Teen Me sat up and careful y laid the comic on Evie’s pink, lace-rimmed pil ow. If Dave detected a single new wrinkle in the pages she knew there’d be hel to pay. She said, Losing Pete, I get it. That’s gonna suck a long time. I dunno, maybe forever. But all this mental grinding you’re putting yourself through about him understanding your motives or not? Lookit, he was your boss and you were lucky that he cared about you. Also vice versa. Now he’s dead. Be sad, but quit torturing yourself! That’s all.
I didn’t realize I’d stopped in the middle of the street until I saw Vayl and Cole coming back to get me.
“Madame Berggia, are you quite al right?” asked Vayl.
“No. Are you?”
He took a big puff of that obnoxious cigar and, thank God, blew the smoke into the night sky. When he looked back down at me his eyes were the dark blue of drowning waters. “Not at al ,” he said. “I am rarely afraid. But you know how Helena came to be in my care. In al this time, the werewolf who brought us together has not forgotten. He has watched from afar as she has grown in grace and beauty.” Cole snickered, and then coughed. “Uh, sorry,” he said.
Vayl patted him on the shoulder. “Never fear, my man.
This dry air should do wonders for your lungs.”
“What about the Were?” I asked.
“His name is Roldan. And he has marked her.”
“You mean, like, as part of his territory?” I imagined a werewolf peeing on a wigged and long-skirted Bergman. I slapped a hand over my mouth. Real y, this was no laughing matter.
Vayl paused. “I realize you have very little knowledge in this area, so I must explain. And I do apologize if I upset you unduly. But werewolves know when they have met their life’s partner. Roldan wants to change Helena, Madame Berggia. He has, in fact, become obsessed with the idea ever since I cheated him of the satisfaction. And her rejection of his every advance has merely emboldened him.” Vayl lowered his head. “No, it has crazed him,” he corrected himself grimly.
I remembered. I stood absolutely stil so I could clearly recal the moments when I’d discovered that donating blood to Vayl had given me the power to walk in his memories. I’d seen Roldan’s first attack on Helena. Defending her had felt so real that even now I wanted to bury my fists in the wolf who hadn’t died in that first battle but had, evidently, stalked the girl for years after. And who, unlike any other Were I’d ever heard of, had survived long past the 150-year mark to put himself at the top of the our Most Likely to Vaporize the World list.
I said, “Even if Roldan wasn’t after Helena, could he stil be jonesing for revenge on you?” Even after all these decades?
Vayl nodded. “I do not believe his surname is Jones”—
puzzled glance at Cole as his “valet” slapped himself on both cheeks to maintain his composure—“but given our history, I think it entirely possible that he and his pack are hatching plans to kil me even as we speak. Al they need is my location. Which, I assure you, madame, is an absolute secret.”
On the other end of our receivers, Bergman emitted what could’ve qualified as a silent scream, except we heard a sort of echo, like a kid’s attempt to make crowd noises into a microphone. Then he said, “Astral? Here, kitty. Let’s check those grenades, okay, girl?”
CHAPTER THREE
Cole and I folowed Vayl back toward the riad, walking a couple of steps behind him like the obedient servants he expected us to be. The closer we got to the Djemaa el Fna, the more people we met. Black-haired, brown-eyed men dressed in colorful caps and the choir-robish jel abas that Vayl had insisted on wearing as pajamas, smiled and wished us a good evening. Tourists with one hand on their wal ets and the other clicking pictures either nodded or ignored us completely. Maybe they couldn’t be bothered with socializing when Marrakech demanded so much attention, its original builders somehow infusing an exotic beauty into everything from mosque minarets to bathhouse floors. Its current citizens added to the color with displays of intricately woven rugs, mounds of ripe fruits, and materials dyed in vibrant colors that dared the sun to fade them. The variety, volume, and availability al increased the closer we got to the square. Which, considering how much Vayl went for hunting nowadays, we’d be smart to avoid.
Another quiet evening inside. Sigh.
Maybe I’d cal Cassandra and check on Jack. (By now maybe he’d forgiven me for putting him on yet another airplane and, even worse, sending him away from al the action. Because demons get their kicks infesting canines, and I couldn’t risk my favorite malamute around Kyphas any longer).
Cassandra would probably bring me up to speed on her and my brother, Dave’s, wedding plans. And then I’d ask the inevitable question. “Stil clueless?” And she’d say,
“I’m sorry, Jaz,” because by now I didn’t expect her to hit anything but dead ends in her search for the cause of Vayl’s massive memory lapse.
I tried to cheer myself with the sight of Riad Almoravid, its wal s rising out of the street like a mini fort coated in cotton candy. A former vil a remodeled for tourist stays, it contrasted starkly with the neglected homes we’d left behind. Here an elegant awning offered us instant shade so we could more comfortably admire the white molding that hung like lace from the double arches that formed its entrance, or rest our sun-blasted eyes on the cool beauty of the smal garden that fil ed the area between riad and sidewalk. Like the courtyard, it was packed with greenery, huge pots ful of starlike blooms, and a fountain that always reminded me to hit the bathroom ASAP.
Vayl hardly noticed. He glanced at the double doors, the arch above which had been fil ed with triangles of green glass, and said, “The two of you go on in. I wil catch up later.” He picked up his pace.
I grabbed Cole’s arm so hard that he jumped. “Uh, Lord Brâncoveanu?” he said. Pause for eye rol . “We’d be happy to do that but, er, you know how Helena worries when you’re out on your own. What do you say we al stay together tonight? You know, do something as a family?” By now we were nearly jogging to keep up with him.
“That would be fine, except I am planning to find a woman who—”
I lost the rest of Vayl’s sentence in a mental whiteout.
The sensation was close to the feeling (or lack of) that I reach just before my finger squeezes the trigger. But it was misleading. Because before a kil I go to a place very close to peace. This was the indrawn breath before a battle cry.
Cole lunged forward to yank on Vayl’s coat sleeve, managing to stop his progress. At the same time he shoved his body in front of mine. He said, “I’m afraid Madame Berggia doesn’t understand. At al .” Madame Berggia doesn’t understand. At al .” Vayl didn’t even spare me a look. “She does not need to.” His voice was hard as the eyes of the children who suggested we use them as our guides every afternoon when we went to the Djemaa el Fna to search for the answers we couldn’t find in Cassandra’s books or at Bergman’s keyboards. Only Cole kept me from shoving my face into Vayl’s, wrecking our relationship and maybe his mind by demanding that he remember the only woman who should matter to him anymore.