The Deadliest Bite

by Jennifer Rardin

  I wanted to call my dad. And, more urgently, go to my brother. Lend him a shoulder. But I knew he needed to stand on his own. Just speaking, knowing I heard without judging, would push him closer to healing than anything else I could do at this moment. So I sat without blinking as he said, “The grave had the right name, and the date of death lined up with when we’d last lost contact. But our psychics are the best in the country. So we dug for proof. Halfway to the body I started to feel sick. Because the corpse was talking to me. Whispering foul suggestions from inside its rotting skull. It patted my head and kissed my cheeks like a loving father, and then told me how if I killed all the men in my unit I’d live forever in heaven with seventy virgins at my service. At the same time I felt like the sound was coming from outside the corpse. So I followed it, you know, mentally. I traveled through every dead donkey and half-eaten carcass I could find along the path it took until I saw a fifteen-year-old boy preaching in this imam’s name.”

  “Instant reintegration of the soul into a new body,” Raoul murmured. “That never happens. Unless the dying imam called upon some powerfully foul magicks.”

  “I have no doubt about it,” Dave replied. “This kid knew he was the reincarnation of the old imam. He was able to access this guy’s wisdom and direct his evil plans without admitting it to anyone. You wouldn’t think older guys would listen to him, but his charisma was already off the charts.” Dave nodded. “I’ve convinced my superiors to let us go after him next.”

  Cassandra’s hand clenched into a fist. An instant of intense worry aged her face by twenty years. Then it passed and she smiled up at him proudly as he said, “I think I can do the same sort of thing for you, Vayl. If we visit your son’s grave and I can reach down to his body, I’ll be able to communicate with what’s left there. It should be able to lead me to its new form.”

  Bergman spoke up. He’d maintained a stoic silence since arriving to find Astral displaying a new symptom at the edge of the front lawn. He’d given her the ability to transform so that she looked like a little black blob. That way she could slide under doors and into air vents when the situation called for extreme secrecy. Except now she’d begun morphing randomly, sliding into molehills and snake holes, killing the inhabitants and piling up her prizes at the front door like UPS packages from Stephen King’s nightmares.

  Now he said, “I’m not sure it’ll be that easy, Dave. I mean, I’m sorry to bring up a painful subject, Vayl, but when were your sons killed?”

  “Seventeen fifty-one,” he said shortly.

  “Nearly two hundred and sixty years ago,” Bergman said, doing the mental calculations so quickly I’d have wondered if he’d inserted a computer chip in his brain if I hadn’t heard him whine about wanting one on a regular basis since college. “Plus we aren’t generally aware of our connections to our past lives. That would make Dave’s search even harder.”

  “Dude, you have a way of crushing a whole room and then promising us Disney World,” said Cole.

  Bergman raised a finger. “But there’s an unless.”

  “Unless what?” Dave asked.

  Our theorist started playing with the hem of his sweater, stretching it nearly to his knees (which, I realized, might be why he was the only guy in America who wore sweaters in mid-June) as he said, “Well, I’m just throwing this out there, okay?”

  “Go on,” said Vayl.

  “You said Astral had organized every scene she could access that involved a fall, or someone flying through the air, right?”

  “Pretty much,” I said.

  “She’s overloading, probably getting excess stimulation somewhere in her temporal lobe.”

  “Wait a second.” I realized I’d raised both hands. “You gave the robokitty a brain? With lobes?”

  Bergman grimaced. “It’s so close there’s no point in splitting hairs. Or, in this case, subatomic particles. Which would lead to a really beautiful but destructive explosion. Which is kind of what I think will happen with Dave. Too much information at such a speed that he’ll never be able to process it. So what I suggest is that I program Astral to act as his filter. Her Enkyklios contains Vayl’s file. What if I tinkered with that? Made it into more of a sound barrier that Dave could listen through. Hopefully it would muffle all the lives Hanzi has lived in the years since his death as Vayl’s son, and Dave won’t get lost in all the decades that he’s lived between then and now.”

  “That’s not possible. Is it?” It was Aaron, leaning forward, looking from Bergman to Dave and back again like they’d just thrown off their disguises and revealed their superhero costumes.

  Bergman’s face took on that pinched look that meant he didn’t want to explain anything, including why he continued to wear extralarge sweaters and ripped jeans when he was easily pulling in a six-figure income. But for once, maybe because of the mix of cynicism and hope in Aaron’s voice, he bent his cardinal rule. “The Enkyklios is more than a library. The Sisters of the Second Sight are born with special powers, and when they record the stories, they can’t help but imbue those records with bits of their own essence. Combine those with a catastrophic event like blowing Astral’s head off, and you end up with something unique. So much so that calling her a robot would be like referring to the pyramids as a collection of stone coffins. So yeah.” He turned his concentration to Dave now. “I think you might be able to use her. Especially if—” He stopped now, every drop of color draining from his face as his eyes darted to Vayl and then dropped to the floor.

  My little buddy had built himself an actual spine over the past few months. But I’d seen psychopaths grovel at Vayl’s feet, and all he’d had to do was take one menacing step forward. “What is it you want of me?” he asked.

  Bergman’s words came out strained, like he’d just gotten over a bad case of laryngitis. “It would help if you filled in the blanks in your file where Hanzi is concerned. Just, you know, talk about what was important to him. What he enjoyed. Also what scared him and even what he hated. Strong emotions are the most likely to follow us through our lives. And…” Bergman licked his lips. “I don’t know if it’s in there. But you should talk about how he died. I understand it was violent, and from what I hear, those are the memories that come back to haunt us most.”

  Vayl sat back so slowly it became obvious that he was forcing himself not to leap out of his seat and turn the coffee table on its side. I realized I must’ve been the only one in the room who knew that his sons had been shot by a farmer while they were returning a wagon they’d stolen from him.

  I watched the memories leap behind his eyes, as new and raw as if they’d happened that morning, and said, “Vayl.” I put my hand on his arm. His muscles were so tightly coiled I could feel every ridge and outline. “It’s over.” His eyes, the black of a funeral carriage, met mine and understood that I knew his pain, because sometimes I still walked that path reliving Matt’s death. I nodded to Aaron. “I know how hard it must be for you to turn the corner after spending most of your life running toward the same goal. But you’re here. You made it. Now it’s about him.” I pointed to Astral. “And it’s about Hanzi, whoever he’s become. These are innocent people caught up in our disaster because a couple hundred years ago they happened to know you. We’ve gotta dig them out.”

  Vayl looked at Aaron like he’d never seen him before. “I will do everything I can for you.”

  Junior sat back, his hands falling away from each other like he wanted to beg for an explanation but knew he wouldn’t understand. Still he said, “But. You’re a vampire. Who I just tried to kill.”

  Cole sat forward and slapped him on the knee. “Don’t feel too bad about your big fail, dude. People try to kill Vayl all the time. It’s kind of a cult project that nobody’s ever been able to complete. I hear they’ve designed a patch for the winner and everything.” He grinned at Vayl, who responded with a smile that made Aaron’s eyes pop.

  Raoul nodded toward me as he told Vayl, “Just because we prevented Aaron from followin
g through doesn’t mean you’ll head off the next assassin. Which means you’ll need good people around you until this whole issue is resolved. I think I should stay until this story has spun itself out.”

  Vayl raised his eyebrows so high that his eyes actually widened as he gazed at my Spirit Guide. “You—want to help me?”

  Raoul shrugged a shoulder. “You’ve earned it.”

  That was all. But coming from an Eldhayr it meant more than a thousand words because it pointed so directly at one: “Redemption.” Vayl reached across the table and leaned forward enough for Raoul to meet him halfway and give him a powerful handshake that was as much an affirmation of Vayl’s future as it was a contract.

  Raoul sat back, relaxing into a smile as he added, “Besides. I’m probably in so much trouble already that by the time I get back they’ll have demoted me to a desk piled with charts and raw data.”

  “Is it that bad?” I asked.

  He shook his head, but he said, “There’s a reason some of the Eminent call me an interfering old hen.” He held up his hand when I started to apologize. After all, I was the one who kept demanding that he get his ass front and center before my world swirled back into the crapper. “I’m a big boy, Jasmine. I make my own choices, and I stand by every one of them.”

  “Then I hope you enjoy flying.” Everyone stared at Vayl. Especially Jack, who’d rather spend the day getting rabies shots than take another ride on one of those gigantic birds whose wings never ever flapped.

  Vayl nodded decisively. “We must go to Romania. That is where the bodies of my boys are buried. Once we are there, David will try to reach the soul of Hanzi.”

  “What about me?” Aaron had leaped to his feet, his arms outstretched in one of those how-dare-you-forget-me gestures that always made me want to kick people in the ribs.

  Vayl’s eyes glittered so brightly that Junior immediately dropped his hands as his former father said, “I have a plan for you as well.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Saturday, June 16, 8:45 p.m.

  We are expert travelers. Together Vayl and I have hit so many different countries our passports look like a little girl’s sticker book. We’ve flown over oceans, deserts, mountains, and swamps. You’d think a little trip to Romania would pull itself together in a matter of hours. Um, no.

  Romania is not so simple to reach from America. You’ve gotta fly into a much more popular destination first. Say London or Paris. Then there’s the train. And, after that, even more transportation to arrange, since not everybody would fit into my shiny black 1963 Ford Galaxie. And I was damned if I was going to leave my baby home after Vayl had promised me I’d never have to drive a shit-sucking rental again.

  Also we had a huge group to deal with. I felt like a damn travel agent keeping track of Dave and Cassandra, who needed privacy whenever possible, and Bergman, who demanded special dispensation for his electronics. Cole and Raoul were easygoing enough, but Aaron flipped out at the idea of eating “foreign” food, which was when we learned of his long list of dislikes. This seemed to include everything but peanut butter and chocolate. No wonder he looked like somebody had stuck an air pump under his skin and inflated him to double his natural size. And then there were the animals, who absolutely refused to travel in cargo. Vayl finally gave up, chartered his own plane, arranged for a tour bus to meet us in Bucharest, and shipped the Galaxie via some top secret transport the details of which none of us were privy to because that’s how shit gets done in DC.

  Although Raoul made Jack jealous by doting on Astral, Bergman accidentally caught Dave and Cassandra in the sauna, which grossed him out so much that he threatened to go home, and Cole made Aaron scream like a little girl by slipping his clanking vamp teeth into his shower, Vayl finally herded us all onto the plane two nights later. And after traveling so long that I considered shooting every single member of my party, including those I loved the most, we finally arrived in the brightly lit city that had once sparkled like a gem among the mountains and hills that surrounded it.

  Bucharest had style, it just couldn’t decide what kind. An eclectic mix of classic French architecture, modern skyscrapers, and decrepit old hulks ready to tumble into the street during the next big earthquake, it couldn’t seem to shake the shadow of Communism that had tried to hammer it senseless for so many years. And yet I loved the place. Because it, and its people, had figured out how to survive. And more, because they’d finally stood up to their twisted government and yelled, “Bullshit!” So whenever I saw a couple holding hands or a family sauntering down the sidewalk, I waved respectfully as I drove down wide black boulevards that reminded me bizarrely of streets I’d navigated in St. Louis. That is, except for the metal fence that marched down the median. And the sad lack of shapely automobiles to keep mine company. (Note to European automakers: Square sucks. Pass it on.)

  Vayl sat in the front of the car with me, listening to the Galaxie’s engine thrum like the bass of our favorite song. Cole and Bergman lounged in the back with Jack draped across their laps as if he’d decided they might get cold without his kind assistance. Their heads were bent over Astral, whose fur was split from neck to ears so Bergman could see better as he tinkered, using the miniature tool set he stored in his front pocket. None of us discussed the sights as we headed out of the city, north toward Peles Castle and the woods surrounding. Because we knew that somewhere inside the trees on the distant horizon, Vayl had buried his sons. And how do you make small talk about a minaret-roofed museum with that thought dangling at the front of your mind?

  Eventually I’d be there for Vayl. Maybe even figure a way to talk to him about it. But for now I had to concentrate on getting my old girl through traffic that didn’t seem to include a single trained driver who cared if he or she survived to get to the dance club. Except, maybe, for Dave, who was piloting the monstrosity behind us.

  I touched the tiny plastic receiver stuck just inside my ear. I’d be able to hear anything going on in the vehicle behind us because Bergman had provided enough of the Party Line sets to go around the whole group. The microphones, which looked like beauty marks, rested on different parts of our faces. Mine was just to the right of my upper lip. Vayl said it made him want to nibble on me, so I had sworn never to wear it anywhere else. The rest of the crew wore theirs near their mouths as well, except for Cole, who insisted that his should rest on the inner curve of his nose until he could find a nymph to pierce it, and then it could become part of the nose ring. Nymphpiercings, he’d said, were lucky, but I hadn’t been able to ask him why at the time. And now didn’t seem quite the moment either, so I put it off again. But I suddenly realized that somebody needed to say something. The silence was diving too deep.

  I glanced at Vayl, wondering if he understood that, as in every other mission with potentially dire consequences, we needed this downtime to unclench if we were going to operate on all cylinders when it mattered most. He’d lived a long time. Surely he understood why people needed to banter, tease, and, yeah, laugh. Sometimes even when they were at wakes.

  As he had so often in the past, Vayl touched his eyes to mine, sensed the direction of my thoughts, and turned slightly so my brother could see his half-smile as he said, “David? The quiet is disturbing in that children-are-up-to-no-good sort of way. Is everything going all right back there?”

  “So far so good,” my brother replied. “Except I think Raoul is chafing. We may have to stop for baby powder.”

  “I don’t need powder!” Raoul exclaimed.

  I looked in the rearview mirror at the vehicle following us and shook my head yet again. Where Vayl had scrounged the 1968 Volkswagen bus I didn’t dare ask. But I did make a mental note never to let him near the Internet again. It had come equipped with a microphone because it actually had been a touring vehicle. Which worked for our cover. So we’d dressed Raoul in a party big in little paris T-shirt and stiff new blue jeans and informed him he was our guide. Then we’d had to tell him to at least try to look relaxed. For his sa
ke I regretted the necessity of asking him to shuck his uniform, but it’s kind of tough to pull off the whole tour group disguise when the guy who’s supposed to be showing you around Romania is dressed like a commando.

  Despite the difficulty of steering the hefty vehicle through streets as busy as midtown Chicago, Dave managed the time to say, “Relax, Raoul! You look fabulous.” He switched to the fashionista voice he used when he really wanted to make Albert crazy. “Those pants make your tush look like two ripe cantaloupes. Just so squeezable you’re gonna make all the boys swoon.”

  I grinned as Cole broke into peals of laughter behind me. I heard a clunk, which I imagined was Raoul dropping his head against the window as he moaned, “You people are insane. Even you, Cassandra. No, don’t sit there trying to look innocent. I know sooner or later you’re going to open up that giant bag of yours—what is it made of, Christmas beads?—and something alien is going to pop out that you’re going to expect me to kill.”

  Cassandra chuckled. “Well, I have noticed things seem to be moving around in there on their own.” Squeaky sound as she moved in her seat. “What do you think, Aaron? Is my lovely beaded purse haunted?”

  “If it’s not now, it probably will be before this is all over.” Gah. Leave it to Junior to spread dread all over the happy moment.

  “That’s not necessarily true,” said Cassandra. Her voice, calm and smooth as a lake at sunrise, soothed me even from this distance.

  But Aaron said, “Don’t touch me! I know you’re a psychic—hey! I thought you said you were engaged. That’s a wedding ring on your finger!”

  Silence. The kind you get after you’ve stood next to the speakers at a rock concert. Ear-ringing, head-shaking silence.