I asked myself.
I really thought I’d settled things with Cole. That he understood I didn’t want a relationship. Then, the next thing you know, he’s professed his love, we’re camel tipping in Tehran, and I’ve let him blackmail me into a date. And that’s going to thrill Vayl like a stake through the heart.
Meanwhile, the vampire in question, perhaps realizing Cole was no threat, had turned his attention to me. “Why do you want to know who owns this house?” he asked.
I explained my theory that the Wizard had taken control of David and that, perhaps, he even owned the building in which we currently resided.
“I suppose it is possible,” said Vayl, “but the motivation for doing such a thing makes no sense. Why would someone with his power and reach set himself up for assassination?”
“We haven’t quite figured that out,” I admitted. “I think first we need to prove Dave is the mole. Then we have to figure out how to make sure he survives this mission.”
“Jasmine,” Vayl said gently, “you know none of us has the power to do that.”
“Then I’ll just have to talk to Raoul.”
“Won’t that be dangerous?” asked Cole, still sounding somewhat belligerent. “I thought after your showdown with the Magistrate you’d decided to avoid Raoul.” He’d relaxed enough from his stare-down with Vayl to lean against the doorjamb. But he’d managed to bite the ever-present toothpick in his mouth in half, and was now searching his pockets for a replacement.
I looked him in the eye as he patted himself down, wishing I had such an easy-to-fix habit. The need to shuffle was practically burning holes into my palms. But all I said was “That was before my brother’s life was on the line.”
Vayl said, “I want to be convinced, and yet . . . if David did not die in training, how do you think the Wizard killed him? I would assume he was always with one of his men, even on leave. Unless he is a complete loner?”
I thought about it. Reluctantly shook my head. “No, he’d never take off on his own. He always hung with his friends. And in a place like this, even on leave, it would be too dangerous to wander off by yourself.”
“Which means,” Cole put in, “this dude would’ve had to kill Dave, plant some sort of control device, and bring him back right in front of his men, without any of them ever realizing it had happened.”
“Are we sure there is a device?” asked Vayl.
“According to the Enkyklios, the Wizard either has to see his zombies to control them, or he has to implant something inside them that allows him to control them from a distance,” I reminded him.
That implant would give off some sort of psychic signal, which was why Bergman had sent me to Asha in the first place. Flash of guilt as I realized I still hadn’t clued Vayl in as to his existence. Well, hey, we weren’t married. I didn’t have to tell him every little detail of my day.
Except
, I reminded myself,
when it has some bearing on the job
. But I found it harder than I expected to admit to Vayl that I’d met somebody while stalking him. That the guy was so powerful he knew Raoul. And that he’d shared some of his go-juice with me. I let it be, hoping I’d find a better time and place. Or at least more courage if the timing turned out crappy.
“Maybe we should ask the guys in Dave’s unit,” Cole finally suggested. “One of them would probably know what we were talking about right away. It would’ve had to have been a time when he was at least injured, right? I mean, you can’t kill a guy and bring him back without leaving some trace.”
“That’s it!” I cried. “Cam was just telling us the story! How they captured two of the Wizard’s cohorts. How one of them went for Dave’s throat, left massive amounts of blood all over the place, and Dave without the ability to talk for a couple of days.”
“That’s right!” Cole said. “And come to think of it, doesn’t he scratch his neck quite a bit?” The signs Bergman had told us to look for. They were right under our noses all the time. I hadn’t sensed David’s uniqueness because I’d accepted it to start with. I’d thought he was one of Raoul’s fighters, like me. And I hadn’t noticed his tells because, by bringing up his suspicions about a mole, he’d turned those doubts completely away from himself.
“All right,” said Vayl, nodding slowly. “I am convinced. And yet, I still wonder. Why? What is to be gained by arranging for two CIA assassins to come and kill you?”
We offered him our theories, which he refused to swallow. “I do not believe he wants to die. Especially not at our hands. That would be the height of dishonor for him. So let us assume he wants to live.”
“Maybe he wants to go straight?” Cole hazarded. “Make it look like he’s been killed, when in reality he starts a new life somewhere completely different?”
“And so he has set us up to kill — who — his double?” Vayl asked.
We nodded. It happened all the time. Bad guys sent their patsies in one direction while they went the opposite in the hope that whoever was chasing them would follow the patsy and drop the J-DAM on his head.
I fished the Wizard’s picture out of my pocket and stared at it, feeling a whole new level of bummed for the ladies it portrayed. No way would the gentleman who held them willingly give up his life with them. Which meant he was being coerced. Shit. Not only couldn’t we kill him, now we had to rescue his family before the Wizard’s people found out the game was up, got pissed, and lopped off their heads. At the same time we still needed to locate the Wizard.
Time for Bergman and Cassandra to chime in.
It wasn’t easy to separate Cassandra from David. They’d become kind of indivisible. Like prime numbers. Which broke my heart. And here I’d thought it was already totaled.
In the end Cole told Cassandra I had girl problems and nobody in the kitchen was interested in hearing any more about it. He lured Bergman out of the room by informing him Pete was on my special specs, something about
