Vayl's voice sounded robotic, a programmed conversational gambit offering no meaningful detail as he said, "Whatever happens, Jasmine, do not take off Cirilai." Who? Oh, duh, the ring.
Still basically clueless, I fell back on what Granny May used to call my 'spider sense.' (She was a big fan of Marvel Comics. Dave still has her collection.) She had meant my woman's intuition, and even without my newly honed senses to back it up, it thrummed like a newly strung web. The rate of thrum increased when Vayl added, "Under no circumstance should you draw your gun."
Grief, a comforting lump under my jacket, contained some Bergman-engineered options that would work beautifully on Liliana. And he didn't want me to pull it? Nuts! Vayl—
His look, foreign and glacial, silenced me. I suddenly felt outnumbered.
"This is not something we can escape through violence," he said, thawing slightly as I searched his eyes.
"What about through the threat of violence?"
His lips twitched. "One cannot encounter you without sensing that threat. Tonight it should be enough simply for them to know you are dangerous."
I disagreed. I hated to question Vayl's commitment to me or to the Agency, but he'd just dropped a big old bomb on me. What else had he been hiding? Should I, God forbid, mark his name down next to Martha's on the suspect list?
I felt like I was looking at a portrait as I gazed into his empty eyes. I'd seen life in them plenty of times, but now I felt stupid to have assumed his life had anything in common with my own. He wasn't a monster. I'd seen enough in my time to recognize the difference. But he wasn't a man either. Could I ever really know, could I ever really trust someone so different from me and mine?
Vayl and I stood staring at each other, teetering at either end of a finely balanced lever. Should I step off? Would he?
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
"That you're up to no good." I sighed. "I hope Granny May was right."
"About what?"
"About trusting my sp… my intuition."
"Grannies are generally very wise in these matters."
Yeah, but mine never met a vampire.
Liliana strode forward, clearly put out that we hadn't unrolled the red carpet for her dramatic entrance. I gave her a look meant to be blank.
"Your kitten is bristling," Liliana told Vayl.
"I would not push her," Vayl replied, leaning just slightly on his cane, "many before you have found her to be more a tigress than a kitten."
Whatever happened to 'Hey, how are you?' 'Long time, no see.' Apparently you don't have to observe the rules of etiquette when reuniting with a murderous spouse.
"How did you find me?" Vayl asked, his voice absolutely even. I took my eyes off the Bad Boys for just a moment to confirm what I had sensed shaking underneath that silken baritone. Yeah, it was there, in small movements most wouldn't notice. A lift of the shoulder. A jerk of the head. The hollowing of a cheek that said he was biting the inside of it. Vayl was fighting enormous rage, something so big that if he released it he might never get it all back in the box.
Oh boy. I'm in smartass mode and Vayl wants to break his ex's neck. If we don't play this right they'll be scraping parts of us off the bumpers of these cars for days.
Liliana flipped a chunk of her long, polyester hair back over one shoulder. "These surroundings are rather… public, don't you think?" The smile she gave Vayl could've cured frostbite. "Come into my car." It wasn't a request.
Vayl's gaze cut her like an arctic wind. "No."
"You owe—"
"I owe you nothing."
She moved so fast her arm was a blur. Vayl caught it just before her hand connected with his jaw.
"Back off, bitch," I snarled. With no time to draw Grief, I'd resorted to my primary backup, a wrist sheath loaded with a syringe.
The needle was halfway into her hip before she could look down to see what was pinching.
A series of mechanical clacks drew my attention to Liliana's goons.
Chinese dude had added a sawed-off shotgun to his arsenal, pulling it out from behind his long, black coat like a Matrix groupie. The tattooed wonder and his buds had their guns locked and loaded and trained on us as well.
"What is in that syringe?" Liliana demanded.
"Slow, painful death by way of holy water," Vayl told her.
"My men can kill her before she depresses it."
"Then I will finish what she has begun. But perhaps you would prefer to talk?"
Liliana responded with a pretty little pout I was sure she'd practiced in a mirror before she'd gone out for the evening. "All right, then," she said. "You always did like to have things your way." By mutual, unspoken agreement I withdrew the needle and Vayl pushed her away. The goons let their barrels drop.
"Is that really how you remember our lives together?" Vayl asked grimly. "Because I have the scars to prove otherwise." Good God, had Liliana inflicted those marks on Vayl's back?
"You earned every one of them," she said viciously, looking as if she'd like to hit him again.
"Maybe." For a fleeting moment Vayl's guard fell. His expression became bleak as a dying man's. Then it was gone, replaced by cold, hard hate. "Who told you I was here?"
"Why Vayl, it's not like I've been looking for you for the last 200 years. I could have found you any time I wanted."
He shook his head, his eyes so dark you could imagine walking right through them and emerging in a whole different universe. "Not true. Someone tipped you off to my whereabouts."
She tilted her head, her hair forming a little river of silver behind her. "What makes you so sure I was looking for you? But I did get your attention, yes? You did enjoy my show?" She inclined her head towards the restaurant. "I thought you would appreciate the irony of two sons losing their father."
Vayl's power spiked and the temperature in the immediate area plummeted. But he didn't reply. If he'd tried, he probably would've spit sleet in her face.
"You must admit I have improved over the centuries," Liliana went on. "Once I would have had to sink my fangs into him to kill him. Now it only takes a scratch." She slid her fingernail against her creamy white forearm to demonstrate and a thin line of blood rose from the wound she'd opened. Vayl stared at it, his hand convulsing on the head of his cane. She stepped closer.
"Do not let her touch you, Jasmine," Vayl commanded. "Just a drop of her blood mixed with yours will kill you."
Liliana recycled the pout. "Only if I want it to." She gave me a look I recognized right away. It was Tammy Shobeson, the sequel. I half expected her to kick me in the shin and call me a sissy pants crybaby. Her psychic scent hit me again, and the stench of death and decay backed me up a step. "My dear, there is no need to be afraid. I won't hurt you… too much." She darted a flirty little smile at Vayl, but he'd lost his appreciation for cruel humor. And apparently she blamed me for that. When she met my eyes again I felt like that poor goat they'd set out to bait the Tyrannosaurus in Jurassic Park. And that's when I knew she really had come for me. That's also when she saw my bandage. Her eyes narrowed instantly. My hand flew upward, a protective gesture I couldn't seem to shake. Her gaze moved to Cirilai.
"Vayl," she said, her voice sort of hollow-sounding, as if she was speaking from the bottom of a well, "why is this—" she made an I've-just-seen-a-cockroach face, "eichfin—wearing your ring? And her neck—have you marked her as well?"
I didn't like that word, "marked." It sounded too much like a dog raising his leg on its favorite hydrant.
"She is my avhar" said Vayl.
That hit her like a wrecking ball. I had a juvenile desire to get right in her face, put my thumbs in my ears, wiggle my fingers at her and sing, "Nah, nah, nah-nah, nah." She lapsed into steaming silence, made a dismissing motion with her hand, and the four stooges backed off. Though I was relieved Liliana had elected to delay the war, I suspected she still meant to wound us. And, like most homicidal maniacs, she followed the profile to the letter.