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Our heavy breathing combined with the
stress we felt at having to confront our target should’ve alerted him.
But feeding vamps are so immersed in the moment they rarely sense their hunters. Ours had stopped beside an empty donkey cart, a hulking shadow stooping next to the wheel like he was checking its integrity. Except that a man wearing a plain white shirt, wrinkled blue pants, and backless leather shoes that dangled from his toes like dead squirrels lay twitching on the cobblestones beneath him.
Movement at the corner of my eye sent my hand to Grief. But it was just one of the gaunt, raggedy- eared cats that stalked the streets for scraps. This one must be hoping for a feast. It darted away when Cole strode forward, switching off his gun’s safety as he said, “That’s enough.
Drop the guy before you kil him.”
The vampire turned. And my heart broke like it had every night I’d been forced to witness this scene. While Cole lifted the cart driver onto his seat and slipped him the wages we’d promised, I watched the creature that had shattered my defenses and made me fal in love lick the man’s blood from his lips.
“Madame Berggia,” Vayl said to me as he straightened. “Why are you interrupting my meal?”
CHAPTER ONE
Holy crap, do you smel that?” I asked. I leaned away from the square, sun-bleached building and spat, but the creeping stench of death and rot had already made it down my throat.
Cole didn’t answer, just nodded and pul ed the col ar of his new gray T-shirt up over his nose. Vayl and I had presented it to him as we’d waited to board the endless flight from Australia, the site of our last mission, to Morocco, the scene of our present mess. Our sniper and occasional interpreter had worn the shirt over a fresh white tee every day since, making this the third night in a row I’d read the bright red letters on the front that said THE OTHER
GUY GOT THE GIRL. On the back, a black widow perched on her web with her mate’s leg dangling out of her mouth while her rejected lover observed the carnage from under a striped beach umbrel a as he sipped a fly- tai. The caption read DAMN, THAT WAS CLOSE!
“Promise me you’l wash that tomorrow,” I whispered as I peered down the narrow cobblestone street. No room even for breezes here, where the red ochre buildings melded to one another like coffin lids. Every door was shut, locking poverty inside, but each displayed a unique inlaid design that raised even this arid, neglected neighborhood out of squalor. I had bigger distractions than the work of long-dead artists, however.
“Washing seems like a waste of time,” Cole mumbled, his voice muffled by one hundred percent cotton. “I’m just going to wear it again because, you know, it’s only the best shirt ever. I’m not saying you look like a spider, but if you were to cannibalize Vayl, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly the picture the tabloids would end up printing.” The crinkles beside his bright blue eyes gave away his hidden grin.
“Would you just throw some suds on the thing?” To soften the blow I added, “Make it my birthday present.”
“Tomorrow’s your birthday?”
“Nope.”
“Tonight?”
I nodded. Reluctantly.
Moving quicker than I’d have given him credit for, Cole pul ed me in for a hug so squishy I figured I’d spend the rest of the night with the imprint of my modified Walther PPK
outlined on my left boob.
“Happy birthday!” he said. “You’re twenty-six on May twenty-sixth. How cool is that? Especial y since I didn’t miss it. I thought it was earlier this month.”
“Why?”
“That’s what your file—uh, I mean—”
“You read my file?” I bal ed his shirt into my fist, forcing hi s col ar past his nose to reveal his gaping mouth. The scent of cherry-flavored bubblegum wafted past, giving my churning stomach a break. Then it was gone and my nose hairs recurled.
“Vayl read it too,” Cole reminded me.
As the CIA’s top assassin, Vayl had been given ful access to my information wel before he’d decided to make his solo act a duet and, eventual y, a whole band. I said,
