wriggling disease in his bel y?
Because I didn’t want him to catch on that I was catching on to him, I moved my attention back to my Spirit Guide. “Okay, so you have no scouts in the Thin. And it’s obvious you don’t want to drop in blind. So how the hel —”
Vayl said, “Do not worry, Jasmine. Raoul wil know exactly what to do when the time comes.
Now, I believe our friends were asking for a detailed plan. Shal we let them know what we have decided?” When I nodded reluctantly, he held up a brochure. On the front was a picture of a palace that looked like it had been influenced by a German architect.
“Pelisor Castle is situated quite close to Peles.” He turned the brochure over and displayed a map that Cole and Bergman managed to catch a glimpse of by leaning forward and holding on to Jack so he wouldn’t flop to the floor. “One of its former residents returns, from time to time, to remind its caretakers whom it real y belongs to despite the fact that she has been dead for nearly seventy years. Jasmine and I are hopeful that she wil help us find Aaron Senior.”
“Assuming she spends time in the Thin at al ,” Bergman said doubtful y. “How do you know she hasn’t hooked up with Brude?”
Even Miles could detect Vayl’s smile when he replied. “This ghost was once the queen of Romania. A political y bril iant woman, Marie wil not have lost her desire to rule. We believe she wil have found in Brude an opponent, not an al y. In fact, we are quite certain of it.”
“And you think she’l want to help us?” asked Cole.
Even Vayl couldn’t put one hundred percent certainty into his voice when he said, “If we can convince her it is in her best interest, yes, we believe so.” Dave spoke up. “So the four of you are going to jump into the Thin. That is, if Raoul can figure out a travel plan that won’t get you kil ed en route. Beautiful. And at the same time Bergman, Cole, Cassandra, and I are supposed to go ahead with plan B. You real y want us to do that without you, Vayl?”
My
Dave got it too. I could tel by the way his voice had roughened when he said, “Good enough.
You don’t even have to give us an exact location. Al you have to do is get us close and—” He paused, and I heard Cassandra whisper something in a comforting tone. “Yeah,” he went on, more definitely. “I can find the grave sites. I seem to have a way of homing in on cemeteries now.” I thought Dave was done then. He’d spoken words that were so hard for both Vayl and himself to hear that I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear nothing but his breathing the rest of the way to Pelisor. Then he said, “You’re sitting very stil inside that car, Vayl. Do you trust us to do the right thing?”
Vayl’s hands tightened around each other. Then he turned so he could see my twin, driving remarkably wel behind us despite the fact that minis kept insisting on darting between us. He said,
“You are the brother of my heart.”
If I’d tried a line like that Cole would’ve slumped to the floor, passed out from laughing so hard, leaving Jack flustered and confused as Bergman rol ed his eyes in disgust and Dave tried desperately not to wreck the bus from his own inability to control his hysterical response. But since it came from the vampire, everybody understood. He’d just handed over half of his life’s quest to Dave because he considered him family. And that’s what brothers do.
Dave held his fist up and pushed it toward Vayl. “We’l find your boy,” he vowed.
“We’l find him,” confirmed Cole as he steadily scratched Jack’s head. “But where exactly are we starting?” He glanced away from Bergman’s tinkering with Astral to peer down the rutted asphalt road, which was now far enough from the city for only sporadic traffic, al of which seemed to be passing us.
“We wil stop at Peles Castle first. Your group wil begin its mission from there,” said Vayl. “The castle was not yet built when my family and I traveled this area, but it works as a fine landmark. Walk into the forest directly north of the tal est spire. The pines are quite dense around the castle, so it wil not be easy to find the path, but I was here a month ago and cleared it myself. So once you find it, rest assured it wil lead you to the spot.”
“You can count on us,” said Dave.
Vayl inclined his head slightly as he said, “Just be careful. I would hate for this entire mission to fail because someone”—he raised his eyebrow a bit at Cole—“decided to see how the local security detail felt about chattering vampire teeth.”
Cole crossed his heart solemnly as he said, “I wil keep my fake fangs in my pocket until the deed is done.” He wiggled his eyebrows at Vayl. “Now
I’d never thought I would see the day when Vayl rol ed his eyes like an irate ninth grader, but then Cole manages to bring out the juvie in al of us sooner or later. Which was probably why we were al stil relatively sane. Cassandra rescued the conversation by asking, “What wil you be doing while we’re trying to find Hanzi?”
Vayl explained how he and I, plus Aaron and Raoul, would be driving my Galaxie back to Peles Castle. He looked like he wanted to say more, but he sat back and let his arm fal into his lap. “Best of luck to al of us. And please remember, I am trying to save my children. I would be eternal y grateful if, this time, you helped me succeed.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
After doing another Party Line sound check at Bergman’s insistence, we separated at the car park of Peles Castle. Since security would come to investigate us within two to three minutes, we pul ed out of the lot together, but Dave parked on the shoulder of the road just outside of Peles, turned on his emergency blinkers, and left the bus open in case somebody decided to investigate.
I drove the Galaxie to Pelisor so quickly I barely had time to wonder what the rest of our crew was doing, or why Astral wasn’t feeding me any video. Then I realized she was, she just happened to be looking at the grass as she walked, because every once in a while I could see one of her paws step into the picture. Then a huge pink tongue slurped across her nose.
