One More Bite (2 page)

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“Save it. I didn’t want to believe the rumors, but now I have to think they were true. You really did come off sick leave three weeks early to answer the phones at the office, didn’t you?”

“Martha hadn’t had a vacation in years. So I just thought—”

“Is it true that you repainted the whole floor? One-handed?”

“The walls were turquoise. Who can concentrate with that color looming over them all day long?”

“Did you, or did you not, reorganize all of Pete’s files so now he can’t find anything?”

I bit my lip. “I don’t see what the big deal is. Most of it’s just backup for what’s on his computer. But that was when he sent me to Florida, which, in my own defense, I’m pretty sure he was planning to do anyway—”

Cole shook his head direly. “Not so fast. I saw you plowing toward the back of the plane just now like you meant to tear off the tail and stuff it down Albert’s throat. No, don’t get that dreamy look on your face. I want some straight talk from you, dammit!”

I gulped. Cole didn’t swear much, and never at me. In fact, he’d been nothing but charming, funny, and pretty much perfect since we’d met in a women’s bathroom when he was still a PI specializing in supernatural cases. “Okay,” I said. “What do you want to know?”

Cole turned fully toward me, bracing his hand against the seat in front of him. He lowered his voice to intimate. “To me this is just another aspect of your recently upgraded weirdocity.”

“That’s not a word.”

“Shut up.”

Since the alternative was kicking a huge dent in his face, which he really didn’t deserve, I pressed my lips together and listened. He said, “Why do you keep holding back with Vayl if it’s the real thing? You wonnt>hing? Y’t tell your dad. Nobody in the department knows. Isn’t true love something you want to shout about from the nearest rooftop?”

I murmured, “Dude, every time I step onto a roof somebody tries to throw me off. Plus that’s so .

. .” I rolled my eyes and made an ick-I-swallowed-a-gnat sound.

“That’s not an answer,” he insisted.

I took one of the chips off the pile I’d made and turned it between my fingers. “It’s Matt.” I didn’t need to remind him that my fiancé had been murdered, along with my sister-in-law and the rest of our vamp-killing crew. It was one of the first personal stories I’d ever told him. Which said a lot about the kind of guy he was.

For an answer he draped his arm across my shoulder.

Once I would’ve blown off this conversation. Too hard. Major chance of a marshmallowy aftertaste. Now I stuck with it. Although I did entertain the fleeting thought that personal growth sucks. “Every time I think I’m ready to move on, something happens to remind me of him. That’s one part of it. But it’s not the hardest.”

“What’s the rest?”

“I guess I’m more superstitious than I realized. One corner of my brain is convinced that if I make some big announcement, that’ll be the same as a challenge.”

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“To who?”

“I don’t know. God? Fate? Whoever thought it was okay to wipe out everybody I really cared about in the first place.”

“First of all, that chapter of your life was written by Aidyn Strait. He was the vampire who killed your people, and nobody else should get the credit. Also, don’t you think you’re exaggerating?

Just a little?”

Where did Cole get off with the superior attitude? “I have no idea what you mean,” I snapped.

“Your brother survived that massacre.”

“Only because he was already in the hospital.”

“What about your sister? Don’t you love her?”

“You’re missing my point.”

“I don’t think so. Look, I’m not trying to undercut your loss. It was huge. I’m just saying, maybe you’re not seeing it clearly because it was so horrific to start with.”

“Did you want me to answer your question or not?” I growled.

“Well, yeah.”

“That’s all I’m doing. I’m telling you that I’m not anxious to make anything official between me and Vayl. Because I think that if I do he’ll die.”

Cole smiled. “By that logic, you should date me, then.”

“What?”

“Think about it. Why would Fate want to turn Vayl into vapor if It thought you and I were getting busy?”

“That’s nuts.” menuts.”<

He leaned over and kissed me, smack, on the cheek. His breath, smelling faintly of grape bubble gum, blew across my lips as he murmured, “You said it, not me.”

When he sank back into his seat nothing was left to block my view of Albert. In the time since Vayl had settled beside him, my dad had managed to extort another bag of peanuts from the flight attendant. I watched him pop them into his mouth one by one and chew them without once closing his lips, so that the sound of his masticating between complaints about his favorite team’s lame-ass secondary bounced off the curved walls of the Embraer like the wet plopping of a knife slicing through layers of bloated animal skin.

Ugh!

I stuck my fingers in my ears and glued my eyes to the window. The landscape should’ve cheered me. The green fields and thick trees that surrounded Dalcross Airport had always lifted my spirits. They were the part of the landscape that reminded me most of home. But the deep blue of the Moray Firth flowing off into the North Sea let me know I’d come a long way from Ohio. As did the knowledge that if we turned this plane just a touch to the west and kept flying

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we’d be sweeping into the Highlands, where peaks with names like Liathac and Ben Dearg made you think of the old gods. The ones who probably still lolled among the mountains, gouging out grooves with their elbows and asses, joking about how the mountaineers would have a fine old time ascending their dirty new cracks. Yeah, my sense was that they had the humor of thirteenyear-old boys. Except for the goddesses, who had none.

Since Vayl was with me on this trip, the fact that I could see anything besides runway lights and the sparkle of a growing city should’ve seemed miraculous. But I was too disturbed to get all slobbery about the reason he’d begun to wake early, which had everything to do with his waycool ability to suck another vampire’s powers into his permanent arsenal. During our last mission, his former nestling had tried to make their arrangement eternal. She’d literally shoved Vampere magic through him, forcing him to stay awake through an entire day. The process had left him changed. Now he woke at least three hours before dark and stayed up about that long after the sun had risen.

This can be a problem for a guy who sizzles in the sun.

Enter Bergman, our tech consultant, whose genius had saved our asses so many times I’d considered tattooing his name on mine. He’d come up with a lotion that temporarily blocked the sun’s rays so Vayl could at least walk from building to building without frying. Unfortunately it darkened his skin so radically he looked like he’d fallen asleep inside a tanning bed.

I looked over at him now, wondering how the hell we were going to pull off this mission with so many variables to control. Then his eyes met mine. And when they lightened to amber I knew that as long as we stuck together, nothing could stop us.

Chapter Three

Driving is my thing. Not only do I kick ass behind the wheel, but I love controlling thousands of pounds of road-eating people-hauler with little more than a twitch of the pinky. I had planned on playing chauffeur out of Dalcross, since the route to Tearlach—Floraidh Halsey’s bed-andbreakfast—mappednt „ “tricky” when you typed in the address. But Jack turned out to be a fearful flyer and needed major comfort. As soon as I transferred him from pet carrier to leash he ducked between my legs, which meant I practically rode him to the urine-yellow Alhambra we’d rented. Actually, I could’ve hopped on and he wouldn’t have noticed. He weighs twenty more pounds than I do. And eats twice as much. We won’t even discuss the pooping. Gawd.

Yeah, I know, I’d said I was gonna adopt him out to a good home after I killed his master on my last mission. Samos had loved the malamute more than anything or anyone else he’d ever known. And why not? He was a fabulous dog. Good humored. Obedient. Smart and sensitive. I could go on, but I’m pretty sure I’d start sounding like one of those batty old ladies who eventually gets devoured by her forty-two cats. In the end, I couldn’t let him go. But Jack had come with a few issues, which meant I couldn’t leave matters in their original state either.

“Tell me you’re joking!” Cole demanded as we sat in the second row of seats with my dog lying between us. Vayl, at the wheel, wearing dark glasses and a black fedora, glanced in the rearview. Albert sat next to him, immersed in the map he held, trying to make sense of directions that, while written in English, still needed a translator.

“I’m dead serious,” I insisted. “I got him fixed.”

Cole threw his arms up and hunched into the corner of the ivory seat. He rolled his eyes at the canine, who’d undergone a dye job for this mission since we figured he’d mixed with the coven while he was still Samos’s pet, and we didn’t need his seamy past coming back to bite us in the ass. The vet said he’d been cheerful about the shampooing that would leave him coal black for the next three weeks. But that was Jack, always willing to play along, especially if you offered

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him something to nibble as part of the deal.

Now he regarded Cole curiously, as if trying to divine whether or not somebody who smelled like bubble gum could be a source of doggy treats. “Sorry, Jack,” said his disgusted buddy. “If I’d known about this, I’d have done more to protect your manhood.”

“He was humping everything in sight!” I fumed. “I had to throw out my ottoman!”

“That’s no reason to snip a guy’s nuts!”

“He’s not a guy; he’s a dog. Who won’t be making puppies. Or screwing my shoes anymore!

Yeehaw!”

Cole shoved his hands into the crooks of his elbows. “Well, this mission sucks.”

“It’s barely started! And I should be the one bitching!”

“Turn left here,” Albert told Vayl calmly, as if the two of us yelling didn’t even exist. Suddenly I could hardly keep myself from kicking the back of his seat.

“What are you doing here anyway?” I demanded.

Albert speared a glance over his shoulder. In the fading light, his silvery hair and wrinkles seemed to disappear and he looked much more like the dad who’d continuously barked at me to Sit up straight, dammit! I won’t have any slope-shouldered daughters in my unit! Only after I’d pulled myself upright did I realize the old fart had done it to me again. Gotten under mmysotten uy skin like a sliver of bamboo.

“I’m just here as an observer,” he said. “Pete knew I was interested in what you did for a living, so we found terms we could agree on.”

“If you think I’m going to buy that line of crap—” The tiniest jerk of Vayl’s head stopped me. I’ve worked for him long enough to pick up on every gesture, because they all come with their own backstory if you just know how to interpret them. I couldn’t see his eyes through the shades, but the thin line of his lips spoke volumes.

Let it be, they told me.

Okay, but only for a while.

Good enough.

“We are happy to have you, Albert,” Vayl said. “Did Pete fill you in as to the details of our mission?”

“All he said was that he’d assigned you to eliminate an assassin.” Albert glanced at the map.

“Looks like we take the next right.”

“This inn is somewhat secluded, is it not?” Vayl said.

“Better for us,” I said.

“Why is that?” asked Albert.

I raised my eyebrows at Vayl. “Tell him,” he said.

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I scrunched down in my seat because I knew it would irritate my dad. As I patted Jack on the head I tried to remember everything in the right order. “About four weeks ago we took out a major player in the supernatural community called Edward ‘the Raptor’ Samos. This was one evil dude. We’re talking multiple efforts to cause worldwide death and destruction. He forced a lot of others into partnerships with him. Crowds that wouldn’t normally mix it up, except maybe in a territorial dispute.”

“Sounds like a real douche bag.”

I swallowed a surprised chuckle. Did Albert even know the literal meaning of the word? I said,

“Definitely. We do know that three groups willingly entered into alliances with him. They were the Valencian Weres, an American vamp gang we call the Flock, and the Witches of Inverness.”

“Aha. So you’ve come to take out the coven?” Albert guessed.

I shook my head, irritated to have to reject such a logical conclusion. “The Big Bosses have decided it’s in our best interests to maintain the balance of power between the three groups. So when one of our guys, who’s in deep cover with the Valencian Weres, told us they’d contracted an assassin to kill Floraidh Halsey, the coven’s leader, events began to unfold. Now we’re here, under orders to take out the killer before she has a chance to change the balance and trigger a war between the factions. According to our source she’s going to be staying at Floraidh’s B and B.”

“The assassin is a girl?” Albert asked.

“Why do you sound surprised?” I demanded. “So am I.”

“You’re Vayl’s assistant.” He’s the assassin, said the stubborn set of his jaw. You just take messages and clean his guns.

“I kill bad guys, Dad. It’s what I’ve done for a living since I graduated from college. And I’m good at it.”

His eyes dropped to Jack. I saw his hand twitch, as if he wanted to reach out and sink his fingers into that thick fur, but he wouldn’t let himself. “So how are you going to make sure I fit in?” he asked.

We’re not. We’re going to kick your ass back to Chicago where you belong! I nearly said it. But Cole put his hand on my clenched fist and said, “Our cover can take another member, easy. We’re going in as ghost hunters attending a big shindig called GhostCon. Good timing for a hit with all the strangers coming into town, which is probably why the assassin chose this week. Anyway, the lectures and whatnot are taking place at Castle Hoppringhill, which is pretty close to Floraidh’s B and B. One or two of us will have to poke our faces into GhostCon every few hours just to make sure our cover sticks. Having you along to do that will give the rest of us an even better chance to identify the assassin.”