Biting the Bullet (16 page)

Geez, Vayl, why don’t you just slam me on the back of the head with a garbage can? That way I can have the worst mood
swing ever. I mean, we can move me from feeling terrific about my job performance and my relationship with you, not to
mention being überthankful that I was born an American, to wanting to gouge my eyes out with a couple of grapefruit
spoons in, like, two seconds!

I didn’t say a word. I figured he’d already broken glass over my comments earlier this evening. The next step was probably my neck. But apparently he didn’t mind an unresponsive audience, because he charged on. “That would be ironic, would it not? Our cover being their actual purpose for traveling to Tehran? I wonder, as well, if I will recognize them. You know, if something in their eyes will remind me . . . ” He trailed off, his voice husky with emotion.

I wasn’t sure how Zarsa could bring herself to commit such an atrocious act on someone, but I did know I’d never been so pissed in all my life. She’d taken a magnificent creature like Vayl, a vampire who inspired fear and loathing in every corner of criminal society, narrowed in on his single vulnerability, and stabbed.

Well, she hasn’t gotten away with it yet
, I told myself.
And if she thinks she’s going to take advantage of my
sverhamin,
she
can just see how much she likes eating supper out of a straw for the next six weeks.

I was half inclined to march right back to Anvari’s and beat the hell out of her right then and there. The mahghul wouldn’t mind, as long as I left her alive. Then I saw them. Just blurs at first, out of the corner of my eye.

“Vayl.” I pointed to the nearest rooftop. “Do you see those?”

“Yes, I do,” he said. “What are they?”

Time for another lie, because I sure couldn’t tell him I’d met somebody who’d filled me in on the backstory while I was spying on him. “I don’t know. Let’s follow them and see where they’re going.”

He might not have agreed, except they were moving in our general direction anyway. The farther we walked, the more we saw, as if an army was gathered somewhere near the heart of the city. At last we came to an enormous plaza. When it was empty, I supposed it stretched the equivalent of three or four blocks, an expanse of gleaming white concrete set in a complicated cylindrical pattern, echoing the rugs the country was famous for. Benches and streetlights marked the edges of the plaza, which abutted high-rise office buildings on three sides that glared down at a collection of restaurants and luxury-item merchants on the other.

A one-way street circled the plaza, giving cars a way to enter and exit the area, but it had been cordoned off for the safety of the two thousand or so men and women who’d congregated there. For what purpose I couldn’t quite guess. They didn’t broadcast the upbeat excitement of a party crowd. They didn’t seem to be in religious mode. I’d place the vibe closer to lynch mob. Which explained the mahghul. And the absence of children. And —
oh shit, we are so in the wrong place at the wrong time
— the gallows.

It stood at one end of the plaza, a long, flat stage like the mobile judges’ stands small towns erect for their parades. Of course there were a few additions you’d never see in Mayberry, including a sturdy crosspiece from which hung two nooses, a couple of trapdoors, as well as an open space under the stage so the audience could see the bodies fall.

I stuck my left hand in my pocket, closed my fist around my engagement ring, glad to have something of Matt’s I could touch. I carry another, less tangible token of his love with me wherever I go as well. But the ring gave me the solid comfort I needed just now. And as I clutched at that collection of gold and jewels, what I remembered was not the day Matt had given it to me, but the day he’d told me about his first job.

We were sitting on the front porch of a plantation house we’d just cleared of predatory vampires and their human guardians, trying to blow the stench of death out of our nostrils as we cleaned our weapons. Our crew of Helsingers, newly formed and just beginning to gel, was scattered among white wicker chairs and matching porch swings. Ten ass-kicking twenty-somethings (with the exception of our two loyal vamps) who’d just given the government their money’s worth.

“I gotta tell you, Jaz,” said Matt as he wiped down his shiny black crossbow. “I had my doubts about your ability to lead a crew like this when I first saw you. Do you fool a lot of people with that sweet little redhead act?”

“Only till she opens her mouth,” said Dave from his perch on the railing.

Appreciative laughter, even from me. I sat back in my chair and slid my gun into its holster. “So what branch of the military were you in?” I asked Matt.

“Is it that obvious?”

I shrugged. “I wasn’t trying to insult you. I can tell good training when I see it.”

“I was a SEAL.”

“Why in God’s name would you put yourself through that?” asked Jessie Diskov, who, like me, had come to this job pretty much straight from college. She sat close enough to Dave that, if he concentrated any less on his task and any more on her lovely indigo eyes, he might just end up shooting himself in the leg.

“My mom and dad asked me the very same thing when I gave them the good news,” Matt said. “You want to know what I told them?”

I
sure did. And when Jessie didn’t immediately reply, I thought I was going to have to reveal my more-than-professional interest in the broad-chested young stud with the wicked smile, stellar ass, and bedroom eyes. Finally Jessie decided the vanes on her bolts were all in good enough condition to warrant a division of attention. “Yeah,” she said. “I do.” Matt glanced at me, smiling a little to see he had my attention, before he replied. “I just said, ‘Some people gotta fight for what’s right. Even when most everybody else thinks it’s wrong.’ ”

Matt would never have allowed that scaffold to stand in
his
country, that was for sure. But this one seemed to have bred all their Matts right out of the population. Or maybe killed them off in previous wars. Because no one protested when a dozen brown-uniformed men climbed the stairs to the stage, escorting the condemned, who were chained hand and foot.

Vayl and I exchanged a look. Knowing I wanted to speak he leaned in close, so no one who stood near the back of the crowd with us could overhear. “Women?” I hissed, clenching my teeth to keep from screaming. “They’re hanging women in the public square?”

Vayl shot me his give-me-a-break look. “Come now, Jasmine. You, of all people, should know that women are capable of some of the most heinous acts imaginable.”

So true. I struggled to control my temper. I’d jumped to conclusions, just because I’d identified with them. Major mistake and one that might, at some point, get me killed. I didn’t even know what they’d done. Maybe they’d killed their kids. In which case, they did deserve to die.

The younger one had begun to cry. The older woman was comforting her.

An officer with so many medals pinned to his chest, if he jumped in a pond he’d probably sink right to the bottom, stepped to the front of the stage and read a proclamation. The crowd reacted with angry murmurs that escalated to shouted demands. I wished Cole was around. I wanted to know the details. Especially when the older prisoner started shouting back.

The uniform standing closest to her slammed her so hard on the side of the head that she slumped to the ground. Cheers from the crowd. The younger woman tried to go to her but was forcibly restrained.

All of this visibly excited the mahghul, which covered every rooftop, signpost and power line around the square. They stood shoulder to shoulder, bouncing up and down on their muscular legs, craning their necks, stretching those long wings with a whispering sort of rasp I couldn’t believe no one else heard.

The uniforms approached the younger woman guardedly, as if she might tear through her bonds and jump into the crowd. She stood absolutely still, and I thought she was going to take it lying down. But just before they pulled the hood over her face, she shouted a name.

“Who’s FarjAd Daei?” I asked.

“I have never heard of him,” said Vayl, who kept up with world movers and shakers even better than I did. The crowd sure had.

Many of the men took the time to spit beside their shoes when they heard his name. But a few made a gesture so casual I wouldn’t have noticed if one man, about my age, hadn’t caught my attention. He drew the thumb of his right hand across his thigh, then turned his hand, palm outward, toward the doomed woman. When he caught me staring he nodded once and mouthed the word

“Freedom.” I raised my eyebrows at him and he nodded again before melting into the crowd.

The young woman went through the trapdoor with a mahghul draped over her head like a second scarf. Already its comrades had begun to feed off the uniformed men, some of whom watched her body swing while others stared off into the crowd as if this execution had as little to do with their lives as a classic-car auction.

When the second woman dropped, her chador came off. She’d pinned a picture to the white dress she wore underneath. I couldn’t see the details, couldn’t read the bold black captions above and beneath the photo, which covered her entire chest. But those in the crowd who stood closest to her shouted in outrage.

The crowd surged forward, their screams encouraging those behind them to join in, and within seconds the bodies disappeared beneath their tearing hands.

“Time to leave,” Vayl murmured. I could feel his power rising to shield us from watching eyes as he took me by the arm and steered me out of the plaza.

Behind us the rest of the mahghul had joined their brethren, sweeping down on the rioters, shrieking joyfully as they fed on the violence.

Vayl and I didn’t speak as we rushed away from the scene. Within five minutes we arrived at our destination. As soon as we saw the place we reached an unspoken agreement to put the nightmare of the plaza behind us, at least temporarily. Duty called. As usual, it surprised me.

I’d expected the Oasis to present me with a dimly lit throwback to the 1860s. A men only sign on the front door. Cigar smoke so thick you’d have lung cancer by the time you sat down. Dancing girls entertaining the high rollers in the back room.

What I found was a thirty-year-old, white-block two-story building housing an Internet café, with single booths stationed around the perimeter of the room, each holding a PC, most with an avid user glued to the blocky, fifteen-inch monitors. In the middle, tables with red-cushioned chairs invited customers to sit and chat face-to-face, rather than online. Either way, it made no sense to me.

Why would the Wizard, a guy who’d sent a letter to the BBC stating that “America is the infant England should have
aborted,” agree to party in a café surrounded by reminders of the very country he despised? Okay, so it’s the World Wide
Web. The whole concept of freedom of information is so American it practically square dances
.

We sat down. Since the place had signs in both Farsi and English, we felt free to reveal our foreign natures. At least to some degree. Vayl lapsed into his accent to order us both tea. And when the waiter inquired as to our countries of origin, Vayl told him we were from Romania, attending a family funeral. I didn’t speak at all until the waiter left.

“Nosy, isn’t he?” I whispered.

Vayl’s eyes followed the waiter as he cleared a table across the room. “He could be freelancing for the government. You never know.”

Too true
. “Listen, do you really think we’ve got the right location?” I shared my doubts.

“Perhaps that is why he has never been caught,” my boss replied. “By maintaining continual unpredictability he has evaded the authorities for nearly twenty-five years.”

“I guess,” I said. I badly wanted to study the photograph Dave had given us again. Ask it questions neither one of us could answer.

Vayl nodded his head behind me. “This is a modern building. They actually have public restrooms. Given the rate at which tea passes through the system, I would say our best shot at the Wizard will be any one of the three to five times he goes to the bathroom during his visit here.”

“So you want to set up in there?”

Vayl stood. “I will go check it out.” I watched him leave, wishing oddly that I could stop him.
We shouldn’t be here
, I thought, sitting back and casting my eyes casually around the room, hunting for the source of my unease. As usual, I couldn’t match it with a familiar face or a psychic scent. Couples, most of them under thirty, sat chatting and laughing over bowls of thick soup and plates whose predominant ingredient seemed to be long-grained rice. No threat there. So what the hell?

It’s this whole damn mission. Everything about it’s got me flinching at shadows
. Or maybe it was my double trip to hell that had done it. Either way, I wanted badly to click my heels together three times because, by God, there really was no place like home.

Vayl returned in a reasonable amount of time. “There is a window big enough to crawl through if it comes to that. We are — how do you say — set.”

I smiled thinly as the waiter brought our tea. Vayl began to talk, or rather gush, about Zarsa. And I meant to listen, honest I did. But Raoul chose that moment to drop in. His way of grabbing my attention is to reach into my brain and squeeze until either I tune in or black out. It had taken a while, but I’d finally learned to listen.

“Let me guess,” I said in the mental drawl I reserved only for him, “you were the fifth of eight children and your mother had you all very close together. Am I right?”

CLOSE ENOUGH.

Figures
. “You probably shouldn’t even be talking to me.” I told him about my return trip to hell and gave him my fake Matt theory.

When he didn’t immediately reply I said, “So, what do you think? Is he gunning for you?”
MAYBE.
And that’s really as specific as Raoul would probably get at this distance. It wasn’t the ideal way to communicate, but hey, considering we were operating on entirely different planes, I probably came off sounding like a talking mosquito to him.