The Deadliest Bite

ever be able to put his experience in the W column. Then he did an al over body check, probing his head, ribs, and leg bones delicately to make sure nothing was broken.

“Honey?” Cassandra asked as she came to lean over him. “Are you al right?” He moaned. Sat up and dusted off his jacket.

“Is he back?” asked Cole. She turned to him and nodded. Which was al the signal he needed.

He spun around, cocking his Beretta as he moved to face Bergman and the Rider ful y. He yel ed,

“Anyone who’s seen Star Wars more than twenty times, including the digital y remastered edition, and who owns an original Stormtrooper costume raise your hand!” His fingers shot toward the sky, fol owed closely by Bergman’s as Cole said over his shoulder, “We just went to Jedi-Con together.

My God, you should’ve seen al the Leias! Best thing about the Stormtrooper costume? Tinted eyeholes. You can let your eyes go upsy-downsy and the girls never get a clue.” As Cassandra’s jaw dropped and Bergman laughed louder than ever before, Cole leaped toward the Rider, yel ing, “Time to dump the neandervamp, Miles! Think happy thoughts!” CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Saturday, June 16, 11:15 p.m.

Two of Queen Marie’s Dogs joined us in her garden soon after she’d given Raoul what I now mental y referred to as the Shit Sniffer. The soldiers had, between them, managed to find one Tshirt, one button-down shirt, a pair of riding breeches, a pair of precursors to sweatpants with leather bands instead of drawstrings, two flat red caps, and two pairs of pointy-toed shoes that made them look like they’d just come from the bowling lanes.

I looked them up and down, turned to Vayl, who sat next to me on a backless bench, and whispered, “These are our guards? I wouldn’t be scared of them if they came running at me with bazookas.”

His left eyebrow twitched, along with the entire right side of his mouth. “You and I both know the queen is only sending them so they can report back to her. She may even be able to see through their eyes.”

“Wow. Talk about the perfect spies.”

He tilted his head. “Should we go that far? As you pointed out, they did seem to misunderstand the concept of going in undercover.”

However, when we mentioned the Dogs’ bizarre costumes to the queen she waved off our concerns with a limp hand. Taking a sip of lemonade from a crystal glass as she enjoyed the scents of her flowers ( Damn, they get the details pretty good here in the Thin! ) she said, “As long as they are out of my uniform, they wil not be questioned.” The way she said the word “questioned” made me think of spiked clubs and flesh-packed molars.

Sitting on my other side, Aaron audibly gulped. Vayl touched him with his eyes. “This ordeal is not going to get any easier,” he said evenly. His raised eyebrows asked, Can you cope?

I compared his quiet buck-up-and-be-a-man approach to my dad’s. Albert would’ve taken one look at Aaron’s shaking hands, his twitching shoulders, and said, “Oh for shit’s sake, ya pansy!

Screw your bal s on tight and let’s tuck this brick-shitter under the pil owcase!” I never quite understood what that last part meant. And, having been born without the formerly mentioned appendages, I never thought that demand applied very wel to me. But somehow it worked every time. My dad might be a gnarly son of a bitch. But he’s a stel ar motivator.

Aaron said, “I’m fine. I’l be fine.”

“Oh, we believe you,” I told him as my inner girls laughed somewhat hysterical y. “Two things, though.”

“Okay.”

I held up my fingers so he could fol ow my points, because my high school speech teacher had passionately believed in visual aids, and I never forgot that. “Number one,” I said, pointing to the first finger. “Walk on the edge of the group so that if you puke you can direct the spew away from the rest of us. Number two”—I pointed to my flip-off finger and enjoyed the fact that he realized I might be sending him a double message—“If you pass out?” I waited until he nodded his understanding.

“We’re leaving you. Here. In the Thin.”

Queen Marie’s ladies squealed and clapped their hands. And the Dogs’ laughter sounded so much like barking I was beginning to have a hard time thinking of them as ever having been human.

Together they did a good job of freaking Aaron out just exactly to the extent that I wanted. Satisfied that the lawyer-to-be wouldn’t be slowing us down, I looked at Raoul, who stood in his original spot, holding the Sniffer like he wished it would disappear already. “Are we set?” He shrugged. “Believe it or not, I’m always ready for battle.” I smacked myself on the chest proudly. “That’s why you like me, isn’t it?” When he started to smile, sheepishly, like I’d caught him stealing cookies from the save-these-for-grandma’s-visit plate, I snapped my fingers. “I knew it! We actual y have something in common!” The rap of Vayl’s cane on the bricks distracted us. “I assume we can trust your Eldhayr to control your berserker tendencies until we have at least freed Aaron’s father from his current situation?”

“Which is… what?” asked Aaron. “How do we even know where to go, much less how to find him?”

He hadn’t been al owed to overhear the negotiations because we kinda thought he’d spaz and run, which is not a good idea for a human in ful body and soul surrounded by spirits whose wild hunger is tamed only by their loyalty to a tightly stretched queen. So al Vayl said was, “It is not easy to imprison something as ethereal as a spirit. Queen Marie has given us an artifact that wil detect the one place in the Thin where that is possible. Her Dogs wil accompany us there. After we arrive, we wil free your father and return to the world.”

Aaron looked at Vayl doubtful y. “How?”

Vayl smiled. As his fangs gleamed, for the first time I saw respect for the power of a vampire dawn in his son’s wide eyes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Saturday, June 16, 11:15 p.m.

Cassandra witnessed the entire Rider battle. So Astral combined her impressions along with the men’s memories of the fight into a remarkably complete video that we reviewed closely later on through her