We gave each other a satisfied nod and turned to the hanging corpse. “Whose remains do you think?” I asked.
Vayl touched his neck gingerly, grimaced at the sticky on his hands, and replied, “I cannot be certain, of course. But the ring on his pinky is quite unique. I would guess it is Hamon’s.”
“What? No! Hamon lost his head. Which means the rest of him would’ve gone bye-bye. That’s how it works with you guys.”
“That is how it usually works,” Vayl contradicted. “One exception would be if you had a grall attached to your body at the time you were decapitated. In which case it would not dissipate.”
“The grall has that kind of power?”
“Yes. Because some secrets could still be drawn from your blood, your organs, even your bones.”
I eyed the corpse, its ruffled cravat and rust-colored suit coat stained with the blood of the head that had once completed it. “Bullshit.”
“What do you call forensic pathology?” asked Vayl.
“That’s different!”
“So speaks the woman with a Spirit Eye, a Spirit Guide, and a tendency to rise from the dead.”
Smartass. “Say I buy your explanation.” Which I think I’m going to have to, dammit. “Does that mean I can’t kill the adult? I mean, if Blas set it on Hamon to suck out his secrets, do you need to know what they are now?”
“I think we can surmise what Blas needed to know without risking our lives any further.”
“Really?”
“Certainly. Blas obviously lied to you. He was the one who wanted Hamon’s authority. Or perhaps he and Disa both wanted it. But it is a powerful position, and ascendance requires secret knowledge to which only Hamon had access. If I had challenged and beaten him, he would have been forced to hand that knowledge over to me. Blas and Disa obviously found another route. But something went wrong, either before or during the coup, and she turned on him.”
“So I can shoot the creepy crawler?”
“Be my guest.”
Finally, good news. Should we celebrate? If I backed up a step Vayl would be pressed against me like a winter coat. Maybe, if I killed the grall, he’d even be in the mood to forgive me for returning Cirilai. Which I was beginning to think I wanted back. I gave myself a mental shake. This is why you shouldn’t hook up with your boss, Jaz. So distracting when you’re trying to concentrate on the job.
I considered the situation for a moment. If the adult hadn’t moved at the prospect of fresh, vulnerable food, it obviously meant to stay put until we left. Or forced it into action. “Somebody’s going to have to get that body jiggling.”
This is going to be so gross. The stuff of nightmares, actually.
“I will do it.” He stepped forward.
“Don’t!” I realized I’d laid my hand on his chest and he was looking down at me, his lips inches from my own. “I . . . it’s just, the grall’s so fast. Speedy enough to take a vamp like Hamon off guard, right?”
“Why, Jasmine, you act as if you care.”
“I . . .” Aaargh!
“Never mind. I have another plan. Give me your belt.” I did as he asked, watched him connect mine to his and then loop one end of the resulting rope around the hilt of the knife. “Ready?” he asked.
I steadied myself and raised Grief. “Yeah.”
Walking to the edge of the sarcophagus, he held one end of the belt rope in his left hand while he balanced the blade of my knife in the other. His throw, strong and true, buried it in the corpse’s thigh. Using careful side-to-side movements, Vayl got the corpse to move. Unfortunately the wire it hung from had some give in it, so it also began to bounce.
“Vayl, this is not a pleasant moment for me,” I confessed.
“No?”
“Locked in a windowless, doorless room with a dancing, headless corpse and a secret sucker that can move fast enough to tear us both a new one if I miss?”
Vayl took a second to ponder. “Think of the body as what Pinocchio would have looked like if he had lied to the Mob.”
“That’s so not funny.”
“Then why are you chuckling?”
“God, we are so warped. And the grall?”
“An amoral gossip that must be silenced before it can spread the word that Santa subcontracts much of his work out to the Chinese.”
“I love Santa.”
“Then take the shot.”
I narrowed my eyes. There it was. Crouched behind the body’s left hip, appearing every third jiggle and bounce, its antennae waving like wrinkled fingers as it tried to figure out what the hell its cover was up to now.
I raised the gun. Took my time. Made the rhythm part of my breathing. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three—bam!
The grall dropped to the floor. As it began to writhe I shot it again. And again.
“Jasmine?”
“Yeah?”
“I believe it is dead now.”
I looked up at Vayl. “That’s what you get when you malign Santa.”
He nodded gravely. “Indeed.”
Chapter Sixteen
Vayl and I had just emerged from the closet when Sibley appeared at the far end of the hall.
“Did you hear something?” she asked as she rushed up to us. “A popping sound?”
We exchanged puzzled looks. Vayl shook his head. “Nothing from this area,” he said. “Have you had another fire?”
“We’re not sure. Marcon is checking to see if the alarms are all working.”
“I was just telling Vayl it felt kind of warm in here,” I said. “Maybe your furnace is malfunctioning.”
She threw up her hands in frustration. “Hamon may have had his faults, but at least he maintained the place. All Disa does is sit in that library reading histories of the Trust and snapping at anyone who disturbs her.” She bit her lip, looking over her shoulder, as if afraid her new Deyrar had taken a break just to spy on her. Then she shrugged, shook her head, and moved on.
“Now, why would Disa need to fill herself in on the Trust’s background?” I asked.
“I would imagine for the same reason Blas needed the grall,” Vayl answered. “Hamon always intimated that there was more to running this Trust than simply stomping your foot and insisting you were in charge every twenty minutes or so.”
“So let’s go find out the real story about how the little ladder climber came to power,” I suggested.
“You forget how close-mouthed the Trust members can be,” said Vayl.
“Oh, I don’t know. Niall might be convinced to share a story or two.”
“What makes you believe that?”
I told Vayl about Kozma and Trayton and my confrontation with the vamp who had trapped them both. It only took him a couple of minutes to jump onboard. Which worked out well for me, since I’d already decided to stop at Niall’s room whether Vayl accompanied me or not.
Trayton, how did you get under my skin so fast? You’re like a freaking virus! Still, I felt a spurt of anticipation as I led the way to my Were buddy’s hideout and knocked on the walnut door with its bas-relief etching of an armored mare galloping across a field.
“Who is it?” came Niall’s voice from inside.
“Lucille and Vayl,” I said to the sound of three locks being disengaged in quick succession. I shouldered through the door as soon as Niall opened it wide enough to admit me. “Trayton!” The relief I felt when I saw him sitting up in the brass bed, the cluttered tray on the chair next to it giving evidence that he’d eaten, was like seeing the sun after two straight weeks of rain.
As Vayl and Niall conferred, I leaned over to check the Were’s wound, now little more than a bright red welt marring the smooth skin of his chest. “You look a helluva lot better than you did the last time I saw you.”