Long pause. I counted to ten. Gave up. Then he answered. “No. I could never bear the feeling, the thought—”
“I so get that,” I said. “When I was a little kid one of my greatest fears was of being buried alive. I don’t even know where I got the idea it could happen. Some show, probably, about scratch marks on the inside of coffin lids and people who could fall into comas so deep that doctors thought they were truly dead.”
Sigh. “Yes,” he said. “You understand. Also there was the real possibility that an enemy would discover the crypt and seal me inside.”
“Did you have many enemies?”
“Several.” Another pause. “Did I ever tell you why I am so bothered by snakes?”
“No.” Although he had let me know he didn’t appreciate them. To the point where I’d had to dispose of one for him during a previous mission.
“When I was a child we were traveling from one camp to another and we had to cross a river. My dog had been traveling on the wagon, but he loved water, so as soon as he could, he jumped in. About halfway across he squealed and began to struggle, as if he had been caught by a fast-moving limb. I cried for my father to come to his aid, but when he pulled him out by the scruff of his neck, his entire underbelly was covered, crawling with water snakes.”
“Oh my God.”
“My father threw him back in. It was a miracle neither he nor the horse was bitten as well. But still, the vision haunts me.”
“Stuff that happens to you when you’re little, it just sticks, doesn’t it?”
“Some of it, yes. And some memories I cannot grasp though I experienced them fully at the time.” I moved to the next wall, looked over to see him shaking his head. “Ah, but it has been a while, as you say.”
“Hey, I think I found it!” I’d made my way to the mirror. Framed in pewter, it had lots of scrollwork, but at the top and bottom were smooth, round expanses of metal inscribed with Vampere phrases.
“What’s it say?” I asked as Vayl joined me.
“It is a famous quote from one of our first Council members, Sereth, who passed perhaps a century ago. Reality is but a reflection of humanity’s manipulation of itself.”
We began pressing and prodding the mirror, pushing the round sections, trying to shove it in different directions. Vayl looked around the room. “This has to be it,” he said, resting his hands on his hips in frustration.
“Wait a second. That word, ‘manipulation.’ See how it’s in a different font?” I said.
“Yes!” Vayl pressed his forefingers onto the word and pushed. It sank into the surrounding metal. Moments later, with the whispering whoosh I associated with hydraulics, the mirrored section, along with the geniuses Eryx had idolized, swung inward.
We grinned at each other in delight. Vayl felt inside and found a light switch. When he flipped it we saw a hallway covered with a mural the artist had called The Daemon Wars. The setting looked fairly recent. Times Square full of cars I dated to the fifties. Humans carried on with their business, oblivious to the vampires and hell spawn battling in alleyways, sewers, and on rooftops, just out of their sight.
“Were you around for this?” I asked, shoving a thumb at the painting.
“Of course.”
“How come I’ve never heard of it?”
He darted a glance at me that looked almost—amused. “Our department was only involved peripherally. And other than us, the government stayed out completely.”
I stared at the painting another minute. One of the fighters had caught my eye. A woman with honey-colored hair pulled back into a braid. I could only see her profile, but it looked oddly familiar. I shook my head. Couldn’t be. Evie’s twenty-four, for God’s sake.
I pulled Grief and nodded as Vayl led me into a red-painted, gold-carpeted room full of open shelves, glass cases, and carefully arranged displays.
“This must be the Preserve,” he said.
“Wow” was my brilliant reply. Vayl had said Hamon was a math professor, but given how the items we passed were posed, lit, and grouped, it looked to me like his secret passion had been museum curation.
Enormous statues of long-nosed faces stood on their own waist-high pedestals. Original paintings, all depicting scenes of war or martyrdom, filled the walls. Skeletons of dinosaurs posed as if in full chase of the recomposed bones of their mammalian prey. Two gigantic round tablets containing ancient writings stood on their ends, propped by intricately detailed Ionic columns. They filled one entire end of the room.
“Don’t these people ever throw anything away?” I asked.
“Why would they? This is the stuff of legend!” Vayl fingered a full-scale costume made of dried yellow grasses that reminded me of Dorothy’s Scarecrow minus the suit that made him charming. The mask that topped it looked like the contraptions people wear after they’ve broken their necks, except colorful tufted feathers stuck out of the band that ran around the forehead. To one side of it stood a six-foot-long spear draped in hemp-braided beads.
We explored the whole area, discovering priceless relics neither of us had ever seen before and antiques my grandparents’ folks would’ve used when they were kids. We knew we’d found Eryx’s prize possession when we reached the center of the exhibit. Sitting on a velvet-covered dais was a mask the size of a pro basketball player. When worn it would cover the entire body, front and back, except for maybe the ankles. The carved wood shone as if it were polished daily. And a wreath of silk laurel leaves circled the forehead.
Though some of the other masks we’d seen in the Preserve had worn the faces of animals and fiends, this one clearly symbolized a human. It looked like a Master’s hand had done the carving of lips, nose, ears, cheeks, and forehead. The most amazing parts of the whole piece were the eyes, painted so artfully that they looked real, and you had to look hard to see where the empty space had been left in the pupils for the wearer to see through.
Vayl said, “I do not care for the whiskers. It detracts from the artistry of the rest of the piece.”
It did seem odd that the crafter had carved lines that radiated out from the face to the edges of the mask. “It’s probably some magically symbolic thing like those words at the bottom,” I guessed. I’d been taking pictures with my Monise all along. Now I got a close-up of the phrase, which wasn’t in a language either one of us recognized.
“Do you suppose this is symbolic?” he asked, pointing to a small door that had been built into the front of it, about a foot below the face. It was square, with a round, black knob. As soon as he touched the door, an image appeared to the left of the dais. It was a vampire wearing a brown suit with a ruffled white shirt underneath. He’d clasped his hands in front of his hips to speak, making it easy for me to recognize the ring on his pinky finger. The same one I’d seen on the dangling corpse in Blas’s room.
“It’s Hamon, isn’t it?” I asked as Vayl stepped back from the hologram.
“Yes.”
For a few seconds we watched the former Deyrar stare thoughtfully over our heads. Finally he spoke. “I will not welcome you,” he said, in a voice I found hauntingly familiar. “Not yet at least. By solving the puzzle of my death-spell and the riddle of unlocking the Preserve’s doors, you have proved yourself clever. But that does not necessarily make you a fitting Deyrar, dearling. Especially if you are the one who killed me, since my sudden demise is the only way this recording could be activated.”
He swallowed several times, struggling with emotions he didn’t care to share. “I have given everything to assure the continuance of this Trust. You could have had all my secrets willingly if you had just waited until I was prepared to step down. But now—no, I will not reveal it all. Only this. If I am gone, my mate, Octavia, will follow me quite soon. We ruled over the Trust together, partners, as has been the case for Deyrars since the first pair powered this Trust. If you wish to keep this community alive, you must also find a partner. Ideally a mate. Give her to the mask. Let Octavia decide if your choice is appropriate.
But do it quickly. If Octavia dies without initiating a renewal within the mask, the Trust will die with her.”
Hamon’s image flickered and faded away.
“Dearling! That’s where I’ve heard that word before!” I exclaimed. When Vayl sent me a startled look, I said, “Every time we’re in a room full of blood this face appears to me. The first time it showed up, it said ‘dearling.’ I think it’s Hamon, or what’s left of him, still hanging around trying to save the Trust.”
Vayl shook his head. “He was certainly devoted.”
“I guess you could use that word. I’d go for something a little more extreme myself. Like obsessed. Or, oh, I don’t know . . . bonkers?”
Vayl ignored me as he regarded the mask with even more interest than he’d shown it before. “What do you think he meant by equating Octavia with the mask?”
“Maybe it belongs to her.”
“Or maybe . . .” Vayl reached forward and pulled the small square door open. Behind it, moving on its own as if animated by some outside force, sat a beating heart.
We must’ve stared at that organ for five solid minutes.
“Octavia?” I asked.
Vayl closed the door, his cheekbones looking more prominent than usual because he’d locked his jaws so tight. He walked around to the back of the mask. “Take a look at this,” he said grimly. When I joined him, he pointed out a line of chocolate-turtle-sized protrusions running down the center of the piece.
“Looks like a spinal column,” I said.
“Do you feel any power coming from it?” Vayl asked.
“Like an all-over skin crawl. And I’ll bet my savings there are actual vertebrae hidden behind those bumps.”
“I believe you would win,” said Vayl.
“So where’s the rest of her?”
“I have no idea.”
Aw, hell. He reached around to take my hand. His was cold, and oh, so strong.
“Vayl.” I squeezed his hand as hard as I could. Which, to him, probably felt like a mouse jumping on a trampoline. “I’d like to point out how much this sucks.”
“Agreed.” He moved back to the front of the mask, studying the face so closely that my urge to pull him away nearly got the better of me. “I believe she must be sleeping.”
“Well.” I gulped. “It is daytime. If she’s still a vampire, that would be a logical conclusion.”
“We must return tonight.”
“Do you think she’ll know how to break you free of Disa?”
“It is difficult to say. But given the fact that she is dying, I would suspect whatever information she has to offer will be genuine.”
“Okay.” I stifled the urge to kick the mask over and stomp it into kindling. Destroying the Trust could free Vayl from Disa. But he might see it as slightly extreme given that he still had some friends here.
I followed Vayl back to the Hydra-covered door, which we once again secured with the barred gate. The artifacts went back where we’d found them and Vayl resealed the cases. After unblocking the cameras we returned to our suite.
Dave was still at the library table when we came in, studying the cemetery layout as if he could somehow make the whole plan work just by staring at its visual design. He readily switched interest to the photos we’d taken. “Are you telling me this mask is somehow alive?” he asked.
I looked to Vayl. Are we sure about this? His nod gave my answer confidence. “Yeah. We don’t know how, but it’s packed with power.”
He took a closer look at the picture. “What are these symbols in the base?”
Vayl said, “It is not Vampere.”
“Cassandra’s really good at ancient languages,” I hinted. “And if she can’t translate, maybe the Enkyklios has a clue.” It often gave her a leg up in the research department when her own knowledge came up short.
Dave looked at his watch. “It’s just after twelve thirty p.m. here, which means it’s, what, eight or nine thirty where she’s at?”
“Something like that,” I agreed.
“Okay, I’ll give her a call. Maybe she can come up with something.” He dug out his phone.
I looked around the room, finally noticing the blood had been cleaned up, though Tarasios was still passed out on the floor. “Where’s the dog?” I asked.
“In the bedroom,” said Dave as he waited for his call to go through. “He’s sprawled out on that dress of yours like it’s made of ermine or something. Which reminds me. He snores.”
“Thanks for the warning. I’ll grab my earplugs before I try to get some shut-eye,” I said. “Anybody have any objections?”
Dave shook his head and walked away as Cassandra answered her phone and he began to talk, hesitantly at first, but more eagerly as the conversation went on. I glanced at Vayl. “You okay with me catching a nap?” I asked.
“Of course.” He smiled. “With Disa clear of the library, perhaps I can spend some time in there. Among all those old tomes there must be one recommendation as to how a Maker can force his nestling to fly.”
I realized I’d clasped my hands together like a little girl who’s just been promised a dolly for her birthday. “You think there might be some info in there about breaking the binding?”
“Absolutely.” For a couple of seconds I believed it. Because I wanted to. But I could tell he didn’t hold out much hope for rescue. Which was when I finally got fed up. I’m killing that bitch. Not just for Vayl. But for Aine. And Niall and Admes. For the werebears and my honorary pack. And that bloody face that makes me go ewww.
Suddenly the question was no longer how to break the bond between my sverhamin and the woman he’d ripped, but how to keep him alive once I’d smoked her.
Chapter Twenty-Five
As soon as I hit the bedroom I sent the word out through Pete, Albert, and Cole. Contact your experts. Let me know if there’s a way to kill a bound vampire without also destroying its Maker.
The answers came back depressingly soon. There is no way. When they’re magically entwined, the vultures die with the nestlings. Always have. Always will.
“Goddammit!” The cursing woke up Ziel, who came over to check on me. “Go away. I’m pissed off,” I grumbled.
He laid his head on the bed. When I refused to pet him, he jumped up, clearing me and landing on the other side, where he turned around three times before settling in beside me. “Okay, you can stay, but don’t get used to this. I’m only allowing it because I’m so bummed and for some reason you don’t smell like dog.”
I turned my back to him and instantly fell asleep.
When I opened my eyes they landed on Vayl, standing at the end of the bed, a shadowy figure in the dimness of the room.
I sat up. Slowly. Why is it that you never really feel the effects of a fight until after you stop moving? I groaned, silently cursing Samos’s men as I glanced at the dog they’d tried to retrieve. Ziel lay at my side, gnawing on a bone I hoped hadn’t once been some guy’s leg.
“How long did I sleep?” I asked.
“Hours. Dusk has fallen.”
“Time to call Samos?”
“Nearly so.” Vayl cocked his head to one side. “Pete called while you were asleep. He wanted to know why you were trying to spare vampires. When I did not know what he was talking about, he had to explain.”
I crossed my legs in front of me and swallowed a gasp as I reached for the poker chips that stood like a tower of happy thoughts on the bedside table. When I still didn’t say anything, Vayl went on. “You cannot kill Disa.”
“So I’ve been told.” Click. Clack. Click.
“Even if her death were to have no effect on me, you should still not be pondering this course of action.”
“Okay.”
“That does not sound convincing.”
Clack, click, clackety, clack. “I could swear on my mother’s grave if you want.”
“What good would that do when she is in hell?”
I shrugged. Ow, dammit! He came and sat down in front of me.
“Do not cross the line, Jasmine. Not for me. Do the mission, do it well, and go home.”
I met his eyes. “The mission’s changed.”
“According to whom?”
“Me. And you, if you’re thinking straight. Look, Pete can’t call this one. Neither can any of the candidates vying for a seat on the department’s oversight committee. They’re not here. They don’t know.”
“But if they were, their feelings for me would not cloud their decisions.”
“You forget what a valuable asset they see you as. If Disa ties you up for the next fifty years, they’re pretty much screwed, aren’t they?”
His brows arched. “What are you saying?”
“I have a good case, if it comes to that. But I don’t think it will. I think Pete will back me a hundred percent. So the second I figure out how to keep you alive—I’m taking Disa down.”
Actually my biggest concern was Cassandra’s warning about what would happen to Vayl and me if I pulled this off. But I’d detoured her prophecies before. I glanced up from the poker chips. Gave myself just a second to imagine what it would be like to spend the rest of my life with him.
“You cannot look at me that way,” Vayl said.
“Why?”
“Because suddenly it becomes impossible to keep my hands off you.” He reached up and cupped my face in his palms, his fingertips sending spirals of excitement down my neck into my heaving chest. Suddenly nothing hurt at all. Anywhere. As Vayl said, “And then I find I must kiss you,” his lips lowered to mine. Just a brush, a touch of flesh and then the alarm went off again.
I jumped, banging my nose against Vayl’s cheek. “Ow!”
Dave ran into the room, yelling, “Jaz, can’t you control your temper for one—oh.”
Tarasios came stumbling in behind him, holding his hands to his head, mumbling, “Stop the sirens. Please, stop the sirens.” He kept moving straight toward the bathroom, tripping over the doggy-dress-bed by the door. He landed on all fours and crawled toward his target, making it just in time to leave his mess where at least nobody would have to mop it up.
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