Another One Bites the Dust (37 page)

I’d just struggled to my knees when Vayl said, “I see the third eye!”

“Well, what the hell do you want
me
to do about it!” I bitched. “If I let go he’s just going to slide back in!”

“Well,
somebody
has to shoot him!” Vayl growled.

The thunder of Cole’s gun drowned out my reply.

The legs in my hands went limp. I turned to look. Cole’s shot had been right on target. The reaver died where he laid, his fingers still curled around the edge of the door. And out of that blasted third eye emerged a lovely magenta soul that flew off into the night like a comet.

Vayl and I both moved back. I trained Grief on the spot where the reaver gang had holed up, but the ones who’d survived had scattered as soon as Yale passed.

The clawed hands continued to pull Yale’s body through the doorway, and as his feet crossed the threshold the entire door disappeared with the boom of overhead thunder.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-SEVEN

Cassandra and Bergman met us at the RV door.

“You’re back to yourself!” Bergman said the second Vayl pulled his helmet off.

Vayl nodded wanly. “Apparently I simply needed some quiet time in the aftermath of the battle.”

“Also a towel would’ve been nice,” I added. Although Vayl thought he’d reabsorbed a great deal of the armor, he’d still ended up wringing wet. And since I’d driven us home, that meant I now looked as if a football team had tried to douse me with the Gatorade cooler and only done half the job. The back half.

We’d said our thank-yous and goodbyes to Jericho and the guys at the site, with a promise to return a cleaner, shinier Ninja to Jericho in the morning. The SWAT guys had volunteered to supervise the cleanup since we’d sort of saved the day with the festival. An unusually quiet, introspective Cole had stayed with them.

As if reading my mind—and who knows, maybe she was— Cassandra said, “Where’s Cole?”

“He’ll be back soon,” I said. “He’s with Jericho right now.”

“And?”

“I’m worried about him. He killed a couple of humans and the reaver today. He definitely wasn’t acting like himself when we left.”

“He will be fine,” Vayl said irritably. He sounded almost . . . jealous. His next words confirmed my suspicions. “Why do you never concern yourself for me? The change I underwent has left me exhausted.”

“Dude, you’re immortal. It’s not like you won’t get a second to catch up on your sleep.” Plus, I was feeling deeply drained myself, which left no room for commiseration in my book. Especially not with the vampire who’d sucked Cole into our business in the first place.

Even though I wanted to roll into the RV and hit the bedroom so bad my bones actually ached, I dismounted Jericho’s Ninja with reluctance. I was in love with another man’s bike. It felt like a sin.

Unfortunately Cassandra blocked my way inside. Which was when I finally registered the guilty look she shared with Bergman. He began. “We thought, you know, before you tear us a new one? We wanted to say we’re sorry.”

“Yes,” Cassandra agreed. “It was our fault.”

“Naturally,” I said, though I was at least a chapter behind them.

Cassandra said, “I should have told you that spelled items can inhibit natural Sensitivities, like being able to see the weaknesses in the reaver’s shield. I knew that. But I said nothing because I thought Bergman would make some snide remark about magic. And because of my omission you . . . you could have died.” Tears sprang into her eyes.

“And I should never have let my fears turn me into such an asshole. I . . . don’t want to cut our ties completely. You’re so damn interesting.” Plus, I was one of the only friends he had left. But being a guy, he wasn’t going to go there. “I just, it got so intense. But I’m sorry I let you down.” He looked at Cassandra and she nodded. “We both are.”

It’s so true that the people most likely to kill you are those closest to you.

I crossed my arms over my chest so I wouldn’t be tempted to shake them or maybe bang their heads together. I nearly told them if they wanted to hang out with me they’d better start acting like grown-ups instead of a couple of two-year-olds fighting over the good toys at the day care center. But then my arms started to ache. So did my hands and legs for that matter. I remembered Cassandra’s face when she took me to the hospital, and Bergman’s expression when they found me standing in the bay with the gun he’d built for me pressed against my temple.

I took a deep breath. “I know this mission wasn’t easy for either one of you. You’re both so great at what you do. I mean, you have that passion that is really integral to being exceptional, and so of course you’re going to clash. And yet here you are, doing the hardest part of the work and making a damn good team.” I shrugged. “I forgive you.”

Cassandra clapped her hands once, hard, the way she does when she’s delighted. And Bergman’s eyes shone so bright he had to take off his glasses to keep from blinding himself. They gave each other high fives, which Bergman found painful from the way he rubbed his hand down his thigh afterward, and trooped back into the RV. Within seconds Bergman came back outside with our safe phone. “It’s for you,” he said, handing the cell to Vayl.

“Yes?” Vayl listened for maybe twenty seconds, his eyes darkening as the news filtered through his emotions. “Of course we want this. We will be there in twenty minutes.” He snapped the phone shut. “You had better get changed.”

“Yeah?”

“That was Pete. He said they found the men’s clothing shop you mentioned. The one that had served both Shunyuan Fa and Desmond Yale?”

“Frierman’s? In Reno?”

He nodded. “After about an hour of rather intense interrogation the tailor admitted that Edward Samos has many of his meetings in his shop and that one is scheduled for tonight. Pete has chartered us a plane. We have”—he checked his watch—“eighteen minutes to make it to the airport.”

I went for the door.

“Jasmine?”

I turned back.

“Remember to load your gun.”

CHAPTERTHIRTY-EIGHT

Islept on the plane. The best kind. The healing kind. Deep. Without dreams. Definitely without sleepwalking. Where, when you wake up, you don’t even care if you snored.

Pete had a car waiting for us, one driven by a bright-eyed young pup wearing a black knit hat and matching jogging suit. He offered us both coffee, opened the doors for us, and kept quiet while he sped us through the neon-lit streets of Reno. We parked on the street. Frierman’s was small, but it still managed a luxurious feel. I attributed it mostly to the black tuxedos hanging in the windows, backed by red velvet curtains and lit by sparkling chandeliers.

“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 any
others
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 feel
old
.

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 the
Constance 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 the
Constance 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 the
others-
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.