He sat forward, his eyes wide with concern. "How do you mean?"
"Umm, like, drunk. But not."
I thought Vayl would come sit beside me, fuss over me a little, but he sat statue still, like a street performer who's run out of gray body paint. Finally he whispered. "I know."
"Know what?"
"It is as if you are an entire spectrum of light that just became visible to me. I can… hear your heart beating. I can sense your hunger pangs. I know you are scared. You are also elated, tired, worried and," his voice dropped, "excited."
"Oh no," I said. "Oh no, oh no, oh no—" I bit my lip hard, stopping the litany with my own blood. Vayl had kept his word. He'd left me plenty. It trickled onto my chin as I tried to stand, but I moved too fast and lost my balance. Vayl caught me just before I landed in a heap on the floor. As soon as I regained my equilibrium I growled, "Back off."
He stepped away.
"No, I mean with your senses or whatever. You were supposed to give me super powers. You were supposed to make me fly. You weren't supposed to march through my thoughts like a lumberjack in a rainforest!"
"Jasmine, that is not how it happened! There is no need to panic."
"I'm not panicking!" But I was, and I had no way to hide it. "I don't want you inside my head," I told him, keeping my voice as reasonable and level as possible considering I just wanted to stuff my face into a pillow and scream. "It's too intimate, too scary. I'm not ready for that!" I realized I was yelling and covered my mouth.
"I warned you. I told you—"
I raised my hand to stop him talking, trying to swallow my oceanic fear as I did. "I can't have you—exploring me like that. There are things you don't know. Things I can't explain." I stopped, took a deep breath to keep myself from babbling on until he did discover my secret.
His lips twitched. "Are you really that bad?"
"Well… no, I'm just… not that good."
"Maybe that is why I find you so interesting."
"Huh," was my brilliant reply.
He took my hand and pulled me back down to the couch. "Jasmine, the change has begun. You cannot let it destroy you."
"No, I can't." Can't, can't, can't…
"So relax. I promise you, I will not probe. I will not intrude. Your thoughts, your memories, are still your own."
"… Okay." I took a deep breath and sat back.
"I would like to ask you something, however."
Crap! "What?"
"Why did you rearrange the furniture again?"
"Well, I wanted to work out and… again?"
"Remember Ethiopia? And Germany? And Hong Kong?"
"Yeah. So?"
"So, you have rearranged the furniture in every apartment, hotel and hut we have stayed in since I have known you. And always the same way. I just wondered why."
"Oh," I laughed weakly, wracking my brain for a plausible excuse. "Well, that's the way it always was growing up. No matter what house we were living in, Mom arranged the furniture the same way to make it feel like home."
A damn fine explanation, I must say, and one Vayl swallowed whole.
"I was just wondering."
"Let's go kick somebody's butt," I suggested, thinking it would sure make me feel better. "I feel like I really could throw a bad guy across the room."
"And suddenly we have so many from which to choose." Vayl thought a moment, giving me time to rearrange my brain. Like the furniture, it made no sense to me, but I did recover most of my scattered control. "Any ideas?" he asked.
"Assan comes immediately to mind."
"I am sure it will be a pleasure ending his existence. But he is more valuable to us as he is right now, oblivious and unbruised. First we need to find out where he and Aidyn are storing the virus."
"And how they're making it," I added. "Do you suppose they're keeping their notes at Assan's place?"
"Possibly. Though Aidyn seems to be the creator. We need to ascertain where he is staying as well."
"Sure would be handy if we had a contact on the inside," I said. "But Assan's staff is unapproachable."
"What about his family?"
"You mean the wife?" We shared a knowing look. "You mean the jealous wife who's hired a private investigator?" We both nodded. With the butt-kicking officially tabled, I moved across the pit to a mauve arm chair beside which stood an end table with a phone on top, a drawer for the phone book and a lamp to read her by.
Most men I meet through work tend to avoid that whole Live-Like-A-Normal-Guy gig. In fact, most guys I meet through work want to kill me. So when I found Cole's name and number listed in the white pages I felt a sudden urge to giggle. It went away just as quickly. I'd met a normal guy. Big whoop. That didn't make me any more normal.
He answered his phone on the first ring. "Cole Bemont."
"Cole! This is Lucille Robinson. We met—"
"Last night!"
"You remembered."
"Are you kidding? I've been kicking myself all day for not getting your number." We stopped speaking for a moment, homage to the kisses.
"Cole, I have a problem I wondered if you could help me with." I kept my voice businesslike since Vayl sat three feet away, and I honestly didn't want to lead Cole any further astray.
"Sure," Cole said.
"Um, don't you want to hear what it is first?"
"Doesn't matter. You saved my hide yesterday. Plus my lips are still tingling. At this point, I'm prepared to do just about anything you suggest."
Yipes! What have I unleashed? I wanted to say, "Cole, maybe you haven't heard, but I'm an idiot. The C.I.A. has tried its best to bury that fact since they did hire me. But here's the deal. Despite my actions last night I am not looking for a relationship with you. I can't maintain a relationship with you due to the fact that I don't want to. Also, I'll be traveling a lot and my boss is a vampire who I may be falling for (already have?) which is a whole other kettle of crap I'm so not ready to deal with. At any rate, these life choices don't make me a good candidate for pet owner, much less girlfriend." But I needed Cole to help me get information, which meant I needed him interested for just awhile longer. Damn, damn, damn.
"Can my partner and I meet you somewhere in say, half an hour?"
"Your… partner?"
"It's kind of impossible to explain over the phone."
"Okay. How about Umberto's? It's semi-private and the food's great."
"Fine." Cole gave me directions and we hung up. I looked at Vayl. "It's set."
"Good. And?"
"And what?"
"You want to say something else, I can tell." I nodded. "Sometimes, this job sucks."
Chapter Nine
When this whole mission ended, I suspected that if I survived, Pete would demote my ride to a used moped. Not great motivation to push the self-preservation button. But at the moment, I didn't care. My local Mercedes dealer had brought me a dark blue C230 Sport Sedan that made even New Year's traffic bearable. The car hummed like a Broadway star. I joined right in, and the two of us sang a duet Steven Sondheim would've tapped his foot to while we motored down the sparkling streets of Miami.
"I would ask you how you feel," said Vayl, "but it is so obvious."
"It's amazing," I told him. "I just want to hug everyone I know. I want to buy the guy who engineered this car a bottle of champagne. I want to fly. Hey!" I turned to Vayl, "after this meeting let's go hang gliding!"
"In the dark?"
"It's a full moon." I stopped at the light, hang gliding forgotten as a burgundy mini-van pulled up beside me. "I have never seen that shade of red before. Can you see all those flecks of gold and black in it?"
"Yes," Vayl answered, his smile more full and natural than I'd ever seen it. "I take it you are enjoying this part of the change."