Bitten in Two

“Yes, I did.”

I tried to focus al my attention on the vampire strol ing through Marrakech’s old city like he was the damn mayor, but Cole was stil interested in the security system issue.

He said, “I don’t get the paranoia. We left Astral there.” Vayl frowned. “How is Helena’s kitten going to protect her from werewolves?”

her from werewolves?”

At the same time Bergman’s snort rattled my eardrums.

“A robotic cat who can shoot a couple of grenades out her butt is no comfort when you have a demon sleeping in the next room!”

Cole whispered, “Bergman! Kyphas told me personal y that she’s not interested in your soul. It’s probably only wired for space travel anyway.”

Vayl said, “What?”

I said, “You know Berggia, Vay—I mean, Lord Brancoveanu.” Cole and I crossed our eyes at each other.

“He has such a strange sense of humor sometimes. Now, about Helena and the werewolves—”

But Bergman wasn’t done with his side of our bizarre conversation. He said, “Even if I believed you, Cole, which I don’t, that doesn’t change what happened to… your supervisor.”

Ouch. We paused, none of us even able yet to say Pete’s name, his murder was stil such an open wound. And it wasn’t healing any faster in light of the fact that we felt we’d triply betrayed him.

Because we stil didn’t know who’d kil ed him.

Therefore—

We couldn’t avenge his death, plus—

We’d missed his funeral.

It didn’t help that Pete would’ve understood that we had to find the Rocenz pronto. And that Vayl in his present state would’ve been impossible to explain to the grieving widow.

But I preferred imagining that Pete would’ve been uberpissed to find out we’d skipped the final ceremony of his life. That would’ve been a more comforting feeling.

Familiar. Like al the times he’d yel ed at me for wrecking rental cars during the course of my assignments. Not that they’d—al —been my fault.

Wah, wah, wah, my God, you’re a bigger whiner than Mom. It was my inner adolescent. Teen Me lay on her stomach on Evie’s bed because, of course, hers wasn’t made. She was reading a comic book she’d stolen from Dave’s stash while she listened to her fave radio station, WFAT, play Casey Kasem’s American Top Forty. While Matchbox Twenty sang, “She says, baby, it’s 3 a.m. I must be lonely,” Teen Me said, Remember all that bitching she used to do? Teen Me launched into a great imitation of Stel a’s smoke-roughened voice. “Gawd, working at night sucks. You kids should try it sometime. Maybe then you’ll be a little more grateful for the food I put on this table.” She snorted. As if Albert didn’t always have his check sent to the house! Oh, do you remember this one? “What the hell, you mean I have to go to the Laundromat again?

Why can’t you kids wear a pair of jeans more than once?

What are we, the Rockefellers?”

I said, I sound nothing like her! Wait, that did have something of a whiny undertone.

Teen Me sat up and careful y laid the comic on Evie’s pink, lace-rimmed pil ow. If Dave detected a single new wrinkle in the pages she knew there’d be hel to pay. She said, Losing Pete, I get it. That’s gonna suck a long time. I dunno, maybe forever. But all this mental grinding you’re putting yourself through about him understanding your motives or not? Lookit, he was your boss and you were lucky that he cared about you. Also vice versa. Now he’s dead. Be sad, but quit torturing yourself! That’s all.

I didn’t realize I’d stopped in the middle of the street until I saw Vayl and Cole coming back to get me.

“Madame Berggia, are you quite al right?” asked Vayl.

“No. Are you?”

He took a big puff of that obnoxious cigar and, thank God, blew the smoke into the night sky. When he looked back down at me his eyes were the dark blue of drowning waters. “Not at al ,” he said. “I am rarely afraid. But you know how Helena came to be in my care. In al this time, the werewolf who brought us together has not forgotten. He has watched from afar as she has grown in grace and beauty.” Cole snickered, and then coughed. “Uh, sorry,” he said.

Vayl patted him on the shoulder. “Never fear, my man.

This dry air should do wonders for your lungs.”

“What about the Were?” I asked.

“His name is Roldan. And he has marked her.”

“You mean, like, as part of his territory?” I imagined a werewolf peeing on a wigged and long-skirted Bergman. I slapped a hand over my mouth. Real y, this was no laughing matter.

Vayl paused. “I realize you have very little knowledge in this area, so I must explain. And I do apologize if I upset you unduly. But werewolves know when they have met their life’s partner. Roldan wants to change Helena, Madame Berggia. He has, in fact, become obsessed with the idea ever since I cheated him of the