Bite Marks

Jack lay at my feet, watching Miles tinker with Astral. He’d gotten her head reconnected, which Jack must’ve deduced was a good thing, because he kept flopping his tail against the floor hopefully.

Ruvin stood beside Miles, his eyes occasionally cutting to the intricate operation-in-progress as he spoke. “Again, I can’t thank you enough for getting my family out of the shit. And, um, sorry about the quick exit before. To be honest, we’re on something of a schedule. We are seinji, and it’s just our luck that this is the week of the year when she’s most likely to conceive…” His ears went bright red as he grinned down at his feet.

Collective “Ahhh” of understanding from our group as we realized why Tabitha had chosen an oooh-baby dress for a Wednesday evening when her hubby wasn’t even supposed to get home until the pubs had long been closed. It also explained why she’d kept checking her watch and pacing. Seinji find it tough to bear children, which is why their physicians are among the top experts in the field of infertility.

They combine cutting-edge science with some of the most off-the-wall rites in the world. Common practices included hanging upside down from a tree limb for three hours after sex and writing suggestive fan letters to the cast members of Willow . And if anyone questioned their approach, all they had to do was pull out the studies that proved their birthrate had risen by thirty percent in the past twenty years.

“So, ah, we need to get rolling,” said Ruvin. “If Tabitha doesn’t have a bowl of Yabbie Chowder within the next two hours we’re doomed.”

“You know the gnomes are going to try to get her back,” I said.

He bit his lip and nodded. “We’re going to her aunt’s house in Christchurch, New Zealand. The gnomes don’t live on the South Island, you know.”

I did. They’d been driven out by bigger, badder beasts called attry-os nearly a century before and had never returned. But if I knew, so did Brude. I flashed a warning glance at Vayl. Which he smoothly ignored.

He said, “That is a wise choice. May we offer you our car for the journey? You can just leave it at the airport and we will pick it up later.”

Ruvin grinned, leaping forward to grasp Vayl’s hand and pump it up and down. “You’re ripper, you are!

I’m sure I can never thank you enough! But if there’s anything I can do now…” Bergman was the one who said, “I’m pretty sure we’ll think of something.” Ruvin kept smiling. But at the same time his bottom lip had started quivering.

Uh-oh. I tried to back up, but the couch didn’t have an emergency exit. So I had to watch helplessly along with Bergman and Vayl while Ruvin sobbed into his handkerchief.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just all finally crashed down on me. Do you have any idea how hard it was to pretend I wasn’t shit-a-brick when that gorilla shoved me against the Patriot? And the worry was just eating my guts out.” He wiped his eyes and blew his nose with a honking blast that made some night bird outside return the call.

Bergman nodded sympathetically. “We know exactly what you mean. Well, most of us,” he qualified.

“Probably not Jeremy.”

We all looked at the vampire, who’d been the only one smart enough to get out of the line of fire during Ruvin’s breakdown. He’d parked himself by the fireplace, leaning one arm against the mantel, obviously ignorant as to what a fantastic picture he made. He shrugged. “Every living thing feels fear at one time or another.”

“Exactly my point,” Bergman said.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Ruvin, his stress taking a backseat to this new distraction.

Vayl sat on the coffee table beside my propped feet. He played with the heel of my boot, a gesture I found oddly erotic, as he admitted, “I am actually Vampere. These people are part of my Trust, and we all work for the CIA. We have come to your country to eliminate the man who threatened you today as well as anyone who has agreed to act as his backup.”

He paused. I could feel his power build and then drop. Whatever he said next, evidently he wanted Ruvin to decide for himself what to do about it. “We need you to stay in Australia. The Ufranites have chosen you as their hatchling feast, and at this late date I fear that if we force them to choose another, we will not be able to provide that family with the same sort of protection as we have you and yours. Do you understand?”

Ruvin looked down at his clasped hands. “You’re saying if I go to Christchurch with Tabitha and the boys, probably somebody else’s wife and kids will end up in the warren’s boiling pot.” Vayl nodded. “I believe they will be like you in another respect as well. In fact, you can almost count on the Ufranites capturing another seinji family.”

Ruvin bit his lip. “Why us?” he asked, his tone as bewildered as that of a child trying to make sense out of undeserved punishment.

Vayl took a knee in front of Ruvin, like the little man had the power to knight him. “The Ufranites are fanatical when it comes to purity of bloodline. And, as your historians are well aware, many generations ago gnomes intermarried with feragoblins and the Japanese sect of tryynets, thus creating the line from which you descend.”

“So gnomes think we seinji are… impure?”

“They look upon you as an even lower form of life than their kimf . But do not worry over their willingness to harm seinji. We will guarantee your family’s safety.” I stuck my fingers in my ears and wiggled them. Vayl had never cared before about the consequences of bringing civilians into our assignments. Cole was the perfect example. I’d argued against asking for his cooperation when he was still a private investigator, and look what happened to him. Poor schmuck had been lured into the good-versus-evil swamp with the rest of us.

I opened my mouth to say, “Don’t do it, Ruvin. This way only leads to potential beatings and situations that require you to flirt with women who remind you of the computer geek from Jurassic Park .” But Vayl had asked for my trust, so I shut my yap. If he had a plan, fine. If not, maybe I could call on my head- girls to partially deafen Brude while we devised a better strategy.

Ruvin had listened closely to Vayl’s entire presentation. In the end he said, “My wife’s more the brains of the family. I should talk to her about this.”

Vayl bowed his head slightly. “Of course. But you must not tell her who we are. Only that you feel leaving would endanger another innocent family.”