“You’re cleared to go in,” the driver volunteered, holding up the paperwork so we could see.
I could’ve said, “Sweetie, my boss would never go to the expense of flying us anywhere if he wasn’t sure we could make it through the door once we landed.” Instead I nodded and followed Vayl out of the car.
The driver went around back, ostensibly to block the exit should anybody at the meeting decide to make a break for it. But as soon as we stepped into the alcove created by the recessed doorway I had a feeling running wouldn’t be a problem.
“I don’t sense any vampires in the vicinity besides you,” I whispered to Vayl as I worked the lock. It didn’t stop me long. I wore a necklace, compliments of Bergman, whose shark-tooth centerpiece could mold itself into any key, given a couple of seconds. “In fact, I don’t sense anyothers at all.”
“And the only strong human emotion I am picking up on is our driver’s,” Vayl said. “He is quite excited about this whole event.”
“Huh.” I’d caught that too. Annoying. Mostly because he was about my age and yet he made me feelold .
We inched inside the store, skirted racks of trousers and dress shirts, made our way to the back of the retail area, where shelves of shoes guarded a door whose sign warned us we’d better be employees if we wanted to go any farther. We went anyway. But only to the other side.
The sight and smell that hit us when we entered the back room stopped us after only a couple of steps.
“I never would’ve believed such a tiny man could hold so much blood.” I leaned into Vayl, trying not to puke, cry, pass out, or swear. It was easier than it should’ve been.
Morty Frierman had been hung from a ceiling joist with a noose made from his own measuring tape. Then someone—Samos, you sick, twisted bastard, I cannot wait until the day I end your fiendish existence—had ripped him open reaver style. It looked to me like all his parts were still intact, so I kinda thought Samos had just learned a new trick from that old dog Yale.
Our phone buzzed against my thigh. I went outside to answer it. “Yeah?”
“Jasmine? It’s Cassandra.”
“What’s up?”
“Cole came back.” Long silence while I decided things did not bode well back at the home place.
“What’s he up to?”
“He’s been very . . . professional.” Okay, that in itself was just weird. “He didn’t say anything about what happened while he was gone. But, of course, he had told Jericho about the massacre on theConstance Malloy . So he began talking about how Jericho’s people had boarded the yacht and begun detaining generals and recovering bodies. Then, without even calling Pete, Cole decided he should be the CIA’s liaison in that matter, so he ran off to watch. And just before he left he said, ‘Oh, by the way Cassandra, Jericho said to tell you he probably wouldn’t get a chance to see you again, so goodbye.’ He was just so cold about it, Jasmine. As if I should grow up and get over it, you know, yesterday.”
Oh boy. My first instinct was to order Cassandra and Bergman to drag Cole off that yacht and dunk his head into the bay until the pompous ass washed right out of him. But I knew this wouldn’t work as a long-term solution to the problem. Which was, in fact, that he had become an assassin tonight. That he would be doing more killing as time went by. That he would have to find a way to eliminate his targets without breaking off little parts of himself every time he did so.
“Okay, Cassandra, thanks for letting me know. I’ll, uh, I’ll think of something.”
Vayl came outside. “Problems back in Texas?”
“Yeah. I’ll tell you on the way. We’re done in there, right?”
“I believe we have found everything we could. We will let the specialists deal with the rest.”
“Then let’s get back. Cole is reacting badly to his first kill and the two people who should be walking him through the aftermath aren’t there.”
“What is it you think we can do for him?” Vayl demanded, his voice as hard as the cane at his side.
“Could you just drop the whole misplaced-jealousy gig? When I’m ready to jump into the sack with someone, I guarantee it’s not going to be a guy who chews bubble gum and wears high-tops with his suits.”
Vayl didn’t exactly swoop in on me, but it suddenly felt like we’d just finished a dance, that’s how close we stood. I forgot to breathe as he held my gaze. “What kind of man will it be?” he asked softly, his eyes the pure, blazing green I’d begun to equate with these supercharged moments.
For the first time I was certain of the answer. And that realization gave me the confidence to go up on tiptoe, bring my mouth to within an inch of his, and whisper, “One who doesn’t piss me off with too many questions.” I backed off a step and hid a grin as Vayl raised his head. A vamp that old, I don’t suppose you get to see them speechless too often. So I enjoyed the moment. It ended when our driver came around the corner.
“Come on,” I said to Vayl as he pulled up to the curb. “We’ve got one last mission to accomplish before dawn.”
CHAPTERTHIRTY-NINE
Vayl and I spent most of our trip back to Corpus Christi on the phone, reporting to and getting reports from our Reno contacts, from Pete, and from Jericho Preston. By the time we reached the RV we’d tied up as many of our loose ends as we could. Which meant we could focus on Cole.
It wasn’t tough to get him off theConstance Malloy . I just mentioned the problem to Jericho during our last call and he sent Cole back home. He was making coffee when Vayl and I walked in. When it began percolating I said, “Cole, we need to make a rather elaborate plan, which cannot even begin without the aid of some major bubble blowing. Gum, please.”
Bergman and Cassandra had each commandeered a twin and were watching Cole with an air of tense frustration, like parents who can’t seem to get their thick-skulled teen to listen to reason. Without quite knowing what I was about, they gave me their attention while Cole dipped into his stash. Accompanied by the scent of Dubble Bubble and the steadily increasing interest and input of the object of our concern, our plans were made and carried out like clockwork.
I admit we nearly got caught, because we were giggling like maniacs throughout the whole exercise. (Okay, Vayl wasn’t even smiling at first. But once we convinced him we had the higher moral ground, even if it was only by an inch, he at least showed occasional signs of fang). But it was good for us, Cole especially, to imagine the faces of theothers- are-not-our-brothers protesters when they discovered Lung’s and Pengfei’s coffins hooked to the bumper of their hate-crimes van in the morning withJUST BURIED spray painted in big white letters across the lids. We made it back to the RV with just enough time for Vayl to stagger to the bedroom, pop up his tent, and crawl inside. Such a silly exercise. But it had helped Cole shed his shell and rediscover his hilarious old soul.
Mission accomplished.
CHAPTERFORTY
Cole, Cassandra, Bergman, and I stood outside the RV, watching dawn break over the city.
Cole took a sip of his coffee. “I don’t get why you’re so relaxed, Jaz,” he said. “I mean, you thought you had Samos nailed last night. But he slipped through your fingers again. I haven’t known you long, but I’m thinking, typically, you’d be gnashing your teeth and pulling your hair out.” He looked to Bergman for confirmation.
“Oh, yeah,” Miles said. “One time, in college, she got so mad after our apartment was burglarized that she smashed her fist through the bathroom door.”
“I did find that guy,” I reminded Bergman.
He nodded. “She got all our stuff back and made him replace the door too.”
“So what’s the deal?” asked Cole.
“I’m curious as well,” said Cassandra. “You told us the Reno crime scene investigators found no fingerprints. No sources of DNA. No scientific proof that Samos killed Morty Frierman. So why are you so tranquil?”
“Because I came away from Frierman’s with the goods on that son of a bitch,” I told them, feeling a grin spr
ead across my face and not minding a bit if it looked slightly evil. “I discovered something that will allow me to pick Samos out of a crowd. Given the time, and opportunity, it’ll lead me straight to him. And then Vayl and I will take him down.”
“So what did you bring home from Reno?” Cole asked.
I wanted to chuckle and rub my hands together. But under the circumstances that seemed too maniacal, so I just took a sip from my mug and said, “The scent of a vampire.”
Acknowledgments
Thanks to everyone who helped make this work the best it could possibly be: My editor, Devi Pillai; my agent, Laurie McLean; Bob Castillo; Alex Lencicki; Penina Lopez; Katherine Molina; Gabriella Nemeth; and all the folks at Orbit whose kindness, creativity, and professionalism I appreciate and admire. I’d also like to thank my readers Laurie McLean, Hank Graves, Hope Dennis, Erin Pringle, Jeremy Toungate, and Katie Rardin for taking the time to review the manuscript. Your feedback is pure gold. As for you, Reader, thanks for coming. Whether it was a return trip or a first outing, I hope you enjoyed the ride!
extras
Meet the Author
Jennifer Rardinbegan writing at the age of twelve, mostly poems to amuse her classmates and short stories featuring her best friends as the heroines. She lives in an old farmhouse in Illinois with her husband and two children. Find out more about Jennifer Rardin at www.JenniferRardin.com.
Introducing
If you enjoyed ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST,
look out for
BITING THE BULLET
Book 3 of the Jaz Parks series
by Jennifer Rardin
The reavers rolled into us, firing seemingly at random. But there was a method to their madness. Reavers operate by strict rules. I didn’t know what the punishments entailed, but they must’ve been extreme, because even the old gnarly ones wouldn’t break them. The main no-no revolved around killing. Reavers were only allowed to eliminate people who’d been marked for murder. In other words, me. Everybody else had to survive. So while the reavers had to take me out, they only wanted to take everybody else down.
What they didn’t count on was the supreme skill and professionalism of their foes. Though they outnumbered us at least three to one at the start of the attack, within sixty seconds we’d whittled their numbers to fifteen.
Our guys had taken a couple of more hits. One second Otto had been standing beside me, a half-grin on his face, saying, “If I had a wheelbarrow full of dynamite I’d blow these fuckers to Mars.” The next second he lay writhing on the ground, trying not to scream, his hip shattered. As I stood over him, nailing reavers when I had a clear shot, pulling up when I realized I’d just aimed at one of my own, I saw Ricardo drop beneath a mass of monsters. Grace had made little progress toward the truck, and was bleeding heavily from a facial wound. Still, I thought we had them.
Then two more groups appeared, coming from both our flanks. These didn’t have firearms, but we already knew the power of their claws, and several swung swords. Terrence and Ashley fired into them, but they didn’t have the right angle to get more than one or two head shots per burst.
“Everybody to me!” yelled David.
Our guys from the farmhouse joined us and we tried to move forward, but they swarmed us. Terrence went down under a reaver’s claws. Vayl, seeing him fall, took the reaver’s eye with his sword and pulled him to his feet. I holstered Grief and grabbed his machine gun. Switching it to three-round burst mode, I fired into the crowd of reavers coming at me, their tongues lolling in anticipation of tasting my soul.
“Jasmine!” called Vayl. “Keep moving!”
Easier said than done. I inched forward, almost tripped over a body, ducked quickly to avoid a neck-ripping swipe and nearly screamed as the body between my legs lurched to its feet. I managed to mute the scream into a squawk as I jumped back, banging into Cole in my rush to avoid the rising reaver.
“Son of a bitch!” he cried, “I missed!”
“Watch out! Watch out!” I yelled. “The dead are rising!”
All around us the reavers we’d defeated the first time around had rediscovered vertical. Multiple thoughts streaked through my mind simultaneously. Not all of them made sense, but a skilled translator might put them in the following light:
Oh Jesus! Oh crap! Zombies! The Wizard’s a necromancer. He could be around here somewhere, pulling their strings. So I should just run off into the night like some rabid raccoon and hope I luck into him? How stupid is that? Plus it’s not him. It’s probably an apprentice. You know that. It may even be the mole. Is anybody murmuring a spell? How the hell can I tell? We are so outnumbered! Did Ashley just go down? My God, I think the semi is farther away than ever. Is that possible? Oh Jesus, was that Terrence’s leg? Don’t turn your head. I said don’t—never mind. Holy shit, that’s the barrel of a Colt .45 aimed right at your face.
The reaver, a live one, grinned wide enough to show the gap between his front teeth as his finger squeezed the trigger.
“Vayl,” I whispered, my eyes somehow tracking straight to his in my final moment.
“Jasmine!” He lunged toward me, too late. The gun boomed and I went down almost at the same time. Only the horrifying pain I expected never split into my brain. A zombie had tackled me, its puppet-like efforts to take off my head such a welcome relief to point-blank assassination I actually giggled. I know. Inappropriate. That’s pretty much how it always happens with me.
The zombie’s weight left me as Vayl picked it up and threw it at least twenty feet. I took the hand Vayl offered and remembered to grab the SAW as he jerked me upright. Ahead of us Cole lifted Terrence onto his shoulder. Two reavers came at him, one living, one dead. Somehow the zombie missed our guys and clawed the living reaver instead, taking out most of his face. When he turned to us I took out his legs with my machine gun.
“What is it with these zombies?” I asked Vayl. “Not that I’m complaining. But you’d think they’d come from 2,000 year old corpses the way they’re behaving.”
“Maybe their master is new to the art.”
“Huh.”
“Aaaah!” I spun at the sound. The zombie behind me clutched at the gaping hole in his chest. A living reaver had circled back to the farmhouse door. Had taken a bead on me. Somehow the zombie had gotten between the two of us.
I took aim at the zombie. Hesitated. Moved my sites to the reaver. It yelled at the zombie. Clearly telling it to move out of the line of fire. Instead the zombie shambled straight toward the living reaver.What the hell ? I glanced over my shoulder, hoping for some confirmation from Vayl that he’d witnessed this bizarre event as well. He was with Otto, lifting him off the ground. Grace and Ashley were already limping away ahead of them.
I looked back. The zombie had reached the living reaver. Grabbed the gun. Moved clear. I took the shot. The reaver fell dead. I waited for the zombie to make its next move. It hesitated. Appeared to study the gun as if it wasn’t sure what to do with it and, in the process, managed to blow its own head off.
About this Title
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Jennifer Rardin [Jaz Parks series book 2] Another One Bites The Dust Page 28