Biting the Bullet (21 page)

“Sarif!” screamed the anorexic guy, momentarily stunned into stillness as his comrades attacked.

With no time to draw my gun and fiddle with the safety, I went for my knife. It felt heavy in my hand, which was when I realized a mahghul had wrapped itself around my forearm like a giant sloth. My skin burned where it had bitten me. I tried to shake it off, but only succeeded in making it latch on tighter.

Fine
, I thought, the rage rising in me.
I’ll take care of you later, you little bastard. And if I torture you some first, just think of
it as payback.

The part of my mind that had gained extra protection when my Sensitivity first kicked in understood that my thoughts were no longer quite my own. The mahghul was ratcheting up my killing instinct even as it ate my fury. But I didn’t have time to concern myself with petty details right now. Prentiss and the fat reaver were charging me. Though the mahghul on their backs slowed them some, they still came faster than humans, and only my training allowed me to shove the bolo through Fat Guy’s third eye before spinning clear of P.C.

I threw a kick at Skinny Dude’s head before he could completely recover. His shield protected him well enough that it only staggered him, but that gave me time to draw Grief. I shot twice at Prentiss, missing the sweet spot both times.

“Shit!” Now mahghul weighed down both my legs. I felt teeth in the small of my back as well. I wanted to shoot them. But this was no time to waste ammunition.

The reavers looked like mutants as they moved toward me, so completely had they been overtaken by the murder monsters. The sight made me feel slightly crazed. I felt as if the mahghul were stealing something vital from me by draining my victims. The pleasure of the kill? The delight of seeing real fear in their eyes? Suddenly shooting the reavers seemed too quick. I wanted them to die more slowly. So I could enjoy it.

I slapped myself across the face. “Get a grip, ya loon!” I aimed Grief at Skinny Dude. Shot him almost point-blank. He went down hard, disappearing beneath the writhing forms of the mahghul like a prey fish caught inside the net of a piranha feeding frenzy.

Prentiss punched me in the chest so hard I thought for a second my heart had stopped. I staggered backward, hit the frame of the temple’s doorway, and spun on into the building. A chorus of screams rose from the mahghul, nearly deafening me. They pulled away, smoke rising from their skins as they ran out of the temple. The last one didn’t make it in time. He didn’t burn like the reaver.

He exploded.

I covered my face with my hands, and when I raised it again, realized it was the only part of me not covered in gore. If I’d been in my right mind just then, I might have lost it completely. But the mahghul had drained so much of my vitality that I simply didn’t have any freak-out left in me. I struggled to my feet, knocked the ick out of my gun barrel, and stepped back outside.

Prentiss looked like a gorilla with mahghul swarming all over him. Something, maybe seeing mine explode, had made him realize he was under attack. He was trying to pull them off. But they held tight, like a pack of enormous, excited ticks.

“Help me!” he screamed just before one stuck its small paw down his throat. His next bout of begging came out as a series of indecipherable glugs. My first instinct was to run back into the temple. Grab a torch off the wall. I was betting it doubled as holy fire. I had a feeling that might make the parasites loosen their hold.

Except as soon as they did, P.C. would try to kill me some more.

So instead I took steady aim at that extra eye, the one the mahghul seemed intent on avoiding. It widened. Began to blink rapidly as the gurgling sounds rose to a fearful peak.

I squeezed the trigger gently, part of me happily amazed the mahghul avoided me as I finished off the reaver. Maybe the smell of their brethren on me was enough to keep them at arm’s length. Had I happened on a new pesticide? Should I give Asha a buzz?

Hey, buddy. Great news! All you gotta do is spread mahghul guts all over your bod and you can go back to busting humps
just like in the good old days!

As the remaining nasties slunk away I tried to plan my next move. But it wasn’t easy to think past the I-couldn’t-give-a-shit that had stolen over me. I knew those who’d bitten me had left a mark deeper than the bloody imprints of their fangs. Impossible to pinpoint among the emotional scars that crisscrossed my soul, marring it just as deeply as the welts on Vayl’s back, these wounds were already festering. Soon even the core of me, still clear-eyed enough to be biting its nails to the quick, wouldn’t be able to fend off this pervasive sense of hopelessness.

“I need a cure,” I whispered. I looked down at myself. Covered in drying blood and body parts, I should be puking, gagging, swearing. Jesus, I should at least be trying to get it off! But I just stared.
I’m doomed
.

A single tear escaped the corner of my eye, burned its way down my face, and dripped onto my hand, which still held my bolo. I watched it sizzle on my skin for a moment, as if it were a drop of grease in a pan.

“Ow!” I rubbed my hand, surprised at the pain a bead of moisture could cause. Certain the Amanha Szeya had affected more than my tear ducts when his hands had cupped my cheeks. Pleased at the white spot I’d cleared with that small effort.

I wiped my face off too, before it could get any hotter. Took a look at the gook my hand had removed.

“A shower. That would make me feel better.” Just knowing I’d entertained a positive thought allowed me to move to the vehicles.

No way would I sit my disgusting ass in Asha’s beautiful black sedan. So I got into the TV van, started it up, and drove home.

Being a girl, I enjoy the dramatic entrance. Having all eyes on me, preferably admiring and male, as I sashay to my table. Or, better yet, to the podium to accept a major award. My hair, makeup, and gown the most perfect combination any woman has ever put together in the history of the world.

But in my line of work, if that happens, I’ve just screwed the pooch. So when I opened the kitchen door, after parking the TV van in the garage and thanking my lucky stars its high ceilings just barely accommodated the satellite dish, I experienced a flash of guilt when every eye in the room turned to me and widened in a united moment of shock. I couldn’t hang on to the feeling though. In fact, no emotion seemed to stick for longer than a few seconds before it fizzled beneath the mahghul tumor that grew inside me, spreading its tentacles into every part of my being.

“Hard night?” asked Cole in a lame attempt at humor.

“You could say that,” I replied, taking stock of my audience. Everybody had bought a ticket. Except Vayl. “Where’s the boss?” I asked Cole.

He hesitated, then shrugged. “In the guys’ room,” he said, “meditating. Apparently you have to achieve nirvana before you can turn a human into a vampire, and he hasn’t quite made the leap.”

Anger flitted through me. Cirilai would’ve warned him of my danger. Normally he’d have come dashing to the rescue. Even if he’d thought I could handle the situation, he’d have hovered nearby. Stood on the sidelines and cheered me on. Nothing on earth would’ve stopped him from backing me up. Until now.

“Jaz.” Dave stepped forward from his spot by the stove, where he’d been talking with Cassandra. “What happened to you?” He reached out and I backed up, my heel banging into woodwork before my shoulders could hit the wall and leave a big red splotch.

“Don’t touch me. I . . . the things that attacked me leave a residue. I don’t want you hurt.”
And I don’t want you to know that I
know. Somehow I think if you touch me the Wizard might get a whiff of my suspicions. And that’ll be the end of us all. Oh
Jesus, Dave, how am I going to save you?

“Are you infected?” demanded Amazon Grace, jumping off her stool and heading for the living room. She grabbed Jet and Cam, tried to drag them with her, but they didn’t seem interested in budging. “She’s going to give you guys some fatal disease,” Grace warned them. When they still refused to stand up, she snarled something unintelligible, let go of their shirts, and stomped out of the room.

“It’s not something you can get through the air,” I told them. “Probably not even by touching. I think you have to actually kill somebody.”

“Which you obviously did tonight,” said Natchez, his upper lip curling at the sight I made.

“I’ll fill you all in, I promise. Just let me get a shower first, okay? Actually,” — I turned to Cassandra — “what I really need is some holy water.”

Half an hour later, anointed and bathed, realizing I should feel tons better and feeling a fat lot of nothing instead, I headed back toward the kitchen. I passed the guys’ room on the way. Vayl had closed the door, but I could sense him behind it. The anger came again, and before it could leave I grabbed it. Held hard to it, though it tried to wriggle out of my hands like the slick little eel it had become.

I threw open the door and strode into the room. “Where the hell were you?” I demanded.

He sat on a beautifully crafted blue and white rug within a circle of stones, his hands resting in his lap. His expression, serene as a Buddhist monk’s, didn’t change when I barged in. But his eyes, already a troubled oceanic blue, darkened to purple. Any other time I might’ve taken a second to wonder why Vayl, sitting alone, preparing for an event meant to lead to the fulfillment of a centuries’ long quest, had reason to be upset about anything. But the clock was ticking on my wave of anger and I had more urgent business to deal with.

“What do you mean?” he asked smoothly. He stood, I think because he didn’t like looking up at me as I glared down at him.

Stay mad
, I told myself. Not an easy order to obey considering my circumstances. And the fact that Vayl had already changed for bed. All he wore was a pair of white silk drawstring pajama bottoms that left very little to the imagination. And mine had kicked into overdrive.

I resolutely kept my eyes on his as I said, “While you were out playing Turn the Seer, four reavers nearly killed me. Not to mention twenty or thirty mahghul. You’re supposed to be my boss. You
said
we were partners.”

“What are mahghul?” Vayl asked, allowing his eyes to wander to the bed, which already held his sleeping tent. He didn’t even seem interested.

“We saw them at the hanging!” I informed him hotly. “They attack killers and their victims. They suck away all your emotions and leave you fucking numb, Vayl. They were on me. You wanna see?” I turned around and lifted my tunic, gave him a good five seconds to survey the damage. When I felt the tips of his fingers brush my back I jerked my shirt down and spun around.

I didn’t want to recognize the expression on his face. In my opinion, you shouldn’t have to see that kind of grief on a person more than once in your life. David had worn that look sixteen months ago when he’d walked into my kitchen just in time to watch me destroy his wife.

“What have you done?” he’d yelled, running to the spot where she’d stood only seconds before, begging for entry. So she could tear my throat out.

“She made me promise,” I told him through chattering teeth. I’d begun to shake head to toe. I put my newly named gun on the table before I accidentally shot myself in the foot and hugged myself. “We vowed to each other that if one of us turned, the other would smoke her.”

He stared at me, his eyes wild and disbelieving. I could tell he wanted to lean down, touch what remained of her clothes, her being, but his broken ribs barely allowed him to stand. His doctor had only consented to release him for our team’s funerals if he’d promise to stay with a family member. Since I lived closest to the cemetery, he’d chosen me.

“You’re lying!” he cried. “Jessie would never make that kind of deal! She’d want to live no matter what!”

“No.” I tried to shake my head, but all it would do was jerk. I swallowed reflexively. No longer just trembling now, I was seizing.

Having some sort of convulsive fit that made me feel like I was standing on top of a jackhammer. I clenched my teeth together, forced myself to talk through them. “
You
want her to live no matter what.”

“You’re such a fucking hypocrite!” David yelled. “If Matt had been standing on your threshold, asking to come in, you’d have thrown open the door. Hell, you’d have slit a wrist for him!”

I didn’t say a word. Useless to tell Dave that Matt and I had made the same deal as I’d had with Jessie. What did it matter anyway? If he wanted to be mad at me, if that helped him get through this nightmare, let him. It was the least I could do.

I dug my fingernails into my sides, sank them deep and concentrated on the pain. It helped. Kept me from taking the next step, which was walking over to the wall and banging my head against it till I passed out.

“I can’t stand the sight of you for another second,” he said, spitting the words like venom. “I’m getting out of here.” I nodded, too wounded by my own terrible losses to let this new hurt do more than take its place in line. While he went to his room to pack, I took a few minutes to pull myself together. Then I gathered up Jessie’s remains. They made a pitifully small pile for such a bright, vibrant woman. I put them in a cedar-lined box that Granny May had given me when I was a little girl and handed it to Dave on his way out.

“It’s what’s left of her,” I said. “You can keep it or bury it. Whatever you want.” Tears sprang into his eyes as he took the box from me. “I loved her, Dave. I loved them all.”

He nodded. “You may have. But you were in charge. So it’s your fault they’re dead.” I’d nodded.
Yes. My fault, my fault, my fault . . .

Later he’d sort of apologized for that last remark. But he’d never really forgiven me for Jessie. And I still didn’t blame him. I guess I’d never pursued another real conversation about her with him after that because I hadn’t wanted to see that expression on his face again. But here it was, plastered across Vayl’s visage like a movie on a screen.

“Cirilai did not warn me,” he said.

“Vayl, this ring is better than a hotel wake-up call. You must’ve felt
something
. It’s been zapping me left and right about you.” He dropped his head. Shook it a few times. When he looked up again, his whole face seemed to have tightened, as if a decade’s worth of worries had suddenly dropped on his head. “What do you think this means?”