“Nothing to discuss. I’m seeing Cassandra’s guy tomorrow. He’s going to slap me with a cure.Bam . I’m ready to roll.”
“Do you understand how few things actually get accomplished with abam ?”
“You’ve never watchedThe Flintstones , have you?”
Twitch of the lip. For him it was practically a giggle. “Fair enough. Let us talk about work then.”
“Okay. Just how were you planning to take out an ancient vampire wearing invincible armor?”
“The simplest approach would be to find his resting place. When dawn breaks, he dies, so the armor automatically detaches. We pull it free and then smoke him like a Cuban cigar.” He said it with such zest I could imagine him sitting on the balcony of some Caribbean villa, sharing a hand-rolled cancer-carrot with Hemingway while they mused over the aroma of vaporized vampire and discussed which shoes to wear for the next running of the bulls.
I snorted. “Sometimes you are about as PC as Peter Griffin.”
“Who?”
“This cartoon guy . . . Never mind. I am curious, though. You did notice that the majority of people are against smoking these days, yes?”
“Yes. And a good thing too. We used to lose houses and barns left and right to careless smokers. Now it is usually just faulty wiring or children with fire fetishes. I imagine the rate of fire loss has dropped drastically since smoking became so unpopular.”
I crossed my arms, pursed my lips, and nodded through his entire statement. As hard as I stared I could not unearth a single twitch of the lip. Vayl seemed absolutely sincere. But really, what did a guy who could live forever under the right circumstances care about malignancy?
“You know what,” I said. “Your get-him-while-he’s-zonked idea seems solid. And yet I’m thinking if it had a chance, somebody would’ve made it work a long time ago.”
Vayl held up a finger. “Ah, but you see, this somebody you speak of never had you.” He pointed the finger at me and I still had to fight the urge to look over my shoulder.Who, me?
“Vayl—”
“Tonight we will scout out the most likely locations. And then tomorrow you and Cole will revisit those locations as well as any others you can think of. If you sense any vampires—what is that word?—Ah, yes:bam .”
CHAPTERNINE
Vayl and I left the RV thinking we’d check out the Chinese acrobats’ camp. Lung housed his employees in RVs like ours. Okay, not like ours. Like regular-people versions of ours. They stood in neat rows behind the inflatable stadium. Maybe Lung had his own little pop-up tent set up in one of their bedrooms. Okay, highly unlikely. But it was a place to start.
We were distracted almost immediately by loud talk and even louder laughter coming from the site of our soon-to-be Psychics-R-Us extravaganza. Upon further investigation, we discovered our crew had made friends with three of the barbecue cook-off chefs, who’d brought over a cooler full of beer, some lawn chairs, and quite a bit of friendly advice.
“I’ll tell you what,” said one big-bellied gentleman as he leaned over a pile of poles, his tooled leather belt waging a heroic struggle to keep his butt crack at a PG rating. “I believe they used this very same tent as headquarters for the 82nd Airborne during World War II.”
“I get it: it’s old,” said Cole with his good-natured grin. “Now, I told you my three-breasted tennis star joke, which fulfills my end of the bargain. So it’s your turn, Steve.” He grabbed a section of canvas and held it to his chest. “Is she gonna live?”
“Oh yeah, we’ll get her up. But I think we’re gonna need help.” He turned to his buddies. “Hube! Is Larry still awake?” One of the seated gentlemen took a swig of beer and turned toward his companion, a red-faced guy whose goatee worked mainly to divide his puffy cheeks from his bloated neck.
“Didn’t he have to go somewhere?” Hube asked him.
“Yeah,” replied Goatee Guy, “his sister called. She had some weird, last-minute catering job right around here. I guess this Chinese fella, you know, the one in charge of the acrobat show? He’s having a big party and his cook’s stuck in Chicago. But get this: The party doesn’t start until one a.m. So Larry’s gotta help her get the food done, set it all up, and then get out before the guests arrive.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” said Hube. “At least she doesn’t have to serve it.”
“Nope, but she’s gotta get it there.”
“Where’s there?”
Goatee Guy twisted in his chair, making it creak so loudly I was pretty sure it had just reached its maximum-weight capacity. He pointed to a large white yacht floating serenely on the water. “Should be a helluva party,” he commented. “They ordered escargot.”
Vayl and I nosed-to-nosed next to the RV like a couple of gossips at the beauty parlor. “Did you hear what he said?” I hissed.
“Of course I heard what he said. I am a vampire!”
“Are you getting snippy with me?”
“Maybe, but if I am it is because I dislike obvious questions.”
Oh really?“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I have no idea.”
“We need to get hold of this caterer. Get onto the yacht with her. See if Lung’s got himself a daytime hidey-hole somewhere aboard. And then plant some cameras.”
“It looks as if I was thinking what you were thinking.”
“Actually, you weren’t. I was really thinking I needed to ask you a question.”
“What was that?”
“Do you think we should ask Goatee Guy how to find the caterer?” I smiled at him innocently as his eyebrows practically met above his nose.
“I am never going to share my pet peeves with you again.”
“Should we ask Bergman to get a few cameras ready for us?”
“Jasmine!”
“Maybe break out those nifty communications devices so you and I can talk even if we end up in different rooms?”
It happened so suddenly I didn’t even have a chance to react. One second Vayl was glowering at me, practically speechless with annoyance, and I was feeling all righteous and superior. The next moment his lips were on mine. As kisses went, it barely qualified. Just a quick brush of the lips and a swift withdrawal. But the gesture left me gasping.
“That will teach you for pushing a vampire over his limit,” Vayl said, the huskiness of his voice a stark counterpoint to the sternness in his eyes. The words combined with that look to transport me back to our fourth mission together.
We’d been assigned to eliminate a vampire named Leonard Potts, who’d made himself a small fortune smuggling his own kind into the States. It’s so tough forothers to legally immigrate that creature smuggling is quite the booming trade. However it’s not a killable offense. Unless you’re providing your clients with innocent civilians to snack on as soon as they make landfall. To be honest, it probably still would’ve remained a local issue if Potts had just grabbed homeless people and the occasional stray tourist. But when he hooked a cabinet member’s daughter, he wrote himself a one-way ticket to Smokesville.
As we prepared to confront Potts in his Connecticut Colonial, Vayl warned me to keep it low-key. “I do not understand why you like to enrage our targets before we eliminate them, but in this case I would appreciate a little self-control. Potts is a known coward. He will probably go down easily as long as you do not goad him.”
I went in with good intentions. But when I saw him lounging on his chaise, watching David Letterman while a couple of his clients slurped at the girl like she was a strawberry shake, I forgot myself.
“He’s mine,” I growled, leaving Vayl to deal with the hungry vamps while I zeroed in on Potts, who was just now rising from the lounge, the first vamp I’d ever confronted who actually looked scared to see me.