Bite Marks (38 page)

“You formalized—without asking any of us?” Cole demanded.

“Why would I do that?” Vayl asked mildly. “It was only a paper organization. Something never meant to touch your world.”

Cole rolled his eyes toward me like,
Come on, Jaz, jump in! Why aren’t you as pissed about this as I
am?
And I
was
, kinda. Except I had a bigger secret than Vayl’s, so the guilt was outweighing the outrage.

This is a bad way to begin a relationship
, said Granny May. She’d dumped the rocker and decided to water the plants that lined her front porch rail.
Why don’t you just insult all his relatives while
you’re at it?

Reluctantly, I said, “Uh, so if we do have to take this off paper, you know, into the real world? This will be a democratic organization. Right?”

Vayl nodded slowly. “As long as you all understand that I would be the president.” I looked at Cole. “Can you deal with that? Theoretically?”

Cole blew a bubble, making me wonder where he’d found black gum and if it tasted like the same color jelly beans. After it popped and he retrieved it he said, “Only if I can be Secretary of Social Events.” Before I could point out that no cabinet in the world carried that position, Vayl said, “Done.” Cole nodded with satisfaction.

Hey, maybe I should invent myself a cool new office too.

While I pondered the possibilities Raoul said, “As long as we are avoiding the subject we should really be discussing, I’d like to know why Jack keeps looking at me like that.” He sent a curious glance at my dog, who’d trotted back to the table and commandeered a spot between Vayl and me. He panted as he pointed his ears toward my Spirit Guide.

I said, “He thinks you might have a T-bone hidden under that nifty camo jacket of yours. Which looks fresh as a sheltered young virgin, by the way. Don’t you ever sweat?” Raoul chose to ignore me as he leaned over to pet the dog. “Don’t let her teach you bad words,” he said.

“It’s too late,” I snapped. “He swears like a drunken sailor.”

“How do you know how much drunken sailors swear?” asked Vayl, one brow lowering. Not in jealousy. He knew I wouldn’t waste time with anybody who couldn’t walk a straight line. Nope, that expression meant pain, and when I looked I could see his wound was still seeping.

His refusal to sustain himself on fresh blood usually increased my respect for him. Except for now, when his slow heal made me think it was the stupidest damn decision he’d ever made. Especially when all he had to do was put his name on a list and willing donors would line up at his door like Black Friday shoppers.

“Jasmine!” Vayl reached over to shake my arm.

“What?”

“Your focus seems to have shifted.”

“Oh yeah, um, drunken sailors. Well, my dad
was
a Marine you know. He knew guys.” Cassandra scooted her chair back, causing it to screech along the patio’s surface like a mom who’s had just about enough of her kids’ bratty behavior. We turned to her.

“Did you have something you wanted to say?” asked Vayl.

She nodded graciously. “Yes.” She looked Raoul straight in the eye. “I know I couldn’t have made a worse mistake. But I’ve spent the past five hundred years living the best life I knew how in hopes that it would be enough to save me.” She gulped a little before asking, “Was it?” He shrugged. “I’ve been allowed to come, so you could take that as a good sign. Or maybe someone with more clout than me just wants to make sure Jasmine doesn’t die again.”

“Why?” asked Vayl, his voice deepening. “What happens if she is killed?” Raoul stopped petting Jack and sat up. He avoided my eyes when he spoke, choosing instead to stare straight into Vayl’s. “The human body can only bear so much, even when it has been enhanced to recover from the terrible damage death deals, as I have done for Jasmine twice already. Which is why the next time she dies—she won’t be able to come back.”

Cole sat forward so fast his chest hit the table with a low thud that made us all stare at him. “So you’re saying she’ll be like you? Just spirit material?”

Raoul shrugged. “It’s a little more complicated than that. Sometimes—like now—I can take physical form. But I’m limited by my own strength as to how long the form lasts.” He looked at me then, so I stopped biting my lip, unclenched my fists, and made myself breathe. No sense in showing how deep his little info-bomb had just torn into me. He said, “In my penthouse, when I’m visiting with you, I can take on an even more solid body. But in the place where I fight other sorts of creatures, where I spend most of my time, in fact, physical form is a hindrance.”

Silence, deep and shocked, like when people have really heard about a death. Bergman spoke first.

“Will she live longer, though? With that enhancement you said you gave her?” Raoul made that somebody’s-just-kicked-me-under-the-table face. “I
would
say yes. She has the potential to live longer than Cassandra. But her chosen lifestyle deeply cuts her odds.” Vayl and I locked gazes.
Think of it!
his eyes told me.
What I have dreamed of! We could gain
eternity together, and you would not even have to turn.

I tried to send his hopes back to him. It would, after all, be amazing. But I could barely see past tonight.

Not with Kyphas lusting after our souls and some asswipe entity already in possession of a chunk of mine.

When his brows dropped I looked away.
Goddammit,
I’m
supposed to be the Sensitive here!

“That could be good,” Bergman put in, drawing my eyes from Vayl’s. “Think about it, Jaz. If you and Vayl joined up with me and Natch, you could pick your jobs. Less risk. More chance of that thousand-year mark.”

“What is he talking about?” asked Vayl.

“Yeah, what’s the—” Cole began.

“When did you become a salesman?” I interrupted, hoping to shut Cole down before the discussion got ugly. “I never should’ve introduced you to Dave’s unit. Ever since you hung with those Spec Ops studs you’ve gotten way too big for your shoe box.”

Leave it to the skinny sucker to grin while Vayl repeated his question. Bergman had just begun to explain his offer and the reason Cole wasn’t included—“You just started a new job. No way have you got any money to invest”—when Cassandra stood.

“I have to use the bathroom.” She raised her eyebrows at me.

What? Oh, are we doing that girls-gang-up-in-the-can thing?

I rose. “Me too.”

“Have fun, ladies!” Cole took my chair and scooted it right next to Raoul’s. “So, I was wondering if we could make a deal,” he began as we moved away from the table. “How do you feel about kangaroos?” I looked back at Vayl, but he was immersed in Bergman’s pitch. Jack thought I needed company, though. He got up and padded after me. Even Astral decided we must be up to something interesting.

Avoiding the dog, she ran ahead of Cassandra, somehow guessing to turn down the hall and slide through the doorway opposite my bedroom. She was waiting on the window ledge of the white-tiled, chrome-accessorized bathroom when we finally stepped inside.

Cassandra slid open the navy-blue shower curtain, turned the tub and sink faucets on full blast before taking a seat on the toilet. It had a squishy white lid, so she slowly sank to its base while the animals rearranged. Astral jumped onto Cassandra’s lap. Jack settled down beside me where I stood beside the tub, staring at the towels hanging from round silver rings mounted on the wall. The towels’ multicolored bubbles looked so real, I wanted to poke them to see if they’d actually pop.

She said, “I don’t think Vayl can hear us now, even if he’s trying.” She held up her hand, as if she knew I wanted to protest. Which, of course, I did. When our eyes met I realized we’d reached a new cut-the-bullshit level of understanding. Refreshing. Scary. And weird, because if she went on to join my family she’d be the first relation I ever felt I could really be honest with.

“When I touched you I sensed another presence.” She shuddered. “I don’t know how such malevolence found its way past your defenses, but we have to get it out of you. You can’t imagine how much it’s already controlling you.”

But I could. The rowdy crowd that gave faces to all the facets of my personality had gone into hiding, driven out by its overbearing, I’m-the-king—
wait a second. I know that attitude. I know that voice!

No wonder everybody left except Granny May, and she’s afraid to move. Aw shit, I’m in big
trouble.

“I’m listening,” I said.

She gripped her hands together so tightly I could see her rings digging into the skin of her fingers. “I know how hard this will be for you. In your mind, trust has to do with money rich people put away for their grandchildren. Or maybe it’s the name of our new community. But now you will have to learn the best meaning of the word.”

I felt myself nod. But already half of me had stopped listening.

Cassandra clapped her hands once, the way she usually does when she’s delighted. I jumped, because this time her eyes were blazing.

“
Onkheinem!
” she shouted.

“What the f—!”

“Stay with me, Jaz!” she interrupted. “Don’t let it play on your resistance.”

“What are you saying?”

She leaned forward, gazing earnestly into my eyes. “If any of us tell you something you wouldn’t have wanted to hear in the first place, your possessor uses your natural response to influence your choices, thus gaining it the behavior it wants to see out of you. You must teach yourself to listen, even though you wouldn’t normally wish to. You have to consider what you would once have dismissed.” She took a breath. “Eventually you may have to open your mind and let one of us in.”
No! Never!

Like it had been in the beginning, I couldn’t tell if that inner voice was mine or his. But I could tell he wanted me to shove Cassandra out the door, out of my life.
Busybody, bitch!
he shrilled.
Get rid of her!

Now!

I pressed my lips together, the way I sometimes had to so I wouldn’t puke in the bed or the hallway.
Just
keep it in until you reach a flushable appliance
, I’d tell myself. Only this time what I had couldn’t be flushed. I had an awful feeling it would require something a lot more painful. Like a burning. And what would be left afterward? Would it matter if he’d already eaten the best part of me, the same way I’d seen his ghost-subjects cannibalize each other?

I said, “Brude.”

“Who?”

“His name’s King Brude.” I sighed, feeling major muscle groups loosen as I shared the news with somebody who might be able to help. “I ran into him during my last mission. In life he ruled a big patch of Scotland, probably with a bloody sword and a full dungeon. Now he’s a Domytr.” She shook her head. “I’m not familiar—”

“Yeah, I wasn’t either. I’m not sure what all his duties are, but I do know that he chases down stray souls for Lucifer. When I met him he was moonlighting, building his own army of ghosts and his own version of hell in the Thin. One without the rules that make Satan’s place so warm and cozy.” She held up her hand, like I was talking too fast. But it was so hard for me to get the words out I was surprised she wasn’t pounding me on the back to make them come faster. She said, “But the Thin is just a wisp of a place. When I first learned of it I was surprised lost souls ever found themselves caught there it seemed so holey.”

When my eyebrows shot up she added, “Not holy like paradise. You know, like a pair of net stockings.

Really easy to slide a pencil, or a spirit, through.”

“O-kay. Never heard it described that way, though I guess you have a point. Personally, I think they stay because they’re addicted to chaos. And Brude’s a steady supplier.”

“So how did he get stuck on, I mean in, you?”

I shook my head. “Both really apply. He became obsessed pretty much the second we met. As for the

‘in’ part, I’m not so sure.” I dredged up the memories of our confrontations. So few, and yet all of them laced with the greenish red memory of unuttered screams. Which led me to realize that if I ever did lose it, I mean hurtle off the deep end, I would probably never stop howling.

I said, “He brought me over to his territory once. Maybe I got infested with something while I was there.”

“Just walking in his world wouldn’t be enough,” Cassandra said. “Think of the Domytr, himself, like a virus. He can’t get inside you unless—”

“I bit him!” I said, my mind suddenly clearing of everything except the end of that bone-shattering fight between him and Raoul, when I’d finally become desperate enough to stoop to beasty means if that was what it took to get me and my Spirit Guide the hell out of Dodge.
Damn! How could I have forgotten?

The big prick with the impenetrable accent
, grumbled Granny May. She’d abandoned the porch and now seemed to be sending messages from the mail slot on her front door. Not good. That meant he was making headway again.

Cassandra grasped my sleeve and tugged it. “Pay attention, Jaz, or so help me I’ll shake you, and then you know my visions will make us both sorry.”

I glued my eyes to hers.

“What happened when you bit him?” she asked.

Brude, yanking me away from Raoul’s side, his tattoos writhing against me like living things as
our bodies clashed. My seduction, brazen enough to cause him to cast aside the shadow-cape that
had been protecting him. And when his armor had cracked, my teeth tearing into his carotid.

“His blood went down my throat. But we were in the Thin. I mean the whole episode started as a dream and ended in Raoul’s penthouse. Although…”

“Tell me.”

“I did come back to myself with a really bad taste in my mouth. And it didn’t go away until I brushed my teeth.”

Cassandra sat back, shook her head like I was some misbehaving child. “You
had
to bite him.”

“He’d already kicked Raoul’s ass, and you know what a terrific fighter
he
is.”

“You’re kidding. Raoul?” She said his name with the reverence we all reserved for it. He’d been a ranger in life. And instead of choosing to spend his
after
life in well-deserved peace he’d decided to go on fighting. Was it any wonder I had to defend him?