Jennifer Rardin - [Jaz Parks 1] - Once Bitten Twice Shy Read online

  "Wasn't he hovering near Assan when we met?"

  "Yes. I think that one is his personal bodyguard. You will have to deal with him when the time comes." I smiled and nodded as if Vayl had just complimented the band.

  "Thank you all for coming," said Assan, his voice echoing weirdly in the enormous room. "You are the reason so many young children have been given a second chance at life." He went on but I stopped listening, so steamed by his b.s. I'd begun to consider how I would kill him if Vayl gave me the chance. But those daydreams ended abruptly as my nose twitched and my scalp began to tingle.

  "Jeremy?"

  "Hmm?"

  I tugged on his sleeve so he'd lean down, bringing his ear within an inch of my lips. "There's another vampire in the room." It seemed weird to be the one, of the two of us, who could sense this. But vamps are completely closed to one another. I would imagine it makes for horrible relationships.

  "Find him."

  I focused on the scent, a rotten potato kind of odor that made my head ache. When the man slithered his way to the front of the crowd I knew it was him. He wore his nutmeg colored hair long, past his shoulders. His eyes, a striking light blue as cold as the arctic, kept him from looking girlish. His blue, pin-striped suit fit so well at least half the guests would be asking him for the name of his tailor before the evening ended. But it didn't look as if he meant to stay. He caught Assan's eye, signaled him with a slight nod, and suddenly our host couldn't get away from the microphone fast enough.

  "Excuse me," he said, "I am afraid that duty calls. Please enjoy the rest of your evening knowing that, even tonight, your generous donations have helped to make an unfortunate child whole again."

  I caught myself short of a full-blown snort. I murmured, "If he's going to put some poor kid's face back on straight I'll do the hula."

  "Lovely dance, that. The story is all in the hands. I did not know you knew—"

  "Vayl, I was kidding."

  "Oh." Tightening of the lips. Translation—crap, when am I going to leap into the 21st century and get with their damn humor? Jerk of the head. Translation—obviously not today, so let's get on with the job, shall we?

  "Keep hold of my hand." Vayl's power slid over me like silk pajamas. What a rush! No one even glanced at us as we passed, and most of them couldn't have seen us if they'd tried. We followed Assan and his vampire friend into the part of the foyer that wandered underneath the stairs. Assan's vamp wouldn't sense me here either, not as long as I was touching Vayl.

  There are other, more permanent ways for a vamp to share power, but I preferred this one. Less invasive. Plus I liked the hand-holding. Pathetic, I know, but that's what happens when you haven't touched another soul in over a year.

  We crouched behind a huge statue of a naked guy and listened in. Okay, the gleaming black marble butt in my face distracted me slightly, but I'm still a pro, so I did hear the highlights.

  "—well?" Assan was saying.

  "Better than expected," the vamp said, "the virus has already mutated."

  My stomach clenched at the word 'virus.'

  Assan nodded happily. "So we are ready for the final test?"

  The vampire nodded, pushing his hair away from his face in a way I found chilling, because it was such a graceful gesture. The worst monsters are always the prettiest.

  "I wish we could do it tonight," Assan ventured, but the vampire shook his head.

  "No, we must follow the plan. We know the mutation must have a full 24 hours to thrive before it can be transferred and made lethal. Tomorrow night is soon enough."

  "And then?"

  "You know," the vampire said indulgently.

  Assan's grin would've fit better on a shark. "And then the purge begins."

  The vamp flashed his fangs in ecstatic agreement. He looked at his watch. "Svetlana and Boris arrive in 20 minutes. We should go."

  Vayl and I traded looks of dread. Obviously defrauding charities and rearranging fanatics' faces were the least of Assan's crimes.

  I jerked my head toward the surgeon and his undead friend, raised my eyebrows. Let's take them now. Try to make them talk before this virus can be unleashed. I badly wanted to grab the bastards and bang their heads together.

  Vayl shook his head. I knew what he was thinking. Too public. Too soon. Though it chafed to admit it, he was right. Only God knew what vital information we'd miss if we hit them now. So we followed the men toward the back of the house. When we knew they were headed for the garage, we shifted into high gear.

  We dodged into the dining room, slipped out the poolside doors and raced to our car. Still holding hands, we swept through the night like a couple of phantoms, Vayl's power pushing us so our feet barely touched the ground. I'd never felt so strong, as if all the complex systems that allowed me to exist were working with such perfect precision I could perform miracles if I wanted to. Nifty Gift, I thought. If Vayl's ferocious grin was any sign, he thought so too.

  I'd left the car unlocked just in case. My keys were in my hand almost before I thought of it, and within seconds we were rolling down the driveway.

  "No lights in the rearview," I said.

  "Good. Do you know where you are going?"

  "Yeah. One of the neighboring houses is vacant. The drive's open, but there's a row of pine trees near the road that screens the rest of the yard and the house. We can wait there."

  "Excellent work, Jasmine." I nodded my thanks, pressing my lips together to keep myself from grinning at the compliment.

  The guards at the gate waved us through without even a second glance. I made a left as if I was headed for the interstate. When the gate had disappeared behind us I took the next right and killed the headlights. After some high speed, highly illegal driving, I hit the driveway of the empty house, drove into the grass and behind the trees. With my night vision activated I could easily see Assan's mansion and, moments later, the headlights of a vehicle began to close the distance between the house and gate. Vayl didn't tell me it was all in my hands now. Even though I'd screwed up less than an hour before, he still trusted me to know my job. I liked that about him.

  My hands were wet on the wheel as I pulled back onto the street. Following taillights is easy in a low traffic area like Assan's neighborhood. It gets a little more challenging on the interstate, but Assan's vehicle, an extended-cab Dodge Ram the color of strawberry Pop Tart filling, was tough to miss. Too bad this virus bombshell had blown our original assignment to shreds. I could've taken him out on the Interstate and no one would ever have known it wasn't an accident.

  Ten minutes later we'd followed the Pop Tart truck to an abandoned air force base. As soon as we could, we ditched the car and headed toward a congregation of sightless buildings gathered in the empty compound. A hundred yards from Assan's truck, we grabbed cover among the jungle of shrubs and tall grasses that edged one of the base's old helipads and watched the two men exit their vehicle. The vamp leaned on the hood while Assan went to an electric pole where he fiddled inside a large gray box. Seconds later a ring of red lights came on and less than five minutes after that I heard the rhythmic thump of helicopter blades spinning overhead.

  I tensed with expectation as the copter touched down and a couple, one large, one small, wearing black jumpsuits hopped out. They crouched low as they hurried toward Assan's truck. Moments later the helicopter flew away and our four subjects made their own exit. I sat in the weeds and watched them go, trying to come to some practical conclusions.

  Okay. So we have two new vamps named Svetlana and Boris arriving the night before the final test of a virus that mutates and is capable of purge-like deaths. Hey, maybe it's not all that bad. Maybe the Russians are computer geeks and the virus is just a big, bad worm. I wish. I really, really do.

  We gave Assan, his buddy and the Russians just enough lead-time that they wouldn't see us pull out behind them, and hoped their next stop would lead us to some answers that didn't include the phrase, 'end of the world as we know it.'

&nbsp
; Chapter Four

  One of my worst childhood memories is of sitting at the kitchen table of our tiny house on the base at Quantico. I was crying so hard my favorite Mariah Carey T-shirt had wet blotches on it, and snot bubbles kept popping out of my nose, which Dave thought was "Way rad!" I remember that bothered me even more, because I thought he should be crying too. Mom sat across the table from us, smoking a cigarette and patting a howling Evie on the back. Evie always cried when I cried. It was one of the reasons I finally stopped.

  Mom looked at me with what I took to be an utter lack of sympathy. And she said, "I know you were expecting your dad to come home today. I know you were planning to share a piece of your birthday cake with him. But, you've gotta remember, Jaz, nothing ever goes according to plan. Nothing. Not ever."

  I believed her. What I couldn't tell her was that I also believed Dad hadn't made it home because he'd been killed in Desert Storm. My neighbor had told me so. The twelve-year-old daughter of a supply sergeant who ruled us all with her advanced training in name-calling and dirty fighting, Tammy Shobeson got her kicks from torturing me when Dave wasn't around to back me up. And learning it was my tenth birthday had inspired her. She'd buried her claws deep, too. I spent the rest of my childhood dreading the news of Albert's death. Despite his long absences. Despite our chilly relationship. And then, BAM, Mom keeled over in the shoe department of WalMart. A massive heart attack had proven once and for all that nothing ever goes as planned. Nothing. Not ever.

  I carried that lesson like a compass. And most of the time it got me where I needed to go. This once, however, fate caught me by surprise. When I glanced into the rearview not a mile from where we'd pulled back onto the interstate, I found an SUV flirting with the back bumper of my Lexus.

  "This was definitely not part of the plan," I murmured.

  "What?"

  A spine-shuddering thump was Vayl's answer. "What the—?" He turned in time to see the SUV hit us again, crumpling the trunk upward so far it looked like we'd grown a spoiler.

  Suddenly my hands were full trying to keep my wounded car between the white lines. The SUV had to veer off as well, but he was back fast, crunching into my fender like we were playing bumper cars.

  Had Assan pegged us? Had he called in backup to pull us off his tail? No more time to wonder. After another meeting with the SUV our rear end had more wrinkles than an Agatha Christie novel.

  "Son of a bitch!" I floored it, but speed was only a temporary solution. We didn't have the horses to outrun him, and if he took my bumper at the wrong angle, I'd go spinning off the road like Jeff Gordon after a run-in with Tony Stewart.

  "All right," said Vayl, "I have had it."

  "What are you thinking?"

  "I am thinking it is time we find out who is trying to kill us."

  "Can we do that without dying?"

  "Maybe."

  "Then I'm for it." I watched in the mirror as the SUV closed on us. Geez but he was coming fast. "Hang on," I told Vayl. I slammed on the brakes. Taken by surprise, he swerved, caught my back bumper with his side panel and continued his spin on into the median.

  The impact triggered our airbags, and for awhile Vayl and I fought to get our eyes uncrossed. They may have slowed those bags down, but when one goes off in your face it still feels like you just got your neck sprung by a Rock-Em-Sock-Em-Robot.

  I was debating whether the ringing in my ears was a product of the blow to my head or a sign of imminent mental breakdown when the doors opened. A red-faced, gray-bearded man blocked my exit. He towered over me, wearing faded blue overalls and a Dolphins jacket, looking like he could flip the car over without breaking a sweat. His eye had swollen shut.

  "I hear raw steaks work wonders on shiners that size," I offered.

  "Shut your mouth before I do it for you." He grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the car. I stumbled, fell against him, felt the hard outline of a pistol jam against my ribs.

  "What do you want?" I asked. Good. I sounded brave.

  "Just think of yourselves as a stain and us as bleach." O-kay. Maybe these guys weren't with Assan after all. Maybe they'd just escaped from some understaffed, under funded psych ward.

  I turned my head to check on Vayl. They were taking him very seriously. He stood among the brush and scrub that passed for a shoulder on this part of the highway, leaning on his cane as he traded stares with three men in their late twenties.

  Two held him at bay, or so they thought, with silver crucifixes held out at arm's length. One had JESUS SAVES emblazoned across the front of his gray T-shirt in big orange letters. The other wore a black sweatshirt that framed two praying hands surrounded by a beaded necklace with a silver stake hanging from it.

  The third man, who'd come straight from a funeral judging by his three-piece suit, aimed a cocked crossbow at Vayl that would've made me laugh in different circumstances. It looked like he'd built it in his 7th grade shop class.

  "And don't try any of that mumbo-jumbo on us," JESUS SAVES warned Vayl. "I'll tell them if you do and you'll be smoke before you can blink."

  As Graybeard yanked me around to Vayl's side of the car, two big light bulbs went off in my brain, which probably meant I was flirting with an aneurism. But while I still had my faculties I figured JESUS SAVES was a Sensitive, like me. He also must've been present at a staking to know vampires do leave trace amounts of dust and ash when they're vanquished, but the biggest part of them goes up in smoke.

  We were down on numbers and weaponry. Never a good place to be, even when you're a pro. I admit, dread had sunk its claws into the back of my neck, and it wasn't helping me think any clearer. Then Vayl met my eyes—and winked. Suddenly I could breathe again. Because in that moment I knew no two-bit operation run by a bunch of yahoos was going to beat us. Not tonight. Not ever.

  As soon as my mind cleared, I noticed two things. An undeniable affection for my partner whose survival meant a lot more to me than mere job satisfaction. And the pseudo-identity of the organization fronting this one-night event.

  "Hey Vayl," I jerked my thumb at Graybeard, "this one's into cleanliness and that one," I nodded at JESUS SAVES, "is into godliness. What's that make you think of?"

  "God's Arm." Vayl's instant reply pleased our captors. It's always nice to have your ultra-fanatical religious affiliation recognized. It's also nice when someone guesses who you've dressed up as on Halloween. I raised my eyebrows at Vayl and slid my eyes toward Graybeard's neck. He understood immediately. All members of God's Arm have a cross tattooed on their necks as a rite of initiation. These necks were clean.

  "Let's walk," said Graybeard, gesturing toward a grove of trees in the distance with the .357 Magnum he'd pulled from his front pocket. Vayl's slight nod encouraged me to cooperate, for now. So I walked, my sandals protecting me so poorly from the rocks and weeds I considered kicking them off. Only the possibility of stepping on shards of glass or metal deterred me. It had gotten colder too, and my party dress wasn't providing much protection against the wind that kept brushing against me in an endless, winter-borne tide. The full moon lit up my goosebumps and the pseudo-path ahead of me. But I squeezed my contacts into night vision anyway, preparing for a trek through the deeper brush ahead.

  Nobody talked during the walk, which only took us about 200 yards off the highway but seemed endless. Something about the march seemed eerily familiar to me. It was like the entire store of knowledge I'd built around criminals and their victims had coughed up the ghosts of those who'd walked ahead of their murderers, sometimes cold, sometimes stumbling, leaving glowing footprints for me to follow. Only they were angry that I'd consented to follow that trail. "Fight!" they whispered, their wild, haunted memories sharpening their voices. "Fight now. Fight hard. Die, if necessary, only die fighting!"

  I never meant to go another way. And I think… yeah, now.

  I sucked in my breath and screamed, "Oh, God! Something bit me!" I grabbed my right ankle, hopping around as much as Graybeard's grip allowed.

  "Wh
at do you mean?" he demanded, looking from my pain-contorted face to my ankle and back again.

  "A snake," I gasped. "Look, there it is!"

  I pointed at the feet of the Suit, who immediately backed up and looked down.

  "It's too cold for snakes," Graybeard was saying, but too late. Vayl had seen his opening. He shot his scabbard at the Suit, knocking him sideways. The bolt from his crossbow flew off into the bushes. Vayl's blade flashed and the Suit dropped, holding his left arm and groaning as blood spurted from it in steady bursts. I didn't wait to see how Vayl dealt with JESUS SAVES and Praying Hands. The confusion that had delayed Graybeard's reaction was clearing. In moments he'd be putting his Magnum into action.

  I attacked. My first move, a knife-hand to the elbow, made him drop the gun. He blocked the fist I aimed at his groin, blocked my next two moves as well. He'd been trained, and well. But he was still slower and older than me, and I made it count.

  The kick I connected to the side of his head put him off balance. He countered with a punch that would've broken my ribs if he hadn't been backing up. Even so, I'd be feeling that blow for a week. I took him down with a hook kick to the back of his knee. Two more hard kicks to the temple did the trick. He fell to his side and stayed there, quietly bleeding into the brush. I grabbed his gun and stood back. A bullet to the brain would've been easy and I was sorely tempted. Bang, bang, bang. But it wasn't my place to decide. Vayl would choose whether he lived or died. Ironic, huh?

  The boss had done pretty well for himself. Apparently JESUS SAVES and Praying Hands had tried to run for it, because they stood about 50 yards away, gazing at Vayl like a couple of trapped rats as he circled them, his sword hovering inches from the crosses they brandished like pop guns. I could feel his power build as he circled them. JESUS SAVES could too, and neither his shaking arm nor his bladder seemed to be able to hold up against it. Vayl spoke a single word and Praying Hands crumpled to the ground.

  JESUS SAVES, being a Sensitive, just stood there shaking. Like me, he was much less susceptible to Vayl's hypnotic suggestions. Fear had a bigger influence, however. When Vayl made a move toward him he screamed like a little girl and ran off into the trees. When they found him in the morning I suspected he'd be gibbering like a Blair Witch escapee.