The nearest larvae wriggled slowly toward it. As soon as they encountered plastic they burrowed right through and into the meat.
“I would beware of who I agree to partner with as well,” Vayl said. “The Valencian Weres may talk respectfully, but their loyalties lie completely with their Sol and his pack.” Loud murmurs of agreement from the Ufranites. But underneath, a new sound. One so faint I would’ve missed it if I hadn’t been standing almost on top of it. I looked down. Tykes’s trousers had ripped at the seams. Because his legs had doubled in size.
“Vayl! Cassandra! Run!” I blew outta there so fast I’d reached Tabitha’s getaway truck and jumped into the bed before I heard the fleshy splat of exploding tissue. Even from my vantage point I could see blood and larvae fly into the air.
And then Tabitha began to scream.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-SIX
Istood in the rental house shower, technically goop-free as of five minutes ago but still feeling polluted.
Brude. Even if we were able to find the Rocenz and scrape him outta my brain, would I ever consider myself clean again?
Plus, we’d heard from Martha. Only our mission had succeeded. NASA had taken hard knocks in California and Madrid, from which it wouldn’t soon recover. So Roldan’s stock had just doubled, making the Valencian Weres the newest, worst threat to national security. Bad news for the good guys.
Especially considering Cassandra’s vision. More than ever before I worried for the safety of my team. In light of Pete and Ethan’s deaths, I’d pleaded with them all to go home. Let Vayl and I tackle the next leg of this quest alone, especially since it wouldn’t be an Agency-sanctioned mission. Only Cassandra had agreed to fly back to the States, and I still thought the main reason was because Dave had called to let her know he was about to come home for a couple of months. At least she was taking Jack along. Now I wouldn’t have to worry about him becoming possessed too.
A knock at the door. “Occupied!” It opened anyway. “What the hell?” Vayl said, “I have sent the others into Canberra to secure transportation for us to Sydney and, from there, to Marrakesh. They will be, how do you say, crashing at a hotel in the city afterward.” I leaned against the wall. So tired. What was that saying? Yeah, I guess I could sleep when I was dead.
“Okay. Wait, you sent what others?” I strained to hear. Was that a coat dropping to the floor?
“All of them.”
“It takes four people to book plane tickets?”
“No. But it takes one person to watch Cole and another to monitor Kyphas; therefore, I sent the lot.” Yup, that sounded like a belt buckle. “Where’s Jack?”
“In the backyard.”
“And Astral?”
“Locked in Bergman’s room with orders not to slide beneath the crack.”
“Wow. You got rid of everybody.”
I tried to ignore the Inner Bimbo, who was chuckling and noting that elimination was kinda his job. The librarian was also waving for my attention. She wanted to tidy up the piles of unshelved experiences.
Tabitha’s demise. Ruvin’s quiet exit. Cassandra’s Ufran-trance, during which she chose the new shaman.
The call we’d made to Martha after. The tears we’d shed for Pete before agreeing to lay low until she could set up new deep cover offices. We hadn’t told her about the plan to find the Rocenz, or that we’d need to travel to Morocco to do it. Just let her know we’d do our best to be back for the funeral. But I wanted to leave all of that until the hot water ran cold. I figured I had ten minutes left. That was all I wanted. Ten minutes of—
“May I join you?” Silky request that sounded more like an invitation from the other side of the shower curtain.
“Yeah.”
I just stared at him for a while after he’d stepped into the tub. Already he’d taught me the pleasure of patience. Anticipation. I watched the water droplets trickle down his shoulders, nestle in the hair of his chest, emphasize the muscles of his thighs.
“You look amazing. If I were an artist, I would totally paint you.” The sides of his lips quirked. “Perhaps I should purchase you a set of brushes.”
“But I can’t—”
“Ahhh, surely you could think of other uses for them?”
He pulled me into his arms, his hands, his skin warm against mine, his lips and tongue all working to remind me that crap was always lying around in a steaming pile. But I could sidestep it if I wanted. Get wet and soapy with a gorgeous vampire and remind myself why life could be good. If I decided it should be.
CHAPTERFOUR
We’d decided to spend the first hour of our wait for the Odeam team stuffing our faces at Wirdilling’s one and only eatery. But as I stood beside Vayl at the end of a row of connected gray-faced shops, contemplating what might be the scariest little pub in the southern hemisphere, I told myself I wasn’t that hungry. Because apparently somewhere nearby lurked a kickass fishing lake that people liked to visit during the warmer seasons. They didn’t always come prepared, so some bright businessman had decided to build a bait shop. And then stick a pub called Crindertab’s on the end of it. At least I hoped it hadn’t developed the other way.
The bait shop had a closed sign hanging from its faded green door. We weren’t so lucky with Crindertab’s. Its entry, peeling paint so old it probably contained enough lead to line a bunker, had one small window that allowed enough dim light to emerge to convince us the place was inhabited. I looked over my shoulder, longing to join Jack and Astral in the Wheezer, where they regarded each other warily from opposite ends of the interior.
Vayl opened the door. A tsunami of country music burst out of the opening, reminding me of all the reasons that I hated eating out.
I spun around. “I’ll have mine to go. Salad. Italian dressing. Lotsa crackers.” Vayl’s hand on my arm stopped me, unaccountably made my ribs itch. “I refuse to endure these tortures alone.”
His nod directed my attention to a setup to the left of the door. Which was when I realized the owner of the voice wailing Patsy Cline’s “Walkin’ After Midnight” sat behind a fold-out table, all but the top of her silver bangs hidden behind a bank of karaoke equipment.
Okay, this is just too weird to miss. But the ash-gray walls covered with framed pictures of old stamps (uniformed man and woman in a background of red, Pink Floydesque flowers about to eat each other, pissed-off Victoria holding her scepter in one hand and a Christmas ornament in the other) didn’t increase my appetite as I followed Vayl to a long wooden table in the corner whose top looked like it had been hammered by the boot heels of thousands of drunken cowboys.
I dodged a little girl who was speeding toward the bathroom. Barefoot. A couple of sets of old folks laughed at her progress, and I thought she’d come to eat with them. Until a plump waitress with black roots glaring out of her bleached-blond hair slammed through the kitchen doors and yelled, “Alice!
Gitchyer shoes on! Bloody hell, you’ll have the health inspectors down my throat in a minute!
“Don’t mind my daughter,” she told me when she caught me gaping. “She doesn’t bite. Much!” She grinned and moved on, leaving me to scope out the rest of the clientele. Who were even older than Alice’s ungrandfolks. Ah, but they loved those wail-and-woof songs. Much foot-tapping and head-bobbing after the microphone changed hands and a man’s voice began to sing a George Jones classic. His face hid behind a speaker but his stick-legs, covered by faded jeans and scuffed boots, entertained by pulling a few Elvis moves under the table as he belted, “Son she was hotter than a two dollar pistol, she was the fastest thing around.”
Vayl had taken his place at the head of the table. I sat to his left and Cole took the empty chair next to mine. He nodded toward the couples’ gams, two-stepping joyously while their upper bodies played hide-and-seek with the electronics. “So, have we just seen the ultimate in performance anxiety?” I shook my head. “That may be the most bizarre thing I’ve witnessed all day.”