Biting the Bullet (15 page)

He draped one arm over the back of the couch and folded his left leg so he could sit comfortably sideways, facing me. I’d never seen him looking so . . . casual. It gave me the willies.

“Zarsa says my sons are here. In Tehran!”

“She . . . she does? But I thought you were supposed to meet them in America.”

“So did I. And she says they spent time in America. But they are here and she told me she could take me to them!”

“When?”

“After I bring her over.”

I felt like someone had cut open my chest and poured ice water directly onto my heart. “She . . . wants to become a vampire?”

“Yes.”

Cirilai began to burn on my hand. But I didn’t need the ring to warn me how close Vayl stood to disaster. And how none of us who cared for him could avoid the fallout if this backfired.

“How long does something like that take?” I asked.

“The longer the better. Ideally it takes a year. But with the proper preparations we can do it in a week.”

“Have you already, you know, taken her blood?”

“No, not yet.”

“Ah.”

Vayl suddenly seemed to focus. “You do not seem pleased. I thought you would be happy for me.”

“Well, sure. I mean, finding your boys is vital to you. And I want that for you. When nobody has to get hurt in the process.”

“I will not hurt her.”

“Do you mean before or after you kill her?”

“She has asked for this!” he thundered.

Another sure sign Vayl had gone over the edge. He so rarely raised his voice that when he did I jumped in my seat. Now doubly pissed, I didn’t bother to keep the irritation out of my voice when I asked, “Since when does a Seer require such a massive payment for such a small service?”

Vayl jumped to his feet. “This meeting means everything to me!”

I stood too, wishing I was taller so I could go nose to nose with him. “Which is exactly why you’re completely off square! Don’t you think if your boys were in Iran Cassandra would’ve told you?”

“Cassandra is useless! Look at her! She cannot even find the mole!”

Complete silence as we both realized she must have heard us. Vayl stalked out of the house, slamming the door so hard behind him the panes in the side panels broke. The crash of glass brought Bergman to the doorway.

“I’ll get a broom,” he said, heading back into the kitchen.

“Leave it,” I called. “He broke it. He can damn well clean it up.” I trudged after him, thinking,
That went so well, I should become
a diplomat. Then they could assign me to some political hotbed like, oh, I don’t know, Iran, and hey, maybe I could get the
whole world blown up!

“I’m not going to make any excuses for him,” I said as I walked into the room and caught Cassandra dabbing tears from her eyes with a cloth napkin. “That sucked what he said about you.” I caught her gaze. “Grief can make you crazy, you know?” She nodded and gave me a crooked smile.

I sat on a stool. It creaked as my butt came down on it. If anything, I’d lost weight in the past few weeks. I kept forgetting to do lunch. But it reminded me of how I’d missed my morning run, and would continue to until we left the country. How the hell did women stay in shape around here?

For a while I just stared at my hands, clasped in front of me as if they alone were praying for an answer.

“Have you ever seen Vayl like this before?” Bergman finally asked me.

I shook my head. “But I haven’t even known him a year. In vampire time that’s like a couple of seconds.” I watched Cassandra absently stroke the Enkyklios. I asked her, “When a person goes to a Seer with a request like Vayl’s, what’s the typical payment?”

“It depends. For the Sisters in my Guild, we request only a contribution to the Enkyklios.”

“You mean, a story.”

“Well, not just any story. One that would add to the knowledge of our world and the creatures that inhabit it.”

“So most of your Sisters have day jobs?”

“Yes. We have found, over time, that to use the Sight for personal gain is a good way to lose it. So we must be careful who benefits from our visions and why.”

“Did you hear what Zarsa wants in return for her visions?” Cassandra and Bergman both nodded. “So what do you make of that?

Is she even the real deal?”

Cassandra shrugged. “I can’t say without touching her. And since I met David, that probably won’t work.” I decided to change the subject. “I met a man tonight. Okay, not a man. Something
other
that snuck right up on me. His name is Asha Vasta and he says he’s Amanha Szeya. He knew my name and Vayl’s, and he knew about Raoul. Frankly, the only reason I let him go was he promised me we’d meet again.” I sighed. “He’s obsessed with Zarsa and I’m not going to be able to let this thing with Vayl go. So we’ll probably be falling over each other in the dark for the next few days while we try to figure out how to stop their idiot plan.”

I felt a sudden, unreasonable surge of anger at my father. It was his fault I’d been given this damned assignment. If not for him, I’d never have known I was capable of stalking my
sverhamin
.
Rein it in, there, Crazy Horse. It’s not really stalking. It’s more
just following him to make sure he doesn’t cause himself or anyone else — me, for instance — permanent damage
.

Are you sure?
The inner bitch was at it again, demanding the full truth whether I wanted to face it or not. She leaned over the bar, showing so much cleavage you could’ve planted a shrub down there, and said,
Admit it, toots. The thought of him sinking those
lovely fangs into her neck, resting his lips against her velvet skin, drives you nuts. And the idea that he would turn her, link
her to him for all time, makes you want to scream. That’s a permanent blood bond, baby. All you’ve got is a measly little
ring and the blood equivalent of a couple of one-night stands
.

“Anyway,” I said quickly, “do me a favor and find out what Amanha Szeya is. I’ve gotta go find (
not stalk!
) Vayl.” Chapter Fifteen

In another life, in another world even, Vayl would’ve been a spectacular teacher. It’s not enough for him to
know
. The longer we’re together, the more I realize he can’t help himself. He’s got to share what he’s learned. And since I’m usually the only one around, I’m generally the beneficiary, like it or not.

Often it’s been not.

There was the time he decided my table manners lacked a certain, shall we say, appetizing flare.

“Did you just burp?” he asked me one evening as we sat at a table covered in white linen and real silver.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Wine gives me gas. Plus it tastes like road kill. Don’t they serve any beer here? There’s the waiter. I’ll ask him.”

“No! Jasmine . . . ” Vayl caught the hand I’d raised and lowered it quickly to the table. “Obviously we need to talk.” Thus began an intense month of table etiquette lessons and, right along with them, my growing loathing of eating in restaurants.

Thanks to Vayl I can fake my way through a seven-course meal alongside an army of French food critics without raising a single suspicion that I can’t wait to run home, throw a burrito in the microwave, stuff it down my throat, and fart my way through an episode of
South Park
.

My latest, and by far most appreciated bout of training, had involved a much more valuable skill. From the start, Vayl believed my Sensitivity would allow me to find and follow vampires. On our last mission he’d proved himself right. I could track reavers too.

Presumably, as I developed my abilities, I’d be able to sense and find even more
others
. That’s what I hoped, anyway.

I don’t think he ever believed I’d use my ability on him, at least not in this way. But here I was, stalking (no, no, sneaking — like they taught us to do in spy school) down the streets of Tehran, chasing his scent and hoping it wouldn’t lead me to Zarsa.

It didn’t.

It meandered around for a while, turning back on itself once or twice, making me think he had no particular destination in mind. He was just trying to walk off some steam. I got a great tour of the city, which included some lovely frescoes, a major boulevard that reminded me of downtown Chicago, and a building so ancient I could actually feel the history radiating off its arched doorways and crumbling columns. At last Vayl’s path straightened, headed north.

Our safe house sat on the southwest edge of the city. The longer I followed Vayl’s trail, the more convinced I became that he was traveling toward the café where he and I were supposed to complete our mission the following evening.

“How nice of you to join me,” breathed a voice from behind me.

I whirled. “Vayl! How —”

He regarded me with narrowed eyes as he leaned both hands on his cane. “You are
mine
, Jasmine. When I wish to know where you are, I have only to open my mind.”

After an oh-shit-what-have-I-done moment, I managed to pull myself together. “Yeah, about that. I’ve agreed to look out for your soul, not sit in your closet between your Armani suit and your Gucci shoes. So stop acting all proprietary there, Ricky.” As a fan of the
I Love Lucy
show, he should get the reference.

He put the heel of one hand to his forehead. “I did not mean it that way. Ach, this would be so much easier if you had lived even a hundred years ago. Now everything that comes out of my mouth can be construed as an insult, when I only intend . . . ” He shook his head. “I fear there is no way to explain without further offending you.” He turned away, whipping his cane forward every other step like he was striking at ghosts from his past. I walked after him. The silence spun between us like some sticky web neither of us wanted to touch. But I wanted to look at it even less.

I held my watch out in front of him.

“What?” he asked gruffly.

I pointed to the dial. “Pick a time,” I said.

“Why?”

“Come on, play along.”

Long-suffering sigh. “All right. Midnight.”

I looked at the watch. “Okay, it’s about eight thirty now. So you can say anything you want to me for the next three and a half hours and I promise not to get angry about it.”

“You do?”

“Hey, quit sounding so cynical. You know I always keep my promises.”

“All right, then. You have lovely hair. Red is my favorite color, so I hope you never dye it again, though I know you will.”

“Vayl! That’s not what I meant!”

“Are you angry?”

“No!”

“You sound angry.”

“No. I’m just . . . ”
reeling from a sudden desire to lay a big fat kiss on those luscious lips of yours. When I’m supposed to
be pissed. Because you’ve been rejecting me like one of those damn bill-changing machines. Too many bent corners and
wrinkles that I just can’t iron smooth. Maybe if I died. Yeah, then you’d definitely chase me all over the freaking
countryside. Okay, Jaz. Stop thinking. Because you’re starting to sound really. Really. Whacked.
“Tell me what you meant before,” I said a little desperately.

He shrugged. “It is hard to explain when you have never lived in the world of Vampere, or even in a time when it was all right for people to belong to each other.”

“Try me.”

“An
avhar
is an extension of her
sverhamin
. Not a possession, but a beloved . . . ” He paused, pressed his lips together as if he’d like to take that last word back. He shook his head. “If you cannot understand how dear you are to me by now. How high I hold you in my esteem. How deeply I depend on your insight, your wit, your temper, your
humanity
” — his eyes glittered in the moonlight — “we might as well call this whole relationship off.”

We’d stopped in a residential area. The houses peeked at us over their walls like curious little brothers. I wished I could tap them on the shoulder, ask them if they’d just heard Vayl pour on the praise. It was so out of character, I really felt I needed third-party confirmation.

“So, I’m kind of leading a double life,” I said. “The CIA pays me to be your assistant. But as your
avhar
—”

“You are my partner. My companion. My . . . ” He exhaled, letting the last word die on the breeze of his breath. And I wanted too badly for it to sound like “love” to trust my ears when they told me I was right.

“Cool,” I whispered, allowing myself a moment’s relief. The break I feared hadn’t yet begun. He still cared.

We began walking again. For a few minutes neither one of us spoke. We became just another couple out for an evening’s stroll. In one way we could’ve been ambling down any city street in America. The road to our right was wide and well-paved, lined with lovely green oak trees. The buildings to our left looked to have been built in the seventies of light brown brick. But the streetlights betrayed our location. Most of the cars looked like they’d become classics a decade ago, and while the men who crowded past us wore typical Western clothes, the women — well, they reminded me of really depressed ghosts.

Even that wouldn’t have bothered me. I figured, if they wanted to slip tents over their heads every time they went outdoors, that was their right. But I wished they’d have chosen more vivid colors for the chadors that hid the clothing that would’ve betrayed their real personalities. I wanted to see cloaks in hues like those reflected on the signs above the businesses we passed. Vivid blues, greens, and yellows that grabbed you by the cheeks and shook, like a fat old aunt who hasn’t seen you in years.

What did shake me was the furtive sense of mistrust I felt coming off the people we passed. Not just for us, though we obviously didn’t belong. But for the police, present in surprising numbers on street corners and patrolling on motorcycles. And for one another, as if at any moment someone meant to yank an Uzi out of his backpack and mow down everyone else. It felt as if all the pedestrians had been apprised of the plan and all that remained was for them to get a glimpse of the gun and duck.

I turned to Vayl, trying to form my impressions into words. They shattered when he murmured, “I wonder if my sons are students here.”