His eyes narrowed and I could see him start to make mental excuses.
I zoomed in on him, practically pressing my nose to his. “Your prejudice against the supernatural is affecting my mission. I can’t have that. You want to be a bigot? Go do it on your own time.”
Silence. I backed up, trying to gauge the effect of my words. I’d pissed him off, naturally. But had I blasted my way through that bank vault of a science guy door? I didn’t think so. For the sake of our relationship, I tried one last time. “I’m telling you, Bergman, if I don’t see a shitload of tolerance pouring out of you, and I mean soon, this is it for us. We’ll never work together again.”
Once I’d changed, I called Albert. Generally talking to him upset me. But since I was already there, no big deal. I figured I’d given him plenty of time to dig up some extra added info on the reavers. And even if he didn’t have anything more than we’d already unearthed, maybe he could help me figure out why Pengfei and Chien-Lung, two bad guys who’d so far accomplished everything they’d set out to do, were not planning to fly the coop as soon as they woke this evening. I’d decided it must have something to do with Samos. But what?
Half an hour later I had the glimmering of an idea. “Reavers need a sponsor,” Albert had told me after I’d been forced to leave a message on his machine. He’d said he was screening his calls because he’d had so many hang- ups. Weird, but far from my problem.
“You mean, like in AA?” I’d asked.
“It’s a little more diabolical than that,” he said. “Reavers burn through bodies pretty quick. So the sponsor has to agree to provide the reaver with at least one new body for every week he spends on earth.”
During which time, as we already knew, the reaver could be gathering souls. As long as he followed the rules.
“I don’t completely understand,” I said. “I know, for instance, that one reaver went into a bathroom and two came out. How does that work?”
“Apparently more than one can travel in a single body for brief periods of time until all of them are dispersed.”
I didn’t ask Albert where he got his information. It was none of my business, for one thing. Plus, I imagined the story would be just as heartrending as the one we’d seen on the
“This reaver you mentioned,” Albert said. “Desmond Yale?”
“Yeah?”
“My sources believe his sponsor is Edward Samos.”
Wow. So the Raptor had obtained the services of a majorly badass reaver. “Go on.”
“Whatever Samos is planning, it’s probably going to be big. As in, international-incident sized.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Because reavers are very specialized creatures. They only deal in one arena.”
“What’s that?”
“Triggering world wars.”
CHAPTERTHIRTY-TWO
The bedroom felt too much like a tomb. It made me antsy. I sat down on the floor, took out my cards, and started to shuffle.
Albert and I had never parted on such a grim note and yet on such good terms. “So Samos is trying to start a Chinese/American war,” I told myself. “Are you really that surprised? You saw Lung consorting with Chinese generals not thirty-six hours ago. That’s kinda what they do.”
The cards whooshed from bridge to pile. Cirilai warmed my hand, warning me of Vayl’s imminent return. As I returned the cards to my pocket, I listened to him catch his first breath. When he came out of the tent I smiled. The last time I’d barged in on him right after he’d risen he’d been oooh-baby naked. Sometimes, late at night, I still brought out that picture and admired it.
However, I had requested that he wear something when he slept so, on future missions, I wouldn’t even be temporarily distracted should I be called to save his not-so-bare ass. He’d obliged. At the moment he wore a pair of black silk pajama bottoms, tied at the waist. That was it. He raised his eyebrows to find me waiting.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
Maybe we should discuss the virtue of pajama shirts. Although it seemed almost sinful to cover that broad, muscular chest and that luscious flat belly.
“Jasmine?”
“Huh?”
“Not that I mind, terribly, but why are you sitting in my bedroom?”
I sighed. Ogling my boss’s pecs, while deeply pleasurable, did nothing for my inner morale. Not only was it just plain unprofessional, it wasn’t even wholehearted. Big sections of me still wanted nothing to do with any man. So why did my sex drive keep revving the engine? Stupid mindless radiator full of idiot hormones.
“RVs are too small,” I said in hurried response to Vayl’s get-on-with-it jerk of the head. I explained about the medallion and my talk with Bergman. He nodded and began to collapse his sleeping tent. While I helped him, I filled him in on my recent conversation with Albert as well.
