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?”
Time for another lie, because I sure couldn’t tell him I’d met somebody who’d filled me in on the backstory while I was spying on him. “I don’t know. Let’s follow them and see where they’re going.”
He might not have agreed, except they were moving in our general direction anyway. The farther we walked, the more we saw, as if an army was gathered somewhere near the heart of the city. At last we came to an enormous plaza. When it was empty, I supposed it stretched the equivalent of three or four blocks, an expanse of gleaming white concrete set in a complicated cylindrical pattern, echoing the rugs the country was famous for. Benches and streetlights marked the edges of the plaza, which abutted high-rise office buildings on three sides that glared down at a collection of restaurants and luxury-item merchants on the other.
A one-way street circled the plaza, giving cars a way to enter and exit the area, but it had been cordoned off for the safety of the two thousand or so men and women who’d congregated there. For what purpose I couldn’t quite guess. They didn’t broadcast the upbeat excitement of a party crowd. They didn’t seem to be in religious mode. I’d place the vibe closer to lynch mob. Which explained the mahghul. And the absence of children. And —
oh shit, we are so in the wrong place at the wrong time
— the gallows.
It stood at one end of the plaza, a long, flat stage like the mobile judges’ stands small towns erect for their parades. Of course there were a few additions you’d never see in Mayberry, including a sturdy crosspiece from which hung two nooses, a couple of trapdoors, as well as an open space under the stage so the audience could see the bodies fall.
I stuck my left hand in my pocket, closed my fist around my engagement ring, glad to have something of Matt’s I could touch. I carry another, less tangible token of his love with me wherever I go as well. But the ring gave me the solid comfort I needed just now. And as I clutched at that collection of gold and jewels, what I remembered was not the day Matt had given it to me, but the day he’d told me about his first job.
We were sitting on the front porch of a plantation house we’d just cleared of predatory vampires and their human guardians, trying to blow the stench of death out of our nostrils as we cleaned our weapons. Our crew of Helsingers, newly formed and just beginning to gel, was scattered among white wicker chairs and matching porch swings. Ten ass-kicking twenty-somethings (with the exception of our two loyal vamps) who’d just given the government their money’s worth.
“I gotta tell you, Jaz,” said Matt as he wiped down his shiny black crossbow. “I had my doubts about your ability to lead a crew like this when I first saw you. Do you fool a lot of people with that sweet little redhead act?”
“Only till she opens her mouth,” said Dave from his perch on the railing.
Appreciative laughter, even from me. I sat back in my chair and slid my gun into its holster. “So what branch of the military were you in?” I asked Matt.
“Is it that obvious?”
I shrugged. “I wasn’t trying to insult you. I can tell good training when I see it.”
“I was a SEAL.”
“Why in God’s name would you put yourself through that?” asked Jessie Diskov, who, like me, had come to this job pretty much straight from college. She sat close enough to Dave that, if he concentrated any less on his task and any more on her lovely indigo eyes, he might just end up shooting himself in the leg.
“My mom and dad asked me the very same thing when I gave them the good news,” Matt said. “You want to know what I told them?”
I
sure did. And when Jessie didn’t immediately reply, I thought I was going to have to reveal my more-than- professional interest in the broad-chested young stud with the wicked smile, stellar ass, and bedroom eyes. Finally Jessie decided the vanes on her bolts were all in good enough condition to warrant a division of attention. “Yeah,” she said. “I do.”
Matt glanced at me, smiling a little to see he had my attention, before he replied. “I just said, ‘Some people gotta fight for what’s right. Even when most everybody else thinks it’s wrong.’ ”
Matt would never have allowed that scaffold to stand in
his
country, that was for sure. But this one seemed to have bred all their Matts right out of the population. Or
