Once Bitten, Twice Shy (26 page)

Big words for a skinny, red-headed woman who had never felt so overwhelmed in her life. Because, to be honest, I wasn't sure we could pull this off. Yeah, we would put up a helluva fight. But we were going against the most vicious, brutal minds on the planet. People who didn't believe in rules or mercy or the sanctity of life. And even worse, people with the money and the contacts to pull off whatever atrocious plan their devious little minds could concoct. To top it all off, I had no idea how to beat this beast. Starve it? Give it permanent amnesia?
You've got to be kidding me! Come on, Cassandra, give me an option I can work with
!

We parked the van, Vayl retrieved our bag and I locked it up tight, using a special button on Bergman's key-ring to activate its security system. I wasn't sure how it worked, but I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that he'd rigged the van to blow if anyone so much as wiggled the door handle.

The oval of pavement we'd chosen as our parking lot was well-lit, but quiet. Each of the six homes that surrounded it looked fit to house a president. But, despite the lights glowing behind several of the windows, I had a feeling no one was home. It gave credence to my theory that anyone who could afford such luxury never had time to enjoy it.

We walked into the strip of trees that led to the edge of Assan's property. An artfully landscaped palm grove, it reminded me, despite the lights at my back, of a desert island. But maybe that was because I couldn't shake the feeling Cassandra's little show had given me that I'd been marooned. When we hit the border of those trees and saw Assan's expansive back yard the feeling grew into a sickening sort of anxiety.

"Vayl," I whispered, "something's wrong."

He nodded. "We will wait and watch." Fifteen minutes later nothing had moved, inside the house or out, and I still couldn't relax. "I was kind of expecting dogs," I said.

"Or at least a patrol," Vayl added. "Let's go."

We made the short, cross-country run to the kitchen door without incident. I started to check out the security system, then realized the door was cracked open.

"Vayl." I spoke so low I thought even Bergman's communicators wouldn't pick me up, but he turned to look at me. I pointed at the door, said, "Trap?"

He studied it and what he could see of the dark, empty room beyond through the window. "Could be," he whispered. He nudged the door open and squeezed through. Snapping my watch band for maximum stealth, I followed close behind. My disquieting feeling doubled. I concentrated on it, tried to pinpoint its source.

"Something's really wrong here," I hissed as we crept past a six-burner stove, an immense island, a three-door fridge, "somebody's feeling extreme… it's hard to explain. They're… on some sort of edge."

"Yes, I feel it too. What do you think? Are they waiting for us?" Vayl asked.

"I don't know."

We found the back stair that Cole had used to escape from the guards at the party. Vayl gestured that he would check the rooms along the furthest hall, so I took the three closest, working my way from the back toward the restroom where Cole and I had met.

No one occupied the first room, but Derek's scent lingered, the way it will beside an empty trash bin. The second room had been an office, and might be again. But the file drawers sat open and empty. So too did the desk drawers. And a dust outline showed where the computer had rested.

"They've cleared out," I said. "This room used to hold a paper trail. Now even the shredder's clean."

"So far only two deserted bedrooms over here," Vayl told me. "Empty hangers. Empty drawers."

"
Damn
! So much for solid evidence."

"Maybe not. I hear something coming from the third room."

"I'll be right there." I hurried across the front hall to where Vayl stood, poised to open the third door once he'd satisfied himself it didn't hide an army.

"That's the source of the bad feelings I'm getting," I whispered, "behind that door."

"Did you hear that?" Vayl asked.

I nodded, trying to identify the sound. There it went again, the deep, throaty utterance of a person in pain. And then—"Is that…?"

"Crying? I think so."

"Let's get in there."

For an answer, Vayl tried the door. It was locked.

"No problem," I whispered, pulling off my necklace. I slid the shark tooth into the lock, waited a second, turned it. The door yielded to my funky key with a soft click. I left the key in the lock and drew Grief. Vayl had left his cane in the van, but he was hardly unarmed. I felt his power shift and rise as we prepared to enter the room.

"On three," Vayl whispered. He raised his fingers in quick succession, one-two-three. Vayl threw open the door, shoving his power in front of him like a winter storm. Anyone inside would feel it as a compelling need to do whatever Vayl required before their eyelids froze to their eyeballs.

I dove inside, staying low and looking for targets. The only one I saw was bleeding too heavily to be any sort of threat.

I holstered Grief and ran to where she lay on the floor of a bedroom so frilly and sumptuous I could not have imagined violence occurring there, except for the beaten woman sprawled on the Persian rug.

"Amanda?"

She moaned, tried to open her swollen eyes. Only the right one obeyed, and that by just a slit. "He said you'd come."

"Assan?"

She shook her head, winced, and fresh tears tracked down her torn and broken face. "Cole," she croaked. I could hardly believe talking was still an option for her.

"Give me your phone," Vayl said, "I am calling an ambulance."

I fished it from my pocket and tossed it to him.

"Too late," Amanda gasped. "I'm… you
must
listen." She reached up and I took her hand. It seemed to comfort her. "I thought that… since I couldn't sneak you in here… I could find some evidence for you."

"Oh, Amanda. Didn't Cole tell you how dangerous your husband is?"

"Yes." She licked her lips. "So thirsty."

"I will get you some water," said Vayl, his call already complete. He left the room.

"Is that the vampire?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Mohammed… thought he was dead."

"How do you know that?"

She took a couple of breaths, seemed to steel herself. "I overheard him talking on the phone. So I confronted him."

"I sure wish you hadn't done that."

"We fought," she went, her voice bleak. "He… admitted he killed my brother. He said Michael was in on it at first. That the trip to India was his idea, to get some relics they needed to summon… but then, he tried to back out." In my imagination I could see them, fighting over Assan's virulent plans, with Michael dying horribly as a result. But what in the world did he
think
would happen? It angered me that this family had no sense of self preservation. Somebody should've smacked them upside the heads years ago and said, "Wake up, fools! You can be hurt!" But even as I raged, logical me wondered why the move to the U.S. when they already had the Kyron in their pockets in India.

Amanda went on. "He made me admit I'd hired Cole. Then he brought Cole here and made him watch while he… beat… me." One, hopeless sob escaped her swollen lips.

"The bastard's going to die for this, Amanda."

Amanda sighed. "Okay." She was quiet for so long I thought maybe she'd passed out. Or passed on. She stirred. "He burned the files. Took the bag from the safe. Except for… he said it was the key, so I snuck it from the bag while he was… out."

The hand I wasn't holding had been laying across her chest. Now she raised it, pointed to the bed. I lifted the ruffled skirt, fighting a flash of childhood apprehension as I peered underneath. Even with my enhanced night vision I could only barely see the pyramid that sat there, just tall enough to brush the bedspring. I reached for it, pulled it out. It weighed a lot more than I'd expected.

"What is it the key to?" I wondered aloud.

Vayl, who'd just reentered the room, came over to look. "Something else for Cassandra to research?"

"I guess so. If she has time. If
we
have time."

Vayl helped Amanda drink some of the water he'd brought her. When she'd had her fill he laid her head back onto a pillow I taken from the bed. I'd never seen him so gentle.

"Mohammed took everything else with him." Amanda's mind must be wandering—or shutting down. She was repeating herself. But her next comment was new. "He said, the things in his bag… he'd used them to summon a terrible wrath into the world and that…" she squeezed her good eye shut and new tears emerged, "… that it had eaten my brother's soul." I patted her arm, at a loss to know how to comfort her.

I spoke to Vayl now. "There it is, proof that he summoned the Tor-al-Degan in India. So why didn't it decimate that country? Why does he need to do it again over here?"

"Maybe he did something wrong there. Maybe he timed it wrong," suggested Vayl.

I shook my head, frustrated by our ignorance. "Maybe Cassandra will come up with something."

We heard the strident wail of the ambulance and silently agreed it was time to go.

"We have to leave, Amanda," I said, "the paramedics are here." But she didn't hear me. Sometimes it happens like that, while you're looking the other way, distracted by events and conversations. Sometimes people just go. Those quiet departures sit wrong with me. Death should be louder.

"Wait," I said as Vayl took the pyramid. It seemed disrespectful to leave before Amanda. Her essence rose from her body, violet and blue with large golden crystals interspersed here and there.

"Do you see it?" I whispered. Vayl shook his head. "I wish you could see it. It's so…" There really were no words. Maybe just the ooh and aah that comes unbidden from you when you see an amazing display of fireworks. And then, just as suddenly as the fire fades from the sky, she was gone.

I retrieved my necklace/key from the door and we left the way we'd come, melting into the trees along the edge of Assan's estate just as the ambulance crew reached Amanda's room and turned the light on.

"We've got to find Cole." An unnecessary statement, I know, but I could hardly contain the urgency I felt.

"Any idea where to look?"

"I've only seen Assan in one other place—chatting up Aidyn Strait at Club Undead."

"It is as good a place to try as any."

I let Vayl drive. I think he was flattered. To be honest, directing a van down the interstate is, for me, at most a Jell-O-mold-elephant kind of thrill. Plus, I needed to get some updates. I called Bergman first. After a series of annoying beeps and whistles he answered. "Is this line secure?" he asked.

"Safe as a homerun hitter. What have you got?"

"Pool chemicals in Vayl's blood supply. Specifically, a cleanser that melts mineral deposits."

I repeated the report to Vayl, who let out a string of curses that would've made Hugh Heffner blush.

"Okay, thanks. How's Cassandra doing?"

"No luck so far."

"Um, would you mind helping her with her research? We really need to find out all we can about this monster." I described the pyramid we'd found and waited for him to jump on the bandwagon. Unfortunately he's afraid of wagons. And bands. There was this pause, during which I could almost hear him cringing.

"Bergman, she's trustworthy."

His voice dropped to a whisper. "I don't know. She's got that funky, supernatural thing going on."

"As opposed to Vayl's perfectly straightforward existence? And mine, come to think of it? Come on, buddy, what's the real problem?"

"She's gorgeous." He said it with an awe that probably should be left on holy ground.

"And?"

"Gorgeous women make me nervous."

"As in—they can't be trusted?" His silence made his opinion clear.

"Are you going to make a pass at her or something?"

"God, no!"

"Then relax. The worst thing that can happen is she'll jump your bones and you'll get so wild you break the lab equipment. So stay away from the kitchen and you'll be fine."

He huffed in the phone, but I could hear the laugh he was trying to hold off. "Okay, then," he said. "You'll call?"

"Call or come knocking."

"Good enough." We broke the connection. Albert was next on my call list. He answered on the first ring.

"Dad?"

"Jaz? Hang on." The background blare of Albert's
t.v.
muted. I heard more clicks as he transferred to his safe phone. "Okay, I'm here."

"I know it hasn't been long but—"

"I've got a lead."

"Yeah?" I guess I sounded, well, shocked, because he said, "Hey, I may be a feeble old Marine, but I still got connections."

"And?"

"There's something funny about Tom Bozcowski."

"The retired football player?"

"Right. He's had an unnaturally large turnover in interns. Seems they keep getting sick."

"With what?"

"Anemia."

"That
is
interesting. Has the name Mohammed Khad Abn-Assan come up in relation to the senator? Or maybe Aidyn Strait?"

"Hang on, that first name sounds familiar."

He started to mumble to himself, not so you could understand him, and I heard the sound of papers shuffling. "Yeah, here it is. I asked my contact for anything unusual, and he included this little item with the other stuff. Says here Bozcowski had plastic surgery done by Assan right before he ran for senator five years ago."

"Thanks. Keep digging, will you?"

"Sure thing."

"Oh, would you find out if any of the senators owns a pool? And look for connections to technology purchasing for the Agency." I described the faulty beacon without saying how I'd carried it. No point in starting a fight I didn't have time to finish.

"Yup. Uh, Jaz?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you eating right? Getting plenty of fruits and vegetables and all that stuff? I'm just asking because Shelby's been lecturing me on nutrition. You'd be surprised what good food'll do for you."

"Don't worry," I said, both exasperated that it took this long for the blockhead to figure out maybe he should eat well, and warmed by the fact that he gave a crap about my health, "I'm eating fine."
So's my vampire friend, but we won't get into that. No sense in flirting with a strode at your age, Albert
. "Why don't you call Evie? She definitely needs a good lecture on nutrition."