“Bergman, were you able to fulfill your contract?” asked Vayl. None of us had even noticed my sverhamin slip into the room, we’d been so intent on the picture show and the talk that followed. Now I couldn’t believe I’d missed him. Only the cold bite of his power lifting the hairs on the back of my neck let me know how he’d pulled it off.
“What do you mean?” For a smart guy Bergman played dumb pretty well.
“Your clients would never have given you those details unless they had hired you to build a weapon that could defeat such a creature. Did you succeed?”
Miles pulled down the brim of his cap. “Not yet.”
Vayl nodded, unsurprised. He spun his cane, making the blue jewel on its tip glitter in the lamplight. “If we can find this Rocenz, separate the pieces, and carve Brude’s name on the gates of hell, I believe it will reduce him to the dust to which his original body has already fallen.” Bergman shot me a look. Pure suspicion. He stared back at Vayl and said, “Are you sure we should be talking this way in front of—” He jerked his head at me. But he meant Brude, who’d be listening intently.
Unless he was an idiot. Which he wasn’t. Dammit.
“Of course,” Vayl replied. “If he knows how great the odds are that he will end up as fodder, perhaps he will voluntarily release Jasmine.”
More conversation followed. Details I really should’ve paid attention to. Brude was probably taking notes and making flashcards. But Vayl’s costume kept distracting me. Because it made him look like a rock star. I hadn’t expected the jacket to be so… oh-baby! It was the kind you wear when riding a Harley. That offset, silver-zipper style that makes a woman’s mouth water when it’s worn open to reveal the broad chest of a vampire at the height of his powers.
“Jasmine?” Vayl asked. “Were you going to say something?”
I realized my mouth was hanging open and cranked it shut. My head started to itch. Great. Not only had the rash spread, now I’d look like I had dandruff while I was relieving the irritation. “I’m covered in bumps,” I said glumly.
“Some more interesting than others,” he replied softly as he reached my side.
“Would you shut up ? Bergman’s, like, five feet away!” My eyes darted to our techie, but he’d opened his backpack and appeared to be rummaging through it as happily as a kid in a toy box.
“You look, how do you say?” He dropped that crooked smile on me that makes my knees unlock.
“Hot.” The last word, barely a whisper, lost itself in my hair as he pressed his lips to that spot just below my ear that can, apparently, flip the off switch in my brain. Before I realized it my hands were inside that jacket, stroking the hard planes of his chest and stomach. And then, as if moving without any prompting from me they reached down, undid his belt, pulled it loose, and…
“Ahhh, that feels great,” I moaned.
“I am completely grossed out over here!” Cassandra informed us.
Vayl, who’d been peering down at me with an expression of utter disbelief, stared at Cassandra over the top of my head. “It is not what you think,” he assured her.
“As if I’d do something that disgusting,” I said, pulling away from him, but keeping the belt, because the buckle relieved the itching so much better than fingernails. I continued using it to scratch the inflamed skin across my stomach as I sat down by Cassandra.
“You are pathetic,” she told me.
“I’d get all offended, but I’m pretty sure you’re right.”
I ignored Vayl’s glare, after all he probably had a spare belt in his suitcase, and concentrated on Miles, who’d found his treasure. “Here it is!” he said triumphantly. “The new, improved party line!” He’d invented the group-communications devices years ago, so the chances of them blowing out an eardrum or melting off parts of our faces had decreased over time. Still, the fact that he’d tinkered with what I saw as the perfect system worried me. He opened up the silver case and handed us each a smaller box containing the set of items we needed to send and receive messages.
“What’s different about them?” I asked without opening mine. Who knew? Maybe they were rigged to explode when you said a code word. Like “different.”
“They work on the same general principle,” Bergman explained. “A transmitter that resembles a beauty mark, which you should place near your mouth. And a receiver, which, before, was wired into an earring and then tracked into your ear. Now we have this.”
He pressed his finger into his own box and lifted it up. Stuck to the end was what looked like a narrow piece of tape, only slightly thicker. More like the What’s-in-Our-Oceans? window peels my sister, Evie, thought her kid needed all over the house now that she was a whopping three months old.
“It sticks inside your ear like this,” he said, demonstrating with his own piece. “It sends clearer sound and nobody can tell you have it on.”
“Awesome!”
“That’s not even the best part!” Bergman declared. “It’ll magnify sounds for you if you scratch it enough times. So if you want to hear a conversation that’s happening from across the room, you can. Just remember to scratch it the same number of times when you’re done otherwise you’ll be risking permanent hearing loss. And, of course, while you’re eavesdropping you won’t be able to hear anybody else on the party line until you’re done. I like to call it my RAFS redundancy plan. Except now that her name’s Astral that doesn’t sound nearly as cool.”
“Dude, you keep coming up with awesome gizmos like this and you can call them anything you want,” I said.
Vayl banged his cane on the floor, reminding me of a judge gaveling everybody into recess. “It looks to me as if everyone is ready. Shall we repair to the Wheezer?” I held back a smile. Shall we repair to the Wheezer. Too cute. Vayl was like a British butler’s studly cousin.
“Just a sec,” I said. “Jack’s in the backyard.” Returning Vayl’s belt on the way, I ran to the glass doors and called my dog, who’d just left a giant deposit I reminded myself to clean up before bedtime. “Yo, poop-meister! We’re leaving!”
Hearing his favorite phrase next to “dinnertime,” Jack bounded through the brown grass and into the house, bringing a rush of cool night air with him. Despite the fact that I’d already thrown on my jacket, I shivered. Nights like these were made for killing. I could always smell it in the air. And tonight, the scent in my nostrils meant blood.
* * *
Wirdilling Primary School made up in whitewash what it lacked in charm. It practically glowed in the streetlights, its black roof making it seem to become a part of the night sky, as much a nocturnal creature as the four of us. A square building with its own water tank out front, it gave off the oddest vibe, the deserted swings and seesaws in the side yard seeming to shout,
School sucks when the kiddies can’t
come!
I’d backed the Wheezer into a parking space on the street a few feet from the fence. “Nobody home,” I said. Not surprising. Our sources had informed us the Space Complex was hosting no guests other than the Odeam team this week.
Vayl said, “All right, remember your roles, please. We are acting as the Shoot-Yeah Productions crew.
So keep that in mind at all times, yes?” At a little after 9:15 in the evening we didn’t figure on anyone strolling past. But it always pays to play your part. You never know when the curtain peepers are at their posts.
We piled out of the vehicle. Bergman and Cassandra pulled tripods and video cameras out of the trunk, chatting with each other like they actually knew crap about lighting and B-roll. Vayl disappeared around the building’s far side, probably to check out roof access in a way passersby couldn’t witness. The rest of us headed for the gate.