Bite Marks (29 page)

Cole slammed his hand against the roof of the car. “I
knew
it! I’ll bet they have gigantic pear-shaped heads and goggle eyes too!”

Bergman cocked his head sideways in the show-me-proof gesture that had started many of our college debates. He said, “Assuming I believe that last part, which could be all kinds of noise having nothing to do with alien language, I still don’t quite buy the gnomes wanting to destroy NASA. That seems like a lot of work to protect Ufran’s privacy.”

“Maybe they’ve heard about the alien contact,” said Cole, his eyes still shining at the idea. “Maybe they’re so freaked they’re trying to shut it down before the rest of the world finds out.” Cassandra shook her head. “No matter why they’ve put this plan in motion, you have to agree they’re a proactive bunch.”

I nodded. “Luckily, so are we.”

Idon’t know what it is about college kids. Maybe tuition also buys them the knowhow to squeeze large numbers of people into small spaces such as telephone booths and imported vehicles. Whatever the case, we all managed to find a tiny bit of butt room inside the Hyundai. Dachelle drove, while Gabbie shared the front with Cole and Jack, both of whom spent most of the ride hanging out the window, which provided some relief to their fellow sardines. That left Kyphas, Rory, Lance, and me to rub hips, thighs, and damn near everything else in our effort to catch up to the escaping Ufranites. Among us, only Astral seemed comfortable, lying in the back window like an Egyptian statue. Luckily she’d obeyed my demand to stay silent. So far.

Since Kyphas kept adjusting her position on Rory’s knees without raising even a moan, I thought he’d passed out until he reared his head back, snorted, centered his eyes on me, and asked, “So what’re you doing at Wirdilling?”

“We work for a movie company called Shoot-Yeah Productions. Our boss sent us out to scout locations for some night scenes, but we have to get back to town quick because he’s lined up a bunch of auditions that we’re supposed to tape.”

“At 3:30 in the morning?” asked Dachelle.

“We’re still working on American time,” Cole drawled.

I rolled my eyes. If everyone but Dachelle hadn’t been so wasted they’d never have swallowed such a line of crap. But the designated driver had her hands so full trying to make her friend behave she had no room left in her bullshit net for our load.

She yelled, “Gabbie! Quit rubbing Thor’s leg! I’m sure he doesn’t want a quickie with a drunken Biology major.”

“Who would?” asked Rory. Lance giggled.

“You blokes are flaming jerks!” Gabbie declared.

Mostly to prevent myself from punching the defenseless bastards I said, “Dachelle, I’ll give you and your friends each fifty bucks if you get us to Wirdilling in five minutes.”

“Hang on, mates!” Dachelle called. “I’ve had my eye on a pair of shoes at Mathers for the past three weeks and now I’ve finally got the chance to snatch ’em!” She floored it, sending Lance and Cole sliding into the window frames. Cole caught himself but Lance banged his head, which turned out to be the last straw. He passed out with his forehead against the window, which meant every time Dachelle took a sharp curve we could hear his skull bang against the side of the car.

Twelve minutes later we crawled out of the Hyundai and waved goodbye to Dachelle and friends. Lance kept rubbing his head and grimacing, but the rest grinned happily as they sped away since I’d decided to pay them for getting us there in one piece. Even though the timing sucked, I was sure nobody could’ve pulled us in faster.

While Jack strained to reach a fire hydrant at the street corner and Astral rolled around on the asphalt like a kitten, Cole, Kyphas, and I stood in the middle of Wirdilling Drive, staring at the dusty storefronts and empty alleyways, trying to figure out where the flying nose could’ve landed.

“Maybe he couldn’t reverse the sky car,” said Kyphas. “Maybe it stopped near the Space Complex and right now they’re all—”

“They’re here,” I said flatly.

“How can you be sure?” she asked. “What if it was never here to start with? What if they stored it miles away in some deserted canyon? That’s what I would do.”

“It’s here.” I sounded a lot more confident than I felt. Because if Vayl had been close, I should’ve been able to sense him. I couldn’t. But he’d told us to meet him here, so this was where we were going to be.

“Why isn’t Vayl talking to us?” asked Cole.

Because he’s miles and miles away?
“Because they’ll overhear him if he says anything. Which reminds me. Bergman? We’re standing in front of Crindertab’s. It’s about to get pretty hot downtown. Now that you’re done with all the lab work, we could use your help here.”

“Oh. Sure. I’ll be right there.” He coughed to hide how his last word tried to climb right out of his throat.

I said, “Let’s find that sky car.”

“How?” asked Kyphas. “The cables are practically invisible.”

“So were their doors at first, but now we’ve discovered three of them.” I didn’t tell her my sudden surge of confidence was probably based on the rush I still felt that began at the clotting bite on my lip and ended at my tingling toes.

“Are you sure the drop is even in town?” asked Bergman, sounding slightly out of breath.

“Yeah, I think it’s here,” I said. “They’d want easy access to it, and the car was coming from this direction. I know our analysts never picked up on it, but maybe the Ufranites only use it at night. Much less chance of being seen at three a.m. Especially if your shaman has thrown a camo spell on it.” Cassandra spoke up. “Jasmine, can you hear me?”

I crouched down and touched the road like she was standing right underneath me. “Is everything okay?

You sound [tearful] different.”

“I’m fine. You can’t even imagine… Jasmine, the most wonderful thing has happened! I heard—no, let me tell you to your face. It’ll be soon because I’m nearly done here. Remember I said we were sneaking into the shaman’s quarters? You’ll never guess what I found there.”

“Tell me.”

“Tabitha’s dress.”

“
Ruvin’s
Tabitha?”

“She’s the shaman.”

I wanted to ask Cassandra if she was sure, but she was a freaking Seer. Of course she knew! Now Ruvin’s sacrifice to the larvae made perfect sense. Wives killed off their husbands, and vice versa, all the time. But why? Did Tabitha-Shaman really believe Ufran needed his privacy? Or did she have ulterior motives even her people, from whom she’d hidden her real identity, didn’t understand?

“That’s… you’ve gone above and beyond,” I told her. “Now do something even more important and get yourself out safe. If anything happened to you, Dave would never forgive me. And I kinda like it that he’s finally speaking to me again.”

“In that case I’ll be seeing you very soon,” said Cassandra. I could hear the smile in her voice. “In the meantime, why don’t you ask Astral about the sky-car dilemma? Or rather, her
Enkyklios
?” I turned to the cat, who was currently dragging her hindquarters through the dirt between the sidewalk and the road and singing, “Oh, get down, turn around, go to town, boot scootin’ boogie.”

“Astral, you whacked robot, you are not Brooks or Dunn! Get over here!”

“What happened to her?” asked our psychic.

“You know what? I’m just gonna let you touch her and See the whole moment in surround Sight. You bringing reinforcements?”

“As many as I can manage.” Which would probably be, what, seven?

“Cool, I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Be safe.”

“Probably safer than you.”

She chuckled as Astral trotted to my side and said, “Hello!”

“What do you know about the Ufranites’ sky cars?” I asked her.

After the usual I’m-searching ear wobble, a deeper voice came from her moving mouth, one more suited to a broad-shouldered, potbellied history professor. “The vehicles in question were built during the early twentieth century and improved upon after the devastating nose-to-nose crash of 1945. Though somewhat ponderous and slow-moving, they are built to move twelve to fifteen gnomes from one to another of ten points in the ACT.”

“Yadda, yadda, yadda,” I griped. “Where’s the station?”

“The main access point is inside the old water tower,” Astral said, like I should’ve figured that out hours ago.

Holy crap! That’s right beside the damn post office!

“Bergman, you know where that is?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Meet us there.”

“Hey! You’ll never guess who I just saw dancing around in the playground of the old primary school.”

“Miles, this is no time for—”

“Tabitha!”

I paused for a beat to trade a significant look with Cole and make sure Jack was still trotting at the end of his leash. “Bring her.”

Small yelp. “Who, me?”

“Time to prove yourself. If you want to be my future partner, she’d better be dangling off the end of your fist the next time I see you.”

In Australia, land of fire and drought, sharks and surfers, water is damn near worshipped. If nobody’s built a shrine anywhere they probably should, because I’m pretty sure people would come and kneel, take a drink and then, like humans all over the globe, make a wish and throw coins in to seal the deal. If somebody did decide to erect a monument, maybe it would resemble the old wooden tower that had once provided sustenance to Wirdilling. Though a new metal one had been erected within sight of the original, it seemed almost sacrilegious that true Aussies had let the old girl go to waste. Which might’ve been why the gnomes had latched on to her.

Outside she looked like your typical nineteenth-century above- ground town well. Except the section created to hold the juice was square, built on a platform that jutted out slightly farther than the container to give maintenance workers room to walk the perimeter. Nine sturdy posts held the tower a good thirty feet aboveground, their crosspieces stained an even darker brown than the rest of the structure, as if to emphasize the fact that they provided stability
and
helped ensure that the pressure stayed nice and high.

We knew the place hid something marvelous simply from the fact that it was humming like a power station when we approached it.

“What now?” asked Cole.

I said, “Kyphas and I investigate. You get into position and wait.”

“For what?”

“I’m pretty sure you’ll know when it happens.” I looked down at Jack. Who, while multitalented in doggy terms, hadn’t yet mastered pole climbing. I handed the leash to Cole. “You guys grab some high ground.”

Cole nodded quickly and, grinning down at my dog, said, “Come on, dude. Let’s hit the roofs. You can be my reloader.”

“Be careful, Cole,” said Kyphas.

His smile went crooked as he met her gaze, which was so damn sincere I nearly bought it. I pulled a Vayl, standing stock still, internalizing the eye rolling and grimacing that wanted to crease my face as he replied, “No need to worry about me, beautiful. I was born under a lucky star.”
Oh, gag, did he really say that?

“Besides,” he added, without missing a beat, “I’ve got angels watching over me. Right, Jaz?” His eyes swept to mine, their sparkle so bright they could’ve lit fireworks.

“Close enough,” I said, coughing to hide the laughter as Kyphas put a hand to her stomach and made an I-may-vomit face.

He wheeled around, taking Jack for a quick trot down the block and around the corner, where he was sure to find a handy fire escape. Kyphas watched him all the way.

When she muttered something under her breath I asked, “What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Astral spoke up. “Kyphas just said, ‘That one, he is so
likeable
!’ Her tone is somewhat irritated, which does not compute with the wording.”

“Shut up, cat!” Kyphas snapped.

“I am not programmed for your orders.”

I said, “Have you noticed what a great ass he’s got too?” Cole, listening in on the party line, chuckled with delight.

“Are you joking? Every time he turns around my fingers begin to ache!” I stepped in front of her, nose to nose, to make sure we had pure communication. But I didn’t have to say a word.

She held up her hands. “I know, I know. Nothing in heaven or hell will stand between you and my slow, screaming death if I harm any one of your babes.” She flipped back her shining hair. “Already you bore me. So are we climbing this tower or—”

“Yeah. You first.”

Flash of suspicion. But she went up, stiff in the legs and back, like she half expected me to stab her on the way up. As if I’d reduce my meager forces at such a key point. But I still enjoyed making her uneasy.

I looked down at the kittybot. “This is where you take a break, Astral. Hang out here until Bergman shows up and then do what he says until I need you again, okay?”

“Hello!”

“You are so fried.”

I followed Kyphas up to the platform. Though we searched like a couple of treasure hunters, we discovered no Ufranite doors. Which meant we’d have to be patient. Surely Vayl would find a way to contact us soon.

I motioned for Kyphas to post herself at the south end of the tower while I took the opposite.

“I’m in position,” Cole whispered. “Your dog’s peeing on the roof vent. I think that means you own Crindertab’s now.”

I nodded to let him know I’d heard. Wondered how Bergman was doing and decided no news was good news.

So hard to sit and wait. I touched Cirilai, wishing it would signal me, frustrated that it and my vamp-sense were my only connections to Vayl.

Or are they?
The only reason I didn’t ignore Teen Me, who was straightening her hair in the empty hope that she could make it look like Jennifer Aniston’s, was that too many other people already had.

What do you mean?
I asked her.

He’s a vampire
, she told me, like I was some kind of dufus for having to have the obvious pointed out to me.

I nearly said,
So?
But I took a second to think beforehand. The first time he’d taken my blood he’d formed a bond with me that had enabled him to sense my strongest emotions. After the second time, my Spirit Eye had opened wide enough for me to track the Vampere. And now? What had happened to us with this exchange, Eldhayr blood for Vampere power?