Once Bitten, Twice Shy (33 page)

The Deganites, who probably passed as upstanding citizens by day—bankers and insurance agents and definitely lawyers—screamed like a bunch of U2 fans as their goddess began to change. The rest of us just watched, stunned speechless, as a yellowish red substance the consistency of hair gel oozed out of the Tor's wound.

I let go of the sword hilt and backed up, fear and confusion warring with panic and horror to see which could gain control of my mind first.

In defiance of gravity, the ooze rose, growing over the top of the Tor's head. It spread downward as well, until it looked as if she had stepped inside an enormous tank of pink Vaseline.

Oh god, oh god, oh god
. I looked back at my friends. Cole still had the crowd corralled, but they seemed cheerful about it now.

Everything else had gone from bad to worse. Somehow Aidyn had escaped Vayl long enough to deck Bergman, who lay crumpled on one of the floor's few dry spots like a worn out bloodhound. Aidyn had then grabbed Cassandra, who still looked spaced out, and now held her in front of him like a shield. The Enkyklios lay at their feet, replaying another fight scene featuring some long-dead hero and the Tor. This one had, not a sword, but a two-handed battle axe. Time after time the Tor suffered blows that would've felled a crazed elephant, and yet she kept coming back for more. Kept… healing.

"Give me the key!" Aidyn screamed. "Give it to me now, before I break this Seer of yours over my knee!"

"I do not have it," said Vayl. "One of us must have kicked it into a pool while we were fighting." He said it casually, a weatherman mentioning the cold front that was about to whip through the region. But his eyes kept darting to the Tor, as did Aidyn's. In the short time I'd looked away from her, she'd changed dramatically. She'd grown to twice her height inside that viscous shell. Her hair had clumped and then formed into tentacles. Spinal plates grew out of her back, the second one sporting an extra protrusion in the shape of a sword hilt. And the transformations happened so fast I could hear the gut-twisting squeal of bones stretching and the wet, ripping sound of skin opening to make way for new appendages, including two vicious looking pincers that emerged from the Tor's bleeding jaws.

She stretched, rising to a height of at least eight feet. Her new muscles rippled beneath skin the color of a bad sunburn. Her eyes had brightened to violet, the same color, in fact, as Liliana's. I had never seen anything so immense, so unearthly, so unbeatable. Tammy Shobeson's voice squealed in my head,
Loser, loser, loser
!

"Time to play," the Tor growled in her new voice as she shook the gel from her new body (if only Jenny Craig had her recipe). She moved toward me. Even though I knew, deep down, this was the end for me, I stood my ground. For me, there was no other option.

"Move!" she demanded.

"No."

"What do you hope to gain by standing in my way?"

I thought about it. Even now, in the final moments of my life, smartass me was ready and available for service. "I'd like a title. Maybe Idiot of the Year. Is that one taken?"

She leaned over me, the putrid tang of her breath making my curls wilt. "Are you trying to save the lives of your puny friends?"

"What if I was?"

"Then you would, without question or debate, qualify as a willing sacrifice."

Shit
! I turned and ran, mowing through the mud like a sleek little ATV. I waved my hands and screamed, "Run! Run! She's going to kill us all!"

As soon as I passed Vayl, I heard a shot. One glance back showed Cassandra diving off to the right while Aidyn began to topple backwards, a dark and gaping hole in the middle of his forehead. Vayl closed in on Aidyn fast, a sword-wielding juggernaut that didn't stop until Aidyn's head flew from his body and the smoke of his remains stained the ceiling.

The Deganites milled around, showing the whites of their eyes as Cole swung his gun back towards them, having done all he could to pull the odds back into our favor. He looked ready to bolt, but he stood his ground, which made me enormously proud. I gestured for his gun and he immediately tossed it to me. I sprayed the wall just above the Deganites' heads. "Run! Run! Run!" Like good little sheep they obeyed, surging toward the stair wreckage in a babbling mob. Even though it looked more like a tornado victim than a means of egress, people were still finding a way to climb up towards freedom.

I turned the gun on the Tor and opened up. I'm not sure, but I think I might have been screaming while I shot her so full of holes she looked like a puzzle with several missing pieces. Moments later Vayl joined me, firing Bergman's weapon. He caught my eye and I realized we were both grinning, a couple of crazy hyenas tackling one badass lion.

The Tor back-peddled fast, squawking and bellowing by turns. She grabbed Bozcowski from his latest fishing expedition and held him in front of her like a shield. His body bounced like a marionette as our bullets struck him.

"Put me down you freak!" he demanded, his voice rising up the scale to a shriekish whine. "Let me go you disgusting piece of swamp rot!"

She conceded, in a way, by wrapping her maw around Bozcowski's head and snipping it off as if it were a piece of thread. His body wafted away like the smoke from a newly doused fire.

And I thought we had her. I honestly did, that's how bad I wanted it to be true. Then she lunged.

Even in the midst of battle, when moments move like hours, the Tor was a red blur. Fangs the size of my hand sank into my right side. It felt like two flaming skewers had pierced me through and through, sending bolts of electric pain shooting through the rest of my body. I felt myself sinking into the agony, as if it was a tar pit from which I could never escape.

The Tor-al-Degan shook me. My feet left the ground and, even as a red haze of torment settled over my brain, I thought distantly that I must resemble an old dog toy, frayed around the edges and in desperate need of retirement.

I pressed my gun against her skull, shot until my magazine was empty, and she would not let go. Dimly, a mere echo in the booming crush of sound that was my blood rushing, my ribs breaking, my lung collapsing, I heard Vayl yelling, urgent, adamant orders I knew I must obey if only I could decipher the language he barked them in.

Then I was outside, above, watching from a place so quiet, so warm, so
safe
that all it would take would be a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a tall glass of milk for me to feel as I had every time I visited Granny May. I realized I'd split from my body one last time, only all the golden threads were missing. I searched for them, feeling a wave of grief at their loss. Then I found a new thread, one imbued with every color of the rainbow, and was amazed I hadn't seen it before, it was so large, so gorgeous, pulsating to some basic rhythm that might well have been the heartbeat of the universe.

I moved toward it. Who wouldn't? But something stopped me, tugged at me, pulled me back. I looked down, perplexed, and then I saw the problem. The Tor had grabbed onto a trailing ribbon of my essence with one of the tentacles that flanked her jaw. I watched her reel me in, panic beginning to eat at the edges of the brief peace I'd found. But I was aware of more, as if I could see everyone and everywhere at once.

The last of the Deganites had reached the door and was climbing through. Cassandra had crawled to Bergman and was rolling him over. He winced and grabbed his side, saying something to her that caused her to turn him further and grab at something he'd been laying on.

Cole had moved to Vayl's side, where they both fought to force the Tor to release my body. Cole delivered a flurry of blows to the Tor's mid-section, at least one connecting soundly enough to break her arm, elicit a high-pitched scream. Vayl leapt onto the Tor's back and sunk his fingers into her throat. Frost crackled up her chin and across her face. He dug deeper and the frost turned to ice. No more sounds escaped her throat, not even when he broke her jaw with one powerful blow of his fist.

My body dropped to the floor, bouncing slightly before it settled into the ooze. Cole immediately went to work, inspecting wounds, searching for a pulse. But Vayl stayed put, hacking away at the Tor's tentacles with bloody fists. I realized he could see me, that he knew…

The Tor-al-Degan was eating my soul. Slowly. With the relish of a connoisseur.

Once I'd thought maybe I was crazy, and the fear of losing my sanity, losing
myself
had dogged every breath, dictated every action. Worse than an infestation of cockroaches, a cancerous tumor, the loss of my family… the feeling had left me unwilling to rest, unable to find peace. That had only been fear. This was real.

Second by second, the Tor was ingesting the best, and the worst, part of me. I was losing myself inside the horrifying red hell of the Tor's gaping maw. I struggled. I fought. I prayed. I tried desperately to tear myself free. But the slow torture of my ultimate destruction went on. And though I had no voice, I began to scream and scream and scream…

A voice rang across the room, Cassandra's deep, rich tones washing across me like warm, clear water. She'd come forward to stand by Cole as he worked furiously over my cooling body. In her right hand she held the pyramid, the key. And in her left hand she held the Enkyklios, echoing the words as she heard them from the small vision of a Seer who had stood in a long distant past and saved the world for a time.

The Tor bellowed and shook her head, denying the power that had suddenly appeared, demanded her allegiance. But Cassandra would not relent. And moments later I was free. Flying. Soaring toward that stained glass rainbow of a lifeline and following it straight to the top.

"You know, I thought I was headed to heaven," I said as I looked out the window. The skyline of Las Vegas glared back at me. I stood in a lavish suite, definitely high-roller territory, surrounded by plush furniture, satin curtains and so much marble the room could've doubled as a mausoleum.

"Some would tell you you're already there," said my companion.

I would've pegged him as a fighter from the start, even without the crew cut and the upright bearing. I recognized those eyes, had grown up around men with the same look. Only battle will do that, only pitched battle and the death of men you love like brothers.

I also recognized him from our last encounter, when he'd mended my broken neck on the blood-stained floor of a house that should never have been called 'safe.'

The guy, this warrior had smiled when I showed up and he'd said, "There you are," as if we'd prearranged my appearance in the middle of his hotel room. He'd left his perch on a black leather bar-stool and come to shake my hand. "Hello, Jasmine, my name is Raoul." Spain bronzed his skin and flavored his accent, but his manner was pure American military.

"I'm dead, aren't I?"

He'd cocked his head to one side, as if sizing up the new recruit, "That remains to be seen."

I'd gone to the window then, confused and somewhat depressed, pretty sure I'd been relegated to the eternal Between. Below me, Sin City sparkled like a Desert Queen's tiara. Too bad the stones were fake.

"I guess some people would like to spend eternity gambling and watching showgirls strut across the stage," I said. I turned from the window and dropped onto a couch that made every bone in my unbody sigh with pleasure. "Shoot, I wouldn't mind spending a couple of weeks doing that myself."

Raoul settled onto a matching couch that met mine at a 45-degree angle. I suddenly realized this room was arranged the same way I'd done the furniture in Diamond Suites and Bergman's safe house. Yes, and in that long ago place where Aidyn had destroyed my life.

"Have I been here before?" I asked.

He nodded.

"And David? Has he been here?"

"In a way."

"Oh."

"You're not supposed to remember."

"Hmm."

"Are you okay?"

"Should I be?"

He smiled again. "Probably not."

"So, why am I here?"

He looked surprised, as if I should know. "You're a hero."

I was beginning to get the idea. "Look,
I
didn't save the world back there. It was Cassandra."

"Despite the fact that it's a very catchy phrase, there is no such thing as an army of one."

"What exactly is it that you want?"

He gave me that don't-play-dumb-with-me look that you just hate to see when you're stalling. But to my surprise, he gave me an answer. "You're sitting in headquarters, soldier. It's time to re-up or retire. It's your call, of course, but we'd like you to continue your work."

I jerked my head toward the window. "Funny place for a headquarters."

"We try to stay close to the front."

"Then you should be in Miami."

"The battle there has been won."

"But not the war?"

"You did not defeat the Raptor, though you were right to believe he was behind the plot to begin with."

"Was he ever even there?"

"No. He is a canny beast. You won't catch him easily. But I digress. You need to make a choice."

I nodded. It was time to move on, then, one way or another. I could retire. The word "rest" hovered out there like a green velvet dressing gown. But I'd seen what it had done to Albert and there was no reason to think I'd be any more content. Plus, my retirement would leave Evie to cope with the cantankerous old man. I'd never see her baby girl. I'd never hear Dave's story, which must be as remarkable as my own. Bergman and Cassandra would probably kill each other. Cole would become a bitter old man. And Vayl… Vayl would wander the earth, alone, longing for his sons. Longing for me.

I looked Raoul in the eye. "I'm in."

"Excellent." He nodded at me and a mystical wind rose in the room, knocking over lamps, shattering vases, forcing me to squeeze my eyes shut tight.

When I opened them again, Cole's face was inches away, his breath still warm in my mouth, his fingers pressing against my neck. When he felt the blood move once again inside me, a blissful look of triumph settled over his face.