"Damn! So much for solid evidence."
"Maybe not. I hear something coming from the third room."
"I'll be right there." I hurried across the front hall to where Vayl stood, poised to open the third door once he'd satisfied himself it didn't hide an army.
"That's the source of the bad feelings I'm getting," I whispered, "behind that door."
"Did you hear that?" Vayl asked.
I nodded, trying to identify the sound. There it went again, the deep, throaty utterance of a person in pain. And then—"Is that…?"
"Crying? I think so."
"Let's get in there."
For an answer, Vayl tried the door. It was locked.
"No problem," I whispered, pulling off my necklace. I slid the shark tooth into the lock, waited a second, turned it. The door yielded to my funky key with a soft click. I left the key in the lock and drew Grief. Vayl had left his cane in the van, but he was hardly unarmed. I felt his power shift and rise as we prepared to enter the room.
"On three," Vayl whispered. He raised his fingers in quick succession, one-two-three. Vayl threw open the door, shoving his power in front of him like a winter storm. Anyone inside would feel it as a compelling need to do whatever Vayl required before their eyelids froze to their eyeballs.
I dove inside, staying low and looking for targets. The only one I saw was bleeding too heavily to be any sort of threat.
I holstered Grief and ran to where she lay on the floor of a bedroom so frilly and sumptuous I could not have imagined violence occurring there, except for the beaten woman sprawled on the Persian rug.
"Amanda?"
She moaned, tried to open her swollen eyes. Only the right one obeyed, and that by just a slit. "He said you'd come."
"Assan?"
She shook her head, winced, and fresh tears tracked down her torn and broken face. "Cole," she croaked. I could hardly believe talking was still an option for her.
"Give me your phone," Vayl said, "I am calling an ambulance."
I fished it from my pocket and tossed it to him.
"Too late," Amanda gasped. "I'm… you must listen." She reached up and I took her hand. It seemed to comfort her. "I thought that… since I couldn't sneak you in here… I could find some evidence for you."
"Oh, Amanda. Didn't Cole tell you how dangerous your husband is?"
"Yes." She licked her lips. "So thirsty."
"I will get you some water," said Vayl, his call already complete. He left the room.
"Is that the vampire?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Mohammed… thought he was dead."
"How do you know that?"
She took a couple of breaths, seemed to steel herself. "I overheard him talking on the phone. So I confronted him."
"I sure wish you hadn't done that."
"We fought," she went, her voice bleak. "He… admitted he killed my brother. He said Michael was in on it at first. That the trip to India was his idea, to get some relics they needed to summon… but then, he tried to back out." In my imagination I could see them, fighting over Assan's virulent plans, with Michael dying horribly as a result. But what in the world did he think would happen? It angered me that this family had no sense of self preservation. Somebody should've smacked them upside the heads years ago and said, "Wake up, fools! You can be hurt!" But even as I raged, logical me wondered why the move to the U.S. when they already had the Kyron in their pockets in India.
Amanda went on. "He made me admit I'd hired Cole. Then he brought Cole here and made him watch while he… beat… me." One, hopeless sob escaped her swollen lips.
"The bastard's going to die for this, Amanda."
Amanda sighed. "Okay." She was quiet for so long I thought maybe she'd passed out. Or passed on. She stirred. "He burned the files. Took the bag from the safe. Except for… he said it was the key, so I snuck it from the bag while he was… out."
The hand I wasn't holding had been laying across her chest. Now she raised it, pointed to the bed. I lifted the ruffled skirt, fighting a flash of childhood apprehension as I peered underneath. Even with my enhanced night vision I could only barely see the pyramid that sat there, just tall enough to brush the bedspring. I reached for it, pulled it out. It weighed a lot more than I'd expected.
"What is it the key to?" I wondered aloud.
Vayl, who'd just reentered the room, came over to look. "Something else for Cassandra to research?"
"I guess so. If she has time. If we have time."
Vayl helped Amanda drink some of the water he'd brought her. When she'd had her fill he laid her head back onto a pillow I taken from the bed. I'd never seen him so gentle.
"Mohammed took everything else with him." Amanda's mind must be wandering—or shutting down. She was repeating herself. But her next comment was new. "He said, the things in his bag… he'd used them to summon a terrible wrath into the world and that…" she squeezed her good eye shut and new tears emerged, "… that it had eaten my brother's soul." I patted her arm, at a loss to know how to comfort her.
I spoke to Vayl now. "There it is, proof that he summoned the Tor-al-Degan in India. So why didn't it decimate that country? Why does he need to do it again over here?"
"Maybe he did something wrong there. Maybe he timed it wrong," suggested Vayl.
I shook my head, frustrated by our ignorance. "Maybe Cassandra will come up with something."
We heard the strident wail of the ambulance and silently agreed it was time to go.
"We have to leave, Amanda," I said, "the paramedics are here." But she didn't hear me. Sometimes it happens like that, while you're looking the other way, distracted by events and conversations. Sometimes people just go. Those quiet departures sit wrong with me. Death should be louder.
"Wait," I said as Vayl took the pyramid. It seemed disrespectful to leave before Amanda. Her essence rose from her body, violet and blue with large golden crystals interspersed here and there.
"Do you see it?" I whispered. Vayl shook his head. "I wish you could see it. It's so…" There really were no words. Maybe just the ooh and aah that comes unbidden from you when you see an amazing display of fireworks. And then, just as suddenly as the fire fades from the sky, she was gone.
I retrieved my necklace/key from the door and we left the way we'd come, melting into the trees along the edge of Assan's estate just as the ambulance crew reached Amanda's room and turned the light on.
"We've got to find Cole." An unnecessary statement, I know, but I could hardly contain the urgency I felt.
"Any idea where to look?"
"I've only seen Assan in one other place—chatting up Aidyn Strait at Club Undead."
"It is as good a place to try as any."
I let Vayl drive. I think he was flattered. To be honest, directing a van down the interstate is, for me, at most a Jell-O-mold-elephant kind of thrill. Plus, I needed to get some updates. I called Bergman first. After a series of annoying beeps and whistles he answered. "Is this line secure?" he asked.
"Safe as a homerun hitter. What have you got?"
"Pool chemicals in Vayl's blood supply. Specifically, a cleanser that melts mineral deposits."
I repeated the report to Vayl, who let out a string of curses that would've made Hugh Heffner blush.
"Okay, thanks. How's Cassandra doing?"
"No luck so far."
"Um, would you mind helping her with her research? We really need to find out all we can about this monster." I described the pyramid we'd found and waited for him to jump on the bandwagon. Unfortunately he's afraid of wagons. And bands. There was this pause, during which I could almost hear him cringing.
"Bergman, she's trustworthy."
His voice dropped to a whisper. "I don't know. She's got that funky, supernatural thing going on."
"As opposed to Vayl's perfectly straightforward existence? And mine, come to think of it? Come on, buddy, what's the real problem?"
"She's gorgeous." He said it with an awe that probably should be left on holy ground.