The Deadliest Bite

A JAZ PARKS NOVEL

Jennifer Rardin

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“The Deadliest Bite is not the one you get from the nest of vipers
striking at you from the top of an angry gorgon’s head. It comes from
the demon that’s sunk its teeth into your soul, the one that refuses to
let go because, oh baby, your blood is like red, red wine.”

—Jaz Parks interview with Jennifer

Rardin, August 2007

Wednesday, June 13, midnight

I’l say one thing about walking around with a rubber band up your asscrack—it helps train you for torture.

“They cal them thongs,” the girl at Victoria’s Secret had told me, doing her best not to look at me like I’d experienced major brain damage sometime between high school and col ege.

“I know what they cal them,” I’d said as I picked at the flimsy material and tried not to wince. “I just don’t understand why…” I’d looked around the store. They were everywhere, like fluffy pink bunnies that multiply while you aren’t looking and then blow your foot off the second you step on them.

The girl had blinked her silver-lined eyelids and shrugged. “They’re sexy.”

“Uh-huh. Are they comfortable too? Like, am I gonna come home from work al tired and grumpy and say to my dog, ‘I’m crapped out. Time for a warm bath, flannel pj’s, and my thong?’”

“It could happen.” She’d smiled, faintly, just one corner of her mouth rising, which had reminded me of why I was standing in the middle of lingerie paradise in the first place. Vayl. Who was, even now, counting to one hundred, giving me a chance to find a new cubbyhole to hide in before he began hunting the hal s of the red brick monstrosity he cal ed home.

As I padded through neatly arranged rooms ful of expensive furniture and beautiful y displayed antiques, it struck me as hilarious that the vampire who owned them al chose to spend his free time playing strip hide-and-seek with his sorta-human girlfriend. I caught sight of myself in the gilt-framed mirror over the fireplace and smiled. Because I was more than that. Vayl cal ed me his
avhar
—a Vampere word that described better than any other the infinite number of ties that bound me to him. I also smiled because, after sixteen days of rest and relaxation from a series of missions that had nearly kil ed both of us, I had to admit I was looking better. Eating three meals a day had fil ed out the hol ows. Now I couldn’t count each rib just by looking. My fingernails had stopped flaking. My eyes had brightened until sometimes they reminded me eerily of my father’s snapping green orbs as they cut through us the first day he got home from a tour, inspecting the troops to see how we’d grown in his absence. Even my curls seemed bouncier and redder except, of course, for the white-streaked one that curved into my right cheek like a familiar friend. I didn’t let my glance linger on it. No point in reminding myself of my first trip to hel when this game, like al the others Vayl and I had played, was designed to make the most of the time we had left until I had to go back.

“Fee fi fo fum! My senses are tingling with huuu-man!” Vayl cal ed.

“Crap!” Just one in Vayl’s awesome bag-o-tricks was the ability to pick up on strong emotions.

My little detour down Vanity Lane had given away my position.

One last glance in the mirror. We’d been playing the game for a while. Al he’d left me wearing was a watch, the blue lace Victoria’s Secret underwire I’d bought, which gave me such incredible lift I had actual cleavage (yeah, baby!), the matching dungeons-r-us thong, and a pair of three-inch black heels that made sneaking damn near impossible but did wonders for my legs. Of course Vayl was down to a pair of red silk boxers, so our next encounter promised to be mondo fun. Especial y if I made the hunt interesting.

I snapped the band of my watch. My super-genius buddy Bergman had invented it for me, wiring it to use the kinetic energy it had stored from my movements to shield their sound. Sometimes being an assassin for the CIA comes in handy. Especial y when you get to use cool spy gadgets to play sneak-n-peek with your lover.

I was on the main floor, looking for a decent place to tuck in, listening for sounds of movement above and hearing none. Geez, the guy lived in a ninety-year-old Victorian! Shouldn’t one floorboard squeak? Then I’d know which staircase he was descending, at least. The main one connected the second, third, and fourth floors to the front door. The rear stairs, darker and much narrower because snobs didn’t think servants deserved elbow room back when, only went from the kitchen to the second floor, where al the bedrooms were located, and the basement, where al the creepy, clanky junk had been instal ed.

Though I wasn’t sure I had time, I paused for a second, reached out, and
sniffed
. My nostrils flared, though the scent that wafted into my brain stem had nothing to do with true odor. It was al mental, and never before had I been so pleased to have had this Sensitivity to
others
(as in nonhumans) dumped on me. The price, dying twice and then being brought back by a mind-blowing Power with a soft spot for model trains, and me, had always seemed too high. Even though I’d gotten to know Raoul wel enough to think of him as both my Spirit Guide and my friend, it stil did.

But if I could final y get some fun out of the deal, maybe… there! Vayl was definitely sneaking down the servants’ stairs.

I tiptoed toward the front of the house and slipped into a room he liked to cal the conservatory.

Although when I told him Miss Scarlet did it in there with the candlestick he just looked at me blankly and said, “Was the candlestick sitting on the pianoforte?” In some ways the dude is permanently stuck in the eighteenth century.

Some of that showed in the choices he’d made for the room, as wel . A huge window seat spanned the whole length of the front wal . Covered with lace-edged cushions, it gave the lazy lounger a spectacular view of Ohio’s countryside. Because Vayl didn’t live in Cleveland, but had bought a house about twenty minutes outside the city, where if you stood stil long enough you could hear cows mooing across the cornfields.

He hadn’t bothered draping that window, although he had thrown Bergman at it, which meant it was covered by a UV shield that kept perverts (and the worst rays of the sun) from peeping inside. It was also (along with the rest of the house) protected by the most sophisticated alarm system known to man.

Which was probably why when Vayl did chil out in the room, he could feel extra-relaxed in the high-backed white sofa that sat perpendicular to the fireplace. Tal gold tassel-shaded lamps stood at each end of the couch, though he could see in the dark, so they had to be more for looks than practicality. I hadn’t figured out yet if he preferred the couch or the overstuffed blue chair across from it, its round, tufted footstool reminding me of a foofy dog set permanently into begging position. After al , that would give him a better view of the gleaming white instrument sitting at a diagonal in the corner opposite the widely arched entryway. It was, in a fact, a real antique pianoforte. Vayl had played it for me the night before, some classical piece that would be great to fal asleep to. I’d matured enough, in the time I’d known him, not to say what I was thinking out loud. But as soon as I got a chance I’d be taking that guy to a Kil ers concert. He had no idea what he was missing.

I lifted up the window seat, expecting to find boxes of puzzles and old toys like the ones my Granny May had stored in hers. But either Vayl wasn’t into storage or his house was big enough to display al his goodies, because the cabinet under the bench was empty. A perfect hiding place for one five-foot-five twenty-six-year-old who badly wanted to see her vamp shed his shorts.

Unless she had a touch of the Claustrophobia.

I stared at the dark, empty space. Three seconds later I decided it had shrunk in the three seconds I’d considered it. While my competitive streak warred with my fear, I looked around for an alternative.

A round table covered with a floor-length blue satin cloth stood in the corner next to another blue chair, this one less comfy but more elegant than its fireside cousin.
Under the table?
Less confining, since the cover was flexible. But no. It held too much glass; both an oldfashioned globe lamp embossed with blooming roses, and a figurine of a hummingbird tasting nectar from a red petunia.

However, behind the chair…
yup, that’ll work
. I’d shucked my shoes and swung one leg over the back of the chair when the doorbel . Fucking. Rang.

Vayl skidded around the corner. “Jasmine!”

Shit, damn, shit, shit, shit, shit!
I tried to think of a less graceful position for a woman who’d deliberately set out to look sexy to be caught in. But I couldn’t imagine anything worse than straddling a wing chair with one hand on the wal for balance, one foot on the armrest, and my mostly bare ass stuck halfway between. So I yel ed, “Get out!”