Overbite (17 page)

She was
fired
?

Dr. Fiske wasn’t unkind. He was actually very understanding, and even sympathetic and friendly.

But Meena, he said, had broken just about every rule in the
Palatine Guard Human Resources Handbook,
many in the past forty-eight hours alone.

And so it was really very unlikely, given the magnitude, breadth, and scope of the damage her actions had caused—this line was used in the letter—that even if she appealed, she would be allowed to continue in the Vatican’s employ.

So her services were no longer required.

When Meena asked where Alaric was, Dr. Fiske glanced at his watch and said, “I believe he’s now on private transport back to Rome.”

Of all the things Meena had been expecting to hear, nothing could have prepared her for this.

“Rome?”
Her voice cracked in disbelief.

“Well,” Dr. Fiske said, looking somewhat surprised by her reaction. “It wasn’t the easiest administrative decision to make, of course. It was either a transfer or terminating his employment. And since he’s obviously an extremely valuable asset to the organization, I opted to transfer him. It seemed to make the most sense.”

Meena shook her head. What might have made sense to Dr. Fiske made no sense to her.

“And Alaric
agreed
? With Lucien Antonescu apparently in possession of some book that is going to make him the most powerful demon in the history of the world?”

For the first time, Dr. Fiske looked slightly uncomfortable. “Well, I don’t know about all of that. I’m just in administration. But I’m told he was perfectly amenable to the—”

“You were
told
?” The alarm bells going off in Meena’s head were so loud that she thought for a second they were the building’s smoke detectors. “You haven’t spoken to Alaric
yourself
?”

“Miss Harper,” Dr. Fiske said. He peered at her from above the rims of his reading glasses. “We are, as you stated, in pursuit of the most powerful demon in the world. I have had to step into the shoes of a missing colleague, who, I would like to point out, did not leave his desk in the most organized of conditions. But I have been Alaric Wulf’s psychotherapist for almost six months, and I think I am qualified to say that Alaric’s allowed his emotions to compromise his decision-making abilities, and has been doing so for some time. Ever since he met you, to be exact.”

This did not in any way silence the alarm bells. “But I don’t think Alaric would—”

He laid a hand on her shoulder, and interrupted gently, “Even you can’t deny, Meena, that you and Alaric Wulf have developed a relationship that has become so unhealthily codependent, it has already caused the deaths of several of our colleagues. It’s for the best that you achieve some distance and perspective. That’s why Alaric agreed to the transfer, and is on his way back to Rome, and you are being let go. Now please don’t ask me any more questions about Alaric, as I wouldn’t like to violate my obligation to maintain patient-doctor confidentiality—”

The words
caused the deaths of several of our colleagues
hit Meena hard.

Not because she believed she’d caused the deaths of Abraham and Carolina, and the rest of the team that had been sent to Freewell. She still didn’t know where they were, or why they hadn’t checked in. But when she pictured their faces in her mind, she was quite sure that they were alive.

Still, it was because of her that they had gone to Freewell. It was because of her that they—and Brianna Delmonico—were missing.

David’s death, on the other hand . . . well, that she
had
caused. It was because of her that he’d been turned into a vampire.

She knew that, and was willing to accept it, as well as her dismissal from the Palatine.

There was just one thing she wasn’t willing to accept. Something Dr. Fiske, apparently, did not know.

“There, there,” Dr. Fiske said, seeing her expression, and apparently misinterpreting it. “I know it seems like the end of the world at the moment. But you’ll feel better in a few days. The sun has come up now, and it’s safe for you to go. A car is waiting for you. Good-bye, Meena.”

Feeling numb, she took the letter Dr. Fiske handed to her. Then she walked out of the nurse’s office and down the empty corridor until she stood blinking in the early-morning sunlight on the steps of Palatine headquarters, near the fountain of Saint Bernadette kneeling before the footless Madonna, empty of water as it had always been.

Because it was only just after dawn, no one was around, except for the car that, just as Dr. Fiske had assured her, was waiting beyond the arches at the end of the courtyard. Meena stared at it, her eyes aching, her mouth dry.

What was it Alaric had said in the taxi on the way to the museum, when she’d asked when he’d be going to Antigua? Oh yes:

Don’t worry. I won’t be leaving with any unsettled business
.

Meena knew there was no way that Alaric Wulf had boarded a private transport to Rome. Not willingly. Not without saying good-bye to her first. And not with Lucien Antonescu still at large.

Alaric simply had too much unsettled business in New York to have left for Rome.

Meena was certain that Dr. Fiske believed that he himself had not been lying. He’d truly believed what he’d been saying.

Which meant someone had been lying to Dr. Fiske.

As she stood on the steps to St. Bernadette’s in the early light of dawn, having had so little sleep and with her emotions stretched so thin, the complexity of her situation finally began to sink in . . . as did the realization that she was alone in this now. Everything was up to her. She was going to have to figure it out on her own.

But it was all right. She could do it.

She hoped.

She slipped past the waiting Town Car—the driver inside was so engrossed in the morning paper he did not even look up—then walked back to her apartment.

Part 3

Sunday, September 19

Chapter Twenty-five

J
on glared at the three guys who had come into the Beanery and taken the table beneath the flat-screen TV that hung on the exposed brick wall in the corner.

They seemed to think they could buy the cheapest thing on the menu—Americanos, tall—then occupy a table for hours just because they’d brought their expensive laptops and popped them open.

They hadn’t even paid for the Wi-Fi. He could see that they had broadband-access cards.

The least they could have done was order a muffin.

Also, he couldn’t figure out what it was they were finding so fascinating on the television. The sound wasn’t even on. It was tuned to the twenty-four-hour local news station, the way the owner—which happened to be the Catholic Church, or more specifically, the Shrine of St. Clare, although this was not public knowledge—insisted.

Jon would have liked to turn it to ESPN or even the financial news, but he’d tried this once, and Father Bernard—who’d happened to glance in the window on his way back to the church from the thrift shop next door—had nearly had a coronary.

It wasn’t worth the risk. Jon needed this gig, even if it had only been given to him out of pity. Especially now, since he hadn’t had a chance to show Alaric Wulf his SuperStaker.

Jon didn’t know what had happened. Meena hadn’t come home from the event she and Alaric had gone to until God knows when—Jon suspected it had been after dawn. When he’d glanced into her room shortly before leaving for work, he’d seen that she was asleep. She’d fallen into bed fully dressed.

And there’d been no sign of Alaric.

Weird. Maybe the thing with Lucien Antonescu had been a false alarm, or something.

Which meant he was going to have to do this by himself. And he knew how, too:

He was going to SuperStake one of the vamps sitting at the table in front of the TV.

It was going to be tricky, of course, because if the SuperStaker didn’t work—if it only singed the vamp slightly, and didn’t dust him—he’d have an extremely angry demon on his hands . . . plus his two friends.

Still, Jon couldn’t get Adam’s words from the day before out of his head . . . that he had to take that first step, and do
something
. Otherwise, he’d always have the same stupid problems—slight addiction to video games, lack of employment, depending on his sister for a place to live—and never the kind of problems he
wanted
to have . . . the kind Adam had: a wife, a baby, a mortgage. These were normal problems for a guy his age. Proper problems. Jon would do
anything
for problems like that.

So today, he’d brought the gun to work. All he had to was find a vamp to shoot.

And now here he was, with three of them sitting in front of him. Problem solved.

Of course, it was possible these guys weren’t vampires at all. Now that Jon thought about it, how had they even gotten into the café in the first place without getting burned up, since it was quite sunny outside?

They didn’t look particularly vampy either, in their khakis and polos with the collars popped. They resembled guys like himself, if his luck had gone a different way . . . guys with jobs in the investment community, who’d been given the morning off while their wives were at the Mommy-and-Me read-along at the independent bookstore down the street. As soon as the read-along was over, and their wives met them back here, they’d pack their laptops into their kids’ expensive strollers and roll on down to the San Gennaro Festival, where they would eat a slice and a cannoli, then grab a cab back to the their doorman building in Tribeca, or wherever.

Oh, well. They hadn’t left a tip. If they weren’t vampires, the ultraviolet ray wouldn’t hurt them. And if they were . . .
poof.

He raised his gun. One small step for him, one giant step for vamp killers everywhere . . .

“Good morning, Jon.”

Yalena stood on the other side of the counter, looking fresh-faced and gorgeous, as always.

“Uh . . . h-hi,” he stammered, feeling himself turning red. He lowered the SuperStaker at once.

He hadn’t even heard the door open. He was really losing his grip if the most beautiful girl in the world had just come walking into the shop, and he hadn’t even noticed.

“I see you got stucked with the Sunday-morning shift, too,” Yalena said, smiling in that amazing way she had, that made it seem as though the sun was shining inside.

“Stuck,” Jon corrected her automatically. Not that he minded the way she sometimes mispronounced things. It was one her most adorable qualities. He hoped she never learned to speak English correctly. “And yeah, I did. How are you? Can I get you the usual? Cappuccino?”

“Oh yes, thanks, that would be great.” Yalena hauled her gigantic bag onto the counter. “I’m good. ‘Stuck.’ I always forget this. What have you got there? A hair dryer? You bring this to work with you?”

Jon hastily shoved the SuperStaker into his apron pocket.

“No, no,” he said. “Nothing. Just a little project I’ve been working on. For the, uh, Palatine.”

The minute the word was out of his mouth, he regretted it.

“Oh.” Yalena’s entire face lit up. “You work for them now, too? Like your sister?”

Jon wished he had kept his mouth shut. What had come over him?

Now Yalena was going to think he was employed by the Palatine, when he wasn’t. At least, not until he killed those guys over there, who, if he really thought about it, definitely weren’t vampires at all. Vampires wouldn’t pop their collars. Vampires wouldn’t even wear polos. At least, he’d never seen one in a polo.

“Well, on the side,” he said. “Sort of a secret project.”

“Oh, secret project,” Yalena said. “How exciting!” She was pulling out her wallet, but Jon waved her money aside.

“Come on, don’t be crazy,” he said. “You know it’s on me. Or on the boss, really. You know. The big guy.” He looked up, indicating heaven. “I don’t think He’ll mind.”

“Oh, Jonathan,” she said, laughing. He loved the way she said his name. No one else said it that way. Like it was special. “You are so sweet. When everything was so bad with me last spring when . . . well, when it was the bad time for me, you were the only one who could make me laugh again. I don’t know what I would have done without you all these months.” As he passed her the cappuccino, her hand met his, and she allowed the touch to linger. “I am so glad to know you.”

“Oh,” he said, his heart speeding up a little.

This
was it, he thought. What Adam had been talking about . . . his chance to take the first step. Maybe he didn’t need a SuperStaker after all. Yalena had said she didn’t know what she’d have done without him. She thought he was sweet. He made her laugh. She was so glad to know him!

And her hand was still resting on his as they both held her drink.

His heart felt as if it were going to detonate inside his chest, it was so filled with joy . . . and nervousness.

Do it,
he said to himself.

“I feel the same way about you, Yalena,” he said. “You know, I was thinking maybe after our shifts, we could go to the San Gennaro Festival together, maybe grab a bite to—”

“Dude.”

Pink Popped Collar had gotten up and come over to the counter. “Can you turn up the sound?” He pointed at the TV.

Jon had never in his life felt so much like murdering someone. Especially since at that moment Yalena took her drink and set it down on the counter, breaking the contact between them.

“Uh,” Jon said. “No. That’s why the closed captioning is on. The sound disturbs the customers, who come here to enjoy a quiet break.”

Pink Popped Collar looked around the empty café. “
What
other customers? We’re the only ones in here. And we want to hear this. It’s a major breaking news story.” He turned to his friends. “Am I right?”

One of his friends—his polo was lime green—looked up from his computer screen. “Dude, screw that guy. I just found the live feed on the channel’s Web site.”

“Ha. Suck it, barista,” Pink Popped Collar said, and went back to his seat to turn up the sound on his laptop. From where Jon stood, he could hear only a tinny murmuring sound.

What assholes.

That’s all Jon could think.

Oh, sure, vampires bit you on the neck and sucked out your lifeblood. But at least they didn’t completely humiliate you in front of the girl you loved. They just killed you.

“Okay, Jon,” Yalena was saying. “Well, I—”

“Hey, you guys.”

Suddenly Jon’s sister Meena was standing at the counter beside Yalena, wearing dark sunglasses, an ancient T-shirt, and an even more ancient pair of jeans, topped off with a hooded sweatshirt tied around her waist. She had some sort of weird necklace on that Jon had never seen her wear before. It was unclear whether or not she’d witnessed the unpleasantness between Jon and his three customers, or if she had, whether it had registered. It hadn’t seemed to register with Yalena, who’d turned to give Meena a delighted hug.

“Oh, hi, Meena!” she cried. “How are you?”

“Hi,” Meena said, hugging Yalena back. “How have you been? You look great, as always.”

“Oh, thank you,” Yalena said. “You, too.”

Yalena was obviously only saying this to be nice, because Meena did not look great. She looked like she’d just crawled out of bed, pulled on the first items of clothing she could find, and come over. It was possible she hadn’t even showered, but Jon wasn’t sure.

She had the dog with her. He wasn’t supposed to allow people to bring their pets inside. There was a “No Pets” sign right on the door. Was everyone who came in here today—except Yalena, of course—just going to blatantly refuse to follow the rules?

“Uh, no, I don’t look great, Yalena,” Meena said with a laugh. “Thanks for being so sweet. I had a really bad night. Speaking of which, Jon, I was wondering if I could talk to you, in private? And could I get a large coffee, light, and one of those huge blueberry muffins?”

Jon wanted to say they were out of muffins so Meena would leave and he’d have a few more minutes alone with Yalena, but unfortunately there was a muffin sitting right under the glass case in front of her.

And he was pretty certain that after Yalena witnessed his humiliation by the Popped Collar Trio, he would never have another chance with her in a million years.

Plus, Meena had said she’d wanted to talk to him. In private.

Great. Now Yalena was going to leave.

It had never been fun having the You’re Gonna Die Girl as a sister, but he’d thought he’d gotten used to it, and had always had a pretty good sense of humor about it.

Until now.

“Sure,” he said, and bent to pull out the muffin, then fix Meena’s coffee.

“Well, I have to be opening the shop anyway,” Yalena said, smiling at them, “so I will see you. Thank you so much, again, Jonathan. And I would very much like to go to the San Gennaro Festival with you tonight. I will come here to meet you when I am done working. Bye bye!”

Jon, Meena’s cup of coffee in his hand, murmured, “Bye,” back to her, feeling like a man in a daze. He couldn’t believe his good fortune.

Yes. Incredibly, she’d said yes.

Everything was going to be all right. Everything was going to be fine.

He watched in shock as she walked past the table where the Popped Collar Trio was sitting, then disappeared out the door.

It was happening. He’d taken that first step. And she’d said yes!

Over at the table in front of the TV, the three guys in polo shirts had started snickering the minute Yalena had left. Jon wasn’t going to let them ruin his now joyous mood.

“Jon,” Meena said. “Listen. I know you’re good with computers. I was wondering if you could— ”

Behind her, the snickering continued.

“Excuse me,” Jon said, raising his voice as he thumped Meena’s coffee onto the counter. It didn’t slosh, because he’d put a lid on it.

“Jon,” Meena warned, with a quick look in the direction of the three dumb-asses. She’d pushed her sunglasses back onto her head, and Jon saw that though she’d made up her eyes, they were swollen and red-rimmed. He didn’t think it was from lack of sleep. “Let it go. I’ve got something more important we need to deal with right—”

“No,” he said to her. “You know what, Meena? I’ve let it go long enough. I’m done letting it go.” To the three douche bags, he called, “Hey, you guys. What’s so funny?”

“You,” Pink Popped Collar said, with a smirk.

“Really?” Jon felt the weight of the SuperStaker in his apron pocket. It—and the fact that Yalena had said yes—gave him confidence. “How so?”

“Jon,” Meena said. “Seriously. Something bad has happened. Really bad. We don’t have time to—”

“You think,” Pink Popped Collar said, “
you
have a chance with
her
?” He tilted his head in the direction of the door. He meant Yalena.

Lime-Green Popped Collar looked thoughtful. “He might,” he said, “if he makes a helluva a lot more later on today in tips than we gave him.”

This caused his companions to laugh so hard, they were forced to clutch the tabletop in front of them to keep from falling over.

Jon glanced at Meena in disbelief. “Did you hear what they just said?” he asked her.

“Yeah,” she said. Her eyes had gone to the flat-screen hanging above the guys’ heads. “Can you turn up the sound?”

“They just implied that Yalena would only go out with me if I pay her to,” Jon said, not sure she’d understood him. “Meaning they think Yalena is a
prostitute
.”

“Jon,” Meena said, her gaze still glued to the TV screen. “Seriously. You have no idea what is going on. Turn it up.”

“In a minute,” Jon said. “First I have to take care of something.”

He pulled the SuperStaker out of his apron pocket, then came out from behind the counter, walked up to the table where the three assholes were sitting, and said, “What was that you just said about my girlfriend?”

“Uh,” Pink Popped Collar said, looking up from his computer screen. “Is that a hair dryer?”

“It’s not a hair dryer,” Jon said. “Say hello to the SuperStaker. Now feel the burn.”