She covered her face with her hands as she began to cry. But she started talking too. “You must understand, I had my reasons. I . . . I had good reasons!” she wailed.
“Confess!” I roared.
She cowered from me and I felt like the worst kind of jerk. But, dammit, I wasn’t the one still waving an automatic weapon around the room.
With Cole translating almost as quickly as she spoke, she began speaking. “I have visions, yes!” she cried. “I See when I would rather be blind! But I cannot stop them. And they tear at my soul. When I touch a woman, I see her father’s fist crashing into her cheek. I feel her loathing at being forced to submit to a husband she did not choose for herself. And I know I cannot change these things. I am only the witness.”
I darted a look at Cassandra. She nodded gravely.
Oh yeah
, said her look.
Been there; tried to forget that
.
Zarsa went on. “But always I find a way to hope. I have Soheil and my children. Life is not always bad. And then a man comes to Soheil. He is the owner of this house. He hires Soheil as the caretaker and says for us to come here. To invite you to a reading. We are happy to have the extra income. Until the day I am cleaning and I pick up the key he has left us.”
Oh shit, Zarsa, stop!
I wanted to yell.
The Wizard’s watching you right now!
But I couldn’t warn her. Couldn’t make a move without betraying what I knew. So I sat tight and hoped for the best.
“The vision I have from holding this key is of a horror before unknown to me. I See doom for my people. Brothers strangling their sisters only to make their corpses walk again. Murderers lopping off heads like they are halving melons as their bodies writhe with parasitic monsters. Women setting themselves afire. My own children crying as they are forced to watch an endless procession of hangings. And behind it all someone laughing and laughing. It” — she held her hands out, almost pleading with us — “how can I tell you of the despair I felt afterward?”
Zarsa dropped her head as if it was just too heavy to hold up anymore and shook it. Every eye in the room was glued to her. No one spoke as she pulled herself together.
“That night I dreamed,” she said in a small voice. “A man came to my door, power rolling before him like thunder. I knew all I had to do was open my arms and it would be mine. I could take it, mold it, and use it to transform myself. To fight the vision of the key.” Though her arms still covered her stomach and she rocked on her knees like a mental patient, her eyes were dry. “This is why I must turn,” she said, her voice little more than a rasp. “I must have Vayl’s strength, his magic. So I told him he could meet his sons.”
“Even though it will kill them?” I asked. A pang went through me at breaking my promise to Cassandra. I’d probably go straight to hell for it. Spend eternity eating my hair and arguing with my mother. Oh well.
I could tell the question shocked Zarsa. She gave me such a how-did-you-know stare that Cole didn’t even bother with a translation.
Vayl came forward, his shoulders hunched as if someone had set a crate full of lead on them. “Meeting Hanzi and Badu . . . will lead to our deaths?” he asked.
She met his eyes squarely. “Sacrifices must be made to prevent the horror,” she said flatly.
“No, Zarsa,” I said. “You can’t prevent the horror by becoming one.” I glanced at Vayl. “No offense meant, boss.”
“None taken,” he replied.
“And look what this plan has done to your marriage,” Cole urged. “You don’t want to lose something so fine and rare, do you? Or do you enjoy putting your husband in such a crazed state?”
“No! Of course not!”
“And what about your children?” I asked.
“I act for them!” Zarsa exclaimed fiercely. “This world I saw, it is possible because too many have already failed to fight! Because fear is a weapon this man wields like a bully’s club. If I do not stand, my children will be crushed! I cannot, I will not allow that!”
I glanced at Soheil. The AK-47 hung at his side, nearly forgotten in the surge of pride that had washed away his previous rage at his wife. “She’s a pistol, isn’t she?” I asked him.
He nodded, his eyes shining with admiration. “I have married a tigress.”
I turned back to her. “Listen, I know you’re hell-bent on this course. And I met a sort of prophet on the street outside your house yesterday who told me you
are
destined to change the world. But
without
Vayl’s help.”
Her expression asked me why she should believe me. “What was his name?” she inquired.
“Asha Vasta.”
I’d never seen such an emotional quick-change in my life. Zarsa went from a cynicism heavily dosed with agitation to absolute awe. “You have met the Amanha Szeya?”
I cleared my throat, let my eyes roam the room. Amazon Grace still hid her gun behind her back. David scratched his neck, probably sending a video straight to the Wizard. Cam rolled his toothpick back and forth like it tasted of chocolate. Everyone else looked riveted. Except the mahghul, which began to file out of the room.
“Um. Yeah.” I didn’t realize the dude was so famous.
“There are legends, but we had thought them just that. No one has seen or spoken to him since the time of my great-great-grandfather. Can you take me to him?” she asked eagerly.
Whoops
. I suddenly felt like Pandora and, unable to close the box up tight again, wanted only to backpedal until nobody could tell I’d been the one whose hands had been on the latch. “He’s uh, well, hah.” How could I tell her he’d probably been standing right outside until a couple of minutes ago, but that he was only going to disappoint her?
“Do you know where he lives?” Vayl asked me.
I tried not to squirm under that cool blue gaze. “Maybe.”
Again with the eyebrows. Well, hey, I told myself, if he hadn’t been such a jerk none of this would’ve happened. “You have been inside his house?” Vayl asked, his voice only slightly less frigid than an ice cave.
“No. Only his garage. He lent me his car so I could get away from those four, uh,
guys
I told you about.”
“Where is this vehicle? I thought you drove some sort of truck back. No, it was a —”
“Um, can we talk about this later? When we don’t have company?”
Vayl nodded shortly and turned to Soheil. “I deeply regret anything I have done to offend you or injure your relationship with your wife. I was momentarily blinded by the hope that I might be reunited with my sons, whom I have been too long without. Obviously you and Zarsa have much to discuss. If, at the end of that time, you wish to visit Asha Vasta, my colleague here will be happy to guide you to his door.”
Vayl shot me a look over his shoulder that warned me not to say a word. I’d already done enough. My nonvocal reply said,
You too, Mr. Obsessive
.
Soheil threw the AK-47 over his back by its sling and helped Zarsa to her feet. He looked around the room, trying to formulate the right apology for taking a bunch of people hostage on the mistaken assumption that they could somehow stop their vampire associate from turning his wife into a blood-sucking immortal. “I have not the right words,” he finally muttered. “I am so very sorry.” They left quietly.
Chapter Twenty-Five
R
aoul met me in my restroom again, minus the bubble bath dream. This time I was standing fully dressed in the tub, armed with Grief and a wickedly curved blade that I might gut myself with if I wasn’t careful.
“What took you so long?” he demanded, his accent very Antonio Banderas in the extremity of his irritation.