One More Bite (19 page)

“Are you sure?”

“No, I’m not sure! I’m staring down a juicy skull on a TV that won’t turn off! What, you think I’m going to be taking notes?”

I stifled the urge to smack him. At some point it would count as elder abuse and I just didn’t need that sin on my infinite list. “I think you’re more observant than you’d like credit for. Why you want to keep me out of this, I have no idea, but drop it. I’m in.”

Vayl spoke up. “Do you think it could have been something the coven conjured? We know Floraidh is planning something expensive. And we think she is going to try something devious during one of the GhostWalks tonight.”

“That’s kinda what I thought at first,” Albert agreed. “I was sitting there supposing one of the Scidairans had set up some kind of hex to give me a heart attack or something. Then it said,

‘You must not cut the line nor turn off the road less traveled. That is how the first accident occurred.’ Which sounded like a crap-covered threat to me. Plus the longer this skull yapped at me, the more arrogant it got. So I pretty much told it I wasn’t the type to take orders from anybody. It said, ‘Meet her at Clava Cairns tomorrow at midnight,’ and I said, ‘Like hell I will! I don’t even know who “her” is!’”

Albert put his elbows on his knees, leaning forward as if that were the only way he could hold his own weight up. He glanced at me. “And then it started talking about you.”

“What did it say?” Vayl demanded.

“I didn’t let it say much besides, ‘Your daughter, Jasmine—” before I yelled at it to get out. And then I started changing channels. Jack was barking up a storm too. I think that helped. Anyway, it left.”

We stood silent while another line of people passed us, Albert patting Jack as if the dog were the one in need of comfort, while I tried to figure out what the afterworld could possibly want with my old man. Finally he said, “I didn’t think it would be able to find me once I left the States. I alread“tate oy spent time with Dave and Evie. So when I called Pete and told him I was coming along on this assignment whether he liked it or not, he gave me terms. They were totally

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unreasonable, but I took them, figuring I’d be dead in a few days anyway. I thought I’d stay a while with you, then I’d go back to the apartment where the ghoul would find me. And when Shelby came back from his honeymoon he’d see me there, sitting in my La-Z-Boy, looking a little blue and a lot stiff, with a cheesecake in my lap and a beer on the table beside me. Maybe he’d think it was heart failure.”

“How the hell did you suppose we were going to pay for your funeral when you blew your savings on this trip!”

Vayl put his hand on my shoulder. “Jasmine, it could be that you are ruining a special moment here.”

We both ignored him as Albert shot back, “I imagined you’d toss me in the back of a pickup truck and dump me over some cliff to be eaten by vultures like you threaten to do every time I get sick!”

“I only said that once, and it was because you hadn’t checked your blood sugar in, like, a month!

If you’re going to be an idiot I’m not going to pay for it!”

“Don’t you think I know that? That’s why when the senators from the Oversight Committee called me right after I got off the phone with Pete, I didn’t hang up on them!”

Vayl’s grip on my shoulder tightened. This message I got. Pay attention, Jasmine. This is important. “The Oversight Committee? For our department? Called you?”

Albert clamped his lips shut, a damn-I-said-too-much grimace lining his face. I inched so close to him our noses practically banged together. “What did they want, Dad?”

“They’re going to reimburse all my expenses in return for a report on how you guys operate.” He stuck his forefinger in my shoulder and pushed me backward. “I don’t know what you’re worried about. You’re the best.”

“Albert, part of the reason we’re good is because nobody knows how we work.” I glanced up at Vayl. “What do you think?”

He leaned against the wall as if he had all the time in the world to ponder. “I am distinctly unimpressed by this group of imbeciles, but sometimes their type can do the worst damage. We must discover their motives, but later. Albert’s issue presses, especially if he feels his death will be a sure result.”

I studied my dad, who’d had a helluva a lot more people try to kill him than I’d ever battled. I thought now that he would’ve preferred that end to the diabetes doing the trick, and either one to a “ghoul” that he had no idea how to fight. I said, “Listen, before you hand over your golden years to some ooglie booglie, maybe you should let me take a stab at it.”

Albert shook his head. “This is demonic stuff, Jaz. Something you have no experience with. And the last of the great demon hunters died with—” He stopped. His stony face betrayed a hint of grief as he said, “They’re gone.”

I just barely prevented myself from laughing in his face.

“Let’s just say there’s a new game in town.”

Chapter Twenty

Before the games could begin, however, Vayl, Cole, Albert, and I had to pick our positions.

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While Iona and Viv remained on the floor of the front hall with Floraidh and Dormal, trying to decide what to do with the rest of their evening, we held a quick powwow on the stairs.

“One of us must go on the GhostWalk,” said Vayl.

“I think the girls are leaning that direction,” Cole said. “If they do, I’ll tag along.”

Something in the way he stared down at Viv as she signed to Iona stopped me. “Cole? You’re not developing feelings for them, are you?”

“No!”

“Because one of them could turn out to be the—”

“I know that!” Still, I could see it in his eyes when he dragged them back to mine. Tenderness. Especially for the blah dresser with the funky shoes, who, despite everything, had still found the strength to smile tonight.

Albert began flipping through the pages of his program.

“You know, if you’re going to play blind, the least you could do is act the part,” I said. “Take Jack for instance.” My dog looked up at me, licking his chops as if I’d just offered him a treat. “He’s fully into the part of seeing-eye dog. If we were at a busy intersection right now, I bet he wouldn’t step into the street until the light turned.”

“Yeah, I know what you tell that mutt when I’m not around,” Albert huffed. “If I was really blind you’d probably have him lead me right into the path of a semi. Here”—he held up the booklet, showing me the GhostWalk page—“look at this.” He pointed out a full-color picture depicting Clava Cairns. It was a day shot, revealing huge beech trees shading three large burial mounds, all of which were surrounded by standing stones, themselves like tall, rectangular grave markers. The cairns had been built as circular hills, with large boulders forming the outer ring and smaller stones making up the remaining construction. Two of them had paths to the inside. The one in the center was a complete ring.

Vayl touched my arm as I felt a coldness steal over me, watching my father’s fingers graze the photo of the four-thousand-year-old grave site he’d been ordered to visit the next evening.

“I’m going on this walk,” said Albert.

“No.” I spoke before I had time to think. The sound he made reminded me he still had too much mental capacity for my orders to hold any weight.

Before Albert could slam me, Vayl said, “I share your daughter’s concerns. What if your visitor decides to come early? At the very least, it would throw off our entire mission to have to bury you this week.”

Harsh. But a message Albert understood. “All right. One of you is going anyway, you said so yourselves. Just get Cole to convince the girls to come along. Then two of you will be there to protect me.”

When we both still hesitated, he said, “Look, Floraidh’s not going anywhere. It’s not goin›. Ip>

Cole nodded and trotted down the stairs to talk to Viv and Iona.

Vayl and I shared a short, silent powwow.

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Do you wanna go? I asked.

He is your father.

Why do you keep reminding me?

He glanced at Albert. “When does the first tour leave?”

Albert checked the program. “Five minutes.”

“Never enough time,” Vayl muttered. “Come,” he said to me. “I believe I may have left something in the van you will find helpful if Albert’s friend turns out to be an early riser.”

He led me out of the castle to the deserted parking lot. When he raised the back door of the Alhambra I expected to find some sort of megaweapon crated up and waiting for me. The storage compartment was empty.

I turned to Vayl. “What—” He motioned for silence as he removed his party line transmitter and motioned for me to do the same. As soon as I’d pocketed mine he took my free hand, turned Cirilai with his fingers, making the rubies reflect the moonlight.

“I can feel events begin to spin out of our control. Soon we will not even have a moment to call our own. That is the way of our lives.” His brows drew together. “I should be used to it by now.”

He glanced at me, his eyes so dark I could feel whole universes sifting, birthing, and dying on the other side. “But I have become greedy of late. I am not sure this is right. I am certain it is dangerous. But I cannot resist.”

He yanked me into his arms, pulling me onto my tiptoes. Our mouths met with such force I knew my lips would burn for the rest of the night. The feel of his body, hard against mine, rocked me to the core. I felt like all the paintings I’d never understood, all the stars that had shone cold in the sky above me, every joke that had left me unmoved suddenly shifted into place. Everything I’d ever done made sense because I’d found someone who made me forget to breathe.

Now.

Vayl lifted his head. Cool, he’s panting too!

Don’t wait, Jaz. Don’t ever let it be too late again.

I loosened my hold on him. Maybe digging my fingernails into his shoulder blades, while fine for a passionate embrace, wasn’t quite appropriate for the next move I had in mind.

“Jasmine?”

“Did I ever tell you I love the way you say my name?”

He shook his head, his face almost completely in shadow. Suddenly I needed to see how he’d react. I squeezed my eyes shut. The contact lenses Bergman had made for me kicked in, bathing the area in see-in-the-dark green. My Sensitivity added more color. Enough that Vayl’s face showed clear, if slightly reddish y›ghtde ellow. You know what? It’ll do.

I said, “The fact that you went back home? That you said goodbye to your boys? Although I know you still have a lot to do, it’s enough of a start for me.”

Vayl went still, as if the slightest movement might interfere with his hearing. “What are you saying?” he whispered.

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I slid my hands across his broad shoulders, down his arms, and in around his waist. Given a choice, I knew I’d never leave his side, never go without this kind of touch again. “I love you, Vayl.”

A hitch in his breath, the slightest double take accompanied by a tender, dawning smile.

“Yeeees!” He picked me up and twirled me around so quickly my feet flew out behind me like they had when I was a kid and Gramps Lew wanted to play Merry-Go-Grandpa.

As soon as he set me down he demanded, “Say it again!”

“I love—”

“Ha, ha!” Triumph in his fierce, fangtastic grin as he pulled me in for another kiss. And then a whole bouquet of them, raining down on my face like drought-relieving waters. “Again,” he growled.

“I love you, all right? Geez, are you always going to be this insatiable?”

His expression took a wicked turn. “I cannot wait to show you.” He took my hand, pulled me away from the van so he could close the hatch. “Let us go tell your father.”

Gulp.

“Yeah, sure.” I don’t mind dying young. Always thought it would happen this way. Not by Albert, necessarily, but then, the family is usually in on it somehow. More to stave off execution than because I really needed to hear it I said, “Um, was there anything you wanted to say to me? Now that it’s somewhat appropriate?”

We stopped beside one of those sweet little Minis that, if it came to America, would immediately be set upon and eaten by a gang of SUVs. Vayl turned to me, pulling me into his arms once again.

I could get used to this. I want to. Is that a bad thing?

Vayl’s lips brushed against my hair, forehead, eyelids. “You know I have been saying this to you, in one way or another, for months?”

“Uh.”

Soft laugh, carried away by the warm Scottish breeze. “Jasmine?”

“Yeah?”

“Never have I been so glad to have lived so long. You are the woman my heart has waited for all these centuries. I love you with every—are you laughing?”

“I’m sorry! It’s just . . . are you really that mushy?”

Hint of dimple. “Why? Are you sensing the need for galoshes?”

“More like hip boots!”

“How shall I tell you, then? Would you prefer it in writing? A›t ire sonnet to my darling’s eyes?”

I made a gagging sound.

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“All right, then. Perhaps if I leaped in front of a stray bullet?”

“God, no!”

He lifted my hand to his lips, kissed the ring he’d slipped on my hand during our last mission, when I’d finally admitted we needed each other whether I liked it or not. “Will you give me some time to ponder? I may yet come up with the perfect medium for my heartfelt confession.”

“Sure, yeah. Ponder away.” I looked at my watch. “We should be getting back. The GhostWalk’s going to start any minute now.”

“That will give us very little time to discuss our relationship with your father. Perhaps we should do it—as you Americans prefer most occasions—over a meal.”