Cole looked up, wanting badly to say something, but we both stared him down. “It sucks being the rookie,” he said.
“I’m going to get changed,” I said.
I went to the bedroom, pulled Pengfei’s dress off its hanger and yanked it down over my butt. With slits up both legs clear to the upper thigh, it left no hiding place for a leg holster. That was the downside. The upside—though it looked quite formal, it had been designed for ease of movement.
The matching low-heeled slippers I’d found in Pengfei’s closet didn’t fit. Her feet were too narrow, making me feel like Cinderella’s stepsister. Cassandra owned a flashy pair that would work, as long as I didn’t mind nursing blisters on my heels for the next week. I did. So I went with my boots. Let people laugh. Next time Pete could just give me fair warning that I’d be costumed like a geisha at some point in my upcoming assignment.
Vayl came in and sat quietly on the bed while I worked on my makeup. I could tell he had something on his mind. And the acid-laced squeegee in my stomach said it would be one of those hard-to-face issues. So I concentrated on the makeup and hoped he’d let me pretend we had nothing to discuss.
The eyes were the tricky part. Pengfei laid it on thick and yet somehow made it out the door without resembling a prostitute. I managed a pretty good likeness and moved on to the accessories. Long black earrings. Braided wig over my tightly bound hair. The translator wires wound happily among the fake tresses. I took the necklace Cassandra had made off the dresser where I’d laid it when we’d come in.
Vayl stirred, making the springs in the bed squeak in protest. I agreed with them. “I was waiting for you to mention it before, but you seem to be following your usual tactics of dodge and ignore so I will say it straight out. Last night, you slept,” he said. “I guarded you until dawn and you did not move a muscle.”
I turned to look at him. Moved close enough for him to hear me speaking English. “No, I didn’t.”
“I take it those troubles that spurred you to sleepwalk have settled themselves.”
I nodded carefully. “I’m never sure with me,” I said. “But I think it’s done with.” I wanted to stop there. I tried. But a guy who sits with you for hours to make sure that your snoring doesn’t turn to shooting deserves something for his efforts. So I struggled to put what I’d learned about the dreams into words. “I’ve needed, wanted to move forward. But I haven’t been able to, knowing that meant I had to let Matt go. I think that’s why I kept dreaming of him as a vampire. Because he didn’t want to live on in that form any more than Jesse did. It would’ve been easier, in a way, to say goodbye to him if he had turned in the end.”
Vayl nodded soberly. “It matters so much the way in which people leave us. Perhaps it should not. Dead is dead. But the why and how make such a difference to the survivors.”
And I am one. David told me that. Evie’s words came back to me now too. “You can only cry so long before it doesn’t do you any more good.” I was done crying. The time to grieve had passed. Because I knew Matt would want me to be happy now. But I needed to make something clear to Vayl. “I’ll always love Matt. Things will sometimes remind me of him. And sometimes I’ll miss him. When I’m ready to commit to another guy, it won’t mean I love him any less because of that.”
Vayl nodded. “I understand.”
“But . . .” I cleared my throat, lowered my eyelashes, trying not to seem too eighteenth-century miss and blushing like a schoolgirl anyway. “I don’t, I still feel kinda”—I made a gagging sound that raised both of Vayl’s eyebrows as I continued—“when I think of relationships.”
Again with the dimple.I have got to find a suitable sound effect to herald its arrival, it’s that rare. Do they make portable foghorns? Vayl said, “I am happy you have found a sense of peace. And perhaps, someday soon, you will meet a man who does not make you want to vomit?”
I shrugged, trying for nonchalant and utterly failing. “You never know.”
“In the meantime, would you care to fill me in on the rest of your day’s agenda?”
“Actually, it sucked. I had to kill Shao’s brother because he was possessed by a reaver. And now that I know what reavers are about, I’m almost certain Yale and Pengfei mean to disrupt the festival somehow.” I told him Jericho and his buds would be providing undercover security, for which I heaved an audible sigh of relief.
Vayl said, “It sounds to me as if you need some fresh air. Shall we find ourselves a Chinese Dragon Lady?”
“Yeah, but how? And if she’s with Lung—”
“Which is likely—”
“How do we separate them?”
“If we are masters at anything, besides assassination, it is thinking on our feet. We will work it out when we have a situation to actually—how do you say—scope out.”
“Okay. So. Finding her. That’s going to be a challenge. It’s a big city, Vayl.”
“I think you have the ability to track her, Jasmine,” he said earnestly. “Remember how you found me in the parking lot of our hotel in Miami?”
“Yeah, but you were within a few yards of me.”
“That is true. But we must begin somewhere. And perhaps wearing Pengfei’s dress will help direct your Sensitivity even further. These are not just random ideas, you know. In the past, Sensitives have been documented as having the ability to hunt vampires.”
“Do we have any idea where to start looking though?”
“We can make an educated guess. We know Pengfei and Lung do not spend their daylight hours aboard theConstance Malloy . Which means someone must ferry them to shore. I suggest we find the boat that brought them to land last night and try to follow their trail from that point.”
“Okay.” If I sounded less than enthusiastic it might’ve been because I thought it was a really far-fetched idea. Unfortunately I couldn’t come up with a better one, so we were stuck.
Fully dressed, with the medallion tucked under my collar and the translator wire woven in and around my wig hair, I minced down the RV’s hallway. I’d spent what moments I could spare that afternoon watching Pengfei reruns on Bergman’s laptop, trying to master her mannerisms. I was doing my best, but something felt wrong.Probably just my underwear inching up my crack because the damn dress fits too tight .
Cole had a great view from his perch in the driver’s seat. He whistled when he saw me. “Freaky!”
“I agree,” said Cassandra. She had donned a new Psychics-R-Us costume and was helping Bergman pack the last bits of his modular lab away in plastic bins. That he had allowed anyone, much less her, to touch his sacred bits said that he’d taken my last lecture pretty seriously. I hoped this was a solid sign he didn’t want to grow up to be a big, skinny creep.
He noticed me watching him and said, “Our benefactors sent over a sound system about an hour ago. As soon as we get done here we’ll go over there and set it up.” He left what he was doing to hand out mouth-mints and hearing aids. “We’ll be using the same communications system as when we set up video surveillance on the yacht. Transmitting wasn’t a big deal there because we were all so close. In this case it’ll be more of a challenge.”
He gave Vayl and me the fake tattoos we’d used on our last mission. Mine was a dragon. Ironic, huh? Vayl’s was a line of barbed wire. They would allow us to transmit from much greater distances. Once Bergman had outfitted and tested us, Cole nudged Vayl to get his attention. “Are you sure you don’t need some help? I could carry your crossbow.” He glanced at the weapon, which Vayl lifted from its resting place as if it weighed nothing.