Weird the way his eyes narrowed slightly like that. Usually that only happened when he was hurt. “Of course.” He nodded. “Exactly. I am glad we have that settled then. Shall we go?”
“Okay.” Nothing had changed. The breeze still wafted across the bay. The moonlight still provided a lovely backdrop for a walk along the pier. But I shivered anyway. I glanced at Vayl. Why did I suddenly feel so cold?
As I stepped inside the RV, I said, “Good God, our mobile home has swallowed a Radio Shack!”
Bergman had wired a bank of electronic whatsits to our plasma TV, making it look like it had sprouted a blocky beard. The screen itself was divided into multiple quadrants, showing views of the common area and the deck of the
“What’s that?” Cole pointed to a black box about half the size of a DVD player sitting on top of Ashley’s table. It was fronted by eight dials and a red button.
“Brains of the RV’s security system,” Bergman said, as he tapped at his keyboard and tried to keep his eyes on all the screens at once. “Since I couldn’t hardwire anything I had to get creative. We’ve got cameras in the Chinese lanterns we strung along the edge of the front and back awnings. The dials control them, and they’ll only activate when they detect movement, in which case the bedroom TV will automatically switch on and begin feeding us video. That way nobody can sneak up on us.”
Okay, that explained the thin black cord snaking from the black box all the way back to the bedroom. Another ran from the box up the wall and out a vent in the ceiling. I assumed it ended up outside where it connected to the cameras. Old Miles had been a busy little bee.
“Vayl said I couldn’t play with the door lock, but it’s a good one. Everybody just make sure you memorize the key code. I’ve set a welcome mat I just designed outside the front door. Any visitors we’re not happy about get a punch of the red button there on the side of the black box. The mat will deliver a jolt that’ll knock them flat.”
“Impressive,” said Vayl.
“Thanks.” Bergman shifted in his seat, darting a glance out the window at the padlocked trailer, which still held a couple of boxes full of equipment he thought he might need but didn’t want us to see. He was just one of those guys who’d much rather be working from an underground bunker somewhere deep in the heart of Montana. One with its own special vault just for him.
“Don’t sorcerers have some sort of contract they make their apprentices sign?” I asked. “You know, where they promise not to give away any secrets upon pain of death?” I directed the question to the room in general, but my eyes were on Cassandra. As the eldest she should know damn near everything by now. But she deferred to Vayl.
“I suppose.”
“Write something up, Bergman.”
He went from resembling a parakeet, darting glances from trailer to monitor to TV screen, as if somewhere something was going to leap out and eat him, to watching me with the still sharpness of an owl. “What are you saying?” His voice broke on the last word, making him sound like a seventh grader at the Valentine’s Day dance. He cleared his throat.
“It’s close quarters. None of us can help seeing whatever you’re forced to trot out of that trailer during this mission. So we’ll all sign a paper guaranteeing that we will never utter a word of what we have seen to anyone anywhere ever, or else, well, you figure out the or else.”
Bergman immediately ducked behind his laptop screen so none of us could see his face. Off went the glasses. Left arm crossed the face to blot the tears. We heard a couple of sniffs. And then, “Thanks, Jaz. I’ll get right on that.”
Satisfied, I sat back to view Chien-Lung TV. Cole popped popcorn, handed out sodas, and for the next half hour we watched guests arrive from the mainland. At first it looked like any other party where the guests wear uncomfortable clothes and pretend to like each other. Vamps mingled with humans throughout, all of them Chinese. Shunyuan Fa was there, but acting a lot more like a guest than a host.
“Recognize anybody besides the Raptor’s boy?” I asked Vayl.
“No.”
Bergman said, “If you want, I can capture the video of every face on that yacht and send it through your database.”
“Fine,” said Vayl. His plethora of terse replies finally hammered the message through my thick skull. I’d brushed that kiss off like it was nothing. And he’d meant it as more. Maybe a lot more.
I peeked at Vayl from under my lashes. Actually, I could.
As Bergman tried to identify the people in the crowd, they remained quiet, polite, expectant. They didn’t have long to wait. First a petite, willowy woman wearing a red satin dress walked out of the living area. She’d put her hair in that funky Chinese up do that always looks like it’s about to leap off the lady’s head and wrap itself around some poor schmuck’s throat. Traditional makeup whitened her face, blackened her eyes, and reddened her lips. She carried a pair of shiny black rods at her side.
