Our safe house sat on the southwest edge of the city. The longer I followed Vayl’s trail, the more convinced I became that he was traveling toward the café where he and I were supposed to complete our mission the following evening.
“How nice of you to join me,” breathed a voice from behind me.
I whirled. “Vayl! How —”
He regarded me with narrowed eyes as he leaned both hands on his cane. “You are
mine
, Jasmine. When I wish to know where you are, I have only to open my mind.”
After an oh-shit-what-have-I-done moment, I managed to pull myself together. “Yeah, about that. I’ve agreed to look out for your soul, not sit in your closet between your Armani suit and your Gucci shoes. So stop acting all proprietary there, Ricky.” As a fan of the
I Love Lucy
show, he should get the reference.
He put the heel of one hand to his forehead. “I did not mean it that way. Ach, this would be so much easier if you had lived even a hundred years ago. Now everything that comes out of my mouth can be construed as an insult, when I only intend . . . ” He shook his head. “I fear there is no way to explain without further offending you.” He turned away, whipping his cane forward every other step like he was striking at ghosts from his past. I walked after him. The silence spun between us like some sticky web neither of us wanted to touch. But I wanted to look at it even less.
I held my watch out in front of him.
“What?” he asked gruffly.
I pointed to the dial. “Pick a time,” I said.
“Why?”
“Come on, play along.”
Long-suffering sigh. “All right. Midnight.”
I looked at the watch. “Okay, it’s about eight thirty now. So you can say anything you want to me for the next three and a half hours and I promise not to get angry about it.”
“You do?”
“Hey, quit sounding so cynical. You know I always keep my promises.”
“All right, then. You have lovely hair. Red is my favorite color, so I hope you never dye it again, though I know you will.”
“Vayl! That’s not what I meant!”
“Are you angry?”
“No!”
“You sound angry.”
“No. I’m just . . . ”
reeling from a sudden desire to lay a big fat kiss on those luscious lips of yours. When I’m supposed to be pissed. Because you’ve been rejecting me like one of those damn bill-changing machines. Too many bent corners and wrinkles that I just can’t iron smooth. Maybe if I died. Yeah, then you’d definitely chase me all over the freaking countryside. Okay, Jaz. Stop thinking. Because you’re starting to sound really. Really. Whacked.
“Tell me what you meant before,” I said a little desperately.
He shrugged. “It is hard to explain when you have never lived in the world of Vampere, or even in a time when it was all right for people to belong to each other.”
“Try me.”
“An
avhar
is an extension of her
sverhamin
. Not a possession, but a beloved . . . ” He paused, pressed his lips together as if he’d like to take that last word back. He shook his head. “If you cannot understand how dear you are to me by now. How high I hold you in my esteem. How deeply I depend on your insight, your wit, your temper, your
humanity
” — his eyes glittered in the moonlight — “we might as well call this whole relationship off.”
We’d stopped in a residential area. The houses peeked at us over their walls like curious little brothers. I wished I could tap them on the shoulder, ask them if they’d just heard Vayl pour on the praise. It was so out of character, I really felt I needed third-party confirmation.
“So, I’m kind of leading a double life,” I said. “The CIA pays me to be your assistant. But as your
avhar
—”
“You are my partner. My companion. My . . . ” He exhaled, letting the last word die on the breeze of his breath. And I wanted too badly for it to sound like “love” to trust my ears when they told me I was right.
“Cool,” I whispered, allowing myself a moment’s relief. The break I feared hadn’t yet begun. He still cared.
We began walking again. For a few minutes neither one of us spoke. We became just another couple out for an evening’s stroll. In one way we could’ve been ambling down any city street in America. The road to our right was wide and well-paved, lined with lovely green oak trees. The buildings to our left looked to have been built in the seventies of light brown brick. But the streetlights betrayed our location. Most of the cars looked like they’d become classics a decade ago, and while the men who crowded past us wore typical Western clothes, the women — well, they reminded me of really depressed ghosts.
Even that wouldn’t have bothered me. I figured, if they wanted to slip tents over their heads every time they went outdoors, that was their right. But I wished they’d have chosen more vivid colors for the chadors that hid the clothing that would’ve betrayed their real personalities. I wanted to see cloaks in hues like those reflected on the signs above the businesses we passed. Vivid blues, greens, and yellows that grabbed you by the cheeks and shook, like a fat old aunt who hasn’t seen you in years.
What did shake me was the furtive sense of mistrust I felt coming off the people we passed. Not just for us, though we obviously didn’t belong. But for the police, present in surprising numbers on street corners and patrolling on motorcycles. And for one another, as if at any moment someone meant to yank an Uzi out of his backpack and mow down everyone else. It felt as if all the pedestrians had been apprised of the plan and all that remained was for them to get a glimpse of the gun and duck.
I turned to Vayl, trying to form my impressions into words. They shattered when he murmured, “I wonder if my sons are students here.”
Geez, Vayl, why don’t you just slam me on the back of the head with a garbage can? That way I can have the worst mood swing ever. I mean, we can move me from feeling terrific about my job performance and my relationship with you, not to mention being überthankful that I was born an American, to wanting to gouge my eyes out with a couple of grapefruit spoons in, like, two seconds!
I didn’t say a word. I figured he’d already broken glass over my comments earlier this evening. The next step was probably my neck. But apparently he didn’t mind an unresponsive audience, because he charged on. “That would be ironic, would it not? Our cover being their actual purpose for traveling to Tehran? I wonder, as well, if I will recognize them. You know, if something in their eyes will remind me . . . ” He trailed off, his voice husky with emotion.
I wasn’t sure how Zarsa could bring herself to commit such an atrocious act on someone, but I did know I’d never been so pissed in all my life. She’d taken a magnificent creature like Vayl, a vampire who inspired fear and loathing in every corner of criminal society, narrowed in on his single vulnerability, and stabbed.
Well, she hasn’t gotten away with it yet
, I told myself.
And if she thinks she’s going to take advantage of my
sverhamin,
she can just see how much she likes eating supper out of a straw for the next six weeks.
I was half inclined to march right back to Anvari’s and beat the hell out of her right then and there. The mahghul wouldn’t mind, as long as I left her alive. Then I saw them. Just blurs at first, out of the corner of my eye.
“Vayl.” I pointed to the nearest rooftop. “Do you see those?”
“Yes, I do,” he said. “What are they?”