"Vayl, you're not talking me out of this. It's the right move. So quit lecturing and get to it."

  Vayl hesitated one more minute, then he drew me into his arms. "I will not take much," he assured me, "only what I need and no more."

  No more, no more, no more.

  His fingers grazed my neck as he swept my hair aside. His lips brushed my earlobe, moved down to my throat. One arm pulled me closer as the other hand tipped my head sideways. I sighed as I felt his power settle over me, warm and comforting as an old quilt. He kept nuzzling me with his lips, caressing me with the tips of his fangs until something new rose between us, a force that sizzled and snapped, making the very air churn. I could hear my breath coming in gasps.

  "Vayl… please."

  "Yes," he said, his voice hoarse with desire. For me? For my blood? I wasn't sure there was any difference just then. I wanted to share this new insight with him, but my frontal lobe chose that moment to completely shut down. Even the pain of his teeth penetrating my skin didn't wake it up.

  Vayl's arms tightened around me. I reached down, digging my fingernails into his thighs as he drank me in. The air shimmered with power. With magic. My head buzzed with it. Through half-closed lids I watched colored bubbles of light dance across the walls. The darkness came so quickly after that, I never even knew it had taken me until I returned to myself and realized I was lying on the couch with one leg flung over its arm. Vayl sat on the other couch, staring at me like I'd grown an extra head as I struggled to sit up. A tightness on my neck caused me to reach up, but when my fingertips encountered a gauze pad I dropped my hand back into my lap.

  "What?" I asked, trying hard not to cry. I don't know if I was more distressed that I'd blacked out or that I'd missed most of an experience that had promised to be unforgettable. "Did I do something wrong?" I asked. "Did I say something out of line?" What the hell just happened?

  Vayl shook his head. "You were perfect. Better than the best. I have never… it has never been like that for me before."

  "For me either." We smiled at each other. The hard knot of fear that twisted my heart with every new blackout relaxed. Vayl didn't know. My secret still hid safe. Now that my attention could wander, I realized the experience had left some aftereffects. "I do feel kind of funky though," I commented.

  He sat forward, his eyes wide with concern. "How do you mean?"

  "Umm, like, drunk. But not."

  I thought Vayl would come sit beside me, fuss over me a little, but he sat statue still, like a street performer who's run out of gray body paint. Finally he whispered. "I know."

  "Know what?"

  "It is as if you are an entire spectrum of light that just became visible to me. I can… hear your heart beating. I can sense your hunger pangs. I know you are scared. You are also elated, tired, worried and," his voice dropped, "excited."

  "Oh no," I said. "Oh no, oh no, oh no—" I bit my lip hard, stopping the litany with my own blood. Vayl had kept his word. He'd left me plenty. It trickled onto my chin as I tried to stand, but I moved too fast and lost my balance. Vayl caught me just before I landed in a heap on the floor. As soon as I regained my equilibrium I growled, "Back off."

  He stepped away.

  "No, I mean with your senses or whatever. You were supposed to give me super powers. You were supposed to make me fly. You weren't supposed to march through my thoughts like a lumberjack in a rainforest!"

  "Jasmine, that is not how it happened! There is no need to panic."

  "I'm not panicking!" But I was, and I had no way to hide it. "I don't want you inside my head," I told him, keeping my voice as reasonable and level as possible considering I just wanted to stuff my face into a pillow and scream. "It's too intimate, too scary. I'm not ready for that!" I realized I was yelling and covered my mouth.

  "I warned you. I told you—"

  I raised my hand to stop him talking, trying to swallow my oceanic fear as I did. "I can't have you—exploring me like that. There are things you don't know. Things I can't explain." I stopped, took a deep breath to keep myself from babbling on until he did discover my secret.

  His lips twitched. "Are you really that bad?"

  "Well… no, I'm just… not that good."

  "Maybe that is why I find you so interesting."

  "Huh," was my brilliant reply.

  He took my hand and pulled me back down to the couch. "Jasmine, the change has begun. You cannot let it destroy you."

  "No, I can't." Can't, can't, can't…

  "So relax. I promise you, I will not probe. I will not intrude. Your thoughts, your memories, are still your own."

  "… Okay." I took a deep breath and sat back.

  "I would like to ask you something, however."

  Crap! "What?"

  "Why did you rearrange the furniture again?"

  "Well, I wanted to work out and… again?"

  "Remember Ethiopia? And Germany? And Hong Kong?"

  "Yeah. So?"

  "So, you have rearranged the furniture in every apartment, hotel and hut we have stayed in since I have known you. And always the same way. I just wondered why."

  "Oh," I laughed weakly, wracking my brain for a plausible excuse. "Well, that's the way it always was growing up. No matter what house we were living in, Mom arranged the furniture the same way to make it feel like home."

  A damn fine explanation, I must say, and one Vayl swallowed whole.

  "I was just wondering."

  "Let's go kick somebody's butt," I suggested, thinking it would sure make me feel better. "I feel like I really could throw a bad guy across the room."

  "And suddenly we have so many from which to choose." Vayl thought a moment, giving me time to rearrange my brain. Like the furniture, it made no sense to me, but I did recover most of my scattered control. "Any ideas?" he asked.

  "Assan comes immediately to mind."

  "I am sure it will be a pleasure ending his existence. But he is more valuable to us as he is right now, oblivious and unbruised. First we need to find out where he and Aidyn are storing the virus."

  "And how they're making it," I added. "Do you suppose they're keeping their notes at Assan's place?"

  "Possibly. Though Aidyn seems to be the creator. We need to ascertain where he is staying as well."

  "Sure would be handy if we had a contact on the inside," I said. "But Assan's staff is unapproachable."

  "What about his family?"

  "You mean the wife?" We shared a knowing look. "You mean the jealous wife who's hired a private investigator?" We both nodded. With the butt-kicking officially tabled, I moved across the pit to a mauve arm chair beside which stood an end table with a phone on top, a drawer for the phone book and a lamp to read her by.

  Most men I meet through work tend to avoid that whole Live-Like-A-Normal-Guy gig. In fact, most guys I meet through work want to kill me. So when I found Cole's name and number listed in the white pages I felt a sudden urge to giggle. It went away just as quickly. I'd met a normal guy. Big whoop. That didn't make me any more normal.

  He answered his phone on the first ring. "Cole Bemont."

  "Cole! This is Lucille Robinson. We met—"

  "Last night!"

  "You remembered."

  "Are you kidding? I've been kicking myself all day for not getting your number." We stopped speaking for a moment, homage to the kisses.

  "Cole, I have a problem I wondered if you could help me with." I kept my voice businesslike since Vayl sat three feet away, and I honestly didn't want to lead Cole any further astray.

  "Sure," Cole said.

  "Um, don't you want to hear what it is first?"

  "Doesn't matter. You saved my hide yesterday. Plus my lips are still tingling. At this point, I'm prepared to do just about anything you suggest."

  Yipes! What have I unleashed? I wanted to say, "Cole, maybe you haven't heard, but I'm an idiot. The C.I.A. has tried its best to bury that fact since they did hire me. But here's the deal. Despite my actions last night I am not looking for a relationship with you. I can't maintain a relationship with you due to the fact that I don't want to. Also, I'll be traveling a lot and my boss is a vampire who I may be falling for (already have?) which is a whole other kettle of crap I'm so not ready to deal with. At any rate, these life choices don't make me a good candidate for pet owner, much less girlfriend." But I needed Cole to help me get information, which meant I needed him interested for just awhile longer. Damn, damn, damn.

  "Can my partner and I meet you somewhere in say, half an hour?"

  "Your… partner?"

  "It's kind of impossible to explain over the phone."

  "Okay. How about Umberto's? It's semi-private and the food's great."

  "Fine." Cole gave me directions and we hung up. I looked at Vayl. "It's set."

  "Good. And?"

  "And what?"

  "You want to say something else, I can tell." I nodded. "Sometimes, this job sucks."

  Chapter Nine

  When this whole mission ended, I suspected that if I survived, Pete would demote my ride to a used moped. Not great motivation to push the self-preservation button. But at the moment, I didn't care. My local Mercedes dealer had brought me a dark blue C230 Sport Sedan that made even New Year's traffic bearable. The car hummed like a Broadway star. I joined right in, and the two of us sang a duet Steven Sondheim would've tapped his foot to while we motored down the sparkling streets of Miami.

  "I would ask you how you feel," said Vayl, "but it is so obvious."

  "It's amazing," I told him. "I just want to hug everyone I know. I want to buy the guy who engineered this car a bottle of champagne. I want to fly. Hey!" I turned to Vayl, "after this meeting let's go hang gliding!"

  "In the dark?"

  "It's a full moon." I stopped at the light, hang gliding forgotten as a burgundy mini-van pulled up beside me. "I have never seen that shade of red before. Can you see all those flecks of gold and black in it?"

  "Yes," Vayl answered, his smile more full and natural than I'd ever seen it. "I take it you are enjoying this part of the change."

  "Oh is that what it is?" The mini-van activated his blinker and began to inch into my lane. "Looks like he's a little lost," I commented as I waved for him to slip in ahead of us.

  "You know, yesterday you would have cursed that man for ten solid minutes for delaying us," Vayl observed.

  "Yeah, yesterday… I feel different than I did then."

  Slight raise of the eyebrow, signaling imminent sarcasm. "No. Really?"

  "Will this last?"

  "I have no idea."

  I followed the mini-van for several blocks, then took a right onto the street that led to Umberto's.

  Vayl took my hand and laced his fingers through mine. "So tell me what you did today," said Vayl, "not work activities. Your things. How did you spend your free time?" I had to think a minute, dig out my mental binoculars to see past the blackout and the moments before it. Why was it so hard to recognize the woman who'd spent most of her daylight hours clicking through encrypted files, looking for dirt on politicians like some commie-hunting throwback?

  Stardust in your eyes, sister. Only now it's time to blink.

  So I began talking, starting with the family phone calls. But they required a back story, and that took awhile, especially since I kept pausing to point out a fab new color I'd discovered. Eventually I worked my way back around to the research I'd done, specifically the background stuff I'd gathered on our oversight committee.

  "Any conclusions?" he asked after I finally finished talking. I shrugged.

  "All the senators are suspect because they all seem way too innocent. Doris Fellen gives away tons of scholarship money every year. Dirk Tredd is a true blue war hero. And Tom Bozcowski was an extremely popular quarterback in the NFL before he shattered his knee."

  "And then there is Martha," said Vayl.

  I shook my head. "Man, I hope it's not her."

  Vayl put his hand on my arm. "You must accept that someone in your inner circle could betray you."

  "Oh, I accept it. I just know, of all our suspects, if Martha's the rotten link there's no doubt we'll be coming out of this bruised and bloody."

  "You mean you prefer the senators?"

  "Absolutely. They can't be nearly as mean, conniving, vicious and underhanded as Martha."

  "She is an excellent secretary, isn't she?"

  "The best."

  Umberto's is an Italian restaurant located in a miniature pink castle. Only it wasn't exactly pink. It shimmered with shades of silver and rose too.

  "I'm beginning to like that color," I murmured as I pulled into the lot, picking a spot where we could exit quickly. I swallowed hard on a spurt of nerve-induced nausea. This whole meet could go south in a heartbeat if Vayl and Cole got to feeling competitive. And it would be my fault for not controlling my hormones better. Damn chemicals. Why couldn't our bodies run on something simpler—like coal?

  An image rose in my mind of Vayl and me walking around belching black smoke rings. I laughed inwardly. Wouldn't that change the world though? Everybody would have automatic dental coverage just to keep their teeth from looking like the inside of a chimney. And we'd be recycling our solid waste because sludge makes such nifty ashtrays.

  "Would you care to share?" asked Vayl as we headed for the restaurant entrance, his cane hitting the asphalt every other step with a reassuring clink.

  "Huh?"

  "You are smiling."

  "Oh." So I told him what I'd been thinking and we were both chuckling when we came through the door and met Cole, who stood waiting for us there.

  He covered well, but I could tell Cole wasn't pleased to see Vayl and me sharing a laugh. Dammit. I know in other places kisses don't mean much. Shoot, in Hollywood they do inconsequential smooching all the time. But to Cole, and most other people in the real world, kisses are significant gestures, not something you play with as I had. I bit my lip, forgot it was still healing from the last bite and nearly made myself cry. So much for my post-donation high. The express elevator Vayl had taken me on came to an abrupt halt. The jolt left me with a roaring in my ears and a major craving for chocolate chip cookies followed by a good hour of card shuffling.

  "Uh, Cole, this is my partner, Jeremy Bhane. Jeremy, this is Cole Bemont."

  Vayl held out his hand. "Pleased to meet you."

  "Likewise," said Cole. They shook. I waited for Cole to wince, but Vayl reigned in his bone-crushing strength. I sighed with relief.

  The hostess showed us to a booth in a corner lit by a couple of candles and a low wattage, recessed bulb. The decor diverted me enough that I stopped kicking myself long enough to enjoy it. The carpet sparkled with every hue of green imaginable. It contrasted nicely with the white tablecloths and folded napkins. The menu covers felt like real leather. So did the cushioned seats.

  Vayl and I sat across from Cole. We ordered drinks, diet coke for me, beer on tap for the guys, and the hostess left. "Lucille tells me you are a private investigator," said Vayl.

  I expected Cole to squirm under Vayl's icy blue gaze. He didn't, and I liked him better for it. Crap.

  "That's right," he said, "although it's not turning out to be what I expected."

  "No?"

  Cole shrugged. "It's pretty mundane. And I'm not always sure I'm helping the good guys."

  I spoke up. "Well, let me assure you that we are the good guys."

  "Yeah?"

  I looked at Vayl and he nodded. So I took out my badge and slid it across the table. Cole opened it, studied it for quite awhile.

  "I had a feeling you weren't just another rich snob," he told me. Despite the fact that he wore white Nikes with black dress pants, his hair looked like he'd just stepped out of a hurricane and he smelled of citrus bubblegum, Cole suddenly looked all grown up as he slid my badge back to me. I slid it back into my jacket.

  Our drinks came, we ordered supper and the waitress left.

  "So, Cole—"I began.

  "What happened to you?"

  "Huh?"

  "Your neck." He nodded at the bandage. I'd completely forgotten about it. My hand flew up to it as if I could hide it from him. Vayl bumped his leg against mine.

  "Oh that." I smiled, because Lucille would've. "I burned myself with my curling iron. Second degree."

  Cole nodded, apparently satisfied. "You were saying?"

  "Um, okay, we've been investigating Assan for awhile now, and we're sure he's a big hitter in a terrorist group called the Sons of Paradise. We know he's performed surgery on fugitives. We know he has a powerful new partner and a plan of attack that could threaten the entire country, maybe even the world. We think the documents we need to stop him and his partner are in his house."

  Cole whistled in disbelief. "And you think I can get them for you?"

  Vayl sat forward. "Possibly. We hope you can at least provide us with information. You do, after all, have a connection on the inside."

  Cole locked his hands together and played thumb wars with himself for a few seconds while he processed. "I don't think Amanda knows anything about her husband's shadow life. She sure wouldn't have hired me if she did."

  "We need access to her house, especially to her husband's office," I said, hating that I had to push. "But we don't want to spook her. No telling which side she'd fall on if she knew the truth. All we want is for you to convince her that, to help further your investigation, you and your partner need to take a look at his papers, his computer, and the contents of his safe."

  "My… partner?"

  I nodded. "That would be me."

  Our food came. Cole started stabbing at his lasagna. Vayl and I traded looks.

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "You already have a partner."

  Crap.

  Vayl nudged me. "If you will excuse me," he said. "I think I will go wash my hands." I let him out of the booth. Cole didn't exactly glare at his back as he left, but I got the feeling he would've liked to.

  "Cole." I sank back into the seat. "Last night, kissing you, was the closest I've been to a relationship in… awhile."

  "You make that sound like a bad thing."