Bitten in Two

by Jennifer Rardin

  He said, “People deal with pain in different ways. And I can promise you that sometimes what seems like coping to the rest of the world is really just hanging on by your fingernails. You want to know how I survive?” He took Vayl by the arms and turned him until he was fully facing me. “There she is. And here’s another promise. Someday you’ll find somebody just like her. When you do, don’t fuck it up. Because you will never find anyone like her again.”

  Vayl nodded. “You are a lucky man, Berggia. To find such a partner is rare. My wife was…” Vayl trailed off, and after a while we realized he didn’t intend to finish that thought. Not out loud anyway.

  We stared at one another, an island of silence surrounded by vividly dressed socializers, all headed anywhere but here. They didn’t mind our blockage. Walked around us without comment, like we’d become part of the city’s hardscape despite the fact that we stood in a stone-paved thoroughfare so narrow that even a couple of cyclists might brush shoulders if they weren’t careful how they passed each other.

  Somebody accidentally bumped Cole, apologized in French, and that was all we needed to get us moving. Vayl led. Cole came next. I followed, feeling like I’d betrayed him without ever meaning to.

  Raoul? Come on, give me something to cling to here. Tell me Cole’s got somebody out there waiting. A woman who’ll make him look at me later and laugh.

  I didn’t expect a reply. My Spirit Guide hated the feeling that he was on 24-7 Jaz-call. But within a few minutes I felt the buzz of his presence, so big I clapped my hands over my ears and fought to clear my vision. And then his voice, like a boxing match announcer with his microphone maxed out in my head, said, COLE’S MATE IS CHOSEN. BUT THEIR TIME IS STILL DISTANT.

  Thanks. Oh, man, I can’t tell you what a relief—okay. That’s something at least. I caught Cole’s gaze. As soon as he felt my eyes on him he stuck out his tongue, tinted red from his bubblegum.

  I grinned as he pointed to Vayl. More information, he mouthed.

  I nodded and said, “So, Lord Brâncoveanu, you want to visit a Seer. That’s an excellent idea, actually. But, uh, we really should go with you.” Which was what we were doing at the moment, of course. But Vayl could ditch us whenever he wanted, and we all knew that.

  “Why?” he asked.

  That’s an excellent question. Anybody have a clue? Shit! Not one of my inner girls was up to the challenge. In fact, most of them were still out of breath from doing the Cole-will-finally-get-his-girl jig.

  Once again, my coworker and former recruit came to the rescue. “Considering what you said about Roldan wanting to change Helena, maybe she’d be safer in your care for the night.” Before Vayl could object again Cole added, “I’ve heard bad things about this Were. He has connections far beyond England. If he knows we left the country, he can trace us here. Wouldn’t we all be safer if we stayed together?”

  Vayl pinched his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger, a gesture I’d never seen before. Maybe he’d dropped it after he’d gotten the cane and could spin it between his hands instead. But he’d rejected it, along with me, the night he woke with most of his life missing.

  He said, “All right. We will go back for her. But none of you are allowed into the Seer’s chambers while she reads for me. I must insist on privacy in this matter.”

  “Oh, sure.” Cole nodded at me.

  I raised my hands. “That’s your business,” I said.

  “Good.” Vayl cleared his throat.

  I waited. Then I prodded him. “Isn’t this where you apologize for threatening to strand me here earlier?”

  He glanced at me from the corners of his eyes. “Do you mean like I left you in the middle of Cornwall last autumn?”

  “He’s done it before?” I murmured. “What a son of a bitch! And she came back? Why?”

  His tone went all Dennis Miller on me, so cutting I was surprised droplets of blood didn’t fly off my skin. “I do not understand why you continue to speak of yourself in the third person, madame. Have you suddenly discovered a familial link to King George?”

  I clenched a fist and shook it under his nose. “I’ll give you a familial link—”

  Cole shoved my arm down. “Relax, woman. It’s 1777, remember? You don’t even get to vote yet.”

  “Yeah! Because of pigheaded brutes like him!” I yelled.

  “If I am such a brute, why did you return to my service after our last dispute?” Vayl demanded, his voice closer to a roar than I’d ever heard it. I’d have screamed right back at him but for the note of desperation I heard threading under the anger, brightening his eyes to the color of flames.

  I thought about it. Why would a woman who’d pissed off her employer enough that he’d abandoned—but not fired—her, come trudging back to his door? She probably needed the work. And there was her husband’s job to consider. Plus maybe she felt loyal to Helena. More likely it was a combination of all of those reasons plus a few others I could name. But there was only one that really mattered.

  I looked into the face of the man an old Italian housekeeper had stared at over two hundred years ago, and before thought could move me I was standing so close to him I could’ve felt his chest rise into mine if he’d chosen that moment to sigh. I looked down, momentarily fascinated by the sight of my slender white fingers, not hanging empty at my side, but instead wrapped around his broad, workingman’s hand.

  I said, “Until this moment I never completely understood why my Granny May sat by my Gramps Lew in those last days of his life, when he couldn’t talk anymore and she knew he wouldn’t wake up. Why every single morning she rejoiced that he was still there with her. To hold hands with. It was enough for her. You know?”

  That line between his brows—how can you love a man’s frown? But I saw it and was glad. It meant he was tuned in—to me. I went on. “Some people, yeah, you catch the first coach outta there and you never look back. But some…” I paused to lock on to his gaze. “You can somehow see past all the bullshit to a soul that shines so bright it brings tears to your eyes. And that’s why you stay.” I dropped my eyes to our interlocked fingers. “Even if all you have left is holding hands.”

  Because I knew it would break my heart when he pulled away, I slid free first. When I looked up again, Vayl had stepped back, made his face into the mask he’d worn constantly in the first months of our partnership.

  But I could hear a new thoughtfulness in his voice when he said, “You must understand that I was angry because you are Helena’s sole model of virtue and genteel behavior. If I cannot count on you to provide a proper example for her I fear this whole facade I have built for her will crumble on her head and she may never recover. We must teach her how to survive in this society. How to be strong and flourish.” He emphasized his words with pumps of his fist, like he’d beat down anyone who came against his ward, even if it was a sharp-tongued socialite with a reticule full of invitations and the power to withhold them all from Helena.

  I said, “She means a lot to you, doesn’t she?”

  His shrug barely creased the seams of his coat. It seemed like none of us could purely explain our feelings anymore. But we could still make concrete gestures. Which he did now, by turning back toward our hotel.

  We walked in silence until, again, we stood in front of Riad Almoravid. Vayl’s golden eyes climbed walls so old that, if they could, they’d double over and chuckle at his immaturity. He took a quick breath as a shadow passed in front of the drawn curtains of Bergman’s room. Miles wouldn’t leave his den willingly, which was why Cole and I were now signing to each other, arguing silently about which one of us would be the loser who had to go drag him out. We shoved our hands into our pockets when Vayl turned to us suddenly and said, “I never thought to have another child. Not just because I am a vampire. But because I performed so poorly as a father with my first two. If I fail with Helena, I will never forgive myself.”

  I hadn’t heard the girl’s story before. And the fact that he’d never mentioned her
didn’t leave me much hope for a happy ending. So instead of reassuring him I said, “We all know you’re doing your best by her.”

  “It will mean nothing if Roldan takes her.”

  As if I needed another reason to pull Vayl back to the present. But now I just had to know what had happened to Helena. And the Berggias. I decided to call Cassandra as soon as we got inside. And if her first words were “I’m stumped!” I was going to swallow my pride—and a big spurt of fear—and bring in Sterling. Since our department had been shut down he couldn’t be that busy, unless his band had lined up a bunch of gigs to fill his free time, in which case I’d just have to convince (bribe) him to cancel. I wondered if our resident warlock still favored the Tullamore Dew. And if so, how was I supposed to get my hands on a case of Irish whiskey in the middle of a teetotaling country like Morocco?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Though I’d done it at least a dozen times already, I still wasn’t used to the transition. Stepping from the dusty, crowded streets of the old city into the quiet elegance of Monique Landry’s traditional Moroccan villa, with its blue and white tiled floors, their pattern so intricate I stood in awe at the time and care that had gone into the job. Smaller tiles in brighter shades of green, red, yellow, and white climbed a third of the way up the ground floor’s walls and lined the stairways on either side of the main entrance. Above the tile, pink or gold stucco was decoration unto itself, though here and there an original painting hung, usually signed by a local artist who had managed to capture the radiant soul that moved within every corner of the city.

  Everywhere we went in the riad—whether it was the big lounge in the front of the place, the formal dining room down the south hall, the kitchen at the west end of the house, up the stairs to the rooms we’d rented, or out to the courtyard where our after-dark meetings occurred—scalloped archways marked the passages, as if the doorways themselves wore lace scarves out of respect for Allah.

  Monique had managed an atmosphere of elegant warmth throughout her home. Except for this moment when, stepping into the lounge, I felt the sinister aura of conspiracy tainting the air. My first clue was that Bergman had not only beaten us downstairs, but was willingly sharing space with our hostess and Kyphas. Astral looked far too innocent sitting in the doorway with her tail curled around her paws like an actual cat. And Cole was shoving me into the room like he was afraid I meant to make a run for it.

  Then I saw the cake.

  And Bergman started singing.

  And Cole handed me his phone—which I put to my ear—only to hear my sister harmonizing from thousands of miles away.

  I waited for the rush of pain that I’d been trying to avoid all day, now that I’d been forcefully reminded that this was the second birthday I’d spent without Matt. That the mind-blowing celebration I’d been planning with Vayl had melted into a nightmare.

  It didn’t come.

  Instead I saw my old roommate, his ridiculous Cole-perm flying out from his head like Einstein Jr.’s, holding a flaming dessert out in front of him. Which meant Monique had rushed out in the middle of the evening just for me. At my right, the man who loved me and would never be more than my dearest companion had made it all happen. At my left, the vampire I’d become so entwined with that I couldn’t tell anymore where I stopped and he began was trying to comprehend how everyone knew the words to a song he was sure he’d never heard before. But he still had a smile for me. In a dark wicker chair with palm-printed cushions, separate from us all but struggling to understand how we fit so well together, a demon managed not to stain the moment. And in my ear, my kid sister belted like a Broadway star.

  When they were done I said, “Thanks. This is so cool of you guys. I’d say you shouldn’t have, but it turns out I’m glad you did.”

  Cole gave me a gentle shove toward the courtyard. “Go on. Talk to Evie. We’ll wait.”

  As I walked out I heard Vayl say, “What is that contraption Madame Berggia is holding to her ear? Has she gone partially deaf?”

  Ignoring Cole’s attempt to explain his cell, I spoke to my sister for the first time since Vayl’s… accident. “Yo, Evie, thanks for checking in!”

  “As if I’d miss this day,” she replied. “Have you found any rad new medicinal plants out there in the middle of nowhere?”

  I took half a beat to sink into my research scientist Evie-cover. “Morocco’s amazingly cosmopolitan,” I informed her. “Especially in the new section of the city. But to answer your question, no, nothing major. We’re going out into the countryside again tomorrow. Don’t worry, if I have anything to do with it, Demlock Pharmaceuticals will find at least five or six cancer cures in our lifetimes.”

  “Well, hurry it up. E.J.’s grown about a foot since you saw her!”

  “That’s physically impossible. Put her on the phone.” I waited until I could hear my infant niece gnawing on the receiver. “E.J.? This is your auntie Jaz. Are you being a good girl?”

  I heard a gurgle. Or maybe a burp. And imagined the phone covered in regurgitated breast milk. Gross.

  “Child, you’re what, almost four months old now? Stop being so cooperative and tell Mommy you want your own phone. Make sure you get texting. I hear that’s the new craze among babies your age.”

  Evie said, “Are you corrupting my kid?”

  “It’s my job. Look up Auntly Duties online. The description’s on Wikipedia.”

  Evie laughed. “Okay, now cut the BS and tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I—nothing. I’m having a fabulous birthday.”

  “It’s only four o’clock here. That means I have a full hour until Tim gets home. E.J.’s just discovered her hands, so all I have to do is make sure she finds them again after she’s lost them and I can nag you until you break.”

  “I think Congress considers that torture.”

  “Spill.”

  I sighed and looked around the courtyard. It was empty. Which meant Chef Henri, who liked to savor a glass of wine after work, had probably already gone home for the night. I stepped into the gazebo farthest from the front of the house and curled up on the couch. “I’ve been dating a guy at work.”

  Amazing. Thousands of miles from home and my sister’s squeal still forced me to pull the phone away from my ear.

  I said, “See, this is why I don’t tell you things. Now my eardrum is bleeding.”

  “It is not! Tell me all about him.”

  Ha! Like I want you jumping a plane to Marrakech so you can shake your finger under Vayl’s nose and make him promise to keep his fangs to himself!

  “He’s, ah, older than me.” But only by a few hundred years.

  “Is he hot?”

  Why did I suddenly feel like we were teenagers again? First day at our new school, trading stories about the cute guys in our math classes. I said, “Smoldering.”

  “Oh my God, I gotta sit down. Wait, I’m already sitting down. Okay, go on.”

  “Would you rein it in? It’s not like that. Well, it was. But now, I don’t know. He’s… changed.”

  “Aw, Jazzy, tell me he’s not married.”

  “No. He was, but she’s dead.” In fact, I killed the evil bitch, but I’ll edit that one out of our little talk too, ’kay? Dammit, why did I start this in the first place? I hate lying to you.

  Granny May spoke up from behind a bridge hand that, from the sparkle in her eyes, looked to be a winner. Maybe you needed to talk to somebody real for once, she said. One of the few people you know who’s in a good relationship.

  Could be. I tipped my mental hat to her, acknowledging a spurt of joy at seeing her seated at the table near the front of my mind again, no longer concerned about whether or not Brude was going to swing by and chop off her head. As if to celebrate the occasion, she’d chosen some real winners to play cards with too. Winston Churchill and Woody Woodpecker were partnered against her and Amelia Earhart. It was shaping up to be a helluva game.

  “Jaz? Are you still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m so
rry, what’d I miss?”

  “I was just wondering why you think he’s different now.”

  “He’s kind of… living in the past. I really lo—like him. But this is starting to get to me. What if, you know, what if he never—”

  “Everybody changes, Jaz. Every day. All the time. How important is this relationship to you?”

  I cleared my throat. “It’s up there.”

  “Well, I’d tell you to be patient, but I’m not sure you ever learned that one.” We both laughed. “In which case, just don’t kick his ass so hard you put him in the hospital, okay?”

  I visualized me attempting to do just that. It ended up with me on the ground. Bleeding. “I can pretty much guarantee that’s not gonna happen.”

  “Well, I hope you hang in there with this guy, then. He’s the first one you’ve told me about since Matt. And I have to think that’s a good thing. Really, really good.” I heard the hope in her voice and felt warmed that it was all for me. I knew some people had crowds of relatives cheering them on all through their lives. I had two. Maybe three, but I still hadn’t decided about Albert. Which was when Evie said, “Dad called today.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Now that you’ve told me about your new boyfriend, I think I understand why.”

  “Really.”

  She paused. “Um, he wanted to know, theoretically speaking, how I’d have reacted if he had forbidden me from marrying Tim. So, of course, I asked him what was wrong with Tim, and he said nothing, it wasn’t about him. It was you. Which must mean he’s met this guy you’re dating. And he disapproves.”

  I thought back to our mission in Scotland, the one he’d dropped in on unexpectedly. Though we’d tried to hide Vayl’s true identity, we couldn’t have fooled Albert during that last battle, when he’d caused sleet to fall from a clear sky and blown a hole the size of an elevator in the side of a burial cairn. So the old fart didn’t like it that I’d hooked up with a vampire. I’d worried about the ramifications of that for a while. But the fact that he’d called Evie first? I felt a smile slide onto my face. “Cool.”