frames. “Cassandra says, in order for the magic to be effective, the retriever has to take the same route as the ohm.” He stopped, waiting for me to figure it out. It took less time than I would’ve liked. I felt my lips draw back from my teeth in a snarl as I said, “You mean we have to cut Dave’s throat?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
D
ave and his crew took off before Vayl woke. The idea, in order to “fool” the Wizard, was for them to leave early, make sure the place was thoroughly scouted and covered before we arrived to carry out the assassination. We’d actually run through the scenario the night before, after Soheil left. Though, with everyone in the know, it seemed an empty exercise. Even the mole understood we’d never join them. Because we would head to the “right” location.
They left the house in twos, with Dave and Amazon Grace in the first pair. That gave me a chance to powwow with the rest of his crew. We met in the living room, Cam, Jet, and Natchez leaning against the back of the couch as I explained about the retriever while Cassandra and Bergman backed me up when they came up with the hard questions.
The guys didn’t like the mode of delivery any more than I did.
“Listen, before we slice into the man’s throat, isn’t there any way we can make one hundred percent sure he’s the mole?” asked Natch.
As Bergman threw him a sympathetic look I said grimly, “He’s it. And it’s not like we’re going to jam a dagger into his carotid. It’ll just be a little incision. Just enough to insert the thing.”
I hope
.
“When?” asked Jet.
“After the mission is over. Vayl and I will handle it.”
“Whoa, wait a minute,” said Cam. “We’re his men. We’re going to help get this monkey off his back.” Chorus of hell-yeahs from the other guys.
My mind immediately jumped to the mahghul. Would they gather for an event like the one we were planning? I reminded myself to check the roof the next time I stepped outside. I said, “This isn’t some kind of intervention where we all sit around and whale on Dave for spazzing on our Monday-night football parties and showing up drunk at our weddings. This is a violent attack on a military officer, during which he will die. Not” — I held up a finger to ward off the slew of questions I could see coming — “because of the cut on his throat. But because as soon as the Wizard’s control is released he’ll go back to the state he was in before the Wizard took him. Which was dead.”
I could hardly bear to look at their faces, tight with pain and despair. It made it nearly impossible to contain my own. Which was why I totally avoided looking at Cassandra. Thank God she kept silent. If I’d have heard one hint of a sob, I’d have lost it. I went on. “If we’re lucky, he’ll come back. Like I did.”
I gave them a brief sketch of my own revival, Raoul’s hand in it, and his willingness to take on Dave if my brother made the choice. I hesitated, not wanting to utter the next words, knowing they had to be spoken.
I’m so sorry, Cassandra
. “But you have to know, he may choose to stay gone. In which case, it would suck for you to have touched a superior officer with the intention of harming him. And we all know nobody will believe the Wizard had a hand in his passing, because we won’t be able to prove he had control over Dave in the first place.”
We wouldn’t be able to prove anything about the Wizard, which was why, after all this was over, Danfer would go head-hunting and Pete would have to give him mine. I’d be unemployed. Out of the job that had sustained me through the worst tragedy of my life. Dammit! Wasn’t there a single bright spot in this whole, muck-ridden mess?
Of course there is, Jazzy,
Granny May said from her spot at the bridge game she kept going near the center of my temporal lobe. She set a coaster under Bob Hope’s water glass, the game temporarily suspended while Abe Lincoln made popcorn.
As bright as a spotlight, if you’ll just look hard enough to see it
.
I’m looking, dammit!
But at the moment all I could see was Cam, watching Cassandra, who’d sought the comfort of Bergman’s arms at my last pronouncement. “Oh, he’s coming back,” Dave’s right-hand man said confidently, giving our Seer a wink when she finally turned to look at him. The cheerful optimism on his scarred face made her sit up straighter and say, “How can you be sure?”
“Woman, I’ve seen the way he looks at you. And vice versa. No fully functioning man gives that up willingly.” Cam nodded. “He’ll be back.”
I wished I could feel so sure. Unfortunately I knew how tough his return trip might be. But I kept my mouth shut for once, and in the end I convinced Dave’s unit to leave freeing him to us. We said our goodbyes and they left. At which point Vayl emerged from the guys’ room.
He wore a button-down shirt of dark purple silk that flowed off his broad shoulders and caressed his chest. His coal-black trousers hugged his lean hips with the help of a matching leather belt, and I was sure his shoes had been crafted by a master cobbler who, like his great-grandfather before him, still plied his trade on the streets of Milan. On one hand I could’ve scooped that seething mass of masculinity and power into a waffle cone and savored dessert for the next forty-eight hours. On the other, I badly wanted to kick his ass.
Because he’d taken my blood, Vayl was attuned to my emotions. So he turned to me in surprise, detouring through the living room on his way to the kitchen.
Uh-oh
.
I’d been leaning against the couch in the spot Cam had vacated. Now I backed behind the love seat, keeping it
