighed. “I wish I had never come on this trip.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Because, yet again, I feel I might be betraying my Trust. But if it would give you power to fight Disa . . .”

“What do you know?”

“Hamon had been grooming Aine to take his place as
Deyrar
. He might have revealed information to her that would help you understand why Disa has lured Vayl to Slovenia.”

I held out my hand. “Dave, gimme that phone.”

Aine said usually the ecstasy involved a bout of sexual bliss, but Disa knew better than to try to take Vayl there. Thus, the reunion. Nothing would make Vayl happier than to reunite with his sons. After which, he’d be dead.

“If I just knew who Vayl’s sons are,” I said as I hung up the phone. “If only someone could tell me.”

“Cassandra might know,” Dave said.

“I’m calling her.”

But when I woke her up for the second time, clued her in to the gravity of the situation, she couldn’t tell me. “I have never gotten a clear look at them,” she said. “I’m not sure any Seer ever has. Vayl remembers Hanzi and Badu so strongly, theirs are the faces we see when we try to raise a vision of their reunion.”

“Let me think. That means this psychic in Patras, this Erilynn, probably didn’t see them either. Which would’ve maddened Disa. She must’ve threatened the woman, who would’ve tried to find a way to survive. So, what did she do? She pulled somebody else’s face out of Vayl’s head. But who? Vayl doesn’t know that many guys. Dave’s here. Pete and Bergman are in America. Cole’s—”

Cole’s somewhere mysterious where Cam just happened to show. Is the world that small? I don’t think so. Girls, we have a winner!

“Jaz?”

“Sorry, Cassandra, I think I just figured it out. Cole told me he met Cam while he was working his present assignment. I don’t think that’s coincidence, do you?”

“No. That sounds—manipulated. Tell me, is Erilynn all right?”

“Not even close. Disa must’ve been afraid Erilynn would try to find Vayl and set things right. You Sisters of the Second Sight are pretty ethical, after all.”

Cassandra sighed. “I’ll let the guild know.”

“I’m sorry, Cassandra. Are you . . . gonna be okay?”

“Yes, thank you.” New warmth in her tone now. “I just—there are so few of us. I always take it personally when a Sister dies.”

“I can see how you’d feel that way.”

“Thanks.”

“Would you—like me to find out about the arrangements for you? That way you could send flowers or something if you wanted.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”
Assuming Vayl and I survive the next few hours
.

“Jaz, that would be wonderful!”

“Okay, I’ll let you know.” We signed off and I sank back into my seat, telling myself what an idiot I was to try to have even one relationship, much less multiple ones, when my entire mind should be focused on the task in front of me.

Dave slammed on the brakes. Traffic had backed up now that we’d entered the heart of the city, and his patience had evaporated. As he leaned on the horn he yelled, “Were you just talking about
my
Cam?”

As I nodded he began shaking his head. “It’s impossible. He’s on the other side of the world. They all are—”

“No, they’re not,” I told him. “Cole told me he just met up with Cam. If I’m right, they’re both in Slovenia. Cole was assigned to terminate a mark who still hasn’t shown up. I don’t know why Cam’s been sent there, but I can guess. Disa’s known she needed Vayl all along. I’m starting to think she and Blas got the
grall
to suck at least
that
secret out of Hamon. Knowing Vayl’s obsession with finding his boys, she must’ve decided to manipulate his need to see them one more time. I think she found a way to get Cam assigned to do some training wherever Cole is for the next week or two, just in time for Vayl to make his discovery.”

Dave’s face looked bloodless inside the van as he took a quick right, rocking Jack into the seat and making Admes grunt. “How could she have the power to force them to split up my unit?”

“Maybe he’s just on leave.”

“Or maybe I’ve let them all down. If I’d been there, he wouldn’t be standing in the path of octopus-throat right now.”

“Your guilt, while attractive in this light, is really starting to piss me off. What do you say you let it go so you can start being the kind of leader they need?”

We stared at each other longer than it was really safe for us to, considering he was driving. Then he smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”

“That’s the brother I’ve come to know and occasionally wish I could still kick the ass of. Here, let me check and see if Cole’s texted me lately.” Yup, he had. In fact, it looked like the message had come while I was talking to Aine.

“Jasmine Parks?” he asked. I heard him sniff, as if he could scent me through the cell signal.

“Listen, I know we already had a deal that made us even, but I need to renegotiate.”

“Really?” I was relieved to hear a note of amusement in his voice.

“It’s vital that my friends and I get a flight to Ljubljana, Slovenia, like, an hour ago. You got any connections?”

“At this time of night? Only one, and then only because he’s my brother-in-law.”

“Works for me. Can you two meet us at the airport right away?”

A pause that felt eternal and made my stomach twist so radically I began to suspect internal bleeding. “I think he’ll do it. That is, if you can pay.” He threw out a figure that would carve a major chunk out of my euro supply. As if I cared.

I took a second to remind myself how to breathe, then said, “No problem.”

Which was how we found ourselves strapped into an AStar B2 helicopter. Our relative comfort was due to the fact that the aircraft was designed for touring, its pilot a U.S. expatriate who’d earned his wings in the army. Dooley Green had met and married Kozma’s sister the year before—although Kozma made it clear Dooley didn’t know about the Were in his extended family and it would be great if that ignorance continued.

Keeping Kozma’s secret turned out to be a cinch. Dooley, who flew travelers all around the northern Peloponnese during the day, launched right into tour-guide mode as soon as we took off and only stopped talking twice. Once when we landed to refuel. And again when we finally saw the lights of Ljubljana.

At the beginning of his lecture, which started so far back in history I wasn’t even sure people were walking upright yet, I noticed Dave was actually trying to see some of the sights as our pilot described them. He sat with me in the back. We’d brought Jack as well. He shared part of my seat and the empty one to my left. Eventually I would have to convince him he wasn’t a lapdog. Definitely before his weight collapsed a major vein. But for the moment I enjoyed his warmth as he lolled across my thighs like a panting, woolly blanket.

Admes had wanted to come, but we’d convinced him to stay with his Trust, whose boundaries still needed guarding. Given the fact that Disa’s absence also offered him the chance to spend time with Niall without her interference, Admes decided maybe it would be in everyone’s best interest for him to drive the minibus back to the villa.

I gave up on texting and called Cole directly. Having no idea what protocol to follow in this case, I simply said, “Our mission seems to be overlapping yours in a potentially deadly way. Not for you two, I hope. But watch your backs. And your fronts. Okay?”

“Details,” he demanded.

“Not many beyond a couple of vampires.” I winced. “Including Vayl. But he’s not—”

“I knew it! I
knew
that son of a bitch would find a way to blow me out of the picture!”

“Cole! He’s on your side. I mean that sincerely. But he’s with an evil vamp who’s bonded him to her. In a sort of bippity-boppity-I-do type thing.”

“Well, how did he let that happen?”

“He didn’t intend . . . anyway, I’m sure he’s just—”

“Is that why you wanted to know where I was?”

“I know you’re in Slovenia near Ljubljana. The lady vamp Vayl’s with consulted a Seer, so they have some idea where you—”

“Shit! She probably saw us drinking. Listen, how far away are you?”

“Hours. But so are they.”

“Just get here, Jaz. We’ll keep moving. Call me when you hit town and I’ll tell you where we are.”

“Okay.”