Once Bitten, Twice Shy

by Jennifer Rardin

  “You make me sound like some blue-haired preacher’s wife.”

  His grin twisted. “God forbid.”

  I took my hands back, settling Cirilai down on my finger from where it had twisted up to my knuckle. “I did my bit. Now tell me why you’re working for Amanda Assan.”

  I thought he’d stall, maybe rearrange the salt and pepper shakers or file the sweeteners by color, but he came right out with it. “I am a PI. But my specialty is supernatural crime. Amanda’s brother, Michael, died six months ago in India. He was traveling with Assan at the time. She thinks he might’ve had something to do with it.”

  “Just because he was there at the time, or . . . ?”

  “It was a combination of things. Assan didn’t show much remorse for her brother or sympathy for her. Plus the circumstances of his death were odd, and Assan’s explanation came out sounding pretty lame.”

  “In what way?”

  “Michael died of a single stab wound to the heart. The weapon, according to the coroner, was an ancient sword of unknown origin. Assan collects swords. Also, symbols were found burned into the skin around Michael’s wound.”

  “What kind?”

  “Magical, as far as I can decipher. But I’m no expert and my sources haven’t been able to translate them. I’d draw them for you, but—oh.” He caught our waitress’s eye and signaled her over. She found him a pen and some paper and left us after we reassured her we didn’t need any refills.

  While he sketched the symbols for me, Cole said, “Assan was in India to give a presentation at a conference on reconstructive surgery. He said Michael, who’d also been a plastic surgeon, had wandered off during one of the meetings, and when he still hadn’t returned the next morning, Assan reported him missing.”

  “He waited long enough, didn’t he?”

  “Yep. And the meeting Michael left was one he’d discussed with Amanda. He’d told her it would make the entire trip worthwhile.”

  Yeah, the whole deal sounded about as fishy as a tuna factory. Cole went on. “The icing is that some poor guy who thought he needed an early-morning jog found a torso on the beach last week. Sharks had swallowed a lot of the evidence, but according to a friend of mine who works homicide, the victim had been murdered. By a single stab wound to the heart. And around that wound—”

  “Glyphs,” I finished. He nodded. “The same as these?”

  “Yep.”

  “Wonder what Vayl will think of them.” I ignored Cole’s frown as I studied his drawings. Then it struck me that Vayl had been gone much longer than even an arranged absence should take. “Where is he?” I asked, peering through the atmospheric gloom. Suddenly the hair on the back of my neck stood up in response to the ripple of power that rolled across the room.

  “Did you feel that?” I asked Cole. He nodded, looking grave and a little shaken. I slid out of the booth. I think I said, “Excuse me,” but I’m not sure. The power called me with an urgency I’d never experienced before. It came from the other side of the restaurant, so that’s where I headed, followed closely by Cole.

  “Vayl?” I whispered. “Where are you?”

  I smelled it before I felt it, a revolting combination of rotten eggs and ash that lashed my inner senses like a lion tamer’s whip. The magic snapped past me, leaving me mentally singed, as if I’d stood too close to a burning soul. At least I knew now Vayl wasn’t its source. His power had never made me want to shower in bleach water. This came from an altogether different sort of vampire.

  I turned, searching for the vamp’s target. I found him almost immediately, a spectacled, balding man in his mid-thirties with the soft face and hands of someone who hires out his yard work. He sat at a table with three other people, presumably his wife and sons. They stared at him in speechless shock as he clawed at his throat, his face turning a shade of red I’d never seen before tonight.

  “Charlie? What’s wrong?” The woman half rose from her chair, but Charlie was way ahead of her. He jerked to his feet, toppling his chair backward in the process. Now the other patrons had stopped talking, had turned to look.

  “I think he’s choking!” screeched an elderly woman whose ebony cane might’ve been related to Vayl’s. I expected Charlie to nod, but his hands had moved to his chest, pressed flat against it as if to keep his innards from revolting and becoming his outards.

  The kids, two blond-headed cuties about seven and nine, sat absolutely still, but I noticed they were clutching each other’s hands. Somebody yelled, “Call 911!” and the whole room erupted, everyone talking at once, the woman screaming, “Charlie, Charlie!” and people from my side of the room rushing over to get a better look.

  Charlie keeled over, still holding his chest, and I felt the power flare out so quickly I could almost believe someone had pulled the plug. Almost.

  I needed to find Vayl. We needed to locate Charlie’s attacker. But before I could act, Charlie, himself, stopped me. He lay on the floor, his eyes open and yet empty as marbles. I’d seen a lot of dead guys in my time, and Charlie had definitely joined the club. But I’d never seen what happened next.

  This dazzling light emerged from Charlie’s body and hovered over it like morning mist. Only it looked more substantial. It was as if a Charlie-sized diamond floated three feet off Umberto’s carpet, each facet giving off its own unique color. Then, as if some cosmic hand had reached down and turned the wheel of a kaleidoscope, the diamond split, spun, and reformed. Now multiple jewels danced in the air above Charlie’s body. A moment later they flew apart like a spectacular Chinese firework.

  One shot straight into the wife’s mouth, quieting her immediately. One went to each boy, landing gently on their foreheads and then sinking out of sight. Several exited via windows, walls, and doors, and I suspected they’d find their way to his dearest friends and relatives tonight. The largest one shot straight through the ceiling, destination unknown, but I—jaded, cynical Jaz—was voting for heaven.

  “That is some amazing backwash you’ve got there, Vayl,” I murmured.

  “What?”

  I turned to look and there he stood, not three feet from me, watching the action from a small nook formed by a ceiling-high rubber tree plant and the corner of the bathroom entryway, his power at its usual simmer. Most people would’ve looked straight at him and never seen a thing. Nobody was looking but me, however, so I was the only one who saw him “solidify.” It was like watching a computer sketch fill with color. One moment he was a chalk drawing. The next he was a stern, handsome gentleman admiring the greenery.

  “Vayl—” I began, but Cole stepped up, yanking Vayl’s sleeve so he would turn and face us.

  “Who did this?” he demanded. “Who just killed that man while you stood and watched?”

  “It was not my place to interfere—”

  “Goddammit, this is not a National Geographic special! You’re not supposed to huddle in the bushes and film the lions killing the zebras. You’re supposed to kill the lions!”

  “We are the lions,” Vayl corrected, “and we must be extremely careful before we challenge another pride. The odds must be in our favor, yes?”

  Cole looked ready to go caveman on Vayl’s head. “Yes,” I said, taking Cole’s hand and squeezing until he turned his attention to me. “To kill from a distance”—I shook my head—“that’s badass power, Cole. You don’t just jump in the path of that. Not unless you want to get seriously maimed.”

  “Who are you people?” Cole whispered.

  Vayl and I shared a stony look and a chilling silence. Though John Q. Public knew we existed, he rarely wanted to be reminded. We were thinking Cole would feel the same.

  A couple of EMTs arrived and Charlie left on a mobile bed with his stunned family trailing behind. Umberto’s manager finally convinced everyone to return to their seats, offering half off their dinners to keep them from bolting. It pretty much worked.

  “Cole.” I turned to him, took a deep breath, and said a mental goodbye. “Get out.” Get out, ge
t out, get out.

  “Now, wait a minute,” Cole and Vayl chorused, looking at each other with consternation as they realized they shared the same opinion.

  “Have you ever fought a vampire?” I asked Cole.

  “No, but—”

  “Then there’s no point in staying, is there? Get out while you still have your humanity.”

  “But what about—”

  “We’ll call you, okay?” I said, not meaning it, hoping I could talk Vayl out of using Cole’s connections, tempting though they were. My little hike down memory lane had reminded me too well how much it hurt to lose good people, and the longer I knew Cole the more I knew he was good people. “Just, please, take off before the vamp that killed Charlie realizes you’re with us.”

  He looked hard at me, trying to decipher my expression. “Okay, I’ll go. As soon as you give me your number.” I started to argue but, like a magician sliding an ace out of his sleeve, Vayl pulled out our business card and handed it to him.

  Cole read it aloud. “Robinson-Bhane Antiquities—Specializing in Eighteenth Century Rarities.” He looked at Vayl. “I guess you can do that when you’ve had firsthand experience.” Vayl didn’t even raise an eyebrow. I’d begun to think nothing surprised him, not even being outed as a vamp by a PI who looked like he’d just jumped off his surfboard.

  “Call us when you have made arrangements with Amanda Assan,” Vayl said.

  “I will,” Cole replied, giving me an I-will-return look.

  I nodded, hoping he’d pocket the card, forget where he’d put it, and wash it along with his pants. Then all he’d have left of me would be a wad of crumpled paper with some blurry writing on it.

  Before I realized what he was doing, Cole leaned in and stole another kiss. “I’ll see you,” he said. He turned and left.

  “I hope not,” I murmured as I watched him walk out the door.

  “Jasmine . . .” Vayl’s voice had dropped and softened to the point where I barely recognized it.

  “Vayl?” He looked like he’d woken up to find some vital body part missing.

  He shook his head. “Is the vampire still with us?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let us take a walk then, shall we?”

  “Okay.” We headed back to the table, taking the long way around the restaurant. As we walked, Vayl spoke in a voice that only just reached my ears.

  “Perhaps you should get out as well.”

  It took every bit of focus I possessed not to keel over right then and there. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Your life, Jasmine. Your short, beautiful life.” I recognized Vayl’s expression. It said, If you’re going to break my heart, make it quick. The last guy who’d shown it to me had been my high school sweetheart the night I left him behind. Though I could tell he didn’t want to, Vayl kept talking. “You wish to protect Cole from the very thing that defines your existence. What does that say to you?”

  “I define my existence,” I told him through clenched teeth. “I choose to be here, now. Cole didn’t have that choice. He just fell into it. That’s a good way to drown.” And he’s already done that one too many times. Vayl let it go.

  We made it back to our seats with no extrasensory alarm going off in my head. “The vamp must be in the bar,” I said as we sat, hoping my businesslike tone would calm us both. “Move in, or wait?” I itched to deliver some old-school violence to Charlie’s killer’s table. Action, that’s what I needed. All this thinking was driving me nuts. But I knew what Vayl would say.

  “Wait.”

  We waited. We made small talk. We ate. It’s all part of the job, in the end, and we try to do the job well.

  Now that I knew the vamp’s scent, I could differentiate it from Vayl’s much better than I had at first. It stayed in one place for another hour. Then it moved. We’d already paid the check, so we moved too. Still we almost blew it. Like most vamps, this one came with an entourage, and the last of the group was stepping into a glistening black limo when we reached the parking lot.

  One of the first lessons I learned at the absence of my father’s knee was that life isn’t fair. Sometimes innocent little kids get stuck with dads who keep leaving and moms who hand out far too many whippings. And sometimes those are the very kids who grow up to learn that everybody leaves sooner or later, by chance or by death, and it’s never fair. So, though it wasn’t fair at all, it was still true that the one guy still standing outside the limo possessed the ability to spot federal agents at a distance of fifty yards. Apparently he also had the ability to deal with them, because he motioned for his three buddies to leave their seats and join him. They headed our way, the four of them stopping with about fifteen paces left between us—what I like to refer to as dueling distance.

  It felt like the OK Corral on steroids. There they stood, making a formidable first impression even without the Tech-9s they held casually at their sides. I felt my skin tighten in alarm at the ease with which they carried those deadly weapons. These were guys who would shoot first and ask questions never. Why was I ever scared of the monsters I thought were under my bed? I wondered. These are the real bogeymen.

  Despite the crisp January breeze, the goon who’d spotted us wore a sleeveless gray T-shirt, exposing massive tattooed biceps. Beside him stood a tall, redheaded man whose mustache grew down either side of his lips to his neck and farther south until it disappeared into his chest hair. He had that look in his eye that said, I’ve killed things with shovels and enjoyed it.

  A bright red scar split the third man’s right cheek into halves, the knife that had caused it also leaving behind one milky white eye to remind its owner to dodge a little sooner next time. The fourth man had Chinese eyes, a Russian weightlifter’s physique, and an American biker’s goatee. He grinned, revealing a couple of gold teeth, and pointed a long, sheath-covered fingernail at my chest.

  “You got a problem?” he drawled, obviously expecting me to pee my pants before falling to the ground and groveling like an unworthy subject of the emperor. And that was all it took. A new, screw-you attitude took precedence, trampling my fear under its boots. A highly dangerous approach, I still found it much easier to bear.

  “Well, it all goes back to my childhood . . .” I began, but the emergence from the limo of a black, high-heeled pump attached to a shapely, stockinged leg interrupted me.

  “I don’t like the looks of this,” I murmured to Vayl.

  He just grunted. He centered on the show now as a second leg joined the first. Silver sequins glittered as moonlight hit the hem of her knee-length dress. One elegant hand came out to grasp tattooed dude’s paw and the rest of her finally appeared.

  “Hey, look, Vayl,” I murmured, “it’s Vampire Barbie.”

  From her waist-length platinum hair to her surgically enhanced boobs, she looked like she’d been plucked from some Hollywood director’s fantasy. The neckline of her dress plunged so deeply I hoped she’d used the extra-strength lingerie tape. Her huge violet eyes slanted just slightly, enough to give her the exotic look of some sheik’s plaything.

  “Get a load of this,” I said. “Perfect makeup, perfect nails, perfect figure—it makes me want to shove her headfirst into a steaming pile of horse crap. Why is it you can never find a mounted policeman when you need one?”

  Vayl had no answers for me. At all. He’d gone as still as a billboard photo.

  “Do you know this woman?” I asked him. When he didn’t answer, I shook him. He looked at me, his eyes blank. Dead.

  “Who is she?”

  “Liliana. My late wife.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Not a day goes by that I don’t miss my Granny May. Mom, well to be honest, I’m kind of relieved she’s gone. But her mother’s passing still gets to me, even after three years. Sometimes I want to see her so badly it’s a physical pain. Now I just wished she was here to prop me up, because damned if I didn’t feel dizzy.

  I watched Vayl watch Liliana approach us and totally failed
to figure out how he felt about it. I, on the other hand, felt very clearly that the world had just begun to spin in the opposite direction. “Your . . . late . . . wife?” I whispered.

  Vayl nodded, just a slight jerk of his head. “She died. Then she killed me. Ergo . . . late wife.”

  That song started going through my head, the only words I remembered being the most pertinent at the moment. How bizarre. How bizarre.

  Vayl’s voice sounded robotic, a programmed conversational gambit offering no meaningful detail as he said, “Whatever happens, Jasmine, do not take off Cirilai.” Who? Oh, duh, the ring.

  Still basically clueless, I fell back on what Granny May used to call my “spider sense.” (She was a big fan of Marvel Comics. Dave inherited her collection, the lucky bum.) She had meant my woman’s intuition, and even without my newly honed senses to back it up, it thrummed like a tightly strung web. The rate of thrum increased when Vayl added, “Under no circumstance should you draw your gun.”

  Grief, a comforting lump under my jacket, contained some Bergman-engineered options that would work beautifully on Liliana. And he didn’t want me to pull it? Nuts!

  “Vayl—”

  His look, foreign and glacial, silenced me. I suddenly felt outnumbered.

  “This is not something we can escape through violence,” he said, thawing slightly as I searched his eyes.

  “What about through the threat of violence?”

  His lips twitched. “One cannot encounter you without sensing that threat. Tonight it should be enough simply for them to know you are dangerous.”

  I disagreed. I hated to question Vayl’s commitment to me or to the Agency, but he’d just dropped a big old bomb on me. What else had he been hiding? Should I, God forbid, mark his name down next to Martha’s on the suspect list?

  I felt like I was looking at a portrait as I gazed into his empty eyes. I’d seen life in them plenty of times, but now I felt stupid to have assumed his life had anything in common with my own. He wasn’t a monster. I’d seen enough in my time to recognize the difference. But he wasn’t a man either. Could I ever really know, could I ever really trust someone so different from me and mine?