Once Bitten, Twice Shy (7 page)

I carried that lesson like a compass. And most of the time it got me where I needed to go. This once, however, fate caught me by surprise. When I glanced into the rearview not a mile from where we'd pulled back onto the interstate, I found an SUV flirting with the back bumper of my Lexus.

"This was definitely not part of the plan," I murmured.

"What?"

A spine-shuddering thump was Vayl's answer. "What the—?" He turned in time to see the SUV hit us again, crumpling the trunk upward so far it looked like we'd grown a spoiler.

Suddenly my hands were full trying to keep my wounded car between the white lines. The SUV had to veer off as well, but he was back fast, crunching into my fender like we were playing bumper cars.

Had Assan pegged us? Had he called in backup to pull us off his tail? No more time to wonder. After another meeting with the SUV our rear end had more wrinkles than an Agatha Christie novel.

"Son of a
bitch
!" I floored it, but speed was only a temporary solution. We didn't have the horses to outrun him, and if he took my bumper at the wrong angle, I'd go spinning off the road like Jeff Gordon after a run-in with Tony Stewart.

"All right," said Vayl, "I have had it."

"What are you thinking?"

"I am thinking it is time we find out
who
is trying to kill us."

"Can we do that without dying?"

"Maybe."

"Then I'm for it." I watched in the mirror as the SUV closed on us. Geez but he was coming fast. "Hang on," I told Vayl. I slammed on the brakes. Taken by surprise, he swerved, caught my back bumper with his side panel and continued his spin on into the median.

The impact triggered our airbags, and for awhile Vayl and I fought to get our eyes uncrossed. They may have slowed those bags down, but when one goes off in your face it still feels like you just got your neck sprung by a Rock-Em-Sock-Em-Robot.

I was debating whether the ringing in my ears was a product of the blow to my head or a sign of imminent mental breakdown when the doors opened. A red-faced, gray-bearded man blocked my exit. He towered over me, wearing faded blue overalls and a Dolphins jacket, looking like he could flip the car over without breaking a sweat. His eye had swollen shut.

"I hear raw steaks work wonders on shiners that size," I offered.

"Shut your mouth before I do it for you." He grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the car. I stumbled, fell against him, felt the hard outline of a pistol jam against my ribs.

"What do you want?" I asked. Good. I sounded brave.

"Just think of yourselves as a stain and us as bleach." O-kay. Maybe these guys weren't with Assan after all. Maybe they'd just escaped from some understaffed, under funded psych ward.

I turned my head to check on Vayl. They were taking him very seriously. He stood among the brush and scrub that passed for a shoulder on this part of the highway, leaning on his cane as he traded stares with three men in their late twenties.

Two held him at bay, or so they thought, with silver crucifixes held out at arm's length. One had JESUS SAVES emblazoned across the front of his gray T-shirt in big orange letters. The other wore a black sweatshirt that framed two praying hands surrounded by a beaded necklace with a silver stake hanging from it.

The third man, who'd come straight from a funeral judging by his three-piece suit, aimed a cocked crossbow at Vayl that would've made me laugh in different circumstances. It looked like he'd built it in his 7th grade shop class.

"And don't try any of that mumbo-jumbo on us," JESUS SAVES warned Vayl. "I'll tell them if you do and you'll be smoke before you can blink."

As Graybeard yanked me around to Vayl's side of the car, two big light bulbs went off in my brain, which probably meant I was flirting with an aneurism. But while I still had my faculties I figured JESUS SAVES was a Sensitive, like me. He also must've been present at a staking to know vampires do leave trace amounts of dust and ash when they're vanquished, but the biggest part of them goes up in smoke.

We were down on numbers and weaponry. Never a good place to be, even when you're a pro. I admit, dread had sunk its claws into the back of my neck, and it wasn't helping me think any clearer. Then Vayl met my eyes—and winked. Suddenly I could breathe again. Because in that moment I knew no two-bit operation run by a bunch of yahoos was going to beat us. Not tonight. Not ever.

As soon as my mind cleared, I noticed two things. An undeniable affection for my partner whose survival meant a lot more to me than mere job satisfaction. And the pseudo-identity of the organization fronting this one-night event.

"Hey Vayl," I jerked my thumb at Graybeard, "this one's into cleanliness and that one," I nodded at JESUS SAVES, "is into godliness. What's that make you think of?"

"God's Arm." Vayl's instant reply pleased our captors. It's always nice to have your ultra-fanatical religious affiliation recognized. It's also nice when someone guesses who you've dressed up as on Halloween. I raised my eyebrows at Vayl and slid my eyes toward Graybeard's neck. He understood immediately. All members of God's Arm have a cross tattooed on their necks as a rite of initiation. These necks were clean.

"Let's walk," said Graybeard, gesturing toward a grove of trees in the distance with the .357 Magnum he'd pulled from his front pocket. Vayl's slight nod encouraged me to cooperate, for now. So I walked, my sandals protecting me so poorly from the rocks and weeds I considered kicking them off. Only the possibility of stepping on shards of glass or metal deterred me. It had gotten colder too, and my party dress wasn't providing much protection against the wind that kept brushing against me in an endless, winter-borne tide. The full moon lit up my goosebumps and the pseudo-path ahead of me. But I squeezed my contacts into night vision anyway, preparing for a trek through the deeper brush ahead.

Nobody talked during the walk, which only took us about 200 yards off the highway but seemed endless. Something about the march seemed eerily familiar to me. It was like the entire store of knowledge I'd built around criminals and their victims had coughed up the ghosts of those who'd walked ahead of their murderers, sometimes cold, sometimes stumbling, leaving glowing footprints for me to follow. Only they were angry that I'd consented to follow that trail. "Fight!" they whispered, their wild, haunted memories sharpening their voices. "Fight now. Fight hard. Die, if necessary, only die fighting!"

I never meant to go another way. And I think… yeah, now.

I sucked in my breath and screamed, "Oh, God! Something bit me!" I grabbed my right ankle, hopping around as much as Graybeard's grip allowed.

"What do you mean?" he demanded, looking from my pain-contorted face to my ankle and back again.

"A snake," I gasped. "Look, there it is!"

I pointed at the feet of the Suit, who immediately backed up and looked down.

"It's too cold for snakes," Graybeard was saying, but too late. Vayl had seen his opening. He shot his scabbard at the Suit, knocking him sideways. The bolt from his crossbow flew off into the bushes. Vayl's blade flashed and the Suit dropped, holding his left arm and groaning as blood spurted from it in steady bursts. I didn't wait to see how Vayl dealt with JESUS SAVES and Praying Hands. The confusion that had delayed Graybeard's reaction was clearing. In moments he'd be putting his Magnum into action.

I attacked. My first move, a knife-hand to the elbow, made him drop the gun. He blocked the fist I aimed at his groin, blocked my next two moves as well. He'd been trained, and well. But he was still slower and older than me, and I made it count.

The kick I connected to the side of his head put him off balance. He countered with a punch that would've broken my ribs if he hadn't been backing up. Even so, I'd be feeling that blow for a week. I took him down with a hook kick to the back of his knee. Two more hard kicks to the temple did the trick. He fell to his side and stayed there, quietly bleeding into the brush. I grabbed his gun and stood back. A bullet to the brain would've been easy and I was sorely tempted.
Bang, bang, bang
. But it wasn't my place to decide. Vayl would choose whether he lived or died. Ironic, huh?

The boss had done pretty well for himself. Apparently JESUS SAVES and Praying Hands had tried to run for it, because they stood about 50 yards away, gazing at Vayl like a couple of trapped rats as he circled them, his sword hovering inches from the crosses they brandished like pop guns. I could feel his power build as he circled them. JESUS SAVES could too, and neither his shaking arm nor his bladder seemed to be able to hold up against it. Vayl spoke a single word and Praying Hands crumpled to the ground.

JESUS SAVES, being a Sensitive, just stood there shaking. Like me, he was much less susceptible to Vayl's hypnotic suggestions. Fear had a bigger influence, however. When Vayl made a move toward him he screamed like a little girl and ran off into the trees. When they found him in the morning I suspected he'd be gibbering like a Blair Witch escapee.

The Suit moaned weakly. I went to check on him. He'd squirmed out of his belt and was trying to cinch it tight enough over his bicep to stop the fountain that had drenched his shoulder, sleeve and half his face. "Here," I said, "let me help you with that." I jerked the belt tight, and he yelped in pain. The bleeding slowed to a trickle. "You want to watch who you ambush next time," I told him. "There's a lot worse monsters than vampires wandering the world."

"I know," he whispered, looking straight into my eyes as if he could see my secret life spread before him, a horrific map of violence and destruction justified—
maybe, maybe, maybe
—by the violence and destruction it had prevented.

Vayl came closer, leaned over Graybeard and whispered in his ear.

"You've only got a few seconds left," I told the Suit. "Soon he'll be crouching over you, speaking in your ear, scrambling your brain. Is there anything you want to tell me before your mind goes as soft as frozen yogurt?" Okay, I was exaggerating. Most likely Vayl was suggesting to Graybeard, as he had to Praying Hands, that if he ever tried to kill anyone again, even a vampire, his heart would burst. Maybe the Suit sensed that.

"No," he answered.

"Vayl likes to mess with people's minds," I told him. "Literally. He might go easy on you, leave the memories of your wife and kids, your childhood. If you tell him who sent you."

The Suit was pale, clammy, barely conscious. Which is maybe why he slipped. "He'd kill us," he whispered. His eyes closed. A tear trickled down one cheek. Would you believe I felt sorry for him?

I kept my voice low, trying not to startle him into silence. "Who?"

No answer. I shook him, but he'd passed out, and it looked like he'd be spending the next couple of hours that way.

"Get the car started while I deal with him," said Vayl. "I hear sirens."

I coaxed the battered Lexus off the highway at the nearest exit and headed south. I'd never used the roads I now took, never even seen them on a map. But I'd get us back to the hotel all the same. Evie liked to tell people I'd gotten a GPS implant. Neat idea, but untrue. My uncanny sense of direction had come to me along with my Sensitivity—after. It made sense in a way. My life as I'd known it had changed in every way it could 14 months ago. It seemed right the way I perceived life should change too.

"It's only two o'clock," I told Vayl. "Do you want to go back to Assan's house?"

Vayl shook his head. "Not tonight. I feel I should know this vampire ally of Assan's, and yet I do not recognize his face. Until we have some background information on him, we need to wait. To plan." Vayl slumped in his seat. "When we left Ohio all we thought Assan had was a heinous hobby. Now we know he has an undead ally and a potentially deadly virus. It seems to me they must also be destroyed."

"I agree. But should we add more targets to our list now that we've become targets ourselves?"

"Something else to consider before we make our next move," Vayl said, shrugging. "We must ensure that our little problem is not putting this entire operation into jeopardy."

"What are you saying? Are you saying we should abort the mission?"

"I do not know."

That shut me down. Vayl got quiet too, considering our options, maybe. Or maybe just recharging. In the silence the banging of our bumper took center stage like an American Idol loser, making me cringe. Graybeard and company had really done a number on the Lexus. We'd had to bend the back fenders away from the tires before we could even drive the thing, and I wouldn't bet on the axle still being in mint condition. I felt an evil thrill at the thought of those four. By now they'd all be strapped in their roller beds, and in another ten minutes hospital personnel would be trying to figure out how one of them could've picked up a sword wound outside of a circus sideshow.

"That was a smart move back there," Vayl said.

"Oh, the snake thing? Thanks. Yeah, that did the trick."

"I noticed. Ah, could you refrain from trying it again in the future?"

I glanced over at Vayl. I'd blinked off my night vision, so only the moonlight glancing through the windows showed me his expression. It looked tight, the way men's faces will when they're either feeling or remembering pain. I'd seen it often on Albert after diabetes had forced him to retire, and on David the night we'd stopped speaking. That look went straight to my heart and squeezed.

"You, uh, don't like snakes very much?"

"No."

"Well quit looking all pinched and aristocratic. I'm not making fun of you."

"I am just somewhat sensitive about my phobias."

"You mean there's more than one?"

He jerked his head toward me. I held up one hand. "Okay, okay, backing off. Um, I suppose this would be a bad time to ask you to talk to Pete for me, you know, about the car?"

His eyes widened. I could almost hear him thinking,
of all the nerve
! "You were driving," he said.

"But he likes you so much better than me."

"That is because I don't keep wrecking the rentals."