He waved the pen around appreciatively. It was wrapped with soft red material, and a spray of fine red feathers had been hot glued to the top. “Cassandra,” he said, “I hope you know that poaching Muppets is illegal in this country.”
“Just be quiet and write.” Cassandra read off the list, which included some common herbs like catmint and basil and some items I’d never heard of before like derrentia and triptity. “Where are we supposed to find that stuff?” I asked.
“Corpus Christi’s a big city,” Cassandra replied. “There’s bound to be at least one coven running a supply store here, and most likely it will be near the bay.” She came to the end of the list and stopped, though I knew she wasn’t done.
“What?”
“We need an item of her clothing.”
“Of course. Can’t we save that till the end though? You know, until I’m physically on the yacht?”
She read over the spell. “Yes,” she said slowly. “But we need something of hers—”
“What, like a lock of hair?”
Cole threw up his hands. “How the hell are we supposed to get that? We can be pretty sure they don’t spend the day on that boat. They’d be too vulnerable.”
“Actually, I had another idea. Bergman may need to help though.”
I winced. “He’s slogging through a blizzard of work as it is.”
“Then let’s leave it for now. It may even be something we can accomplish without him. First, the shopping.”
“Can I go?” asked Cole. “Oh, stop looking at me like that. Bergman won’t let me watch him, much less help. Vayl’s down for the count, and all the beautiful babes are at work.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Or at the mall.”
Four hours later, laden with bags and, okay, a cute green dress covered with silver stars that was on sale and in the same store as the triptity, so cut out the guilt, we returned to the RV.
Cassandra opened the door and stopped with her foot on the first step. I strained to see around her, especially when I heard Bergman humming to himself.“Bum, bump-bump, tah-dah, toodle-loo.” I tucked my head under Cassandra’s elbow.
Bergman was dancing.
Okay, it actually resembled an old man’s attempt not to break his hip while proving he could still shake a leg at his great-granddaughter’s wedding. But still.
“Bergman,” I said, “is that your happy dance?”
He grinned at me.
“Cassandra, look,” I said. “Bergman has teeth.”
“They’re very nice,” she replied.
“Lemme in before my arms fall off!” Cole demanded. We piled inside and dropped the bags under the monitor, which revealed a lot more activity than it had in a while. I spared it another glance. The Chinese crew had arrived. But Xia Wu hadn’t called. Well, I knew I might not be able to depend on him. If he didn’t contact me by the time Vayl woke, we’d modify our plan accordingly.
I turned back to Bergman. “What’d you do?” I asked. For an answer he held up a long thin wire. It took a tremendous effort not to snatch it, but I kept my hands to myself as I asked, “Is that the translator?”
He nodded, showing those perfect white teeth again. He came toward me and draped the wire over my head. “The idea,” he said, “is to weave this into your hair. If you have it kind of hanging down by your face like this,” he demonstrated, pulling a handful of curls forward and winding them around the wire, “it should never show. Okay. Say something.”
“How is it powered? I mean, it’s so thin. Where’s the battery?”
Nobody answered. They just stared. I watched slow amazement dawn on their faces.
“Oh my God,” said Cole. “You sound just like that bitch!”
“Watch your mouth, young man,” I snapped.
Cassandra nodded. “Exactly.”
Bergman moved closer. “Now say something.”
“This is so incredible, Bergman. You are a flipping genius!”
“That’s what I thought.” He wasn’t responding to my comment. “When I stand this near I can hear the English before it’s translated. So make sure you keep everybody at least three feet away from you. And figure out how to hide your lips. Use a fan maybe.”
“How’d you do it?” asked Cole.
“Well, I couldn’t have without already having Pengfei’s voice on the computer. Other than that . . . none of your business.” He sounded very offhand, but his shelter-bea-gle eyes begged,Feed me, pet me, love me . I wanted to be careful with what I said though. It would suck to jinx the whole deal with too much optimism. You saw that every day on Cinemax.
“This is stellar work, Miles. Probably your best ever, considering the deadline pressure. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? Forget that idea we talked about earlier. I can nail Pengfei with a bolt, no problem.”
“Are you kidding? I’m on a roll, Jaz. I’ll have that sucker ready for you by dusk!” Scary light in his eyes now. Kinda fanatical, like Dale Spitzer and theOthers Suck crew. Scarier still that I could relate. The work did it, man. It seeped right into your marrow if you let it or, in our case, if you courted and sweet-talked and sometimes pleaded with it.
I hesitated. “Okay, but I’m warning you. We can’t play outside anymore. Cassandra’s got to do her half of the Pengfei disguise.And I need to figure out how to get back onboard the Constance Malloy.Come on, Wu, grow a set and give me a call!
A couple of hours later he did just that. Good thing too, because I’d just finished doing eenie meenie minie mo to decide which of my crew I should strangle first, and the future looked bleak for Bergman.
The biggest problem was that four grown adults weren’t meant to hang together in such a small space with so much at stake. Playing euchre, fine. Making preparations to assassinate two vampires who could easily turn their rig into kindling—nuh-uh.
Nobody found Cole’s antics amusing, which made him want to grab his toys and go play somewhere else. He disappeared into the bathroom for a while. Nobody even wanted to guess what he was up to in there. Then he ended up in the driver’s seat, flipping through radio stations so fast Cassandra finally yelled at him to either settle on one or put in a damn CD. Yes, she said “damn.” She was really starting to sweat.
I blamed part of it on the steam rising from the big pot bubbling over the stove. I don’t know why she felt she had to lean her entire face over it every time she stirred the contents, but there you go. I guess some spell casters are very hands-on that way.
Part of the problem was Bergman.
“These instruments are very sensitive to temperature,” he’d announce to the room at large. Then he’d subside. Five minutes later, “The metal is perspiring. How am I supposed to do intricate work like this with a metal that’s perspiring?”
Cassandra strode out of the kitchen and disappeared into the bathroom. Moments later she returned and slammed a stick of deodorant on Bergman’s table. “Try that on your damn metal!” she snapped as she went back to her work.
He raised his eyebrows at me like,What’s gotten into her? I pointed directly at him. Then I pressed my lips together, made a zipping motion across them, acted as if I was turning a lock at their center, and threw the imaginary key out the window.
I managed to keep them from open warfare, but Wu definitely heard the relief in my voice when I answered his call.
“I am sorry I have not phone before,” he said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “There was much work to be done before I can break free.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’m impressed that you’re willing to give us a chance.”