"It's only two o'clock," I told Vayl. "Do you want to go back to Assan's house?"
Vayl shook his head. "Not tonight. I feel I should know this vampire ally of Assan's, and yet I do not recognize his face. Until we have some background information on him, we need to wait. To plan." Vayl slumped in his seat. "When we left Ohio all we thought Assan had was a heinous hobby. Now we know he has an undead ally and a potentially deadly virus. It seems to me they must also be destroyed."
"I agree. But should we add more targets to our list now that we've become targets ourselves?"
"Something else to consider before we make our next move," Vayl said, shrugging. "We must ensure that our little problem is not putting this entire operation into jeopardy."
"What are you saying? Are you saying we should abort the mission?"
"I do not know."
That shut me down. Vayl got quiet too, considering our options, maybe. Or maybe just recharging. In the silence the banging of our bumper took center stage like an American Idol loser, making me cringe. Graybeard and company had really done a number on the Lexus. We'd had to bend the back fenders away from the tires before we could even drive the thing, and I wouldn't bet on the axle still being in mint condition. I felt an evil thrill at the thought of those four. By now they'd all be strapped in their roller beds, and in another ten minutes hospital personnel would be trying to figure out how one of them could've picked up a sword wound outside of a circus sideshow.
"That was a smart move back there," Vayl said.
"Oh, the snake thing? Thanks. Yeah, that did the trick."
"I noticed. Ah, could you refrain from trying it again in the future?"
I glanced over at Vayl. I'd blinked off my night vision, so only the moonlight glancing through the windows showed me his expression. It looked tight, the way men's faces will when they're either feeling or remembering pain. I'd seen it often on Albert after diabetes had forced him to retire, and on David the night we'd stopped speaking. That look went straight to my heart and squeezed.
"You, uh, don't like snakes very much?"
"No."
"Well quit looking all pinched and aristocratic. I'm not making fun of you."
"I am just somewhat sensitive about my phobias."
"You mean there's more than one?"
He jerked his head toward me. I held up one hand. "Okay, okay, backing off. Um, I suppose this would be a bad time to ask you to talk to Pete for me, you know, about the car?"
His eyes widened. I could almost hear him thinking, of all the nerve! "You were driving," he said.
"But he likes you so much better than me."
"That is because I don't keep wrecking the rentals."
"Jesus Henry Christ, Parks, why is it that every time I send you out on assignment something explodes?"
Only Pete called me Parks, and only when he was mad. He called me Parks an awful lot. "The car didn't explode, Pete, it crumpled. In the back. About six inches all the way across."
A strangled scream from the other end of the phone told me Pete might be choking on his own tongue. Maybe if I just waited very quietly at this end he'd suffocate before he could fire me.
"Let me talk to Vayl."
"Okay, hang on."
I took the phone to Vayl, who was lounging on one of the couches, getting a huge hairy kick out of my current predicament. The louse. "Tell him it wasn't my fault," I whispered as I handed him the phone.
"It was not Jasmine's fault, Pete," Vayl said. Just for that I went to the mini-fridge to get him a beer. I got one for myself too, a reward for spending the hours since we'd gotten back to Diamond Suites trying to untangle this new mystery Assan had presented us with.
"Yes," said Vayl.
At least we'd figured out the identity of Assan's accomplice. He'd made the FBI's Most Wanted Vampires list.
"I know," Vayl said.
The vamp's name, Aidyn Strait, rang bells all over Top Secret Land. He'd spent all of his long, long life trying to solve scientific problems using horribly unscientific methods, leaving a trail of mutilated bodies stretching back to the 18th century. According to his file, which even now stared at me from the screen of our laptop, his latest venture was getting vampires to breed vampires, not through an exchange of blood, but through traditionally human methods.
So how did the vamp version of a fertility specialist end up with the human version of a makeover artist? As yet, we'd found no clue. We did know two things for sure. Assan and Aidyn were both henchmen types. That led us to believe someone else was calling the shots. Also, Aidyn did not look like he had when he'd crossed Vayl's path a century ago. Apparently Assan had done his buddy a big, plastic favor.
"How does that work?" I'd asked Vayl as we'd stared at the laptop screen, which was displaying Aidyn's before and after photos.
"I am not sure," Vayl had replied. "We can be scarred by fire, and full sunlight destroys us. Perhaps Assan used some sort of specially calibrated laser?"
That made sense. While we were in college, Bergman had theorized that lasers might be used to kill vampires. But he couldn't figure out how to produce the necessary power in a hand-held weapon. Surgery was a different story. All you needed was the space and the financing.
Vayl took a sip of his beer and gave me a nod of thanks.
"What's Pete saying?" I whispered.
Vayl cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. "He is extremely upset that someone tried to kill us tonight."
"So he doesn't want to fire me?"
Vayl held up a finger, listened for a minute, then shook his head. "Jasmine," he said, "Your job is, how you say, solid. One of the reasons I chose you is because Pete told me you are the best human agent he has."
"Oh." I drained my beer, marched into my bedroom, closed the doors, buried my face in the pillows and burst into tears.
Some time later I felt Vayl's presence beside me. The bed sank as he sat down.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm great." I turned to look at him, made sure he could see my smile was genuine. "Our simple little hit has turned into a bioterror nightmare. I nearly died tonight. My boss yelled at me for five minutes straight without stopping to take a breath, and in between I spent three hours staring at a computer screen. I think I may get cancer from the radiation. And I feel better than I have in a long, long time. Weird, huh?"
Vayl brushed a curl away from my cheek with a forefinger. "Unique," he said, "which is what I have come to expect from you."
Once in a great while a very private person will get that ask-me-anything look on his face. When you see it, you have to be ready to pounce. As soon as those soft brown eyes crinkled at the corners I jumped in. "Look, before, you said you chose me because I was the best."
"Absolutely."
"Why though?" I asked. "Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed the ride. And I hope I spend the rest of my career working with you. I know why Pete wants us partnered. I know why the Senators on the Oversight Committee want me here. But I've been wracking my brain for six months and I haven't been able to come up with any truly viable explanations as to why a vampire who's been around nearly three centuries needs an assistant. You can hypnotize people—"
"Only those with weak minds."
"You can cause a freeze that makes liquid nitrogen look wimpy."
"Thank you."
"You can make yourself invisible—"
"Not invisible, just intensely uninteresting."
"You run like you're strapped to a rocket. Your hearing's remarkable. You're stronger than Paul Bunyan… am I leaving anything out?"
His eyebrow rose ever so slightly, but I was so attuned to him I knew he was making a wry face. "Is that not enough?"
"Why me?"
He waited awhile to answer, shaking his head slightly every once in awhile as if he was trying out reasons and discarding them one by one. Finally he said, "After what happened to you November last, most people would have just curled up and died." I stared at him, ready to walk if he even brushed against the heart of my pain. "You did not. You survived, but with Gifts that have only just begun to surface. I felt you needed help to develop these Gifts. And since I needed an avhar—"