Bitten to Death

Disa held the cane like Vayl had when we’d first met her, ramming the tip into the floor as if she was claiming new territory. She twirled it back and forth, her long fingers caressing the blue jewel that topped it in a way that struck me as obscene. The tigers that adorned the wood of the sheath looked wrong to me. Then I realized they were caked in a dark substance that filled in what should be finely carved edges. I didn’t need a lab to tell me what it was either.

I pulled Grief, transforming it to vamp-killer mode as I strode forward. I figured the direct approach would work the best. Grab the cane. Take Disa down. Hurt her bad enough that she begged to be released from Vayl. It wasn’t a pretty plan, but I could see it working.

Disa took me by surprise. She raised the cane, said, “Interri lakkirm tradom!” and Cirilai struck, spiking into my hand like a deck nail, taking me to my knees.

“Let her be, Disa!” Vayl strode toward me. Lifted me to my feet.

“Keep her away from me, then,” Disa replied. Her pout would’ve been more comfortable on a four-year-old, which is maybe why it dissipated so quickly. But her power, damn, that was fully mature. At least now I knew what had hit me during the battle.

“Wait a second! You knew about the fight with Samos!” I accused her.

“Of course. No one comes through my borders without my knowledge.”

“So you twisted Vayl’s power through his cane into his ring just when I was at my most vulnerable. You nearly got me and Dave killed, you piece of shit!”

She gave me one of her careless shrugs, topping it off with an evil smile as I lunged at her and Vayl stopped me. He’s mine now, she mouthed as he grabbed me around the waist with one arm while he buried the fingers of his other hand in my hair. He pulled me to his chest and lowered his lips to my ear. “Trust me,” he murmured so softly I could almost believe I’d imagined it.

But Cassandra had urged me to follow that same course earlier. So hard to do. Just let go of your fears and totally believe. Especially when you’ve been burned so badly that the scars still wake you up at night.

“Vayl! How did you find us?” It was Cole. Sounding uber-pissed. Vayl pulled upright, though he still held me in the crook of his arm.

“It is the most amazing technological breakthrough,” Vayl enthused. “It turns out your phone emits a satellite signal that my phone can pick up and locate on its internal map when I punch in a code given to me by the company that made them. The operator was most helpful after I, how do you say, turned on the charm.”

Cole clenched his fists. “I am going to kick your ass.”

“Now, Cole,” Disa said, stepping forward with two small clicks of her heels and one big clunk of the cane. “Is that any way to speak to your father?”

As Cole gaped like a toddler at his first circus, Vayl let me go and turned to Disa, his eyes brightening into high beams as he said, “This is your surprise? Ahh, Disa, after all these years. You have finally followed through on your vow. And the other boy?” His eyes roamed the room. “Let me just savor this moment. There are, after all, so many from which to choose. Will it be David or the bartender? Or one of those two gentlemen?”

He motioned to a couple of men just walking in. One topped six feet by at least a couple of inches. He walked with his barrel of a chest at full inflate, emphasizing the impression that he was a supercilious bastard. The other looked young enough to be his student, a slope-shouldered sloucher whose glaring eyes seemed to question everything they saw. He looked familiar for some reason, but I would’ve let it go if I hadn’t noticed Cole suddenly do an emotion dump and back up to the bar.

Disa put her hand on Vayl’s arm, raising a sudden urge in me to strangle her. “My psychic said we would find him in Cole’s presence. And that all would be made clear at that juncture. Is it not a blissful feeling to be re-united with your youngest son at last?”

While Disa sweet-talked my sverhamin, I moved to Cole’s side. Though part of me still watched Vayl as the bitch-queen poured on charm I hadn’t realized she possessed, the rest centered on Cole’s still, thoughtful stance.

“What is it?” I asked in a low voice, making room for Dave and Cam as they scooted in to hear the conversation as well.

“Those two men who just came in?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“The one just sitting down now, the small guy facing us? That’s Petrov Kublevsky.”

Aha, so that’s where I’ve seen the face. “Didn’t he kill—”

“The retired M5 agent Iaine Wilson, yeah. Him among a dozen others we can prove, including, most recently, Larainne Delvan.”

“I didn’t know she was one of ours.”

“No, but somehow he did. This is the first time he’s been out of Russia since he slit her throat.”

“So he’s your mark?”

“No. But while I was waiting for mine to show, I spent a helluva lot of time on the laptop. Just saw this guy’s mug not five hours ago plastered all over the terminate-on-sight page.” Oh crap.

Disa screamed, a ladylike shriek of surprise as the cane she’d been holding suddenly leaped out of her hands and burst into green-tinted flame. It flew to a spot less than a foot from my crowd, flipped itself to horizontal, and began to spin.

“What the hell?” asked Cam.

“I don’t know!” gasped Disa. “It just jumped out of my hands.” She wrapped her paws around Vayl’s arm and fluttered her lashes at him. “What do you think it could be doing?”

“Perhaps it knows who my eldest son is?” he guessed.