Bitten in Two

by Jennifer Rardin

  “You said it was finished,” Vayl reminded her.

  She took a step forward.

  Vayl’s hand tightened on the jewel that would release the spring-loaded sheath. I raised my sword. Cole wrapped his hand around the hilt of his. Sterling—relaxed. Only Vayl and I knew he was now at his most dangerous, with his hands resting in his lap, one crossed over the other so that his bracelets were touching.

  “Kyphas.” Vayl made her name a warning even she could understand.

  She responded by tossing him the map, her eyes flashing yellow as she said, “Did you think your little scheme would go unnoticed in hell? That Torledge hasn’t been aware of every move you’ve made since you landed in Marrakech? He knows this is his best chance to retrieve the Rocenz and he wants me to be the dog that fetches it for him. I may be the laughingstock of Lucifer’s court after letting your Seer slip through my fingers, but I will not bow down to that rabbit fucker.”

  Vayl and I raised our eyebrows at each other. Either she was one badass actress or—

  “I knew it!” said Cole.

  I wanted to slap myself on the forehead. But that would just hurt me. And Kyphas was the one I wanted to mutilate. Physical violence would only make Cole do the white knight act, however. So I appealed to him one last time. “Dude, you did hear what she just said, yeah? That the contract still holds? Think back. What was her upside in that deal?”

  He actually had to take a second. Then he said, “Oh. Souls. She’s going to get Brude. And the Oversight Committee.”

  I nodded. Good boy, maybe I should give you a sticker. Positive reinforcement so you’ll remember your damn lesson. “She’s still in the biz. Always will be. And that face, that incredible face that makes you long for her to reform and become Little Bo Peep, is what makes her so good at what she does.”

  “What are you saying?” Cole asked.

  My sigh came out more like a huff. “Quit thinking with your dick for, like, ten seconds. I think that’s all you need to save your life here.”

  He grimaced at her. “Are you going to take those souls when Jaz gets the Rocenz?”

  She shrugged. “Of course.” When she saw his face tighten she held her hands out to him. “Look at it this way. It’ll make Jasmine’s life so much easier. Brude will never be able to hurt her again. Those senators won’t be able to manipulate the Agency to make themselves look better. Which means your jobs will be secure and your country will be safer. Where is the disadvantage in that?”

  My hand crept to my chest, pressing against the pain in my heart as I watched Cole accept defeat. He seemed to age every second as he said, “Souls, Kyphas. You’ll never get it because you see them as, I don’t know, purses to be snatched and stacked in your closet because you’re like some kind of crazed klepto. But they’re way more than that.” She tried to speak, but he held up his hand and, amazingly, she let him go on. “Yeah, some of them belong in hell. I’ve only worked with Jaz for a few months and I believe that to my bones. Maybe even the ones you bargained for should be there. But I can’t be with the kind of person who yanks them out of people’s bodies, throws them into the pit, and doesn’t even understand the kind of misery she’s causing.”

  “Cole—”

  He turned his back to her. And I understood, just like she did, that it was the ultimate insult. So you think you’re a dangerous beeyotch? You don’t scare me. After what you’ve done? You don’t even rate a glance over the shoulder.

  Kyphas stood there for a second. And then her eyes flared to bright yellow. No telling what she’d have done if we hadn’t been there with him. I stepped in front of him. Sterling jammed his bracelets together.

  “Begone, demon,” said Vayl.

  Her nostrils flared, as if she was trying to scent the future. Could she take all of us? Or at least hold us off until her minions appeared to even up the odds?

  I smiled at her. Not like Lucille, who can be sweet in even the direst of situations. Like Jaz. Head tilted down, so you could barely see the thin stretch of the lips accompanied by narrowed bring-it-on eyes.

  You want a fight? Here I am. You just broke my best friend’s heart. I don’t need any other excuse to fuck you over.

  She hesitated. Another breath. Two. And then she wheeled around, ran to the access door, shoved it so hard it embedded itself into the wall. A moment later she was gone.

  “Quickly,” Vayl said, tucking his cane under his arm so he could unroll the map. He motioned for Sterling to hold his light underneath it as I searched for weaknesses in its structure.

  “Here,” I said, pointing to a slight bubble in the bottom corner. “Does anyone have a knife?” The guys eyed each other’s swords. “Seriously? We don’t have, even, a pair of nail clippers between the four of us?”

  Kamal stepped forward, bowing a little as he offered me the handle of a sturdy work knife, which, had I been forced to guess, he probably used on a daily basis to cut the scrap pieces off of the hides.

  “You rock,” I told him as I sheathed my sword and took the tool from his hand.

  He frowned. “I am a rock?”

  “No. It means, you’re cool like a rock star. You know, like Beyoncé.” When his eyes went wide, I quickly added, “Or a guy rocker would be, maybe, a better comparison, sure, I can see that. So, you rock like Usher.”

  The whole time I was talking I was also working Kamal’s knife into the bubble and slicing the top layer of leather free of the map. I did glance up once. Kamal was smiling, so he must’ve appreciated my final comparison. Sterling and Vayl held the edges of the map to keep it taut. Yousef was checking out the broken door and muttering to himself, no doubt about the amount of force necessary to drive it into the wall in the first place and whether or not he could survive blows like that if he decided to switch his obsession from me to Kyphas midstream, so to speak. Cole still had his back to us, only now he seemed to be watching the activity below. Hopefully that meant he’d focused at least half his mind on the job.

  I went back to work. Frankly I’d have much preferred staking out some dirtbag’s hotel room or following the trail of our latest national security threat. Both might require the same sort of speed and finesse I now had to bring against the old scroll, but neither would’ve held the fate of my soul in their hands at the end of the mission. I felt sweat trickle down the small of my back as I slipped the blade gently between the layers, trying to keep it even, to see where one page left off and the other began. I was almost glad when the headache began. I took it as an omen that I was succeeding, moving closer to freedom, while Brude could only pound helplessly against the walls of his prison while he watched his hopes slip farther away.

  “Okay, Kamal, I want you to take the cut edge and start pulling up on it. Firm but gentle, got that?” I asked, looking up to make sure he understood what I meant. He nodded. I blinked, waited for the two of him to meld back into one. My head pounded in time with my pulse, painful enough now to make me want to lean over and puke. So maybe it was the source of my double vision. But maybe not. I closed my eyes again.

  “Jasmine?” Vayl’s voice, soothing as a cool cloth to my forehead, allowed me to take a full breath for the first time since we’d begun the operation.

  “I’m okay,” I said.

  As I’d asked him to do, Kamal lifted the top layer of the map, giving me a better view of my work, allowing me to cut quicker and more decisively. Less than a minute later I was done. I handed the knife back to him and continued to lean over while Vayl, Sterling, and the tanners glued themselves to the new picture, muttering to each other like a bunch of scholars who’ve just found an attic full of never-before-seen Lincoln letters.

  “The demon’s got them all back in a group,” Cole reported from his perch by the wall. “It won’t be long before they make a move.”

  I walked my hands up my thighs. Nope, no puking yet. Okay, let’s try taking the head a little higher. Ow! Can a brain actually explode? Maybe I should wrap it in something just in case. Do they have
compression bandages in badass black?

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. Since it was easier to look down, I identified its owner by the red high-tops toed up with my shoes. I reached out, grabbed a handful of T-shirt, and climbed myself a little higher. “Cole,” I whispered. “I feel terrible.”

  “Me too.”

  My chuckle came out more like a sigh because anything else would’ve shaken me up too much. When I finally met his eyes, stark and sad in a face made for joy, I tried to smile and hoped it came out real. “Let’s just get each other through this. We can do that. Right?”

  Doubt dropped his eyes. But they came right back up to mine and didn’t waver when he said, “Yeah. You and me, Vayl and Sterling, Bergman and Cassandra.” He stopped. Nodded. “We can do this.”

  We locked arms, and though I was the one with spears shoving themselves through my skull, it seemed like the give-and-take was mutual as we helped each other shuffle toward the bowed backs of Vayl, Sterling, Yousef, and Kamal.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I kept telling myself Vayl had lived nearly three hundred years now. And it would take me longer than that to know him well. Still, even though his broad back was turned to me I would bet my savings his eyes were the clear blue of a Nordic sailor. The kind who sees past the waves and beyond the horizon, which is why he’s still on the ocean long after his neighbors have given up and taken factory jobs.

  Though we made no noise as we came up behind him and the rest of the map readers, he didn’t even turn his head. Just said, “Sterling, would you check for activity below?”

  As our warlock strode to the roof’s edge, Cole and I moved to take his place, all of us treading lightly around one of the weak spots near the roof’s center that we’d identified when we’d first come up. Vayl held the yo-yo light while Yousef explained through Kamal what he was seeing.

  Yousef pointed a brown-stained finger at one of the squares. “These are empty now. And this one”—he joined a second finger to the first and tapped them against a large circle in the bottom corner that seemed to have been drawn with a bolder outline than the others and filled with squiggly red lines. “It was capped long ago.”

  “Why?” Vayl asked.

  “My great-grandfather used to tell the story of how one morning the men came to work to find all of the liquid in the vats boiling. They stood around, trying to decide what had happened, fearful that the tannery would be closed forever. Then, one by one, the vats cracked, pouring out their contents onto the ground. All except for this one.” Yousef peered closely at the map. “Yes, this is the one that had to be capped because the dyes thickened and began to spurt into the air at random times. Whoever was hit by even a drop was burned to the bone. Not just anyone could cap it, either. Only the men I told you about earlier—those who can open and close the doors to the world of the dead—were strong enough to come near.”

  Vayl ran the light around the extra-black edge. At one section Cole said, “Stop. Go back. See that?”

  We were so quiet for a moment that we could hear each other take in a couple of extra breaths. Then Yousef said, “It is the holy sign.”

  “It’s a bird,” said Cole.

  Yousef shook his head. “The tail and the beak are singular—it is a dove.”

  “He’s right,” I told Cole. “It’s one of the few symbols that can drain the mojo right out of a demon.”

  “I didn’t know that. Why didn’t I know that?”

  “Because until you started working with us, you never needed to, am I right?”

  He paused to take a mental hike into his last career. “You’re right. I dealt with some funky stuff, but never demons.”

  Vayl nodded. “We all seem to have to face them eventually. And when that happens, we learn that dove symbols carry with them great power. As Jasmine said, they can weaken a demon’s defenses. And they can lock any hellspawn out of a protected area.”

  “Which would explain why Kyphas needs us to unlock the vat,” I said.

  Cole spoke in a near monotone. “But that doesn’t explain what Roldan has to do with it.”

  “No,” Vayl agreed. “But do not discount his hatred for me. I am the reason Helena slipped through his grasp. If the demon promised him revenge for that, he would agree to anything.”

  “I’m a little busy at the moment,” I said. “But as soon as my schedule clears, I am so going to kick Roldan’s ass.”

  “Not if I get to him first,” said Vayl.

  “Nice words,” said Sterling. “But they won’t do you much good if those hellspawn grind you into assassin burgers in the meantime.” He was leaning one elbow against the roof’s edge, like he was about to pose for a picture.

  “What’re they doing down there?” asked Cole.

  Sterling said, “They’ve set up a defensive line. Probably because they know we have to come down within the next couple of hours.”

  We joined him, let him point out Kyphas and her three active minions. We were still assuming another two hung back to guard their retreat.

  “It shouldn’t be that hard,” noted Cole. “If the door guards stay in place, our numbers are even. We can take them.”

  “Have you ever fought kloricht before?”

  “Oh, so that’s what they are.” He scratched his chin like he actually had a mental index to thumb through before he could give us a truthful answer. “No. But I assume they have asses?”

  Vayl’s lips twitched. “Yes.”

  “Then they’re kickable.”

  Vayl’s smile widened ever so slightly. For once it looked like he and Cole agreed, even though Vayl, at least, knew the kloricht were famous for their fighting ferocity. Because if they killed enough of Lucifer’s enemies they could use the souls as a ladder to climb right out of the pit. The standing theory on the Great Taker’s strange generosity was that he felt loyalty should be rewarded. And these pups were true. Most of them had been soldiers. The kind who’d followed orders to the letter. Even if that meant herding train cars full of innocent Jews into the gas chamber.

  I suddenly wondered where the kloricht went when they escaped hell. No way would they be allowed entry into paradise. So what was left to them? The Thin? Deep in my mind’s prison, Brude’s howling laughter confirmed my guess. He’d built the foundation of his army on Satan’s escapees.

  I spoke up. “Yousef. How close are the kloricht to the vat we need to uncap?”

  “Halfway across the tannery,” he said through Kamal, who’d started to bite his fingernails between sentences.

  Sterling said, “Even with all our skills combined, they’ll be on us before we can move the lid and lift the tool to the top of whatever muck is still inside the vat. Not to mention the danger we might still be facing from the liquid itself. If it burned men fifty or sixty years ago it still could today.”

  “So we fight,” said Vayl. He gave me his slow smile. I felt my whole body respond.

  Kamal sniffed. “Are you people actually excited about this?”

  Cole drew his sword. I knew the vibration that ran through him had nothing to do with fear as he and Sterling bumped fists for good luck. “It’s like asking a pro football player if he’s ready for the game, dude. This is what we do.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Since Sterling could provide air support and use the Party Line to update us on the demons’ movements, we decided to leave him on the roof. Alone. Because we still needed Yousef to guide us to ground zero. And Kamal…

  When we turned to leave him with the warlock he made a please-don’t-abandon-me sound. I stopped and looked up at Vayl, who asked, “How old are you, son?”

  “Sixteen.”

  Shit.

  So his next question was for Sterling. “Can you protect him?”

  Sterling’s hair seemed to whisper spells of its own as it brushed against his collar with the shaking of his head. “I can’t make any guarantees. The boy should leave.”

  “Yeah, and if they grab him right outside the gate and use h
im as a bargaining tool?” asked Cole. “What are we gonna do then?”

  “We will leave the decision to him,” Vayl said firmly. “It is his life, after all.”

  Kamal slapped his hand over his chest like Vayl had threatened to carve out a piece of it. “I want to go home,” he said.

  Vayl nodded. “Of course. Sterling?” He turned to the warlock. “Do you have any sort of charm this boy can carry for extra protection?”

  Our warlock reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet, and from it lifted a card. Kamal took it, studied it, looked up incredulously. “You want me to trust my neck to… a library card?”

  “It’s special,” Sterling assured him. “Just put it in your pocket and say these words as soon as you leave the building.” He whispered in Kamal’s ear. “It will make you seem harmless to all who lay eyes on you for the following five minutes.”

  “That’s not long.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “For chrissake, Kamal, how long is it gonna take you to run away from here?”

  “All right.” He pocketed the card. Followed us downstairs.

  By the time we reached the center of the tannery I figured he was shutting the door of his house behind him. But he’d be back tomorrow. Which boggled my mind. I couldn’t imagine how anybody could work here for more than a few minutes, much less the years Yousef had obviously put in.

  I crumpled the new bouquet of mint that he’d picked for me earlier and held it to my nose. It wasn’t working as well as it had before. Maybe I was getting used to its smell. Or maybe I was just too close to the piles of animal skins, still wearing their layers of rotting flesh and feasting insects. Either way, the stench made me want to hurl the last thing I’d eaten into the nearest pool of bloody-looking liquid.

  I decided it would help if I concentrated on holding my sword safely at my side so that neither one of its razor-sharp edges could slice into Yousef or Vayl as I followed them. Cole walked close behind me, hugging the walls of the tannery’s outer edges like the rest of us while he tried not to make any noise that would attract Kyphas and her gang.