The Deadliest Bite

by Jennifer Rardin

  Now, I know I’m supposed to be supah-spy. Damn near invincible because nothing gets past my eagle eyes. But I’m giving myself a pass on this one. I’d been a little distracted with Aaron’s assassination attempt, Cole’s big news, and the arrival of my entire crew within the following twenty-four hours. Plus, Cassandra wore jewelry like at any minute she might be asked to trade it for food. Gold studs lined her ears, followed by hoops so huge that small bunnies could use them for collars. So many chains hung from her neck that I couldn’t imagine how she kept them from tangling into a huge gold coil. And each finger held at least two rings. Sometimes three.

  So I instantly forgave myself that I hadn’t noticed before as I said, “What the hell? Cassandra? Is Aaron right? Are you wearing a wedding ring?”

  I wished I could look into her eyes. Her skin is so dark I can never tell if she’s blushing, but by damn, if she’d ducked her head so that her braids fell across her fine, high cheekbones I’d have known the score. When she didn’t instantly reply I snapped, “Daz, you tell me the truth, dammit!”

  Using my old nickname on Dave worked. My twin said, “We were going to tell everybody when we came north. You know, throw a little party? But every time we see you you’re in the middle of some crisis.” His voice dropped. “Seriously, Jaz, you need to consider reprioritizing your life. You know, before you can’t outrun the fire anymore.”

  “Hey! Don’t try to deflect this on me. You got married and didn’t tell me!” I paused. “Or invite me!”

  Cassandra said, “Oh, Jasmine, I’m so sorry.” I could hear her tears even from this distance. Which was kinda weird. Usually she had better control of her emotions. I looked at Vayl, who nodded, and I suddenly realized how much my opinion of her mattered. What the fuck? She’s, like, 975 years older than me!

  Doesn’t matter, said Granny May, as she flipped over her project and took a step back to admire how it looked lying there all nicely framed on her dining room table. I was so shook I barely glanced at the tapestry she’d been sewing for the past several weeks. You saved her from Kyphas. She’s in love with your brother. She respects you. So quit acting like a douche before you break her heart!

  Gran, stop talking like Teen Me. I mean it. It’s just disturbing when you say words like “douche.”

  I wondered if all granddaughters had to put up with this kind of shit as my granny, still cackling, hung the tapestry on the wall above her gleaming mahogany buffet. And then I forgave her everything.

  Gran?

  She glanced at me over her shoulder, her eyes gleaming with the wisdom that only seems to come with age and daily doses of Geritol. What?

  We both looked up at her needlework, a project so detailed I could pick out the shadowy form of the earthbane that the cowboy Zell Culver had vanquished reflected in his clear brown eyes. She’d added details I hadn’t picked up the first time I’d seen him as a hologram playing from Astral’s projector. Then he’d been part of a report detailing everything she knew about the Rocenz.

  Now he wore a tooled leather band around the rim of his broadbrimmed hat, a plain brown long-sleeved shirt, and worn leather chaps over dark brown work pants stained with blood. Blood spattered his worn work boots, but they looked comfortable rather than ratty. His plain silver buckle closed on a gunfighter’s rig, but the holsters hanging from its belt were empty. His hands hung at his sides, each one holding half of the tool that had destroyed his monster and would, I hoped, someday kill mine. I suddenly felt like a tool myself.

  Gran, I whispered, mentally pointing at the picture. Zell Culver knows how to separate the pieces.

  Yes, she said. I know.

  But Astral said he was taken back to hell the day after he won.

  How convenient that you have to go there to beat Brude anyway.

  Silence. Not golden. But at least, finally, hopeful. Because now we didn’t have to force information from Roldan that he would never, even on pain of death, reveal. We had a source. A man who would, no doubt, happily share what he knew—if we could just find him.

  When I tuned back into Dave and my new sister, I didn’t have to fake the happiness in my voice as I said, “I’m just giving you guys a hard time because it’s so easy to do. Seriously, I just wish I had a big fat present to lay on you. Because we should be celebrating right now. And it sucks that I can’t do more than tell you how the rest of my life will be happier because you two are together now.”

  Now I could really hear Cassandra sobbing, and Dave telling her to get up here so he could give her a hug, and Raoul demanding that they both take care because these old buses didn’t drive themselves.

  Bergman leaned over to Cole. “Is she going to cry this whole trip?”

  “I heard that, Miles,” Cassandra warned him.

  “Sorry. I was just wondering. Because it upsets me when you cry. In fact, I liked it better when you were yelling at me all the time.”

  Cassandra laughed. “Then that’s how I’ll deal with my stress from now on.”

  “Good.”

  Vayl spoke up. “Now that we have that settled, we must attend to another problem. We are less than thirty minutes from our ultimate destination and we have not decided yet how the team is to be divided.”

  Another silence, this time more thoughtful than freaked.

  Raoul spoke up. “I think that’s because no one is perfectly clear on the details. All we know is that Dave is supposed to try to find Hanzi through contact with his remains. And you have a plan for Aaron that requires us to split up temporarily.”

  “Yes,” said Vayl. “I have thought this out carefully and discussed it at length with Jasmine. We believe one group of us can rescue Aaron Senior from the Thin while the other half accompanies David on his mission. Because we know time is of the essence now, for Hanzi’s sake, we can imagine no better way to do it.”

  I cleared my throat. “I think they want to know exactly how we mean to get it done.”

  Vayl turned clear blue eyes on mine. “We need at least one more person to join us in the Thin.”

  “We?” Raoul sounded slightly pissed. “What makes you think you can travel beyond?”

  Vayl said, “I already have.” His silence gave Raoul the chance to recall the time he’d allowed Vayl to enter into his realm. But even before that he’d come into the Thin with me. He’d gotten there through my dream, pulled by my will the same way I had been yanked there by Brude in the first place.

  I said, “Raoul? Can you send us there?”

  He said, “No. It’s not as easy as going through a plane portal. We always need scouts in place to help us find the holes to enter where we won’t be caught and instantly annihilated. It takes time and people, neither of which we have.”

  “So we go in guns blazing,” I suggested.

  He made a familiar sound, one that let me know he’d raised his hands to his head and shoved his walnut-tinged crew cut even more upright than usual. “I will go with you. But you have to believe it would be suicide to enter that way. We need to find another route. And, of course…” He paused so long that I realized he was trying to send me a silent message.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You shouldn’t go. Brude is trapped inside your head right now. What happens when you take him back to his base? I would expect him to gain strength. Maybe even enough to break free.”

  I considered the alternative. Let this part of the plan ride until after we’d found Hanzi and figured out how to extricate Aaron without any risk to me. Which meant, I had no doubt, that he’d try to kill Vayl again. Because there was something about the way his eyes shifted from his former father’s when they were together that told me he hadn’t revealed his whole story. He kept trying to distance himself from Vayl, and us, because he still believed the vampire needed to die.

  I said, “I have to go.” And not only because of that. Vayl and I knew one more detail about the Thin we hadn’t shared with the rest of the crew. One truth Brude had let slip during his incarceration in my
mind that I didn’t even think he realized I’d latched on to, because only recently had I realized its significance. Besides his little fiefdom there were twenty-three other realms in the Thin ruled by strong-willed souls such as himself. None of them had yet made plans to build their rulings into mini-hells and eventually dethrone Lucifer. Most of them, in fact, preferred to keep their nasties to themselves. But a few had already figured out Brude’s plans, those close enough to observe the growing menace that could only mean the eventual demise of their own kingdoms. And they had begun to fight him.

  I figured that’s why somebody upstairs had kept pounding the number twenty-three into my head. Because they were my potential allies, not only in this plan, but in ways I couldn’t yet fathom. Unfortunately, of those twenty-three, the ruler who was most accessible to us right now might also be the least likely to help us.

  Still studiously ignoring Vayl, Aaron asked, “If you rescue my dad—”

  “Make that a ‘we,’ Junior,” I said sharply. “You want this to happen, you’re taking the trip too.”

  To give him credit, he didn’t shy from the news. Just nodded and wiped the sweat off his brow as he finished his question. “Say we break him out of the Thin. What happens to him then?”

  Raoul said, “If you can rescue Aaron Senior, he’ll fly free.” Which should’ve been a relief to Aaron. So why could I sense his anxiety like it was a black and wriggling disease in his belly?

  Because I didn’t want him to catch on that I was catching on to him, I moved my attention back to my Spirit Guide. “Okay, so you have no scouts in the Thin. And it’s obvious you don’t want to drop in blind. So how the hell—”

  Vayl said, “Do not worry, Jasmine. Raoul will know exactly what to do when the time comes. Now, I believe our friends were asking for a detailed plan. Shall we let them know what we have decided?” When I nodded reluctantly, he held up a brochure. On the front was a picture of a palace that looked like it had been influenced by a German architect.

  “Pelisor Castle is situated quite close to Peles.” He turned the brochure over and displayed a map that Cole and Bergman managed to catch a glimpse of by leaning forward and holding on to Jack so he wouldn’t flop to the floor. “One of its former residents returns, from time to time, to remind its caretakers whom it really belongs to despite the fact that she has been dead for nearly seventy years. Jasmine and I are hopeful that she will help us find Aaron Senior.”

  “Assuming she spends time in the Thin at all,” Bergman said doubtfully. “How do you know she hasn’t hooked up with Brude?”

  Even Miles could detect Vayl’s smile when he replied. “This ghost was once the queen of Romania. A politically brilliant woman, Marie will not have lost her desire to rule. We believe she will have found in Brude an opponent, not an ally. In fact, we are quite certain of it.”

  “And you think she’ll want to help us?” asked Cole.

  Even Vayl couldn’t put one hundred percent certainty into his voice when he said, “If we can convince her it is in her best interest, yes, we believe so.”

  Dave spoke up. “So the four of you are going to jump into the Thin. That is, if Raoul can figure out a travel plan that won’t get you killed en route. Beautiful. And at the same time Bergman, Cole, Cassandra, and I are supposed to go ahead with plan B. You really want us to do that without you, Vayl?”

  My sverhamin stared at his clasped hands. “I believe it would be for the best.” Which meant, while he was all for Dave’s attempt, he wasn’t sure he could stand idly by while my brother defiled a sacred spot, even though his intentions were pure. Best for Vayl to make sure he never knew exactly how that scene had gone down.

  Dave got it too. I could tell by the way his voice had roughened when he said, “Good enough. You don’t even have to give us an exact location. All you have to do is get us close and—” He paused, and I heard Cassandra whisper something in a comforting tone. “Yeah,” he went on, more definitely. “I can find the grave sites. I seem to have a way of homing in on cemeteries now.”

  I thought Dave was done then. He’d spoken words that were so hard for both Vayl and himself to hear that I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear nothing but his breathing the rest of the way to Pelisor. Then he said, “You’re sitting very still inside that car, Vayl. Do you trust us to do the right thing?”

  Vayl’s hands tightened around each other. Then he turned so he could see my twin, driving remarkably well behind us despite the fact that minis kept insisting on darting between us. He said, “You are the brother of my heart.”

  If I’d tried a line like that Cole would’ve slumped to the floor, passed out from laughing so hard, leaving Jack flustered and confused as Bergman rolled his eyes in disgust and Dave tried desperately not to wreck the bus from his own inability to control his hysterical response. But since it came from the vampire, everybody understood. He’d just handed over half of his life’s quest to Dave because he considered him family. And that’s what brothers do.

  Dave held his fist up and pushed it toward Vayl. “We’ll find your boy,” he vowed.

  “We’ll find him,” confirmed Cole as he steadily scratched Jack’s head. “But where exactly are we starting?” He glanced away from Bergman’s tinkering with Astral to peer down the rutted asphalt road, which was now far enough from the city for only sporadic traffic, all of which seemed to be passing us.

  “We will stop at Peles Castle first. Your group will begin its mission from there,” said Vayl. “The castle was not yet built when my family and I traveled this area, but it works as a fine landmark. Walk into the forest directly north of the tallest spire. The pines are quite dense around the castle, so it will not be easy to find the path, but I was here a month ago and cleared it myself. So once you find it, rest assured it will lead you to the spot.”

  “You can count on us,” said Dave.

  Vayl inclined his head slightly as he said, “Just be careful. I would hate for this entire mission to fail because someone”—he raised his eyebrow a bit at Cole—“decided to see how the local security detail felt about chattering vampire teeth.”

  Cole crossed his heart solemnly as he said, “I will keep my fake fangs in my pocket until the deed is done.” He wiggled his eyebrows at Vayl. “Now you try to do the same, okeydokey, sweetie pie?”

  I’d never thought I would see the day when Vayl rolled his eyes like an irate ninth grader, but then Cole manages to bring out the juvie in all of us sooner or later. Which was probably why we were all still relatively sane. Cassandra rescued the conversation by asking, “What will you be doing while we’re trying to find Hanzi?”

  Vayl explained how he and I, plus Aaron and Raoul, would be driving my Galaxie back to Peles Castle. He looked like he wanted to say more, but he sat back and let his arm fall into his lap. “Best of luck to all of us. And please remember, I am trying to save my children. I would be eternally grateful if, this time, you helped me succeed.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Saturday, June 16, 10:30 p.m.

  After doing another Party Line sound check at Bergman’s insistence, we separated at the car park of Peles Castle. Since security would come to investigate us within two to three minutes, we pulled out of the lot together, but Dave parked on the shoulder of the road just outside of Peles, turned on his emergency blinkers, and left the bus open in case somebody decided to investigate.

  I drove the Galaxie to Pelisor so quickly I barely had time to wonder what the rest of our crew was doing, or why Astral wasn’t feeding me any video. Then I realized she was, she just happened to be looking at the grass as she walked, because every once in a while I could see one of her paws step into the picture. Then a huge pink tongue slurped across her nose. Way to go, Jack! Keep that robokitty on her toes—not to mention all the humans who sometimes need to be reminded that the most important things in life are big, wet kisses.

  I glanced at Vayl, wondering if I should lay one on him. Definitely soon, I decided, as I brought my car to res
t in a small park where, during the daytime, visitors might stop and have lunch before returning to the nearest city, which called itself Sinaia and catered to skiers, hikers, rock climbers, and people who’d convinced themselves the mineral springs were actually the Fountain of Youth.

  Tourists got a huge kick out of the castles, of course, and in the daytime Pelisor’s little nook of Romania looked like it had been peeled off a painting, with bright green grass and dark green pines forming a small break in the endless roll of the Carpathian Mountains. Pelisor itself was kinda homey for a castle, which had been the intent of its first owner, King Carol I. The main reason, I decided, was the hodgepodge of materials that had been used to build the place.

  The foundation was formed from traditional gray castle stone. It was topped by German-cottage-style gables, with medieval church archways and turrets that looked pink in some lights and sandy brown in others pinched between. Topped by so many russet-colored roofs that it seemed as if the place had been built in sections and superglued together, it confused the hell out of my white-siding senses. And yet it worked.

  I almost regretted getting past the caretaker so easily. Despite Raoul’s tour-guide costume, the slope-shouldered old gent hadn’t fallen for our American-VIPs story at first. Then Vayl had laid a gentle arm around his shoulder, looked deep into his eyes, and spoken to him in his own tongue while shoving hypnotic suggestions down his throat. He’d instantly dropped a handful of castle maps into our hands and shuffled away, twitching like he was trying to shake a persistent mosquito. I found myself wishing he’d fought Vayl’s push a little harder. Then I wouldn’t have had to face the gilding so soon.

  “Oh. My. God.” I stopped three steps into the Gold Room, where Queen Marie’s ghost appeared the most, forcing Aaron to backpedal so he wouldn’t slam into me. His curse drew itself out when he got a load of our new surroundings.

  “Shee-it!” he said, sliding past me to wander around the room’s edge, slowly, like he had to get his bearings or he just might get lost amid the glitter. Raoul had stationed himself near the center by a chaise longue draped with black lace. It was in startling contrast to the rest of the space, which shone with the color of power. Not purple. Nuh-uh. I’ve-got-a-Golden-Ticket gold.