Bitten in Two

by Jennifer Rardin

  “If you insist.” Vayl pulled out a wad of bills.

  Hafeza held up a hand. Topaz jewels glittered on every finger. She said, “I couldn’t take payment from you. Especially when I have one more piece of bad news.”

  Vayl’s hand dropped back to his side. “What is it?”

  She pointed to me. “Your companion here is in deeper trouble than you can understand right now.”

  Vayl smirked at me. “Is Madame Berggia in some sort of gambling debt?”

  Hafeza pounded her hand on the counter and a tile cracked. I winced. Even once-removed we were hell on furniture. She said, “Save her and you save the woman you love. Remember that.”

  Vayl and I stared at each other. Suddenly I understood how the Beast felt every time Beauty cringed at the dinner table. I wanted to pound my chest and yell, “I’m inside here, dammit!” Maybe if I burst into song. Hey, it worked in the movies.

  As we left the store I said, “Lord Brâncoveanu?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you like music?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you… like for me to sing to you?”

  You could’ve planted beans in those eyebrows they furrowed so deeply. “No.”

  “I figured. You know, even when I was little I couldn’t pull off the fairy-tale princess bit.”

  “Oh?”

  Though he couldn’t care less, I explained. “I kept fighting off the dragons when I was supposed to be clapping myself on the cheeks and screaming, ‘Prince Chahming, come saaaave me!’ You know what happens when you battle dragons, right?”

  “What?”

  “Your tiara falls off and the monster stomps it into pieces. After which your mother refuses to buy you another one because they’re too damn expensive, even though you know she got the first one at a yard sale because you saw her peel off the masking tape.”

  Vayl patted me on the shoulder. “Madam Berggia, I know you must be worried after what Sister Hafeza said to you, but please let me assure you that I will protect you with my very life.” In other words, Stop acting crazy, lady. You’re starting to scare the natives.

  I sighed. “Okay.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Our cease-fire lasted exactly ninety seconds. And then we began to argue. Ignoring the balmy night, the crowds of people out for a stroll, the ancient residences with their towering walls and exotic gardens loaded with palms and lemon trees, we hissed at each other like a couple of pissed-off geese.

  “Hafeza said to use Sterling,” I reminded him, really warming to my lie now that he’d annoyed me. “I told you he’s an old acquaintance that Berggia called in when he realized Roldan might catch up to Helena after all. But he’s not going to do us much good in a fight if he has to worry about protecting her ass at the same time!”

  “I must ask you to please refrain from using such language! What if Helena—never mind, you clearly do not care anymore!” he repeated, like he, too, thought I’d gone deaf. “I cannot, in good conscience, leave Helena unguarded in the riad while we men go chasing after some mystery mage. That is why you and her maid, Kyphas, must join us as well. I am thankful Berggia taught you how to shoot.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’ll come in so handy against a mage! Vay—I mean, Lord Brâncoveanu! We—”

  “I will hear no more on the subject. Helena will remain under my watch because I am the only one qualified to protect her!”

  “You say that, but you react just like any other guy when you get kicked in the nads!”

  Silence until we stepped up to the riad’s doorway. And then Vayl asked, just as he opened the door, “What are nads?”

  Cole stood in the foyer, staring, having heard Vayl’s question. His expression caused a smile to sneak onto my face. Waving at Cole I said, “Have Berggia tell you. I’m going to get Helena ready to go.”

  But before I did that I had my own preparations to make.

  I stepped into my room and raided the worn black pack I used to tote weapons in. Ten pounds of gear later I whispered to myself, “Okay, so am I ready to move?”

  I touched Grief, still holstered at my shoulder. Practiced pulling the bolo that had saved my ass enough times I’d begun to consider giving it a name. Because holy water would only piss the mage off, I’d unstrapped the syringe that contained my mobile supply from my right wrist and belted on a longer contraption that held what looked like a chrome pipe. Spring-loaded just like my syringe, it was built to telescope from each end when the hilt hit my hand, so that within seconds of activation I held a stainless-steel staff almost exactly my height. Usually it rolled around in the bottom of the bag, used only on hand-to-hand workout days because it was great for bashing if you had to fight in close. But girls my size tend to avoid those situations like we skip closing time at seedy bars. So I only brought it out when I needed to defend against spells from men whose magic hated the taste of refined metal. As soon as I spun the staff, the protective runes along its length added even more oomph to the shield, allowing me time to activate my second line of defense.

  On my left forearm I’d wrapped a guard that ran from elbow to wrist. Stainless steel wrapped by leather, it provided practical protection against weapon strikes and fanged or clawed attacks. Upon a specific set of hand signals, it also sent a suggestion to my attacker that he should back off before I separated his head from his shoulders. Since Sterling had designed the piece, I trusted that it worked, though I’d never needed to activate it before.

  Knowing Cole, Sterling, and Kyphas were also preparing to go up against the mage, I took my time deciding whether or not Vayl’s cane should make the trip with us. It still lay inside my trunk like a lost treasure. Finally I nodded. “Might as well assume we’re going to succeed,” I said as I picked it up.

  Holding the cane in the middle so that its blue jewel seemed to light the way, I ran to Bergman’s room and pounded on the door. “Miles! Get off your fat ass and lemme in! Work to do!”

  Nothing for maybe a full minute, during which I made intermittent loud sounds and escalating threats. And then, shuffling and whispers. Who was he talking to? Had Raoul returned Astral already? The door opened a crack. His eyeball said, “I’ll be right down.”

  “Okay.”

  The door closed. I backed up, leaning against the wall, crossing my ankles and arms until I was comfy for the wait. When the door opened again Monique came out, so busy rearranging dishes on her tray that she didn’t notice me. But Bergman did. He jumped and yelped, slamming the door behind them so hard that I heard a picture fall off the wall inside his room.

  Bergman and Monique looked guiltily into my grinning face.

  I said, “This place has excellent room service.”

  They replied at the same time.

  Bergman: “We were just talking! About winter, because it’s been so long since Monique has seen snow. And sheet—I mean sleet! Not sheets! No sheets were discussed in there!”

  Monique: “He is so thin! I just wanted to offer him nourishment!”

  I laughed. “Bergman, we gotta go.”

  “Okay, then.” He waved at Monique like she was boarding a bus. And, hilariously, she waved back before heading downstairs.

  Deciding it was time to let him off the hook, I changed the subject. “Vayl’s waiting for us. I still have to get Kyphas and Sterling.” I glanced through the hall window into the courtyard. Our warlock was back at the gazebo. Which meant Kyphas was probably hiding from him. “C’mon,” I ordered.

  His shoulders slumped. “All right.”

  Her room was just down the hall from Bergman’s. I patted him on the shoulder when we got there. “Cheer up, Miles. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that guys are supposed to be happy when they’re getting some?”

  “I’m not getting any!” Bergman shouted just as Kyphas opened the door.

  She arched her eyebrows at our sci-guy, who looked to be searching for handy trapdoors in the floor.

  I beamed. “This night just gets better and better.”


  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sterling and Cole sat waiting for me in the riad’s romantically lit courtyard.

  Cole wore a calf-length overcoat whose lining had been removed as a nod to the weather. He’d still look weird strolling around Marrakech dressed in gangsta duds, but it was better than walking down the street with his rifle flapping. And what a weapon. Before his death, Pete had caved to Cole’s nagging and bought him a Heckler & Koch PSG1, which was arguably the most accurate sniper rifle in the world. With it he could strike multiple targets with very little lag time in between. Ideal if the mage turned out to be less of a loner than we’d anticipated.

  As I settled in across from the men, Sterling growled, “Where’s the demon? You didn’t leave her alone with that defenseless little stick boy of yours, did you?”

  “He’s more skilled than he looks,” I said. “Besides, she’s still under contract. Anyway, she was right behind me.” I looked. Nope. No Kyphas. Squelching the uneasy feeling that she’d followed Bergman, not to kill, but maybe to try a little torture like she’d done with me, I went on. “Miles said he’d get Vayl.”

  No need to explain that I needed five more minutes away from the Madame Berggia persona he’d forced on me. I knew they could see it in the way I pounded his cane onto the floor tile.

  Cole patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll find the perfect target for your frustrations tonight.” He turned to Sterling. “Unless you’re planning on blasting the bad guy with something menacing from your pocket-o’-doom?”

  The warlock had been hiding his hands behind his back, which made me more nervous than I liked to let on. Now he brought out an antique teapot.

  “I was expecting something a little more… penis shaped,” said Cole.

  Sterling smirked. “My best stuff is designed to put the victim completely at ease before it strikes.” He tipped up the lid so Cole and I could look inside. It already contained half a cup of dried leaves and some dehydrated berries. “When this is boiled, it’ll fill the air with an odor that’ll deeply relax anyone who smells it. I have a special wax to plug our noses, which will protect us from the other effects.”

  “Which are?” Cole asked.

  Sterling said, “They vary. But overall people find it hard to concentrate on a fight. It begins to seem pointless and silly to them. So at one end of the spectrum they’ll be less aggressive during battle. And at the other they’ll give up all their secrets, because suddenly they love everybody.”

  Cole clapped him on the shoulder. “I like having you along. We should work together more often.”

  Sterling’s smile leaned closer to sly than I felt comfortable with. “That may have already been arranged.”

  I began to say, “What do you mean by that?” But somewhere around the word “do” Bergman jogged into the courtyard, completely winded from his previous run down two flights of stairs and a couple of short hallways. Have I mentioned that he sits too much?

  He gasped, “Vayl’s gone.”

  “Again?” Goddammit! Suddenly he’s harder to keep track of than a pissed-off teenager. “Are you sure?” I asked.

  His reply was to point over his shoulder, where Kyphas had just joined us carrying an open note and a closed envelope. I went over and snatched the riad’s stationery from her hand. Out loud, I read,

  My Friends,

  I cannot, in good conscience, ask you to risk your lives in a cause which began—and should end—with me. My tiff with Madame Berggia before was, I fear, a ruse designed to distract you from my true intent.

  I would never forgive myself if any of you ladies were harmed in the coming battle. Therefore, I am going to face the mage alone. Please make sure Helena reaches a safe haven. When the war in the Colonies has ended, I think perhaps she should sail there, but until then, my dear Berggias, I leave the choice in your capable hands.

  Please accept my deepest gratitude. And a final boon, if you will? The delivery of my second note to Lady Jasmine.

  —Lord Brâncoveanu

  Kyphas curtsied with a mocking grin, saying, “It’s such fun being Vasil’s secretary. I like it a lot better than the maid gig,” as she handed me the envelope. Since I didn’t trust myself to hide my reactions, I took it into the gazebo and sat down on the couch with it, only then realizing that my legs had begun a fine tremble.

  What if he dies before we can get to him?

  Nonsense! Granny May set down her embroidery and stood, moving to the clothesline to take down her dry laundry. Vayl may be a little off-balance right now, but that hasn’t dumbed him down any. You know he didn’t leave without some idea of how he was going to succeed.

  So do I have time to read this, or should we just go?

  Give it a look. Granny May couldn’t hide the curiosity sparkling behind her bifocals. Maybe it’ll help.

  I tore open the envelope. The thick paper felt like a ten-pound weight in my hand as I opened it.

  My Dearest Jasmine,

  I think that I shall not survive this evening. Perhaps it is for the best. I chose this existence out of rage. But vengeance only carried me through its first year. And since then, no direction has restored to me that which I squandered on the day I became Vampere.

  When I saw your lovely eyes, staring solemnly at me from your portrait, I felt as if I had known you since my soul’s creation. My only desire has been to set myself before you in the hope that you will see in me something for which I have given up looking. But it is not to be. Perhaps we will meet again when time has ended and you and I are no longer bound by any tie that love cannot break.

  Yours,

  Vayl

  I want to cry. And hug this damn note like it’s my old teddy bear. But I don’t see anything in it that could help—

  Read it again! demanded Granny May.

  And that was when I saw that he’d signed it, not with the name he’d used in his old life, but with the one I’d always known him by. I sprang to my feet.

  “He signed it Vayl!” I came out of the gazebo with the note high in my hand. “He signed it with his modern name!”

  Cole let me take his hands and even jump up and down with him a few times. Then he said, “I have no idea what that means.”

  “The curse is beginning to break, I think because we keep hammering at it. And our Vayl is waving at us through the cracks. He wants us to find him tonight because he has no problem with women fighting alongside men. And he really wants to survive. So we will find more clues to where he’s gone and what he’s up to. We just have to look for them!”

  Sterling, lounging on one of the padded chairs with one bare foot swinging over its arm, held up a finger. “And what do we do when we find him? We’re all about stealth, remember? What if Vayl and this mage are fighting in the middle of the street?”

  “We improvise. We’re good at that, aren’t we, Cole?”

  Cole pulled back his jacket so he could brush his hand down the rifle he held at his side. “We usually figure out pretty quick where to point and shoot.”

  “I’m prepared,” Bergman bragged. He looked over his shoulder. Seeing that Monique had chosen to give us privacy, he raised the sleeve of his baggy pullover.

  “Miles!” I came forward to make sure I’d seen right. “What are you doing with those rockets strapped to your wrist?”

  He gave me that look. The one smart people save for stupid questions. “I’m a terrible shot with a gun. With these, all I have to do is look at what I want to hit and I can count on a bull’s-eye.”

  “You did read my report on the Patras mission? The last thing we need is for you to shoot somebody full of miniature robots and have their head explode, like, two weeks later!”

  Bergman shoved his hands into his hips so hard that if he’d been an eighty-year-old man he’d have dislocated them. “You are completely exaggerating!”

  “Not by much!”

  Cole jumped between us, massaging our shoulders like a boxing coach as he said, “Come on, guys, is this any way
to start a rescue operation?” He looked at each of us until we shook our heads. “Good,” he said. “Now I suggest we kiss and make up. Jaz, you start with me, then we can work our way around the circle—ow!” He laughed, rubbing his chest where my punch had landed.

  I said, “You’re supposed to be falling out of love with me, remember?”

  “Already done,” he announced. “Remember? That was my goal for our NASA job. Which I aced. So any sex I have with you from this day forward will be purely platonic. Even medicinal. You know, like California pot.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Ah. So afterward you’re going to forget where you parked your car and experience a mounting craving for cocaine?”

  He laughed again. “Exactly.”

  Kyphas made a sound that landed somewhere between fingers-in-the-car-door and lioness-guarding-her-kill. It gave me chills. Which pissed me off.

  “Come on,” I said, looking at her but directing my words to the courtyard in general. “We’ve finally got a bankable reason to kick some ass.” I strode past the demon, purposely brushing her shoulder with mine. “Oh, and Kyphas?” I smiled into her flushed face. “Bring your li’l scarfy-thing.” With no other choice, she fell into line behind me, walking beside Cole with the watchful air of a bodyguard. Or jealous lover. Either way, the look he gave her said their time together was already running to the bottom of the hourglass.

  I hid my smile by directing it at Bergman, making it encouraging. He’d rolled his sleeve back down to cover his secret weapon, and now followed Kyphas at his safe-distance pace. Only because I was watching did I see him send Kyphas a glare that she responded to with a smirk. If she’d known my old roomie the way I did, she wouldn’t have been so happy to have pissed him off. Because Bergman only jutted his jaw like that when he’d decided to do something extreme. Usually those decisions resulted in rad new inventions that made people like me squeal with delight. I suspected this didn’t qualify as one of those times.