“There is a bandstand just up the hill,” Vayl told him. “Take cover there.”
Cole nodded and quickly moved away.
“You too, Vayl,” I suggested. “Whatever it is, I don’t think we want news of a scaled vamp to get out, at least not until we know what we want the story to say.”
“Very well,” he said, gliding uphill with remarkable grace for one so new to the armor. He should’ve shone like starlight, but I could feel him using his power of camouflage to make himself seem to disappear.
I went to the gazebo, not inside, just to the doorway, and gazed down at somebody’s daughter. Somebody’s wife. Pitifully dead woman with her body ripped open. I wanted so bad just to cover her. But that wasn’t what she needed now.
“Pengfei Yan, shouldn’t you be on the yacht?” Desmond Yale asked as he emerged from the shadows.
I wanted to run to the nearest Renaissance Faire, grab a really nice breastplate, and strap it over my chest. Barring that option, I crossed my arms. “Chien-Lung began to have his own ideas about our revolution. I had to teach him a lesson. What are you doing here?”
He spread his hands out in front of himself, palms up, a big gold ring flashing on the first finger of his left hand. “Did you plant the charges as I instructed? And the evidence implicating the religious fanatics?”
Right on cue the air went
“The police found out somehow,” I whispered. “They got all the people to safety.” Time had strung way out this evening, like a ribbon of taffy that just keeps winding. I could’ve sworn the hit on Pengfei, the search for Lai and Lung, not to mention the battle and its aftermath had lasted a couple of lifetimes. Nope. Fifteen minutes, start to finish.
“What use are you, Vampire?” Yale demanded. “You brag of your awesome powers of concealment, and yet these myopic little godspawn outmaneuver you.” He stepped toward me. Looming. Threatening. “I want my souls!”
“I guess I’m just going to have to owe you.”
He stopped. Took a second to think. “Yes, and I have just the debt in mind.”
“You do?”
“Her name is Lucille Robinson.”
“Go on.”
“I want you to kill her.”
He sighed with disgust. “Reavers cannot kill unless their victims have been Marked and paid for, or unless they can prove self-defense. Why do you keep making me say that?”
“Because I know it pisses you off?”
“I despise rules.”
“You know I never do anything unless there is some advantage to me,” I said.
Yale fixed me with that yellow glare. It was like looking into the eyes of a python. “The woman, Lucille’s, Spirit Eye is beginning to open.”
I said, “How should that affect my plans?”
“It already has. She can see the weakness in the young ones’ shields. She has killed two of them, including Wu, who I’d placed aboard your yacht just today.” He jabbed a finger at me as if it was my fault. Which, of course, it was. Speaking of shields, I couldn’t see his. Not at all. The medallion was working for, and against me, once again.
“Are you sure it was her? Perhaps—”
“I am sure. I do not know the source of her power, but she is beginning to See, Pengfei. And when her Eye fully opens, she will also begin to Know. After that none of us will find life as easy or as lengthy as before. Do you understand?”
Though I didn’t understand, I nodded, because I figured I was supposed to. I said, “Tell me how to find her.”
“Lure her to you. She will not be able to resist the chase once you have killed the woman she was with the day I met her.”
“Do you know where to find this woman?”
“Her name is Cassandra. The cab company picked her up at this location. I believe she is one of the entertainers.”
