Bitten in Two (2 page)

“That looks… lethal.”
Could be, too, if we got the
dosage wrong. Which we didn’t, because I double-checked it myself. Maybe we won’t need it, though. Maybe
he’ll cooperate.

I cleared my throat. “Was that thing stuck in your belt?”

“Yeah. But don’t worry, the safety was on.” He sighted down the long, lean barrel. “Hey, imagine what would’ve happened if I’d shot myself in the butt. My cheeks would’ve been numb for a week!”

I took off down the sidewalk, keeping to the shadows, avoiding puddles of brown liquid that I knew weren’t water because, according to Monique, who’d been so ecstatic to rent al five of her riad’s rooms to us that she gave us random weather reports for free, it hadn’t rained in the past two weeks.

Cole jogged after me. “Jaz, where are you going? We don’t even know—”

“I’d rather walk aimlessly than discuss your ass, al right?”

“Yeah, but this is my
numb
ass. Do you think my legs would stop working too?”

I was getting ready to grab the gun and perform an experiment that would satisfy both his curiosity and my need to shoot something when Bergman said, “Got him.

Two blocks northeast of you. He’s stationary.” We turned the corner, moving so quickly we nearly plowed into two men carrying bundles of bath supplies, which meant they were headed for the nearest hammam.

They’d just exited a diamond-mosaiced door. Cole hid the tranq gun behind his thigh, mumbled an apology in French, and pul ed me around the men, who wore light shirts, long pants, and basebal hats, al of which were blotched with mustard-colored stains. And damn, did they stink! They must work at the dump we’d been smel ing.

One of the men, a black-mustached thirtysomething with a scar under his left eye, spoke to Cole, who replied sharply, his hand tightening on my arm. Already I was used to natives offering to guide us anywhere we wanted to go, but these guys didn’t have the look of euro-hungry street hustlers. I looked up at Cole. His face had gone blank, a bad sign in a guy who assassinates his country’s enemies for a living.

Like the knife in my skirt’s hidden pocket, the .38

strapped to my right leg weighed heavier, reminding me of my offensive options if I decided not to pul the gun disguised by my snow white windbreaker. But I didn’t want to spil blood knowing a vamp prowled nearby.

“What do they want?” I asked.

“The dude with the scar is demanding a tol for the use of his road, and extra payment for nearly running him and his buddy over.”

“What’s his name?”

Cole asked, and while the man replied I checked out his friend. He was maybe seventeen, a brown-eyed kid with lashes so long they looked fake. He couldn’t bring himself to meet my eyes.

Cole said, “His name is Yousef. The boy’s name is Kamal.”

“Tel Yousef I’l pay.”

“What?”

“Tel him.” Cole began to talk.

I swished forward, making my ful red skirt swirl around my knees as my boots clicked against the cobblestones, letting my alter ego take the spotlight. Lucil e Robinson was a pale, slender, green-eyed sweetie with a white streak in her red curls that might’ve signified another time when a man had taken advantage of her weakness and bashed her across the head before forcing her to his wil . Yousef didn’t know I’d earned the streak in hel , or that the Eldhayr who’d taken me there had already brought me back from the dead. Twice. Al he could see was that Lucil e’s curls looked more likely to bounce up and defend her than her fists. Mission accomplished.

I looked up at him like he was the cutest teddy bear I’d ever hoped to squeeze. Even though he couldn’t understand the words, I figured he’d get the tone as I reached down the V-neck of my dress with my left hand and said, “Just give me a second, okay? I keep my money in here so I don’t have to worry about pickpockets. I understand they can be a problem in Marrakech. Am I right?”

By now I’d come within an arm’s length of the reeking man, who was staring at my hand like he wished it was his.

He never saw the base of my right palm shoot up. Just grunted with shock as it jammed into his jaw and knocked his head backward. He staggered. Cole aimed the tranq gun at Kamal to make sure he stayed peaceful as I fol owed Yousef down the sidewalk, throwing a side kick that landed on his chest with the thump of a bongo drum. He landed flat on his back in the street.

I watched him struggle to breathe as I said, “We go where we please.”

Cole translated. To my surprise Yousef smiled. I looked over my shoulder at Kamal. He was staring around nervously, making me think he didn’t savor a conversation with any authorities that might show to investigate the noise. He didn’t seem concerned about Yousef. Maybe girls hit him a lot.

“Feel better?” Cole asked me.

I backed off before the bul y’s blech could stick to my sunny-day outfit. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

We headed down the street, keeping our eyes and Cole’s gun on the mini gang until we reached the end of the block and turned north. Yousef cal ed after us.

“Unbelievable,” said Cole as he shook his head.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He wants to know if he can see you again. He says his uncle’s friend owns a good restaurant above the Djemaa el Fna.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“No.” Cole’s wild blond hair danced at the suggestion. “I think he liked what you did to him. In fact, I think he liked you. Do you think he’l try to fol ow us?”

“Move fast,” I urged, pul ing him into the next al ey. It would mean doubling back, but Yousef was one freak worth losing. At the same time I asked, “Bergman, is our mark stil there?”

“He hasn’t moved.”
Finally, good news.

At the end of the al ey we turned into another neglected street. This one didn’t even have sidewalks to separate the painstakingly carved apartment doors from the hit-and-run lanes. A single light at midblock threw a weak glow onto the run-down two-stories, al owing for multiple hidden spaces where people could do their worst to each other without ever being witnessed.

Our heavy breathing combined with the stress we felt at having to confront our target should’ve alerted him. But feeding vamps are so immersed in the moment they rarely sense their hunters. Ours had stopped beside an empty donkey cart, a hulking shadow stooping next to the wheel like he was checking its integrity. Except that a man wearing a plain white shirt, wrinkled blue pants, and backless leather shoes that dangled from his toes like dead squirrels lay twitching on the cobblestones beneath him.

Movement at the corner of my eye sent my hand to Grief. But it was just one of the gaunt, raggedy-eared cats that stalked the streets for scraps. This one must be hoping for a feast. It darted away when Cole strode forward, switching off his gun’s safety as he said, “That’s enough.

Drop the guy before you kil him.”

The vampire turned. And my heart broke like it had every night I’d been forced to witness this scene. While Cole lifted the cart driver onto his seat and slipped him the wages we’d promised, I watched the creature that had shattered my defenses and made me fal in love lick the man’s blood from his lips.

“Madame Berggia,” Vayl said to me as he straightened. “Why are you interrupting my meal?”
Madame Berggia. I think that hurts the most, Vayl.

That you were calling out my name like I’d invented sex
three days ago, now you don’t even remember it, and we
can’t figure out why. Do you know how much I’d give to
hear you call me Jasmine that special way you do, like a
song (Yazmeena), right this second?

“You could’ve kil ed the poor guy,” I said dul y.

“You saw him in the Djemaa el Fna,” he replied. “He shoved his wife. He was shouting at his children.”
Because we paid him to. So we could set up your hunt
tonight and make sure your victim didn’t end up dead.

Like the first one nearly did, before we realized what had
happened the night we arrived in Marrakech when you
went missing and we had to hunt you for real. The night
you woke with such a bizarre case of amnesia that you
thought you were still a Rogue, still outside of your vow
never to take human blood, and so deep in this brain-blip
of yours that you’d mistaken all of us for people who
shared your life over two hundred and thirty years ago!

I wanted to slap him with those words like a dueling glove. But he’d just look confused, and I’d be extra miserable. So I said, “The man’s family would starve without him.”

Vayl lowered his eyebrows. “I did not hire you to remind me of such things.”

I shoved my hands into the pockets of my sundress. It was one of his favorites, and I’d hoped seeing it would snap him out of his past. But he stil believed that I was his frumpy middle-aged housekeeper. He also thought Cole was my husband, his valet, who he simply cal ed Berggia. In his mind we’d just traveled to Morocco from his estate in England along with his beloved ward, Helena, whose part was played—grumpily—by Bergman.

My hands closed around the items most likely to console me. In my right pocket sat the long knife my great-great-grandpa, Samuel Parks, had used during his stint as a machine-gun operator in World War I. Mistress Kiss My Ass (my loudly suffering seam-stress) had skil ful y made a place for the sheath in al my clothes. My left pocket held eight poker chips that rang like bel s in my ear when I shuffled them. And on a silver hoop attached to the material so it wouldn’t get lost: my engagement ring. I hadn’t worn it long. But I cherished it now more than ever, because I was sure the man who’d slipped the pear-shaped emerald on my finger eighteen months ago would never forget me, no matter where he ended up.
Right, Matt?

It’s not like you’ve slipped Vayl’s mind.
Not Matt’s voice. He’d kept a steady silence since the vampire Aidyn Strait had murdered him two weeks after our engagement.

On the other hand, my Granny May, who ruled my frontal lobe, couldn’t wait to comment.
He believes he’s living
over two hundred and thirty years before he met you
, she reminded me.

Exactly! The way he looks at it, Jaz Parks doesn’t exist
at all!

So quit whining and figure out why!
Granny May had taken up needlepoint. She sat in her tree-fil ed backyard in the old metal chair she left out year-round (paint flecks hinted that it had once been red) alternately watching the cardinals fight over the sunflower seeds at her gazebo feeder and taking long, smooth stitches in a piece of fabric the size of a pil owcase.

I watched her manipulate the needle with one hand while the other steadied the hoop that framed her workspace. Why did I suddenly think she would’ve been just as precise with a throwing knife? I shook my head.

I’m not whining!… Okay, I am. It’s such sucktacular
timing, that’s all! I mean, I may have control of the demon
in my head. But I think you need reminding that Brude is
still a Domytr. Which means Satan’s go-to guy is not
going to give up without a fight. Especially when he was so
close to succeeding at his own coup. And there’s Vayl, out
of his right mind just when I need him to be the sharpest!

Granny May snapped,
You still have Cole, Bergman—

and Kyphas—whether you want her or not.

We should’ve deep-fried that hellspawn permanently
, I huffed.
Not cut her a deal that keeps her in our back
pockets like a Chicago politician.

Of course, Gran knew what I was real y worried about.

Cassandra’s soul is safe from Kyphas, you saw to that.

She’s an ocean away, secure behind her locks and wards
in her colorful little apartment in Miami. You’re lucky to
have a friend like her. A psychic who’s willing to dog-sit
have a friend like her. A psychic who’s willing to dog-sit
and research a cause for Vayl’s amnesia is practically a
walking miracle. Just remember what she said last time
you talked. You’re standing in the city where you believe
the tool that you need to end Brude’s possession of you is
located. So find it!

It sounds easy the way you put it. But
I’m
not
convinced Kyphas is done with Cassandra. And until we
know what caused Vayl’s amnesia—

You’re a girl. Multitask!

I sighed and scratched my head, wishing for the thousandth time that Lucifer’s gofer hadn’t infested my synapses. Then I could just concentrate on finding the bottom-feeder that had slapped Vayl into a virtual time machine and strapped a pair of 1777-tinted goggles over his eyes. Unless he was just plain sick. In which case I’d be on my own with Brude.

Who I couldn’t stop obsessing about. The Domytr who wanted to create a whole new hel was stil stomping around in my mind. And although I had him contained in a place where he couldn’t control me anymore, I’d begun to show physical strain from keeping him imprisoned. Mainly nosebleeds. But also headaches that started behind one of my eyes and spread across my skul like I’d cracked it on an iron post. Even without consulting experts, I knew those were bad signs. If Brude broke free of the room where I’d imprisoned him, he’d destroy more than virtual wal s. Which was why failed exorcisms often ended with a coroner writing the word “aneurism” on the victim’s death certificate.