by Judy Teel
"More pissed off than anything, but he's processing it."
"And it's really over? We kept Aedodra from manifesting?"
"Not we. You." He wrapped his arms around me and hugged me like his life depended on it.
After a few moments indulging in the luxurious novelty of feeling safe and protected, I wedged some space between us and slid off of his lap. "This choir boy getup is starting to itch. I'm getting my clothes."
I knew I was avoiding telling him that he was getting to me, but I couldn't help it. Acknowledging that I was coming to care about him was still terrifyingly new. I needed time to get used to it.
Scrambling up, I padded over to the duffle bag, giving Marla's body a wide birth. Her hunger for revenge and dominating others had made her vulnerable to Aedodra's manipulation. I didn't feel sorry for her because of it, and I couldn't feel sad that she'd died. But I'd seen too much death in too short a time to not feel a little sick over it.
I made a quick check of my gun and laid it aside along with my knives. Taking the empty vials of vamp blood out of the bag, I dug past Marla's clothes and found mine at the bottom sitting on top of my boots. She'd been organized, I'd give her that.
Turning my back to Cooper, I slipped my jeans on under the robe. "How did you find me? And how did you know about Falcon?"
"After you left the station, I decided to check the bar one more time," Cooper said, "on the slim chance that we'd missed someone who might have seen Sean leaving alone like the real Kathy claimed."
"When did you figure out the switch?" I picked up my tank top and turned to see where Cooper was. He stood at the far end of the cave and was finishing keying in something on his iC.
"Not long after that," he said, giving his attention to the glyphs on the back wall, "and if you don't quit interrupting me, I'll stop pretending to be a gentleman and turn around."
My cheeks grew warm. I pulled off the robe and shrugged into my tank top as quickly as I could.
"I found a busboy who was ducking out for a smoke break when the real Marla, posing as Kathy, started some heavy flirting with Sean. The kid saw them leave out the back entrance. The one that goes to the alley."
"Marla was the woman you smelled in the hall? That must have been when she drugged him."
"I realized that she'd also used some of her 'forget' mojo on the other bartender and maybe a few patrons like she did on the day guard at Morrocroft. She hadn't noticed the busboy, so he never got zapped. I got suspicious and ran a background check on her. That's when I discovered the ID switch."
I put the robe in the duffle bag and pulled on my boots. It felt great to be back in my own gear again.
"I got worried, so I followed you to Falcon's," Cooper said. "Are you decent yet? I'm getting bored."
"Yeah. You can turn around."
He did and ambled toward me, stopping on the other side of Marla's body. I slipped my knives into the hidden sheaths in my boots and considered Cooper's story so far. "Did Falcon tell you what else he'd found?"
"He showed me the information on the ceremonies and what he thought was about to happen."
I straightened up and strapped the Browning's holster around my waist and thigh. "But I still don't know how you found me. The Were killing grounds are almost forty miles from town."
"I bummed a ride in a helicopter and followed your signal."
I froze, and then outrage slowly seeped into my brain. "What?" I ground out.
"Every iC has a tracker on it. Standard safety measure," he said, completely unconcerned that he'd trampled all over the boundaries of my privacy.
"You put a bug on me?"
He studied Marla's body. "What do you know about how to make a vampire?"
I narrowed my eyes at him and tried to accept that putting a tracker on me without my knowledge was a subject for another time. "It's something about blood transfusions that replace the healthy blood with the tainted, but other than that..." I angrily snapped the last clip on my holster and reached for my gun. "Why?"
"Something about this corpse doesn't smell right..."
I turned and stared down at the body. A chill ran over me. "What time is it?"
"11:07, why?"
"Because I'm not sure that—"
Marla's eyes snapped open.
I jumped back, stumbling over the overturned goblet in my haste. My stomach somersaulted in on itself and horror froze my blood as the milky-white of the body's irises faded into fathomless, ancient black.
CHAPTER TEN
Whatever the hell Marla had become pushed itself into a sitting position and turned its head slowly in my direction. The mouth opened, showing narrow snake-like fangs, and Aedodra's smooth, beautiful voice spoke from it.
"Perfect," he said. He stretched his neck and then rolled his shoulders, making the body's full breasts rise and fall as the vertebrae along its back cracked. "In this form, my brother will never see me coming."
Easing my gun out of its holster, I pushed down the nausea cramping my stomach and slid back a step. We had four minutes to save the world. I planned to make the most of it.
"Bullets won't affect me," Aedodra said, and Marla's pouty mouth stretched into a self-satisfied smile. "I'm dead, remember?"
"You mean Marla's dead."
"Which makes her the perfect vessel for my existence in this realm."
"Cooper, don't!" I shouted, instinctively moving to intercept him, but I was too late.
Aedodra sprang up, dodged Cooper's lunge and slammed the body's heel into the side of Cooper's knee. The hideous pop of the joint was sharp and final and the leg buckled.
Aedodra laughed and circled Cooper as he writhed on the floor. "The first delicious bite of revenge in my banquet."
Cooper shot his hand toward Aedodra's ankle, but the Indonesian god danced out of the way, his expression filled with delight.
"When I break your other knee, you won't be so lively," he said. "Then I shall snap your neck or perhaps slowly crush your head while you scream—one less creature of my sister's making to pollute my new kingdom." He stalked toward Cooper.
I shot a bullet into the body's stomach, and it staggered back from the impact. I fired again and ran to Cooper's side, putting myself between him and Aedodra.
"You can't kill me, halfling. When the doors open and release my full being into this body, I will be complete. This vessel will become an immortal form that is stronger than you can ever imagine."
"Two minutes," Cooper ground out. "In two minutes...the blending...will be done."
I studied Marla's body. Almost vamp, but not quite. Dead, but possessed by a powerful entity who would have full access to his powers in a matter of minutes. There was only one possible way I might be able to stop him, and I wasn't sure it would work.
I pressed my thumb to the hidden button above the grip of my Browning. I didn't know how full the vial I needed was, but I prayed it would be enough.
Aedodra braced Marla's legs apart and settled her fists on her generous hips. "What will my brother offer for you, I wonder," he said looking at me like I was a prize poodle in a dog show. "I had thought to devour you, but now I see that turning you into my servant would be a vastly sweeter revenge. I will send you to him as the first child from this form. One of my eternal creatures of night and blood. Then we will destroy him."
"Don't count on it," I snarled. I pulled the trigger twice in quick succession and then twice more, spraying needles into his upper body.
The impact was nothing like a bullet and Aedodra looked down, Marla's girlish face drawn into a puzzled frown. He reached up and pulled one of the needles from the base of his throat. He examined it, cocking his head in curiosity.
"One minute," Cooper said. His voice had faded to a whisper filled with agony.
"Is this what your race calls a joke?" Aedodra said, holding up the thin, hollow dart.
He was too strong. It wasn't enough. My hope faded, but I fired one more shot anyway, emptying the arming chamber. If we were goi
ng to die, at least I'd know that I'd given it everything I had.
The air around Marla's body started to shimmer like heat waves on the road in the summer. "You're too late, niece," Aedodra crowed triumphantly. "Your attempts to stop me have failed. I am finally free."
"It's started," Cooper said.
I glanced at him and our eyes met. "I'm sorry," I whispered.
Then the god's eyes went wide, and he peered at the dart still pinched between his thumb and forefinger. "What have you done?" he gasped.
I tried not to hope. We could still be too late. But I wondered if there was a chance now, even if it was a small one. In five seconds we'd know, one way or the other.
Marla's dead hands clutched at her chest and then her stomach. "What did you do!" Aedodra shouted. His eyes blazed with fury and panic.
"Four seconds," I said.
He came at me, hands outstretched like he'd done in the entrapment circle. "I'll kill you!"
I side-stepped and he stumbled past like a drunk. "Three seconds. Cue the burning."
Smoke started coming out of the body's nose, mouth and ears. The skin bubbled and turned black in patches that spread rapidly across the arms and neck of the corpse.
"You aren't in time!" Aedodra shouted and a hysterical laugh rolled from the corpse's mouth as the lips burned away. "In moments I'll transform this vessel. It will be stronger, faster, smarter than any creature in this pathetic realm."
"Two."
Muscles dissolved in patches and smoke poured out of the ragged gaps as the poison destroyed the vampire blood filling Marla's body. The legs gave out and it collapsed to the stone floor like a puppet that had suddenly had its strings cut.
"Take cover," I said to Cooper, and I turned to shield him, wrapping my arms over my head. "One!"
Behind me Aedodra screamed, a near sonic noise that blasted through the cave. Dust and gravel showered down around us followed by a wet, hollow explosion. A heartbeat of silence and then a sharp spike of sound shot at us like giant hands being clapped together, or as I thought later, like a door being slammed shut in someone's face.
The dust cleared, and I turned around. All that was left of Marla's body was a patch of oily, black soot on the stone. The blood symbols were nothing but smudges of ash both on the floor and the back of the cave.
Cooper looked up at me with silver-green eyes full of pain, but also of pride. "Two seconds to spare. That was exciting."
I pulled in a long breath, savoring the deep, satisfying calm that settled over me. I don't know how I knew, but I did with a certainty that resonated through my soul.
We'd won. Aedodra was gone.
* * *
The call Cooper had placed had been to his pack. Just as I was trying to figure out how to get a crippled man who was three times my weight up and through several acres of woods teeming with hostile Weres, we had company. An imposing guy with hair like Cooper's, his same dazzling good looks but mellowed by maturity, and eyes the color of polished gold appeared at the entrance with a muscled, grim-faced retinue.
He took one look at Cooper and motioned to the other men. The three biggest of them carefully picked up the wounded Were and took him out of the cave. The remaining four surrounded me. We trailed behind the others in silence, tromping along about a half mile of passages before emerging into an apparently deserted forest. A mile later we reached a string of black SUVs lined up at the edge of the park.
Cooper, his group and three from my escort went into two of the cars and pulled away. A driver and I went into another, and I was taken back to town.
I messaged Cooper several times the next day, but he either ignored me or had been put under some kind of you-must-rest Were lockdown. Our unfinished business would have to wait, and it was probably for the best. He needed to heal, and in painful unseen ways, so did I.
I spent the morning cleaning my apartment and then lay on the couch to think while Wizard sprawled across my stomach purring. I knew Aedodra probably wasn't gone for good. From what little I knew about ancient gods, they never seemed to really die, they just faded into mythology.
But I was certain we'd managed to lock him back into his own world and at least temporarily ruin his chances of getting into ours. What bothered me was all the strange things he'd said. The more I mulled over the experience and tried to piece things together, the less complacent I felt.
Aedodra had used the term "children" and "creations" too many times to discount. What did it mean? Was the vampire race his descendants?
He'd seemed to despise Cooper and for no other reason than what he was. Had Aedodra's brother, the one he claimed still lived in our world, created the Were race? And what of the sister mentioned? Were practitioners hers? No, that didn't quite fit. The Weres' deity was a goddess. Diana to be precise. The lineage must be the other way around. The sister had made the Were clans and the brother the practitioners.
My head started aching, and I stroked my hand down Wizard's silky back to ease the tension tightening in my stomach. Either way, I had a bad feeling that I had more than one insane god to worry about, which begged an answer as to why Aedodra had called me his niece.
Was he manipulating me like he had Marla, planting a seed to make me feel special so he could leverage it later for his own purposes? Or had he meant it?
And what could explain the strange power that had come from me. I'd tried a half dozen times to call it up again and failed. Had it been an illusion? Just another manipulation?
Worst of all, what was I going to do about the real Kathy? She was living on borrowed time now. With Marla dead, my chances of proving to Bellmonte that she was innocent were zero. Yet, I couldn't stand by and watch him destroy her.
I eased Wizard off of my stomach and sat up. I needed a strong bargaining chip...something that would mean more to Bellmonte than revenge against the real Kathy. Information that could give the vampire an advantage over his superiors—always a big deal for their kind. But what? What could I offer? Staring down at my hands, I went over everything Aedodra had said again. A flicker of hope flared in my chest.
Maybe I did have something.
* * *
That night, I paid Bellmonte another visit.
I was disarmed, endured a pat down, a scan and another pat down in the lobby. It took twenty minutes to convince them I needed my iC with me, and I almost failed, but finally they cleared it—after a thorough going over with the scanner.
When I reached the reception area his new secretary, a tall, short-haired brunette woman in her thirties who looked like she might eat young children for breakfast, thrust a bundle of folded clothes at me and pointed to the executive bathroom off to the side.
The only thing she said was "Everything off." I didn't like stripping down to skin, but I couldn't blame Bellmonte for his caution. After all, I'd established a reputation for pulling dangerous weapons out of unexpected places. If I wanted to negotiate, I'd have to play it his way for now.
I returned for inspection, wearing a designer silk sheath that came to mid-thigh and nothing else. I knew the crimson color of the dress made my pale skin glow and brought out the sapphire blue of my eyes because I'd stared at myself in the full-length mirror and wondered what Cooper would think if I ever wore something like this. There'd also been a gold link choker interspersed with a dozen dark stones wrapped in tissue paper, but I'd left it on the counter.
After I'd gained the scary lady's approval, I headed for Bellmonte's office, my bare feet not even making a whisper of sound on the thick, soft carpet. To my relief, I found him seated behind his desk looking calm and debonair in a gray pinstripe that brought out his eyes and fit him like only custom-made clothing can.
His cool gaze raked over me, and I caught a spark of appreciation in his eyes before he hid it. For a vamp, he sure was emotional.
"Where is the Buccellati?" he asked.
"Huh?"
He looked tempted to roll his eyes. "The necklace. Purchased especially for you."
"It looks like a dog collar."
His eyes darkened, whether with anger or something else, I couldn't be sure. "Exactly."
I stared at him for a moment. "I went along with your little dress up game as a gesture of goodwill. Now, I'm getting impatient."
He narrowed his eyes and I definitely saw some anger in there.
"I came here to bargain, not fight," I said, dropping the smart ass tone from my voice.
Bellmonte steepled his fingers together and tapped them against his chin. After a moment, the fury in his eyes settled back into his usual predatory iciness. "Are you returning what you stole from me?" he said, his voice deceptively calm.
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. "Dumb, but not that dumb. This is something new. Kind of a good news, bad news situation."
"Now who's playing games?"
"The good news is I found out who attacked Danny and killed all those people."
Interest flared across his face.
"The bad news is she's dead. Not even a body left."
"The woman you arrested is dead?"
"She's not the murderer." I held up the iC. "I put it all in a file. What happened, what we discovered and how it went down." I was breaking so many FBI no-nos by giving him this information that I didn't even want to think about it. Unfortunately, all that pondering on the couch had made me realize that I'd left some serious loopholes in my previous bargain. I saw no other way to keep both Kathy and me safe.
"Why would you do this?" he asked, his expression so neutral it was like looking at a statue.
"Call it a peace offering. If the information has value to you, then you agree to leave Kathy alone and guarantee that she reaches a healthy, happy old age. Ninety-two ought to do it."
He frowned. "Kathy? That is not the name my retainer's gave me."
"It's all in the file."
Bellmonte studied me for an excruciatingly long minute, and I did my best not to fidget or think about how cold my bare legs were getting. "What will prevent me from keeping the information and making no bargain?" he finally said.