sitting in the coroner’s corpse-fridge keeping the stiffs company. The beyond-the-grave chil had brought the guard farther into the physical world, al owing Vayl to crank his head sideways and bury his fangs in the guy’s neck.
I wasn’t sure, but I could see him swal ow, view the glow through his skin as whatever passed through his esophagus dropped into his stomach.
I said, “Vayl? It’s al good now. The queen’s cool with us staying alive.” Usual y speaking is enough to break the spel vamps seem to fal under when they feed. But this ghost must’ve been yummylicious, because Vayl didn’t even act like he knew I was in the same room.
The guard began to shriek, the sound so loud and shril I had to cover my ears. Queen Marie stepped forward and peered over the terrified spirit’s shoulder. She searched Vayl’s face, taking in the sweep of his dark lashes as they closed over his ebony eyes, and the pitch-black curls cut so close to his head they could’ve been molded on.
“You are a gypsy,” she said, her voice echoing eerily in the room, like it came from unsynched speakers. She reached out to touch him, hesitated, and then let her arm fal . “A vampire gypsy. I have never seen the like.”
Vayl dropped the guard, who started to melt into the floorboards like furniture polish.
“My queen, I serve only you!” he cried. She sighed, like she was real y tired of dropping things and having to pick them up again, as she leaned over and touched her hand to his forehead. He gained color and form so quickly it was almost like he’d never been gone.
Vayl watched the trick through half-interested eyes as he licked his lips. Then, as if a switch had clicked on in his brain, he remembered who she was and what we needed, and bowed so low his head nearly touched her knee. “I am Vasil Nicu Brancoveanu,” he said, straightening and nodding again with that extra-formal attitude he gets when he’s about to make an important deal. “I am Rom.” She blinked. Message received—she knew that “gypsy” wasn’t considered a nice name by those who’d been forced to wear it. So when she said, “I have been fascinated by the Rom al my life,” he knew she’d offered him an apology for the slip. She went on. “But I understand they have intense superstitions against the Vampere. How is it, then, that you fel into eternity?” His smile, almost as ghostly as the queen herself, spoke volumes to anyone who knew how to interpret it. But al he said was, “My thirst for revenge outweighed my better judgment.” She sighed. “So true for so many of us. Is that why you summoned me? Are you here to beg my aid in a personal vendetta?”
“No, Your Highness. Though I believe you would be a staunch al y in any cause, we have come to seek your help in leading us to the spirit of Aaron’s father. We know that Brude, and a werewolf named Roldan, have trapped him in the Thin. However we cannot reach the location without you.”
“Which one of you is this Aaron child?” asked Marie as she looked over our tiny crew. I pointed to Junior, who was leaning over with his hands on his knees, probably so he wouldn’t pass out, if the paleness of his face was any clue.
Since nobody seemed wil ing to take the bal , I kept it going. “It’s a long story, but the bottom line is that if you help us save the dad, Brude wil suffer. And, ultimately, it wil be easier for me to vanquish him.”
Her finely sculpted eyebrows jumped at that. “Vanquish?” she repeated.
“I said what I meant,” I replied. And then I stopped, because I wasn’t sure what more I should share. But Raoul seemed to think she should know.
“Jasmine has the Rocenz. She plans to carve his name on the gates of hel .” New respect in those icy eyes. “I like women who travel where they are not welcome,” she said.
She glanced at Vayl. “And so, it seems, you wil be the one who secures
She said, “Fol ow me.” And then, as if she assumed we’d just trot right after her, she turned and walked back through the door.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Cole told me later that he’d never felt as proud of Bergman as he did when the tech genius emerged from the shelter of the huge, fragrant pines and first set his eyes on the Rider. It blocked the entrance to the smal , fenced cemetery, a bat-shaped shadow hovering across the entrance like a visible disease. And our Miles walked right toward it. So what if his shoulders shook a little and his hands were clenched into white-knuched fists, the one that held the knife physical y swaying as if moved by a breeze? He held his head high. And we heard him say quietly, “This is for you, Jaz.” Though I had Astral’s recording to prove otherwise, I nearly cried when Cole told me that Bergman seemed to get thinner as the Rider stretched its wings, revealing a wasp-shaped body banded with riblike bones outside its rubbery skin that ran from upper chest to lower thigh. As Bergman approached the bones creaked, pul ing away from the body as if to welcome him into their embrace. Even when razor-sharp needles shot from the end of each bone, Bergman didn’t hesitate.
He just said, “Hop on, you son of a bitch.”
It flew at him with the sound of a mil ion bats escaping their cave for the night. He flinked and took a step, but it was the impact that drove him to his knees.
Cole lunged forward as Jack strained at his leash, both of them growling incoherently as instinct overrode intel ect in their need to save the man who had now total y disappeared beneath the Rider’s wings. Dave’s hand, steel around Cole’s forearm, stopped them both. Pul ed them past the writhing bodies, held them tight when they heard Bergman scream. Cassandra, clutching Astral so close that entire chunks of her memory record were simply the back of our psychic’s arm and the sound of her smal gulping sobs, slipped her hand around Dave’s wrist. And together, linked like three scared kids with their unwil ing pets in tow, they walked into the graveyard.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The last time I’d visited the Thin hadn’t been a voluntary dropin. Even so, I’d realized the drop zone had been a pure creation of its most powerful spirit. Which meant Brude’s land had been both as beautiful as he remembered his native Scotland to be, and as terrible as he’d remade it to be considering he wanted to rule a lawless and chaotic realm. So, knowing Queen Marie had been a big fan of the arts and quite the interior decorator (not to mention a girl who “got around” as evidenced by the fact that historians named at least two and
