Bite Marks (37 page)

I felt my heart twist as I heard Cassandra’s voice, high and shaky behind me, repeating the litany that ought to protect her and my guys.

“ ‘And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.’ ” Powerful binding, especially when combined with our weaponry. But still not enough. We needed more!

“Raoul!” I yelled. “Quit dicking around in happy land, get your ass down here, and
help
already!” I know, not the language you should use when requesting assistance from the Eldhayr who’s already done you a string of whopping favors. But if he wasn’t in the direct business of forgiveness, I figured it must be a sideline. So I was slightly surprised when he strode through the door wearing the exact expression Albert once reserved for my grounded-for-eternity lectures.

“You do realize you have the mouth of an illiterate homeless thief? And your timing!” He sighed. “Can you even imagine how quiet the last week has been?” he demanded in his slight Spanish accent. “I got actual work done.”

I couldn’t imagine what kind. How do you perform any sort of labor and then gallop to your earthly charge’s rescue without putting a dent in your immaculate black beret or laying a single scuff on the toes of your massive all-weather boots?

“What do you call this?” I demanded as Vayl delivered another skull-cracking blow to Kyphas, who countered with an attack that would’ve punctured a lung if his chest hadn’t been well protected.

Jack, deciding pit bulls had gotten way too much press, had dug in, refusing to release his grip despite desperate shaking on the demon’s part.

Raoul shook his head and raised his sword. I recognized it immediately as the glittering weapon he’d wielded in his fight against Brude, when we’d tried to escape the Domytr’s territory. Raoul hadn’t been so fortunate in that fight. Then again, Brude had stacked the deck. This time I had a feeling the odds were better balanced. Especially when Kyphas’s yellow eyes widened with alarm. She looked around the room and finally her expression said she felt outnumbered.

“Pax,” she said, dropping her dagger to her side as a sign of goodwill. “Get this slavering mongrel off of me.”

Slavering mongrel?
I stole a glance at Jack.
Okay, I’ll buy the slavering. But—
“I’ll have you know that is a purebred malamute gnawing on your thigh.”

“I don’t care! Make him stop!”

“Those aren’t the magic words. But they’ll do.” I grabbed Jack’s collar. “Time to back off the ham bone, buddy.” When he resisted I pulled a little harder, saying, “No more demon for you. Trust me, it’ll give you major indigestion.” With a combination of coaxing and prying I pulled him off Kyphas and shoved him back inside the circle, where Cole made sure he stayed.

I went to Vayl, whose armor had completely melted and who was now quietly bleeding all over the sandy brown area rug. Grabbing a throw blanket off the couch I pressed it against his wound. “You going to be all right?” I murmured as I stared at our uninvited guest.

“As soon as I get out of this house,” he said.

“I’m leaving as well; I think my ass is melting,” said Kyphas as she backed toward the door, her eyes darting all over the room, but always coming back to Raoul. He followed her, stepping slowly, his sword held ready if she decided to make an offensive move.

Vayl didn’t want help rising, but I lent him a hand anyway as Cole asked Kyphas, “What about Cassandra?”

“We have a contract,” she said. “You can fight for her if you wish, but she’s mine. I will always come back for her.”

It was so similar to something Vayl might’ve said to me that I glanced at him. He was glaring at the demon, his teeth practically grinding, though part of that might’ve been from the pain of his wound. Funny how context changes everything. I could see her words made him want to bury her, deep and permanently.

His voice was cold as the icy shell that’d coated him as he said, “Kyphas, have you ever set yourself against a Vampere Trust before?” Her eyes widened as she shook her head, accidentally backing into one of the porch poles before her boot found the single step that took her onto the front lawn. He dropped his arm from my shoulder as he gestured back to the house. “This is
my
Trust.” He seemed to grow as he stalked after her. To tower within a dark cloud, while she glowed like an ivory carving as he growled. “You will not take Cassandra from my Trust.”

I’d been shopping with my sister, Evie, enough to recognize that weighing-her-options look on Kyphas’s face. Clearly she thought Vayl had offered her a bargain. Get out before further beatings could occur. On the other hand… She shook her head. “I will be back. With allies. And when we come for her, we will be taking the rest of you with us.” She grinned, the curves of her face so perfect that her image would’ve made sculptors weep. Then she turned and ran into the night, her demonic strength taking her out of our vision almost instantly.

Because the blessings still lingered inside the house, we sat in the backyard, which had been fenced for privacy. Not that anybody lived close enough to wonder about the havoc we’d just caused. We’d chosen Wirdilling’s Hermit Special for a reason. But still, the tall wooden fence. Either the owners like to sunbathe in the nude—doubtful considering how stinking hot it got in the summer—or they figured the fence was a good way to pen their kids in. Considering the wide array of rec equipment dotted around the lawn, including a swing set, a play place with more ladders than slides, and a plastic barn sheltering a trough full of sand, I was voting for use number two.

It seemed ironic to me that the six of us sat around a glass table on comfy woven lawn chairs gazing out onto a patch of grass that Jack was spending equal time sniffing and chewing, while Astral reigned quietly from her perch atop the clothesline pole. We might’ve been preparing to enjoy some shrimp on the barbie. Except the freshly grilled scent was coming off our vamp.

He sat at one end of the table, a towel stuffed against his wound, listening tiredly to Cole, who lounged at the other end bitching about being shanghaied. “You could’ve at least asked us if we wanted to be in your Trust before you made some big public announcement! Now we’re committed. My mom’s going to be so pissed.”

“Must you tell her?” Vayl inquired.

“I tell her everything.”

Bergman, stuck in the middle next to Cassandra and opposite Raoul and me, gaped at him. “She knows you’re a CIA assassin?”

“Well, I might’ve left that part out.”

Vayl checked the towel, decided it wasn’t necessary anymore, folded it neatly, and tucked it under his chair. “Then she need not know this small detail of your life either.”

“Small! Dude, Pete made us all read Jaz’s report on your mission to Greece. Trusts are freaking weird!”

“No, Disa’s Trust was strange.” Vayl paused to think. “All right, in all probability most Vampere Trusts are somewhat bizarre. They are populated by vampires and their human guardians after all. But ours need not be like that. In fact, it is more a technicality anyway. Something I arranged to protect you all within the world in which I walk.”

We stared. Okay, most of us gaped. Because we kept forgetting he wasn’t like us. He’d been around way before you could drive to the hospital to give birth in antiseptic surroundings, aided by a guy with more education than most of the people you knew. He’d been born in a time when women routinely died in childbirth, just like his mom had. And he’d lived to see a day when we’d be shocked to hear of anything close to that. But he’d had to give up the sun, and maybe his soul, to do it.

“Why do we need protection?” I asked. As his
avhar
, I was the one who’d always get the honest answer. But within a Trust I wasn’t sure what he, as my
sverhamin
, might require of me. It would be nice to know.

He picked a spot beyond the fence and focused on it, like he could see whole universes moving between the trees. “You understand your own world is not singular. Simply from the perspective of culture, religion, work, hobbies, you move within several different spheres, some of which never touch.
Others
like me live in your world, but still we are citizens of the Whence, which operates next to your realm, but only sometimes within it. In the Whence, I am Vampere, therefore I am expected to either declare myself Rogue, or stake a territory and create a Trust.”

“Wait a second.” Cole held up his hand. “We’ve got nests all over America and none of them use those names.”

“No,” Vayl agreed, dropping his eyes to meet Cole’s. “But then, they are not Vampere.”

“You mean… there’s another race of vampires?”

“Of course. As you are American and I am Romanian. Or, perhaps more technically correct, as Jasmine is of European descent and Cassandra places her roots in northern Africa. The Vampere hail from a single mother. The Flock from one father.”

“Now I’m confused,” I said. “Only a few of the biggest West Coast nests call themselves the Flock. The rest use other identifiers.”

Vayl nodded. “The Flock is what you would call the central government for those who descend from the Father.”

“So the loners and the smaller gangs…” said Cole.

“Most are still members of the Flock,” Vayl confirmed. “Some maintain independence, of course, as do the Rogues across the ocean. It is, as with anything involving more than a few beings, rather complicated.”

“What’s the difference?” I asked. Looking at it from a purely professional point of view, I hadn’t seen much. I’d killed vamps within the Flock and the Vampere. They all went smoky in the end.

Vayl said, “Beyond what I have outlined, the main distinction between our two cultures lies in the way we turn our chosen ones. As you know, the Vampere take approximately a year. If we rush the process, we risk our own doom. The Flock have found a way to fly over that obstacle. Their turnings nearly always occur the night of the first bite.”

“Seems to me like there’d be a lot more of them than you with that kind of advantage,” said Cole.

“You would think so.” The glitter in Vayl’s eyes said otherwise.

Cole licked his lips. “So what group do you fall into now?”

“I have been Rogue since I left the Trust in Greece. But once Jasmine became my
avhar
and I her
sverhamin
, both our status and her vulnerability within the Whence increased. So now I have declared us a Trust.”

“Because Jaz is at risk,” Bergman said, as usual cutting to the heart of the matter. “Why?” Vayl stretched his legs forward until his calves brushed my shins. I kept my eyes on my clasped hands, but I knew he felt the heat rise in my chest as I recalled how he loved to tangle his legs with mine, how he said the smoothness of my skin against his felt better than silk.

I dug my nails into my hands, forcing my mind to follow his words as he said, “Such a partnership is rare for vampires. The bonds that are forged can never be fully broken. And as time passes, the couple begins to form a deep and complex relationship that becomes the envy of their peers. The last to do so successfully—” Vayl pressed his lips together in almost a full grimace.

“What?” I asked. “You can’t just stop in the middle like that!” His eyes, so dark they had no color, revealed thoughts I could only guess at. “Her name was Nylla, and she had been turned in the time of Napoleon. She found her
avhar
dying of starvation in a POW camp during the Civil War.” He stopped again.

I was so proud I didn’t kick him I promised myself ice cream at the next opportunity. Gritting my teeth I said, “Go on.”

“Like me, she hoped for… something beyond mere experience. I suppose in Tobias she sought”—he shrugged and shook his head—“the missing piece. The bit that should have prevented her from letting her soul slip to begin with.”

“Did she find it?” asked Cassandra.

He nodded. “They both discovered something… new. Something beyond humanity. And yet not Vampere. Because Tobias stopped aging, but he continued to walk in the light. And Nylla ceased hunting, but she did not wither. Eventually they disappeared, as have all successful pairs before them. But their story remains, giving the rest of us”—his eyes touched mine—“hope.”

“That explains a lot,” said Bergman. “But it still doesn’t answer my question.” Vayl’s upper lip lifted. In him it was nearly a snarl. His need to avoid the subject made me want to
know

. “Tell the man,” I demanded.

He couldn’t play politician now that I’d put in the request. His eyes bored into mine as he said, “If, for instance, an
avhar
were to be snatched out of her bed by enemies of her
sverhamin
. If they were to take her to a dark room, bleed her for days, and then call her
sverhamin
and make certain demands in return for her safe homecoming, they would have him at their mercy. Because they could be assured he would do anything to get her back. And I do mean anything. I could tell you stories. Perhaps I should. Once a vampire named Henri—”

I didn’t want to hear. So I interrupted, saying, “Vayl. We don’t negotiate with—” He waved away my policy-book quote with an impatient hand. “Do you think I would give a rat’s damn about procedure if I heard you screaming at the other end of the phone?” I bit my bottom lip, not sure how to reply. It was Bergman who asked, “And a Trust protects Jaz from this? How?”

“It brings the power of the Whence onto our side. As a Rogue couple she and I had few rights. But as members of a Trust we are much better armored. Those who would not have hesitated to move against us before will seek easier prey now rather than risk the ire of the Prevailers.” When he saw our puzzled expressions he explained, “The Prevailers are a group of thirteen Elders who rule the Whence.”
Good to know.

He pulled his legs back, sat up straighter. “At any rate, Jasmine is safer within the Whence if she can call upon the protection of a Trust. So I began to consider creating one. With the advent of such an excellent circle of work partners, I made the decision to formalize the proceeding.”