Bitten to Death

“Did you hear something?” she asked as she rushed up to us. “A popping sound?”

We exchanged puzzled looks. Vayl shook his head. “Nothing from this area,” he said. “Have you had another fire?”

“We’re not sure. Marcon is checking to see if the alarms are all working.”

“I was just telling Vayl it felt kind of warm in here,” I said. “Maybe your furnace is malfunctioning.”

She threw up her hands in frustration. “Hamon may have had his faults, but at least he maintained the place. All Disa does is sit in that library reading histories of the Trust and snapping at anyone who disturbs her.” She bit her lip, looking over her shoulder, as if afraid her new Deyrar had taken a break just to spy on her. Then she shrugged, shook her head, and moved on.

“Now, why would Disa need to fill herself in on the Trust’s background?” I asked.

“I would imagine for the same reason Blas needed the grall,” Vayl answered. “Hamon always intimated that there was more to running this Trust than simply stomping your foot and insisting you were in charge every twenty minutes or so.”

“So let’s go find out the real story about how the little ladder climber came to power,” I suggested.

“You forget how close-mouthed the Trust members can be,” said Vayl.

“Oh, I don’t know. Niall might be convinced to share a story or two.”

“What makes you believe that?”

I told Vayl about Kozma and Trayton and my confrontation with the vamp who had trapped them both. It only took him a couple of minutes to jump onboard. Which worked out well for me, since I’d already decided to stop at Niall’s room whether Vayl accompanied me or not.

Trayton, how did you get under my skin so fast? You’re like a freaking virus! Still, I felt a spurt of anticipation as I led the way to my Were buddy’s hideout and knocked on the walnut door with its bas-relief etching of an armored mare galloping across a field.

“Who is it?” came Niall’s voice from inside.

“Lucille and Vayl,” I said to the sound of three locks being disengaged in quick succession. I shouldered through the door as soon as Niall opened it wide enough to admit me. “Trayton!” The relief I felt when I saw him sitting up in the brass bed, the cluttered tray on the chair next to it giving evidence that he’d eaten, was like seeing the sun after two straight weeks of rain.

As Vayl and Niall conferred, I leaned over to check the Were’s wound, now little more than a bright red welt marring the smooth skin of his chest. “You look a helluva lot better than you did the last time I saw you.”

He smiled, revealing teeth that crossed at the front just slightly and elongated canines that were twice as thick as a vamp’s. “I feel better,” he said, brushing his hair out of his eyes so I could see them sparkle. “It was worth almost dying to share blood with an Eldhayr.”

I looked at him blankly, stunned that he even knew the word my Spirit Guide had used to describe himself once during a rare moment of revelation. Raoul had been an earthly soldier who’d continued his fight after death against even stouter foes than those he’d faced in life. I’d never given much thought to what I’d become after he’d brought me back. For sanity’s sake, I figured it was better not to go there. Better, in fact, to just continue as Jaz. Even with my Sensitivity blooming like spring roses and my Spirit Eye making me wish for shades, it was easier to think of them more as extra abilities than of myself as someone different. Something no longer human.

No, look, you’re still mostly human, I assured myself. If you weren’t, well, surely you wouldn’t be so pissed off at Dave or so confused about Vayl right now, huh? And you definitely wouldn’t want to pinch Disa’s head in a vise and then attach her body to a tire rotator.

That’s how you judge? asked Granny May. She’d moved to a new spot in my mind, one where I’d spent lots of time waiting for her in life. The beauty shop was old-school, with massive hair dryers that came down over your head like astronaut helmets and hair spray so thick in the air your eyelashes would stick together just walking to the waiting area. She flipped to a new page of her Better Homes and Gardens and gave me a sniff. You’re human because of all your negative emotions? Give me a break. Even demons feel rage.

How would you know? I demanded.

Don’t try to change the subject.

Fine, then. I . . . I’m human because . . . I floundered around, getting a little more panicked with each passing second. Then I knew. Because I choose to be, dammit!

Bingo! shouted my granny as the Were spoke up.

“Lucille.” His smirk told me he’d call me that if I wanted, but we both knew I was full of crap. “You smell of ferocity and distress. Are you all right?”

“That’s my perfume,” I said caustically. “Eau de oxymoron. By the way, this is my boss, Vayl.”

Vayl waved from where he stood with Niall by a second locked door, which exactly resembled the one we’d seen in Admes’s room. He seemed intent on getting the real story of Blas and Disa from his former ally, so I let him continue with his conversation while I took care of my new pal.

I asked, “Can I get you anything? Are you bored? Maybe I can find you some magazines or books or something.”

“I’m good,” he said. He nodded to a TV sitting across from the bed on a small entertainment center. “Niall is an Xbox 360 fanatic. So I’m set for as long as I have to stay.” Any other guy his age would’ve been content with the forced rest as long as he could play all day. But I could tell something was digging at him. He held the sheets wadded in his fists like only they could keep his hands from the items his longing eyes kept resting on: the spare clothes folded in Niall’s massive dresser, the door standing unlocked at my back. Freedom.

I put my hand over his knuckles and he grabbed on to me like I meant to pull him back from the edge of a precipice. I said, “We should get you out of here as soon as possible. I’m planning on going into town in the morning. Do you think you’ll be up to leaving by then?”