One More Bite (11 page)

As she nodded, Rhona strode up to her and grasped her arm. “You must let me help this ghost. The GAPT group was made for this very purpose! To protect innocent souls like the one we just witnessed from the foul specters in their own plane as well as the crass abuse of establishments who would use them as little better than zoo specimens!”

Floraidh narrowed her eyes until Rhona snapped her hand away, as if the Scidairan’s skin had

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suddenly become too hot to handle. “We are a proper business. In my point of view, he was trespassing. If he returns, I can’t be responsible for who sees him. And if it happens to be a group of tourists who have come calling just for that purpose, so much the better. I’ve got to make a living same as anyone else.”

“WHAT!”

Viv leaped at her mother, with Iona following so closely the three of them resembled a huddling football team as Viv’s fingers flew. Iona turned her back to Rhona as she interpreted. “Viv says maybe we should all get going. The convention organizers won’t wait for us, even if her mum is presenting later in the week.”

Rhona tried to shove through the shoulders of the younger girls so she could confront Floraidh a

[ont wis she spluttered, “You can’t just put him on display like some sort of trophy! He’s an innocent man!”

“No man is innocent, especially not that one.” Floraidh made an I’ve-sucked-the-lemon-now face as she realized she might’ve let a little too much information slip. Then she rushed on, maybe hoping that none of us would stop to wonder how she knew the dead guy from the late nineteenth century. “I’ll be welcoming tour groups through during the GhostCon if they wish to come. They won’t be allowed to disturb your rest, of course. But if you prefer to find another place to stay, I completely understand.”

“There IS no other place to stay! Every room within fifty miles has been sold out for the past six months!” Rhona declared.

“Well, then, I’ll just have to do my best to see that your time here is as pleasant as I can possibly make it.” Syrupy sweet, that voice, and so fake that if somebody could’ve given it shape and form, a plastic surgeon could’ve used it to round out some flat-assed woman’s derriere.

“Oh! Oh!” said Rhona, her tank turret bouncing as she bobbed her head like she was trying to click off a few rounds and fuming because some blockhead had loaded all the guns with dummy shells. I looked into those bloodshot brown eyes of hers. Yup, if she could’ve, she’d have blown Floraidh to bits right there on the shiny wood floor. Which made her a more likely suspect. And me less inclined to stop her once she made her move.

I needed a conference.

Chapter Thirteen

While Viv’s fingers flew and Iona murmured in a comforting tone, Floraidh moved to take a rectangular black silk shawl off of its spot on the coatrack by the front door. She flung it around her shoulders, covering the V-neck of her silky brown blouse, which complemented the teal in her stretchy slacks rather nicely. In contrast, Dormal’s Alice in Wonderland ate-the-cake size probably made it tough for her to find socks that fit. Which might explain why she’d pulled on a white pantsuit whose jacket wouldn’t button over her powder-blue polyester shirt and whose bottoms stopped an inch above her ankles. From the way she kept shifting they also looked to be giving her a permanent wedgie.

I dove into the uncomfortable silence like a first-timer off the cliffs of Hawaii. “Jeremy, if we’re going to have a bunch of tourists cruising through here, maybe we should go outside and make sure our equipment is set up in more discreet locations,” I said. Yup, that sounded just as awkward and loud as it had felt. Geez, why couldn’t they grow grace in a test tube and then glue it to your personality like they do hair extensions?

Vayl said, “An excellent idea, Lucille. Do you suppose we have the time for that, Floraidh?”

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“If you can accomplish it in ten minutes. We really must leave after that.”

“Ten minutes it will be, then.”

We slipped out the kitchen door, which took us into the garden I’d seen earlier, a grid of rocklined plots containing masses of edibles that reached toward the last rays of the setting sun. We went to the first camera, which Cole had set up near the front corner of the house where the

^laslane curved around to meet the barn. While Vayl moved it to the other side of the lane I told him about Dormal and Floraidh’s discussion. “That makes this ghost’s appearance quite convenient, does it not?” he asked.

“It’s not a ghost.”

“No?”

I shrugged. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you about the time I spent with Tolly Mendez, but she’s kind of an expert on Scidairans. And she told me ghosts disrupt their magic.”

“Why is that?”

“Nobody’s sure. The current theory is that because the Scidairans’ main goal is to avoid death, and ghosts kind of personify that, the two mix about as well as geeks and gladiators.”

Vayl said, “So, assuming we did not just see a ghost, what was it? I would not guess hologram. I do not believe they had the time to subvert our technology.” I kinda thought he knew the answer and was just quizzing me. Good old Vayl. Why offer up your own vast store of knowledge when you have so much more fun eeking small nuggets out of others? Luckily I’d been paying attention in college.

I said, “I agree she wasn’t playing camera tricks. But were you watching Dormal during that whole episode?”

“Not the entire time,” he said.

“Me neither, but I did give her a glance or two, and she was working her ass off. Sweating, wordless chanting, and a couple of tugs at her hair. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I think she’s got something tied up under that shaggy do, because as soon as she touched it my senses went zapola. Considering that our visitor came with a message, I think what he was, what she raised, was a loeden.”

Vayl’s brows lifted. Okay, I admit, I’d reached with that one. Loeden weren’t ghosts, but they weren’t alive either. I wasn’t sure where they fit into the nether hierarchy, except that as its postal system, they probably ranked near the bottom.

He said, “That is a powerful drawing spell. Especially for a single Scidairan.”

“Well, who’s to say she did it all by herself? They’ve got a whole coven going on. And even if the rest of them are lying low to keep the guests from bolting, they could’ve stored their powers somewhere for her to draw on. Kinda like the juice in all those masks the vamps had displayed on the wall back in your old Trust.”

The tightening of Vayl’s jaws told me he didn’t appreciate the reminder of the time, not long ago, when his former mate had tried to suck him back into the community he’d barely escaped a century before.

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I hesitated, reached out, and rested my hand on his where it gripped the camera’s tripod. The other held just as tight to the blue jewel that topped his cane. I said, “Sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“No. You are my avhar. That gives you the right, no, the responsibility, to speak your mind.”

“It doesn’t mean I should dump on your feelings along the way.”

His expression reminded me of a kid seeing an a cid ”Really? Is that all it takes? You are so easy.

“Maybe there’s hope for them both yet,” I said.

His smile, so wide that it showed fangs, might’ve made me run once. Now I just responded to that fierce happiness with a couple of hard nods. No doubt anything else would’ve led to indecent exposure and my eventual humiliating arrest.

“Let’s say Dormal did do a spell,” I suggested, reminding him of why we’d left the house in the first place. “Maybe Floraidh even gave her a boost in there.”

“It is possible,” Vayl replied after taking a deep breath. “She was the one I watched the most, and I did note a few odd gestures that might be attributed to spell work.”

I sighed. “It doesn’t matter, does it? Because Bea is the one we’re after.”

Vayl nodded. “You are correct. But perhaps, once we know who the ashes belong to, we may take a new approach to this mission.”

We shared a grim nod, understanding how remote that possibility stood right now. I said,

“Remember, she was talking about somebody’s bones earlier. What if she murdered the guy we just saw?”

“We turn her over to the authorities.”

“Vayl, if you’re right about his age, he’s probably been dead over a hundred and twenty years. Which means she’s done a helluva job ducking death. And I’m pretty sure it also means the statute of limitations on that crime expired a long time ago.”

“Not as far as I am concerned.”

“What, are you going all maverick on me now?” And do you know how much that turns me on?

“Not over this issue,” he said seriously. “I simply mean there are courts other than those you humans run. Ones that would burn her to ash if we proved she had killed a man with magic.”

I felt my eyes go oh-boy round. I’d never heard of such a thing before. Here again was part of that avhar/sverhamin deal Vayl had warned me about. One of the perks of our bond was info on the world of others. But he only leaked it when he thought I’d earned the right to hear it.

I said, “That sounds—interesting. And taking out Samos’s strongest allies makes me feel a little bit like a kid again. But won’t it upset the bad-guy balance the new Oversight Committee is trying to maintain?”

Vayl’s eyes went black so suddenly I felt like all the air had been sucked from the room. I’d seen him mad. Just not this fast. And when he spoke, it was with the absolute lack of mercy he usually reserved for our targets. “You have not spoken with the senators, have you?”

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“No.”

“Avoid it. They are an ev cThe%">en bigger group of fools than the last. All of them have agendas that lead me to believe they do not have our, or the department’s, best interests at heart.”

“O-kay . . .”

Vayl pinned his eyes to mine. I shivered and then stood still, thinking, Wow, what did they do to piss him off? He said, “While we will do our utmost to complete our assignments as charged, we are no longer concerning ourselves with what the Oversight Committee does or does not recommend, should extenuating circumstances force us to act independently.”

“Did you get that from Pete?”

“No. He is too bound by their budget to dare oppose their harebrained suggestions.”

“Vayl?” I licked my lips, trying to convince myself the fist squeezing my guts wasn’t a scary premonition. “Are you going to get me fired?”

Those black-on-black eyes bored into my brain as his husky baritone echoed in my ears for several minutes after. “Maybe.”

Chapter Fourteen

After that neither of us had much left to say. We joined everybody at the front door and led our group to the van while the rest went to their cars, which were parked in a small paved lot just off the circular drive our vehicle dominated. I kept my eye on Rhona, secretly hoping she’d stage a big catfight. That would be a nice distraction from my dark thoughts. Unfortunately Viv and Iona stuck to her like a couple of Secret Service agents, hustling her into a titan-gray Bentley Brooklands before she could do anything worse than shoot Floraidh a dirty look.

So I drove the three miles to Castle Hoppringhill, following Floraidh’s blue Volkswagen Polo and Rhona’s I’m-a-bitch, hear-me-roar car down black and winding roads. Our pace would ordinarily make me scream at them to move the parade route off the main drag. But I was so distracted I only vaguely registered the fact that I’d reached down for a comforting Jack scratch and encountered an empty space where he usually sat. Because Vayl was going to get me fired. I just knew it. And my brain couldn’t decide whether to shriek or explode.

No, I’m not doing this again. Flipping out about possibly losing this job while I try to kick ass at it. I can’t function like that anymore. I won’t. I took a deep breath. I’m gonna help Vayl whip this mission. And if there’s any bullshit to straighten out afterward, I’ll deal with it then. Wait, can you straighten bullshit? Maybe “flatten” would be better?

Having made a game plan, I felt more focused than I had since Albert had shown up at Gatwick’s Gate Three, toting his ratty brown overnight bag, his Bears jacket hooked over one arm. I didn’t think I could’ve been more blown away if he’d shoved the barrel of his .45 against my forehead and shot my brains out the back of my skull. It was nice to finally regain some of that balance.

I glanced into the rearview. Lesley and Humphrey had taken the seat just behind mine, their silence making me wonder if they’d had a fight during my brief absence from the group. Maybe she’d finally told him to stop acting like such an ass.

f fiCole sat alone in the back while Vayl rode shotgun, keeping a sharp eye on the vehicles in front of us and the surrounding area. So far, nothing. Bea was still playing it conservative. Good call. I wouldn’t pull a hit while guests crowded Floraidh either. Better to wait until everybody was

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snoozing. Especially if you really are a Medusa.

When the castle appeared, shooting above the surrounding trees like an enormous old war machine, my first reaction was relief that I wasn’t a raider trying to take down the well-armed Scotsmen inside. Damn. That massive collection of towers and battlements seemed to stretch for a couple of miles in every direction. Not to mention the wall around it, which was only interrupted by a single electric gate. And once we got inside, we had to cross a stream using one of those plank bridges that made you feel if you put a tire wrong you’d end up replacing your entire exhaust system.

GhostCon workers, wearing orange vests and waving glowing yellow devices that looked so much like dildos I could hear Cole snickering behind me, directed us to a stretch of lawn beyond the castle’s interior wall. Green as a golf course, it was big enough to hold eighteen holes, so the couple of hundred cars lined up in neat rows fit just fine.