"Jasmine, Vayl has requested a partner. You specifically. You're smart, aggressive and resilient. His words, although I agree."
My lips had gone numb. "Uh-huh. And?"
He sighed. "And increasingly dangerous—to yourself." He rushed on before I could interrupt, which was a good thing, because I think my first response might've ruptured his eardrums. "You've been taking bigger and bigger risks. Like the job in Cuba."
I'd hit Castro's most trusted advisor, a general named Miguel Santas. In the middle of a crowded market. In broad daylight. Within arm's reach of his lieutenants. But I'd gotten away clean. Didn't that count for anything?
"And the one in Colorado."
Aaah, sweet. A pedophile named George Freede had started a church called International Brothers of the Light. Their main focus seemed to be kidnapping children from the U.S. and selling them to the highest foreign bidder. I'd tracked him to a resort and pushed him off a mountain. Okay, we'd both fallen off, but I'd landed on my skis in nice, fluffy powder. He'd dropped on a rock.
"I know how furious you must be, Jaz—"
"I don't think so."
He sighed again. "Okay, maybe not. But it's my responsibility to make sure my agents survive."
"So you got me a babysitter."
Pete laughed, deep in his belly where it sounded the most real. "Hell no. I hooked you up with a guy who's been alive nearly 300 years. I was just hoping some of his interest in life would rub off on you."
Tears pricked my eyelids. "I'm not suicidal."
Powerful word, suicide, no matter how you use it. It sobered Pete instantly. "No. If you were, you'd have died eight months ago. But you're not sensible either. You need somebody around who's not afraid to get in your face and tell you when you're acting like an idiot."
My fury had waned. Dammit, I should've yelled when I still had the gumption. But I couldn't deny the sense in what Pete said. And it was kind of nice to be looked after, cared for. I had only been alone a little over half a year. But it had felt like thousands.
I sighed. "You said he requested me? Why?"
"He's got his own reasons, which he says he'll reveal to you in his own time." Pete and I shared a cynical raising of the eyebrows.
"Quite a mysterious character, isn't he?" I noted.
"When he wants to be," Pete agreed.
We talked for awhile longer. Which was when I discovered, while Pete wanted me to stop taking crazy chances, his bosses appreciated the fact that I was willing.
"Our government looks at Vayl as a national treasure, Jaz," Pete said. "On paper you're his assistant. In reality, you're his bodyguard. You've met the members of our oversight committee."
And how. Senators Fellen, Tredd and Bozcowski had pretty much cured me of ever wanting to vote again.
Pete went on. "They've asked me to make sure you understand your primary mission will always be to make sure he comes back in one piece."
I'm 5' 5". I weigh one-twenty when I remember to eat, which isn't regularly. No question this guy, Vayl, could snap me like a twig any time the urge hit him. I laughed. Pete didn't. "You're not kidding."
"Apparently Vayl had a close call on his last mission. Real close. Which was why he revealed a secret no vampire has ever told anyone before. There are two moments when vamps are completely vulnerable. When they're taking blood. And when they're making a kill. He might have other reasons for wanting you there, but the fact that some ear-breather nearly smoked my best agent is enough for me and more than enough for the powers that control my budget. He wants a partner. You're it."
Chapter One
Six Months Later
"Get outta my way you old bat," I muttered under my breath as an elderly woman who shouldn't have been driving a golf cart much less a Lincoln Town Car at this time of night put-putted down the street in front of me, her blinker announcing she meant to make a right turn some time before she reached the ocean.
"A little testy tonight, aren't we Lucille?" Lucille Robinson is my usual cover and my alter-ego, a gracious, sweet girl who always knows the right thing to say. Vayl invokes her when I step out of line. I nearly flipped him off, but since he's still got one foot mired in the 1700s, I thought better of it and stuck my tongue out at him instead. I wasn't sure he'd see me making faces at him in the rear-view, but of course Vayl sees everything. I realized I'd come to count on that as much as I sought his approval which, at the moment, had ditched me.
"Do not be distracted by menial events," he reminded me in his stern baritone, "we have a job to do."
"But if you'd just let me ram this old biddy into the next electric pole I'd feel much better."
"You would not."
I sighed. Six months. Scary how much Vayl had learned about me in such a short span. In my defense, given time he could worm the true ages out of the entire cast of Desperate Housewives. Still, the only living person who knew more about me was my sister, Evie, and she was just that nosy.
"It's New Year's Eve for Chrissake," I grumbled. "There's supposed to be snow on the ground. It's supposed to be freezing." I guess the natives of Miami would've disagreed with me. And to be honest, all those palm trees would've sent me skipping around in circles if I'd been on vacation. But we Midwesterners have a thing about winter holidays and snow, and this year I had yet to experience either one.
Vayl went still, a sight that will creep you out big-time if you've never seen it before. He sort of resembles a statue anyway, as if Da Vinci had chiseled his square forehead, high cheekbones and long Roman nose from smooth, pale stone. His curly black hair was cut so short that right now I'd almost swear someone had painted it on. The temperature inside our silver Lexus suddenly dropped ten degrees. A breeze ruffled my red curls, playing them across my shoulders as if they were harp strings.
"You make it snow inside this car and I swear I'm going to park your butt in the middle of the next retirement village we come to and take the first plane I can find back to Ohio," I warned him.
Strange to think of Ohio as a base for any operation more dangerous than cataract surgery. But that's why we're still doing the government's business. Of course, people know we kill bad guys. They just don't want the gory details. But if you asked them in a dark room where their neighbors couldn't hear, they'd tell you we're not nearly as proactive as they'd like. Witches, vamps, weres… some would vote to throw them all on a gigantic bonfire and have done. But there's good sorts among those others who have earned, and deserve, the same rights and protections we humans get.
Vayl is one of them. And after six months of watching his back, I was glad I hadn't pulled a diva on Pete and stomped out of his office when he'd suggested the partnership. We'd clicked like checkers from the start. At this point I couldn't imagine working without him. But he did have his quirks.
He sort of came alive again, catching me off guard, as it would if, say, I were strolling through a botanical garden and the cherub in the fountain suddenly started flapping its wings. He sat forward, his smile just a twitch of the lips.
"How can you miss your sleepy little state when I have brought you to one of the most exotic spots on earth?"
"Okay, I know you're too old to be taking lessons from a young punk like me—"
"Jasmine (he pronounced it Yaz-mee-na, which gave me the biggest thrill, though I'd never let on) while I agree that 25 is quite young, you can hardly call yourself a 'punk'."
Yeah, but nutcase is just too close to the truth. "Dammit you old fart, would you turn right already!" The white-haired wonder leading what had to, by now, be a blocks-long parade must've turned on her hearing-aid. Because she finally pulled into the United Methodist Church parking lot, praise God, leaving the rest of us free to party until some other octogenarian found it necessary to take to the streets after dark. In Ohio, old folks know better than to drive at night. Yet another reason Cleveland rocks.