Bitten in Two

“Or maybe you just need to stop breathing,” I said. “I’l bet that would do the trick. What do you think, Sterling?”

“That could work,” he said easily. “But it makes a hel uva mess. We’d appreciate a few seconds to get clear before you pul the trigger.”

“Hmm, good point. Okay, I’l count down from five, and then Lord Brancoveanu, you, Sterling, and Berggia back to the door. Okay?”

Vayl, staring at my gun like he’d never seen me, or a firearm before, nodded so slightly I’d never have caught it if I wasn’t clued in to every one of his gestures.

I said, “Five. Four. Three. Two—”

“Al right!” Ahmed wiggled his butt back and forth a couple of times, like he thought he could unbalance the men shoving him into the floor. Then he gave up.

And said, “Legerut. ”

Cole and I snapped our eyes to each other. Stil on his knees beside the mage, he mouthed, Did you feel that?

I nodded.

Ahmed’s spel had slid over me like a mint-scented shiver. But it had moved past me. I looked at Sterling, whose wand hand had risen sharply. For a moment a sparkling blue shield burned around him like a second skin, revealed only by the presence of magic that ran counter to his. Kyphas didn’t act nearly as concerned. I figured she’d only transformed her scarf into the flyssa on the off chance that we’d al ow her to impale Ahmed if this latest move turned out to be another ploy.

I expected Vayl to react least, as usual.

He’d pul ed away from Ahmed, managed to stand before the spel hit. At first he just stared off into the distance, his jaw clenching at whatever played out on that invisible horizon. Then his head jerked back, like something massive had him by the throat.

“Vayl!” I lunged for him, but Cole wrapped his arms around my waist and whispered, “You can’t interfere now,” as Vayl’s hand shot out, the fist that he’d clenched around his cane trembling from the force of his muscles straining, resisting. His other hand went to the wal , through it, and found a beam to brace himself with as his lips sheared back from his teeth in a look of such grinding pain that I moaned his name again.

His eyes came to mine. Locked on. And I swal owed my fear. Instead I poured al the love I felt for him, every ounce of strength, the last shred of my dreams and plans for us into those bruise-tinted eyes, and only when their orange flecks began to fade to honey gold did I remember to breathe. First his hands dropped. Then his head. No one spoke. Or even looked around. We just waited.

Final y Vayl stepped away from the wal and looked down at Ahmed. Only my position al owed me to see the colors changing in his irises. Like the storm clouds that tel you it’s time to run to the basement, now black framed them, and in the centers, a deep, bloody red.

“Vayl,” I whispered.

“I remember.” His voice, so low none of us should have heard it, permeated the room like the rumble of a tsunami.

He lifted Ahmed by the col ar of his jel aba, rising slowly so we could see the mage begin to choke inside his own clothing, observe Vayl grab him by the hair and turn him so he had no choice. He must face the vampire he’d cursed.

“I remember everything you did to me. What you made me relive.” He fastened his hand around Ahmed’s neck, lifted and shoved so that the mage moved on the tips of his toes, holding on to Vayl’s wrists to prevent a fal . His eyes were so wide I half expected them to pop out and rol down his cheeks as he stared into the blizzard of cold fury he’d unleashed. Though Cole and I were mostly immune to Vayl’s powers, we stil shivered as icicles began to form in Ahmed’s nose hairs and every exhalation pasted another layer of frost around the rim of his mouth.

“It wasn’t me!” he insisted. “Roldan—”

“I wil see to him in due course,” Vayl said. “But you had a choice. You took your pay. You wound your spel .” They’d moved into the shop now, and what could we do but fol ow?

We watched, silent witnesses as Vayl slammed Ahmed against a wal , sending brass instruments of al shapes and sizes crashing to the floor. The dissonant shriek of sound accompanied the mage’s moan.

Vayl said, “You shoved me back into a hel I thought I had escaped. You tore me from the woman I cannot survive without. This wil not stand.” His free hand went to Ahmed’s chest.

Holy Christ, is he gonna rip out his heart? I stepped forward.

Ahmed blubbered, “Wait! Please! The redhead said you needed information on the bauble in my back room.

The Enkyklios bal ? It’s part of Roldan’s payment! I can tel you why he had it in the first—ulp!”

Vayl shook his head. “No. You are done.” He covered Ahmed’s open mouth, stil wagging with suggestions and excuses, with the hand that had threatened his heart. And suddenly al of the bel s in the shop began to clang. The breeze, focused by his cantrantia so that only the mage felt the ful effect of Vayl’s power as a Wraith, came cold as an Arctic storm, splintered into his eyebal s, iced his veins, turned his skin blue. Before Vayl had finished even Ahmed’s fingernails had frozen solid.

Vayl turned, looked at us silently.

I knew the moment required something immense from me. But before I could dredge up the right response the front door flew open, Cole’s cabinet barricade splintering like rotten wood under the onslaught of two massive werewolves. The platinum streaks in the larger wolf along with his big-eared rider proved that he and his Luureken would have to be put down the old-fashioned way. The second wolf’s dark brown fur marked him as the one we’d seen hip-deep in oranges with no partner in sight. Now we knew his rider was a dimpled blonde with hate burning like hel fire in her eyes.

The Luureken each brandished a raes in one hand and a fury so deep it seemed to paint the doorway black. We only hesitated a beat or two, but in that time Vayl had already moved to meet them. He left Ahmed to