Once Bitten, Twice Shy (29 page)

I moved over to her, hoping to overhear her low-pitched mutterings. "Lousy, neurotic, egotistical, bigoted, neurotic
bastard
!" She threw a sidelong glance at Bergman as she sat down at the dining room table, unaware she'd called him 'neurotic' twice, and that I agreed with her 98%. The bigoted part I'd never witnessed, but I was willing to kick his ass once I got my legs back if that part proved true. Then I realized she wasn't referring to skin tone at all. "Thinks magic's for fanatics, skanks and lesbians, does he?" she muttered. "Why, I'd like to…" her words trailed off as she narrowed her eyes, envisioning some satisfying form of retribution. Then she looked skyward and growled, "What is the
deal
with you? You'd think a thousand years of atonement would serve for one woman. But
noooo
, you've got to torment me even more by shoving me into a gang full of wiseasses and crackpots!"

A thousand years? I suddenly felt like die-hard stoner. All I could think was,
Dude! She's, like, really, really old! Whoa!… Cool
!

Then she saw me. Her face puckered, like she'd just bitten into a not-quite-ripe apple and she sat back so fast her chair went up on two legs. While she fought to regain her balance I tried to figure out this latest mystery. David, Vayl and Cassandra could see me. Cole couldn't.

"Hey, Bergman!" I yelled pretty loud, because the part of him that wasn't deeply pissed was focused on conducting his experiments.

Nothing.

Cassandra gasped, "Jasmine?" and he looked up, his face so creased with annoyance he looked ten years older.

"What did you say?" he snapped.

With all four feet of her chair squarely back on the floor, she twisted in her seat, her frown matching his. "Don't you see her?"

"I would if she was here." His tone suggested that maybe Cassandra had fallen right off the deep end.

"Someday someone is going to pinch off your tiny little head," she told him. He had a comeback ready, and for a couple of minutes they bickered like ten-year-olds. But nothing they said could distract me from the fact that Bergman hadn't seen me either. Bergman and Cole were definitely alive. Well, maybe you could debate about Cole, but since human effort had brought him back as opposed to gold-light, crew-cut guy, I was grouping him with Miles. Vayl, Cassandra and me… well, that was another matter entirely. Another matter that now evidently included David.
Too. Much
.

Cassandra snapped me out of it. She and Bergman had quit slapping each other around conversationally and now she'd moved back to her under-the-breath revelations. "Thinks I can't fight this thing with magic, eh? Well I'll show him!" She flipped through a book like an impatient client at the beauty parlor.

"Any luck?" I ventured.

She rolled her eyes at me. "I cannot find anything more telling about the Tor-al-Degan than I already knew. It is so aggravating! What kind of name is that anyway? I even typed it into Google. You know what I found? Nothing!" She flipped some more, traded books and continued her search.

"At the risk of sounding over much like Sherlock Holmes," said Vayl as he sauntered in, giving Cassandra a knowing smile, "Jaz and I seem to have found a rather compelling clue." Cole came plodding in after him and collapsed on the couch.

Cassandra gaped at him, then at Vayl, then back at Cole. "How can you discuss clues when there is an injured man at your heels?"

Vayl gave Cole an appraising look, "He will live. Now tell me what you think of this." He pulled the pyramid from his coat pocket and held it out so they could all see it.

Bergman gave it one hard look and dismissed it. Factoring in his previous comments and Cassandra's complaints, I gathered he wasn't interested because he thought it might be magical. Instead he grabbed the first aid kit from where he'd stowed it under the sink and went to sit by Cole, where he spent the next ten minutes cleaning, dabbing, patching and urging him to go to the hospital before his nose healed that way.

Cassandra reacted much differently. She flattened her hands on the open pages of her book, her thumbs and forefingers framing a picture of a horned, winged, fanged version of Cyclops eviscerating some hapless bystander. But her attention wasn't on the picture. It was on the key Amanda had passed on to us. It sat in the palm of Vayl's hand, looking like a kid's toy that's been rolled in the mud.

"I think I've been looking at this all wrong," Cassandra said. "All this time I have been focusing on the Tor-al-Degan when I should have been looking for the key. Not that I really knew what it looked like until just now," she darted a furious glance at Bergman as she grabbed a new book from the pile she'd scattered across the table.

I gathered Bergman hadn't entirely passed on the description I'd given him of the pyramid. Considering the import of such information, I seriously considered calling in some folks with handcuffs and squad cars. Maybe that would scare him out of his idiotic prejudices. But that would be for later. Now, Cassandra seemed to be on a roll. She studied the book with more and more interest while the men studied her. About the time I expected her to jump up and shout, "Eureka!" or something equally enthusiastic but a lot less geeky, my cell phone rang. After an odd moment when my nonexistent hands itched to dive into my absent pockets, I realized Vayl had it. Our gazes met across the room and he raised his eyebrows as if to say,
Should I answer it
? I nodded.

"Hello, you have reached Jasmine Parks' phone. This is Vayl speaking." He listened intently. "No," he said, "I am afraid Jasmine is not available. Can I take a message?… Oh, hello Mr. Parks."

Holy crap on a
t.v.
tray! My dad is talking to my undead boss, uh, boyfriend, um, whatever! Could this get any stranger?

Apparently so. Because when Vayl hung up he said, "You never told me how kind your father is, Jasmine."

Kind
? This was the man who cut off little old ladies with his grocery cart so he could beat them to the checkout counter. If you caught him at the park, he wouldn't be feeding the pigeons, he'd be shooting them. Once I saw him punt a chihuahua twenty yards because it nipped his ankle.
Kind? Huh
!

I whooshed at Vayl, making him blink. "Oh no you don't," I ordered him. "You don't get to like my dad until
I
like my dad, and I don't. Do I?" I could tell he thought I'd really flipped out. So I tried to distract him. It turned out to be remarkably easy. "What did Albert have to say?" I asked.

"Senator Bozcowski does have a pool. His cousin-in-law owns the firm that made your faulty beacon. He is also vacationing with his family in Miami at the moment. But you knew that. Did you also know when he is scheduled to return to Washington?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure his dance card's full tomorrow night, so I'll say… day after tomorrow."

"Nope."

"No?"

"He is leaving in the morning."

"
This
morning?" As Vayl nodded I checked out the Regulator clock hanging over the fireplace. It showed nearly midnight.
Oh my God, it's happening tonight! Those lying weasels
!

"Um, Vayl?" Bergman ventured hesitantly, "is there a reason you're talking to the mantle?"

Vayl quickly explained, making it sound like I'd gotten myself into a predicament when I was, in fact, trying to rescue poor Cole from the sling we'd wound him into to start with! While Vayl talked, Bergman searched the air for clues to my existence, Cassandra smirked at Bergman and Cole just slouched among the pretty pillows, scowling at the drawn curtains. When Vayl had finished, Cassandra stared at Bergman triumphantly. "Explain
that
with your equations!" Before he could think up a suitable retort she went on, "By the way, while you were playing doctor, I found it."

"Found what, Cassandra?" Vayl demanded. "Talk fast, Jaz and I have to leave."

"The key!" She pointed to the artifact. "The Tor-al-Degan! I believe I have found the words—" she glanced at Bergman "—the
spell
that activates the key." She held up, not a book, but the Enkyklios. "We seem to have a detailed record of this beast after all."

"It sounds as if you are coming with us, then."

Bergman lurched off the couch, went to Vayl and grabbed his shoulder, which he quickly released when Vayl shot him his don't-touch-me look. But he didn't back down completely. "If she goes, I go," he said, jabbing a finger towards Cassandra.

"Fine."

Bergman blinked a couple of times, surprised at his success.

"You're not leaving me here while Jaz is sitting on that bomb," said Cole. We all looked at him. Despite the fact that he resembled a plane crash survivor, no one ventured an argument as to why he should stay. Finally Vayl said, "All right, if that is what you want."

"It is."

Another moment of silence passed out of respect for Cole's determination and, on my part at least, an attempt to balance myself against a staggering wave of concern. How were we supposed to keep them all safe? I wasn't sure it was possible, but I could tell none of them would entertain my arguments. As I fought a feeling of impending doom, Bergman launched himself into a packing frenzy that Cassandra quickly copied. For the next five minutes my little gang looked like they were preparing a full-scale evacuation. All except for Cole, who glared at the drapes so hard I was kind of surprised they didn't catch fire. And I was pretty sure that wasn't Visine I saw glittering in his eyes.

Vayl drove toward Club Undead like a drag racer. Every time he had to stop for a light or a sign, his next move was a flat-pedal takeoff. The first couple of o-to-6os left me so unprepared, I found myself hovering outside the van watching its taillights rush off into the night. When I resumed my place between him and Cassandra for the third time, he sent me an apologetic look. "Sorry about that."

"That's all right," said Cassandra, overriding my objections without realizing I wanted to voice them. "So can I tell you what I have learned about the key?" We both nodded. "It acts as a controller. Remember I told you the Tor-al-Degan can perform good or evil acts? Whoever owns the key can tell it what to do."

"So if they summon the beast before we get there, all we have to do is tell it to go back to where it came from," said Vayl.

"I'm not so sure. In fact, I think the Tor-al-Degan is already here. You said it ate the soul of Amanda's brother. And Cole said the torso they found bore the same markings."

"True. But Jaz said
they
said they needed a
willing
sacrifice."

"Yes. According to my research, the Tor-al-Degan cannot be completely released from its bonds until it receives a willing sacrifice. It can, however, exist in more than one realm at once. Which is why I think it is already here. Most of it, anyway."

"Why would they only bring it partway into the world?" asked Bergman.

"I suppose they didn't know any better. They seem to be working from a partial text, or perhaps a copy of a copy of a translation that has left out vital information."

Vayl clutched the steering wheel hard and shifted anxiously in his seat. "We have to get there.
Now
!" He laid on the horn as a light brown Crown Victoria pulled out in front of him, forcing him to brake hard. "Next time take the bus you old geester!" he yelled as he swerved to go around.

"Geezer," I corrected him.

He glared at me. "Never leave your body again!" He jerked us back into our lane just in time to keep us from getting flattened by a street sweet Hummer. He tried twice more, nearly colliding with a red Mustang and a dark blue Camry before he finally succeeded in leaving the old fart to stew in his prunes.

"Would you quit driving like a maniac if I went back to my body?" I asked. I'd never seen him so unnerved.

"Yes!" Vayl practically shouted. He took a breath, visibly pulled himself together. "We need to know if you are still unharmed, whether they have moved you, what they are planning. Report back as soon as you discover anything at all."

"Gladly," I agreed. "Your driving is making me nauseous and I don't even have a stomach!" I floated through the roof of the van and looked around. All my golden cords still stretched in their various directions. Was it me, or did they seem slightly dimmer than before? I didn't spend much time pondering, I was too busy looking for the light that connected the separate parts of me. I played the cords one by one, as if they were the strings of a gigantic harp, and delighted to hear one of them sing my own tune back to me. It wasn't as pure as Evie's or as powerful as Vayl's, but I liked it all the same. Especially when it led me straight back to my body.

There I sat, breathing, blinking, looking as blank as the porcelain dolls Evie collected. I shook my ethereal head.
Unfathomable
. I still sat alone and, yes, the bomb still blinked its harsh lights at me when I checked under the chair.

No longer interested in standing at my own side, I moved out, through the door into the control booth, now manned by a bald black man who looked fit enough to break world sprint records. He played with the sound board, tweaking the music that pounded through the teeming rooms beyond.

Floating out the window and over the humans and vamps who danced shoulder to shoulder, I imagined the devastation that would occur if I jumped back into my body and rose from the chair. Hundreds would die.
Still, it's nothing compared to the loss of life our targets have planned
. Something to consider. Seriously. But not yet. At least not until I found them, and it would take precious minutes to search the crowd, time I no longer possessed.

"Help me out here, would you?" I asked, hoping the owner of the thunderous voice hadn't taken a nap. "I've got to find the three stooges." Intuition told me I could sniff out evil now that I'd seen and accepted my transformation, but that ability didn't help much here, with my nose in the attic.

The answer rolled across me like an avalanche, reverberating through me, making me glad I didn't currently possess teeth that might well have shattered against each other in the aftermath. "UNDERGROUND!" I fought a perverse urge to do just the opposite, float back into the atmosphere, chase down the source of that overwhelming voice and discuss with it the benefits of the whisper. But something told me once I went hunting for my guide, I might never be able to return.